CaryCOG | Cary Church of God
Pastor Patrick Jensen brings us today's message, "The Good Father"
Luke 15:11-24 NKJV
I. The work of multiplication is mitigated by unrestrained living for it bears the fruit of separation (Luke 15:11-16)
Quote:
“I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.”
Henri Nouwen
II. Multiplication begins with awareness of one’s own poverty
Luke 15:17-19
Quote:
“The farther I run away from the place where God dwells, the less I am able to hear the voice that calls me the Beloved, and the less I hear that voice, the more entangled I become in the manipulations and power games of the world.”
Henri Nouwen
III. The work of multiplication is predicated on compassion
Luke 15:20-24
Quote:
"Although claiming my true identity as a child of God, I still live as though the God to whom I am returning demands an explanation. I still think about his love as conditional and about home as a place I am not yet fully sure of. While walking home, I keep entertaining doubts about whether I will be truly welcome when I get there. As I look at my spiritual journey, my long and fatiguing trip home, I see how full it is of guilt about the past and worries about the future. I realize my failures and know that I have lost the dignity of my sonship, but I am not yet able to fully believe that where my failings are great, 'grace is always greater.' Still clinging to my sense of worthlessness, I project for myself a place far below that which belongs to the son… "
Henri Nouwen
IV. Multiplication is stagnated by a critical spirit
Luke 15:25-32
Quote:
"There are many elder sons and elder daughters who are lost while still at home."
Henri Nouwen
Quote:
"I now see that the hands that forgive, console, heal, and offer a festive meal must become my own."
Henri Nouwen
Quote:
"Rembrandt is as much the elder son of the parable as he is the younger. When, during the last years of his life, he painted both sons in Return of the Prodigal Son, he had lived a life in which neither the lostness of the younger son nor the lostness of the elder son was alien to him. Both needed healing and forgiveness. Both needed to come home. Both needed the embrace of a forgiving father. But from the story itself, as well as from Rembrandt's painting, it is clear that the hardest conversion to go through is the conversion of the one who stayed home "
Henri Nouwen