A Tale Of Two Sons--The Prodigal Sons

A Tale Of Two Sons

11/7/2021 Psalm 14:1-7 Luke 15:1-32

Suppose for a moment that you could write all the rules for your own life. Nobody could tell you what to do. You were in complete control without having to be concerned with what God thinks. Do you think your life would be better a year from now or would it be worse? Deep down inside, we all want to be in control of our future. We want to be able to have certain outcomes in our lives to make us happy. We think, “If Only I was really in charge.”

What if you had a son that was completely honest with you. Let’s call him Kluziah. Kluziah comes to you and says, “Look, I have seen what is in your will that you are leaving to me. I don’t want to bother waiting around until you die.”

“ I’ve got plans for my life, and I’m tired of your rules. Just give me my money now and I’ll be out of here. I’m moving to a distant country because I want to get as far away from this place as possible. I want to be in charge of my life, and I don’t want to have to answer to you or to anybody else for that matter.”

What do you do for this son that you love? You know that he’s about to make a big mistake. You know that he’s been alienated from you for quite some time. You’ve had friends asking you,”Have you seen some of the things he’s posted about you on Facebook. He calls you out of touch, old fashioned, and even a fool.”

“He brags that one day he’s going to have enough money to buy all the prostitutes he wants and he’s going to show the world what a party is. He keeps putting down you and his older brother all over social media.”

Here is Kluziah, who has humiliated you both publicly and privately, basically demanding you give him his inheritance so that he can go out and be his own God, in charge of his own life. Would you give him the inheritance or would you put him out on the street where he rightfully belongs?

Jesus wants us to know how much God loves us, regardless of the path we choose to live in trying to be in control of our future which essentially means trying to play God. He tells the story in first century language of a man with two sons.

The younger son treated his father, exactly the same way that Kluziah treated you. Only the father in the story, hoping to one day be reconciled to his son, gave his son what he asked. The younger son didn’t care about or want a relationship with his father. He only wanted the benefits the father could give him. He wanted his father’s wealth and his property. He wanted the good life, and he didn’t think he would get it at his father’s house. He rejected the love the Father had for him.

He took his Father’s wealth and went off and had the good life with the parties. He moved to a distant country so that he wouldn’t have to be bothered with people checking in on him. He didn’t bother to write home. He thought his money was going to last forever.

He was happy because he brought friends with his money. It’s easy to have friends when you have money. He was writing his own rules and in essence was his own god. He basically worshipped himself. He was the center of his world? Are you the center of your world?

Everything went well until something unexpected happened. A famine hit the land, that caused such high inflation, that his money quickly vanished. For the first time in his life, he was broke with nobody offering to help him out.

Those friends had scattered like roaches when you turn on a light. For the first time in his life he was going to have to get a job. The only job he could get was feeding hogs. He was so desperate he wanted to eat the sloppy, bad looking food he was feeding the hogs. Nobody gave him anything.

Then he came to his senses and remembered his father and what he had left. He said, “even my father’s hired workers are eating better than I am while I am starving to death. I will leave this place, go back to my Father, admit that I was wrong and that I sinned against him and heaven. I’ll admit, I am no longer worthy to be called to be your son, but please make me like a hired servant.”

The younger son is probably thinking, if I’m a hired servant, I could earn enough money to pay my father back and then one day I could be accepted back into the family again. He didn’t know how much he was going to have to pay to get on his Father’s good side, but he was going to do it.