The prodigal son, Luke 15: 11-32

Today’s passage is a parable commonly known as the parable of the prodigal son, which is part of a trilogy of parables that Jesus gave in this chapter.  They were given by Jesus in response to the attitude of the Pharisees who grumbled when sinners and tax collectors came to hear Him preach.  And particularly they thought it was inappropriate for Jesus to receive them and even eat with them.  So in response, Jesus tells them three parables, a trilogy; first a parable of the lost sheep, secondly the parable of the lost coin, and thirdly the parable of the lost son in order to illustrate that the ministry of God is to reclaim the lost. 

Now a parable is a story told for illustration purposes.  It’s a fictitious story, the characters and the story line are made up for the purpose of illustrating a heavenly principle by means of an earthly story.  And in a nutshell, this trilogy is illustrating the nature of the lost, the need for repentance, the compassion of the Father and the joy of heaven at the lost being saved. 

And so we will use those principles as an outline to look at this parable today. So first of all let’s consider the nature of the lost.  In the parable of the sheep, the one sheep wandered away from the flock and became lost.  In the second parable the coin was lost at home.  And in this third parable, the son is lost by deliberately leaving  the father’s house.

Now there are a few points that we can make that will help us understand the nature of the lost son.  First of all, it would have been evident to the hearers of this parable in that day that this was a particularly insolent and rebellious son.  Basically this younger son couldn’t wait for his father to die so that he could receive his inheritance.  He believes that he has gotten old enough to go his own way and make his own choices.  He thinks he is smarter than the old man.  And so rather than wait until his father dies and then receiving his share of the estate as was customary, this young man goes and brashly asks his father to give it to him now. 

And interestingly, Jesus doesn’t detail any of the father’s deliberations or misgivings about this request, but He says the father accommodates his son’s defiance by splitting the estate between the two sons.   And after a few days, it says that the son gathered everything together.   We might understand that to mean that he liquidated his share of the estate and got all the money together and then he set off for a foreign land.  And while he was there he squandered it all in loose living.  That is where the word prodigal comes from by the way.  Jesus never used that word, but it means extravagant, wasteful.  And it describes the way this young man acted when he received the inheritance. 

Now the application is clear.  The lost son is a picture of the sinner who has taken the life that God has given him, the health, the wealth, the wisdom and the resources of life, and decided that he can make his own choices as to how to use them best.  He thinks he is a better judge of right and wrong than God is.  He wants to control his life.  He doesn’t want to live under the rules of the kingdom of God.  He feels that it’s too controlling, too confining.  And so we too take what we think is ours, what is ours by right, and we use it for our own purposes.  We want to be the captain of our own destiny.  We forget that it was God who provided us with those resources. 

And so to get away from this oppressive God who just wants to ruin our fun, we go as far away from God as possible.  We avoid thinking of Him at all costs.  We avoid church.  We actually come to hate all that He represents.  We want nothing to do with God. 

And you can be sure that the devil is right there beside us every inch of the way, luring us on.  Tempting us to think that just over the next horizon there will be the freedom, the satisfaction, the happiness that we are looking for.  And so like the prodigal son we spend our lives in wastefulness, thinking one more drink will satisfy me.  Maybe this pill or that drug will provide the peace that I am looking for.  Or if I just get that high paying job I’ll be happy.  If I just get that girlfriend or wife I’ll be happy.  If I just let myself go sexually I’ll be satisfied.  Whatever it is, it is a lifestyle of wastefulness, extravagance; a desire for more, and more and more.  And yet rather than satisfying, it leaves you empty. 

In the case of the prodigal, and in the case of perhaps some of you, you eventually reach bottom.  You squander your God given life on loose living.  Like the lost son, one day you eventually reach the bottom.  Your health is gone.  Your friends are gone.  Your money is gone.  And like the prodigal son who at the bottom had to hire himself out to feed pigs you find that the freedom you thought you were getting is actually slavery to sin.  Maybe you’re addicted to alcohol or drugs.  Maybe you’re caught up in a lifestyle that has become nothing but a rat race that is enslaving you. 

This was the story of my life.  I grew up in a Christian home.  My father was a preacher.  And I grew up feeling that Christianity was oppressive.  It was restrictive.  I felt like all the other kids had freedom that I didn’t have.  I felt like I was viewing the world from outside of a window, and I desperately wanted to experience what it was like to be on the other side.  So like the prodigal, there came a day when I gathered everything up and left for California.  It didn’t take long until I found myself in a similar situation as the prodigal.  I remember realizing one day that I hadn’t gone to bed sober in over three years.  In my case, I wrestled with the thought of coming back to God for a couple of weeks or so. Eventually one night I reached the end of myself.  I reached a point where I was sick of being where I was and wanted to get things right with God.  And so after walking the beach all day, I went back home and my roommate was home playing the stereo really loud with some of his friends.  So I went downstairs to the garage and shut the door and began to call out in repentance to God.  And thankfully, God answered me.  God was ready and willing to forgive me and bring me back into the fold.  He restored the life that I had lost.

Now that is the picture that Jesus paints in this story.  In the case of the prodigal, to add injury to insult as he spends all his money on loose living a severe famine comes upon the land.  Things go from bad to worse.  And so this young man finds himself at this lowest place in his life.  For those Pharisees that were listening, they couldn’t have imagined a worse place for a Jew to end up than working in a pig pen.  But sometimes God sends a famine and allows us to end up in a pig pen to get us to realize how stinky our sin is.  One day this young man is so hungry he is thinking of eating the carob pods that they used to feed the pigs.  And then he thinks of how back home even the lowest of the hired hands ate pretty good at his father’s house. 

Jesus said that the dire circumstances caused the young man to come to his senses.  Literally, it says he came to himself.  He came to a place where he had to examine himself and he saw himself for who he was.  There was an old country preacher that was once preaching on this parable. He was illustrating what happened to the prodigal son in the far country. He said, "As his money disappeared he had to sell his clothes in order to eat. He took off his shoes and sold those. Then he took off his coat and sold that. Then he took off his shirt and sold that. And then he came to himself!"  That’s what we all need to come to, when we finally bare our soul and examine ourselves.  This man came to that point and he came up with a plan.   Vs. 18, He said, “I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight;  I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.”

Now that brings us to the second point, the nature of repentance.  This young man felt sorry for himself and the predicament that he found himself in.  But repentance is much more than simply being sorry.  Lots of people find themselves in unfortunate circumstances, maybe something of a crisis, and they call out to God for help.  They may sincerely want help.  They sincerely want God to answer them and get them out of the crisis.  They may become very emotional.  And even years later when recounting that situation they may become emotional in talking about it.  But when the crisis was over, they went back to the same things that they did before because they never really repented.  That is not repentance as described by Jesus here.

Notice how Jesus describes repentance.  And remember, this has been the theme of all the parables until now.  In the parable of the lost sheep, Jesus concludes in vs. 7, “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”  And in the parable of the lost coin, He says in vs. 10, “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”  What Jesus is making clear is that repentance is the only way back to the Father. 

So let’s look at the characteristics of repentance.  First of all, he came to his senses.  He got so far down the only way he could look was up, and he realized how far he had fallen.  True repentance requires that you realize your absolute hopelessness.  Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  We need to come to the point of realizing that between us and God’s standard of righteousness there is a great gulf fixed which we cannot possibly jump over.  We need to recognize the hopelessness of our situation.  Secondly, we need to confess our sins and our hopelessness.  We need to confess we are lost in order to be saved. 1John 1:8 says, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.” 

Thirdly, we need to be willing to turn away from our sin.  We need to be sick of our sin.  We need to realize how terrible it is.  Not just be sorry for the consequences of our sin, but be sick of the condition of our sinfulness and wanting to be freed from not only the guilt, but the power of sin over us.  That’s what Jesus was talking about in the sermon on the mount when He said “blessed are they that mourn.”  He was talking about the necessity of a sinner mourning over their sin as a characteristic of entering into the kingdom of God.  The prodigal son was willing to get up out of the pig pen and go back to his father’s house and beg for mercy.  He didn’t call his father up and ask him to send him some money so that he could continue living the life that he wanted to live. But he was willing to give up that life.  That is the characteristic of repentance.  It’s not seeking forgiveness but being unwilling to forsake sinfulness.  But it’s going the opposite direction.  Once he had chased after sin, now he is leaving that country and going back to his father’s house.  He turned around and went the other direction.  A lot of people today want forgiveness, they want grace, they want out of their crisis, but they want to hold onto their sin.  They aren’t willing to forsake the world or the things of the world.  This guy was willing to forsake everything.  That’s what repentance requires. 

Fourthly, repentance requires renouncing your rights.  Notice he says I am going to say to my father, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.”   This is so important.  When we repent we give up our right to our freedom.  We give up the right to make our own decisions as to what is right or wrong.  We give up the right to determine the course of our lives.  This man said I am not worthy to be called your son.  Repentance doesn’t come demanding.  It doesn’t come asking for favors.  It doesn’t come demanding what we think God owes us.  Listen, God owes us nothing.  If He gave us what we deserved it would be death.  This man had the right attitude.  He realized that he didn’t deserve to come back home as a son.  He didn’t even have the right to come back as a servant that would live under the care of the father.  He said he would just ask if he could come back as the lowest of hired men.  Not even living on the property.  This man humbled himself in true repentance.  And that repentance brought about reconciliation with the father.

That brings us to the next point; the compassion of the Father. This is my favorite part of the story.  Vs. 20 says, “So he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.”  First of all, it’s obvious from the story that this father had been looking for the young man to return for a long while.  He says later that he had been considered dead.  The young man had been gone so long that people thought he must have died.  But I can picture the father walking out of the estate down a long drive to the end of the  road and standing there looking  off in the distance and longing for his son.  He must have imagined on a daily basis what his son was doing that day.  He must have worried if he was ok.  I can imagine that the father prayed for him everyday and hoped that one day he would return.  His love for the boy never failed.  He never gave up on him.

What a picture of our heavenly Father.  He created us in love.  He created us to be the objects of His love.  But we sinned, we acted rebelliously, we thought we could decide between good and evil and we rebelled against His word.  And consequently we had to leave the Garden of Eden, we were shut off from the source of life and we squandered our lives in living for ourselves.  But God never stopped loving us.  He never stopped looking for us.  He never stopped seeking us.  The Bible says that God so loved the world, that He sent His only Son, to pay the penalty for our sins upon the cross that we might be reconciled to God. 

So back to the parable, one day the father goes to the end of the road as usual, and peers at the horizon, longing for his son.  And suddenly he sees a distant figure on the horizon.  His heart must skip a beat as he watches ever more intently as it draws closer.  And then somehow even though the man is still a long ways off, he recognizes that it must be his son.  And it says the father ran to him while he was still a long ways off.  Now that doesn’t fully describe what happened.  In those days, men wore long robes that came down to their ankles.  And so this father would have done something that the Pharisees would have thought was absolutely unseemly.  Completely undignified.  Elder men in those days simply didn’t run.  But he would have reached down and gathered up his robe around his knees and started running down the road.  It must have been a ludicrous sight to see the old father, his hair and beard streaming out behind him, his robe pulled up over his lanky legs and knobby knees exposed, running down the road with tears streaming down his cheeks.  And then coming upon the young man, who undoubtedly still  smelled like a pig, must have looked terrible, wasted away, unshaven, dirty, disheveled. And yet the father could care less.   Before his son could say a word, he had thrown his arms around him and kissed him repeatedly.  Now that is compassion.  That is the love of the father.  That is the love of God towards repenting sinners.

Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  God loves us while we were yet sinners.  God doesn’t reserve his compassion until we fulfilled some sort of probation.  He doesn’t require us to do some sort of penance.  Jesus did the penance for us.  He paid the penalty that we could never pay so that we might be made righteous before God. 

What this parable shows us is that God was willing to humiliate Himself in order to save us.  That shows the extent of His love. Phil. 2:5 says, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

The prodigal son hadn’t even had time to say the speech that he had prepared before his father had already welcomed him home and showered him with love.  But finally the young man blurts out his speech: vs. 21, “And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet; and bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and celebrate;  for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’ And they began to celebrate.

 Listen, God cares less about our prayer or our words than he does our heart.  He knew the heart of the young man when he returned was a heart of repentance.  And so the joy of the father calls for reconciliation and celebration.  By the way, I would have liked to save this message for a few more weeks until Father’s Day.  But it didn’t work out that way.  However, I hope that you dad’s out there consider as I do this parable as a template for how a godly father should treat a wayward child.  I think that sometimes we buy into a lot of the tough love philosophy that is out there.  And there may be a time when some of that is necessary.  But you don’t see that pictured here in this story.  If there is tough love here, it is self directed – directed by the father upon himself, not upon the boy.  And I think we should really consider this story when we deal with these situations as fathers.  We have no greater example of fatherhood than that of our heavenly Father. 

Well back to our story.  We’ve seen the nature of the lost, the need for repentance, the compassion of the Father and now let’s look quickly at the joy of heaven at the lost being saved.   First we see the son’s reconciliation.  He doesn’t have to come back as a hired hand as he was willing to do.  The father reinstates him as a son.  That is the picture Jesus gives here of putting a robe on him and a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. First the robe is given.  That is a picture of the robe of righteousness which we have received by faith in  Christ.  I think Jesus had in mind the passage in Isaiah 61:10 which says, “I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, My soul will exult in my God; For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness.”

And not only is the younger son reinstated as a son, but once again he is an heir of the father.  That is the significance of the ring, I believe.  It would be signet ring with the family crest that was a symbol of authority. Romans 8:16 says that we have not only been made children of God when we didn’t deserve it, but we are also made  heirs of God.   It says, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”

In the preceding parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin, they both refer to the joy of heaven at the sinner who repents.  In this parable that is fleshed out a little bit more.  They kill the fattened calf.  That would have been saved for a great occasion such as a wedding feast.  It says later that the older son heard music and dancing.  So the picture is given of a full blown celebration.  I think there is an immediate response of celebration in heaven when a sinner repents, but I also think that this is picturing the celebration of the glorification of man when he is taken up to meet the Lord in the air.  This is a picture of when the kingdom of God is consummated at the end of the age, when all the redeemed sit down at the marriage supper of the Lamb.  It is an illustration of the prophecy that Jesus made in Luke 12, when He said, “Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he comes; truly I say to you, that he will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and will come up and wait on them.”   This is speaking of the day when the bridegroom who is Christ will serve the bride who is the church at the marriage supper of the Lamb.  It will be a celebration that will never really end, when God will reveal all the wonderful things that He has prepared for those that love Him. 

Well, I would like to just end right there on a high note, but Jesus doesn’t end it there.  Jesus adds a final element to the story.  And He does so to bring the application to the Pharisees who were listening to Him.  These men scorned the sinners and tax collectors who were coming in repentance to Jesus.  They didn’t think that they deserved any mercy from God.  They thought that they themselves however, were deserving of God’s favor.  After all, they kept the law, or so they claimed.  They were certainly moral people.  They believed in God.  They were fastidious in the outward signs that were perceived to be religious.  For instance, they tithed down to the mint and dill from their herb gardens. They publicly fasted regularly.  They attended all church services and functions.  They were really great at giving long prayers in public.  And they knew a lot of Bible verses.  They thought they were children of God.  They thought God owed them blessings in their lives.  They fully expected God to reward their diligence in serving Him. 

And so Jesus adds the last part of the parable just for them.  He says as the party was going on in the house, the older son came home from the fields.  And he heard the music and the sound of the dancing and he asked a servant what was going on.  The servant told him, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound.”  Now that should have been a cause for him to join the celebration.  He should have been thrilled that his brother came home safe.  But instead it revealed the bitterness of his heart.  He was angry that his brother had been restored.  He was angry that the father would restore his brother as a son again and hold a party in his honor.

And who he is angry at is not necessarily the brother, but the father.  He feels he has worked as a slave for his father and yet the father is willing to celebrate for the sinner.  He feels he has earned something and his brother is being given something he doesn’t deserve.  He feels he has been faithful and his brother has been unfaithful.  But what is apparent is that his heart is not right.  He doesn’t have a right relationship with his father.  If you look back at the beginning of the parable, the father divided the estate between both sons.  The oldest son had taken his share as well.  The youngest son took his share and left home and was lost.  The oldest son took his share and stayed home and lost out.  The point is that as I said earlier, all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  The Pharisees needed a Savior as much as the sinners needed a Savior.  But the point Jesus is making is that without repentance there is no salvation.  And the oldest son’s attitude towards his brother and his father indicate a lack of humility, a lack of repentance, and a hostility towards those that are saved by grace. 

Listen, this is the significance of the oldest son.  He represents the people who refuse to repent.  They think that they are good enough because of their morality.  They compare themselves with others and think that they are better and so therefore God owes them something.  The law abiding older brother complained that he had never been given a party like his younger brother the reprobate.  Yet in his heart he had never confessed his sin, he had never repented of his sin, and yet he had taken of the father’s estate and used it for himself as well.  Jesus said the Pharisees did what good they did to be seen of men, for men’s approval and for earthly rewards.  That was their motivation.  And because their hearts had never been humbled in repentance, they were outside of the celebration.  They would not come into the feast.  God loved them too.  That is clear in the parable.  The father loved both his sons.  He implored the older son to come inside.  But he would not come.  He was indignant that the only way into the kingdom was through repentance.  

But that is the requirement of the kingdom of God. God is willing to go after us, to look for us, to seek us, to pick us up and carry us on His shoulders into the kingdom of God.  But we must first realize that we are lost. The Pharisees refused to believe that they were lost. They refused to identify with sinners.  They wanted to make a claim against God based on their righteousness. Titus 3:4 says, “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

Listen, today all of us here are represented by one of these two sons.  Perhaps you are represented by the prodigal son.  You have lived a life of wanton pleasure, wasting your life after things that in the end have not brought you the happiness and peace that you wanted.  I hope that today you will come to your senses and call out to the Father in humility and repentance.  Jesus said whoever comes to Me I will in no way cast out, but I will welcome him and come into him.

Or maybe you find yourself represented by the older son.  You stayed home.  You have tried to live a respectable life in the community.  You tried to be morally good.  You go to church.  You participate in religious ceremonies.  But if you honestly evaluate your life, you recognize that you don’t have a right relationship with God.  You have never confessed that you are a sinner.  You have never accepted that your righteousness is not enough.  And if you’re honest you must admit that your motives for serving God are self serving.  Listen, Jesus is making it clear that there is only one way to be reconciled to God and that is through repentance.  Being willing to forsake your pride, your dignity, your respectability, your plans, your self esteem and confess that you are a sinner and ask for God’s forgiveness.  The Father is willing to save.  He wants to bring you into the kingdom of God and give you all that He has for you.  Don’t hang on to your pride.  But humble yourselves in the sight of God and then He will exalt you.   Let’s pray.