Lessons From A Dad
(Luke 15:11-32)
Intro:
A. Next year Joshua plans to get married. Our youngest child will join the ranks of his siblings and be married. Our nest will officially be empty. But does that mean I stop being a dad to our four kids or a good father-in-law to their spouses? What is my responsibility to my kids and their family once they leave home and become their own family – leaving father and mother and cleaving to their spouse? These questions are not made up questions, but things I think about and have been thinking about since our first child got married.
B. I am drawn to stories in the Bible about godly dads. I want to live in such a way that even though my kids are no longer at home, they will never doubt my love for them or my desire for them to be right with God. The story we listen to today is told by Jesus and the dad of the story is a representation of God the Father. But before we dig into the dad of the story, it’s helpful if we hear and understand why Jesus tells the story.
I. Background Gives Meaning to the Message
A. Luke records for us the context of the three parables we find in Luke 15. While the parables are very familiar, I want to start with why Jesus told those three parables before we look at the last one today.
B. Luke 15 opens with these words (Read Lk 15:1-2). The reason for parables is verse 2, “this man receives or welcomes sinners and eats with them.” That’s the issue here. Jesus interacts with them as if they were equals or friends.
C. To appreciate the parables, you need to understand this group of people that came to Jesus, whom Jesus has table fellowship with, are people who, by definition, were excluded from the religious community. Jesus accepted these people for who they were, not what they were worth to the religious assembly. Jesus wanted them to hear God speak.
D. Jesus is not condoning their actions but is affirming their value in the eyes of God. I say that, because in all three parables, the message is that when a person repents, God forgives. Jesus is not saying these people don’t need to repent, in fact, just the opposite. There is repentance that needs to take place, but when it does, forgiveness is immediately and completely given by God. God desires these “tax collectors and sinners” to be a part of the great family of God.
II. God Hurts
A. Let’s look at the dad of the last story and see what lessons we can learn from him. READ Lk 15:11-12. I have heard people say that the father in this story was wrong for giving the younger son his inheritance. You may disagree with what the dad did, but before you say his actions were unwise, let me remind you that the father of the story Jesus tells, is our Father in heaven. It is Jesus talking about how God the Father deals with his children, specifically, the tax collectors and sinners.
B. The giving to the younger son is simply the statement that our Father in Heaven gives us the freedom to love him or forsake him. God won’t force your obedience. He wants you to want him, to see your need for him, to rely upon him, but God won’t make you stay in the family. You need to understand a truth that is seen in the overall story, God hurts when we think we know better how to live our lives, than being under the guidance of God and a part of the family of God.
C. There are parents who know exactly what this opening is like. They hurt because their child leaves home and throws the love of the parents away. It’s not that child hates the dad, but the child believes he can lead his life better than being at home with dad. When children refuse a parent’s love because they want to do their own thing despite the warning given by the parent, that parent hurts.
D. If I sit with this story and examine me, I find that I bring pain to God when my desire to live my life my way is me being like the younger son who wants what God has to offer, but not the God who is offering it. It is dismissing God when I crave sin more than desire a relationship with Him..
III. God Forgives
A. But there is more to this teaching by Jesus than just that God hurts when I choose to live in sin instead of in relationship with him. We know the younger son takes his money, goes far away and wastes that money until it’s gone. Once the money is gone a famine strikes where the young man is living and he has two choices: die of starvation or find a job to survive. The boy is sent to feed pigs that are more valuable to the owner than the young man is. The boy is feeding pigs and wishes his food was as good to eat as the slop he fed the pigs. But our story is not about this boy.
B. The boy “came to his senses.” Remember, if you were listening to Jesus talk and heard the first two stories and now this third one, you knew as a tax collector or sinner, Jesus was talking about you. Jesus spoke into your life, your past, and reminded you that you are spiritually where you are because of your own choices. These people were coming to hear Jesus for a reason. They were on their journey from the pigpen back home and Jesus takes them to the Father of our story.
C. READ Lk 15:20. Remember who the first people to hear this were. Think what it would have felt like to know that the Father you rejected would run to meet you. But Jesus gives a detail about the father in this verse. The father was looking for the son to return and when he saw him “he felt compassion” and ran to him. God didn’t wait for them to make it all the way home, God went running to them with a message of love and forgiveness in the form of Jesus.
D. The father doesn’t wait for the son to get out his words of confession and sorrow, instead, the father interrupts and throws a party for the son who came home.
IV. Lessons From A Dad
A. Here is what I learn as a dad from the father Jesus describes: First, my kids will hurt me. I have met few parents of adult children who have not felt some hurt by their kids. Probably not to the degree in this story, but parents hurt when their children dismiss their love and guidance.
B. The second is I want to be a dad that meets my child with a true embrace before they say, “I’m sorry.” If their life shows the signs of repentance, then my actions will be to embrace them without shaming them.
C. Third, I want to be the dad that promotes unity in the family. The older son heard the sound of the party and when he found out what happened, he would not go inside. But the father went to the son and talked about “his brother” that was dead and is now alive, was lost and is now found. The father doesn’t dismiss the older brother or tell him how bad he is, but he wants the boys to see the value in each other that he sees in both of his sons. That’s the dad I want to be.
D. Fourth, I want to a dad who celebrates what’s right about my kids, not focus on their failures. The father that Jesus speaks of sees the good in the repentance of the younger brother and the good in the faithfulness and work of the older brother.
Conclusion:
A. It’s Father’s Day and I am a blessed dad. I have children who care about me. They may think I am out of touch with reality at times, but they love me. I have children-in-law who are kind to me, who treat me with respect and share their lives with me. I am a blessed dad.
B. But Jesus tells us just a little about the nature of our Heavenly Father. God loves you. You have a dad who, even when you disappoint him, will run to welcome you with a hug when you come home. We have a Heavenly Father who celebrates us and values us even when we have no reason for God to value us. We have a Heaven Father whose family is big enough for all us. Some of you really are better, more spiritual, and live more holy than others do. Just don’t forget the family of God welcomes home the worst of us. If God is going to love the unlovable, the hurtful, the one whose life and words cut to the heart; then I want to make sure this family is open enough for them to come home and be celebrated. Let’s pray for our family to our Father.
Because of Jesus,
Jeffrey Dillinger, minister
