In this
message, I am going talk about God’s love for His children and that he will
pursue us if we wonder off or get lost as children sometimes do. God is a good Father and his gentle loving
hand will guide us when we are holding onto him.
As
children we make mistakes and will mess things up. The bible is filled with examples of people
messing up and God forgiving them. We
all make mistakes and God knows this.
This is why Jesus came.
After
we have given our heart and lives to Jesus we become a child of God. At that point we are born again and are
babies in our faith.
When we
are born again our spirit becomes new and alive through the Holy Spirit. As a newborn we start to grow and trust God. As we grow and mature so will our behavior
and our good works. We start out walking
in the flesh but must learn to walk in the Spirit.
1 Corinthians 3:1-3, But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?
God
will guide and lead us during this time.
Sometimes we will fall when learning to walk with him. God’s loving hands will lift us up so we can
try again.
When my
children do something wrong I like it when they acknowledge it and then say
they are sorry. If they don’t, I will not throw them out of my house. I am their Mom and I will always forgive
them. When they are young they won’t
always know what is right or wrong, and they won’t always say they are
sorry. That is part of them growing and
maturing. I will train them and teach
them just like the Holy Spirit will teach us (John 14:26) and will convict our
hearts when we do things wrong. We will
get stronger as we grow in our faith through reading His Word and seeking Him.
Hebrews 5:13-14, Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
God
wants his children to learn, grow and serve him with a happy heart. Don’t worry or get into a mindset that any
little thing will cause you to lose your salvation or God’s love. God does not want you to have this kind of
fear like I don’t want my children to feel like they can easily lose my love. 1 John 4:18, There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
1 John 4:8 says God is love.John 15:13, Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. This is what Jesus did for us on the cross. He laid down his life.
The bible also describes what love is in 1 Corinthians 13:4. It says love is patient, love is kind, it’s not easily angered, it always protects, it perseveres and love never fails. These are just some of the qualities that are listed. We know based on his word that, if we mess up, God will be all these things to us, since He is love.
In the book of Hosea, we can see God loves Israel even though she has given her heart away to other gods. God still is pursuing her. This next verse is talking about Israel seeking after the other gods. She is also looking to someone other than God to provide for her. We can also see God working to get her back. Hosea 2:5-7, For she (Israel) said, ‘I will go after my lovers (other gods), who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’ 6 Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths. 7 She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them. Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband. In verse 16 she returns back to God and God protects her and loves her. Israel is slowly returning to God now and will return to him in droves during the tribulation.
Jesus used some parables to show us how he will pursue us if we have gone astray or become lost and that he will not only welcome us home but will rejoice when we return to him.
The Parable of the Lost Sheep
Let’s
look at the parable of the Lost Sheep in Luke 15:4-7, “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
Sometimes
a sheep will wander off and unintentionally get lost. As Christians that could happen to us. We may get sidetracked or may be chasing
something we shouldn’t have. We might
become deceived with some false beliefs causing us to wander away from the
truth. If the Holy Spirit is in you, he
will be convicting you of that false belief.
Many now-a-days have gotten lukewarm in their faith. They have wandered after things in the world
forgetting to keep an eye on their Shephard.
If this has happened to you just YELL out to God and say I am lost and I
need your help. God will come and get
you and lead you home. If my child was
lost I would do everything I could to find them and bring them back home. If they believed something false I would show
them the truth. They still have free
will to believe what they want. God is
the same. He will find you if you get
lost and will show you truth if you are believing a lie (John 16:13). When you get a chance
read John chapter 10. Jesus speaks more about his love for the
sheep and how he has given his life for them.
Jesus gave us another parable in Luke 15 starting at verse 11. This is the parable of the prodigal son. The younger son intentionally left the home of his father and went off to a foreign country. He spent all of his inheritance money his Dad gave him on wild living and prostitutes. Today some children have left their homes and severed their relationship with their parents due to drugs, bitterness or other reasons. We can’t force our grown children to love us. As an adult they have free will to remain close with us or to depart and have no contact with us. As a parent we will always love our children and want them to stay close with us. We can’t legally force them to remain with us, if that is not their will. God gave us free will and because of that we need to love him voluntarily. In this parable the land the son went off to, had a famine. He needed to get a job since he spent all his money. He got hired on a farm feeding pigs. Due to the famine he was so hungry and found himself craving the food of the pigs. When he realized that the servants in his father’s house were well fed he decided to humble himself and go to his Father. Verse 21 Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. His father welcomed him home not as a hired hand but as his son. The father said in verse 24. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate. His son was not really dead but Jesus is making a point when you wander away and are living in sin you are spiritually dead. This is the good news if, you have departed from your Father in heaven you can turn back to him, humble yourself, admit you have sinned against God, and repent, then you will live in your Father’s home. Our Father God will be so happy and there will be a grand celebration.
Prodigal Son
Jesus gave us another parable in Luke 15 starting at verse 11. This is the parable of the prodigal son. The younger son intentionally left the home of his father and went off to a foreign country. He spent all of his inheritance money his Dad gave him on wild living and prostitutes. Today some children have left their homes and severed their relationship with their parents due to drugs, bitterness or other reasons. We can’t force our grown children to love us. As an adult they have free will to remain close with us or to depart and have no contact with us. As a parent we will always love our children and want them to stay close with us. We can’t legally force them to remain with us, if that is not their will. God gave us free will and because of that we need to love him voluntarily. In this parable the land the son went off to, had a famine. He needed to get a job since he spent all his money. He got hired on a farm feeding pigs. Due to the famine he was so hungry and found himself craving the food of the pigs. When he realized that the servants in his father’s house were well fed he decided to humble himself and go to his Father. Verse 21 Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. His father welcomed him home not as a hired hand but as his son. The father said in verse 24. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate. His son was not really dead but Jesus is making a point when you wander away and are living in sin you are spiritually dead. This is the good news if, you have departed from your Father in heaven you can turn back to him, humble yourself, admit you have sinned against God, and repent, then you will live in your Father’s home. Our Father God will be so happy and there will be a grand celebration.
The Parable of the Lost Coin
The last parable I would like to review is the Parable of the Lost Coin. This can be found in Luke 15:8-10, “suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Jesus
uses a silver coin because he wants
you to know you are valuable to him. If
there is something of value to you, let’s say your car keys, you are not going
to give up after a minute of looking.
No, you will search every inch of your house until you find it!
God is
not a big meanie in the clouds rolling his eyes at you every time you mess up. In every one of these parables Jesus tells us
that God rejoices when you are found. He
is your biggest cheerleader. He loves
you so much. He went to the cross to
keep you out of hell and with him. Let’s
think on that for a moment. It was not a
small price he paid for you. It was
agony, both physically and emotionally.
He was literally sweating blood in the garden before he was taken
because he knew that he was going to be beaten beyond recognition by his own
people who rejected him.
Isaiah 52:14, His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness. He did not even look human after his
beatings.
You
also want to look at this from Father God’s perspective. For all you parents out there, could you let
your child die like this to save someone who has sinned against you? Everything in your nature wants to protect
your children, so to see His child beaten beyond recognition and nailed to a
cross must have badly hurt God’s heart. The
issue is that you are not just another sinner to God but his other child! A child he does not want to be separated from
for all eternity. Most of us don’t fully
grasp what Jesus went through for us or just how terrible the hell he was
keeping us from is but, God knows.
To review; If you accidentally get lost, God will find you and bring you home. If you intentionally walked away, giving your heart to another, God will pursue you like he is pursuing Israel. If you decide to come home to God, he will welcome you back with open arms and rejoicing.
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