The Forgiving Father

Introduction

Pull out your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 15. If you’re here yesterday, it’s a big shock. Luke chapter 15. That’s going to be where we’re at, starting in verse 11 through verse 32. And that’ll be the same place tomorrow night, and that’ll be the same place Wednesday night as we continue to look at this great story from Scripture. I have to say to the young people, I told them last night about making plans, and I made mention that at one time I was going to be a pharmacist until I took a chemistry with qualitative analysis class, and that changed everything. And that teacher was Larry Dickens. So I will just say this. If you think I should have been a pharmacist, it’s Larry’s fault. If you think somehow, by the grace of God, I’m where I need to be, it’s Larry’s fault.

And not totally, but I will say this. He may be the hardest teacher I have ever had in college, but he has been a great friend and encouragement, and I loved him as a person, and as a teacher, actually, and his whole family. And good to see his wife and his daughter Rosalie and his other daughter, Lori, I was really close to, and I’m angry she didn’t make a long drive up here as well. So you all make sure and tell her that. Well, let’s look at Luke 15 again. We often call this the story of the prodigal son, and the reality is that’s really not a good name. And I tell you why, it’s because the word prodigal means reckless. And it’s something that kind of has a negative connotation.

And you don’t want to talk about the other brother, which we’re going to have to talk about tomorrow night, because truth be told, he’s envious and jealous. And when you look at those two guys, there’s not a lot of good to be said about that. But I tell you what is the great focal point of this story is the dad. And maybe what we ought to call this is the parable of the forgiving father. Because one of the great values of this story is what you and I learn about God from this story. I don’t know that there’s a better picture of God’s love and mercy, of his grace, of his acceptance of us despite our filthy deeds, anywhere in Scripture than Luke 15, verses 11 through 32.

My mom used to tell me something. She used to look at me and say, Son, I brought you in this world, and I could take you out. Now I’ve got to tell you, I kind of doubted that. But I know this about God. He brought us in this world, and he could take us out. He has the power and the ability to do that. And the great story about Noah is how God wanted to do exactly that. He wanted to take everybody out. He was tired of what they had done. And then you look at Sodom and Gomorrah, and he’s tired of that city. He wants to take everybody out. And you see those pictures of God’s wrath and his anger and his condemnation and how God reacted to sin with judgment and punishment and death.

1. The Story From the Father's Perspective

And then you come to Luke 15. And in Luke 15, you read this story about mercy and grace. And I tell you what Luke 15 shows us is instead of taking us out, God has decided to wait on us to come home. Well, look at this story, just like we did last night from the perspective of the young reckless son. We’re going to look at this story about the perspective of the Father as we study together tonight. And I just want to remind you what we’ve what we’ve studied so far, but we’re going to look from the father’s perspective. I want you to imagine that somewhere before this story begins, this father has raised two sons. He’s raised them, evidently, from what we see in the commentary of the story later on probably a family farm in an agrarian society.

He’s taught them the values of hard work. He’s taught them what it means to be men. He’s taught them to some degree what it means to walk in a moral lifestyle. He has raised them to the best of his ability. And then one day a son comes and make a request to him. The son comes and says in verse 12, Father, give me my inheritance. Give me the share of property that is coming to me. Dad, give me what belongs to me. Now, by the way, according to Deuteronomy 21 and verse 17, that means he would have got, from what we can tell, if there was only two sons, a third of what his dad had, because his older son would have gotten a double portion, being the older son.

This request is unusual. We see examples of young people receiving gifts from their parents. But we don’t see anywhere else where somebody comes and says, Give me my inheritance. And we’re going to have this think for a moment. If you’re the dad, what do you do about that? If he comes and says, Give me what’s mine, and I don’t want to wait for it. I want you to give it to me right now. What do you do about that? Well, I don’t know what you would do or what I would do, but what verse 12 says is that the father divided his property between them. He sat down and he gave this young son a third of everything that he had. And then verse 13 tells us that he gets to watch that same son pack up all of his stuff and leave home.

And not just leave home to go down the street, but we find out he goes into a journey into a far country. I think the father’s not too surprised, by the way. It would have been very odd for the son to come and ask for his inheritance and then stay there. Obviously the motivation for this was I’m leaving, I’m ready to go. And I don’t want anything to do with you anymore. How hard that must have been to watch, though. To watch a son pack up. You know, I got to tell you a little secret. My wife and I differ on this, because I know there’s going to come a day where our son’s going to be the first one to leave home and he’s going to pack up and he’s going to go somewhere to college and she’s going to cry and I’m going to throw a party.

By the way, that isn’t exactly, by the way, a two years and nine months from now. That’s what we’re looking at.

But you know what? That’s completely different than watching a son who disrespectfully is leaving your home. And that’s what’s happening here. To get the emotions of the scene, I think we should expect to have is that this younger son’s not just packing up to go to college. He’s leaving everything behind because he doesn’t want anything to do with his father anymore. He doesn’t want any of the things and the rules and the restrictions and the providence and the protection. What he wants is he wants his freedom. And he values his liberty from his dad more than what his dad can give him. And so he walks away and he leaves. And I wonder what those months and weeks and possibly even years were like for the father.

Because, see, if you read this from the father’s perspective, that’s where the story ends for a long period of time. There’s no cell phone, there’s no text messaging, there’s no email. There’s no way to know even where he’s at or what’s going on. There’s no GPS tracking device. This isn’t a time period where this son goes a far away off, and that’s the last thing he hears or sees of this son for a long time. Now we’ve read the rest of the story. And we know how that he goes out and he wastes his inheritance and a famine comes and he has to go feed pigs, and he’s so hungry he wants the pigs, but the father doesn’t even know any of that. He doesn’t know anything that’s happened.

He just knows that his son is gone. Every morning that father got out of bed. And his son was somewhere else, and he didn’t know about it. And he had absolutely no hope of ever knowing about it again. No contact. So he waited. And he waited. And I get the impression that the father didn’t just go about his everyday life like he used to. Because the father looked for his son’s return. Now, what I mean by that. Well, when the son comes home, what happens? He sees him a long way off. Now, you have one of two ways to look at that, by the way. You can choose to say that it just so happened that the one day the son comes home. That happened to be in the front yard.

Or you can look at that and say that every day that father woke up with the expectation of maybe today is the day. I see him again. Now, what’s really important to notice, I want you to look at verse 20. After the son comes to his senses. Again, we looked at that last night. Start in verse 20. It says, He arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. There are four things I want you to notice here. The first of those is that he sympathizes with his sons. After he sees him, he sympathizes or he felt compassion. Just imagine for a moment, here is this weary child who’s already not eating enough.

He already wants to eat the feed of the pigs. And he has traveled back from that journey of a far away off. And he is weary and he is worn from his travels, no doubt. I can’t imagine from living in a famine, having nothing to eat, traveling that far, swallowing his pride to come home, and the minute his head pops above the horizon, the father sees him and he feels compassion on him. And then it says that he ran.

And then he embraces him. Imagine being the son of that scene. You come home.

What’s dad going to say? What’s he going to do? And yet he runs and he meets you and he throws his arms around you. And by the way, that idea of embracing, that’s not a that’s not a hug. You know, this isn’t that movie scene where you’ve got the two characters on both sides of the field of daisies, you know, and they’re kind of frolicking to the middle, and they get to the middle and they hug each other, and she picks her feet up because she’s so in love, and he twirls her. That’s not this. Let me tell you what this Greek word means about embracing. It means to embrace violently. We have another word for that. It’s called tackle. It’s called tackle. I want you to get in your mind that what this father did when he embraced the son is he didn’t just hug him.

He hugged him so hard that more than likely the son falls to the ground from the impact. And it’s while they’re there, and the father is on top of the son that it says he kisses him. The tender, affectionate kiss, the ultimate sign of love and affection. And it’s after that. It’s after that the son looks at the Father and says, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. I’ve got to tell you something. It’s a lot easier, I think, for the son to confess after he’s already been embraced and kissed. And one of the things we need to understand, as we talked about confession last night, is we may not see that physically, but before we even confess, the fact that our heart is set to do so, God already runs to meet us.

We’ll talk more about that in a moment. Father, I have sinned against heaven and be called your son.

I want you to notice something. If you will go back up to verse 19. I want you to read to yourself, verse 19 of what the son says he’s going to say to his father. And then I want you to compare that to verse 21. Isn’t there something missing? You see, when the son comes to himself, he says, I will go home. My father’s servants have more than enough to eat. I will go home, and I will say to him, Father, I’ve sinned against heaven before you. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. You get down to where he actually confesses, and it says that he says, Father, I have sinned against heaven before you.

Bring the sandals, put a ring on him, kill the calf. My son was dead, is alive. He was lost and is found. The Father is so consumed with love and compassion and pure joy at the return of his son. The son doesn’t even finish his confession. Think about that for a moment. And they celebrate. And then we have to see the other side of this father. Because here they are in the midst of this joyous celebration. The older brother comes home. And we’re going to talk about him more tomorrow night, but just understand this. He’s angry. He’s mad. He’s angry. He comes home. There’s a party, and he didn’t know anything about that party. And he says to the servants, what’s going on? And they say, Well, your brother’s come home.

And your father’s killed the fattened calf for him. And he’s celebrating his return. And the son complains. Here’s this brother of mine that’s wasted a third of my father’s possessions. And he comes home, and my dad throws a party for him. And the father comes out to entreat him. And the son tells him, Look, I’ve been here all this time. Look what all I’ve done for you. I’ve never disobeyed you. You won’t even give me a goat, and you’re killing the calf for him. And notice verses 31 and 32. The father looks at this older son and he says, Son, you are always with me. And all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad. For this, your brother was dead and is alive.

He was lost and is found. Now we’re going to look at that more tomorrow night. But I want you to notice the father’s calm response. We’ll talk about that in a moment as well. Now, who is the Father? Well, we’ve already said it. It’s simple. God is. God is. This is an illustration by Christ to explain the grace and mercy and forgiveness of God. These three stories in Luke chapter 15 are an answer to a charge by the Pharisees. Why is he hanging out with sinners? And he tells this story of the pair of the lost sheep and a lost coin and a lost son. Why? Well, because verses 1 and 2, here it is. He’s eating with sinners. He’s eating with sinners. He receives them.

He’s this judgment. And I’ve got to tell you, part of the problem is the Pharisees failed to understand that Jesus needed to associate with the lost. But in order to fulfill his mission, Jesus had to be with the lost. They failed to understand how great it is then when one of those who is lost becomes found. They failed to understand how much rejoicing there is in heaven. This rejoicing scene in the house when he comes home, that’s heaven. That’s heaven. And that the angels rejoice when the sinner comes home. And I tell you what the problem with that is that the failure of the Pharisees to understand how much God loves the lost and rejoices when they come home is what caused the Pharisees to see sinners as obstacles rather than opportunities.

2. God Is Love

So Jesus wants them to understand about God’s love and his mercy and his forgiveness. And this story tells that. Let’s talk about some things we learned, and then we’ll be done for tonight. First thing is we learn that God is love.

Or have a verse 16. So we have come to know and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. We read passage like that. We sing God is love. I don’t know though sometimes whether we really understand what that means. And I think we need to understand that from this story, what is so powerful about this is that the love is seen in the fact of how badly the reckless son tramples the Father. He takes a third of his possessions and he runs away and he says to the Father, I don’t need you anymore, I don’t want you anymore. I’m going to be just fine without you. I’m gone. And he’s left and he’s gone.

And the father loves him so much that not only does he accept him when he returns, but he sits there watching for him. Anxiously awaiting the return of his son, desperately wanting to see him pop his head over the horizon. Let me tell you something. We’ve got to understand. God loves us all, no matter what we have done. I don’t care what it is. God still loves you. And he still wants you to come home. And it doesn’t matter what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter if the worst thing you’ve ever done is stay home from church because you said you had a headache, but you didn’t really, because you didn’t like the preacher. And Tony was my preacher. I might understand that too. Or if you’ve done something worse than that, like have an affair or become a drug dealer or be a murderer.

It doesn’t matter which end of the extremes you are. The reality is all of us have looked at God and shaken our penny little fists and said, God, I don’t need you anymore. Give me my life. I’m not going to give it to you anymore. I don’t need providence. I don’t need guidance. I don’t need protection. I don’t need rules. I don’t need restrictions. I’m just fine without you. And we go off and we live our life the way we want to leave it. In other words, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done, but at some point in your life, we have all been dirty, rotten sinners. And I know that’s harsh. And I know you may sit there and go, You don’t know me, but the reality is it doesn’t matter who you are.

We have all been the reckless son, and we have all been unworthy to be called his child. And you don’t have to be a prostitute or a drug addict or a murderer, a homosexual, an adulterer to be that way. We’ve all done it. And we’ve all crawled back, or at least a lot of us have. We’ve all come home, crawled back, unworthy to be called his child, and he always welcomes us home. And if you’re like me, you’ve crawled back more than once. And he always welcomes us home. Why? Because he loves us. Because of his love for you, he gives you grace and mercy. Not that you ever deserve it. Not that you can earn it. And not that we should expect it, but God always does.

3. He Wants Us to Come Home

Why? Because he loves us. That’s why. Nothing you can do can change that love. We also learn that he wants us to come home. I love verse 20. Because there’s just this picture of the sun rising up from the pick field. And going home. And as he comes home, his dad sees him, and his dad can’t help but run to it. That father, I am convinced, sat there many a day waiting and wanting that child to return.

My children aren’t old enough to really leave the Lord, and the reason for that is they live in my house, and if they tried, I would probably beat them to death. But I’ve talked to a lot of parents who’ve been in this situation. And I know that their lives are daily consumed with the thought of when would my child come home. Here’s what I want you to know. That’s how God feels when we sit.

That God is looking for you. You have his undivided attention. When you’re separated from God, he thinks of you.

He is anxiously waiting for you to turn your heart back to him. And every day, God waits for you to come to your senses and come home. Every day.

4. He Accepts Us When We Do

Don’t know that I could run that far. But once we got together, wherever that was at, there would be a debriefing process.

Where have you been? What have you been doing? Why do you look so bad? Where’s your money and your inheritance you took? What happened to it? And by the way, we’ll learn this tomorrow night. We don’t know what happened to it.

But there would be a lot of questions I would want answered before I just bring him in for a steak dinner. But I want you to notice that God’s not that way. He didn’t care about where he had been. He didn’t care about what he had done. He was just glad he came home. Oh, I’m sure there were expectations at some point, but not then. At that point, there was no conditions, there was no expectations. Just glad the son came home. So there was a party. Now, you might say, well, wait a minute, preacher. He’s got to repent and confess. Well, he already did that. He repented when he came home. And the confession is there. Father, I’ve sinned against heaven before you. I’m no longer worthy because your son.

That’s a confession. He is changed, he has returned, he has come home. And we’ve got to understand that when people do that, God welcomes them home. Now, can I tell you something? I don’t always do that. When people confess their faults, I often have some questions for them too. And I know other people do. And sometimes one of the biggest questions we have is, why? Why did you do that? And I was one time counseling a family that had been through some turmoil. And somebody said, Well, you know what? If he would just tell us why, we would be okay. You know what I looked at him and said, there is no answer to that question that’s going to be suitable for you.

Look, when we’ve been hurt this much, you can look at somebody and say, why? And the reality is they look at you and they’ll give you an answer, and you’ll go, well, that’s just not good enough because there’s nothing in your mind, in my mind that’s going to justify it. So what we need to understand is this. We need to learn to forgive like God does. Now that’s not easy. But can I tell you something? I sure hope God forgives me that way.

The scriptures teach this. That the way I forgive other people is the way I’m going to be forgiven.

5. God Is a Just God

God loves us. And he wants us to come home. And he accepts us when we do. But we also learn that God is a just God. Look, we’ll get into the older brother, but I get it. I understand why he’s mad. From a purely human standpoint, it makes total sense. I stayed home. I did all this work. And here you’re celebrating this bum that came home. I get it. And he’s mad about that. So mad he won’t even go in the house. And the father comes out and entreats him, begs him to come in, and he won’t go in. I love the fact, by the way, that the father somehow hears that the son’s outside. And do you notice what the father does? He goes out to the sun.

There’s his love again. And then look at the conversation. Let’s look at verse 29 starting. He says, Lord, this many years I’ve served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who’s devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him. And he said, Son, you are always with me. And all that is mine is yours. It was fing to celebrate and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive. He was lost and is fouled. Let me translate what that means. Here’s a son outside the back porch. Got his arms folded, kind of stomping a little bit. Dad, it’s not fair.

It’s not right. I’ve been here all these years, and you’ve done nothing for me, and you throw a party for this guy. And the dad looks at him and says, What are you upset about?

Everything you see is yours. You haven’t lost anything. You are still going to get the inheritance. You are still going to have everything that you are owed. But your brother was dead and he’s alive. God is a just God. The younger brother was welcomed home and was celebrated, but he’s not given another inheritance. God is a just God. He’s not returned what he squandered by the Father. And the older brother’s still going to receive his double inheritance and all of it belong to him. God is a just God. I am not always just and fair. I will tell you, I readily admit it, one of the problems about my parenthood is I have a son and two girls, and I do not treat them the same.

I just don’t. If he messes up, I will snatch him up in a minute. And if they mess up and look at me the right way, I will hug them and tell them it’s alright. I am not always just and fair, but God is just and fair. And we can rest in that fact. And I’ve got to tell you something. Sometimes we look at the prodigals that come home and we say, well, it just doesn’t seem right. And what about this? And what about that? And they need to do this. Let me tell you something. God’s going to take care of everything. Trust God to take care of all of that. That’s not my job. It’s not my job to give some punishment and some condemnation to the one who comes home and some form of penance.

6. God Really Rejoices Over Those Who Return

God will take care of it. He’s a just God. You let him take care of that. Realize that he’ll do that. And he’ll do it better than we can. But we also learn that God really rejoices over those who return. Look, that’s the point of Luke 15. Look at the parable of the wall sheep. What’s the point? Verse 7. There’s more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who have no need of repentance. What was the point of the lost boy? Verse 10. I tell you, there’s joy before the angels over God over one sinner who repents. You look at verse 32. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead. He’s alive, he was lost, and he’s found.

What is the point? All three parables point to this fact. That nothing causes the creator to rejoice more than when his rebellious children come home. God swells up with tears of joy when people return to him. And let me tell you something. We’ve got to imitate that. We have to imitate the celebration over the return of the sinner. And then when people walk away and they come back, we’ve got to celebrate that. And we’ve got to rejoice in that. Nothing should cause Christians to cry tears of joy more than when they see somebody get their life right with God.

One of the greatest moments of my life was when I baptized my son. And when I brought him out of those waters, I cried. Because the Son had come home.

And God cried too.

Conclusion

I know that if you’re not at home with God, you’re not a righteous child who has a relationship with God, who is doing what is right. If you’re not there, he wants you to come home tonight.

He is on the front porch looking across the horizon right now for you to come home to God. That’s what he’s doing.

Why not do it? Why not return? Why not, if you’re a child of God who’s fallen away, why not confess that sin to God and he’ll forgive you? And if you’re here and you’re that rebellious child that’s left home and never obeyed the gospel of Jesus Christ, if you believe in Jesus as a Son of God, won’t you repent? Won’t you change your life? Put living for yourself, live for God. Won’t you confess your faith that Jesus is the Son of God? Won’t you be baptized, immersed, rising up a new creature, and be home with God? If you’ve not done that, do that tonight before we leave. No better decision you could make than that one. Do it right now. Come while we stand and while we sit.