If someone asked meno one ever does, so I volunteer this sort of thingabout modern man's greatest dilemma, I would say that modern man is caught in an identity crisis brought on by the tremendous amount of information available about who man is, his relationships to other people, and his place in the vast universe.

For 22 years I drove the Chicago area expressways. On the Eisenhower Expressway you have six lanes going in and six lanes coming out. I often had a desire to get on top of my car, blow a whistle, and say, "Everybody stop. Let's all trade cars and stay here. Let's not just drive back and forth. Why all this?" I felt like an ant on a great anthill. I was simply one egocentric, person doing my thing. I am very insignificant in relationship to the total. I'm probably less than one little sturgeon egg on the party cracker of a gentleman eating with his pinky extended. I am just one little nothing in the midst of it all. A man caught that way tends to live that way.

David, caught in that same identity crisis, said, "When I consider the heavens, the sun and the moon and the stars, which you've set in place . . . " His natural question then was, "What is man that you're mindful of him?" Then, he answers his own question rhetorically in his poem. He says something that may be the central phrase touching mankind in the entire Bible. It doesn't seem that way when we read it, but if we think of its implications, its depth is truly profound. He answers his own question by saying of man, "You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings." Some of your translations say, "than the angels," or the "elohiym," depending on which translation you have. "You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings."

Virtually every one of us in this room is the result of an educational system that has drip by drip, like dropping water on stone, made an impression on our lives. Very few of us, naturally speaking, think of ourselves as a little lower than the angels. We almost all think of ourselves as a little higher than the animals. That is, we have in our mind a mental picture of something we've seen in any natural history museum: an ascendancy of primates, little jumping creatures, eventually humped over with knuckles dragging, and finally standing erect. When we see the final "naked ape," embarrassingly like us, we say, "This is my heritage. This is where I came from." We think of ourselves as a little higher than the animals.

I wouldn't debate the fact that as human beings we are mammals. We carry on the mammalian kind of processes: ingestion, digestion, absorption, assimilation, respiration, excretion, secretion, motion, sensitivity, and reproduction. We do these things without consciously thinking about them, just like all the other animals.

The central statement of Scripture about mankind is that we have been imputed or infused by God with a nature that is not a little higher than the animals, but one that is, in this poetic terminology, a little lower than the angels.

There are three stories Jesus told about lost things

We read about the creation of man in Genesis 1: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." T of the way down through the chapter it says this: "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.' So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

It's this image of God spoken about in the Bible that makes the distinction between man and the animals. It causes David to describe man not as being a little higher than the animals but a little lower than the angels. Mankindmen and womencreated a little lower than the angels.

For purposes of communicating the central truth about which our service is built this morning, I chose a familiar story from Luke 15. Reading world literature, even in Christian countries, you often see the phrase, "the prodigal." That simple phrase communicates a story to all educated, aware human beings. The Bible story called "The Prodigal Son" is a story of estrangement between father and child.

In my opinion, this particular theme of estrangement between father and child is a profound communication of central truth for modern man. That truth is tied to man being created in the image of God. In Luke 15 it's put into context. Verse three says, "Then Jesus told them this parable," and he tells three stories. I would contend that these three stories are really one parable.

Jesus tells a story about lost sheep. He told of a man who had a hundred sheep, and he discovered one was missing, so he left the 99 and went seeking the lost sheep. When he found the lost sheep, he threw it over his shoulders and brought it home. He called his neighbors together, and they rejoiced because he had found the lost sheep. There was more rejoicing over one lost sheep than over 99 sheep that didn't need finding.

Then Jesus told another story. There was a lady with a necklace, or maybe it was a decoration for her head. It had 10 coins on it. The 10 coins made it a unit. She lost one of the coins. The woman searched the furniture, swept the house diligently, and lit a candle to look under things. She eventually found the lost coin. When she found it, she called the neighbor ladies together and had a little coffee klatch. They were very grateful she had found her coin, and they put it back where it belonged.

Then Jesus tells the story of a man who had two sons. The younger son said to his father, "Give me that portion of my inheritance that's coming to me." The son probably felt he'd be too old to enjoy the money if he waited to receive it after his father's death. The father gave the son his inheritance. The story is almost cliché. The son goes to a far country and wastes his substance. He finds himself hiring out to feed pigs. The son becomes envious of the pigs because they have something to eat, and he doesn't. It's an awful thing to be envious of pigs. The son remembers how the servants at home are abundantly fed, so he returns to the father.

Note this interesting thing about these stories: When a sheep is lost, the shepherd goes and finds it. When a coin is lost, the lady sweeps the house and puts the coin back where it belongs. When a human being is lost, the father just stays home. Isn't a boy as helpless as a lost sheep? Isn't a boy as valuable as a lost coin? Then why when a sheep is lost do you bring it back where it belongs, when a coin is lost, you put it back in a box where it's kept, but when a boy is lost, you just let him be lost?

The Prodigal Son is written from the viewpoint of God as a heavenly parent

There's not a parent in this room who doesn't understand this story. It's written from the viewpoint of God as a heavenly parent. There are probably 50 parents in this room this morning who have sons and daughters estranged from them, and they know the story.

The father in this story was a wealthy man. He had servants, influence, and clout. He had power; papers to sign; people to meet; buttons on his desk. He could make things happen and send pink slips. He was an important person. He could have called his servants together and said to his most trusted servant, "Big Servant, Junior has gone off with everything he had coming to him. He went to a far county where he's wasted the whole business, made a fool of himself, and ruined our family name. Go get him."

So Big Servant goes to the far country and finds Junior there, a good Jewish boy feeding pigs. Big Servant says to the son, "You smell like swine. Your dad is very concerned about you. Come home."

"I'm not coming," says the son.

"Yes, you are," says Big Servant. Putting a hammer lock on the son, Big Servant marches him home and tosses him on the living room floor. "Here's your son."

"Look at you!" the father says to his son. "I spent my whole lifetime earning the money I gave to you. In a few weeks you wasted the whole thing. Get in the bedroom! You sit on the edge of your bed and think about what you've done. When you're ready to fly right, you can come out. Get hold of yourself, young man."

So the boy goes to the back bedroom. What does he do? He sits there on the bed like boys from time immemorial, and he says, "Dad's right. Wow! Isn't it wonderful to get insight, to have your elders tell you the truth! Things that escape you are pointed out by those who are older and more experienced."

No, he does what all boys do. He sits on the edge of the bed and says, "That's my dad. Wouldn't give me enough rope; couldn't give me enough slack. I was just about ready to make it big in pigs. I was 'gonna be the Bob Evans of the far country. I was 'gonna make it big in Jimmy Dean sausages. About the time I'm ready to make it, he drags me off. Just wait till I get out of this back bedroom. I'll go back to that far country, and I'll show him. I'll do what I want to do because I want to do it. I don't need his help; I'll make it on my own."

All fathers understand this story. They know there's a difference between a coin and a sheep and a man. Man is created not a little higher than the animals, but a little lower than the angels, and he has the image of God in him.

You see, the universe glorifies God. The whole thing is doing it now without our permission. All the cosmos are moving in perfect concert and harmony. You don't go out at night and say, "I wonder where the North Star is tonight? Maybe it's in the south. Maybe it's meandering." No. We set the course of compasses and ships by the stars. They move in perfect concert. They glorify God by their perfect harmony.

The physical world glorifies God. The rain comes down, percolates into the soil, and contacts the membranes of the little roots of the plants. The rain works its way through capillary action up into the plant. When the rain gets into the plant, it begins a process called photosynthesis. The sun is going across the sky. The little leaves go and follow the sun across the sky. Meanwhile, we humans go around making carbon dioxide. The plants take in that carbon dioxide, turn it into oxygen, and give it back to us. We breathe in their good oxygen, turn it into carbon dioxide, and give it back to the plants. We cooperate beautifully with the plants in the carbon dioxide cycle. This glorifies God, and the ecology moves on beautifully as long as we humans don't cut down all the rain forests.

The physical laws glorify God. We also have something called the law of gravity. For centuries men were going along, and if they dropped a pocketknife, they'd look at the wall or the ceiling. "Where is it?" Eventually they'd find it on the floor. Then one day an apple hit a guy on the head, and he said, "Ah! There's a rule. If you drop an apple or a pocketknife, it's better to look first at the floor. They'll almost always end up on the floor." Every time we drop a pocketknife, we pick it up and say, "Ah, the law of gravity." The law works perfectly, and it glorifies God.

It's like airplanes taking off from Chicago's O'Hare Field. I used to pray every time I flew, "Oh God, help this thing to fly." Each flight was an individual act of grace. Actually a 747 has no choice. It doesn't sit there saying, "I think I'll go to Dallas today." If you move that thing down the runway to a certain speed, the air pressure builds because the distance across the wing is greater than the distance under the wing. It creates lift. The plane physically has to fly. It may not want to fly, but it'll fly anyway.

God created male and female beings whose response to him is voluntary

God created the heavens and the earth. But on the earth there are little "jobbies" who are able to stand back and say, "I know the cosmos works in harmony. I know about the universe. I know about the physical laws, but I'll do what I want to do, because I want to do it."

Can you imagine what the God who made the heavens and the earth will do to a little jobbie who says, "Leave me alone?" He will leave him alone. God will leave him alone, because he doesn't want to blur the distinction between sheep and coins and human beings. As soon as God begins to treat men like sheep and coins and runs roughshod over man's ability to choose his destiny, he makes man into an automaton or a puppet on a string. Man would become not a little lower than the angels, but simply a little higher than the animals.

In the scriptural scheme of things, the whole world glorifies God with its complexity and its obedience. But God created, in his own image, male and female beings whose response to him is voluntary. The word we use to describe this voluntary response is a common word often confused in our culture. It's the word "love." Love is voluntary. Love is reciprocal. It can't be forced.

I spent much of my life working with high school and junior high kids. At junior high camp, a boy falls in love with a girl. This little girl walks into the room, and he just starts melting down like an M & M held in one's hand too long. He sees this girl, and his little juices start flowing. He doesn't understand puberty, but he knows his big hands are not proportionate to the rest of his body, and he feels funny. He wants to say to me, "Jay, how can I make her love me?"

Well, you can hold her underwater in the pool or knock her down on the ball field or pull her hair or say something insulting to her. Junior high boys will try all that stuff instead of saying, "I love you," because when you offer love, there's a long, horrible moment when you wait for the response. Even though you have said it with your whole heart, the other person may be unable to say, "I love you, too."

Remember when you were younger? Some of you guys fell in love in church, or maybe you were in a movie. This girl was sitting nearby, and you stretched out so you could touch her hand. It was innocent. You could have been reaching for your popcorn. When your hand touched hers, you were conscious of it. If she let it linger there, you knew she was conscious of it. If an airplane took an infrared picture of the building at that moment, there would have been a little red throb going right there in the picture.

Then you took your pinkythis was the big riskand you tried to hook her pinky, and she said, "Pervert!" Slap! "What are you doing?"

"Oh, nothing. I was just. ..."

Why? Because human beings created in the image of God have autonomy, and we cannot violate the autonomy of another human being. The ugliest words in any language are the words associated with the violation of autonomy, words like "assault" and "rape." It means one autonomous human being, created in the image of God, has forced his or her dominance over another person, and that person feels used. God will never do that.

Could not the God who made the heavens and the earth take a battering ram and knock down the resistance in my life and yours? Of course. Some of us wait and say, "I will if God just lights up my bedpost and I hear the words, 'Jay, repent.' " God would probably sound something like Bill Cosby, don't you think? But if he does that, what would happen? God does not violate human beings. We are not sheep and coins.

What do we have in this story? The boy has gone to the far country. He's wasted his substance. What does the father do? He watches. The father is hard to understand. Birthday after birthday he lights the candles and waits. What else can he do?

The sovereign God who made the heavens and the earth has limited himself in direct proportion to how much freedom he's given to human beings. He will not violate us or go around lighting up our bedposts. He could. We could go out tonight and see letters written in the sky three thousand miles high, each digit five hundred feet wide, saying, "Folks, quit messing around. Repent!" If he did, we would lose our autonomy. So what happens? The father waits. He waits for the son to come to himself.

When the son comes to himself, what does he do? He makes up a speech. Most people have a little religion in their mind, and they can think up religious speeches. "I'll go to my father, and I'll say, 'I've sinned against heaven and before you.' " True. "I'm not worthy to be called your son." Perhaps. Next, it's a real phrase: "Make me as one of your hired servants." That'll get him! So the boy comes to himself.

When he comes home, his father sees him a great way off. Father doesn't wait for the boy to cross the threshold. The father has been watching and waiting. He runs to the boy, throws his arms around him, and kisses him. The boy has his religious speech thought up: "I've sinned against heaven and before you." Right. True. "I'm not worthy to be called your son." Perhaps. Then comes his best one, the one he's saved up, the groveling one: "Make me as one of the hired servants," and the father, in typical fatherly fashion, doesn't even hear.

Before the son finishes his sentence, the father says, as if distracted, "Bring a robe and put it on his back. Put shoes on his feet, and put a ring on his finger." The son pawned the family ring, for goodness sake. Put a ring on his finger? Then the father exclaims, "Kill Spotty Calf. Let's have a barbecue. My boy's home!"

This dad is absolutely thrilled because the boy has come home. The older son, who has no concept of fatherhood or of grace, doesn't understand fathers and sons. "What's going on? Music and dancing?"

"Well, Junior's home. He's safe."

"But he wasted everything. I've been a good boy. I mean, I fed ol' Spotty Calf, and now you've killed him. You never even gave me a thin little goat to I never even had a goat sandwich. I worked my fingers to the bone around here. I'm always good, and now you're showing forgiveness and . . ."

Dad says, "Hey, you don't understand, Son. This is your brother. It's not about how much or how little he wasted. The point is he is important, not our money. Your brother is home. It was important that we do this."

That is the method God chose to communicate his infinite nature and his relationship to mankind. There's a difference between sheep and coins and human beings. There's a principle at work in all of our lives. We can exercise that principle in obedience, in harmony with his universe, so that when God raises and lowers the baton, his creation sounds like Sir Georg Solti on the podium with the Chicago Symphony. Or there can be a little toot here and a little squeak there, or an or two with a counter melody that says, "I will do it my way."

God made the heavens and the earth, and he made man in his own image. I know God desires that every human being be in concert with his will. I also know that he will not violate that autonomy and break down the walls of our lives or assault us. He is the waiting Father. They call this story "The Prodigal Son," but I call it "The Story of the Waiting Father." I'm simply here to tell you about him. I have a deep desire and prayer that you'll begin to hear God's voice. I simply want you to exercise your uniqueness as a human being and come home. Come home to God. Live under his roof and acknowledge him as your God, your Creator, your Lord, and your Savior, through Jesus Christ. He will never force it upon you.

Jay Kesler is president of Taylor University in Upland, Indiana.

(c) Jay Kesler

Preaching Today Tape #85

www.PreachingTodaySermons.com

A resource of Christianity Today International

Jay Kesler is president emeritus of Taylor University and pastor of Upland Community Church, in Upland, Indiana.