Doesn’t it feel great to know that God loves us to the end? That he is committed to love us no matter what we do or don’t do. Yesterday, in my message at church on Hosea’s unusual love, we saw God pursuing
On this post, allow me to walk you through the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15.
The father is God, the son is the guy who drifts away from God in want of material blessings. He took all of the good things that God had given him and he went out and wasted them in loose living, immorality and drunkenness. He comes to a point where he realizes he has hit bottom. He's serving pig slop and having to eat his own meals from the same. In the words of Hosea, he is in the desert, scratched by the thorns, removed from all his possessions. And he realizes that this is not the way to live. And he decides to come to God. And he is coming back sorrowful over his wasted life, sorrowful over squandering all of the wonderful gifts that came from the hand of the Lord. He has wasted his time and all of his opportunities. But he knows where he is. He understands his iniquity. He understands his wickedness. He wants to go back and make things right with his father, with God, and he heads back.
In verse 20, you see God's love demonstrated toward this guy who yearns to come home to God. While he's still a long way off, he is still down the road, he hasn't even been able to reach the presence of his father, his father saw him because he was looking and waiting for the son's return. And when he saw him a far distance of, he felt compassion for him and ran and embraced him and kissed him over and over.. .that .is the indication of the Greek language.
Here you have a picture of the character of God's love. And the amazing thing about this love is that it's given toward one who is utterly undeserving, one who has wasted and misused his God-given blessings and yet the father sees him, feels compassion for him and runs to meet him and throws his arms around him and repeatedly kisses him. Here is tender mercy. Here is forgiveness. Here is compassion. Here is a father treating the son as if there were no past, as if his sins had been buried in the depths of the deepest sea, removed as far as the east is from the west and forgotten. Here is effusive affection. There is not a reluctance that says, "Well, you know, you've really lived a wretched life and I'm going to let you into my house but I really shouldn't do that" attitude. There is no past. It is gone. It has disappeared. And all that the son experiences is embracing and repeated kissing and hugging and the joy of the father is overflowing. This is emblematic of how God loves us when we make that powerful decision to put him above all else in our lives. He loves us back lavishly, He loves us grandly, greatly, affectionately.
And the son is so shocked by this, in verse 21 the son said to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, I'm no longer worthy to be called your sin." It's almost like he pushes him away and says, "Wait a minute, do you understand what I've done? Do you understand what I'm like?" It's almost as if he can't deal with this affection.
This is perhaps the profoundest humiliation. Coming to God after we have sinned against him is a humbling experience. And the first thing that humbles you when you come to God is the awareness of your sin. He was humbled while he was in his desert, while he was eating the pig slop. He became very much aware of a wasted and squandered life. He knew what was available to him from the father. He went back, he confessed his sin against heaven and in the sight of his father. He is now truly repentant . He is turning from his sin, turning from his wasted life and he comes to God and he is humbled, first of all, by his sin.
But then secondly and perhaps more profoundly, he is humbled by God's grace. What is more humbling than the awareness of one's sin is the awareness of God's grace. That is far more humbling. And he wants to push God away, as it were, and say, "Do you really understand what I've done? You're just pouring out love and affection on me, do you know who I am?" That is even more humbling. But such is the love of God toward the one who returns home to him; who would now say, “The Lord takes pre-eminence in my life. He is above all other things. I am coming home to my Father.” It is rich, lavish, effusive, exalting love.
The father doesn't even respond to his hesitant questions in verse 21. The father just says to the slaves, "Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet and bring the fattened calf, kill it and let us eat and be merry." There's not even a regard for the queries of the young man about whether he's worthy or not, he just says start the party, people. "This son of mine," verse 24, "was dead, has come to life again, was lost, has been found, and they began to be merry." And that's the picture of the love of God toward the one who returns to his first love - to God's marvelous love. It is not minimal, it is maximal. It is lavish.
There is a joy that often hits at the soul like a thunderbolt when you come into the full realization of such a love and you just want to dance in the rain. You suddenly feel uninhibited, free … you want to hop, skip, dance. You want to dance in the downpour! That’s what happens when you experience the downpour of God’s marvelous love. Its maximal…lavish…you wanna just dance…
