Sing of God's love, and as we gather tonight to turn to God's word, we have a message that focuses upon that love of God, the love he shows to us even while we are yet sinners. And so I invite you to turn me to the Gospel of Luke, Luke chapter 15. We're reading verses 11 through 32. And you know this passage of scripture more commonly as the parable of the prodigal son. We'll be looking at this parable together tonight. And we are considering it in connection with our study of the Belgic Confession, coming to Article 17, and the recovery of fallen man. And so we'll be reading again from Luke 15, verses 11 through 32, the parable of the prodigal son. It's page 1,112 in your Bibles. And then we'll read also Article 17 of the Belgic Confession, which is page 170 in your Forms and Prayers book. So that's page 170 in your Forms and Prayers book. Begin reading first from Luke chapter 15, starting at verse 11. And Jesus said, there was a man who had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me. And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property and reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the paws that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger? I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, bring quickly the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, and bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And they began to celebrate. Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, Your brother has come, and your father has killed a fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound. But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed a fattened calf for him. And he said to him, Son, you are always with me in all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found. And that ends our reading from God's Word here tonight. And again, we're looking at this in connection with Article 17, the recovery of fallen man. So it's there that we confess we believe that our good God, by His marvelous wisdom and goodness, seeing that man had plunged himself in this manner into both physical and spiritual death and made himself completely miserable, set out to find him, though man trembling all over was fleeing from him. And He comforted him, promising to give him his son, born of a woman, to crush the head of the serpent and to make him blessed. And this ends our reading from our confession here tonight. Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, I count it God's good providence that tonight we have opportunity to look together at God's Word in connection with Article 17 of the Belgian Confession. This morning we were able to return to the book of Matthew and hear something of Christ coming to save sinners. Jesus reminded the Pharisees about how God had said through Hosea that He desires mercy and not sacrifice. God wanted to see in His people this heart of mercy toward one another, and as Jesus then came into the world, He came with this heart of mercy to save and to deliver and to redeem lost sinners. Well, in some respects, what we have here tonight is really part two of our sermon this morning. You might notice even if you were to look at the very beginning of Luke chapter 15, you might notice that here in Luke 15 we have something similar to what we looked at from Matthew this morning. Just ten verses before we get to the parable of the prodigal son, we have again Christ dining with tax collectors and sinners and the scribes and Pharisees grumbling about it. And what you have here with this parable of the prodigal son is intimately connected to that very moment and that critique. It's connected to that behavior and that activity of Jesus whereby he dined with sinners and tax collectors. But what's the connection there? What's the connection between this parable and Christ's activity? What is the connection? Why does Jesus go on to speak of this parable? Because Christ wants us to see God. Christ wants us to understand that he did what he did, he lived as he did, he dined with the people that he did, because God is the God that he is. In this parable, Jesus wants us to see something about God the Father himself. He wants us to learn more about God. And so he gives us this well-known and well-loved parable. One we love, I think, for good reason. It's incredibly rich and powerful. It resonates, I think, with all of us who desire this forgiveness and this reconciliation and this acceptance that comes so powerfully to the forefront in this parable. But instead of focusing upon that acceptance and that forgiveness, I would rather, or intend tonight, to look at it rather in terms of what it teaches us about God. What does this parable of the prodigal son tell us about God? What are we to learn about how God treats sinners here? Well, I would submit to you tonight that this parable shows us how God has a heart of compassion towards sinners. God has a heart of compassion towards lost sinners, and we see this in our parable, in this parable, in three different ways. We find it, first of all, in the illumination of the younger son, secondly, in the impatience of the father, and then thirdly, in the invitation to the older son. So we're going to look at those three pieces of the parable together, the illumination of the young son, the impatience of the father, and the invitation to the older son. Well, again, Article 17, We confess in it that our good God sees what man did to himself, how he plunged himself into physical and spiritual death, and how God, seeing that, seeing what we had done to ourselves, seeing the death we brought upon ourselves, that God has set out to find us. Isn't that beautiful? God set out to find man, although man on his own part, troubling all over, flew, flew away from God. We were running from God, but God runs after us. Beautiful. God pursues us, God chases us. Although we run from Him, He runs to catch us and to find us. And you see, that's what's marvelously pictured here in this parable. In the first case, by means of the illumination of the younger son. We aren't going to focus so much on what the young son has done, but it does, we do need to look something of what he did in order to appreciate what we come to when we speak there of the father. So what was going on here? What is happening in this parable with the young son? Well, we find this young son going to his father and asking for or demanding that the father give him his inheritance. Give me what is mine. Now this, of course, was not done in those days, even as it still isn't done in our day. We don't have our children coming to us and saying, look, mom, dad, I don't know what you have for me in the will, but give it to me today. Nobody does that. And I think we can instinctively feel already that that would be something of the greatest disrespect and the greatest wickedness to do to our parents. Because as you, I think, again, well, can understand, that kind of attitude or that kind of request really communicates to our parents that, really, I can't wait for you to die. I don't wanna hang around for you to die. You're not worth waiting for. Just give it to me now. I don't care about you. I just care about what you have and what will eventually be mine. Basically wishing his father were dead. This young son craves what his father has more than he desires to actually have any fellowship with his father. So he asks for his inheritance that he may leave the home and have all the blessings and the wealth that were his or to be his when his father should happen to die. And even though this is the greatest of offenses to show to his father, we find here the father in the parable giving his son the inheritance. And we watch this son then go off to a strange land and frivolously spend his entire inheritance. We're told he squanders it in reckless living, and the impression is, you might say, that he sowed his inheritance into the wind. It's much like still happens today in our day and age, you know, with many people who win the lottery. It's interesting, people have investigated, you know, what happens to these people who win the lottery? Millions upon millions of dollars. And these people who've investigated have discovered that these millionaires, these lottery winners, are way more miserable after than they ever were before. And you wonder that, you question that. How could it be that they win these millions and millions of dollars and suddenly, within a matter of years, they're miserable and they're alone and they're bankrupt? How could this be? But the reality is that they have so much, they've been given so much, that they never think twice about how they're spending it or what they're doing with it. And so it is, in only a matter of time before they find themselves bankrupt. Money's gone. and they are left with nothing. And you see, that's what happens with this young son. He has all his possessions, he has all his wealth, he takes it and he goes and lives the party life. He goes and spends it all frivolously, food and drink and all kinds of things, just gratifying every desire that runs through his heart. But to make matters worse, he not only loses everything, but suddenly a famine comes into the country and this young man's forced to hire himself out for work. But this work he's forced to take, it brings him into the worst of consequences or circumstances because he's hired to feed pigs. Remember that Jesus is speaking to Jews. He's speaking to his fellow Jews. And so what Jesus is describing, what he's picturing for us here, is a young son who has completely turned his back upon his father and his faith, who's gone to live in Gentile lands, who's working for a pagan man, and who is working to care for unclean animals. Even a Jew with the tiniest amount of respect for God's Word would never dream of taking a job like this, never think of taking a job like this. Any man with the least amount of respect would never, ever do something like this. And here we have this young son giving himself wholly, fully, and completely to an immoral, godless, faithless, unclean, depraved life. This is pictured for us here as a man who truly has made the biggest mess possible of his life, who couldn't go any further away from how God calls him to live. This is a man lost in the absolute depths of sin. And things only get worse for him as this job doesn't even provide enough to give him life or to feed him. In the end, he's envying the pigs and the slop, the pods, the food that they get to eat. This is why the father will even say later on in the parable, verse 24, that my son is dead or was dead. Truly, he is dead. He is as far as you can possibly get in the hole of sin. But then Jesus tells us he came to himself. And the idea is that he came to his senses. It suddenly dawned on him. It suddenly struck him. Suddenly his mind understood and remembered that his father's lowest servants were treated far better than he was being treated here in this land of depravity and uncleanness. The lowest of the low in his father's home had more than enough to live, to survive. while he languishes here in this land of depravity. And so he gains some understanding, he gains some perspective of the situation that he's in, and marvelously as well, he seems to gain some understanding of his father's own character. He seems to come to some sort of conviction that his father, of all people, might just be willing might just be willing to welcome him back into the house at one level or in one sense or another. He understands the magnitude of his suffering and his death that he's living in, but he understands something of the character of his father that his father may just be willing to take him back. Now in this story, in this parable, the young man, the young son comes to this realization on his own. But the rest of the scriptures go on to reveal to us and to teach us that this is the same kind of thing God does with you and I. And that this realization of the depravity and the death and the misery of our life and the possibility of God's grace and mercy is a realization that only comes by the illumination of the Holy Spirit. That only God can wake us up to the death that we live in. That only God can open our eyes to see the misery and the shame of our life. That only God can make us to see the beauty and the glory of Jesus. And to understand that God, that this God that we have sinned against, that this God we have offended might just be willing to unfold us in His arms of love and mercy. And the point you see is, the point is that this illumination of our minds is an expression of what Belgian Confession Article 17 is talking about. That this illumination of our minds is an expression of God's searching for us and seeking us and chasing us down. That this illumination, this coming to our senses is the product of the God who sets out to find us. You see, we don't often appreciate this conviction of sins that we feel, right? We don't like, we usually don't like having our misery exposed to us. But thank the Lord for it. And you see, it's a picture, it's a message to us that God hasn't, as it were, given up on us, but that God is still seeking us and searching for us, and he's calling us out, and he's seeking to open our eyes to see our misery and our sin, and seeking to open our eyes to see our need for his grace and mercy. This illumination, this conviction you feel on your heart is not something to quench, not something to try to destroy or remove, but this is an expression of God's compassion towards you. God doesn't want to let you go. God doesn't want to see you plunge yourself further into sin, but this illumination and this conviction is meant to impress upon your heart that there is a God chasing you down. A God who, as it were, does not want to see you die. A God who does not want to see you lost in sin and misery, but rather that you turn from your way and live. Do you see how much God loves you? Do you see the wondrous compassion of God as we run from Him, as we give ourselves over to all this kind of sin, and we see how far we can run from God, that God chases after us and God would open our eyes, that we see we're chasing nothing but death? and realize in that moment that God has something, something even the little that God may have is far greater than all the pleasures of death and all the wonders that death may parade before our eyes. You see something of God's compassionate heart in the illumination of our minds, the conviction of our spirits as God opens our eyes to see and we're brought to our senses. So here we have the first picture of God's compassionate heart opening our eyes, illuminating our minds by the work of the Holy Spirit to see our sin and to see Christ. But that picture of God's compassionate heart only continues in this parable as we come, secondly then, to the impatience of the Father. And what happens is so beautiful, it's so amazing, isn't it? This son, he gets up and he goes back to his father's house and we're told the father sees him coming and the father's moved to compassion and the father runs to him and embraces him and kisses him. Isn't it just beautiful? Absolutely beautiful. And just stop and think about this for a moment. that the Father sees His Son coming from a long way off. Jesus says that, from a long way off the Father sees Him. You know what that tells us? It tells us that the Father's on the lookout for His Son. The Father hasn't simply written Him off, oh, that wicked and immoral Son who spat in my face and wished me dead and took off with my wealth and splurged it on all kinds of evil. The father's not there thinking, oh, that terrible son. My son is dead. I want nothing to do with him. But no, the father's heart is still, as it were, on the lookout for his son. The father is watching. The father is hoping and waiting that someday his son will just peak over the horizon, that there will be this lonely traveler coming to fellowship with his father again. The father's on the lookout for his son. Hasn't written him off, doesn't count him dead, but eagerly, eagerly, impatiently is on the lookout for him. And when he sees his son, he runs to him. He doesn't wait for his son to walk all the way. He doesn't wait for his son to crawl on hands and feet, to grasp his ankles and kiss his toes. He doesn't sit there with arms crossed and how dare you come back to me and who do you think you are and what do you think you're doing here? But he runs to his son. And that wasn't something they did in the ancient world. Fathers, older men, did not run. It's something of the case even still today. Can you imagine the President of the United States running? I don't think you'll ever find a televised video or anything of the President of the United States running. At least I think that's the case, and I can pretty well bet that you'll never see the Queen running. And of course not. because there's decorum to follow, right? For them, for someone like the president or someone like the queen to run is to demean them and is not reflective of the dignity and the weight of their office and their position. And you see, it was the same thing in ancient Israel. Older men did not run because that was undignified. You remember how Michal despised David in her heart because she saw him leaping and dancing before the ark of God, and oh my, isn't the king exposing himself before the maidservants? It's not to be done. But this father doesn't care. This father is so anxious to see his son and to unfold his son. He hikes up his robes and he tears off as fast as his legs can carry him. He doesn't care who sees. He doesn't care who takes notice. He doesn't care if the world mocks and ridicules him. Look at that guy. Look at those skinny, pale little legs run off to his son. He doesn't care. He sees his son. and he wants to be with his son, and he grabs his son in a big bear hug, and in the Greek, he falls upon his son's neck. He breaks down, he falls on his son's neck, and he just kisses him and kisses him and kisses him. Do you see the warmth of this father's heart? His thought is not, my, how you have offended me. His thought is not, oh son, what a mess you've made. His thinking is not dominated by you worthless, ingrate, how dare you come back to Me. He is simply eager and impatient to have this son back in His arms. And you see again, this is something a Jewish father never, ever would have done. You see, this picture that Jesus paints for us was entirely radical. This parable, the picture of the Father in this parable would have felt wrong to his listeners. They would have said, that cannot be, a father never would treat his son like this. Never would he treat such a disobedient son like this. Never would this happen in Jesus' day. Never. This is the picture Jesus gives us. And it only continues and grows stronger, because as soon as the son begins to speak, the father, as it were, cuts him off, and he tells his servants, go grab the best robe, clothe him in it, go put a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, and kill the fattened calf that we might celebrate. This is remarkable. The son comes to his father and he's hoping to be the least servant, the least, the lowest of the low in his father's house. Please at least let me be your lowest servant. Let me have the lowest status in the house to be with you in your home, even in the lowest positions, far greater than anything else. And yet what does the father do? No, that's not good enough, my son. You've come to Me, and I will again clothe you in the best of clothes. I will put a ring on your finger. I will give you authority again. I will put sandals on your feet. I will restore to you your status as My Son. I will not hear about your request to be the lowest of the low. I will not accept anything less than you being My Son again." And I call this the impatience of the Father because, again, of how eager He is. so eager, impatient to receive and restore his son. There's no hesitation. There's no bitterness and hardness of heart. There's no 10 steps and maybe we can talk about you being welcomed back in the home. There's no you need to do this and you need to do that and you need to do this before you can be welcomed by me again. But at the slightest indication of his coming back home, the father pours out all the fullness of his love and mercy upon his son. And I wish that I could just stop for five minutes right now and not say a word and just leave you guys sitting here thinking about this marvelous moment. That it could just make you sit and think about this picture. As a father embraces his son, tears streaming down his face, kisses poured out upon him, and the son dressed like royalty, and this great feast held in celebration. I wish we could have this moment to meditate on that picture because it is again Jesus seeking to show us the kind of compassionate heart the Father has toward us. This is how God treats you and me in Christ. The moment, the moment we even begin to turn in His direction to repent and come to Him in faith, the very moment we show the slightest hint of repentance, God just pours out Himself upon us and He embraces us and He welcomes us and He gives us His grace and He says, I wash you and I make you clean and I give you the righteousness of Jesus Christ and you're good and you're accepted and you're my son now and you're welcomed in my home and you will receive your inheritance and you will be blessed for all eternity. The very moment we begin to turn, God runs to us and embraces us in His love. Do you see how eager and impatient God is to apply the work of Jesus Christ to you? Do you see how eager the Lord is to cleanse you with His blood and to dress you with His righteousness? How eager the Father is to embrace you as a son and to restore to you an inheritance and glory? God has so much more compassion and mercy towards us than we can even begin to imagine. The Father has such a large, compassionate heart, we can't even begin to fathom it. God desires to forgive you and to restore you more than you can ever know. You cannot understand how much God wants and is willing to forgive you. You just can't understand it. You never will. In the greatness of His compassion, God is searching, God is seeking, God is looking for His children that He might enfold them in His arms and shower them with all loving kindness and mercy. The Lord our God is a God who abundantly pardons, abundantly pardons. He's not stingy, He's not miserly, He's lavish with His grace, rich in His mercy, because He is the God who has the great, compassionate heart. And so we see in the illumination of the son and the impatience of the father something of our God's compassionate heart. We see the last piece of our Father's compassionate heart here in this parable with the invitation to the older son. Celebration, we're told, has started. And now we find out there's at least one person not at this feast, and it's the older brother. He's out in the field working, it seems. And as he comes back home, he hears some celebrating going on. He calls one of the servants and says, what's going on here? What's happening? What's this uproar? What's all this celebration happening for? And the servant tells him, well, guess what? Your brother has come home, and your father's celebrating because he's come back safe and sound. We're told at this very news, the older brother becomes angry. He's angry, he's upset at how his father's treating this, his younger brother. He's displeased, he's angry about his father's compassion and mercy. He's angry at how ready and willing his father is to receive his son back again, and how the father's so ready to celebrate his return. The older son complains to his father how he has served his father time and time again. He's never disobeyed, he's never done anything wrong, and yet the father's been stingy with him. The father's never given him a young goat to celebrate with his friends. And here's this young son, wasted his father's property, wasted his wealth with prostitutes, and the father's treating him like this? I obey you and you never treat me like this. How can you treat him this way? When you stop and consider the older brother's words more closely, you get a real sense of resentment. Resentment, how dare you treat him like this? I should be treated like this. He shouldn't be treated like this. And then you also see distance. You'll notice that the older brother never calls his father father. He doesn't address his father as father. And even when he speaks of his brother, he says, your son, your son. I don't claim him as my brother. I want nothing to do with him. He's your son, and this is how you treat your son." And so the older brother won't enter the feast. There's this growing distance. He speaks of himself as if he's a slave in his father's home, and he cuts himself off, as it were, from the father and the young son. So what do we see? We see the father come out. The father comes out to the older brother and invites him in. And the implication in the Greek is that he continues to invite him. He pleads with him. He, please come in, please come in, please come in. And he says, son, you're always with me and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad because this your brother was dead and alive. He was lost and is found. Please come in, please come in. What's going on with this older brother? What's going on with this older brother? Well, maybe help us understand by putting it in terms we're familiar with. This older brother, you might say, is in many respects like you and me. This older brother represents, you might say, the Pharisees in a certain way, just as he represents us. Because these are people, the older brother is like a person who was born and raised in the church. like someone who was raised in a good Christian, good Jewish home. He never really sowed his wild oats. He generally lived a decent, moral, upright life. He was obedient. He cared about God's law. He put it into practice. He was concerned about a holy life. And now he's in this place where he resents and he hates then the idea that God would treat this wretched sinner who did not live a good life, who did not obey God like he should, who sowed his wild oats, who gave himself over to all kinds of sin, that God would treat them like God treats Him. Or in some respects, treat that son better than God has supposedly treated him who's never disobeyed. You might say that this older brother is like Jonah, who hates the idea that God would have mercy on the wicked and the unbelieving. But as this parable goes to show, this kind of attitude jeopardizes their own place in God's kingdom. The parable actually ends with the father's invitation to enter the feast. There's no answer that the older son gives. We end with the father entreating him, please come in, please come in, please come in. The invitation you see is left open. It ends with God and his compassion and his mercy inviting them to gladly celebrate and rejoice in the restoration of lost sinners, to rejoice with God in the salvation of the lost, to rejoice. in salvation coming to the most depraved of sinners. God inviting us to share in His joy and to take part in His program of finding, seeking out, searching, and redeeming man who's plunged himself into physical and spiritual death. There's no answer that's given at the end of this parable. Isn't it amazing when you stop and think about it for a moment? this invitation that's given. You know, the Pharisees have a bad reputation, and as you know, it's deserved. And we can often think that Jesus only had negative words to say to them. You brood of vipers, and you're the sons of the devil, and so forth, and that was all true, and Jesus was entirely right and appropriate to say that as he did. But do you see here that Jesus is actually inviting the Pharisees in? He's looking at these men, so opposed to the purposes of God, He's looking at these men who hate the idea that God shows mercy to sinners. He's looking at these men who believe themselves to be healthy and righteous and good and true. And he's saying, don't you realize God's inviting you in too? God's inviting you in too. God is searching and seeking not just sinners that are at the bottom of the societal ladder. He's not just searching out these people that have lived a irresolute life and given themselves to all kinds of depravity and live 50, 60, 70 years chasing every vain pleasure the world can offer. God's not just simply seeking them, but brothers and sisters, He's seeking us. He's seeking us who think that we're all put together. He's seeking us who think that really we don't have that great a need for Jesus because we've lived this moral upstanding life all our days. He's calling out to us, please understand, please understand that we all live by my mercy, that you all live by my mercy, that you all need to be saved by grace. Please don't harden your heart. Please don't think that you're healthy. Please understand. That there's a feast coming, there's a celebration coming, there's life, there's blessing, there's joy to be found. Don't harden your heart, but come to me. See, no matter who we are, which end of the spectrum we're on, the one that's crushed and overwhelmed by our guilt, or the person who struggles with thinking whether we really need Jesus, God is coming to all of us. And His compassion and His mercy is chasing us and seeking us and calling us to understand our sin and our misery and to realize that in Christ we can be reconciled and we can be enfolded in His love and we can be blessed far beyond our understanding. God in His mercy is searching us out. Seeking us. to restore us to His favor and His love. The compassionate heart of God chasing us. Isn't that marvelous? We run from God. We hide from God. We do what we can to harden our hearts to the Word of God, and God yet chasing us, not, as it were, giving up on us. but calling to us by His Word and Spirit, in Christ, in Christ, forgiveness, life, come to me, come to me. The prophet Isaiah, the Lord has said, let the wicked forsake his way, the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him. And to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Abundantly pardon. and mercy God is seeking us, sinners, that we might be reconciled with Him in His love. Let us return to the Lord that He may have compassion on us, to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. Amen. Let's pray. O Lord, our God, Thank you here tonight, Father, for showing us more of your heart, for showing us more of your heart of compassion and mercy, that you, Lord, are so far from abandoning us, that you are so far from being cold to us and immovable to us. but that you instead are a God who chases us, who runs after us, who seeks us. And when you see us coming from afar, run to embrace us in love, run to fill us with the blessings of Jesus Christ. O Lord our God, help us to always see this great heart of compassion of yours. and to be moved by it, moved by it, to turn to Christ in faith, that we may indeed have your kisses, have your love, have your favor and your life. O Lord our God, give us a faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that is strong and sure, we pray. And may we continue to celebrate and rejoice in the salvation of lost sinners. Continue to rejoice as well in the program of salvation that we, by your grace, may as well have a part in, to see others, Father, to see others brought in, to see the lowest of the low brought in, redeemed, washed, and cleansed in the blood of Jesus Christ. Father, fill us with the joy of salvation, we pray, as we behold your wondrous, compassionate heart. In Jesus' name we ask it, amen.