Gary Wilkerson-Parable, episode 140

0:00 If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right here at When You Love a Prodigal, and also help and hope for your own life journey. I've been praying for you as you seek to live and love more and more like Jesus, especially with your prodigal. Now this week, we will get another picture of what that might look like. Several years ago, when My When You Love a Prodigal book first came out, Gary Wilkerson invited me to be on his podcast. Gary leads World Challenge Ministry and pastors to Spring's Church.

0:43 His father, David Wilkerson, wrote The Cross and the Switchblade, founded Teen Challenge and the Times Square Church. When I was on Gary's program, we talked about his prodigal as well as mine. He is currently doing a series on the parables of Jesus. When I listened to his message on the parable of the prodigal son, which is one of my very favorite things in all of scripture, and you've heard me mention it many times, but I thought it might be an encouragement to you. So today, that's our program. Gary Wilkerson, speaking on the parable of the prodigal son, ask God to speak to you as you listen.

1:31 I just enjoy the teachings of Jesus so much. They never get old or tired. Every time I read these parables, they hit me somewhere different. Yeah, so we're looking at the parable of the prodigal son. I think Jesus is teaching these parables of how to have his heart for the world, for others, for the values, for things of the kingdom. Such a beautiful statement. And you know, it's funny, I think as you're saying that, I'm just thinking to myself of the part in the story about the father, the way he receives the son back. It's like, totally, this is the heart of God. And so I'm so glad that you brought that up because obviously there's a practical point that Jesus is making.

2:13 In my opinion, almost to shame the people who are saying to him like these sinners that were he was breaking bread with weren't important, but it really isn't just the practical outflow of it. It's really showing who God is. I'm so glad you brought that up. Thank you. So in the actual parable of the prodigal son, take us through that a little bit. Where do you want to start with this? It's only a few verses. You want me to read through it all the way? Absolutely. Sounds good. Let's go back to the first verse in Luke 15 and we'll read verses 11 through 32. And he said, there was a man who had two sons and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me my share of the property that's coming to me.

2:56 And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey to a far country. And there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in the country and he began to be in need. And so he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him to the fields to feed pigs. And while he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, but 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 in hunger. I will arise and go to my father and say to him, Father, I've sinned against you in heaven and before you.

3:40 And I no longer am worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. And then he arose and 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 the father, I've sinned against heaven and before you. And I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, quickly bring the best robe and put it on him, a ring for his hands, shoes for his feet, bring the fatted calf and kill it. Let us eat and celebrate for my son who was dead is now alive again. He was lost and now is found and they begin to celebrate.

4:22 And there's obviously a portion after that about the response of the older some of it seemed like a natural place to stop there and talk about the parable. Yeah, they get a little bit. Where's your mind go when you read that? What's your first thoughts? You know, when you think about this Jewish man, this Eastern man who was obviously a man of means, he'd been a successful business person to some degree. He had stature and importance. I mean, we see that he had money enough to give his son an inheritance. And then we see that not only apparently he was a good steward of all these things, you know, because even when his son had wronged him, he still appealed to this knowledge that his father was a good man.

5:06 But I think the starting point really is the fact that what this meant in Jewish culture, this son, first of all, is not the eldest son. He's the younger son. And so the elder son would be the first to get his inheritance. Of course, the elder son would get a double portion that because it was expected of the older son to take the family business, to take care of mom, maybe when dad passes away and to be the sort of next patriarch of the family. And then the younger son would get his portion of the inheritance. It was completely unheard of for a son to come to his father while he's alive and well and ask for his inheritance.

5:48 Really, a lot of scholars would say that this was really a way of saying that I wished you were dead so I could have what's mine, what's coming to me. And so he starts this off by completely disvaluing his place and his sonship and who he was to his father. And so I think the disgrace that he levels towards his dad, the disrespect he levels towards his dad has to be brought up first and foremost because that's really the frame and backdrop by what makes the end of the story so beautiful and powerful. It's really the Jesus is telling a parable here about a son but he's really telling the whole biblical story because this is the whole story from Adam and Eve.

6:32 They send, God comes into the garden and cool the day and it's, where are you? I hid from you. The son has the same image of his father that Adam and Eve did. There's a doubt about their goodness and the question, they want their own and so they depart and that's what this boy does, he goes and he departs, took a journey in a far country and squandered this property in reckless living. So if this is a picture of our Father God, it's also a picture of us wanting to get something from him but not wanting to live in communion with him or in nearness to him.

7:20 So that speaks to my heart because if you want the right things from the Father then the inheritance of the goods that He could give you is at best secondary. His presence is what you really long for. No doubt. I think if you break this parable down by sort of like three sections, I like to think of it. The ruin of sin, we see this, the unvaluing of the presence of the Father of being part of the household of God. I mean just like Israel did, just like Adam and Eve did and just like all of us have before Christ, the ruin that comes with sin, we even see to the degree that shame went, we're talking about a Jewish boy who's working in a pig field.

8:09 It doesn't get worse than that. What a disgraceful, unclean thing to be. So I think Jesus points that out clearly to show that there is no depths that God won't deliver us from and won't accept us from. You got the ruin of sin and then of course the moment of clarity. This really is a picture of the gospel to a great extent, you know, the love of the Father and the gospel because the ruin sin brings on us but then we have this moment of clarity. We remember or see for the first time who the Father really is. I so love the world that he gave his only begotten Son. I remember being in jail coming to this moment of clarity about who God was.

8:49 I judged him, misused him, you know, just thought everything wrong about God and from his word, God did something to my spirit where I realized that God could have struck me dead. Any moment, God could have exacted judgment any moment. God had preserved my life. He had let me persist in this squandering of everything he had given me in this moment of clarity. I saw the greatness of God. I saw the goodness of God and I realized, you know, just like the Son, you start appealing back to his character like, man, even, I mean, it's so funny too. It's like even as people who come to God, we start thinking like, man, I don't deserve this, but maybe if I just do a little bit here or there.

9:31 And then of course the last part we'll talk about a minute, the love of the Father, which is really this amazing climax. We see the goodness of God in this. And so for me, if we think about it in those three things, we can apply it to the world in general. We can apply it to the history of the Bible, but most importantly, we can apply it to our own lives. Yeah. Yeah, because if you're looking at this text in light of what you said, I think is really important. But this is not exclusively speaking of, like in my family, having maybe a literal prodigal son, gripping a Christian home and then decided to go out and squander his life and get involved in drugs and alcohol and living an ungodly life and running from God.

10:21 But really, what Lovagey said is that's not just we label prodigals of those who come from Christian home and run away. Jesus is talking here really about all of us. It's not just, yeah. So like I could say my son Evan was a prodigal, but he could say my dad, Gary, was a prodigal. 100%. I didn't actually leave the faith like that. Yeah. But I think both are valid too. And I think a lot of people listening to us today that are prodigals themselves that lost their first love or they're living in unrepentant sin. And man, this is a parable that tells you the outcome of that thing.

11:02 You're squandered everything you have and the Lord in his love, verse 14 says, after he spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, understanding the sovereignty of God, that was no random famine. The same thing as Jonah, God sent a well, God sent a storm, God sent, he is the creator of all these things. And so the famine came just at a perfect time to do that. So I would say if somebody's listened to us and they've just turned from the Lord and living gratuitously in sin, that prepare for a famine, it's coming. But even in the famine is his love.

11:43 The famine is grace. Yeah. The famine is grace. The correction is grace. The chastening is grace. Yeah. So sometimes people get in that place and then they just get stuck there wallowing in the pit, in the pig pen. And they just go like, oh, this is what I deserve to be here. But all these things are God calling you out of that. He's calling you back to repentance. And one other quick item too is I've heard it said many times is like how gracious the father was before even the son repented. He was welcoming him, kissing him, but he did listen to the son's repentance. Sometimes people put up, they almost exit that part of the parable out as if that's not necessary.

12:24 The father listened to his repentance and the son, I think, needed to say those words to him. And so, man, if you're in that pit now, Jesus sent that famine to draw you back out. He didn't send it because he hates you and wants you to continue just to be separate from him. He's drawing you back because you're valuable to him. Like he said, from the sheep and the coin, come back and receive his love and his grace and his repentance. And then lastly, I'd say, and then I'll get back to you, if you have prodigal children, which I've had, I just know the pain of that and the difficulty of that. And want to encourage people just to continue to trust God that he is sending things into their life, whether it be a famine or a friend, somebody that could start sharing the gospel with them or a church they walk into.

13:06 God is after them. He's chasing them down and he wants to do some good things in their life. Amen. And it's so encouraging for so many people who are in that place or have people they love that are in that place. Before I don't know how much time we have left, but before we just maybe talk about a couple of elements of it, I just wanted to make a couple, three little points that I think are important to mention. One is that our inheritance is eternal and not temporal like the fleeting treasures of the world. I think that's one of the primary purposes of this is to show us the sort of enduring love that we find in the presence of God and in the house of God and in communion with God.

13:50 And I think sometimes the prodigal, maybe one of your sons or someone else that's been in this situation, don't understand the value of those things. Not that we're urging people to go into the world, but once you're out in the harsh world, you remember the goodness of God. You remember the goodness of those sort of things. Number two would be that looking for satisfaction outside the father's house will always bring spiritual ruin. We just don't realize that, and I think for some people who grew up in church because they weren't really regenerate, they didn't know, they didn't really know God. They went to church, they said the right things, they went to Christian school, they obeyed, they did whatever, but when it came time to make their own decisions, they weren't really a follower of God.

14:39 And so I think sometimes going out into the world helps us understand the goodness of God and really see things as we should. Number three is, like you said a second ago, without repentance, there can be no forgiveness or restoration. And I think one of the most, the two most staggering things about the last part when the son comes back to the father is the son comes saying, I've sinned against heaven and you. He's got things in order there. It's like, I sinned first and foremost, and I sinned against you. Like this idea that I was in the wrong, this idea is something that for him to come to his senses to even head back to the father's house.

15:26 And I think the beautiful part is when he's saying, listen, either I'll even just be a servant, you treat your servant so good. I'd rather be a servant living for you, having plenty to eat and being in this environment. You know, almost like when David said, I'd rather be a doorkeeper at the house of God, right? You know, this idea that being with you, this is more important than anything. And then the father's response to him first and foremost, he ran to him. It wasn't like, come here and pay penance. I've been waiting for you. You're my son. That doesn't change. And obviously we know that in Jewish culture, men of distinguished honor don't run. He ran. It shows like this reckless abandon towards the son.

16:08 But when he comes in, here's the son's piece, you know, his repentance. He doesn't say, well, son, we'll take it slow. He didn't put them on probation. He's like, okay, thanks for saying that. Now go get the robe, go get the ring, go get the fatted calf. And I think for some people, even true believers who have fallen into a season of sin, what you need to hear is, yes, have your moment of clarity. Yes, put things in order. Examine your heart, confess your sin, repent. But when you move towards God, he's going to move towards you. It's not the underlying statement is come home, come home.

16:50 And God, I just love that imagery so much that it wasn't, let's talk through the squandering. Let's talk through the money you wasted. Let's talk through the way you treated me like you wished I was dead. It was like, all that matters is your home now. Now find your rightful place in the house. Yeah, and it closes this particular portion of the parable with, what does it exactly say here? And they began to celebrate the older son. I feel we didn't read that, but he heard music and dancing. So this is the idea of worship. What comes out of being lost and then found or being a lost coin and then being brought back into the wallet, so to speak, or to the son being brought back to the home, it's time to celebrate, it's time to worship.

17:37 And I think some people tend to rehearse their depravity, just like, I can't worship because I don't deserve to. So you're going to, you almost, the son said to him, hey, I could just be one of your servants. And the father says, no, let's celebrate instead of just being a servant to your son. But some of us don't want to enter into that. We just feel like, oh, we've got to beat ourselves up a little longer. You know, maybe after three years of sobriety, then I'll start, yeah, our pen answers, then I'll be celebrated. We encourage people to celebrate now, celebrate, come home to Jesus now, celebrate the fact that he is welcoming you back with open arms.

18:25 So did you get any new insights to that parable? Did you see your loved one in it? What did you learn about how scandalous the younger son's request for his inheritance was? Does your prodigal perhaps fit that story as well? And what did you understand about God from this story? And did God have a message for you? Be sure to write down any actions you should take in your relationship with your prodigal and in your relationship with God.

19:06 And be praying as I'm asking the Lord where we should go next in our prodigal podcast sessions. I'm still not clear about the next theme we're going to have. God bless you.