God Our Loving Father

Like Father Like Son

Frequently I get accused of looking like my father. I remember when my nieces and nephews were younger my sister showing them an older picture of my dad and their grandfather. She asked them who that was a picture of and they responded well that’s Uncle Brian. When I was in high school I remember visiting with a high school friend of my mom and dad. While her and my mom were talking she stopped the conversation, looked at me and said something like, this is a blast from the past you look just like your father did in high school. I do indeed look like my father, others see my father in me.

Apparently I am like my father in more than just appearance, I have also been accused of acting like my father from time to time. Some of our behaviors and mannerisms are the same, at least so I’ve been told. Have you ever heard the expression like father like son? Apparently that expression applies here.

If we all examined ourselves and our earthly parents I’m sure we would find similarities. My question for us today is not how well are we imitating our earthly parents, but how well are imitating God our Heavenly Father? Christ told his disciples if you have seen me you have seen the father. Do others see Christ in us? Through seeing Christ in us others should see God our Loving Father in the way we live.

In the parable of the prodigal son we see a picture of who the loving father looks like. As we dig into this parable from the point of view of the father ask yourself is this the father others see in me? In we are called to imitate God because we are his dear children. May we allow the Holy Spirit to mold and shape us into better representations of God our loving heavenly father.

The Loving Father

In the parable of the prodigal son there are three Characters. The Father, the elder son and the younger or prodigal son. This is the third of three parables Jesus uses to illustrate lost and found. Sometimes I refer to this chapter as the lost chapter of Luke because in it we find stories of the lost sheep, the lost coin and finally the lost or prodigal son. Today and for the next three weeks we are going to set up camp in the parable of the prodigal son. Today we’re looking at the role of the father in this story. As we journey together through this parable I ask you to examine yourself against these three characters.

To see why Christ starts with this series of parables and ultimately ends the series with the prodigal son we need to go back to the beginning of . In verses one and two we see that tax collectors and sinners were being drawn to Jesus and this caused the scribes and the pharisees to grumble and say “This man receives sinners and eats with them” It is against this backdrop, in this setting that Christ tells the parable of the prodigal son.

Whether followers of Christ or not many of us have heard the parable of the prodigal son. A story of a Father’s son who asked for his inheritance, received and left home and squandered that inheritance. Christ tells us he squanders his inheritance on reckless living. In this story we see the father willingly give his son the inheritance, willingly let him go off on his own. As I think of this story when the son leaves I envision the father standing there and watching until he vanished from sight. From this point forward the father earnestly waited, and longed for the day his son would return home. As I studied this passage there was a commentary that suggested a more appropriate title for this parable would have been “The Loving Father”.

I need to point out that some scholars, people who deeply study the bible, point out that this is not an allegorical of God our Father. Rather that the Father in this story represents Christ. Since Christ is the most perfect representation of who God the Father is then yes the Father in this story is a reflection of the Love God our father has extended to us.

We don’t see specifics of what the Father was doing as his son was out squandering his inheritance on reckless living, but from his reaction upon seeing his son in the distance we can make some pretty safe assumptions. In verse 20 we see the father waiting and watching we know this by the words while he was a long way off. From this we can gather that the father was eagerly watching and waiting for his son to return home. We don’t know how long in the story the father waited for his lost son to return home but we can know that however long it was the Father was eagerly watching and waiting. God our Father like the father in the prodigal son eagerly awaits for his children to return home.

As he was a long way off the father ran to greet his son and hugged and kissed him. The father was so full of love and compassion for his son that he could not contain himself. The son returning from working feeding the pigs wreaked of the reckless life he had lived. The stains of his reckless living did not stop the father from embracing his son and lavishing him with love. This is a love that reconciles the lost son back to the family.

What caused the Son to return home? The son hit rock bottom, we’ll cover this more when we talk about the son in two weeks, he was feeding the pigs and starving longing to eat what the pigs were eating, at this point he came to himself and realized how much better things were even just as a servant in his father’s house. At this realization he gets up and begins the journey home, set to confess his sin to the father and ask to be made a servant because he is no longer worthy to be called his son. Does the father do this?

No, the father receives his son and restores him as a son. The Father asks for his wring to put to on his finger. This was probably a signet wring worn by the family to conduct family business. It was a seal to identify you as member of the family. Not only that but he asks for his best robe and calls for a party, because my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost and is found. Notice the father didn’t say my servant, no he said son. The lost son is completely reconciled back into the family. This is the love God our Father has for us.

Romans 8:12–17 NRSV

So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

Romans 8:12-

God our Father loves us so much that he didn’t just make a way for us to be his servants, but to be completely reconciled to God as his beloved sons and daughters. Through Christ shed blood we can receive the spirit of adoption by which we cry out “Abba Father” we are not just servants but joint heirs with Christ.

Be like God our Heavenly Father

Ephesians 5:1–2 NRSV

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Ephesians 5:1-2

Scripture tells us time and again in different ways to be imitators of God our Father. It starts in Genesis, humanity was made in the image of God. To be made in the image of something means you reflect that likeness. We were created to reflect the likeness of God our Father.

In the father of the prodigal son we can see attributes of God our father. One he patiently and eagerly awaits the return home of all his children with open arms. Two when he sees His lost children returning home he doesn’t stand on the porch with crossed arms or wait at the kitchen table to give a lecture and render judgement about the reckless life they live. No he sees his lost child making the steps to return home and races to close the gap with his love and forgiveness. Which God our Father do reflect to others? Do you reflect the love of the father displayed in the parable of the prodigal son? Do you reflect a God eager to forgive or eager to render judgement? While I was at District Assembly our General Superintendent Dr. David Graves, preached a couple of sermons and in one of them he said this “Jesus wants us not to be people of judgementalism but people of forgiveness.” Does the image of God our loving Father that you reflect display that?

Too often I think we fall into the same traps as the scribes and pharisees. I have heard to many people tell me upon inviting them to church that they are afraid to walk through the doors because they are afraid the building would collapse because of the wrath of God’s judgement upon their reckless living. I have seen a comercial making the rounds on TV recently from an atheist and agnostic group promoting freedom from religion. In it Ron Reagan a lifelong atheist ends the comercial by saying “I’m Ron Reagan, life long atheist, and I’m not afraid of burning in hell”. This statement and the statement made by those who are afraid to come through the doors of the church breaks my heart that this is the image of God our Father we as a collective body of Christ portray to the others. How many people have died and gone to hell because this is the God we present to them? The God we reflect to others has hindered the path of sinners to feel welcome and embraced by God their heavenly father. Sinners and tax collectors were drawn to follow Christ in his ministry.

I am glad that we Rutland Church of the Nazarene has been and is a place that others feel welcome. May we continue to grow in this way. As many of us reflect the likeness of our earthly parents may we follow the leading of the Holy Spirit to faithfully reflect the image of God our loving father. May others see forgiving father with arms wide open, deeply longing for the return of all his children, in the way we live.