For Love or Money in Luke 15: God's Value System Vs. People's Value System

What is it that drives us in this world? As we hit our daily grind and churn out whatever work we occupy ourselves with, what is the moving force behind the decisions we make, the people we interact with, the lives we lead?

In Luke 15 Jesus is challenged by men for his acceptance of what most would consider disreputable company, and his response is one of the most beloved parables of all time: the story of the Prodigal Son. In Luke 15, Jesus draws a sharp contrast between the value system of God and the value system of men by showing a father who so loves his ungrateful, sinful son that he runs to meet him when he returns in shame and remorse against the backdrop of a selfish, self-righteous older brother who is angry that the father loves the sinful son so much.

The contrast between the father's and the elder son's reactions in the story of the prodigal son shows a great disparity between God's value system and man's value system. God, as we see in Scripture, IS love. Man, as we see in life, is selfish.

Consider for a moment our run-around, tail-chasing lives. What is it that we really value, and what do we sacrifice for?

The Evidence of the Value System of Money
The piece of evidence that is most telling when it comes to our value system is out pocketbooks. Where does your money go? If you look at the spending of your money and find that all you do is consumed, guard possessions, and buy on impulse, then odds are your value is in your material possessions.

This is one of the easiest traps to fall into, especially in consumer-driven American society. Everywhere we look, we are bombarded with the "buy mentality." We are led to believe that our lives are not complete if we don't have a certain standard of material living. We protect our investments with our lives, and when the stock market crashed so did our glass house of security.

So, ask yourself: what do you do with your money? If you are a member of a local church, do you tithe to the church to further its ministry, or do you find yourself holding that back so that you will have enough to buy that new HDTV? Do you give to people in need, or do you condemn them for not being willing to work like you do?

The Evidence of the Value System of Passion
What do we talk about whenever we're able to talk about whatever we want? Aren't those the things that are most important to us? It's amazing to consider even in my own life the things that really cause my adrenaline to pump and my mouth to run with the most inane chatter.

We can become overly excited about the silliest of things: an upcoming movie, our favorite television show, the most recent sports game, our accomplishments at work or school, etc. While it is great to talk about these things, it becomes a problem when, even through our communication, our topic of choice comes across as the thing we worship. And honestly, if we are coming across as though we worship that thing, we probably do.

The Evidence of the Value System of Sacrifice
Jesus said that if we wanted to follow Him, we must deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and follow Him. Following Jesus requires a sacrifice. Following whatever else we might choose to worship involves sacrifice, too.

Examine your life to see what it is that you are willing to sacrifice everything for. When your time starts to reach its limits, what are the parts of life that make it to the cutting room floor first? When stress hits, we see what it is in our lives that we are willing to sacrifice, and what we are willing to sacrifice them for.

For instance, if you find yourself missing church because you are tired, and this week has been particularly long and you just need some alone time, you are probably ok. However, if you find yourself so enraptured by football that you choose to sacrifice church to see today's game, you might actually worship football more than God and His people. Or maybe, you feel compelled to help out with a ministry, but you know that it will involve a commitment that you could do, but that would inconvenience you on a few days that you really want to watch your favorite show.

Sacrifice is hard, but it is required of us.

The Evidence of the Value System of Time
What we do when we're free to do whatever we want demonstrates volumes about what it is that we value. The things that occupy our time, that keep us from doing other things, can be a source of major distraction from something that God has for us. If the Lord has been pushing you to become more active in your local church, but you have been steadily resisting that push because of the time it might ask of you, or if you have been cutting the body of Christ out of your regular routine because it adds 3 hours back into your schedule, your values might need tweaking.

None of us has this right, and each person should take the time out to deal with God in terms of the place that he has you in your ever-growing, ever-changing path of life. The important thing is to listen to him and the things that he says in the Bible, discerning his will through the things that he has told us about himself.

The Value System of God
So what has he told us about himself? Well, for starters we can return to the passage in Luke 15. Whereas the elder son valued himself and his own advancement, the father valued his son, and rejoiced in his return. God, too, values the salvation of the lost. He loves people with a love that is much deeper that our love for anything else we might worship, and seeks out the demonstration of that love to those who are in need, and all who would call out to him.

God values people; people value their own selfish desires. Once we see that, we can begin to work once again toward loving like Jesus loves, toward prioritizing the things that he values most, and toward glorifying God in the way he desires to be glorified.