What Is The Heart Of God Like?
Dive into the character and attributes that define God, including His love, mercy, justice, and faithfulness. Allow yourself to encounter a trustworthy and devoted God.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Do you know Jesus? Take time in your group to share the story of how you came to know Jesus. You may choose to use the 30second testimony structure. There was a time in my life when __________ then I met Jesus, and now _____________."
Can you identify a time in your life when you were heading in one direction and were prompted to turn the other way? (repent- see definition >)
Have you ever been the recipient of extravagant love?When perhaps you didn't deserve it?
Love, mercy, forgiveness and grace are central to the character of who God is- how are you showing these attributes to people in your world?
God wants relationship with us - how do you cultivate a strong relationship with God? What draws you closer to him?
Who are you currently sharing the good news of Jesus with?
TRANSCRIPT
And so we're going on a journey this morning and the destination is reaching the heart of God. And I want to share some, some of my story this morning about how I came to faith. We just heard from Tiani and some several others in recent times. And so I'm going to start by sharing some of my journey to faith, how I come to know the Lord.
And, I did love Pastor Kev's message last week with his extravagant props that he had and he used them very well, but he was talking about broken people coming back to coming back to the Lord and how scars can occur and That's basically my journey. He actually, he actually got my early childhood and adolescence down to perfection.
And he said a lot of good things after that, but I didn't hear too much about it because I was actually focused on the fact that he got my story right down to a T. And so, I was the youngest of three siblings. Mum and dad were on a five year plan, and I was the youngest, and my brother was five years older, and my sister was ten years older.
Way too big a gap. My brother was too cool for me, and my sister was like another mum. But, I was the youngest, and I got the privileges of being the youngest, and I may have milked it, just a little bit. And I I kind of enjoyed all the good food that mum would have, and all the leftovers and all that, but I was loved intensely by my mum being the youngest, and I also was loved by my dad, and he fulfilled all his duties as a dad, and it took me to every footy game, and every swimming club meet, and everything that I did, he was in there.
So there was love from both sides, but sadly there was no love at the top in the marriage. Mum and Dad weren't, Jen, Jen, there was no love at the top. And so there was actually more than that. There was, there was bitterness and there was angst and there was drama and there was tension. And I would say as a young boy, I had a tension radar and I knew that.
What was happening, and it actually escalated to even verbal abuse. Everything's short of perhaps physical abuse. And it was, for me, I was, if I could describe my childhood in a nutshell, it was insecure. And I just felt like I wanted this to stop. And I even prayed about that at night. And and so, Jens is going to have a little rest outside.
That's okay. So, I just wanted that to stop. And so Where was I now? So, My brother and sister actually left home quite early. And I think they encouraged me to do the same because of that tension. And so I decided, I got out of school quite early. I reached grade 12 when I was 16. Mum put my age up, you know, just to get me out of the house a little earlier, I think.
And so I got out of school and by the time I was 18, I'd saved enough to go on an overseas trip. So I thought, yep, I'll do a bit of surfing in Bali, you know, I'll trek across to England and I'll have a lovely time and I did all that and this trip went on for 18 months and there was no real plan or purpose to it, you know, I just thought I'll just keep going.
And hitchhiked around Scotland and Ireland and went to youth hostels and stuff and, and as a young man who was out on his own travelling overseas, the moral compass just got a little bit lax here and there and it was, you know, doing young man stuff. And I kept going and going and... We went through America and did 17 states and 17, 000 miles and did all that and then I decided I would go up to Canada and maybe have a, do a little bit of work up there and get on an oil rig perhaps, you know.
So, so to get to work in Canada you actually needed a social insurance number. So I thought, oh well just, just dodge one of those, you know, and put it on the form. And so I had a lovely time, you know, for about two or three weeks until there were sirens. Sirens are happening in the distance. I wonder what those are for.
So, it was you and you, come with me. And so we were polite, politely escorted out of the country. And off we went home. And that was the sudden end to the trip.
It was young man stuff, you know, that's what we did. And so, I got back, and I still had no goals, or no plan, or no vision for the future. And I didn't know what to do, and, and but, you know, I was having a nice time, and, you know, doing a bit of surfing, and this and that. But, I feel like, Up until this point, that trip had set me up for one of the biggest mistakes of my life.
And so I entered a relationship that I had no business going into, it was wrong on every level, and I shouldn't have got into this relationship. And so, I thought I could handle it, and I went against the advice of everybody, and I thought, yep, let's do this. And... I got into that relationship and several months down the track, I had descended into a black hole of depression, and there was guilt and there was shame, and I brought shame and embarrassment to my parents.
By entering this relationship and staying with it, And several months down the track, I remember vividly, my mum and dad came to visit me where I was and I remember my dad saying to me at one point, he said, Son, you can always come home. You can always come home. You can always come home. And that statement was like a cannon shot into my heart.
And I had no other choice. But I had to go home. It was like God knocking on my door Saying go home. Just go home. And so I did. And when I got home, unbeknownst to me I found my mum had become a Christian and she was attending a little church called Christian Community Church Which happened to be this church 45 years ago in the Share and Care Centre at Palm Beach.
And mum was saying, mum told me that she'd been praying for me. And I believe that she would have been praying for me night and day. And I can tell you there's no more powerful force than a praying mum. They have got something. And so mum was praying for me and then one morning she, she was in her sunroom and she was praying for me, she told me, and she said, I had a word for you.
And I said, what was it? And she said, I believe God told me that Philip will be all right. And that's all she got. And she hung on to that. And she hung on to that. Anyway, so... She was in the church and she invited me along to some youth group activities and I got to meet meet some of the people in the youth group and I of course they were pretty, they were a pretty strong youth group, much like we have now they were pretty powerful and, and so they were telling me about Jesus and I remember one guy telling me that if you would give your life to Christ, if you'd let him take the steering wheel.
You can have a second chance. Well, that was the next thing that impacted my heart because I knew I'd mucked up my first chance pretty badly. And I thought, well, I'll, I'll have a piece of this. And so I dove in headfirst and I thought, yep, I'm loving this. And so that's my general story of how I came to the Lord.
I came home.
There's a story that Jesus told in the Bible and it's called. The parable of the lost son, it's actually even called the, the prodigal son. And it's a story that's so well known that people that don't even know a lot about the Bible at all would know something of that story. How someone was lost, and then they were found, and so there's a story like that, and maybe today you have a story similar to that.
Where you reach the end of your rope, and you found that you just wanted to find out. Someone told you about Jesus, and you thought, Wow, I've gotta, I've gotta come in. I've gotta, I've gotta come home. I want to come home. Maybe that's a story that you have, or, or perhaps today you don't even know Jesus, but, and, and, and you don't understand what I'm talking about.
But there is a journey that we take. When we become Christians, where we, we want to just go home and, and we want to find the love of God. And that is a, a similar situation for all of us. Because maybe, you know, you didn't sin as much as I did, or, or maybe you sin more. But it doesn't matter how much you sinned.
We all have sin in our life. There's always something that, because our forefathers, Adam and Eve, mucked it up. And they decided to be disobedient. And so, therefore, it has gone down through all of us. And so we've all sinned. And in a sense that we all need to come home. Because we're lost sons and daughters.
And so today I want to look at the story of the prodigal son and see what we can discover about the heart of God, about the attributes that are in the heart of God, that is our. quest today. That's our, that's our destination. So before we start, we maybe need a definition of prodigal, because prodigal's an old word that we don't use anymore.
I think it's an English word. But it means wastefully extravagant. Giving on a lavish scale. Now, I know some women like that, who can abuse a credit card as good as anybody. Wastefully extravagant. But it means more than that, wastefully extravagant. But let's let's move into the story and see what we can learn about the nature of God.
So we're beginning our story in Luke, the Gospel of Luke, chapter 15. And there's three stories in the Gospel of Luke in chapter 15. And one is about the lost sheep. He loses one, a shepherd loses one of his hundred sheep and he goes to look for him. Look for that sheep, and he finds him, and he rejoices.
The second story is about a woman with ten silver coins, and she loses one of those silver coins, and she searches diligently until she finds that coin, and she rejoices when she finds that coin. And the common phrase at the end is that God rejoices over one sinner who repents. Now, repent is another old fashioned word that, if you're new to all of this, you may not understand.
But what it is, is that you are walking one way, maybe away from God, and then you turn around 180 degrees, and you walk the other way towards God. So it's a turning around of, you are going one way, and then moving another. And what causes the joy in God's heart? It's just one sinner who repents. Just one.
And God's got joy going on in his heart.
Now, as we look at the parable of the lost son, it's important that we know who Jesus was talking to, who the audience was. You see, as you, as you read the Bible sometimes, and you take a surface look at these stories of Jesus, these parables, you think, well, that's a pretty cool story, you know, rah, rah, rah.
And you just, you know, like, gloss over it a little bit. But when you know exactly who he's talking to, It starts to take on new meaning because sometimes his parables were a bit pointy towards certain groups. Now there were three groups mentioned at the start of Luke chapter 15. Three groups mentioned there was tax collectors.
They weren't generally loved because they took your money. So tax collectors there were Sinners, that's a pretty big group. There were also Pharisees now Pharisees were the religious leaders of the day. They didn't love Jesus because Jesus was getting a bit of a following and They like to control the situation and they like to have their they like to have the control over the people and they weren't happy with Jesus and so The Pharisees kind of put sinners in different categories and so there was really bad sinners and it turns out that Jesus was associating with these really bad sinners.
And so they wanted to discredit Jesus and they were they were muttering to themselves. Oh, he goes and eats with these sinners. How could he? And so that's the situation when we start to get into this parable. That's, that's the situation. Okay, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna start and we'll, we'll start going through this.
And so here's the first verse. Jesus continued. So he continued on from the previous parable. Jesus continued. There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, father, give me my share of the estate. So he was a self-entitled young man who just wanted to take. What he could and what this request was actually a slap in the face to the father There was no respect there was no love in fact There was no relationship between the son and the father and what he was actually saying here by asking for that Asking that request give me my share.
He's saying well dad You're as good as dead to me, and I'm getting out of here And I'm going on a journey, and I'm, I want the money, and I want it now. A serious slap in the face for the father, and the father could have had him punished for this request. But the father in this story is a mirror image of the father in heaven.
And so the father gave him his request because we have free will. And so the father divided up the, the inheritance. So,
so he divided up his property. Let's have a look at the next verse. He divided up the property between them. And not long after that, the youngest son got together all he had and he set off. for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. So according to the law in Deuteronomy, the youngest son would have received one third and the oldest son received two thirds.
That's how it worked. And so So, the youngest son needed the cash, so he probably just put it up for a fire sale, adding more insult to the father, adding more shame to the family, and so the oldest son, he got his two thirds, and probably the person who bought the one third of the estate to take it. would have had to wait until the father passed to get it, but when that happened, he would have added it to his estate and given it to his sons and so forth.
And so the, the youngest son decided he was going to take off. And so. In verse 12, it says, he divided the property between them and the youngest son got together and he went to a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild, in wild living. So when he got to that distant country, he would've been the man about town with a fat wallet.
And a lot of people would've been hanging off him thinking, yeah, I'll have a piece of this. This is good. And so it was all good for a season until.
After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in the whole country, and he began to be in need. Now, in those days, a severe famine was catastrophic. It meant that people were starving to death. It meant that... They were finding ways to find food that just weren't right. And it was a tough, tough season.
And when you get down because of your own bad choices, it's one thing. But if you add a catastrophe like a famine to it, this guy... Was really in trouble now. So in verse 15 it says, so he hide himself out to a citizen of that country who sent him to the fields to feed the pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him.
Now, according to Moses law, pigs were unclean, unclean animals. In fact, they wouldn't, dews wouldn't even touch the pigs. But he was down there with the pigs, handling the pigs, and getting into the trough, and trying to eat the stuff that the pigs were eating. It's difficult to describe how far this young man had fallen, but he was down there, and he was getting lower.
By the minute.
But here comes a turning point in verse 17, When he came to his senses. And mums, if you're praying mums and your kids are away and even dad's This is one thing you want to pray, that they come to their senses. And I think, my mum would have been praying that for me. When he came to his senses, he said, How many of my father's hired men have food to spare?
And here I am, starving to death, and I will set out and go back to my father. And say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired men. Sometimes it takes a lot for us to realize how foolish we've been. It takes a lot to really realize.
But he came to his senses, and he started to realize how foolish he'd been. He started to get some humility about him. He started to get something that said, you know what? I need to go home. I need to go home.
And so in verse 20, it says, so he got up and he went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, the father saw him and filled with compassion for him. He ran to his son and threw his arms around him and kissed him. We're looking at the attributes of God, and this is where we start to see the love of the Father.
This is where we start to see His compassion, the love. This is a mirror image of our Father in heaven, and this is where we start to see the love. And do you know what? While He was still a long way off, I don't think this was a random event for the Father to actually just look out and see the Son. I don't think He was just doing the dishes and He looked, Oh, look, there's my Son coming back, you know?
I think the Father was going out every day, looking, searching, scanning, Hoping, praying, believing that his son was gonna come back. He wanted it so bad. And one day he went out and he saw his son and he brought him back and he brought him back in. Let's see what happens. So then the son gave him the speech that he prepared but the father didn't want to hear it.
He put the best robe on him. Now a robe speaks of righteousness in the Bible. He put the best robe on him and he put a ring on his finger. The ring symbolizes belonging, belonging to a family. He put the ring on his finger and he put sandals on his feet.
Can you see the love in the father's heart for the son? Can you see the forgiveness of the father?
Can you see the mercy of the father
and the grace? Because not only that, he put on a celebration. He celebrated the fact that his son had come back. Because there was no relationship before. Before he left, there was no relationship. And the father now knew that he had a relationship with his son.
Do you know what really seems to be missing from this story? There was no, no sense of punishment. The father could have said, son, well, geez, you bucked it up. Why don't you go and feed the pigs for a couple of years and earn your way back, you know? Why don't you get down to the feed the pigs? The father could have said that but no, he didn't.
He accepted the son back wholeheartedly There was no, not even a probation period. It was just son come in. You've been away You've been lost and now you're found. What causes joy in the father's heart? One sinner who repents. One sinner who repents. So There's love, there's mercy, there's forgiveness, and there's grace.
These are not just attributes of the Father's heart. These are who the Father is. It's His nature. It's who He is. Love, mercy, forgiveness, and grace. That's who the Father is. But you know what else is in the Father's heart? There is justice. There is justice. The oldest son represented the Pharisees. He wanted justice.
Really, if it's in the Father's heart, it has to be justified. It has to be, there has to be some justice. And, you know what, within a very short period of time is when Jesus went to the cross
and he provided. That justice. He took the penalty, not just for that son, but for all of us. Jesus went to the cross, the Bible says, for God so loved the world, God the Father loved the world so much that he gave his son. The son paid the penalty so that all of the sons and daughters could come back into relationship with the father.
Do you know what? That's extravagant love. That's extravagant love. And you know, we could actually call this the story of the prodigal father. It wasn't wasteful, reckless love. It was love that provided... A way back, enough love, enough extravagant love for all of us to be able to come back into relationship with our Heavenly Father.
And that's what God has wanted from the beginning. With Adam and Eve, He wanted relationship. With all of us, He wants relationship. That's the heart of the Father. He wants relationship.
So when we find these attributes in the heart of God, what should our response be? What should we be doing about this? Well the Apostle Paul writes to the Ephesians and he tells them that since we are God's dear children, let us try and be like him. And these are attributes because they're in God's heart and we are his children that we should have.
And if we want to be disciples that make We need to be displaying these attributes in our heart and we need to be sharing them and it's attractive when we have these attributes, we can be attractive. We used to use the word irresistible. We, we want to be the irresistible church. And if we want to be and disciples that make disciples and be irresistible, that's the attributes that we need to have in the message Bible, it says. Just watch what God does and then you do it. Like children who learn proper behaviour from their parents, mostly what God does is love us. So if you were a father here today who loves his children, I think we can say that we are a diminishing population in this day and age.
Fathers are in short supply. Fathers who love their children and invested in them 100%, they're in short supply. But if you are a father, children don't need us to be the judge and jury. They just need to know they're loved. Unconditionally. Unconditional. Love is what brings security to children. And beyond that, once you get your own children across the line, come on, however that looks, there are thousands of children out there who need a father's influence.
Thousands of children out there. And you know what, you don't have to go looking for them. You'll be rubbing shoulders with them every day. And it's a privilege to be able to steer Children who have had no real good father influence and be able to steer them in the right direction. And maybe we just want to steer them towards our Heavenly Father.
And let them know that there is love, and joy, and peace, and forgiveness, and mercy, and grace available for them. It may be a process, but that's okay. We just steer them one step at a time towards that father's heart and let them know that they can come home. And I have had the privilege of being able to do that just in my workspace, just in the rhythms of our daily lives, we can just touch the ones that need to know the love of the father.
And it's. It's not hard, but we have to be ready, and we have to be ready to say a word in season and just love them, and let them know that there's a God in heaven that loves them and wants relationship with them.
If you're a young married here, or, or... I just, I just want to say, work on your marriage, work on your marriage. There's nothing that produces stability like a good marriage for children. And we need good marriages. Children need to see it.
Today, if you're here and you, you haven't reached your destination of a relationship with a father, I just want you to know that you should just keep going, keep searching. Keep looking. If you're online today, keep looking. Keep searching for that relationship because God wants that relationship with you.
He's not too far away.
We have a saying around here that he who finds God finds life. So this morning I just want to pray. And perhaps today that you just want, might want to make that decision. I'm gonna pray along those lines and you can pray your own prayer. It's not about a prayer, it's about a decision. It's about a decision from you to know or want to know who Jesus is, who the Father is.
So let's pray. Heavenly Father I just thank you today for who you are and Lord For those that want you today, I just ask you to come into our heart, come into their heart and reveal yourself to them, Lord. And I pray that you would do that as you've done it for me and as you've done it for many here, Lord, that you just wanted a relationship.
You wanted to call us, call me home. You wanted to call us home. And I pray that you would just call home those ones today that are looking for you. And we thank you for who you are and we thank you that you provided. A way for us to escape the penalty and come back to you. And we pray these things in Jesus name.
Amen.