Sermon - Trinity III, 2026 - Luke 15

The Return of the Prodigal Son, Pompeo Batoni, 1773

The Joy of God to Save the Sinner

1. In compassion God atones for sinful man

2. Yet God desires children who love Him, not servants, so He gives us freedom to get lost

3. God’s compassion brings back the sinner crushed by sin

4. God, the angels, and the church rejoices over every sinner saved

1. We have no need of jealousy, for the sinner saved only receives what we have already also received by grace

When the father saw his prodigal son returning, seeing his pitiable state, he had compassion for his child. Such is the compassion of God to seek and save sinful mankind. “As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.” St. Paul writes: “God our Savior, desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.” Indeed, Jesus Himself declares “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” He is the sacrificial Lamb of God offered on the altar of the cross, “delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”

Like the shepherd in search of his lost sheep or the woman in search of the lost coin, God does not abandon the sinner to his own salvation, He does not write us off as lost and remain seated on His throne in His kingdom. Rather, Jesus descended from His royal throne on high and embarked into the wilderness of this world. He came from His kingdom of light into the darkness of sin, He is the lamp in the dark place, who shines His righteousness into the darkest recesses of evil. He wades into the filth of our sin, sweeping the house of all its dirt and grime, in order to find and redeem sinful mankind.

He is the Good Shepherd who takes us in His arms outstretched upon the cross, and though He weeps, groans, and dies He still lifts us up rejoicing: “Father, forgive them.” Such is the great joy and compassion of God to save sinners. He who is the immortal, eternal God, took on the form of a servant to save us, so that we may be called children of God, and so we are.

However, in spite of realizing God’s great compassion, we are left scratching our heads in light of the fact that there remains yet many who are unsaved. Jesus tells us: “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.” Again He says: “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”Indeed, Jesus is the narrow door and the narrow gate: He is “the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through” Him. Truly there are many today who do not trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and follow Him, and so there are many outside of God’s kingdom.

Jesus laments over this sad state of affairs, when He looks upon the holy city Jerusalem before His crucifixion, declares: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” The heart of God is such that He desires all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 

But the Lord desires “Godly offspring.” He desires children who love Him, not servants or robots or automatons without a choice. So the Lord, our Father, in His great mercy gives us the freedom to hate Him. He is like the father of the prodigal son. The father is gracious and willingly gives the prodigal son the share of the property that the son has come to him. He gives his son the freedom to use the inheritance either to love his father or to squander it in sinful living. Of course the father wants a godly son, but he can only have that if the son has the choice to leave.

So God gives man the freedom to hate God. Like the younger son who lives a life of recklessness with the treasure given to him by his father, so does God give us the opportunity to lose everything that He has given us through His sacrifice on the cross. Man can choose of his own will to throw away God’s gifts and yoke ourselves to this world instead. God gives us this freedom not because He desires us to leave Him, but because He wants godly offspring who love Him of their own will.

When man chooses to throw away the inheritance that God gives him, he is going to be handed over to Satan, because that’s what it means to be yoked to this world. This is how Paul talks about, and those who reject the faith make shipwreck of their faith, and they are handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that they may learn not to blaspheme. In other words, the sinner is handed over to his sins in order that he might experience the sorrows which result from sin.

This is what happens to the younger prodigal son. He leaves his family, he behaves wickedly, he loses everything from his father, a famine arises, and he yokes himself as a hired servant to a man who doesn’t care for him, and gives him the most degrading job imaginable to an Israelite, which was to be a swineherder, a tender of pigs. So it is that when a sinner is handed over to sin his or her life will not be better. Perhaps you won’t be materially destitute in the same manner as in the parable, but you will have lost everything that makes life truly meaningful and happy: you will have lost God and your place with Him in His home.

Satan lures you to think that you don’t need God, that you can just take your earthly treasures and leave, and those treasures will be plenty to sustain you. But the parable of the prodigal son is about a father and a son, the material inheritance is subsidiary to the relationship between the two. When Satan tricks you into thinking that your temporal treasures are more valuable than your relationship to your heavenly Father, you may be comfortable in this life with plenty of convenient entertainment, but you will be missing the only thing which makes life worth living: God and the joyful promise of living with Him eternally.

Those who walk away from God and shipwreck their faith with sinful living will ultimately be left empty and destitute. Sometimes this happens that they’re physically destitute, they end up hungry and cold and lacking basic necessities. But it seems that today they are often left spiritually destitute and empty, and they come to the realization that they royally messed up their life and the lives of others and their life feels meaningless.

Like the prodigal son, they are now overcome with a terrible sense of guilt and shame over what they have done. They have been handed over to Satan, and they have experienced the sorrows of sin firsthand. What must happen next? How can these prodigal sons be saved? How can these lost children be found? Well, what happened to the prodigal son? “He came to himself.” He remembered the generosity and compassion of his father. “How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread.” He remembered the love of his father and that even the hired servants have more than enough. So too must the sinner remember the incredible mercies of the Lord and see God’s compassion. 

In a way, ministry and outreach to the inactive members who have fallen away, begins before they have fallen away by laying the foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ and His tender compassions which are new every day. When the comfort of Christ’s forgiveness and the generosity of the Lord is emphasized among us, when we seek to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified, then we are delivering God’s treasure to His children, and they will taste and see that the Lord is good. In time to come, should they squander this treasure in the freedom given to them, they may at least recall the word implanted in their hearts and remember the richness of God’s generosity towards and return to Him in faith.

And when repentant sinners return to the Lord the church rejoices! “There is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents!” The father ran, kissed, and huged his prodigal son before a word came out of his mouth. The son came to his father and confessed his sin and unworthiness. The son wanted to continue, saying that he would earn his way into his father’s house by becoming a servant, but before the son could make such a foolish assertion, the father treated him as his son, not because the son deserved it, but because the father is merciful and loves his son. He clothes him and he celebrates with a feast. 

So too repentant sinners, crushed beneath their sin, when they return, repenting of their sins and longing for the mercies of God, their heavenly Father receives them back as His dearly beloved children. The whole church rejoices together, the angels in the heavens and the church on earth together sing God’s praises. Jesus receives sinners and eats with them, not merely a friendly ordinary meal with the choicest cuts of beef, but the greatest meal where the Lamb of God feeds us His body and blood. He clothes us with the baptismal gown of righteousness, brings us home again, and dines with us. Why all the celebrating? “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.”

There are many such cases of Christians who have fallen away from the church. But there are also many such cases of those same Christians being restored into God’s kingdom. When these dear brothers and sisters return, I implore you to rejoice with the angels! Don’t be jealous that they are received back safe and sound, afterall, you too are God’s dear child, and the repentant sinner who is forgiven is only receiving what is already yours. “Son, you are always with Me, and all that is mine is yours.”