Luke 15: 11-32
It’s important to remember this chapter's main idea: God rejoices when we repent.
The context Jesus is speaking in is conflict. There are two groups of people:
- The obviously lost (the sinners and tax collectors)
- and the religiously lost (the Pharisees and exports of the law).
The controversy was this:
The publicans and sinners were considered outcasts. They lived sinful lifestyles, and according to religious people, they were beyond God's salvation.
On the other hand, the Pharisees and scribes were socially pure and religiously educated, but they didn't know God.
The Pharisees, who thought they were on God’s team, looked down on anyone who didn’t meet their standards.
Luke tells us that when the religious leaders saw the tax collectors and sinners gathering around Jesus, they “murmured”.
That is, they expressed their dissatisfaction.
They were dissatisfied because they were disinterested in the fate of lost people.
This is the point of the 3 stories Jesus tells in this chapter: the story of a lost sheep, a lost coin, and finally, a lost son.
In each story, Jesus highlights the joy in heaven when sinners repent. However, the last story is meant to expose the ugliness of religious hypocrisy.
This story has three characters: the younger son, the father, and the older son.
Today, I want to tell the story of all three briefly, but I want to focus on the older son's reaction.
The lost son.
Luk 15:12 And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.
Luk 15:13 And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.
In those days, a father could grant the inheritance before or after his death; however, it was rare to do so before the father's death.
Here, we see the son’s desire to leave and the father’s willingness to let him leave.
In this story, the father is meant to represent God. The father knew what the son would do with his inheritance, but he let him have it anyway.
This is an important lesson for everyone: God will honor your decisions.
Notice the son’s decisions: Vs. 13 “and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.”
The word translated as “wasted” carried the idea of throwing something into the wind.
The point is that he used his money in a way that was like going out into the field and throwing his money into the wind.
Notice the result of his decisions Vs. 14-15 “And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.”
It turns out that using all your money on “riotous living” is not a wise investment strategy.
His choices lead him to disaster, which the father could have prevented.
- He lost all his money,
- And he ended up working with pigs, which to the Jews meant the lowest possible place you could imagine.
- He was so hungry that he thought about eating the pigs food.
Where is the son now? He’s lost.
Sin had taken him further than he wanted to go, and now he was enduring the consequences of his choice.
This highlights another important truth: You are free to choose, but you are not free to choose the consequences of your choice.
The answer: Vs., 17-19 “And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.”
Here, we see a picture of repentance: He doesn’t blame his childhood or say, “If my friends hadn’t led me down the wrong path, I would have been okay.”
This is what repentance looks like, giving an honest account of yourself. Notice the phrase, “And when he came to himself.”
The point here is that he begins to see himself as he was: a sinner in need of a savior.
Salvation is only for those who acknowledge their need for a savior.
He tried living life on his terms and failed. This is when he “comes to himself” and goes to the father.
The same will be true of you; you will go to the Father when you come to yourself.
How will the father react? Vs. 20-21, “And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.”
Remember, I said that this parable is meant to expose the ugliness of religious hypocrisy. Here, we see the opposite: the father runs to the son while he is still far off.
This shows that we can describe the father not only as a loving father but also as a watching and waiting father.
The father sees his son and runs to meet him. But he doesn’t just welcome him back as a slave; he restores him to the family.
We see this when he says: Vs. 22, “And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”
The son wasn’t just back home; he was back from death, vs. 24, “For this, my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost, and his found.”
The son was dead not because his father disowned him. The son was dead because he walked away from life.
The way of life starts with you coming to yourself and then running to the father. The result is joy.
This story emphasizes the joy in heaven when sinners repent and highlight the contrast between the Pharisees' hypocrisy and God's unconditional love for those who acknowledge their sins and seek forgiveness.
The son is not the hero of this story. The father is.
However, the story doesn’t end with the reunion of the lost son with the father.
The older son,
We’re told that the father throws a big party for his son, who was lost but is now found. He tells his servants to kill the fatted calf, reserved for solemn occasions.
When the older son comes home from working in the field, he is angry instead of rejoicing with his father because his brother is now home.
When you read the story, the striking thing is that the older brother doesn’t even bother going to the party; he stands outside angry.
We can see 2 things about this son:
- He had inaccurate self-understanding. Vs. 29
- He didn’t see the joy of obedience. vs. 29
An inaccurate self-assessment
Vs. 29, And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends:
The idea he didn’t transgress one time is laughable. This exposes the self-righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.
Most parables have one main point; the first two in this chapter, the stories of the lost sheep and the lost coin, are meant to highlight how God rejoices when we repent.
This parable is meant to draw attention to the hypocrisy and self-righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees. The whole story was told to make this point to religiously lost people:
Your problem is not your actions; it’s your heart.
This is exposed when the elder son says, Vs. 29, “These years do I serve thee.”
The word “serve” expresses the idea he worked like a slave. The word “serve” is a Greek word meaning slave.
In other words, he didn’t see himself as a son; he saw himself as a slave.
He didn’t stay because he loved his father; he stayed because he didn’t have the guts to go with his brother.
This proves that he didn’t understand the joy of obedience; he saw it as drudgery.
Psalms 119:2 Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.
This word, translated as “blessed,” means to be happy or to experience joy. The point here is that when we obey, we will have joy.
1 John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.
The word rendered “grievous” meant to carry a heavy burden. John is telling us that the transformed heart doesn’t see obedience as a burden.
While the father celebrates the return, the older son is consumed by jealousy and anger and refuses to join the festivities.
This characterizes the older son's lack of understanding of the joy of obedience and reveals his skewed perception of serving as a burden rather than a source of happiness.
Through this story, Jesus addresses the Pharisees and experts of the law, highlighting the importance of genuine obedience rooted in love rather than viewing it as a form of slavery or a way of acting superior to others.
Our takeaway.
Which son represents your life? Are you the younger son who repents those who are obviously lost?
Have you strayed from God openly and outwardly, Jesus telling you today to come back?
Or, is your life represented in the story of the older son, who represents the religiously lost?
Do you have an inaccurate assessment of yourself and see service to God as slavery? The answer is to come to yourself so that you can run to the father.