Well take your Bible and turn to Luke 15. “I thought you were going to go back to Matthew 5, pastor.” Well, we will next week and I typically don’t do this. We just started a series on the Sermon on the Mount and we’ll be back in Matthew 5:4 next week, but yesterday morning I preached the prodigal son story from Luke 15 and I preached it, a message on God’s love for us, a display of gospel truth that is we return to God in repentance over our sin and plead for His mercy. We always will receive more than we can ever expect and God will welcome us home. But as I kind of swam in those waters all week long, I couldn’t get away from the passage and as I was studying it for the message yesterday looking at the prodigal son, I started to look at the prodigal’s father and how he handled the son’s rebellion.
Ultimately, it’s a picture of God. Primarily it’s a picture of God in the gospel, but I started thinking that we have here some principles and patterns about how to pastor, or how to parent a prodigal, and so that’s what I’m going to preach on this morning. We’ll just get back into the Sermon on the Mount next Sunday morning. This is a message called Parenting a Prodigal. It’s kind of a bonus message in our parables series, but I wanted to preach it this morning and finish that series up. Parenting A Prodigal from Luke 15:11-31. Keep your Bible open. I’ll read from the passage as we go along and I’ll also read from the New Living Translation because this is a story and this translation kind of grabs the drama and the dynamism of the story as Jesus told it. Some time ago, I heard a pastor friend of mine tell a story in a message he was giving and it was a story about a young man who came home late one evening, sky high on drugs.
The mother gets up from her bed and goes downstairs. The father assumes she’s going downstairs to tell the son that enough is enough and show him the door, but she doesn’t return. He doesn’t hear a commotion, and so he goes down to investigate what is going on, and he finds that the young man is in his mother’s arms out cold. With tears in her eyes, she looks up at her husband and says these words, “He wouldn’t allow me to love him when he’s awake, so I will love him while he’s asleep.” It’s a tremendous story and it’s a story that illustrates that it’s hard to love a prodigal. It’s hard to love a prodigal for they won’t let you. It’s hard to love a prodigal because of the pin that’s often attached to it because they tend to abuse and misuse the patience and the grace you show towards them.
It’s hard to love a prodigal because it’s an experience that’s constant and crushing. So I want to come with you this morning to look at the pain of Parenting a Prodigal. It’s one of a variety of pains that the Bible attaches to parenting. There’s the pain of infertility, childlessness, barrenness, and you can find that theme in God’s Word. There’s the pain of premature death, of losing a child or a young person early in life, and there are examples of that in the Bible. And then there’s the pain of rebellion, which is the pain we’re looking at. It was the pain experienced by David, and it’s the pain experienced here by the parent that Jesus describes in Luke 15. In the Bible, not everybody gets to play happy families. In the Bible, many families fight and fracture and feel. The Bible records on multiple occasions examples of sorrow and suffering in the experience of parents brought about by wayward children.
Remember the death of Abel at the hands of his brother? Genesis 4:1-16. What about the sibling rivalry between the sons of Isaac and Rebekah in Genesis 26 and 27? We could think about the distress and the damage done to Eli’s heart, legacy, and ministry by his two sons in 1 Samuel 2:12-25, or we could talk about the pain and I just alluded to visited on the heart and home of David by his son Absalom who tried to usurp his father’s throne, 2 Samuel 18-19. Not everyone gets to enjoy happy families. So this morning I want to focus on the pain of rebellion, as we find that in the story of the prodigal son, a message I’ve called Parenting a Prodigal. David Jeremiah in a message on the prodigal son says this, “No one needs hope more than prodigals and those who love them.” I agree with that and I want to do a little part in helping them today. Now, this isn’t the primary meaning of the story.
The primary meaning and intent and focus of the parable of the prodigal son is God’s outlandish love for us, God’s warm welcome home for the repentant sinner and the rejoicing of heaven over those who return. You can see that in verse seven and in verse 10, but as Jesus tells us a story that we can identify with that rings with authenticity. Maybe we see some principles in the response of the father about how you parent a prodigal because this father, remember is an example of our heavenly Father. So as I looked at this passage, couldn’t get away from this passage, came to it a second time, several principles jumped out. This is where you might want to start to take notes. Number one, in parenting a prodigal we need to relinquish. That’s the first principle, the need to relinquish. What do I mean? The need to learn to let go.
Look at verses 12 and 13. In fact, we’ll back up into verse 11. To illustrate the point further, Jesus told him this story. A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, “I want my share of the estate now before you die.” So his father agreed. He didn’t fight this, he didn’t oppose this as a practical act, so his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons and a few days later, his younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land. Did you notice that the father didn’t stand in the way of the boy leaving and he didn’t follow him into the far country of the distant land to protect him? He let him go ,and he let him go conscious of the fact that in letting him go, they would expose this young man to danger, to ruin, perhaps even death. That’s what’s striking about it. But you know what? This father faces reality realistically.
This is a young adult bent on leaving the home and bent on creating havoc in the home if he stays, so he’s let go. He asked for his inheritance and he asked for his inheritance prematurely. It wasn’t unheard of for a father to dispose of his inheritance or estate before he was dead. That was his prerogative. And two-thirds would go to the elder son and one-third would go to the younger son according to the book of Deuteronomy, but what is unusual here is that it is the son who instigates this, not the father. And the son instigates it in an act of rebellion. In fact, Kenneth Bailey, who has studied this story and the Middle Eastern background to it says this, “To my knowledge in all Middle Eastern literature, aside from this parable, from ancient times to the present, there’s no case of any son older or younger asking for his inheritance from a father who was in good health.”
It just lets us know that the great heart and the great heartache that this young man visited on this good father, and you see the willful rebellion going on. In fact, here’s how you need to interpret this asking for the inheritance. “I wish you were dead so that I could get my inheritance, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon, so I want it now.” It’s tragic, isn’t it? I wish you were dead, that’s basically what he’s saying. And you know what? It’s hard to believe, but those kinds of words have passed from the lips of young men and young women as they storm out of a family or out of a home. “I wish you were dead,” and rebellion and lawlessness. The rebellion is strong, the rebellion is manifest. But notice again to repeat myself, the father faces that reality realistically. He doesn’t bury his head in the sand and ignore it. He doesn’t settle for some superficial fix that is no fix. He knows this young man is going to leave and he lets him go.
There comes a time, my friends, when you’ve got to let the prodigal go, that’s what we call the principle of relinquishment. There comes a time when a young adult’s decisions must be respected even in their disrespect, even if it opens them to disaster and needs to ruin, there comes a point where they must be made responsible for their actions. You can’t keep picking up after them. You can’t keep fixing their messes. I don’t know if you heard about the mother who got tired of her son leaving his stuff on the floor of his bedroom, and so she threatened that if she has to pick it up, any piece of clothing, any item she picks up is going to cost him a nickel. And at the end of the week, he gives her 65 cents and a little note, “Thank you mother. Keep up the good work.” They’ll let you pick up after them, but there comes a point where that’s not appropriate, where it would be irresponsible not to make them responsible for their attitudes and their actions and their choices.
I know that’s not easy. I think it’s generally easier for men than it is for women, but it’s not easy, but sometimes it has to happen. And there’s nothing in this tax by the way, to draw another point out that apportioned blame to the father. There are plenty of places in the Bible, David or Eli, where the Bible exposes their own failures as fathers and not confronting their sons, but there’s nothing in this story that would tell us that this father was to blame. He was a good parent, not a perfect parent because that kind of parent doesn’t exist, but I don’t believe that this father bore any false guilt and he didn’t assume the son’s rebellion producing introspection on his part that was not necessary and harmful. In fact, in a sermon on the parable, Douglas Webster says this, “No parent is perfect and many of us have a keen sense of our inadequacy, but faithful parents can have rebellious, resentful children.” Sometimes we stop showing the love we should because we feel like failures. We blame ourselves for our children’s rebellion and we experience deep feelings of failure.
The father and the parable is able to continue loving his son because he does not absorb his failure as his own failure. We should learn from this model, blaming ourselves for sons or daughters who insist on going into the far country and living as they please will interfere with us loving them and praying for them truly. That’s a good word. This father lets the rebel go and he doesn’t take the son’s failure as his failure and he doesn’t bear false guilt, and I want that to be a word to those who parent the prodigal. I want to remind the church we can help here. We don’t need to pile on when a parent is at that place with the prodigal with the idea that they have failed or done something wrong, unless that’s manifestly true. But in many cases, we unwittingly and unwisely add to their sense of humiliation, and sometimes send them on a guilt trip that’s not justified.
In fact, I was reading and listening to an article by John Piper on this issue and he would remind us that good parents can produce bad children. He gives three examples of the ways we can help, not add to the sorrow by reminding them and reminding ourselves that bad sons followed good kings. Don’t you see that in the book of Kings, many a time, where a father, a king who had served the Lord all his days is followed by a rascal and a hellion who does bad all his days. Go and read 1 and 2 Kings, “Bad sons follow good kings,” says Piper. Secondly, the only perfect father had a rebellious son. That’s God and that’s Israel. He points out in Hosea 11:1-2, God says, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son and the more they were called, the more they went away.” That’s God’s complaint against Israel, who He loves in a covenant relationship whom He has shown great goodness and deep mercy. But the more He loved Israel, the less Israel loved Him back.
God’s got a complaint. Are we going to heap guilt on God? Now, he’s perfect, unlike us for sure, but it is a warning not to heap on unnecessarily guilt on broken families who are going through tough times, unless that’s manifestly true. You and I need to remind ourselves that bad sons follow good kings and the only perfect father had a rebellious son. And as Piper says, in closing, Proverbs 22:6 is not an absolute statement. How many times do we quote Proverbs 22:6, and we can use it as a whip against hurting parents. “Bring a child up and the way it should go and it will not depart from that way.” So we conclude if someone has a prodigal child or rebellious son or a wayward daughter, well, they’ve departed from the way, they mustn’t have been brought up the way I’ve brought my child up. Be careful, be careful. That is not a promise, that is a proverb. And if you study Proverbs, you’ll know that they’re maxims, they’re not ironclad promises. They’re observations on life by the Godly and the wise that turn out to be generally true but not always true.
Good parents, godly couples can still have children who turn away from the Lord. So that’s the first thought, the need to relinquish. And we notice that this father lets the son go and he doesn’t absorb a false guilt about it. It’s on the son, it’s not on him. Two, we’ve got the need to request. What do I by that? Well, we need to make our prodigal children a matter of prayer. Now, that thought is more implicit in the text than explicit. There’s no reference to prayer in this story, but a couple of things. Number one, this is a Jewish man and good Jewish man pray three times a day, as did Daniel. Daniel 6:10, he prayed in the morning, the afternoon, and at night. Jewish man pray. So we would assume this man prayed three times a day for his son, no doubt at the top of the list.
But I want you to make a note of the fact that when his son does come to his senses from his wasted living in the far country, you’ll notice in verse 18 that he decides, “You know what? I’m going to go home to my father and I will tell him I have sinned against both, notice, heaven and you, and I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Please let me become one of your hired servants.” This young man became… Is God conscious at this moment? He is talking to heaven as he talks to himself, it would seem he sought God’s forgiveness because he sinned against heaven and he’s now going to go home and seek his father’s forgiveness because he sinned against him. So I take a very simple thought, very simple today, if we find the prodigal son looking to heaven for mercy in a time of need, we can safely expect the godly Father to be looking to heaven for help, wisdom, patience, and sustained hope in his time of trouble.
When we let a prodigal go, it seems like things are not outside of our control, but through prayer we place that child into God’s hand who’s always in control. Prayer is a wonderful ministry for the prodigal, the parent of a prodigal. Hebrews 4:14-16, we can go to God and find grace and help in our time of need or trouble. Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the omnipotent hand of God. We can do more once we have prayed, but we cannot do more until we have prayed. Isn’t that the truth? The testimony of scripture and the pages of church history point to the fact that persistent faith-filled intercession produces results. Let me say that again. The testimony of scripture and the pages of church history point to the fact that persistent faith-filled intercession produces results. What about James 5:16 as an example, “The fervent prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much.” It does much. I like some of the other translations of that text just adds some flavor to our understanding.
The NIV, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” The NLT, “The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and wonderful results.” I like that. Every parent of a prodigal is looking for a wonderful result. The brokenness and repentance and return of the child, and the reestablishment of harmony in the home. In the mystery of God’s providence, prayer is a slender nerve that moves the omnipotent arm of God and produces wonderful results. So pray and pray hard and pray long. What might you pray for? Well, if you look at this story, there’s several things you could pray for. Number one, that God would bring your child to a place of famine and need, so that they’re humbled.
God resists the pride, but He gives grace to the humble and we ask that God would produce that humility by breaking them. Create within them a holy hunger and homesickness is not what happens in the life of the son who wastes all his living. He’s reduced to poverty and then a famine comes which adds to his situation and he’s in a pig pen and he’s tempted to go dumpster diving for some food so to speak, and it creates with him a homesickness. You know what? As I think about it, my father’s servants right now aren’t hungry and I’m hungry, his son. This is my fault, not his fault, and I’ve been shown my fault and it says, then the son comes to his senses. That’s a word by the way in the Greek it means to come out of a coma.
We want our children to wake up from the stupor and sleep that they’re in causing a nightmare in the home. And sometimes, you’re going to have to be enrolled into the school of hard knocks to learn that there’s no place like home. We could pray God calls them to come to their senses, God calls them to draw them home, God give them the gift of repentance, and God give us the ability to welcome them when they do come home and welcome them quickly and forgive them deeply. That’s what we’ve got going on here. The need to relinquish, the need to request. My mother was often asked by young mothers about my upbringing and how she discipled me and how she produced a preacher, and her answer was basically, “I have no idea, that’s a God thing.” My mother was a very simple woman. I don’t mean that in a bad way, I mean that in a good way.
She couldn’t have given you 10 tips on parenting. It’s just not the way she thought, the way she was brought up. But you know what? She did the simple things well, she loved me, she cared for me, she disciplined me by the nearest thing she could find in the kitchen, rolling pins, spatulas, weapons of warfare, and she taught me the Word of God and she cried over me. But I’ll tell you what she said more than not to the mothers that asked that question. “I’ll tell you what I did for Philip, I prayed. Basically I prayed. Oh, yeah, we did what parents are meant to do. We feed them, we take care of them and try to keep them alive. They don’t kill themselves so God can save them. But I prayed.” She knew where I went. She knew the crowd I hung out with. She knew the neighborhood we grew up in was full of temptation and trouble and I get into my fair share of it, and she was aware that.
Now, as a young adult I was more out of her reach than within her embrace, but she believed in the reach of prayer, she believed in the hand of God, that the slender nerve of prayer would move the hand of God and protect her son and pull her son back. And I can tell you I felt her prayers. In my sinning and in my rebellion with the small R, I felt the restraint of godly parents and I went so far and went no further because I believe that I felt the reach of my mother’s prayers through the kindness of God. John Raldoff, one of our early American statesmen said this, “When I tried to become an infidel, I fancied that I saw my mother standing with me with her hand on my head and her voice speaking in my ear, ‘Our Father, which art in heaven hallowed be thy name.'” Don’t you feel that invisible hand of God as you think about the memory of the physical hand of a mother or a father that has loved you in the gospel and whose heart you’re breaking and whose home you’ve robbed of peace.
Wasn’t it Augustine’s mother, Monica, who after 17 years of praying for Augustine saw her son saved and return home, and she was encouraged by the words of a pastor who said to one day that indeed that this child of many tears will not perish. And she took that as an encouragement. It is an encouragement. Let’s believe that a child of many tears will not perish, but God will answer our prayers if we pray long and hard because the fervent prayer of a righteous man or woman, it produces wonderful results. Number three, the need to rest, need to speed up here. The need to rest. What I mean by that is we need to trust our children to the providence of God. We need to rest in the ultimate control of the situation that it’s in God’s hands. Letting go of them doesn’t mean that the situation has not got out of control because it’s never out of control in the hands of a sovereign God who works all things after the council of His own will.
Ephesians 1:11, “We can be still and know that He is God and that He can produce in our children what we cannot and He sees what we don’t see, and they may run from us, but where can they run from His presence?” Love it. That’s where rest comes. The providence of God is a wonderful pillow upon which to put your head on and sleep. Our children may be beyond our reach, but they’re never out of the reach of a sovereign God with a saving hand. God can bring about situations and that what we said we might pray about that God would humble them, even hurt them because what are the sorrows of life compared to the pains of everlasting Hell? So we might pray that God would hurt them, humble them, emptying them of their pride, causing them to wake up, bringing them to their senses, and creating in name the gift of repentance that they return home. God can do that, can’t He? Amen. He’s done it and can do it and will do it. In fact, it’s not a big part of the story, but I don’t want to miss verse 14.
It makes my point to some degree and I love the way that New Living Translation puts it, “About the time his money ran out.” He’s vulnerable at this point, isn’t he? He’s humbled at this point, maybe a little bit more teachable at this point. And what do we read, “Around the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land.” I see that as providence, don’t you? God allowed that. God permitted that and in the hand of His sovereignty, it just brought this young man lower and lower until he was out of options, and he knew, as he always knew, and prodigal knows they’ve got one good move left and that’s to go home in true repentance, to be embraced and loved by those that have always loved them and truly loved them, always more than the world. I like that. Wasn’t it C.S Lewis who said suffering is God’s megaphone to arise a deaf world. He said that God whispers in our pleasure but shouts in our pain.
I’d like to believe that’s what went on in this young man’s life because he comes to recognize, he sinned both against heaven, against his father, and the suffering was God’s megaphone arising him from his coma where he had been anathetized by the enemy, where he’d become unfeeling and horrible person and now God’s shouts to him in his pain. I don’t have time to get into this because time’s beating me. Genesis 45:6 following in Genesis 50:20, there’s a major reference to a famine in the story of Joseph. And God uses the famine to bring Joseph’s brother down to Egypt where they find out that now he’s second in command in Pharaoh’s house, and Joseph will tell his brothers, “You know what? What you meant for evil, you wanted to harm me, but God wanted to help you through my hurt and God has sent me ahead to preserve the seed of Isaac and Jacob and Abraham.” What you meant for evil.
God, man, just read that story. I’ve done it in injustice by that quick reference to it. But the point is, in a dysfunctional family you see the sovereignty of God. Ruth Bell Graham knows this heartache, doesn’t she? Franklin, who we know as an evangelist today, ran away from home, went into the far country, did his own thing, broke Billy’s and Ruth’s heart. She wrote a book about him and his return and those years, it’s called Prodigals and Those Who Love Them. In the book she says this, “We mothers must take care of the possible and trust God for the impossible. We are to love, affirm, encourage, teach, listen, and care for the physical needs of our family. We cannot convict of sin, create hunger, thirst for God, or convert. These are miracles and miracles are not in our department.” So as you let them go and you don’t absorb their failure as your failure, rest in the sovereignty of God, and pray that God would do what only God can do.
Moving prodigals and reclaiming prodigals, that’s his department. Rest in that fact. Number four, the need to retain. I love this point. What do I mean? We need to retain our love for the prodigal son or daughter, who up until this point has not reciprocated that love, who spurned your love, mocked your mercy and abused your grace, who’s despitefully used you. Now, June and I haven’t experienced that pain, but we know friends who have and I often wonder how they do it and how they protect their hearts against bitterness and anger. That’s got to be a real challenge, hasn’t it? Hebrews 12:15, “Don’t let the root of bitterness get a hold in your life.” We’re told in Ephesians 4 to dismiss bitterness and to forgive as God has forgiven us. So, here’s the point. The thing that strikes me in the story of the prodigal is that when he returns, the father is primed and ready to receive him.
As I just read the story and let the simplicity of it and the profundity of it wash over me one more time, I was reading it in the New Living Translation, and verse 20 just jumped out of the book. So he returned to his father and while he was still returning a long way, his father saw him coming filled, notice that, filled with love and compassion, he runs towards him and he embraces him. Striking. This man has not lost any of the love he once showed for the son who has now abused his father’s love over a period of time and caused great hurt. Isn’t that striking? He’s full of love. I would’ve thought by now some of that would’ve leaked. I would’ve thought by now some of that would’ve drained away. You would’ve thought maybe by now he’s struggling with bitterness, he’s struggling to love his son. It’s only human. Wouldn’t it be? And yet, no, he has retained the tender heart. He is ready for the moment his son returns and his son returns and meets a father full of love.
Here’s a question. How do you continue to love the prodigal? How do you maintain a tender heart when it’s being stomped on time and time again with thoughtless words and rejection and vengeful actions? Can I tell you how you do it? Jude 21, you’ve got to keep yourself in the love of God, that’s on you. That’s kind of 1 John 4:7-12, we want God’s love to be made perfect or come to a point of completion in our life and high as that to happen, that comes from us recognizing that He first loved us and His love has been poured out in our hearts and God has loved us in an immeasurable manner when He sent his son to be a propitiation for our sin and Christ emptied himself of any self-will and embraced the cross and came in the likeness of man.
And as we think through the length and the breadth and the depth and the height of God’s love, it becomes the reason for our love for others. It becomes the ground for our loving actions. It becomes the wellspring of how we love others. Max Locato said something some years ago that has stayed with me and I give him credit, he said this, “The secret to loving is living loved.” It’s a great statement. It’s very profound actually. How do you love your husband across a lifetime? How do you love your children across a lifetime? How do you love those who have hurt you in their prodigal lifestyle? How do you love them during that time and then love them back? You do it by living loved, by living loved by God, by surrendering to his gospel, by living at the foot of the cross and realizing he has loved me in this manner and he has loved me in this measure, and I am reminded in the gospels and I’m reminded in the epistles, you know what?
We are to forgive one another as God has forgiven us. He’s the template, but He’s not only the template, He’s the fountainhead that we can love others through and by His love is the antecedent of our love. It’s not easy to love. I’ve quoted a lot from Ruth Bell Graham. There are days when we understand the sign that hung on the door of Billy Graham’s home in North Carolina. It was put there by her that read, “God loves you and I’m trying.” I think we can understand that God loves you, but I’m trying, and in our trying, let’s remember we’ll only love them if we live loved. God pours out His love by the spirit into our hearts and as we receive it and live it and be affected by it, we can give it to others. It’s the overspill. David Jeremiah said, this will move to our last point, and collapse the last point and get done here. This is a good statement.
David Jeremiah in his book God Loves You, Always Has, Always Will, “Just as the sun is our only source of daylight, God is our only source of love. Sun rays reflect from all objects. They strike permeating the air with light and making it possible to see. In a similar way, God’s love enters the world and reflects off our hearts making it possible for us to love him and others. We have no innate capacity, no self-originating store of love to give. We can only give what we receive.” Very important that you and I understand that. We cannot begin to love others, we cannot begin to give love to others until we have received it from God, until we’ve embraced God’s love and we’re living in the love of God and we’re keeping ourself in it by preaching the gospel to ourselves each and every day. Okay, the last thought, the need to receive. There’s more to be said here but we don’t have time to do it. But I can get the bones of this thought across, the need to receive. It’s the final principle I see or point I see in parenting a prodigal.
We need to let go, we’ve established that. We need to make them a matter of persevering prayer, we’ve established that. We need to trust them and ourselves to the providence of God, we’ve established that. We need to retain a genuine love for them while they are loveless towards us so that we’re full of love when we need to give them love upon their return, which brings us to this thought, we need to be prepared to receive them back upon repentance. I could spend some time getting in to the fact that this young man returns repentantly. He’s not back to abuse, he’s not back to misuse. Now this is genuine repentance. I’ve sinned against heaven, against you. I’m not worthy to be your son and I’m happy to come back as a hired servant. I think those are elements of repentance, right? Admit, quit, commit. But that is assumed. What strikes me is that the father has left this door ajar. He’s been looking day after day for the son to return.
In fact, if you look at the text where he’s looking for the boy in verse 20, we read, “So he returned to his father and while he was still a long way off,” in the Greek, that’s the seeing language for the far country. So it seems to me that the father has been looking for the son day in and day out, and he’s been looking long and he’s been looking far. He’s been waiting for some silhouette to come up over the horizon in the hope that it’s the boy that he’s never stopped loving, although the child stopped loving him a long time ago. It’s powerful, isn’t it? Someone put it like this. While the son had left the father’s farm, he had never left the father’s heart. This is not a self-focused parent nursing their hurt. This is a father looking for the return of a repentant son. And so the son comes and he’s embraced with excitement. That’s the point. His stubborn hope and expectancy has him ready for the moment and he runs to meet it. He abandons himself to this moment.
He sees the son and he runs and embraces him and kisses him. It’s almost like he grabs him by the hand and drags him into the house. The son’s trying to say, “But Dad, hold on a minute. I’ve sinned against you and against heaven, and I’m not worthy to be your son.” And the father says, “Never mind that at the minute. Come on, we’re going to throw a party. Go and get the calf that we have fattened for a special occasion. I can’t think of a bigger one than this. Go and tell the neighbors tonight, street party because my son who was lost is found. And my son who was dead to me is now alive.” The son never got to that part where, “Hey, can you just take me back as a hired servant?” No. The emotion, the embrace, the excitement, it makes our point as we close.
His embrace reminds us to embrace every opportunity to convey to prodigal children that the door is ajar and the welcome mat is out, and upon their return and repentance, forgiveness will be extended and the past will be quickly forgot, and a new day will be noted and a celebration will be had. Remember what Jesus said, what’s true of the gospel, which is the primary understanding of the text, is also true or ought to be true in a gospel home that receives a prodigal back, “He that comes to me, I will not cast out.” Aren’t you glad God took you in and said, “Welcome home,” in the gospel, and it’s gospel people when the moment presents itself and the heart is right on the part of the prodigal child, oh my friend, run towards it. Have no second thoughts. He didn’t make the son squirm, which is interesting. He just lavished him in love, quickly forgave, and embraced. That’s a portrayal of how God has loved us, and may He give us the grace to extend it to others.
As the team gets ready to come up, I wondered how I would finish, and then my mind drifted to the funeral of Billy Graham being a bit of a theme. I don’t know if you remember the funeral. It was tremendous. One of the testimonies, his daughter, I think it’s the daughter Ruth, and she said, “Everybody’s got a Billy Graham story today. I got one.” She says, “Some years ago, my husband divorced me and our marriage fell apart and I was ashamed and it was a rough time in my life, and my family encouraged me just to lie low. And I went down to Florida to stay with my older sister and they just told me to take some time to process this and work it through.” But she says, “When I was there, I became attracted to a man and seemed to me I’d quickly fallen in love with him and I introduced him to the family. My mother and father were a little hesitant and telling me to slow-mo this thing. I introduced them to my children and they didn’t like him.”
But she says, “I was strong-willed and self-willed and I knew better. And so I married him. And in 24 hours, I knew I’d made the biggest mistake of my life, and in short order, I fled the home sometime later out of fear for my life. And I decided to make the two-day drive back to North Carolina to mom and dad. And she says, as I drove those long miles in those two days, I wondered, ‘Am I going to get, I told you so didn’t we tell you to slow-mo, put the brakes on, get your life back together again?'” She said, “I had no idea how it’d be received. And I get there two days later. I’m driving up the drive. My father is out waiting on me.” And she says, “I know sooner opened the door, and all I got was two words. ‘Welcome home, welcome home.'” Those are two beautiful words, aren’t they? Sometimes there’s a tragic story and a lot of heartache behind them.
But when love and grace and mercy from God at work, those two words change lives. God changed our lives with those two words, didn’t He? And if that moment comes and we pray it does for you upon real repentance, I hope you have the joy of saying them. And I hope that when you say them, it comes with joy. Welcome home. Father, we thank you for your Word, a lot in the service today. It’s a full service, but we’re full of joy. It’s been a good day. We thank you we can turn from the events of history and realize that your hand is on the tiller of history. And we once again commend Mr. Trump and his family to you and pray for our nation.
We thank you for baptisms and the stories of transformation and your grace. And we thank you for double dipping back in the Luke 15 and learning these wonderful principles, a paradigm for parenting a prodigal. Lord, the first thing we want to say is, Lord, thank you for loving us. That way we are prodigals, prone to wonder. Lord we know it, prone to believe the God we love. Thank you for loving us as prodigals, and Lord, we pray for those who have got the heartache of parenting a prodigal. Pray that today’s message will encourage them. Help us not to pile on. Help us not to give superficial or advice through misused texts. Help us to encourage them in the gospel and help us to encourage them to be gospel parents. And we pray that they would live to enjoy the moment where they get to say, “Welcome home.” For we ask and pray it all in Jesus’ name. Amen.