As we come to the end of our series on Loving like God I just want to put this out there right off the bat… Our Father is such a good Dad. I mean he is amazing, his love, his faithfulness, his grace, his mercy, he is just so awesome.
If there is one thing that I want you to leave with today is knowing just how amazing a Dad we have in Father God. His willingness to connect with each and every one of us at such a personal and intimate way is what stands out as the biggest difference between our God and everything else that this world has to offer. He knows you, He loves you, He is looking out for you waiting for you to turn back to him, waiting for you to realise that everything that He has is yours too.
If that sounds too good to be true remember its good because God is truth.
So lets Pray
I think that we need to do a quick bit of adjustment here because we are so familiar with this story and we are even more familiar with the title that scholars have given it over the years. The problem with calling it the Parable of the Lost son, or prodigal son is that we pull our focus away from the main character of the parable to focus on the son who has gone astray.
This story is the third in a series of three parables that Jesus taught to reveal the nature of his Father to those who came to listen to him, both sinners and those who would call themselves righteous. The first two parables are about a lost sheep and a lost coin respectively, the thing is that we find it hard to identify as a lost sheep or a lost coin, so we get the imagery that the main point is not on what was lost but on who was looking for it and the celebration that happens when that thing is found.
But when we get on to this parable we often move our attention away from the one who is looking to the one who is lost, because it is easier for us to identify with him.
The problem is that we often get into a bit of a comparison battle and we start to think to ourselves as we hear this tale unpacked that we aren’t as bad as the younger brother, we’ve not abandoned our family, we’ve not gone off and wasted money, time and all the vices that are listed, we’re not morally and financially bankrupt and so we allow the point of the story to wash over us hoping that the imagery will connect with someone who is worse off than you, someone who really needs Jesus.
This is why I don’t actually call this parable the prodigal son or the lost son, I call it the parable of the good father, I figure if we are going to give a title where there never was one, lets give it a title that doesn’t distract from the point that Jesus was making.
So what is the point that Jesus is driving home, its rather simple really; God the Father is the one who is looking for you and no matter who you are or where your relationship with him is today there is more of him for you to experience.
If you are feeling a long way off from God, like he is sat in heaven wondering where you are; getting all angry because you’ve walked away from him and you’ve done things that you’re ashamed of; that you think are unforgiveable; that you think are to distant, dirty and guilty to approach him, to be called his child then know that the Father is out there looking for you, just waiting for you to turn to him and then he will come running, this story says that he sees you when you’re still far off.
What this means is that He doesn’t expect you to come to him all clean in and of yourself, you can imagine the picture, this son has been starving, working with pigs and sleeping alongside; he’s a mess, and the Father runs to him while he is still far off, he has no time to clean himself up, let alone get the speech out that he’s prepared. He stinks, he’s dirty, everything that is a consequence of the way he choose to live his life is still there for the Father to see, yet there is no judgement.
The Fathers reaction is to run to him, to embrace him, to kiss him, the Father wasn’t afraid of getting a little dirty himself in order to restore his son because he knows that the dirt doesn’t stick to him or change him, he knows that actually he is the one who can get rid of all the consequences of the poor choices that his son has made.
Now some of you may be sat there thinking, this all seems a bit too easy Gavin what about repentance, don’t people need to repent. My question is what is repentance? Repentance is a change of direction, to change your mind about the direction that you are going, to say I don’t want to go my own way anymore I want to go to my Father. To cry out Jesus I need you, I need you in my life, I need you to sort my mess out because I can’t do it by myself… repentance should be easy, but sometimes we make it so hard
I remember when Talitha was younger and we were having one of our first adventures into baking, we made a proper mess with ingredients going everywhere – some even managed to go in a bowl and get cooked! After getting the cakes in the oven we had just started to tidy up when there was knock on the door which I had to go answer, Talitha being the sweet and helpful little girl that she still is, decided that she wasn’t going to wait for Daddy to help clean up she was just going to do it herself… so with a soaking wet sponge she started to rub the down the work surface turning the spilled dry ingredients into a sticky gloop that got pushed into every nook and cranny, and half way up the wall.
You can imagine the scene, a little girl who was trying to help her Daddy clean up getting more and more frantic as she realised that he best efforts were just making things worse and by the time I got back she was actually scared that I would be cross because she had made a bigger mess; cross I wasn’t but I was the only one who could really clean up the mess, especially now that it was plastered all over the room, but my first priority was to give her a cuddle and reassure her that she was loved.
You see this is exactly what Father God is doing here, his tenderness and desire to have relationship with you outweighs any repulsion at the mess that you have made in your life, He doesn’t need you to tidy yourself up first, because really all it results in is you smearing the mess around even more, it is only God who can restore you to your rightful position as his child, it is only him who can bring you into full inheritance by clothing you, putting a ring on your finger, which by the way is bringing you back in to a place of authority and it is only God who throws a party when he’s found you because you’ve turned back to him.
Remember that if this sounds too good to be true to you, it’s truth because God is good!
So how do I know that this is really a story about the tremendous, radical, scandalous love of a great Father as opposed to the rejection and actions of a son who abandons his Father and realises his need when his life goes wrong.
I know this because the parable doesn’t end with the celebration of the Father who has found the lost son, no it ends with the conversation between Dad and the son who had stayed behind. You see to really understand this passage we need to remember that the crowd that Jesus was address was full of both those who were deemed unrighteous and sinners as well as those who saw themselves as good and faithful servants walking in the will of the Father. The thing is though that sometimes when we are really confronted with how scandalous the grace of God is, how audacious He is, how far he is prepared to go in order to reach out to people we become a little judgy – we see the mess that people are still in, that really they aren’t all that clean, that they’ve been squandering all that God has given them and there’s just that bit inside of us that goes – why aren’t they just that little bit more repentant, why are they celebrating this isn’t what sorry really looks like, where are the torn clothes and the ashes, why do they think that they get a reward so quickly. Can’t they see that they’re pushing in, they’re que jumping, they’re taking the limelight off of me and what I’ve been doing all these years faithfully working away with no pomp and ceremony, no celebration, not even a cursory note of thanks.
This is the older brother and when we look at the interaction between the older brother and the Father we don’t see condemnation there either we just see a statement of fact. “Dear Son, everything that I have is yours”. Now there’s a statement… everything that I have is yours. That means that for you and I, for those who have been found for a while now, who know that they are Children of God that same audacity that is lavished in the form of love on the lost son is also lavished on us. Everything that the Father has is ours.
What does God lack? (Wait to see if anyone answers – if no one does ask again…)
God lacks nothing so you lack nothing, if everything is his, then everything is yours. If you think that the response to the younger child who’s gone and got themselves lost and found sounds to good to be true, then you really need to do some work to wrap your heads around the response to the older child, to you and I.
Everything that the Father has is ours!
You see that’s revolutionary. That’s a real game changer, if we were to really live with a full grasp of that knowledge then there would be no stopping us, there would be no jealousy, no guilt, no fear. We would stop trying to work our way into His good graces because we would know that his grace is all sufficient – we have everything.
If this sounds too good to be true, it’s truth because God is good!
Our series has been on loving like God loves and today’s title is “Love never gives up”. You see this is what this story is about – the Father doesn’t give up on either of his children in this story, he keeps a watch out for those who have wandered off and runs to them, embraces them, kisses them, restores them, honours them, loves them, clothes them, feeds them, celebrates them and gives them back their birth right and for the other child, the one who stays close, he reminds them of who they are, he speaks tenderly to them, he lifts up their heads, he opens their eyes to see the inheritance that they have, he takes their hurt, their rejection, their fear, their doubt, their insecurities and meets them with the same love that the other gets, because everything that is the Fathers is theirs.
So how do we show this kind of love - is it possible.
Well yes I believe that it is
Loving like God is to never give up on people, it is to truly love them, it is to look out for them, to watch for them and the moment that they turn back towards you, the moment that they start to say sorry we are to lay aside all our hurts, scars, mistrusts, prejudices, preconceptions, historic knowledge of how people react or treat you. Now I know that some of you will be sat there thinking, but that can’t be right, that’s leaving ourselves way to vulnerable to get hurt time and time again, if we keep letting people into our lives who hurt us then we are going to be an emotional wreck. Well our whole series has been titled loving like God. This is loving like God. How many times have we let him down, how many times have we broken our promises, how many times have we hurt him, broke his trust, abused our positon, told him we don’t need him. Thankfully he makes himself far more vulnerable to us then we do to him and to others, he is not scared of our fragile temperaments and the sin habits that still trip us up on occasion or worse still lead us totally off mark and neither should we be of letting risky people into our lives or back into our lives who we can see it’s going to cost us to love them, because it cost God his Son to love you.
Now you may be sat there thinking that this is not wise counsel, that its foolish – well let me tell you, it is foolish to love like this, but it is the type of love that God loves us like and to which we are called to love others as. It’s radical, crazy, scary love that might just change our worlds! But then we look at the words of Jesus where on the Sermon on the Mount he tells us that if we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us then you will be children of the Father. You see Children of the Father live like this
But it doesn’t stop there with the people that might hurt us, there is also the need to make available everything that we have to those who are our brothers and sisters. The Father tells the older son that everything he has is his. Do we love each other like this, or do we hold back, are we so open that everything that we have is there for others.
Now as I write this I’m sat thinking, you hypocrite you’re still learning this stuff yourself and you’ve got to grow so much in this area, how on earth can you throw this challenge down to love others in the radical audacious why that the Father does, to risk it all for the sake of someone else and I thought to myself, well that’s the problem isn’t it. I nearly stopped myself from laying this challenge down because I knew that you’d see through it and look and see that I am far from perfect and possibly dismiss the challenge.
But that’s the solution, you see if we are honest with one another and ask for help from one another to live this radical lifestyle that we’ve been hearing about and studying for the past few months then in reality we’re giving each other everything, because we’re not hiding anything. And when mistakes are made it is so much easier to love each other and make the move to restore someone when honesty, integrity and love is the foundation that a relationship is built upon.
This is the love that Jesus was talking about when in John he says “this is how they will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another”.
We have a good Father, a good Father that never gives up, a good Father that sent his Son to rescue us, to bring us home, a good Father who is watching out for you, who the moment you turn around to head back to him, runs to you out of desperation for you to know him and be in relationship with him, who hugs, kisses, loves on you, who dresses you in as a prince and princess, who lavishes you with the riches of heaven.
We have a good Father who says to all of us who are home with him already that there is so much more, that everything he has is ours already and since God lacks nothing, we lack nothing.
Because we have a good Father we are called to express this same radical love, this audacious love, this brave love, this crazy love, because it is love that never gives up that changes worlds.
IF this sounds too good to be true, it’s truth because God is good!
Lets pray!
