Thanks be to Jesus our
Lord for this new day. It is going to be warm and brilliant.
The weather service is forecasting that Spring is making an early debut.
We are excited. The Lord blessed us in His House yesterday. It was
great to be back in our home church after being away for so long. There
was a fellowship reception following the worship service. It was a very
sunny evening. Alice and I took a long walk on the streets of
"our town". This morning I am listening to the "Best of
Bach".
I
have heard from so many of from all over. Thank you for kind and prayer
filled thoughts and comments. I even heard from one of my former
colleagues who lives in the Philippines. The last time I saw him was in
May1977.
Please
join me in praying for those in our circles need the Healing Touch of our Lord
and Savior today. Please pray for
- Linda, our dear friend and sweet servant of Jesus, who is recovering from recent surgery.
- Roger.. dear friend a sweet singer of Jesus.
- Jane a fellow servant of Christ , going for neurosurgery .
One
of the readings for Sunday was taken from Luke 15. The parable
recorded in Luke 15:11-32 is one of the most familiar and well-loved of all of
Christ’s parables. Barclay called it “the greatest short story in
the world”. It is often called the parable of the lost son, or more commonly,
the parable of the Prodigal Son, but I would like to suggest that this
parable would be better titled: “The Parable of the Loving Father” because that
is the emphasis.
The point of the parable of the Prodigal Son is not the depth of the lostness of the son, but the depth of the love of the father. In fact, the depth of the lostness of the son is shown only to highlight the depth of the love of the father! This is the major theme throughout the Bible from Genesis 3:8 where God sought Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to Revelation 22:17 where “the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!'”. Everywhere in between we see God calling for and seeking sinners! Jesus described his own mission by saying, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).
Most of us are familiar with the story, "The
Wizard of Oz". In "The Wizard of Oz", Dorothy
spent the first part of the story trying to find a way to get away from
home, which she found wearisome, tiring, boring, and cruel. After
she winds up in Oz, she spends the rest of the story trying to find a
way back home to Kansas. Finally, she learns the truth that she had
always had the ability to go home anytime she wanted to. All she had to
do was click the heals of her ruby slippers together three times and say, “There’s
no place like home.” When she did this, she went home! She had
to come to the place where she understood that home was better than she ever
thought or imagined.
In
the parable, Jesus told the story of a young man who couldn’t wait to get away
from home. The young son very selfishly demanded that he
receive his inheritance from his father, which he took and headed out to a
far country. He proceeded to "live it up", free from the
restraints of his father and his rules. What he found in the far country
was not what he expected to find. While he found good times and new
friends, his money ran out. When the money was gone, the good times and
good friends ran out too. He found himself living with a pig farmer in the
far country, working day by day feeding the pigs. He was broke, lonely,
and no one cared about him! When he finally reached bottom, he came
to his senses and remembered how good things had been at home after all.
He remembered that there is no place like home, so he returned home with a plan
to be a servant in his father’s house. When he arrived back home he found
more there than he ever bargained for, and in the end he really did realize
that there is no place like home!
When
sinners come home, they also receive a robe - a robe of righteousness -
from the heavenly Father, (Isaiah 61:10; Revelation 7:9-14). This
righteousness is not the righteousness of good works or of human goodness, but
the very righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to those who receive Him by
faith, Phil. 3:9! When we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, all the
pain and the stain of our past is forever washed away! After the robe
came the ring, a symbol of son- ship and authority. The one with the ring
could speak for the Father, and was granted full access to all that belonged to
the father! The one with the father’s ring was in a position of great
privilege. When we come to the Father, He opens the storehouses of His
grace and gives us everything He has. What a privilege belongs to those
who go home to the Father!
The
father called for shoes to be brought for the feet of his son. Only the
slaves went barefoot, sons wore shoes! This boy returned home desiring to
be merely a hired servant, but the father was determined to recognize his
position as a son. In the boy’s eyes, he didn’t even deserve to be a slave
or even a hired servant, but the father looked at him and said, “This
is my son!” The father alone determines the position and worth of his
children! The end of this parable is left open. Did the elder
brother ever come into the feast? Did he ever reconcile with his younger
brother? We do not know because those things are in the future.
Jesus left the parable open-ended so that the Pharisees and the scribes could
write the final paragraph for themselves.
Today, we
get to write the final paragraph to our own story. How it ends is
determined by what we do with the call of the Lord in our hearts.
Though we may find ourselves in the pig pen of life we can say goodbye to
the pigs and come home to the Father. He will receive us
and He will restore us to a place of blessing and
rejoicing. Maybe we are like the elder brother. We are in
the Father’s house, but we aren’t having a festive time!
Maybe it’s time to come on down to the feast. Whichever brother we are,
there is always the opportunity and the need for us to come to the
Father. Regardless of where we are today, there’s no
place like home! If we are in the far country, we need to
come home. The door is open, the table is spread and the Father is
waiting for all who will come!
In Christ our
Lord,
Brown
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