Sermon Tone Analysis

The amazing thing about The Prodigal Son is that it's a story lived out in the lives of so many families.

Many that are here today…maybe you're the parent of a prodigal son or a daughter, or maybe you are the prodigal son or daughter.

You know, sometimes we read these Bible stories, and we think of people wearing robes and riding on camels, and we just don't think it's real, that it doesn't apply to us.

But the fact is…there's really no difference fundamentally between the characters and the times of Scripture and our time today.

Oh, maybe transportation has changed.

Maybe a few jobs have changed.

But the hearts of people have not changed, and the circumstances and the problems that people have are the same as they had in the days when Jesus gave us this parable.

They're just like you and me.

They have the same needs we have, the same wants, and the same problems.

So when we look at this story today, we're going to look at a story that reflects your family or maybe that reflects you.

I want to talk to you today about the Prodigal.

You find it in Luke, chapter 15.

It's really the ending of a series of parables where Jesus has been challenged by the Pharisees who are confronting him.

He's being challenged by them for why it is that he rejoices so much and seems to enjoy so much spending time with sinners, the tax collectors, those who are the outcasts of society.

So Jesus shares a story about a lost sheep.

He shares a story about a lost coin.

Then he shares and ends the story with a lost son.

We find that in chapter 15, beginning in verse 11.

While it's a parable, I see so much reality in the story.

I wonder if this isn't a true story that Jesus is sharing with us.

It says in verse 11: /"Then He said, 'A certain man had two sons.

And the younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.'

So he divided to them his livelihood.

And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal [or wasteful] living.

But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want.

Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.

And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.'"/

Two sons born in the same family, from the same womb, raised in the same home, with the same education, the same opportunities…two sons, completely different.

Does that sound familiar?

Two children from the same family, but it seems like they couldn't possibly be from the same family at all.

If you're a parent here today, you've wondered about that yourself.

You've wondered why it is that you can have two children (or more) who seem to be so different, one from another.

Here, we have a child who is rebellious.

This younger son goes to his father and says, "I want my portion of the inheritance now"—an action that normally didn't take place in that culture until the death of the father.

He is in essence saying, "I wish you were dead."…disrespecting

his father and asking for his portion now.

Amazingly his father gives it to him, and he, just a few days later, gathers up everything (which I think simply means that he sells his part of the possession…he seems to come into some liquid assets there and some cash), and he goes to a far country and begins to live it up.

Two boys in the same family and yet completely different.

One is rebellious, and really, both are rebellious.

I think before we go any further, we need to realize about rebellion.

You know, all of us are sinners.

All of us in this room, whether parent or prodigal, are born with a sinful nature.

And one thing that you need to know…if you're a parent and you're not aware of the fact that you brought into this world a precious adorable little sinner, then one of these days you're going to be in for the shock of your life because they will disappoint you.

They will show forth that they are sinful children.

They will show forth a rebellion.

We all have the problem of rebellion, but I will admit that sometimes it is more pronounced in some than it is in others.

That's what we have in the story that is before you today.

We have a prodigal…and maybe you already have that prodigal child, or at least one who has that potential.

There are some signs that you can see sometimes when a child is going to be that prodigal child.

Generally speaking, they're very disrespectful of authority.

They express a lot of discontentment with being told to do anything.

That disrespect for authority becomes part of their nature and part of their reaction to all the things in life.

You'll notice the disrespect here, how this younger son really treated his father in demanding his inheritance.

Not only do we see disrespect here, but we also see materialism.

Materialism is certainly another sign of one who is perhaps destined to be a prodigal.

You just have to ask yourself…he says here, "Give me the portion of goods that falls to me."

Now over at your house, what gets the most attention?

Is it the material or is it the spiritual?

What is it that seems to get the focus of your house?

Is it the things of the body or is it the things of the soul?

Do you remember that verse that just keeps coming up to us week after week?

Jesus tells us back in Luke chapter 12, in verse 15…he says to /"take heed and beware of covetousness..."/ Why?

Because /"…a man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses."/

But when we live materialistically, we think that life does in fact consist of the things that we possess.

A prodigal (on top of all of that) uses that as their measuring mark of how pitiful their life is and how necessary it is for them to break free.

Materialism…freedom…all the other synonyms that they might use for wanting to get away from that thumb of their parent and make it on their own.

There are some principles I want you to see in the story, and the first one is right here.

If you have a prodigal son or daughter…one who has left home, one who is about to leave home, one who has been gone for a short or a long time, one who maybe hasn't even left the premises but their heart has gone to a far country some time ago…I want to give you some principles from a parental standpoint, from the father's standpoint, for you to keep in mind.

Also, if you are that prodigal, that you might take heed to the words of God here.

The first principle is right before us.

This is what I want you to notice.

The father didn't try to keep the boy from leaving.

He didn't try to keep the boy at home.

That's the first principle.

I heard this saying, I think it's a good one: "Parenting is the orderly losing of control over your child."

That's what parenting is.

You take a person from a state of total dependence to one of independence, and in the process, you lose control.

The problem is sometime parents don't want to let go of that rope.

And when the child turns prodigal, when the child rebels, when the child runs away or the child simply leaves the family at the first legal opportunity they can, that desire to hang on to that rope leaves such rope burns in your heart that your life is miserable.

You can't get on with your life for fear and worry, for trying to take charge of the situation, trying to show them the right way, trying to bring them back, trying to hang on.

My friends, the father did not try to keep the boy from leaving.

He let him go.

There has to come a time when you let them go.

Even if letting them go means they're going to fall off a cliff.

There has to come a time when you let them go.

I wonder if I'm speaking to someone this morning who remembers vividly the day that son or daughter walked away, who remembers vividly that time in their life when they chose the far country.

Listen, the far country is just simply anywhere a person goes away from God.

The number of steps it takes to get to the far country is one step, one step of rebellion, one step of disobedience against God.

And that's what we have with the younger son.

It is that step that causes them to want to break free.

And that's what happens here.

That's the rebellion.

Secondly, we see repentance.

As we follow the young man's story, we see what is perhaps one of the best illustrations of what real true biblical repentance is all about.

Repentance is simply a word that means to change, metanoia.

It means to change your direction, to take a 180-degree turn form where you were going.

It's not to think about or to feel sorry about or to be remorseful over…that's not repentance, that's regret.

Repentance is a change.

And we see this younger son come to that point in his life.

Look with me in verse 17 of our chapter.