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THE HEART OF THE FATHER
Given March 27, 2022
Craig Minke
LK 15:11-24
The theme for this week is God's great act of removing our sins and the shame that sin brings.
God has done all the work necessary to reconcile the world to himself.
In Luke, Jesus tells a parable of a father who forgives his prodigal son and goes above and beyond to restore him to full sonship.l
Think of a time when you did something as a child that you knew you would get into trouble for.
* And because of your actions, you hid or stayed away.
* Maybe you broke your mom's favorite vase or
* Neglected to do something that your dad told to you do.
* Or maybe it was a promise to your father you would be careful when you asked to borrow the family car.
* We have all had these experience growing up in family life.
Sometimes those experiences get carried over into our relationship with God.
* Sometimes we stay away from God because we think that we are not worthy, or
* That we have done something that disqualifies us from his love.
* We even think that God's response to us will be according to the level of how much we think we need to grovel to get back in his good graces.
Today we will look at a story of a son who hit rock bottom, and is highly fearful of returning to his father.
* Here is a son who insulted his father demand his family inheritance even before his father was dead.
* It is a story of a son who had no kindness and love for his father's values
* It is a story of a son who felt his father was old fashioned and did not know how to live life.
* It is a story of a son who abandoned all sense of family and moral values to live his life in an enlightened way, who chose a path of immorality
Although we know this story as The Parable of the Prodigal Son,
* the story is more about the heart of the father.
* We will be looking at three facets of the father's heart: his compassion, confession, and celebration.
* Let's read this story found in Luke 15
LK 15:11-20
11 Then Jesus said, "There was a man who had two sons.
12 The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.'
So he divided his property between them.
13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.
14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need.
15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs.
16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.
17 But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!
18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;
19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands."'
20 So he set off and went to his father.
But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.
(NRSV)
Today I want to look at 3 ASPECTS OF THE HEART OF THE FATHER
1st - COMPASSION OF THE FATHER
In this first section, we are going to consider the compassion of the father.
* To add some context lets look at this story in a little more detail
* The son comes to his Father and asks for the inheritance of his
o First off inheritance are usually given after a death.
o The son is tired of waiting for his father to die and demands his inheritance right away.
o Maybe he has to give up his retirement nest egg (savings) in order to meet his sons demands.
o This would be hard on him
* The father has grants his inheritance to him, and the son heads off to go live it up and party hearty.
o The son learns that everybody likes him while he has money and shares it.
o Prov 19:4 Wealth attracts many friends, but a poor man is deserted by his friend.
* Will Rogers said "To many people spend money they haven't earned to buy things they don't want, to impress people that they don't like"
* James Frick said "Don't tell me where you priorities are.
Show me where you spend your money, and I'll tell you what they are."
* Thomas Tusser said "A fool and his money are soon parted."
* He was having some fun, until the money runs out and the fun is over.
o This is the money his father has worked his whole life for in order to provide for his family and children.
o His friends who flocked to him when he had money now all disappeared.
o He soon learned that if he wanted money he would have to earn it.
o Satan the liar says sin promises freedom, but it only brings slavery, sin promises success but it only brings failure, it promise life (the good life) but it only bring death.
As Rom 6:23 says the wages of sin is death.
o The son thought he would "find himself" but he only lost himself
o When God is left out of our lives, enjoyment becomes enslavement.
o As someone once said "Sin will take you farther then you intended to go, keep you longer than you intended to stay, and cost you more then you intended to pay.
God's word talks about the pleasures of sin in Hebrew 11:25
HEB 11:25 24 By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, 25 choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.
o Moses understood the principle of pursuing the pleasures of sin, righes, pleasure.
o Verse 25 says yes there is pleasure in sin but it only lasts for a very short time.
o But as many have learned you can't sow wild oats and then pray for crop failure.
o The prodigal had not made right choices in life
* Now - back to the story of the prodigal - He must find employment
o Doing the most degrading job a Jew could imagine and that is to feed the pigs, which were better fed than he was, and that's not saying much.
o As you know to the Jews, pig were UNCLEAN, FILTHY.
o He probably at some of the food that he was giving to the pigs
o He soon reach rock bottom.
* No money
* No food
* No friends
* Probably no clothes
* Having reached rock bottom or the rope with no hope in sight
o Then the son come to himself -FINALLY BEGINS TO THINK
o He decides to come home but
o Feels great shame and unworthiness at the same time.
o Having run out of options he feels that maybe his father would accept him back as a servant on his property.
One thing that we need to understand is that a son who asked for his share of the inheritance was essentially saying to his father,
* "I wish you were dead."
* This would have been unthinkable, and it would have scandalized their family in front of the whole village.
* In fact, in that culture a father was expected to shun a child that asked for such an outrageous request.
* For all intents and purposes, that son was now considered dead.
In the event of the son's return, it was likely that the people of this town saw him coming.
* Knowing the disgrace and shame he has caused his father, it is likely he would have been treated harshly upon his return.
But then we see the father in the story.
* The father sees the son from far off.
* Perhaps he is seeing a commotion.
* Perhaps the father has been keeping an eye out for him this whole time.
* We don't know.
* What we do know is, he takes off running, most likely with robes lifted past his knees-a shameful way for a man to expose himself.
* Suddenly, the son is no longer the focal point, and it's the very scandal of their father's running and exposure of skin that hides the shame of the prodigal.
* The father would rather bare the shame than to see it upon his son.
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