Spiritual Hunger and the Prodigal Son

To define it simply: to be “righteous” means to be right.  It’s the pursuit of the right things.  It is being right with God, right with yourself, and right with others.  To hunger and thirst for righteousness means to function the way that God made you to function.  

• ·       These believers have learned and applied spiritual discernment in their life
  [1]
• ·       These believers have “train[ed] themselves for godliness.”[2] (1 Tim 4:7)

Instead of running after the promises of the secular world, they are pursuing all they need in the person of Jesus.  They have found a better pursuit in Him than anything this world has to offer.

Every person is born with a hunger for God at some level, but only the believer is actively pursuing righteousness.  It is tragic when people try to satisfy spiritual cravings with secular food.  This was the case with the prodigal son in Luke 15.  Let’s read this parable together, starting in verse 11:

Jesus is telling a story in order to help make a spiritual point to a mixed crowd of self-righteous religious leaders as well as some regular folks just labelled as “sinners.”  The parable assumes that the son is from a wealthy family and there was a fair share of inheritance to be had.

¹¹ And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. ¹² And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them.

Culturally, this would have been a highly offensive move by the younger son.  Family fortunes were passed down from one generation to the next when the patriarch of the family died.  The son was asking for his inheritance early so that he could leave the family for the pursuit of excitement and popularity in a distant, god-less country.

 ¹³ Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living.¹⁴ And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need.

The excitement of the secular world didn’t last.  He soon found that trying to fill his appetites with the depravity of sin only left him penniless, broken, and starving.  Sin was fun for a season and then there was nothing to show for it in the end.  Sin is like cotton candy:  It tastes great for a moment, but leaves us hungry and empty.

 ¹⁵ So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. ¹⁶ And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

For a Jew to feed pigs is the lowest, most insulting, God-forsaken job imaginable. The “pods” were probably referring to carob pods which grew in that region.  (The same stuff they make the chocolate substitute out of today.)  They were hearty enough to withstand a famine, but they were inedible for people.  He knew that the pods weren’t enough to satisfy his hunger.  He needed something better.  In verse 17, it continues,

17 “But when he came to himself…

This lines means that he came to his senses.  He woke up to the reality of what sin had produced in his life.  Falling to the bottom of a pit jolted him out of the illusion that sin might be satisfying.  He was finally thinking clearly and knew he needed to return to his father.

17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger!

He was the son of a man with a large estate.  Before he left his father’s house, he never knew hunger.  Now, he was so hungry that even the bread his father’s day-laborers ate sounded better to him than starving to death.  So he headed back home to plead with his Father.

Jewish men of that day were not always accepting of a wayward son.  The Hebrew culture was not naturally a merciful culture.  Children who turned their backs on their families, like the prodigal in the story, were often not allowed to return home again.  Some families would even have a funeral for a wayward child and completely disown them.  The son’s only hope was to throw himself on his father’s mercy.

He begins to rehearse what he’s going to say.  Look at verse 18:

¹⁸ I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father,I have sinned against heaven and before you. ¹⁹ I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ ²⁰ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

This was unheard of behavior for a man of his day.  Older Jewish men didn’t run, they didn’t freely extend mercy, and they certainly did not show joy over a wayward son.  The crowd listening to this story would have never anticipated this twist in the plot because this father was so different from the norm.  The prodigal pulled out his rehearsed line.  Look at verse 21:

²¹ And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

What the father did next was radical.  He accepted the son back with no conditions.  He was welcomed back home with full rights and privileges.

²² But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. ²³ And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. ²⁴ For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.

Here is a picture of how our Heavenly Father receives us any time we wander away from Him.  This is how God treats us when we’ve tried to be satisfied on a substitute for righteousness; when we’ve wandered away from the wholehearted pursuit of Christ. 

When we come back, He runs to us.  He receives us back with open arms.  He extends to us full rights and privileges as His chosen and beloved children.

The older brother was not so excited about his brother coming home.  In the story, he represented the Pharisees and Jewish leaders of their day.  Pharisees believed that a wayward child should feel the full weight of the father’s wrath.  They felt that only weak men showed mercy.  The son should have been cut off from the family and cut off from the village.  His behavior was inexcusable and unforgivable.  Look at verse 25:

²⁵ “Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. ²⁶ And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. ²⁷ And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’

 ²⁸ But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, ²⁹ but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends.

³⁰ But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ ³¹ And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. ³² It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’”

The shocking reality is that the Prodigal Son is not merely a picture of the worst of sinners, he is a symbol of every redeemed sinner!  Before we knew Jesus as Lord and Savior, we were prodigals, too.  Aren’t you glad that God’ doesn’t treat us according to our sins but according to his mercy!  Titus 3:4-7 says,

“…when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, ⁵ he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,⁶ whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷ so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

—