The tale of 2 sons - for the next two weeks we’ll be exploring the prodigal sons and the older brother. In the story of these two different brothers is a revelation of the Fatherhood of God that I hope will open door for you to see Him in a way you’ve never had… and receive the healing you’ve always longed for…
Kingdom Community TV Podcast
Finding The Healing Power of The Fathers Love | Episode 3
Good morning everyone. Welcome to episode three of Finding the Healing Power of the Father's Love from making the journey from distant deity to dear daddy. So today we're going to talk about a topic that everybody's aware of, if you've been in the church any length of time, and even if you haven't, I'm sure about the prodigal son, but this week we're going to look at the prodigal son and next week we're going to look at the elder brother. And in these two, two different brothers, right, two different temperaments, two different attitudes, but the same father. But they both had a very skewed view of their father. They really didn't know who their father was. But through this parable that Jesus gave, we're going to get to see really a glimpse of the fatherhood of God. I also want to remind everybody before we jump into the verse that sometimes we as Christians forget that when Jesus was on earth in his public ministry and in his preaching during his public ministry, the Old Testament was in full effect. The law was in full effect. The law was not abolished until Jesus died on the cross. He died on the cross and he said it was finished and he gave up the ghost and then the veil separated. The holy praise from the holy of holies was rent, was torn from top to bottom. God had removed that separation that man had as a result of the law. So keep that in mind because if you remember nothing else about today, you have to keep in mind that everything Jesus said, he said it before he died and the law was in effect. A lot of well-meaning Christians, Christians with good hearts, with a good desire to praise the Lord, they read these things that Jesus said and said okay this is the way it's supposed to be, like the Lord's prayer and everything else. You have to remember the law was still in effect and Jesus came to fulfill the law, not to abolish it. By fulfilling the law in himself, we enter into that fulfillment and therefore we have peace with God, Paul said through Jesus Christ our Lord and then we become sons and daughters of God because as I mentioned last week, unless you're born of water and spirit, you cannot enter into the kingdom, Jesus said in John chapter 3. So we're born again, same old body, our new spirit. Now this is very, very important, because we're going to see a real wonderful picture of the fatherhood of God, of the compassion and tender side of God, but it needs to be tempered with the fact that this story takes place before the cross, right? So this is kind of a glimpse of who God was before Jesus died, right? So let's get into it, shall we? Okay, so Jesus gets into it in verse 11, he says he also said meaning Jesus, a man had two sons, this is a real story that Jesus is telling here by the way. The younger of them said to his father, "Father, give me the share of the estate I have coming to me." So he distributed the assets to them, now what does that mean? He wanted his money, give him my money, give him my inheritance, basically I don't want you to die, I'm not going to wait for you to die, I want my money now. Now because of that, he had to sell all the assets and divide it between the older brother and the younger brother, right? So keep this in mind because this is going to become very important next week. So the older brother gets money, right? He gets his inheritance, so to speak, and so does the younger son, right, the younger boy. Then verse 13, "Now many days later, I freaked back to stuff, got his money, right? Got all his bags full of gold or silver. The younger son gathered together all he had and traveled to a distant country. He wanted to get as far away from his father as he could and his brother in that whole household, where he squandered his estate in foolish living. He took everything that he had, and he just spent it, right? Just foolish living, spending it on stupid things, and whatever it is. Now, after he had spent everything, now he is completely out of money, a severe famine struck that country and he had nothing, right? He spent everything he had, and now a famine hit, so he did no planning, you know, no estate planning, no future planning, no future thought. A famine hit the land where he was at, and now he had nothing, right? Verse 15, "Then he went to work for one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his fields to feed pigs." Now the story that Jesus is telling it to Jews, now we don't know whether or not these were Jews or not. We can't read into it, but the analogy of pigs is important because pigs are considered to file, they're not supposed to be eaten by Jews. So for a Jew listening to the story, it's like, wow, you've sunk so low that you even started feeding pigs that are forbidden by the law. He longed to eat his field from the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one would give him anything, right? So he's feeding the pigs with these pods, and he's so hungry that he wants to eat the very pods that are being fed to the pigs, but no one would give him anything. In other words, he'd probably say, hey, can I have some of them and say, no, no, this is for the pigs, this is for you. So pigs were higher than the younger son, like, you know, pigs are the lowest of the low, and he was lower than the lowest of the low, right? 17 said, when he came to his senses, when he said, you know, what am I doing here, right? He said, how many of my father's hard workers have more than enough food, and here I am dying of hunger. Now I want you to notice this. This is the first, one of the first times where he begins to compare his current circumstances to his household where he came from. Maybe he thought like the servants, ah, you know, they're nothing. He didn't appreciate, you know, many times we don't appreciate things until we lose them. We don't appreciate the people in our lives until they're gone. And then we're living with regret on how, well, I should have treated them this way. I should have said this. I should have done that. And it's too late. Now, you know, in Romans 8, they say, there is now there for no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So if you're in a situation like that, listen, ask the Lord for forgiveness for it. Not ask for forgive. You've been forgiven, but acknowledge that you treated that person wrong, right? And if it's within your power to rectify that, then do it. And if it's not at that person, you don't know where they are or where they've gone or maybe they went home to be with the Lord or whatever, then you know what, you just release it to the Lord. But this is the coming of the senses, right? It's like, wow, I look back and I said, you know, I didn't really appreciate what I had. But now I do. Maybe he looked down on the servants, but he's like, wow, the servants ain't better than where I'm at. You see what I'm saying? So he, you know, he thought life was too horrible and I can do life better on my own. No, you can't. Now this just begins the process of him thinking about his father's house. And now he begins to see like, wow, my father's servants ain't better than this. And now he begins to appreciate why my father treated his servants almost like children. He treated them well. And here I am suffering. So then we go on. I'll get up, go to my father and say to him, father, I have sinned against having it in your sight. Repentance. Right. Mete Noya in the Greek to change the way you think. He's already started the changing of thinking process. While he's in there with those pigs, he's realizing what kind of a father he had that treated his servants so well. But he didn't appreciate it when he was in his father's house. So now he starts to change the way he's thinking. And he's thinking, wow, I have done such a horrible thing to my father. I can never ever be his son, like he'll never, he's already giving me my inheritance. That's it. I got nothing. But maybe I've seen now, I remember now all of a sudden, you know, when you're in it, you don't remember when you get out of it and you find yourself in your mess and you start thinking back, you start to see the compassion and the mercies of God. Like, wow, you know, I really didn't have it as bad as I thought. Yeah, you didn't. But he's like, but I know that my father treats his servants very well. So perhaps if I turn around and I go back and I ask him, look, I'm not worthy to be your son. I've sinned against heaven and against you. Just make me one of your servants because those guys eat well and sleep well, right? I'm no longer worthy to make me like one of your hired workers, just make me like one of the people that you hired, one of your maid servants, one of your slaves or whatever. Make me one of those because man, that's better than the circumstances I find myself. So he got up and went to his father. He experienced a paradigm shift in his thinking. He looked at his circumstances. He started looking back and thinking about his father and thinking about how his father's servants were so much better off than he was. And then he starts to say, hmm, what the heck am I doing? And then he begins to appreciate, I believe in that moment, how well his father treated his servants that the servants were probably well dressed for, you know, back in ancient times, you can tell when you saw in the marketplace that where servants would go and shop and do all those things. There were different types of servants, the ones that were well dressed, they had really good shoes, clean, maybe not clean-shaven, but clean and washed and whatever. They came from rich people. Rich people took care of their servants because a servant was a representation of you. If they looked like a bunch of, you know, chumps and dirty and nasty and homeless looking, that was a poor reflection on you as their master. So typically, they were treated very well. But this father, I think, went even further because remember everything Jesus talks about, every parable, every story that he gives gives you a glimpse of the heart of God. You know, it's not just a story. You have to look between the lines and see it. I guarantee you that these servants were the best, clean, fed, slept, dressed servants of all. And this kid remembered, and he's like, "Wow, I'd rather be one of them." He didn't appreciate it. When he had everything at his feet, he couldn't appreciate it. He could not appreciate it until he lost everything, found himself in a far country, and then realized, "Wow, you know, I made a huge mistake. I need to go back home." Right? And he says, "He got up and he went to his father. He put action, thought process, talked it out, spoke it out, and then walked it out." Now, so he got up and went to his father. He got up, started walking away. But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran through his arms, round his neck, and kissed him. Now, I want you to see that these glimpses of the fatherhood of God are glimpses of these glimpses of, you see these stories of real to the heart of God. Remember last week we were talking about in Jeremiah, you know, "I have loved you with an everlasting love, and with loving kindness and tender mercies, literally," he said, "I have drawn you to myself." Old Testament. God is talking about Israel, Israel who was out horing and idolizing and doing all kinds of crazy things. But God's love is never in you. He loves you, and there's not like, "Oh, okay, you did this," and the Old Testament, it had to be punishment. It had to be disciplined because Israel wanted to be measured by what they did, and God is a perfect God. God doesn't just judge your actions, he judges your thoughts, the thoughts behind those actions. But thank God for the blood of Jesus, because you and I don't have to worry about that, because Jesus took all of our sins and diseases and infirmities and everything on that cross. We are not living that fully in our lives because we don't believe that this is how good God is. We measure the goodness of God based on what's going on in our lives. And this young man hit bottom and he remembered, right? There's an Old Testament scripture that says, "This I recall to mine therefore I uphold. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, great is thy faithfulness." Old Testament, God disciplined, God punished his people, but man who never stopped loving them, never stopped loving them. And so we see this God, look at this, while they were still a long way off, the Father was filled with compassion. Let's think about Israel, when Israel was a far off still, when they realized, "Wow, we've really sunk low, we've become captains of our enemies, we've lost all of that." And then they begin to turn their heart back towards God, he's filled with compassion and he runs through them, throws his arm around their neck and kisses him. Now this kid had to stink. We don't know how long he was gone, but if this father was extremely wealthy, so this kid had a lot of money, it took him a while to burn through all that money, right? And then we had this famine, we don't know how long that was going on. We also don't know how long he, you know, sometimes people pry, oh my God, pry keeps us from really repenting, from really changing our mind, from really acknowledging our bad attitudes and the things that got us into the mess that we're in today. We just, no, no, no, I'm just waiting for God to heal me, I'm just waiting for God to open the door, I'm just waiting for God. And God is waiting on you. Your will is the big, in my opinion, your will is the biggest thing that keeps us from entering into the fullness of what Jesus did for us on that cross. Your will, my will, right? Pastor Sharon preached a message years ago on that verse that says, "Delight yourself in the Lord and he shall grant you the desires of your heart." That word, "delight" means to make yourself soft and pliable in his hands. It's Jesus plus, right? It's me plus something else. I want Jesus to bless my plants. I want Jesus to bless this relationship that I want. I want this job. I want, I want, I want, I want. I don't stop to say, "Lord, what do you want? What's your will? Is this person right for me? Should I marry this person? Should I take this job? Should I leave this job and go here? Should I do that? Should I do that? No, we don't do that. It's an act of humility and contrition to do that. David, in 1 Samuel, chapter 30, I believe, he lost his two wives and all his kids. Why? Because he was acting like a maniac. He was with the Philistines and all that. They came in and they took everything. Everybody was waiting, weeping and crying and angry at David. And the scripture says that David was greatly distressed. For the people spake of stoning him, for the souls of the people were grieved. Every man for his sons, for his daughter, I guess they didn't care about their wives. But David incursed himself in the Lord, his God. He remembered, "I got myself into this mess because I did what I wanted to do. Just like this young man, I did what I wanted to do and I failed. But I'm encouraged because I know the heart of God." See, you've got to know the heart of God when you know the heart of God no matter how low you've sunk, no matter what you're suffering from, no matter how sick you are, no matter how close to the death story you are. If you know the heart of God and you know God as a daddy, man, there's hope. You can get up and be like, "I can encourage myself. I know the heart of my God. I know the heart of my Father." And it's not. My last chapter hasn't been written yet. Man, you take that attitude. You will rise. And what does he says? And then it says, "David inquired at the Lord." He called Abraham the priest to bring him the limit, Ephah. And he inquired at the Lord. And he says, "Shall I pursue after this truth? Will I overtake them?" And the Lord said, "Pursue for that shall surely overtake them." And without fail, we'll cover all. Let me tell you something. He went to the Lord and the Lord could have said, "No." He didn't just get up and said, "Oh, they took our wives' his heel. Let's grab our weapons and let's go." No. He recognized that he got himself into that mess because of his willfulness, because of his attitude. And he's like, "You know what? I'm not doing this again. If I lose everything, even if I were to lose everything, I know God will restore me with a new wife and new children." That was his confidence of going to that Ephah and asking the Lord, "Shall I pursue?" He asked for permission, fully knowing that God could have said to him, "No, no, that's it. You blew it. Too much for building. Too much stuff. That's it. It's gone." That was not God's response. He said, "Pursue for that shall surely overtake him." God failed to recover all, and he did. And then fast forward into the future, he sleeps with Bathsheba. Nathan, the prophet, comes and confronts me, says, "These things that you've done have caused the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. What enemies? Satan?" He said, "Look, there's your man after your own heart. Look what he's done. Look what he's done. Different situation." And he prayed for his son, and his son died, because Nathan said, "You shall not die, but your son shall surely die." It was that divine exchange. God had to punish somebody. Somebody had to die for what he did. But God's love for David was so much that instead he took his son, and you know what? He gave him something better. He gave him Son. This is God. Look, we're talking. This is Old Testament, man. We haven't even gotten into the New Testament. We haven't even gotten into the epistles. This is Old Testament, because you need to keep in mind that even though this is the Luke, the gospel, this is still the Old Testament. Jesus hasn't died yet, so then the son said he goes, his father comes, grabs him around the neck, kisses him, hugs him, loves him, and then the son says, "Father, I have sinned against heaven in your sight, and no longer worthy to be called your son." He didn't even get to tell him, "Make me a slave." First twenty-two, "But the father told his servants, 'Quick, bring the best row and put on him and put it on him, put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.' He was probably almost practically naked, worn out clothes or whatever. The best row, when a guest, honored guest comes, would go to a person's house in ancient times that would get the best rows or a multicolored row, think of Joseph's multicolored row, and they would put it on him as a symbol of honor. Put a ring on his finger, back then with no credit cards, so you had a ring that had the signet of your family, right, so you would go and barter and buy whatever you needed to do, and they would give you a clay talent or a wax talent you would put your thing on and put your seal, and by doing that you guarantee that that debt was going to be paid. They didn't question it, "No, no, this is the rich kid's father, I mean rich father's kid, so we're good." That's the symbol of powers, that ring, it's a symbol of sonship, it's a symbol of authority, it means that you can make transactions and transact business on the father's behalf with that ring, that is it, he restored his sonship, and they said put sandals on his feet. Sandals, there's different types of sandals, but the type of sandals that are spoken here are the type that rich people wore, it wasn't normal sandals, like, you know, most people were barefooted back then, there were no shoes, if you had a little bit of money, you had some type of sandal or something on your feet, but if you were wealthy, you had like the real thing, right, made of leather and, you know, cured leather and all these things, that's what he said to put them on his feet, in this verse, he honored his son, restored his sonship, and lifted him above the dirt, because dirt was everywhere, he was living in dirt and now his father has put sandals on his feet and has elevated him above the dirt, he has been fully restored, he never stopped being a son, but the father restored him into the place of sunship, the place of authority as a son, see, we made backslide and we made going to the world, but you could never lose your salvation, you could never stop being God's child, but when we come to our senses like this young man did, and the father comes and restores the authority that we had before, the standing, the power that goes and the privilege that goes with sunship, that many of us never enter into, because we don't have an understanding of God as that kind of father, then he said, bring the fatted calf and slaughter it, let's slaughter it with a feast, they would have this calf that they would fatten it, and they would keep it in the stall just for a special occasion, well this was a special occasion, and he says here that first 20, but because this son of mine was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found, so they began to celebrate, made a big deal, a whole party over, now we have about 8 minutes left, Old Testament right, wonderful picture, look what the father did, now let's take a glimpse of what it looks like on this side of the cross, this is Matthew 18, what do you think, if someone has 100 sheets and one of them goes to strike, won't he leave the 99 in the hillside and go and search for the mother, and if he finds it truly I tell you he rejoices over the sheep more than over the 99 that did not go astray, remember that when we do the elder brother next week, but this is now the good shepherd who is Jesus, see the father in the Old Testament couldn't go after people, because you make your decision, the law is the law, it's the relationship with God as transactional, unless you're David and you have a heart after God, that means he's a man after my own heart did, God said, that means he knows my heart, right, God had limitations in the Old Testament because man put them there, they wanted to transact with him based on what they did, not in who he was and who they were, but here Jesus is saying hey, if I lose one, I'm going to go after it, I'm going to pursue it, I'm going to leave the 99 and go after it, I'm going to rejoice for the one, so you may wander astray, but God, Jesus will come after you, I am living proof of that, I won't get into it now, we don't have time for that right now, and then, I am the good shepherd, I know my own and my own own, John 10, 14, he knows us and we know him, maybe you may not know him as well as you want to know him, maybe you may not be as intimately acquainted with who he is, maybe there's something inside of you that struggles with trying to comprehend and understand who God is and who Jesus says, but the fact of the matter is you may not know him, but he knows you, and in this life that we live now, it is far more important for us to know that he knows us, and not as much as we know him, if we are known by him, if we are known by God, then we are his children, we are Jesus' disciples, there is a commitment that is made to our well-being, to our protection, now, the thing becomes this, and we'll get into it more next week, is how do we enter into that, what other things that keep us from entering into that, see, the young man, the prodigal, found out about his father's heart, because he left, and he saw this stark contrast between what was out there and what was in his father's house, there were things in his father's house that he took for granted, there were things in his father's house that, quite frankly, he didn't appreciate, like, for example, the way the father treated his servants, the way the servants dressed and slept and ate, but when he was with nothing, then he looked back and said, "Wow, I missed it." "Wow, I missed it." And so, now, he comes back and he has a deeper and greater appreciation of the father's love and of the father's household and his place as his son. Now, he understands. The challenge is, how do we get into that level of understanding without having to leave? Because that's a big challenge, and this is why I'm going to talk about the elder brother who was there all the time, saw the father, but both sons saw the same father, but had a different interpretation of who he was. Perhaps the father had rules, listen, you know, things of that nature, and the younger son is like, "No, I want to do my own thing," and look what happened when he did his own thing, disaster, right? And the older brother was just kind of doing everything as a slave instead of as a son, but neither one of them were functioning as a son. But I guarantee you, this young man, when he came back and was restored, he definitely understood what I mean to be a son. And the wealth of this man, because remember, he took everything he had, he gave the larger portion to the older son because he was the heir, and he gave the portion to the young man. So he gave everything out. Think of how wealthy he was that even though he gave everything out, he still had so much more, right? That's the analogy. He sold everything, gave him his portion, gave the older brother his portion. So the older brother had a portion that was sitting somewhere in a bank, or I don't know where it was, but during that time that the younger left and returned, the father's ability for industry and work ethic and whatever produced even more wealth when he came back. Because now he's back and he's restored. So whatever it is when the father passes, there's still more money to be given to the younger. The thing of it is this, look at that inheritance as the inexhaustible mercies compassion and love of God. It cannot be exhausted. You can leave and come back and leave and come back and can never be exhausted. The only thing you can do by sort of, if you will, playing those games is rob yourself of life. Your attitude will rob you of your life. You definitely will. You need to see yourself the way he sees you, see your circumstances through his eyes. Sometimes, you know, we ask a lot of why, why is this happening? What's going on? And those are like the wrong questions. The first thing is, I'm here now. Where do I go from here? Collotion says, set your thoughts on things above and on things in here. Focus on the most positive thing in your life is that you are a child of God, born of water and spirit, and Jesus died for you on the cross. If focusing on that is not enough to lift your spirits and honestly, I don't know what will. I don't know what will. Because I can tell you, scripturally speaking, that is more than enough for you to begin to elevate yourself. And it may not happen right away. It may take a while. But if you stay consistent and persistent, I trust me. God dwells now inside of you. You don't have to go chasing after him. He's right here in your heart, waiting to love you, to hold you, to cherish you. Didn't you show you how much you loved you? So I hope you were blessed. We're going to continue with Episode 4 next week with the older brother. And that one is going to be pretty interesting. And I think if you have friends and people you know who have been saved for a long time and may be raised in the faith and never quote unquote, "wondered" but are struggling and wondering what in the world is going on, that is the message for you. So thank you for joining us and we will see you next week. God bless you. [BLANK_AUDIO]