Parable Of The Wayward Child
Minister: |
Rev. Ronald Van Overloop |
Date: |
6/8/2014 PM
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Text:
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Luke 15:11-24
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Psalters: |
179, 304, 294, 387 |
- The son’s folly.
- Two brothers raised in the church, given the outward privileges of the proclamation of the truth concerning God.
- The elder son was apparently faithful to his father.
- The younger son was unhappy with everything.
- The wayward son is a picture of every believer who knows he falls into sin repeatedly, who strays from faithfulness.
- God sent troubles as consequences of sin.
- Over against man’s faithless sinfulness, the father displayed unchanging and unconditional love.
- The father is pictured as waiting watchfully for his foolish son to back home.
- God’s love is unchangeable because it is eternal.
- That it is eternal is because it is rooted in God’s own being.
- It is not dependent on the objects (for they are unlovely), for then it would change.
- But God loves Himself and His Son, and His love for us is an extension of this.
- God’s love is also sovereign, i.e., it accomplishes.
- His love is first (always) and it reaches us wherever we are, follows us wherever we wander.
- It is God’s love which brings the chastisement, so we deplete our inheritance and experience famine (Heb. 12:6; Rev. 3:19).
- God’s love shows us the emptiness of sin and it reminds us of the blessings we have in our Father’s house.
- Assurance of God’s love.
- God’s sinful children need assurance of God’s love.
- The son determined to return home with a confession of his sin (19,21).
- Then why did he know his Father would receive him after having sinned so against Him? Despair in hopelessness!
- The Father’s love always receives us (don’t judge God by what we do or would do).
- God constantly proclaims His grace!
- The fact that His love works our confession assures us that He will receive us.
- The father was waiting and watching, recognized his son, and without restraint ran to meet him.
- Forgiveness is given while we were yet sinners.
- And the Father’s love restores us to the full rights of His children (22,23).
- When we wander from our Father’s house, then we only experience His displeasure.
- But when we return, then we experience that His love is eternal and unchangeable.