Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Good morning, church.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: What a joy to be together today.
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Amen.
We say this every week, but, man, one of the coolest things about our
[00:00:12] Speaker B: missional partners is that we live in 2026, so you can stay connected with them.
You can see what's going on in the Harder's ministry because they're posting videos and stuff on Facebook and things like that. And you should check those things out. Keep up today with what God is doing. Be in prayer for them. Let that challenge you to consider your own prayer life, your own ministry.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: But we're continuing our series today. We've been going through this series called who's your one? And we're essentially just talking about what does it mean for you to own, take responsibility for your role within the kingdom of God? What does it look like for you to take responsibility and ownership over your peace of God, advancing his kingdom of God, going out and seeking and saving the lost. And so far, we've done that by looking at Jesus's parables in Luke 15. We've looked at the parable of the lost sheep. We've looked at the parable of the lost coin. And functionally, we've asked two questions. As we consider lostness in this world, the need of those who don't know Christ and our role in it. We've essentially asked, do you even notice the lost around you? Do you have your head up, your eyes open to notice around you the need for Christ?
And then we second ask the question, do you value the lost?
Do you see those around you who need Christ as worth your time and effort? And we consider both these things by considering the way Christ noticed us, the way Christ values us, and how our understanding of our own testimony, our own relationship with Christ, should fuel the way we think of the rest of the world. Who needs him? And so today we're continuing that. We're gonna continue on in Luke 15. If you wanna go ahead and turn in your Bibles, where we're gonna be today, if you don't have a Bible
[00:02:01] Speaker B: with you, you know the drill.
[00:02:03] Speaker A: They're under the rose. We've got them. We really value access to God's word here.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: And so if you don't have one, please take one or talk to one of the pastors. We'll get you a nicer one.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: We're gonna be in Luke 15 today, and we're gonna look at what is very likely Jesus's most famous parable.
It's at least in the top two. This is the one that is probably
[00:02:22] Speaker B: most worked its way into our Common, just vernacular as western human beings.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: And I gotta tell you guys something, if you know me well, like, you know, like I'm a crybaby. I cry very easy.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Like if I watch Old Yeller or whatever, like, I just, I just can't do it even talking about it right now, man, that dog.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: But you know what I'm saying, like, I just, I cry very easy. So it's not that uncommon for me to be like sermon prepping and like,
[00:02:46] Speaker B: get a little misty eyed and be
[00:02:47] Speaker A: like, oh man, Jesus is so good.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: Like, while I'm sitting there, I, I
[00:02:50] Speaker A: gotta tell you guys, and this is not necessarily a sign of what is to come. I wept in a coffee shop this week. Considering this text, I'm sure it was very awkward for the other people there doing their, doing their business, living their life, but it's just what it was.
I'm excited for us to get into this text today. We're gonna be looking at what is commonly known as the parable of the prodigal son.
But I think the better name for
[00:03:14] Speaker B: it is the parable of the loving Father.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: And my main point today is simply
[00:03:19] Speaker B: going to be this.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: God brings sinners home.
God brings sinners home.
And there's a lot loaded in that simple sentence. But I would encourage you to worm that truth into your brain. Because we worship a God who brings
[00:03:37] Speaker B: the sinners into his house, brings them home with him.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: Because here's the deal. I think for the most part, we actually really love this idea. Like, we love to imagine the, the reality that we have a God who loves so radically, loves us so radically that he's willing to go after the lost sheep. He's willing to look for the lost coin. He's willing to run to embrace the disinherited son. I think we especially love that idea when we think about prodigal sons. And these are prodigals who we love, right? Our friend, our grandkid, our sibling.
But I think the problem, I think the tension begins to arise in our mind when we're able to identify who our own personal tax collector is.
Who's the person that we have such
[00:04:24] Speaker B: distaste for the way these religious leaders did with Jesus. Suddenly it's a different matter. Do you actually want God to bring home the people you hate?
[00:04:35] Speaker A: You actually want that? It's an internal tension. Our theology tells us we love that God brings sinners home.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: But some sinners, they're pretty egregious, right?
[00:04:49] Speaker A: Some sinners are so evil, surely some of them can be left to their consequences, Right?
It's a real tension.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: It's a real tension.
[00:04:58] Speaker A: And I want to encourage you with
[00:04:59] Speaker B: something today as we dig into this
[00:05:01] Speaker A: text that for most of you, will be familiar. It's just this.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: Don't dismiss that tension.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: Let that sit on you for a minute. Let that stretch you out inside a
[00:05:13] Speaker B: little bit right now.
[00:05:14] Speaker A: Because I think that's actually really important
[00:05:18] Speaker B: to sit in the tension of how
[00:05:20] Speaker A: much we love the grace of God and yet how when we think of
[00:05:23] Speaker B: certain evils, we really long for the justice of God. Pray with me and we'll jump into this text. We'll see what God might do in our hearts today. Jesus, we need you today.
Spirit, we know that you are the one who preserves your word. You are the one who speaks through your Word. You're the one who interprets your Word in our heart and our minds. And so we ask Holy Spirit, that you would do that work for us today. Move in our hearts and minds, Lord, we are free, full of anxieties and distractions and joys and sorrows. And we step into a place like this with our mind ready to move
[00:05:59] Speaker A: a million miles an hour. Spirit, I pray that you would be
[00:06:03] Speaker B: the peace in our hearts today that calm us and slow us and allow us to breathe and be present and breathe in the truth of your word today.
We need you, Lord.
This is a work that only you can do, God. So we pray it in your name, Jesus. Amen.
[00:06:21] Speaker A: Okay, Luke 15 is where we're at. We're picking up directly where we left off. And if you remember, Luke 15 is a series of three parables that Jesus told back to back. And he told them back to back in response to a very specific criticism he was receiving. His ministry was growing in popularity. He was gaining a lot of followers. And the religious leaders of his day began to critique Jesus pretty publicly and pretty harshly, specifically for the sin of sharing meals with tax collectors and sinners. That was this egregious sin they held up of, look what Jesus does. He hangs out. He affirms these evil people, how can he possibly be a messenger from God? And so when this criticism gets loud enough, Jesus responds by turning and giving these three parables back to. To back. And he talks really bluntly. And then they build off one another. And this one we're looking at today is. Is the culmination of the three. First, he tells this story of a shepherd who has 100 sheep. He loses one. He leaves the 99 to go get the one that was lost. And he has a party. Then he tells a story of a young woman who has 10 coins. She loses one, so she sweeps the whole house until she finds the one. Then she tells her neighbor she has a party. It's all about this radical excitement, the celebration around something lost being found. But these two parables were very short.
They were a sentence or two, right? They were punchy. And what you need to know is these were the appetizers setting up the main course.
Today's text is what they were setting up. They were the theological stage work. So read with me and let's look at this third and really crowning parable that Jesus gives here.
[00:08:02] Speaker B: In Luke 15. Starting in verse 11, we read this.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: He being Jesus also said a man had two sons.
The younger of them said to his father, father, give me my share of the estate I have coming to me. So he distributed the assets to them.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: We'll pause right there for a second.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: This setup for the text, again, it's Jesus's parable. So they're really short and punchy. But you need to know we can miss some of these cultural pieces here
[00:08:32] Speaker B: that that Jesus kind of breezes through.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: This setup is short, but it is brutal.
This is a brutal setup to a story. Our mixture of our familiarity with the text and the cultural separation can cause us to brush by it. But we need to take just a second here to look at this setup. Jesus tells us of a father who has two sons, and the younger of the sons asks for his share of the estate, his share of. Of the inheritance. And there are a couple things that we need to know that are baked into this introduction. The first thing to note is that this son is asking for his inheritance while his dad is still alive, right?
Like, think about that for a minute. Even today, even in our culture, it would be incredibly inconsiderate and distasteful to go to your living parents and say, hey, can you give me my inheritance right now?
That's pretty brutal already. But you have to remember the ancient 1st century Jewish folk, they lived a very different life than we did. And one of the things that comes up in this particular text is they tended to live in these larger extended family units as much of the family as could reasonably live and work together did. They created kind of these extended family homesteads with fathers, uncles, cousins, and they kind of worked and lived together. The most common reason a son would actually separate his holdings from his immediate family, from his parents is because they had grown so wealthy as a family unit or so successful that having individual holdings like it was Too much for
[00:10:13] Speaker B: them to stay together.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: They needed to separate out so they
[00:10:15] Speaker B: could continue to grow.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: They would then split off and start
[00:10:18] Speaker B: another extended family unit.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: You can think in Genesis of Abraham
[00:10:21] Speaker B: and Lot, this is what happened to them, right?
[00:10:23] Speaker A: But this, this was a thing that could happen.
But, but in those cases where it would happen, the son would ask for and receive his inheritance while his father still lived, right? But the reality is it was done in kind of this celebration.
Look how good, look how blessed our family is. We, we, we have to start a second homestead. We, we have too much going on here.
But that reality, that was kind of a cool thing, also created the legal structure for family members who just want it out.
And we don't know the reason why, because it's not really important for our story. But this son, he isn't going to plant a new family unit. He isn't going to start a new homestead. He just wants out.
He wants to take his share and live his life separate from the family. And, and you need to know, this did happen in Jesus's day. This was a thing that had a legal mechanism. It was a thing we know of from the rabbinical writings, but it was rare and it was insanely shameful.
Insanely shameful. In a culture that celebrated and honored elders and deep family ties, this son is publicly and destructively breaking up his family estate. It's not an exaggeration to say that there was nothing a Jewish son could do to more deeply disgrace his family and shame his father than request his inheritance early.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: To break up the family to cash
[00:11:49] Speaker A: out his estate, to get the money and run, was about the most publicly disgraceful thing a son could possibly do. It would. And by the way, it would have been exacerbated culturally by the reality that most of the family's estate would have been tied up in land and flocks. It's not like they're storing most of this in banks. And what's sorrowful, but also kind of a beautiful legal protection, is that that stuff couldn't legally be liquidated before the father's death. Like, he was still living off that stuff. And so what would happen is this sort of weird, almost like reverse mortgage where they would sell off the land and flocks to get the money to liquidate to give to the child, but the father would still have access to
[00:12:34] Speaker B: use all those things until his death, and then it would go to the new owners.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: And so it creates this, this context where this father had to publicly let his entire community know, my son hates me and is Leaving, and you can buy a part of our family estate
[00:12:51] Speaker B: to help fund his breaking up our family.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: And then he would spend the rest of his life walking on the fields. He dreamed of his grandkids working, that
[00:13:01] Speaker B: will now go to his neighbors upon his death.
[00:13:05] Speaker A: It's about the worst thing you could
[00:13:06] Speaker B: do to your dad without just straight up killing him.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: And I think it's really worth noting
[00:13:10] Speaker B: the father's response here, because he would
[00:13:13] Speaker A: have been well within his rights to fight this, to try and persuade his son to do differently, to try and appease him, maybe give him part of the estate and say, well, let's just try something, or let's do something a little different to hold some back, to put some guardrails in place.
But I think what we see in this simple little story is that this
[00:13:34] Speaker B: father simply knows his son well enough to know none of that's going to work.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: I think at this point, he just
[00:13:39] Speaker B: knows none of that's going to do anything.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: And so he chooses to give the son what he wants.
We'll come back to that. But this piece is, I think, the
[00:13:51] Speaker B: bedrock of understanding this parable.
Seeing the father's relationship with his children.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: He knows his son. He knows the best way to engage him. And he knows that really the best way to engage him is to allow
[00:14:03] Speaker B: him the freedom to destroy their family and their honor.
And so this father divides the estate.
Read on with me and we'll see how this plays out. Verse 13.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: Not many days later, the younger son gathered together all he had and traveled to a distant country where he squandered his estate in foolish living. After he had spent everything, a severe famine struck that country and he had nothing. Then he went to work for one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. He longed to eat his fill from the pods the pigs were eating, but no one would give him anything.
When he came to his senses, he said, how many of my father's hired workers have more than enough food? And here I am dying of hunger.
I'll get up, go to my father and say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired workers.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: Wow, how quickly the tables turn. Yeah, the best the world has to offer falls so short.
[00:15:09] Speaker A: The text tells us that once the
[00:15:11] Speaker B: younger son had his cash, he got the heck out of Dodge.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: It says he went to a distant country. That was a phrase that was commonly
[00:15:20] Speaker B: used in Jewish culture and had A little bit of theological meaning.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: It essentially meant he wasn't just leaving his family, but he was leaving the larger circle of Jewish culture and Jewish influence. This guy didn't want to just abandon his family. He wanted to step away from his
[00:15:35] Speaker B: entire culture and cultural history.
[00:15:39] Speaker A: He didn't want to be around anything. He wanted a taste of the world. I got to tell you guys, I've sat so many times as a pastor
[00:15:45] Speaker B: and as a youth pastor with young folk getting ready to head off to college who have this same conversation with me.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: Just go, look, live my whole life under my parents. I followed all the rules. I just got to get out there and, like, just see what the world has to offer. I got to get it there and taste a little bit and just figure out what I want before I make
[00:16:02] Speaker B: decisions about my whole life.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: And I gotta tell you guys, that's
[00:16:07] Speaker B: a sorrowfully familiar story.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: This guy wants out. He wants to see what the world has to offer. So he takes his wealth and he goes to see.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: And Jesus says he squanders it on foolish living.
We don't know how long that took,
[00:16:25] Speaker A: but you should probably assume years.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: That's not something that happens in a couple weeks.
Over the next several years, probably he squanders his family's wealth away.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: But regardless, about the time the money
[00:16:36] Speaker B: ran out, a famine struck the land.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: And now his ability to provide for himself, you know, he doesn't have the estate anymore to earn interest or earn money. But now his ability to even get a job is greatly diminished because the economy where he's at has tanked. And so he ends up with the only job he can get. He's slopping pigs for a local herdsman.
Again, it's easy to miss some of the cultural implication here, but the idea of feeding pigs was literally used as a literary device by the rabbis as
[00:17:05] Speaker B: kind of an analogy for this is as far as you can fall.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: This is as bad as it gets.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: For a young Jewish man, the idea of working, feeding pigs was a literary device.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: And Jesus takes it, and he takes it a step further and says, not only is this guy stuck feeding the pigs, but he's looking longingly at their feed, right?
He thinks the pigs are in a better position than he is in his poverty, in his starvation. And the text tells us no one gave him anything.
That's a way of saying that for
[00:17:39] Speaker B: this young man, he has zero people on his team.
There's no one on his team.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: And you got to understand something that isn't that strange or that unheard of this is a severe famine.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: And in these ancient cultures, it was most often the foreigners and the immigrants who were abandoned in times of crisis
[00:18:01] Speaker A: because these larger family units would pull the wagons they would pull together to
[00:18:05] Speaker B: take care of one another.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: And so this guy's living far away
[00:18:08] Speaker B: from his entire support network, and when
[00:18:10] Speaker A: a crisis hits, he's all alone.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: And then in our story, a miracle happened.
The text says he came to his senses.
I love that break.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: I feel like we need to sit
[00:18:26] Speaker B: with that phrase for a moment.
It took a lot, but it happened.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: He comes to his senses. Maybe it was the money running out, maybe it was the humiliation, maybe it was the starvation. But I think Jesus wants us to connect this with the last statement.
I think it was the realization that
[00:18:49] Speaker B: he had no one, that he.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: That he no longer had any family, that he no longer had anyone to circle up with in the midst of crisis and suffering, that everyone else was with their people, and he didn't have his people. And you can just imagine this guy sitting there, dirty, hungry, alone, looking at the pig's slope, thinking about how it might taste in his own mouth, and suddenly it clicks.
[00:19:15] Speaker B: This is my fault.
I did this.
I used to have people.
I used to have a family.
You can imagine this young man remembering his own father.
He remembers his family.
This moment, I think, is so sorrowful, so beautiful. In the story, he thinks of what he had, thinks of what he's lost. And he knows he no longer has any option.
He has to go back.
He has to.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: He can't possibly expect to come back as a son, but maybe as a
[00:19:52] Speaker B: servant at his father's house, even that, even with all the humiliation that would bring, it can't be more humiliation than he's already experiencing.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: It can't be worse than and where he already is. And at least there he would have food. At least there he would know who the people are. He would have someone.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: And so I think the question arises at this point in the story, are you rooting for this guy or not?
[00:20:18] Speaker A: I think that's the part where we
[00:20:20] Speaker B: have to stop for a minute and just go, man, this story is so compelling.
You're rooting for this guy.
Do I want this guy to get some grace?
Do I want this guy to get some justice?
[00:20:36] Speaker A: Maybe a little bit of both, right?
[00:20:38] Speaker B: I mean, think about it.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: He's put his whole family through hell.
He is living the exact consequences his decisions earned. His family would have every right and the cultural expectation to spit in his
[00:20:51] Speaker B: face and send him right back to his squalor and so as we read this, where does your heart go?
Maybe some of us, I think, resonate with the son.
You think of your own story. You think of your own sin.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: You think of how much you've rebelled
[00:21:10] Speaker B: against God and how much you are longing to receive his grace in your life.
Maybe you have beloved relatives or friends who are right now living as the prodigal.
You want so badly for them to have freedom, to have release, whether it's their mental health, or maybe it's an addiction, or maybe it's just their fleshly selfishness. You want to see them come home.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: You're rooting for this younger brother the
[00:21:35] Speaker B: same way you're rooting for them, but in the same breath.
I know that some of you in this room have been so hurt by the prodigals in your life, by the selfish, destructive, evil decisions people really make.
Maybe you were the family member of the addict who can forever. Like you never have Thanksgiving without thinking of those terrible four in a row before they finally went to jail.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: Maybe you can't get past those 3am
[00:22:04] Speaker B: phone calls to go bail someone out or to go pull someone drunk out of their mind out of a gutter somewhere, and you're just sick of it.
And you read the story and you hear this young man and you just
[00:22:15] Speaker A: go, he chose this.
This is on him.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: Regardless of what direction you find your heart leaning. Maybe a little bit of both, right?
Read on with me. Let's see what God does with this verse 20.
So he got up and went to his father.
[00:22:32] Speaker A: But while the son was still a
[00:22:34] Speaker B: long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: He ran, threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. The son said to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father told his servants, quick, bring out the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then bring the fattened calf and slaughter it. And let's celebrate with a feast. Because this son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And so they began to celebrate.
Man, is this not one of the singularly most beautiful images in all of scripture?
Oh, well, the son is still a long way off.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: His father saw him, ran to him.
Tells us something.
Tells us that first off, the father knew his son was coming from the
[00:23:31] Speaker A: distant country, that he had eyes on him, that he kept tabs on him even in his rebellion, that he kept the lookout for him son and that he, he himself was physically looking when he knew his son was traveling home. The image here is of a father on the front porch, pacing back and forth, looking down the street, waiting to
[00:23:51] Speaker B: see that sun arrive over the horizon.
[00:23:54] Speaker A: And when his son, battered, bruised skin and bones, covered in dirt, reeking of pigs, when that son comes into view,
[00:24:02] Speaker B: what does the father do?
Does he look down his nose? Does he stare disapprovingly?
[00:24:08] Speaker A: Does he prepare his list of I
[00:24:11] Speaker B: told you so's, right?
No, beloved.
He runs to his son.
He runs to him.
You need to know something.
In ancient Jewish culture, first century patriarchs
[00:24:29] Speaker A: didn't run unless it was like an
[00:24:32] Speaker B: emergency and they were dying. Right?
[00:24:34] Speaker A: It was. Part of how you honored the patriarchs
[00:24:36] Speaker B: in the family is you slowed down and you waited for them.
They didn't hike up their robes. They walked at their own pace because they were the honored ones in the room.
But this father, listen, he's already been humiliated by this son.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: He doesn't need to stand on propriety. So he hikes up his robes and he runs, sprints to his son, embraces him, grabbing his neck, kissing him. You can imagine the tears of joy, the smile streaming down the cheeks.
[00:25:08] Speaker B: But the son has rehearsed this moment in his head. He's full of shame. He's at his lowest. He knows his return is not at his son.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: He's hopeful to be his servant.
[00:25:18] Speaker B: So he starts out, sinned against you? I've sinned against God. I'm not worthy to be called your son. And now I love this part. Now, out of the whole story, finally, out of everything we've gone through, the father decides to correct his son.
I think that's interesting.
[00:25:39] Speaker A: He didn't correct him when he asked for the inheritance. He didn't correct him as he figured out how the wealth was being squandered. He didn't send anyone to meet him halfway and correct him and send him away. But at this moment, as they embrace, now, the father interrupts his son mid
[00:25:56] Speaker B: sentence and corrects him.
[00:25:59] Speaker A: Shush. Stop.
Stop.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: Shh.
[00:26:04] Speaker A: Servants, bring him a robe, Bring him
[00:26:06] Speaker B: a ring, Bring him sandals.
The robe meant honor, meant you're being dressed as a man, as a member of this family, equal to me. Son, the ring meant family membership.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: This is the family signet ring.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: This is actually how family members would conduct legal business on behalf of the family.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: It means you are a part of
[00:26:28] Speaker B: this family when you speak. It is if I have spoken. And the sandals, perhaps the most intense proclamation in this culture, Jewish slaves went barefoot, but family was required to be provided with footwear when they were adults. To provide footwear was what fathers did for children.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: And so he says, I'm not worthy to be your son. I'm here to be your servant. He says, stop. Shh. No, no.
You're my son.
[00:26:53] Speaker B: Robe, ring, shoes.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: That's who you are. None of this servant business. You are my son.
And he makes sure everyone there, everyone watching, would know exactly what he thinks of his son.
That he is my son. No shame, no expulsion, no lowly status.
This is the Father's son, and he will be known and treated as such.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: Ancient Israelites ate meat rarely because it was expensive. It was reserved for special occasions, for feasts. But wealthy folk, oftentimes, if they had a large enough flock, would keep certain members of the flock, like, keep them on the extra good food so they would always be a little chubby and, like, ready to be killed and eaten for a party.
That's what the Father does. He calls for the party animal to get slaughtered so they can have a big old feast. Tell the neighborhood we're going to celebrate.
[00:27:49] Speaker A: Imagine those neighbors getting that invite.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: His son is home and he's having a party.
What?
And that's exactly what the Father does.
[00:28:02] Speaker A: That's what we're celebrating.
That scumbag coming home.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: Yes.
And now, beloved, we get to the crux of the parable.
Jesus is tying the knot between this story and the first two.
[00:28:17] Speaker A: We looked at the sheep, we looked at the coin, and both times we said, man, that party seems kind of
[00:28:23] Speaker B: like an overreaction, right?
Both times we looked at it and said, isn't the party worth more than the sheep? Isn't the party worth more than the coin?
What's going on here? And the point is. Oh, yeah, but God is. God is excited.
So Jesus is tying the knot here between all three stories. Why would heaven itself celebrate when sinners come back home to their God?
And here, Jesus tells us exactly why.
I didn't just find my lost son. No, My son was dead.
And now, why.
Come back to that with me?
I didn't just find something lost.
My son was dead.
Now he's alive.
That is what Jesus is reminding us that sin and the curse has done. And what redemption does.
He was gone. Truly gone.
[00:29:25] Speaker A: He died to me. I didn't have him anymore. And now here he is, alive. Alive and well.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: That's resurrection.
And, beloved, who amongst us wouldn't celebrate a little resurrection?
[00:29:38] Speaker A: Amen.
Church, we have to stop for a
[00:29:42] Speaker B: moment and sit in this truth, we
[00:29:46] Speaker A: have the best dad.
We have the best dad.
I don't know what your earthly dad was like. And I don't know how that statement
[00:29:55] Speaker B: may be painful or difficult for you,
[00:29:57] Speaker A: how that may mess with you as I say that. And I understand that's loaded for some of you.
[00:30:02] Speaker B: I know that.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: But I want you to hear this.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: Regardless of your relationship with your earthly father, you need to know when you
[00:30:09] Speaker A: were at your absolute, deepest, darkest worst.
Christ was there.
[00:30:17] Speaker B: He noticed you. He values you.
[00:30:19] Speaker A: He kept tabs on you. He never left you alone. You rejected him. You turned to your sin because you wanted to. But Christ never abandoned you.
And when this cursed world beat you within inches of your life, when the pleasures and thrills of this life left you empty and wanting to pigs pods.
[00:30:38] Speaker B: Jesus invited you home.
He never cut you off.
He never abandoned you. He never cast you away.
And you need to know something.
[00:30:51] Speaker A: That wasn't free.
That wasn't free.
The Father in our story, he faced public humiliation.
He lost a third of his estate. He endured the scorn, the broken dreams. And in all of that, when his son crested the horizon, he ran for him.
[00:31:12] Speaker B: Beloved your Jesus. Hear this.
Endured the scorn of your sin.
[00:31:20] Speaker A: He paid the real price for your rebellion.
He didn't sell part of his estate.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: No.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: He paid with his very skin and bone.
He bore the weight of your sin, the evil of your sin, the shame of your sin. He gladly here this church joyfully took your cross
[00:31:45] Speaker B: and brought you home where you belong.
Come on, church.
[00:31:49] Speaker A: Not as a second class citizen, not as a servant, not as a family embarrassment.
Not as something to be shuffled away
[00:31:59] Speaker B: and hidden, but as honored as included.
He put on the robe. He put on the ring. He put sandals on your feet.
[00:32:08] Speaker A: He called the feast. My son was dead and now he's alive. Praise God.
[00:32:13] Speaker B: Hallelujah.
Come on, church.
What a gospel.
All glory, all praise to our God.
[00:32:21] Speaker A: Amen.
And here's the thing.
If this were like the first two
[00:32:26] Speaker B: parables, it would just end right there when we go. Wow, praise God.
[00:32:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:31] Speaker B: God chased after me. He brought me home. Oh, it's so powerful. Dead to life. Yes, I love that join a worship song about it. We go and cry, we'll raise our hands to it. It's amazing.
But Jesus now the crux at the
[00:32:46] Speaker A: moment where he drops the bomb, where he makes the reveal and he actually
[00:32:50] Speaker B: answers the Pharisees questions, all of a sudden he gives this last parable a twist, a twist that brings this story home in a painful and needed way.
Because the reality is, this parable isn't about a father and his younger son. It's about a good father who has two rebellious. So read honestly and see how this lands out. Verse 25.
[00:33:13] Speaker A: Now, his older son was in the field.
As he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he summoned one of the servants, questioning what these things meant. Your brother is here, he told him, and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.
[00:33:28] Speaker B: Then he became angry and didn't want to go in.
[00:33:32] Speaker A: So his father came out and pleaded with him. But he replied to his father, look, I've been slaving many years for you.
I've never disobeyed your orders. And yet you never even gave me so much as a goat so I could celebrate with my friends.
When this son of yours came, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you slaughtered the fattened calf for him.
[00:33:53] Speaker B: Son, he said to him, you are always with me.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: Everything I have is yours.
We had to celebrate and rejoice because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: And that's where the story ends.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: Rather than end with the celebration like
[00:34:16] Speaker B: the first two parables, this one gives us another scene.
[00:34:20] Speaker A: And suddenly we're asked to consider what
[00:34:22] Speaker B: the 99 sheep thought of being left in the open fields, what the nine coins thought of being set aside.
The camera shifts to the older brother.
He's out in the field working. Is it one of the ones that he'll get to keep, or one of the ones that's already been sold away? We don't know.
But as he heads up to the house, he hears music and dancing.
He knows something has started up. Does he have an inkling? Has he heard the rumors? Has he watched his dad on the front porch? We don't know.
Regardless, we know that he doesn't seek out his father. He asks one of the servants, what's going on?
I want you to imagine this scene.
I think it's helpful for you to put yourself in this moment.
The sun setting, sweaty sun coming off of the field, working all day, hearing this party in the distance as he's approaching the house, and he pulls one of the servants, says, what's going on?
I want you to imagine this. Imagine the facial expression as the servant answers, your brother's back.
[00:35:26] Speaker A: Your father's celebrating because he's safe and sound.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: That son gets angry, stomps away, won't step into the home, won't step into the party. And let's Be honest. How much do you really blame him?
[00:35:45] Speaker A: Right?
He spent all these years putting up with the ridicule and the chaos his brother created for their family. And now he's squandered it all away and he's welcomed home with a celebration.
Oh, heck no.
Right?
[00:36:02] Speaker B: Look at his father.
[00:36:04] Speaker A: Notice how.
[00:36:05] Speaker B: How well he knows both his boys. He let the younger one run. He didn't stop him or chase after him. He didn't come to the far country to bring him home. He let him come to his senses. But this older brother, sitting outside of the party, stewing in his anger, the father comes to him.
The text says he pleads with him.
And again you can imagine the son sitting out there in the dark, angry, stirring back and forth, muttering to himself.
The music in the distance as the dad comes up.
So, son, what are you doing? Come in.
There's a feast.
Your brother is safe. Come celebrate with us.
Look how the son responds. His resentment and his bitterness overflow out of him.
[00:36:52] Speaker A: I've slaved for you all these years.
I do everything you say.
You never give me anything.
Not even a goat for a feast with my friends. His labor for his father has felt
[00:37:04] Speaker B: to him like slaving.
His obedience has felt like a burden. And he's received no rewards. For all his steadfastness, for all his discipline.
[00:37:12] Speaker A: Not even a goat to share with the boys.
And listen, sometimes you need a goat to share with the boys.
It's just. Look, look, if you've never done it, if you've never done it, I'm just telling you guys in the room, you
[00:37:26] Speaker B: all know what I'm saying.
[00:37:27] Speaker A: Sometimes you just need a goat. Day with the guys, right?
Well, this dad wouldn't even give him a go.
The brother feels like he's been withheld.
The father's kept back from him.
[00:37:41] Speaker B: Look what he says to the father,
[00:37:43] Speaker A: this son of yours.
[00:37:48] Speaker B: The father had welcomed the son home, but the brother has not.
He takes the phrasing of the father and throws it back in his face.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: He may be your son.
[00:38:00] Speaker B: I don't want anything to do with him.
I want him, the son of yours.
He's had to endure the consequences to their whole family. Similar to the father.
But he doesn't run.
He has no embrace to give this foolish and selfish son.
Look how he speaks of him.
[00:38:20] Speaker A: He devoured your wealth on prostitutes, and now you slay the fatted calf for him. You honor him. You celebrate him. It's like you're validating everything he did to us, right?
[00:38:32] Speaker B: You can feel that what he's saying. Oh, yeah, I see that celebration, the feasting, that does it feels so unfair. Doesn't.
Feels like the Father is saying everything the Son did is okay.
Celebration feels like validating his evil. Like, oh, I don't know, someone who would eat with tax collectors and sinners, like someone who would honor the gifts of a prostitute, like someone who would restore a traitor after he gave him up to be crucified.
Sounds like Jesus.
This beloved, this is Jesus's answer to the religious oath.
And there's this moment. Now.
We have to pull yourself mentally out of the story, out of the parable. You have to remember that this is Jesus sitting, teaching his follower. You can imagine the scene where Jesus is sitting and his followers are around him. And kind of on the outside edge of the circle, there's some of these local religious leaders and scribes, these same ones who've been given these critiques of Jesus publicly, and he's been sharing these stories with his followers. And in this moment, you can imagine as he looks above them and looks at the religious teacher and says, here's my answer to you.
This is for them.
Son, you have me.
Everything that is mine is yours.
Notice again, the Father doesn't correct or rebuke the older son.
[00:40:14] Speaker A: There's no, how dare you? There's no, I've given you everything you have. There's no, you honestly think I treat you like a slave? There's no, you could buy your own feast. You're a grown man.
[00:40:23] Speaker B: No, no, no, no. He knows his son.
He knows his heart.
And he doesn't push him on these things.
Except for one point.
He corrects him on one thing.
And noticeably, it's the exact same thing that he corrected the younger brother on.
In the midst of his tirade, he corrects him on the one thing that actually matters. Look at this. I always have you. Everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate.
And who did they have to celebrate? Look what he says.
This brother of yours.
See, the older brother had thrown this back in his father's face. This son of yours, he didn't want to acknowledge his sinful brother.
But the Father won't budge on this.
He corrects him.
This son is your brother.
He's your brother. He was dead, and now he's alive.
[00:41:23] Speaker A: Your brother. Yours was dead and is now alive, was lost, and is now found.
That must be celebrated.
[00:41:33] Speaker B: And the text just stops.
Jesus doesn't resolve the story. He lets it hang.
And there's a reason for that.
I think Luke wants us. Jesus wants us to see him looking past the religious leaders and looking squarely at us, the readers.
Don't you know that we must celebrate the salvation of the lost, the finding of the coin, the bringing back of the sheep.
Yet many of us religious folk fall so easily into the seat of the older brother.
Amen.
[00:42:08] Speaker A: We get caught up in our religious action.
[00:42:12] Speaker B: We get caught up stuck growing in resentment at God.
[00:42:17] Speaker A: Look how hard I try. God, look at all the stuff I do. I'm so nice to people and I show up every Sunday and I even tithe and I serve in kids ministry. Have you been down there?
Yeah, I do all these things, Lord.
I do them like faithfully for a long time.
You don't give me anything.
Look at all the stuff I do
[00:42:49] Speaker B: that I'm supposed to do.
[00:42:51] Speaker A: Where are my rewards?
Why aren't you blessing me for what I've done? Why does my life still have trials and suffering? Why is my faith so hard? Why do I still struggle with these doubts and these sins? Why are you showering me with rewards for all I do? And yet you celebrate
[00:43:09] Speaker B: these people.
I think when we consider sinners getting in, something interesting happens.
[00:43:15] Speaker A: I think of all the things you
[00:43:16] Speaker B: could critique American evangelical Christianity for.
One of the things that we're really good at is celebrating when rejects and outsiders find life in Christ. Like we. We delight in ministries to impoverished people and prisoners. We fund fostering and adoption. We love to see the outsider, the addict, find freedom and then find life in Christ and find transformation. And I think often when we think of the prodigal, like that's who we're thinking of.
But we are not doing this text justice if we don't stop for a moment and consider Jesus actual audience.
Because Jesus is challenging religious folk to remember that he loves the people they hate.
Now, culturally, in the last couple thousand years, we've taken some of the people that those religious leaders hate and we've started to consider them sympathetically.
And we have an easier time loving some of those people. And so it's easy for us to sit here and go, man, yeah, those terrible religious leaders, oh my gosh, they judge all the sinners instead of seeing God's grace and celebrating it. What terrible, awful people. But here's the deal.
The message is actually the same for you.
Christ loves the person you hate.
And even as I say that, some
[00:44:32] Speaker A: of you go, I don't know about that.
[00:44:36] Speaker B: I don't hate people.
I'm a loving person.
But here's the deal. You do. You hate someone, you hate multiple someones.
[00:44:45] Speaker A: And you might not like hearing that. You may pull back when I tell you that I'm not a hateful person. I don't hate anyone. But you do. You do.
[00:44:51] Speaker B: It's in our nature.
I guarantee. I guarantee there is someone we could come up with who. If you found out that they had a radical and real conversion to Christ, it would revolt you to consider them sharing heaven with you.
I guarantee it's the tension I talked about at the beginning. We love the gospel when it means grace for sinners.
[00:45:13] Speaker A: We should love that. It's the beauty of the gospel.
[00:45:15] Speaker B: God brings sinners home.
[00:45:17] Speaker A: But some sinners, man, shouldn't they be
[00:45:21] Speaker B: left to the consequences they earned, right?
I mean, think about the real world we live in. Think about the people you know.
[00:45:29] Speaker A: Think about the people you've read about in the news.
What would it take for you to
[00:45:34] Speaker B: be repulsed at the idea of someone receiving salvation?
[00:45:38] Speaker A: What about a genuine, heartfelt deathbed conversion from Hitler
[00:45:44] Speaker B: or Harvey Weinstein or Jeffrey Epstein?
[00:45:49] Speaker A: Or bring it closer to home.
[00:45:50] Speaker B: Think of some of the personal evils you've experienced.
I'm not trying to trigger you, asking you to think about, like, your deepest traumas, but I know that some of you in this room have been the victims of and also born witness to horrific personal evils.
People do some awful, awful thing.
And some of you have experienced that personally.
Can't they just be left to their consequences?
Do they have to be brought home, much less celebrated?
Like, if we're gonna bring them home, can we, like, bring them home quietly? Let them get in by the skin of their teeth, not make a big deal out of it?
No, no, beloved, I don't want to be so gentle with you when I say this, but it must be said.
And hear this. You must absorb this. You must imbibe this. If you want to fully understand the Gospel of Jesus, you must hear this.
Jesus longs for. For all of his creation, all of his creation, to come home and find salvation and redemption in him. All of them. All of them. All of them.
All of them.
Even the people you hate, even the darkly evil people.
And hear this church you actually do as well.
This is the tension we live in where our natural broken sinner's heart comes into conflict with the theology of the gospel and our redeemed soul.
[00:47:27] Speaker A: And you actually have to do some
[00:47:29] Speaker B: work to battle your inner self.
[00:47:31] Speaker A: Because all of us, if we're honest
[00:47:33] Speaker B: in our nature, have hatred.
We have those who. We long for them to experience justice.
But the reality is you do want the grace of Christ for them can feel like you don't, but you do.
And I would say, by the way, that if you actually don't, it's because you haven't taken the time to fully consider the stakes and consider the reality of the gospel first. The stakes. It's easy to long for justice and even vengeance for those who've done great evils.
[00:48:00] Speaker A: Especially, by the way, if the great
[00:48:01] Speaker B: evil was done to you or someone you love.
It can be easy to long for them to experience the just consequences of their actions. But remember, the scope of beloved hell is eternal justice.
It has no end.
It has no relief. It has no second chance. It is forever.
Trillions upon trillions upon trillions upon endless trillions of forever. It is eternal days go that is horrific.
The reality of the gospel reminds us that as much, as much by the way, as we would like to say otherwise, we are just as much a
[00:48:41] Speaker A: rebel as the prodigal in that eternity Maud before us as well.
Jesus here makes an important delineation between the prodigal son and the older son, because there is a delineation between those who have selfishly and foolishly built their lives around foolish waste and blaspheming God and earthly fleshly pleasures, and those who have done their best to live lives of holiness honoring God. That. That is an important delineation. That's two different kinds of life live. But you need to know something. We're still all sinners.
And the older brother racked up his own sins of bitterness and disrespect and legalism.
It's a different kind of rebellion, but it's a rebellion nonetheless.
Both sons need the Father to bring them home. In our story, you are not somehow not a sinner because your sin is different than the people you hate.
This is a real tension.
It's like each of us makes this gradient of sin from like, real bad to not so bad.
And we build it, maybe it's more like this. And we build this environment where, like, we're able to see ourselves on that scale. And we go, okay, here's how bad I am. God, I really want you to have grace and mercy for all the sins right down to this level I'm at and like, two notches below it. That's a really good spot. But everything below that, you should be just right.
Like, we make ourselves the dividing line between where God's mercy and God's justice should begin and should end. But that's not how it works.
The wages of sin is death. And as we read last week in Ephesians 2. All of us here, church, all of us were dead in our trespasses and sins.
The religious folk and the prodigal folk, all of us need the Father to intervene because his intervention means dead sons
[00:50:35] Speaker B: get brought to life.
This was your story, beloved. And by God's grace, it can be the story of more and more and more.
[00:50:45] Speaker A: So let me land with this band.
[00:50:46] Speaker B: If you want to come back up, say you begin to let God work in your life and you want to actually join the Father in inviting the sinner's home.
We've worked through that challenge. We said, do you notice lostness around us? We've worked through that challenge. Do you value the lost in your life? And here we're presented with the reality that all of humanity is lost to sin and all of us need to be brought home. All of us, the good and the bad.
So what do we do?
How can we join with the Father in his work?
I think that the heart of the Father in the story can actually point us toward a couple really practical realities as we think about the names and faces on those cards. We've each week done these who's your one cards, and I would encourage you, if you haven't grabbed one yet, to grab one.
We're asking you to keep these with you throughout the week to pray for lostness in your life, whether that's a kid living in your home, a grandkid you love, a co worker, a friend, pickleball, mate, whatever it is the people that God has put on your heart to notice, to value.
I think the heart of the Father can actually guide us really practically when we think about the names on that card and the faces and the souls they represent.
And I will tell you three things as we land out. The first one is this.
You can't want something for someone.
The Father's perspective on the rebellious son is so hard to swallow.
He knew how this would end.
Yet somehow he knew that son had to make his own mistakes and learn his own lesson.
He needed to learn to want his Father.
I think it's one of the hardest things for us to accept in our joining with God, in the mission that you, you write a name on that card and you pray for them and you are burdened for them and you're longing for them to know Christ. And yet no matter how badly you want them to know Christ, it won't happen until they want Christ.
Until then, prayer and connection is your only tool.
Which leads us perfectly to the second point, which is this.
You know Waiting can be proactive.
If you love a prodigal in your own life, it's such an important lesson because sometimes all you can do is sit on your porch with dad and watch and pray for them to come back.
This is why when we think about mission, we're thinking about years, not weeks.
Years, not weeks.
That person you love, that person you long for them to come to know Christ, you need to know something.
[00:53:22] Speaker A: If there is breath in their lungs
[00:53:24] Speaker B: today, then God is not done with them yet.
And we get this, especially when it's someone we love and we see them making destructive decisions.
[00:53:32] Speaker A: We just long to just interject and just fix it and just turn things around. And you just can't.
[00:53:37] Speaker B: You just can't.
You're stuck on the porch praying, connecting, waiting, seeking the Lord.
And I would encourage you. I would encourage you.
Your prayer for the lost in your life is your first and your best engagement in their salvation school.
They need the Holy Spirit's intercession in their lives to bring them to their senses.
And you just so happen to have access to his ear and you can beseech him on their behalf.
And as we allow ourselves to step back in our waiting and think of mission in terms of years, not weeks, it frees us, frees us to join the Father in the work.
[00:54:24] Speaker A: And last thing I'll say is this.
[00:54:25] Speaker B: You know, picking battles doesn't mean giving up on mission.
When you think about the people you're loving, especially, especially if they're family, if they're connected to you.
And there's so many things the Father could have challenged both his sons on. So many things they said they believed that were wrong, that were bad.
But with both of them, he picked one thing and it was the same one he stuck his flag in.
[00:54:50] Speaker A: The only truth that mattered in the midst of that conflict. You are my sons. You are brothers. We are family.
[00:54:57] Speaker B: You know, we live in a cultural moment that will pick at all different facets of your faith and your ethics.
What about your convictions regarding biblical truth, biblical ethics, biblical sexuality? God is a bigot and you are too for following him, right?
Why does God care about who marries who? What's the deal with all stuff I
[00:55:15] Speaker A: hear about going on?
[00:55:16] Speaker B: Well, I could go on, but I
[00:55:19] Speaker A: think what you'll find is this.
[00:55:20] Speaker B: As you live in relationship and seek opportunities to share your story, to share the gospel with those who are far from Christ, you will find that you have a myriad of things you could be tempted to correct.
Straighten out with folk who don't yet
[00:55:33] Speaker A: claim Christ
[00:55:36] Speaker B: and I would encourage you.
Picking your battles doesn't mean giving up.
You don't have to worry about those things.
[00:55:43] Speaker A: Plant your flag in the truth that Christ was crucified, buried and resurrected to defeat sin, that he loves that person desperately and wants them to have life, freedom and joy and fulfillment in him. Plant your flag there. Stay there in the truth that Christ loves sinners so well that he wants to bring us all home. Because the other stuff will get sorted out by God when he gets a hold of them. It will.
[00:56:08] Speaker B: So here's the reality, beloved.
Christ loves sinners, and you and I are high up on that list. Amen.
As we take a moment again to reflect, to end out, I want to encourage you to actually grab your card. If you need a new one, you can grab them. But the one, hopefully you've been holding on to, one in your Bible or whatever, I want you to pull it out and I want you to look at it as we take a moment to consider again these names, the faces that are connected, and the souls that are connected to those faces.
[00:56:37] Speaker A: I hope.
[00:56:37] Speaker B: I hope you have friends, loved ones, children, grandchildren represented on that card.
But I would encourage you to take a moment before we land today and to ask yourself, honestly, who do you not want to put on that car?
What name, what face would you go?
[00:57:02] Speaker A: Eh, I'd almost rather not.
[00:57:08] Speaker B: And maybe, just maybe, put that one.
Pray for that person for their salvation, for their redemption, for their restoration.
And I'm so serious about this. Before we take communion, I want to invite you to actually do the work to identify who that person is.
Those people are that person you hate.
And I want you to imagine them coming to Gray.
I want you to imagine in your heart what it would look like for them to fall on their face, confession and repentance and neediness, and find life, salvation and redemption and forgiveness and restoration for their evil and their sin, even the ones they've done against you.
And for those of you who are in Christ today, I would invite you, when you've sat in that for a minute, to come and take communion.
When we take communion, we remember that we're declaring the gospel to ourselves and to one another. That the blood poured out, the body
[00:58:13] Speaker A: broken was good enough to save you
[00:58:15] Speaker B: and hear this beloved.
[00:58:17] Speaker A: It's good enough to save them.
It is.
And as you come up here, I would encourage you to imagine that person
[00:58:27] Speaker B: sharing the table with you.
That will likely be painful.
I'd encourage you to do it anyway, because maybe they will.
Hopefully they will.
Maybe, just maybe, this brother of yours to go from death to life.
But wouldn't that be worth celebrating?
