Sunday School Lesson: The Love of the Father

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the influence that Dr. Tim Keller had on both my faith and my ministry and especially the influence of his second book The Prodigal God. In the book Keller shows that not only are both sons lost, but that it is the father, a stand in for God, that is the Prodigal one, meaning the one that is generous in ways that seems gratuitous and over the top. The father in the parable loves both his sons and wants to see them flourish, but more than that he desires relationship with both of them, something that both have withheld from the father.

There are many things that have been written over the years about the love of God. One f the most, if not the most famous, verse in all of scripture is John 3:16: “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” Several years ago there was a worship song that became extremely popular written by Cory Asbury entitled “Reckless Love.”

If you listen at all to Christian radio, you are probably familiar with the song. In it Asbury lists out the various ways that God shows in scripture what his love for his creation, and especially humans, is like and includes the chorus, “Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God/Oh, it chases me down, fights ‘til I’m found, leaves the 99/And I couldn’t earn it/I don’t deserve it, still You give yourself away/

Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God.”

In the years since it was written, it has attracted controversy for describing God’s love as “reckless.” The argument is that nothing that God does can be, or should be described, as “reckless.” In another sense, however, the use of reckless is an accurate description of how the world sees and interrupts the love of God and the love that we are to have for others. The world would see the leaving of the 99 sheep to find one lost one to be reckless. This is not a good protection of the whole in the face of a one percent loss. The world would see the profligate grace that the father in the parable of the lost son as reckless. After all, he does not make the younger son prove that he has changed his ways.

There is a popular meme that gets passed around on social media, especially in atheist and anti-Christian circles. In in Jesus is shown speaking to a young boy. Jesus points out of frame and says, “See that man over there? That is who killed you and your whole family, but he repented and now you have to spend eternity with him.” The point, of course, is to show how, well, reckless and profligate the grace of God is that He would redeem and save a murderer.

In the first few words of 1 Corinthians, Paul writes, “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God to us who are being saved. 19 For it is written,

I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

and I will set aside the intelligence of the intelligent.” (1 Cor 1 18-19)

To many, the cross, and what it means, the sacrifice of God of the Son, represents utter foolishness. That God would send the son to die not just for the deserving, but for the underserving too seems, in the calculations of the world to be madness. Paul reminds us, however, that there are none who are deserving of God’s mercy, rather His mercy is extended not on the basis of merit, but on the basis of grace.

Not too long after my first son was born I was holding and rocking him, telling him how much I loved him and how much his Heavenly Father loved him. In that moment I was totally overwhelmed. In a new way I understood not only how much the Father loved me, but the sacrifice that the Father made in the sending of the Son. That He was willing to give up the Son, to see the Son suffer and die, even knowing that resurrection was coming, for me is totally overwhelming. It is, in reality, the best news I have ever heard.

It also is testimony to foolish, reckless love, as least according to how the world measures, and I am so thankful.