30/09/07 St. John’s 10:30 Come Home (Back to Church Sunday) Luke 15:11-32
1. SLIDE 2 Here is a test. Can you add one word to complete the following phrase…
Der der der der der der der der
der der der der der der der der - - - - - -
How do you know that? Did you learn the answer to that question at school. Did someone ever sit you down and say this is the something that you need to know?
Is there anyone here who by any chance can complete this sentence? SLIDE 3
Tell me what you want…
How many people here stayed up hours at night learning that phrase or consciously said “I really, really want to memorise this phrase.”
There are messages all around us all the time.
Many of them we hear and take in without realising and they become part of our thinking, part of who we are. Other messages we just miss.
SLIDE 4
Show pictures of creation…
Someone to watch over me.
According to the Bible… all of creation gives a message about God…
SLIDE 5 (text)
Here’s what it says in Psalm 19 verse 1-4
The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
The skies display his craftsmanship.
Day after day they continue to speak;
night after night they make him known.
They speak without a sound or word;
their voice is never heard.*
Yet their message has gone throughout the
earth, and their words to all the world.
Have you heard the message of all creation?
The message says, “I love you. I created you. I lavished my care and attention upon you and filled the world with beauty for you to enjoy. Come share it all with me.”
Although that message is announced day after day.. still we can miss it.
Our eyes can be so fixed on so many other things… got a living to earn, a job to do, deadlines to meet, children to cope with shopping to be done repairs to be made, problems to be solved, things to worry about.
And then there are all the other messages that keep crowding in on our minds, music that we hear, adverts that we are exposed to, news and information on the internet.
There are just so many messages out there!
It’s as if we get information overload and the silent message of creation day after day is never heard.
That’s probably why Jesus said… stop!
SLIDE 6
just look at the flowers of the field. (Matthew 6) If God cares so much for that wild flower, if he lavishes so much attention on it and makes it look so beautiful and yet it is here today and gone tomorrow… don’t you think that he cares for you.
Have you got the message yet?
2. Today we have been hearing and thinking about this passage from Luke’s Gospel (15:11-32).
SLIDE 7 (two sons)
It’s sometimes called the parable of the prodigal son, or the story of the son who ran away. Better to call it the story of the loving father. Because Jesus told a story about a father who loved both of his two children so much.
SLIDE 8 (story in cartoon strip)
This father loved the younger child - who took the gift of money that he gave to him… and then turned his back on his father and went far away from his home.
He totally ignored his father and wasted all the gift his father had given him until a famine hit the land and as Jesus said.. he came to his senses. And he came home expecting to be punished and humiliated and treated like a servant… but instead he received to receive love and forgiveness from his father… who just wanted to celebrate and have a party for his son.
And this father loved his other child as well. The older son who was so angry when his brother returned, so angry that he wouldn’t come in to his father’s house. Angry because he just couldn’t understand how his father could be so loving. And if you remember the story… Just as this father went out to meet the younger son and welcome him back home… so too he went out in the fields to his older son to ask him to come back into the house.
Now there must be lots of messages in this story. Today I wonder if you can hear just one of them.
The message is simple. It’s this:
Slide 8a
Come home. It’s what the father is always saying
Come home to God.
He made you to be with him for ever.
3. I suppose there are many different ways we can turn our back on God and behave like either one of those two sons.
For instance if you have run away and ignored him, taken all his gifts for granted and never even given him a second thought.. then, like the younger son in the story Jesus told.. come to your senses… be honest with yourself be honest with God… and come back home to your heavenly Father.
4. Or maybe like the older son in the story, you have known what it is like to live close to your heavenly father. You can remember times when you worked so hard for him, or maybe you are still working hard but it’s all become a burden to you.
You know there are different ways to say “I love you”. One way of saying “I love you Lord” is to work your socks off for him. That’s OK but for the relationship to be healthy and to become mature, you have to discover other ways too of saying “I love you.” Ways like spending time with him, ways like being faithful in worship, enjoying being in his presence, and enjoying speaking, singing, hearing words of truth about your loving heavenly father.
It is possible to walk away, drift away from God sometimes without really noticing what is happening. To get out of touch with the father’s heart just like the older son was out of touch with his father’s heart, and didn’t really understand him at all.
5. Maybe there was a time when you were excited about knowing God, really excited about meeting with other members of his family. But now those feelings have faded. And maybe you blame somebody else – somebody maybe in a church who hurt you or who you disagreed with about something. Other people at church aren’t always quite as perfect as you want them to be are they? It’s true. Other people are not as perfect as I want them to be… but then I know that I am not as perfect as I want to be.
The failings of people at church only become a problem when we start to notice the faults of other people much more than we notice our own.
And when we focus our attention on the faults of others… and when we make the failings of others a reason for not meeting with other Christians to honour and worship God our creator… well then we lose sight of the loving and forgiving heart of God our father and we become distant from him.
6. And sometimes we deliberately go our own way.
That younger son didn’t find himself in the pigsty by accident. It was the result of decisions he made. His legs had carried him away from home a step at a time, he had made choices about what he did with the gift of money that his father had given him. He had chosen to live in a way that grieved and hurt his father.
And so did the older son. He chose to accuse his father of not caring about him. He had lived with him all his life and then he flung that accusation at him. A bit like people say to God.. Why did you let that happen - don’t you care about me, about how I feel?. The father was so upset by his older son’s pain that he came out to him pleading with him to come into his house.
Isn’t it good to know that God is like the father in this story. Isn’t it good to know that his invitation to us is always “come home.”
7. Jesus didn’t just speak the message “Come home” he lived that message… he demonstrated how God would accept and welcome everyone who would hear his invitation. He made the lame dance for joy and he opened the eyes of blind and he made the deaf hear; he brought forgiveness and a new start to prostitutes and criminals, and all the time the invitation was the same… come home; come with me so that you can enjoy living in the love of God your heavenly father.
SLIDE 9 (cross) And Jesus surrendered himself to die on a cross to make it possible for us to come home.
I mean… Dirty messed up as we are there is no way we could enter heaven without ruining the place.
But Jesus took all of our faults and failings on himself. He died on the cross to take the punishment that runaway disobedient selfish children deserved.
And on the day when he was raised again from the dead ... the message was so loud and clear… we could see that God has the power to clean up even people like us, and to give us a fresh start.
And again and again and again and again, the living Jesus meets us whenever we come to our senses, whenever we stop blaming and accusing God or others.. and when we simply hear and respond to God’s invitation.. come home. The living Jesus will bring us into the presence of our heavenly father and say… father this one is with me - this is one of your runaway children who you love so much. Now this one has come to respond to your invitation. And the Father who spoke that message “I love you” into the very fabric of his creation.. will say “Welcome child. I’ve missed you. It is so good to have you back with me.”