EP 13 The Parable of The Loving Father

What if the greatest lesson from the parable of the prodigal son isn't about the son's missteps, but the father's unwavering love? Join us on this episode of Forgiven Once For All as we illuminate the often-overlooked figure of the loving father in Luke 15:11-32. We delve into the son's journey, revealing how his thirst for adventure leads to self-imposed consequences. More importantly, we discuss the pivotal moment of self-realization that sparks his return and underscores the father's constant offer of reconciliation. By drawing parallels to Adam's separation from God, we highlight that divine love remains unshaken, regardless of our missteps.

Next, we shift our focus to a truly transformative concept: recognizing our true identity as Children of God. We'll explore Ephesians 1:4 to show how we are not just servants, but chosen sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father. This chapter emphasizes the importance of repentance—changing our mindset—and outlines how understanding God's unwavering love can revolutionize our lives. Embrace your identity as His beloved children and unlock the abundant life and rivers of living water that Jesus promised. Tune in for a hopeful and transformative discussion about seeing yourself through God's eyes and experiencing the immense, life-changing power of His love.

Transcript

Thank you for joining with us today. My name is Shannon and this is the Forgiven Once For All podcast. This week we're going to look at a very well-known parable that Jesus gave in the book of Luke. Our scripture is in Luke, chapter 15, verses 11 through 32. Now I'm not going to read this parable. It's called the parable of the prodigal son and I'm just going to give a brief outline of it and then we're going to kind of dig into the story and pull out some of the scripture. But basically, the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus tells us about this young man that has grown up in a wealthy home. Father has provided and he has servants and sons. And one of these sons decides they want to try their hand at adventure. They're tired of being at their father's house and doing the same thing. They want adventure. And he asks his father for his inheritance. His father grants it to him and the son goes off and spends his inheritance on pleasures of the world. He just wastes it away. And we see this young man has many friends and he's spending and living it up. Well, eventually the money runs out and this young man finds himself without any money. All his friends have left him and he's hungry. And we find him in the story. He's actually working at a pig farm and he's taking care and feeding the pigs, and his payment for this job is he gets to eat some of the slop that the pigs are given.

Now this young man has been used for generations as a sermon on what it's like to go into the world and to live in sin and how we need to repent and come back to the Father, and that is a very valid part of this story. But I see that we focus on the son so much that we forget about the father. We just have him as a side character in this story and we focus on the son. I actually want to rename this story. I wish it would have been called the parable of the loving father, because that's exactly what the story is about. Yes, we understand the consequences of sin. Sin is hard. You can live your life, you can live it up, but there's going to come a time where you are going to pay the consequences, and those consequences are imposed by your sin, by what you have done, by your actions. Notice, those consequences were not imposed by the father, but by the position that the son put himself in when he left his father's protection.

Now, one of my favorite parts of this story, one part that I find very interesting, is we're going to read, we're going to pick up the story in Luke, chapter 15. We're going to read, starting in verse 17. And it says but when he came to himself, he said how many of my father's hired servants have bread enough to spare and I perish with hunger. I will arise and go to my father and I will say to him Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants. See what I like here, In the beginning it says he came to himself and if we're going to escape the misery of sin or the misery of wrong thinking, the misery of sin or the misery of wrong thinking, we are going to have to come to a place where we can honestly take a look at ourselves and then realize who we are. You have got to realize who you are in relation to the Father before anything can change. You could waste your inheritance. You could live apart from the Father in many different ways. You don't have to dive into sin. You don't have to dive into the things of this world. You could just dive into false thinking and false religion. You could dive into religion itself. You could dive into works and law and still be just as far from the Father as you would be if you were living on the streets and sleeping in your own filth, strung out on drugs.

See, the separation here was all initiated by the son. He separated himself. He was. He came to build a case against his situation and he wanted to leave his father. He wanted to go see something better. The father never changed. In this story and that's what I want you to see is nothing changed but how the son perceived his father. He changed his mind on his how his father cares for his house. Now, the son came to one good conclusion and one wrong conclusion, and that's okay because he's on the road to rediscovering who he is now. The first conclusion he came to is that he sinned, and that was the right conclusion. See, he separated himself. He was the one that initiated the separation. It wasn't the father. The father didn't kick him out of the house.

This is the history of sin. This is the definition of sin. When man tries to live apart from their relationship with the father when they deny who they are and think they are someone else or act like someone else. That's what sin is. The son thought that there was so much more out there and that his father was hiding from him. And he went out to experience it and he found out that, apart from his father, there is nothing but misery and separation and heartache. Because he was not living his best life. He was living the false perception that he had on what life was about. But then he came to himself. He began to realize that who his father was and who he was. He wasn't 100% right, but he began to make that movement back towards his father. He said well, at least my father takes care of the servants better than I am taking care of myself. See, Adam was the first prodigal taking care of myself. See, adam was the first prodigal.

He's the one that set in motion this idea of separation. He's the one that separated himself from his father. See, god used to come and walk with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day, and then, when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, the forbidden fruit, then they created this idea in their mind that God was angry with them and they hid themselves and they never looked at the father. The same Nothing changed with God. He came down to walk with them again, but they were not there. This is the same with the prodigal son.

We're going to see how similar this story is to the garden. See, the father had not changed. But Adam's perception of the father had. He hid and God was still ready for their walk. He believed the lie that he could judge good and evil apart from God. This lie brought separation in Adam's mind that he never recovered from, and we suffer from this lie today. That's what we inherited from Adam this false perception that we are not worthy, this false perception that we are somehow not acceptable to God. But all we got to do is change our perception. The father hasn't changed.

The second conclusion that this son came to is this false conclusion that we live in today that he wasn't worthy anymore to be called a son, but only a hired servant. He can come to be, he can come and work at his father's house, he can maybe enjoy some of the benefits, but no longer can he be a son. And this is the same thing that we've been taught in church today. We are taught to repent from our sin. We are taught to repent from our sin and this is what Jesus taught but we are told that our sin is so bad that we are not worthy to be sons. We have to go into some sort of Christian service and we have to work and earn our place in our Father's house. Yeah, we might say that we're sons of God, but really what we mean is that we're slaves of God, because that's how we act.

We think somehow in our pride and arrogance that we can earn God's favor, that we could do something that would make God happier with us. That was the whole point of the law. We missed it. There is nothing that you can do that could make God any happier or any angrier with you. You've got to get that out of your head. God's relationship with you is based upon his grace and his pleasure, and he has chosen you. He has chosen to love you in the good and the bad. Now you've just got to change your mind about how he thinks about you, about what his position is, about the goodness and the love and the care of the father. That's the only thing that's changed. It's your perception of his love.

See, this young man came trudging back to his father and he's hungry. He's broken, he's dejected, he's been rejected by his friends. Everybody that he thought was important left him. The only thing that misses him are the pigs that he was caring for, and he's going back to his father down this road. We don't know how far it was, but I'm confident that it was several miles, if not further. He's walking by himself and he's coming home. He trudges back to his house. He's defeated, he's in condemnation, but he's going back home.

This is where many Christians find themselves today. He's in condemnation, but he's going back home. This is where many Christians find themselves today. They're going back home, they make it to church, but they're not even sure that their father's going to accept them when they get home. This is the state of Christianity today, and it's sad. We cry out and we repent, and we repent with tears, but we're not even sure that our Father will take us back because of what we've done. How can we live like that? Is this the abundant life that Jesus promised? Is this the good news that the angels came to proclaim that John proclaimed, that Jesus proclaimed, that the disciples proclaimed? Is this our good news that we come trudging back and we are not even sure if God is going to take us back. We think we should suffer for our sin, and then we feel like we are. When we feel like we are sorry enough or that we can pay God back with our misery, then he'll accept us. And this is wrong. He'll accept us. And this is wrong, wrong, wrong. This is not Christianity. This is not the gospel. This is not what Jesus taught.

See, the son had the wrong idea about himself and about his father. He did not understand his identity. He said well, I've separated myself from my father, so I'm going to come back as a slave. I'm going to come back as an employee. I'm going to come back as a servant. However you want to word it, he's going to come back as something less than what he was, and he decided that he was only good enough to be a servant.

Now, this is the part of the story where I want you to pay attention, because we talk about the Son, but we never talk about the Father. This is the amazing part of this parable, and I believe this is the true point that Jesus was trying to make. See, the Father never changed in this story. The Father never changed. He never changed his opinion or his love for his Son. This story should be titled the Parable of the Loving Father. We focus on the Son because that's the part we identify with. We want to see ourselves as this prodigal, but the beauty of the story is that the father always, always, always, seen his relationship with this young man as that of a father and a son. The father never changed how he seen or viewed his son, but the son, his perception, changed. So this young man is coming back to be a servant in his father's house, not to be a son. This is the part that he got wrong.

Now I want you to look with me in Luke, chapter 15, verse 20, because this is awesome. Verse 20, it says and he arose and he came to his father, but when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and he ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. This is the Abba Father that Jesus came to show us, the Father that never changes, the Father whose love is constant, love is patient, love is kind, love does not keep a record of wrongs. This is who the Father is. The Father was ready to receive him. He got up every morning looking for his Son, and I'm telling you today that this is your relationship with your father. Maybe you have gone off and you have strayed, but it doesn't matter, because your father is the same yesterday, today and forever. He's looking for you, he's loving you and all you have to do is to come back and receive that love. You don't have to do anything. You can't do anything to earn. The father ran to see his son. See, god is not, nor ever was angry with you. Listen, this is the point of this parable God, the father, never, never, was angry with you. You were always a son. Verse 22, it says. And the father said to his servants bring forth the best robe and put it on him, put a ring on his hand, put shoes on his feet and be merry, for my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and he's found. And they began to be merry.

The son was not brought back into the house as a servant, but as a son, just like when he left. Yes, the inheritance that he squandered was lost. Yes, the inheritance that he squandered was lost. That was not coming back. Sin has consequences. These consequences can be painful, and this pain is inflicted by your sin, not the Father. He was not restored to sonship, but he always was a son. This is so important for us to understand. This young man was not restored, but he always was a son. The only thing that changed was his perception of who he was and who his father was. Many of the things that he squandered he was given again. He was given a robe and a ring and shoes and food All these things that he needed to function as a child of God. They were given back to him. These are things that he had sold and pawned off for the pleasures of the world. He was given that again.

We are not brought into the kingdom of God as servants, but as sons and daughters.

When we change our perspective, when we repent, that just simply means to change the way we think.

We begin to see that we are in the same relationship that we had with him when he created us in the sketchbook of his mind before the creation of the world, Ephesians 1.4. Just as he chose us in him before the foundations of the world Ephesians 1.4,. Just as he chose us in him before the foundations of the world so that we could be holy and without blame before him. God chose us before the world. He sketched us out and he loved us, and that love has never turned to anger. But it's always been love and it's our perception that needs to change. Come to the arms of the loving father. Let him love you today as a son or as a daughter, and it will change your life. It will change your perception of God and you will begin to experience the rivers of living water flowing from you, abundant life that Jesus promised. I hope this helped you today and I want you to remember that God is madly in love with you Until next time. Thank you, you.