Title: COME HOME!

Focus: Home life with our heavenly Father—it can’t get any better, provided that we take off our blinders and have another look at our home situation with our Father in heaven.

Function: To encourage the people to examine their relationship with our heavenly Father and, in case we have left his home, to come home again.

Text: Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

Do you have issues at home? That may seem a strange question to you. Of course, there are issues at home. Every parent and all children know that when you are part of a family, there will be issues to deal with. For example, who mows the lawn? Who brings out the garbage cans? What time must you be home from a date? When can I drive the family car by myself? Issues galore in our homes!

But I’m not talking about those kinds of issues. I’m talking about issues that threaten to break up the home, that lead to the severance of relationships within the family. For example, do you have issues that make you feel like quitting as a parent? Or that make you feel like running away from home? Are you a Dad who can’t wait to see your children get out of the house? Are you a Mom who grieves deeply about your child’s attitude of always arguing with you about anything and everything. Are you a teenager who’s sick and tired of your parents’ rules for you? Are you restless and dying to get out of the house—away from Mom and Dad? Ah issues at home!

I remember one specific moment in my life as a parent. I had a confrontation with one of our children. The argument was heated, the issue had come up before, and both my son and I were frustrated with each other and with ourselves. I feared that I was losing my son, and my son, I think, was ready to leave our home.

It was then that I dealt with the issue by assuring and helping my son see (and experience over time) that I was on his side. I was not my son’s “enemy.” We were on the same team. Today our children are establishing their own homes. But they know that the parental home (though an empty nest today) remains a “home” for them.

Do you have issues with your heavenly Father? How do you think that God sees you as a member of his family, the church? Perhaps you have left God’s family, if not physically by no longer showing up in his house of worship, then perhaps emotionally and spiritually, by disengaging yourself from your Father’s home and influence.

Some of us are rebels and have left our Father’s home a long time ago. Others here are still part of the church family, but you are bitter toward your heavenly Father; you find resentment in your heart, because your heavenly Father is asking things from you that you don’t want to do. You much prefer to do your own thing, rather than be involved in your Father’s business of serving and loving and reaching out. Perhaps you feel more like a slave than a son or daughter in God’s family, the church. Are you at home with your heavenly Father?

Today the Scriptures call us to come home! For you see, home life with our heavenly Father—it can’t get any better, provided that we take off our blinders and have another look at our home situation with our Father in heaven. Today, the Scriptures call us to examine our relationship with God the Father, and in case we have left his home, to come home again.

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Most of us are familiar with the story of the father and his two lost sons. The context of the story involves “sinners and tax collectors,” and self-righteous members of the religious establishment—the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. The story itself comes to us in three parts: For example, verses 11-19 deal with the departure and demise of the younger son. Verses 20-24 focus on the father and his welcome of his wayward son. And verses 25-32 center on the father and his older, lost son at home.

Today I want to focus on the father, for the father shapes the story. The actions and the words of the father make all the difference; they define the home for the two sons, and they establish the atmosphere in the father’s home. In fact, the father’s way of dealing with the issues of his sons brings restoration and demonstrates his love for his children in his home.

Consider, for example, the issues of the younger son. He can’t wait to get out of his father’s home. He seems restless. As a son, he has obligations to care for his father’s business, to attend to his father’s need in old age. But he could not care less about living with his father and older brother in the home. He wants to get away from his father’s home and enjoy life in the fast lane of the world.

So he asks for a share of his father’s inheritance. It’s a bit unusual to pretend that your father has already died, and that he therefore is free to depart with his wealth. But it was done so at times in Jesus’ days.

However, when the children received their share of the inheritance while their father was still alive, the children would be obligated to invest and save enough of that money to care for their elderly parents. It would be a horrendous, shocking thing to squander the inheritance and leave your father potentially destitute. And that’s what the younger son did. His issue was one of getting out of his father’s home and influence, and living on his own terms, pursuing pleasure in the world.

By saying to his father “Give me my share of the estate,” the younger son was in essence saying “drop dead and let me go.” Thus he broke or severed the relationship with his father and the rest of the family. And by squandering his inheritance, the younger son “killed” his father. For he could never provide for his father in old age.

The irony is that it’s not the Father in this home that dies, but it’s his son. The father considers his son “lost” and “dead.” And the son himself comes to that conclusion when he is “in the pits of poverty and despair.” For that’s when he comes to his senses and says: “…here I am starving to death.”

Now the issues of the older son with his father and his rebel brother are just as serious. He lives at home—with his father. But he does not act like a son; he sees himself as a slave on his father’s estate. He is resentful. For example, he learns that his younger brother has come home, and that his father is throwing a party because his brother is at home again.

Take note of what the older son says and does. In essence he’s severing his relationship with his father and his younger brother. He’s “killing” them. Listen: “Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders (He sees himself as a slave in his father’s home). Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends (there’s resentment. “Poor me.” He has a chip on his shoulders). But when this son of yours (see how he severs his relationship with his younger brother; he “kills” or breaks down the bonds in the home) who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!” Talk about issues, this older son is lost as well. His relationship with his father and his brother is dead or broken. He, too, needs to come home!

Home life with our heavenly Father—it can’t get any better, provided that we take off our blinders and have another look at our home situation with our heavenly Father today.

Note, for example, how the father’s love brings restoration and life in the home. First of all, it’s clear that the father loves his children. When his younger son leaves home, the father is on the look out for his boy to come home. And when the older son refuses to join the welcome party for his brother, it is the father who looks for his older son. He reaches out to him and shows him his love: “I’m not your enemy. We are on the same team.”

Secondly, note what the father does: he runs toward his younger son, embraces him, kisses him, and hears the confession of his son who says: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” It’s at that point that the father stops his son from saying: “Make me like one of your hired men.” At that very critical point the father calls for the best robe. And he puts a ring on his son’s finger and sandals on his feet. In other words, the father restores the relationship; he refuses to treat his younger son as a slave. You are my son! You were dead. But now you are alive again! You have found your way home again!

Ah, the father brings life and restoration in the home—not only to his younger son, but also his dutiful, self-righteous son. Listen to him speaking to his older son: “My son (You see? The father refuses to see his son as a servant or slave; the son thinks of himself as a slave in his father’s home, but the father won’t have it. Just as he disallowed his younger son to request the status of a servant in his home, so the father refuses his older son to assume the status of slave in his house). “My son” the father said, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.” (You see how the father helps his older son to see his identity and status in his home? You and I, we are on the same team; you are always with me. And everything I have is yours for the taking, including a goat for you and your friends to enjoy a feast).

“But,” says the father (listen now how the father restores the relationships at home. Whereas the older brother had severed his relationship with his younger brother by saying to his father: “This son of yours,” the father won’t have any of it. ) “But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

Home life with our heavenly Father—it can’t get any better, provided that we take off our blinders and have another look at our home situation with our heavenly Father today. Come home! Come to God the Father. Come home, again!

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Here’s how:

1. Seek to be reconciled with the Father: Your issue is not with the pastor or his “lousy” sermons; your issue is not with the music or style of worship. Your issue is not with the elders, or with this or that person in the Father’s home. Your and my issue is with the Father. To him we must go!

The younger son had to walk the way back to his father’s estate. You and I must find our way back to the Father by coming to grips with the Lord Jesus Christ and his sacrificial death on the cross. For Jesus is the Way to the Father. In fact, the Father and the Son are one. Come home to the Father through faith in Christ, the Lord, the eternal Son of God! Come home! Here’s how:

2. Repent: Come to your senses. Apart from our heavenly Father, we are lost and dead. Apart from our heavenly Father, we are poor and destitute. But when we are with the Father, part of his family, the church, and fully engaged in the Father’s business as true sons and daughters—adopted through Christ, our Lord, then we are alive—fully alive.

Some of us need to repent from rebellious behavior, from trampling upon our Father’s rights and honor and dignity. Stop and change that behavior. Come home! Some of us need to repent from our self-righteous conduct, thinking that we are better than others, or thinking that we are pulling all the weight in our Father’s home. Come home and celebrate your status as sons and daughters of the living God!

Some of us need to knock those chips off our shoulders—always finding faults with and in the church, always blaming others for your failures or struggles. Get over your grudges, let go of your grievances, embrace the Father’s love in Jesus Christ. Enjoy the inheritance of eternal life—even today. And rejoice that you and I may be part of the family of God!

Come home! And humble yourself before the Father, and receive his word of love and assurance: “My child, my son, my daughter. We are on the same team. All I have is yours. You are mine! Come home!

And when you come home, learn to bask in the Father’s restoration. That is, live like sons and daughters of the living God!

Don’t hide! Don’t waffle! Don’t try to have it both ways. Either you live a life estranged from the Father, or you live at home, in your Father’s house, being part of your heavenly Father’s household. Don’t make up the rules of your Father’s home. Bask in the life he offers you. For it’s ours to take, to enjoy, and to inherit.

Come home to the Father, through faith in Christ, the eternal Son of God! Journey through life today, knowing our place in the household of God. Long for and live for the day when our journey culminates into receiving the inheritance. Live for the day when Christ, our Lord will establish our eternal home on the restored, renewed creation. Come home!

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who pleads with all of us today: “Come Home!”

Amen!