Parables in Life: “The Lost Son”
The setting: Jesus gathers with the tax collectors and sinners.
The audience: It’s supposed to be the tax collectors and sinners but the Church(the Pharisees and Sadducees) gets angry with Jesus for associating with them. So this parable is directed at them.
If last week’s parable was on the qualities of the shepherd going after the lost sheep, today, we focus on how the lost sheep come home.
The Son’s Choice in what he thought was reality – v. 12
1. An inheritance was in order to protect the son in case of abuse of the father. The provision was for protection of the son. 1/3 for each son, as some fathers divide the inheritance so as to retire.
2. The son left after a few days. You see, there was a penalty if the son abused the privilege of the father. He was probably running from the possible penalty for challenging the father.
Barnes: “It appears indeed that the spirit of this law was to provide for the child in case of ill treatment by the father: yet the demand must first be acceded to, before the matter could be legally inquired into; and then, “if it was found that the father was irreproachable in his character, and had given no just cause for the son to separate from him, in that case, the civil magistrate fined the son in two hundred puns of cowries.”
Application: In effect the son was calling his father an unfit father. And then he left town before it could even be proved true or not.
How about us? In our very actions we rebel, and what do we often call our heavenly father? “Do we say, why would God allow this or that to happen? Why won’t God answer my prayers?
Sin’s Grip – V. 13-16
q The son runs. He plays. He spends. He parties. We know from the text that it included prostitutes, for his brother says just that in verse 30.
q It says he spent it all. How many of us have to come to the end and spend every possible option before we repent and turn to God who was the best answer in the first place?
q NASB – “squandered his estate with loose living.”
ASV – “he wasted his substance with riotous living.”
NLIV – “he wasted all his money on wild living.
Message – “undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had.”
q What was it like?
o He hired out to a citizen in the foreign country.
o Then there’s the pigs. He was a Jew. Does a Jew touch a pig? No. Pork was a big no, no in that day.
o The pigs food. It is described as a fruit that fed the pigs well.
o The aroma. Sin’s aroma begins with a sweet fragrance, but always ends in a putrid form of disgust and seemingly uncleanliness.
o Then it says, no one gave him anything. Sin is like that. In the end it gives nothing back.
The Son’s Choice in what was reality - V. 17
It says, “When he came to himself” - repentance is when our sense is restored. Did you know that anything outside of the realm of God is nonsense? Only in the realm of God does life make sense.
- a growing wise again,
- a restoring of the mind to itself
It says in v. 20 “So he got up and went to his father” Why did the son do this? What would he expect? What caused him to latch on to his father as the last thread.
What does it mean to you to choose God today? Whether in this service or through your lifestyle, you are choosing God or rejecting him. It’s a choice you make. It’s your choice. On the one hand you have what you think is reality, but then one day you wake up and realize you did not understand reality at all. When it all made sense to you yesterday, when you depended on your own perceptions, your own wisdom, but now you wake up and God had it all together all along. His inheritance being planned for you, was better prepared than you at first thought. So the son took a chance. Go home. It won’t be the same he thinks, but then God responds.
You see Verse 20 holds so incredible truths about the father in this story, and these truths reflect on our Father in heaven.
1. “He saw him coming(v. 20) There is someone who cares about your every move. One who will not give up on you. Has the world given up on you? God hasn’t. He was waiting, when the world gave up.
2. “He was filled with loving pity”(v. 20) He felt for his son. He saw the emptiness, the embarrassment, the discouraged, beaten down son that was not the same son he sent out.
3. “He ran to his son”(v.20) God doesn’t only wait for us, he comes after us. Think of it, the birth, the life, the death, the resurrection, and even the Holy Spirit that is in our ear day after day, saying “I love you and will do all I can to convince you to choose me.” He ran.
4. “He embraced him”.(v. 20) He was still dirty, he was still smelly, he still smelled like pig. “I told you not to go near the pigs. We are a Jewish son, didn’t you have enough sense to not go near the pigs? You are unclean. Did he say that? No. One of my favorite verses is, “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
5. “He kissed him”.(v. 20) Ever hear the the phrase “the kiss of death”. Well, how about the kiss of life.
The son declares a truth that the father does no buy. “I am unfit to be called your son”. It really is a statement(prayer) that the father never answers. Aren’t you glad God doesn’t answer some prayers?
The Party – V. 22-24 The father comes in and says, “hey, my son is outside and smells like a pig. He thinks he’s trash. How about we throw a party to welcome him home.
ILLUS. Tony Campolo – The bar, the prostitute, and the birthday party.
Just when we think that this message is over, incredibly there is more. It really is two stories in one. I love what we just illustrated, but look at verses 25-30. here we see why this parable really should be entitled “The Older Son”.
The Sadducees and the Pharisees are still in the room. This story is for them.
The proud church puts it thumbs in it’s armpits and cries foul when people struggle in sin, or when people associate with the real needy.
Conclusion:
Back in
the beginning in verse
If you look at the order
of these parables given in the same context, we see the parable we looked
at last week, the lost sheep comes first. He
leaves the 99 and goes after the one
that is lost. But then what does he have
the 99 do. It’s in verse 7 of Ch. 15, “7I tell
you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner
who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who
do not need to repent.”
Then Jesus shares about the parable of the Lost
Coin. Verses 8-10
“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins£ and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ 10In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Then comes the parable of
the Lost Son.
It’s really
about celebrating the right things isn’t it?
The son who has been faithful will be rewarded, but in life it is supposed to be about rejoicing over
the lost being found. In short, the
church is to be a party store. Picture of a party store.
Did you know that when your heavenly father sees you coming, he’s filled with so much loving pity, that he is running to you, wanting to embrace you, wanting to even kiss you?
You see, the story really is not finished. Because if the Father is waiting for the lost son, then the older son who is jealous of his brother being found, now becomes the …lost …son.
The Father leaves his son in midsentence to ponder his next move. It’s never revealed. You see, it doesn’t matter which end of the earthly inheritance you are on, God makes sure that when the lost are found they are celebrated no matter what. Where ever we find ourselves, God meets us right there and redeems us as his own.
Just such a party is going to be thrown in honor of some new Christians coming into God’s family. At SBC on July 15th, just 2 weeks from today we will have a potluck dinner at the camp, with some baptisms in the lake. But what about you? There’s a party waiting for you. Don’t miss it.
How many of you would like to be hugged or kissed? It took one son losing all he had to realize
that there was a father who always saw him, always had pity on him, always ran
to him, always hugged him, always kissed him. It just doesn’t matter to God which son you
are. He was always be there to greet
you.