Pastor's Sermon - March 30th, 2025 - The Prodigal Son - Sons by Grace
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
The Pharisees, ever the proud crowd, see Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners, and they are infuriated and make negative comment of it. After all, if Jesus really was the Son of God, the righteous and just God He is, then what on earth is He doing with sinners? No righteous God or Son of God would lower Himself to be surrounded by sinners and cheaters? They see this is either incredibly shameful, or the proof they need to show that Christ can’t really be the Son of God.
Jesus, well aware of their grumbling and taking a chance to teach His people, speaks a parable. A famous parable. The parable of the prodigal son.
In this parable, we hear of a young man who is so richly blessed. He dwells securely in his father’s home, enjoying the luxuries of all that is his father’s. He has clothes, food, friends, land, and every sort of pleasure. And he seems to have it in abundance. This was his by his very birth as this father’s son.
Yet, in a great show of ingratitude and selfishness, the son demands his portion of his inheritance right now, like a slap to the face to his father. You might be my father and you might have provided for me everything I have, even life itself, but I can’t wait for you to die, for I love money and worldly pleasure more than you. Give me that which would be mine at your death right now, that I may go and enjoy the world.
And in unbelievable patience and love, the father grants him his portion of the inheritance. The son then runs off and squanders the many, many riches that he was granted. He lived a life of godlessness and debauchery. Then, when he had entirely drained the blessings his father had generously given him, he is at his lowest point, facing the reality that he might die a hungry beggar.
It is then that repentance strikes his heart like a wake-up call. He then realizes, in this low and deplorable state, that he had mistreated his father and squandered his father’s blessings. He had been rash, loveless, and selfish. He took what he already didn’t deserve, but was graciously provided, and he had wasted it without even so much as a thank you.
He returns to his father in need and in repentance, seeking to place himself in a position of servitude that he might earn from his father the things he needs. A salary for service rendered. For he now recognizes that he doesn’t deserve to enjoy the gift of being the father’s son or his heir. He is unworthy of such entitlement.
But, as Jesus tells this parable, He throws in a curveball that knocks each of us right out of our seats! The father sees this son returning, lowly and defeated, and rather than view him with displeasure or anger, the father sees this boy in the same love that he had seen him off. He doesn’t look for signs of the family’s riches still in the boy’s possession, he doesn’t even care to ask about what happened to the family’s wealth that had be bestowed on him. He only sees the young man. He only sees his SON. Not a sinner. Not a traitor. Not a thief. His SON.
He can’t contain himself. He doesn’t wait for his miserable son to make his way humiliatingly to the father that he would fall at his feet and beg for forgiveness. No, the father RUNS to the son. Despite all the societal norms that would have restrained the wealthy father from running, he RAN. He embraced the son and kissed him and adorned him with every good thing.
When the son seeks to apologize and offer himself in service to the father, the father will not hear such things. The sin is already forgiven and he will not be lowered to a servant’s place. The title of son was given to him by the love of the father when he was first born and the title of son would remain his always. And so he is placed back as the father’s son and all that is the father’s is his still.
The other son, who had never run away or wasted the family’s fortune is then bitter, much like the Pharisees were embittered to see Jesus receiving sinners in love. The one son sees the other return and is angry that the father would receive him back. He feels this is unfair as he never ran away and he isn’t being treated any differently than the other son. Shouldn’t he be received and the runaway son be rejected, or at least, shouldn’t the son that remained have higher standing in the family than the runaway, since he was such a good son and the other was not?
But the father doesn’t allow that. The son that never ran away, everything that was the father’s was, is, and will be the son’s. And for the son that ran away, well, all that is the father’s was, is, and will be his too. What seems to be misunderstood by both sons, each looking from a different perspective, is that they are the father’s son by grace. And grace alone. Because he loves them. Therefore, all that is the father’s is theirs. By grace. And grace alone. Because he loves them. They have not earned their title of “son.” Nor have they earned their inheritance. One does not earn inheritance. It is just given. A gift. Out of entitlement and love.
Christ tells this parable for a reason. To teach. So what do we learn?
There are two things to learn from this, looking from both sons’ perspectives.
One is to recognize ourselves in the first son. The runaway. The squanderer. God is the creator of this entire world and God is the provider of all good things in this world. Therefore, every good thing we have, whether we recognize it or not, is from the Lord.
And yet, despite that reality, how often have you and I run away and squandered these gifts? Have we always used our money for godly purposes? Do we give of our first fruits to the Lord and His works? Do we use our bodies to his glory? Or do we squander this easily forgotten gift too? Have our hands turned away from God? Our feet? Our eyes? Our mouth? What is sin, but to be the prodigal son. To tell our Father that He is not first in our life and that we’d rather take the gifts He grants us so lovingly and use them for our own dabaucherous and squanderous ways? Is it not to take what the Father offers generously, waste it on sin, and give the Father every reason to remove us from the family and remove His love from us?
Or, flip the perspective? Are we, at least in our minds, the good Christian (maybe better to say the pharisaical Christian?) who never goes astray and sits still and is good? And how angry that can make us when we see the Lord accept, receive, and forgive the most deplorable people from the world? Can we not look at the world like Jonah looked at Ninevah? Like we’ve earned our place in the Church by our long-standing faith and our wonderful adherence to the Law? And those who have gone astray have no right to stand alongside us in the family of God? And we can bring ourselves to be generous enough to welcome them into God’s family, don’t we often feel that we still deserve a one-up on them, since, arguably, we’re better? They ran stray and squandered God’s gifts, but we didn’t did we? We’ve earned our place here, haven’t we?
Whichever perspective we’re erring on on any particular day still must lead us back to the same realization in faith.
Are the wanderer? Yes. Are you the self-righteous stay-putter? Yes. And to both, Jesus teaches this one eternal truth. You are a son. You are God’s Son. Despite your running away and your squandering- your sin. You are a son. All that the father has is yours and it is by GRACE. And are you the stay-putter who believes himself righteous and obedient? All that the Father gives is given not because of your performance, for even the Pharisees were sinners. All that is the Father’s is yours BY GRACE.
And what a comfort this is! Because any one of us that considers honestly his own performance record must come to the conclusion that we are both sons. We are the wandering sinner and the self-righteous. And yet, the Father has not rejected us. The Father remains loving and generous to call us Son. He is kind and caring to continue to offer all that is His as ours. Withholding not even His own Son.
The very speaker of this parable is also the reason that you and I are called sons despite our shortcomings. Christ’s death and resurrection provided us the means to be called Sons of God. By the forgiveness owned, we were made pure to be God’s and by His righteousness credited to us, we are rightly His Sons. We have the blessed assurance that all that is the Son’s by right, is ours. This is ours, regardless of our performance score. This is ours despite our history of sin and faithlessness. This is ours for Christ’s sake alone. And it will not be taken away from us.
The Father loves us too much to give us up. He is the Father that runs to us to bring us His good things, even faith, life, and salvation. He is the Father that has promised us a celebration feast! Christ is coming again to bring us to His Father’s House, and there we shall join the marriage feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom which shall have no end. Where we shall dwell in the blessings of the Lord for all eternity.
Praise be to God!
In Christ’s Name,
Amen.