+Communion Service
Sermon Summary:
The Father is never going to treat me as a fool son. The Father is never going to treat me as a fool daughter. I'm here to tell you today, your pigs are lying. He teaches us how we, how you and I, should walk because of the call that He has on our life. Because of the purpose that He has, there's going to be things in your life where the word really is, "This is unclean to you."
There are so many things that if you walk with the Lord, the Spirit will teach you are specifically to you, where the Lord is seeking to guide you into a life that is designed to keep you, designed to make you flourish. So here we have the pigs—they represent that unclean thing. In their time, it was very literal—an animal that they could not touch. If they touched it, they were already unclean; they would be cut off from the people. There was a process and a system to get them, if you will, clean again. If you do touch these pigs, if you draw near to these pigs, if you draw near to what is unclean to you, what the Lord has shown you is unclean to you, the word says you shall be cut off from the people.
If there's any area of your life where the Lord has shown you something that you should stay away from or give up or move on from, and you've been messing around with it, that law of Moses still tries to give the message to you: "Now that you have done these things, now that you have touched this thing, now that you've gone back to this thing, now you're going to be cut off from God's people. You're going to be cut off from everything the Lord has to offer." That is what the pigs represent—those things the Lord has marked in our individual lives. When we touch them, all of a sudden, that message starts to come up: "You're going to be cut off from the people. You're not going to be able to enter into worship. You're not going to be able to have an encounter with the Lord. When you open your Bible, you're not going to be able to pray. Heaven is going to feel like brass. You've touched that unclean thing."
With all of that in mind, now knowing what the pigs represent in this word, let's read the story of the lost son. Jesus is telling the parable, and He's telling the story of someone that came to the Father and wanted all of the inheritance but then begins to live off of it in a wasteful way. He begins to spend the resources of the Father, if you will, wastefully. He begins to spend the grace the Father has bestowed upon him. He never worked for it; he received it all from his Father. He begins to waste it; he begins to spend it. Now you and I know from the end of this story that he had not spent all, but that was his perspective. He thought he had spent it all. He had now found himself in a place where he had spent all that he could at least see that the Father had provided in his life. He had been wasteful; he had moved on from where the Father had him, and now all is gone.
This is what the pigs bring about in your and my life. This man was living off of what the Father had provided in his life in a wasteful way. He was wasting it; he was doing stuff with it that the Father would have never intended it for. Abusing the grace, using it to just still be forgiven when I mess with sin, using it to just get away with more than other people, and yet believing I can just go on. And then one day, all of a sudden, the bottom falls out of it, and he says, "All is now gone." He ends up drawing nearer and nearer to the unclean stuff until he lives in the place where he's with his pigs. These were his unclean things, and he lived there, and he gladly would have eaten the food of the pigs. Even lower—the scraps that the pigs would have received, he would have desired to make that his food.
When you and I draw that near to the uncleanness that God has either saved us from or warned us for or pushed us away from, and we begin to live in that place, those pigs begin to speak. It may not be literal words; it may affect your feelings; it may affect the way you think. But in the end, you begin to sound the exact same: "I'm not a worthy son in the Father's house. I could maybe be a servant. I could maybe still show up. But the Father is never going to treat me as a fool son. The Father is never going to treat me as a fool daughter."
I'm here to tell you today, your pigs are lying. You've made it your home to live consistently with uncleanness, whatever it may be in your life, and you have baptized yourself in that uncleanness. You have found refuge and safety in that uncleanness, and you have run back to that same place time and time and time again. You have taken into your life what the Spirit has shown you in the past is supposed to be unclean to you. It's not supposed to be even touched by you, let alone eaten by you or put inside of you. And now the pigs are speaking to you. Now the pigs are affecting your feelings, the way you think about yourself: "I've wasted the Father's grace. I've wasted the Father's resources. I'm not worthy to be a son. I'm not worthy to fully be a daughter. I'm going to be cut off for this thing. This thing is going to get to me, and it's going to eventually draw me so deep into a place where I will no longer be able to hold on to the crumbs of faith that I have left. They will no longer be able to come up into my heart. Hardness and unbelief are going to start to kick in. It is slipping through my hands like sand."
Pigs do not tell the truth. This is the word of the Lord to you. When the Father saw him, He ran. When He saw that man, He kissed him. He put a ring around his finger. He put sandals on his feet. He ordained that a celebration should be held because His son had come home. Church, the Spirit and the bride say, "Come." So many in the body of Christ here and all around you, everywhere you go, they all have the voice of those pigs in their head that say, "You can't come home. Not like this. Not with what you've done. Not with what you've spent it all on. You knew better. You had received already from the Lord." The pigs are lying. You have been lied to. You are not unclean. I don't care what you've touched. No uncleanness can stick to you when the blood of Jesus Christ has washed you. No accusation will stand before my Father when the Son has washed you. Nothing will stand.
Your pigs are lying. The Father doesn't care. When He saw him, He ran. When He saw him, the gifts came out. When He saw him, the son came to find out he hadn't spent everything. The Father still was willing to give. The Father still was willing to embrace. He found out by coming back with all of his heart, with all of his mistakes, with all of his shortcomings, coming back to the Father that he had so deeply wounded, to find out how the Father responds when all we have is our small step of faith that says, "I'm going to come back."
But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. There's nothing separating you, Church. Nothing is separating you from the Father anymore. Christ paid for the sins of the world. All that is holding you back is that unbelief the pigs have spoken, that unbelief that says, "I'm not worthy anymore to be called your son. I'm not worthy anymore to be called your daughter." The Father will show to your heart how He responds if you are willing to come to Him one more time.
-Pastor Stan Mons