For those who haven’t been here, the story so far is this – A son scandalously asks his still-living rich father for his half of the inheritance. Even more scandalously, the father gives it to him. The son does what you might expect from a young man – he goes and wastes it on wild living. He goes broke and wonders if his Dad might take him back as a servant so he could at least survive. He heads home, and we are all amazed as his Father not only takes him back but welcomes him lovingly with open arms and demands his servants throw a massive party with all the trimmings to celebrate the fact his lost son is back. Then we read that this son was only one of two, and we hear the account of his older brother:
Luke 15:25-32 GNB
(25) "In the meantime the older son was out in the field. On his way back, when he came close to the house, he heard the music and dancing.
(26) So he called one of the servants and asked him, 'What's going on?'
(27) 'Your brother has come back home,' the servant answered, 'and your father has killed the prize calf, because he got him back safe and sound.'
(28) The older brother was so angry that he would not go into the house; so his father came out and begged him to come in.
(29) But he spoke back to his father, 'Look, all these years I have worked for you like a slave, and I have never disobeyed your orders. What have you given me? Not even a goat for me to have a feast with my friends!
(30) But this son of yours wasted all your property on prostitutes, and when he comes back home, you kill the prize calf for him!'
(31) 'My son,' the father answered, 'you are always here with me, and everything I have is yours.
(32) But we had to celebrate and be happy, because your brother was dead, but now he is alive; he was lost, but now he has been found.' "
Stop and think about this for a minute. Let me read v. 27-28 again.
(27) 'Your brother has come back home, and your father has killed the prize calf, because he got him back safe and sound.'
(28) The older brother was so angry that he would not go into the house.
Say what? Here we have what should seem like an incredibly wonderful event. And the older son’s response? He was so angry he wouldn’t even go into the house. There’s one key thought I want us to think about together about these verses, and it’s this: This older brother missed out on a party because of his attitude.
Let’s jump back a bit in this account. What was the older son doing while the father was looking and worrying about his lost son? The older son was working. I think we start to see a warning sign here. It seems to me that the older son was out of touch with the father’s heart. It becomes clear as the story goes on that this was true. I don’t know about you, but it feels to me like he is like I am sometimes. Annoyed or angry about something, it seems it stewed up inside him just waiting for the chance to blow up. It’s clear that he felt he was worth far more than his younger brother. It’s clear that he felt this was because of all he did. Hear him say:
'Look, all these years I have worked for you like a slave, and I have never disobeyed your orders. What have you given me? Not even a goat for me to have a feast with my friends! But this son of yours wasted all your property on prostitutes, and when he comes back home, you kill the prize calf for him!'
Stewing it over. “Look at how hard I work”. “Look at me – while Dad’s wasting his time waiting for that no good brother of mine, I’m at work. For HIM”. “I bet he doesn’t even appreciate what I do – he certainly never shows it”. Then he hears what happened, and he explodes. Can you relate to it?
Well, here’s a wondering. Do you ever feel this way about our Father God? Do you ever find yourself thinking like this:.
I’m so busy for God. I’m not like (person X) who wastes all their time doing (thing x). I (insert ministry here). I tithe. I come to church every week. (By the way, the older son probably suffered from what we might call selective memory – I suspect his father had given him plenty, but in the moment he forgot. We might be the same with our memories of how wonderfully we’ve served God).
Then God does something wonderful, but not in your life. Someone with a past comes to know Jesus for the first time. Or someone who you don’t think deserves it gets an opportunity you thought was yours. You put a suggestion to the ministry team, and someone else’s suggestion is taken instead. You ask for an opportunity to serve and someone else far less experienced than you gets it. Your views don’t seem like they’re listened to. And your first response – which is probably the one that’s the most honest – is you’re so angry you can’t even go to church. And because of your anger, you miss out on a great party.
Does that sound logical to you? It doesn’t sound any more logical to me than the older son being angry because his lost brother had returned and been blessed. It reminds me of a time Jesus met a rich young man and gave him some great news – Jesus told him how he could be saved:
Matthew 19:16; 21-22 GNB
(16) Once a man came to Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what good thing must I do to receive eternal life?"
(21) Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; then come and follow me."
(22) When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he was very rich.
Jesus had great news – you can have an incredible life eternally and have these incredible riches in heaven. The young man was sad. Why? Because he had to give up something that was important to him. In this case it was money. Because he couldn’t give up his money, he went away sad and unsaved – he missed the great party of eternal life in heaven.
In the story of the prodigal son, the older brother also had to give up something important to him – I think I’d call it his pride. And because he couldn’t do that, he missed a big party.
It’s worth us noting that this is pretty much why Jesus told this parable. If we look back at the beginning of the chapter, we read that
Luke 15:2 ESV
(2) And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, "This man receives sinners and eats with them."
The Pharisees and the scribes couldn’t for the life of them understand why someone as important as Jesus would spend His time with people they felt were worthless and did the wrong things. They prided themselves on only doing the ‘right things’ and doing them to the letter of the law. Literally.
Leon Morris who wrote a commentary on the book of Luke notes that one of the rules they had made this very clear: “One must not associate with an ungodly man”. The Rabbi’s (the teachers of the law) took this so seriously that they would not even associate with them to teach them. Eating with these people was regarded as even worse than mere association: it implied welcome and recognition.
So Jesus was seen as doing the wrong thing with the wrong people. His response? He told 3 stories, this being the last of them.
Now in the teachers’ mind, the older brother in this story was ‘right’. He followed the rules. He worked hard in his father’s business. He saved money. He didn’t waste it. He was completely in his rights to shun his younger sinful brother. I can hear them cheering him on as he worked in the field, and when he points out to his father that he – the older, more responsible brother – was right and the younger brother is just a sinful loser.
Maybe as Jesus told this story the teachers even thought there might be a chance that the father would realise he messed up (in their mind) and that the father would renege on this accidental honour he’d laid upon his loser son. All of them collectively held their breath.
And for a moment it seems this might happen.
(31) 'My son,' the father answered, 'you are always here with me, and everything I have is yours.
Can you hear them cheering on the inside? It seems like Jesus is about to realise that the loser son needs to lose here. But as Jesus ends the story with the father’s reaction he drives the Pharisees and anyone who wants to be justified by following the law crazy.
(32) But we had to celebrate and be happy, because your brother was dead, but now he is alive; he was lost, but now he has been found.' "
Celebrating anything in a sinner’s life was beyond the Pharisees. That’s why they’d accused Jesus of associating with sinners. But Jesus wanted to show that love wins out every time, and that following the law to gain acceptance isn’t the Jesus way.
Today you could let God remind you, just as the father in this story did to the older son, that if you have accepted Jesus into your life and allow Him to forgive you that He is always with you, and that everything of His is yours. That’s the truth – whether you’re like the older son or the younger son.
John Piper comments on this promise found in 1 Corinthians 1:20 - For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ.
Every sinner who comes to God in Christ, with all his needs, finds God coming to him in Christ, with all his promises. When a sinful person meets the holy God IN CHRIST, what he hears is YES. Do you love me? YES. Will you forgive me? YES. Will you accept me? YES. YES. Will you help me change? YES. Will you give me power to serve you? YES. Will you keep me? YES. Will you show me your glory? YES.
Today you could realise that you’ve actually been a bit like the Pharisees and like the older son in this story. You’ve done a lot for your Father God, and rightly so you’re proud of it. He wants you to know He’s proud of you too – you’re certainly not a villain. But he also wants you to know that He loves you no matter what you have done or not done for Him. And He’d really like it if you would sit down and spend some time with Him being loved instead of complaining about His people or His ministries – because He doesn’t want you to miss out on a party, and you’re in danger of being like this older son or the rich young ruler who missed out on a great party because of their attitude.
You know, as humans I think we can be pretty risk averse. On a trip to Indonesia a couple of years back I had the opportunity to go on a flying fox. I was reading about it as I prepared this message, and actually I wish I’d read about it before I’d bought a ticket. The flying fox starts 18 metres high, has a 38 degree slope and is 200 metres long, ending 4 metres high - and so you travel that 200 metres in 12 seconds. Here’s a picture to give you an idea. I’d like to now show you a picture of me on it. But of course I can’t – because as soon as I got 18 metres high and looked at that there was no way in the world I was going to jump off and fly those 200 metres.
Jesus was never risk averse. I’m not saying He would have gone on that flying fox, but eating with sinners was risky – people could get the wrong idea (and clearly did, hence why he had to tell this parable). Telling a parable where the sinner gets the glory for turning around and repenting was risky.
The father wanted the older brother to take a risk. Despite all of the older brothers’ beliefs about him being right – and let’s be honest, he did do the right things – this son’s father wanted him to stop and riskily celebrate the return of his younger brother. Yes, we all know there would be consequences to what the younger brother had done (and maybe he’d do it all over again), but this wasn’t the time for that – it was the time to celebrate, because the Father was celebrating.
More than that though, the father was asking his older son to riskily humble himself. His attitude stank more than his brother’s pig smelling clothes. He was convinced that he was better than his younger brother, that somehow he was more worthy of his Father’s love than his younger brother. His Dad didn’t think so – he made it clear that He loved them both equally. Sadly it seems though that the older son just couldn’t do this. This older brother missed out on a party because of his attitude.
You might remember last time I preached I said my hope for Clovercrest this year is that we can be open and honest with each other about who we really are. We are sinners. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. A hero of the New Testament, Paul, called himself the worst of sinners – I wonder if we’re humble enough to call ourselves the same?
If you’ve been at Clovercrest for a while you’ll know that every week we have a prayer team up the front who just want to pray with people. I wonder if sometimes the reason they’re not busy is because we – like the older son – have God whispering in our ear saying ‘please – humble yourself…don’t miss out on being able to celebrate freedom…go and ask them to pray for you’, but we – like the older son – just can’t bring ourselves to that point of humility.
If so, that would be a shame, because we could miss out on a party. God has got great things for us this year – as a church and as individuals. I believe He’s also going to bring some ‘younger sons’ to us who are broken and realise it and who come to Jesus in their brokenness.
God’s lesson from His parable here could be that we need to be a bit more broken, a bit more humble. He might well even want us to be more like the younger son who messed up but was forgiven than like the older son who was always doing the right thing but missing out on the party because he was too proud. Let’s pray.
