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Good morning.
My name is August Fern and I am one of your deacons.
Today's scripture reading is from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 15, verses 1 and 2, and verses
11 to 32 as printed in your liturgy.
A reading from the Gospel according to Luke.
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus, but the Pharisees
and the teacher of the law muttered, this man welcomes sinners and eats with them.
Jesus continued.
There was a man who had two sons.
The younger one said to his father, Father, give me my share of the estate.
So he divided his property between them.
Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country, and
there squandered his wealth in wild living.
After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he
began to be in need.
So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to the fields
to feed pigs.
He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave
him anything.
When he came to his senses, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have food to
spare, and here I am starving to death.
I will set out and go back to my father and say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven
and against you.
I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
Make me like one of your hired servants.
So he got up and went to his father.
But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion
for him.
He ran to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him.
The son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
But the father said to his servants, Quick, bring the best robe and put it on him.
Put a ring on his finger and sandal on his feet.
Bring the fattened calf and kill it.
Let's have a feast and celebrate.
For the son of mine was dead and is alive again.
He was lost and is found.
So they began to celebrate.
Meanwhile, the older son was in the field.
When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing.
So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on.
Your brother has come, he replied, and your father has killed the fattened calf because
he has him back safe and sound.
The older brother became angry and refused to go in.
So his father went out and pleaded with him.
But he answered his father, Look, all these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed
your orders.
Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.
But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with the prostitutes comes home,
you kill the fattened calf for him?
My son, the father said, you are always with me and everything I have is yours.
But we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and is alive
again.
He was lost and is found.
This is the gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, O Christ.
So there was a man who had two sons.
It's an amazing opening line.
And we know when we hear it, we know instinctively that Jesus is a master storyteller because in
our own experience, like families are complicated.
Amen?
Families are sometimes dysfunctional.
You know, we know how it can go between fathers and mothers and sons and daughters.
We don't always see eye to eye.
We don't always get along.
We don't always live happily ever after.
And many of us know that personally.
We know it painfully.
We also know it biblically and theologically.
When you open up the Bible to the very first story, Adam had two sons, right?
Cain and Abel and how did that go?
It ended in a bloody mess, you know?
Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac.
Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob.
Jacob had 12 sons, but of those 12 sons, he loved two of them more than all the rest.
And so we don't really have to get much further beyond the first book of the Bible to know that
when a story begins where the father had two sons, it's going to be, I don't know, complicated.
It's like starting a story with, it was a dark and stormy night, right?
And to whom is Jesus telling this amazing story?
He says in verse 1,
Jesus goes and he associates with the out group.
And that means that the spiritually serious and the morally upright are outraged.
And they're saying,
And why, Jesus, do you welcome like family around your table these people that don't deserve to be there?
And Jesus is being severely criticized.
And he responds to that criticism with something we also all know about,
which is we probably all lost something that we deeply value.
Anybody ever lost your phone?
Or lost your wallet?
Have any of you ever lost your child?
Okay, you can ask Catherine about how I lost one of our children at coffee hour.
But Jesus launches into a story about a shepherd who lost a precious sheep
and a woman who lost her treasured coin.
And then he gets to this story,
this father lost his two beloved sons.
And I want to look at this under a few headings.
I want to look at the costly grace for the self-defeated.
I want to look at pleading grace for the self-righteous.
And I want to look at reconciling grace for the family of God.
Costly grace for the self-defeated.
Pleading grace for the self-righteous.
And reconciling grace for the family of God.
Now, we had a staff retreat on Thursday,
an elder retreat on Saturday.
And I had two Duke games this weekend.
So, we'll see about that third point.
I don't know if we'll have time for that.
But, costly grace for the self-defeated.
Let's just go through the story.
It says in verse 12,
the son says to his father,
Father, give me my share of the estate.
Which is the equivalent of saying, drop dead, Dad.
Father, I can't wait for you to die.
In fact, I don't want you.
I want your money.
It's an act of deep disrespect.
And any respectable father in the ancient Near East
would have disowned his son on the spot.
He would have just driven his son out of the family.
But this father is a gracious father.
And he gives his son what his son wants.
Surprisingly, he says to his son,
Your will be done.
Right?
And it lets him go.
And it says that he divided his property
between his two sons.
Literally, it says he divided his bios.
He divided his life.
He tore his life apart.
And it costs the cost of land,
the cost of his place,
the cost of his honor and his standing.
The father bears the agony of,
and the shame of,
his son's rejected love.
Verse 13,
Not long after that,
the younger son got together.
All he had,
he set off for a distant country,
and there squandered his wealth
and wild living.
In other words,
he liquidated everything into cash.
And he went and tried to have it all.
He tried to have a life without limits.
And in doing so,
he wasted his life.
All of his gifts,
all of his potential,
he just burned it to an absolute crisp.
And it doesn't take very long
for him to hit rock bottom.
And Jesus says in verse 14,
After he'd spent everything,
there was a severe famine
in that whole country,
and he began to be in need.
So he went and hired himself out
to a citizen of that country
who sent him to his fields
to feed pigs.
He longed to fill his stomach
with the pods that the pigs were eating,
but no one gave him anything.
How do you like Jesus' analysis
of our human condition?
All of us have made this same bid
for independence from God,
this bid to be autonomous from God.
We had no appreciation for the love
in God's heart
of the security we had in his home.
And instead, we demanded to be free,
to live on our own as we want to live.
And Jesus says that self-will
that's in all of us
can often degenerate into self-indulgence
and we end up, in various ways,
squandering our lives.
And if you're a Jew,
the absolute worst thing
that can happen to you
is that you become a slave.
And that you become a slave of a Gentile.
And that you become the slave
of a Gentile pig farmer.
This Jewish son smells like pigs
and he's starving for pig slop.
Jesus says he's bankrupt,
he's hungry,
he's alone,
he's at the absolute depths of misery.
And two times in the story,
we hear this father describe his son
in verse 24 and in verse 32.
The father describes his son
as dead and lost.
The apostle Paul says that all of us,
we're dead in our trespasses
and in our sins.
That we've all wandered away from God,
we have flouted his authority,
we've rejected his and rebuffed his love,
we've wasted his gifts.
We've alienated ourselves from God
and we've also alienated ourselves
from our true selves.
We're exiled even within ourselves.
We have no hope
because we have no God anymore.
But Jesus says he came to his senses.
He came to his senses
and what wakes him up
is this memory of his father.
That his father is actually a wealthy father
and he's not only a wealthy father
but he's a generous father.
It says in verse 17,
when he came to his senses,
he said,
how many of my father's hired servants
have food to spare
and here I am starving to death.
Everyone you meet
carries within their heart
some memory of the father,
some memory of their true home.
And everybody we meet is,
their heart is desperately restless
until they come and find their rest
in the home of the father.
And verse 18 says this,
he says,
I will set out and go back to my father
and say to him,
Father, I've sinned against heaven
and against you.
I'm no longer worthy
to be called your son.
Make me like one of your hired servants.
And at first that sounds like good news
but the closer you look at that,
it's actually a self-serving,
self-salvation project
because he doesn't actually care
that he's broken his father's heart.
He just wants to eat better.
He just wants his misery to end.
He just wants to get his life back on track.
And he thinks that
my biggest problem
is that I lost all the money.
And if I hadn't lost the money,
I would have never sinned.
And so I'm going to solve my own problem
with my own effort
by getting some job training
and hiring myself out as a servant
and recovering the money
and earning that lost inheritance
and I will save myself.
The problem isn't the money, is it?
The problem
is that he's dishonored his father.
The problem is he's become estranged
from his father.
The problem is that he's made himself
into a hostile enemy of the father.
And despite the fact that
he deserves to be cut off from his family,
despite the fact that he's trying to save himself,
the father sees his loss
as so great and so valuable
that he cannot contemplate
the permanence of that loss.
He cannot acquiesce to the loss.
And so we hear in verse 20
that he got up and he went to his father,
but while he was still a long way off,
his father saw him
and was filled with compassion for him.
And he ran to his son
and threw his arms around him
and kissed him.
See, day after day,
this father had gone out
and he had scanned the horizon
for his lost son.
Right?
He's longing for his son.
He's patiently and vigilantly
looking for a sign of his son's return.
And as soon as he sees his son
as a speck on the horizon,
what does this father do?
It's a beautiful picture
of free but costly grace
because the whole village
knows the shame of this son.
Right?
The whole village is expecting
this pillar of the community
to stay put on the front porch
and have the son come groveling back up
to the house.
Right?
Or if this father moves at all,
for him to kind of slowly
in a dignified way
move out to go
and punish his son
in the eyes of everybody.
But this father shows compassion
by doing what?
Running.
We call this the parable
of the prodigal son,
but really we should call it
the parable of the running father.
The kissing father
because he takes his,
the bottom of his robe
and his hands
and he does what traditional
Middle Eastern men
would absolutely never do
in public
and he starts running
to reach his son
before his son
can reach the village.
And by racing down that road
in an undignified manner,
by making an absolute fool
of himself,
this father is taking
all the shame
and all the humiliation
that would otherwise
be heaped upon his son.
He's having it heaped
upon himself.
And he knows that
this visible demonstration
of costly grace,
of sacrificial reconciliation
with his son in public
will silence all those voices
in the village
that are ready to heap
criticism and contempt
upon his boy.
And when he runs to his son,
he throws his arms around him
and he showers him
with kisses
before he can even begin
that well-rehearsed
self-salvation speech.
The scriptures actually say
that he kissed him much.
He kissed him eagerly.
He kissed him often.
He kissed him affectionately.
And just as the son
had totally rejected his father,
the father now totally accepts,
totally forgives,
totally restores his son.
You see, these spiritually serious
and morally upright people
are complaining about Jesus
and they're criticizing Jesus
for welcoming and eating
with sinners
as if they're his family.
And so Jesus tells this story
about a father
who takes the form
of a servant.
This father who comes
out of the house
and down from the house.
This father who runs
outside of the village
in abject humiliation
and he takes all of the shame
on himself
to seek and to save
and to reconcile the lost.
And what is Jesus describing?
He's illustrating
what the father
has sent him to do.
Right?
Because elsewhere
in the gospel of John
in John 14,
Jesus says,
anyone who has seen me
has seen the father.
Jesus is saying,
I've come acting
in my father's stead.
I've come as my father's representative.
I've come so that
you can see that
in and through me
the father's costly grace
is being demonstrated.
And Jesus didn't just run
outside the village.
Jesus came all the way
from heaven to earth.
He not only emptied himself
of his heavenly glory
but when he went
to his cross,
Jesus was treated
as an absolute outcast.
Suffering the infinite cost
of his own life
so that we
could be brought
into God's family
by grace.
By free but costly grace.
All of that inheritance
that we squandered,
all of that potential
that we wasted,
Jesus came to pay
that unpayable debt
on the cross
and in our place.
And there he cried out,
my God, my God,
why?
Why have you forsaken me?
And you see,
Jesus took that forsakenness
upon himself
so that we could have
the hug
and the kisses
of the father.
Verse 21 says this,
the son said to him,
father,
I've sinned against heaven
and against you.
I'm no longer worthy
to be called your son.
But the father said
to his servants,
quick,
bring the best robe
and put it on him.
Put a ring on his finger
and sandals on his feet.
Bring the fattened calf
and kill it.
Let's have a feast
and celebrate.
And you see,
Jesus was stripped
of all of his dignity.
Jesus was covered
with the filth
of all of our sin
and our shame
so that we could be clothed
with that robe
of his beautiful
and perfect righteousness,
a dignity
and a status
and a standing
that we absolutely
do not deserve.
See,
Jesus had his hands
and his feet
nailed to that cross
of shame
so that we could receive
that signet ring
of the father
that says we're his sons
and we're his daughters
so that we could
have those feet
that are barefoot
like slaves
so that our feet
could have sandals
put on them
and we could know
that we belong
in the father's house.
That we have
the father's power.
We have the father's
authority.
We have the father's
acceptance in his love.
You see,
Jesus went
and he drank
that cup
of God's
eternal justice
so that we
could drink
the cup
of the father's joy
so that we could feast
at the father's
banqueting table.
And friends,
there's no other way
to come back home.
There's no other way
for the father
to bring us in.
Jesus had to go
and he had to
experience
the darkness.
He had to
come into that
uttermost place
of despair
and spiritual
alienation
in our place.
He had to take
the full curse
of our human rebellion.
He had to experience
our cosmic
homelessness
and alienation
so that we
could enter back
into the village
where we belong
under the protective
care
of the father's
acceptance
so we could be
welcomed back
into our
true home.
And when you,
when you,
are you moved
by that?
When you see
what it costs
for the father
to do this
for you,
when you see
what it costs
for Jesus
to come
and to bring us
back into the
father's house,
to bring us back
into our true home
where we can
finally fully be
at rest,
does that move
your heart?
Can you believe,
can you even
half believe today
that the hug
of the father
is for you?
That his kisses
are often
and they are
affectionate
and they are
for you?
Jesus is telling us
about costly grace
for the self-defeated,
people who've
wasted their gifts,
people who've
squandered their
potential,
that they too,
even them,
can have a fresh
start and a new
beginning.
But he's not just
telling us about
the costly grace
for the self-defeated,
he's talking about
pleading grace
for the self-righteous,
pleading grace
for the self-righteous.
He says in verse 23,
bring the fattened
calf and kill it,
let's have a feast
and celebrate,
for the son of mine
was dead and is
alive again,
he was lost
and is found,
so they began
to celebrate.
You see this father,
he's so overjoyed,
he's so overjoyed
when just one person,
one sinner repents.
The son who had
been spiritually dead
has been raised
to life.
The son who'd been
morally lost,
he's been found
and he says,
so let's spare
no expense
to celebrate.
The best meat,
we're gonna barbecue,
we're gonna invite
all the village
to come
and we're gonna have
a feast with music
and dancing
and glad rejoicing
because the father
is so happy
that his son is home
safe and sound.
Now many people
stop right there
and they call this
the parable
of the prodigal son
but how many sons
does his father have?
He has two sons
and we haven't even
gotten to his main
point yet
because Jesus
is telling the story
for the spiritually
serious and the morally
upright,
these older brothers
and sisters
who see the father's
costly grace,
they see his
uncalculating generosity
toward these undeserving
younger brothers
and younger sisters
and instead of rejoicing,
they're muttering
and instead of joy,
they feel anger
and Jesus is saying
that these brothers
represent two different
kinds of people,
two different kind
of ways to live,
right?
Two paths
of finding happiness
and worth,
two different ways
of addressing
what's wrong
with the world,
two different ways
of defining
what's right
and what's wrong
and the younger brother
represents
that rebel spirit,
that free spirit,
right?
His is the way
of self-discovery.
He says the world
would be a better place
if tradition
and authority
and all the barriers
to personal freedom
were just removed,
right?
And he says,
I'm gonna be the only one
who decides what's right
and what's wrong for me
and I'm gonna go find
true,
my true self,
I'm gonna go find happiness
by living the way
I wanna live
and that's one way.
But the other way
is the way
of the older brother,
he's responsible,
he's honorable,
his is the way
of moral conformity.
He says the world
would be a better place
if all of us
had more self-control,
if all of us
had more discipline,
if we all just put
other people ahead
of our own individual
fulfillment
and self-expression.
He says,
I'm not gonna do
what I wanna do,
he says,
I'm gonna do
what God wants me to do,
what my parents
want me to do,
what other people
want me to do
and Jesus' question
when we look
at these two brothers
is to say,
which way is more
self-centered
and which way
is more
self-destructive?
Because the reality is
both of these sons
are alienated
from their father.
Both of these sons
shockingly
are spiritually dead
and morally lost.
Both of them
need the father
to go out
and invite them
into the feast.
And the younger son
comes into the feast
but the older son
does not.
On the outside,
that older son,
he seems all put together,
he seems like
there's nothing wrong
with him
but on the inside,
Jesus says,
he's actually
full of sin.
And Jesus says,
do you see
that older son
in yourself?
Does Jesus'
description of his heart
resonate
with what lies
beneath the surface
of your own heart?
Listen to what
verse 28 says,
the older brother
became angry
and he refused
to go in.
You see,
there's a fire
of self-righteous anger
that's burning
on the inside
against his brother's
unforgivable
irresponsibility
and against the father's
uncalculating
grace
and generosity.
And this older son,
he actually feels
not just superior
to his younger brother,
he feels superior
to his father.
He's openly
insulting his father,
he's refusing
to join in the father's
feast
and we can see
like his relationship
with the father,
he seems fine
but his relationship
is broken.
He's run just as far
away from his younger
brother
even though he's
right there at home.
It's just so much
more subtle,
it's more inward,
it's more hidden
and therefore
it's more dangerous.
The older brother
became angry,
it says in verse 28,
he refused to go in
so his father went out
and pleaded with him
but he answered his father,
look,
all these years
I've been slaving
for you
and I've never
disobeyed
your orders.
His resentment
and his bitterness
indicate that he
sees himself less
as a beloved son
and more
as a beholden slave.
He says,
I've never disobeyed you,
I've worked hard
to live up
to your standards,
I've been a good person
so now you owe me
and you gotta do things
in my life
the way I want you
to do them.
I've lived a good life
so you should be
giving me a good life.
Any of you ever
judge God like that?
Verse 29,
he says,
look,
all these years
I've been slaving
for you,
I've never disobeyed
your orders
and yet
you never gave me
even a young goat
so I could celebrate
with my friends.
But when the son
of yours
who squandered
your property
with prostitutes
comes home,
you kill the fattened
calf for him.
You see,
he's using
his moral life
thinking that it
gives him leverage
and control
over the father.
he says,
you know what,
I've actually earned
the right to tell you
how to run the household
and to instruct you
on how all the stuff
in your estate
ought to be deployed.
And here he is
with this incredible
opportunity
to delight the father,
to celebrate his brother
by going into the feast
and yet
in just absolute
resentment
and refusal
we can see
that on the inside
he really has
a hard
and a cold heart.
And the goal
of his obedience
all along
it hasn't been love,
it's been control.
This older son
wants the same thing
that the younger son
wants,
he just wants it
in a different way.
The younger son
he's chafed
at partaking
of the family's assets
under the father's
supervision
and so he wants
to just make
his own decisions.
He wants to be free,
he wants to be
unfettered
and so he defiantly
declares
his independence
from the father.
But you know
this older son
is just as resentful
because he too
wants the father's goods
rather than the father himself.
Neither son
loved the father
for himself.
Both of these sons
are using the father
for self-centered ends
rather than loving the father
for his own sake,
rather than delighting
in the father
and enjoying the father
and serving the father
just simply
for who he is.
Are you not shocked
by this message
of Jesus
because he says
you can become
alienated from God
by breaking
all the rules
or you can become
just as alienated
from God
by keeping
all the rules
carefully
and diligently.
And Jesus says
do you see
and do you hear
this older brother
in your heart?
He's never left home
but he has this
slavish obedience
that's driven him
just as far away
from his father
as his younger brother
ever was
in that pagan
pigsty.
And how does the father
respond to the hard
and resistant heart
of his older son?
Well he says
it says in verse 28
or verse 31
it says
my son
the father said
you are always
with me
and everything
I have
is yours.
The father goes out
and he's pleading
with his son
you know
if it had been me
I would have said
hey
why don't you
stay outside
and we'll just
have this party
without you.
You know
if it were up
to all the villagers
they would have said
you should disown
this rebellious son
right here on the spot.
But this father
who's been
painfully humiliated
earlier in the day
by running
to his younger son
he does the same
for his older
lost son.
For the second time
in one day
he goes out
in a costly demonstration
of unexpected grace
and he goes
not to scold
he goes not to rebuke
as we might expect
this is a kissing father.
It says
he goes out
in verse 28
to plead with his son
and he says
my son
you are always
with me
and everything
I have
is yours.
This father
is so good
he tenderly
bypasses
all the bitterness
all the arrogance
all the insults
all the distortion
of facts
all the unjust
accusations
the attacks
on his character
the rejection
of his love
and this father
is just graciously
pleading
with his son
who thinks
he's a slave
and this father
of all grace
he says
I just want you
to know two things
number one
you're always with me
and I'm always
with you
and you can count
on me
I'm
totally trustworthy
and I'm absolutely
reliable
and I'm
completely
a faithful
father to you
and secondly
not only
are you always
with me
but everything
I have
is yours
because
of your
relationship
with me
you have
a massive
inheritance
you have
an abundance
of riches
don't you
realize
that I've
graciously
already
given you
all things
how much
more
could I
possibly
give you
don't you
know
all the
privileges
that you're
already
living in
you see
the father
hopes
that he'll
soften
this hard
heart
and he'll
liberate
this
slavish
heart
and he'll
deliver
this
self-righteous
heart
that's
become
more about
performance
and more
about
outward
appearance
and more
about
control
than it
really is
about
relationship
than it
really is
about
the loving
bonds
of affection
friends
do you
hear the
father's
pleading
grace
for you
it's
this
invitation
that's
for us
to say
father
in my
self-righteousness
!
I too
have sinned
against heaven
against you
and I'm
no longer
worthy to be
called
your son
in this
first son
we see
costly
grace
for the
self-defeated
in the
second son
we see
pleading
grace
for the
self-righteous
but I want
to say
just a
final word
as we
come to
this
family
meal
together
this
family
feast
of joy
because I
think
there's a
word here
about
reconciling
grace
for the
family
of God
and again
the more
time I have
on a
sermon
the shorter
it is
so I'm
sorry
Duke's
going to
the final
four
and I
just haven't
had the
time
the past
few days
but listen
to what
the father
says
here at
the end
and think
about its
implications
for what
we're to be
as a
family
the family
of God
he says
my son
the father
said
you are
always
with me
and everything
I have
is yours
but he
says
we
not just
I
but we
had to
celebrate
and be
glad
because
this
brother
of yours
not just
this son
of mine
but this
brother
of yours
was dead
and is
alive again
he was
lost
and he's
found
we don't
really know
how the
story
ends
right
Jesus
again
curtain
falls
cliffhanger
open ending
is this
son
coming
inside
or not
is he
going to
stay a
slave
or is he
going to
become
free
is he
going to
live in
self-righteous
resentment
and bitterness
or is he
going to
have the
father's
joy
but it
closes
he's
still
dead
and he's
still
lost
and the
implication
of this
open ending
for us
as the
family
of God
is
Jesus
is calling
us
to have
God's
own
beating
heart
for
sinners
he wants
the heart
of God
to be
our heart
and so the
question as we
come to this
table
and we
commit ourselves
and renew
our relationship
with this
amazing
gracious
good
generous
and glorious
father
the question
for us
is if God
the father
is daily
scanning
the horizon
he's daily
seeking
for the
lost to be
found
and the
dead
to be
made
alive
and for
people
that are
far off
in a
far
country
coming
back
to their
true
home
how can
we
as
sons
of the
father
and daughters
of the
father
not also
be seeking
those same
people
that the
father
is seeking
and if
God
himself
is running
down the
road
for
alienated
sinners
with
undeserved
costly
grace
to welcome
them
warmly
into
his
feast
the question
is how
could we
do
anything
less
and if
God
is embracing
all the
strangers
around you
if you look
around you
there's probably
a few people
that you just
don't even
know
absolute
strangers
if God
is embracing
all the
strangers
who are
sitting around
you with
compassion
and calling
them his
sons and
his daughters
how can
we not
embrace them
as well
and reach
out to them
and begin
to build
relationships
with them
to say
well you're
a son
of the
father
so you're
my brother
and you're
a daughter
of the
father
so you're
my sister
you know
if God
has declared
someone
in his
family
forgiven
who
are we
to not
also
forgive
them
if God
looks at the
person that's
sitting next
to you
today
or the
person
sitting
next to
you
later
this
week
in your
community
group
and he
he's
declared
that person
is no longer
lost but
they're found
they're no longer
dead but
they're alive
and if he's
rejoicing over
that person
then who are
we to have
a cold
and a hard
heart
toward them
who are
we to be
lacking
in joy
who are
we to
refuse
the father's
joy that
he has
for that
other
person
you see
if God
has accepted
people who
are coming
to this
table
with his
most precious
gifts
if God
has spared
no expense
to restore
them from
absolute shame
to the
highest place
of honor
if God
has given
them his
robe and
his ring
and his
sandals
and his
fattened
calf
then how
can we
not also
accept
and honor
those
whom God
has accepted
and honored
at great
cost
to himself
Paul says
the apostle
Paul in
Romans 12
he says
be devoted
to one
another
and honor
one another
above yourselves
another translation
says love
one another
with mutual
affection
and outdo
one another
in showing
honor
you see the
father's not
only seeking
to reconcile
his sons
to himself
but what he
wants to do
is reconcile
his sinful
kids
with each
other
and the
question of
this parable
is will
this family
of the
father
be reunited
in love?
Will this
family of the
father live
together in
unity
and joy
and peace?
Will we
as the people
of God
learn how to
live happily
ever after
given all
that God
has done
to make
that possible?
So I want
you to think
about that
as we come
to this table
in the name
of the father
son and
holy spirit
amen