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Salt + Light Community is a SOMA church plant in the heart of Fort Worth, TX. Here you’ll find teaching and discussions from our gatherings on Sundays.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I've been teaching
the Bible regularly for, um, like
eight years now, and every once in
a while I'm given a passage to teach
that I'm tempted to think, uh, "Well,
everyone already knows this story.
Like, what more is there to say?"
You know?
Um, and this story that we just heard,
the story of the prodigal son, many
of us are familiar with it, and weâ¦
So we can think, "I've heard this before.
I already know how this goes.
I've already gleaned from it, you know.
I already know how to
apply this to my life."
But here's the thing, and you
guys hear me say this pretty
consistently, 'cause it's, uhâ¦
I, I feel strongly about it.
Uh, we can never be full of God's word.
This is not a book that you just read
once, you mark off, add it to your
tally of books you've read for the
year, uh, for those of us that have book
reading goals, and then carry on, okay?
When you catch yourself thinking
that, "Oh, I've heard this before,"
or, "Yeah, yeah, I know this story.
I get it," um, that's a human response.
That's fair.
That's a valid thing.
Especially in our culture, um,
where we're always wanting to
experience the next big thing.
Uh, we want something newer,
shinier, more interesting.
Like, that's kinda how we're
conditioned to respond to things.
But here's what I wanna say to us.
Do not underestimate the word of God.
The word of God is the truth
that has stood the test of time.
It is a joy and a privilege to
anchor ourselves to the word of God.
It is meant to be our
firm foundation, toâ¦
Our, our steady ground.
Uh, the thing that does
not blow with the wind.
It's timeless and pure.
So yes, maybe you are
familiar with this story.
Maybe your response to listening to
this was kind of you halfway listened
to it because you thought you alreadyâ¦
You think you already
know how the story goes.
That's fine.
But remember, do not underestimate
the word of God in your life.
And if you're not familiar with this
story, if this is a story you've
heard maybe for the first time
today, um, wow, what a story to hear.
At, uh, at bedtime the other night,
Kate was asking me, uh, what I wasâ¦
What passage I was teaching on.
And so I told her this whole story,
uh, the story that we just heard.
I told it to her-
"What do you think?
How, what do you think the son did next?
What do you think the father did next?"
And we're talking about it.
She's so invested.
She's asking these questions,
and she's sharing her opinions.
Um, because it's hard not to
hear this story and not have
an emotional response to it
So whether you're super familiar with
this passage, uh, or you've just heard
it for the first time, my hope is
that this morning w- whether there's
something new in it for not, for you
or for not, that it is a beautiful
reminder to you of God's great love,
that you are deeply loved by God.
And why I wanna make sure that that
is how we are book ending our, uh, our
time today, uh, is because this story,
it also has the potential to mirror
some ugly things in our own lives.
Uh, to reflect to us our own shame
or our own pride or this false
belief that we might have that
we are unlovable or unworthy.
And so the truth is that I want you to
hear it right now, and we're gonna talk
about it at the very end as well, is that
you are deeply loved by God the Father.
That is the truth that I want to
carry us through this morning, okay?
This parable has the power to
transform the way we see God and also
our understanding of how He sees us.
So that's what I want us
to pay attention to today.
So we've spent the summer so far,
um, diving int- looking into these
different parables that Jesus taught.
And a parable is basically a short
story in the Bible that is meant to
kind of pack a punch to Jesus' audience.
And these stories that Jesus told,
they were scandalous, and they were
radical, and they were meant to
catch the attention of his listeners.
And depending on who you were
in the audience, uh, his words
were either a balm to your soul
or a thor- thorn in your side.
And this story is no
different for the audience.
In fact, um, the beginning of this
chapter in Luke, uh, w- this story
starts in verse 11, but at the very
beginning of this chapter, in verse
one, it tells us who the audience is.
And the audience is, it says, uh,
Luke chapter, or verse one, "Now
the tax collectors and sinners were
all gathering around to hear Jesus."
So we've got the tax
collectors and sinners.
"But the Pharisees and the teachers
of the law, they were also there,
and they muttered, 'This man welcomes
sinners and eats with them.'"
So Jesus is telling this story to
the Pharisees and the tax collectors
and the sinners all together.
That's the audience
that's hearing this story.
And this parable is commonly known
as the story of The Prodigal Son,
and that's the heading that a lot
of Bible translations give it.
But as I was reading this week, I noticed
that, um, something in my Bible caught
my attention, and I, uh, at home I'm,
I, I have different ver- At home I
was looking at the CSB version, okay?
Um, and in my v- version it was
labeled The Lost Son, and I love
that because it's kind of ambiguous.
That title invites us to expand
our reading of the story.
Who is really lost?
Who is the lost son that
we're talking about?
Because there are two sons in this story.
There's the one who goes away, and
there's the one who stays, and I
wanna make the case that what we're
actually dealing with is two lost sons.
And last week, uh, Bethany got
to teach us, uh, on a different
parable, and she reminded us of
the rule of three in storytelling.
And we see that applied
to this story as well.
We've got two sons and one dad.
And even though this is one
parable, there's actually kind of
two distinct parts to this story.
And so if this were a Venn diagram, uh,
the father would be at the center, and
I wanna make sure that we're keeping
the father at the center of this story.
This st- uh, the first part of this
story focuses on the younger son, and
then we switch to the older son, and
I wanna w- kind of walk us through
both of these versions of the story.
So we're gonna start with the younger son.
The story begins with him
going to his father and asking
for his share of the estate.
Now, this request is incredibly offensive.
It's as if the, the son is going to his
dad and saying, "I wish you were dead."
It is a shameful thing to ask.
We are starting immediately
in a shameful space.
Especially because as far as we
know, the son doesn't need it.
But there's also something
else that it does.
It also brings shame to the father because
this isn't simply a situation where the
son asks for the es- the estate, the dad
goes to the bank and transfers the money.
To give his share of the estate would
mean that the dad would have to split
his land up, giving the younger son his
portion of the land, who then in turn
sold it off to someone else for cash.
So n- this is not a private affair.
This is a very public family issue now.
So there's this double portion of shame.
So the father, um, lets him go,
even though we can imagine it
must break his heart, but the
father is not controlling here.
And this is where we begin to see
the character of God reflected in the
father because we have freedom to love
or to hate him, freedom to stay or
to walk away, because love does not
control, and our God is a God of love.
So the son goes off, and it says,
Scripture says, "To a distant country."
He has chosen to turn his back not only on
his family, but to his entire community.
It is a complete undoing of his life.
And then the story says that the son
goes off, and he squanders his money,
and then a famine strikes the country
where he is living, and he finds himself
working for someone by feeding the pigs.
He is so desperate, he's so hungry,
that he actually considers eating
the food that the pigs were eating.
Now, keep in mind, uh, this is so
much more than just how we read
it right now as a Western society.
Jesus is telling this
parable to a Jewish audience.
And so for a Jewish person to
have anything to do with pigs is
degrading enough, because pigs
were an unclean animal to them.
Uh, it was against Jewish law to
eat, and it was one way to, uh,
that they were distinguished from
other cultures, from pagan cultures.
So for this audience to hear this
detail that Jesus included in the story,
that this man was, uh, for him to be
feeding pids, pigs, hungry enough to
consider eating their food, this would
have been a truly repulsive thought
for the audience hearing this story.
It would've been humiliating
and disgusting for this
son to consider doing something like this
So Jesus is continuing to just
build the emphasis of the shame
that this son is experiencing.
And the son has this thought, "If
I'm gonna be a servant on a farm
with pigs, I might as well just
go home and work for my dad."
Meanwhile, the father has no idea of
his son's whereabouts or if he survived
the famine, if he's dead or alive.
The father doesn't know.
So the son's practicing this speech,
and he says, "Okay, I'll just go home,
and I'll say I'm sorry for everything.
I, I, I'm not worthy to be
your son, but just please treat
me as one of your servants."
So he starts to head back home hoping to
experience just a little bit of grace.
Grace to him looks like being a
servant in his father's household.
The father has a different idea
And at this point, he is the character,
the father is the character that
we are meant to stay fixated on.
His dad sees him coming from a distance
and runs to him with compassion and joy.
He embraces his long-lost son.
Before the son can even finish his speech,
his dad is calling for a celebration.
He doesn't even finish what
he was planning on saying.
The servants bring out a robe, and they
give him a ring, and they give him shoes.
And the robe, it's meant to be a covering
for his physical shame, the dirt and
the rags that he must be wearing.
The ring is meant to give, uh,
authority, and the shoes, at the time,
servants were the ones that walked
around barefoot, but a son wore shoes.
So before the son can even ask to
be a servant, the father is making
it clear that he is still his son
The dad says, "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 begin to celebrate.
This is such an unexpected reunion.
My son is dead, and he's alive.
He was lost, and now he's found.
The point of the story is the
lavish love of the father.
The son, who was filled with shame, and
as readers of the story, both back then
and today, um, we can think rightly so.
You should be filled with shame.
But he was met with compassion.
A dad, he was met by a dad who
never stopped looking for his
son, who never lost his gaze, who
saw him coming from the distance
And maybe someone here needs to hear this.
God the Father's response
to your shame is compassion.
God has never taken His eyes off of you.
His response to your guilt and your
shame is not anger or judgment.
It is grace and compassion
There is not a single person listening
to this story then or now who feels
that the son deserves this treatment.
It is radical, reckless
love towards his son
Shame wants us to believe that there is
something about us that makes us unworthy.
What does that look like for you?
Maybe it is something like
past behavior, like the son.
Or maybe it's shame over your parenting
or your marriage, the way that you treat
others, the way you lose your temper.
Shame over how you spend your time or
what you do when nobody is looking.
Shame over how you spend
your money or what you watch.
Shame over not having enough or
doing enough or being enough.
And honestly, it's our shame that
convinces us to hide from the Father, that
keeps us r- from returning to the Father.
And that's always been part of
the human struggle, struggle.
I mean, that goes all the way back
to the garden with Adam and Eve when
they first experienced shame, and
they were attempting to hide from God.
Because the enemy loves to use
our shame to keep us distant
and separate from the Father.
Because we have believed a lie
that we are unlovable and unworthy
That's a lie.
Coming back to the Father always
requires that we give Him our shame,
but then we let Him free us from it
So where do you feel most unlovable?
Where do you feel most unlovable to God?
No matter how unclean or how terrible
or how embarrassed you might feel,
how much shame you might carry, God
the Father throws his arms around us.
He is a God of grace.
We take one step toward him, and
we let him come running towards us.
That's the beautiful part of grace.
And what's so interesting to me about
this story that Jesus is telling is the
order in which he gives us these details.
Because before the son can even
begin to ask for forgiveness,
the father acts first.
The son has been humbled and broken,
but he turns from his old life, and
he looks to the father for rescue,
for the tiniest bit of rescue.
And the father runs out to receive
him, and he doesn't just sort of
rescue him, but he lavishly loves him.
Some of us believe that God is
waiting, uh, for us to return to
him, but he's, like, waiting with his
arms crossed, waiting for us to say
the right things in the right order
But you know what?
God is always the one pursuing us first.
The Father's desire is for you
to be at home with Him in His
house, even when you are far away.
He isn't filled with emotions of
disappointment so much as He's
filled with a compassionate longing
for His children to come home.
Yes, repentance is vital.
Confession of our sin, it matters.
It matters so much.
But the lesson here is that God's
grace is more powerful than our sin.
God is not tired of you.
He is not disappointed or disgusted.
He does not put space between you and Him.
He loves you.
You matter to Him.
And when He sees you, He
is filled with compassion
And the parable seems like it could
stop there with that reunion after
the younger brother returns, and it
feels like it would be sufficient.
It's a beautiful st- part of the story.
But clearly, there's more that Jesus
wants to address, uh, both about
the father and about the other son.
So the second half of the parable
addresses the bitter older son,
and it is a scathing rebuke of
the religious leaders of the time.
They were so focused on the
wickedness of the sinners that they
completely missed the lives that
were being healed and transformed
from their encounter with Jesus.
And so that's the other crowd that
Jesus is trying to address now.
And he says, uh, the older brother hears
the commotion, and he calls to his servant
to ask what's going on, and the servant
replies, "Your brother has come home."
And yet when the older son approaches
his father to discuss this matter, uh,
he changes the language, and he says,
he angrily says, "This son of yours?
This son of yours has come home,
and you're throwing him a party?"
He has completely detached himself from
being family to this younger brother.
There is no celebration from him.
There is no joy in this reunion.
And Jesus is telling this story because
he wants the religious leaders to see the
outsiders the way God sees them, as sons
and daughters that are being reclaimed
from death, that were once lost but
now found, and we get to celebrate that
And here's what this makes me wonder
We all know people who have once
sincerely walked with the Lord,
and for whatever reason, they've
stepped away from their faith
But how many people today feel
too afraid to step back into a
church community because of how
they might be greeted or treated?
Or I even had this thought
this morning that, um,
What if the younger brother, one of the
reasons why the younger brother left
was because he was so tired of living
with his self-righteous older brother
What if he was too difficult to be around?
Is the church a place of grace?
Is it a place that you can return home to?
Is it a place that you feel okay wrestling
and not being sure of what you believe?
Are you safe in that space?
When we started Salt and Light, uh, one of
our primary desires was to make sure that
we were a place where people could safely
walk back in after months or years of
wandering, questioning, doubting, and that
they would encounter grace, not judgment.
But that's not just something that
we wanna be able to offer as leaders.
It is something that we expect from all
the people who make up this community,
because we are no better than the
person to the left or right of us.
We have all once been lost.
We have all once been dead.
Paul puts it this way.
We actually got to read
it earlier this morning.
I'm so thankful for that.
In Ephesians, he says, uh, Ephesians
2:4, "But because of his great love
for us, God, who is rich in mercy,
made us alive with Christ even when
we were dead in transgressions.
It is by grace you have been saved."
By grace.
His community is open to anyone.
So who are we to reserve our celebrations?
Who are we to judge?
Who are we to hang on to
bitterness or pride or resentment?
When we do, we are just as lost.
We have lost the way of Jesus.
Instead, we need to humble ourselves and
recognize our own need for God's mercy
This older brother was so lost.
He vents to his dad, and he says
things like, um, "Look at all
the years I have slaved for you.
I have never disobeyed you.
You've never thrown me a party,
and I'm the one who deserves it."
There's no joy in the relationship.
Slaving for someone is not done in love
And how many of us have, uh,
felt those things toward God?
"God, look at how good I am.
I follow your rules.
I do all the right things."
But the truth is, you do not have
to be a rebel running far from
the Father to be distant from Him
I remember one time in high school,
uh, I was having a conversation
with my youth pastor, and he asked
how things were going, and, uh,
you know, of course, I said, "Fine.
Everything's good.
School is good.
Dance, good.
Home is good.
Church is good.
Everything's fine."
But I'm saying all of this
with just tears on the surface.
And he gently said to me,
"But you're miserable."
And he was right.
I was trying so hard to be good
that I was actually so lost
and untethered to the Lord.
I didn't realize it, and I
needed someone to call that out.
But I was living in such a way that I
felt I had to earn God's love, that I
had to earn his favor and his merit,
and that the way that I earned it was
through being good and doing good things.
And then a few years ago, a mentor
of mine reminded me, uh, eh, as
sort of an encouragement and a
warning, to make sure that I am
savoring God more than serving him.
And I come back to that often, a sort
of a litmus test for my life, to make
sure that my life is rightly ordered,
because if we are more focused on being
good and keeping the rules, but we miss
the relationship, then we're just as
lost and aimless as the younger son.
Who are we actually serving then?
Are we serving God, or are we really
serving something within ourselves?
Is our identity rooted in the truth
that we are unconditionally loved
by God, or is our identity rooted
in this false belief that we have
to earn the love of the Father?
And that's the older brother's problem.
And the dad meets him, and
he says two important truths.
He says, "You are always with
me, and all I have is yours."
And I don't wanna miss the weight of
those statements because, you know,
going back to, we, we have to remember,
eh, this was Jesus telling this story.
And so for whatever reason,
these are the two truths that he
felt were vital to get across.
You are always with me.
God's presence, whether we feel
it or not, it is always with us.
We are never alone, and that's
meant to be a comfort to us.
And then he says, "All I have is yours."
This inheritance belonged
to the older brother, too.
Everything left belonged to him.
And as believers, we have an inheritance,
too, that one day all things will be
made new, that Jesus promises to restore
and redeem and wipe away every tear.
Shalom, true and complete
peace, will be restored
But that's a future inheritance.
And Jesus didn't say, "One
day all I have will be yours."
He's speaking in the present here.
He's saying, "All I have is yours."
So what's that inheritance for us today?
And that's why these two statements that
Jesus makes go so beautifully together,
because what we have today is the gift
of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit who
gives us power, and strength, and peace,
and joy, and comfort, who speaks to us and
through us, who equips and empowers us to
keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus' kingdom.
And how often do we
forget that inheritance,
the inheritance that we
have received for today?
So once again, his words that are
meant to be a comfort to us, he
says, "You are always with me,
and all that is mine is yours."
And the story kind of ends on this
cliffhanger where we don't really know
how the older son ends up responding.
Does he go in and join the
celebration, or does he double
down on his bitterness and anger?
We don't know.
And it's kind of interesting to
think about what would you do?
What would you do in that situation?
Pride has a way of blocking
us from receiving grace.
So whether you find yourself in the,
the story of the older brother or the
younger brother or a combination of both,
I think is where most of us actually
land, this is a story of grace, and
grace is what invites us to the table.
And it's through communion that we
are reminded that this is actually
all about a relationship, that God
so longed for you to come home and
to be in relationship with Him that
He gave up His only Son, Jesus.
And at the table, we're reminded
that someone else took our shame,
that someone else took on our sin and
dealt with it fully and completely.
And at the table, we're reminded
that we have been shown immeasurable
grace because there is always
more grace in God than sin in you
It was never about your
behavior or your performance.
Grace is not something that you
earn or something you deserve.
It's a gift that is rooted in the
Father's deep and unconditional love,
and that's what communion reminds us of.