The sermon, titled 'Our Father's Patient Love' by Peter Allison, focuses on the parable of the prodigal son from the Gospel of Luke. It highlights the theme of God's long-suffering love, which is patient and forgiving, waiting for sinners to return and leading them to repentance. The speaker emphasizes that the parable is not primarily about the sons but about the Father's love, contrasting the misconceptions about God's nature in the Old and New Testaments. The sermon distinguishes between 'long-suffering,' which pertains to patience with people, and 'patience,' which relates to endurance in circumstances. God's long-suffering love is demonstrated through the Father's reaction to the younger son's return, showcasing an extravagant and immediate forgiveness without reproach. The elder brother's jealousy is also addressed, revealing the Father's equal love for both sons. The sermon concludes with applications of God's long-suffering love, encouraging believers to meditate on it, practice frequent and sincere repentance, and imitate God's patience with one another.

Please turn in your Bible to Luke 15. I'll begin reading at verse 11, Luke 15-11. Then he said, A certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father give me the portion of goods that fall to me. So he divided to them his livelihood. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living.

But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in the land and he began to be in want. Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country and he sent him into his fields to feed swine and he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough to spare, and I perish with hunger. I will arise and go to my Father and will say to Him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.

And he arose and came to his father but when he was still a great way off his father saw him and had compassion and he ran and fell on his neck and kissed him and the son said to him father I have sinned against heaven and in your sight and am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the Father said to his servants, Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet, and bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry. For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found, and they began to be merry." Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house he heard music and dancing So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant and he said to him your servant has come and Because he has received him safe and sound I'm sorry your brother has come and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf.

But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. So he answered and said to his father, Lo, these many years I have been serving you. I have never transgressed your commandment at any time. And yet you never gave me a young goat that I might make merry with my friends.

But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him. And he said to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found." May the Lord consider our affliction and deliver us as we remember His law. Almighty Father in heaven, we ask that you would open the eyes of our understanding this morning that we might understand and perceive that which only the spiritual man can understand, the natural man cannot perceive. I pray that you would sanctify my sinful lips to proclaim and to speak of your word, your holy word.

And I pray that you would give us faith this morning to be not only hearers but doers. And that you would strengthen us this morning through your word and sanctify us and set us apart as a royal priesthood and a holy people. Pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, last week we looked at two parables that Jesus told that gave a true picture of the love of God. Jesus taught that in those parables that the Father's love was an initiating love.

It acted. It didn't wait for the sinners to come back. But it went seeking the lost. We saw that it was a thorough and exhaustive love. The extent to which God the Father has gone in demonstrating His love, in seeking the lost, in gathering His elect out of this earth.

And most of all though, we saw in both of those two parables that the Father's love was a rejoicing love. It rejoiced when the lost were found, when the sinners were converted. And this week, Jesus tells this, we'll look at this third parable that Jesus told in this chapter, And we will see that the Father's love is a patient love. A patient love. Or more properly, it is a long-suffering love.

And I'll explain that difference in a minute. They call this parable, this third parable, the parable of the prodigal son. That's its name, but we'll see the prodigal isn't the only son, And really the prodigal son really isn't even the main son in this parable. There were two sons this parable begins with. The older son, who never wastes his estate on extravagant living and wasteful living, who never left the Father, but who was faithful his whole life, and the younger prodigal son who wastes his estate with extravagant living.

But the focus of the parable really isn't even the older son or the younger prodigal son. It's not really about the sons. The purpose, Jesus' purpose and point in telling this parable was to tell us about the Father, the long suffering love of the Father. Remember the context of these parables is that the Jews were upset that Jesus spent time with tax collectors and sinners with prostitutes and liars with the down and out as well as the up and out. The tax collector who is wealthy but not well thought of in their society.

It was this context that all three of these parables were told. And so Jesus was telling these parables to demonstrate the love of the Father, the love of the Father for the down and out, for the lost, but also for the Pharisees themselves. And so the first two parables deal with the down and out, the societal outcasts. But This one deals with the Father's love of those that weren't the society's outcasts. You see, the Jews had a very incorrect view of the Father.

If they had known the Scriptures, which Jesus says they didn't know, they didn't know the Scriptures or their power, if they had known the scriptures, they would have recognized and known the true attributes of God. Even the disciples at times, like when they wanted to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritan village that didn't receive Jesus as he was going, journeying through to Jerusalem. Even the disciples at times demonstrated that they did not understand the true love of the Father, the patient long-suffering love of the Father. But the Bible, the Old Testament, speaks of this many times. And it's simply this common myth that is around today that the God of the Old Testament is a harsh God and the God of the New Testament is a merciful God is just simply flat out false.

God is the same in the Old Testament as in the New Testament. In Hosea 11 says of God, I will not execute, or God says, I will not execute the fierceness of my anger. I will not again destroy Ephraim, for I am God and not man, the Holy One, in your midst. In Exodus 34, the Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed the Lord, Yehovah, God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth. And in Numbers 14 again, the Lord is long-suffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgressions.

But He by no means clears the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children of the third and fourth generation. Psalm 103 speaks of the Lord as merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in mercy. Psalm 86, But you, O Lord, are a God full of compassion and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in mercy and truth." Psalm 145, the Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. Even the prophets proclaimed this long-suffering attribute of God. The Lord, Nahum said, is slow to anger and great in power.

In other words, God wasn't waiting because he was busy gathering an army together, building his power. No, he had great power, all the power he needed, and much more. But he is still slow to anger. Now, there are two Greek words that are very close together. But there is a one is one is translated long-suffering most of the time in the New King James and the other is translated patience and Now while they're very close and very similar, there is a distinction, and I believe that distinction can be borne out in the scriptures themselves.

And So the word that's translated longsuffering in the New King James is macrothumia, longsuffering. And the word that's translated patience in the New King James is hupamone. There's a difference there. Longsuffering expresses forbearance with respect to persons. Whereas patience expresses forbearance in respect of things.

So longsuffering is to be not easily provoked or aroused to anger when dealing with an injurious person. Someone who is acting unjustly or damaging or detrimental or in a damaging or detrimental or distressing manner toward us. Particularly when we have the power and authority to stop it. That's long suffering. Patience, on the other hand, is the way I've narrowly defined these two words as translating these two different Greek synonyms or two different Greek words.

Patience is not losing heart or courage in the face of trials and tribulations and distresses. We see with respect to things. It's being able to remain calm, composed and calm, not frustrated and exasperated at the way things are going or the things that might be happening to us. And you can see sort of there is an element where these may cross over in that we can remain calm and not frustrated or exasperated sometimes when people over whom we have no control or power are doing things that are injurious to us. And so for an example, an example of Makrothumia or long-suffering would be David when he was fleeing Absalom and leaving Jerusalem going up, ascending the Mount of Olives, when Shimei was going alongside on the other side of the river, cursing him as he fled.

Remember what Abishai, the son of Zerua, Zerua is David's sister, so this is his nephew, David's nephew as he's fleeing says, why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Please let me go over and take off his head. But the king said, what have I to do with you, you sons of Zerua. So let him curse. Because the Lord has said to him, Curse David, who then shall say, Why have you done so?

And David said to Abishai and to his servants, See how my son who came from my own body seeks my life. How much more now may this benjamite let him alone and let him curse, for so the Lord has ordered him." That's an example of being long-suffering. He could have let a bishai go over there and lop off his head. He had the authority, the power to do it in that case. But he didn't.

That's long suffering. When somebody is treating us injuriously, detrimentally, unjustly. Now, later on, David did execute a vengeance or did instruct his son Solomon on the vengeance that should, needed to be taken. But he waited until the kingdom was restored and he even waited to allow his son Solomon to do it. Or Romans chapter 2, where Paul says, Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering?

Speaking of God, do you despise His long-suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance. What if God, or Romans 9, wanting to show His wrath and make His power known, endured with much long suffering, the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? See, there's God exercising, as David did, a willingness to wait and to forbearance against a just sentence. Or 2 Corinthians 6, 6, by purity, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love. Or Galatians 5, in the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering.

It's speaking there of this forbearance. It's the fruit of the Spirit that we have this ability to forbear when we're being unjustly treated and have recourse. This is how we are to treat one another. Paul's told the Ephesians, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love. When we have an ability to respond, when we are being unjustly treated and could do something about it, there is a forbearance.

That's the fruit of the Spirit, and that's what Paul calls us to have with one another. Now an example of the other, this other word, patience, hupamane, it would be Job. James says that Job is an example of patience. In James chapter 5. You have seen the patience of Job.

I'll read that verse. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord, that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. But there it's a perseverance. Job is enduring this affliction. It's something that he has no direct power over or to change.

And so he's enduring it with calmness. That's his patience. And that's translated often in the New King James as perseverance, as endurance, or patient endurance, and sometimes patience. So we can rightly say then that long-suffering is an attribute of God, But patience in that sense is not. Because God is long-suffering, but He's not patient in that He's never troubled by events.

There are never things that happen that are distressful or frustrating to him. He's just sovereign over everything. Everything that happens happens because he has brought it to pass. And so God is never patient in that second sense of the word, but God is long-suffering as The parable of the prodigal son shows us. Now there's one place, just mentioned, there's one place where Paul speaks of the God of patience, and it uses this second word.

But I think there what Paul is saying is that God is the one who supplies patience to us. He's the one who supplies patience. He's the God of patience. It's like He's the God of hope or the God of comfort in that He supplies comfort to us and hope. And so, God is long-suffering.

And that is the purpose of this parable of the prodigal son that Jesus tells these Pharisees. This man had two sons. And the younger son says to his father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me. He's asking for his inheritance. The older son would have received a double portion of the inheritance.

So if you have five sons, the oldest son would have received two-sixths of the inheritance and the other five sons would have each received one sixth. In this case there's just two sons. So the older son receives two thirds, the younger son one third. And so he's coming asking for his one third. And notice it says that he divided to them his livelihood.

This isn't, he's not asking for some savings that he's got saved up and he'd like a portion of that. It's His livelihood. This is all of His inheritance. This is the capital assets by which His Father made a living. This is the family farm or whatever business they may have had.

This son is asking for his portion of all of it. And we see right off the father's patient love, or long-suffering love. If I say patient love of the Father, you know what I mean is his long suffering love. We see that he is slow to anger at this selfishness of his son. His son in asking for his inheritance is essentially saying, I wish you were dead.

I don't care about how you're going to continue to thrive and live. I only care about what I want. Really It wasn't a just or proper request at all. The inheritance only passes to the next generation on the death of the testator, not while he's living. So this son is really saying, in essence, I wish that you were dead now.

And I want to act as if you are dead. It's really the height of selfishness, the height of ingratitude toward the Father for all that He has done for Him His whole life. It's a disgrace to the Father to have a son come like that. Now, but the Father is patient in this. He has a long-suffering love.

He divides the inheritance. And not many days after that, the younger son gathered altogether and journeyed to a far country. The father is long-suffering with the selfishness and the injustice and the ingratitude of his son. There is no rebuke, there's no scolding, there's no storm, or there's no retribution. Rather the Father simply divides to this Son his livelihood.

See, there is no lack of power in this example that Jesus is telling. The Father had the power to not give this inheritance to the Son. You see, In us, we might be patient because we're feeble or we have indecision or because there's a weakness, but not the case with God. And so the Son leaves for a far country and wastes His possessions with prodigal living. See, long-suffering love waits while the Son waits.

Long-suffering love waits while the Son waits. You can see the foolishness of sin. Here is this Son who has taken the capital that His Father has accumulated over his lifetime and possibly received an inheritance from his father. He is taking it and he's wasting it with prodigal living, extravagant living, lavish spending on things that will not last and do not build the wealth of the family. And so this is very foolish, very short sighted, it's very selfish.

He's only thinking of himself. He's not even thinking about a future family and his children. What capital is he going to use for them, to provide a home for them, and to help them get established in their business? He's only thinking of himself, spending, spending, spending, on every pleasure that he could imagine. While the father is patiently waiting, patiently waiting.

He's waiting for the Son to learn the deceitfulness of sin. This Son has been attracted to all the pleasures of the world. He grew up probably working on the farm and thinking that he was deprived because he didn't have all the things that maybe he saw other people having. And he said to himself, well, I can take my inheritance and I can go get those things that I want so much for myself, that I see everybody else having. He was deceived.

Because sin and the pleasures of the world are deceitful. Riches are deceitful. They don't bring what people think they bring. So the father is long suffering in waiting. His love is long suffering in waiting while the son wastes his inheritance.

And wastes all of the father's hard earned money. It would be very easy to be very irritated. It would be very easy to be very frustrated and exasperated and even angry at this Son. But the Father's love is a patient love. And we need to, if we understand this parable, we need to see that we are like that Son in wasting the Father's gifts, in spurning so often His goodness and His kindness to us.

But then the son runs out of money because of his wasteful living. And so he hires himself out to a citizen of the country and that farmer sent him out to feed his pigs. He's feeding them with pods which would probably carob pods. Now if you they make a chocolate out of it. He used to like carob.

When we had goats we used to like to make carob milk out of it. But if you actually take just the pod, it's very unpalatable. It's like a chocolate pod. It's not something you want to eat. And yet here he is feeding these pigs and has nothing to eat and so he's wanting to eat what they're eating.

It says that He came to Himself. He came to Himself. He began to realize that He'd been deceived, that He'd been wrong. He came to His right mind, and he said, How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough to spare, and I perish with hunger. I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned.

See, God's long-suffering love leads to forgiveness. God's long-suffering love leads to forgiveness. That's what Paul said to the Romans. Do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads to repentance? And so in this parable, the long-suffering love of the father leads to the repentance of his son.

Now what if his father had been grumpy and frustrated and just hot under the collar when this son left. Do you think it would have been as easy for this son to come to repentance if that was the last picture that he had of his father as he left? That of a grumpy old man, irate, hot under the collar, scolding him, demonstrating wrath or refusing to give the inheritance, how likely would this son have been willing to repent and brought to repentance and moved to saying, I'm going to go to my father, And I'm going to say, Father, I have sinned. Stephen Charnock says, patience sets many sinner running into the arms of mercy. That mercy makes God ready to embrace returning sinners, makes Him willing to bear with them in their sin and wait their return.

That mercy which makes God ready to embrace returning sinners, makes Him willing to bear with them in their sin and wait their return. God's love is a long-suffering love that waits for the sinner to return. And you see in this case, both of these glimpses of the Father are true. In the first two parables we saw the initiating love. But here we see the long-suffering love of the Father that waits.

That waits a long-suffering love that leads His children to repentance. Now, the Son comes back then. The son that has rehearsed what he's going to say, he's going to say, Father, I have sinned against heaven and earth before You, and I'm no longer worthy to be called Your Son. Make me like one of Your hired servants. He arises, he comes back, and while he's still a great way away, his father is looking for him.

He's looking, otherwise he wouldn't see him when he's a great way away. But His father is looking for him. He's looking, otherwise he wouldn't see him when he's a great way away. But his father is looking for him. And he ran.

The father runs to him and falls on his neck and kissed him. And the son begins to say, Father, I have sinned and I'm not..." And the father interrupts and says, Bring out the best robe and put it on him. And put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet and bring the fatted calf and kill it and let us be merry. For My Son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found." See, the long-suffering love is quick to rejoice and prodigal in its extent.

It's quick to rejoice in its prodigal, it's extravagant. The love of the Father is extravagant in its extent toward repentant sinners. There's no waiting. There's no delay. There's no probation at sincere repentance.

Even the best of us humans, to be able to forgive, it's a labor. We have to work at it. When we've truly been wronged as this Father was wronged, it's not our first response to run to that person. And even when they repent, to run to them and kiss them and tell them to kill the fatted calf for them. And yet that's the love that we see this Father showing.

There's no waiting. God is ready to forgive. He's ready to forgive. And He does so immediately. Immediately.

Without reproach. Without having to think about it. Without having to pray and labor to come to a place of forgiveness. The father said, this my son is dead. Because sin brings forth death.

And now he is alive. And so the father rejoices with an extravagant, Extravagant love. But then they're making Mary, they began to be Mary, and the older son who was in the field who's been working all the while, this other son has been wasting the inheritance, he's been working in the field. He now comes in from the field and there's a party he didn't know about. And he doesn't think he was invited to it.

He doesn't remember being invited to it. And he heard the music and the dancing. He calls one of the servants and he says, what's going on here? And he's told, well, your brother's come back. That one that wasted all your inheritance.

That maybe made you work harder because you had less capital. He's come and your father has received him safe and sound and he's killed the fatted calf and they're in there rejoicing. The son is now angry. He's thinking, what? I never got this kind of party.

I never got this kind of reception. I never got this kind of welcome or gratitude for all of my labor. And I've never done half the things that this brother has done. And here I think we see the most extravagant love of the Father. Because the Father comes out and loves even this Son.

When somebody comes to you and says, I have sinned, I've sinned against you. I'm not worthy to be your friend. I'm only worthy to be your servant. And when they humble themselves, when they prostrate themselves like that, doesn't it make it easier to love them? But when somebody is angry with us, and they're frustrated with what we've done, and they're screaming at us, How easy is it at that time to love?

But the father comes out and he stoops to reason with his son. He could have ignored him. He could have said, oh, there he is having a temper tantrum again. And just so if he doesn't want to come to the party, oh well, let him go. But no, the father's love, long-suffering love pleads and reasons with even this older son who is angry.

Father came out and pleaded with him. He said, These many years I've been serving you, I never transgressed your commandments, yet you never gave me a goat that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours comes, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him." And Jesus says to him, Son, you are always with me. And all that I have is yours. It was right that we should be merry and glad, make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found." See, those who have been nurtured long in the house of God can sometimes long to have the testimony of a prodigal.

Because they're the ones that get to stand up in front of the church and tell a wonderful story that everybody listens to with rapt attention about how dissipated and sinful their previous life was and how unlikely they were that they should be saved, and yet God in His mercy saves them. And there's a certain empathy that we have toward that. And those who have grown up in the church might sometimes have a tendency to be jealous of that, to wish that they had a testimony like that. But God loves all His children the same. God loves all His children the same.

In fact, as one preacher I know told about a I'll say He used his imagination in a sanctified way to picture in heaven all of the saints of the Scriptures sitting around contemplating in a right way the goodness, the magnitude of the love of God in their salvation. And you'd have somebody like the thief on the cross who could talk about God's love to him and saving him even after he'd been mocking him initially. And saying to him, today you will be with me in paradise. Or Rahab the harlot being saved out of prostitution to become an ancestor and a mother in the line of Christ. And isn't God's grace wonderful and great in their lives?

But what about John the Baptist who never fell into any sins like that? He never wandered away into that kind of sin and prodigal or extravagant waste. But he could speak of God graciously opening his heart so that he could see his sins as great in the sight of God. That God's love for him is just as great as it is for all these other people. In fact, maybe it's, you might say it's even greater in that it is God's grace and God's grace alone that preserved men like John the Baptist and the other and people who are born into Christian homes and grow up never knowing a day outside of the church.

You say God's grace is even greater in those lives, that they never fell into those sins. But everybody, everybody, this older son and the younger son. As we stand in the sight of the Lord, it is our sin. It is our sin that is seen as greater than anyone else's. And so as we close, I would just give three brief applications of this long-suffering love of the Father.

One is that we should meditate upon it. Meditate on the long-suffering love of God, that God is long-suffering, that we are not destroyed when His anger is kindled just a little, but that He is long-suffering to us as sinners who deserve His immediate wrath. He's long-suffering to us as a nation that deserves His immediate wrath. And anytime we're tempted to think of God's justice rightfully falling on someone else to remember God's long-suffering toward us in the forbearance that He's shown toward us in our sin. Secondly, I think this long-suffering love of God should make us more frequent and more serious in our repentance.

More frequent and more serious in our repentance, recognizing that God's love is long-suffering. And thirdly, it would make us imitate, imitate His long suffering with one another. So that we like Paul says in Ephesians can bear with one another, forgiving one another, and bearing with one another in love. With all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love. Let us pray.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for these pictures of your love to us in Jesus Christ. That it is an initiating love, that it is a thorough and exhaustive love that seeks for us that leaves no stone unturned and that it is a rejoicing love and a long-suffering love in waiting for us to in waiting for us to come to repentance. Lord, may we be moved and filled by your Holy Spirit that we may have this kind of long suffering toward one another. That we being filled with love may be able to forgive one another and bear with one another. We ask this Lord in your name.

Amen.