WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.919 So this has often been called the greatest of all the parables. It's definitely the most famous 00:00:03.919 --> 00:00:09.679 of all the parables that Jesus ever gave, the parable of the prodigal son, as it's typically 00:00:09.679 --> 00:00:17.679 titled. It is a story. Jesus gave us stories. And this is a short story that's fundamentally about 00:00:17.679 --> 00:00:25.120 grace and the radical nature of God's grace, the rootedness of God's grace. And we've been working 00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:30.800 our way this summer through parables, and we've been looking at kingdom parables. So parables where 00:00:30.800 --> 00:00:37.280 Jesus very specifically says the kingdom of God or heaven is like this. We've done eight of them, 00:00:37.280 --> 00:00:43.200 seven of them are in Matthew 13. This is not one of them. Jesus doesn't say the kingdom of heaven is 00:00:43.200 --> 00:00:48.400 like this. But we're going to finish our series today with this most famous of all parables. 00:00:48.400 --> 00:00:53.439 And it is a kingdom parable. All the parables are kingdom parables, and it really wraps everything 00:00:53.439 --> 00:00:59.119 together. It brings all the kingdom parables together. Because really the one thing that's 00:00:59.119 --> 00:01:06.319 most important to say about the kingdom of God is the kingdom of God is the power of God through 00:01:06.319 --> 00:01:14.000 Jesus Christ to bring sinners home and to give them a feast. And that's what we read about here. 00:01:14.879 --> 00:01:20.479 And you can look at this parable and you can learn, you know, if you could reduce it all down to just 00:01:20.480 --> 00:01:24.640 one sentence. What's the Bible about? What's Christianity about? Do you really understand the 00:01:24.640 --> 00:01:32.800 Christian message? And it's that humans are sinners and God gives grace. And sin is just that we 00:01:33.600 --> 00:01:39.920 ran away from home and God wants to bring us home again. That's sin, that's grace. 00:01:40.800 --> 00:01:45.120 That's the message of Christianity. And it's all right here in this parable. 00:01:45.120 --> 00:01:53.040 So you might be aware if you read widely maybe in the Christian tradition as of late that there 00:01:53.040 --> 00:01:59.200 has been so much work done on this parable over the last 10, 15, 20 years. Lots of books published 00:01:59.760 --> 00:02:04.800 about it. And so we've got insights here that we've recovered from the past. And so all I want to do 00:02:04.800 --> 00:02:09.280 this morning is really give you what other people have come to understand about this parable that 00:02:09.280 --> 00:02:14.159 I've received from other people this morning. And what that is is that this is a parable with two 00:02:14.159 --> 00:02:21.840 acts, a story with two big acts. One is Act One, the prodigal son, the younger brother, Act Two, 00:02:22.400 --> 00:02:27.599 the elder brother. And you've got to look at both really to understand the whole parable. 00:02:27.599 --> 00:02:32.479 And one thing to say is that this really is about all of us, about every single person in this room. 00:02:33.680 --> 00:02:37.199 It doesn't matter if you're a Christian today or not, no matter the tradition you come from, 00:02:37.199 --> 00:02:42.400 the background, the culture, the religious experiences you've had or not, every single 00:02:42.400 --> 00:02:48.480 person can find themselves in this parable. And it is about two men, two sons, two boys. 00:02:49.040 --> 00:02:53.920 But those are just symbols. Every man, every woman, it's for all of us. And so just ask yourself 00:02:53.920 --> 00:02:59.439 this morning, who am I? Who am I as we come to read this? And so let's see three things. One, 00:03:00.159 --> 00:03:07.599 who needs grace? Secondly, what grace is? And then finally, the whole story of grace, very briefly 00:03:07.599 --> 00:03:14.479 at the end. So first, who needs God's grace? Jesus introduces this parable, verse 11, Douglas 00:03:14.479 --> 00:03:20.319 read for us. And he says at the very beginning, verse 11, a man had two sons. So there are three 00:03:20.319 --> 00:03:28.400 characters, a father, an older son, and a younger son. And people have pointed out very regularly 00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:34.719 that this parable has been misnamed for a long time. We often call it the parable of the prodigal 00:03:34.719 --> 00:03:40.639 son, but at least it's got to be called the parable of the prodigal sons. And really, if you're 00:03:40.639 --> 00:03:45.680 thinking about it, I think as Jesus was teaching it, it should have been called the parable of the 00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:50.560 prodigal elder brother or the parable of the elder brother, not the prodigal son. And the reason for 00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:55.039 that is that the audience, you've got to look at the audience. We've got to look at the audience to 00:03:55.039 --> 00:04:00.400 really understand what Jesus is saying here. It's so important. And so if you have a Bible, 00:04:00.400 --> 00:04:06.640 you can look back with me at the very beginning of chapter 15 at verse one and two, which is where 00:04:06.640 --> 00:04:12.879 we learn who he's talking to, which explains everything. And in verse one, we learn that Jesus 00:04:13.599 --> 00:04:21.120 was standing in a crowd and the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to him. Now Jesus always 00:04:21.120 --> 00:04:28.240 attracted tax collectors and sinners. And these are people who are what we might call traditional 00:04:28.240 --> 00:04:34.720 sinners, typical sinners, the kind of sinners that you think about when you think about sinners, 00:04:34.720 --> 00:04:40.400 right? People who have experienced scandal in their lives, people who are very public sinners, 00:04:41.600 --> 00:04:46.240 who have been publicly canceled, perhaps in our modern world for something. This is the type of 00:04:46.240 --> 00:04:51.840 person that it's the bad people. And tax collectors are people who have committed essentially treason 00:04:51.840 --> 00:04:57.600 against their own people by working for the Romans against the Jewish people. And sinners, 00:04:57.600 --> 00:05:02.800 this is a euphemism, typically for those who have experienced public scandal of some kind. 00:05:02.800 --> 00:05:07.120 Typically, it's a word that stands for those who are involved in sexual scandal in the first century, 00:05:07.760 --> 00:05:14.640 but it could be anything, addicts, the greedy, reckless with your money, gambling, 00:05:14.640 --> 00:05:21.120 sexually scandalous, drunk in public, criminals, prisoners, traditional sinners. That's what's 00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:29.120 represented here. And then in verse two, it says, as people who have experienced public sin 00:05:29.840 --> 00:05:33.840 came near to Jesus and drew near to him, as was always the case in his public ministry, 00:05:33.840 --> 00:05:41.199 verse two says, and the Pharisees, the scribes, they grumbled about it. And so under their breath, 00:05:41.199 --> 00:05:47.280 the word they're muttered means passive aggressive whispering amongst the crowd of the religious 00:05:47.279 --> 00:05:53.919 elite there. And they're angry that Jesus not only welcomes tax collectors and sinners, but 00:05:53.919 --> 00:05:58.239 he sits down to eat with them at the dinner table all throughout his ministry, which was a big deal 00:05:58.239 --> 00:06:05.359 in the first century. And so Jesus responds. Well, who is he responding to? He's not really 00:06:05.359 --> 00:06:10.000 responding to the tax collectors and sinners who are drawing near to him. No, he's responding to 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:17.279 the Pharisees and scribes who grumble and mutter under their breath, angry about the fact that Jesus 00:06:17.279 --> 00:06:23.600 would hang out with these public sinners. And so it says, and so Jesus told them parables. Now, 00:06:23.600 --> 00:06:29.360 in Luke 15, there are three parables, not one, and all of them are building on top of each other. 00:06:29.360 --> 00:06:33.360 And you see what he says down in verse three, he told them a parable. Who's the them? It's the 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:38.800 Pharisees. And then he asked this, what man of you having a hundred sheep if you lose one 00:06:38.800 --> 00:06:42.480 would not race out of your home into the far country to get that one sheep back? 00:06:43.040 --> 00:06:46.800 Now, who is he talking to? He's talking to the Pharisees, the elders of the people, the religious, 00:06:47.439 --> 00:06:53.759 the good people, the decent people, the respectable people, the people who know that they are better 00:06:53.759 --> 00:06:57.120 than the tax collectors and the sinners all around them. That's who he's talking to. And he's 00:06:57.120 --> 00:07:02.160 saying, which one of you, if you had a hundred sheep would not go out into the far country to get 00:07:02.160 --> 00:07:07.759 that one and bring it home again? So he's asking them to think about that as leaders, would you go 00:07:07.759 --> 00:07:13.759 rescue your lost sheep? Parable two, would you flip your house over to get that one coin that you 00:07:13.759 --> 00:07:18.719 had lost out of the hundred coins, that one? Would you flip your house upside down to go and find it? 00:07:18.719 --> 00:07:22.800 And so he's talking directly to the religious people, the good people, the decent people, 00:07:22.800 --> 00:07:30.879 the moral people. And so what we have here is a story, a play with two acts. And in the first act, 00:07:30.879 --> 00:07:36.719 it's the prodigal son, because the tax collectors and the sinners, public sinners, are all around 00:07:36.720 --> 00:07:44.880 Jesus represented in the prodigal son. And then we have second act, the elder brother represented by 00:07:44.880 --> 00:07:50.400 these Pharisees, these religious elite, these morally upright, good, respectable citizens. 00:07:50.400 --> 00:07:56.320 And he's talking to both of them in two acts. But who is he particularly talking to? He's talking 00:07:56.320 --> 00:08:01.120 to the Pharisees. He's talking to the elder brothers. He's talking to the religious moralists 00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:07.519 that are standing all around him. He's simply talking to anybody here today who deep down at 00:08:07.519 --> 00:08:14.720 the depth of their soul thinks, I'm basically a good person. I'm a decent human being, you know. 00:08:14.720 --> 00:08:19.920 I'm not one of the bad people. I'm one of the good people. I've basically lived a moral life. 00:08:20.560 --> 00:08:27.439 And that's the object of this parable, most acutely, most importantly. And this is Jesus's 00:08:27.439 --> 00:08:35.360 genius here, his brilliance, as he's telling us, there are multiple ways to be alienated from God. 00:08:36.240 --> 00:08:41.440 You know, you can be a prodigal, you can be alienated from God on the outside, very visibly, 00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:45.360 but you can be just as far from God, just as alienated from God on the inside, 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:52.399 that you can hide from God actually by being a good person, by being basically good. There's two 00:08:52.399 --> 00:08:56.960 different ways to hide from God. And so the main point of the parable is that it's actually a 00:08:56.960 --> 00:09:03.759 warning to the reputable, not to the prodigal. All right, what is grace? Let's think about these 00:09:03.759 --> 00:09:09.440 two acts and think, okay, well, what is this grace that Jesus offers here? In the first act, 00:09:09.440 --> 00:09:15.600 the act of the prodigal son, the younger brother, we've got a series all throughout. Every single 00:09:15.600 --> 00:09:22.800 scene is a scandal of some kind. And the first is in verse 12. It's the scandalous request that 00:09:22.799 --> 00:09:28.240 the younger son makes. And so the younger son in verse 12 comes to his dad and says, 00:09:28.240 --> 00:09:35.919 give me the share of the property that it's coming to me. In this culture, if you have two sons, 00:09:36.479 --> 00:09:42.240 when the father dies, the elder son would receive two thirds of the inheritance, 00:09:42.240 --> 00:09:47.679 the younger son would receive one third. So the younger son comes here and says, I want my third. 00:09:47.679 --> 00:09:52.959 And what he's essentially saying to his father is, Dad, I wish you were dead. 00:09:54.959 --> 00:10:00.159 I'm ready for you to die. I want my money. This is a huge scandal in the first century. 00:10:00.799 --> 00:10:06.559 And in the first century, the expectation upon a request like this is that actually the father 00:10:06.559 --> 00:10:12.319 would go so far maybe as to do violence against his son for this. So the son could be arrested and 00:10:12.320 --> 00:10:18.879 punished for this, for a statement like this. And he comes and he is essentially saying, I hate you 00:10:18.879 --> 00:10:24.800 and I want you dead. And the expectation is that this dad, this father is going to disown a son 00:10:24.800 --> 00:10:30.640 and one of the real shocks, maybe the bigger scandal than that is in verse 12 that the father 00:10:30.640 --> 00:10:38.080 actually does it. So the father actually gives him what he asked for. And in the first century, 00:10:38.080 --> 00:10:45.759 to liquidate and give your son a third of the inheritance, you don't go down to the bank of 00:10:45.759 --> 00:10:51.120 Scotland and take your son's trust fund that you started when he was a baby. There are no trust 00:10:51.120 --> 00:10:56.879 funds. There is no cash. And so to do this, what he has to do is he has to liquidate. He's got to go 00:10:56.879 --> 00:11:02.879 sell land. He's got to go sell cattle. He's got to go get rid of his sheep. He's got to lose his stuff 00:11:02.879 --> 00:11:10.879 to give a third away. And the father does it. He liquidates. He gives it away and he sends him. 00:11:11.759 --> 00:11:17.439 And one of the things that comes to mind here, I think, is that from the very beginning of human 00:11:17.439 --> 00:11:26.639 history, we sons and daughters have been coming to God and saying, I wish you were dead. I don't 00:11:26.639 --> 00:11:31.200 want you to be my master. I don't want you to be in charge of my life. I want the goods and the 00:11:31.200 --> 00:11:38.960 benefits that you offer to me in this life, the stuff. I'll take my third and you can go and die. 00:11:40.080 --> 00:11:44.160 And from the very beginning, that's the message of humanity against God that sin is basically just 00:11:44.160 --> 00:11:49.520 telling God, I wish you were dead. I wish you weren't my master. I wish you weren't my father. 00:11:50.560 --> 00:11:54.080 And taking the stuff, the benefits that he's given us and running away with it. 00:11:54.800 --> 00:11:59.120 And it's been pointed out again and again and again since Genesis chapter three, 00:11:59.120 --> 00:12:05.679 four, that God, we shake our fists at God and God keeps just giving us great stuff. 00:12:06.960 --> 00:12:10.799 Think about your life and you ask, what do you have in your life this morning that you 00:12:10.799 --> 00:12:18.879 actually made? Have you put all the atoms together that can get the oxygen into your lungs, 00:12:18.879 --> 00:12:24.080 that you're breathing today? Who is it that provides that? We shake our fists and say, 00:12:24.080 --> 00:12:28.560 I don't want you to be my father. I don't want you to be my master. And God just says, I will give 00:12:28.559 --> 00:12:35.839 you your share. It's common grace. We begin to see that God's grace is his unending kindness and 00:12:35.839 --> 00:12:41.439 patience with us, even when we say, I wish you weren't alive. I wish you weren't my master. 00:12:41.439 --> 00:12:47.279 And so the father, he gives it away, he sends a son and then act one, seen to 00:12:47.279 --> 00:12:52.799 is the scandal of the pigs, as it has been called. So this son, this prodigal son, he goes 00:12:52.799 --> 00:13:00.719 and he lives recklessly. That's the word prodigal. We learn in verse 13, he does reckless spending, 00:13:00.719 --> 00:13:08.240 he spends everything and then he becomes homeless. And so he's publicly shamed and then we learn all 00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:14.000 the way down in verse 30 that the elder brother says, your son traded the property you gave him, 00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:20.159 the money you gave him for prostitutes. And so he's committed all sorts of public sins and 00:13:20.159 --> 00:13:28.000 here he is homeless. And the outcome is that he has started working in a pigsty and he's living in 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:33.519 the pigsty in the muck of the pigs. And it's even worse than that because in the first century, 00:13:33.519 --> 00:13:39.519 who's the primary audience, the Pharisees? And boy, they know the Old Testament, they know the 00:13:39.519 --> 00:13:46.079 Levitical law. And the Levitical law, there's nothing worse than being less than pigs. The most 00:13:46.080 --> 00:13:52.160 unclean of all animals, that your contact with a pig means you cannot be near God's people or the 00:13:52.160 --> 00:13:59.920 temple. And so they see him as morally bankrupt, spiritually bankrupt, ceremonially bankrupt, 00:14:00.560 --> 00:14:05.280 completely outside the people of God in every way. He is a, he's very literally to them, 00:14:05.280 --> 00:14:14.800 a filthy sinner, dirty inside and outside. He's a beast in their minds as they hear this parable. 00:14:14.799 --> 00:14:22.079 And then that leads to the final scene of Act 1, the scandal of grace, where in verses 17 to 24, 00:14:22.079 --> 00:14:28.399 it says that he comes to himself, he's pricked in his heart and he realizes, he says, I'm a sinner. 00:14:30.159 --> 00:14:34.799 And I know what I deserve. He says that very explicitly. And he says, I just wish I could go 00:14:34.799 --> 00:14:42.159 home and become like one of my father's farm hands, a hired servant and just work day in and day out. 00:14:42.159 --> 00:14:50.559 And at least then I could be near the home, near my father once more. And so this is what he plans 00:14:50.559 --> 00:14:56.000 to do. Now the rabbis in the first century, through their oral tradition, it would later be written 00:14:56.000 --> 00:15:02.399 down in a book called the Mishnah or a oral law that was eventually written. They taught that if 00:15:02.399 --> 00:15:07.759 you had violated the community standards to this degree, you deserve to be completely disowned 00:15:07.759 --> 00:15:14.799 forever. But in unusual circumstances of mercy, it was never going to be sufficient that you 00:15:14.799 --> 00:15:19.200 would simply come home and ask for forgiveness. Instead, if you wanted to come home, you were 00:15:19.200 --> 00:15:23.519 going to have to make it just, make it right, restitution. And so there were different amounts 00:15:23.519 --> 00:15:29.759 of years that you needed to work off your debts. And so that's what he has in his mind. I will come home 00:15:29.759 --> 00:15:38.960 and maybe, maybe, maybe if I give myself completely to serving my dad as a slave, as a hired hand, 00:15:39.600 --> 00:15:46.960 one day he could love me again. That's what he thinks. And the Pharisees, of course, when they hear 00:15:46.960 --> 00:15:50.720 that, they're like, they're nodding. Yes, exactly. That is exactly what needs to happen here. 00:15:52.240 --> 00:15:58.319 And he thinks he'll pay it off. And so what happens, the scandal is in verse 20, 00:15:58.320 --> 00:16:06.240 his dad sees him on the horizon. And another scandal in the first century, he pulls his robe up 00:16:06.879 --> 00:16:13.120 so he can run. No patriarch would ever do that. And he runs out to the horizon as he sees his son. 00:16:13.760 --> 00:16:18.400 And against every social standard, he skips about like a calf running from its stall at last. 00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:26.080 And he, it says in the Greek that he embraces, that's the English word, it's that he fell upon him. 00:16:26.080 --> 00:16:33.280 He fell upon his son. And he kissed him. He kissed him. And he said, no, you know, 00:16:33.280 --> 00:16:37.440 and then the son says, well, let me do what I plan to do. He says, Dad, I'm not worthy. 00:16:38.240 --> 00:16:43.520 If only you would make me a hired servant. And his father interrupts him and says, 00:16:43.520 --> 00:16:50.000 turns to his own servant and says, go and get the best robe. What's the best robe in the house? 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:56.639 What's the best robe in the house? It's dad's robe. It's the father's robe. And then he says, go and 00:16:56.639 --> 00:17:02.080 get the ring. What's the ring? The ring is verse 22, the signet ring. It's the family seal. It's 00:17:02.080 --> 00:17:06.880 what you used in the first century to sign a contract. You would put your ring down on papers, 00:17:06.880 --> 00:17:13.279 family seal with wax. And then he says, go and get him shoes. Because in Ezekiel, we're told by 00:17:13.279 --> 00:17:22.319 God, one day I will cover your bare feet. And then he says, now go and kill the fatten calf, 00:17:22.319 --> 00:17:27.839 because the fatten calf is the most expensive animal on the property. And it's a calf you save 00:17:27.839 --> 00:17:33.200 for the holy pilgrimage festivals every year. And he throws him an utter feast. Now listen, 00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:40.480 what do we learn? No matter today, no matter what you've believed in in your past, 00:17:40.480 --> 00:17:47.839 no matter how far you've run away from God, and we all have, no matter what you've done, 00:17:47.839 --> 00:17:55.599 no matter what you've thought about, no matter the sins of your life past and present, 00:17:55.599 --> 00:18:01.680 no matter how scandalous it has been, no matter how much shame you have brought upon yourself and 00:18:01.680 --> 00:18:09.440 your family, no matter how much you've run, no matter how much you've hated God, there is a real 00:18:09.440 --> 00:18:16.160 cut is a God of mercy who wants you to come home today. He wants you to come home and he wants 00:18:16.160 --> 00:18:20.720 to welcome you home and when you do come home, he will throw his best robe upon you and he will 00:18:20.720 --> 00:18:29.120 throw a feast for you. Our God is a God who welcomes sinners home and throws a feast for them. 00:18:30.400 --> 00:18:34.799 And no matter how big your sins are in your past, 00:18:34.799 --> 00:18:41.359 you cannot come to God today and work it off. You can't come before him and say, 00:18:41.359 --> 00:18:48.720 if you'll hire me, Lord, maybe I can repay my debt. You can't come and do that. And instead, 00:18:48.720 --> 00:18:55.039 you never earn your status as a son or daughter. It is something never accomplished, only received. 00:18:55.839 --> 00:19:02.799 It's a gift. And you need to know today, perhaps that no matter what the world says about you, 00:19:02.799 --> 00:19:12.799 no matter what you say about you, God, the Father of mercy says, you are my son, you are my daughter 00:19:12.799 --> 00:19:19.359 when you come home and he will put his ring around your finger and he will throw a feast for you. 00:19:21.919 --> 00:19:25.680 Let me ask you, if you are a prodigal son or daughter today, 00:19:25.680 --> 00:19:33.200 do you think that God the Father sent his only begotten Son to die on the cross for you in order 00:19:33.200 --> 00:19:41.440 that for the rest of your life he could look at you with a frowny face? No, he, look, he's God the 00:19:41.440 --> 00:19:49.519 Father who sent his only begotten Son to bring you home. He smiles when he looks at you. Now, 00:19:49.519 --> 00:19:56.559 that's Act 1. Every prodigal is welcome to come home to the Lord today. But the point of the 00:19:56.559 --> 00:20:03.519 parable briefly is Act 2. And in Act 2, the main audience is the Pharisees, the religious, the moralist, 00:20:03.519 --> 00:20:08.240 the good people in this room who have been good their whole lives and decent people and look down 00:20:08.240 --> 00:20:13.440 on the bad people. And that's the main point. And you know, these guys that were listening to this 00:20:13.440 --> 00:20:18.240 would not have been moved to, by the grace of the Lord, no, they would have been mad. 00:20:18.240 --> 00:20:25.759 They would have been mad, firing hot, angry at hearing how this dad welcomed this boy home. 00:20:26.720 --> 00:20:33.279 And the story would have ended so well at verse 22. It would have been great to stop right there, 00:20:33.279 --> 00:20:38.480 but that's not where Jesus stops. And so very quickly, the scandal of the older brother, 00:20:39.359 --> 00:20:45.839 in verse 28, he calls his father out of the feast because he's so enraged, very public 00:20:45.839 --> 00:20:50.159 embarrassment in the first century during the festival seasons to call the patriarch of the 00:20:50.159 --> 00:20:55.279 family out of the festival because of anger within the family. It's an honor and shame culture. 00:20:55.919 --> 00:21:01.039 And that's a big deal. And so that's what happens. And then when he's asked, why are you so angry, 00:21:01.039 --> 00:21:08.959 my son? He's angry because he knows that he's going to lose 22% more property on this day. 00:21:08.960 --> 00:21:17.519 Why? Because the younger son has already taken a third of the stuff and spent it. And now he's 00:21:17.519 --> 00:21:24.400 been welcomed back and he's going to get another third. And if you do the math, that's actually 00:21:24.400 --> 00:21:34.400 22% loss. I had to have help on that. He's upset about that. And the first thing we learned about 00:21:34.400 --> 00:21:38.160 this elder brother, the moralist, the religious, the good person who's always been there and 00:21:38.160 --> 00:21:44.640 always been faithful to dad is that he actually only cares about the benefits of being a son of 00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:50.080 the father, not the relationship. He doesn't care at all about the relationship. He's mad 00:21:50.080 --> 00:21:55.360 because he is about to lose more stuff. In verse 28, his dad says, hey, come to the feast. 00:21:56.160 --> 00:22:04.080 It says in fact, his dad entreats him. The father begs him, come son, I want you here too to the 00:22:04.079 --> 00:22:10.480 feast. And you learn all the more because he responds. He says, well, this son of yours, 00:22:10.480 --> 00:22:14.879 look at what he's done. He won't call his dad father and he won't call his brother brother. 00:22:15.679 --> 00:22:20.240 And so you see all the more he could care less about the relationships. He doesn't care about 00:22:20.240 --> 00:22:24.960 that at all. Instead, in verse 29, we learned that what he thinks about himself. He says, 00:22:24.960 --> 00:22:31.839 I've been serving you for years and I've never gotten a party like this. He says, in other words, 00:22:31.839 --> 00:22:36.399 he believes that his relationship with his dad, his father is entirely transactional. 00:22:37.359 --> 00:22:44.879 So he means I'm a respectable, morally upright citizen of this household. I have rights. I 00:22:44.879 --> 00:22:50.319 should be getting what I deserve, what I'm owed. And yet here you are today giving away more of my 00:22:50.319 --> 00:22:56.720 property, the fattened calf to this son of yours. And what he's saying is that I have achieved 00:22:56.720 --> 00:23:02.319 my status before you. And so I want my rights. I want what I deserve. I want you to give what's 00:23:02.319 --> 00:23:09.519 coming to me. And then finally in verse 30, we learn all the more that he wants benefits, 00:23:10.160 --> 00:23:16.319 not the father. Now, who is the elder brother? The elder brother is anybody today who deep down 00:23:16.319 --> 00:23:22.960 in your soul. Maybe this is your has been you. You say, we're all prodigals in some way. 00:23:22.960 --> 00:23:30.240 In some way. Maybe you say, I'm a good person, you know, I'm sure I've made mistakes. 00:23:30.240 --> 00:23:36.160 Haven't we all made mistakes, right? But I'm decent. I'm religiously committed. I'm respectable. 00:23:36.799 --> 00:23:39.920 I do the right thing most of the time and I am not like them. 00:23:41.840 --> 00:23:47.200 And Jesus is saying, I've got you where I want you. That is exactly the elder brother at the deep 00:23:47.200 --> 00:23:52.559 parts of the soul. And what we learn here is that you can be prodigal by your outward behavior. 00:23:52.559 --> 00:23:58.000 You can be publicly prodigal. You can be a public center. And you can be just as prodigal 00:23:58.720 --> 00:24:04.160 invisibly by your inward behavior. And what we learn here is that you can be alienated from God 00:24:04.160 --> 00:24:10.880 by your very visible sins. And you can be just as alienated from God by your goodness. By hiding 00:24:10.880 --> 00:24:18.160 from the Father, from God himself, by being a good person. And there's a wonderful little novel 00:24:18.160 --> 00:24:23.440 by Flannery O'Connor, one of the great writers of the 20th century. She wrote a book called Wise Blood. 00:24:24.560 --> 00:24:28.480 And the main character in Wise Blood is a guy named Hazel Notes. And he's just, 00:24:28.480 --> 00:24:35.840 she describes him like this. She says, there was a deep black, wordless conviction in Hazel 00:24:35.839 --> 00:24:46.639 that the way to always avoid Jesus was just to avoid sin. Hazel knew, I can avoid ever being told, 00:24:46.639 --> 00:24:53.279 I need Jesus if I just hide in my goodness, in my moralism, in my respectability, in my religion. 00:24:54.480 --> 00:25:00.799 And one writer puts it like this, a person can easily avoid the Savior by being good. 00:25:00.799 --> 00:25:06.000 This is called Salvation by Morality. If like the elder brother, you believe that God ought to help 00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:10.639 you and bless you because you have worked so hard to obey him and be a good person throughout your 00:25:10.639 --> 00:25:16.639 life, Jesus may be your helper, he may be your inspiration, he may be your example, but he is 00:25:16.639 --> 00:25:23.519 not your Savior. And at the very end of the parable, we say, okay, how does this thing end? And there 00:25:23.519 --> 00:25:29.759 is no ending. It just stops, if you notice. And I think the reason for that is because Jesus is 00:25:29.759 --> 00:25:36.160 talking to the religious moralists right in front of them, and he's leaving it open. He's asking them, 00:25:36.160 --> 00:25:42.160 will you come to the feast? And whether you're a prodigal son or daughter on the outside or a 00:25:42.160 --> 00:25:48.000 prodigal son or daughter today on the inside, every single one of us here, my friends, Jesus 00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:54.960 is leaving the ending open just to say, will you come home to the feast and be lavished by the Father? 00:25:54.960 --> 00:26:02.400 Let's close with this, the whole story of grace, just a couple minutes. We learn here that the 00:26:02.400 --> 00:26:09.440 condition for coming home is just simply saying, I'm unworthy, I'm a sinner, I need to be rescued. 00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:16.400 But there's also one more thing here, and that's this, some theologians, some biblical commentators 00:26:16.400 --> 00:26:21.519 over the past couple centuries have come to the prodigal son story and said, oh, what do we learn 00:26:21.519 --> 00:26:28.720 here? We learn that God will forgive you, and there's no need for this talk about the cross. 00:26:29.680 --> 00:26:34.000 You know, there's no need for crucifixion, there's no need for substitutionary atonement, there's no 00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:38.240 need for justice to be served in the death of the Son of God, nothing like that. You see, the 00:26:38.240 --> 00:26:42.240 prodigal son is the ultimate pinnacle of God's grace, and what does it say? It just simply says, 00:26:42.240 --> 00:26:48.559 just come home, and God will lavish you with forgiveness and feasting. There's no need to 00:26:48.559 --> 00:26:54.639 talk about the cross of Christ, and what I want to say today is we learn here that you come home 00:26:54.639 --> 00:27:00.720 by saying, I'm unworthy, I've run from God, I've told God I hate you even, and you just say, I just 00:27:00.720 --> 00:27:07.039 want to come home, but then what else? And the second thing is it's implicit in the parable. 00:27:07.679 --> 00:27:13.440 The myths by those theologians, by those biblical commentators is not reading through the parable, 00:27:13.440 --> 00:27:20.320 all the way in, and just think about it, it only takes a moment to figure it out. Remember 00:27:20.320 --> 00:27:26.559 verse 1 and 2 of Luke 15, he spoke to the Pharisees as the tax collectors and sinners 00:27:26.559 --> 00:27:33.279 gathered near to him, and what did he say? Who among you, Pharisees, religious moralists, 00:27:33.279 --> 00:27:39.920 prodigals and art, who among you, if you lost one of your sheep, would not run into the far 00:27:39.920 --> 00:27:48.720 country and bring him home again? And then he said, who among you, audience, if you lost one coin, 00:27:48.720 --> 00:27:54.560 would not flip your house upside down to find the one coin you had lost? But he doesn't say it a 00:27:54.560 --> 00:27:59.120 third time in the third parable, instead it's implicit. You see, he's saying in the third 00:27:59.120 --> 00:28:06.480 parable, now as I say this, he's saying, who among you would not go and do what? If your little 00:28:06.480 --> 00:28:13.200 brother squandered his father's wealth, ran into the far country and was completely lost, 00:28:13.920 --> 00:28:20.079 who among you elder brothers would not go into the far country and bring your brother home? 00:28:21.599 --> 00:28:27.039 That's the question that's implicit in the parable. What should, in other words, let's say it like 00:28:27.039 --> 00:28:33.680 this, what should a true and better elder brother have done in this story? You know, if you had a 00:28:33.680 --> 00:28:38.720 real elder brother, a true elder brother, one who loved you to the bottom, what would he have done? 00:28:38.720 --> 00:28:45.920 He would have said, Father, stay here. I'm going to go into the far country and get my brother out 00:28:45.920 --> 00:28:52.720 of that pig's tie and bring him home. And if that costs me my life, so be it, because I love my 00:28:52.720 --> 00:28:58.720 brother and I'm going to bring him home. Look, you see what Jesus is saying, to come home, you just 00:28:58.720 --> 00:29:04.000 say I'm unworthy, but to come home, you need a better elder brother than the one we read about 00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:12.160 here. You need a true elder brother, one who would leave his father's home above, so free, so infinite 00:29:12.160 --> 00:29:19.279 that grace, and give himself, give away everything but his love for Adam's helpless race. You need 00:29:19.279 --> 00:29:24.160 an elder brother that would run to the far country to bring his brothers and sisters home again. 00:29:24.160 --> 00:29:31.600 And in Jesus Christ, Hebrews 11, 2 says to you that Jesus was not and is not ashamed to call you 00:29:31.600 --> 00:29:41.200 today, brother and sister. In Jesus Christ, you've got a better elder brother. Jesus wants to feast 00:29:41.200 --> 00:29:50.160 with you. Will you come home with him today? Let us pray. Father, we thank you for the parables and 00:29:50.160 --> 00:29:58.400 we ask, Lord, that we would come home, help us, bring us home, Lord. We thank you, Jesus, that you 00:29:59.440 --> 00:30:06.960 are the brother who went to the far country. You are the brother who got into the pigsty. You are 00:30:06.960 --> 00:30:14.640 the brother who gave himself totally at the cross to bring brothers and sisters home. And so I just 00:30:14.640 --> 00:30:20.320 pray today for the prodigal sons and daughters in this room. There are folks here today, Lord, you 00:30:20.320 --> 00:30:25.520 know their hearts. I've heard some of their stories, Lord. You know us all that there is shame in our 00:30:25.520 --> 00:30:34.240 lives, secret sins, misdeeds dark, public sin, whatever it may be. And we, maybe there's somebody 00:30:34.240 --> 00:30:40.240 today that just wants to come home and be lavished in mercy. And so I just pray for that person and 00:30:40.240 --> 00:30:48.160 ask, Lord, that you would bring them home today. They would come to you, unworthy, but ready to 00:30:48.160 --> 00:30:55.359 receive the gift of sonship and daughtership. Lord, I pray for prodigal centers on the inside, 00:30:56.240 --> 00:31:01.759 us that are elder brothers and elder sisters that struggle with just being better than everybody 00:31:01.759 --> 00:31:06.319 and being more or less, Lord. We are so prone to religion in your religion, either direction. 00:31:06.319 --> 00:31:14.399 So we just ask, Lord, for all of us that we would experience the feast today, the feast of mercy, 00:31:14.399 --> 00:31:20.799 the feast of grace, all of us prodigal, all of us unworthy. So I just ask, Father, touch somebody's 00:31:20.799 --> 00:31:37.279 heart, bring them home today, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.