SPEAKER_00: Last week we began a three-week series on Luke chapter 15.
SPEAKER_00: A series of three stories that Jesus, the master storyteller, gives us.
SPEAKER_00: Today we're looking at what might be the most well-known of the three.
SPEAKER_00: The parable of the prodigal son, you'll find printed in your bulletin, reading God's word.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said, There was a man who had two sons.
SPEAKER_00: And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of property that's coming to me.
SPEAKER_00: And he divided his property between them.
SPEAKER_00: Not many days later the younger son gathered all that he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property and reckless living.
SPEAKER_00: And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need.
SPEAKER_00: So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.
SPEAKER_00: And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.
SPEAKER_00: But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread?
SPEAKER_00: But I perish here with hunger.
SPEAKER_00: I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.
SPEAKER_00: I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
SPEAKER_00: Treat me as one of your hired servants.
SPEAKER_00: And he arose and came to his father.
SPEAKER_00: But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
SPEAKER_00: And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.
SPEAKER_00: But the father said to his servants, Bring quickly the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, and bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: For this my son was dead and is alive again.
SPEAKER_00: He was lost and is found.
SPEAKER_00: And they began to celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house he heard music and dancing.
SPEAKER_00: And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fat calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.
SPEAKER_00: But he was angry and refused to go in.
SPEAKER_00: His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, Look, these many years I've served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends.
SPEAKER_00: But when his son, but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him?
SPEAKER_00: And he said to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.
SPEAKER_00: It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead and is alive.
SPEAKER_00: He was lost and is found.
SPEAKER_00: This is the reading of God's holy, precious word.
SPEAKER_00: Please pray with me.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for this story.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the truth in this story, behind this story.
SPEAKER_00: The truth that we desperately need to hear today.
SPEAKER_00: So, Holy Spirit, would you open our minds to understand?
SPEAKER_00: Would you open our hearts to receive Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: To rest in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We pray in his name, amen.
SPEAKER_00: It is Father's Day, yes.
SPEAKER_00: And today we look at the greatest father of all.
SPEAKER_00: That's a title that's been given.
SPEAKER_00: What Jesus says is a man had two sons.
SPEAKER_00: This story is as much about the older brother as the younger brother, and it's actually as much about the father as the sons.
SPEAKER_00: Prodigal, what does that word mean?
SPEAKER_00: Recklessly wasteful.
SPEAKER_00: We're probably more familiar with that understanding.
SPEAKER_00: Recklessly wasteful.
SPEAKER_00: You might say a wasted life.
SPEAKER_00: But this is also what prodigal can mean.
SPEAKER_00: Recklessly extravagant.
SPEAKER_00: And that may be new to some of us, and we're going to talk about what it means to be recklessly extravagant.
SPEAKER_00: Recklessly wasteful, the younger son.
SPEAKER_00: He spent until he had nothing left after getting the father's inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: This term is therefore an appropriate one for describing the father in the story as the younger son, because the father's welcome to the repentant son was rather reckless, also, because he refused to reckon or court count his sin against his son or to demand repayment.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is showing us that the God of great expenditure, who is nothing if not prodigal toward his children, this is hard for us to take in.
SPEAKER_00: It just kind of bursts the banks of our thoughts, of our experiences.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, this is the context.
SPEAKER_00: In preparation for this sermon, I went back and reread Tim Keller's book on the prodigal son, Henry Nowen's book on the prodigal son, my notes from Ed Clowney, who taught Tim Keller this parable.
SPEAKER_00: I just went back, I've just been diving.
SPEAKER_00: I had a good week.
SPEAKER_00: I had a good week thinking much about the extravagant love of God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're looking at.
SPEAKER_00: Again, in the context that we saw last week, the sinners, the people who were not religious, many of them were attracted to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And once again, they're here, attracted to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But as we noted last week, Jesus has another crowd with him.
SPEAKER_00: He has the religious leaders of his day, the Pharisees and the scribes, who weren't there to learn from Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They were there to criticize Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus says, I've got some stories to tell you.
SPEAKER_00: Last week we saw the story of the shepherd who had a hundred sheep.
SPEAKER_00: And 99 of them stayed in the fold, but one of those straying, wandering sheep went away, and the shepherd went after that one to bring that one back.
SPEAKER_00: As we said last week, it's crazy to leave the 99 to go after one, unless you're the one.
SPEAKER_00: If you're the one, it's not crazy.
SPEAKER_00: If you're the one, it'll change your life.
SPEAKER_00: This is the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' purpose is not to warm our hearts simply to this story, but to shatter our categories.
SPEAKER_00: This is not just some sentimental, loving story to make us feel better about Jesus, to make us feel better about our own lives.
SPEAKER_00: This is to shatter the categories that we have in our minds of who we think God is, who we think that we are.
SPEAKER_00: So let's look first at the prodigal son, who spurned his father's love.
SPEAKER_00: He goes to his father and he says, Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.
SPEAKER_00: The Greek word that's used here is really not property, it's from the Greek word bios, from which we get life.
SPEAKER_00: What he's saying is, Father, I want my life.
SPEAKER_00: I want the life that you have saved, that you have accumulated for me.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to give that to me now.
SPEAKER_00: This was a preposterous request.
SPEAKER_00: Ken Bailey, as we saw from last week, a theologian who spent most of his life in the Middle East, who understands the culture of the Middle East, says this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, for over 15 years I've been asking people of all walks of life, from Morocco to India and from Turkey to the Sudan about the implications of a son's request for his inheritance while the father is still living.
SPEAKER_00: The answer has always been emphatically the same.
SPEAKER_00: This is how the conversation goes.
SPEAKER_00: Has anyone ever made such a request in your village?
SPEAKER_00: Never.
SPEAKER_00: Could anyone ever make such a request?
SPEAKER_00: Impossible.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: If anyone ever did that, what would happen?
SPEAKER_00: They all said the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: His father would beat him, of course.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: The request means he wants his father to die.
SPEAKER_00: This story is hard for us 21st century Westerners to really understand.
SPEAKER_00: We can sentimentalize this story so easily.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I don't want you.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you in my life.
SPEAKER_00: What I want is what you can give me.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like you to be out of the way.
SPEAKER_00: I wish you were dead.
SPEAKER_00: Henry Nowlin, in his book on the prodigal son, says the son's leaving is therefore a much more offensive act than it seems at first reading.
SPEAKER_00: It is a heartless rejection of the home in which the son was born and nurtured, in a break with the most precious tradition carefully upheld by the larger community of which he was a part.
SPEAKER_00: When Luke writes and he left for a distant country, he indicates much more than the desire of a young man to see more of the world.
SPEAKER_00: He speaks about a drafting cutting loose from the way of living, thinking, and acting that had been handed down to him from generation to generation.
SPEAKER_00: More than disrespect, it's a betrayal of the treasured values of family and community.
SPEAKER_00: The distant country is the world in which everything considered holy at home is now disregarded.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I wish you were dead.
SPEAKER_00: The journey.
SPEAKER_00: Just outwardly rebel.
SPEAKER_00: I don't accept the values I've been raised in.
SPEAKER_00: I'm out on my own.
SPEAKER_00: I will determine who I am.
SPEAKER_00: I will live by my own values, not anybody else's.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's the modern cultural values.
SPEAKER_00: The traditional model and traditional cultures has always been the same.
SPEAKER_00: You find yourself by fulfilling your role in your family.
SPEAKER_00: You find your place in your tribe.
SPEAKER_00: You find your place in your family.
SPEAKER_00: What are your family's values?
SPEAKER_00: Do your duty and you will be free.
SPEAKER_00: You will be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: Culture declares what your mission in life is.
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm preaching to 21st century Westerners.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of us were, some of us didn't grow up in that culture.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us aren't in that culture.
SPEAKER_00: We're more in the modern culture model.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to your own inner voice.
SPEAKER_00: It's very individualistic.
SPEAKER_00: You declare your true self.
SPEAKER_00: You determine.
SPEAKER_00: We're hearing it more and more and more in many ways, aren't we, in our culture?
SPEAKER_00: Well, clearly the younger son was in the latter category.
SPEAKER_00: But look also at the suffering that he endured.
SPEAKER_00: And when he had spent everything, all that massive fortune he had accumulated, he spent it pretty quickly.
SPEAKER_00: What does prodigal mean?
SPEAKER_00: Recklessly.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't take him long.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't take him long to be broke.
SPEAKER_00: He went through the money fast.
SPEAKER_00: And then very unbecoming for a Jewish boy, he finds himself, the only work that he could get was feeding pigs, which was abhorrent to the Jewish people.
SPEAKER_00: And then he couldn't even find food.
SPEAKER_00: He's now eating the pods that the pigs ate.
SPEAKER_00: He's at rock bottom.
SPEAKER_00: He began, the story says, to be in need.
SPEAKER_00: Boy, need has a way of getting our attention, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: You know, you can go through life and make your way pretty well in a lot of ways until you hit rock bottom.
SPEAKER_00: If you get to the place of real need, we're ready to listen in a different way, aren't we?
SPEAKER_00: What about the awakening, though?
SPEAKER_00: But when he came to himself, verse 17, some translations say, but when he came to his senses, when he came to himself, when he woke up all of a sudden, he said this, I will arise and go to my father.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that interesting that he still called him his father?
SPEAKER_00: After he wished him dead, I think I have a father.
SPEAKER_00: I think I still have a father.
SPEAKER_00: I will arise and go to my father.
SPEAKER_00: And he begins rehearsing his speech as we see.
SPEAKER_00: He begins concocting his plan.
SPEAKER_00: Once again, he's going to tell his father what the father has to do.
SPEAKER_00: This is a very strong-willed individual.
SPEAKER_00: How do we see that strong will still in evidence?
SPEAKER_00: He comes up with his own plan.
SPEAKER_00: He sees it as his only hope because he can't possibly believe that his father would be so loving, would be so forgiving, that he would welcome him back with open arms.
SPEAKER_00: He just can't believe that.
SPEAKER_00: So what's his plan?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll go back and I'll say, look, I know I don't deserve to be back.
SPEAKER_00: I know I've completely blown it.
SPEAKER_00: But can you give me a job on your farm?
SPEAKER_00: Let me just work my way back.
SPEAKER_00: Let me start making some money, pay off my debts to you.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, maybe I can get back in your good graces.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He still had not come to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: He had this plan.
SPEAKER_00: Just give me enough time.
SPEAKER_00: I can make this work.
SPEAKER_00: Does that sound familiar?
SPEAKER_00: That's not a good plan.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: He will eventually dig himself out of the hole he dug.
SPEAKER_00: Henry Nowan says in his book, there is something of repentance, maybe in this confession, but it's not a true repentance.
SPEAKER_00: In the light of the immense love of a forgiving God, it is a self-serving repentance that offers the possibility of survival.
SPEAKER_00: Boy, there's a lot of depth in that quote, that thought.
SPEAKER_00: We're not going to unpack it all.
SPEAKER_00: That's what sinners who wander do, they're looking for any possibility of survival by using all of their resources that they have to put together a plan to make life work without coming to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Repentance, in fact, is rising up and coming back to God.
SPEAKER_00: This is the prodigal son.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so much more excited to talk about the prodigal God.
SPEAKER_00: I have found as a pastor over many years, many, many, many people in the church don't seem to understand the prodigal God.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go back to the definition about recklessly, what?
SPEAKER_00: Extravagant.
SPEAKER_00: What if the God who created you, who made you in his image, what if he was extravagantly reckless in his love for you?
SPEAKER_00: I find most people have never even heard this concept.
SPEAKER_00: It's so radical.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I love to talk about it.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: While the son was a long way off, while he was still a long way off, his father saw him.
SPEAKER_00: Well, why did his father see him?
SPEAKER_00: Because he was looking for him.
SPEAKER_00: No doubt, day by day, waiting for him to come home.
SPEAKER_00: And he felt compassion.
SPEAKER_00: And he ran and embraced his son and kissed him.
SPEAKER_00: Sign for a little Greek.
SPEAKER_00: That word ran is used in the Greek language for a competitive foot race.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Get in your mind.
SPEAKER_00: This older father, patriarch of the family, he was a wealthy man.
SPEAKER_00: It was not dignified for him to pull up his long flowing garment and to run.
SPEAKER_00: But he wasn't doing this.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: That's not what that word means.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to show you what he did.
SPEAKER_00: I can't do it with three knee operations.
SPEAKER_00: Think sprint.
SPEAKER_00: He probably had not done this in decades.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that our God is a God who sprints towards sinners?
SPEAKER_00: Talk about shattering categories.
SPEAKER_00: His father doesn't give him a long lecture.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Oh, I've been waiting for you to come back.
SPEAKER_00: Now you're going to get it.
SPEAKER_00: Not like maybe some of us have heard.
SPEAKER_00: I've been a pastor a long time.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard a lot of family stories.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us have heard these words.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us perhaps have said these words.
SPEAKER_00: Not our Heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't chastise him.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't browbeat him.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't lecture him.
SPEAKER_00: He opens his arms after sprinting toward his son.
SPEAKER_00: This is amazing.
SPEAKER_00: And he kissed him.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go back to the Greek.
SPEAKER_00: The English translation says, and he kissed him, but that's not what the Greek says.
SPEAKER_00: It's in the imperfect tense.
SPEAKER_00: He kissed him again and again.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the footnote in the old New American Standard Version says in the footnote.
SPEAKER_00: Again and again.
SPEAKER_00: What kind of God?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know this God?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, do you really know this God?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know this God?
SPEAKER_00: There is no other God like this God.
SPEAKER_00: The prodigal God.
SPEAKER_00: His son came back with a plan.
SPEAKER_00: Put your plans away.
SPEAKER_00: Bury your plans.
SPEAKER_00: There's only one way to come to the real God.
SPEAKER_00: Asking for forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Asking for mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Saying, Father, I don't deserve to be your son.
SPEAKER_00: I don't deserve to be your daughter.
SPEAKER_00: But I believe that you're a prodigal God.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that you're an extravagant, loving God.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe that if I come back and repent and confess my sin to you, that you will take me back.
SPEAKER_00: That's the God we have to preach in our pulpits.
SPEAKER_00: That's the God we have to share in our neighborhoods and our families.
SPEAKER_00: Bring quickly the best.
SPEAKER_00: Robe, the ring, the shoes.
SPEAKER_00: Only slaves, slaves didn't wear shoes back then.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to give him the best pair of shoes so he knows that he's a son in my family.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to give him the family signet, the family ring.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to give him the best robe.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine the whiplash after being how long?
SPEAKER_00: Months, years?
SPEAKER_00: Away?
SPEAKER_00: Being embraced and kissed, wearing the best robe?
SPEAKER_00: I ask you again, do you know the real God?
SPEAKER_00: I fear that there are many people today who are stiff arming the real God because they don't know who the real God is.
SPEAKER_00: They have a God in their imagination.
SPEAKER_00: They're projecting who God is by their maybe their own earthly father.
SPEAKER_00: That happens.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that sure doesn't describe my earthly father.
SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure that that's what he's like.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Even the best of fathers can't really convince us of this kind of love.
SPEAKER_00: Only the Holy Spirit can do that.
SPEAKER_00: The prodigal love for this son.
SPEAKER_00: The father says, get the fattened calf.
SPEAKER_00: You know that calf that we've been saving for a great day of celebration and feast.
SPEAKER_00: Go get that calf.
SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: Who does that?
SPEAKER_00: But an extravagantly loving, merciful father.
SPEAKER_00: I want to close with an extended, some extended notes from Charles Spurgeon when he preached this sermon many years ago.
SPEAKER_00: I think he expresses it better than I can.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to some of these thoughts that Spurgeon shared with his congregation.
SPEAKER_00: He called this sermon prodigal love for the prodigal son.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I don't know that the prodigal saw his father, but his father saw him.
SPEAKER_00: The eyes of mercy are quicker than the eyes of repentance.
SPEAKER_00: God can run where we can scarcely limp.
SPEAKER_00: And if we are limping towards him, he will run toward us.
SPEAKER_00: The more willing you are to own your sin, the more willing God is to forgive you.
SPEAKER_00: When you make a clean break of it, God will soon make a clear record of it.
SPEAKER_00: He that was willing to use his lips for confession found that his father was willing to use his lips for kissing.
SPEAKER_00: So he poses the question: what does all this kissing mean?
SPEAKER_00: It signifies that when sinners come to God, he gives them a loving reception and a hearty welcome.
SPEAKER_00: Spurgeon goes on to give seven points, but we're going to do it in about five minutes.
SPEAKER_00: But this world, it's noteworthy.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, this much kissing means much love.
SPEAKER_00: There is no hypocrisy with God.
SPEAKER_00: He never kisses those for whom he has no love.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever kissed somebody you didn't want to kiss?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's like, you know.
SPEAKER_00: You just didn't feel like it, but protocol.
SPEAKER_00: God never does that.
SPEAKER_00: God's never kissed anyone he did not intend and desire to kiss.
SPEAKER_00: This is the God.
SPEAKER_00: This much kissing means further much love perceived.
SPEAKER_00: When his father kissed him much, the poor prodigal knew, if never before, how much his father loved him.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, this much kissing means much forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Your sin is gone.
SPEAKER_00: You will never be mentioned more.
SPEAKER_00: I will never again accuse you, convict you, condemn you for that sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's been forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that, God?
SPEAKER_00: I will never treat you as though you were still an unworthy, untrustworthy person.
SPEAKER_00: There stood the prodigal overwhelmed by his father's goodness, even as he remembered his past life.
SPEAKER_00: Spurgeon said, I pray that you may be able to say as well, I see how he kisses all my sin away.
SPEAKER_00: And when it rises, he kisses it away again.
SPEAKER_00: And when I think of it with shame, he gives me another kiss.
SPEAKER_00: What do you do with your shame?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes our shame just drives us deeper down into the pit, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: That's when you need a kiss from your father.
SPEAKER_00: When I blush over all the memories of my sin, even then he will kiss me again and again to assure me that I am truly, fully, freely forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, these repeated kisses mean full restoration.
SPEAKER_00: Despite all that you've done wrong, you belong to me.
SPEAKER_00: However far you have gone in, I own you.
SPEAKER_00: Come to your father's bosom now, and he will hear your prayers.
SPEAKER_00: Before many days are over, you will have the clearer proof that you are fully restored.
SPEAKER_00: You will marvel at the Lord's loving kindness to you.
SPEAKER_00: As you now see him in the Father's house where he was received with the many kisses, he wears the son's robe, the family ring is on his finger.
SPEAKER_00: He eats no longer swine, pig food, but children's bread.
SPEAKER_00: This is a great story.
SPEAKER_00: This is a great story, but then we can quickly moralize this.
SPEAKER_00: So don't ever let it happen again.
SPEAKER_00: Don't lose your way again.
SPEAKER_00: Don't wander off again.
SPEAKER_00: You had your chance, you came back now.
SPEAKER_00: Tighten up.
SPEAKER_00: That's not a prodigal God.
SPEAKER_00: I find many Christians don't understand this.
SPEAKER_00: Do you think we all just wander off once?
SPEAKER_00: Do you?
SPEAKER_00: How many times have you wandered off with certain sins?
SPEAKER_00: With certain sins of pride and unbelief and self-righteousness, lust.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the list goes on.
SPEAKER_00: This God is extravagantly, lavishly full of love.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean he condones it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not cheap grace.
SPEAKER_00: It's real grace.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the reality is we wander off more than we believe, but if we don't believe in this kind of prodigal God, then we don't know what to do with the sin.
SPEAKER_00: And we lose our joy.
SPEAKER_00: We lose our love for Him.
SPEAKER_00: Because we think of Him in a very different way.
SPEAKER_00: Can your heart take in the prodigal God this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, these kisses mean full restoration.
SPEAKER_00: Full restoration.
SPEAKER_00: Despite all that you've done, you belong to me, he says.
SPEAKER_00: Fourthly, this many kisses means exceeding joy.
SPEAKER_00: If you did not know God, how he would welcome you, how he would look at you now, and how he would bless you, surely you would come to him at once and repent.
SPEAKER_00: Confess your sin to him.
SPEAKER_00: Go back to him and restore your joy.
SPEAKER_00: What did David say after he had wandered away from God?
SPEAKER_00: David, a man after God's own heart, what did he say after he sinned against Bathsheba, against Uriah?
SPEAKER_00: Restore to me the joy of your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: God only knows how many Christians have lost their joy.
SPEAKER_00: There's no real joy in their life.
SPEAKER_00: It's a terrible thing to lose.
SPEAKER_00: Because they don't understand and don't believe in this kind of extravagant loving God that there is forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Come back and confess.
SPEAKER_00: Come back and repent, but come back.
SPEAKER_00: Pick up your joy again.
SPEAKER_00: Put down your plans of how you're going to make Him want you back.
SPEAKER_00: Fifthly, these many kisses mean overflowing comfort.
SPEAKER_00: The boy might have said, Oh, my future father, I don't know what's going to happen in the future.
SPEAKER_00: What if I go astray again?
SPEAKER_00: Then would come another holy kiss.
SPEAKER_00: And his father would say, I will see to your future, son.
SPEAKER_00: You trust me.
SPEAKER_00: Six.
SPEAKER_00: This many kisses mean strong assurance.
SPEAKER_00: The father kissed his son much to make him quite certain that it was all real.
SPEAKER_00: His father gave him another kiss, for there was no way of convincing him that the first one was real, unless there was a second, unless there was a third.
SPEAKER_00: You know you never get just one kiss from the father.
SPEAKER_00: If there lingered any doubt about the second, the father gave him another one.
SPEAKER_00: If the first kisses were given privately when only the father and the son were present, it's quite certain that afterwards he kissed him before other people so that they could see.
SPEAKER_00: He kissed him much in the presence of the household, that they might also not call into question that the father loved him, that the father forgave him.
SPEAKER_00: Lastly, number seven, this many kisses means intimate communion.
SPEAKER_00: These many kisses likewise came before the public rejoicing.
SPEAKER_00: Think how shamefaced the son would have been in the presence of others if, first of all, he had not been convinced of the father's love and forgiveness himself.
SPEAKER_00: Lastly, all this was given before the meeting with the older brother.
SPEAKER_00: Next week we're going to look at the older brother.
SPEAKER_00: If you get your father's many kisses, you will not mind your older brother being a little hard on you.
SPEAKER_00: Can you relate to that?
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are older brothers, older sisters.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about that next week.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are younger.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, there's a lot of people in this world that thought that they were older brothers, you know, living the right life, doing all the right things for the wrong reasons.
SPEAKER_00: Not out of an understanding of the love of God's heart, but just keeping the rules.
SPEAKER_00: You know, to get God to give you something back, get God to owe you.
SPEAKER_00: And it just doesn't work that way.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work that way.
SPEAKER_00: Ed Clowney and Tim Keller and many others have noted that that's probably the reason why so many of our churches today don't have any younger brothers.
SPEAKER_00: Younger brothers and younger sisters don't tend to go to churches that are hard on their younger brothers.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: Many, many of our churches today are filled with older brothers and sisters who have kept the rules, who have walked the path.
SPEAKER_00: But I've noticed over the years of my lifetime, many pastors, many pastors as well.
SPEAKER_00: What happens when older brothers walk the line for so many years that there's actually a younger brother waiting to come out?
SPEAKER_00: Have you noticed that?
SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden, to everybody's surprise, that younger brother now has an affair.
SPEAKER_00: He embezzles.
SPEAKER_00: That hidden life, whatever way it comes out, that hidden life comes out.
SPEAKER_00: Because he really wasn't doing it out of a response to the love of God.
SPEAKER_00: He was doing it to get something from God.
SPEAKER_00: Next time your older brother is hard on you, next time somebody in the family is really hard on you, or maybe not the family, maybe it's at work, maybe it's in your office, maybe it's in your marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Next time your older brother is hard on you, do you remember what Spurgeon said?
SPEAKER_00: Go back to your father and get one of his many kisses.
SPEAKER_00: That's gold.
SPEAKER_00: That is gold.
SPEAKER_00: If you know that you've been accepted and fully forgiven by God the Father, if you know the extravagant love of God, you can deal with anything in your life.
SPEAKER_00: You can.
SPEAKER_00: Loneliness, death, disaster.
SPEAKER_00: You can deal with anything if you know you have your father's love and forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: That's the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we call this a prodigal gospel, a prodigal God.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a prodigal son.
SPEAKER_00: It said at the end of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln said to Robert E.
SPEAKER_00: Lee, after the war was over, it will be as if your people never left.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: After all that blood was shed, it will be as if your people never left.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, that was not the bloodiest.
SPEAKER_00: That was the bloodiest war of the United States.
SPEAKER_00: When the precious blood of Jesus Christ was shed on the cross for your sin.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that?
SPEAKER_00: The blood of God's Son was shed so that you could come home to God, so that you could be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: So that you would know his embrace.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
SPEAKER_00: Please pray with me.
SPEAKER_00: Father, you truly are the prodigal God.
SPEAKER_00: We could never fashion a God like you in our minds or imagination.
SPEAKER_00: Merciful but mighty.
SPEAKER_00: Merciful but just.
SPEAKER_00: There had to be a payment for our sin.
SPEAKER_00: There always has to be a payment for sin.
SPEAKER_00: Many people today don't want to believe that.
SPEAKER_00: But your Bible makes it clear.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being the true older brother.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for giving your life so that we could come home.
SPEAKER_00: Even today, perhaps even now, some of us are going to come home.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to come home into your arms, Father.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to say, Father, forgive me.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to walk into your open arms.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to receive one of your many kisses.
SPEAKER_00: Because we're coming to our true home in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: May that be so.
SPEAKER_00: May we all get a fresh glimpse of your love this morning.
SPEAKER_00: In Christ's name, amen.