1. F O U N D 

N O  L O N G E R  L O S T

There was once a wealthy man with two sons, the younger son demanded his father give him his inheritance without having to wait for him to die. The father did as requested, he divided his estate and gave both sons their share. The younger son sold off what he could, took the money and head off for a distant country while the older son stayed on the family estate, working for his father. The younger son slowly wasted all his money on wild living and eventually went bankrupt. The best he could do was find a job feeding pigs for a local farmer, it was humiliating. He was lost, alone, broken and only just starting to wake up to the realisation of how poorly he had treated his father and wasted his life, leaving a wake of damage behind him. The older brother however continued to slave on the property, doing his best to try and win his father’s approval. If only they knew…

This story was first told by Jesus, and has since become known as the story of ‘The Prodigal Son’, or the ‘The Parable of Two Sons’ (As recorded in Luke 15). The story continues…

The younger son has an idea, he figures that the servants that work for his dad are better off than he is right now, so maybe if he grovels enough, his dad just might let him come home, not as an entitled son, but as a slave. Perhaps he’ll be able to work enough to earn his father’s respect again and pay back what he lost. He begins his journey home, rehearsing the whole way his planned apology. As he nears the family estate, he looks up to see a small figure in the distance moving quickly towards him. Nervously, he keeps walking, fearful that this may be someone sent to shout him down at best, or have him beaten or even killed at worst. Local law permitted such a thing for the dishonor he had shown his father. He kept walking. The figure kept running toward him. It wasn’t his brother. It was too old to be one of the servants… It.. It was his father! Running! (Adult men don’t run in this town) His father was crying, shouting, and he seemed happy! The father didn’t slow down but almost knocked his son over as he ran into him, grabbing him tightly and kissing his cheek. The son began his well rehearsed script, ‘Father, I am no longer worthy to be called your son, make me…’ but before he could get the words out, his Father yelled to a servant who had followed him from the house, “Get my best robe, put on him! Get sandals, put them on his feet! And get a family signet ring and put it on his finger! Then go, slaughter the fattened calf and gather the community for a feast for tonight we’re going to party! For my son is home! He was dead but now he is alive! He was lost but now he is found!”

The young son was gobsmacked. Utterly speechless, he hugged his father and sobbed tears of utter relief and joy. He was home.

Later, the older son, who hadn’t yet heard his brother had returned, was still out in the fields when he heard the commotion of the party being organised. The sound of laughter and music was being carried by the afternoon breeze. He called to a servant to find out what was happening, but when he heard what had happened, that his brother was back and how his father had responded with outrageous grace, mercy and forgiveness, the older brother was outraged and refused to go to the party. As night began to fall, the father noticed the older brother hadn’t arrived, so he left the party in search of him. Finding his son outside on the other side of the field, sitting in the dirt, the father sat down with him and asked why he was out there. “All these years I’ve served you, doing everything you ever asked, slaving over this property and always doing what is right, yet you have never thrown me a party! But when this son of yours comes home, after disrespecting our family and dishonouring your name, you kill the fattened calf for him! For him! What’s wrong with you? You never even gave me a goat!” The older son was angry, venting his long pent up frustrations to his father. The father gently replied, “Son, I am always with you, and all I have is already yours – but we had to celebrate, for your brother, my youngest son, was dead, but behold he is alive!” The father patted his son on the shoulder and kissed his forehead as he got up, turned, and walked back to the party, leaving his eldest son still sitting in the dirt.

A L L  A R E  L O S T

The truth of this parable is that every person can relate to either the younger or the older brother. Maybe you rejected God from day one and lived according to your own rules, only to discover you were still empty inside, longing for meaning, overwhelmed with a sense that life wasn’t meant to be this way. Or, maybe you embraced rules and being good, thinking that if you lived a good life that you would be a good person and that life would work out for you. The younger son was a rebel, the older son was compliant, both thought they would get what they wanted with the choices they made. The younger was wild and loose, the older was narrow minded and tight. The younger ended up ashamed of his life, the older ended up proud of his efforts. The younger felt worthless and undeserving of the father’s love and possessions because he was ‘too bad’, the older felt worthy and deserving of the father’s love because he was ‘so good’. The younger was trapped in guilt and shame, the older was trapped in pride, arrogance and ego.

Both wanted what the father had, yet both were lost.

The younger didn’t realise that his behaviour could never be bad enough to disqualify him from the Father’s love, and the older didn’t realise that his behaviour would never be good enough to qualify him! All that the Father offers is free. It’s a gift. We cannot lose his love with bad behaviour and wild living. We cannot earn his love by following the rules and being ‘good’. Both brothers needed saving from themselves. They both needed to be found, because both of them were lost in their sin.

S I N

The “S” word. It’s not too popular these days. Many people have become intolerant of the word ‘sin’ because they reject the idea of absolute truth. The philosophy of such people is, ‘do whatever you feel is right for you’. To be told that some things are sin offends them. But is sin just doing the wrong thing? No, it’s deeper than behavior, or else the older brother in the parable above would not have been guilty of sin. It’s got to do with the motivations of our heart and whose voice we give supremacy to. The older brother was driven by pride and arrogance; arrogance to believe that he could actually ‘earn’ his father’s love and blessing through being good enough. These days we might say such a person ‘religious’ – following the rules because they think that makes them a better, more acceptable person. There were a lot of people like that during Jesus’ days on the earth, they were experts in the scriptures and loved to follow the rules, but they missed the point altogether and instead of loving God, they loved themselves and despised those who didn’t follow the rules.

Sin is when we dethrone God’s voice and opinion, and we put someone or something else on the throne of our lives and give our allegiance to that voice instead of God’s voice.

What this means is, when God speaks, we don’t believe Him, instead we believe the voice we have chosen to put on that throne. The voice we listen to may be our own, ‘I decide what’s right for me!’, or we may listen to the voice of popular opinion, to friends, to money, to sex, or a great host of other ‘voices’. This results in actions, behaviours and lifestyles that do not agree with God’s way. The first two people, Adam and Eve, sinned because they chose to do what God said not to do, effectively they listened to another voice and chose to follow that voice instead of God’s voice. In the same way, the government today makes the laws, and when you break the law you are ignoring the voice of the government in order to do what you want. Breaking the law is a criminal act and justice requires punishment. You must pay a fine, go to jail, do community service, etc… In some nations, the death penalty is still in play for the most serious crimes. What could be more serious than ignoring the voice of God, the creator of life itself, and subsequently living a lifestyle of breaking his ‘laws’? This is what sin is. This is why every single person is guilty. No one has listened and obeyed perfectly. No one except Jesus. We’ll come back to him soon.

P U N I S H  T H E  G U I L T Y

As we just discussed, criminal acts must be punished right? You can’t let criminals go free right? So what is God to do? He loves people, he doesn’t want to send us away, we’re his children. Like the Father in the parable above, he longs to embrace us and celebrate us, but our sin can’t go unpunished. There’s no justice in that, and God is a Just God, it goes against his nature to ignore or overlook sin, afterall, how could a loving God tolerate sin and let people get away with all kinds of evil? He can’t. He doesn’t. He hasn’t.

God devised a plan, plan A. Before the world began, he knew what would happen if he created us. Yet he so wanted to share his love with people that he created us and made a plan to ensure we could be redeemed and set free from our sin without justice being overlooked. He could love us, and be just. God decided that he would take on human flesh, he would be born through a virgin named Mary, and grow up as a man. Fully God. Fully Man. His Divinity didn’t destroy the human side of him, and his humanity didn’t tarnish the divine side of him. He was God in flesh. This is what the word incarnation means. He took the name Jesus, lived a perfect sinless life, taught people about his Kingdom and said that he would take away the sin of the world. 

T H E  G R E A T  E X C H A N G E

Suppose one man had committed a crime and was going to jail for ten years. And another man for 20 years. A noble man may offer to take their place and do the time of 30 years on their behalf, so they can go free. But what if this man was an exceptional person of great standing? The judge may deem it fair for him to do less than 30 years and still consider it a reasonable trade, justice was served. Or think about this, a wealthy politician may intercede for some children who are held hostage by a gunman, offering his own life for release of 10 kids. Such ‘trades’ are based on assumed value. Is his life worth theirs? The gunman may be happy to take the wealthy politician thinking it will give him more leverage in negotiations. What are we really talking about though? Jesus.

How many lives is his life worth? How many sinners could have their debts cancelled and the crimes forgiven if Jesus was willing to take their place? 100? 1 million? 1 billion? More? Jesus was perfect and he was God-in-flesh. The fullness of God was dwelling within him, perfectly fused to his humanity so that he was God. How much is the life of this God-Man worth? Surely it’s not possible to put a price on the creator of all things, for every artist is worth more than his art, every builder worth more than the houses he builds, every singer is worth more than all the songs she writes. Certainly then God is worth more than the entire universe he created! So it stands to reason, that the life of Jesus, more specifically the death of Jesus, would be sufficient to cover all the sins of all people for all time, past, present and future. That is exactly what he did. He exchanged his life by submitting to being executed, in order to take upon himself the punishment that Justice demanded for the sins of all people. His motive? Love. 

The best part, Jesus didn’t stay dead! On the 3rd day after he was executed, he rose back to life! Proving that he has the power of God, the power over life and death. He now offers new life to all who believe in him. See, if God was only concerned with Justice, he would make each of us accountable and punish each person according to our sin. But he doesn’t want to punish us, because to do so would mean he would have to cast us from his presence forever! We cannot receive punishment for our sin as well as an invitation to heaven, and he so desperately loves us that he wants us to be with him and to enjoy him forever, much like the father in the parable who was overjoyed at the return of his young son, God longs for each person to ‘come home’ and experience his goodness and blessing. He wants each person to go from being ‘lost’ in their sin, to being ‘found’ in his love and grace. All we need to do, and I know this sounds simple, because it is, is simply believe that Jesus died for your sins so that you could be forgiven, and so that God could treat you as though you’d never even sinned! If you believe that, tell God! You might say something like this,

God in heaven, I know I have ignored you and lived in my own way. I realise now that a lot of my life was sin, doing what I wanted instead of living how you say is best. Please forgive me. I want to change. I believe that you became a man, Jesus Christ, in order to die in my place, taking upon yourself the punishment my sin deserved. Thank you! Thank you! I also believe that you rose from the dead and in doing so you have proven that you can give me new life too. I believe in you Jesus. I want you to be on the throne of my life from now on. Be my God. Be my Father. Be my friend, thankyou for saving me, thank you that although I was lost, now I am found in you, amen!

N O W  W H A T ?

While saying a prayer and choosing to believe in Jesus won’t make you do everything perfect for the rest of your life, it has given you a perfect record in heaven. From now on you will be treated as though you had never broken any of God’s laws! How good is that! So now that you’re no longer lost, like that younger son you too have ‘come home’ to God your Father, what do you do now? Well, if the story Jesus told continued, he would have talked about how the young son had to start living as the free man his father was treating him as. He wasn’t to act like a servant or a slave, but as a free son in his father’s house…

Continue to Part 2…