Religion and Rebellion Will Both Leave You Lost

That might sound simple, but it’s an earth-shattering truth. For our entire history, humanity has been asking questions like “How do I gain God’s approval and love?” and “If I have it, how do I keep it?”

Jesus took those questions head-on in Luke 15. He makes his point by telling three stories in a row: one about a lost sheep, one about a lost coin, and finishing with a story we usually call “The Prodigal Son.”

That last title can be misleading, though. This isn’t really a story about one prodigal son. It’s a story about one father and two lost sons.

One son rebels and leaves home. The other stays home and does everything right. They look completely different, and yet both sons end up hopelessly lost.

Both need to rediscover what their Father is actually like.

Rebellion Doesn’t Always Look Reckless

The younger son takes the rebellious route.

He goes to his father and asks for his inheritance early. In that culture, the message would have been brutal: “I want what you can give me, but I don’t want you. I wish you were dead.”

There’s a fascinating detail in the original language of Luke 15. When the son asks for his share of the “property,” the Greek word refers to possessions—his father’s stuff. But when Jesus describes what the father actually divides between his sons, the word is bios, where we get the word biology.

It means life.

The son asks for stuff. The father gives him his life.

And the son wastes it.

He leaves for a distant country and squanders everything through reckless living. Eventually, he has nothing. Money that should have lasted a lifetime is gone. He ends up in a pigpen wishing he could eat the pigs’ food.

It’s easy to read that story and distance ourselves from it.

Maybe you’ve made some reckless decisions. Maybe you’ve had some prodigal moments. But you’ve never wished your dad were dead, taken a lifetime’s inheritance, and blown the whole thing. So maybe you’re not that bad.

But what if the prodigal son’s primary sin wasn’t his wild party lifestyle? What if his deepest problem was squandering the life his father gave him? Suddenly, the story gets a lot more uncomfortable.

You don’t have to blow up your life to waste it. You can waste it while looking completely successful.

Go to a good school. Get good grades. Get a good job. Buy a good house. Meet a good person. Have good kids. Take nice vacations. Have a comfortable retirement. Die in a not-so-painful way.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with those things. But if that’s the full vision for your life, it’s too small.

You can waste your life fast, but you can also waste it slow—chasing things that won’t matter in the end.

That doesn’t mean everybody should quit their job and become a pastor, a missionary, or work in a non-profit in an impoverished country. The life God gave you isn’t the same life he gave someone else. Your calling won’t look exactly like anyone else’s.

But every one of us has been given a life to invest in the eternal reality of God’s kingdom coming more and more on this earth.

You have gifts. Energy. Resources. Relationships. Opportunities. God gave them to you for a reason.

Where are you making a difference? What are you doing with the life the Father gave you?

You Don’t Have to Earn Your Way Back

Eventually, the younger son realizes what he’s done.

He’s wasted everything. He has nothing left. Sitting in a pigpen, he finally decides to go home.

But he assumes he can’t simply return as a son. He needs a plan.

He decides he’ll ask his father to make him a hired worker. He’ll work. He’ll earn money. He’ll start paying back what he owes.

In other words: he’ll earn his way back.

It’s the same instinct many of us have with God.

“I really screwed up, so I need to make up for it.”

“I walked away, so I need to prove I’m serious this time.”

“I sinned, so I need to string together enough good days before God will be happy with me again.”

We assume we need a repayment plan.

But the younger son never gets to use his.

Luke 15:20 says that while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him, felt compassion, ran to him, embraced him, and kissed him.

The father runs. That matters.

In that culture, a respected father would never run. It was a sign of weakness and vulnerability. Yet this father throws dignity aside and runs toward the child who rejected him and wasted everything he gave him.

The son starts his confession: “Father, I’ve sinned against heaven and before you. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son.”

But before he can launch into the hired-hand plan, the father cuts him off.

Bring the best robe. Put a ring on his hand. Put shoes on his feet. Kill the fattened calf. We’re celebrating.

The father shouts with joy, “My son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

No payment plan. No probationary period. No interrogation about everything that happened in the distant country.

The son comes home, and the father calls him “son” immediately.

Psalm 103 says God removes our sin “as far as the east is from the west” and that, “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.”

That’s what the Father is like.

Maybe you’ve been carrying something from your past for years. You believe God hasn’t completely rejected you, but you also can’t imagine him running toward you, embracing you, calling you son or daughter, and giving you a seat at his table.

You assume you’re still a little less than.

That’s not the gospel.

You don’t have to overcome your past before the Father will welcome you. You don’t have to punish yourself enough to prove you’re sorry. You don’t have to earn your way back.

You can come home.

You Never Could Earn the Father’s Love

There’s another son in the story—the older brother.

He never left home. He worked hard. He obeyed. He did everything he was supposed to do. But when his younger brother returns and the celebration starts, he refuses to join the party.

He’s furious.

His response reveals what’s been happening in his heart all along: “These many years I’ve served you, and I never disobeyed your command.”

Translation:

“Look at my résumé.”

“I did everything right.”

“I earned this.”

“You owe me.”

Suddenly, the two brothers don’t look so different.

The younger son comes home thinking, “I’ve been so bad that I have to earn the Father’s love back*.”*

The older son stands outside thinking, “I’ve been so good that I’ve already earned the Father’s love.”

Both believe there’s something called “enough.”

Enough work. Enough repayment. Enough obedience. Enough good behavior to finally deserve what they want from the Father.

Both are wrong. And both voices can live inside all of us.

We can screw up and feel like an outsider, buried in shame. Then moments later, we can look at somebody else and think, “I might be bad, but at least I’m not as bad as them.”

Rebellion and religion can look completely different on the outside while leaving us equally lost.

But here’s what’s incredible: the Father responds to both sons the same way. He goes to them.

He runs down the road toward the younger son. And when the older son refuses to enter the celebration, the father leaves the party and goes outside to him too.

“Son,” he tells him, “you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.”

That’s what Jesus has been showing us throughout the stories in Luke 15.

A shepherd loses a sheep and goes looking for it.

A woman loses a coin and turns her house upside down until she finds it.

A father has two lost sons and goes after both of them.

God goes after what he loves.

So how do you gain God’s love and approval? How do you keep it?

You don’t.

You can’t earn it.

And when you’ve blown it, you don’t have to earn it back.

The Father loves you and gives it to you.

Jeremiah 31:3 says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”

1 John 3:1 says, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God.”

Galatians 4:7 says you are “no longer a slave, but a son.”

Psalm 18:19 says, “He rescued me because he delighted in me.”

This isn’t a Father reluctantly tolerating you.

He knows the raw, unfiltered version of you. He’s seen your rebellion. He’s seen your religion. He knows what you’ve wasted. He knows what you regret. He knows the self-righteous parts of you that would rather point at someone else.

And He loves you.

Jesus leaves the story of the two sons unfinished. We never find out whether the older son accepts his father’s invitation and walks into the celebration.

The point isn’t how he responds. It’s how you will.

Maybe you’ve walked a long way from God and assumed you need to clean yourself up before you can come home. Maybe you’ve stayed close to God but quietly begun treating your obedience like a résumé that should earn his approval. Maybe you’ve heard that God loves you a thousand times, but you still struggle to believe he could really feel that way about you.

Come back to the Father’s words.

He says his love is everlasting. He calls you his child. He says he delights in you. He says he will carry you, sustain you, and rescue you. Isaiah 46:4 says even through old age and gray hairs, “I have made you and I will carry you.”

It doesn’t matter how far you’ve walked. It doesn’t matter how much life you think you’ve squandered. The Father is still for you.

You don’t have to earn his love when you’ve been good. You don’t have to earn it back when you’ve blown it.

Receive it. Believe what He says about you. Then take the life your Father gave you and spend it on something that lasts.

Mark the Moment

There are two ways to respond.

First, don’t waste the life the Father gave you. Ask yourself where your life is making an eternal difference. Use the energy, gifts, resources, relationships, and opportunities God has put in your hands for his kingdom. Get in the game. You have a jersey. It wasn’t meant to stay clean.

Second, stop trying to earn what the Father wants to give you. If shame has convinced you that you need to earn your way back—or religion has convinced you that your good behavior has earned his approval—go back to his words. Read them. Write them down. Sit with them long enough for them to move from something you know in your head to something you actually believe.

It’s true: God really loves you.

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Full disclosure, this article was created by taking a live teaching that was crafted and delivered by a real human at Crossroads, and then asking an AI tool to summarize that teaching. It was then double-checked by a super nit-picky human editor to ensure the summary was accurate. We do not use AI to write articles for Crossroads that express original teaching, thoughts, or analyses, and we want to be certain our readers are made aware when we do use it in this way. You can watch the full teaching anytime here

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