Luke 15 The Father-heart of God.

GIVE GOD TIME

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A WORD IN YOUR EAR

1-10 God’s heart for the lost.

After that the ‘tax collectors’ and the public who had given up trying to follow all the religious rules, who were called ‘sinners’, came close to hear Him speak, ²so the religious leaders criticised Him for spending time eating with ‘sinners’.

³Then He told a story with a hidden meaning.

⁴“What shepherd wouldn’t leave ninety-nine sheep to go looking for one that got lost, until he found it? ⁵And then having found it, wouldn’t he then happily carry it back on his shoulders? ⁶Then, as soon as he was home, wouldn’t he celebrate with his friends and relatives saying, ‘Be happy with me that I have found the sheep that got lost’? ⁷In the same way, those in heaven will rejoice more when one sinner turns his back on sin than over all the ninety-nine who didn’t need to. ⁸It’s also like a woman who lost one of her ten pieces of silver, who gets a light and looks for it until she finds it by cleaning the house from top to bottom. ⁹When she finds it, she invites her friends around so that they share her happiness that she found the silver piece she lost. ¹⁰In the same way, there is joy like that in heaven over one sinner that turns away from sin”.

11-32 The Prodigal son…

¹¹And then He said to them,

“A man had two sons. ¹²The younger one said to his father,

‘Father, give me now what I’ll get when you die’.

And so he gave him his inheritance. ¹³Not much longer after that, he left home and went far away to another country, where he wasted his money on a playboy lifestyle. ¹⁴Just about the time when all his money had been spent, the land had a famine, so there was very little food left and he became very hungry. ¹⁵So he went and worked for a local man in that foreign country who told him to feed the pigs. ¹⁶He was still hungry even after eating the pigs food, and no-one even gave him anything to eat. ¹⁷After he had thought about his situation, he thought,

“How many of my father’s staff have more than enough food to eat, when I am going hungry? ¹⁸I will go back home and say to my father, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and you, ¹⁹and I am not good enough to be called your son, so just make me one of your workers”.

²⁰So he got up and went back to his father, but as soon as his father saw him coming in the distance, his heart melted and he ran to his son, hugging him and greeting him with a kiss. ²¹The son said,

‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and you, and I am not good enough to be called your son.’

²²But the father said to his staff,

‘Get my best clothes and give them to him. Put my ring on his finger and shoes on his feet. ²³Kill the fat young cow for us to eat and be happy, ²⁴as my dead son is actually alive. Having been lost, he has been found. So, they were very happy for him’.

²⁵Just then the older brother came in from the fields and heard music and dancing, ²⁶so he asked a servant what was going on.

²⁷He replied,

‘your brother is here, and so your father is having a feast to celebrate his safe return.’ ²⁸This made him so angry that he refused to go into the house, even after his father asked him to. ²⁹Instead the brother said,

‘I worked hard for you for years, obeying everything you said. In all that time, you never even let me have a goat so I could invite my friends round for a meal, ³⁰but as soon as this son of yours comes back after wasting your money on prostitutes, you give him the best fatted young cow we had’.

³¹The father said,

‘Son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. ³²It is right that we should have a party now that your dead brother is alive, who was lost but has been found’.”

—-Summary

²¹The son said, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and you, and I am not good enough to be called your son.’

Today’s Verse… Who is Jesus?

¹⁰In the same way, there is joy like that in heaven over one sinner that turns away from sin”.

Today’s Challenge

¹⁸I will go back home and say to my father,

‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and you, ¹⁹and I am not good enough to be called your son, so just make me one of your workers”.

‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and you, and I am not good enough to be called your son.’

Prayer, Praise and Worship

“… He went up on a mountainside by himself to pray.” Matthew 14:23.

Jesus taught His disciples what we call ‘The Lord’s Prayer’; (Luke 11).

Listen here to Albert Malotte’s ‘The Lord’s Prayer’.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name,

thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever;- Amen.

Prayer suggestions;-

The world. (ie ‘For those in authority.’)
The ‘suffering church.’ https://barnabasfund.org/nz/pray/daily-prayer/#previous-dates
Your own situation. (Suggest ‘needs’ rather than ‘wants’.)

Pray along with this hymn… I will sing the wondrous story…