Introduction

James Boswell in his biography of Samuel Johnson (a famous English writer) says, “he remembers the one day he went fishing with his father. He called it the most significant day of his life with his dad. Later he got hold of his father’s diary and read the entry, quote: “Went fishing with Sam, day wasted.”

Why did he think the day was wasted? Maybe it was because he wasn’t at work making more money, getting ahead in his career.

Jesus tells us a parable about a man like that. He is called “the rich fool.”

The Passage:
Luke 12:13-21

The Parameters

In chapter 11 Jesus is condemning the religious leaders for their hypocrisy (vs. 42-43) and for rejecting and killing God’s messengers (47).

In 12:1 Jesus warns the disciples of the leaven of the Pharisees. He defines it as hypocrisy. They placed all their emphasis on externals - on the physical - on the temporal. He condemns them elsewhere for being white-washed tombs (Mat 23:27) because their insides are rotten, but they have covered up the rottenness with nice looking rituals and rules. But, 12:2 says there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed...

In chapter 11 Jesus talked about how the Jewish religious leaders always killed God’s messengers. In 12:4 Jesus teaches his disciples not to be afraid of those who kill the body, which is a physical and temporal issue. Instead, they should be afraid of God who has power over their souls and can send them to hell (12:5). That is a spiritual issue. It is an eternal issue. Then he reminds them that there will be a final accounting in the after-life (12:8-9).

He also tells them not to be anxious for their life when these prophet killers drag them before the courts because the Holy Spirit will guide them.

In vs. 13 Some guy in the crowd says, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” I recently heard someone teach on this parable and he said that this guy comes out of left field with his question - that it was totally unrelated to the context. I disagree. I think it is very related to the context.

What does this question reveal to us? It shows that he has not been paying attention because he worried about a physical temporal thing. Far from being out of context. The man’s question illustrates the very thing that Jesus was speaking about.

The law of primogeniture says (Num 27:1-11 Deut 21:15) that the first born gets a double portion. If you had two brothers, you divided the estate three ways and the oldest got two parts. So guess which son this is. He is the youngest son.

If he is asking this, what does that tell us about his father? His dad has just died. That will set us up for a very significant part of the parable.

This shows that he is greedy. From here on we will refer to him as the greedy brother.

The greedy brother is not following the ideal of living in harmony with his brother. Ps 133:1 says, “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!” I would assume this man knew the Scriptures but did not care. The greedy brother treasured riches more than his relationship with his brother. He did not love people.

In vs. 14 what is Jesus’ response? He says, “Man, who appointed me a judge or arbiter over you?”

The irony is that when Jesus says, “Who made me a judge over you?” it seems to imply that it wasn’t His job, but in reality it was going to be soon. Jesus is asking probing questions to see if the people understand who He really is.

The word arbiter can also be translated “divider.” Jesus could also be saying I am not going to contribute to the division between you and your brother. Although the greedy brother doesn’t care about Psalm 133:1, Jesus remembers. He came to promote relationships.

vs. 15. gives us a big clue as to what the point of the parable is. Jesus condemns greed and warns that even if the man gets a larger share of the inheritance, it will not bring life.

People don’t believe this. They think that if they can only get enough material things these things will produce the abundant life.

Do riches bring the abundant life? Listen to what Andrew Carnegie had to say:

"Millionaires who laugh," said Andrew Carnegie, "are rare. “You may have all the money in the world, and yet be a lonely, sorrowing man.”

Sir Earnest Cassel said, “The light has gone out of my life. I live in this beautiful house, which I have furnished with all the luxury and wonder of art; but, believe me, I no longer value my millions. I sit here for hours every night longing for my beloved daughter."

And Christina Onassis said, "Happiness is not based on money and the greatest proof of that is our family."

Do you believe these stories? Or do you think it would be different for you if you had lots of money?

The Problem Which Prompts The Parable

Jesus is dealing with the problem of greed and seeking life on earth in temporal possessions.

The Progression

Biographical - There is a comparison and contrast going on between the two characters in the parable and two characters outside the parable.

Characters In the Parable

The Rich man

At first he appears to be a good man who has many riches. He is content with them and going to enjoy them. He is the ultimate couch potato. Why is Christ telling a story about a rich man to a bunch of poor people and to a greedy brother? I think He is setting them up with this story.

God

God is the judge. He thinks the man is a fool. Until verse 20 the rich man doesn’t appear to be too bad. Then we get God’s opinion of him. The problem is not that he has lots of riches. It is his attitude. He thinks this is all there is to life and he is content.

Characters outside the parable:

The Greedy brother

He is a greedy man, and wants riches. His attitude is that more money will bring him life.

Jesus

The Particulars Of The Parable

Vs 16 - Why is Jesus telling this parable about the rich man who had no greed to a greedy man?

Jesus builds up the rich man as a good guy, a content man - something that is very rare. This guy is just the opposite of the greedy man. What do we learn? Both thought that life consisted in stuff. Selfishness and self-satisfaction are two opposite pulls that are both out of balance to God. They are opposite sides of the same coin.

The man in the parable was already rich. He already had enough for himself. But this year, he had a bumper crop. Isn’t this the way it always is? The rich get richer and the poor get poorer? One gets the impression that the rich man didn’t really work very hard for this. Why does Jesus want us to get that impression? If you get something that you didn’t work for, what is it? It is a gift. Who was this gift from? It was a gift from God. Remember that.

So, what does he do with the surplus? Verse 17 says “The rich man began reasoning to himself” This is significant because in that culture everyone went to the city gates to discuss everything. This man doesn’t do that. We get the impression that he has no friends, no relationship with anyone.

He says, “What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops? This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.”

Notice the emphasis on “I” and “my” as he reasons with himself. He did not understand that his prosperity was a gift from God. He forgot that he was a steward and thought that he owned it all.

In vs. 19 he assumes that he will live for a long time, and will enjoy his stuff.

But in vs. 20. God enters the scene and says, “You fool” the word for fool is a[frwn. This may be a play on words with the word for “merry” in the preceding verse which is eujfraivnou. “The rich man who thinks that his eujforew (many things) will produce eujfrwn (the good life), is in reality a[frwn (without mind, spirit and emotions).” (Kenneth Bailey, p. 67.) He is without life. He is stupid.

God goes on to say, “your soul is required of you.” The word “required” has the idea of paying back a loan. This emphasizes the idea that the man was just a steward of his stuff and not the owner.

Then God says, “now who will own what you have prepared?”

What is the connection between the greedy guy’s question and the parable?

The greedy guy’s question was concerning his inheritance (because his father had died) and the parable ends with a question of inheritance (because the rich man died). “Who will own what you have prepared?”

We know what will happen. We see it happening with the greedy man. The kids are going to fight over it. It reminds me of Howard Hughes. When he died, there was no will and people fought over his inheritance for years.

In vs. 21 Jesus says, “So is the man who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

There is a major reversal in the parable - the rich man ends up being poor to God. Notice the poetic justice. Why does Jesus tell a bunch of poor people about a rich man? How does a rich man story go over? Poor people want bad things to happen to rich people, because they are jealous. Some politicians get elected by playing on that emotion. They say they will tax the rich and give to the poor. To the poor people this is poetic justice. To the rich, this is a tragedy.

Notice how this parable even fits in the context of Jesus’ speech to the multitude. 12:11 don’t be anxious... 12:22 don’t be anxious.... He is telling them not to be anxious about temporal things. The greedy man’s question fit right into the context of Jesus’ lesson. It’s almost like it was staged. It certainly shows that the greedy man wasn’t paying any attention to what was being said.

Verse 23. There is more to life than food and clothing, things, stuff.... Verses 15 and 23 introduce and conclude the parable with the same thought. Man’s life does not consist of stuff. That is the answer to the materialism of our day.

The Point

Because we cannot take our material possessions with us, we should concentrate on storing up eternal treasures in heaven.

The Relation To The Kingdom Program Of God

Christ is going to be the judge in the kingdom. What started the whole parable? The question by the greedy man. He wanted Jesus to be the judge. Jesus says, “Who made me judge over you?” As if Jesus isn’t the one who is judge. Remember what Jesus said in 12:4 and 5. Don’t fear the one who kills the body, but fear the one who can cast you into hell. That of course is God. But God is going to hand all judgment over to Christ. But that is not yet known. Luke is hinting at it and will reveal it later.

If God is the king and we are the sons, then we are heirs of the kingdom and if we own the kingdom, then barns, grain and goods are such trivial matters. We don’t need to worry about earthly inheritances. That is the right perspective. It is so ironic that we lust for acres while here on the earth and God has kingdoms waiting for us in the future (cf. vs31). What a stupid investment to leave God out of my life and devote my time on earth to build up the very thing that God is going to use for asphalt in heaven - gold. Streets of gold. Get it in perspective. The asphalt of heaven.

The Principles

Don’t put your emphasis on material possessions because they don’t last. Like the guy who was walking back from the funeral and someone asked him, “How much did the guy leave behind?” And the man smartly replied, “Everything.”

Greed is wrong, but at the opposite pole, so is self-sufficiency or self-satisfaction.

If you define life in terms of money, you leave God out of the definition and you end up bankrupt. What counts is your relationship with God. Remember Jesus said in 12:9 just before the parable, “He who denies Me before men shall be denied before the angels of God.”

The rich man made at least four mistakes:

1. The rich man made the mistake of thinking he was the owner of his stuff when he was just a steward. We are just stewards of our stuff.

2. He was worried about the present and forgot about eternity.

3. He was concerned only for the physical and forgot about spiritual things.

4. He treasured stuff more than people. He lived an isolated life

This parable tells us how to define life. Most people define life in terms of material possessions, physical fitness or the future. This parable speaks loudly to our generation. Have you been defining life in your career, your house, your stock portfolio, in terms of what you can do physically, or the assumption that you will live much longer? What is going to happen when you lose one or more of those things? What happens when you get laid off? What happens when the stock market crashes? What happens when you get some disease which takes away your physical ability. What happens when you find out you only have six months to live? If you define life in these things, you will be devastated.

Having possessions is not wrong, it is putting your security in them that is wrong. The rich man is not condemned for being rich. He is condemned for being self-centered, for not using his surplus to help others, for leaving God out of his life.

In 12:24-30 Jesus compares them to the birds and the flowers and shows them that since they are more valuable than the birds and flowers, that certainly their heavenly Father will take care of them. It is the Gentiles - the godless - that seek life in stuff.

So, they are to seek His kingdom and then all the stuff that they need will be added. The rich man got all the stuff and stopped seeking.

Vs 33 says we should store up treasure in heaven. How do we do that? by investing in people. People are the only things we can take with us to heaven. So, investing in people is what counts.

In vs. 34 Jesus says “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Whenever you invest your time or money, it moves the heart toward that thing. When you invest in stuff it darkens or hardens the heart. When you come across the choice between stuff, (like CD players, computers, business, etc.) or spending time with people and you choose stuff, you are rejecting people. Or if you invest in people, then you will reject stuff. Jesus says in the parallel passage in the Sermon on the Mount that you will love one and hate the other.

So the question is, what do you choose? What do you treasure?

I think one of the things that impressed me in this parable is the lack of love and relationship in the lives of the greedy brother and the rich man. They chose stuff instead of God or people. In the story I told at the beginning, we saw a father who chose stuff over his son. And we saw where his heart was.

Let me tell you another story:

Bill Butterfield says, “There is something magical about a birthday when you are a kid.” Remember the feeling? In one day, you gain a whole year on your friends. You go to bed 5 one day and the next you are 6. It is a special day and should be carefully planned. These sentiments came through loud and clear with my son Jesse. Formerly 5, now solidly 6. He wanted a birthday party at a certain place with certain friends with a certain menu with a certain type of birthday cake and certainly gifts. Jesse is not the type of kid to spout out a list of gifts a mile long. He always knows exactly what he wants and not only that, exactly where to find it. You see, Jesse has Toys-R-Us memorized. If asked where the Parcheesi game was, he would say it is with the games on aisle 12 between PacMan and Payday.

Wanting to make this a special birthday and wanting to get him exactly what he wanted, I asked him what he wanted for his birthday. However, I did not get the answer I expected. Instead, I was given a lesson in love.

“Dad, I would like a ball to play with for my birthday.” was Jesse’s carefully planned reply.

“Great!” I responded, “What kind of ball would you like?”

I think I’d like either a football or a soccer ball.

“Ok.” I agreed, but pressed him further. “Which one would you like more?” A football or soccer ball?”

“Well,” he mused slowly. I should have known by his pause that it was coming.

“Well...., if you had some time to play ball with me this next year, I’d really like a football for you and me to throw around in the back yard. But if you are going to be real busy this next year, maybe you’d better just get me a soccer ball because I can play soccer with the rest of the kids in the neighborhood.

He paused again......, The silence was deafening..... “Ok buddy, ... Uh....I’ll make a choice, ... uh...and surprise you for your birthday. How does that sound?”

“Great Daddy,.....I love you.”

I grabbed my wife and went into another room to relay the conversation that had just transpired. It was as I was retelling the story that my son’s message came through. He wasn’t longing for gifts. He was longing for the giver. It took an almost 6 year old to remind me that relationships are more important than things.

By the way, the oddest thing occurred on my son’s 6th birthday. It’s a moment we will never forget. A grown man and a little boy embracing and sobbing tears of joy over a dumb old football.

Long for the giver and not the gifts. Don’t invest in stuff. Invest in people.

The Passage:
Luke 13:1-9

The Parameters

Someone tells Jesus about the Galileans who were killed when Pilate desecrated the temple by sacrificing a pig there.

Jesus asks if these Galileans were more sinful than other Galileans. In the Jewish culture, health and prosperity was a sign of God’s blessing. In the same way, poverty, sickness, etc. were signs that one was sinful and disobeying God.

Jesus then asks them about the Judeans killed when the tower of Siloam fell down. Were they more wicked than the rest? They were not.

If you don’t want to perish, what do you need to do? Repent.

In the broader context we need to remember that Jesus cursed a fig tree later on in His ministry. The parable of the fig tree and the miracle of the fig tree are related. There were leaves, but no fruit.

The Problem

What is the reason for the impending judgment which is threatening Israel? Why is God’s judgment delayed

The Progression - Logical

The progression is logical. It is cause and effect. The cause of judgment is a lack of fruit and the reason for the delay is to give time for repentance.

The desire for fruit (vs. 6)

Why do you have a fruit tree? To get fruit from it.

The decision of fatality (vs. 7)

Fruit trees that do not bear fruit don’t deserve to live. They are worthless.

The determination for fertilizer (vs. 8)

The vineyard-keeper wants to wait and fertilize and give the tree a chance.

The delay of fatality (vs. 9)

The Point

In order to motivate people to show forth the fruits of repentance, God graciously delays His judgment.

The Relation of the Parable to the Kingdom Program of God

Jesus extends a “year” of grace to Israel before the cursing of the fig tree in hope that they would respond in repentance as had been preached by John the Baptist.

Remember that Peter preaches repentance in Acts 3 because the kingdom was at hand.

The Particulars

• The historical tragedies.
• The image of the vineyard - they were often planted in vineyards and would usually produce three crops per year. So this fig tree had missed nine crops.
• The cursing of the Fig Tree.

The Principles

• Times of suffering are sovereignly allowed by God to bring purpose and truth to light.
• The place of privilege is the place of responsibility (Isa 5:)
• Responsibility brings accountability.
• God’s gracious delay of judgment is designed to prompt repentance. (2Pe 3:, 2Co 7:8-10) The repentance is the change of mind that turns from dead works to faith in God.

In our culture who you know is very important. We drop names to make ourselves seem more important. Now that Chuck Swindoll is the president of DTS, I will probably run into him from time to time. If I say, “The other day, when I was talking to Chuck, he said....” then that is name dropping. This is not a new phenomenon. Jesus deals with a similar thing in Luke 14.

The Passage:
Luke 14:15-24

The Parameters

Remote Context

The Pharisees had just been critical of Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath and Jesus had noticed their haughty, self-seeking attitudes at the dinner.

In the OT and other Jewish writings there are several references to dinning at a great banquet with the Messiah in his kingdom.

• Isa 25:6 On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.
• 3 Enoch - says, “At once Israel shall be saved from among the gentiles and the Messiah shall appear to them and bring them up to Jerusalem with great joy. Moreover, the kingdom of Israel, gathered from the four quarters of the world, shall eat with the Messiah, and the gentiles shall eat with them...”
• In Matt 8:11 after commending a gentile for his faith, Jesus says, I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

The Jews looked forward to the day when Messiah would set up his kingdom and part of the festivities would include a great banquet with the Messiah.

So the people hearing this parable about a great banquet would immediately identify what Jesus was talking about. He was talking about the Kingdom.

The host of a banquet sent out two invitations. An original invitation in advance and then a second invitation to notify that “dinner was served.”

Immediate Context

In the preceding context to this parable Jesus had noticed the proud, self-seeking attitudes of the guests at the dinner he was attending. He told them not to seat themselves in the places of honor but to leave that to the host, otherwise, they would be shamed when they had to move. Last week we saw the relationship between pride and shame. I think that the principle we learned last week is applicable here.

He also tells them, that when they themselves give a banquet, they should only invite those guests who cannot repay. I’ve heard Dr. Pentecost say numerous times in his class on the life of Christ that hospitality was a sign of righteousness. When you invite those who can repay, your motives are wrong and it is not righteousness. So, I’m sure that is related to our discussion.

The Problem

Someone comments that those who eat bread in the kingdom will be blessed. Who is it that will eat bread in the kingdom of God? The Pharisees thought that only they would make it into the kingdom and certainly not the outcasts of society. The outcasts were not at this dinner, nor would they be at the dinner table of the kingdom.

The Progression: Biographical

The Host

He was giving a big dinner which indicated he was wealthy. He had an original “dinner list” of people whom he invited.

What you may not realize is one of the cultural practices of that time, when a man was going to give a banquet, he sent out an invitation weeks or months in advance. If it was a marriage banquet, the invitations went out soon after the betrothal - almost a year in advance. The events in the parable assume that the advance invitation has been given and the 1st invitation we read about is really not the first.

The Original Guests

The original quests all made lame excuses and could not / or would not come to the dinner.

Excuse #1

This man was concerned with financial investments.

Excuse #2

This man was preoccupied with his business.

Excuse #3

This man was preoccupied with family matters.

The Replacement Guests

The host invited anyone who wanted to come and filled his house so that there was no room for the original guests.

The Point

God graciously invites all to come to Him (1)¹, but many are self-satisfied and preoccupied with their own lives and miss out on the invitation (2), and only those who are aware of their inadequacy will accept the invitation (3).

The Relation of the Parable to the Kingdom of God

The original guests represent the nation Israel, and the poor, lame, etc. represent the Gentiles and those outside “the system.” The Host (God) offered the kingdom to Israel, but they rejected the offer. So the kingdom was given to the Gentiles and the outcasts of Israel who would accept it.

The Particulars

The self-seeking guests of the preceding section (14:7-11) would not even be allowed to attend the dinner by the end of the parable.

The class distinctions made in Israel (discussed in parable of good Samaritan) are appropriate here. The original guests would be the inner three circles - Priests, Levites and “Joseph Jew.” The outer circles would be the replacement guests.

The traditional double invitation would refer to the OT prophets prediction of Messiah and the Kingdom and Jesus’ claim to be Messiah and announcement of the kingdom.

References to poor and crippled and blind and lame sound like Isa 61:1-2.

There was more than enough room for all the outcasts, but no room for the original guests who refused the invitation.

The dinner went ahead as scheduled. It was not postponed. Could this mean that the kingdom was not postponed?

Dispensational Explanation

• The prophets gave advance invitation to the Jewish nation. They predicted the coming Messiah and his kingdom. Isa 40:3
• John the Baptist’s announcement of the arrival of Messiah and Jesus’ claim to be Messiah and His announcement that the kingdom was at hand was the 1st invitation. Both John and Jesus quote from Isa 40:3 What was the Jewish response? - They rejected the Messiah and his offer to come into the kingdom (i.e. banquet)
• The Disciples gave 2nd/3rd invitation- Acts 3: Only the outcast Jews and Gentiles responded. References to poor and crippled and blind and lame sound like Isa 61:1-2.
• Banquet in the Millenium.

The Principles

For Unbelievers:

• The original guests missed out because they were preoccupied with their own lives. The things they were concerned with were legitimate, but should not have dominated their lives. We need to be sure we are not doing the same thing.
• What is your response to the invitation? What might happen if we put off accepting the invitation? What happened to the ones who made excuses in the parable? They didn’t get to go to the banquet at all. Principle: Those who reject God in this life will not get a second chance.
• If you haven’t responded, what is hindering you? What are some reasons people put off accepting the invitation?

Pride - like the 1st group of invitees?

New Field = Materialism

New Oxen = Business

New Wife = Family

For Believers:

• If you have responded, what is you attitude towards those less fortunate than you? Don’t be proud if you are on the inside. You are only inside because others refused the invitation. This is not denying the sovereignty of God, but Paul himself says this in Rom 11:11&18.
• What is God’s attitude towards sinners? --towards us, even in our sin? God is pursuing us. What was the attitude of the host? What should your attitude be towards the social outcasts? In the parable just before ours, Jesus said that when we throw a party, we should not invite those who can reciprocate. Instead, invite only those who cannot pay you back. Who are the ones who attend the banquet? They are the poor, lame, blind, etc.
• If God invites you and me to dinner, what does that say about us? What does this say about you if you have responded? What is our “social” status? Could we return the favor? We are outcasts. We don’t need to worry about being good enough to be there. No one is. Principle: Just as the replacement guests could not reciprocate and were the recipients of grace, so we also are recipients of the grace of God.

---

1 The numbers correspond to the three character types in the parable and the three parts of the central truth.

Introduction

Life is full of surprises. There are the fun surprises like birthday parties and Christmas gifts. And then there are the surprises that you experience that reveal something about who you are and who your God is. Those are the kinds of surprises that Jesus gave to people in His parables. When he told a parable, it was to answer a question or to deal with an attitude, and most of the parables had surprise endings that drove right to the heart of the issue and to the heart of the individuals listening.

Jesus is dealing with a question and an attitude in the three parables we are going to study today. So turn in your Bibles to Luke 15.

The Talmud said, “All the prophets prophesied only for repentant sinners, but as for the perfectly righteous, who had never sinned at all, the eye has not seen, what God has prepared for him.”

The Talmud taught that a person could live a sinless life. The Pharisees believed that they were perfectly righteous, that they had not sinned. Therefore, they really despised the sinners and the tax-gatherers. What was wrong with being a tax-gatherer? A tax-gatherer was a Jew working for Gentiles and that was bad. In that culture, the word tax-gatherer was synonymous with sinner because tax-gatherers were Jews who had sold out to the Romans and collected taxes for them. In the eyes of the community, a tax-gatherer was a thief.

Jesus habitually ministered to the sinners, and it bothered the Pharisees. They concluded that Jesus could not be from God because God did not like sinners. The unspoken question is this: “What is God’s attitude towards sinners?”²

So Jesus tells three parables to show why He eats with outcasts. In them He will answer the question about God’s attitude towards sinners. And he will deal with the Pharisees self-righteous attitude and their condemnation of others.

The Lost Sheep

• He is saying this tongue in cheek.
• He is assuming it is true for the sake of the illustration or argument.
• When He says righteous, He really means self-righteous.
• And He is setting them up for later.

The Lost Coin

These two parables deal with the question of God’s attitude towards sinners. God’s attitude towards the sinners and tax gatherers is that they are very valuable to Him and He is searching diligently to find those who are lost.

Now Jesus tells another parable that is directed right at the Pharisees self-righteous attitude. Let me read this parable from a different translation:

The Rebellious Son In The Key Of F

Feeling footloose and frisky, a foolish fellow forced his father to fork over his fourth of the family farthings and flew far to a foreign field where he fast frittered his fathers fortune feasting foolishly with faithless friends. Fleeced by his fellows and folly, and facing famine he found himself a feed flinger in a filthy farm. Flushed and fairly famished he fain would have filled his frame with foraged food from farm fodder.

“My father’s flunkies fair far finer.” The frazzled fugitive forlornly fumbled. Frustrated and filled with forboding, he fled forthwith to his father. Falling to his father’s feet he forlornly fumbled, “Father, I have flunked and frugalessly forfeited family favor.” The fugitive’s, faultfinding brother frowned on fickle forgiveness, but the faithful father figure filled with fidelity, cried, “The fugitive is found. What forbids further festivities. Let the flags unfurl and the fanfares flare.” Father flagged a flunky who fetched a fatling from the flock and fixed a feast.

The moral of the story is: The father’s forgiveness formed a foundation for the fugitive’s future fortitude.

The Lost Son

The Lost son

Vs 12 - We probably don’t appreciate the gravity of the request that this son makes when he asks his father to divide the inheritance. He as much as tells his father that he wishes he were dead. What does the father do? He divides his possessions between his two sons giving 1/3 to the younger and 2/3 to the older son. The younger son leaves.

Why does the son do this? Because he doubts the capability and goodness of his father. He thinks he can do a better job of managing his own life than the father can. This is a perfect picture of our natural heart which resists the rule of God in our life. We want to be independent. The questions we need to ask ourselves are:

• How am I being independent? Is it with my finances? A sinful habit? Looking for happiness in other things, etc. We cling to things that we do well or things that we think are meeting our needs or make life work and refuse to depend on God and let Him meet our needs.
• Why am I being independent? I think it is because we doubt the goodness of God. I think that is the reason the son left. He doubted the goodness of his father, and he thought he could handle life better on his own.

Vs 13 - The son squandered his father’s possessions. He couldn’t manage his life better than his father. This is a good picture of the fact that life lived outside of God’s will is a wasted life.

Vs 15 - The son ended up working for a Gentile and feeding some pigs. Remember that this parable is dealing with the Pharisees attitude about tax-gatherers (Jews working for Gentiles). So Jesus brings details into the story which show us that he is still dealing with the issue in 15:1-2. This is also a good picture of how we end up serving other things when we refuse to serve God. We can never be independent. We will always serve something - either God or money (Jesus says in the Sermon on the mount).

Vs 17 - The son comes to his senses and realizes that he was wrong. He will go back home and see if his father will at least let him work as a servant.

The Father

Vs 12 - The father let him go - knowing he would fail and hoping that he would come back. This shows the graciousness and patience of the father.

I’ve heard that if he did come back, in that culture the father would have been expected to do one of three things: (1) stone the son, (2) turn him away or (3) make him a slave. This was a bad Jewish boy and he needed to be made an example of. If this is true, then the son is hoping for the last option - make him a slave.

Vs 20 - Instead, this father diligently watches for and anticipates the return of his lost son. When he sees his son coming, he runs to meet him. In this culture it was undignified for a man to run. But this father was not concerned with losing face.

Jesus came to earth to find us and was willing to lose face. He suffered the most humiliating death known to man.

When the son is found, he rejoices. Notice there is no comparison with heaven because this is the Father that he is talking about.

Notice in verse 22 that the father interrupts the son before the son can pledge his service. All that is required is repentance and return, not works. Lordship Salvation focuses on verse 19.

The younger son may not have had full repentance when he was in the pig farm. He wanted to come back and work for his father - maybe with the hopes that he might be able to earn enough money to buy back his part of the land. But when

• he sees his father’s humiliating sprint down the road towards him,
• sees what he has done to his father,
• sees his father’s unconditional acceptance,
• sees the lavish gifts his father bestows on him,

Then he recognizes his father’s goodness and realizes that he could never “earn” his father’s favor or inheritance. It was already his. He just needed to accept it.

Let me read a Song by Michael Kelly Blanchard. It is a good, modern day picture of a prodigal daughter

THE PICTURE

By Michael Kelly Blanchard (The Maze)

Now I’ve been a problem since Momma died, angry and restless and sad.

She was instantly killed on the passenger’s side, with barely a scratch for Dad.

We’d yell and yell till he’d hit me good,

And the lights would go on in the neighborhood.

It got so bad I wished that I could . . . but then Daddy did. . .

Now Gramma was a lot like Mom, heart of gold in a tiny frame.

She took me in when there weren’t no one, and when I got in trouble she shared the blame.

Never cared much for my looks...

The kind of girl for bums and crooks...

Fish around till I’d get hooked ... what a life to live.

Chorus

There’s a picture of Jesus on my wall.

It’s been there since I was very small.

He looks like He just saw a little girl fall.

And you know He don’t look angry at all.

I work swing shift in a bearing plant, got my friends and I got my foes.

I’d like to leave but I know I can’t, and that’s just the way it goes.

Got pregnant by a married man...

Broke my heart and trashed my plans...

But when I hold that tiny hand ... it don’t seem so bad.

Gramma watched for the first three years, till she got a killing flu.

He got real close so she could hear, “Gramma I love you”

Maybe ‘cause we missed her so...

Maybe ‘cause . . . I don’t know...

I let another baby grow ... never told his Dad.

Repeat Chorus

There’s this man at work I see every night, says God gonna judge me for my sins.

And I believe he’s probably right. Yes I know that I’ve disappointed Him.

But every now and then I’ll stare...

At that picture of Jesus hanging there...

And a kind of hope fills up the air,...like He loves me anyway.

When I was little I used to play down by a meadow pond.

A big blue heron would fly away, whenever I would come.

Kind of thought that’s like God and I...

I Show up He starts to fly...

But now when I look in Jesus’ eyes ... almost think that He would stay ...

I almost feel like I could pray.

Repeat Chorus

Those of us who are in trouble can approach the Father.

This parable of the Lost Son not only shows what kind of repentance the Father responds to, but it also shows the way the Father responds to repentance.

A writer named Kenneth Bailey pointed out that this parable is told on two giant chiasms. The first one deals with the younger son and the second deals with the older son.

The Younger Son

12 A Son is Lost

13 A Wild Party

14 Desperate Need

15 Sin

16 Total Rejection

17 Recognition of Need

18 Return

20 Total Acceptance

21 Confession

22 Total Provision

23 A Planned Party

24 A Son is Found

In a chiasm the emphasis is in the center. Notice what is in the center of this one. The repentance of the son. He first recognizes his sin and then returns to the father. In the first two parables, Jesus talked about the repentance of sinners, and there was no repentance. Now we see the repentance.

Repentance is:

• recognition of one’s need
• return to the father
• revelation of sin (confession)
• response of humility

Heb 6:1-2 Repentance from dead works and Faith toward God. It is the attitude that I can’t, but He can. Repentance and Faith are two sides of the same coin.

Now we come to the last half of the parable:

The Older Son

We talked about the chiasm in the section dealing with the younger son. Let’s go ahead and study the dialog between the father and older son with the help of the chiasm:

The Older Son

26 Suspicious

27 Safe and Sound

28 The Father’s Effort

29 Self-righteous (Me)

30 Judgmental (Him)

31 The Father’s Effort

32 Alive and Found

____________

In verse 26 we see the older son comes home and asks what is going on. A servant tells him that his brother has returned and everyone is celebrating. The older son is angry so the father goes out to him to plead with him to come inside.

Let’s look at the older son’s response in detail:

Vs 29He says, “Look!” which is disrespectful of his father.

His attitude was that he was “slaving.” This is not just the word for work. It is the term doulos which means to slave. He didn’t understand what it meant to be a son. He didn’t understand grace. He was trying to earn his inheritance or something.

He claims to have never disobeyed a command of the father’s. This was undoubtedly not true. He did not recognize his own sin. It is also very indicative of the Pharisees’ self-righteous attitude that they were above reproach. And this ties us back to the 99 righteous in 15:7.

He claims that the father never gave him anything. In essence, the older son is saying the same thing that the younger son said. He wishes the father were dead so he could have his stuff. But remember that the father had already divided the inheritance between the two sons. This son actually had a double portion.

He says “that I might be merry” - this shows that he wants to have joy without repentance.

And who does he want to be merry with? With his “friends,” not his father or family.

Vs 30He is resentful of the good treatment that the father is giving the younger son.

The center of the chiasm points us to the most important point of the parable. The center of each focuses on the responses of the sons.

• In the first chiasm the center was the repentance of the younger son. He recognized his sin and returned to the father.
• In the second chiasm the center was the self-righteous, self-justification of the older son and his criticism of the younger son.

Vs 31The father reminds him that he had already given him everything.

Vs 32The father explains why he is celebrating and then there is no response from the older brother. The absent response of older son leaves you hanging. God is waiting to bring the religious leader in.

The last chiasm is incomplete you are left hanging with a question in your mind. “What is the older son going to do?” It is part of the surprise ending.

Jesus uses several other devices to bring in the element of surprise.

A pattern is developed and then changed in the end:

• lost, found, rejoicing
• lost, found, rejoicing
• lost, found, rejoicing, resentment

The older son resents his father’s acceptance of the prodigal son. He does not rejoice like the shepherds in the first parable, nor the woman and her neighbors in the second parable, nor does he rejoice with the father and the rest of the family in the end. The parallelism breaks down. And we are surprised.

Christ receives sinners because

He knows the perspective of heaven

He joins the chorus of the angels

He shares the Father’s heart and rejoices when one sinner repents,

In the first parable the ratio is 99:1. Only one is lost.

In the second parable the ratio is 9:1. Only one is lost.

In the last parable, you think the ratio is 1:1 until you get to the end and find out that it is 0:2. Both sons were actually lost. What does that say about the 99 righteous? And we are surprised again.

What is your attitude towards the older brother? If this were a play, what would your reaction be? I think there are three responses that a person might have:

• You could cheer! You might agree with the older son and think he is right. It is not fair that his faithless brother gets a big party when he, himself, had worked so hard for his father. If we agree with him, then our hearts are revealed. We are just like him. We do not understand our own sin and we do not understand grace.
• You could boo and hiss. You might condemn the older son. When you really analyze his statement in verses 29-30, you see he is evil too. But if we condemn him, our hearts are revealed again. We have the same self-righteous and judgmental attitude that he had.
• You could cry. The proper response is sadness for the older son. We should want him to come inside too. If we don’t have that attitude, we don’t share the perspective of the father who rejoices when one is saved.

The Point

God actively seeks to bring all into His kingdom, but only those who recognize they are lost will enter the kingdom of God. And we need to remember that the kingdom will be composed of a community of repentant sinners.

The Principles

• We must be careful that we do not despise nor neglect those with socially unacceptable lifestyles because they are valuable to God.
• We should expend great effort to bring the lost to salvation. This parable should make us want to share the gospel. If we were really concerned for the lost, we would.
• We should be excited when a sinner repents.

Paul says, “In the same way you received Christ, so walk in Him.” The Christian life is a series of “salvation-like” experiences. I don’t mean you lose your salvation and get saved again. I mean that the growth process involves repeated recognition of need, recognition of our independent spirit and returning to the Father in faith that He is good and will provide for us.

Sometimes we are like the prodigal son. We doubt the goodness of God and take our gifts and leave God and go out to try to find life and happiness through some other means -- it could be our work, our family, legitimate or illegitimate relationships, substance abuse, etc. We need to come to our senses, recognize that it is not working, that we are in need and turn back to God. When we do, he will accept us with open arms. He will take us back. Remember this: I am a prodigal son every time I search for love and happiness apart from the Father.

Sometimes we are like the older son. Maybe our sins are not as obvious as the younger son’s. Ours are on the inside. They are sins of attitude. We think that we are doing a good job, but we are comparing ourselves to really bad people. We can always find someone else whom we think is worse than us, and we think we are ok. But the conversation between the older son and the father revealed that the older son had the exact same attitude as the younger son. He just didn’t carry out his innermost desires. But just having the attitude left him on the outside. We need to evaluate our attitudes. Maybe there are some we need to repent of. There is a danger in becoming proud and self righteousness which blinds one to the need of repentance.

Conclusion:

The point of the first two parables in which a lost sheep was found and a lost coin was found emphasized the effort of God in finding the lost. In the third parable, the Father finds the prodigal son, who repents, but the father also goes outside to find the older son and the question we are left with is Will the older son repent? Repentance is not just about being found. It is only the context in which the heart can move. The Pharisees needed to examine their own hearts. We need to examine our hearts. And that is the surprise ending.

Miscellaneous details

The banquet imagery as the father celebrates the return of the younger son parallels the banquet imagery of the messianic kingdom. Link to previous parable about the great banquet and refusal of the invitation.

THE YOUNGER SON

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

He sets us up when he only deals with the younger son first.

12 The younger one said to his father, `Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.	A son is lost
14 After he had spent everything,	A wild party
there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. (Josephus records 19 famines between 169 BC and 70 AD.)	Need
15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs.	Sin - gentile subservience, uncleanness of pigs.
16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.	Total rejection
17 “When he came to his senses, he said, `How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!	Recognizes need
18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: (1)Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 (2)I am no longer worthy to be called your son; (3) make me like one of your hired men.’	Decides to get help Note the three things he wants to say.
20 So he got up and went to his father. “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.	Total acceptance His father has been looking for 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.’	Repentance
22 “But (father interrupts him before #3) 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. (Note that the father interrupts before the son can add the part about working. The father is not going to treat him like a servant. Does God treat us like servants? No. The ring on finger was a signet ring showing family membership. Sandals - only a servant put on sandals for someone else. Remember John the Baptist said he was not even worthy to put on Jesus’ sandals.)	Total provision
	A Planned Party
24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate. (When he says the son was lost - in that culture, what the son did would result in a declaration by the family that the son was “dead” but now he is back and “alive.”)	A son is found

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.	Suspicious
28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. (notice the effort expended by the father to go find the older son)	The father’s effort
29 But he answered his father, `Look! (disrespectful) All these years I’ve been slaving (not joyful obedience) for you and never disobeyed (oblivious to own sin) your orders. Yet you never gave me (self-centered) even a young goat so I could celebrate (enjoyment w/o repentance) with my friends (not with family).	Self-righteous proud “Me”
30 But when this son of yours (distancing himself) who has squandered your property with prostitutes (how did he know?) comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’	Judgmental “Him”
31 “`My son,’ the father said, `you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. (covenant status of Israel - remember that the father divided the inheritance earlier in the parable)	The father’s effort
	What is the older brother’s response going to be?

---

2 Pentecost, The Parables of Jesus, p. 100.