We read in the scriptures as we find it in the gospel narrative according to Luke, chapter 15. Luke, chapter 15. Our text is found in verses 11 through 24, so please pay closer attention to those verses than you might to the rest, though you should pay attention equally to it all. Luke, chapter 15. Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners, for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance. Either that woman, having ten pieces of silver, if she lost one piece, doth not light a candle and sweep the house and seek diligently till she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece that I had lost. Likewise I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." And he said, A certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto him his living. But not many days after, the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land. And he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country. And he sent him into the fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat. And no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger? I will arise and go to my father and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose and came to his father. And when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat and be merry, for this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found, and they began to be merry." Now his elder son was in the field, and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing, And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, Thy brother is come, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry and would not go in. Therefore came his father out and entreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment, and yet thou never gavest me a kid that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf." And he said unto him, Thou art ever with me, and all that I have is Thine. It was meat that we should make merry and be glad. For this Thy brother was dead, and is alive again, and was lost, and is found." May God bless the reading of His Holy Word. I want you to notice the first two verses of this chapter. In them, Jesus is speaking, and there gathers around Him those that are called publicans and sinners. And they're gathered around Jesus to hear Him. Now maybe the best way to say it is, they came to hear the Saviour. They came to the Saviour in order to hear Him. The response of the Pharisees and the scribes when they saw that Jesus talked with them was that they charged Christ, the Saviour, with doing that which was wrong. In response to that criticism, Jesus tells three parables. Three of them. One right after another. There's a point he wants to make. And notice that just as the father killed the fatted calf and received him with great joy, So, the shepherd that found the lost sheep, we could have ended the parable by saying he laid it on his shoulders rejoicing, but then Jesus adds verses 6 and 7 in order to talk about the joy that's in heaven. And he could have stopped after declaring that the lost coin was found, but he says there's joy before the angels over one sinner that repenteth. So we deal with this, the first part of the parable of the prodigal son, but as you saw in the title in the bulletin, it's probably more appropriately the parable of the loving father. Jesus is declaring the attitude that he has towards all repentant sinners. And that's what he wants us to hear tonight. What is he going to say to me when I, in repentance, in sorrow, come before him? Two brothers raised the same, raised equally, raised in a home where they were taught much about God, about His Word, about His promises. They heard a lot of things, a lot of knowledge. They grew in that knowledge. They were catechized. They went to the synagogue as often as they could. They sat in church and they heard the knowledge about God. from His Word. The elder son had all of those benefits. And it seems, or it appears, that receiving all of those benefits, he received them and didn't forsake them. He enjoyed them, it seemed. Now one of the things that often happens when we read this chapter and you enter into discussion about it, that you want to talk about the eternal state of the elder son or of the 99 sheep or the 9 coins that were not lost. But the scriptures don't tell us anything about the eternal state and about the regeneration or lack thereof on the part of that elder brother. But what it does tell us is about the attitude that that brother had. What was the attitude of that elder brother? What did he talk about? What did he want his father to hear? His father entreated him, come in, come in, enjoy the feast, participate with us. He would not go in, even after his father entreated him. And his attitude is revealed in his words. Dad, unlike my brother, I have been very good to you. I have stayed in your house. I have worked in your fields. I have been very faithful. I might have slipped up a little bit, but I did a lot of things good and a lot of things right. You ought to appreciate what I did. But you never seem to do to appreciate my good works. I did a lot of good. But there's no thanks that you're giving to me for what I did, my good works." He wanted to talk about his works. He wanted to be recognized for his works. The younger son obviously has a bad attitude. His attitude Well, we don't know what the reason was and the Bible doesn't tell us what motivated him to ask for his father the portion of inheritance that was to be his. But he took it and he left. He forsook. He took what he had coming and he went to have his own fun. And to go where he wanted. To do what he wanted to do. The word prodigal literally means to waste, a waster. So the prodigal son is correctly called that because he took all the knowledge and all the understanding that he had been taught, all the things that he had learned, he took them and he threw them away. He wasted them. He acted like, so what if I learned about God? And so what if I learned about his promises about Jesus Christ? I don't need that. And he took all of that knowledge and he wasted it. He knew the doctrines of grace. He knew the five points of Calvinism. And he said, nah, they're nice, they're interesting, but I want to do what I want to do. I am going to have my fun. And he spent it on riotous living. And his brother undoubtedly correctly says he wasted it on harlots. He did his thing. What do we do? Who are we? Where do we find ourselves? Do we want to talk about our good works? We are pretty faithful in our marriages. We've done this right. We've done that right. We certainly don't kill and we don't go out with harlots. Look at what I have done. I sit in church twice every Sunday. I'm faithful. Don't you want to thank me for what I do and have done? But let's realize, beloved, in the Lord Jesus Christ, that every time you and I carry a grudge, every time that we're angry and we pound the table or a wall, that every time we are deliberately gossiping and slandering, I wouldn't tell a lie, that every time we are willingly sinning, we are taking the knowledge of God. This morning, we dealt with the first commandment. And we sang 382. Psalm 139. Every time we sin, God was right there. But I had no consciousness of Him being there when I did it. I took that knowledge that I had learned about God being everywhere present, and I tucked it around. And I threw it behind me. And I was busy wanting to do what I wanted to do. Every time I sin. And every time we sin, We take the knowledge of God's commandments to us, what He would have us to do, how He would have us to live, and we say fully to Him, I want to do what I want to do, and this is what I want to do, and I'm going to do it. Now maybe we're not conscious in expressing that, but we can be just as prodigal as the younger son. He wasted. He spent everything he had. And God would have him do that. And then when he was out of all of his money, God sent a famine. A severe famine. so severe that nobody had anything else to give to him. And he found himself connecting himself. He wasn't hired. He couldn't get hired. He connected himself to a farmer who had of all things, as far as a Jew was concerned, swine. The Israelites, according to God's law, were not allowed to eat pork. But they went further and said, we're not even allowed to have any pigs in the whole land of Canaan. And here this younger son attaches himself to a farmer, and there he goes, willingly out to feed the swine. And as he's watching them eat, He's wanting to eat the cob and the husk. He is so hungry. And it's that time that he, according to verse 17, came to himself. He came to himself. He saw the emptiness of folly's way. Men who walk in folly's way into evil turn aside, find that sorrow will repay. Repay all those who wisdom's laws defied. Down to death's dark portals led, They even abhor their daily bread. Empty. He saw that what he had done, the way he was living, the way he was thinking, led to nothing. Then he came to himself, not only about himself, but also about his father. And he recognized and admitted that the hired servants of his father had more than enough to eat. There they are. And here I am. Now notice, notice very, very carefully the language that is repeated. First, he tells us, God records, Jesus would have us know in the parable what he thought, and then it's repeated what he actually said to his father. He thought about what he was going to say, and then he actually told him. And there's two things, and only two things, Notice, by the way, what he doesn't say. That's just as important. Conscious of his emptiness, conscious of his folly, conscious of what he has done, he uses no excuses. He makes no self-justification. Well, I was really young and stupid then. He doesn't do any blame-shifting, and he uses no cover-up. He only says two things. The first one, and notice, just so simple. I have sinned against heaven. Now what he means is, I have sinned against my heavenly Father, and in thy sight. Or, and before thee. He was aware of only one thing. God. He saw God and what God was worthy to receive. And his consciousness of God is what made him say only, I have sinned against My Heavenly Father. He didn't talk about sinning against His Father. He did, but that isn't what He talked about. He wasn't going to raise that. He was only focused on His sinning against Heaven. This is powerfully similar to the language of David when he was brought before the consciousness of his sin by Nathan the prophet. Nathan told the parable. And after he had told that parable, David said to Nathan, listen how similar. I have sinned against Jehovah. Yes, we sin against others. We hurt others. But the hurt that we do to others is God's way of teaching us that what we've really done in every sin, I don't care how tiny you may think it to be, or how great, is committed against the Most High Majesty of God. That's the beautiful language of the Heidelberg Catechism. When I sin, I am sinning against the Most High Majesty of God. And that's all he had to say. I have sinned against Jehovah. And that's why when David gave his psalm of confession, he could word it the way he did in Psalm 51. Against thee, thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. Now, he sinned against Uriah. He sinned against Bathsheba. He sinned as a king to all the nation. But his focus in his confession was, I have sinned against Jehovah. His awareness of what he had done and what he does when he sins against the God of heaven and earth, but the God who is also, hang on, his Father. To sin against one's Creator. To sin against one's father. To sin against our maker. But to sin against the one who loves us. And has only loved us. That made David shrivel. That makes this elder, this younger brother, weep. I have sinned before you. but against heaven. Do I know godly sorrow? Yes, I believe we all do. But I also believe that we don't know it nearly as well as we ought to. And you get closer to the right grasp of godly sorrow when you say the second thing. When you believe the second. I am no more worthy to be called thy son. I am unworthy. I don't want you to take me into the house because I don't deserve it. Put me in the barn. Put me with the servants. What I have done, I don't deserve. I've taken the knowledge of God as He's given it. And in every one of my sins, I've wasted it. How shameful. How embarrassing. How naked. I am unworthy. I forfeited every right ever to be thy son. My sins are so many My sins are so horrible. It is not what I do and think. It's what I am. I am so dirty. That old man out of which all those sins come, that old man makes me unworthy. My sins are so serious because they're committed against my Father's love. I have no reason ever to be forgiven. I'm going to come back, but I'm a sinner. I'm a publican and a sinner. And all I know is that I need the Savior. Though I don't deserve to be forgiven, I'm going to talk with the Savior. Now look at the Father. We read about the Father in the parable, that He sees His Son, yet afar off. Now, just make that very real. The Son's gone. He's gone for months, maybe years. But the father didn't just happen to be walking past the window or open the door and look out and see. No. The father to see his son when yet afar off was looking, looking. The father never stopped calling him, my son. Realize, that the elder brother is just as unworthy. He's not more worthy, but he was going to talk about all his good works. This is what I've done. I've done pretty good, haven't I Father? This is what I did and this is what I did. I may have messed up in reading the Scripture one spot, but look at all the verses I did correctly. I may have played the piano fantastically. Maybe I slipped up once, but all the other times were great. How come you only want to focus on the one? Look at all the good. Look at what I do. I brought in how much to support our family. I did how much this and that. But he's just as unworthy. There's the father. Now, these three parables fit together. And while in this parable, the father is looking, and he's watching, and he's waiting, and he's praying, and he's longing for his son to come back. In the parable of the lost sheep, he is looking, he's going out there, he is seeking him. And in the lost coin, she's lighting the candle and she's sweeping, she's doing everything she can to find that lost coin. The attitude of the father is that before the son can say one word, oh we know what he's going to say because Jesus wanted us to know what he thought he was going to say. But before he could say one word, the father runs out there, opens his arms, embraces him, falls upon his neck, kisses him. Son, you are lost and you are found. You are dead and you're alive. Let heaven rejoice. He's sorry. Even before he said a word, the Father said his sorrow. He's a publican and sinner who comes to want to talk to the Savior. He knows his need of the Saviour. That attitude on the part of the Father is an absolutely beautiful description of the attitude of our Heavenly Father. When does God forgive us? And when does He love us? Romans 5. Well, we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. Who did He redeem? The godly? No. He redeems the ungodly. Why is agape a love that excels over phileo? It's because agape is a love that embraces the unlovely and the unlovable. And agape never, never is given to one who has earned it, or deserves it, or is worthy of it. Agape is precisely that love of God for those who are unworthy. Now Jesus is explaining His action in talking to these publicans and sinners, to the scribes and Pharisees. He's also describing our Heavenly Father's love to us sinners. And in describing that love, what He is emphasizing and what He wants us always to catch and to understand is this. Our Father's love for a wretch like me is eternal and unchangeable. It's eternal. When did God start loving you? He always has. In eternity past, God was never without you. And never without Christ. He never didn't have it, and then He said, okay, now I'm going to make my plan about what I'm going to do in the course of creation and time. No, He always has been. His thoughts are eternally with Him. And in those eternal thoughts, He has always had this attitude of love. towards those that He put into Christ. Maybe we should say it this way. His love for us was before Christ. Because God so loved us that He gave His only begotten Son. It was because He foreknew, foreloved us, that He predestinated us. It was in love that He predestinated. us unto the adoption of children. He made us his sons and his daughters because of his eternal love. A love that is not dependent upon us. That love is eternal and unchangeable because it's rooted in God himself. Don't think of us first. Think of God. Think of that eternal and unchangeable being. And inside God is that love that He has for us. His love outside of Himself is rooted in His love inside of Himself. How long has the first person loved the second, and the second the first, and the third? Always, always. And that love that He has for us outside of Himself is not because we've earned it. It's not dependent upon us. And that's why it doesn't change. We change. We go up, we go down. His love doesn't waver. His love doesn't get hot and then cold. His love is an eternal love. And with that love comes the forgiveness of our sins. It's a love toward His people while we're yet sinners. It's a love, therefore, that is always first. It's not affected or changed and altered by what we do. He's always loved you. Always. You know what a prodigal is? You take the knowledge of that kind of love and you act like you don't care. Is there anything worse? Anything more horrible? Anything more ugly? Anything that makes us more naked? We take the knowledge of that love. And we're too busy doing our own thing. God's love for himself is that he is going to see his purpose in the election accomplished. God's love for himself is that he is going to see his cause realized. And that love is sovereign. It's always first. It reaches us wherever we are. And it's that love that sent that famine. He loved him. And so he was going to chasten him. Because whom he loves, he chastens. And in that love for that son, he sent that famine. And that's what made the son come to himself. The eyes came open to the knowledge of the truth that God had revealed in his word that he'd been taught as a child and as a young person. And that coming to himself made him see the emptiness of everything that he had done, and made him embrace that Father. Now, two legs. Walk through life, not hopping on one, but always walk on two. And then you're going to keep yourself balanced. That one leg is this. I am a sinner. And I am unworthy. I am unworthy to be called a child of God. And the Father laid His hands, arms open unto Him and embraced Him and kissed Him and said, I have so forgiven your sins that they're gone. I don't remember them anymore. I have cast them into the sea of utter forgetfulness. Now walk. One, two. Unworthy and still loved. Unworthy and forgiven. Unworthy and I'm his child. Don't emphasize one over against the other. Keep the two together. And then you're balanced. What the Father did in the parable He called not only for the fatted calf, but he had the son receive three things from his servants. The best robe, the ring, and sandals. Servants walked barefoot. The children had sandals. They had shoes. A ring indicating the right of sonship. A robe to indicate again that right of sonship. everything that he cast away and wasted. The Father said, you're back in the family and the right to an inheritance is yours all over again. I'm going to give it to you. When we whether it be weeks, days, months, or whether it be an hour or 15 minutes or split seconds, when we wander away from the knowledge of God, our Father, and all that the Bible has told us about Him, when we wander from that, then He is going to have us experience His displeasure. But this is what the parable is teaching. Sinners, you're not here because you loved Him every moment of the past week. But to equip you to know how to live the coming week that's beginning today, He wants you to know, sinners, that you are saved by grace. Unworthy. But grace is that love that's given to the unworthy, unmerited, undeserved. And that when you in sorrow, recognizing your unworthiness, fall on your knees and look up, don't ever doubt. The devil wants you to. But don't you ever doubt how He will receive you. He's going to come running. You're going to experience Him running and embracing and kissing you and saying, My child, I've never stopped loving you. You're forgiven. You're mine and I am yours. Amen. Our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee. We can never thank Thee enough. We honor Thee and declare Thy worthiness to receive all of our devotion and all of our ardent love in return. May we show our thanks, our gratitude for receiving nothing but grace by the way that we commit ourselves to doing Thy will, honoring and loving Thee back by doing everything that Thou has commanded as zealously and as fervently as we can. We thank Thee for Jesus. We thank Thee for forgiveness. In His name we pray, Amen.