The Glorious Riches of Your Inheritance in the Saints

“Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” (Luke 15:11-32)

I’m sure most of you are very familiar with this story, and as we read it are tempted to hurry through because we know it so well. But let’s work our way through it slowly and look at some of the important details. The younger son asks his father to give him his inheritance early, “up-front,” before his father dies. His gracious father grants his request, but notice the Word says, “So he divided his property between them.” Both sons are given their inheritance “up-front,” simply because they are beloved sons. Each of them can now decide how they will live in this new state of unrestricted access to blessedness. Sadly, both of them will choose to live apart from relationship with their loving father… at least for a while.

First, we find out what the younger son decided to do with the “glorious riches” of his inheritance. As fast as he can, he dusts the dirt of the family farm off his feet, leaves home and heads out to a “far country” where he quickly squanders his newly gained financial freedom on sinful, selfish pursuits. We’re not told why he choose this path. The fact that the Lord doesn’t include that part of the backstory, makes it universally applicable to us all. We all have “backstory reasons” for our choices, both the conscious choices that flow from our intellect and will, and those that spring from our reactive emotions. We can each put ourselves in the younger son’s shoes though and speculate about why he ran. He may have simply been rebellious, thinking his father’s wise direction felt more like unfair rules and restrictions that only served to limit his fun and freedom. Perhaps he was never able to recognize or receive his father’s love for him, or maybe he grew tired of competing with a smug older brother who was always striving to appear publicly “perfect” - one who constantly criticized, belittled and judged him. Could he have been the victim of an abuser there? We don’t know, but whatever the painful cause, the younger son moves away from his father and towards vain self-satisfaction. But then, like now, the medicinal benefits of these worldly pleasures are short-lived and vastly outweighed by the harmful side-effect consequences. He soon finds himself in great distress, penniless, homeless and friendless.

Eventually, when his pain level was high enough, when his desperation reaches a zenith and he has exhausted all other options, he “comes to is senses” and decides to return home to his father. But even then, he does not expect his father to forgive him, restore him or love him. He is mistaken in this prediction of his father’s harsh reaction… but he is accurate and honest about himself. He is at a place that we all need to be as we come to our Father. He is, as Jesus put it in the sermon on the mount, “poor in spirit.” Acknowledging his spiritual bankruptcy, he approaches the father with no delusions about his own merit, his “good works” or “righteousness acts.” He knows he deserves judgement, but he hopes and prays for a level of mercy that would, at a minimum, merely allow him to work off his room and board.

Then something completely unexpected and utterly amazing happens. His father, runs to meet him, throws his arms wide open, hugs him, kisses him and joyfully expresses with gracious words and lavish actions,

“Son, you’re my beloved! I love you so much! I have been watching and waiting for your return. I have absolutely forgiven all your sin and I will never bring it up again. Now begin to live like the noble prince you truly are! Come, let’s celebrate!”

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound! Here, in Christ’s parable, the moment the prodigal son starts for home the father forgives him! More than that, as soon as he arrives, he completely restores him and bestows on him all the trappings of sonship: a royal robe and ring of authority!

He never stopped being a son, he only stopped living as one. Maybe he never started.

The wayward son has come home to his father’s house and perhaps on this night, as the joyous celebration begins, for the very first time in his life - even though he has always been a beloved son - tonight he experiences what it means to know the "glorious riches of his Inheritance" - not a financial sum but a relational surety. Filled with overflowing gratitude, in this moment he fully receives his father’s undeserved, unreserved love!

But there is another son. The older son, who was working in the field.

Can you imagine the scene? In the house there is feasting and dancing and singing and laughter! As all the sounds of exuberant joy filter their way across the hills and into the pasture, the older son cocks his head inquisitively and begins to wonder,

“What is this noise I hear? What’s going on?”

A servant answers him, “Your brother that was lost has come home and your father is celebrating with a great feast!”

Scripture tells us that this son is filled with anger and refuses to go into the house. He is, in fact, infuriated!

“How dare my father welcome him like this!”

The older son thought of himself as being totally different than his irresponsible brother- his brother who had so wantonly wasted what had been given him. He thought of himself as so much better, more deserving of his father’s love, which, in his mind, he had never been given. Even though he was given his share – probably a double portion – at the same time his brother got his! He thought he was nothing like his younger brother... but he was wrong.

He too, had run away from his father’s love, he just ran in a different direction. He too, had wasted his great inheritance. He wasted it by never entering into the joy of simply receiving undeserved grace. Instead, he spent his hours and days, months and years trying to earn his way into something he already possessed, the identity of a beloved son. And because he thought he could earn it, because he thought he did deserve it based on his own works and all he had accomplished, all his years of “slaving,” he looked scornfully at his brother… and also, his father.

The older son's eyes were tightly shut. He could not and he would not see the glorious riches that were his - riches of his inheritance in the family, and in that state of grace-blindness, he was not walking in freedom. He was not living like a gracious open-handed noble prince. He was walking in terrible bondage: the terrible bondage of trying to be good, trying to be good enough, the bondage of comparison and measuring yourself to others around you, the tyranny of needing to be perfect all the time and the fear of anyone finding out that he wasn’t. He didn’t know who he was. If he did, his reaction to his brother would have been completely different and his estimation of his father’s character would have risen, not fallen. If he knew who he was – a forever son - he could have magnanimously forgiven his brother and extended to him grace upon grace! His position in the family, his sonship and inheritance, the love he received from his father would, in no way, be diminished by adding his brother back into the household. In fact, it would have been multiplied! His joy should have skyrocketed due to the homecoming of his brother! But instead, he is even more angry than before.

His father pleads with him,

“Son, I love you! Please come in and join the celebration. Your brother was dead – lost, apart from our family- but now he’s alive! He has come home and I have welcomed him in, just like I have always welcomed you! You are both my dearly beloved sons and I want all my children to be rejoicing together with me forever!”

That’s all the story we get from Jesus. We don’t know what happens next. I’d like to think that as he heard his father’s words, the older son’s self-protecting wall of self-righteous pride crumbled away and he went arm-in-arm with his father into the banquet hall where there was a glorious reunion with his brother! The younger brother was so moved by his father’s compassionate grace and his brother’s kind acceptance that he never again fell into addictive, destructive sinful behaviors. They all danced a traditional cultural dance together, and then just about midnight, it magically began to snow!

And they all lived “noble-prince glorious-riches lives” happily ever after. The end!

That’s how I would have wrapped up that parable. But Jesus didn’t. He leaves us hanging. He leaves it open-ended. Maybe because in the real world, things aren’t wrapped up so perfectly with a nice, neat bow. The struggle to live the noble-prince life, to walk with our spiritual eyes open to the knowledge of our glorious riches, is a daily battle. Not because Jesus needs to do something new every day to win it, but because we must day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, choose to believe it has been won. Sometimes we are the younger brother running from our father towards fleshly desires, sometimes we are the older brother resenting our father, constantly “slaving” our way towards an ever-elusive sense of security and significance and judging all those who aren’t working as hard as we are… and sometimes the two brothers are engaged in a fierce tug-of-war battle inside our head!

But in Christ, none of that is who we really are. In Christ we are right now, a dearly loved noble joint-heir of a fabulous inheritance - glorious riches in the saints – we are child of the King!