SERMON STRUCTURE: A Fathers’ Love

Luke 15:11-32

CIT (Central Idea of the Text): A father joyfully welcomed home his wayward son, and offered the same love to his older son. (16 words)

SERMON FOCUS: The way in which the father loved his wayward son and welcomed him home is an example of the way in which God wants us to love one another.

Major Objective: Consecrative

Specific Objective: Love as the Father loves you; be loved as the son was loved.

TITLE: A Father’s Love

Then … the completed sermon should be evaluated in terms of how well it adheres to the CIT and SF, and accomplishes its SO.

INVOCATION

OUTLINE OF Luke 15:11-32

1. The younger son departs (15:11-13a).

1. The younger son demands his inheritance. (15:11, 12).

2. The younger son departs “to a distant country.” (15:13a).

2. The younger son squanders all his inheritance. (15:13b-16).

1. The younger son quickly spends all his inheritance. (15:13b).

2. The younger son finds himself in need. (15:14).

3. The younger son hires himself out to a citizen of that country. (15:15).

4. The younger son “would gladly have [eaten what] the pigs were eating, but on one gave him anything.” (15:16).

3. The younger son decides to return home as a hired hand. (15:17-19).

1. The son recognizes that his father’s hired hands are better off than he is. (15:17).

2. The son decides to return home and ask to serve as a hired hand. (15:18a).

3. The son decides what to say to his father when he returns home. (15:18b, 19).

4. The father, waiting at home, welcomes his returning son. (15:20-24).

1. The son sets off to return home. (15:20a).

2. The father, waiting at home, sees his son returning and runs to welcome him. (15:20b).

3. The son starts to apologize to his father. (15:21).

4. The father immediately welcomes his son as his son, without waiting for the apology. (15:22).

5. The father orders that a celebration be made for the return of his son. (15:23).

6. The father gives thanks that his son has returned. (15:24).

5. The elder son becomes angry because the younger son is gladly welcomed. (15:25-28a).

1. The elder son hears the music of celebration as he returns to the house from the field. (15:25).

2. The elder son asks the servants about what is happening. (15:26).

3. The servant explains to the elder son that his younger brother has returned. (15:27).

4. The elder son becomes angry and refuses to go into the house to join the celebration. (15:28a).

6. The father pleads with the older son for reconciliation. (15:28b-32).

1. The father comes out and pleads with the older son. (15:28b).

2. The elder son complains that his father has never rewarded him for his faithfulness. (15:29, 30).

3. The father expresses his appreciation to his older son for his faithful service. (15:31).

4. The father expresses his joy because his younger son has returned. (15:32).

SERMON DEVELOPMENT

A Father’s Love

Luke 15:11-32

Introduction

1. For the last several weeks we’ve been studying parables from the thirteenth chapter of Matthew.

1. Some of them have been familiar and straightforward, like the parable of the sower and the seed.

2. But others of them have been a little obscure, and a little more difficult to apply to our lives, like the parable of the weeds and the wheat, or the parable of the net cast into the sea.

2. And today I want to share with you perhaps the best known parable of all.

1. I do so partly because this parable has a special meaning for me.

2. But I do so also because I believe this parable ought to be understood in a way that is very different from the way in which we usually hear it.

Scripture

1. Jesus told a parable about an especially loving and faithful father, a story found in Luke 15:11-32, which is our Scripture passage for today.

2. We will be reading this Scripture in parts in a few minutes.

3. It is a familiar story about how a father joyfully welcomed home his young wayward son, and offered the same love to his older son. (CIT).

3. The way in which the father loved his wayward son and welcomed him home is also an example of the way in which God wants us to love one another.

Exposition

1. This story has traditionally been titled “The Parable of the Prodigal Son,” but it is much much less about the behavior of either the younger son who squandered his inheritance, or his older brother, who was not too happy to see him come back home. This story is really about the love of the father for both of them.

1. The traditional King James Version, and (surprisingly) the New American Standard Bible title this story “The Parable of the Prodigal Son.”

2. The NIV and the NKJV title it “The Parable of the Lost Son,” and therefore help put it into its proper Scriptural context.

3. And the New Revised Standard Version titles it “The Parable of the Prodigal and His Brother.”

4. But none of these titles give much emphasis to the love of the Father in this story. And I will come back to why I think the Father’s love is an essential part of this story in a few minutes.

2. To be fair, the Scriptural context of this story is about the Father’s joy when his lost son returns home.

1. There are three parables in the fifteenth chapter of Luke:

   1. The first of them is the parable of the lost sheep. (15:1-7).

   2. And the second is the parable of lost coin. (15:8-10).

2. The common theme in all three of them is the joy of finding or recovering something that was lost.

   1. The “punch-line,” if we can call it that, of the first parable is

“^6b‘rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep, that was lost.’ ⁷Just so … there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous sinners who need no repentance.” (15:6b, 7).

2. And similarly, the conclusion of the second parable is

“^8b‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ ⁹Just so … there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (15:8b, 9).

3. And so we need to read the parable of the lost son with this same conclusion in mind.

3. Because parables are often stories of real-life events, it is possible for us to read into them more than one meaning.

1. Without a doubt, the most powerful interpretation of this story that I have ever heard is recounted in a small book titled The Return of the Prodigal Son, by Henri J. M. Nouwen ]New York: Image Books (Doubleday), 1994].

   1. This is clearly one of the most influential and spiritually meaningful books I’ve ever read.

   2. Henri J. M. Nouwen was born in the Netherlands, where he was ordained as a Catholic priest.¹

      1. He has taught at the University of Notre Dame, Yale Divinity School, and Harvard Divinity School.

      2. His books include The Wounded Healer, Making All Things New, The Life of the Beloved, and In the Name of Jesus, among many others.

      3. All of Nouwen’s books are small volumes filled with deep reflective insights on the Christian life — small books that must be read slowly and very thoughtfully.

      4. In 1986 he became Pastor of the L’Arche Daybreak Community in Toronto, Canada. “L’Arche is a community where men and women with mental disabilities and their assistants create a home for one another.”²

      5. Nouwen remained as Pastor of the L’Arche community until he passed away in 1996.

2. Nouwen’s reflections on the Parable of the Lost Son began — as so many significant spiritual experiences begin — in a chance encounter.

   1. While visiting a colleague in France, he noticed in her office a poster of Rembrant’s famous painting of The Return of the Prodigal Son.

   2. The painting itself hangs in The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg (Russia).

   3. Nouwen was so moved by that poster that he decided to go see the painting for himself.

   4. And during his visit, some three years later, he was allowed to sit in front of it, undisturbed, for a period of several hours.

3. And I would like to share with you now some of Nouwen’s reflections on this painting, and on the Biblical story that lies behind it.

4. Nouwen’s reflections on The Return of the Prodigal Son are in four movements, if you will.

1. The return of the lost son,

2. The father’s restoration of sonship,

3. The vengefulness of the older son, and

4. The father’s compassion for both of his sons.

5. As we read this familiar parable today, we can easily see these four movements.

1. And as we read these four movements, I’d like to ask you to be thinking about where you might fit into this story.

2. I am reading from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

   1. The first movement — the return of the lost son — is verses 11 through the first half of verse 20:

[Read here Luke 15:11-20a, NRSV.]

2. The second movement — the father’s restoration of citizenship — is the last half of verse 20 through verse 24:

[Read here Luke 15:20b-24, NRSV.]

3. The third movement — the vengefulness of the older son — is seen in verses 25-30:

[Read here Luke 15:25-30, NRSV.]

4. And the fourth movement — the father’s compassion for both his sons — is found in the last verse :

[Read here Luke 15:31, NRSV.]

3. I hope you’ve been thinking about where you might fit in here. With which person in this parable do you most readily identify?

6. How do you respond to this parable?

1. Some folks can’t identify with this parable at all — they see no similarity between themselves and any person in it.

2. But most of us perhaps identify with the younger son.

   1. We can admit a few “bad habits,” but these we attribute to youthful indiscretion.

   2. They are sins of immaturity and youthfulness, and we have surely outgrown them.

3. Fewer people can identify with the older son — or at least admit that identification.

   1. The older son’s behavior incorporates attitudes of pride and selfishness that we find difficult to acknowledge in ourselves.

   2. The parable of the publican and the Pharisee who came to pray at the Temple illustrates this element of pride in us.

4. Perhaps we might ask which of these two sins is ultimately the more hurtful.

   1. The younger son came close to destroying himself, and his selfishness certainly deeply wounded his father, and alienated his brother. But the consequences of his sin were ultimately so obvious that he had the good sense to turn from his old ways and seek forgiveness.

   2. The sin of the older son is more subtle — but I believe more dangerous.

      1. His pride, and his resentment of the unconditional grace that his brother had received not only alienated him from his brother, but it also wounded his father.

      2. His pride and arrogance prevented him from seeing the real grace and unconditional love that his father was showing to both of them.

      3. And his pride and arrogance wounded himself as well

         1. It prevented him from enjoying the party, and

         2. It prevented him from experiencing the same grace that his younger brother had received.

7. The first challenge in this story is to move beyond the sins of the younger son and to see how much we are often guilty of the sins of the older son.

1. If the truth be told, we are all a little resentful when we see someone else getting a better deal than the one we got — especially if we feel that the other person really doesn’t deserve it!

2. Fred B. Craddock, in his commentary on this passage,³ portrays our thinking here:

“If one’s listeners here have been treated to numerous casual partial telling of this story, but with no real sense of the way grace offends a sense of fairness or how forgiveness comes across as condoning, then it might be well to underscore two elements in the story that often get neglected. One is the party. It was the music and dancing that offended the older son. Of course, let the younger son return home. Judaism and Christianity have clear provisions for the restoration of the penitent returnee, but where does it say that such provisions include a banquet with music and dancing? Yes, let the prodigal return, but to bread and water, not [a] fatted calf; in sackcloth, not a new robe; wearing ashes, not a new ring; in tears, not in merriment; kneeling, not dancing. Has the party canceled the seriousness of sin and repentance? We might even wonder whether, had we lived next door, would we have attended that party.

“Perhaps it is because of the competitive rather than cooperative spirit of society, but the common thought is that there must be losers if there are winners. Hence, even in religion, it is very difficult not to think of Jews or Gentiles, poor or rich, saint or sinner, publican or Pharisee, older son or younger son. But God’s love is both/and, not either/or. … Such is God’s love, but we find it difficult not to be offended by God’s grace toward another, especially if we have serious questions about that person’s conduct or character.”

Reflections and Conclusions

1. This story is usually known as the “parable of the prodigal son.”

1. Now the word “prodigal” denotes someone who is wasteful of resources, who spends extravagantly to achieve his or her desired purpose.

2. But who, in this story, is the real prodigal?

   1. Is it the younger son, who spent all that he had, a wealth that is measured in terms of money and things?

   2. Surely it isn’t the older son, whose sin is not one of spending, but rather one of wishing to hoard as much as possible for himself.

   3. Yet there is one other candidate – the father himself.

      1. If we read this parable as an illustration of God’s love for us, then truly God’s love is extravagant indeed.

      2. He invested the very life of his son for a very uncertain reward — the goal of winning us back to Himself.

3. In a real sense, God is the true prodigal — and we find that we can never outspend Him!

2. The greatest challenge, therefore is to move beyond the sins of the younger son and the pride of the older son, and to become the father himself.

1. The greatest challenge is to love one another in the same way that God loves us.

2. The greatest obstacle to meeting that challenge is our own pride and self-centeredness — a trait which we all share, and a trait which we all would like to deny.

3. And that is my challenge to myself today — and to you as well:

Love as the Father loves you; be loved as the son was loved.