The parable of the Prodigal Son or the Lost Son is something I’ve written about before (The Prodigal Son and His Brother), but last night during the sermon I heard something that I haven’t thought of before: It isn’t the parable of the Lost Son, singular, it’s the parable of the Lost Sons, plural.
In Luke 15:11-32 we read the story of the Lost Son, which is really the third portion of a singular large parable that Jesus started in the beginning of the chapter about joy in finding what was lost. By the end of the Lost Son part, we see the father coming out of the party to speak with the other brother, who won’t even go inside to celebrate his brother’s return. The father talks with his son about how there should be joy in finding what is lost, and the parable is left there, open-ended. The pastor pointed out that though the son that stayed home hadn’t gone off doing things he shouldn’t, he was just as lost as the son who had gone astray. One was very obviously lost far away, and one was lost in the backyard. One son was lost in his unrighteousness, and one son was lost in his self-righteousness.
You can be very obviously lost or you can look like you’ve never been lost in your life, but lost is lost. Unsaved is unsaved. Even if you do everything right and are a kind, good person, you can’t count on that to save you. Your very best in comparison to God’s holiness is filthy and dirty (Isaiah 64:6). But Jesus doesn’t want anything to be in the way of you believing in Him, whether it be your unrighteousness or your self-righteousness. Your unrighteousness is not bad enough to keep you away and your self-righteousness is not good enough to get you there, it is only through belief in God’s redemptive work through Jesus’ death and resurrection that you can be saved and found.
God has reached out to us. Will we go with Him and be found, or will we stay lost? Will we shrink away in fear that we’ve gone too far, or come running like a child who just wants to go home? Will we come running like a child who just wants to go home, or will we keep on staying lost as if we know the way ourselves?