Summary of my sermon, based on Luke 15:11-31. Preached at Greenhills Christian Fellowship Toronto on March 22, 2026.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son is one of Jesus’s most well-known stories. It is a beautiful picture of repentance and salvation, often taught in Sunday school from the time we are young. But because it is so popular, we sometimes miss the complete picture. To truly grasp the weight of this parable, we have to look past the familiar story and understand the context in which Jesus told it.
In Luke 15:1-2, tax collectors and sinners were drawing near to Jesus, and the Pharisees grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” Tax collectors were considered traitors who defrauded their fellow Jews for the Roman Empire. The group called “sinners” included those living in obvious moral failure, but it also included the poor, sick, and lame—people deemed ritually unclean by their circumstances. Instead of helping them find restoration through the law of Moses, the Pharisees simply excluded them. Jesus told this parable as a direct response to their self-righteous gatekeeping.
Jesus begins with a scandalous premise: a younger son demands his share of the inheritance. In first-century Jewish culture, this was not just asking for an early allowance; it was essentially saying, “Father, I wish you were dead. I want your stuff, but I don’t want a relationship with you.” Shockingly, the father agrees and divides his livelihood. The son liquidates his assets—causing a massive, public economic blow to the family—and squanders it in reckless living. When a severe famine hits, he reaches absolute rock bottom. He hires himself out to feed pigs, an incredibly shameful job for a Jew, and becomes so starving he longs to eat the pig slop.
Coming to his senses, the son realizes his father’s hired servants live better than he does. He decides to return, hoping merely to be accepted as a slave. But verse 20 tells us that while he was still a long way off, his father saw him. The father had been watching the road, longing for his son’s return. Filled with compassion, the father runs—an undignified and shameful act for an elderly patriarch—and embraces his dirty, pig-smelling son. By giving him the best robe, a ring, and shoes, the father takes the son’s public shame upon himself and completely restores him to the family. They kill the fatted calf and celebrate, illustrating the joy in heaven over one sinner who repents.
If Jesus stopped there, it would be a perfect story of grace. But He introduces a curveball: the older brother. Hearing the music, the older son refuses to go inside. By refusing his expected role as a host in the celebration, the older brother brings a fresh wave of public shame upon his father. When the father graciously comes out to entreat him, the older son angrily refers to his sibling not as his brother, but as “this son of yours.” He reveals that he, too, only wanted what the father’s estate could give him, not a true relationship with the father. Jesus was holding up a mirror to the scribes and Pharisees. They were the older brother—outwardly obedient, but inwardly distant, judgmental, and refusing to celebrate the lost being found.
This leaves us with a sobering warning about how we react when we hear about an unbeliever getting saved. It is easy to respond with skepticism, especially if it is someone famous or someone with a very messy past. We might cross our arms and say, “Let’s wait and see if it’s real.” But responding with skepticism betrays an unbelief in the power of the gospel itself. If we doubt God’s power to save the worst of sinners, how can we confidently trust His power to save us?
Salvation is from God alone. Let us guard our hearts against the cynical attitude of the older brother. Instead, let us choose to rejoice—just as the angels do—whenever a lost soul finally comes home.
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