O How He Love…! (9/8/19 Family Service)

ATTN: Many years ago, as a youth pastor, I used to take a youth mission team down to Southern California every summer to visit churches and homeless shelters and perform songs, skits, and testimonies. One of the skits was the prodigal son story re-enacted in a modern setting. And there’s a song titled, “When God Ran”, they performed after the skit and whenever I heard the line that said, “He said Son, He said son, my son! Do you know I still love you…” I would get a lump in my throat. And I would imagine one day being married and having a son and imagining losing him and having him come back and how emotional and happy I would be. Well, I don’t have a son, but even better, I have two daughters. And I can’t even imagine losing them… But for Jesus to use the story of the prodigal son to describe how much sinners mattered to God – that He likened them to a son, that says everything about how much God truly loves us. 

I believe this story that Benson just told to the children is the greatest story ever told. Why? Because it’s told by the greatest person who’s ever lived – Jesus Christ. It’s a about the greatest being ever – God. and its subject is the greatest subject ever – love and redemption. I only have a short time and thus let me draw up three lessons from this stroy: 

 

1. God loves it when messed up people come to Him. 

When each item was found, how did the finder react? When the shepherd found the sheep, he calls his friends and neighbors and says, “Rejoice with me, I have found my lost sheep!” When the woman find the lost coin, she does the same – calls her friends and neighbors and says, “Rejoice with me, I’ve found my lost coin!’ and when the father is reunited with the son, “kill the cow, let’s eat and celebrate!” Each one was ecstatic that he’s found the one that was lost. 

We all know who the shepherd, the woman and the father represent – God! Therefore, Jesus is telling us that God gets ecstatic when a sinner comes to Him.  God loves it when messed up people come to Him. How different is this from the image of God that most of us have? Most of us, when we sin, we picture a God with crossed arms and furrowed eyebrows, growling under His breath ready to pounce on us.

ILL: I was talking to a former youth who hasn’t been to church a long time and she said, “Pastor Hong, God won’t accept me. Not the way I’ve been living…” If she didn’t walk away from me, I would’ve told her, “No, that’s exactly why Jesus came! To find and save us who messed up so royally!”  

APP: God is not happy when a person who’s lived a pretty good life and says, “I’ve lived a better life than most. God, you should receive me because I deserve it.” Rather, it’s those who say, “have mercy on me O Lord a sinner!” 

 

2. It is God who does the searching.

Who is the main character in the prodigal son story? It’s not the son. It’s the father. 

In all three stories, it is the god-representative who is looking for the lost item. In the lost sheep, sheep is so dumb that it cannot find its way. So the shepherd is the one looking for the sheep. In the lost coin, the coin is an inanimate object. Of course it cannot find its way home. But what about the story of the prodigal son? Didn’t he find his own way home? This used to stump me. But think about who’s telling the story and to whom? It is Jesus. Who left heaven to hang out with the sinners so that they could be saved. Jesus is the older brother who went and looked for his younger brother so that he can be reconnected with the father. So, in every case, it is God who is looking for sinners. If you are a Christian, if you have found God, it’s not that you have found Him, but that He has found you. He came and searched for you long before you ever thought about turning to Him. 

APP: Be humbled. Be thankful. It’s not anything you have done. It’s purely by His mercy and grace that He has come after you to find you. 

 

3. God is eager to forgive (v. 22)

When the son came back, the father doesn’t even wait for the son to speak. He grabs him, hugs and kisses him that he’s so overjoyed at seeing him. And when the son finally gets a word in and confesses he’s done wrong, what does the Father say? “That’s good son, but you will have to prove to me that you mean it?” No. He says, “Let’s have a party! My son was lost and is found!” So eager and ready to forgive and receive His son back. That’s the type of God we have. He knows all that we have done. All our secret sins and hang-ups. And yet, when we even make a small move toward Him, He’s all over us, dousing us with kissess and calls for a huge party in heaven. 

ILL: My evangelism professor in seminary used to say that whenever a person that we are witnessing to receives Christ, we are to say to that person, “The angels in heaven are having a huge party in heaven right now!” 

Remember why these stories were told. They were an answer to the question, “Jesus, why are you hanging out with sinners?” His answer: Because God is so eager to see sinners come to Him. Jesus is saying, “I would rather be with messed up sinners who know they are sinners than those who are squeak clean but look down their nose at those who are not like them!” 

God is eager to forgive sinners. He’s not a reluctant forgiver. He’s so eager to forgive. His anger lasts a moment but his favor lasts a lifetime.

 

Applications: 1. No matter how royally you have messed up, what you have done, how bad you were, however many times, God will always, always receive you back with gladness if you will come to Him. 

2. Be gentle and compassionate toward those who are living messed up lives right now. Remeber that God didn’t save you because you were better than them. God saved you precisely because you were a hot mess and you couldn’t save yourself. So, are the people who are living messed up lives right now. They are also the ones that Christ died for. They could be redeemed, cleansed, and become sons and daughters of God that we would be tempted to worship them in heaven one day.