ties that bind
photo by Tim Mossholder @timmossholder
"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him."
(Luke 15:20)
My dad was a Godly man. I was incredibly blessed to have had a father who loved the Lord, prayed, studied his Bible faithfully, and tried his darnedest to walk his talk. He took his role as husband, father, and head of our home to heart. He knew the kind of man God called him to be in the home, and as his daughter I observed and took note.
Did you know?
100 MILLION ties are sold in America for Father’s Day gifts!!!
$1 BILLION is spent each year on ties for dad!
Father’s Day started in 1966. It was President Lyndon B. Johnson who issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day.
In 1972, six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law.
Father’s day can be a day chalked full of all sorts of emotions! For me, I am grateful to have experienced a loving, kind father, one of deep conviction and integrity. However, I know for others, this might not be the case. For many, today opens old wounds or stirs the hearts of others to mix that mortar to build yet another wall of division.
I take comfort in knowing, that while we all have different earthly experiences with our dads, we all share one father whose love is perfect and will never fail us. When I think of Father’s Day, I like to think of our Abba, Father, our ultimate Father who was, who is, and who is to come.
photo by: Gift Habeshaw @gift_habeshaw
Whether we have a wonderful earthly father or not, we have the example of the kind of love that binds all ties together, that restores and heals brokenness, and will seek the lost to bring them home. Jesus wanted so desperately for all to know and understand this kind of redeeming love, that He shared three valuable parables (moral stories) in order to illustrate the depth of His love for us.
Those three parables are found in Luke 15. They are the story of the prodigal son (explained below), the parable of the lost sheep, and the parable of the lost coin. The common theme of these three parables is that Jesus, in His infinite love as our Father, will seek the lost. These parables show us that God, being the ultimate Father, will go to every length possible to find you and bring you back into His care.
He will search high and low. He will scour every nook and cranny. He will never stop watching, waiting, and looking. And when He sees you far off in the distance, He will not make you crawl back and beg for forgiveness. No, He will run to you with open arms and throw you a party for your return.
Today’s opening scripture is a well-known verse from one of those parables.
"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him." (Luke 15:20)
photo by Sixteen Miles Out @sixteenmilesout
The parable of the prodigal son is a well-known story about, what we would consider today, an entitled son, the youngest of two, who humiliated his father by asking for his inheritance before his father had even passed. He then went to live in a faraway country for years and squandered it all away until he eventually ended up broke. He ran out of money, and at the same time there was a famine in the land.
He ended up working in the fields, feeding the pigs. He was so hungry he would gladly have eaten the pigs food. Finally realizing that his father’s servants were eating better than him, and they had enough bread to eat, and yet he had none, he resolved to go home. He decided he was going to beg for his father’s forgiveness and ask his father to take him in as one of his hired servants.
photo by Brett Jordan @brett_jordan
There is a wealth of information in the rest of this story (click here for more), but suffice it to say, the father greeted his son with open arms and love. Scripture says when the father saw him in the distance, he ran to him and kissed him. He welcomed him home. The son owned his sin and his unworthiness to be called his father’s son, but instead of rejecting or punishing him, the father threw a party for him.
This of course upset the older son, who had always been loyal to his father and yet, had never had a party thrown in his honor. The father explains to his oldest son that he is glad to share everything he owns with him, but that his brother was dead, but is now alive, and was lost, but is now found, and for those reasons, this was cause’ to celebrate!
Doesn’t the older son’s behavior beg the question, was his heart really in the right place all along? Did he too have a hidden agenda, did he have ulterior motives for staying home and being obedient? Doesn’t this sound just like us when we see someone we know living in blatant defiance of God’s word yet not getting the “just reward” as we, their judge and jury, decide they “deserve?”
We are all lost and sinners. Sin is a tie that binds us, but depending on the perspective, not everyone looks like a sinner. Some of us live out our sin in public, but others of us disguise it through self-justification or self-righteousness.
photo by Cdoncel @cdoncel
Our sin is the tie that binds us to eternal death, but Jesus is the tie that can bind us to eternal life through the redemption of our sin.
There is a tie that binds all three of these parables together. It’s THE TIE that binds all things together, and we would all be hopeless without it. Luke Chapter 15 tells the tale of two groups of people. One is people who are sinners and know it, and the second is sinners who are evil and don’t even know it. They are known as the hypocrites.
The Pharisees, leaders in the Jewish community, and known as the legal experts of their day, were always accusing Jesus of dining with “sinners.” These hypocrites couldn’t even recognize that they themselves were also “sinners.” Jesus uses three similar parables, the story of the prodigal son, the parable of the lost sheep, and the parable of the lost coin as examples of redemption/reclamation.
One group knows they don’t deserve Jesus, but they seek Him out anyway. The second group believes they are better than Jesus, so they judge His every move. The irony is Jesus welcomes BOTH groups of people and came to redeem and save all people.
“These three parables show us one overarching truth: God loves sinners. And because he does, he sends his Son [Jesus] into the world to seek out and find the lost [all the sinners]. Without God’s initiating love, we have no hope. We will either run from him in rebellion or stick close to him in self-righteousness, but we will never have salvation on our own. We may live within his walls but unless God comes to us in love and changes our heart we will never truly be home.” ~David McLemore
photo by Motoki Tonn @motoki
God is the tie that binds all things together.
It’s His grace that saves us, and His heart for sinners is different than our hearts. He doesn’t wait for us to turn our lives around. He is out searching for us. He wants to bring us home, but He then wants, and celebrates our restoration. He wants every son and daughter in our “eternal rooms” at night.
God’s love is that extravagant.
2 Corinthians 6:18 tells us, And “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.
Sadly enough though, many cannot or will not accept God’s grace and love. Sometimes the ties that bind us to our heavenly Father have been twisted and broken by abuse or abandonment by our earthly fathers. Seeing God as a Father is too painful because we often relate the relationship or example of our earthly fathers to our heavenly Father. It can be difficult to separate or reconcile how we’ve been treated by our own flesh and blood earthly fathers, from a loving God who seeks the lost and restores the broken.
photo by Jon Tyson @jontyson
Many of us had wonderful fathers and it is easier for us to accept the love of a heavenly Father. When you have an earthly father who is trustworthy, a pillar of strength in your home, and leads with integrity, it makes it easier for us to trust God. We can relate to and trust those character traits. We have seen them lived out, we know the roots they build, and the fruit they produce.
Father’s Day can be a day of celebration. Those of us who were/are blessed with wonderful earthly Father’s will be or will wish we could be celebrating with our fathers today. For others, today can be a painful day, one filled with sadness or anger.
None of us are perfect people, that’s why Jesus seeks to heal our wounds and redeem all wrong.
photo by Stefan Kunze @born_on_may_20_th
Our sin is the tie that binds us to eternal death, but Jesus is the tie that can bind us to eternal life through the redemption of our sin.
We all need God’s redeeming grace and mercy.
We all need forgiveness.
Jesus, our Abba Father offers all of those to us. He is the ultimate Father.
Those are the ties that bind us together as a people.
My son, keep your father’s commandment, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. Bind them always upon your heart; tie them around your neck. (Proverbs 6:20-21)
Something to consider: What would your life look like if you got exactly what you deserve? Can you see God’s hand of mercy throughout your life? Do you remember times of experiencing His grace? Do you struggle seeing the ties that bind how Jesus forgives you to how you are to forgive others? What can you do today to work on binding those ties so that the grace you’ve been given can be extended to those who need your grace?
Resources paraphrased or referenced for context:
prodigal-son-parable-summary-analysis
