If you turn to the front side there, you'll see that we are in the 15th chapter of Luke, and on the third parable of this chapter, filled with parables, and this one being probably the most familiar of them all. Beginning in verse 11, and continuing through verse 24, we'll only do the first two-thirds of the parable. We'll do the next third next week, but for today, just 11 through 24. Let's give ear as Jesus speaks to us in this parable. And he said, there was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of the property that is coming to me. And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country. And there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger? I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. And he arose and he came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, bring quickly the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it and let us eat and celebrate for this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found and they began to celebrate. It is a parable that needs no introduction. As B.B. Warfield writes, no passage of scripture is more widely known or more universally remembered. Even the phrase itself, prodigal son, is entered into our common vocabulary so that the story and its intent is known even where the scripture and the Bible is forgotten. It is a familiar story and in it Jesus masterfully, as He does so often, Jesus is a master teacher, He masterfully teaches us about ourselves and at the same time about our Maker. He shows us at once the depth of our depravity. And yet, He does so with hope. Hope that in this sober picture of sin, there is still the possibility for the Son of repentance and more. There is this bright, shining picture of the countenance of the Father of mercies. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ here is presented to us. So the parable, it opens, you see, by setting our attentions on a man. It says, Jesus said there was a man. He is primary. He is first. And Jesus mentions Him first. We think of the parable being about the sons, but first and foremost, it is about this man. Without Him, there are no sons. He is the beginning and the end of the story, and He is present throughout the whole. And we read that this man had two sons. In verse 12, the younger of the two says to Him, Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me. And I think with those words we encounter the first insight into ourselves as we listen to the Son. We're brought face to face with a very fundamental aspect of our sinful nature. We, you and I, want to have what is ours, and we want it now. If ever there was a society defined by such desires, is it not ours? We want that which is coming to us, do we not? The things that belong to us, we want them immediately, right now, give them to me. despite any inconvenience that that might create for other people or neighbors, without any thought of anyone but ourselves, give Me what is Mine and give it to Me now." It's epitomized here for us in these words of the younger son. He wants what is from his father, and he wants it apart from his father, despite his father, without a care for what his father feels or wants or desires for him or from him. He wants to live without hindrance and without oversight or even the presence of this man, his father. And I think many of us are like this, at least at some point in our lives or if even not, maybe even now. We want to be our own person and we want to be our own person apart from our family and our parents, from our fathers. We want detachment from them. We long to define ourselves and carve out our own place in the world without them. In fact, there's many movies and songs in our world that encourage us towards that end. All the time, we take what we have received from them, yes, and even sometimes have demanded from them to do this project of finding or creating or defining ourselves. And it's not only with our earthly fathers either, is it? It is certainly true with them, but it is also true when it comes to God. We want to live in His world, but we want to live in His world without Him. We would that He was not, so that we could do what we want without any sense of Him looking over our shoulder or seeing us. We don't want the pangs of conscience that come with the knowledge that God sees our every action in this world. We would say to Him what this son says to his father, give me what is mine and leave me alone. With Frederick Miecza and the rest of the modern world, we would boldly declare that God is dead so that we can have the world and define ourselves apart from Him and all the while depend on Him for our breath and our body and the earth which He gave. And like God, and like so many loving parents and kind fathers, this father gives to him what he asks. It says, without comment, and he divided the property, literally his life between them. He gives it to them. As we read in the book of James, as we read it just a couple of weeks ago, we murder the righteous. And he, he doesn't resist us. We ask that the Father be dead so that we can have an inheritance, and He doesn't say a word about it. He merely gives us what we ask. And then in verse 13, the son, seemingly without regard to this selfless, kind act of his father, carries out his self-ish desire. He departs. He separates himself from Him who has been so kind and generous to him. Not many days later, it says, the younger son gathered all that he had. Notice, all that he had, which he got from the father, but there's no mention of the father or his kindness. He took it all, and he took a journey into a far country. It reminds me of something that I felt when I was an 18-year-old and about to go off to college. I had a certain kind of delight in the thought of departing from my family and my parents' house to go off to college in a faraway place, six hours' drive from Roanoke, Virginia to Springfield, Ohio. And I don't think I'm alone in this feeling when I went off to college that I looked forward to finally getting away from my parents, separating myself from their authority and their oversight to be free, to be me and do what I wanted to do. But just as here at the parable, the distance. The farness of the country was more than just a geographical distance. It was more than just distance that you can travel on a road. It was a separation, not only from my parents' house, but from myself as I was known and understood in that house. As I was defined by the way that they raised me and taught me to live and talk, As Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, the ancient church writes, what is further away for us than to depart from our own self? What is further away than to depart from our own self? Of course, this is not a separation from a body or even our physical being, but a distance from the order of our father's house, the order that I understand myself in. We might even call it a moral separation. from ourself is understood by those rules. And it's here described in terms of the phrase, reckless living. You can read it there at the end of verse 13. It says, the son squandered his property in reckless living. The King James has, in debauchery. It's a word that communicates the privation or the absence of salvation. And what better picture can you think of that captures the essence of a life without sin than this? Distant from God, wasting life and energy on that which does not and cannot ever bring to us salvation. It is utter dissipation. It is like taking a fine wine and pouring it into a glass that has a hole in it and can't hold the liquid. It says Ecclesiastes calls all of life, apart from God, vanity. Vanity. All. All of it is vanity. It's empty. It's a breath. It's here and gone. And we're all this way. We are born into it naturally, and naturally we seek it. Given freedom, we will follow that which we crave. We would pursue the desire to define ourselves and to be ourselves apart from God, and we would do it, as the Son does here, to the very bitterest of ends. If we keep reading in verse 14, we notice that it says, And He, when He had spent everything, Everything, all of it, all that his father had given him, he, every last mite of it, he spends it. This life and wealth that his father had accumulated for him, he quickly spends it away. And then, it says, trouble comes to him. And I think this leads us to the second thing that the parable teaches us about ourselves. The son shows us our sin, and we'll still continue to see that sin, but he also shows us what true repentance looks like when it comes into the life of a sinner. Continuing in verse 14, when he had spent everything, it says, a severe famine, trouble arose in that country for him. And he, it says, began to be in need. We might expect, hearing that kind of thing happening to the son, we might expect at this point, oh, now, running into trouble, using up all that he's been given, he's going to repent and think of his father and return to him. But notice, he doesn't. This is because repentance is wrought in us by more than merely circumstances becoming difficult. It's more than just a sense of need in our hearts and minds. It requires more than these things. And yet we often assume that if a person finds himself in a difficulty and feeling need, that that would be enough to finally bring them to repentance. If they would only fall into some circumstance that was trying for them, and if they could only realize that they were empty and had need of everything, well, then they would turn, then they would finally repent. But here, the parable shows us that that's not the case. The famine, the need, does not lead the man to repentance, but instead, it leads him even further away. It presses him deeper into the world that he fled to from the Father. So it says, Having encountered difficulty and need, it says he went and he hired himself out to one of the citizens of the land. It literally says that he joined himself to the citizen of the land. He, as it were, becomes one with him. He links arms with him. He connects himself to the citizen, confederating with the lost world in his time of trouble. And it is miserable company, isn't it? Look at the way it describes what happens. He joins himself to the citizen. The citizen he joins himself to sends him into his fields to feed, it says, the pigs. It's the very last place a good Jew would want to find himself. He doesn't even want to eat bacon, let alone go into the pigsty and touch a live pig. He looks for help in a far country and is forced into becoming ritually and quite literally unclean. The hard circumstance you see, the feeling of need, rather than bringing this man to repentance, only presses him further into sin. He who looked to the world for life now looks to the world, the same world, for help. What a wretched state of a man. And isn't this the state of all of us? Do we not all fall into this very pattern of behavior apart from God? We, who once looked to the world for help, continue to look for it in our time of trouble. It's the case of so many of us. Seeking to satisfy his hunger in the world, the hunger, note, only increases and even becomes perverse. Verse 16. And he was longing, it says, to be fed. See the hunger increasing and the pods that the pigs ate looked appetizing to him. He's willing to become a beast to sate his hunger. And no one gave him anything. He's alone, and he's tempted toward beast-like tendencies. See, this is where the path away from the Father's house leads. No matter what the circumstance, no matter how deep the sense of need, we come to a place where we seek from the world what the world cannot give, and it only leads us into further sin and deeper perversity and away from ourselves. Our desire to live without God will force us here, joined to citizens of a far country, alone, hungry, and contemplating still worse realities, and without any ability to do anything else. Dead is how the scriptures describe that state, is it not? Dead in our sins and trespasses. This man, the Son, like all of us in the state of sin, we need more than just circumstance and a sense of need. Repentance requires more than just those things. We need a very powerful, mighty act of God. We need something like resurrection, a new heart, a new mind, a new desire, a new will, a new thought in our head to even begin to ponder what it must be like to be outside of this far country and in a new place. This is the last and main lesson of the parable, I think, as well. God's action toward the sinner who cannot repent apart from Him. Each of the acts of God, if you look at the text there, it's marked for us by this little word, but. There's three of them in the text. In verse 17, and then verse 20, and then verse 22. And we see the first of them here in verse 17. It says, but. But when the man, when he, came to himself, he said, how many? There's surprise in it too, notice it. How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread? But I perish here with hunger. So he's surprised by suddenly coming back to the realization that that's the truth. It may be the first sober thought, the first sober word that He said in years, and it's evidence. It may be the most minuscule piece of evidence, a very small spark of light in a dark place, but it is evidence that life has returned to this man. It's fittingly expressed in the three words of verse 18, the first three words. He says, I will arise. I will arise." There's so much faith and hope in those three words. I will arise. To say that and believe it and trust that it is true, it is the very Holy Spirit's wind at his back carrying him to a new life. I will arise. And note, it's not only faith-filled and hope-filled and spirit-empowered, it is self-speech. He's speaking to himself. He declares it to himself. He tells himself the truth about himself. And isn't that what healthy spirituality actually looks like? Finally, in the darkness of sin, in the blindness of the world, we suddenly have the light of truth and we declare it to ourselves. This is what he does. We can learn from that. We can apply that in our own lives. And then listen to the content of his speech. It's first of all a revelation of the truth about the world. We've already seen it. How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread? He remembers what's true about the world. And then it is a purpose. He has a renewed will according to the light of that revelatory thought. I will arise and I will go to my father, he says. And then it's a confession of the reality of sin. Part of it is to say, I perish with hunger, but more, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. And then finally, notice how humble it is. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. revelation of truth, a will to act upon it, acknowledgement of sin, coupled with humanity? What is that but a carefully packaged gift given to us freely from God Himself who has awakened Him, who has given Him sudden and surprising life These are the signs of true life, are they not? True speech, and then, lastly and importantly, a corresponding right action. Verse 20, it's short, but it's important. It says, and he not only thought and willed it, but did it. He arose and came to his father. But, look in the middle of verse 20 there. Halfway through the act, The actions of the Father break in to His act. They overtake His act. They interrupt His act. But, it says, our second but, but while He was still a long way off. The language there is the same as used for the far away country. While He's still a far way off, He is, it says, seen. The Father sees him, and there's drama in this. He saw Him, the Father. The Father saw? We didn't even know that He was watching. We had forgotten all about Him with the Son, and now we know Him, and we know Him as one who is watching and seeing. And in that far-off perception, we see the source of His change of heart. It comes to Him from outside of Him. He who changes the heart is intent not only to change the heart, but to change the body as well. Filled with compassion, the Father it says, filled, moved with compassion, He runs. And running, He falls on the neck of the Son and He kisses Him. He runs to the one, think about it, he runs to the one who had chosen to be far away. He embraces the one who wished him dead, and he kisses the one who's probably still smelling of the pigsty, the father. And before the son can even begin to respond to this with his full confession, notice in verse 21, Father, I sinned against heaven and before you, and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. And then he wants to tell him, I'll just be a hired servant in your house. You don't even have to call me that. The father doesn't even seem to be listening. He is interrupting again. We don't even have And I think that it's important for us to note that, you and I, we get to our confession, we purpose in our heart the thing that we're going to do to make us right, and as we begin to do it, before we can even get it out, even if we don't get it just right, we do not even have to get all of it out of our mouths, God hears, and He is prepared to act. He preempts us with abundant grace. It's what Isaiah writes in chapter 65 of his book in verse 24. He says, Before they call, I will answer, and while they're yet speaking, I'll hear. See, the Son is speaking, and while He's speaking, before He finishes, But verse 22, the father says not to the son, but to the servants, bring quickly the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. It's easy to imagine what that must have been like to such a son who's trying to confess his sin as he had planned and purposed to do. And before he even gets it out, his father's speaking to someone else besides him, and he is being clothed, speechless, stunned as the servants hurriedly remove the signs of the foreign country and the stench of that pigsty and begin to put on him the signs of sonship restored completely And he who is just about to eat with the pigs suddenly finds himself, not as a servant, but as a son, seated at the feast in his father's house. Verse 23, and bring the fattened calf and kill it and let us eat and celebrate. Surprising. utterly bewildering. Suddenly he who was one thing is another. It's something like what happens to Lazarus when Jesus calls him forth from the grave. Lazarus comes forth and he comes forth with all his grave clothes and he tells them to unbind him. take off the gray clothes, clothe them anew, and set them again at Martha and Mary's table. He who is dead is alive. And that's what the purpose is given to us here. That's the purpose for all of these actions. Why does He do it? Why is this extravagance given to the Son from the Father? Well, because He delights to fulfill and see the results of His work. Verse 24, This My Son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and now he is found. And then it says they began to celebrate. See, this is what this parable shows us. Jesus speaks it and he tells us again about who we are. and what repentance is. But all the more, He shows us what the Father delights to make us to be. What He delights to reach out and take us from the pig's die and clothe us with and to sit us in the place He would like to sit us. This teaches us not only who we are, but who He is and how He acts toward us in our sin. As Paul writes in another place, where sin abounds, grace did much more abound. He calls us, He calls you and me into a feast to celebrate that, His act, His rejoicing, and to join Him in it. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we are thankful for the reminder this afternoon of your powerful work in our lives that you were willing to take us and to give us what we could not produce in ourselves, a new heart, a new mind, a desire to return to you and returning to you, you all the more would clothe us and continue to make us more and more appropriately fitted to sit at your table. and to eat and celebrate with you. Father, we pray that as we go from this place, we'd be encouraged with such things and that we, oh Lord, would learn to rejoice before you with joy unspeakable and full of glory for the great work that you've done toward us. In Jesus' name, amen.