Come Home
COMING HOME
Isaiah the prophet tells us that we are all like sheep going astray. The answer for our wayward ways is God laying on Christ the iniquity of us all so we could return home to the Shepherd of our souls. The Lord specializes in bringing the wayward home. We are safe in His arms.
This truth is beautifully depicted in the well known story of the prodigal son in Luke 15. Contextually there were a great multitude of people following Jesus. The crowed was not of the church going type, but they were the worst of the worst – “tax collectors & sinners,” according to verse 1.
The religious elite complained that Jesus “receives sinners & eats with them.” It is to these religious phonies that were caught up in their own self-righteousness that Christ directs 3 stories to. All of them convey the loving heart of God toward wayward sinners.
The last story is about the prodigal son who wanted to experience the promises of fleshly living. So he leaves his father & his father let him go. There is a story in a story in the father letting his son go. But that will need to be for another time.
The son took his inheritance & he wasted it on reckless, wanton, sinful living; partying day after day, not denying himself any of the temporal pleasures of sin.
When the son hit rock bottom he came to himself, realizing that the “way of the transgressor is hard.” He reasoned in verses 18 & 19 that he would arise & go to his father, confessing his sin, knowing that with the father laid a life of true fulfillment, love & forgiveness.
So the confessing son arose & came to his father according to verse 20. The purpose behind going to his father was to say, “Father, I have sinned against heaven & in Your sight & am no longer worthy to be called Your son.”
On the son’s side there was something, but as we are going to see, on the father’s side there was something far greater. What was it on the son’s side that was so significant?
It was that his words were not just words anymore, maybe words he had spoken a thousand times before. Words we are all familiar with, like: “I’m so tired of the way I’m living. I am going to do better.”
This time there was something different. His past resolves had melted away in the face of temptation. But this resolve became the action of repentant faith for the first time in his life. “He arose & came to his father.”
The prodigal was finally willing to turn his back on the passing pleasures of sin & come home. Jesus said, “The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37).
Before the kisses of love, forgiveness, sonship & joy this young man had to arise & begin to head home. The son couldn’t have reached the father unless the father came to meet him. But we are getting ahead of the story. Before we leave the son the point is: he must come.
The writer of Hebrews tells us that, “Today, if you hear God’s voice, do not harden your hearts” (Hebrews 4:7). To say I will turn my life around & come to God someday is nothing but empty resolving.
Now we come to the compassionate father in the rest of verse 20 – “But when he was still a long way off (the prodigal hadn’t gotten home yet), his father saw him & had compassion & ran & fell on his neck & kissed him.”
It wasn’t just a singular kiss. His father couldn’t stop kissing him, over & over again. The father didn’t care how undignified it was in that culture to run toward an approaching traveler, anymore than Jesus didn’t care about the cynical, hard-hearted religious establishment as He embraced sinners as His friends. This wasn’t any traveler. It was his son coming home.
The father couldn’t contain his joy & so he ran after him & fell upon him, kissing him much. Jesus said in verse 7 of chapter 15 that there is “more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety nine just persons who need no repentance.”
O the condescending love of God toward penitent sinners! “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live thru Him” (I John 4:9).
God’s mercy is far quicker than our steps of repentance. He sees the sinner a far way off before the sinner ever sees Him.
What a contrast in the text. The son wasn’t thinking about being passionately embraced by his father. According to verse 21, he didn’t see himself as worthy to be called a son anymore. In fact, he hadn’t even gotten his confession out yet. He had just taken a few steps toward home & there his father was to meet him.
No doubt the prodigal had many sins to confess, that which would be good for his soul & necessary. But before he could even come to the details of them his father had already removed it from the record seen in his kisses of forgiving love.
God sees the heart of the penitent sinner coming home to Him. Before the words are even spoken, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner,” the Father is opening His arms of love to welcome us home thru Jesus Christ.
Will you come home to God this moment? Arise & run to Him, for He will “abundantly pardon.” The father “saw” his son when he was a long way off. He saw his filthy rags & dirty body wasted away from sin, but he saw so much more. He saw a broken man, unlike the arrogant son that had left years earlier.
If you will come home to God thru Jesus, He promises to dress you in the royal robes of Christ’s righteousness, giving you His signet ring of sonship & a life of peace. In verses 22-24 the father said to his servants, “Bring out the best robe & put a ring on his hand & sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf & kill it & let us eat & be merry; for this son was dead & is alive again; he was lost & is found. And they began to make merry.”
Jesus said, “Come to Me, all you who labor & are heavy laden & I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you & learn from Me, for I am gentle & lowly in heart & you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy & My burden is light.”
