The Story of Two Sons and Their Father
Jim Cymbala, Brooklyn Tabernacle’s pastor, shares their oldest
daughter’s story. “Chrissy had been a model child growing up. But around age
sixteen, she started to stray. Chrissy not only drew away from us but from God
and eventually left our home.” While all that was going on, Pastor Cymbala kept
preaching and leading the Church but was agonizing before God for their
daughter to return home. In one of the Tuesday prayer meetings, the
congregation rallied around the pastor and the family and earnestly prayed to
the Lord for Chrissy’s homecoming.
Thirty-two hours later, on a Thursday
morning, while the pastor was shaving, his wife told him to go down. Chrissy
was waiting to see him. “My heart was pounding. As I came around the corner, I
saw my daughter on the kitchen floor, rocking on her hands and knees, sobbing. Cautiously,
I called her Chrissy. She grabbed my leg and began pouring out her
anguish.
Daddy, I’ve sinned against God. I’ve
sinned against you, Mommy, and myself. Please forgive me. Then she said, Daddy,
who was praying for me on Tuesday night? She continued, “In the middle of the
night, God woke me and showed me I was heading toward this abyss. There was no
bottom to it- it scared me to death. I was so frightened. I realized how hard I’ve
been, how wrong, how rebellious. She asked again who prayed for me. We know the
answer. The Church prevailed in prayer.[1]
Let’s pray for our prodigal sons and daughters to come home.
In Luke 15:1-2, The tax collectors and
sinners gathered to listen to Jesus. But the Pharisees were unhappy, saying, “This
man welcomes sinners and eats with them. To teach a lesson to the Pharisees,
Jesus told this parable known as the Parable of the Lost Son. It would be more
appropriate to say, The Parable of The Prodigal Sons and Their Father.
Luke 15:11-32. This parable teaches us three lessons as we read it through the
eyes of the three main characters.
I. The Departure and the
Return of the Younger Son: (11-24)
The parable of the prodigal sons and
their Father is one of the most well-known parables of all of Jesus’ stories.
The famous Dutch painter Rembrandt painted the Return of the Prodigal Son in
1669, which is now part of the Hermitage Museum collection in St. Petersburg.
Looking at a photo frame of this
beautiful painting on the wall of my office, I am reminded of my homecoming to
God. Here is the story: A wealthy Jewish man has two sons. The younger son
demanded that his Father give him his share of the estate. Once he got his
wealth, the younger son packed his bags and went to a foreign country to enjoy
his life with wild parties.
There is a side of the younger son in
all of us. By nature, we want to enjoy every sinful pleasure which is contrary
to God’s will for us. At times, we would be fooled and even lured by the devil
who offers us heaven and leads us to hell. When all the money was gone, the
younger son hit rock bottom and began to starve. He hired himself to feed the
pigs.
A
Jewish boy couldn’t go any lower than that. He was in a pit of despair. He
returned to his senses as he talked to himself. What kind of self-talk do you
engage in when you end up in a pit of discouragement? Do you curse God and
blame your situation and everyone else except for taking responsibility for
yourself? Listen to the self-talk of the younger son.
He remembered the good life in his
Father’s house; even the hired servants had plenty of food to spare. He looked
at his miserable state and decided to return to his Father’s home. He would tell
his Father that he had sinned against God and him and was no longer worthy to
be called his son again. After all he did, he thought he only now deserved to
be a slave of his Father.
Upon reaching home, the reception he
received was beyond his expectations. The critical point in the younger son’s departure
and homecoming is that repentance is always possible for those who want to
return to God. No matter how far you have gone away from home or how wildly you
may have been living, you can always return to God. He is patiently and
longingly waiting for you to return home.
II. The Resentment of the
Older Son: (25-30)
While the celebrations continued at home, the older brother
worked in the fields. The music he heard and the dances he saw upon returning
home did not go well with him. He is furious when he finds out why his Father
threw a party and refuses to go in. His answers to his Father’s plea exposed
his resentment towards the younger son. The elder son saw himself as a slave
instead of a son. We find older brothers and sisters in our homes and Churches.
When we see ourselves as slaves
instead of sons and daughters of the most high God, we carry certain attitudes.
We resent other Church family members instead of rejoicing with them in their
salvation and victories. We judge others instead of loving and accepting them
as they are. We complain that we
are the only ones working hard and others are having a good time in the Church.
We become proud and critical of others and lose the joy of our salvation. God
doesn’t want us to live as slaves but as his beloved sons and daughters. We
must not resent His generosity for even the worst sinners, as we were once
sinners, saved by God’s grace.
III. The
lavishing love of the Father for both Sons (31-32)
The
unifying factor in this story is the lavishing love of the Father for both his
sons. The younger son, in his rebellion, went away from home and became a slave
to sin and pleasure. Father waited patiently for the return of his prodigal son
one day. He did some unusual things that a wealthy Jewish elderly would never
do. Upon seeing his son from a far distance, filled with compassion, he ran,
threw his arms around, and kissed him.
The younger son thought he would beg
his Father to accept him as one of his slaves. But the Father had something
grand in his mind, and he hurriedly restored him to his sonship again and
celebrated his homecoming with joy. He pleaded with his angry older son. He reassured
him of his sonship and inheritance and encouraged him to rejoice instead of
resenting others.
What can we learn from this familiar
story of two sons and their Father? Throughout human history, there have been
prodigals like the younger son in the story. Some of you might be like the
younger son, who went far away from home and bent on enjoying the sinful
pleasures of life.
God is waiting, calling you home and assuring you, saying, “The door is always
open.” Remember,
repentance is always available for those who want to return to God. Forgiveness
is always possible. The only unforgivable sin in the Scripture is the sin of
unbelief, committed by those who don’t want to repent and be saved and who
never change their minds. For those who
change, God stands ready to run towards you to hug, welcome, and restore your
sonship. The classic line from the film The Hiding Place, placed on the lips of
the character playing Corrie Ten Boom, the Dutch Christian woman who harbored
and protected many Jews during World War II, sums it up well: “No pit is so
deep the God is not deeper still.”[2]
Some of you might be like that resentful older brother
full of anger, contempt, and judgment. When God is treating you like his son
and offering everything he has for you, you are behaving like a slave and not
enjoying the relationship with Him. Like the older brother, you might be
distancing yourself from fellow brothers and sisters in God’s family. The
message for you is that God’s people ought not to resent God’s generosity for
even the most wayward of sinners.
Whether you are like the younger or older son in the story, we all have sinned as the Scripture says and lost our way home. The good news is that we can never be too far from where God’s lavishing love cannot reach us. I John 3:1-2, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! As God’s beloved children who are forgiven, let’s be kind, loving, and merciful to other brothers and sisters in God’s family and to the wavered sinners who do not yet belong to the family of God.
