The Father's Love

Sunday, May 25, 2025 at Canvas Community Church

INTRO

The Parables

They both reveal truth to those who are receptive, and conceal truth from those who are hard-hearted. (Matt 13:11,13)

They stir up curiosity and questions, if you’re ready to be curious.

So parables both reveal and judge, depending on the heart condition of the listener.

So today, let us be people who are ready to receive and to hear what the Lord is saying us. Because the love of the father must first be received in order to be understood.

This Parable comes in response to Luke 15:1–2 “All the tax collectors and sinners were approaching to listen to him. 2 And the Pharisees and scribes were complaining, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Jesus first tells two short parables - The Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin.

Then he goes on to talk about a father, and two sons (which are really two different groups of people in this room right now)

READ

Luke 15:11–32 CSB

11 He also said, “A man had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the estate I have coming to me.’ So he distributed the assets to them. 13 Not many days later, the younger son gathered together all he had and traveled to a distant country, where he squandered his estate in foolish living. 14 After he had spent everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he had nothing. 15 Then he went to work for one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to eat his fill from the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one would give him anything. 17 When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have more than enough food, and here I am dying of hunger! 18 I’ll get up, go to my father, and say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. 19 I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired workers.” ’ 20 So he got up and went to his father. But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him. 21 The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 “But the father told his servants, ‘Quick! Bring out the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Then bring the fattened calf and slaughter it, and let’s celebrate with a feast, 24 because this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ So they began to celebrate. 25 “Now his older son was in the field; as he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he summoned one of the servants, questioning what these things meant. 27 ‘Your brother is here,’ he told him, ‘and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ 28 “Then he became angry and didn’t want to go in. So his father came out and pleaded with him. 29 But he replied to his father, ‘Look, I have been slaving many years for you, and I have never disobeyed your orders, yet you never gave me a goat so that I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you slaughtered the fattened calf for him.’ 31 “ ‘Son,’ he said to him, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ ”

EXAMINE

#1 | Consider the Father’s Love

The younger son only shows hate to his father.

He publicly humiliated his father, effectively wishing him dead, by asking for his inheritance early. (v12)

Squandered everything his father had worked to provide for him. (v13)

Yet the Father only shows love to his son.

He publicly humiliates himself (by running) in order to reconcile with his son and restore him. (v20)

The father immediately restores the son not only to himself, but uses his position to restore him to the whole community. (v22-23)

He replaces isolation with relationship. Restores his name and position and place. He makes him belong.

The father defends him and validates his value. (v24 & 32)

#2 | Neither son understood the Father’s love

The younger son didn’t understand what his father’s love provided.

He didn’t value what he had when he was in his father’s house. He believed he could make a better life on his own. (v13)

Only when the son saw what he could provide himself, did he begin to understand what he had given up. (v15-17)

The older son didn’t understand why he had his father’s love in the first place.

He thought his father’s love was earned and that it was his by his own merit. (v29)

So he thought it was something he owned, rather than something his father owned.

Both sons thought their father’s love had something to do with their worth.

But they didn’t have his love because they were worthy. They had his love because he chose to love them.

You aren’t worthy - it’s better than that. You are loved as you are.

Deuteronomy 7:6–8 “For you are a holy people belonging to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be his own possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth. 7 “The Lord had his heart set on you and chose you, not because you were more numerous than all peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors, he brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the place of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

Titus 2:14 “He gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people for his own possession, eager to do good works.”

#3 | The Father’s love is the most valuable thing the sons possess

His love established who they were.

This is the significance of the kiss, the robe, and the ring. The son was marked publicly by his father’s affection, clothing, and name. (v22)

His love secured them where they belonged.

They were lost when they were away from him. (v24, 32)

#4 | The Love of God is the most valuable thing the we possess

We must receive it. Meditate on it. Sit in it.

Babies are great at this. God calls us to enter his rest through belief (Heb 3:19) and to come to him as children (Luke 18:16-17).

We think we have to first understand God’s love in order to receive it. But that’s backwards. The love of God must first be received to be understood.

Do we constantly have to be reminded and convinced? Are we still trying to understand it and rationalize it? Or are we ready to receive it as a child.

We must learn to value it above all things.

Financial security; situational peace; the love and acceptance of others; achievement and performance; power and influence. They are nothing in comparison.

Ephesians 3:14–19 “For this reason I kneel before the Father 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. 16 I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, 19 and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Where we want to “land the plane”

God’s love is not a reward for the worthy - it’s the foundation of our identity. We can’t earn it, explain it, or outgrow our need for it. Like both sons, we often miss the value of what we’ve already been given, but the Father’s invitation still stands: come home and receive what’s always been yours. When we stop striving and start receiving, we begin to understand the love that changes everything.