June 11, 2025 Wednesday night Bible study The Perfect Father series About 49 minutes

The Perfect Father

Pastor Erickson preaches from the parable of the lost son in Luke 15, showing a perfect heavenly Father who lets His children choose, waits for them, and runs to meet them with compassion. He calls fathers and families to stay faithful in the Father's house and to pray for prodigals to come to themselves and come home.

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The message in 6 points

Only one perfect father
Pastor Erickson reads Luke 15:20 and reminds the church that 2025 was declared a year of prodigals returning. With Father's Day near, he says earthly fathers are all striving, but there is only one perfect Father, and he leads the church in singing about Him.
34:16
Seeing the father through the lost son
While writing about the pathway home, he saw that Jesus' parable is really about the love of the father. He reads Luke 15:11-16 and notes this son did not wander off like the sheep or get misplaced like the coin; he left on purpose.
40:54
A father who gives the right to choose
He compares God to a great nation that gives its citizens rights even when they are not used well. God gives direction and then lets His children choose, and the father in the parable did not chase or punish his son but let his choices teach him while he waited and kept loving.
44:57
A restless spirit
The younger son may not have been wild at first, only restless and bored at home. A restless spirit always feels someone else has it better, but Paul wrote with hope from a dungeon in Rome, and God can use us right where we are.
55:14
Wasted substance and the famine
Riotous living wastes more than money: integrity, self respect, testimony and a good name. The famine came when everything was spent, and in his hunger the son did what he never thought he would do, feeding the very thing that could not feed him.
1:04:49
Coming home to a father who never changed
He came to himself, and it is never too late to change your mind. He came home asking only to be a servant and found his father where he left him, so Pastor Erickson urges parents and fathers to stay faithful in God's house and pray for their prodigals by name.
1:09:52

In his words

“A restless spirit will cause you to always feel that somebody else has it better than you.”

57:15

“Money can be regained. Possessions can be regained. But it's a whole lot more difficult to regain the rest of your substance.”

1:05:29

“Let me tell you something. It's never too late to get into your right mind. I don't care how much substance you've lost.”

1:10:12

Taken word for word from the video, with punctuation added.

Scripture

He reads

Luke 15:11-20

¹¹And he said, A certain man had two sons: ¹²And 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. ¹³And 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. ¹⁴And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. ¹⁵And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. ¹⁶And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. ¹⁷And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! ¹⁸I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, ¹⁹And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. ²⁰And 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.

King James Version.

42:52 Other messages on this passage

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