You can blow your life when you are running from love.

1 – His departure

• It was planned – “Not many days after”. This was premeditated sin. All sin begins in the heart. The heart of the problem is a problem of the heart. The plan is to leave home. He does not have any goals. He is running from conviction. Many people try to do this.

1. Conviction can be painful.
2. Conviction is powerful. We are talking about Holy Spirit conviction.
3. Conviction is perpetual. You can try to close the door on it but it does not go away. This boy is being convicted every step of the way. He turns his back on everything he has learned.
4. Conviction is productive. It is conviction that can save your soul.

• It was determined – “gathered all together”. He cashed his inheritance into transportable material. It was the son who leaves and not the father. God never leaves us – it is we who leave him. If we want to come back to him – he is waiting.

2 – His destination

“A far country”. It represents outside of the will of God. It was a country that was outside of Israel. He is getting away from the Lord. Is that where you are today? See Job 21:16ff & Job 22:17. God gives sustenance and health. God will allow you to rebel. God will not force you. He wants to go to a far country so that he could do his own thing. In his father’s house he was under his father’s rules and regulations. No child determines what goes on in the home! The far country was the place of evil. It was also a people of evil.

3 – His devastation

You don’t see anywhere that he sought God’s will. He is getting ahead of God. God is not directing this boy. He is heading into devastation. It is foolish to trust in your own wisdom. See Proverbs 28:26. If you do, you are a fool! That is what the Bible says. Don’t be a fool today!

His plan was to get away. He had no plans after that. His departure was pointless. He blew his living away. He is absolutely blew his life. A goal has an aim and purpose. If you have no goals then you have no idea where you are going. Goals give you some direction. Do you have any goals for your life? You could be young or old. Where are you going? Goals give you excitement in life. Life is not some mundane experience. Goals give you energy to get out of your bed in the morning! Goals give you creativity in your life. You know that you are accomplishing things in life. They are like progress reports. Don’t retire from life and serving the Lord. You will shrivel up and die. You will settle for living in a rut. You are not growing in your life. This is what “mid-life crisis” really is. There is no excitement, drive and energy without goals.

4 – His departure

• Recognise your dream – This boy had no dream. He was wasting his life. We grow by our dreams. What has God placed in your heart? If you are following your dream then you know what to leave alone. We need one main goal rather than four or five that we can’t follow.
• Observe your starting point – You have to recognise where you are now.
• Acknowledge that adversity is coming – You can’t let the difficulties get you down.
• Define specifically what your goals are so that you can achieve them.
• Move into action – People have goals and then don’t do anything.
• Adjust your plans – Things have to be changed along the way.

Your life will be successful if you have a road map. This boy’s life was pathetic. He lived his life in riotous living. He gets his independence to do his own thing. He blows his money as he lives it up. Sin has taken hold of his life. We take sin and then sin takes us. Sin will enslave you. He has taken a flight from reality. He was so deep into the far country that he was escaping from reality. It often takes something extreme to jolt us back into reality. You might think you are living but we are all dying. Will you be ready when your time comes? We don’t like to call things as sin. It is a sickness. We try to deny sin. We are fooling ourselves. We become insensitive to the Holy Spirit. This boy has become self-centred. Sin makes you restless. You need more and more to satisfy. It is always a little bit more. He thinks he is free but really he is a slave.

At home there is a Daddy who is praying and weeping for his son to come home. He is looking for him to come home. The father is broken-hearted. His son has gone into a far county. If you are in the far country and blowing your life, there is a Father who wants you to come home. He loves you. I’ve been in the far country but God has brought me back home and he accepted me.

Categories: Luke