PARTY POOPER - RECKLESS GRACE - PART III

Transcription

1 Good morning, Life Fellowship. I hope you all are doing okay. When Christmas time comes we all have these traditions, don t we? I know that we do in the Conway household. Each year we try to watch a whole array of different movies. Some would be more qualified as holiday movies and others would be more technically Christmas movies, like watching The Nativity every Christmas Eve. But some of those holiday movies that we enjoy watching would be like, The Elf, or Polar Express. We love watching Polar Express. And then there is the one about the Grinch, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Do any of you every watch The Grinch around Christmas time? It s okay. We know it is just this weird looking little green dude that floats in on a parachute into Whoville. He came in from the outside and then he was raised in Whoville. And there was this situation that began to take place as the Grinch went to school. There was this particular young lady by the name of Martha May, and she saw something in him, and vice versa. And in the story we know that the Grinch wanted to be able to bring Martha May a nice gift, but there was also this other individual, Augustus Maywho, who didn t like the Grinch. Augustus Maywho had a really hard time with the Grinch. He would make fun of him, and he would mock him for being a hairy little green dude. So the Grinch went home one night and he saw himself in the mirror and he decided to shave himself. As a result of the shave we know that he kind of hacked himself all up and he had all of these tissue pieces all over his face. So he showed up at school the next day with a gift to present to Martha May. And then once the class saw his shave job had caused much bleeding on his face, Augustus Maywho begins to mock him causing everyone to start laughing at the Grinch. And the Grinch was ridiculed and shamed. So humiliated, what does the Grinch do? Well, the Grinch goes into seclusion on Mount Crumpit and he lives there all by himself because he wasn t a Who and because he knew he was different. He was on the outside and he hated Christmas so he wanted to destroy it. Many would think the Grinch was a party pooper. Now there was a girl who was born by the name of Cindy Lou Who. And Cindy Lou had a heart of compassion. She wanted to see the Grinch come down from Mount Crumpit and she thought it would be a good idea to nominate the Grinch as the Holiday Cheermeister. By now Augustus Maywho is the mayor of Whoville. And as the mayor he still carries that sense of loathing toward the Grinch. He is not like us. He needs to be secluded. He needs to be kept away and at a distance. Yet little Cindy Lou had a heart of compassion and she nominated the Grinch. So they threw a party and the Grinch came down in this horrific Christmas sweater. He stuffs his face and having a good time. Then it comes time for the mayor, Augustus Maywho, to present the gift, and he offers the gift of a Christmas shave. And this brings back a whole plethora of emotions that come Page 1 of 14 pages 12/18/2016

2 sweeping over the Grinch, and so he would escape back to Mount Crumpit and in time seek to destroy Christmas. And the rest of the story is not relevant to what we are going to be talking about this morning. What is funny is in that film the Grinch seems like the party pooper, but the real party pooper is Mayor Augustus Maywho. He is the one who brings the party to a halt. You know when you think about the parable that we are going through of the prodigal son, maybe the Grinch represents the prodigal son and the mayor represents the older brother. And Cindy Lou Who represents the compassionate father. I want to invite you to turn in your Bibles to Luke Chapter 15 as we continue to unpack the parable of the prodigal son. We have given three weeks to this one parable to unpack the importance of this parable. And we are going to meet the quintessential party pooper in today s passage. No one likes to be around a party pooper. In fact a party pooper is one who throws a wet blanket on a party. A party pooper would be synonymous to a sour puss, or a killjoy, or Dude, you re a drag. That is a party pooper. Cambridge Dictionary even offers a definition of a party pooper. I don t want to minimize that dictionary, so I won t even bother reading it, but it is a real phrase. And I am sure that many of you woke up today and your goal was not to be a sour puss, or to really want to be a killjoy. But when people think about you, are you a lifter, an encourager, or are you a killjoy, are you a party pooper? This elder brother was someone who spoiled the party. Now let s review what has been going on in Luke Chapter 15. It is a chapter about lost things. And we know there were three different parables in this chapter. There is the parable of the lost sheep, there is the parable of the lost coin, and there is the parable that is called the prodigal son, but I would say it is really the parable of the lost sons, or the parable of the compassionate father and the two lost sons. And each time in the parable when the thing that is lost, or the person is lost, when it is discovered there is reason for joy and celebration, be it the coin, the sheep or the prodigal. And Jesus told these parables because the Pharisees were having a hard time with why he was hanging out with sinners. Jesus had a reputation for hanging out with the Grinch - hanging out with prodigals. He was even so involved in ministering to those who were outcasts that he was accused of being a glutton and a drunkard. The religious types did not understand Him. So in the parable that we are looking at today, we will remember that Jesus told this parable of the father and his two sons, one an elder son and one a younger son. The younger son came to the father and asked for his inheritance now. And the father gave over the inheritance. The son took the inheritance and he went away to a distant land where he wasted all that he had. As a result he ended up in a pigpen. When he came to Page 2 of 14 pages 12/18/2016

3 his senses he thought he would make his way back home. He decided he would tell his father that he had sinned, that he was not worthy to be treated as a son, so he would be a servant instead. And he began to make his way home. And as I shared the son going to the father asking for his inheritance while the father was still alive was equivalent to saying, I wish you were dead. I don t want a relationship with you. I don t want your heart, I only want what your hand can provide. And the father gives the inheritance over, which would have been unthinkable in those times. Many people would think the father should punish the son. But the father knew that sometimes a son, a prodigal, someone who is reckless and rebellious, needs to go their own way. They need to end up in the pigpen in order to come to their senses. They need to go and try to figure life out for themselves because they have become unteachable, unbendable. And this younger son was anti-authority. He was rebellious, and he ended up on skid road. He then makes his way back home. His father sees his son coming from a distance and he runs out to him. He rescues him. He has a robe put on him and a ring put on him and shoes on his feet. And then he has a fatted calf killed and he throws a celebration party. So the younger son had gone away and now was back in disgrace but a party is being thrown for him. No doubt he is overcome by this kind of grace from his father. He thought he would have to come back and be a servant. He thought he would have to work for everything, and now he is totally enmeshed in the grace and compassion of the father. So what is left for us in this parable? Well there is one more character that we have to learn more about. We need to deal with the elder brother today. We need to figure out what he is going to do about the younger brother. How is he going to handle his brother coming back? What is his posture going to be? As I shared we want to remember that this particular parable can help us to see two wrong ways to approach God. Timothy Keller in his book, The Prodigal God, helps us to understand this. He says, This is a parable that shows two wrong ways to approach God. You have one who tries to approach God in a kind of a self-discovery way. And he has this wrong understanding of the father when he returns. He thinks he will have to work his way back into a relationship with the father, because he was a prodigal. And then you have the other brother who thought he had never broken the law. So what you really have going on here is you have the one who is all into license, who goes and lives it up. He totally destroys his life. He lives without thinking about the father. And then you have the elder brother who is a law keeper. He is trying to hang on Page 3 of 14 pages 12/18/2016

4 by the law. He thinks he has done it the right way and that his father will be pleased with his good deeds and his good works. Some people think God doesn t really care how they live so they mess their lives up. They don t have any standards, they don t have any boundaries, and they think God doesn t care what they do and they can live however they want. Then other people are legalistic and they are all law. They believe that God would want them to live their lives just earning their own way into His pleasure. And then there is the compassionate father, who is passionate about boundaries, who is passionate about living a certain way. But he is also a gracious father who would want us to know that there is nothing that we can do in and of ourselves to earn salvation. So what does the parable picture? Jesus is telling the parable to some Pharisees, and what He is doing in this parable is representing the compassionate father. The prodigal son represents the sinners that Jesus hangs out with. And the elder brother represents these Scribes and Pharisees and other religious leaders. With that in mind we are now ready to dive into the text. Let s begin with verse 25 of Luke Chapter 15. The son has now returned and the father has welcomed him home with a celebration. Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. He wanted to know what was happening to create such a festive sound, and what the reason was for all the celebration that he was hearing. Verse 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. And the elder brother thought, My brother is back? Now if you had a brother that went astray, if he had been a prodigal going off the deep end, if he had badly hurt your family when he left, how would your posture be toward this returning prodigal? Would you welcome him? Would you throw a party for him? Would you be angry at him? So how is this older brother going to feel about this? We are about to see how this older brother is going to react to his younger brother s returning home. How do you react when someone gets more than you think that they deserve? When someone gets that promotion that you thought you should have been given? When someone gets that gift that you thought you were going to receive? When someone receives praise and you thought it should have been directed to you? See, to celebrate his reckless brother s homecoming is unthinkable. And that is what we are about to see as we look at seven destructible traits that everyone needs to avoid as seen in the elder, what we will call religious, brother. The first of these is bitterness and anger. This is one trait of this elder brother. This could also represent the person who just grew up in a church. I ve got it all figured Page 4 of 14 pages 12/18/2016

5 out. I ve grown up in the church. I tithe, I wear my suit and tie. I don t ever miss church. I have a perfect attendance pin for never missing Sunday School that I wear on my suit coat. And this person is so determined not to break that attendance record that they could win a free cruise to go and travel around the Greek Isles, and they would forfeit it to keep that record going. And here in verse 28 it says this about the elder brother, But he was angry and refused to come in. When he heard about the celebration for the younger brother he was angry. This didn t create joy and delight in him. He didn t think this was wonderful. He wasn t ready to welcome him home at all. He comes back from working in the field and there is a party going on for his prodigal brother. He doesn t understand what is going on and why there is a celebration for his younger brother. He is angry and he is indignant. He thinks this is absurd. He believes that punishment is in order for the brother. He wants him to pay. In Hebrews Chapter 12 and verse 15 the author says, See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled. See when that root of bitterness kicks into our lives and it springs up, it can cause trouble. It can literally defile an individual, and it can defile others. It can be like a cancer. Can t you picture the party pooper out in the pasture pouting? He won t come into the party. And you know the thing about the party pooper is you always have to go out to them. They are not the kind of person that is going to come in; no, you have to go out to this person and babysit them. You have to go out and pursue this person. You have to go out and rescue this person. And that is what the father does in this parable. It says he went out to the older brother. And that is the sad thing about the party pooper. A party pooper can take away all of the joy, all of the celebration, all of the reason for festivities and they will find something wrong. All of that emphasis and reason for celebration just goes down the toilet, because now the father has to take the time he would be celebrating for his younger son s homecoming and he has to go out and deal with his older son. The father has been experiencing a moment that he has longed for - the return of his younger son. And now he has to leave the party and go out to the elder son who is feeling entitled and deal with his bitterness. He has to deal with his anger toward his younger brother. So all of a sudden the party is kind of brought to a halt for the father because the elder brother is the party pooper. It is a sad situation when that happens because he refused to go into the celebration. He had a high justice reaction to God s reckless grace, to the compassionate father s grace. So bitterness and angry is something of a trait in the older brother. Page 5 of 14 pages 12/18/2016

6 Not only that, but a sense of entitlement is also a trait of the elder brother. He was angry and refused to go into the party, so his father came out and entreated him. Now his father came out, and the father is the picture of Jesus, and the Bible says that Jesus came, To seek and to save that which was lost. Not only has the father sought the prodigal as he ran out to meet him, but now he goes out and he seeks the elder brother also. Whether you feel like you can align with the elder son or the prodigal son, the compassionate father pursues them both. He is the seeker and he pursues us. He is the one that finds us. So now where do we see in the test that the elder son felt entitled? Verse 27 says, 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. Then the elder son is angry and he refuses to go in. His father came out and entreated him, 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. The elder son told his father that he has served him. Look what I have done. Look at the effort I have put in. My brother is a wreck. He messed his life all up and I have been faithful. I have worked hard. He has been out in another country detached while I have been slaving and working hard for you. Do you see what I m saying, father? This investment is reckless. And the elder son questions his father s judgment. He thinks he has been the better investment. Why hasn t the father invested in him, the perfect son? He was the son who keeps the rules, and who has it all together. So the elder son did the right things, but he did them from the wrong motive. Why is it that he worked so hard? Why is it that he served so much? Was it for the praise of others? Was it for the gifts that others could give him? Was it because it made him feel better than others? Was it because it gave him a sense of well-being? You see our motives have to be pure when we look at the actions that we are doing. If our actions of what we do are sordid, because of our wrong motives then the actions don t matter in the end. Here the elder son has done the right thing but from the wrong motive. And as a performer he felt entitled because he out performed his younger brother. That is how he viewed it. It was performance based. Remember the parable where Jesus told about one worker showing up at the end of the day and he received the same wages as the ones who had worked all day long. And the ones who had worked all day long threw a fit. How dare you give this person the same amount as we received? They felt entitled, right? They thought they should be getting more. Why were they being treated this way after working all day? And the man in the parable told them he treated people the way he wanted to treat them. He gives to people the way that he wants to give to them. Kingdom messages leak through these Page 6 of 14 pages 12/18/2016

7 types of parables when we study them. So when the older brother sees the party was being given to the younger prodigal brother, he was angry because he lived with a better than his brother mindset. And it was an ugly scene. The third trait the elder brother had was self-righteousness pride. What does he say that makes us think he had a self-righteous pride? In verse 29, interestingly enough he says, I have never disobeyed your command. Isn t that crazy? He sees everyone else s wrongs, but he can t see his own. He believes that he has the perfect ability to discern life. He believes that he is able to appraise all situations. He believes that he has the proper outlook, that he is the one who can measure what is right and wrong. That he is the one who knows truth from error. That he is the one who knows what is good and what is bad, who is off and who is not, who is in and who is out. But here is what s amazing. Not only has the elder brother not been perfect, he is three times wrong. He is wrong about himself. He is wrong about the father. And he is wrong about the prodigal brother. He doesn t get the gospel. He is three times wrong, but he thinks he is perfectly right. That is a tragedy, folks, when that happens in our lives. And there is something about this individual, this person of rightness, they struggle thinking they see so clearly, but they are often blind. Sometimes the person who thinks they see the clearest are often the ones who are the most spiritually blind. And that is this elder brother s issue. He is blind, he is deceived. He needs to come to terms with the sin of perfection. That is his issue. He needs to come to terms with the sin of craving perfection. He needs to come to that place and realize that he is not perfect. He needs to come to terms of thinking he is perfect. He thinks way too highly of himself and way too little of others. That is the disease of the elder brother s mentality. The older brother, like the younger brother, needs to be humbled. The problem is it is way more difficult for the elder brother to become humbled. Prodigals are often easily humbled. They realize that they are a mess. They realize that their life is jacked up. They realize that they are in absolute need of the grace of God. It is not so with the elder brothers. It takes a lot more work. It takes a lot more hammering away to get their attention. I have used this list of traits for years when I talk about proud versus broken from Nancy Leigh DeMoss. She shares some quality traits to help see the way that a person can exhibit pride and brokenness. And as I thought about today s passage I thought the elder brother represents pride and the younger brother represents brokenness. The younger brother starts off as prideful; he is anti-authority and all that. But he goes through a season of sifting. Nancy DeMoss describes the proud and the broken this way: Page 7 of 14 pages 12/18/2016

8 The proud focuses on the failures of others, but the broken are overwhelmed with the sense of their own spiritual need. It protects them from being the moral police of others. The proud look down on other people, but the broken esteem all others better than themselves. The proud maintain control, it has to be their way, but the broken are willing to surrender some control; they are willing to yield and acquiesce. The proud claim rights, the broken yield rights. The proud desire to be recognized and appreciated, but the broken have a sense of unworthiness, and they are thrilled to be used at all. The proud keep people at arm s length, the broken risk getting close to others, and they are willing to risk loving intimately. The proud are quick to blame, but the broken are quick to accept responsibility when wrong. The proud are defensive when they are criticized, the broken will receive criticism with an open humble heart. The proud have a hard time saying they were wrong and asking for forgiveness. And if they do confess they will usually confess in generalities, they won t get very specific. The broken are quick to say they are sorry and they will even be specific about where they are wrong. The proud compare themselves to others and they feel they deserve honor, but the broken compare themselves to the holiness of God and they feel a desperate need for His mercy. There are comparative contrasts between the elder brother and the younger brother. So we have seen so far that this party pooper has bitterness and anger, a sense of entitlement, a self-righteous pride where he is three times wrong and thinks he is not wrong at all. And then comparison and jealousy kicks in. Where do we see that idea here in the passage? We see it in verse 29 where it says, But he answered his father, Look these many years I have served you and never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. And the disease of comparison will lead to jealousy. When we go through life thinking, Well he has this and I don t, she has this and I don t, we start thinking like little three year olds. Instead of being thankful for what we do have, we want what someone else has. And comparison and jealousy will develop. Well, he got a fattened calf and I didn t. The elder brother couldn t celebrate his younger brother because his younger brother got something that he didn t get - a fattened calf and a party. And that is one of the problems of party poopers, they compare, they get competitive and they become Page 8 of 14 pages 12/18/2016

9 jealous. And then they throw fits and pout when they see people getting things that they don t get because they feel entitled to it. And it becomes a big competition instead of a celebration. And that is a sad thing. I can remember when I was a kid and I had this certain friend. And it was the weirdest thing whenever I went to the mall and got something because he would have to go and get the same thing. I remember getting a pair of these fold up glasses and sure enough the next day my friend would have some just like it. It was like he always had to have whatever I had. I used to wonder why he didn t want to be unique and have different things than I had, and it always felt like he was in competition with me. It was a very bizarre relationship in that way and it created some weird chemistry to say the least. He needed to deal with his own insecurities. He needed to deal with his jealousies and his competitiveness. So comparison and jealousy can be a destructive thing in our lives. And it can get really ugly. When comparison and jealousy become issues this is the stuff that destroys nations, creates wars, destroys marriages, destroys friendships, destroys churches, destroys small groups and destroys companies. This is the kind of stuff that can be absolutely divisive. With the elder brother s issues there was not going to be any harmony in this family. The younger brother was back but the father would have one way of seeing it, and the elder brother would have another way of seeing it. The elder brother at this stage would put this younger brother in a posture of having to earn his approval, earn his favor, earn his forgiveness. He would be reminding him of what he had done wrong, making him feel like he should not be wearing that robe or that ring or those sandals. The elder brother always feels it is his job to humble other people, and to keep them humble. The younger brother is just thankful that he is able to be a part of the family again. He believed when he came back he would have to be just a hired servant and instead his father has welcomed him back as his son. But the elder brother is not happy to have his brother back and feels he should have to earn his way back into the family because of his comparison and jealousy. A fifth trait of the elder brother is distaining and disassociating with others. What does he say next? First he said, Yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. And then he says, But when this son of yours came. The elder brother is disassociating with his brother. He doesn t say, When my brother comes back, no, he says, When this son of yours came. Can t you just sense the distain here? He wants to puke thinking about this person. He doesn t feel brokenness, there is no celebration in his heart, there is no compassion in his heart, there is no grace; rather he is feeling stiff necked, hard, upright, and self-righteous in this moment. He wouldn t Page 9 of 14 pages 12/18/2016

10 claim his brother but says, This son of yours. He is treating him like the Grinch was treated wanting him to stay up there on Mount Crumpit or off in the distant land. So you can sense a lot of relational distance here. And it is hard to be close to someone you look down upon. If you are always looking down on someone, you will always feel like you are on the outside looking in. But when we take on the father s compassion, and we look at others as he did it will create mercy and grace in our lives. Now granted, that is much easier to preach than to live. The sixth trait of the elder brother is keeping records and exposing other s wrongs. In verse 30 the elder brother goes on to say, But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes. The elder brother couldn t have known that so he is exaggerating, because there wouldn t have been any way for him to know that the younger brother had spent money on prostitutes. The news has just gotten to him that the younger brother has returned and he would not have had any way to know what all the younger brother had done or how he had spent his money. It is possible the younger brother had been gone a long time and maybe it is possible that the elder brother would have heard how he was living, but it is not very likely. And ultimately it is just a parable and you can try to reason it out all you want because it is not a real historical story. But it is meant to teach real truth about God s heart. So probably the elder brother did exaggerate and he was trying to expose his younger brother s wrongs. Look he came back after wasting all that money. And that is what elder brothers love to do, they feel better about themselves by putting down others. If we can go through life and talk about what everyone else has done wrong, then we can feel good about our own selves. We seek to find our own identity and our own sense of self in mocking and putting down others. Instead what we need to realize is that anytime we recognize wrongs in others, God wants to bring us to a place to be like the compassionate father. But instead we feel entitled to be God s executor of justice. So the elder brother keeps records of the wrongs. Finally then there is a failure to grasp God s reckless grace. Look at the rest of verse 30. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him! For him -- in other words for this outcast -- you killed the fattened calf for him? The fattened calf that was reserved for celebratory occasions, for festivities, we are celebrating him instead of me. I am the righteous one. I am the perfect one. I am the deserving one. I am the entitled one. And what he fails to understand is the compassionate father s reckless grace. As I shared this is not a parable merely about the prodigal son. Bigger yet it is a parable about a prodigal father, and the word prodigal means reckless. The real reckless one in this story is the father and reckless grace, not counting his son s sins against him, willing to Page 10 of 14 pages 12/18/2016

11 go out to the prodigal son and clothe him, willing to go out to the elder son and bring him in. And each son has their own response. The elder son fails to understand his father s reckless grace. He thinks his father s grace is stupid. He thinks he is the best investment. But how does the father respond? In verse 31 it says, And he said to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. In other words, Son, if you understood the distant land my younger son went, if you understood the place he is coming from, if you understood his fear of rejection, if you understood his pain and his misery, and the courage it took for him to come back home. If you understood all of that, son, you would know that we need to go to great lengths to show him that he is really welcomed and received. You could have had a party anytime you wanted. You could have had a fattened calf anytime you wanted. But we need to go to great lengths for this prodigal because he is struggling with rejection issues. He struggled with wondering if he would be received. So kill the fattened calf. Show him that he is really part of the family. And you know a prodigal really, really desperately needs grace. God s kindness leads to repentance. You want to see that kind of person fall in love with God and change - then show them grace, be merciful. I want us to think about a question from this parable. I thought this past week about how we know how the younger brother changes. He had to go off and learn things the hard way by making a mess of his life before he was ready to come home. But the question is - how does the elder religious brother change? That one is a lot more difficult to answer. The younger brother is a lot easier to not only notice his change, but it is a lot easier for him once he comes to himself to change. The elder brother thinks he is right. He is deceived. He walks around as a judge feeling like he doesn t need judgment because he is perfect. And he fails to get this kind of grace. So the question is then -- does the elder brother change? See the younger brother learned the hard way, but it is harder for the self-righteous to learn. They both need brokenness, but it is much more difficult for the elder brother to be broken. It is a difficult path. Here are a few observations. First, sometimes the sense of rightness is so strong that it requires a radical spiritual encounter to change someone. A Biblical example I thought about was Saul. Saul of Tarsus was a man who grew up under Gamaliel; he kept the law fastidiously in the way that he lived. I mean he was a person who was committed to living the Law. He thought no one kept it as good as he did. He waxed eloquently about it. He felt so right that on the Damascus Road he was carrying a letter going to persecute Christians. He was like the elder brother with letter in hand. And in order to change Saul, or someone like the elder brother, sometimes it takes a drastic spiritual God encounter. Page 11 of 14 pages 12/18/2016

12 Is that you today? Do you have a heart so hard that it is filled with rightness, looking down on others that it may take a spiritual shattering to break through? Saul became Paul after his spiritual encounter. Secondly, if the elder brother is going to change, he must realize that he the prodigal. For the elder brother to change he must realize that HE is the prodigal. And that is what Paul did. I started thinking about this passage with Paul who thought he had done it all right. Look at me. Look at what I am doing. But after Paul is saved what does he define himself as? The chief of sinners. And that is what the gospel does. It hammers us with God s grace and His love. And as we learn about His mercy and His grace and His holiness we no longer see ourselves the way we once did. Here is what I want to say, folks, in the end there is no elder brother, we are all prodigals. In light of God s mercy and grace we are all lost and separated. And apart from Him we need grace. Next I would want to say that the elder brother must pay more attention to his inward attitude and less attention to his outward actions. Not that those outward actions aren t important but we have to explore to make sure that those inward attitudes are right, because sometimes it is just, Well, I go to church. I do this and that. I tithe. I don t do those things. And if we only concentrate on the great things we think we do, or don t do, we are focused on all these external things. But why do we do them? A believer is transformed and falls in love with God not because we HAVE to keep these rules, but because we GET to follow God. Freedom, folks, is not being a prodigal going to a distant land and doing whatever you want to do. Freedom is not doing whatever you want to do, but as it has been said before, it is having the power to do what you ought to do. There is still some oughtness to live. Freedom actually pulls us out of slavery of addiction, out of slavery of lying, out of slavery of deceit, out of slavery of infidelity, and it gives us the strength to do what we ought to do. We need to look at our motives and get deep within instead of looking at the external only. The elder brother is craftier and much more toxic that the younger brother, it is just not seen as well by others. It takes a razor sharp eye of discernment to see how toxic the elder brother is. He is more subtle in his ways. It is all packaged in the name of righteousness. Fourth, I would say we need to be grateful for what we have versus worrying about what we don t have or what others have. That is the mentality of the elder brother. He had a fattened calf, he had a party. And he needed to look at what he had. Let me show you as we recap on this painting of Rembrandt s from last week. Rembrandt s painting of The Prodigal Son is beautiful. You can read Henri Nouwen s book, Return of the Prodigal Son. It highly influenced my life, as did Rembrandt s painting. Page 12 of 14 pages 12/18/2016

13 Look at the elder brother standing erect and upright. Notice him compared to the father. His hands are clasped, he won t reach out, he is too good. His father s hands are on his younger son s shoulders. Notice the elder brother is robed in beautiful array and he is looking down on his brother who has been in a pigpen, and he feels nothing for him. He fails to recognize the joy he could have in welcoming his brother home. He can t see what he has, all he can see if that his father is putting his hands on that filthy wretch. How dare him? He is failing to have any emotion whatsoever. Notice the younger son who is broken, who has been to the distant land. He is on his knees, hearing the heartbeat of his compassionate father. And notice he is in the light while the brother who thinks he is righteous stands in darkness, though he thinks he sees things the clearest. The younger one has been on a long, hard journey and he doesn t even have a sandal on his left foot. And the elder brother is absolutely unaffected, he feels nothing. He has no compassion. And when it comes to our relationships, what God wants us to learn is sinners and the downcast in our community represent this younger brother, and the religious, those who grew up in the church and all that, represent the elder brother. Wherever you are in the spectrum, we should want to become like Jesus reaching out to a hurting and broken community. Loving people, accepting people where they are and welcoming them. We should want to show compassion and yet do so without compromise. That is the beauty of Jesus, who didn t compromise, but said, Go and sin no more. We need to be grateful for what we do have, and we need to strive to emulate the compassionate father by joyfully welcoming and celebrating others. That is what we should want to do. We should want to join the celebration. Look at the last verse, verse 32. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; Page 13 of 14 pages 12/18/2016

14 he was lost, and is found. In other words the father was telling the elder son he was missing it. It was the right thing to do, it was fitting. It was fitting to not only celebrate, but to be glad. He was lost and is now found, like the lost coin and the lost sheep. When each of these were discovered, there was reason for celebration and there was joy. The Bible says that the angels in heaven celebrate over one sinner who repents. So what happens to the elder brother? We are not sure. The elder brother represents Jesus audience here as He tells this parable. It is up to them now what they will do with Jesus. And a little church history helps us to understand how you can imagine this ending. It doesn t penetrate very easily for those Pharisees. They don t get the message very easily. It is hard for them to change. Jesus said it was not the healthy who needed a doctor, the ones who think they have it all right, it is the sick. The healthy think they are perfect, that they have it all together, and Jesus came to heal the sick. Do you realize your need for the gospel of Jesus Christ this morning, your need for God s grace, your need to place your faith in the Lord Jesus? He died on a cross, shed His blood for our sins and three days later rose from the grave. Here is the deal, just as the compassionate father put that robe on the younger brother when he came home, Jesus came on a rescue mission 2000 years ago and when we believe in Him we are clothed in His robe of righteousness. Our sin is no longer counted against us. And that is God s reckless grace. Let s pray. Lord, thank you for your parable. We pray that you would use it to change lives. If anyone here today doesn t know you, I pray that in the quietness of their heart, they will turn to you, believe in you and trust in you. In Jesus name. Amen. The preceding transcript was completed using raw audio recordings. As much as possible, it includes the actual words of the message with minor grammatical changes and editorial clarifications to provide context. Hebrew and Greek words are spelled using Google Translator and the actual spelling may be different in some cases. Page 14 of 14 pages 12/18/2016