A Forgiving Father

The theme that I chose to talk with the young people about at camp this week in my Bible class was taken from a parable in Luke chapter 15 that we're all familiar with. It is the parable for the prodigal son.

And I focused in on one line out of this parable that is found in verse 18, where the prodigal son says, I will arise and go to my father. My goal with the young people this week was to teach them to develop a relationship with God. It's the most important relationship they will ever have. Young people come to camp and they want to be with their friends. Everything else is kind of ancillary to that desire for them to be with their friends. And yet we do have a mission and a purpose in our camp program. It's more than just that, but their relationships are important just as your relationships with each other in the church are important. Our marriages are important, our relationships in our families are important. But as we know, relationships change. Friends come and go. Marriages come and go. People in the church come and go. Relationships change over any period of time. That's not easy for a 13 or an 18-year-old to understand. Their life experience is rather short compared to you and I. You and I can handle the breakup with a girlfriend or a boyfriend. Some 16-year-olds can't do that. They wind up committing suicide all too often today because of things like that. And other things happen in young people's lives that upset them, and yet they're at a very vulnerable age. So I thought, well, the best thing I could at least work with them on given the circumstances where they are, what's taken place in the last year in the church, was to draw them to a relationship with God and to point that as the most important relationships to develop. Regardless, all the others are important too, but if we have that relationship with God secure, we can deal with all the other ups and downs and ins and outs of all the other relationships of life. And I chose this parable and I chose another story from the Old Testament, that of Jacob to go through, but we're just going to focus this afternoon on the parable here in Luke chapter 15. So let's look at chapter 15 and verse 11.

And we'll go through this parable, draw some lessons from it, and review it. I think it has some very powerful lessons for all of us to consider in our own life, and especially as the most important lesson and relationship is that with our Father, is that which is to be drawn out of this particular parable. Let's look. Now, as I'm going through this, folks, if I kind of look up and start asking you to raise your hand or interject, don't think I'm strange or changing all of our traditions within the church, because that's what I've been doing all week. And I'd stop and have them read. I guess maybe some of you would be shocked if I just ask you right now, will you start reading in verse 11? You don't want to do that. But if I stop, that's what I've been doing all week. I'd have them read, and then we'd ask questions and get their input back and forth. They did a good job. They knew the story. They knew the story of Jacob. And so I knew there would be a futile effort to try to lecture them for 60 minutes. I might as well go talk to some cows in the field as far as the effectiveness of it. So I hope that I got a few points across to them this week. But anyway, I'll stick to our traditional format here within the sermon context here as much as I possibly can. Then he said, a certain man had two sons, three people, a father and two sons set the stage for this important parable. And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me. So he divided them to his livelihood.

And not many days after, the younger son gathered altogether and journeyed to a far country and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. Or, as your margin probably puts it, was squandering. He blew it. He wanted his inheritance. Now, we can assume that the father had a sizable estate, a business that would have normally passed to the sons on his death, but he was not at the point of death yet. And yet, the 18-19 year old son wanted what was his. He wanted it now. He wanted to go out on his own for whatever reason, tired of his father's authority, tired of the rules, maybe just tired of working, thinking he could do better, thinking he knew more, as some late adolescents do know or think.

And so he demanded his inheritance, and the father gave it to him. Now, to have done so, the father probably had to liquidate part of his estate, some of his stocks and bonds. So maybe go and borrow money if he didn't have the liquid cash to do it, rather than see the business go under. You know, if a father had a business today and a son wanted his third or half or whatever, then, you know, it might be that he'd have to take out a loan. Borrow the money in some fashion. And in doing so, that would create an indebtedness on the books that would have to be worked off. So the other son and the father left behind, they got to work harder now to make up for that. Meantime, the younger son had his money, and he left home, and he wasted his possessions. What might he have spent it on?

Well, let's bring it into the modern context. Maybe he had been spending too much time watching HGTV, and he decided he wanted a big, big, big home on the coast, with a big swimming pool in the back yard, 10 bedrooms, five bathrooms, multimedia room, on 15 acres, a home he couldn't afford. Really. But he thought he could, like so many people today. You wonder, you know, how are these homes afforded? I wonder sometimes when I see these programs of people buying homes.

He had the big eye. Probably wanted sports cars, fast sports cars, expensive watches, and to live a style of living that might have included gambling.

Or maybe he thought that he could invest it and make millions in some scheme.

You know, anyone who has a big sum of money, a windfall, suddenly has friends. When people find out about it, stockbrokers call, investors want to offer advice, relatives come out of the woodwork that you never knew you had. People who won the lottery go through this all the time. I know you're saying, yeah, but give me a chance at that. Whatever he did, he spent it and he didn't get a return. And he squandered it. When he had spent it all, verse 14, there are rows of famine, severe famine, in that land, and he began to be in once.

A famine could have been a famine engineered by any number of means. No rain, as well as an economic downturn. We've had that in the last three years or so in this country. We've seen the economy go south and still impacting our recovery. People who bought homes and then lost jobs, or couldn't keep up the more, he's lost those homes. Cars were repossessed. And you know the story on that. Well, there was a reversal and he began to be in want. And so he went and he joined himself to a citizen of that country and he sent him into his fields to feed pigs.

That was the only, that was the one job that he could find. He hired himself out to someone.

And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the pigs ate and no one gave him anything. So he was down and out. Whatever friends he had gained were no longer around. They weren't there to help him out. Either to loan him money or even give him a meal. Because he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pig food. Which gives you the indication that he either didn't have the money for that or things were so tight that there wasn't a whole lot left over. Or even what was left over from the pigs wouldn't have been fit to eat. If you've ever been around a pig sty, pig yard, you know how rank that is. And what the pigs don't eat and is left behind is pretty bad.

Well, my grandfather used to have pigs out behind his house. And when I would go to his house, I'd step out the back and kind of roam around. And I just, I can still smell it to this day. It was not a very pleasant place to be or to imagine yourself looking for food in that way. This young man had come to the end of his rope and it could have been over in a number of years. Two years, 20 years. It's open-ended. This is an open-ended parable in terms of what you can read into it and its application to any particular age. And he was at that point where he recognized that nobody was going to help him.

And in verse 17, it says, when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have bred enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger?

I perish with hunger. The operative phrase in verse 17 is, he came to himself, which is a whole state of mind that we can say he came to a point of repentance. He came where he recognized what he had done, how foolish he had been, how much he didn't know, and he recognized that he had no place to turn. He recognized that he had no place to turn. Circumstances, experiences in life, can be a very, very effective teacher. It's not the best teacher, but it can be an effective teacher. And that's what happened with this young man. He came to a point where he came to himself and he recognized that even the servants in his father's house had bread enough to eat and food left over. And I'm here very, very hungry, no food, nothing to buy.

And so in verse 18 he says, I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. That's the phrase that, again, I used as my theme this week, I will arise and go. And he'd come to himself, he came to the point where he said, I'll get up, I'll go back, I will apologize, I will take whatever I can get, whatever is open to me, I will admit that I have sinned. Now verse 18 brings in the, again, the father at this particular point in this relationship. And, as I think is important for us to realize, the whole story is a parable that's really teaching us to the relationship with God in heaven as our Father. That's really the point here. This young man went back to, went to God. You and I go through a lot of things in life, and at times we come to the end of our rope in a situation or in a trial, in a tough period of our life, where we may come to ourselves. And it may be as a result of any number of reversals, setbacks, difficulties. And over a period of time, we realize that we have made a mistake by letting that relationship with God dwindle down to the point where, as Ryan was talking about in the other parable of the virgins, the oil just goes out. There's nothing there.

But there's enough of a glimmer to bring something back.

And we finally come to the point where we realize that there's nobody else to turn to. There's no other place to go but on my knees to God as my Father, acknowledge the mistake, and ask forgiveness, and ask for the strength to have that relationship renewed.

That takes guts. That takes courage. And this is where this young man was.

This is what he had come to. I've sinned against heaven and before you. It's not against anyone else. It's against God. And he said, I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.

You'll notice in these few verses here, at this point in the story, that the idea of a servant comes in. He recognized that the servants in his father's home had more than he did.

And he says, I'll go back and I'll just be a servant in my father's house. I don't need to have a position in the office. I don't need to have an office right next to my dad in his corner suite as the owner of the enterprise. I'll come in at an entry level. I'll work the shop floor. I'll work the fields. I'll work for minimum wage. I'll just work for room and board. I will be as a servant.

I don't need any title. I don't even need to be acknowledged as a son.

Other than perhaps just a hug. But no favoritism. No favoritism.

I was impressed last month when we were doing a Beyond Today program. We went over to Holmes County, Ohio near Sugar Creek and we were doing the program with John Miller, one of our elders who runs a manufacturing business there in Sugar Creek, Ohio. And he ships all over the world. He's got quite a large business and quite a large number of employees. His son, Daniel, works for them and is a partner, I think, probably within it. But Daniel wasn't that way 10 years ago and he went through college and while he was going through college he worked the night shift on the floor of the business, working the stamping machine, just doing the grunt work of a press up and down, a lot of it by hand, and learned every operation within the business to where after he got his degree and then came back to work first shift for probably longer hours, he knows the whole operation from front to back and can do anything that anybody else is doing there. You know, boss's son, just because he's boss's son doesn't mean that you can take over a business or run it without having the experience and other aptitudes and the abilities to make it happen. And this younger son realized at this point, I'll just be a servant.

Now, we have committed ourselves in the church today to focusing on and emphasizing Christ-like service across the board, top to bottom, in our relationships, in our approach to one another, in everything. And this is exactly where this younger son is at this point in the story. He's coming back to his father with an attitude of service. I'll just be a servant. I'll do what needs to be done to help make things work and just give me enough to eat and to have a roof over my head. And that's an attitude of a servant. From that point, you can begin to work with people.

They can learn the skills. They can be taught the processes of a particular operation.

They can learn certain skills if the attitude is right. But someone who thinks they know it all and spends their time second-guessing cannot be a servant. In my 38 years in the ministry, the individuals who come and go in the church who spend their time second-guessing the way the church is run, whether it's a minister trying to climb the ladder or a member trying to get ordained, and they spend their life and their time second-guessing and backbiting, thinking they can do it better, doesn't have a servant's heart.

Just doesn't work that way. It just doesn't happen.

Christ is not going to honor attitudes like that, which means that every one of us should be able to approach a job or an opportunity with a Christ-like approach.

I was telling the kids at the camp, I said, look, you've got counselors and staff members here who give up a week of their time to come and make this camp work and to serve you. Tell them thanks. We couldn't do it without them. They don't get paid. They're totally volunteering, and they want to come back and do it because they believe in the mission of the church. That's how our camp program operates. That's how so much of what we do in the church gets done.

And that's the attitude that we must all have. I used to direct the camp. I have no desire to direct the camp anymore. I'm glad I went back to fit in and do what I could do. It just frankly helped me to kind of rekindle a desire there to take another stab at it, to work at it again. I wish I knew then what I know now about running a camp. I do a lot of things different when I started back in 1996. I can see where I had some successes, many successes, most of which because we had good people, but I also made some mistakes. And it's good to learn that way. It's good for us all to learn that way. But to learn, we have to shed ourselves of our ego, our vanity, and our pride, and just be willing to serve. Serve for the sake of serving without desiring recompense or something that we think we are due because of who we are, whatever talent or ability we might have, or whatever it might be. This younger son came to the point where he was willing to just be a servant. And when he did, you see the result in verse 20, he rose and he came to his father, but when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. Now, this part of the story tells us that God knows our hearts, just like this father knew his son's heart. God knows our hearts. He knows when we come to ourselves and we're on our way back to him, he is ready to forgive. He is ready to shower blessings upon us. This father knew that his son was coming in some way because he says when he was still a great way off, I guess somebody texted him that his son was coming. It's on his way.

It's how he knew. Maybe he had other means and signals out and whatever. Maybe he knew where he was and maybe had been monitoring his progress over all these years and knew about it or whatever, but he ran and he fell on his neck and gave him a big hug and kissed him. He was glad to see him. The son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. He knew exactly what he deserved. He knew exactly where he was. But the father said to his servants, Bring out the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. He didn't even get a chance to ask to sweep the shop floor. His father put on a robe, which was the robe is a symbol of honor. And the ring on the ring on his finger was a symbol of authority. In the ancient world, a ruler, a king, would use that ring with a signet on it to put that imprint into a hot wax on a letter or document to show that his authority was behind whatever was on that letter in that document. And so him receiving a ring in this way shows us that the father was bestowing a certain amount of his authority upon the sun. So he had honor and authority because now he knew how to use it. Now he would not squander it. He wouldn't waste it on himself and he would not abuse anybody else with it.

The worst thing to do is to ordain someone who has not learned to master himself and takes advantage of that position.

Whether it's a deacon, a deaconess, or an elder, or anyone else put into a position, and they do not know how to use that position and that authority that has been given to them. The sun knew then how to use it. He was also given shoes. Shoes were a symbol of freedom. He didn't have to be a servant. He didn't have to sell himself into debt. Now he was free.

We've all heard the spiritual song, the spiritual, the old spiritual, All God's Chillin Got Shoes.

Well, that's the idea out of slavery, at least the American slave experience, that that shoes were a symbol of freedom. So all God's children who get shoes, they have their freedom.

In other words, all of God's children are free before Him. So this young man had that freedom bestowed upon him by his father with the sandals on his feet. Then he went a step further, verse 23. The father said, Bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry.

For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost in his found, and they began to be merry.

So he threw a party. Threw a party for his son. Brought out roast beef, prime rib, cooked some burgers, and they had a good... and they had a... making a party celebration of his return.

Now, in verse 25, we meet the third person in the story, which is the older son.

His older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants, and he asked him what these things meant. And he said to him, Your brother has come, because he's received him safe and sound. Your father has killed the fatted calf.

And so he finds out that the party's going on, that his long-lost brother has come back.

And his reaction in verse 28 is a little bit different than the father. He became... he was angry, and he would not go in. Therefore, his father came out and pleaded with him. He wouldn't go in, would not join the celebration, would not embrace his brother, was extremely hostile to him at this point. And his father pleaded with him.

So that he answered and said to his father, the older son said to his father, Lo, these many years I've been serving you. I punched in at eight o'clock every morning, and I worked overtime, and we rebuilt the portion of the business that had to be liquidated to give to the son. And I've been here. You know, there are any sizable family often. There's the good son, there's a bad son. Good child to bad child. Sometimes because of the family dynamics.

Middle child, youngest child, or what other matters that go on, there's one, or something that takes place there. And the younger son was, in this case, that one.

But the father, or the older brother, was the good son. He's the one to stay. He obeyed all the rules. He kept the law. He kept it all, all during this time, while his younger brother had thumbed his nose at it. So you've got two contrasts there. Put yourself in the shoes of the older brother.

It's easy to identify with that. If you've done what is right, and someone then, as in this case, is brought right back up almost to a par position, even with you in this, it can be a bitter pill to swallow. What about me? What about me? Don't I get some recognition? Don't I get some respect? I've been here. I did all of this for you. He wasted it all. We're beginning to see two different characters. Let's talk for a minute just about character.

Character is something that has to be built from the inside out, if it's to be right, godly, and lasting. Character that is imposed by rules, external forces, bribery, or whatever it might be, is not generally internalized in a matter of the heart and deeply ingrained in a person's character to be lasting. The younger son, obviously at that one point in his life, he didn't have the character to use the money that he had wisely. His character was reprobating, and he made no bones about it. He didn't try to hide it. He was kind of all out there, you know, what you see is what you get. And he had to go through years of experience to get to the point where his character now was changed, and he was ready to take on a different approach to life, and it was all internal because he came to himself. Now, the older son had stayed and punched in, and then obeyed. But we're seeing, you see by his attitude, that he was a bit legalistic.

Biblical term for that might be Pharisaical.

He had done what was right. He'd obeyed the rules, but it had all been external, because his anger toward his father and the fact that he could not rejoice in his brother's return showed that it hadn't really been internalized. His keeping of the law, in this case, the rules of the family and the house and business and doing everything right, was all for show, or for himself, what he could get, because he had no joy in his brother's return, and he was angry at his father for throwing this party for him and making a big public celebration of it.

One of the problems that we have when we obey God, when we are going to keep the law of God, we're going to keep the commandments, we're going to keep the holy days, we're going to obey God and obey what this book says without just throwing it off to, you know, spiritualizing it away, as so many do with the teachings of the Bible, and saying, well, Christ paid that penalty for you. You don't have to do it. Or it was all done away, or it was all nailed to the cross, or all those attitudes that we know that people have when it comes to, let's say, the law. But we know that we are to keep the law. One of the problems that is very difficult to do is to keep from getting legalistic. So rigid that we feel that we can work ourselves up the ladder to righteousness and to even salvation. We are not saved by our works, but by grace.

And that not of ourselves. It is the gift of God. Our works, our lawkeeping, we know, brethren, does not save us spiritually. But we are called to good works.

But as we keep the law, as we obey God, we have to make very sure we don't take on the attitude of a Pharisee and get very rigid and legalistic and judgmental in our application and in our approach. This young man, or the older son, was a legalist. He had done it right, and he had no patience with anybody who fell. He had no love for them. He had no joy for them. He could not have any joy and enter in and say, it is good to see you. Welcome home, brother. In fact, when you read on, he said in verse 29, I said, these many years I've been serving you. I never transgressed your commandment. Yet you didn't give me a goat or make a party for me with my friends. But look at verse 30. He said, as soon as the son of yours came, he didn't even say he was your brother. He said, your son. He didn't say, my brother, your son. Parents, when you say, when dad walks in the door or whatever, and you say, you know what your son did today?

You know what your daughter did today? You know what you're saying. You're disowning their actions. You're really not disowning them, but you're not too happy with them at this point. You're kind of transferring that to the other parents. You do what your son did today?

Well, that's what the brother was doing, but he was doing it from a deep-seated feeling of anger.

Your son, he's not my brother. He had no joy whatsoever. He devoured your livelihood with harlots. Wait a minute. Where was that in the story? That wasn't part of the earlier account of what he squandered it on. How does he know that he squandered it on harlots?

Didn't say it. Doesn't say that. Maybe that's what he secretly wanted to do himself.

But somehow it stubbornly resisted to not do it. But who knows that he might not have been susceptible to some major sin himself if he were in the right circumstances, or if he slipped at a particular time. When you impose from the outside strict rules of religion and community, and they're not internalized, that's why God says that the new covenant is to write his law upon our hearts. And that's a whole different approach to the law. Where we keep the law, we become, as David did, oh, how love I thy law. And we know why we keep it. And we want to keep God's law, every point of the commandments. But because of what we see that it can do to us internally, and the Holy Spirit begins with that fruit of joy, to give us that joy of salvation. This older son was like a person who just saps the joy out of a situation, out of a room.

You know, there are—my good friend Paul Kiefer told me one time—he lived in Germany in the years when Germany was divided between East and West. And East Germany was under the Communist orbit, the Iron Curtain years before 1989. And I think we've all realized since the fall of the communism, the fall of the Iron Curtain in that period of time, that communism didn't work.

And country after country, where it was imposed after World War II, it just—they imposed a system of controls and strict controls on the economy to try to get things going. And it just didn't work, and it collapsed in on itself. Ronald Reagan knew that it would, and that's why he pushed and pushed it the way he did, and it eventually fell, because it was all external, trying to create a society, a utopian society, that just didn't work. But my friend Paul Kiefer used to tell me, because he would go into East Germany to visit, and he saw—it was still very drab and dreary. But the East Germans, being Germans, made it work after a fashion. And he used to say, if there's any people on the face of the earth that can make communism work, it's the East Germans, or it was the Germans. And the Eastern Germans found themselves under Soviet domination after World War II, and they, quote, made it work. But not really. You know, sometimes, spiritually in the Church, if we're approaching everything legalistically, out of self-righteousness, that we have to make ourself righteous, we will approach God's way of life, and we will be zealous, and we will appear to be making strides.

But if it's not being done internally, then we will be prone to judgmentalism, harshness, not quite enough mercy, all kinds—all a whole host of ills and spiritual ills, because we're going about it all wrong. We're trying to do it ourselves, and we're being very, very rigid in our approach to God's way of life. Not that we should ever be lax, not that we should ever be liberal. That's not the point. But if you have a joy in keeping the Sabbath, you know how to keep the Sabbath holy, and make it a joy for yourself, your children, your family, and it's not a straitjacket. You know how to approach every point of God's law and make it work to create a good, balanced way of life that keeps the law without getting legalistic to the point of judgmentalism. Or, you know, just thinking that we've got to be perfect, or everything, and everybody has to be perfect. The problem of a legalist is eventually you start looking at everybody else, and you see their flaws. You see their mistakes. This older son instantly started looking at his father and his brother. He said, you didn't do this for me. Your son, he probably spent it all on harlots, and the whole focus was on others, and blame, and anger, and resentment, and hostility. And he didn't see the mercy, love, and the compassion of his father. He didn't see the repentance and servant-like attitude of his brother. And he was not glad to see him there. Now, as the story goes on, the father says to him in verse 31, son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. He tells him, you are always with me, and everything that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad. It was a good thing to do, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.

He was as good as dead because he was gone. He was no longer a part of our life.

We didn't see his face across the table. We didn't hear the laughter in his voice. We couldn't share the moments of life, the turning of the seasons, the turning of the calendar each year. He was as good as dead, but now he's come back to us, and it's like life has been brought back into the family. And it is right that he has been found, and he is here. You've always been here, and nothing is going to be taken away from you. The father did not cut anything out of the son.

The son could have probably had enough money to throw his own party for himself and the whole block party if he'd wanted to. And his father said, everything I've got is yours, and you will have your part, but let's have some joy over the repentance of your brother. And then the story ends. As I was telling the kids, you know, I like my stories all neat, tied up with a pretty bow in a little box.

Good guy wins, bad guy goes to jail, boy meets, you know, they get married, and they live happily ever after. That's the way I like my stories. I hate these movies that just kind of, you know, leave you ending, you thinking, I paid good money for this. I like my stories to have good endings. This one is kind of open. I challenged him to think, what do you think the older brother eventually did? Did he come around, or did his bitterness really get entrenched, and he left the family? What happened?

We don't know. Christ told his parable in such a way that, I guess we could write our own ending if we wanted to. So we hope that he changed. Most of the kids thought that he did when they talked about it. But this is a story, and I told the kids, it's called the parable of the lost son or the prodigal son, but really, that's the misnomer.

It's really a parable of a forgiving father, and it teaches us about our relationship with God the Father, which is the most important relationship we have to develop, maintain, and hold on to. The kids were going around the high ropes course. They built a brand new high ropes course, and I used it. It was right out the back door of the building we were using for my class, and they'd all been on it. I could just point to it, because when you get up on a high ropes course, you have a helmet, you're in a harness, and you have these big lobster claw clips that you clip to a wire above you to hold you, and then you're on a high wire, or kind of a swing.

They had about four different courses that they had to traverse, but all the time keeping themselves hooked to that wire, so that if they fell off of the upper wire ahead of them, so that their feet gave way, they may be dangling in the midair, but they've got that lifeline holding them on. They can get back on and hold on to the rope and start moving again. That's exactly what is the importance of our relationship with God.

It's that connection to that wire above us in life, to maintain so that when we fall, when we stumble, and we're kind of flailing with our feet in midair till we can find that footing again, we're being held and we're being protected by that connection to the wire above. We will fall. We will make mistakes. But if we have that connection with God as our Father, if we know that He will forgive, and He does, if we believe that that connection is hard, fast, and true, and we are keeping it maintained and we're developing it, then whatever happens, whatever challenge is thrown at us, we will have the connection to work through it.

There are so many challenges to us in life, and our young people are going through schools, in high school, and in their college classes, being fed ideas and philosophies that rip and tear at faith, spirituality, values, law, God, the Bible. And I felt the best thing I could do was to encourage and point them to this book as the truth, as the words of life, and to use and to develop a relationship with God. And I think most of them want to.

And they come into the environments that we have at camp, and it's kind of their environment for a week. The focus is upon them. And they want to. Not all of them get it at that time, because they have to go back to schools, life, friends, sometimes homes that are not the best, where the example is not the best.

And their challenges work against their faith. And my point to them was, if you have that relationship with God, that's the most important one, and you go for that, you can traverse the challenges that you will face in your life now and in the years to come. But that's what we want you to do. That's what you should do. This parable points us to a relationship with the Father that gives us a great deal of instruction to look to Him as merciful, loving, forgiving, tough. This Father was tough in the sense that He let His Son go and make some mistakes.

He showed He had wisdom. He knew that that was the only way that His Son could do it.

And He let Him go. Sometimes you have to let people go.

Sometimes you have to let relationships go. And so that people will learn to trust in God and not any other human being. That is a big lesson for us to learn.

God the Father has in His wisdom given us a story to teach us that those things must be, but we all have the opportunity and the way back and it is shown in this story of the faithful, loving Father. Let's be thankful that we have that Father. Let's make sure our connection to Him is sure so that no matter what happens to us, when we stumble, when we're dangling with our feet in the air, we still know that we've got a lifeline there and we'll use it and we will stay close to Him so that He can bring us ultimately into His eternal spiritual family.