And please do turn in your copies of God's word to the Gospel of Luke, Gospel of Luke chapter 15, and we're picking up in verse 11. This of course is the very well-known parable of the prodigal son or sons, and of course it is the third of three parables that Jesus gives in response to the Pharisees who are critical of Jesus ministering to sinners and tax collectors. Luke chapter 15, beginning in verse 11. This is God's word. And he said, there was a man who had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of property that is coming to me. And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country. And there, he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and 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 with hunger. I will arise and go to my father. And I will say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. And 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 him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, bring quickly the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, and bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And they began to celebrate. Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, your brother has come, and your father has killed a fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound. But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him. But he answered his father, look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat that I may celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you kill the fattened calf for him. And he said to him, son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found. So ends the reading of God's word. Let us pray and ask the Lord's blessing upon his preached word. Lord, we thank you for your word. We think of the word even in this parable that has come from the father to his sons and even to his servants. We think now of how your word is coming to us preached, and we ask, Lord, that we would have hearts open, that we would receive by faith that which you have for us, that we might be arrested in our sin, convicted of our sin, but drawn to you and to your presence as our compassionate Father. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. One of the things about children is their very keen sense of fairness. Everything has to be very fair. Now, when they've done something wrong to someone else or to a sibling, well, they're very quick to ask for mercy. But if someone else wrongs them, they're very quick to demand what's fair and what's just. For example, when mom is cutting up slices of cake, they have no problem if they receive one of the bigger slices. But if a brother or sister happens to get a slice that looks minuscule bigger than theirs, well, that's just not fair. Fairness demands that everything be equal. And even as adults, we expect this to some measure, don't we? We expect things to be fair, and just, and right, and proper. You know, there's nothing more frustrating than maybe if you're in school or even in the workplace where you're working and collaborating on a joint project and someone who puts in hardly any effort gets all the praise when the project is completed. They get all the praise after all of you and perhaps others' hard work. Well, that isn't fair. We expect that we will work and then we'll be rewarded for our work. That's what fairness and justice demands. And certainly this desire for fairness and justice isn't necessarily a wrong desire. But where it does go wrong is when we take that demand for fairness and that expectation for justice and we apply it to our relationship with God. Because so much of life is performance-based, right, we work and we earn a living, It can be very easy for us to fall into the trap of thinking that our standing with God, our relationship with him, operates the very same way. We do our bit, God repays us for our bit. And this was exactly the mindset of the Pharisees. For them, their relationship with God was much more of an employer-employee kind of relationship. They had a contract, if you will. They worked hard at their religious duties, and they expected God would do his part. He would reward them and certainly hold them in high status. And that's why they were absolutely disgusted when they saw Jesus, this esteemed rabbi, eating with sinners and tax collectors, the scum of society, at least in the eyes of the Pharisees. They had earned a place at the table, the Pharisees. These people had earned a casting out of society. It just wasn't fair. Well, this parable, along with the previous two, is Jesus' answer, his response to the Pharisees. Remember, the context, Jesus has been eating with sinners and tax collectors. They were drawing near to him. And the Pharisees were losing their minds over that. They were critical of Jesus. How could he eat with the likes of them? And Jesus tells them these three parables so that they might begin to understand that his mission is to come to seek and to save the lost. and that his grace is not something to be earned, but it's a gift, and that only those who know they're lost will be found. And each one of us needs to hear this parable because our hearts so often echo the voices in the hearts of these Pharisees. We tend to think so highly of our own righteousness and what we can do or have done for God. Well, here's the truth. If our relationship with God was based on fairness and justice, well then we would be in serious trouble. As sinners, fairness demands that we be judged. Justice demands that we receive divine punishment for our sins. You see, fairness means punishment not only for the sinners and the tax collectors, but equally so for the self-righteous Pharisees. And so this parable teaches us all alike to draw near to God in repentance and faith, not on the basis of our works or the status that we think we have or the status we think we can gain. And it also holds out to us the promise that God is a compassionate father, one who welcomes those who come to him in this spirit of repentance and faith. And where we are dead and lost sinners, he, by his grace, makes us alive. Well, there are three figures in this parable. There's the lost son, there's the compassionate father, and there's a self-righteous brother. And whether you here today feel more acquainted with the younger brother tempted by the allure of the world, or whether you see your own heart reflected in this older brother, each one of us needs to hear this parable of Christ today. Well, the first figure in this parable is the lost son. And the reality is that this son was lost ever before he left his family estate. This son has grown sick and tired of working on his dad's farm. He's tired of baling hay. He's tired of tending to animals. He's sick of farm life. And he hates his family. What he yearns for is the freedom that leaving his family and leaving the family estate will supposedly bring him. And so he does something that's unthinkable. He goes to his father and he demands his share of his father's inheritance now. We all know that an inheritance is something that you receive after someone dies. When someone dies, their will is executed, and that's when their property, the inheritance is doled out to the various parties. But here, the son is saying, essentially treating the father as if he's already dead, or at least that he wants him dead. He's in essence telling his father You know, Father, you're dead to me. I want nothing more to do with you or this family. And if you insist on going on living, well then I want my inheritance now so that I can get away from you. This son is full of hatred and greed. And this is further brought out by the Greek. The two words describing property and portion are words that are often used to describe life or essence. And so the son is very literally demanding of his father, I want your life, I want your essence. It's as if the son is killing his father. Certainly he wants the father dead in the sense that he wants his inheritance. Well, any father of either today or then would respond, no way, are you joking? Certainly in the ancient world, the authority of the father was paramount. This father could have had his wretched son flogged and written out of the will entirely. In fact, maybe that's what the son deserved. And yet this is not what the father does. The father fulfills his son's request and he executes his entire will. Notice it says between them. What this means is that he transfers all that he has to both of his boys. Typically, the older son would have received 2 3rds of the inheritance and the younger son 1 3rd. As you see in the text, the son doesn't waste any time. As soon as he can, he sells up the property, he converts it to cold hard cash and he gets out of town. He goes on a journey to a far away country. Now, Israel isn't a tremendously huge place, and so in the context, where is a faraway country? Well, it's Gentile country. It's Gentile land. What this means is that this son is not only rejecting his family, but he's also rejecting the promised land, the place of the temple. on the promises of God, and he's going to Gentile country. In other words, he's leaving the faith. He's apostatizing. Well, once he gets away, well, now he's finally free. He's free from the shackles of his father's rules and regulations. No more bailing hay or feeding animals, so he thinks. He's finally free to do what he wants, where he wants, with whomever he wants. And at first, I'm sure it was very thrilling. It was a blast. It seemed like the money just went on forever. He could do whatever he wanted. Jesus tells us he squandered his wealth in reckless living, indulging every whim, pursuing every pleasure, buying anything he wanted, throwing parties, gambling, spending money with good times on shallow companions. But before long, the fun times come to a screeching halt when he runs out of money. Well, if things couldn't get any worse for him, the economy tanks, the stock market crashes, a famine hits the land. And maybe in the back of his mind, he knew the money would run out eventually, but maybe he thought he'd build up enough connections and have enough friends that he'd land on his feet with a good job in the city. But now there are no jobs. And here he is in a distant land. He's no family, no friends, no money, no job. He can't even afford food. He's in serious trouble. Well, out of desperation, he becomes an indentured servant, and he's given the task of tending to pigs. Now for a Jewish audience hearing this, they would have crinkled their noses and kind of taken a step back and aghast, not because tending pigs is any dirtier than tending cattle or anything like that, but rather because according to the law of Moses, pigs were ceremonially unclean animals. In other words, if you came into contact with pigs, You were removed from worship in the temple until you made yourself ritually clean again. So pigs for Jews were off limits. So he is doing the worst job that a Jew could do. And to add insult to injury, he is being paid so poorly that it's not even enough to provide a living wage. He literally can't even afford food. The pigs are getting fed better than he is. And so here he is, literally hitting rock bottom. He's starving. He's craving the food of ceremonially unclean animals. He's lost. He's as good as dead. And isn't this such a vivid picture of life apart from Christ? This parable illustrates so well what the Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 2.12, where he says, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. Now, if we're honest, it can be very easy for us, even as believers, to at times romanticize the life apart from Christ, to romanticize the freedom that life outside of the bounds of God's laws seems to offer. At times, we might think that, well, if we could just break free from those boundaries, we'd have a better life, a more free life, a more enjoyable life, just like this son. Whether it's the young person, waiting and wanting to unshackle themselves from mom and dad's rigid rules and strict Christianity. Or it's the man or woman who wants to be unshackled from their marriage, thinking that there's something better for them in store outside of God's laws and boundaries. There can always be this false allure that something is better, a better life, just waiting for us beyond the pale, in that far off country. But the truth is that life apart from Christ is never the better life. That kind of freedom is an illusion. It's a mirage way outside there in the desert. And the more you go and the more you chase it, the more it keeps moving, moving away further and further. And the more lost and desolate and deserted and hopeless and dead you become. No, that kind of freedom is an illusion. It's a counterfeit that does not lead to abundance, but it leads to emptiness and brokenness, alienation and death. What seems to promise freedom is in fact just a form of slavery. Certainly this may be low-hanging fruit in some senses, but I think you need look no further than many celebrities. Now, certainly there are Christian celebrities in the world, but many celebrities are not Christians, and they live lifestyles that many of us would wish we had. We envy those lifestyles. They're good-looking. They have fame. They have fortune. It seems like they can do whatever they want. They can go on vacations. They can have multiple houses where we may be struggling to pay off our mortgage and car payments. They seem to have everything. They seem to be doing so well. Well, that's all on the surface, isn't it? Often as you explore the lives of many of these celebrities, apart from the fact that they are alienated spiritually from God, they tend to live lives that are very empty and broken and lonely, even having bodies broken with transmittable diseases from the choices of lifestyle they've taken. No, friends, the reality is that life apart from Christ is not a life of freedom. It's a life like this lost boy has, one of spiritual poverty and exile. And as Paul says, a life that is without hope in the world. Well, not only is there a lost son, secondly, there is a compassionate father. Well, as the son is sitting there eyeing the pig's pods and he's starving and his belly is grumbling and rumbling, he thinks of his father's house and he thinks of how even the lowest servant or slave on the totem pole in his father's house, at least they eat well every day. They have a place to rest their heads. They have some nice things. And how much better off he would be if he even had their place. And so he comes up with a plan to return home and to work for his father as a servant. He even, you know, prepares a speech. He will tell his father, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. Well, this is a good start, isn't it? Notice that he admits he has sinned against God and he's sinned against his father. He accepts the consequences of his choices. He doesn't make excuses. Well, Dad, you weren't there for me the way you were there for my brother. No, there's no excuses. He has sinned. He recognizes his own unworthiness. He is unworthy to return as a son to a father. However, note one thing about his thinking. Although he knows he doesn't deserve to return as a son to a father, he does think that perhaps he can make an offer to the father, that they will have a new relationship, that his father might receive him as a servant, if he promises to work for him. At least then, maybe the son will be received back, and he can work for the father, and the father will repay him with some kindness. So with that, he quits his dead-end job, and he hitchhikes back to the father's estate. And while he's still somewhat of a long way off, his father, maybe sitting on the porch after a hard day's work, looks on the horizon and he sees the silhouette, and he knows that silhouette anywhere, and he sees his son. Well, what will the father do? Well, any other father might respond with a roll of the eyes. Oh, look who it is. Let's see what he wants. Well, what is it, boy, are you here for more money? Did you not get enough the first time? Or maybe the father will say, well, sure, you can be my servant, but you're sleeping in the barn, and don't ever think you're coming into the house. No, there will be serious restrictions. And that kind of response would be fair. Would we fault the father for making those decisions and responses? Perhaps not entirely, because that's what the son deserves. If anything, the son deserves to be thrown off the estate. He has renounced his place in that family. And that's what we expect, because that's what fairness and justice demands. You made that bed, now you lie in it. But what follows isn't fairness or justice. It's mercy, it's grace, it's compassion. We read how while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt anger, bitterness, resentment, no, compassion. And he ran and embraced him and kissed him. Now in this culture, older men didn't run. It was undignified. And yet this father, seeing his son trudging home, runs in the most undignified manner. And before his son even has a chance to open his mouth, he's embracing his son and tackling him to the ground and kissing him and hugging him and embracing him. And what's incredible is that dad does this before junior has even said a word. Dad doesn't know why his son is back. I mean, maybe he has a sense, but who knows if he's back to ask for more money, to feed some addiction. All he knows at this point is that his son, who reeks of death, is now back. And he overwhelms him with undeserved compassion and grace. Well, the father hasn't given the son a chance to say anything. But finally, he's able to break free of his father's chokehold and make his little speech. And he says, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. So he confesses his sin, doesn't he? He acknowledges his unworthiness. But notice that something is missing from what he had prepared to say. There's no mention of offering to work for his father so that he might be treated as a servant in the house, so that perhaps maybe they could have a new relationship, that of a master and a servant, where he would work and the father would reward him. That's what he had planned to say, but now In the loving embrace of his father, he can no longer even make that kind of offer. All he can do is confess that he is an unworthy son. He is dead, a sinner. He is too unworthy even to offer himself as a hired hand. Seeing the father's embrace, how he has been received purely by grace, he knows that this is a love that cannot be bought or repaid. Well, the father, hardly maybe listening to his son, doesn't even respond to the son. Instead, he turns and orders the servants, bring quickly the best robe, put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. The father springs from compassion to generosity. The robe is, of course, a symbol of honor. The ring is the family seal. It's like giving him the family credit card, if you will. You have your place in the family now. You're one of us when you go out and about to the markets, et cetera. The shoes mark him out as someone who is a son and not a servant who often went barefoot. Even though this son had disowned his family and wished his father dead, the father has fully reinstated him without conditions or stipulations. He is a true son of the father's house. But the father isn't finished yet. He commands his servants, and bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. The fattened calf was an animal that was specially reserved for extremely special occasions. And this is incredible. How can the best of food be given to the worst of sinners? And yet this is what happens, and the celebration begins. What is the Father's reason for this lavish generosity? He tells us, doesn't he? For this, my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And the Greek word there that Jesus uses is the language of resurrection. So his son, who had been dead, has now been resurrected to life. Well, if a woman celebrates over finding a lost coin and a shepherd celebrates over finding a lost sheep, how much more does a father rejoice over a son who is dead now being made alive? You know, in the ancient world, A son returning to their family after some kind of dishonorable conduct like this would be expected to bring a whole train of lavish gifts to kind of make amends and to show honor to the father. And that's how they might restore favor with the family. But this son, returns empty-handed. The only thing he carries with him is the stench of his own sin and unrighteousness and the reminder of what he has done to this family. And this beautifully reflects how we come to God. We come to God with no gifts in our hands, no merits to bring, but only our need for his mercy. For what could we bring to God to repay the infinite debt that we owe for our sin? Absolutely nothing. As we sing in the hymn Rock of Ages, nothing in my hand I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling. Naked, come to thee for dress. Helpless, look to thee for grace. And the Father's compassionate response reflects the response of our Heavenly Father. Like the lost son, all that we bring to Christ is our need. And yet, when we do come to him like this, like this prodigal son, he responds to us by embracing us. He responds with compassion through faith in Christ. He clothes us with Christ's righteousness. In other words, he justifies us. The doctrine of justification is such a precious, important, and dare I say, practical doctrine for the Christian. Question 34 of our Baptist Catechism asks, what is justification? And it answers, Justification is an act of God's free grace wherein he pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in his sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone. What this means is that if your faith is in Christ, then it means you are justified. Just as a son came in tattered rags if he was wearing anything at all and was clothed in robes not his own, so also the Father dresses you in the robes of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in those robes of Christ's righteousness, God doesn't treat you like a servant or a slave merely. He doesn't treat you like a prodigal. He doesn't see your failings in life. He doesn't treat you like a failure or a loser. No, he treats you as a beloved son, as if you had never sinned and never rejected him. Isn't that how the father treats the son who has come to him, this son who deserves to be beaten and thrown off the estate? And how is he treated? He's treated as if he was the perfect son who never sinned. He's lavished with every gift. And what this means for you, dear Christian, is that regardless of how you may feel about your worth, regardless of how you may be viewed by the world, or dare I say, other Christians, What matters ultimately is how you are viewed by God. And if your faith is in Christ, you are justified and you are clothed in his righteous robes. And that is not because God overlooks justice. That is not because God is unfair. It's not because God winks at your sin, but rather it's because the sins that you deserve to pay for were born by the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross. He was slain. He suffered in your place. His blood was spilled, and so justice was not ignored or looked over. No, justice was satisfied. And in that, we can rejoice, knowing that it's not something waiting for God to react against, but no, justice has been met. It has been paid. That you are justified means that your sins have been forgiven. It means that even now, God does not hold your sins over your head. They are completely forgiven. And yes, even when you come to him again and again in repentance, and you should come to him every single day in repentance and faith, confessing your sins, asking for his mercy. But when you come to him again and again, he doesn't roll his eyes. He doesn't sigh in frustration. He doesn't say or demand that you do better next time as a condition of future forgiveness. No, the marvel and wonder, the mystery of God's grace is that each time you come to him in repentance, each time that you turn from sin, each time that you confess your sin, he meets you with fresh grace, new grace, every time. How can he do this? We can't understand it because we are sinners. He is a God who is abundant in mercy, rich in mercy beyond what we can even fathom. Well, dear friend, if you are here today and you have not experienced this, well, then Christ calls you to leave your pigsty of rebellion and to come home to him in repentance and in faith. And when you do, yes, he will not Hold your failures over your head or demand some kind of penance. No, he will embrace you as the father embraced his son. And he will celebrate with all of heaven, with all of the angels, over one who was dead but is now alive, over one who was lost and now is found. Well, there is the lost son. There's the compassionate father. And third, there's the self-righteous brother. Well, where is he while all of this exchange is taking place? Well, it's a work week, it's a day of the week, so he's out working in the fields. But as he comes back to wash up, he smells grilled meat wafting through the air. And he sees servants running back and forth with jugs and basins of fruit. He hears the revelry of music and dancing and partying and celebration. And so he stops one of the servants in their tracks and he asks them, what's going on? And the servant explains, your brother has come and your father has killed a fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound. Whereas the father responds in compassion, verse 20, the elder son responds with anger, verse 28. He wonders to himself, here I am working in the field all day and this is what I come back to? What has this good for nothing, lazy brother of mine done to earn the fattened calf? The brother is so angry. He refuses to join his family celebration, and thus he stays away, distancing himself both physically and also socially. Well, the father again takes the initiative, this time with the older brother. So he comes and he pleads with him to join the celebration. Well, the older son has also had some time to prepare his own speech, and when his father comes, he lets him have it. Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command. Yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed a fattened calf for him." Well, notice a few things about what he says. First, he sees his relationship with his father as that of a slave. and not as a son. He says, I have served you and I never disobeyed you, as though he were working to earn his father's love and acceptance, like an employee measuring his worth by his performance. Secondly, he believes his work has earned him a reward. In his view, he's been very obedient, and he has surely earned at least a small celebration, maybe a young goat to enjoy with his friends. Look at all that I've done for you. You don't even give me a goat, whereas this brother of mine, or sorry, this son of yours earns a fattened calf. This is unfair. Third, he separates himself from his family. He does this both physically, refusing to even join the celebration, But he also does this with his language. If you remember, the younger son began his speech saying, father. The older brother simply launches in with, look. He refuses to call him father. He simply refers to him as you. Similarly, he refers to his brother simply as your son and this one. Clearly, the older brother is angry. Well, then the father speaks, and he speaks affectionately, calling him son or child. He first responds to the charge that he is treating him like a slave, and he says, son, you were always with me, and all that is mine is yours. The father reminds him that I haven't treated you like a servant or a slave. I've treated you like a son. And even now, the inheritance is divided up. All that is mine is yours. Next he explains why he killed the fattened calf for the younger brother. He says, it was fitting to celebrate and be glad. The father says that it was fitting to celebrate. Now this is a word that Luke has used several times throughout the gospel already and it's a very important word. Back in Luke chapter four, Jesus explains that it was fitting or of necessity for him to proclaim the good news of the gospel. In Luke chapter nine, Jesus said that it was fitting or of necessity for him to suffer, die, and be raised on the third day. So this language of fitting refers to something that is of divine necessity. This is something that you have no choice, you have no option. This is something that must be done. It is what commentators refer to as divine necessity. And so likewise, the father says that there is a divine necessity to celebrate his younger son's return. And the father explains why this is so. He says, for this your brother was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found. In other words, when the lost are found, when the dead are raised, there is a divine necessity to celebrate The elder brother said that celebration is only for the one who works and earns. But the father says, no, celebration is for the dead who are raised. It is for those who first and foremost know that they are lost, dead, unworthy sinners. but then who come to him in repentance and faith for grace. Celebration is not for the self-righteous who do not see their lost condition, but rather it is for the sinner who recognizes their sin and repents. And this is where the force of Jesus' parable becomes clear. The older brother represents the Pharisees. The Pharisees believed that they were the righteous workers. They did not see themselves in the same category as sinners and tax collectors, those kinds of people. They needed help, but not themselves. And so they were disgusted to see Jesus welcoming and feasting with these sinners and tax collectors. Just like the older brother, they viewed their foundation, the foundation of their relationship with God as one of transaction. They did their part. God had to reward them. Rather than as sons who received everything purely by grace, they may not have been lost in reckless sin like the younger brother or the sinners and tax collectors, but they were no less lost in the pigsty of their own pride. Notice that the parable ends open-ended. The question remains, will the older son see his lost condition? Will he repent? Will he join in the celebration of the father's feast? Or will he continue to separate himself from that, rejecting the father's grace? Jesus leaves this open-ended so that the Pharisees can examine their hearts. and ask that question of themselves. And so also Christ by his spirit through his preached word asks each one of us this same question. And so what about you? Do you tend to think of God's love as conditional upon your obedience and your efforts? So often we are inclined to treat other people that way. We often give based on what we think we'll get, which is justice. and fairness, but not grace. Like the older brother, do you tend to view God as a hard taskmaster whose laws are arbitrary and unfair? Oh, you must first come to terms with the fact that you can never repay the debt of sin that you owe. There is no way you can earn a place in his household. You will never earn the fattened calf because what you deserve is the pigsty The way to enter into the Father's Feast is not by works of the law, but by grace. To join this feast, you must first acknowledge your need for grace, recognizing that without him you are lost. You were lost spiritually, dead in sin, whether it's in the outward sins of rebellion, like the younger son, or it's the inward sins of pride and self-righteousness, like the older brother and like the Pharisees. And from that place of seeing your own unworthiness, it's then that you can look to Christ and see his fullness and sufficiency and his grace. For although you are unworthy to be called a son, Through Christ, Paul writes in Galatians 4, 7, you were made sons. He says you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God. That inheritance that was lost and squandered by Adam in his fall and rebellion and has been continued through your actual sin, Christ Jesus restores us so that we who were prodigal sons are now once again heirs of a kingdom that we do not deserve. While the father in the parable sacrifices a calf, our heavenly father has sacrificed his only begotten son, thus securing our place at his heavenly banquet. And just as the father in compassion went and pursued the younger son and even the older son, so also even now your heavenly father calls you and he calls you home to turn to him, to draw near to him in repentance and faith. The ancient church father Ambrose writes, do not fear that perhaps he will not receive you. For the Lord has no pleasure in the destruction of the living. Already meeting you on the way, he falls on your neck. He will give you a kiss. That is the pledge of his piety and love. He will order the robe, the ring, the shoes to be brought. You still dread harshness, but he has restored dignity. You are terrified of punishment, but he offers a kiss. You fear reproach, but he prepares a banquet. And each week the Lord, through the supper, sets a feast before us. We have a heavenly father who lavishes goodness upon us, who offers us not stones or snakes or scorpions, but bread and wine to remind us of the overwhelming, abundant compassion and grace of the Father to us through Christ Jesus. And so the question remains, will you draw near to the compassionate Father? Will you repent of your sin? Will you trust in Christ? And will you join his rich feast? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your rich grace to us through Christ, for prodigals like us, for we are not those who deserve a seat at the table, and that perhaps the Pharisees are right, and yet we receive a seat, not through our works, but through the grace. and merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that you would apply these truths to each of our hearts, that we might daily repent of our sin and return once again to the compassionate Father who has gone to every length to restore us to himself. Even now, Lord, continue to minister to us through the remainder of this service. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.