Can God really love us as much as the Bible says he does? I wonder how many of us believe the words of scripture when we read something like John 3:16:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life," John 3:16 ESV.
If you don't have much biblical knowledge, maybe you still cling to the idea of God being all loving, but deep down you wonder, could God really love me like that? I wonder how many of us have been so damaged by our life experiences, that we simply find it inconceivable that God could overlook our brokenness. Or maybe it's the hurtful things that we've willingly done to others out of our own defensiveness and reactiveness. Sure, maybe God loves some people like that, but in our hearts, do we really think that includes us? Or maybe your life circumstances were not ones of your own choices, but you feel that you've been swept away in your situation, and left all alone and forgotten. Today I want to show you that God loves you so much, that he can't wait for you to come home to him. I'm going to share the proof of this with you from one of Jesus' well known parables in the Bible generally referred to as, "The Prodigal Son." In my opinion, it is one of the most powerful stories that Jesus shared to teach of God's incredible love for us, no matter what we've done. If you've never read this story before, or if you've read it a hundred times, let's take a look at it together, because if you just read through it without really looking at the details, I think you can easily miss the most important things.
In this story, we meet a man with two sons, and it starts out with the younger one demanding his inheritance from the father. This is an easy detail to gloss over, but think about what an inheritance is, it is something that is received when the person holding the assets dies, and those assets are then transferred to the beneficiaries. Something we can easily miss in this story is that by demanding his inheritance early from his father, the younger son is effectively telling his father to drop dead. It is an ultimate display of selfishness and greed, as the son proves by his behavior that in that moment, he truly wants nothing to do with his father, but only wants what he can get from him. It's hard to imagine how I would feel as a father if one of my children treated me that way, so I find the father's response quite shocking, because instead of disowning his son, the father actually complies with the request and gives the son what he asked for.
The younger son proceeds to take his newly acquired wealth and move out of the father's house, heading to a distant country where he "squandered his wealth in wild living," (Luke 15:13). Although the story doesn't tell us how long the son was living "the good life," we quickly see it's of little importance because the very next sentence shows us that he eventually spends all he had and finds himself in need, as the country he now resides in experiences a famine. In an ironic twist, the son who was just living such a carefree life, with no regard for the future, suddenly finds himself unable to feed himself and resorts to hiring himself out as a servant, quickly reduced to a farmhand feeding pigs. He is in such a state of poverty at that point, that Luke tells us, "He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything," (Luke 15:16).
We aren't told how long the son lived in this state, but eventually we read that he "came to his senses." It is at this point he came up with a plan to return to his father and beg for forgiveness so that he would be hired on as a servant, where he knew he would be provided food and shelter at the very least. The son decides to move forward with this plan, and we read that at the moment he decided to return home, "he got up and went to his father," (Luke 15:20). Before I go any further, let's re-cap real quick, because you need to feel the weight of the son's offense so you don't miss the significance of the next verse. So far in this story we've seen the father who has two sons, and the youngest told his dad to drop dead and give him the money he owes him, and immediately leaves home and pursues a life of luxury and pleasure. We can assume that it didn't take too long before the bubble burst and the son found himself with nothing left, and he couldn't even afford to feed himself. Motivated by starvation, the son decides to humble himself and return home, expecting not to be forgiven, but hoping for enough compassion to be hired on a servant.
The father would have every right to be hurt and angry with his son, but look at how he responds when he sees his son returning to him: "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him," (Luke 15:20). Did you see that? It says the father ran to his son "while he was still a long way off." Are you kidding me? I have to wonder, how many of us fathers would be able to have that response after receiving such a fatal wound from one of our own children. And yet, that is God's heart for us, as this story from Jesus shows us. The son didn't walk up to the house and ring the doorbell and wait for his dad to answer the door. The fact that he ran to him when his son was a long way off means the father was watching for him, and that he couldn't wait to see him again. As if that wasn't enough, he dresses him up like royalty and immediately starts preparing to throw a celebratory party in response. This story has an eternal truth that applies to every one of us, it doesn't matter what we do or have done, if we turn from our selfish ways of rejecting God and come to im, he is there waiting to run and meet us on the way, and there is literally nothing we have done that the blood of Jesus won't cover. We are never too far gone to be welcomed into our heavenly father's arms.
There is more to the story though, another lesson we can learn as we read on and finally learn about the older son, as we see that he chose to live a totally different life than his younger brother did. He chose to stay on the family farm and work for all those years while the younger son was away. We get a sense that he is a man of duty, as we see him caught up doing chores when he notices a party going on in the house and goes to see what's rocking. If you're like me, you're probably a little caught off guard by his response to his father, as he doesn't show any joy in his brother's homecoming, but rather he goes off on his father in an angry response, possibly fueled by jealousy. I think that we get a feeling for the sort of relationship the older son has with his father, not one characterized by love, but one that is transactional and legalistic. He reveals his truest feelings when he tells his father that he's been "slaving many years" (Luke 15:29) in faithful service to him, and is angry that his hedonistic brother is getting a better reward for betraying him. To the older brother, this is an unforgiveable injustice that cannot go unaddressed.
The interesting thing about this parable is that in it, neither one of the sons truly wants to simply be with the father and to be loved by him. Jesus is showing us that our heavenly father has unlimited amounts of love and grace for us, and that what he desires from us more than anything is not mere acts of legalistic rule following, but our presence with him. It doesn't matter if you've walked away from God, if your wounds have caused you to blame him and run farther away from him in your attempts to numb and mask the pain. It doesn't matter if you've forgotten the heart of our heavenly father for you as you became obsessed with the missional work of the church, becoming so busy that you lost sight of the good news that Jesus shared with the world. God loves you, and more than anything, he wants to be with you forever. Our sin is what keeps us from him, but the good news is that Jesus paid the price for our rebellion and made the way for us to come home to our heavenly father. If your experiences in this world have made it hard to believe that a father could love like this, I encourage you to reach out to him in prayer and tell him that. Often, our experiences in this world make it hard for us to believe that God could actually love us like this, but you need to realize that God is the one who created love. It's who he is. Jesus is showing us that no matter what this world has made us believe about God and how he might view us in light of what we've done, he is there waiting for us to come back to him. And when we do? Well, I'll leave you with the last verse of this story, which says it all as the father explains to the older son why he had to throw a party when his youngest returned home:
“ ‘Son,’ he said to him, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found,’ ” -Luke 15:31-32 CSB.
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