"A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. Luke 15: 13 (NLT)
This lost son represents the rebellious spirit. How we all were in the world before we gave our lives to Christ. We lived in complete rebellion to the Father, our Creator. The distant land referred to here represents how far away from God we all were. Paul sums up the futility of this state:
The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 1Corinthians 2: 14 (NIV)
The land we lived in was so distant from God that the things of God were foolishness to us. That is how it is today for those in the world. That is why we should not become frustrated when the world behaves like the world and when seemingly they do not understand what we are trying to tell them. They do not understand because the very things we are saying are foolishness to them. The notion that there is a God in heaven who sent His only Son to die for our sins simply does not make sense to them.
But also note two other things from the verse that deal with the rebellious spirit in the story of the lost son. First of all, the Scripture say that he packed all of his belongings and moved to a distant land. This implies choice. This was a decision he made. No one else packed his bags for him. No one else moved him to another land in his sleep. These were conscious decisions he reached of his own free will. He knew the father yet he still chose to embrace the rebellious spirit. This is how it was for us when we were in the world and how it is for those in the world today. It is a conscious decision to reject the Father and to be the lost son. Jesus describes the day of His return:
"When the Son
of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah's day. In those days, the people
enjoyed banquets and parties and weddings right up to the time Noah entered his
boat and the flood came and destroyed them all.
"And the world will be as it was in the days of
Business as usual right up until the end. The comparison made by Jesus to the days of Noah is very telling. You see Noah had neighbors and rabbinic tradition teaches that he warned his neighbors of the impending flood. He warned them over and over. It took Noah 100 years to build the boat and all that time he warned his neighbors. What we may not realize is that during this time it had never rained on the earth. So to Noah's neighbors the notion that there could be rain and a flood was pure foolishness to them...until the waters came and took them all away. They could not blame anyone else for their choices. They had been warned. The lost son could not blame anyone for his decisions to reject the Father. They were his choices. When we were in the world in the rebellious spirit to God that was also; our choice. The other point from the verse of the lost son is that it was indeed a waste. His choice was a waste. His living was a waste. His life was a waste. We can become overly enamored with this world and this life but James describes this life of ours as a mere vapor. When King Nebuchadnezzar ruled the land he obviously thought quite a bit about himself. But now he is a mere footnote in history that testifies to the eternal and matchless God. The lost son made a choice to waste his life. When we lived apart from God we were making a conscious choice to waste our life. But thankfully God our Father is always willing to run and meet us once we have turned our hearts back to Him!
"When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, 'At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! I will go home to my father and say, "Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant."' Luke 15: 17-19 (NLT)
Here is son number two, who approaches the Father with a spirit of contrite humility. This is how our heart should always be before our Father. He did not have to run and meet us. He did not have to forgive us. Sometimes unfortunately we forget the pig trough we were living in during the rebellion after we have come back home. The Apostle Paul always said that he was the least of the Apostles because he once persecuted the church. Paul never forgot where God found him. We should never as well. Now I am sure some are saying this is the same son! No it is not:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 2Corinthians 5: 17 (NIV)
The lost son was transformed beloved. He was a new creation; the old rebellious spirit was gone replaced with a contrite heart and a humble spirit. Remember we too once were living in the mire of this world. Starving for the relationship with our Father. We too had been told about God and about Jesus only to think the words were foolishness. We had to have our moment of coming to our senses before we can go from the rebellious spirit to the humble spirit. It is incredibly humbling for man to say the words I have sinned." We fancy ourselves as good people in the world. We give to charity. We help the homeless. We serve humanity. But it is all a façade because we are measuring ourselves against other humans. Against people who are equally lost. When the light of God shines into our lives and we realize how rebellious we truly are and that we are not even worth being a servant to God THAT is when the Father runs to meet us. Once we realize that we are not worthy of being His son is when the spirit of sonship born into us.
And that brings us to the third son. The one who is not talked about as much. He was the son who stayed with His Father when the other son abandoned Him. He worked his Father's land and did whatever was asked of him. But in the end, his spirit was not right:
