The Running Father: A Sermon on Grace and Homecoming

Pastor Michael Hopkins, Jehovah Saints

Opening Prayer

Let us pray.

Jehovah, Father of mercy, we come to You today as we are — some of us far from home in our hearts, some of us weary from trying to earn what You already freely give. Meet us on the road this morning. Run to us, as You always have. Open our ears to hear this story as if for the first time. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Introduction

I want to tell you about a story so familiar that I think we've stopped letting it surprise us. You've probably heard it called "the Prodigal Son." But I want to suggest to you this morning that the title we've given this story may be pointing at the wrong character. Because the most shocking, most countercultural, most gospel-soaked figure in this story is not the son who leaves. It's the father who runs.

Let's walk through it together.

Scripture Reading

Turn with me to Luke chapter 15, beginning at verse 11. Jesus said:

"A certain man had two sons: And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living."

I. The Request That Should Never Have Been Honored

Let's start with what the younger son actually asked for, because it's more shocking than we often realize. Asking your father for your inheritance while he is still alive was, in that culture, essentially saying: "I wish you were dead. I don't want a relationship with you — I just want what I'll get when you're gone, and I want it now."

It would have been culturally and legally appropriate for the father to refuse this request outright, even to punish the son for making it. Instead — and this is the first shock of the story — the father divides his living between both sons. He gives the younger son exactly what he asked for, knowing full well what would likely happen with it.

This is our first glimpse of what kind of father we're dealing with. He does not force relationship. He does not chain the son to the house through control or guilt. He lets him go, even into a decision the father surely knew would end badly. That is a hard kind of love to understand — love that respects freedom, even self-destructive freedom, rather than love that controls.

II. The Far Country

Verse 13 tells us what happened next: the son took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

And then verse 14 turns everything: "And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want."

This is how sin so often works, isn't it? It rarely announces itself as destruction. It announces itself as freedom, adventure, finally getting to live for yourself. And for a while — the money lasts, the friends stick around, the riotous living feels like living. But it is always, eventually, unsustainable. The famine always comes, whether it's a famine of finances, of relationships, of health, or simply of the soul.

By verse 15 and 16, the son who once ate at his father's table is feeding pigs — about as low as a Jewish listener in Jesus' original audience could imagine a person falling — and he's so hungry he's eyeing the pods the pigs are eating. No one, Scripture says, gave unto him.

III. Coming to Himself

And then comes one of the most important phrases in the whole story. Verse 17: "And when he came to himself..."

There's something worth noticing here. The son doesn't say he came to his senses because he suddenly loved his father again, or missed him, or felt overwhelming guilt. Look at what actually moves him — verse 17: "How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!"

His first motive for going home is honestly self-interested. He's hungry. He remembers there's bread at his father's house. That's it. And I want you to notice: God does not require our motives to be pure before He'll let us come home. Sometimes it's not some beautiful spiritual epiphany that turns us back to Him — sometimes it's just hitting bottom and remembering there's bread at the Father's table. That is enough of a reason to start walking home.

He rehearses a speech — verse 18 and 19: "I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants." He's not expecting to be received as a son again. He's hoping, at best, to be received as staff — fed, sheltered, but no longer trusted, no longer close.

IV. The Father Who Runs

Now we reach the heart of the story. Verse 20:

"And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."

Stop here. This is the verse the whole story has been building toward, and it is astonishing.

"When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him." That tells you something about this father — he was watching. Not moving on with his life as though the son didn't exist. Watching the road, day after day, hoping.

And then: the father ran. In that culture, for a dignified, older Middle Eastern patriarch to run in public was considered deeply undignified — men of his standing did not run; they walked with measured dignity, and running meant hiking up your robes and exposing your legs, something beneath a man of his position. The father didn't care. He abandoned every shred of dignity and social propriety and sprinted down the road toward a son who had wished him dead, wasted his inheritance, and was returning in disgrace, smelling of the pigpen.

He didn't wait at the house for the son to grovel his way up the path and deliver his rehearsed apology. He ran to meet him while he was still a great way off — while the son had barely started making things right, while he was still covered in the evidence of his failure.

Church, this is who Jehovah is. Not a distant judge waiting for us to earn our way back into the house. A Father who watches the road, and runs to meet us while we are still far off, still messy, still smelling like the pigpen we came from.

V. Grace Interrupts the Apology

Look at verse 21 and 22. The son starts his rehearsed speech: "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son."

But notice — he never gets to finish it. He never gets to the part about "make me as one of thy hired servants." The father cuts him off, not with anger, but with instructions to the servants: "Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry."

The robe restores his dignity. The ring — likely a signet ring — restores his authority and identity as a son of the house. The shoes mark him as family, not a servant; servants went barefoot, sons wore shoes. And the fatted calf, reserved for the most significant celebrations, means a feast for the whole household.

This is grace in its rawest form: restoration that begins before the apology is even finished, given without probation, without a trial period to prove sincerity, without any requirement that the son first prove himself worthy again. He is fully, immediately, extravagantly restored — not because of what he did, but because of who the father is.

VI. The Other Son We Don't Talk About Enough

I'd be doing this story a disservice if I stopped here, because Jesus doesn't stop here either. There's an older brother, and his reaction in verses 25 through 30 deserves our attention.

He hears the music and dancing, learns what's happened, and refuses to go in. When his father comes out to plead with him, he says, essentially: I've stayed, I've obeyed, I've worked — and you never even gave me a young goat to celebrate with my friends. But this son of yours, who wasted everything, gets a fatted calf.

This is the danger of a religion built on earning rather than grace. The older brother had never left the house, but his heart was just as far from his father's heart as his brother's had been in the far country — he just expressed it through resentment instead of rebellion. He saw his relationship with his father as a transaction of labor for reward, not a relationship of love.

And the father's response to him is just as tender as his response to the younger son: "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." He doesn't rebuke the older son's anger harshly — he invites him in too, reminding him that everything the father has was always available to him, not because he earned it, but because he was a son.

Both sons needed the same grace. One needed to come home from a far country. The other needed to come home from a far country of the heart, even while standing right outside the door.

Closing Charge

So here is what I want to leave you with this morning.

If you are in a far country today — however you got there, however long you've been gone, however unworthy you feel — the Father is already watching the road. Turn around. He will run to meet you before you've even finished your apology.

And if you've never left the house, but you've been serving out of obligation instead of love, resenting grace shown to others instead of resting in the grace shown to you — the Father is inviting you in too. Everything He has has always been yours.

This is who Jehovah is. Not a father who waits at a distance for us to clean ourselves up. A Father who runs.

Closing Prayer

Let us pray.

Father, thank You that You do not wait for us at a distance, arms crossed, requiring us to prove ourselves before we're welcomed home. Thank You that You run to meet us while we are still a great way off — still messy, still ashamed, still unsure we belong. For those of us who have wandered, draw us home today. For those of us who have stayed but grown resentful, soften our hearts to receive Your grace freely, the same grace You give so freely to others. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, who came to seek and to save what was lost. Amen.

Scripture quotations are from the King James Version.