Prodigal Son Part 1

Luke 15:11-19

As we come to Easter time, we celebrate Easter for what actually happened on that day. Jesus defeated sin and death once and for all, he resurrected, stepped out of the tomb and ascended to the Father where He is now our High Priest. God now offers salvation freely to anyone who would repent of their sins and believe in the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

So not only do we celebrate what Jesus did, when a person is saved, all of heaven celebrates and gives God all the glory and honor for who is and what He has done.  

So, this morning, I’d like to point our attention to a parable of Jesus that talks about a sinner coming to repentance and the joy of God being revealed when a sinner comes home. It’s one of the most admired parables of all time.

In fact, many famous story writers like Charles dickens called this parable the greatest short story ever written. It’s the longest parable recorded in the Bible, and it dominates the 15th chapter of Luke.

Slide: You might know it as the Parable of the Prodigal son in Luke 15:11.

We already went through the Lost Sheep and Lost coin, emphasizing what brings God joy and that is one lost sinner coming to repentance and faith. And if we remember the context, the Jewish leaders are disgusted with Jesus seeing him eat with tax collectors and prostitutes and evil sinners. So, he tells them 3 stories which are all connected. First two short parables then come the big lesson. Jesus elaborates creating the most richly detailed, powerfully dramatic and intensely personal parable we have recorded.

Why is this parable so popular and loved among all of Jesus parables? Because it pulls at our emotions, and we recognize ourselves in the parable. We all once were prodigals.

Read Luke 15:11-19

There are three main characters in this parable. The father is representing God. The younger son, which represents a person turning to God. And the elder son, a pharisee or self-righteous person. Today we are going to focus on the younger son.

12a – The audience of Jesus would have been shocked.

- Outrageous and unheard-of request. Disrespectful, extreme lack of love.

o Didn’t get the inheritance until the father was dead.

- Father, I wish you were dead, you mean nothing to me.

- This younger son wanted to live a life for himself and gratify his own selfish desires and his father stood in the way of his plans.

- Spiritually – many want the material world; they want to live selfishly and indulge in their sinful desires, and God gets in the way of that. – sinful nature.

- Why many either stay away from God or explore Christianity but then fall away. (The third soil)

- The pharisees listening thought they knew what was coming next. A slap in the face and possibly disinheriting the son, driving him away as if the son were dead to the family.

12b – But in a shocking turn of events, the father grants the son’s request.

- Jesus is making a spiritual point that God gives sinners the freedom to choose the course of their life.

Romans 1:18-32

- Tells us man has no excuse; they know deep down God exists. But they won’t glorify Him, they would rather worship the creation rather than the Creator. Therefore, God gave them over, to their depraved darkened mind. He lets them do it.

- If people choose to live a life of sin, God allows sin to take its deadly toll on them.

13 – sin takes no time in taking its victim into a downward plunge. Hardly wasting any time, the son turned everything into cash and fled to a distant country.

- Why? The son wanted to sin beyond the range of all accountability, away from the father, the family and village people who would now see the son as a disgrace.

- This signifies the sinner trying to flee from God because they do not want to be held accountable or answer to a Sovereign and Holy God, their Creator.

- That’s really the root of all sin and not choosing to submit their life to Christ. They want to live the way they want to live without consequences. They foolishly try to avoid God but we know that cannot happen. He’s always watching.

Proverbs 15:3 The eyes of Yahweh are in every place, Watching the evil and the good.

13 – squandered – wasted. Recklessly – prodigally, wasteful.

- He scattered his wealth living a reckless and wasteful lifestyle, giving his money to prostitutes as we see in v30 of the parable.

- Spiritually, this is sinner who has not come to Christ for salvation who waste their earthly life, living recklessly, not living for God’s glory, bc they choose not to.

14 – two things happen.

- He spent all he had. Because that’s what sin does, it seems great and pleasurable at first, but it sucks the life out of those who indulge in it.

o The sin that promised joy and life, had led me to the grave.

- Second was something out of his control. A severe famine occurred.

- Famines were very common in the ancient world and often had horrible consequences.

- The younger son then began to be impoverished. – literally means to be in need or to fall short of.

- All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. – Romans 3:23

15 – 16

- Hired himself - unite or glue yourself to

- The son probably grabbed a man and wouldn’t let go. So, to get rid of him, he told the son to go feed his pigs most likely not intending to pay him anything. v16.

- It got so bad that the begging wasn’t even working, he received nothing from nobody, so his last resort was to fight the pigs for the pods they were eating. These carob pods were not sustainable for human consumption.

- Very poor people in times of famine or great poverty would resort to eating these carob pods because they were very abundant and at a low cost. That’s why they mainly use them for feeding animals, especially swine.

So far in the parable, Jesus is describing an individual who represents all of us at one point. Some of you may still even be at this point that the younger son is in.

- What this parable is NOT describing is a Christian falling away then coming back. It’s NOT describing losing your salvation and gaining it back.

- Jesus is describing a person who is without the father, without Christ and is completely and utterly spiritually bankrupt. A person so impoverished, so lacking, so miserable, eating trash like the younger son in the parable.

- It all symbolizes our sin nature and what it does. It drives us away from God.

- Even if people have luxury, wealth, status, power in this world, if they don’t have Christ, they are poor, miserable, blind, naked and without wisdom.

- This is true for every single person to ever live before coming and submitting their life to God. Repenting and trusting in Jesus. Let me prove it to you.

Slide: Revelation 3:17-19

- Jesus talking to the church in Laodicea, but most of them do not have Christ, they have not repented and trusted Christ. Laodicea at that time was booming with wealth and power. A very wealthy town.

This is the point Jesus is making: Although you think you may have everything the world has to offer, without Christ, you are nothing more than a prodigal son, naked, blind, wretched, eating scraps, spiritually bankrupt, having nothing.

Matthew 25:29 but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.

- Even if we have material possessions, those won’t save anyone, they will be stripped away in the end.

The sad part is, many people are still the prodigal son, hiding from God, living recklessly, throwing away their life, being wasteful and in need, most without even knowing it. Many will never return to the father, and on that day, Jesus says, many will call Him Lord, Lord, I did all these in your name, but He will tell them depart from me, I never knew you. Many people will show up in the presence of Christ still in the state of the prodigal son, living a life for themselves, having rebelled against God, having despised his honor and respect, rejecting his love and will, and having shunned their responsibility and accountability to God. We can now see why he will cast them into an eternal torment if they do not repent and put their faith in Christ.

But the story doesn’t stop there, although many are on the broad path of destruction, for some, a few will find the narrow path that leads to life.

17 – dying here – perishing. Hunger – lacking.

- He came to his senses and realized the desperate situation he was in. That’s why I said most people don’t realize it, the younger son just now came to himself and realized he was perishing – destroyed or annihilated, death is imminent.

- So is the sinner who realizes they are spiritually bankrupt, they have sinned against their holy Creator who will judge them when they die and he has the power to throw them into hell.

- The law of God does this. It convicts people showing them how sinful they are. Like someone walking up to the prodigal son saying hey, did you know that you barely have any clothes, you’re laying here eating pig pods that can’t even nourish you and you are about to die. And he says oh, I am?  And he comes to his senses realizing the dire situation.

- And he remembers the generosity of his father. His hired men have more than enough bread. The Jewish law required hired men to have at least a daily ration of bread. But this father went above and beyond the law giving his hired more than enough bread, being very gracious.

- The son probably thought whatever happens couldn’t be worse than the state he is in now. He is out of options, except one.

- He then rehearses what he will say to the father.

18-19

- What a vivid illustration of repentance. The kind of repentance that leads to salvation.

I want us to pause and take our time on the truth of repentance, because it’s so vital, so crucial for a person’s salvation, yet today it is so neglected, it’s not even talked about in most churches today. So, here’s the truth about repentance.

1. Repentance is absolutely necessary for salvation. You cannot be saved without repentance.

a. without repentance, no one can be saved.

Slide: Acts 3:19 Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.

Acts 17:30 Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now commanding men that everyone everywhere should repent.

Matthew 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Mark 1:15 The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repentand believe in the gospel.

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some consider slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

Luke 13:3 I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

- I want to teach on what true repentance is, but first ill tell us what repentance is not. It’s not just feeling sad for what you’ve done.

2 Corinthians 7:10 For godly sorrow produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world brings about death.

- Judas Iscariot had worldly sorrow.

- Also, there is a repentance that leads to salvation (2 Cor. 7:10), then once we are saved, we still repent of sins we stumble into but there is the one repentance that happens just prior to salvation.

- This is what true repentance is that leads to salvation, and it’s laid out beautifully with the prodigal son.

- True godly repentance is an unsaved sinner taking stock of their situation, realizing the severity of their sin, realizing who they have sinned against, their holy Creator who will judge them when they die, realizing there is no one to turn to except the Holy Father whom they have shamed and dishonored, and by faith alone, with nothing to offer, understanding they are not worthy (v19), turns to Him for forgiveness and reconciliation on the basis of His grace.

- In summary, this is a total giving up of your life, fully submitting to God, dying to self and choosing to put your full trust in Christ and His saving work.

I want to give a practical example of repentance. I was 25 years old, called myself a Christian my whole life, I prayed every day, I read some of the bible here and there. I defended God, people would say I had good morals, good ethics. But deep down I was a wretched sinner. I would say that Jesus was my Lord and Savior. I knew it was Jesus alone. He was the only way to be saved. I went to church here and there. I played the Christian. But I was not saved, I was on the broad path leading to destruction, all because I was missing one crucial thing. Repentance. A person cannot be saved without this crucial step.

And so, one day, the guilt of sin toward God dropped me to my knees, and I gave my whole life to God. Like the prodigal, I had no idea what I was doing, I was just selling my soul to God, here you go, its yours, giving up full control to Him. Because before that, I wanted to hold onto a little bit, I wanted to be Christian and control my life. But you can’t do that. You can’t. You must submit fully, give up fully, everything, all of it, your entire life, your entire being to God. Right before I was saved, I was giving 99%. But it wasn’t until I let go of that 1%, and gave fully, was when God saved me.

I say this over and over again, because I believe there are people among us who have not fully repented yet. Why do I say that? Well, I just learned recently of a few people within this congregation, who have attended wildwood Chapel for years and years, they just recently, very recently repented and gave their life to Christ, and were saved. They had a transformation occur and now are living for Christ and not themselves. So, we are not naïve to think that there are not more among us, I challenge everyone in here. If there is something you are still holding onto, something you just can’t give up, it’s not worth going to hell over. Repent, give up your life to God and believe in the gospel.

- Now also, I want to clarify if anyone is confused. We do teach it’s by God’s grace alone through faith in Christ alone for a person to be saved. But repentance is the sinner’s part in being restored to God. It’s not works based, it’s not a work, because although it’s required of the sinner, it still must be granted by God.

- Analogy of faith and repentance with a coin.

- Repentance makes the faith in Christ genuine. It’s not fake, it’s not just saying it, there must be action involved.

- Church, serving, giving, is not that action. It’s turning your whole life around.

Slide: Matthew 16:24-25 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 25 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

- Losing your life, denying yourself. Picking up your cross, dying to self. All required in order to find eternal life.

Slide: Last point I want to make on repentance is if we are not explaining repentance in our gospel presentations, we are not sharing the full gospel. Without repentance, a gospel of just Jesus loves you, ask him into your heart, will only produce false converts. We have to teach repentance.

- Now back to the parable.

- The best the younger son expected was to become a hired servant and work off his debt and make restitution.

- The scribes and Pharisees are most likely in agreement at this point. Yes, he needs to confess and repent, but he also needs to be humiliated and shamed and perhaps receive forgiveness and mercy only after he makes full restitution.

- But they all underestimated the father.

- So, Jesus will continue the parable giving us the most profound and beautiful example of what God is actually like, who He is. His wonderful mercy and grace.

- But it’s where we have to end today. We will pick up next week expounding on these next few verses.

- I want to invite anyone who thinks they might not have ever repented, please come talk to Steve or I, pull us aside. Idc if you have called yourself a Christian for 50 years, if you repent today and are saved today, that’s wonderful, no shame involved. Let’s celebrate as God and angels will in heaven.