Lost on the Road

3/10/2002

^{“Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two
sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share
of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property
between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and
traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in
dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place
throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired
himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his
fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods
that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to
himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough
to spare, but here I am dying of hunger? I will get up and go to my father,
and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before
you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your
hired hands.” So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still
far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put
his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him ‘Father, I
have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be
called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out
a robe-the best one-and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals
on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and
celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and
is found!’ And they began to celebrate.
“Now his elder son was in the field; when he came
and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the
slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come,
and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe
and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out
and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all
these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never
disobeyed your command; and yet you have never given me even a young goat so
that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came
back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted
calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, “Son, you are always with
me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice,
because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and
has been found.’” Luke 15:11-32
Let’s pray: Father we thank you for this beautiful
passage, the beautiful story of redemption and return. Father we pray that
might be true in our lives this day. In Jesus Name, Amen
^{This is a passage that is in midst of the 15^{th
chapter of Luke. And in Luke there are three stories that are similar in
meaning, very different in the story line. The first is about the shepherd
who lost one of a hundred sheep. And it says he went and found the sheep,
brought it back home, and rejoiced that he had found the lost sheep. And of
course the following sentence says, ‘That is how the angels in heaven
rejoice when one sinner repents.’}
The next story is about the woman who had lost one of
her ten coins. She reached the house high and low and finally found the coin
and brought in her friends to rejoice with her. And it said, ‘so the
angels in heaven rejoice when one sinner returns.’
This is the human story of a human being lost here. In
fact we call it the prodical son but I think it might more aptly be called
the prodigal sons. Because actually both of them were in great sin here.
I did some research on this story because it is such a
fascinating story and one of the commentators that I read wrote nearly a
book on this parable and his theory was, if we want to know what happens in
the middle east we need to be there. He is from the middle east, he lived in
that area for many years, the people that he had ask were people who had
grown up in the Middle East and had become Christians at some age like 25 or
30 years of age and had been Christians for some time. So they still had
there non-Christian upbringing but they also had some Christian experience
and Biblical experience to kind of be able to compare. He ask all kinds of
people about this story. Some very fascinating things came out. One is that
for a son to ask the Father for his inheritance like this, would be the
ultimate slap in the face. Because the Father who owned the property would
distribute it among his children eventually. But at his discretion and
usually when he was near death or at least ready to quit working, in time to
hand it over to his children. For the son, while the Father was still vital
to say, ‘Dad, I would like my inheritance now that was tantamount to
saying. ‘Dad I can’t wait for you to die. I can’t wait for you to die
to give me my inheritance. So why don’t you act like you are dead and give
me the money now.’ How hurtful would that be to a father? You can imagine.
But the father out of great love for the child decided to do so. And so he
divided his property, usually the older son got two-thirds, the younger ones
got a portion of the other third because the oldest son would usually take
the farm or whatever property or whatever property is was or continue the
business or whatever and take care of the parents when they were old and
unable to take care of themselves. In this case it was rarely a case when a
father might while still in his working years divide his inheritance. He
will retain control until such time as he hands it over to the children. So
it was not unusual for him at his discretion to do so. But for a son,
especially the younger son, to ask him to do so at that time, they said
normally the father would probably have taken the son by the throat and
almost killed him for even asking. But he didn’t, instead he divided the
inheritance.
Now the older son is not necessarily innocent here.
Because the older son, his responsibility should have been to say, ‘No,
this is improper, we can not do this. I will not accept this as a
proposition’. He should have said no and refused so loudly that the
neighbors would have heard it. By the way, they were not out on a farm, most
likely. Even those who owned farms usually lived in settlements. So most of
the community probably would have know exactly what was going on. In fact
the community probably would have done a thing that they call casa or
cassia, I am not sure how the Hebrews pronounce this, but it was a thing
where they would actually denounce this person as being outside the
community now because of this terrible thing he had done to the father. He
had embarrassed, he had humiliated him in the community so they would have
sent him out as an outcast. So this is a very big thing. The older son
should have said. ‘No’, I’ll not be a part of this. I will not accept
my inheritance at this point I am still your son, Dad, and would have
refused loudly. If he had done that he would have taken the second step
which would have been to be the reconciler. In middle eastern culture
oftentimes when two people are reconciled it is because a third party has
stepped in and become the arbitrator and said, ‘Here let’s get this
thing together. Let’s bring these two warring parties back together.’
And so that is what he should have done. He should have said, ‘Dad,
brother let’s get back together here.’ But he didn’t. He was a silent
partner in the division of the inheritance and he was in a sense as guilty
but he was not the one who initiated it.
So he goes off to a far country. Far country where the
are setting in Israel or Judea would have been some other country, a Gentile
country. So the Son goes off and spends his money, he probably would have
taken a lower price than what it was worth so he could get out of town in a
hurry. So he went off to a far country, spent his money. We don’t know how
he spent it. It says on dissolute living. He wasted it, anyways. Squandered
it. His brother accused him later of spending it on prostitutes but it doesn’t
say it at the beginning so that may just have been a false accusation trying
to strength the older son’s argument. We don’t know that for sure. Went
to a far country and they had a famine. Famine’s were common in those
days, about 150 years before Christ there were about ten different famines.
So people were not unused to seeing famines in the area. It says that he
hired himself out. Actually the way it is put is he glued himself to one of
the citizens of that country. Means he became a hangar on to somebody who
had food. And so the guy said if you want to stick around you can but you
have to feed the pigs. Well, to a Jew pigs are unclean. You can not touch
them, you can not eat of the meat, they are outside the realm of your
influence hopefully all together. They wouldn’t be around them at all.
Behind the story is kind of interesting. Because the
way it says he glued himself to the citizen of the country suggests this man
had food so this young man who is now totally out of money, out of friends,
out of everything attached himself to him saying, ‘Let me do something
around the house,’ became almost as a homeless man, and the man said, ‘I
don’t want you around so in order to make you decide to leave I will give
you the worst job I can image for you that you will come to the conclusion
you have got to leave because I don’t want you here.’ And nobody else
did either because it says, “No one was feeding him anything.’ And so he
is out feeding pigs and he wishes he could eat the pods that the pigs were
eating. Now the pods in those days were probably carob pods. We make carob,
kind of like chocolate here and that is not to bad, it is a sweet, people
would eat it and it was alright. But there was another kind of pod called a
syrian pod which was an ugly, bitter berry type of a fruit off of low shrub
brush that the pigs would eat and get enough nourishment to live but he
couldn’t. They were so bitter that you wouldn’t want to eat them. It
says he was even desiring to eat those, but couldn’t and nobody gave him
anything.
Is Forest here this morning? Forest Hampton. I think
he is playing piano for somebody else. I wish he were here because he would
say, ‘He thought he was going to live in style but ended up living in sty.’
If you don’t know Forest he loves puns and plays on words so he was living
‘sty lishly’ but it was in a pig sty, not in the style he had thought
for himself. So what happened is he decided he was going to live with great
wealth and be the man of the town, he was for a short time and then he
became the man of the pig sty.
And then it says he came to his senses. By the way
scripture teaches that sin has a promise but the promise of sin is a false
promise. It says, ‘Do not be deceived whatsoever a man sows he will also
reap.’ There is a deception of sin that says, ‘I will give you great
pleasure, you will enjoy me but when we participate in it, it loses pleasure
very shortly.’ So the life that the young man had, the pleasure and riches
was short lived, it was gone in a hurry, and he realized it was a false
promise. Here he was living in a pig sty wishing he could even eat pig food.
And nobody cared enough about him to even give him anything. So finally he
came to his senses. He came to his senses. Now I would like to think and you
would probably like to think that his guy finally came to his senses and
said, ‘Man, look how wrong I have been. I have hurt my Dad, I have hurt
the family, I have hurt my community, I have done wrong against God.’
Well, the words say that but the commentator suggests that maybe it wasn’t
quite as genuine at that point as we would like to believe because look at
his plan. He said the plan was, ‘I’ll go back and apologize and ask my
Dad to make me a hired servant.’ Sounds like a humbling plan to us. In
those days in that culture it wasn’t so humbling. Cause the hired man
would revere just about as much as a land owner because he was a man of
respect, he was doing what it took to feed his family, even though he was
hired by somebody else he was doing what it took. He was an honorable man.
So in the community he would have respect because he was still doing the
best he could. But the benefit was he wouldn’t have to live in his father’s
household under his brother’s care. He would still be able to live on his
own and still gain some respect. So his plan was I’ll make it up and I’ll
earn my respect back. I’ll go back and do the things that make the
community respect me again. Well, it didn’t work that way. Because as he
came back home, guess who was watching for him? His Dad was. And if you can
imagine this you are talking about a small community where a young man,
might have been a large community, where a young man is coming, the father,
in fact the commentator suggests, that there might have even been like a
gauntlet there of people saying, ‘Hey, the kid is coming back home let’s
see what happens?’ And they would have come out with pretty sore attitudes
about him because of what he had done to his family and to his father
particularly. As he came down through the crowds of the people the Dad did
something really unheard of in those days. It was unheard of for the son to
ask, was even more unheard of for the older son not to even try to fix
things or to even accept it but this was even more unheard of. Was for a man
of dignity to run. That was unusual. Men don’t run, if you are a man of
dignity in that culture. You walk. In fact, by the way you walk you quite
often display your dignity and your place in society. And so he ran to his
son, embraced him and did a few things that don’t mean much to us but
meant a great deal to them. He commanded his servants to clothe him with the
best robe. That said to the servant this is my son, you respect him as you
would me, put my robe on him, the one that indicates my place in the
community, my son now has the place that I give him. And he says kill the
fatted calf. Remember the older son said, ‘I didn’t even have a goat to
feed my friends, to celebrate with my friends.’ Well the fatted calf is
reserved for larger occasions because it was not wise to kill an animal, eat
only part of it and let it spoil. And so the whole community would be
invited in. So the fatted calf meant a great deal. This was for honored
servants when the whole community would be brought together to rejoice, or
to celebrate. It would begin during the day, in fact they wouldn’t put it
on a spit, like we kind of think put it on a spit and roast it like you
would a pig at a pig roast. They would actually cut it up and put it in the
baking ovens so they would have freshly roasted meat all evening and as
people gathered during the afternoon they would have food to eat, they would
celebrate and dance and things and then these people coming out of the field
would come back in, as the younger son said came out of the field, then they
would have warm meat for them to eat also.}}

^{^{^{Now the father ran, said give him the best robe, my
robe, treat him as my son, as you would treat me and community come together
because I am so pleased to have my son back. And so they did.}}}

^{^{^{Then the older son shows up. The older son shows up
and it says he hears what is going on and it says he ask one of the slaves
but actually the word is pidea, which means little boy. He ask one of the
little boys that was outside playing in the yard saying what is going on in
there kid? And the kid says, ‘Your brother is back and your Dad is
throwing a party for him.’ Oh, he is. Well, big brother didn’t like it
already anyway so he came in. What he should have done, in that culture, the
older son, the father hosts the party, the older son is the host in
practice. He would have stood by the front door, or the entrance to the
courtyard, he would have greeted every guest as he came in and said, ‘We
are so glad you have come to celebrate with our family the return of my
brother.’ That was proper. Even if he didn’t feel like it that was
proper etiquette in those days to come out and be the greeter. To say thank
you for coming, we are celebrating a wonderful occasion, and we are so glad
you are here to celebrate with us.}}}

^{^{^{Not only did he not do that he stormed up to his Dad
most likely with guests present and listening and says, ‘Dad, what is the
world is going on here? I have been a slave to you.’ Was he a slave to his
Dad? No, his Dad rightly said, everything I have is yours because he had
already divided up, it was already his son’s he retained control at that
point, but it was his. If he had wanted a goat for his friends all he had to
do was ask. And take one of his own goats, kill it, and have his friends
over and celebrate. It was his already but he was not enjoying what he
already had. And then he blames the Father for it. Isn’t that amazing. And
so he embarrasses his Dad, humiliates his father in front of all the guests
and the Dad says, ‘No, it is right to rejoice because this Son who was
lost is found. He was dead, but he is alive.’}}}

^{^{^{I find a few points very interesting in this story. I
find one is that, if you can imagine with me, how much it would hurt the
Father for his Son to say, ‘Dad, in realty I don’t want you to be a part
of my life anymore. I want you to be out of my life enough so that I can
make all my own decisions. I know better for myself, I’ll do what I want
but give me all the resources to do so. Wow. But that is what God does isn’t
it? As we come into his family, as we accept Jesus Christ, we come into his
family and we still have the free will enough to say, ‘God I know what you
say but I think I’ll do what I want to anyway.’ That is exactly what the
prodical son did isn’t it? I will accept your riches and your grace, and
your forgiveness, and then I will go do what I want to even things you say
not to do. If God is the Father of the story which we assume he is, of
course. And we say God I think I will go do the things you say not to do,
can you imagine the pain it is. We are taking his resources and saying I
want to use your resources to do sin. That is not what God is about. That is
not what God saved us for.}}}

^{^{^{Second thing is, can you imagine the damage that was
done to the Father’s reputation in the community? Can you imagine the
neighbors talking and saying I can’t believe what that Son did, but I also
can’t believe that the Father actually did it. He should have choked the
kid. He should have taken him out, in fact in Old Testament law, a
rebellious son, it was proper for the Father to bring him before the elders
and say, this son of mine will not listen to me and let’s stone him. And
they would actually stone him. Instead of doing that he said, ‘Ok we will
divide the inheritance for you.’ And so the neighbors would have said, Ah
man I can’t believe the kid, I can’t believe the older son, I can’t
believe the Dad would even do that. What kind of reputation would he gain in
the community because of this son’s acts? Of course when news came back,
if it ever came back and they found out what kind of things the kid was
doing, it would be all the worse. Jesus said in Matthew 5:16, ‘We are to
let our light shine in such a way that people will see our good works and
glorify our Father in heaven.’ That is his intent for us. But this kid was
taking his grace and not doing good works but evil works and God was getting
the reputation. He was harming God’s name, which we do when we sin.}}}

^{^{^{The other thing is when we finally come to our senses
we usually have a plan to save face, don’t we? We usually think of our
reputation first. We usually think, boy I have been sinning, I realize that,
I realize I am here feeding pigs when I could be in the great household with
my Dad and eating good food and even hired servants better than I have right
here. We usually come up with a good plan, so we can go back and still save
face. Still gain some measure of respect. Usually doesn’t work that way.
God in a sense has to give us that respect back. In fact it says in
Proverbs, ‘By loving kindness and truth iniquity is atoned for.’ First
we gain the forgiveness of God, then we live the life of truth, then regains
our reputation.}}}

^{^{^{Next thing I found very interesting is this. That the
Father bore the cost of all of it, didn’t he? Whose money was the kid
spending? He was spending the Dad’s money, really wasn’t he? He didn’t
buy the inheritance but at that point it was still the Dad’s. He gave it
to his son and he spent all of it. When he came back who was embarrassed?
The Father. He ran through the towns people to grab the Son, embrace him and
told his servants to put the best robe in him, give him the fatted calf,
celebrate with us because his Son is back.}}}

^{^{^{Who took the pain of the whole thing upon himself? It
was the Father, wasn’t it? The Son came back expecting he could make
himself right before the community’s eyes and yet by being. By the way, a
hired servant was a fine thing. He said I will go back and apologize and
will start over. No it wasn’t because of his acts that God let him start
over. It is because God forgave him. His Father came and ran and said, ‘Come
on back, I forgive you. In fact, you retain the status that you once had.’
Now a little side note is, he still lived at the grace of his Father didn’t
he and to some degree to the grace of his Brother because he had already
spent his inheritance so there were consequences to be had because of his
spending it all. He didn’t have it anymore. It doesn’t say let’s take
some of the brothers inheritance and give it back to the Son, he came back
into our household but he had already spent his inheritance. So when we sin
there is a consequence, there is a cost that we will bear because he have
spent some of God’s grace in a sense. And so we don’t get some of what
we used to have. Some of the respect is gone, some of the income may be
gone. Some of the honor may be gone because of our sin. So we bear the
punishment also, but God bears the brunt of it.}}}

^{^{^{Another thing that you find interesting in the older
sons response is this. In the first two parables when the fellow lost the
sheep and brought it back and rejoiced and the women lost the coin and
brought it back and rejoiced she gathered her friends and they rejoiced with
her. And in fact it says, ‘all the angels of heaven rejoice when a sinner
repents’. The same point is true about the angels in heaven rejoicing when
a sinner repents, but how do self righteous people respond when a sinner
repents? How do people who know your sin respond when God forgives you? They
are not always so gracious, are they? They are kind of like the older
brother sometimes and said, ‘Wait a minute here’. How can they go out
and enjoy sinning so much and then come back and say ‘You are just
forgiven it’, that’s not fair. It’s not fair is it? It’s not fair,
it is merciful, is what it is. So we tend to think that since God is so
forgiving that everybody in the church will be forgiving too. It is not
always the case, is it? Self righteous people aren’t interested in God
forgiving anybody else because they don’t see themselves needing any
forgiveness and Jesus tells a wonderful parable in, actually wasn’t even a
parable, in Luke he talks about visiting Simon, the publicans house and he
walked in and Simon didn’t kiss him, or wash his feet or anything and that
is were the lady came and washed his feet with her tears and Jesus at the
end of the story was saying, if a person owed $500 and another person owed
$5 and they were both forgiven, who would be more grateful? Well of course
the one being forgiven $500, the greater amount. Said that is right. The one
who has been forgiven much, loves much. The one who has been forgiven
little, loves little. A self righteous person, the person who believes they
are righteous in there own acts themselves does not love sinners. They don’t
love sinners especially forgiven sinners, because they see themselves having
no need for forgiveness. So if you in yourself the thing that rises up when
someone else is forgiven greatly of great sin and you say wait a minute
here. I don’t like that, we may want to look to ourselves and say wait a
minute here. Jesus said those who have been forgiven much, love much. If I
don’t have great love for a sinner who has repented and has come back to
the fold in Christ then I should be careful that I am not trusting in my own
righteousness and I don’t recognize my own sin.}}}

^{^{^{Another aspect is this. Angels still love it. Angels
still love it. When you come back from your sins, if you are doing something
now that God disapproves of and you know it. By the way we talked about that
last week, to bad you weren’t here. A lot of you weren’t here because
you were stuck in our driveways and I wish you had been. If we had a few
more minutes I would preach last weeks sermon and then come to this one but
you wouldn’t want that either. But the idea is that God shows us our sins,
and keeps showing us our sin until we turn. Well this kid finally came to
his senses, our you at the place where you are about to come to your senses?
Are you figuring out the thing here that I thought would be so much fun, it
is not that much fun and I am finding out that disobedience is not good for
me. I thought it would be stylish, now it isn’t stylish. So we need to
turn back and say ok God can you forgive me? Without the assurance of
forgiveness this kid came back and he wasn’t sure what the reception was
going to be but God runs to repentant sinners and says I love you and the
angels as the song said a few minutes ago, Standing Ovation for Jesus, I
think they stand and applaud when a sinner repents. Cause they rejoice in
heaven when a sinner repents. Are you at the place where you are going that
way, have you stopped and came to your senses, and are you coming back? With
true repentance and confession we don’t have to doubt the reception we get
from God. Where are you? Are you feeding pigs and calling it fun? Are you on
the way to the far country or on your way back? The moral of the story is
God hates it when we leave, it embarrasses him, it humiliates him because we
are taking his riches and spending them on our pleasures, when we go that
far where we have to turn back, we can turn back, we have to turn back
otherwise we will live there forever out of the graces of God in a far
country doing things we totally disapproves of and are totally destructive
to us. We need to turn back and say, ‘God, can you forgive me?’ And do
it in a spirit that says, I don’t expect you to and you shouldn’t but I
sure am glad you will. And don’t be surprised if others are not so pleased
that you got forgiven. It is human nature but not Godly nature.}}}

^{^{^{Let’s bow in prayer:}}}

^{^{^{Father thank you so much that you forgive us. Father
thank you for the fact that you forgave us when we first came to you and we
come to Jesus Christ and say, Jesus would you forgive my sins and make me
like you. Then he says, ‘Sure I will forgive your sins because my death on
the cross provided for that. It is a gift that I prepared for you and as
soon as you accept it, it is yours. You have forgiveness, you have the
ability to follow me now. You have the grace of God, the Holy Spirit within
us, within you to follow me. When we take those riches of Jesus and squander
them then we go along ways away from him and that fellowship is broken, that
relationship is harmed because of that. We humiliate God in that. Father I
pray that you would help us to know when we are in that far country. Help us
to know when we have even taken the first step that we are disobeying you.
Father we know that there is pressure, that kids share pressure from
communities, don’t do that kid that is not proper and so we have warnings,
you tell us not to do things that are disobedient to you. You use your
conscious, you use the Holy Spirit, you use your scripture, you use other
peoples comments, you let us know when we are going in the wrong direction.
Father help us to turn back quickly. Help us to come back and say, boy I am
sorry that I did that. But Father if we get to that far country and are
feeding pigs, help us to even turn there and come back. Knowing that you are
a loving and gracious God and will forgive our sins again. You will forgive
that sin, you’ll restore that fellowship that we have, that we lost, that
we broke. Father help us to come back and to find the loving arms of God who
is willing to run to us. He said, You demonstrated your love to us and while
we were still sinners Christ died for us. You said in 1 John, ‘See how
great a love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called
children of God’. What an amazing love you have for us, that when we go
off to the far country you long for us to come back. You wish for us to come
back, you do everything you can in our power to bring us back and when we do
you rejoice because you created us to be with you. Father I thank you so
much for that. I pray for those here this morning who may be on the way out
or on the way back, or finally coming to their senses, I pray you would do
that in their lives bring them back to you and make all of heaven rejoice.
Father help the rest of us who are Christians who see somebody who has came
back from sin, help us to appreciate that and love that because we have been
there too in one way or another and we have found forgiveness in you. Father
I thank you for that wonderful truth, that angels in heaven stand and
rejoice and sing and throw a party when we repent and turn back to you.
We
thank you for it in Jesus name. Amen}}}

HOME