Your Worth In God's Eyes Series

Your Worth In God’s Eyes

Created For Significance Series

CCCAG 3-21-21

Scripture= Luke 15:11-31

Growing up , probably the biggest positive influence on my life was my Grandfather.

He was a good Lutheran man, had a great reputation around Hayward, and when I spent my summers with him he would often teach me what being a man was all about. Work Ethic and honor were the two primary lessons he instilled in me.

As I entered my teenage years, I started heading down the wrong path and instead of spending my summers in Hayward with my Grandfather, I'd spend them at home with my friends generally getting into trouble and doing things I shouldn't.

When I was about 16 years old, my grandfather and grandmother came to visit and my Gran father was shocked to see that I had my ear pierced.

Today it's tattoos to show your self-expression but for guys in the 1980s it was getting your left ear pierced.

My Grandfather saw that, shook his head and called me his little prodigal.

I had no idea what prodigal meant, so I looked it up in the dictionary later and found that Webster defined the word prodigal as a word referring back to Luke 15 meaning, “rebellious, wasteful, extravagant.”

In reference to me and my behavior at 16, he was referring to me throwing away all the gifts that God has given me so I could try to be popular, have fun, and be irresponsible, knowing it would threaten my future.

In Luke 15, we have a very similar story unfolding, that many of us who have been around the church for awhile have heard a few times.

It’s the story of the prodigal son

Prayer

This is the story of a son who was reckless, rebellious, and wasteful. Having convinced his father to give him his inheritance early, he squandered it all on fast living before coming home.

Every single time I have ever heard this story preached on or taught , the focus is always on the son and his actions. Most times I’ve spoken on it, the focus has been on the son.

Only I don’t think that’s what this story is about at all. I don’t think this is a story about a son.

I think the story is actually about the father.

Notice how it begins, “There was a man who had two sons” (Luke 15:11).

Who’s the subject of that sentence? The man. His sons are the object.

Why is this important?

This story answers the question, “How does God feel about you?”

This story is the capstone of Luke chapter 15. In the first 2 stories we focused on a loss sheep and a lost coin and the joy of the people when they found that which was lost.

The first two stories focused on the lost thing, this story focus’ on the Father, who is representative of God Himself.

So for the next few minutes, we will immerse ourselves in 1st century Jewish culture so we can understand exactly what Jesus wants us to see in this story.

The story of the prodigal father is a story told in five scenes.

In scene one, the younger son asks the father to divide his property between his sons so the younger can have his inheritance now.

The father grants that request

At first glance, you might call into question the character of a father that would do this.

If you did that, you’d miss the point of what really happens in this scene because what Jesus was actually describing here would be scandalous to every person who heard it.

No one in the Middle East would make such a request of their father. Because to ask for their inheritance early would be tantamount to expressing a death wish for the father.

This would be so disgraceful to the father, that at the very least it would have earned the son, no matter how old he was, a severe beating.

One Middle Eastern writer, Ibrahim Sa’id ,writes, “The shepherd in his search for the sheep, and the woman in her search for the coin do not do anything out of the ordinary beyond what anyone in their place would do.

But the actions the father takes in the third story are unique, marvelous, divine actions which have not been done by any Middle-Eastern father.”

The next words of the story go like this, “Not long after that, the younger son got together all that he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth on wild living” (Luke 15:13).

I’ve always had it in my mind that the son got what he wanted, and left town immediately, but that is not what happened. It wasn’t like the father in the story could pull out the checkbook and write a check. Wealth was measured in animals, possessions, servants, and land.