Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, May 21st. You've probably heard the story of the prodigal son. Today, you'll see the Father as a picture of our forgiving Heavenly Father. And the sense and the experience, the joy of it. Did you know that unforgiveness is a form of bondage? That if you have an unforgiving spirit toward anyone, you put yourself in bondage. Likewise, if you sense someone else has an unforgiving spirit toward you and you don't respond to that properly, again, you place yourself in bondage. But the worst form of bondage relating to unforgiveness is the form of bondage that comes as a result of feeling or thinking or perceiving that God has not forgiven me or that God will not forgive me. Because along with the bondage comes a feeling, a sense of an awareness of rejection and condemnation from God.
Not that He does express those emotions, but that's what we feel. But all through the Bible, the Bible says that God is a forgiving God. When God identified Himself and addressed Moses on one occasion, He said, I'm going to pass by. And He said to him, Moses, He said, I'm a God of forgiveness and loving kindness. Nehemiah, talking about God, said He's a God of forgiveness. The Psalmist says that God is ready to forgive. Daniel says that forgiveness belongs to God. All through the Scriptures, He is pictured as a forgiving God. But the most graphic picture, the most graphic demonstration, illustration of the spirit of forgiveness on God's part is to be found in Luke chapter 15. And that's the title of this message, Our Forgiving Father. And I want you to see how God perceives your sin, how God responds to your sin.
And my friend, until you understand the truth about forgiveness, until you're able to experience the forgiveness of God as taught in the Word of God, you will never be able to enjoy the relationship of the Lord that He intends for you to enjoy. Now, chapter 15, look in verse one and verse two, because here are the people who made up the audience that was listening to Jesus. Verse one, now all the tax gatherers, publicans, and the sinners were coming to Him to listen to Him, and both the Pharisees and the scribes were there. So, not only did He have His faithful followers, but He had the sinners who were there, the tax collectors, scribes and Pharisees, set a real mixture of people. Jesus, seeing the scribes and the Pharisees, those who were so critical, so condemning of everyone else, gives us this parable of the lost Son in order for us to understand God's attitude toward us when you and I sin against Him.
Now, listen carefully. What He is saying here is referring to a Son. We're talking about a believer who has sinned against the Father, gone out into sin, living in rebellion in a backslidden condition toward Almighty God. We're not talking about people getting saved.
We'll talk about that later. But He's talking about those who belong to the household and what happens when they sin. There are three things I want you to understand here, three points to this message, but it's what I'm going to say under these three points that you need to understand carefully. You need to get yourself a pencil and piece of paper because I want to tell you, you're going to hear some things that more than likely you've not heard and some things you need to think about and ask yourself, how can I apply this to my life? And on the basis of what God says, what have I been doing? Have I been experiencing God's forgiveness or am I one of those persons who's living under this awesome cloud of guilt? Knowing that I've displeased God and trying to figure out what in the world can I do to get God to forgive me for what I've done.
So first of all, I want us to examine here the motivation, the motivation for God's forgiveness. Now, why did Jesus picture this prodigal the way He did? In fact, the truth is He could not have graphically described anyone who would have been so fully understood by the audience as Jesus described the prodigal. He couldn't have been any worse.
Now, let me show you why. The Scripture said He's the younger son and He goes to His father, this is a Jewish family, He goes to His father and He says, I want my part of the estate and I want it now because I'm leaving, which would have been a tragic failure on the part of a family. The Scripture says in His selfishness, His egotism, He decides to take His share of the inheritance, leaves His family, of course, embarrassing the family, especially His father. The Bible says He got it all together, went into a distant country and verse 13 says He squandered, He wasted His estate, His inheritance, and He did it in what fashion?
Loose living. The implication is on immoral indulgences, He squandered His inheritance, which His father had worked for, His father had saved and provided for Him, and now in His youth, He squanders it, He wasted. And then the Bible says He began to be in want. A severe famine occurred in that land. Did you know that whenever you choose to deliberately walk out of the will of God that you're hidden straight toward a famine? It may be a little while, but I want to tell you, mark this down, there's no such thing as walking out of the wealth of God's inheritance in your life into deliberate willful sin without meeting a famine somewhere along the way and you're going to be in need.
It's absolutely, absolutely imminent it's going to happen. The Bible says He squandered His living by loose living, was in need, a famine occurred in the land, and verse 15 says He did the most despicable thing that a man could do coming out of a Jewish family. He attached Himself to one of the citizens of that country and He sent Him into the fields to feed swine, not cows, not sheep, swine, hogs, pigs. There is not anything Jesus could have said about this young man that could have absolutely just stuck it into those Pharisees and they're worse than that. Now, He says, and He was longing to fill His own stomach with the pods that the swine were eating that dropped off the trees and no one was giving anything.
I wonder what happened to all of His friends while they had all of His money. I mean, He had absolutely was in the process of wasting His life. Now, why did Jesus picture the prodigal in such a fashion? If you're ever going to understand forgiveness, that is God's forgiveness toward us, you must understand this truth.
And here is the truth. God's motivation for forgiving us of our sin is found only in Himself. There is not anything in you that God sees that motivates God to forgive you. Now, what that does, it eliminates forgiveness based on performance. It eliminates forgiveness based on conduct.
It eliminates forgiveness based on promises. How many times have you come to God and confess something that you may have done several times and said, Lord, I just promise you with your help, I'm not going to do it again. Don't promise him that. First of all, he knows it more than likely it's not going to happen.
And secondly, I want to tell you something. Your promises do not convince God to forgive you of your sin. Listen, there isn't anything outside of God Himself that motivates Almighty God to forgive you of your sin.
Did you hear that? Amen? So when you come to God for forgiveness, God's forgiveness is based upon the nature of God, the love of God, the non-negotiable, unending, unchanging, unalterable, unconditional, undeserved love of Almighty God, which is within Himself, nothing outside of Himself motivates Him to forgive you of your sin. All right, the second thing I want us to notice here is the method by which God forgives us of our sin.
All right. God has a part, man has a part. What's man's part? Here is man's part clearly defined in this passage. Look, if you will, in verse 17. The scripture says, But when he came to his senses, that's the sun now, he here he is out swapping hogs, feeding them pods. When he came to his senses, a lot of folks need to do that, come to his senses means that he began to think properly, accurately, honestly, he began to think the truth. What was the truth as he began to think of it? He said, How many of my father's hired men as servants have more than enough bread? But I am dying here with hunger, starving to death. Verse 18, I will get up and go to my father and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
Make me as one of your hired servants. He rehearsed exactly what he was going to say. Out of a spirit of humility, contrition, desperation, futility and hopelessness, he said, I know what I'm going to do. I am going to get up and I'm going back to my father and I'm going to tell him what a mess I've made of things. And I'm going to confess what I've done and I'm willing to be I'm willing to be put on as a hired servant, as a slave, to get back in the father's good graces.
And a lot of folks who've made a lot of decisions. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to get this thing right in my life. I'm going to make a decision. I'm coming out of the aisle.
I'm going to get right. How do we know this boy repented? Because the Bible says in verse 18, he said, I will get up and go to my father. And verse 20 says, And he got up and came to his father. Genuine repentance is a change of mind.
Genuine repentance is going to result in a change in some fashion in the life of a person repents, beginning with their thinking, that thinking is going to affect their conduct. He said in his state of desperation, I'm going to get up. I'm going to my father.
I'm going to be willing to be hired as a slave just so I get back in the family. Rehearse this prayer. The next verse says, And he got up and he came to his father, which was proof of his genuine repentance. What he said he was going to do, he did. Now you say, well, isn't repentance a condition of forgiveness?
Now I want you to listen very carefully to what I'm going to say, because it is so very important you understand this truth. The boy's return did not motivate his father to forgive him. His father had forgiven him the moment he sinned against his father. He had been forgiven by his father the whole time he was living in sin. You say, well, then what in the world do we talk about confession of sin and repentance of sin? What does all of this have to do with our relationship to God?
All right, now is what it has to do is you look at this passage and his father's response. Confession and repentance does not motivate God to forgive me because all the motivation that God needs is found within himself. Not my confession, my repentance.
The motivation is found within God in his love for mankind. Then what does this confession agreeing with God about my sinfulness? What does this repentance do? Why, why am I to repent of my sins if God has already provided for my forgiveness?
Here's the reason. Repentance is a change of mind about my actions so that I can once again fellowship and love and be able to experience. Listen, I don't confess and repent to get forgiveness.
I confess and repent of my sins so that I can experience the forgiveness that has been there all along. How many of you are living in sin and you've heard preaching and you're saying, oh, I can't go back to God. God won't forgive me. I know I was once saved, but God's going to wipe me out once I come back and I don't have the courage to do it. I want to tell you, my friend, don't you realize that he's been waiting all these years with extended outstretched arms, not to forgive you, but to tell you that you've been forgiven from the day you walk out of fellowship with him. And he wants to restore you unto himself for your good, not his.
That's grace. How does God manifest his forgiveness? Well, how did he manifest in this boy's life? Let's go back to the things that he did.
Let me show you how important it is. He said, I'll get up and go to my father. He got up and went to his father. His father saw him a great way off. The Bible says he ran toward his son.
No dignified person would run in public. The Bible says he did what? He embraced him, which was his way of showing acceptance. He kissed him, which was a symbol of his forgiveness. The Bible says that he said, bring up the best robe, which means he was restored to his status in the family. Put a ring on his finger. His authority in the family was back. Put shoes on his feet. He's not going to be a slave. Shoes on his feet.
Kill the fatted calf. This is a great important time in the life of our family. Someone very important to us is under our roof.
Let's have a big celebration in honor of this very important person. Everything that father did magnified, magnified his attitude of acceptance and loving forgiveness toward that son. I know what you're asking. You're saying, now, wait a minute. You mean to tell me I can go out and live like the devil and get away with it and all God's going to do is just forgive me? You have never heard me say that you can sin without the consequence.
Now, listen very carefully. That boy didn't do anything to get his father to forgive him. He lived in sin, unaware of his father's forgiveness, incapable of experiencing and enjoying his father's forgiveness. He wasted his life. He wasted his inheritance. He wasted his time, his talents, his gifts. He brought embarrassment to his family.
There were scars in his body and in his emotions that he would never be able to escape all the years of his life. I want to tell you that sin pays an awful consequence. And even though God forgives us, listen to me, the forgiveness of God does not erase all the scars of my disobedience.
Whatever man sows, he'll reap. What he sows more than he sows later than he sows, even though God has forgiven him. The nature of sin is such that the consequences of some sins, the scars of some sin will be there till God unshackled your spirit from your body.
There is no such thing as escape from the consequences. Forgiveness for my sin means that God paid the penalty. Assume the loss for my sinfulness, but escape all the consequences of sin.
No way. Forgiven, yes. But to say that you and I escape the consequences of sin, that we can live like the devil and escape the consequences, absolutely not under any condition. What happens is that when you and I begin to enjoy the forgiveness, here's what we have the privilege of doing. We have the privilege of taking our faults, our failures, our past sins, our rebellions, our disadvantages, our transgressions. We have the wonderful privilege, my friend, of taking those and having learned God's painful lessons to apply them to our life, to share the wonderful truths with others and turn our scars into opportunities of blessings and protection from other people.
But escape we do not. When you stand before Almighty God with your sin, remember this, you come before a loving, willing, humanly speaking, rejoicing, exciting Father. Remembering this, that when you're confessing your sin to Him, do you know what the focus of the Father's on?
The focus of the Father is on the fact that you're back. You say, but preacher, you don't know what I've done. It doesn't make any difference what you've done. He didn't say I'm going to forgive you except, but when, forgiveness is already provided. If you want to enjoy it, if you want to experience it, and if you want your life to take on the joy that God has provided, you need to repent of your sin. You need to have a change of mind about your sin, confessing it to Him, coming to Him, not to get it, but to be able to enjoy what He purchased for you at the cross.
He's calling you back and He's listening for your return. Thank you for listening to Our Forgiving Father. For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our 24-7 online station. And if you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
