Parable of the father and two sons – Part Two (Luke 15:11-32)


Summary of part one last week:
• We saw how the younger son could not wait for his inheritance in due course  this is like us who do not hope in the eternal, but want God to pour his blessings upon us NOW, in THIS WORLD.
• The younger son’s attitude was extremely disrespectful, and amounted to killing his father in Jewish law and customs  “I don’t care if my father is alive or dead”
• We saw how he realised that he was living the life of a pig, he finally saw himself correctly and that’s called repentance.
• Whose work is the repentance? It is the work of the father, the God, not the younger son:
o Just like a lost sheep cannot find the shepherd
o Just like a lost coin cannot find its owner
• How then does God bring repentance? By stripping away our idols!
o Younger son
o Job

Today we’ll continue on and discover more about God’s grace.
The father’s sovereignty
After correctly seeing himself as nothing but a pig, and deeply realising his need for his father’s grace, the son goes back to his father. At this point you see the bible says that the father saw him from far away and was filled with compassion and ran to his son. In the Jewish customs of the times it was regarded as vulgar for adults to run, but his father disregarded all that as he ran towards his son. Why do you think he ran?
Before that, when Jesus is telling this parable, what do you think the Pharisees are expecting to happen next as the son goes back to the father? The Pharisees would have pictured the son being stoned to death by the people of the village.
<READ Deuteronomy 21:18-21>

This is why the father ran as soon as he saw him and wrapped his arms around his son, before anyone can harm the son for what he’s done.
Strictly speaking, you can say that it’s not that his father saw the son while he was waiting, but that the father’s eyes had never left his son.  God is omnipresent, he’s everywhere and is watching over us all the time.
He never loses sight of us, which means this… In order to make his son understand what a self-worshipping, self-centred life without God is like, the father allowed his son to rebel and take his inheritance early, allowed his son to travel away to a foreign land, and he left his son alone and just watched as his son was living in the pigpen.
If that was not his intention, the father could have easily not given his son the inheritance, or send people to bring him back at any point in time.
In the same way, God allows us to experience what life away from God is like (which is like hell), so that we will become those who will firmly hold on to only his grace. Because we have to realise how precious God is.

The work of the father’s salvation
If you look at the last verse of this parable, you can see what kind of salvation this is from God
<Read Luke 15:32>
The father declares that the son was “dead but is now alive again”. Like I said before this son’s sins are deserving of death according to the Old Testament law, but his father just declares that he was dead and now alive again – when did he die? the son had never physically died as he deserved to. This is the gospel. We all deserve to die like the younger son here, but God just declares that we have already died, and he declares that we are living again. How? By the cross of Jesus Christ.
The cross of Jesus Christ is illustrated in the father’s actions.
The father, knowing that his son could be put to death, runs after him and wraps his arms around the son, to protect him. He’s become the shield. He is bearing the shame now, that his son was supposed to bear in front of all. He is forgiving the son that doesn’t deserve forgiveness.
All this is against the law! The father is breaking the law to protect his son. This is the cross of Jesus Christ. He is breaking the law himself in order to free the son from condemnation. This is the gospel and this is salvation.
As you can see, this parable is a pure illustration of the gospel, of God’s work of salvation, not our work of repentance.
The parable doesn’t end here though, we have a message to receive through the older son.
The older son
The older son appears to be different to the younger son. While the younger son is out there indulging himself in loose living, the older son is working hard in the field for his father. Then he comes home to a party for his brother, and he becomes angry, thinking “how can my father throw a party for someone like my brother, when he’s never thrown a party for someone as diligent as me”
<READ Luke 15:28-30>
There are two ways life without God manifests itself within us. When you are living as the Lord of your life, you become like this:
1. Total failure and destruction like the younger son 
2. Life of disguised diligence and claim like the older son
In number 1, you have the chance to stop being the lord of your life.
In number 2, you are still trying to be the Lord of your life.
The older son is number 2.
You can see that he is diligently working for his father, but it doesn’t come from the love of his father. If he loved his father, then he would be happy when his father is happy. “My father’s joy is my joy” this is the attitude of a true son. But the older son has no concern for the father – all that work that he’s been doing for his father has been about HIM!
He’s pretending to be obedient and submitted to his father, just so he can get what he wants.
<Kevin’s massage example>
I was so stiff that I went to receive a massage yesterday. The masseuse told me to relax, saying I stiffen up. I can’t tell what’s relaxed and what’s stiff.
“Stiff with perpetual nervousness”
Why? Because I am God and I need to be worshipped!
Servant not child
The bible calls these people who work hard for a claim, for a reward, for payment as a “Servant”.
In verse 29, it says “I’ve been serving you”.
The older son appeared to be the one being by his father’s side, obeying him diligently, but the diligence was not from a son’s gratitude and duty, but a disguised diligence that comes from his desires to get something in return, like an employee. The diligence does not come from knowing his father’s heart and sharing his father’s heart and desires – it is from an evil motive for what the father can provide for him.
So what is the difference between the younger son who did not know the heart of his father and went out on loose living, and the older son who even though he stayed close to his father but still did not know his father’s heart, could not share any joy with him, and was only diligently working for his father for the inheritance? NOTHING.
In fact you can see that the older son is jealous of the party. It means the older son wanted to do exactly what his younger brother did, but was holding it in for the sake of his father’s inheritance. So both sons are deserving of being stoned to death, both are lost sons.
<READ John 15:15>
Servants cannot know the hearts of the Lord.
The older son could not know the heart of his father and be able to share in his father’s joy, and in the end was resentful against his father. That is the same sin as the younger brother in the end.
We are not called to be servants, we are called as God’s children.
Not just children but lost children. Being lost children means we were already in his possession. In that way we are chosen before creation, and sent into this physical world for a purpose, just like the younger son was sent to the foreign land. Meaning He planned and allowed for us to be “lost”. Why? To make us realise our absolute dependence on him. This is the purpose of our lives here, and this is the walk of faith.
But are you being faithful to this purpose? Are you realising your need for the grace of God in your life? 
Conclusion
In the past, reading this parable, we’ve been quick to judge the older son as the bad guy who was abandoned by his father, but that’s not true. 
The truth is that we are both the younger son and the older son combined. We seek independence from God to chase the pig food of this world and fall into all kinds of sins, like the younger son. But we also stay close to God and pretend to do things for him so that we can get what we want through him.
This parable exposes our true selves, and says you are beyond salvation. Which is why this parable is about God and his infinite grace.
He invites both the younger and the older son to the party. Both are equally sinful, and both are equally needing God’s grace, and he doesn’t withhold his grace from anyone.