“Redefining Hope”
Sunday, January 31, 2010; Luke 15:13-14
Series: The Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller

Introduction: Illus.- In Florida, an atheist became incensed over the preparation of Easter and Passover holidays. He decided to contact his lawyer about the discrimination inflicted on atheists by the constant celebrations afforded to Christians and Jews with all their holidays while atheists had no holiday to celebrate.

The case was brought before a judge. After listening to the long passionate presentation by the lawyer, the Judge banged his gavel and declared, 'Case dismissed!'The lawyer immediately stood and objected to the ruling and said,'Your honor, how can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter and many other observances. Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah...yet my client and all other atheists have no such holiday!' The judge leaned forward in his chair and simply said, 'obviously your client is too confused to even know about, much less celebrate his own atheists' holiday!'

The lawyer confused, said, 'Your Honor, we are unaware of any such holiday for atheists. Just when might that holiday be, your Honor?' The judge said, 'Well it comes every year on exactly the same date – April 1st! Since our calendar sets April 1st as 'April Fools Day,' consider that Psalm 14:1 states, 'The fool says in his heart, there is no God.' Thus, in my opinion, if your client says there is no God, then by Scripture, he is a fool, and April 1st is his holiday! Now have a good day and get out of my courtroom!!

There are many in our world who think there is no God. I too think this is foolishness, because there is so much that let’s us know there is a God, and that this God that exists personally cares about us. In this parable, we are going to look this morning at how our longing for God, and a place to call home, is filled by God’s love and God’s presence.

I. Longing for Home- (Luke 15; John 3:16; 2 Corinthians 4:16, 5:2)

a. Expecting a better life- While this parable is found in Luke,
chapter 15, we see that it encompasses the whole of the Bible; the whole of humanity. The main theme is exile and homecoming, which shows us the redemption that is found for individuals, but also for the whole human race. If we were to think about John 3:16, we read: “For God so loved the world…” God loves the world, because God created the world. But the verse also goes on to say, “For God so loved the world that He gave His One and only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.” We see that redemption is for “whoever” believes. It is for the individual; it is personal.

In the parable of the two lost sons, the younger brother goes off to a distant country. He does this expecting that he will encounter a better life. However, after having lived that life for a while, he finds himself disappointed. It takes him getting to his lowest point, when he is wanting to eat the pigs’ food, that he begins to long for home.

HOME. What does that mean to you? If you have ever gone on a long vacation you know that home is wonderful place to come back to. If you have ever moved, when you finally gets things set up right, home is a blessing. When you were a kid and went to a camp, a few days into the experience you began to long for home. Home is meant to be an important part of life. It is meant to be a place of love, and security, and provision, and warmth.

However, home can also be an elusive concept. It is the longing we have for a place that perfectly suits us; our true selves. Home is becoming who we are truly meant to be; a place where our longings are satisfied. Sometimes it is those memories of our past that seem so perfect. But we are always found longing, and never satisfied, because we cannot find that perfect place on our own.

There is a German word “Sehnsucht,” that portrays this concept. Dictionaries will tell you that there is no single English word that can aptly describe its meaning. It denotes profound homesickness or longing. One of my favorite authors, C. S. Lewis talks about this often. In his famous sermon The Weight of Glory he refers to many similar homesick experiences. He says, “Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust them; it was not in them, it only came through them…These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire…”

We see that our physical home and the images of past good experiences help us to approach this concept of home, but still leaves us falling short.

b. The place we call home- All of our longing leads us to want to be
united with something in the universe from which we feel cut off. We feel that we have been left on the outside, unable to get in. In this way, we are all like the younger brother. We are all exiles, always longing for that place we want to call “home.” We feel like we are never able to arrive at that place.

Why is it that “home” is so powerful, and yet at the same time so elusive? The answer to this question is found in the Bible. The answer is the main theme of scripture. The answer comes to us only when we give ourselves over to God.

In the beginning book of the Bible, Genesis, we learn why all people feel like exiles; like we aren’t really home. When God created Adam and Eve, He created them to live in the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden was designed to be the place people would live. It was a wonderful place; perfect in every way. A place of love, and fruitfulness, and God’s presence. It was Adam and Eve meeting with God daily. This was our original home; the true country we were made for.

However, the parable helps us to see the sin that came into being that affected that perfect home. In the parable of the two lost sons, the father is God, and we have talked about how both sons chafed under the authority of the father. Both sons rebelled against that authority. Both sons wanted to live without the father’s interference. And thus they lost their place in the “home.” We too have many times when we chafe under God’s authority, and we rebel, and we find ourselves outside of our home with God. We find ourselves exiles.

The wandering of exiles is a major theme of scripture. Israel was constantly going astray from God and finding herself in foreign lands, longing to return to their homeland. It is true for us all, that when we are in this place of longing, we cannot feel like we are at home; our deepest longings go unmet. What we see in our physical bodies (struggling with disease, aging, and ultimately death) is true of our spiritual selves (struggling with sin, and disconnection from God). We may try and re-create the home we have lost, but it only exists in the presence of the heavenly Father.

As I said before, this longing for home cannot be satisfied on its own. There is hope though, as we are told in 2 Corinthians 4:16, 5:2- “So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day….For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.” Our exile is met with God’s provision of Jesus dying on the cross to bring us into a right relationship with God, the forgiveness we need to “come home,” and the provision for eternal life with God in our heavenly home.

II. The Feast- (Mark 1:15; Hebrews 2:14; Acts 2:24; Isaiah 35:4-10; Revelation 19, 21:4)

a. The difficulty of return- The poet Robert Frost said in his poem
The Death of a Hired Man: “Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” The younger brother, however, knows that a successful return is not guaranteed to him. He knows that his sins have created a barrier and he does not know how that wall can be breached. He knows he might be rejected and forced to stay in exile. In the same way, the Bible shows us how high the barriers are for our own homecoming as a human race.

During the Babylonian exile, the prophets of Israel predicted a great return and homecoming for the people through the grace of God. Eventually the people of Israel were given permission to leave Babylon and return to their homeland. And yet they were still under the domination of Persia. Then one world power after another invaded and controlled Israel, first Greece, then Syria, and finally Rome.

The people were still oppressed. What seemed like a homecoming was not, because there still were enemies to be overcome. The return was never like the prophets had foretold. But this was all caused by the brokenness within human beings. Israel in particular, and the human race in general was still given over to selfishness, pride, and sin. Humans are oppressed by the conflicts within our own hearts. To overcome can only come about by a radical change in our very nature.

But there is more. It is not only our own brokenness that leads us into exile, but the brokenness around us as well. We live in a world that is fallen; sin abounds all around us! We live in a world where there is disease and natural disasters, a world in which everything decays and dies. This surely is not the “home” we long for. A real, final homecoming would mean a radical change not only in human nature, but also a change in our physical world.

Can such a thing really be accomplished? The answer is yes, but only by God. When Jesus came, one of the messages He proclaimed was that He was bringing in “the kingdom of God” (Mark 1:15). Yet this confused people, because He had been born in a stable, not a palace, and He wandered around with no real home. He remained outside of the social and political networks. He didn’t even have any religious credentials. Yet, in the end, when Jesus died, the Bible tells us that He prepared the way for us as individuals, and for our world to “come home.”

Jesus didn’t come in power, but in weakness. Jesus came and experienced the exile we experience; the exile that we deserve. Jesus took upon Himself the full curse of human rebellion so that we could be welcomed into our true home.

b. The end of history- What would you do for a loved one who is
lost? Could you even imagine that scenario? I could not imagine the pain I would experience if Tyler or Tiffany left home, and I didn’t know where they were or what they were doing. I’m sure that I would be like the father in the parable. If I saw them a great distance away, I wouldn’t sit there and wait for them to walk up to me. I would go running up to them, and hug them, and kiss them, and welcome them home!!

The truth of this story Jesus tells, is that death will not have victory over us. Jesus not only died, but rose from the grave on the third day. Hebrews 2:14 tells us that Jesus broke the power of death. In Acts 2:24 we read: “But God raised Him from the dead, freeing Him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on Him.” Because Jesus paid the penalty for our sin with His death, He has achieved victory over the forces of death, decay, and disorder that keep the world form being our true home. Someday Jesus will return to make this victory complete. The prophet Isaiah writes in Isaiah 35:4-10- “Your God will come…He will come to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf be unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. The ransomed of the Lord will return, they will enter Zion with singing. Everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”

At the end of the story of the two lost sons, there is a feast of homecoming. So too at the end of the book of Revelation, at the end of history, there is a feast, the “marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19). The Lamb is Jesus, who was sacrificed for the sins of the world so that we could be pardoned and brought home. This feast happens in the New Jerusalem, the City of God that comes down out of heaven to fill the earth, which we read about in the book of Revelation, in chapters 21 and 22. The tree of life, which was in the Garden of Eden, is now found in heaven. Death and decay and suffering are gone. The nations are no longer at war. Rev. 21:4 tells us: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain—for the old order of things has passed away.”

Jesus, unlike the founder of any other major faith, holds out hope for ordinary human life. Our future is not an ethereal, impersonal consciousness. We will not float through the air when we die. We will have a spiritual body. We will eat, and sing, and embrace, and dance, and praise. We will live in the kingdom of God and experience God’s glory.

Jesus will not only make us perfect, but will make our world a perfect home again. We will no longer be living out of “Eden,” but in our true Eden. We will not be constantly in a wandering state as we are now, but we will be home.

Conclusion: God designed a home for us. But Jesus shows us through this parable that because of our sin, the home we seek, the home we long for is flawed. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we can find a place of rest in the presence of God which helps us to feel somewhat at home here on this earth. We can create an atmosphere of love, and peace, and hope. But ultimately this “home” we long for is the home in heaven. It’s as the apostle Paul says in Philippians 1:21-26, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. 25Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.” While we are on this earth, God can bring us joy and celebration. But ultimately, we will depart and be with God in heaven; the home we long for. Let us give thanks and praise to God this day, for this life He gives us, and the life to come. Amen.

“The True Elder Brother”
Sunday, January 24, 2010; Luke 15:31-32
Series: from the book The Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller

Introduction: From the diary of a Pre-School Teacher, she says:
My five-year old students are learning to read. Yesterday one
of them pointed at a picture in a zoo book and said, "Look at
this! It's a frickin' elephant!" I took a deep breath, then asked...
"What did you call it?" and the child said again: "It's a frickin'
elephant! It says so on the picture!" And so the teacher looked at the picture, and sure enough it said A F R I C A N E L E P H A N T. But how it is supposed to read is African elephant.
I remember there were many times when my children were growing up when they would say something that sounded bad, but I either misunderstood them, or they didn’t know what they were really saying. This is true of the Parable of the Prodigal. For so long we have thought that it is just about the younger son and his sinful ways. But the last few weeks we have learned that it isn’t what it seems.
While it is true that the younger son did sin in his actions, we have learned how the elder son had sin in His life as well. What is worse is that the younger son, because his sin was obvious, recognized his wrong, confessed, and was forgiven and restored to the family. However, the goodness of the elder son led him to become defiant, and prideful, and ignore the fact that he was acting sinful as well.
This morning we try to understand the elder brother a little more and what it means to be a true elder brother.

I. What we need- (1 Corinthians 2:2)

a. God’s initiating love- The truth is, we are all lost. Some are lost
like the younger brother, going astray from what God would have them to do. Others are lost like the elder brother, trying to be good, but self-righteous in our behavior. A good question to ask is: What do we need to escape the shackles of our lostness? How can our heart be changed from fear and anger to one of joy, love, and gratitude?
The first thing we need is God’s initiating love. In the story we notice how the father comes out to each son to express his love to him. He does this in order to show the son that he is welcome to the feast of the father. In fact, he doesn’t wait for them to come to him, but he goes to them. It is not the possibility of repentance that causes the father to love his sons, but rather he loves them because he created them; they are part of who he is.
In the first son we see that this love transforms him. It is not the confession of his son that leads to his love, but rather the love of the father that leads the son to confess. In regards to the elder son, the father goes out to his son, who is angry and resentful, and offers him the same love. However, the elder son doesn’t react with the same humility and repentance.
In both cases, it illustrates the initiating grace of God. The father sees how both sons are lost; and it shows that there is hope, even for the spiritually prideful. The plea that comes from the father to the elder son is meant in the story as a plea from Jesus to the Pharisees. These are the people who will ultimately hand Jesus over to the Roman authorities to be executed. Yet, even in knowing this, Jesus still reaches out to them, not with harsh condemnation, but with a loving plea to turn from their anger, their resentment, their self-righteousness.
The truth is, we will never find God unless He first seeks us, but we should remember that how He seeks us out might not always be obvious. Sometimes, God jumps on us dramatically, as He does with the younger son, and there is a strong sense of love overcoming our wrongdoing. Sometimes He quietly and patiently argues with us even though we continue to turn away, as is the case with the elder son.
Illustration- In a Peanuts comic strip, Charlie Brown is walking, with Lucy following. They have just lost the baseball game, and Charlie Brown says: “Another ball game lost! Good grief. I get tired of losing…Everything I do I lose.” To which Lucy says: “Look at it this way, Charlie Brown. We learn more from losing than we do from winning.” To which Charlie Brown shouts out: “THAT MAKES ME THE SMARTEST PERSON IN THE WHOLE WORLD!!”
In this parable, the elder brother feels like he has lost. Even though he seemed to be faithful and obedient, and the younger brother was defiant and reckless, it is the younger brother, and not him, who gets the celebration. Rather than trying to learn from his apparent loss, the brother instead gets angry and defiant himself. He gets all into himself and what he feels he hasn’t been given, instead of taking the attitude of the apostle Paul, found in 1 Corinthians 2:2- (where he says), “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”


b. A repentance deeper than regret- We also learn from this parable
that our repentance must go deeper than just regret for individual sins. When the younger brother comes back, he has a long list of wrongdoings for which he must express remorse. When we think of repentance we think, ‘If you want to get right with God, you get out your list of sins and you tell him how sorry you are about each item.’
However, repentance is to be more than just having a list and addressing each condition. For example, with the elder brother, he is lost, outside the feast of the father’s love, yet he’s got almost nothing on his list of wrongdoings. He says, ‘I’ve never disobeyed you,’ and the father doesn’t contradict him, which is Jesus’ way of showing us that he is virtually faultless regarding the moral rules. So how does a person who is lost, yet who has no sins on the list get saved?
It is important to note that not everything in this story is to be taken literally. Neither Jesus nor any author of the Bible ever implies that any human being is without sin or fault, except Jesus Himself. Instead, the point is that it is a distraction to think that sin is only about what we visibly do wrong.
When Pharisees sin they feel terrible and repent. There is some emotional punishment of self. When they finish, however, they go back to being older brothers; without remorse or regret. They don’t get to the real problem.
So what is the real problem? As I said last week, the elder brother’s sin was his pride in his good deeds. He was so caught up in how faithful he was to his father, and how obedient he was to his work, that he saw no faults in himself. His problem is his self-righteousness; the way he uses his moral record to put himself above the younger son, and to hold God and others in debt to him. He feels like he is owed because of his good works. His self-image is based on his achievements and performance.
What must we do, then, to be saved? To find God we must repent of the things we have done wrong, that much is true, but we must do more. If all we do is list our wrongdoings, and say we are sorry, then we remain like the elder brother. To truly be Christ followers we must also repent of the reasons we ever did anything right. It isn’t just about the wrongs we do, but the very roots of why we do the wrongs, and why we do the right things as well. We must learn how to repent of the sin of seeking to be our own Savior and Lord. We must admit that we’ve put our trust in too many things other than God. We must admit that we too often put our trust in ourselves and what we believe we are capable of doing right.
It is only when we see the desire to be our own Savior and Lord that we can ever be on the verge of understanding the gospel. When you realize that the antidote to being bad is not just being good, but needing Christ for everything, you are then on the verge of what Christ wants us to know and be. Once we follow through on this, it will change how we relate to God, our self, to others, the world, our work, our sins, and our virtue. This is what radical rebirth is about.
Yet, this only brings us to the brink of Jesus’ message, not to its heart. There is more. Up to this point, we understand what we must turn from, but not what and whom we must turn to.

II. Who we need- (Luke 15:1-32; Genesis 4:9; Philippians 2:5-8)

a. Three Parables- In Luke 15, we see that Jesus actually tells 3
parables to the Pharisees in regards to the lost being found. The first parable is called the Parable of the Lost Sheep. In this parable a shepherd loses a sheep, goes out to search for it, and then finds it. When he finds it he says to his friends in verse 6, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.”
The second parable is called the Parable of the Lost Coin. In this story a woman has 10 silver coins, she loses one, scours the house to find it, and when she finds it she calls her friends and says in verse 9, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost coin.” The third parable is the Parable of the Two Lost Sons.
The similarities among the three stories are obvious. In each story something is lost—a sheep, a coin, the sons. In each story the one who loses something gets it back—the shepherd, the woman, the father. And in each story the narrative ends on a note of rejoicing and celebration.
However, there is a striking difference between the third parable and the first two. In the first two someone “goes out” and searches diligently for that which is lost. The searchers are determined to find what they lost, not letting anything deter them. In the third parable, when the younger son goes out with his inheritance, and doesn’t come back for a long time, the father doesn’t go out and search for him. In fact, many of the listeners, by the time Jesus gets to the third parable, might have been thinking, why didn’t the father go out and search for his son?
Story (from the book The Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller; p. 81): There is a true story of a young man who was a U.S. soldier missing in action during the Vietnam War. When the family could get no word of him through any official channel, the older son flew to Vietnam and, risking his life, searched the jungles and the battlefields for his lost brother. It’s said that despite the danger, he was never hurt, because those on both sides had heard of his dedication and respected his quest. Some of them called him, simply, “the brother.”
This is what the elder brother in the parable should have done; this is what a true elder brother would have done. He would have said to his father, “Father, my younger brother has been a fool, and now his life is in ruins. But I will go look for him and bring him home. And if the inheritance is gone—as I expect it will be—I’ll bring him back into the family at my expense.”
And in fact, if you remember back at the beginning of the Bible, and the story of Cain and Abel, when Cain gets mad at Abel and kills him, and then comes before God without Abel…we pick it up in Genesis 4:9 as it says, “Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ He said, ‘I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?’”…. In this passage, when God asks Cain about his brother, the insinuation is that yes, he is his brother’s keeper as his older brother.


b. Mercy and Forgiveness- Think for a moment about someone
breaking a lamp you own. At this point you have 2 options: option 1 is to have them pay for it, since they broke it. Option 2 is to choose to pay for it yourself. Now imagine another scenario, but one that is more personal. Let’s say that someone damages your reputation. Again, you have two options: option 1 is that you could make that person pay for their going to others, by criticizing them and ruining their reputation. Option 2 is that you could forgive them. The forgiveness you give here is free and unconditional to the one who hurt you, but it is costly to you.
For mercy and forgiveness to be truly given, they must be free and unmerited by the one who receives them. If the wrongdoer has to do something to receive them, then it isn’t mercy, but forgiveness always comes at a cost to the one giving the forgiveness. For example, think back to when the father gave the younger brother forgiveness by not demanding he pay restitution to return to the father. It was free for the younger brother, but cost the father a part of his reputation, because the community would have looked down on this kind of pardoning. It also cost the elder son, because the younger son was now a part of the family again, and an heir.
We see that the elder brother in the story is not a true elder brother, who is happy to see his lost brother back. Rather, he is more concerned with his inheritance. By putting a flawed elder brother in the story, Jesus is inviting us to imagine what it would be like to have one.
The truth is, we have one in Jesus. Jesus came all the way from heaven to earth to seek out the lost; us. Jesus wasn’t concerned about the cost of his own life, he just wanted to make sure we were found. As the younger brother deserved alienation, isolation, and rejection, so do we for our rebellion against God. The point of this parable is that forgiveness always involves a price—someone has to pay. There was no way for the younger brother to return to the family unless the older brother bore the cost himself. Our true elder brother, Jesus, paid our debt on the cross, in our place.
Philippians 2:5-8 gives us the understanding of Jesus’ thinking: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!” Jesus Christ, who had all the power in the world, saw us enslaved to our sin, and so He chose to come and save us by giving His life in our place! It is free to us, but was very costly to Jesus.

Conclusion: The poet William Cowper said it well: “To see the law of Christ fulfilled and hear his pardoning voice, changes a slave into a child and duty into choice.” We will never stop being younger brothers and elder brothers until we admit that we have sin, and thus need Christ. But even more, that we, because of what Christ has done for us, choose to want to serve Christ out of love, not out of duty; for the opportunity to bless God, not for the reward we hope to get from God.
On top of this, we need to seek to be “true elder brothers” by understanding that there are many that are lost in our world; many who need Jesus. It might cost us embarrassment, money, time, energy, to seek them out, but it is what God would desire of us. Those of us who know Jesus, are elder brothers, in that we have been reborn first. It is our role to be our “brother’s keeper.”
Let us be grateful for what Christ has done for us. Let Christ’s mercy and forgiveness lead us to be people who offer mercy and forgiveness freely to others. Amen.

“A Deeper Understanding of Sin”
Series: The Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller
Sunday, January 17, 2010; Luke 15:29-30, Psalm 138:6

Introduction: Happiness is a fleeting venture. We all want to be happy, but it is difficult to hold onto. Think about some things that make you happy: (these are some of mine)- spending time with my children; my Friday’s when I spend time with Tami; helping someone feel better; getting and giving hugs; a good sleep; reading a good book…. I could go on, but I think you get the point; what makes us happy is the good times of life. Isn’t it nice that God has designed us to enjoy life in so many ways? Isn’t it nice that there are so many wonderful events that can make us happy? Last week in our sermon series, we looked at how both the younger son and the elder son had sin in their lives. We also were challenged with how Jesus was redefining sin, and what it means to be lost and saved. Today I want to go deeper in the understanding of sin, and how God helps us to overcome.



I. Two Ways to Find Happiness-

a. Moral conformity vs. Self-discovery- Jesus uses the younger and elder

brother’s to portray the two basic ways people try to find happiness and fulfillment: the way of moral conformity and the way of self-discovery. By looking at both of these, we have a fuller perspective of life, which helps to shape our understanding. Each is a way of seeking to find significance and self-worth; each is a way that helps us to address our struggle with this world as we seek to know what is right and what is wrong.

The elder brother in the parable illustrates the way of moral conformity. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day believed that as the chosen people of God, they could only maintain their place in His blessing and find salvation through strict obedience to God’s law. So they put the will of God and the standards of the community ahead of individual fulfillment. In this view, we achieve happiness when we are doing what is right and walking perfectly with God. They of course understood that there would be times when we fall, but if we are truly sorry for our wrongs then God will forgive us. So even the seeking of forgiveness is based on being obediently sorrowful. So it is about always seeking to “measure up” to God’s standards.

The younger brother in the parable illustrates the way of self-discovery. In Jesus time, there were some who took this path, but there are far more today who do. This way of thinking holds that individuals should be free to pursue their own goals and the journey of finding their true self, regardless of whether or not it goes against custom or tradition. This is about breaking down the barriers that keep us imprisoned in doing things as it has always been done, and having the opportunity to pursue individual freedom.

A modern day view of this is found in the movie Witness, starring Harrison Ford. In this story Harrison Ford plays a policeman named John Book, who is being chased by some corrupt policemen. He hides away in an Amish village, ultimately falling in love with an Amish widow named Rachel (she too falls in love with him). Rachel’s father-in-law warns her that it is forbidden to love someone not of her faith, and that the elders could have her punished. He tells her that she is acting like a child, to which she says: “I will be the judge of that,” and he responds, “No, the elders will be the judge of that.”

b. The clash between the two- Both in the movie Witness, and all the

more, in the parable of the prodigal, we see the portrayal of the two ways. The person of moral conformity says: ‘I’m not going to do what I want, but what tradition and the community wants me to do.’ On the other hand, the person of self-discovery says, ‘I’m the only one who can decide what is right and wrong for me. I’m going to live as I want to live and find true self and happiness that way.’

Our Western society is so deeply divided between these two approaches that hardly anyone can think of any other way to live. To distance yourself from one leads people to assume you have chosen the other. The moral conformists say: “The immoral people—the people who ‘do their own thing’—are the problem with the world, and moral people are the solution.” The advocates of self-discovery say: “The moral conformists, those who say ‘We have the truth’—are the problem with the world, and progressive people are the solution.” Each side thinks that their way is the better way, and so you see the clash between the two.

You might want to ask: are these the only two categories? The answer is yes and no. We are guided by our temperaments, which lead us either to a life of moral conformity or self-discovery; although some can go back and forth between the two during the different seasons of their lives. Or sometimes people might try one, and find that it isn’t working for them, and then move to the other.

So is one wrong, and the other right? Can we just decide for ourselves which fits our temperament and lifestyle the best? The message of Jesus’ parable is that both of these approaches are wrong. His parable illustrates a radical alternative.



II. Sin Leaves us feeling alienated-

a. Left out- As we read the story, we easily see in the life of the younger

brother the depiction of what everyone would call sin. The younger brother humiliates the father and the family, then goes off to live a self-indulgent and wild life. His life spins out of control as he seeks out pleasure. Because of this way of living he becomes alienated from his father. As we understand what Jesus is doing here, we know that the father represents God. Anyone who lives in this way would be cut off from God, and all the listeners there would have agreed.

However, in the life of the elder brother, the sin is less obvious. He is obedient to his father, and faithful in his work. As the story is told, the listeners would be thinking that he is like the one who obeys the commands of God. He is under control and self-disciplined. By conventional standards, the younger son would be seen as “bad,” and the elder son would be seen as “good.” But as we learned last week, they both alienated themselves from their father. The father had to go out and invite each of them to come into the feast of his love. So we learned that both sons were lost in their sin.

The difficulty of this story is that while the younger brother is reinstated to the family, the story ends deliberately leaving the elder brother in an alienated state. The younger “bad” son enters the feast and is forgiven, but the elder “good” son does not. The lover of prostitutes is saved, while the one who lives a moral life is still lost. We can almost hear the Pharisees gasp as the story ends. This would have turned everyone’s thinking upside down. How could the one who is so moral and so obedient be lost and left out of the celebration?

b. Resentment- As only Jesus can do, he even gets more shocking. The

question everyone is thinking is: Why doesn’t the elder brother go in? And the elder brother gives us the answer himself: “Because I’ve never disobeyed you.” The shocking idea here is that the elder brother is not losing the father’s love in spite of his goodness, but because of it. It is not his sins that create the barrier between him and his father, it is his pride that he has in his moral record; it’s not his wrongdoing but his righteousness that is keeping him from sharing in the feast of the father.

This doesn’t make sense. How could a person’s goodness keep them from God? The answer, however, is found in the brother’ hearts, and the two ways of life they represent. These two ways are actually more alike than we might imagine.

Looking back at the younger son, we see he didn’t want to have to be under the supervision of his father; he wanted freedom. He wanted to make his own decisions without any control being place on him. He got this by his bold power play, his defiance, and his physical separation.

What did the elder son want? He really wanted the same thing as his brother. We saw last week, in the conversation that he had with his father, that he resented his father, for he felt like the work he was doing was like being a slave to his father. While the younger son went away, and was more obvious with his resentment, the elder son stayed close and “never disobeyed.” He sought to get control through his obedient behavior.

The hearts of the two brothers were the same. Both resented their father’s authority and sought ways of getting out from under it. They each wanted their inheritance that they felt was “due” to them. They each rebelled in their own way; one by being very bad, and the other by being very good. Both sons were lost. Neither son loved their father for himself, but for what they could get from him.

So we see that we can rebel and be alienated from God by either breaking the rules or by keeping them with self-righteousness. It’s a shocking message: Careful obedience to God’s law may serve as a strategy for rebelling against God!!


III. A Deeper Understanding of Sin- (Romans 3:23)

a. Caught up in goodness- With this parable Jesus gives us a much

deeper concept of “sin” than any of us would have ever been able to understand were it not for Jesus. Most people think that sin is not following God’s rules of conduct. Jesus tells us that it is this and more.

STORY: There is a true story of a father that was telling about his son “Shay” at a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities. He told of a time when he and his son were walking by a park when they noticed some children playing baseball. Shay asked his father: “Do you think they’ll let me play?” The father knew that most boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but he approached the boys anyway and asked if Shay could play. The captain of the team said it was the eighth inning, and they were down by six, so they would take him on and see if they could get him in.

Shay had a big smile just being able to sit in the dugout. In the bottom of the inning Shay’s team scored some runs, but was still behind by three. They put Shay in right field in the ninth inning, and even though no balls came to him, he had a huge grin on his face. In the bottom of the ninth Shay’s team scored a couple of runs, and with two outs and the bases loaded, it was Shay’s turn to come to bat. The father wondered if they would let him bat with the game on the line; but they did!

Everyone knew that the chance of Shay hitting the ball was all but impossible, he didn’t even know how to hold the bat properly. Shay grabbed the bat and stepped up to the plate. The pitcher saw what was happening, so he moved up a few steps and lobbed the ball softly to Shay. He swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher moved closer and again tossed the ball, Shay barely connected, and the ball dribbled to the pitcher. He picked up the ball, and with a throw to first base, the game would be over. Instead, the pitcher threw the ball over the first baseman’s head, while everyone was shouting at Shay to run to first. Shay was confused, but then followed the directions and began to run.

Then they yelled at him to run to second. The right fielder picked up the ball as Shay was rounding second. With a throw to third the game would be over, but the right fielder followed suit, and threw it over the third baseman’s head. Everyone kept yelling at Shay to run, and run he did, all the way to home.

Shay was cheered as a hero who hit a grand slam! Then the father said, with tears rolling down his face: “That day, the boys from both teams helped to bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world.”

This is a truly wonderful story, and the behavior of the kids was truly good. One of the reasons I told this story was to uplift you, but also to help us realize that we can get caught up in our goodness, and forget that we need God. We can get caught up in trying to be good, and forget that we need Jesus. We can get caught up in the in doing what is right, and forget that “All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.” We can forget that we cannot be saved without Jesus!

b. I have rights- The problem with being good, with being obedient, is

that we believe we then have rights. God owes you answered prayers. You deserve a good life. You think you’ve earned your ticket to heaven. You don’t need a savior, because you have nothing to be pardoned for. This attitude is clearly that of the older brother. While the younger brother recognized his sin and confessed his sin to the father, the elder brother feels that he has the “right” to his father’s robe, his father’s rings, and a great celebration.

In this same way, religious people, those who seek to be morally good, but without admitting it, it is for the purpose of having leverage over God. By their righteousness they try and control God. But your service is not out of love, but to get a reward. And so you keep yourself from admitting that you have great sin and that you need a savior.

At the end of the story, the elder brother has an opportunity to truly delight the father by humbling himself from his pride and going into the feast. But his resentful refusal shows that the father’s happiness was not his goal. He wanted his full share of his inheritance, and the younger brother’s reinstatement kept that from happening. So in response, he does everything he can to hurt and resist the father.

Here, then, is Jesus’ radical redefinition of what is wrong with us. Nearly everyone defines sin as breaking a list of rules. Jesus, though, shows us that a person who violated virtually nothing on the list of moral misbehaviors can be every bit as spiritually lost as the most sinful, immoral person. Why? Because sin is not just breaking the rules, it is putting yourself in the place of God as Savior, Lord, and Judge. Sin is thinking that you have the right to demand from God, and that you have rights that God must supply. There are two ways to be your own savior: one is breaking the moral laws and setting your own course; the other is by trying to be so good and do everything right that you don’t think you need saving.



IV. Both Wrong- Both Loved- (Luke 18:14; Psalm 138:6)

This might be a surprise to you, but Jesus does not divide the world into the moral ‘good guys’ and the immoral “bad guys.” He shows us that everyone is dedicated to their own salvation, to using God and others in order to get power and control for themselves. Even though both sons are wrong, the father cares for both equally and invites them both to the party.

Jesus’ message, which is the gospel, is a completely different spirituality. The gospel of Jesus is not about the religious or irreligious, the moral or immoral, the conservative or liberal. The gospel of Jesus is that everyone is wrong, everyone is loved, and everyone is called to recognize this so they might seek change. The elder brothers of our world divide the world into the good and the bad. The younger brothers of our world divide the world into the open-minded and narrow-minded.

Jesus says in Luke 18:14- “…for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” The prerequisite for receiving the grace of God is to know and admit that you need it. As Psalm 138:6 says: “For though the Lord is high, He regards the lowly; but the proud He perceives from far away.” If you want to be close to God, if you want to have a relationship with God, then humble yourself.

There is a story of a time when a newspaper posed the question: “What Is Wrong with the World?” The great Catholic thinker G. K. Chesterton wrote in a brief letter which said: “Dear sirs. I am. Sincerely yours, G. K. Chesterton.” In other words, he was admitting his sin, and likewise the sin of the human race, and saying that the problem with the world is our sin. This is the attitude of someone who has grasped the message of the gospel!



Conclusion: Although the sons are both wrong and both loved, the story does not end on the same note for each of them. Why does Jesus construct the story so that one of them is saved, restored to a right relationship with the father, and one of them is not? Think about the people in Jesus’ day; the religious and “sinners.” Who came to Jesus? It was the prostitutes, and the tax collectors, and the thieves, and the lost, and the sick. What happened to the Phariseses? They were the ones that had Jesus crucified on the cross!!

Because the elder brother is more blind to what is going on, being an elder-brother Pharisee is a more spiritually desperate condition. Because they couldn’t admit they needed saving, they stayed lost.
I pray that as we end our time this morning, you would be willing to give yourself over to God, release your pride, admit your sin, and accept God’s love. It is them for you and me. Amen.

“The Two Lost Sons”
Luke 15:11-12; 1/10/10
Series: The Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller (Chapter 2)

Introduction: As we continue in our series “The Prodigal God,” we remember from last week that this parable isn’t just about the younger son, but it is about the elder son as well. It is interesting for me to see that there are many in this world that believe that if you are a good person, then that is all that is needed to get to heaven. This viewpoint has a misguided view of sin and holiness. The Bible is clear: “All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.” It is also clear that God, in being holy, cannot be in the presence of sin.
So this morning, I want us to take some time to understand that both sons have sin in their lives, and both sons are lost because of this, and both sons need the Father’s unconditional love and forgiveness. Then I want to relate this to how God’s love and forgiveness is there for us.

I. The Younger Son-1. Mutinous- Back in 1789 on the English ship The Bounty there was a
famous mutiny that occurred. This mutiny was led by first mate Christian Fletcher. The reason for the mutiny was because the sailors were attracted to the idyllic life on the Pacific island, Tahiti, and repelled by the alleged cruelty of their Commander (Captain Bligh). They did not want to return to England, but rather wanted to stay on the island with the native women. Beacause of this, Christian Fletcher set afloat Bligh and several other officers of the ship. Then they had to leave the island and sail the ship to Pitcairn Island, where they burned the ship to avoid detection.
In our story of the prodigal, we see a similar kind of mutininous behavior. When the younger son makes a request for his share of the estate, it is a shocking request. The original listeners would have been amazed at such a request. In those days the oldest son received a double portion of what the other children inherited. But this was only done when the father died. Here we see that the younger son asks for the inheritance “now.” This disrespect was like a mutiny, for him to take the money and break away from the family.
2. Self-centered- On top of it being mutinous, it was also very self-
centered. The son only cared about himself. To ask for the money while his father was still alive was like wishing his father dead. It showed that the son didn’t care about what the father, or anyone else thought of him. He just wanted his money, and his freedom, and the opportunity to live his life any way he would choose. He was choosing to disassociate himself from his family.
3. Breaks relationships- Which brings us to his next sin, and that is the
breaking of relationships. It is not hard to see how this request would affect the younger son’s relationship to his father (by being so disrespectful), and to his brother, by walking out on the family. Also, he would be leaving the elder son there alone to do all the work.
Once the younger son gets out into the world, we see that by his wild living he does not intend to develop any significant relationships. His attitude towards his life becomes one of pleasure for the sake of pleasure. While he is spending money, he will have friends. But once he runs out, we see that there is no one there to help him, or to care about his situation. When he finds himself homeless and without money, there isn’t anyone who offers to give him a place to stay or a job to work. He ends up having to live with the pigs. With no significant relationships.
4. Ungrateful- The son is very ungrateful, thinking that he can return to
his father, since he has nowhere else to go. Even though he isn’t asking for full reinstatement, he is believing that in the midst of his terrible rudeness and selfishness, that he still can come back home.
Back then, if you had disgraced the family in that way, you were considered dead. The rabbis taught that if you had violated the community’s standards, an apology was not sufficient—you also had to make restitution. But restitution was not in the son’s plan. Perhaps by asking to become one of the hired men, being given over to one of the tradesmen to learn a trade, he thought he might be able to pay off the debt he owed, but it seems that even more than this, his concern is just for his well being; to have a place to live and food to eat. And so, in the pigsty, he rehearses his speech until he is ready to go back and have this confrontation with his father.
5. Privileged without responsibility- So the first act is the son asking for
his inheritance. The second act is his wild living leading to his plan to return. The third act then is his returning to his father and his home. The son comes within sight of the house, the father sees him, and runs to him. Did you catch that? The father RUNS to the son. As a general rule, distinguished Middle Eastern patriarchs did not run. Children might run; women might run; young men might run; but not the patriarch. But the father picked up his robe and runs to his son. The father shows emotions that are not customarily shown by men. The father falls upon the son and kisses the son.
This would have surely caught the younger son by surprise, in that first of all the son didn’t even expect to be welcomed back in any way, but definitely not with this kind of emotion from his father. Having practiced his speech, the son goes immediately into it, but is cut off by the father who has his own plan. The father calls for the servants, and has the best robe put on his son.
What is the father saying by this? The best robe in the house would have been the father’s robe. This was unmistakable saying that the son had been restored to the family. This was saying that the father wasn’t going to wait until the son’s debt was paid off. This was saying that the son had again received privilege, but with no responsibility to have to earn back his place. The father was covering the poverty of his son with the robe of honor.
6. The Celebration- The celebration that takes place then is the message
that God’s love and forgiveness can pardon and restore any and every kind of sin or wrongdoing. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter if you’ve deliberately oppressed others, or how much you’ve abused yourself. The younger brother knew that in his father’s house there was abundant “food to spare,” but he also discovered that there was abundant grace to spare. The son discovered that there is no evil that the father’s love cannot pardon and cover.
This is God’s message to us. We have sin in our lives. Like the younger son we have our times when we have dishonored God. When we have demanded our share of the inheritance. When we have gone off and lived wildly, or broken relationships. But God reminds us through this story, that while we are like the younger son, God’s love and acceptance of us is absolutely free.

II. The Elder Son-
But the story isn’t finished. Jesus has more to share. That is because the story isn’t just about the younger son. The story isn’t just about the recklessness and wildness of the younger son. The story is also about the sin of the elder son.
1. Furious- When the elder brother hears from the servants that his
younger brother has returned and has been reinstated by his father, he is FURIOUS. Now it is his turn to disgrace the father.
He refuses to go in to what is perhaps the biggest feast and public event his father has ever put on. He remains outside the door, publicly casting a vote of no-confidence in his father’s actions. This forces the father to come out to speak to his older son, a demeaning thing to do when you are the lord of the house. The father was the host, but had to leave that role to go and be a father to his rebellious elder son. The father hopes for reconciliation, but instead encounters refusal and anger.
2. Refuses to Celebrate- Anger can create real problems in our lives. Not
only does it cause us to be mean and hurtful to others, but it keeps us from enjoying life. How often have we gotten angry, and our anger left us in a place that disturbed our relationships? Maybe you’ve gotten angry at a spouse and haven’t talked to them for a while, or angry at a child and caused them some emotional hurt.
I have seen people who get angry at someone, and then they choose to not participate in events with this person with whom they are angry. But the sad thing, is that the other person went to the event and had a great time. Isn’t this what is happening here in the story? The elder son is angry at the brother, and angry at the father, and consequently he is choosing not to participate in the party. But the younger son and the father are having a great time.
On top of this, the anger of the elder son is trying to bring down the party, and keep others from enjoying themselves. And so we see that the anger of the son is sinful on many levels. Even as the father tries to calm the son down, it only causes the son to be all the more angry.
3. Resents the cost- Another reason why the elder son is furious, is
because he is upset at the cost of the celebration. The words of the son are: “You’ve never given me even a goat for a party, how dare you give him a calf.” The fattened calf is only a symbol, however, because what the father has done costs far more than the calf. By bringing the younger brother back into the family he has made him an heir again, with a claim to one-third of their (now very diminished) family wealth. This is completely unacceptable to the elder brother. As he adds things up in his mind, he is thinking: “I’ve worked myself to death and earned what I’ve got, but my brother has done nothing to earn anything, indeed he’s merited only expulsion, and yet you lavish him with wealth! Where’s the justice in that?” That is why the elder brother says to his father: “I have never disobeyed you! So I have rights!” The elder brother is insinuating to the father that because of his place in the family as the eldest, he should have been consulted before his father made this decision to restore the younger brother.

4. Insults his father- And so the elder brother’s fury leads him to insult
the father even farther than he already has. He refuses to address the father in the respectful manner that an inferior is to relate to a superior in that culture; especially in public. Remember, even though this is happening outside, it is still visible, and possibly audible to the attendees of the party. He does not speak in a respectful tone, or with respectful words. Such behavior is outrageous, and would have thoroughly embarrassed the father. A modern day equivalent might be a son writing a humiliating tell-all memoir that destroys his father’s reputation and career.
If the elder son truly was one who had stood by his father (when the younger son had not), then the respectful thing to do would be to stand by him now. If the elder son wanted to show his father love, he would have waited for a better time to have this discussion, and spoken to his father with different words. If the elder son had truly respected his father, and was one who sought to honor his father, then he would have given his father the benefit of the doubt, and trusted that the father knew what was right to do in this situation.
5. “But I’ve Earned it”- But even more, he dishonors his father by
responding in the same way as the younger son; with demands. While the younger son demanded his inheritance, and then left, the elder son is showing now that he too has this expectation of wanting the full inheritance due to him. We see this with the words “I have worked like a slave for you…” How hurtful those words must have been to the father. To hear these words would be the same as hearing: “I really wasn’t doing what I was doing for the family, or because I loved you. I was really working all this time (like a slave) so that I would show that I deserved my inheritance. All this work I have done was for the money I would one day receive!”
We have all been in the place where we begin to doubt the love of someone in our lives. We think to ourselves: “Maybe they just tell me they love me to get something out of me.” Or, “Maybe the love they speak of is just a show to make themselves look good.” Well, here the truth comes out, and the elder son is saying that in essence it was all a show. The work was not done out of loving obedience, but out of subservient obedience.
6. Response of the father- And how does the father respond to the
elder’s son disrespect, and fury, and resentment, and rebellion? It wouldn’t be unheard of for a father of his time and place to disown him on the spot. Instead, we see that he responds with the same tenderness, and love, and forgiveness that he showed the younger son. If we were to summarize what he says to the son, it might sound like this: “My son, despite how you’ve insulted me publicly, I still want you in the feast. I am not going to disown your brother, and I am not going to disown you either. I challenge you to swallow your pride and come into the feast. The choice is yours. Will you, or will you not?” It is an appeal that should have surprised the elder son. It is an appeal that is gracious and dramatic.
You can imagine that the listeners are on the edge of their seats as Jesus tells this story. Will the family be reunited in unity and love? Will the brothers be reconciled? Will the elder brother be softened by this remarkable offer and be reconciled to the father? And we too might wonder the same things, because this is where the story ends. We do not know what the elder son chose to do.


Conclusion: Why would Jesus end the story there? Why doesn’t Jesus tell us how the story ends? It is because the real audience is the Pharisees. Jesus is pleading with them to respond to his message. What is the message? That message we will get to more in the coming weeks. But all in all, it is about connecting with God. Jesus is redefining sin. Jesus is redefining what it means to be lost. Jesus is redefining what it means to be saved.
As I said before, it isn’t about just trying to be good, or go to church, or do the right things…. that will connect you with God and get you into heaven. It is about having the forgiveness of God in your life. The forgiveness we saw offered to the younger son, and the forgiveness that was offered to the elder son. The forgiveness that is offered to you and me.
Really, the end of the story is about how you and I respond. We have sin in our lives. We have dishonored God in many ways. God offers us forgiveness and an invitation to the party. Will you accept you?……………………AMEN.