Welcome to the Further Gospel Podcast, where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Kosti Hinn, and I want to welcome our listeners on Apple and Spotify. And those of you enjoying this on our YouTube video podcast format, if you've never done this before, be sure to subscribe. That'll get you notified of all of our new videos that come out each and every week. We have the podcast on Monday. We have a real or a short clip on Tuesdays and Wednesdays as well. And then usually a sermon clip along with blog articles, quotes for Thursday and Friday. All of it designed to encourage you with sound doctrine all week long. But as a side note, I want to encourage you: this is supposed to be a trigger and a bit of a spark for your walk with the Lord, but never, ever, ever meant to replace your local church or even become a kind of a louder noise in your life than the local church. Make sure you're in community and using this as you use media to stir your heart, but what a time to be alive. What a place to be able to access things like online media anytime. You can grab your phone and be edified with the truth. I hope that for the gospel is spurring you on in your walk with the Lord. On today's episode, I'm continuing my series on the parables, and the series is designed to help you think about them in ways you haven't and maybe understand them for the first time. And today we have our third. It's the Prodigal Son. Now, this particular parable has a number of fascinating elements that are quite straightforward and eye-opening. And yet, if we're not careful, we can really miss some of the deeper or more helpful principles or realities in the parable. And if we're not careful, we can also run wild with interpretations that actually aren't faithful to the text. Now, the parable is really simple. It's about God's grace and salvation, but there are some key lessons to learn along the way. So here's what I'll do, just like I have been in the previous episodes, I want to set you up with the surrounding context, setting the text in its context, we would say. And then we'll walk through the parable. I'll read it to you and commentate, and then we'll apply it together. Now, if you have been using your Bible, great, get it. If you don't have one, but you want one, hit pause and go grab it. And then, as usual, if you're on the run, in the gym, in the car, or wherever you listen to this or watch it, and you don't have the ability to safely follow with God's word, I'll read it to you. I've got my Bible here and some queued up notes, and I'll walk you through it so you can hear the word. We're in Luke 15. The overall context is about salvation. What's happening in the surrounding areas of the text is about salvation. God going after his people, saving sinners, far off ones who are the most unlikely candidates of grace, I think I would say. And when you look at the beginning of chapter 15, you've got the lost sheep, then you get the lost coin, then you get the prodigal son, and all of a sudden it flows into chapter 16, the unrighteous steward, the rich man and Lazarus, and on and on and on. But in 15, we've got this contextual theme of God's grace saving those who are far off or unlikely candidates. And that's a really key thing to have in mind. It's the pursuit of that one lost sheep. It's the woman who has 10 silver coins in verse 8. She loses one and she searches carefully until she finds it. And there's a theme at the end of each one of these sections. For example, if you look at chapter 15 or you listen, church, uh, or chapter 15 rather, and you're going from verses 1 to 7, that parable ends with, I tell you in the same way, there'll be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over the 99 righteous persons who need no repentance. Hear me now. The lost coin. Verse 10. In the same way I tell you, there's more joy in the presence of angels, of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. You go to the end of our parable with the prodigal son, and what you get is this kind of last line. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and he was lost and has been found. So there's your big overarching theme. The text in context is about God going after, pursuing, and bringing home or pulling in his lost people or lost sheep, and then celebration. Another contextual theme that's important. In verse 2 of chapter 15, it says both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, This man eats, receives sinners and eats with them. Verse 1 says, Now all the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near him to listen to him. Ah, so we have Jesus entertaining sinners, not in their sin, but inviting them in to teach them and to evangelize them. And the Pharisees and the scribes are grumbling. That attitude and situation precedes the parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and then right into the prodigal son. That's something to keep in mind as well. You can't ignore the fact that Jesus is telling this to people who have a problem with him going after the lost. Third, the celebration of salvation is front and center. Like if you're not excited about people getting saved, these parables will jolt you out of that. I mentioned it already a little bit thematically, along with God going after people and it being a great thing. But again, those three different endings all centered around celebration means that God is speaking to his people in a way that causes them to think this is good. This is exciting. This is the pinnacle of someone's life. Salvation is the greatest moment. If you would say, well, the greatest day of my life was when I married my wife or married my husband. Okay, I know what you mean, everybody does. But as Christians, we would say, hey, the greatest moment in my life was when Jesus saved me, when my eyes were opened up to the truth of the gospel and salvation. And we would often say, next to my salvation, the greatest gift he's ever given me. If it were me, I'd say, is my wife, or next to the salvation he's given me is the gift of. And if you're a woman who's married, you'd say, my husband. All those things are very clear. So the celebration of salvation cannot be left out if you're looking at the prodigal son. So keep all those in mind. They'll come into play with our applications. But now let's get into some of the context surrounding the parable itself. Culturally, what's happening in the days of the prodigal son when Jesus tells this parable? No, what's he getting at? Well, first you have legacy culture, okay? Legacy culture. Let me explain that. Generational legacy from fathers to sons and onto their sons was a hugely normal approach to life. So if you're going to come to the parable of the prodigal son, you've got to have in mind the legacy culture of those days. Now, in American culture, we would say families who are like this are ultra traditional. You know, they name their sons after the fathers. They keep it in the family business, they're highly connected with one another. But in those days, that culture was normal. Everything was viewed generationally. Children would receive an inheritance, and it was a foregone conclusion that the inheritance is part of a man's legacy. There was a legacy culture. That son or those sons were entitled to a portion of the father's inheritance. You have, of course, birth orders and birthright, the oldest being the greatest benefactor. But sons had a responsibility to carry on the father's legacy. And being a son who carries on the father's legacy in a right way would bring great joy, pride, and celebration. Doing so in the wrong way would obviously bring shame upon the family. You need to have that in mind because it will heighten the weight of what the son does. And it will also heighten the weight of how the father responds. What the son did threaten the legacy of the father and the family. That kind of thing would have been unforgivable. At the very least, it would have destroyed the family reputation in the community. It would have put them all in jeopardy. And so the fact that the son did this, what we'll read, huge deal in legacy culture. The fact that the father reacted the way he did, huge deal because of legacy culture. The next element to this would be honor culture. You need to understand that in the context of this parable. Middle Eastern culture, which interestingly enough, maybe for some of you, if you didn't know, is what I grew up with ethnically. I have a Palestinian father. He speaks fluent Arabic. And Middle Eastern culture has a strong honor culture. We respect elders. We don't want to be shamed by someone in the family behaving a certain way or making everybody look bad. We want to look a certain way. You protect the family reputation, and all of that matters. And then there's patriarchs and matriarchs and them as kind of the overseers of the family and the legacy, they never stoop down to certain levels. There's a lot of things in Middle Eastern culture that you need to have in mind. That'll come into play when the father runs down, just in my vernacular, runs down the driveway, so to speak. He sees the son far off, and we'll read it that he ran after him. Or the fact that all of this was just forgiven, honor culture, a huge deal. Lastly, you need to understand religious elite culture. So we've got legacy culture, honor culture, and religious elite culture. The Pharisees were elitist. The idea that Jesus would dine with sinners, we've already seen in chapter 15, verse 2, it's a problem. The fact that there would be lost sheep chased after, this coin searched for. The fact that someone would forgive and restore a wayward, filthy, betraying son, unthinkable. The fact that Jesus would stoop to the low of a prostitute to be kind, or dine with a tax collector, showing kindness to sinners not at all acceptable by the religious elite. They would be repulsed. That was the culture in their circles. They would never want to be stained by such sinners. And in many cases, Pharisees were known to engage in ceremonial washing after having been around common people, lest they become stained by the low religious status of those around them. Jesus said of the Pharisees, they love their honor. Oh, they always love the best seats. They want to get noticed. And so religious elite, religious elite culture is a key underpinning to this parable. So understanding that will help you as well. So let's walk through the passage and let's apply it. I'm going to read it right here to you, and then I'll commentate as well with my notes. Jesus says this a man had two sons. I'm going to stop us right there. Very important to note from the get-go, the other son is a key character and he's mentioned right away. That's going to be an important detail later on. Two sons are in focus here. The younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me. Now, this would have been some legal agreement. The oldest would get most, if not everything. And in this case, a portion of the other son as well. And you had the Mishnah, which was uh would have legal guidelines for all of this. And in this case, the younger son, he's asked for it early. We're not given the reason, but it becomes obvious because here we go. He divides his wealth between them, the father does. And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together. He goes on a journey into a distant country, and there he squandered his estate with loose living. So he now squanders what he's been given. That's the ultimate shame to him. It's going to be shame to his father. So keep that kind of legacy and honor culture in mind. And in kindness, without incident, his father had given him the inheritance. He entrusted him with it, and the son falls prey to loose living. He wants to go and kind of see the world and test himself and see how it is and all of those things. And he doesn't steward what he has been given. Jesus continues. Now, when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country, and he began to be impoverished. So we'll stop there and think one of these issues, self-inflicted, right? He has spent everything. The other issue is a natural disaster. He did not cause the famine. The famine occurred in that country. But both are unfortunate, and both are situations that he's in because of his original decision to leave. He only has one option now, which is to try to get a job, but that would be tough during famine, just like when our economy crashes and people suffer job loss and it's difficult to provide. And so Jesus continues, he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. So he's a he's a he's a pig feeder. He's a slave on a farm. And Jesus says, and he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating, and no one was giving anything to him. For a Jew, no occupation could have been more distasteful. There was a rabbinic saying which runs, cursed be the man who would breed swine. Leon Morris is a great commentary on this particular passage. He goes on to say the pig was unclean, according to Leviticus 11 7, and the Jew under normal circumstances would have nothing to do with it at all. The young man must have been in desperate straits even to consider this job. You've got to think about that statement. So do I. He would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods the swine were eating. Because it tells us something. Even the pigs were being taken care of better than he was. Jesus goes on, but when he came to his senses, he said, How many of my father's hired men have more than enough bread? But I'm dying here with hunger. I'll get up, I'll go to my father, and I'll say to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and in your sight I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired men. So he got up and he came to his father. I want to stop there and reflect on that before we get to the part where the father runs down to meet him. This is good for us to think about. First, hard times and rock bottom moments are one of the ways God brings us to our knees and to our senses. It's not fun. It's not easy. It's not something we want, but God knows how to make people aware of what they need. And the prodigal son is evidence of that. Second, we see kind of a dual acknowledgement here. On one hand, he says, I'm going to confess my sin. I've sinned against heaven. That would be a reference to sinning against God. But he also says he'll confess in the sight of his father, who gave him an inheritance to steward, only to be the victim of shame due to the sin of his son. And so you have this dual picture of repentance or confession where before God and man, he is going to confess. He's repenting. And he had graciously been given this inheritance by his father. He has squandered it to try to experience the world. He's ended up in hardship. He's found a place to belong. It's hanging with the pigs. And now he's come to his senses. I think that helps us also reflect on the fact that sometimes pride takes a long time to erode, but when it does, clarity is a beautiful thing. God, if you are prideful, will bring you on your knees or put you on your face. He'll cause you to fall so that he can build you up again. He'll make you hit rock bottom so that you become humble. And now in humility, he comes home to confess. He's hoping for a lower level position, just maybe a place for provision, being a servant. I'll be a slave, dad, if I could just come and get some bread. And Jesus says, but while he was still a long way off, this is him. He's coming home. His father saw him and felt compassion for him and ran and embraced him and kissed him. There's a glorious reality here. First, in that culture, a man of that status would never run, let alone towards this son of shame. He's kind of broken two concepts there. Running, that's low. His son had shamed the family. He should be punished. He's not just welcomed back in. Why would he run? And then Jesus' compassion filled his heart. It's a picture of love. And every parent can relate, but perhaps no greater picture of this is not just merely parents and kids on earth, but our father in heaven towards us, that Christ himself endured the shame of our sin, and yet God, filled with compassion for us, sends his son, Christ, filled with compassion, lays his life down. A beautiful picture of salvation. And then he kissed him. It's reminiscent of how David kisses his son Absalom in 2 Samuel 14, 33. It's a sign of forgiveness, even though Absalom was an unfaithful son. And then the confession comes. He says to his father, Father, I've sinned against heaven, and in your sight I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. And what I love about this is the son doesn't really get out his entire confession, but after confessing his unworthiness and sin before God, his father just jumps right in, and grace and forgiveness and far more flood in. The father says, But but listen, quickly bring out the best robe, he tells his slaves, put it on him, put a ring on his hand, put sandals on his feet, bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead, he's come to life again. He was lost, now he's been found. And they began to celebrate. You know, the best robe would only be for a high position. The ring was authority, it was endorsement. And having been a barefoot slave, he's now given sandals as a son once again. The fat and calf would have been only a meal for celebrations and major ones at that. Why all of this? You listen to the language he uses. Let us celebrate, for the son of mine was dead and now he's come to life. He was lost and now has been found. It is the picture of God's heart for his people, his compassion, his salvation, drawing us in, pursuing us yet all the more. And then when the shameful sinner comes, celebration, forgiveness. He's repentant, he's confessed, and the father forgives. But not everybody's pumped. Jesus says, now his older son, he was in the field. And when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. You can just imagine. And he summoned one of the servants and began inquiring, what is all this? The servant said, Your brother has come and your father has killed the fattened calf because he's received him back safe and sound. But he, the son, became angry and was not willing to go in. His father came out. Look at that again. Look at just the compassion and kindness. His father comes out again and pleads with him. He answered and said to his father, Look, for so many years I've been serving you. I've never neglected a command of yours, and yet you've never given me a young goat so that I might celebrate with my my friends. And when the son of yours came, notice he doesn't say, My brother, it was the son of yours, attitude, who's devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him. You know, the older brother reflects a kind of spiritual pride and hardness that the Pharisees had, and you and I can have. More than that, there's a graceless approach towards a sinner who was lost, now he's found. And the brother has a sort of self-righteousness. You know, I never did that. I never got a celebration. You never threw a party from me. I've been here all along, and he's angry, Jesus says. Morris again commentates the proud and self-righteous always feel that they are not treated as well as they deserve. He cannot even refer to the prodigal as his brother, but as this son of yours. Let the father welcome him if he wants to, but he will disown him. The brother will. He speaks of the younger man as having spent the father's money on harlots, which goes really beyond anything previously said. Morris says maybe that's his own invention, even. He comes to his climax that was for him, the father killed the fat and calf. I mean, that was just everything. That was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, for the other son. I mean, you would do that. You took the best, you took the party meal and you gave it to him. The father says to him, Son, you've always been with me. And all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and now has begun to live. He was lost and has been found. You notice the father doesn't really rebuke him with aggression, but sort of a tenderness, a simplicity, and a graciousness still with his son, reminding him, You've got a claim to the inheritance. You have been here. He doesn't cut them off, he he corrects him. And much like the Jews, you know, Jesus is kind to them. He regards them as the chosen people of God. He comes to them, he goes to their synagogues. And even to the Pharisees, I think we often think of Jesus telling off the Pharisees, and we're like, oh, he was so unkind. Look at how aggressive he was. Look at the way he talked. And then we give ourselves a license to sort of torch everyone. No, no, no. Even through his firm rebukes, there's a love and a kindness that he would even call them out. Oh, what grace. If he would ignore them, that's just them being done to give them over. But he actually confronts them. And some, like Nicodemus, we see a Joseph of Arimathea type, you know, they seem to be won over. And yet that never changes the fact that God will save lost sheep. He will bring shameful Gentiles and wandering rebels into his compassionate arms. He won't apologize for it. And so, in one sense, there's a kindness and there's a reasoning that the Father exemplifies, and yet it will not stop the mission. And the Pharisees had such a problem with the way Jesus would pursue lost people. There are a few key applications here from the prodigal son. I want to give you those and then we'll land the plane. Number one, God will welcome the most shameful sinners. He will. The picture here is so obvious. The guy did the worst. He did the most shameful thing in that day. And yet, what did repentance bring? Salvation. Forgiveness. He came to a rock bottom moment and said, I'm going back. Number two, salvation is a celebration. Not only will God welcome the most shameful sinners who come to him with repentance, it's going to be a celebration. Look, this isn't getting into the kingdom by the skin of your teeth. I don't like that kind of picture and that kind of language for people. I always want to encourage people. I hope this encourages you, that there's a position, an endorsement, an authority, and an identity. It's a celebration when a lost sinner gets saved. If you have done the worst of the worst in your own mind, but you come to Christ in salvation, you don't need to still hang your head like, I don't really deserve this. And every day, even though we don't deserve salvation, he's given it. So we need to stop acting ashamed when he's already declared us no longer guilty. You're no longer a slave to sin. You're a child of God. You're no longer labeled as condemned, a sinner condemned unclean. You are labeled washed and forgiven, renewed and redeemed. No one really deserves salvation. We all know that. We come humbly. We live poor in spirit. But what's our identity? Sin and shame and hell? No. Forgiveness, acceptance, and heaven. So, not in a prideful sense, but with humble encouragement, let me just tell you, pick your head up. If you're truly saved and you've been saved by Christ, it's a celebration. His grace is for you. You don't need to wallow in the past. You walk forward into the future by grace. And finally, self-righteousness is an ever-present threat. So if I were to recap these, number one, God will welcome the most shameful sinners if they will repent. Number two, salvation is a celebration. But third, let's be careful. Self-righteousness is an ever-present threat. The other son took issue because his eyes were on himself. It was a whatabout me mentality. All that I've done. I've been good. This is the opposite of grace. It's the opposite of humility. It's the opposite of repentance and coming as someone who's poor in spirit because it starts to say, hey, you know, I deserve when we didn't deserve anything in the first place. We don't want to turn into self-righteous Pharisees all of a sudden and take grace for granted. Perhaps he even wanted the shame to continue. Maybe he had a works-based mentality, like, how could this brother just be forgiven? You know, he wanted retribution, restitution, but the father had forgiven. And we can be like that. You know, the old idea of, you know, mercy for me, but not for thee. I look in the mirror and I'm so good at seeing your sin, I just have a real problem seeing my own in the reflection. We give everyone else damnation, condemnation, judgment. Us? Oh, we get grace. We're the victim. Self-righteousness is so dangerous. Or maybe we have our eyes on ourselves and we want the credit, we want attention, we want glory. You know, we've been obedient, Lord. Where's the glory? Where's my blessing? Where's what I feel I deserve? And entitlement is what's under the surface here. As it was with Israel, it can be with us. And so guard against that ever-present threat. Be about the kingdom and the king's agenda to bring his lost sheep home. Celebrate with joy what God has forgiven. And remember, that includes you. And so if you've been hanging your head in shame as a believer, buying into the lie that you're nothing, you're barely loved, you barely get in, you're barely forgiven, pick your head up and walk with confidence in Christ, not yourself. You're forgiven. And if you're someone who's lost the element of joy in salvation and it's become mundane, like you see baptisms and you're kind of like, you know, oh, good stuff. Wow, that's wonderful. That's wonderful. You know, like, no, it is the greatest celebration when someone is saved. It never gets old. It's always a clapping thing. We would say that as our church. People always clap when someone gets baptized or I'll announce, hey, there's two baptisms today after the service, and people will clap and say, Yeah, that's a clapping thing. You can celebrate. My goodness. Jesus saved a lost, dead sinner. Like, wake up. It's a party. All of heaven is celebrating. If you're someone who's been self-righteous, and we can all cycle through this, you've been self-focused and sort of a bit of a spiritual snob or a me monster, get your eyes back on grace. Remember, you, me, we're not anything. Jesus is everything. His grace that was for us, oh, it's for others too. The way we came to him humble and empty, beggars, so eager to be filled, not trusting in ourselves. And then we get a little bit mature and we start growing and we start getting kind of self-righteous. Hey, go back to first love. Go back to that original poor in spirit attitude that we read about in the first beatitude in Matthew 5, verse 3. See others through the eyes of Christ. And remember, love, forgiveness, grace, and position. They're yours. Hey, and they can be theirs too. Next time, we're looking at another parable that will convict us of being prideful and remind us of God's mercy. The theme is going to be justification by faith. It's the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector when two men came into the temple to pray that day. Looking forward to digging into that parable. Thank you as always for listening, watching, and for your support. Be sure to subscribe on YouTube. And if you can, drop us a review on Apple, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter. Keep in touch, and I'll be back next Monday with another episode. Keep on living for the gospel.