The Lost Son

TENSION.

Can I tell you about the biggest fight my wife and I have EVER had?

Flashback to 2016. We’d been dating for about two months. I know how it sounds, but I already knew I wanted to marry her. I LOVED her. But I was also 21… and ridiculously insecure.

About two months in, she flew out to Denver to visit a friend. No big deal. I played it cool. We texted while she was there, but I was trying to give her space and let her enjoy her trip.

Then she texted me that she and her friend were going out line dancing that night. Totally normal. Nothing sketchy about it. She wasn’t hiding anything. She didn’t do anything wrong.

But I was so insecure.

I lost my cool. Got petty. We ended up in the biggest fight we’ve ever had…

Over line dancing.

Why?

Because even though I was in the relationship, I wasn’t secure in it.

I was terrified some tall, dark, and handsome cowboy was going to sweep her off her feet—and that would be it for me. She wasn’t thinking that. Not for a second. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Even though I had her love, I felt like I still had to earn it. Like I had to prove I was worth keeping.

Not my proudest moment 😅

But hey—don’t judge me too hard. Because if we’re being honest, we all do weird stuff when we feel insecure.

You make a post and then refresh it every 10 minutes to see who’s looked at it—because you’re afraid that if it doesn’t get enough attention, it says something about you.

You’re in a relationship, but constantly wonder if you’re enough—so you try to be funnier, more attractive, more chill… anything to keep them interested.

You stare in the mirror, wishing you looked like someone else—because you don’t feel tall enough, toned enough, stylish enough, anything enough.

You say yes to stuff you don’t want to do—just to stay in the group chat.

Or maybe you’ve been following Jesus for a while…but deep down, you still wonder:

Am I doing enough?

It doesn’t matter what area you might be insecure in. Insecurity always whispers the same lie: You’ve got to earn it or you’re gonna lose it.

So here’s the question I want us to wrestle with tonight: What are you still trying to earn?

Your friends' approval?

Your boyfriend’s attention?

Your parents’ pride?

God’s acceptance?

What are you still trying to earn?

What if the security that that you feel like is lost could actually be found?

TRUTH.

So far in Luke 15, Jesus has told 2 parables about something that was lost that needed to be found. Both sounded very similar, but they were communicating very different things.

Now, Jesus tells the third parable. And this one is the masterpiece—the crescendo of the chapter. But unlike the others, this story isn’t just about something lost being found—it’s about someone who looks found but is still deeply lost.

11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons.

With each parable, the value of what’s lost goes up. First, it was one sheep out of 100. Then, one coin out of 10. Now, it’s two sons. The difference isn’t just quantity—it’s intimacy. These aren’t animals or objects. These are SONS.

12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate…’

The younger son approaches the father and says, “I want the inheritance that is waiting for me when you die right now.” And if you’ve ever read the parable, it’s easy to take the request for granted. When I read it, I just think to myself, “what an entitled, spoiled brat of a son.” But it’s actually far worse than that. The son is NOT ONLY entitled, he’s dishonoring. By asking for his share of the estate while his father was still alive, the son is communicating that he would rather live as if his father were dead. He didn’t want his father, he just wanted his father’s stuff.

And ya know what’s interesting? The father says yes…

So he divided his property between them.

The father divides up everything he has and gives it to the two sons.

13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.

The younger son leaves, inheritance in hand, and blows it all. He indulges himself. Lives large. Until the money runs out.

14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need.

He wasn’t just broke, he was broken.

15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

There’s a lot of hidden meaning in this part of the story. The son’s father was a wealthy, Jewish man. Clearly, he came from money. And yet, this trust fund kid became so needy that he hired himself out to a pagan farmer to take care of his pigs. In Jewish culture, pigs were unclean animals. This wasn’t just financial ruin—it was social and spiritual humiliation. He hit rock bottom.

17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.

At rock bottom, he had an epiphany. He had everything he needed at his father’s house. But, in his mind, he had given up his right to be his father’s son when he took his inheritance and left home. So, rather than going back to his father’s house as a son, he thought that he could go back as his servant. At least he would be provided for!

So the son makes the walk back to his father’s house and rehearses his speech…

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. 21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

While he was on his way home, his father saw him and ran to him. The son couldn’t even finish his speech, the father cuts him off and starts planning a party - not to celebrate a SERVANT coming to WORK, but to celebrate a SON coming HOME.

It's a hall of fame parable from Jesus. One of His very best. Unfortunately, I think it is also one of His most misunderstood.

In the first two parables, we’re what’s lost. As the sheep, we’ve lost our place in the flock—but our Good Shepherd brings us back. As the coin, the image of God in us has been broken—but the Holy Spirit sweeps the dark corners of our hearts to restore it.

So naturally, when we read the lost son, we assume that we are the younger son who has dishonored our father, wasted our inheritance, and been welcomed back into the family. But that sounds a LOT like the message of the lost sheep. And as we’ve already established, Jesus isn’t telling the same parable 3 times. Jesus is revealing something NEW.

The person in the story that we are meant to see ourselves in is NOT the younger son, it’s the older one.

25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ 28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

The son who is lost in THIS story isn’t the one who ran away, it’s the one who stayed home.

Remember back to the beginning of Luke 15? Do you remember why Jesus told the three parables in the first place?

These parables are all told in response to the religious people being upset that Jesus was eating with lost, broken people. And for Jesus, their complaints were best captured in stories about something being lost.

The father welcomed the “lost son,” and it bothered the “found son.”

Doesn’t the response of the older brother sound familiar? It’s supposed to.

So, here’s the question, what’s lost in the story of the lost son?

The answer is hidden in verse 29,

29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you…

What was lost was his SONSHIP.

As it turns out, the older son was not a SON at all, he was a SERVANT. Think about that. The older son was already living the life the younger son was willing to settle for. One begged to be a servant. The other settled for it.

The older son was bothered that his father gave his brother for FREE what he had been working to EARN.

And look at how the father responds,

31 “ ‘My SON,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was LOST and is FOUND.

The older brother thought of himself as a servant, but the father called him SON.

APPLICATION.

So what about you?

What is your relationship with the Father like? Does it feel more like you’re working for a heavenly boss? Or are you living as a secure, beloved child of your heavenly Father?

The truth of the final parable is that you don’t have to earn your place as a son or daughter - you already have it.

But I think a lot of us are still trying to earn our sonship or daughtership. But you don’t have to earn your place as a son or daughter – you already have it because it has been secured by the work of the true older brother.

3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were in slavery under the elements of the world. 4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then God has made you an heir.

Jesus is the true older brother.

He didn’t stay home. He left heaven to come to earth to seek and save the lost!

He didn’t split up the inheritance. He made us co-heirs with Him!

He doesn’t resent us for coming home. He delights in and celebrates our salvation and our sanctification!

And because of him, our sonship and daughtership has been secured. Because of Him, we don’t have to live like servants, we can live as SONS and DAUGHTERS of our FATHER. We CAN…but He will not make us. We have to decide to. Which leads to one of the most peculiar pieces of the parable…the ending.

The conversation with the Father and the older son IS the end of the parable. It’s a cliffhanger. There is no resolution – because the resolution isn’t up to the older brother in the story, it’s up to you, the one reading and listening to the story. You have to decide which older brother you’re going to be like: the older brother in the parable or the older brother telling the parable.

The Father will not force sonship or daughtership on you. He will let you live as a servant if you choose to – but I think your life will be a lot like how Jesus described the Pharisees from the beginning of the chapter…there will be something missing. Something that is lost, that could be found.

And the thing that I think many of us could find tonight is the security of being our Father’s son or daughter.

RESPONSE.

And maybe you’re saying, “I want that…how do I get it?”

Here’s an interesting thought: the security of being a son or a daughter has already been given to us as part of our inheritance. We’ve already received it. We just haven’t put it on.

There’s a significant part of the story that I skipped earlier that I want to come back to now.

When the younger brother came home and was begging his father to be a servant, do you remember what the Father did?

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.

Those are not random gifts that the father wanted to give his son. They were given on purpose, in response to the insecurity of the son.

In that time, servants did not wear expensive robes, they did not wear rings, and they did not wear shoes. The father lavishly gave the son reminders of his sonship. He was covered by his father’s robe. He had his father’s name and authority by wearing the family ring, and he had shoes on his feet that distinguished him from the servants who worked for his father.

So, knowing all that, the question I find myself asking is: didn’t the older brother have all that stuff too?

The answer is yes. I can’t prove it, but I wonder if maybe he took them off. I wonder if he was so busy working in the fields, trying to prove himself, that he stopped wearing what the Father had already given him.

And I wonder if the same might be true for many of us.

We’ve been walking with God for a while. We’ve read the verses. We’ve prayed the prayers. We know the rules. But we’ve stopped wearing what the Father has given us.

Is it possible that the thing you’re still trying to earn from God is something you already have and just need to put back on?

Tonight, I want to make sure that you have an opportunity to put back on the gifts that your FATHER has given you.

There are leaders all around the room who have rings with them. They’re not anything fancy, they’re just a signet ring with 15:31 written on the top. It’s Luke 15:31 where the Father says,

Son [or Daughter],’ he said to him, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.

What I would love to do, if you would receive it, is have a moment for each of us to go find a leader, have them put a ring on your finger, and have them pray sonship or daughtership over you.

And while that’s happening, we’re going have a moment where we worship our FATHER together. Not trying to earn His love. Not working to impress Him. Just resting in who we already are—sons and daughters. And joining heaven in the joy… of what was lost being found!