Message Highlights

• The story of the prodigal son is really a story about a Father—and in this father, we see a picture of our heavenly Father and His relationship with us.
• Distance from God doesn’t change His love for you. It changes your perception of His love.
• Grace is for everyone—never deserved, always available. God doesn’t wait for you to fix yourself. He runs toward movement, not mastery.

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Conversation Starter

• Think about a time you felt like you needed to “have it together” before asking for help. What made you hesitant to reach out?
• What’s something you’ve convinced yourself you needed to fix or improve before you could move forward?

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Core Discussion Questions

Connection Question What stood out to you from this week’s message about the father and the prodigal son?

Context Question Before this week’s message, how did you understand the story of the prodigal son? Was it more about the son’s rebellion, or did you see the father at the center?

Clarity Question How did this week’s message change or deepen your understanding of how God responds when we come back to Him?

Application Question Is there an area of your life where you’ve been postponing a step toward God because you felt you needed to improve first? What would it look like to take that step this week?

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Additional Questions (Optional)

• The message said, “Distance from God doesn’t change His love—it changes your perception of His love.” Have you experienced a season where God felt distant or disappointed in you? What contributed to that feeling?
• The father in the story didn’t remind the son of his past—he moved straight to restoration. Is there someone in your life who needs you to respond with that same kind of grace?
• The son’s rebellion started in his heart long before he left home. What are some ways we can drift from God while still physically going through the motions of faith?

It's in Luke chapter number 15 that Jesus is telling a story. And the story is in response to some religious leaders. It's these religious leaders who felt they were better than everyone else, felt like they knew more than everyone else, that they were more spiritual than everybody around them.

And so Jesus tells this story, but he tells the story because the people that he tells the story to, the religious leaders, they thought that God's grace ought to be limited. Limited to people who had earned it, limited to people who deserved it. When in reality grace is for everyone. What Jesus teaches them is not only was grace for everyone and mercy for everyone, but no one deserves it. No one could ever earn it. No one could ever be good enough to receive it.

So Jesus ends up telling them a story about a young man. But the story isn't about necessarily the young man, the rebellion, the waste or the bad decisions that he ends up making. The story's about a father, and in the story of the father, we see a picture of our heavenly father and we see our relationship with him.

Jesus starts out by saying that a man had two sons. What you're going to find out is the younger son ends up failing horribly. The younger son fails miserably and he does wicked and evil and he sins. But before Jesus ever mentions the younger son's failure, he introduces us to the father's generosity. This is a wealthy man, not just financially, but relationally. A man with resources, influence, reputation. But here's what's interesting about the entire passage — the story hinges on the father and how the father responds to the son when the son disgraced him, dishonored him and sinned.

Luke chapter number 15, verse number 12, the Bible says this: "The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the estate I have coming to me.'" And here's the father's response: "So he distributed the assets to them."

Now the sin that the son commits here wasn't just in how he spent the money, how he lived his life after the money, but how he obtained it. You see in that culture, the inheritance was only given after the death of the father. And in a sense what this son is saying — he's saying, "Listen, I want your stuff. I don't want you. Listen, I want your stuff and I want all of the things that you have and I can't wait for you to die to finally get it. So I want it now." And what does the father do? He distributes everything.

The kind of disrespect from the son doesn't happen overnight. Perhaps he was dreaming and planning and imagining a life where the father and the father's money wasn't necessary. You see the money didn't create rebellion. The inheritance didn't create rebellion. It only funded it. Long before the son ever left home, he had already left the father in his heart.

And so for the father to do this, for the father to give this inheritance, something had to be sold. Finances were vastly different then than they were today. Everything would have been wrapped up in land. Everything would have been wrapped up in some kind of an investment in livestock. And so land would have had to have been sold. Livestock sold. Broken apart investments, liquidated. And to do so quickly would almost certainly mean a financial loss of some kind. And the father absorbs the son's freedom.

Look at verse 13. "Not many days later, the younger son gathered together all that he had and traveled to a distant country where he squandered his estate in foolish living."

A verse that really doesn't need a lot of explanation. But there's some principles here for us to learn. The sin that promises freedom eventually brings bondage. The sin that promises freedom and tells you you can have everything that you want eventually gives you bondage and it leaves you empty. We could say it like this: the sin that attracts you will eventually attack you.

So the story goes on in verse number 14. "After he had spent everything, a severe famine struck that country and he had nothing. Then he went to work for one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his fields to feed pigs." And we read that verse so quickly and we miss some things.

The original language lays this out in a particular way where it has a very deep and meaningful thought behind it. There's something else taking place. The original language suggests this, that he forced himself upon a citizen of that country who was unwilling to hire him and only took him after he begged. The word "hired himself out," or the phrase "went to work for" in the original language implies clinging to, as if this is his lifeline. And so the man sends him out into the fields to feed hogs.

Verse number 16: "He longed to eat his fill from the pods that the pigs were eating but no one gave him anything." We think about this and we think the leftover slop and the leftover scraps. We think of the food and we forget that pigs root their nose in everything, especially their own filth. This place where the pigs would have eaten had the pig mess mixed in with the food so much that you couldn't separate one from the other. And here this young man who once came from means, came from wealth, had everything, is looking at what these pigs are eating — looking at what you and I would so quickly discard — and desiring just to fill himself with that.

Jesus intentionally uses pigs. For the Jewish audience this would be — it's the lowest possible picture. The son who wanted independence is now glued, literally attached for survival, with some stranger to try and keep himself alive. And still no one gives him anything.

You see the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the leaders of the law, the religious leaders who believed that grace and mercy ought to be earned — they would have been overjoyed at this story because the son was getting what the son deserved. I mean, this is a story that they would have loved. They didn't like a lot of Jesus's teachings but they would have loved this one. They would have gone home at night and told their kids this story before bed. "Hey, if you disrespect your parents this is what's going to happen to you." This is the part of the story they would have loved. The son was getting what he deserved.

Verse number 17: "And when he came to his senses he said, 'How many of my father's hired workers have more than enough food and here I am dying of hunger. I will get up. Go to my father and say to him, Father I have sinned against heaven and in your sight.'" Look what he says. "I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired workers."

And the religious leaders at this point would have leaned in. "Oh, now he thinks he can go back home. He took the money. He did what he wanted to do. He spent it every which way he wanted to spend it. He spent it in sinful actions." If you read the passage later on, the younger brother plays into the story and he says to the father everything that the son did with the money. So the religious leaders would have leaned in: "Oh, now he wants to come back and say he's sorry. Mercy, grace — he doesn't deserve it."

And here the younger son doesn't know how the father would respond or what the father would say. You see, in that culture a son who disgraced the family would have been considered dead. The family would have gone as far as to have a funeral for the estranged child. A casket, mourning, oftentimes even the burial of an empty casket. And everyone who knew the family would shun the child out of respect for the family. And for this son, rejection was expected. Public shame was expected.

But the son decides to prepare a speech. To prepare some kind of speech. To pull at the father's heart. To just take him back as a servant and not a son.

Luke 15:20 starts off like this: "So he got up and went to his father." Can you imagine this? The anxiety. Not knowing what to expect. Rehearsing his speech again and again and again. "Father I've sinned against heaven and before you I'm not worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants." But it doesn't sound good enough. So he says that again. "Father I've sinned against heaven and in your sight I'm not worthy to be called your son. Make me one of your hired servants." And is repeating it again and again and again and again. Trying to find the right amount of emphasis. The right amount of emotion. The right posture to beg for something that he knows he doesn't deserve. To plead for something that he doesn't even expect to get. Knowing only one thing — that he should expect nothing.

But look at the rest of verse 20. "But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. Ran, threw his arms around his neck and kissed him."

This is out of the ordinary. We read this as ordinary because we've read it so many times — if you've been in church, and even if today's your first day ever in a church, you've heard this story one way or another from someplace. It's not foreign to you. But a father waiting and watching and running and receiving a son like this — it was never heard of.

The Bible says the father ran to him. See, we read that and we don't think a lot about it. We just think of a father running. Middle Eastern patriarchs — they did not run. Authority moved slowly. Dignity demanded composure. But this father's love was so great he discards all of that and runs towards his son. With reckless abandon, runs towards his son and begins to kiss him.

The father didn't make the son walk towards him and beg for forgiveness. He ran to meet him. And the original language also indicates when we read that phrase "kissed him" — it actually translates "kissed him repeatedly," "kissed him warmly," "kissed him lavishly." Such a man would not normally run — we mentioned that — but he also would not display public affection or excessive emotion publicly. Especially towards a disgraced son.

See, this isn't forgiveness. This isn't cautious forgiveness. This is overflowing acceptance. So we think about forgiveness. We think about cautious forgiveness. "Oh, I want to forgive but I don't want to get hurt again. Oh, I want to forgive but I want to make sure that the person really means what they're saying." The father hasn't even heard from the son yet. The son hasn't had the opportunity to give his speech, to say everything that was on his heart, everything that he had rehearsed again and again and again. He had not had that opportunity yet. The father runs, meets him, kisses him. It's not cautious forgiveness. No — it's overflowing acceptance.

And so the son starts his speech. Verse 21, the son said to him, "Father, I've sinned against heaven and in your sight — I'm no longer worthy to be called your son."

I love this. The father never answers the son. He never responds to the plea. The son is embraced and received before the confession is ever actually out or even finished. You see, acceptance and love and forgiveness — there's nothing that the son could have done to change any of this. You see, the son's sin separated him from the father but the father never stopped loving the son. Which led me to a question which maybe leads you to a question. If the father never stopped loving the son, and this is who the father was, it's who the father has always been — we see it all the way back in the beginning when it comes to taking half of everything he owns and liquidating it and giving it to his son — love and compassion and giving, something the father had always done.

So this is who the father is. Why does the son say, "I've got to come back and beg to be a servant. Oh, I won't be forgiven. I won't be accepted. Surely, surely he'll never look at me like a son again. I just want to go back and be there and eat like my father's servants so that I don't starve, so that I don't want to eat what these pigs are eating in the slop hole." But why is it stuck in his mind, in his heart, in all of his emotions — "I've got to go back. But I can't be a son. I've got to be a servant."

You might want to write this down, because the son's perspective of the father's love changed in the absence of the father. Because the son's perspective of the father's love changed in the absence of the father. See, this happens to us. We drift from God relationally. We don't walk with him daily. We pray when we need some things. And after a while, we don't walk with him at all. We don't pray at all. We've distanced ourselves from church. We've distanced ourselves from his people. We all of a sudden get ourselves caught up in sin that we know we don't belong in. And I hear it all the time as a pastor: "No, no, God can't forgive me. God can't love me. No, no, my sin is way too much for God to forgive." And theologically they know who God is. Relationally they've been redeemed by Jesus and they know that they're forgiven. But something switches in our mind when we get far enough away from our heavenly father, where we stop seeing him for who he is. And we begin to see him in the light of our failures. And what ends up happening to us isn't that God changes. It's not that God sees us different. It's not that his love changes. What ends up happening is our perspective changes because we get distant from him and we take our eyes off of him. And we get involved in sin and we expect God to respond just like everyone else.

And this is what the son did. The son got so far away from the father — all the way to a distant country, whether literally or figuratively — and got so deeply entrenched in sin that what he knew of the father and who the father was, he couldn't even wrap his mind around it when he needed grace and when he needed mercy and when he needed forgiveness.

So maybe you're here. Maybe that's you. Maybe for you, you feel like you randomly walked into church today. I'm going to tell you, you did not randomly walk into church today. If you're here right now and you're starting to take inventory of all the things that you've done, you're saying if people in this church knew what I did, they wouldn't want me in the room. First off, that's wrong. We are all broken sinners in need of a savior. But maybe you're sitting in the room and you're going, "If they knew" — but the reality is, you know God knows. So somewhere in your mind you're saying, "God can't forgive me. God can't fix me. God can't make my story different than what it already is because my story was written a long time ago." See, the thing is, you and I see ourselves in the light of our failures, in the light of our regret, in the light of what we cannot change. And our heavenly Father sees us in love and desires mercy for us, desires grace for us. So I'm going to tell you, it doesn't matter where you've been, it doesn't matter what you've done. Doesn't matter how long you've been gone. God's love doesn't change even though at times our perspective of his love changes.

And this is the love and the compassion of God. He doesn't leave us in our sin but runs to us in our repentance. Let me say that again — I want you to get that. He doesn't leave us in our sin but he runs to us in our repentance. And repentance isn't when you just stop doing bad things and you replace it with doing good things. That's not repentance. You see, repentance is a change of mind about your sin and turning to desire God instead of your own way.

And this is the mercy of God. He doesn't remind us of our sin. The son's at the Father's feet — I imagine being embraced by the Father, being kissed lavishly by the Father, being received — and he's trying to spit out his speech, his statement. "Father, I've sinned against heaven and in your sight. I've messed it all up. I've done it all wrong. I've messed it all up." Almost like, "Hey, I want to tell you, Father, what I've done because I know I did wrong." What does the Father do? He doesn't listen to the list of things. He doesn't require the Son to say the list of things. No — the Son is there in repentance. The Father doesn't care to discuss them.

That's what's great about God — God doesn't remember our sin anymore. Let me help you with some bad theology this morning. This isn't going to make it in the series of bad theology because you're just going to get it right now. We say this all the time: "Oh, God forgets our sin." And someone once said to me, you know, it's like that verse — "the sea of God's forgetfulness." That's not the Bible. That's an old hymn. Let me tell you the difference between an old hymn and the Bible. The Bible is God-breathed, inspired, preserved, inerrant for us today. An old hymn is just like songs that we have today. They have their flaws.

And we get all this from this verse that says in Jeremiah, "I will forgive their iniquity and I will never again remember their sin." This doesn't mean that God forgets your sin — that he loses the knowledge of it. No. If he did that, he'd cease to be omniscient. He chooses not to throw it in our face. He chooses not to rub our nose in it. And while the son is at the father's feet saying, "Father, I've sinned against heaven and in your sight and I've messed it all up," that's not what the father is concerned with. He's concerned that the son is there in that moment, repentant. That's who your heavenly father is. He doesn't forget your sin because he can't remember. He doesn't bring up your sin because he loves you. He loves me.

Jesus goes on with the story. "But the father told his servants" — doesn't even speak to the son — "Quick, bring out the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet, because this son of mine" — not a servant — "was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found." And so they began to celebrate.

And everything the son receives is from the father. The robe — it wasn't the son's. Remember, he took everything with him, went on his journey. He took the clothes. He took the money. He took all his stuff, went on his journey. So the robe, the shoes, the ring — they all belong to the father. The robe speaks of honor. The ring speaks of authority and sonship. The sandals speak of freedom because only slaves went around barefoot. And he wasn't given the privilege of being a servant. He was restored as a son. He wasn't restored to his own expectations. He was restored to the father's will.

Here's another statement, another principle that we can learn — you might want to write this down. I've said this multiple times over the last couple of years. God is always more interested in restoration than retribution. He's always more interested in restoration than retribution. He's more interested in restoring you than correcting you. In fact, he corrects you. He chastens you not to pay you back, but to bring you back to himself.

And if you and I apply this passage correctly, we've got to see the father as our heavenly father. We've got to see ourselves as the son who wanders astray. And if I had more time this morning, I would go into the other son, into the other chapter — but then I would be into an entire series. We've got to see ourselves as a son that wanders astray, sometimes not really wandering, sometimes running towards sin recklessly.

So how does this apply to you and me? Maybe you're here this morning and you're trapped in sin. The result of choosing your own way, the result of going your own way — you're trapped in sin. Maybe it's online. Maybe it's some kind of an addiction. Maybe at work you're already engaged in some kind of a relationship that you know is going to take you to breaking your marital vows and you know it's sin and you know it's wrong and God is just thumping you this morning. Maybe you know you're in sin and you just know your heart is far from him.

Hey, if that's you, I want to stop the message. I want to stop everything and tell you something incredible. If that's you, God in heaven spoke through a broken vessel like me to give you something you needed. There is the proof of his heart, of his love, of his mercy, that he would speak to you in that moment.

Maybe you're here. Perhaps you're right where you should be. You're in church. Your kids are checked into the kids program. You're signed up to work in VBS. You're getting ready to be a part of our membership meeting. But your heart is far from your heavenly Father. You haven't left. You haven't gotten involved in sin to the degree that you look at the slop and you think that's what you really want, but you know your heart is far, far, far away.

Maybe you're here this morning. You sit in the room and you're wandering after going your own way. Living your life — will your heavenly Father receive you? You see, the thing about all three of these different categories — I'm going to tell you how they're all the same. They start right where the Son started. He got up and started moving towards his Father.

Today, maybe you and your heart need to move towards the Father. If that's the case, I've got a few things for you. The first one is this: come home before you fix yourself. You don't have to try and clean yourself up. Come back to the Father before you fix yourself. And you're saying, "Anthony, I don't understand this. How can I be far from God when I'm sitting in church? I mean, Anthony, I'm in church the Sunday after Easter. I didn't even wait till Christmas to come back. How can you tell me I'm far from God?" Because it starts here. Long before it's ever a location, long before there's ever an amount of traveling, long before we ever pack up our bags and start making our journey away from the Lord — it starts here.

And whenever it starts, we start saying to ourselves, "Oh, we've got to clean ourselves up. I've got to come up with some kind of a plan. I have to come up with some kind of proof that I've changed." The prodigal son was already far from his Father long before he left home. And when he was far, he realized, "I can't clean up myself. I don't have much of a plan. I don't have proof that I've changed." He came home in his filth. The Bible says he got up and went to his Father.

You see, he knew his way was hopeless and he knew that he needed the Father. Here's something for us: the turning point for the son wasn't perfection. It was direction. What ends up happening to us is we go, "I've got to fix myself. And if I can just fix myself, then God will be okay with me." What I love about the story is the son was starving. He was clinging himself to some stranger that didn't actually want him, and all he was trying to do was stay alive. He couldn't take care of himself. He couldn't fix himself. He couldn't clean himself. All he could do was make his way back to the Father.

What does it mean to come home before you fix yourself? It means stop focusing on perfection and focus on direction. Stop postponing repentance because you think you can fix everything, because you need to improve yourself in some way first. Can I tell you — God runs towards movement, not mastery.

The son said — this is so cool — the son said, "I want all your stuff. I just don't want you." He said to the Father, "I want your money. I want to be able to go and do what I want to do. I want all of your stuff. I just don't want you." And here's what God says to us: "I don't want your stuff. I just want you." He just wants you to come towards him. He just wants you, when you're far away, to repent. Not to fix yourself, not to clean yourself up, but to move towards him.

Here's the second thing I want you to catch: don't let distance distort God's love. The son believed that he could only come back as a servant — not because the Father said that, but because distance changed his perspective about the Father. See, this is what happens to us. We get far from God and we don't know how to get back. We get far from God and we don't know how to walk back through the doors of church. Let me make it a lot more personal, because you're all here this morning — you walk through the doors. We get far from God. We don't know what it is to open his word and spend time with him again. We don't know what it is to pray and not ask for a bunch of things. We don't know how to close that distance, that gap relationally.

What so many people do is because they don't know how to close the gap relationally, they leave the gap and they try and do a whole bunch of things that will impress God. "If I can do these things that will impress God, then it will close that gap." You hear it in the Son with the Father: "I'm going to go back. I'm going to try and be a servant. I'm going to try and just do my very best." He goes back with this big story: "Father, I sinned against heaven and in your sight. I'm not worthy to be called your son." He missed what the Father really wanted. It wasn't some amazing speech. The Father just wanted him to come back home.

What happens to us is we don't know how to close that gap relationally with our Heavenly Father. There's a verse in James that I love, and it says this: "Draw close to God, and He'll draw close to you." It's not something you've got to figure out.

It's just what we see in the picture of Luke chapter number 15. That we see the Son making His way towards the Father, and what does the Father do? He runs to him in repentance. That's a picture of what God desires to do with us, but instead what we end up doing is we know that gap is there relationally. We try and fix it. We try and close the gap with our effort, with our works, with how good we look on the outside.

Like if it's us, we would have never come home like the Son. We would have never come home with some filth and some shame and some regret. We would have tried to fix all of that before we got to God. And here's the thing — when it comes to sin, we're just like the Son. Sure, we might not have looked inside of a pig trough, and we might not have the manure stained our skin, and we might not have the stench that the Son had. But we have all of that on us when we're far from God in our sin. And God says to us, "Hey, come towards me, and I'm going to come towards you. Hey, move towards me, I'm going to move towards you. Move towards me, and watch me run towards you."

And if God feels cold, distant, and disappointed, the problem isn't your heavenly Father — the problem is your proximity with your heavenly Father. It's you. It's me. It's never Him.

My last thought is this: receive restoration, not just forgiveness. You see, the Father didn't stop at forgiveness. He moved straight to restoration. There's so much symbolism that I don't have time to get into this morning, but the robe and the ring and the sandals. The Father would have been merciful to say, "Here, listen, you can go sleep in the bunkhouse with the servants. You can go be a servant and I'll take care of you as a servant." But He didn't do that.

The Son wasn't put on probation. He wasn't kept at arm's length. He wasn't reminded of His past. He was restored as a Son. You see, God is always more interested in who you are becoming than punishing you for who you were. And some of you here, you believe that God forgave you — I mean, because you know it theologically — but you won't let yourself live in that freedom, and you still keep carrying the shame and the regret of your past.

It was last summer we were in Colossians, and we talked about sin and the law and shame and regret, and Jesus paid for all of them. He nailed them all to the cross for you, for me. So why do we keep living in shame when the Father is more interested in restoration than He is in retribution?

You see, the story — the story is in response to religious leaders who believed that God's grace should be limited to people who earned it. When grace is for everyone. Never deserved, always available.

So maybe you're here this morning, and you're finding yourself in that place, and you know — you know you're at your bottom. You know you're at your low. You know there's no place for you to go. Sure, you're sitting in the room, and maybe you're the only one that knows it. You're the only one that realizes it. And there's still this thing inside of you, still this nagging voice inside of you that says, "I've got to get a little bit better, and if I can get a little bit better, then I can sit down with God." No.

What makes Him so incredible and so amazing — one of the things that makes Him so incredible and so amazing — is that He meets you and He meets me at our lowest points. And in love and mercy and in pity, calls us. Restores us. Makes us new. You see, why? Because it's who He is, and it's what He does.