The Prodigal

Luke 15:11-32

The Prodigal Son is one of those stories in the Bible that everyone kind of knows.

There’s a son who kind of sucks who takes advantage of his dad.

There’s a son who kind of sucks that is bitter and angry

There’s a Father who really loves His children.

That’s the basics of the story, but there’s so much more to it than just the stuff that we hear in Sunday school!

So, I want to talk about the story of the Prodigal Son together, and to get started we need to really understand the two brothers.

So, what we’re going to do is we’re going to picture them as us. We’re going to put ourselves in the story, because Jesus wanted us to view these characters in that light.

Picture

The Younger Son.

You’re tired of living at home. Your older brother is an arrogant jerk, and you’re tired of the constant hard work. Your dad is pretty well off, why should you need to work?

So, when you turn 18, you tell your dad at the party that you want out. You want to collect what you would have made from your inheritance, and you want nothing to do with this family.

Essentially, “It’s taking you too long to die and I need to get on with my life”

Everyone at the party is blown away when your dad tells you that he’ll make it happen, and the next day after the party, he calls his lawyer and get’s the paperwork set.

You leave seconds after the check hits your hands.

It’s a pretty good amount of money, enough for quite a few parties that you’d actually want to be at.

So, you leave the house, and head to wherever it is that you can find the most booze, romance, friends, and pleasure that you can find.

You’ve got a high-rise apartment (complete with a doorman that knows your name), all the friends that money can buy, and anything and everything that causes you pleasure (drugs, booze, companionship, PS5)

And you sometimes think about your family, but it’s only when you’re coming up for air on a bender.

Until the money stops.

You didn’t notice that the bank account was dropping a little low. Some of your stocks took a tumble, you’ve got nothing left.

Suddenly that apartment is gone, your friends that you bought have dipped, and you don’t have much left to live for.

So, you find yourself back on a farm, again, only this time it’s anything you can do to not eat the slop that you’re giving the pigs because you’re so hungry.

So, you come up with a great idea

You know that your dad’s workers make way more than this. He’d never take you back as a son, but he might let you work just to survive on the farm.

So, you load up all of your possessions in the few meager pockets you have and you hitchhike back home.

You’ve got the script memorized by the time you get near the driveway.

“Dad, no, Sir, I screwed up, I know that I can’t be your son, but I really need a job and I hope I can be a day-laborer for you”

And as you past by the mailbox that you walked past a year ago and thought you’d never see again, you see someone sprinting toward you.

Your Father’s been running, he’s still got his robe on, his coffee cup is broken from where he dropped it when He saw you come through.

You start the script, “Sir, I…” But before you get another word out He’s hugging you so tight that you’re not sure if He’s actually trying to kill you.

While you’re still suffocating, He’s calling to everyone around, “He’s back, he’s back!” “Get out the good steaks, get him some clothes and put him in the shower, he smells like a pig!”

He takes off the ring that you always saw on His right hand and slips it on to your ring finger, letting you go in the process.

And while you’re still trying to breathe from the most intense bear hug in your life, you look up at your dad’s eyes and he smiles at you and says, “I’ve been waiting for you”

The Older Brother

You’re dad is an idiot. You just found out that your stupid brother just got back from his year long drug fest and instead of throttling him, your dad put a ring on his finger, gave him some new clothes, and is throwing a party for him. (As if he hasn’t been to enough parties!)

You just got back from another backbreaking day on the farm. You’re always just getting back from a backbreaking day at the farm.

You do that thing that you do where you start muttering to yourself.

It’s all about how you work harder than any of the hired help because you’re your dad’s kid. You haven’t even had time for a party, but you’d like your dad to at least care about you enough to try to make it happen.

How can he love this other kid so much when you’ve done so much more for your dad, and He just won’t see it!

Eventually, your dad comes out to the barn where you’ve been fuming after yelling at one of the workers and asks you to come in, and you finally do it. You finally snap after all those years of feeling like the only one who would show up, but the one who didn’t matter.

You didn’t mean to raise your voice, it started at a normal volume, but as you finished the last, “what did he do that I didn’t!” you realize that there’s tears on your face and you’re hoarse from yelling.

What you didn’t realize is that your dad is holding you, crying.

He tells you that He’s always loved you, and through a tear-stained smile He tells you that He’s just so happy that both His boys are finally home and they can be a family together.

You see, there’s a lot more to this story than what Sunday school teaches you.

Now, what is the problem with both of the brothers?

What are they both missing?

Both Brothers Didn’t Really Know the Father

Younger

The younger brother didn’t know much about his dad at all!

He didn’t love Him hardly at all in the beginning

He was willing to give up any relationship with his dad just for some cash.

Then, he didn’t know how much his dad loved him.

He seemed to think that his dad probably felt similarly about him.

“There’s no way that He could love me after everything that I’ve done!”

“Maybe He’ll let me have a job just so I can’t starve.”

What he didn’t realize was that his Father had been looking out every day waiting for His son to come home.

The younger son didn’t have to walk very far before his dad came running because his dad had been waiting for him to come back!

The younger son couldn’t expect the forgiveness of his Father because he had no idea how much he was truly loved by his Father.

Older

Then let’s talk about the older son!

The older son had a terrible view of his Father!

He told his dad that he’d been slaving away and that he’d never done anything wrong and that his dad wouldn’t even let him have a feast with his friends.

He feels unseen and unheard, and then is angry because his dad is celebrating over his screw up brother.

What he doesn’t realize is how much the Father loves this son too.

The Father tells the older son that everything that He owns is his, that he’s always been with him.

The son thought that he was just one of his Father’s best workers, but the Father knew that he was His son, friend, and partner.

He also doesn’t realize how forgiving his Father is.

The older son clearly wants the younger son thrown out, tossed to the wayside, he can starve, but the Father clearly shows something different.

The older son wants his version of justice, while the Father wants His family.

And what about you?

Clearly these characters aren’t just for fun, they’re types of people, so who are you?

The Younger Son?

Maybe you’ve chased after being happy for so long that you don’t know what it feels like to have true joy.

Maybe we’ve filled our lives with things just to make us feel like we’re worth something.

Or, maybe you haven’t thought about any of this until this camp, and you’re realizing that there is a hole inside of you that you can’t quite fill.

You thought you could ignore it, but it’s still there.

Or maybe, you feel like the son did, sitting there looking at slop.

Maybe you feel worthless, not-valuable, a piece of trash made into humanity

God is chasing after you.

He’s been there from the beginning! There hasn’t been a day when He wasn’t waiting for you to come, because He wants to be with you!

He’s the perfect Father that has been waiting for His child to come home.

Jesus is inviting you into a relationship with Him that is beyond anything that you thought possible!

You don’t have to eat pig slop anymore! You are worth so much more than that!

Come and give your life to Jesus and let Him change your life.

He’s always been there, and now you can come to Him!

The Older Son?

Or maybe you feel like the older son.

You have put in work to be with God.

You show up at youth group and on Sunday

You do your Bible reading

You don’t sleep around.

You do everything that you’ve been told to do in order to be a good Christian.

But you don’t have a real relationship with Him, you have a contract

I do what you tell me to and you keep me a Christian!

And when there’s people coming through that are worse than you that seem to have such a close relationship with Him, you burn up inside

“I did the stuff, they didn’t, why do they get to be with you!

There’s so much more to the Christian life than this!

You are invited into a real relationship with a God who loves you! You can truly spend time with Jesus in the realest sense of the word!

You can be brought into salvation and joy and love and peace and everything promised by God, but it means putting aside working hard and instead letting God work in you.

There’s a quote from Leif Peterson. He was giving a speech about his dad who was a famous pastor, and he called him a fraud.

He said that he only really preached one sermon, and that every other sermon was the same sermon said differently.

In the speech, he said a poem that encapsulated that sermon, and it’s this

God loves you. He’s on your side. He’s coming after you. He’s relentless.

Gospel Presentation.