IF IT MATTERS TO YOU, THAN IT MATTERS TO THE MASTER
You Matter to God. Why Should He Matter to You?
Luke 15:11-24
11 And he said, A certain man had two sons:
12 And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.
13 And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.
14 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.
15 And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
16 And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.
17 And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,
19 And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
21 And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
22 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:
23 And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:
24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.
In Luke 15 Jesus told three stories to illustrate our worth to God, three stories that reveal how much we matter to Him.
In all three stories, something is lost or gets lost and winds up being found in the end.
In all three stories we see their responses.
The Shepherd response was joy and rejoicing
The woman’s response was joy and rejoicing
The third story is about a son who brazenly, impulsively, rudely, asked his dad for his inheritance.
Understand that was like saying, “I wish you were dead” in that ancient culture.
No one asked for an inheritance before someone died.
The father in the story agreed to the son’s heartless demand.
And the son not only took the money, but he left home and verse 13 tells us he set out for a distant land.
- He didn’t just move across town.
- He wasn’t planning on coming home for Sunday dinner.
- He didn’t intend to come home for birthdays and other holidays.
- He was leaving and was severing the relationship with his dad, with his other brother, with his mom and with whoever else lived in the home.
Things didn’t go so well for the young man.
He went crazy. He went from zero to sixty.
- From structured to wild.
- From principled to crazy.
- He lost his mind doing stupid stuff, sinful stuff, stuff that gave him satisfaction in the moment and shame and regret the next day.
- He ran out of money.
- He went from daring to desperate pretty quick.
- The only job he could get was a job feeding pigs.
- The pigs’ food became his food.
He was broken. He was hungry. He started thinking about how he had it made back at his father’s house.
It had it all, but He left it all, to pursue it all and lost everything.
The Father’s Response
Luke 15:17-20
17 And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,
19 And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
And as the story goes, while the young man was still a ways from the house, his father saw him coming. He didn’t stand on the porch with crossed arms saying to himself, “This ought to be good.” He didn’t order his servants to guard the perimeter of the property and to tell the boy he wasn’t welcome.
Why? Because although the boy had chosen to discard his sonship, the father had never stopped being his father.
And when the father saw him coming, he took off running toward the son.
Look at the second half of verse 20 from the New Living Translation: “Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.”
- This wasn’t just a rush of emotion for that day.
- This wasn’t just a knee-jerk reaction.
- He wasn’t just filled with love and compassion in that moment.
- There wasn’t just a swell of fatherly affection in that instant.
- No, he was filled with love and compassion because that is how he had felt about his son when he left and broke his heart,
- that is how he had felt about his son while he had been away,
- and that is why he didn’t hesitate,
- that is why he didn’t deliberate,
- that is why he took off running to meet his boy.
- He had never stopped loving him.
- He knew that if and when his boy would come home, it would mean the boy had hit rock bottom.
- He knew it because of the way he had left.
- He had left full of pride, full of self.
- He knew the boy must have really messed up to have made his way home for help.
- He had compassion on him because he knew he was hurting, broken, unhappy and that he had regret his decision to leave in the first place.
- There was no need for an “I told you so” moment.
- It wasn’t in the father’s heart to have the “How could you have done this to me” speech.
- It was about mercy, grace, love, and forgiveness.
The father wouldn’t even let the boy get through his speech.
He called his servants together and told them to get the
22 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:
23 And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:
And notice verses 23 and 24 again from the New Living Translation: “And kill the calf we have been fattening. WE must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.” So the party began.
I like the way this translation expresses that:
The father had been planning for, preparing for the son’s return all along.
He said, “And kill the calf we have been fattening.”
He was preparing for the party long before there was a reason to celebrate.
He was planning on the son coming home, and he wanted to be ready for the moment so that it could be special for him.
The son had prepared to come home as a servant, but the father was preparing all along that he would come home not only as a son, but as a son with special status.