I Believe I'll Go Home - Pastor Stacey Shiflett
- Pastor Shiflett
- 17 hours ago
- 6 min read
I Believe I’ll Go Home
Luke 15:18
Intro: Today is Father’s Day. Dads get a bad rap.
They get laughed at for their dad jokes.
Telling a man he has a “daddy body” is definitely not a compliment.
Being better at something than another guy entitles you to ask him, “Who’s your daddy?”
Joke: A little boy said, "My dad knows every verse in the Bible."
His friend said, "Wow! Is he a preacher?"
The boy replied, "No, he's the one who always corrects the preacher on the way home."
Joke: A dad is a person that can walk into a hardware store for one screw...and emerge two hours later with a ladder, a shovel, three pipe clamps, a new American flag and a bird feeder.
Joke: A good father is like a good pastor. He spends half his life giving people advice and the other half watching them learn it the hard way.
In this story, known as the story of the prodigal son, we find a relationship between a son and his father that deteriorated.
The Prodigal Son story has been preached for thousands of years.
Some preachers preach it for evangelistic purposes.
Some preach it as a picture of a wayward or backslidden Christian.
The interpretation of this parable is clear in the opening verses of chapter 15.
The publicans and sinners were gathered around to hear Jesus, and the religious crowd murmured.
Jesus gave three parables to illustrate God’s love for the lost.
Each one of these parables reveal a person in a lost condition.
· The lost sheep – was lost and couldn’t find his way home
· The lost silver – was lost and didn’t know and it and didn’t care
· The lost son – was lost, knew it, hated it, and knew how to get back home.
On this Father’s Day, I’d like to use this story of the prodigal son as an illustration of someone that may have backslidden or walked away from God.
This Father’s Day would be a great day to come back to the Father!
I. The Rejection that is Perplexing
We don’t know why this boy decided to walk away from his father.
What we know about the father:
1. An Affluent Man – he had a house; money; property, cattle, servants; plenty of food in the house
2. An Affectionate Man – he hugged and kissed his kids, even when they had done wrong
3. An Affirming Man – when his son confessed his sin, his father didn’t reject him
Instead of condemning him, he publicly affirmed him as his son.
· Luke 15:24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.
What we know about the son:
1. He was Selfish – “…give me the portion of goods that falleth to me…”
He wanted the rewards of the father without a relationship with the father.
He wanted the father's goods without the father's guidance.
He wanted the benefits of sonship without the burdens of sonship.
2. He was Sinful – “…wasted his substance with riotous living…”
He was Immoral.
· vs. 30 …devoured thy living with harlots…
He was Irresponsible.
· 13 …he wasted his substance…
· 14 …and when he had spent all…
3. He was Suffering – “…he would fain have filled his belly with the husks…”
II. The Remembrance that is Powerful
When he came to himself, he remembered:
A. The Payment for his Father’s Servants – “…how many hired servants…” (not slaves)
He had forsaken his father – and now he had joined himself to the far country.
He had made one bad decision after another.
Here he was, working for a citizen of the far country who wouldn’t even feed his own workers.
Just a reminder – the wages of sin is death.
The only payment for sin a sinner might get is the temporary pleasure.
But the payment is always death and judgment.
· For the drunkard: “At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.” Proverbs 23:32
· For the whoremonger: “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.” Hebrews 13:4
· For the adulterer: “He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life.” Proverbs 7:22, 23
· For the sodomites: “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.” Romans 1:26, 27
On the other hand, the servants of God are blessed beyond measure.
They are rewarded; both on this side and the other side of eternity.
Satan has slaves; God has hired servants.
Those that live for God and serve Him are paid – and paid well!
In Exodus 25, God said:
· 25 And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.
· 26 There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil.
In Deuteronomy 30, God put it to the people of Israel like this:
· 15 See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;
· 16 In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.
· 17 But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them;
· 18 I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it.
B. The Provision for his Father’s Servants – “…bread enough and to spare…”
No doubt he remembered the smell of bread baking in the kitchen.
Seeing the servants file by and load down their plate with good ole home cooking.
He remembered the blessings and benefits of working in his father’s fields.
The servants didn’t eat leftovers; they had so much food prepared for them that they had their own leftovers!
III. The Repentance that is Possible
One thing we know from this story; you never get too far away to turn around.
The common thread in these three parables is REPENTANCE.
· The Sheep: 7 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.
· The Silver: 10 Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.
· The Son: 18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,
· 19 And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
He was homeless, friendless, penniless – but the door to the Father’s house was open.
· His fun was gone.
· His friends were gone.
· His finances were gone.
· His food was gone.
But his father was still right where he left him.
Repentance was necessary for one simple reason; the hog pen and fellowship with the Father are in two different places.
You can’t have both at the same time.
· 2 Corinthians 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,
IV. The Reunion that is Priceless
This son was a mess.
He had wasted his father’s inheritance.
He had lived a life of riotous sin.
He had nothing whatsoever.
He was broke, broken, battered, beat up and barely alive.
Yet he was permitted back into the father’s arms.
He was permitted back into the father’s house.
He was permitted back into the father’s fields.
He had nothing to give, but the father gave him:
A hug; a kiss; a robe; a ring; shoes; a supper and best of all – reconciliation.
After a long time, a long distance and a long separation, the son was reunited with his father.