Luke 15: You Are No Longer an Orphan, You Are a Son of God

Introduction

Sharon Vandeput is a pastor at Kingdom Faith Church in Horsham, together with her husband, Pastor Kevin Vandeput. About ten years ago, the Lord called them to England for the Kingdom Faith Bible college. "We came for that and we never left." After seven years leading Kingdom Faith Burgess Hill, they now serve in Horsham.

The message is part of a series on what it means to "be the Church." The Church is not a building, it is people. After Acts 2, presented as God's blueprint for the Church, Pastor Kevin spoke the week before about the royal priesthood and a "Kingdom family with a purpose."

Sharon Vandeput believes the Lord wants to speak that morning about two things: your identity as a son or daughter of God, and then your place as a spiritual father or mother. "Children need parents."

Outline of the Message

1. Adopted into God's Family

• In a family, there is a head: God the Father. He has adopted us as his sons. Romans 8 uses this family language: "For you didn't receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”"
• Paul uses the Greek word huios, son, to stress the full legal rights, the status and the inheritance received through spiritual adoption, at the moment we made Jesus the Lord of our lives.
• "For the creation waits with eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed." The preacher asks the question: do you see that you are a son of God? And if so, are you walking in the full authority of a son?
• What you do flows from who you are, "not who you think you should be, but who you truly believe you are." A healthy Church, healthy house communities, are made of healthy people in a healthy relationship with the Lord.

2. From Orphans to Sons and Daughters

• A person who no longer has parents is an orphan. When we give our lives to Jesus, we are no longer orphans: we are sons and daughters.
• God's heart turns toward the orphan, the widow and the lonely person. He gives a family to those who were abandoned and he is the father of orphans (Psalm 68).
• God wanted a family from the very beginning, with Adam and Eve. When they sinned and left the garden, they left the Father's presence and became spiritual orphans.
• Jesus came to reverse that. The only Son of God died on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins, so that we could be reunited with the Father. We no longer have to walk or talk like orphans.
• Yet an orphan mentality can come back into a life that is already new in Jesus. The devil, who became an orphan by his own choice when he separated himself from the Father, wants to make everyone an orphan with him. He lies, he isolates, he keeps saying that what you do doesn't matter.
• If we know that we are sons and daughters, we walk in the authority delegated by the Father, with his rights and his inheritance. That is when we become "a real threat to the kingdom of darkness."

3. Two Sons, One Father, Two Ways of Living Like an Orphan

• Sharon Vandeput reads the parable of Luke 15:11-32. The younger son demands his share, squanders it in a far country, feeds pigs, then returns, telling himself: "I am no more worthy to be called your son."
• "But the father": while the son is still far away, the father sees him, is moved with compassion, runs, falls on his neck and kisses him. He has the best robe brought, a ring, sandals, and the fattened calf killed.
• A remark in passing: the older son, out in the fields, doesn't know what is happening at home. "Let's not be like the older brother, who doesn't know what God is doing. Let's be about our Father's business."
• The older son becomes angry and refuses to go in. He has served like a slave without ever receiving a young goat. The father answers him: "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours."
• Both sons had the same father, a good father, and yet they behaved like orphans. The preacher quotes the author Leif Hetland: the prodigal put as much distance as possible between himself and his father, while the older son thought he would impress him by working in the fields with the slaves. "Both of them needed to come home."

4. Recognizing an Orphan Mentality

• The spiritual orphan doesn't submit easily. He resists authority to protect himself, out of fear.
• He behaves as if he had no home. He doesn't commit for the long term, doesn't put down roots, puts up walls or leaves before anyone gets too close.
• He thinks that if he does enough good things, or owns enough money and possessions, he will finally be good enough and find rest. This restlessness keeps him from settling: never really at home, never really at peace.
• He focuses on performance, on the image he projects and on what he does for God, rather than on his full acceptance as a son and on time spent in God's presence.
• Like the older son, he works like a servant, stays outside during the party, and becomes jealous and compares himself when the Father blesses or shows grace to someone else.
• He expects his spouse, his family, his friends, his pastors or the Church to fill what only God the Father can fill. Sharon Vandeput asks forgiveness for the times leaders did not do what they should have, but reminds us: "No one here, myself included, can fill what only God the Father can fill in your heart."
• She shares that the Lord has been leading her on this path for a few months, "layer by layer," and that she is discovering areas where she is not fully walking in her position as a daughter. "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." The goal is not to accuse, but to walk in freedom and lead others into it.

5. Coming Back into the Father's Embrace

• The son knows his father, lives in intimacy with him, listens to him, obeys him and does what he says. "That is all the Father needs to act through you." We bear the same name: each of us is "in Christ."
• To those who resemble the older son, who serve while staying just close enough to the Father without ever meeting his love: "You keep a healthy distance, which is not healthy at all." God invites you to put down the plow and come be with him. He wants you to enjoy him.
• The preacher admits this is an important point for her: the radical love God shows to the new believer is also for her, after years of Christian life.
• To those who resemble the younger son, whose life still revolves around themselves: the Lord wants to pull selfishness out of the heart. Some have drifted away inwardly from the Father's embrace without it showing. The Father is waiting for them, watching, ready to run to them, to clothe them with the robe and give them the ring.

6. Taking Your Place as a Spiritual Father or Mother

• There is a third group in the room: those who say they have no orphan mentality at all. God speaks to them too, because sons and daughters need fathers and mothers.
• "Will you take your place as a spiritual father and mother in this house, to love, pray and fight for these sons and daughters, or for these orphans, as if they were your own children?"
• This is not mentoring: "You can mentor someone, teach them to imitate you, and not love them." In the Kingdom, God calls us to love people as our own children, even if they are not younger than you.
• A true spiritual father or mother helps the other become what God planned for them. They intercede, fight for them, love them when it is hard, show them grace again and again, wait for their return to the Father and lead without seeking their own interest.
• Sharon Vandeput tells about her childhood: her parents, first-generation Christians, were so hungry for God that they played the Kingdom Faith tape of the month until it wore out. She woke up hearing her father pray as he paced up and down for his family, and found her mother reading the Bible at the kitchen table.
• Her parents included her and her sister in prayer, in worship and in communion. That is where she learned to hear the Lord's voice and to pray. "They were not only my biological parents, they were my spiritual parents."

7. Deborah, a Mother in Israel

• Judges 4: after Ehud's death, Israel is oppressed for twenty years by Jabin, king of Canaan, and by Sisera, the commander of his army with its nine hundred iron chariots. Deborah, a prophetess and judge, sits under the palm tree of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel.
• She summons Barak, son of Abinoam, from Kedesh in Naphtali. According to the preacher, Barak was probably not a soldier but an ordinary man. Kedesh was a city of refuge, a place where people hid: "It is as if Deborah were calling Barak out of his hiding place."
• "That is what spiritual parents do. They call you out of your hiding place and tell you: stop hiding from the enemy, let's stand together and face him." They see in you what you don't yet see, call out your identity and turn you toward the Lord.
• Barak answers: "If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go." Some people will only move forward if you walk ahead of them. Like the children who followed their parents in worship that morning, "children do what their parents do."
• Facing Sisera's army, Deborah says to Barak: "Up! For this is the day in which Yahweh has delivered Sisera into your hand. Hasn’t Yahweh gone out before you?" She reminds him of the truth. Let's be people who encourage one another with the truth in the middle of the trial.
• In the song of Judges 5, the roads were abandoned and Israel was left without strength, "until I, Deborah, arose; until I arose a mother in Israel." Today the Lord is calling for Deborahs and Pauls: a Church where orphans become sons and daughters surrounded by fathers and mothers.

Key Takeaways

• In Christ, you are no longer an orphan: you have received a Spirit of adoption, with the status, the rights and the inheritance of a son or daughter of God.
• An orphan mentality can return in a believer: fear of authority, lack of roots, a race for performance, jealousy, expecting others to fill what only the Father can fill.
• The younger and older sons of Luke 15 both lived outside the father's embrace. Both needed to come home.
• Spiritual parenting goes further than mentoring: it loves the other as its own child, and prays and fights for them.
• Like Deborah with Barak, spiritual parents call others out of their hiding place and remind them of the truth in the face of the enemy.

Personal Application

1. In what area of your life are you still behaving like an orphan rather than like a son or daughter of God?
2. Do you see yourself more in the younger son, who drifts away, or in the older son, who serves without entering the party?
3. What are you expecting from your spouse, your loved ones or your church that only God the Father can fill in you?
4. Whom is the Lord asking you to love, carry in prayer and encourage as your own spiritual child?
5. Is there someone you can call out of their hiding place this week, reminding them of what God says about them?

Verses Cited

• Luke 15:11-32
• Romans 8:14-19
• Romans 8:1
• Psalm 68:6-7
• Acts 2
• Judges 4:1-16
• Judges 5:6-7

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an orphan spirit according to Sharon Vandeput?

It is a way of thinking that returns in believers who have nonetheless been adopted by God. It shows in difficulty submitting to authority, an inability to put down roots anywhere, walls put up for protection, a race for good works or possessions to feel good enough, and the expectation that others will fill what only God the Father can fill.

Why do the two sons in Luke 15 behave like orphans?

Both have the same good father. The younger son leaves to look for happiness elsewhere. The older son stays home but works like a slave, refuses to go in to the party and doesn't see that everything that belongs to his father is his. For Sharon Vandeput, both lived outside the father's embrace and needed to come home.

What is the difference between mentoring and spiritual parenting?

You can mentor someone, teach them to imitate you, without loving them. Spiritual parenting means loving others as your own children: interceding and fighting for them, loving them when it is hard, showing them grace again and again, and helping them become what God planned, as Deborah did for Barak.