ANOTHER PRODIGAL SON SERMON: The traditional sermon approach to this passage misses half the story.
- Luke 15:11-32.
- Let’s begin with the way this parable is normally preached.
- This is a great evangelism sermon. It speaks of a son walking away from his father. It speaks of enjoying the high life of the world. It speaks of seeing things fall apart in your life. It speaks of reaching that low moment of recognition that you want to come back to the father. It speaks of the joyful embrace that awaits at the end of the road home.
- That's all great stuff and a great sermon. And there’s nothing wrong with preaching that. This tells a similar story as the parables that precede it.
- It’s worth starting tonight with a celebration of those truths, as typically told in that common evangelistic sermon.
- Yes, we walk away from God.
- Yes, we enjoy the things of the world when we’re away.
- Yes, we often reach a place where things begin to crumble and think about God once again.
- Yes, we wonder if we can go home and what the reception will be.
- And, most wonderful of all, yes, when we go home with a repentant heart, we are embraced by the Father.
- This is a wonderful truth: God receives sinners. He doesn’t refuse us or reject us. He receives sinners. It’s an enormous joy to know that this is true. It’s worth celebrating and proclaiming forever.
- Having said all that, I think it’s also worth noting that is not the big point of this parable. How do I know? Because everything I’ve just said only gets us halfway through the parable. There’s a whole other half to go.
- It’s easy to think along the lines of the two previous parables and just presume that this third one is making the same point, but it’s not. Yes, there are parallels in the first half, but there is more than just that half.
- I want to unpack the whole parable and get to what I believe to be the larger point that Jesus is trying to make with this story.
- First, though, we’ll need to set the stage by talking about the two sons and what they represent.
CHARACTER ONE: The younger son is a happy sinner.
- Luke 15:11-24.
- The first son asks for his inheritance and then sets off for the high life.
- Now, everyone here has heard this passage preached and the point made that demanding your inheritance like he did is basically saying to his father, “I wish you were dead.” I don’t dispute that but I don’t think that's where we need to focus. I think v. 13b is more telling of the larger point.
- The younger son uses up his wealth in wild living. He is having a high time.
- An important question to ask at this point: did the younger son miss his father during this part of the story? No, absolutely not. There is no indication of remorse or regret or sadness or homesickness or anything along those lines.
- I’m going to characterize him as a happy sinner.
- There is a mischaracterization preachers sometimes use in their sermons that presumes that everyone away from God is miserable and secretly wanting to come to God. That's just not true.
- Many people who are out in the world are having a great time. They don’t have any desire to come to God. They don’t have any desire to come home. They are having a high old time. It’s just the way it is. The world can be fun.
- Now, this, of course, needs to immediately be followed by the clarification that that is only true for a season. It may be a week or a month or a decade or, in some lives, an earthly lifetime, but it is not permanent. We know that because going into the life to come without Christ is a horrible position to be in. But that doesn’t change how things can feel for a season.
- That all adds up to our term: the happy sinner.
- He is doing what’s wrong. He is being wasteful with his father’s money. He is focused only on his own pleasure. Although we’re not specifically told, the older brother’s accusation late in the parable of frequenting prostitutes is most likely accurate. And he’s enjoying it all.
- There are many like him in the world. They are happy in the world’s pleasures and enjoying themselves immensely.
- Now, we all know the next part of the story: he runs out of money, there is a famine in that land, and things spiral quickly, leaving him in a state of desperation he never anticipated.
- It’s that circumstance that eventually drives him back to his father.
- Of course, that echoes what we often see in people coming back to God. It’s health problems or divorce or depression or other life struggles that cue the awareness of their need.
- I wish I could say that frequently people in the midst of the pleasures of this world look up from their situation and say, “I need God.” But that just doesn’t happen with any regularity. It’s usually struggles that push things in that direction.
- That's an important truth but for our purposes in this sermon I want you to stay focused on the happy sinner, because he serves as the companion to what we’re going to see with the second brother.
CHARACTER TWO: The older son is a faithful servant.
- Luke 15:25-32.
- As I noted at the beginning, it’s important that we pay attention to the second son because he is the one who differentiates this parable from the previous two.
- If the younger son is best characterized as a “happy sinner,” the older son is best characterized as a “faithful servant.” Verse 29 makes that evident.
- He didn’t leave. He has continued to go out and work on the farm day after day. He has done his duty.
- The obvious analogy here is to the religious person for whom duty and obligation are a part of their life.
- They show up faithfully at church.
- They serve in the ministries there.
- They read their Bible.
- They pray every day.
- They give when the offering plate is passed.
- They are faithful.
- Now, from the description I’ve just given, many of you are thinking: that sounds pretty impressive to me - how could there be a problem?
- That, I believe, takes us to the heart of the parable.
PRESENTS VERSUS PRESENCE: Both sons were more focused on what they could get from their father than being with their father.
- Luke 15:11-32.
- Now we get to what I believe is the main point of the parable.
- The younger son is only interested in what he can get from the father. He gets what he can and takes off.
- The older son shows by his response to the party for the younger son what is in his heart. He doesn’t say it’s great that my brother is home. He doesn’t say I’m thankful my brother is alive. He doesn’t say the family is reunited. No, he complains that he didn’t get a party like his brother is getting. This is focused on what he can get out of the father. We presume from this that he is serving faithfully so that he will get his reward (that is, the inheritance) when the father dies.
- Both were more focused on what they could get out of the father than being with the father.
- One way to think of it is “presents” versus “presence.”
- Presents speaks to getting gifts.
- Presence speaks to being with someone.
- The two brothers, each in their own way, were more focused on presents. Neither was focused on the presence of the father.
- What does this translate to for the way we live today?
- The younger son speaks to the happy sinner who is out in the world having a great time.
- What does he want from his “father”? Life, health, no major problems coming into his life. He wants the freedom, health, and resources to be able to live his life.
- The older son speaks to the faithful servant who is in the church serving God.
- What does he want from his “father”? He wants eternal life, hope after death, protection from evil and tragedy, and help in crisis. What is equally important is that he is not necessarily interested in having a deep and abiding relationship with his father. Knowing him as well as possible. Cultivating a closeness with him. No, it is often pretty utilitarian.
- In both cases it is what you can get out of him rather than him.
WHAT DOES THE FATHER WANT FROM US? What’s the greatest commandment?
- Luke 14:31-32.
- Matthew 22:34-40; Mark 12:28-34; Luke 10:25-28.
- What is the greatest commandment? You shall love the Lord your God.
- We often take that as a placeholder. Yeah, sure, God is love so obviously we should love God.
- It’s worth thinking about what exactly that greatest commandment means. God wants us to love Him. Think about that for a moment.
- It’s not the greatest commandment to respect the Lord your God. It’s not the greatest commandment to obey the Lord your God. It’s not the greatest commandment to worship the Lord your God. It’s not the greatest commandment to submit to the Lord your God. It’s not the greatest commandment to honor the Lord your God.
No, the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God.
- Do we love Him? Or do we love what we can get from Him?
- Verses 31-32 end the story and have some significant things to say about each son.
- First, the younger son. Verse 32’s most important words are “had to.”
- The relationship had been broken and now it’s been restored. It’s a glorious, joyful thing. The father’s heart was compelled to celebrate. We “had to” celebrate.
- What that tells us is how the father felt in his heart. His connection to the younger son was deeply important to him and when the younger son came home and the connection was restored, it demanded celebration.
- Notice the father never asks, “Do you still have the money you left with?” No, the father’s total focus is on being with his son again.
- Second, the older son. Verse 31 gives us a telling phrase that it is easy to overlook: “you are always with me.”
- It’s easier, I think, to focus on the second half of that sentence: “everything I have is yours.” The father isn’t trying to remove the blessings or impoverish the son.
- But the thing that matters most to him is in the first phrase: “you are always with me.”
- He wants the son to be satisfied just being with him. That's all he really wants and he wants that to be all his son wants.
- It frequently happens that people going to church focus on what we can get out of God rather than focusing on knowing God Himself. We use Him rather than loving Him.
- Skye Jethani talks about asking Christians what their treasure is. He gets a variety of answers. Rarely, he will have someone say, “Christ. He is my treasure.” More often, the treasure is something given rather than the Giver.
- John Piper has said, “The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God.” That’s powerful and important.
- What about you? Do you want to know God the Father deeply? Do you want to love Him deeply? Or do you want to use Him?
