Title Oh! Happy day /Luke 15:11-24
Contents
We sincerely welcome and bless everyone who attended the Happy Day 118 Festival today. I hope that the wanderings of life will end with meeting God, and the wanderings of the religious life will end with coming to our church today. From now on, a new path of blessing has been opened in front of you.
The Prodigal Runaway and Repentance
One father had two sons. One day, the second son comes to his father and asks for an inheritance that will come to him when his father dies. Despite his father's reluctance, the son does not give up his stubbornness, and finally receives his inheritance from his father, disposes of it, and leaves the house. He is called the prodigal son, who nailed his father's chest and made the house look like a portrait.
The prodigal son goes to a distant country and spends all of the money he has, living in a prodigal life. When money runs out and there is a famine in the region, to make matters worse, there is no one to help him. The swine got a job, but couldn't fill his hungry stomach. Just as the life of the prodigal son who left his father became miserable, when we leave God, we become a miserable and cursed life. Those who live unaware of God's grace are foolish and evil. If you are in misery, please realize and be grateful that this is God's invitation to lead you from the seat of sin to the place of grace.
The prodigal son thinks of his father's house only after he is in trouble. When I was with my father, I did not know the grace of my father. It was taken for granted that his father would receive his share of the fortune he had accumulated through blood and sweat throughout his life. The repentant prodigal son decides to return to his father's house. “Now I will get up and go to my Father. I will no longer claim the right of my son, but I will ask him to be used as one of the hired men.” His repentance, determination, and his steps toward his father's house change his life again. If you are in trouble like the prodigal son, you must realize your sin, repent, and go to the Father immediately. We should pray to the Father with tears and ask for mercy. That is the only way to live.
Father's love and forgiveness
Meanwhile, the prodigal father waits for his son to return every day since the day he leaves home. Then he sees his son returning to beggars and runs to him, hugging him and kissing him. He orders the servants to put new clothes on him, put rings on his hands, put shoes on his feet, and kill a lost cow and have a feast. This is what the father looks like. This is the image of God our Father who is so good.
There is a novel written by Mr. Cho Chang-hyeon called <Thorn Meat>. It is the story of a poor father who is divorced from his wife and lives with his 10-year-old son. But when the son contracted leukemia, the father decides to sell his organs to pay for his son's bone marrow transplant. So, after going to the hospital for a test, he unexpectedly finds out that he has terminal liver cancer. Then, this time, he sells his cornea to calculate the cost of his son's surgery. It is a story of a son who has successfully undergone an operation and leaves his healthy son to his divorced wife and the birth mother of the child, and he is slowly dying of cancer. Isn't this the father's heart?
In today's text, it seems that after the prodigal son repents of his sins and returns home, the father's forgiveness follows. But before the son asked for forgiveness, the father had already forgiven everything. So he waited every day for his son to return. The father's forgiveness took precedence over the son's repentance. Father's love came first.
Dear brothers and sisters, Jesus also declared that all our sins were forgiven on the cross. “It is finished” (John 19:30) and “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). No matter how great our sins are, there is no sin so great that the Father cannot forgive us. The important thing is that we go forward confessing our sins to God. Then He will forgive us all our sins, and He will not remember our sins.
(1) The father put on the best clothes for the returning prodigal son.
The clothes the prodigal is wearing are stained with the smell of pigs. His clothes of guilt, stained with disappointment, disappointment, and sin. Remove the clothes and put on new clothes. God the Father, who is so good, sent his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to this earth while we were still sinners and clothed us with the garment of righteousness (Romans 5:8). so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). God paid a great price to take off our sins and clothe us with righteousness.
(2) I put the ring finger in my hand.
This means re-acknowledging the status of a son, the father's inheritance as heirs. As long as we repent of our sins and return to the Lord, we will inherit the kingdom of heaven.
(3) Put on shoes on your feet.
I wear shoes on the feet that left their father for the city of debauchery and pleasure, the feet that went in search of prostitutes, the feet that drove pigs, and the feet that returned to the father. The servants did not wear shoes. Therefore, wearing shoes means that we should no longer live as slaves to sin, but live as sons.
(4) A feast is held by slaughtering a fattened calf.
The father exclaims with joy when his wretched son, who has squandered all his wealth through blood and sweat, returns. “The dead son is alive. I have found my lost son.” The joy of the father was great when the prodigal son, who had left home, returned home. The prodigal son will no longer go hungry, and his son will be restored. A feast of joy is held with the neighbors.
Oh! Happy day!
Today is that day. It is a day of festivals where God is pleased, and we all sing and rejoice together. From today on, you too will experience Heavenly Father's forgiveness and blessings. Please walk this path of blessing with us. Hallelujah!