03 - Lost The Prodigal Son 2012

Luke 15:11-18

This is a story of three men—a father and his two sons.

Now, in this parable of Jesus the father represents God, and the sons represent God’s children.

The primary focus is on the youngest son who decides he no longer wants to live in his father’s house.

In the story, Jesus calls him “lost.”

He wasn’t geographically lost because he knew exactly where he was going once he left.

He was lost in the worst kind of way—spiritually lost;

He left his Father’s house and for this reason Jesus called him “lost.”

The Greek word for lost actually means to be destroyed, to be ruined.

He went from a place of plenty to a place of ruin—lost.

This younger son represents the child of God who decides that living in obedience to the Heavenly Father, doing His will, and abiding by His rules is no longer desirable.

Now, perhaps through some older hired hands around the house, this younger son heard of what Jesus calls the “Far Country.”

In this young man’s mind the Far Country become a magical, exciting place that he begins feeling more and more deprived of with every passing day.

He begins to believe that he’s missing out being in the Father’s house, that life is passing him by, that those in the Far Country are really living it up and having all the fun.

Now, the Far Country in this story represents the world with all of its temptations, attractions, glitz, and glamor.

I believe Jesus called it the “Far Country” because once you go there you are FAR AWAY from good decision-making, from safety, from sanity, and from the Father.

We see in Scripture how Satan is very effective in presenting the Far Country to God’s children in an attractive way, for he even tried it with Jesus.

The Bible says that during Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness:

“The Devil took him to the peak of a huge mountain. He gestured expansively, pointing out all the earth’s kingdoms, how glorious they all were; he showed Jesus the glamor, splendor, magnificence, preeminence, and excellence of what the world had to offer.”

But there was only one major stipulation.

Then Satan said, “They’re yours—lock, stock, and barrel. Just get down on your knees and worship me, and they’re yours.”

—In order to bite the bait, Jesus must bow down and worship Satan. He must vow allegiance to him in order to take what he offered.

And when a child of God decides to leave the Father’s house for the Far Country, he too must switch allegiances from the Father to all that Satan stands for.

This is why James warned, “Do you not know that to love the sinful things of the world and to be a friend to them is to be against God? Yes, I say it again, if you are a friend of the world, you are against God.”

Of course, Jesus rebuked the devil saying, “You shall worship God only, and shall only serve Him.

But the younger son didn’t take a stand against the world’s pull.

He swallowed the bait.

He could stand it no longer. He must leave. He must strike out on his own for the Far Country.

He approached his father and demanded to have his inheritance early.

Haste and impatience now gripped him—which is typical of the flesh.

The flesh can’t wait, the flesh demands fulfillment, the flesh will not embrace the concept of delayed gratification; it wants what it wants when it wants it.

He didn’t know it, but when he walked away from the father’s house, he also walked away from the Father’s wisdom, protection, and Presence, and walked straight into the arms of a waiting devil.

Now, let’s point out a few things about this young man Jesus called the Prodigal Son:

His drift from the Father happened in subtle stages over time.

No one falls overnight.

No one walks away from God in a day.

It is always a slow drift, like a raft one gets into a few yards from the ocean shore. You lay down for a few minutes only to discover when you look back up that you are way too far from the shore.

You have drifted where the sharks are and where the water can drown you, and you were hardly aware of it.

So it is when we drift from God!

This young man’s drift began with:

Entertaining the wrong thoughts

As I just mentioned, he had no doubt heard from others about the Far Country—the fun of it, the wine, women, and song, the parties, the fast life, the excitement and adventure.

And the more he heard of it the less content he was with the Father’s house.

“You’re missing out”, that little voice said.

“You’re a fool if you stick around here.”

“Everyone else is having all the fun while you sit rotting away in the Father’s house.”

The thoughts became a worm turning in his mind, sowing the seeds of discontent.

Paul the Apostle warned of the need to take control of certain kinds of thoughts.

“Whatever things are true, honest…” Phil. 4:8

You see, Satan creates discontent in us by convincing us that the grass is greener on the other side—the grass would be greener with another person, or another job, or another lifestyle….

Whatever he’s got to do to stir up discontent within you, he will work it until you decide you’ve got to get out, got to make a change.

Now, change is great if God is the one bringing the change;

But if the discontent begins to carry you away from the Father, you can bet it’s a thought you need to take captive.

The next stage in the prodigal’s drift away was in:

His attitude toward his father, who again represents God in the story.

I hear something in the two words the prodigal used when he approached his father.

He said, “GIVE ME.”

He didn’t say, “Please give to me…” Or, “May I please have…”

His attitude was, “You owe me.”

Give me MY inheritance. “Give me my share of the property that is coming to me…”

He’s all about “I, me, my, and mine.”

This younger son had developed an entitlement mentality; it was the attitude of a spoiled brat.

He had no concept that everything he was getting came from the Father and not himself.

His attitude was, “Give me what I want and give it to me now!”

We hear no affection in his voice, no gratefulness…

There is an arrogance, a disrespect in those demanding words, “Give me!”

FACT: I have noticed an attitude in people who leave the Father’s house and strike out for the Far Country.

Their attitude is, “I deserve this. I’ve labored for years under the Father’s rules, requirements, and expectations.”

“It’s my right,” they say, “to get what’s coming to me and take a break from all this.”

It happens to young people all the time when they leave home and church for college.

They walk away from what they have been taught and wind up wounded and bleeding in the Far Country.

The Prodigal Son’s drift away began with entertaining the wrong thoughts, then developing a wrong attitude toward the Father.

And I submit to you that, by this point, he was already lost IN the Father’s house before he was ever lost in the Far Country.

He had already moved away in his heart, in his attitude, and in his affections.

The Prodigal Son was already wandering about, lost in the woods of stinking thinking and dire desires.

And our churches are full of Prodigals who are lost “IN” the house.

They attend religious services, but as Jesus said, “Their hearts are far from me.”

Jesus warned that this kind of spiritual lost-ness is the worst lost-ness of all.

Luke 11:34 “Your eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye (your conscience) is sound and fulfilling its office, your whole body is full of light; but when it is not sound and is not fulfilling its office, your body is full of darkness.”

Next, the son drifted even further by:

Taking a fateful step.

He decided to leave.

He was already gone, might as well make it official.

His thoughts had become an attitude, and his attitude became an action…

He traded the house, his father, all the safety and the security for the Far Country.

So his drift from the father began with wrong thoughts, then with a wrong attitude, and finally a wrong step.

Now, what did he encounter on reaching the Far Country?

First he encountered what had really been in him all along.

He quickly descended into a wild, depraved lifestyle, which only revealed what was already in his heart.

The Far Country was everything his carnal flesh had hoped for!

There was endless wine, willing women, and wild living.

The Prodigal Son partied on day and night.

Surely he thought to himself, “I should have done this long ago!”

His father became a distant memory, the old house faded from his thoughts.

But there is pleasure in sin only for a season, then comes payday.

The Prodigal Son soon discovered that the Far Country was an illusion.

What it promised was a lie.

The Bible says that sin is “deceitful” and warns us lest, “any of you become deceived by sin and hardened against God.”

Like dominoes, the consequences fell…

First, his money ran out.

When the money ran out so did his FAR COUNTRY FRIENDS.

Cold reality began to set in like a harsh slap in the face.

The thrill was gone, the party was over.

Next, the Far Country experienced a great famine.

FACT: The Far Country, the World, always promises what it can’t deliver and always begins with fun and ends in famine.

Desperation set in.

Lost in the Far Country, broke, hungry, lonely, and destitute, his drift from the Father now hit rock bottom.

He was forced to take a humiliating job feeding pigs and was so hungry that he began to eat the pig food.

FACT: The final stage in any drift from God is what you wind up eating.

See the man whose drift from God has descended into waking up daily only to seek out the next drink.

See the woman whose drift from God has brought her to living only for her next fix—be it a drug or another empty relationship.

See the young person whose drift from God has left them wandering the streets doing degrading things just to survive, lost…

I want to close with what is the greatest moment in this story.

It says that one great day, “…he came to himself…”

Literally, he returned to sanity.

He saw the Far Country for what it really was—a delusion and a lie.

Thoughts of the Father flooded his memory.

Flashes of the Father’s house—the joy of it, the happiness he had known, the provision he had enjoyed—jumped into the theater of his mind.

He looked around and compared where he was to where he’d been.

Next, he made a great decision:

He said, “I will arise and go to my father…”

You know the rest of the story—the Father received him, forgave him, and restored him.

PRAYER:

Are you in a slow drift?

Have you awakened to find yourself in the Far Country?

Are you being lured to leave the Father’s house to pursue the Far Country?