NTRO: 1. Sometimes I look at my kids and say “You just don’t know how good you’ve got it.
a. ILL. Wouldn’t it be great to step back to a time where…
Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-mo."
Being old, referred to anyone over 20.
Having a weapon in school, meant being caught with a slingshot.
Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better.
Hidden talents were discovered because of a "double-dog-dare."
Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute ads for action figures.
The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team.
Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin.
b. Only now do I truly appreciate the times I had as a kid.
c. We can’t go back and live life again, but our experiences can teach us how to go forward more wisely.
2. Experience can be a very expensive form of education
a. One writer: “Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.”
b. Experience is the hardest teacher. It gives you the test first, and the lesson afterward
3. We can avoid future regrets in our lives by simply learning from those who have already learned the hard way.
a. If we learn from the mistakes and the failures of others, we don’t have to suffer the experiences they have.
b. If we could interview the Prodigal Son this morning about what he learned in his experience we would run out of time.
c. He’d probably start by saying, “If I Knew Then, What I Know Now… things would have been different.”
4. The harsh reality is that for many of us, we can only learn from our failures, because we refuse to see things any other way.
a. A man by the name of Jerry Cook wrote a book whose title I love called, “A Few Things I’ve learned since I knew it all.” This could have been the title to the life of the Prodigal Son.
b. ILL. 1954 movie called “The Wild One.” A young, tough Marlon Brando was asked, “What are you rebelling against?” He replied, “Whaddaya got?”
c. Such was the attitude and spirit of the prodigal Son.
d. A ‘prodigal’ is a person who is Wasteful, Reckless, Extravagant, unrestrained, uncontrolled, rebellious and sinful.
e. This young man wished a thousand times he would have learned by listening, instead of by living.
5. Luke let us know that these parables where told to publicans, sinners, scribes and Pharisees.
a. This message is both for the sinners and the religious.
b. Even as believers it’s important to be reminded of the truths that this prodigal had discovered, lest we become like the elder brother.
c. You and I know that we are rebels. There is not one of us who can point the finger at another. We all have prodigal hearts. We all can relate the life of the this young man.
Is. 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
I. SIN IS OUT FOR YOUR INHERITANCE
a. Notice that it cost him his inheritance, that which the father had worked so hard to give him.
b. But Pastor, I’m a sinner… how can sin take from me my inheritance.
c. The bible tells us that
James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, …
d. The bible also tells us that the only thing the devil knows how to do is “steal, kill and destroy.”
e. Sin and Satan isn’t out to benefit you, they’re out to destroy you.
f. Don’t think that just because you may have given your life to Jesus, that sin can’t ravage your life as well… this is why we must constantly remind ourselves of this Prodigal’s Lesson.
g. O, for a while the prodigal lived the life he had dreamed of… the parties, the friends, the lavish spending, the late nights, the popularity… but soon everything changed and O how it changed.
A. SIN COST HIM HIS FAMILY
1. The prodigal never appreciated the unconditional love his family provided him with until he felt the coldness of a world that so quickly abandoned him.
2. The enemy is out to bring division, anger and hatred into our homes.
3. Sin causes man to become self-absorbed only looking out for themselves, no matter what it may be doing to those around them.
4. The world is blind to the selfishness that permeates it.
ILL. The publisher's review of a recent book describes it as "a thoughtful, detailed discussion of every aspect of considering, preparing for, beginning, and conducting a successful and emotionally fulfilling extramarital affair." The book is called Affair! How to Manage Every Aspect of Your Extramarital Relationship with Passion, Discretion, and Dignity (by Cameron Barnes, UPublish.com, 1999). For just $19.95, plus shipping & handling, you can get a practical summary of the lies the devil would have you believe concerning adultery.
5. Don’t wait until it’s too late, don’t wait until you’re all alone with no one there to care to realize that sin has brought you there.
B. SIN COST HIM HIS FUTURE
1. This was no small sum of money, this was enough to generously provide for him the remainder of his life, for his was a great portion of the Father’s earnings and investments.
2. The devil is out to take from you the future that the father intended for you to have.
3. Sin will abuse the God-given talents and abilities and leave you with nothing.
C. SIN COST HIM HIS FORTUNE
1. O, how I wish that I could have just a portion of what I had invested in sin.
2. But it’s gone, gone without anything to show for it.
3. The prodigal didn’t even have a place to lay his head.
4. It seems that the only clothes were upon his back.
5. ILL. A leading cause of poverty in U.S. isn’t job availability, nor economics… but sin.
6. That’s not to say that poverty is sin, but I can take you into home where Drugs, Alcohol and wild living has left children hungry, without electricity, without a future… not because they don’t have anything… but because of sin.
7. If you’re living in sin, it’s time to wake up to the fact… Sin is robbing you blind.
D. SIN COST HIM HIS FREEDOM
1. The Prodigal pursued what others today define as freedom – opportunity to do what you want to do when you want to do it.
2. He set out to find this ‘freedom’ in the city only to find that he had left true freedom behind.
3. Those are illusions that will leave you bound by your lust, bound as another man’s servant.
4. This kind of freedom demands our rights… wanted his share now.
5. But true freedom is not living without restraints with what we think we deserve, but living in the liberation of truth receiving what we could never deserve.
E. SIN COST HIM HIS IDENTITY
“When he came to himself…”
1. You’re not yourself when you are living in sin and rebellion.
2. He found that he can no longer stand to be alone but must always find some amusement or diversion.
3. He no longer knows the man in the mirror, his identity is bound by how others see him.
4. He was a nobleman’s son, yet he worked now as a common slave.
5. He was a hebrew, the people of God, yet now he ate with the unclean swine.
6. It’s time to wake up to who you where meant to be, Satan blinded you to who you are.
F. SIN REPAID HIM WITH A PIG-PEN
1. The prodigal thought he was in control, but soon learned that his life was in the control of everyone but him.
2. The finances left, the friends left, now nature seemed to turn against him with a famine.
3. By the time we realize where Sin has brought us, the damage is already done.
ILL. Dead snakes can bite. Dead snakes bit five of thirty-five snakebite victims admitted to Good Samaritan Hospital [in Phoenix, Arizona,] from June 1997 to April 1998, toxicologists said. Justin Cluff, for example, age 21, was bitten by the decapitated head of a rattler. He lost part of his right index finger. Venom is still there, but people see a dead snake as harmless. So it is with sin.
4. The prodigal never believed that it could happen to him, never been without.
5. Subject to a man who cares nothing for him, who uses him as a tool to do his dirty work.
6. Cares nothing about what he has to eat or his condition.
7. Satan is a harsh task-master, knows no compassion and cares little about what you’ve lost.
II. THERE IS NO FAMINE IN THE FATHER’S HOUSE
a. Many pursue a life of sin feeling that they are ‘missing out’ on something.
b. But the prodigal, a man who tasted abundantly the fruits of sin, would tell you that that the only thing that you’re missing out on in the world is the abundance of the Father’s House.
c. Sitting in the pigsty, the Prodigal remembered that everything he had gotten had come from his Father.
d. He realized that everything he wanted & needed was only found in the Father’s house.
A. NO MATTER HOW FAR YOU GO – YOU CAN COME BACK HOME
1. There it all was waiting for him, like he had never left.
2. He was restored to a place that was truly ‘home’… where he really belonged.
3. When I lived in sin, I was never satisfied or comfortable, but then I came home.
4. Home is a spiritual place, a matter of the soul.
B. NO MATTER WHAT YOU’VE LOST – YOU CAN GET IT BACK.
1. He was given his future back, something no one else could have given him.
2. Not only clothed him, but gave him the “best robe.”
3. No probationary period with God, you’re back in the position you forfeited like nothing ever happened.
4. Put a ring on his hand.
5. Not like the ring we know, but more like a bracelet… in this was enough gold to demonstrate another inheritance and prove your position of authority.
6. The father restored what had been wasted away.
7. Shoes on his feet…walk not as painful as before.
8. The fatted calf, he threw a party.
9. Three parables here in this chapter starts with something lost and ends with a party.
10. Father wants you to know that he won’t welcome you with condemnation but celebration.
11. It was something they couldn’t keep quiet, before the elder brother reached the house… he heard the celebration.
ILL. A Mother of three tells the following story. My two older children (ages 9 and 7) seemed to attract every other child in the mobile home park for after-school games of hide and seek. Our youngest, Carrie, was not quite 3—and (in the minds of the older siblings) always in the way. It was something you could count on; ten minutes into the games our little one would get pushed aside or skin a knee. One afternoon she came through the front door crying for mommy. She had gotten the worst again. My wife, Elizabeth, attempted to comfort her by giving her two freshly baked cookies. "Now, don't tell the big kids yet," she cautioned, "I haven't finished; I haven't got enough for everybody yet." It took less than three seconds for Carrie to make it to the screen door, fling it wide, and announce to the big kids, "Cookies, I gots cookies!" Great news just can’t be contained.
III. YOU ONLY HAVE TODAY, USE IT.
a. It’s a deceitful thing to believe that next year you will have more time to do things you don’t have the time for now.
Prov. 27:1 Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.
b. The number one word that keeps people from responding to God is not the word “No.” It’s the word “Tomorrow.”
c. It’s time to change our life Today!
d. Sinner, it’s time to change your life today, child of God now is the time to do what God’s ask you to do yesterday.
e. ILL. Max Lucado– If there are a thousand steps between us and God, he will take all but one. He will leave the final one for us. The choice is ours.
A. YOU’VE BEEN THOUGHTFUL LONG ENOUGH, IT’S TIME TO ACT.
1. When the Prodigal came to himself, he came to his senses.
2. Reality breaks through.
3. He realized how sin had devastated his life and he knew what he needed to do.
4. Millions slipped into hell knowing what sin had done to them & what they should do.
5. Christian, maybe there’s an area in your life that you know what you should do, but hadn’t done it… it’s time to hesitate no longer and act.
B. YOU’VE BEEN RESOLVED LONG ENOUGH, IT’S TIME TO ACT.
1. He said “I will arise” but the words that is best is “And he arose.”
2. This house couldn’t hold the multitude that have said to me, “I’m going to give my life to Jesus.”
C. ACT NOW… COME TO THE FATHER
1. He didn’t hesitate and go and try and work out a better deal with the citizen, he immediately left.
2. Some are trying to work a better deal with the devil and with the world, confident that things will change… but you’re dealing with the “Father of Lies.”
3. He didn’t wait until he was presentable, but came in his rags.
IV. YOUR GREATEST INHERITANCE IS THE FATHER’S LOVE.
a. An inheritance that sin can’t take away from you
b. Even sin can’t separate you from the Father.
ILL. My toddler son, Joel this past week learned something new. Scissors can cut skin. He learned this new lesson using a pair of snub nosed children’s scissors on Daddy’s arm, almost cutting a hunch of skin off my arm before I could stop him. I wasn’t real happy that he did it, but it didn’t change my love for him one bit. I’ve decided that I will keep the scar so that later in life I can do like most parents and show him how much I’ve been through for him. Jesus bears the scars of my sin, and he does it because he loved me.
A. THE FATHER’S LOVE IS WAITING
1. The father likened the son to being “dead” or “lost.”
2. This shows us the pain the father felt all those months or years that he looked down that road and failed to see his youngest son.
3. It was the most painful thing he did every day, but love wouldn’t let him stop looking down that road.
4. The dark agony of the father who longed to hold his son, yet never knew if he would again.
5. Every bit of gossip that came from travelers cut deeply into his heart.
6. No matter how grossly you’ve sinned, the Father is waiting for you.
7. Not waiting for the inheritance to return, not waiting for another hand to arrive, he is waiting for you.
8. When you don’t have anything, or anyone standing with you… the Heavenly Father still loves you.
B. THE FATHER’S LOVE IS UNDESERVED
1. He had lost all claim to his father
2. He realized that he lost all legal right to sonship.
3. Realized that his life made him not worthy to be called the son of a man like his father.
4. However, the father hadn’t lost claim on him… as undeserving as he was he still had the love of a father.
5. He came back only asking for mercy as a servant, but before he could get that far, the father again made him a son.
6. The prodigal was completely set free that day because he realized that all he received wasn’t some reward for his actions, but grace in spite of his undeserving life.
7. This is the difference between the prodigal and the elder brother.
8. The elder brother took the father’s love for granted and saw everything on the level of what he deserved.
9. ILL. Most liberating truth didn’t come to me as a new Christian, but years later when I had a spiritual experience that made the concept of ‘Grace’ real to me.
10. Yet the prodigal was forever changed by the fact that he didn’t deserve any of this.
C. THE FATHER’S LOVE IS PROACTIVE
1. When the Son got in sight, the Father didn’t wait for him to come up to the porch… but he ran out to meet Him.
2. Note when the Father’s love reacted when he was “Yet a great way off”
3. Before you ever came to Him, he was running to you.
4. Before you could get the repentance out of your mouth, he is kissing you and welcoming you home.
CONCLUSION: I'm a prodigal son who ran away from everything and everyone that had raised me in a godly home. I can tell you without hesititate "If I Knew Then What I Know Now"... I'd come home to the father's house. Will you?
