More Than a Prodigal Story

One of the blessings of serving as a pastor is that familiar passages of Scripture often reveal something new when you slow down and spend time with them. Sometimes we become so familiar with a story that we stop seeing what is really there.

That happened to me recently as I was preparing a sermon from Luke 15.

Like many of you, I have heard this passage called The Prodigal Son for most of my life. In fact, if you open your Bible, there is a good chance that title appears right above the passage. We know the story well. A young man demands his inheritance, leaves home, wastes everything, and eventually returns broken and humbled.

But the more I studied the passage, the more I became convinced that we often focus on the wrong person. Jesus did not begin the story by saying, “There was a prodigal son.”

He began by saying, “A certain man had two sons” (Luke 15:11). 

That may seem like a small detail, but it changes the entire story. The younger son is important. The older son is important. But neither one is the central character.

The father is.

Everything in the story revolves around him. The younger son reveals one kind of lostness. The older son reveals another kind of lostness. But the father reveals the heart of God. And if we miss the father, we miss the point Jesus was making. 

Before Jesus ever told this story, the Pharisees were complaining because He spent time with sinners. They couldn’t understand why Jesus would welcome people with broken lives and messy pasts. In their minds, holy people avoided sinful people.

Jesus responded by telling three stories about lost things being found. A lost sheep. A lost coin. And finally, two lost sons.

The message was simple. God rejoices when lost people come home. That was true then, and it is still true today. 

I think most of us can identify with the younger son.

Maybe not in every detail, but we understand what it means to wander. We know what it feels like to make foolish choices, chase things that don’t satisfy, and discover that what looked so appealing from a distance wasn’t what we thought it would be.

The younger son believed freedom was found away from the father.

How many times have we made the same mistake?

We think happiness is found somewhere else. We think fulfillment is found somewhere else. We think life will finally make sense if we can just get what we want.

But sin always overpromises and underdelivers.

It offers excitement but leaves emptiness.

It offers freedom but creates bondage.

It offers pleasure but leaves regret.

The farther the son traveled from home, the more miserable he became.

Eventually, he found himself feeding pigs and wishing he could eat what they were eating. What a picture of where sin eventually takes us.

Then one of my favorite phrases in all of Scripture appears:

“And when he came to himself…” (Luke 15:17).

I love that verse because sin has a way of making us lose ourselves.

We forget who we are.

We forget whose we are.

We forget where real joy is found.

But by God’s grace, there comes a moment when our eyes begin to open.

For the younger son, that moment came in a pigpen.

For some people, it comes through a broken relationship.

For others, it comes through loss, disappointment, failure, or heartache.

Whatever the circumstance, the result is the same. We realize that life apart from the Father is not life at all.

The son decided to return home.

Not because he had everything figured out.

Not because he had suddenly become righteous.

But because he finally understood where he needed to be.

And that brings us to what I believe is the most beautiful part of the story.

The father.

The Bible says that while the son was still a great way off, his father saw him. That verse has always fascinated me.

How did he see him from so far away?

Because he was looking.

I can almost picture it.

Day after day the father walks to the edge of the property.

Day after day he looks down the road.

Day after day he hopes.

Day after day he waits.

Not because he knows when the son is coming home, but because he loves him too much to stop watching.

Then one day he sees a familiar figure in the distance.

And what does the father do?

He runs.

Not with anger.

Not with condemnation.

Not with a lecture.

He runs with compassion.

That is one of the clearest pictures of God’s grace in the entire Bible.

Before the son can finish his speech, the father embraces him. He restores him. He places a robe on him, a ring on his hand, shoes on his feet, and prepares a celebration.

The father wasn’t interested in making the son earn his way back.

He was interested in restoring him.

That is exactly what God does for us.

He doesn’t save us because we deserve it.

He saves us because He is gracious.

But then Jesus introduces the older brother.

And if I’m being truthful, I think many church folks are more like the older brother than we’d like to admit.

The younger son’s sins were obvious.

The older son’s sins were hidden.

The younger son was rebellious.

The older son was self-righteous.

The younger son left the father’s house.

The older son stayed close physically while remaining distant in his heart.

Yet both sons had the same problem.

Both needed the father.

That truth hit me hard as I prepared this message.

The younger son was lost in his badness.

The older son was lost in his goodness.

One trusted rebellion.

The other trusted religion.

One believed he could live without the father.

The other believed he could impress the father.

Both were wrong.

Both needed grace.

And so do we.

That’s why I love this story so much.

At the end of the day, the hero isn’t the son who came home.

The hero isn’t the son who stayed.

The hero is the father who loved both of them.

The father who watched.

The father who waited.

The father who ran.

The father who restored.

The father who pursued the rebel and pleaded with the religious.

The father whose heart never changed even when his sons did.

And that is exactly the kind of Father we have.

No matter how far you’ve wandered, He is still watching the road.

No matter how badly you’ve failed, He is still willing to restore.

And no matter how long you’ve sat in church trusting your own goodness, He is still inviting you to experience His grace.

The younger son was lost in his badness. The older son was lost in his goodness. But both sons were lost, and both sons needed the Father.

So do we.

Stay rooted,

Pastor David
Rooted in Grace
gracepastordavid@gmail.com

“As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith…” — Colossians 2:6-7 (NKJV)