Sermon Tone Analysis

For the last few weeks we have been in a series talking about why God created you.

You were created to do something wonderful for God.

When He brought you into this world, He already had a plan for you.

Last week we read the first several verses from Luke 15.

Today we will continue with the rest of that chapter.

The chapter began by describing who Jesus was talking to.

Let’s look at verses 1-3 again.

So we know that Jesus was having a conversation with tax collectors and sinners, but the Pharisees and other religious teachers were listening in.

This is important with knowing who Jesus’ audience was as He began to tell these stories.

Of the three stories in Luke 15, the third story is the most significant.

Today, I hope to bring out many details about this story and teach you many things.

Let’s read it.

I truly believe that this story will give us a great look at the father, more than it will the sons.

We know the character of this story.

There is a father and two sons.

This story answers the question, “How does God feel about you?”

If we were to break up this story, we could break it up into 4 scenes.

Scene One - Dividing the Property

Beyond the first sentence, “There was a man who had two sons”, Jesus wastes no time in presenting an unthinkable situation in a Jewish family, in which the younger son asks his living father for his share of the inheritance.

According to Jewish customs, a man’s property was transferred to his heirs only upon death, at which time the oldest son would receive a double portion of the inheritance.

Before the death of the father, the property remained under his control and could neither be subdivided nor sold.

Against these practices, the younger son’s demand is preposterous and offensive, it is like he is wishing his father dead.

Equally odd is the nonresistance of the father, who “divided his property between them.”

This is what Author Ken Bailey wrote about this.

He has lived in that region of the world for many years.

He said, “For over fifteen years I have been asking people of all walks of life from Morocco to India and from Turkey to the Sudan about the implications of a son’s request for his inheritance while the father is still living.

The answer has almost always been emphatically the same.

The conversation goes something like this...

“Has anyone ever made such a request in your village?” “Never!” “Could anyone ever make such a request?” “Impossible!”

“If anyone did, what would happen?”

“His father would beat him, of course!” “Why?” “This requests means he wants his father to die!”

One Middle Eastern writer, Ibrahim Sa’id, writes, “The shepherd in his search for the sheep, and the woman in her search for the coin do not do anything out of the ordinary beyond what anyone in their place would do.

But the actions the father takes in the third story are unique, marvelous, divine actions which have not been done by any father in the past.”

The younger son’s words are, “give me my share of the estate.”

And to everyone’s amazement, the father gives it to him.

Then the story goes...

Many people think that he got his inheritance and just took off, but he didn’t.

It says, “not long after that.”

So, we know that he stuck around for a little bit.

But why?

He had to liquidate his inheritance.

He had to find a buyer for his portion of the family farm, his portion of the family jewels, his portion of the family livestock.

And the only people he could sell to were other people in the village.

So, think about it.

This young son was going from door to door, trying to convince people who knew his father to buy a piece of the family property.

All those people knew that this boy had insulted his father, shamed him, and wished him dead.

And now he was doing the unthinkable, selling off property and possessions that had been in the family for generations.

Everywhere this young man goes he is greeted with amazement, horror, and rejection.

The family’s estate is a significant part of a Middle Easterner’s personal identity.

As the scorn mounts, he feels more and more pressure to get out of town.

As soon as all the negotiations are done and the transactions completed, the son leaves town and heads for the faraway country.

Scene 2 - The Distant Country

In this distant land, this wayward son gradually descends into his own personal hell.

Look at what verse 13 says again.

In other words, he wasted all of it.

And the people in that distant country know that.

They, too, are unimpressed with this frivolous young man who is now out of money.

The polite way a Middle Easterner gets rid of someone that is not wanted is to assign them a task they’ll refuse.

So, when the son asks for a job, one of the citizens offers to let him become his pig herder.

It’s a job no self-respecting Jewish boy could accept.

Pigs were unclean animals according to the Law of Moses.

And they had to be fed seven days a week, which meant he couldn’t keep the Sabbath.

To everyone’s surprise, he accepts the job.

But it’s a terrible job, and doesn’t pay well enough to appease his hunger.

So, as he is in this pig pen, he begins to think.

He knows there is no life for him in this distant land.

He thinks maybe I can go back home and ask for a job as a hired servant.

That way, if he works hard and saves as much as he can, someday maybe he will be able to earn enough to be of some use to his father.

So he comes up with a plan: he’ll go home, admit he was a fool, and instead of asking to be reinstated as a son, he’ll ask to be hired as a servant!

The plan has merit, except for one thing; even if his father accepts him on these terms, he’ll have to face the scorn and wrath of the villagers.

How many of you have ever returned back to the town that you grew up in?

It is hard to return if you haven’t been successful.

This guy has not only not succeeded, he’s a miserable failure.

But his real problem is, how did the villagers feel about him when he left?

They hated him.

He had disgraced them all by wishing that his father was dead and then again by disposing of the family’s property.

Adding to this, he lost all his money to despised gentiles, and the prodigal has no solution for what he’s going to do with the villagers when he gets home.

He will simply have to endure the mocking, scorn, and shame they will give him as he walks through the town on the way to the father’s house.

Scene 3 - The Return Home

Up to this point you haven’t seen much of the father, but now you are about to see a lot more of the father in the story.

The father, because of his experience, knows two things.

First, he knows that the son, given the maturity level and the character with which he left home, is bound to fail.

He knows that if the son ever does come home, it will probably not be as a successful businessman, but more likely as a beggar.

Second, the father knows that the village will not treat him well.

Since his departure, all the townspeople have told him openly and repeatedly that he should not have granted the inheritance in the first place, that this son is a rascal, and deserves nothing short of death.

The father also knows, if his son ever does return, the first person who sees him will quickly pass the word that this pariah has come home and a crowd will gather and likely begin to mock and spit on him, if not hurt him outright.

He knows that the son, in order to get home, will have to endure the scorn of the crowd with every step he takes through the village.

So, knowing all this, look at what the father does in scene three.

The father does five things that would all be considered outrageous in Middle Eastern society.

They’re all designed to protect and restore this son that he loves so much; this son who has turned away from him, rejected him, and wished him dead.

The first thing the father does is, he runs.

When word comes to him that his son has been seen on the outskirts of the village, the father runs to him.

Can you see why this is so significant?

Instead of letting his son run the gauntlet, the father runs the gauntlet for him.

It’s an outrageous thing he does, because a nobleman with flowing robes never runs anywhere.

He lifts his robe, exposing his ankles, and runs down the road, through the village, in front of all the villagers.

he humiliates himself.

One ancient Jewish writer writes this about running.

He says, “A man’s manner of walking tells you what he is.”

A modern scholar writes, “It is so very undignified in Eastern eyes for an elderly man to run.”