It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’†(Luke 15:32 ESV)

The Big Idea: These are parable of grace. It is about parties. Especially the great party that Jesus is inviting us all to through faith alone in his death and resurrection. However, in every story jesus clearly contrasts the losers with the winners, the least and the greatest, the living (or those who are working to build a life for themselves) with the the dead (or those who clearly have not built a life for themselves). As Jesus tells these stories be on the look out to the losers that Jesus lifts out of their deadbeat lives, and be on the look out for the disdain jesus places on the winners’ lust for building a life for themselves.