Hello. My name is Frank Johnson, and I am speaking to you today from my video blog, ProdigalGod.com.

Today’s message will be the second in a seven-part series entitled, “Wayward Sons and a Prodigal God.”

Throughout this series,I’ll be basing my comments on Luke 15:11-32, so if you’d like to open your Bibles to that passage, you will be ready to follow along.

Let’s get started.

Last time we were together, we talked about the parable we commonly call “The Parable of the Prodigal Son.” And we talked about how Jesus told a story set in the context of Middle Eastern peasantry and how the story would have been seen as strange and abnormal by His listeners.

And finally, we talked about how the abnormality of the story needed to be restored to our hearts and minds to help us have a more true picture of our Heavenly Father’s love.

Who Is The Main Character?
As many of us already know, there are three basic characters in the story: the younger son, the father, and the elder son.

The normal approach to this parable sees the younger son as the main character. And I suppose this is so for a couple of reasons: 1) First, the younger son takes up most of the story; and, 2) secondly, it is easier for us to identify with the younger son. Second in the order of importance in the normal approach to this parable is the father, who represents God, our Heavenly Father. And finally, in the normal approach to this parable, the elder son is seen as being rather incidental to the story.

But this normal approach to the parable represents a serious misconception and leads to a definite misunderstanding of what Jesus is trying to say.

In reality, the main character in the story is not the younger son, but the father. At every turn of the story, the father is there, pouring out his deep love for his sons.

And the elder son is anything but incidental to the story. In many ways, the relationship between the father and the elder son is the focus of the story, although the father’s relationships with both of his sons have great lessons for us.

Why Did Jesus Tell This Story?
Let’s read the first two verses of chapter 15. To understand any parable which Jesus told, we must first understand what prompted Him to tell it, and if we go back to the beginning of chapter 15, we’ll find that Jesus told this parable (as well as the other two parables recorded in Luke chapter 15) in response to a specific statement made by a group of Pharisees and scribes.

So let’s read the first two verses of chapter 15: Now all the tax gatherers and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him. And both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.’”

Do you notice that there are two different groups of people mentioned here? One group is made up of Pharisees and scribes; the other group is made up of tax gatherers and sinners.

Two groups of people. Notice also that in the parable Jesus tells, there are two sons: the elder son and the younger son.

And as we take a closer look at the story, we’ll see that each son has a different philosophy of life.

Two groups of people. Two sons. Two philosophies of life.

And each of those two philosophies of life is based on the same core belief, and that core belief is this: a successful relationship with one’s father depends on correct behavior. That is an incorrect belief, but a strong motivating factor in the life of each son: a successful relationship with one’s father depends on correct behavior.

Now each of the two sons (and also each of the two groups of people to whom Jesus is talking), based on that core belief, arrive at very different philosophies of life.

The elder son, who represents the Pharisees and scribes, believes that a successful relationship with one’s father depends on correct behavior. And the philosophy of life to which that belief leads him is as follows: faithful performance of duty merits reward. If you do the right things, your father will reward you. If you live right, your father will accept you and love you. So you have to try as hard as you can to do everything right and not make any mistakes.

The younger son, who represents the tax gatherers and sinners, also believes that a successful relationship with one’s father depends on correct behavior. But that belief leads him to a very different philosophy of life. His philosophy of life is this: faithful performance of duty is impossible, so why try? You can’t possibly do the right things, so your father will never reward you. You can’t possibly live right, so your father will never accept you and love you. And if you will never be rewarded, accepted and loved by your father, the best thing is to stay as far away from him as possible.

Most of us tend to subscribe to that same core belief: a successful relationship with God, our Heavenly Father, depends on correct behavior. And if that is our core belief, we end up living our life according to one of the two philosophies I just described. We either believe that faithful performance of duty merits reward, or we believe that faithful performance of duty is impossible so we don’t even try. We either believe that if we do all the right things, our Heavenly Father will reward us, or we believe that we can’t possibly do the right things, so we will never be rewarded. We either believe that if we live right, our Heavenly Father will accept us and love us, or we believe that we can’t possibly live right, so our Heavenly Father will never accept us and love us.

Jesus Eats With Sinners
“....the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.’”

The Greek word which is translated “grumble” in verse 2 is diagonguzo, which is a compound word.

The first part of the word is dia, a preposition which means “through.”

The second part of the word is gonguzo, which means “to mutter, to murmur or to grumble.”

And so the word diagonguzo literally means “to murmur through”—“to murmur through a whole crowd, to murmur among yourselves.” It always refers to indignant complaining.

And so these Pharisees and scribes are complaining. They are indignant. Why? Because ‘this man receives sinners and eats with them.’”

Jesus received sinners. He received them favorably. He welcomed them as His friends, and this angered the Pharisees and scribes.

But not only did Jesus receive sinners, He ate with them. In Middle Eastern thought, to eat a meal with someone means you accept them as a brother or sister completely and without reservation. In Middle Eastern thought, the meal is a symbol of great intimacy. If I eat with someone, it means I desire to have an intimate friendship with them.

I was privileged to live in West Africa for over two years in a nation (Cote d’Ivoire or Ivory Coast) which has a large Lebanese population. My roommate and I were able to make friends with a number of Lebanese families during our time in Africa.

One day, we went to visit one of these families in their home late in the afternoon. After we had visited for awhile, a group of Lebanese young people arrived at the house, also paying a visit to this Lebanese family. And in this group of young people, there were both Muslims and Christians. The family we were visiting were Lebanese Christians (it is important to realize that in Lebanese culture, Muslim and Christian often refer to what we would think of as political parties rather than religious faiths). 
After this group of young people had stayed awhile, they decided to leave. And my roommate and I thought that this would be a good time for us to leave as well, so we began to get up from the table. But one of the sons of the family we were visiting put his hand out on the table and signaled to us that we should stay, and so we remained. Once the group of young people had left, the family brought out dinner and we ate with them.

The family waited until the group of young people had left because there were Muslims among them. And to eat with those Muslims would have been to say to them that this Christian family accepted them completely and without reservation as brothers and sisters. But because of long-standing animosities between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon, this family was unwilling to do that.

Again, in Middle Eastern thought, eating a meal with someone signifies that I accept that person completely and without reservation. And so these Pharisees and scribes are angry and indignant because Jesus, who claims to be the messenger of God, is receiving sinners favorably and accepting them completely as brothers and sisters, with absolutely no reservation.

And so Jesus tells our parable in direct response to this statement made by the Pharisees and scribes: This man receives sinners and eats with them.” He directs this parable, not primarily to the tax gatherers and sinners (who we see represented in the life and personality of the younger son), but to the Pharisees and scribes (who we see represented in the life and personality of the elder son). Jesus directs this parable to those who are righteous in their own eyes and who sense no need of forgiveness.

Most of us know that the Pharisees and scribes felt that they were righteous before God and accepted by Him because they had fulfilled all the minute details of both the Mosaic Law and the tradition of “nit-picking” rules which had grown up around the law. They felt that their acceptance before God depended on their keeping all of these minute rules and regulations. They felt that their acceptance before God depended on their faithful performance of duty.

And part of their fulfillment of these regulations was in not associating with anyone who was a sinner in their eyes. So when Jesus, who claimed to be the messenger of God, received sinners and ate with them, these Pharisees and scribes were offended. They could not fathom the idea that these tax gatherers and sinners could be accepted (which was the clear implication of Jesus’ actions in eating with them) but they, as Pharisees and scribes who fulfilled all these rules and regulations, would apparently not be accepted. It violated their philosophy of life. It violated their concept of God and how He acted towards mankind. They believed that if they did all the right things, they would be rewarded. They believed that if they lived right, God would accept them and love them. But Jesus is rewarding the ones who don’t do anything right. Jesus is accepting and loving those who don’t live right at all.

Rules, Regulations & Intimacy
Jesus told this parable in order to expose to the Pharisees and scribes the attitudes of their hearts, to show them that their philosophy of life was flawed and would lead only to misery.

Again, the younger son represents the tax gatherers and sinners of Luke 15:1-2, those who have spiritually traveled to the far country, those who have strayed away from God in their sin. And again, the elder son represents the Pharisees and scribes, those to whom Jesus directs this parable.

Let’s read again what the elder son says to his father: “Look! For so many years I have been serving you, and I have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never given me a kid, that I might be merry with my friends; but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with harlots, you killed the fattened calf for him.”

This is exactly the attitude displayed by the Pharisees and scribes. In effect, they are saying to Jesus, “Look! We are righteous people. We keep all the commands of God. We have never neglected even one of God’s commands. We’ve done everything right, so now you should accept us and love us. But instead, you, who claim to be the messenger of God, have given us nothing. But when these tax gatherers and sinners come, you receive them and eat with them. They’ve violated God’s laws and God’s ways repeatedly, but you reward them with your friendship.”

The elder son was angry because his father had accepted the younger son, even though the younger son had done all sorts of terrible things. And the Pharisees and scribes were angry because Jesus was accepting the tax gatherers and sinners, even though they had done all sorts of terrible things.

And so the parable is aimed at the Pharisees and scribes, those who never neglect rules and regulations, but also those who are not eating with Jesus (those who are not experiencing intimacy with Him).

And that’s a very important contrast to keep in mind: on one hand, keeping rules and regulations; and on the other hand, intimacy with God.

I’d like us to examine the father’s dealings with his sons. I want us to examine first the attitudes and actions of each of the sons and then, most importantly, I want us to examine the father’s reaction to his sons’ attitudes and actions. And in the father’s reaction, we will be given a hint of how our Heavenly Father reacts to us when we display the same attitudes and take part in the same actions.

This concludes the second part of our seven-part series entitled “Wayward Sons and a Prodigal God.”

I hope that you will join me next time as we begin to look at the younger son and the depth of His sin, as well as at the depths to which God’s grace will reach.

Thank you for joining me today.