Luke 15: Repentance Opens the Door to Grace

Introduction

If you were asked tonight to place your relationship with God, where would you put it? Do you feel close to him, or far away? A little stuck? Do you feel as if you are watching the King's table without being seated at it? These are the questions with which Hils Grew opens the final message of the short series “Good News,” preached at the evening celebration of Trinity Cheltenham, at The SIX.

The series walks through biblical stories that show the good news: we are loved unconditionally by the God of the universe and invited into an intimate relationship with him. The previous week, the message was about Mephibosheth and the king's table. Tonight, the text is probably the most famous story Jesus told: the prodigal son, in Luke 15.

The subject is rarely addressed: the role of repentance in our walk with God. What it is, what it is not, how it works, and above all why it is a gift. Hils Grew senses that the Lord cares about one thing: that we do not miss this grace, this abundance to which we are invited.

Outline of the message

1. Two brothers who miss out on their lives

• It is the story of two brothers whose lives do not unfold as planned. From Jesus' point of view, neither of them is living the life he was created for.
• The younger brother is selfish, with an attitude of “I do what I want, nobody stops me.” The older brother lives differently, a bit arrogantly, convinced that there is only one right way to live and that everyone must conform to it.
• Hils Grew invites each person to ask the Holy Spirit: who do I resemble in this story? What surprises me about the God Jesus describes?
• The younger son's request, “Father, give me my share of your property,” is far from ordinary. It is not “Dad, can I borrow the car?” It amounts to saying: “I wish you were dead. I am not interested in a relationship with you, I want what you are going to give me, and I want it now.”
• Yet the father divides his property. Jesus' listeners must have been stunned: no rebuke, no refusal.
• The son leaves for a distant country and squanders everything. This wealthy landowner did not invest the money, did not set it aside for the next generation: everything is wasted.
• Hils Grew compares this story with the story of the Gucci family. According to this account, in the late 1980s, Paolo Gucci demanded his share of the family inheritance and forced his father to hand over shares. He sold them for the equivalent of about 100 million pounds in today's money, squandered them in six years, and died in 1995 buried in debt. The family was torn apart, and today no Gucci works in the company.

2. A father who runs

• A great famine strikes, the son ends up feeding pigs and longs to fill his stomach with the carob pods they eat. The modern equivalent, Hils Grew suggests, is rummaging through recycling bins on collection night to find something to eat.
• In verse 17, he comes to himself: “How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough to spare, and I'm dying with hunger! I will get up and go to my father.”
• A cynical mind might think he is hatching a scheme. Scholars say the opposite: it is a desperate plan. To reach his father, he had to cross the village, which had rituals to humiliate those who had broken with the community. Nothing guaranteed that his father would take him back.
• “But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” The father had not forgotten him: he was watching, otherwise how could he have seen him coming?
• He runs, something a Middle Eastern man never did: lifting his robe and showing his knees and ankles was humiliating. But he wants to reach his son before the village blocks the way and covers him with shame.
• No confrontation, no lecture. The father does not say “we'll talk about it.” He has the best robe brought, the ring, the sandals, the fattened calf: “Let's eat and celebrate.” What kind of father does this?

3. The older son and the image you have of the Father

• The older son comes back from the fields, hears the music and dancing, becomes angry, and refuses to go in. “Behold, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed a commandment of yours, but you never gave me a goat.”
• The father answers him: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” It was right to celebrate, because this brother was dead and is alive again.
• Here Jesus paints a portrait of God the Father. For many people, this portrait is hard to receive, because our earthly fathers deeply shape the way we see God.
• If your father paid no attention to you, you may struggle to believe that God sees you. If he was proud of you only when you succeeded, you may think you have to perform to please God; Hils Grew admits this was the case at the beginning of their walk with God. If he was absent, you may doubt that God is there when you need him. If he was harsh when you got it wrong, you may expect the same harshness from God.
• Jesus wants you to know that Father: active, impulsive, generous, compassionate, loving, restoring. The Holy Spirit's role is always to help you know him better. Do you need to hear again tonight who he is?
• Jesus leaves the ending open: we do not know what becomes of the older son. Only one son experienced the embrace and the feast. Augustine said it: falling in love with God is the greatest love story, seeking him the greatest adventure, finding him the greatest human achievement. In this story, only one of the two found him.

4. Repentance, a gift and a way of life

• Why only the younger son? Because he knew repentance. It opened his heart and his life to receive everything the father wanted to pour out on him.
• A few weeks ago, someone anonymously left a beautiful gift at Hils Grew's door. To enjoy it, it was necessary to open the door, go out, pick it up and open it. Repentance is like that: opening the door so that God's grace and mercy can come into our lives. We do not deserve it, but we must open our hearts.
• This parable is often read as the story of conversion: turning to the cross, receiving forgiveness. That is true. But repentance is also a way of life, a part of our continuing walk with God.
• We all make choices that take us away from him. We have all had days lived without a single thought for God, before coming back to talk to him the next day or the day after. To live fully in his love, repentance has to be part of the journey.
• In some church circles, repentance has been reduced to saying “sorry.” Yet the word “sorry” is absent from this story.
• An apology can become a transaction: “I apologized, why don't we move on?” or “He apologized, but nothing has changed.” We pay with our bank card and expect the matter to be settled. That is not repentance, even when we are speaking to God.
• The biblical word, metanoia, means a change of mind that leads to a change of direction. A movement that starts in our heads and moves to our feet, in three steps.

5. First step: see

• Repentance always begins by seeing something in ourselves: I have been rude, unfaithful, lazy; I drink too much, I have a problem with alcohol; I am addicted to pornography; I am never satisfied, I criticize everything; I do not pray; I do not pay attention to others; I cannot control my anger.
• “When he came to himself.” The son wakes up from an illusion. He stops lying to himself: “My life was not supposed to look like this. Even my father's servants live better than I do.”
• This can come from circumstances, when life falls apart and makes us more open to the truth. It can come from someone who speaks frankly to us, and we do not like it. God will show us the truth if we want it, but not always in the way we prefer. We have an immense capacity for deceiving ourselves.
• Hils Grew tells the story of a man whose colleague said to him: “I think you have a problem with pride.” At the time he thought: “I don't think so, you're wrong.” Then he prayed: “God, if I have a problem with pride, show me.” Two nights later, he had a dream in which God showed him a series of situations from the past weeks where he had treated people with pride rather than mercy. That was the beginning of a deep change.
• Hils Grew also shares a testimony: at the beginning of their walk, when the people around them felt the Father's love and Hils did not, their prayer was: “Lord, I want to know your closeness, your tenderness. What do I need to see?” Over the following weeks, God pointed out a problem with their father, attitudes to rethink, wounds to heal. That was the beginning of a journey to discover the Father's tenderness.
• Do we pray like this? “Lord, show me what I need to see. Show me how to be a better spouse, a better roommate, a better colleague. I feel far from you, is there something you want to show me?”

6. Second step: acknowledge

• After seeing, we have to acknowledge. If we confess our failings, God is faithful and just, and he works in us. That is why repentance is a gift: on the other side, God is at work in us.
• To confess is to name things, perhaps in front of others, but in any case before God. We are not good at it. Look at Adam and Eve: Adam blames the woman, the woman blames the serpent.
• Acknowledging makes us vulnerable and requires us to let go of excuses. Not “I spoke to you like that because you provoked me,” but “I spoke to you like that because my heart is not as gentle and wide as I would like it to be.” Nor “everybody does it, it's no big deal.” What we tolerate in our lives ends up dominating us.
• The son blames neither the famine, nor his father, nor the house rules, nor his character: “I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”
• Hils Grew imagines him explaining his plan to Christian friends, who would hurry to comfort him: “Don't be ridiculous, of course you are worthy to be called a son. Deep down, you are a good person. You wouldn't have done this if your father or your brother had been different.” We would almost have tried to talk him out of it.
• Our culture keeps telling us what we deserve: a raise, a glass of wine, to be treated better, a vacation. Part of this message is right. But when it extends to our relationship with God, we close ourselves to his grace. God owes us nothing. What we deserve is what Jesus received on the cross.
• The younger son understood that he deserved nothing, and this attitude opened his heart to mercy. The older son, for his part, said: “I deserve the party.” Where was he? In the fields. And he stayed there.

7. Third step: turn to God

• Repentance moves us to act. It does not stop at regrets: “If only I hadn't squandered my inheritance, if only I hadn't lost my patience with my children, if only I had prayed. I am terrible.” The son does not feel sorry for himself. He gets up and sets out.
• God has given us the ability to change direction. As a line from the series The Chosen puts it: “I was one way, now I'm another.”
• He turns to his father to ask for help, not to make up for his wrong, nor to negotiate, nor to prove that he is not so bad. He has nothing to offer: “Give me at least a job.”
• The word “submission” has become almost shameful in our culture. Yet there is an essential submission here: “Lord, I need your help, and I let you help me as you see fit, not as I see fit.” The son sets no conditions.
• Do we pray only for outward things, a spouse, a job, a raise? These prayers are good and God wants to hear them. But do we pray for the inside? “Help me love my family, honor my parents, get rid of bitterness. Help me with my relationship with my phone. I would like to give more generously, but I can't let go of my money: help me.”
• “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” The poor in spirit are those who repent, who know they have these things in them and need help. They will eat their fill at the King's table.
• The son did not even need to reach his father. As soon as he turned, the father ran, eager to put the ring on his finger and the sandals on his feet, to give him back his identity and his purpose.
• At no point did the father love his son more or less. Repentance does not earn God's love. But by turning, the son's heart opened to receive it and live in it.

Key takeaways

• Repentance is not only the starting point of faith, it is a way of life and a gift that opens the door to God's grace.
• It is not a transaction or a simple “sorry”: it is a change of mind that leads to a change of direction.
• It follows three steps: see what is wrong, acknowledge it without excuse, then turn to God to receive his help.
• Thinking that God owes us something closes our hearts to his grace, like the older son who stayed in the fields.
• The Father runs toward the one who turns to him. His love does not change, it is our heart that opens to receive it.

Personal application

1. Where do you place your relationship with God tonight: close, distant, stuck, watching the table without being seated at it?
2. To what extent does the image of your earthly father influence the way you see God?
3. Would you dare to pray this week: “Lord, show me what I need to see”?
4. What excuse do you use to avoid acknowledging an attitude that ends up dominating you?
5. For what inner reality (bitterness, money, phone, family relationship) do you need to ask for God's help, letting him help you in his own way?

Verses cited

• Luke 15:11-32
• 2 Samuel 9
• 1 John 1:9
• Genesis 3:12-13
• Matthew 5:3

Frequently asked questions

Is repentance simply saying sorry?

No. Hils Grew points out that the word “sorry” is absent from the parable of the prodigal son. An apology can become a mere transaction. The biblical word, metanoia, means a change of mind that leads to a change of direction: repentance moves from the head to the feet.

What are the three steps of repentance in Luke 15?

See, acknowledge, then turn to God. The son comes to himself and sees his situation. He acknowledges his wrong without looking for an excuse: “I have sinned against heaven and in your sight.” Then he gets up and walks toward his father, not to pay his debt, but to ask for help.

Why did only the younger son experience the father's love?

For Hils Grew, it is because he knew repentance. The older son thought he deserved the party and stayed in the fields. The younger son knew he deserved nothing, and this attitude opened his heart to the father's mercy. Repentance does not earn God's love, it opens the heart to receive it.