Luke 15:11 onwards.
11 Then He said: “A certain man had two sons.
12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So he divided to them his livelihood.
13 And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living.
14 But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want.
15 Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
16 And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.
17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
18 I will arise and go to my father and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you,
19 and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”


How do you define Prodigal?
This is a familiar passage that I would like to continue from the last message that we have seen in the life of Jonah. We are looking at prodigals, how do we define a prodigal? It's open, how do you define a prodigal? Well, anything that typifies a prodigal. Lost son, someone who misses. Okay, what else? How do you typify a prodigal? Disobedience. There're so many things you could describe a prodigal. Runaway and waste his life. Anything else? Strayed away?

Is there another word for prodigal in verse 13, the last word or what is it? Riotous, prodigal any other word? Wasteful. That is its actual meaning. Prodigal in its actual meaning means someone who is wasting. But in its popular meaning, that is the way we have understood this word probably from being kids onwards, we have understood it to be associated with a lot of things like running away like disobedience by being lost by being strayed away by deviating. That is how we have largely understood this verse. And I would prefer that popular meaning has to how we have understood this word continue. Just like Jonah had nothing to waste, but typically he should be a prodigal. A larger understanding of being a prodigal is being backslidden or being a rebel.


What typifies a Prodigal?
Today, we want to look at some typical traits of being a prodigal. Some typical principles or typical character of a prodigal. And that should allow us to realize that prodigals are not just found outside the church but can be in the church. That this as much as is a wonderful gospel story is applicable to us today morning. What typifies prodigal first? Vs 12, the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me. He's asking for his inheritance. What's wrong in that? What do you think? Is there anything wrong in it? He's asking for his inheritance. Is there something wrong with it? He asked before it has been given. So, when is it supposed to be given them? When the father decides. Okay, when the father decides, and so when should the father decide, okay, whenever he thinks he's mature, to handle or at death,


Disdain in Authority and Cry for Independence
So, you're the problem over here is, the son has a garb that he's trying to face that he wants the money, he wants to do some business, he wants to go out, he wants to do something with it. But actually, in a culture like that, when you ask your inheritance right to the face of a father, it's so very humiliating thing. Because in one way, the son is literally telling his father, I wish you are dead. And that's horrible thing to say to your father, to ask it before time is literally to say, I wish you died today. I don't know why you're alive. And that's the typical trait of a prodigal. Prodigal doesn't want anything to do with the father. His rebellion starts with the fact that I don't want anything to do with you.

Why doesn't he want anything to do with the father? Why not live in that home? Why not work like his elder brother, and that's the quality of disdain he has a disdain towards everything that the father is associated himself. A disdain towards order. A disdain towards discipline, or disdain towards the father’s word, disdain towards father's responsibilities. And if you had to see this carefully, this sin goes right back to the Garden of Eden. A disdain towards authority and disdain towards superiority, a disdain towards hierarchy, a disdain towards someone over you to say that I would be God, that I want nothing to do with God. That I would rather be God.

This is what the Son faced on the earth. He said to the Pharisees, you want to kill me, because my word finds no place in you. And he said, You want to kill me because I have told you the truth. And this is the history of Israel, when they have continuously said, Let the Holy One of Israel cease before me, they just wish God is dead. They just wish they are rulers of their own life. They just wish they are masters of their own soul. They just wish they enjoy the goods and the grace and the riches of God but have nothing to do with it. That's how a prodigal behaviour starts. It's a cry for independence. It's a cry for lordship over your own soul. And God tells you go to Nineveh you have your own way you go to Tarshish. It's saying I don't want anything to do with you.

In a legal term this is called emancipation where the child wants to come out of the authority of the parents and says, I want to be independent adult. Or put another way you want to be free. You find God's law too constraining, like you find the discipline within the house of God too limiting. And you find his commandments and his responsibilities and the duties that God has assigned to you too burdening. So, you want freedom, you want liberty, and you want to call yourself out of this relationship. And that's what a son wanted. Not just the money, not just inheritance, he wanted nothing with God.


Distance From God
The next we read in vs 13, he gathered all together. Which means he converted all his inheritance to liquid cash and took his journey into a far country. That's the second trait of a typical prodigal. For every backslidden person for every rebel out there, for every prodigal, there is a far country. There is something better out there. Something better than the father's house, something better than the food that he gives me, something better than the order of the home. That's the most happening place. That's the most exciting thing. Like God said that at my right hand of pleasure forevermore but there are far more greater pleasures in a far country.

This word literally 'took his journey' literally means he went abroad. And you see this is the competition today. This is the choice we have to make today. This is the trait of being disillusioned. This is the trait of being disappointed with being dischanted with your things that you are associated with. It's a trait of being disillusioned where you're not able to think straight, you think that there is something better in this world. That in this world, there are things that I can pursue, I can give myself to I can give my resources to I can pursue those ambitions and that is life. And the father's world, the father's thing, the father's house, and all that He is I can maybe existentially be associated with it. But my thing is in the far country. My thing is in the world out there.

How awful that we find the very glorious house of God, the very glorious kingdom of God, to be a competition to the things of this world. When Christ scolded Peter, he said, get you behind Me, Satan, for you to not say about the things of God. It would be awful to be a prodigal living in the father's house, with your mind in the far country. To set our mind on things of this world. To miss the fact that Christ sits enthralled and glorious, at the right hand of the Father. To miss the fact that just to be a doorkeeper at God's house is better than a million nights in the tent of wickedness. To be disillusion that luxury, comfort, money, comfortable life and all the amenities of life, that those are the things I can pursue that this far country is better.

And that's the story of every prodigal, there is a far country in all our lives. The choices that we make, to follow God to obey His Word are not singular. They're always an option to it. But do you see this is a progress. This is a typical way things should proceed. If a person wants nothing to do with God, God gives them over to a reprobate mind. And that's the picture we see in this father. Father never said no, I will not give you inheritance. The father never stopped the son. God is liberal. He allows us to exercise our free will. He never stops us every way. He gives him over. He gives him over to that horrible, corrupted, reprobate mind to do anything the son wants to do. And then the prodigal progresses.


Destruction in Wastage
The next thing we read; they wasted his livelihood with a prodigal living. It starts first with having nothing to do with God. It says to put God at a distance and then be disillusioned of something better than God. And in pursuit of that something disillusioned, something that is a mirage, he devastates he destroys his life. The third trait is this wastage. A waste of life. And that's an awful thing here. For one that we know he is younger son, and for one that we know that when he wanted to come back, he was ready to labour and be a hired servant. So he was pretty young. And for that, we also know when he came back, he had a father that run and sprint towards him. So that puts us his farther also to be a young father.


Wasting The Best, He Has
So, imagine what this son is wasting. He's wasting the prime of his life. He is wasting the epitome of energy and health that he has. Forget the resources, forget the money he is scattering here and there, he's wasting his time he's wasting the best that he will never get. And the Bible says this is wastage. And we typically have another concept of wastage. We are like the disciples sometimes. When somebody pours out and breaks and alabaster box something so precious lifesaving, like a two mites of a widow, we call that, Why this waste? And God says this is wasting.

This prodigal son is wasting. Not the one who gives all. Not the one who tries to gain his soul, the one who loses his soul who gifts and completely sacrifices. We see we have a tendency to be easily judgmental, and when we look at people who have given and we say that's such a waste. When Jimmy Elliott was murdered by the tribal, his people said, what a waste. John Chow recently went to the tribals in Andamans Nicobar. Didn't see one soul even couldn't even share the gospel and was killed. People say what a waste. Brethren that is not waste this prodigal son, he is wasting his life. The word prodigal literally means disallowedly, meaning no constraints, no restraints.


Endless Wasting
Let's see there are two ways in which he wasted his life. One that we saw he wasted his substance, his health, his resources, his time, his everything. But a thing about a prodigal is there is no stopping of this wasting. So, if there be a mighty famine, there is no food there is no health, there is no money, wasting still continues. He doesn't stop wasting. You see when there is nothing, he says in vs 15, He went and joined himself to a citizen of that country. That word joined literally means he went and glued himself. Like he clinged to that person and then continued the wastage. Wastage never stopped.

You see even when man has nothing, he can waste his life. And that's being a prodigal. You can waste your breath. Speaking of somebody like this, Paul said, of widows, that the widows are self-indulgent, they are dead being alive. And the same can be said of this prodigal. He's trying to exist, he's trying to live, he's trying to breathe, he's trying to fill his tummy, he's trying to exist there, but he's dead. So what has he wasted here now? You see, he's working. He's labouring for a salary that is pig's food. That's what he's wasting.

I mean, imagine from where he has come, he could be working in the fathers home. He could be working in his fields, he reaping up the father's harvest. He could be a lord over his servants, he could be enjoying the riches of his father, like an elder son, he could have been labouring in the father's business. Now he takes all his resources, all his abilities, all his skill, all his labour, all his artwork, and has given to this citizen.


Our We Living a Prodigals Life?
Brethren where are we spending our time, our energy, our health? Where do we define and move our lives by? Just as much as all our secular responsibilities are important does that move our life? Does that become our priority? Does that consumer time, our health, our mind that we have nothing to give in the labour of the father’s work? See God doesn't want a bunch of believers, he wants disciples who follow him everywhere. And so, a disciple came to the Lord and said, Lord, my father is dead. Why not I go and bury him. And the Son said, that let the dead bury the dead. What was Christ meaning there?

He was trying to say that what you want to do out there in the world, there are people doing it already. And in the world, there are people doing it better than you. So, there's no point in wasting all your health and resources and time in the prime of your age, for things of this world, when you can give it to the Father, because for the glory that awaits us for the crowns that awaits us for the rewards that awaits us for Christ Himself that awaits us, our salaries are literally pig food.

So, brethren are we a prodigal? You see we don't need to stretch it and extreme it and say we don't riot our lives, we don't waste our life, we don't drink and spoil our life. But these are traits every rebel every backslidden person shows. If not completely disowning God, it might just start with disinterest, with the things of God. If not a far country, it might be something so close something so near to our life, because there are a million reasons in which we can waste our lives. vs 18, I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

Let this be our prayer, I will arise and go to my father. To have nothing to do with myself but be of a slave to be of a hired servant to be of a servitude to my father. May God bless these words.