“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.