Luke 15 Three Ways to Live

Luke 15:11-32 Three Ways to Live

Crofton Baptist Church June 2008

Luke 15 is about a celebratory meal. The outcasts of society were gathering around Jesus, enjoying his company, listening to him and eating with him. Meanwhile the religious folk, the leaders and church-goers find that very difficult because Jesus’ friends fall right outside their definition of acceptable and holy. So Jesus tells them three parables here in chapter 15 and another 2 in chapter 16 that expose the reality of what is going on here, and that expose what their hearts are like before God.

Here is how each of the parables in chapter 15 work:

Three things are lost – a sheep, a coin, a son
Then they are recovered
In each case there is a party to celebrate

Its pretty clear what Jesus means in each case. The sheep, the coin and the son are lost people who have turned away from God and the joy of God. The seeker is God, coming in the person of Jesus to pursue those who are running away into destruction. The joyous meal shows God’s response and our delight when people come back.

The heavenly Father loves it when the lost are found, and the correct response is joy. It's celebration. Jesus is saying to the scribes and Pharisees who are levelling accusations of impropriety, “actually you are the ones being improper.” Grumbling at the joy others are finding in God is the wrong response. When people accept Jesus they come home to God. They are found by God. All Heaven rejoices and the party Jesus is having is a foretaste. The right response to being found by God and knowing that we have a future of eternal joy with him in Heaven, is rejoicing in the presence of Jesus here and now.

And so to the parable of the Father and the two sons, probably the most famous story Jesus told.

A Shameful Leaving

First of all there is a shameful leaving. The younger son goes to his father and says “I want my inheritance,” which would have been tantamount to wishing his father dead. “I don’t want you in my life, I don’t want you dictating my choices. I don’t have resources of my own but I am going to take yours. And don’t expect me to use them in ways you will like.”

You know the story. He jets off to Las Vegas, gets himself a string of high class call girls, buys himself into the high life and does everything that would make a Pharisee think that he was beyond the reach of the Father’s love. If anyone ought to be disowned, it’s this son. That’s the point. Jesus is painting a picture of someone who is utterly not worthy, deliberately not worthy by his own hand and own choice. He wants to be away from the father. This isn’t the result of some subtle, unintentional drift, this is the ultimate in rebellion and hatred.

I bet some of the listeners thought it was great when the boy finally got his comeuppance. That’s the way we think, isn’t it? We see celebrities living riotously and then getting brought down by their lifestyle and we think “good, they had it coming.”

But that’s not the way God sees it. God sees the bringing low as a means of bringing the boy to himself. Do you see there are two comings here. In v20 he arises and comes to his father. But before that he comes to himself. When he left home that day with his wallet bulging and the world as his oyster, he felt so free. His delight was in the fact that he could do anything, go anywhere, have all the stuff and all the girls he wanted. It’s the heart of hedonism. Hedonism says “I measure my worth by the extent of my stuff. I measure my happiness by what I purchase and consume.”

Our day is absolutely the same. There is no difference. We are invited every day to place our happiness and our worth in what we can buy. Maybe in this area and for many of us, particularly to place our happiness in our homes into which we pour so much time and effort. I have to be really careful here. We have just redecorated the house and boy did it need it. And now the house looks really nice. And I am tempted to think to myself “I am doing OK in life because I now have nice antique copper ceiling lights. And, hey, that’s not so bad, because at least it isn’t spending it on prostitutes like this guy.”

Is it wrong to have lights in the house? No. Is it wrong to while away my life thinking how I can improve and upgrade and trade up so that my delight is in my house? Absolutely. Maybe the tale of the younger son might lose some of its impact in our locality because we are much more likely to do the subtle drift into hedonism than the wild plunge. He fled to a far country, we are more likely to get there by little increments. His hedonistic rebellion against the father was blatant and offensive. Ours is more likely to be restrained and pleasant and English.

Let me make one comment particularly for those of you who are older. I am just coming up on 40 and I already know the temptation to take the foot off the accelerator of my passion for God. And I can see that when I reach retirement there may be all kinds of temptations to say “I have done my bit, now I will be comfortable.” The hedonism in the story that takes the son away from the father might be of the kind more commonly found among the young. That might not be your temptation. But there is a comfortable hedonism that attends to the older that is more insidious because we think we’ve earned it. And it too will erode your love for God and for the Kingdom if you let it.

So the son comes to himself. All of a sudden the ghastly penny drops that what he thought was freedom was in fact slavery. There is no such thing as absolute freedom. You will either be a slave to Christ who loves you and gave himself up for you, or you will be a slave to the world. He had become a slave to the world and it carelessly tossed him aside. Coming to himself means that he looks at his situation and at the world in the cold light of day. What he sees is that life in the father’s house is better than anything he has in the world.

A Lavish Homecoming

So the journey home starts. You might think it would be a long journey. He went to a far country. But in fact the journey to the Father is a very short one indeed, because the father sees him from a great distance and comes to him and embraces him and kisses him. If you resonate with this story at all, if you know what it is like to be a long way from God in riotous living and maybe think, like the son, “I couldn’t go back to being a son, the father simply wouldn’t want me”, the response of the Father is meant to break your heart. The father lavishes his delight on the ultimate rebel. He will certainly do so to you if you turn to him.

Just like in the other two parables the lost is found, the dead is declared to be alive again, and they start to party. Not just any old party, a party with the fattened calf. That’s the kind of party you want to go to.

The Best Sermon Ever - Because of the Sting

I like having mottoes. 2 Tim 2:2 is one of my mottoes. Another one is “encourage the good wherever you find it.” But the one that is stuck to the pinboard beside my desk at the moment is:

Great preaching should blow the doors off

OK, it’s a bit crude, but you get the idea

The story of the prodigal son may just be the greatest preaching of all time because the way it ends is with the most gut-wrenching sting in the tail. You see, as challenging and wonderful as the story of the saved younger son is, the story isn’t really about him. And it isn’t told to people who are like him. The whole point of the story is the older brother.

Just recall that this story is told to scribes and Pharisees who don’t like what they see of Jesus welcoming the tax collectors and sinners. They are looking in at the party saying “why is he eating and rejoicing with them?” With the story of the older brother Jesus turns it on them and says “why are you not enjoying eating with me? I tell you the father delights over the recovery of the lost, yet you hate it. These people are outside your definition of worthy, but I love them. You don’t like this music and dancing and partying because it is outside your definition of reverent worship, but its rising up in these peoples hearts as a foretaste of Heaven.” Jesus is in the party, not outside it. In the context of the story the Father is the host of the party with the music and the dancing.

Why is the older brother outside? Why won’t he come in? That is a more important question for most of us than the rescue of the younger son. The older son represent long-time church goers, the respectable and religious. He hears the commotion and comes to investigate. A servant tells him “your brother has come back and your father has killed the fattened calf.” In other words he has given the most lavish welcome. The older brother is furious.

A Dark Heart

Just like when the Father went out to the younger son, so now he comes out to entreat the older, and what a dark heart is revealed in the conversation.

First it reveals that he has no real comprehension of his relationship with the father. He is a son but he talks about it in terms of servitude. “I have served you all these years. I never disobeyed a command.” Let me say something shocking: there are times when serving God dishonours him rather than honours him. Instead of enjoying the father as a son, he has let his relationship be reduced to “you command, I serve.” I want you to ask yourself at this point “do I think of my relationship with God as a father-child relationship or a master-slave relationship?” That’s the difference between the two sons. God is not pleased and not honoured by that kind of relationship. He says “I am your delight, your joy, the Father of lights. I am the one who gives good gifts to my children. In my presence there is fullness of joy, and you want to conceive of your relationship with me only in terms of dutiful obedience?” That’s like me saying that I do good to Ros because I took vows to and I had better fulfil them, not because I love her.

Second it reveals that he thinks he is deserving of being loved by the Father because of what he has done, and that his younger brother isn’t worthy of being loved because of what he has done. Because he doesn’t enjoy God’s grace himself he is unhappy with it being lavished on others. “Love me because I merited it” is the opposite of the good news of the grace of God to you in Jesus. The irony is that that’s the way the world thinks: you get on because you deserve it. We might expect that the younger brother would be more inclined to think that way. But no, it’s the religious one who thinks that his deeds ought to earn the father’s love.

Third he hates the delight that’s going on inside. He sees people enjoying the father and enjoying the return of the son with music and dancing and he despises it. The heart that says I don’t like God being lavish towards others will commonly not like their enjoyment and worship of God either.

The father implored him “you are my son, everything I have is yours, you aren’t a slave that you should consider your relationship with me in those terms. We don’t have a relationship of command and obedience. Won’t you come in and enjoy the fun?”

And there Jesus stops. We don’t know whether he did or not. Its hard to think he did without a significant change of heart. If he goes in it will be because he accepts the father’s lavish grace to both sons. Or he will remain outside the party in the dark.

Three Ways to Live

So there are two kinds of sinners in this story, two kinds of rebels against the love of God. The riotous worldly kind and the dutiful religious kind. Jesus is saying there are three possible ways we can live our lives:

Live for the world and without the father
Live for dutiful religion and without the father
Live in the lavish grace of God to the undeserving and come into the party

Don’t think that the second is better than the first. They both replace a relationship with a loving father with something they falsely believe is better.

That’s the invitation this morning. If you are living for the world Jesus says “come to yourself, and come to the Father, he will lavish his love on you.” If you are living the dutiful religious life, looking good but knowing you are outside, Jesus says “soften your heart. Be in the party not in the porch.” That may be the more difficult one to deal with if God is softening the heart of someone here who has long enjoyed the reputation of being a good Christian but little of the joy of the Lord.

He is entreating all of us. Don’t stay in the far country. Don’t stay in the dark outside the house when inside is a feast with a fattened calf and the lavish grace of God for undeserving sinners.