How Will the Prodigal Parable End?

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, the 15th chapter.

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Now the tax collectors and the sinners were all drawing near to hear Jesus and the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled saying, this man receives sinners and he eats with them.

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So he told them this parable. There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, father give me the share of property that is coming to me.

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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.

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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.

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And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate and no one gave him anything.

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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.

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I will arise and go to my father and I will say to him, father I have sinned against heaven and before you.

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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.

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And the son said to him, father I have sinned against heaven and before you and I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

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But the father said to his servants, bring quickly the best robe. Put it on him. Put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet and bring the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and celebrate.

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For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And they began to celebrate.

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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.

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And he said to him, your brother has come. Your father has killed the fatted calf because he has received him back safe and sound.

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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

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I've served you and I've never disobeyed your command. Yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends.

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But when this son of yours came who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him.

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And he said to him, son you are always with me and all that is mine is yours.

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It was fitting to celebrate and to be glad for this your brother was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found.

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This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus.

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Alright, a little bit of warning up front. The epistle to the

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Galatians written by the Apostle Paul is a, well, it's a letter that reveals to us that self -righteousness and attempts to be saved from damnation by your own good works and your own self -righteousness will result in you being damned.

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The Apostle Paul makes it very clear to the Judaizers that even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel other than the one already preached let him be anathema, that means cursed, damned.

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And so he says it again, let me be clear on this, that if anyone preaches to you another gospel let him be anathema.

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That's our setup here because going into our gospel text we see the effects of self -righteousness and attempts to save yourself by God's law in the, well, in the sayings and the nonsense of the

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Pharisees. They don't even see how blind they are. It says this, the tax collectors and the sinners were all drawing near to hear

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Jesus. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. But keep in mind that the self -righteous and people who are into social justice and stuff like this hate, and I mean this, hate the idea of people being freely forgiven because after all tax collectors, they're criminals, they're thieves.

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How can Jesus forgive such riffraff and not hold them accountable and make them pay for the wickedness that they have done?

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That's kind of the scandal of the cross if you would. So the Pharisees and the scribes they grumbled saying, this man receives sinners and he eats with them.

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Now let me point this out. If Jesus chose to not eat with sinners, Jesus would have eaten by himself every day of his existence because there's only sinners on planet earth.

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Or I like to put it this way, he would have done what I did when I was in sixth grade, eat by himself in the in the bathroom because I was a nerd and a scrawny kid and I didn't like getting beat up.

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So eating by myself was a safer thing. But Jesus, if he didn't want to eat with sinners, he wouldn't have eaten with anybody, including the

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Pharisees. And that's the blindness of all of this. Do the Pharisees not see their need to be forgiven just like the tax collectors and all the other sinners out there?

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They are part of that group and yet self -righteousness and those who try to save themselves by keeping the law, they see themselves in a different group.

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The sinners are over here, we the holy are over here. And what makes us holy?

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Well, we keep the commandments. We do not disobey. We are going to make it to heaven and God's going to say, well done, you made it all on your own steam.

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No one else has done this except for Christ. Good for you. This is how they're thinking. So Jesus then tells them this parable and you'll note the verse 3 says that this is a single parable but it's a parable in three chapters.

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We will not go through all three chapters but suffice it to say that chapter one is the parable of the lost sheep.

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Shepherd has a hundred lost sheep, one of them, he has a hundred sheep, one of them goes missing. He leaves the 99 and goes and hunts for it, picks it up, puts it on his shoulders, carries it back, and this is a picture of repentance.

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And then you have the parable of the lost coin. You know, note here God is the active agent searching for the lost coin because coins are inanimate objects, finds the lost coin, celebrate with me

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I found my lost coin, and there's rejoicing in heaven over people who repent.

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So it's another picture of repentance. Now chapter three, let's apply it to human beings. And so Jesus says there was a man who had two sons.

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A little bit of a note. We here in the

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East works in regards to honor. Honor.

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You think about if you were to travel to Japan, right, how far you bow tells you something about the who you're honoring.

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You bow a little bit and that person's not so important. You bow all the way down, that person's really important.

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And so honor cultures are a very big thing and parents are to be honored by their children.

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Dishonoring your parent, even in Christ's time, this is an honor culture, is a bad thing.

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And so we as Americans, because we don't quite get this honor thing, we've kind of taken dishonoring people to a whole new level.

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It's all about what we say about our politicians and things like we don't honor anybody. We're just a bunch of rebels still.

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So keep that in mind as we work our way through this. So the younger son said to his father,

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Father, give me the share of the property that is coming to me. Let me translate this into honor speak.

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Dad, I can't stand you. I hate your guts. I wish you were dead. But since you won't do me the honor of dying, would you at least give me the inheritance because, you know,

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I don't really want to have anything to do with you. That's really what's going on in this text. And everybody who was hearing this when

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Jesus spoke this would have gone, whoa boy, who is this kid?

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But then the unthinkable happens. Rather than the father getting in his son's face, saying, how dare you dishonor me this way?

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Is this any way to treat your father? The commandment says honor your father and mother.

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He doesn't do any of that. He divided the property between them. And now the son has to skedaddle because everybody, all the neighbors know what's going on.

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So it says, not many days later, the younger son gathered all that he had and took a journey to a far country, a place where nobody would know what he had done to his dad.

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And there he squandered his property. And the word is reckless living. We don't know what that means. I would just note that over and again when people win the

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Powerball or the lottery or something like that, they think they're set for life, right? It only takes about a few years and they run out of all the money because they're just reckless with it.

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It just runs through their hands like water. And so he has no property, no way of creating wealth.

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He's only spending it in reckless living. That doesn't last very long. So when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country and he began to be in need.

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Now remember, this is a Jewish man. As he was growing up, he would have been required to go to the synagogue school and learn the

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Torah. And the prophet Isaiah tells us that sometimes when God's Word comes to us, it comes like a rain shower and it waters the plants and things grow.

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And then sometimes the Word of God comes to us like a snowfall. We know a little bit about snow out here as we're waiting for it to slowly melt so that we don't get too much of a flood.

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But when the Word of God comes like a snowstorm, it sits and it lies and it waits until the thaw.

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And then the Word of God begins to do its work. So as he finds himself in need and finds himself in want, which in some degree or another is the result of his own sinful behavior, he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.

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What a great job for a Jewish boy to do, right? Feeding pigs, unclean animals. And this next sentence always cracks me up.

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He was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate and no one gave him anything. If I were feeding pigs,

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I would long to eat the bacon. You'll note here that the dietary laws of Moses are law.

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Gospel is bacon. But he didn't have any of that. No pods, no bacon, no nothing.

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And he finally came to himself. Now that Word of God that came like a snowstorm has melted and he realizes his sin.

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And he says, How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread?

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But I perish here with hunger. I will arise and I will go to my father and I will say to him,

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Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. So far, so good. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

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This is most certainly true. Now this next sentence needs a little of explaining.

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Treat me as one of your hired servants. Now it sounds like he's trying to negotiate with his dad, but in reality our cross references

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Leviticus 25, 39, and 40. And listen to what it says. If your brother becomes poor besides you, sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave.

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He shall be to you as a hired worker, as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the

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Jubilee. The Torah made it so that if somebody comes on hard times and he's a close family member, like a son or a brother or an uncle or a cousin, then you are to help him and you are not to treat him as a slave.

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You are to treat him as a hired worker. So what this kid expects from his dad is for his dad to keep the

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Torah and only give him what is required by the law.

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And this is all he knows. Law, law, and law. The law has convicted him of his sins.

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The law also gives him the ability to sustain himself. But what he gets is something completely different than the law.

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So he arose and he came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion.

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This is an amazing little detail because clearly the father could look down the road and he saw the microscopic silhouette of his son and he knew that it was his son.

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What clued him into that? We don't know. But he knew it was his son. He felt compassion.

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Love for him. And he ran. And here this father does the unthinkable again.

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Back in the days, in the eastern culture, men wore robes. Well, kind of like an alb.

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And in order to run, you're not going to be running in this thing. You'd have to hike up your robes a little bit, expose your legs, and do all this kind of stuff.

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And this is not a thing that you do. You dishonor yourself by doing that. And yet he dishonored himself.

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He ran. And he embraced his son. And he kissed him. And the son said to him,

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Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

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This is a great confession of sin. And before he can get that last little detail out, that detail that would have invoked the law, the father interrupts him and said to his servants,

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Bring quickly the best robe. Put it on him. Put a ring on his hand.

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Shoes on his feet. Bring the fatted calf and kill it. Let us eat and celebrate.

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For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.

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And they began to celebrate. Now this was the unexpected. Love, mercy, forgiveness, compassion.

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This is the gospel. Rather than getting the law, he got grace. Rather than getting servitude, he was restored as a son.

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And it's scandalous and it's wonderful all at the same time. Now over and again as we read parables, it's important to figure out where Jesus is in the parable.

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Jesus makes a cameo appearance in this parable. He's the fatted calf. He's the one who gets to be slaughtered so that everybody can celebrate.

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An allusion to the cross, if you would. And all of this is wonderful because each and every one of us, we can relate with this fellow.

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We can because we know, not even deep down inside, we know right in the front of our brain how far short we have fallen of God's glory and how we have disobeyed

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God and sinned against him horribly. And each and every one of us, because of that, has that experience of feeling, well, anxiety over, well,

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God's just wrath for what we have done. But Isaiah, in our Old Testament text, helps us out a little bit here.

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He says, you will say in that day, I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger has turned away so that you might comfort me.

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And all of this is because Christ has bled and died for our sins. That robe that the son had put on him is an allusion to the righteous robes of Christ, the sinless righteous robes of Christ, where God clothes us in his splendor.

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Rather than the tattered rags of our sins, we are now robed royally in Christ's righteousness.

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And so Isaiah then says, behold then, God is my salvation. Not you, not me.

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God is my salvation. I will trust, and listen to these words, and I will not be afraid.

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I will not be afraid. I refuse to fear and to cower in God's presence, because he has so splendidly forgiven me.

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He has become my salvation, and I will trust, and I will not be afraid. For the

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Lord God is my strength. He's my song. He has become my salvation.

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It's all so great, isn't it? But the parable continues. And now it's time to go around the track one more time.

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We've gone around the track with the lost sheep. We've gone around the track with the lost coin. We've gone around the track with the prodigal son.

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But we still have the issue of the Pharisees, because Jesus told this parable to them, because they were incensed that Jesus eats and welcomes sinners, eats with and welcomes them.

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So, here we go. The son, who now is typified of the

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Pharisaical way of thinking, self -righteous beyond all belief. 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 his servants and asked what these things meant.

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And he said to him, your brother has come. Your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.

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But he was angry, and he refused to go in.

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What? What? No justice?

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This kid's not going to get his, well, comeuppance? He's not going to get what's coming to him?

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My dad has just forgiven him? Are you kidding me?

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So, he was angry. He refused to go in, and as a result of that, he now is the one dishonoring his father publicly.

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Publicly. Rather than go in and celebrate with the rest, he now dishonors his father, sits outside in a fuming fit with his arms tied, and people are seeing it, people are talking about it.

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So, his father came out and entreated him. Do you know that your older son's out there, that he's angry at you?

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He doesn't want to come in? What? Yeah, you better go talk with him. So, he went out, and the father again allows himself to be dishonored by yet another son.

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So, he answered his father, look, these many years I've served you.

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Hmm, that's a weird way to talk about your relationship with your dad. Hmm, I've served you.

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He thinks of himself as a servant. I've never disobeyed your command. Liar.

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Liar. Who of us can say that we obeyed our parents perfectly? Me, not even close.

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I just became really good at disobeying them in a way they wouldn't notice. But that's just me.

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So, I've obeyed your commands, yet you never gave me a goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.

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I'm not really interested in celebrating with you, dad, but my friends.

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And then when this son of yours came, notice he hasn't had any conversation with his brother.

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Hasn't gone in, given him a hug, kissed him, said glad you're back. So happy that you're safe and sound. We were worried about you.

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I've been praying for you. None of that. When the son of yours, he doesn't even consider him his brother.

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When the son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes.

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That right there is a breaking of the eighth commandment. Did it say anything about him sleeping with prostitutes?

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Not a word. Where did he get that from? Pulled that one right out of the sky.

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Maybe he was projecting. We don't know. But I can tell you this, there was nothing in the text before that said anything about the younger brother sleeping with prostitutes.

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Reckless, yes. Whoremonger, no. So now he slanders his brother.

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And then, so when he, this son of yours, comes back, you killed the fatted calf for him.

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Well, indeed. Indeed. You see, he's, if you would, considering his brother according to the flesh.

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This is where Paul's writings from our epistle text help us out. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we once regarded

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Christ according to the flesh. We regard him thus no longer. See, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

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The old is passed away, and the new has already come. And all of this is from God.

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All of this is from God. So we do not define people based upon their past.

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We are in Christ. Our sins are forgiven. Christ, the fatted calf, has been slain so that we can be forgiven, and so that God and the angels and we can all celebrate together.

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The old has passed, the new has come. I will hear nothing of what you've done in the past, nor will

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I treat you according to your past, nor should you treat others here according to their past.

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We are all new creations in Christ. And all of this is from God, who through Christ has reconciled all of us to himself.

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Notice, you didn't do the reconciling. Christ did it for you. And therefore, he, God, has given all of us the ministry of, and here's the big word, reconciliation.

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God is not in the business of holding people accountable for their sins and giving them justice.

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Jesus Christ is in the business of forgiving sinners and reconciling us to the

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Father and making that possible. So God, through Christ, has reconciled us to himself, and he's given us the ministry of reconciliation.

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We, as Christians, are not in the business of making sure that everybody gets their comeuppance.

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They get what's coming to them. We are in the business of reconciling. You see,

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God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, not counting your trespasses against you.

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And he now has entrusted all of us with the message of reconciliation. And so we then are ambassadors for Christ.

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God is now making his appeal to the world through us, just like that father was making his appeal to his older son to be reconciled with his brother, to be reconciled with his father.

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God is now making the appeal to the world, your friends and your family and the unbelievers that you are in contact with.

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God is making his appeal through you so that they can be reconciled to God in the same way that that young fellow who squandered all of his dad's property and money was reconciled to his father.

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You see, for our sake God made Jesus to be sin, the sinless one, so that you can be righteous.

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God made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

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And there it is. It's beautiful. It's wonderful when you think about it. And yet this son, this older son, is fuming, still angry, mad.

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And the father says to him, son, you're always with me.

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All that is mine is yours. I don't have to give you anything. You already have it all.

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And it was fitting to celebrate and to be glad. For this your brother was dead and he is now alive.

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He was lost and is found. You know the sad part about this is if you're honest with yourself you can see yourself in both sons.

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You can see yourself in both. The fellow who really royally biffed it, rebelled against his father, dishonored him, squandered everything he had and was destitute because of his sin and hit rock bottom.

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We can relate with that fellow. But the thing is, is that we can relate with this older brother. Because who of us, when we have been sinned against, do not want justice for that person who has hurt us?

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Who of us have been hurt by people here in this church or by other Christians and have not desired for them forgiveness and mercy, but have desired for them the axe, the guillotine, the electric chair.

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But see we are not in the business of social justice.

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We've been given the message of reconciliation. We forgive because we are forgiven.

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So before you turn on this older son and think what a complete lousy fellow this is, recognize that in many ways he also represents you.

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Because your old Adam is a self -righteous sinner. And it's a mess and he's blind as all can be.

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And the way he exalts himself is by tearing everybody else down. But the law of God brings us all to a level playing field.

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And so the question I have is how will this parable end? Because Jesus kind of leaves it hanging out there.

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Notice we started going around the track a fourth time here, but Jesus stopped just before the final stretch because the parable was spoken to the

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Pharisees and to the self -righteous. And we need to recognize that we all struggle with that. So the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to Jesus.

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And in this congregation we have engineers and people who work at Walmart and moms and grandmas and all kinds of people.

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We have seminary presidents and others who are all drawing near to Jesus because he has forgiven them.

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Are you scandalized by it? See the Pharisees and the scribes they grumbled and said this man receives sinners and he eats with them.

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But for us it's even better than that. Because every time we celebrate the Lord's Supper, Jesus not only eats with us, he's also the meal.

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He's the one who's bled and died and now feeds us with his very body and blood so that we can continue to be assured and comforted that he has forgiven us.

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That he has reconciled us to the Father. So when we can hear in those words given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins, we can recall his suffering, bleeding, death and dying.

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The killing of the fatted calf so that we can be reconciled to God. The great cost that was paid in order to forgive us sinners.

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So let us rejoice and take comfort in this gospel. But let us also continue to keep the watchword of Lent to repent.

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To truly lament our sin. To be sorry for it and also confidently trust in Christ and pray for his mercy and forgiveness.

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For all those times when we have refused to be reconciled to those whom have hurt us or those whom we know have sinned.

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And rather than engaging in the ministry of reconciliation, we have engaged in the ministry of exacting justice.

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That's not what the church is called to do. Leave that for the hangman. Leave that for the courts.

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The church of Christ stands to forgive sinners, tax collectors and riffraff like all of you and like me.

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In the name of Jesus. Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church 15950 470th

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Avenue Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota 567 -44. And again that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church 15950 470th

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Avenue Northwest, Oslo, Minnesota 567 -44. We thank you for your support.

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