SERMON OUTLINE

The Compassionate Father and His Two Sons (2)   Luke 15.1-2, 11, 25-32

Introduction

-Jesus is answering the Scribes and Pharisees who are grumbling because he receives and eats with tax collectors and sinners. He tells three parables to show that God seeks sinner and rejoices over their repentance. We serve a God of compassion. Romans 5.8,10

-The repentant younger brother received a status he did not earn and did not deserve. This is the Grace of God.

The Older Brother

-First description of him is at work in the fields. The younger son wasted his life and realized his error. The older son is working for the father’s acceptance. Will he recognize his error?

-“Your brother has come”. Outrageous for Scribes and Pharisees to consider tax-collectors/sinners as brothers.

-I have slaved for you and obeyed your command but you have not rewarded me.

-Angry at the father for not applying the work-reward principle. Angry at his brother for coming home. Disowns his brother and his father. Angry at himself for not having the love of the father which he worked for.

The Compassion of the Father

1) Loves the older brother even after being rebuked, accused and disowned.

2) Assures the older brother of his love.

3) Assures the older brother of his property rights.

4) Seeks to reconcile the brothers

Conclusion

Do you relate to God on a work-reward basis? Knowing you are a sinner before a Holy God changes all that.

SERMON NOTES

The Compassionate Father and His Two Sons   Luke 15.1-2, 11, 25-32

This morning I would like us to think together about the older brother in this parable, but first a reminder of why Jesus told this parable. Jesus is specifically addressing the Scribes and Pharisees who are grumbling about his receiving and even eating with tax-collectors and sinners. Jesus tells the Scribes and Pharisees the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost sons, to help the Scribes and Pharisees understand that God seeks to bring sinners to repentance, fully accepts and forgives sinners who come to Him in repentance, and rejoices over sinners who come to Him in repentance. Because God’s desire is to bring sinners to repentance, Jesus is befriending lost sinners, looking to restore them to a relationship with God. I think we need to remind ourselves often of Romans 5.8 and 10, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. …while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son”. In love, God came seeking us while we were enemies and sinners, and brought us to Himself through the blood of Jesus Christ.

In the younger brother Jesus was describing the tax-collectors and sinners, who wasted God’s gifts on their own desires, wandering far away from God in the far country. One day this younger son came to himself. He saw how he had sinned against God and his father and admitted it and returned in repentance to his father, confessing his sin. The younger son was fully restored into the family and given a status he never earned and no longer deserved. The younger son experienced what we as Christians call the Grace of God. The younger son no longer had anything to offer to his father and came in repentance to his father, willing to serve his father as a day laborer. In love the father restored both his dignity and his status as a son.

We noticed last week throughout the story of the younger son, the Great Compassion of God the Father as illustrated in the compassion of the father toward his younger son when he left home, when he wasted his property and his life, and when he returned home. This morning we will continue to see the Great Compassion of God the Father as illustrated in the compassion of the father to his older son. We will also see the motive and attitude of the Scribes and Pharisees illustrated in the older brother.

Jesus is the master story teller. We can see this mastery in how he introduces the two sons to us. Where the story of the younger son begins with him asking for his part of the property so he can go and spend it on himself in a far country, the story of the older son begins with him working in the field on the family farm.

As you will see in a moment work is what the older son, which is an illustration of the Scribes and Pharisees, is all about. For the younger son the problem was wasting his life in a far country. For the older son the problem is working to get acceptance from his father. Both the waste of the younger son and the work of the older son do not lead to a relationship with the father. Both are prodigals in need of repentance. The younger son realized the error of his wasted life and was restored to a relationship with the father. Will the older son come to understand that through working for his father’s acceptance he also is in need of repentance?

As the older son drew near to the house he heard music and dancing and called one of the servants to ask what this meant. He found out that this was a celebration put on by the father for the safe return of his younger son. Notice how Jesus in the parable has the servant say to the older brother, “your brother has come”. For the Scribes and Pharisees to think of an unrighteous tax-collector or sinner as a brother would be outrageous. Jesus is trying to help the Scribes and Pharisees to see both the loving heart of God for sinners and how having the heart of God for sinners will change their heart toward sinners.

The older brother is angry and refuses to join the party. His father comes out to ask him to come in and join them. Here again we see the compassion of God illustrated in the father coming to meet the angry older brother. As the father ran to meet the returning younger brother, so the father is willing to go out to the older brother and seek to change his anger into compassion for his younger brother.

Pay special attention to the older brother’s complaint because it reveals the motive, heart, and attitude of the Scribes and Pharisees which Jesus is wanting to expose through this parable.

The older brother begins his answer to the father with the word “Look”. The older brother is going to set the father straight about how he should respond to his sinful son. Remember why Jesus is telling this parable and who he is telling it to. The Scribes and Pharisees did not know God as compassionate and forgiving. Through the words of the older brother, Jesus is showing the Scribes and Pharisees their misunderstanding of how God accepts people. They are the ones who need to change their thinking.

The older brother says to the father, “these many years I am slaving for you, and I never disobeyed your command”. The older son is working for his father as a slave, not as a son. He is earning a relationship with his father. He sees his relationship with his father according to what he deserves, as the reward he merits for his work. Love and Grace have no part in this relationship.

The older son blames his father for not rewarding his hard, unrelenting work. “Yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends”. The older son recognizes that he has no relationship with the father but blames the father for this when the reality is that the older son does not know his father’s love for him. The father and the son are operating from opposing values. The son is operating on the value of work and reward, and the father is operating on the value of love and grace.

The older brother rightly recognizes that his father is not responding to the younger son on the basis of work and reward but in love and grace and forgiveness. Although the younger brother has wasted his life yet the father is showing him great compassion.

The older brother is angry at his father for celebrating the return of his brother and showing such compassion. I read in one of the commentaries on this verse of a parable taught by the Rabbis of a son who is redeemed from a wasted life, not to be restored to the family but to serve as a slave in order to learn obedience. That was what the older brother wanted from the father. He did not want a celebration and restoration to the family, but that his younger brother should prove his worth through hard work and earn his way back into the family. There was no room for a God of Love and Grace in the understanding of the Scribes and Pharisees.

The older brother was angry at his brother for returning home. The older brother would have much preferred that his brother never come home again and that the daily routine of work on the farm remain the same. Now he would have to live daily with this wasteful, rebellious, irresponsible prodigal. Notice how he addresses his brother, “this son of yours”. He disowns his brother. In the process he also disowns his father for receiving his son back into the family. The Scribes and the Pharisees had made God into their image and disowned the God of the Bible. Their God joyfully destroyed tax-collectors and sinners and had no place for Love and Grace and forgiveness.

I also think that this older brother is angry at himself because he does not know the experience of his father’s acceptance even though he is working so hard for it, and yet the father is lavishing love on his prodigal brother.

As the parable closes we once again see the Compassion of God in the father of these two prodigal sons – the waster and the worker. The father calls the older brother “son”. This older brother has just rebuked his father for his love and compassion for his younger son. He has accused the father of disregarding him. He has disowned both his brother for his shameful life, and the father for receiving him back. Yet the father addresses the older brother compassionately and calls him son.

Then the father compassionately assures this son of his love, “you are always with me”. This father desires to draw near to his son in love and desires his son to draw near to him in love.

Then the father compassionately assures this son that “all that is mine is yours”. With compassion the father is telling his older son that all things are his because he is a son, not because he has worked for it.

Finally the father seeks to reconcile both brothers by reminding the older brother that he has a younger brother and that his brother has returned to the family. “It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this brother of yours was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found”. Here again Jesus draws the tax-collectors and sinners, and the Scribes and Pharisees into one group.

It is easy for us to relate to and to have pity for the older brother. He is like us, hard working, responsible, obedient to his father, not asking for much. When he comes home from a hard day of work in the fields he finds a party going on for his brother who has just wasted 1/3 of the family fortune on his own pleasures. The older brother feels like he is not appreciated or loved by the father for all his hard work and yet the wasteful son is enjoying a party. That is not fair. The waster is getting what he does not deserve, and the worker is not getting what he does deserve.

It is easy for us to judge people by a work and reward standard for that is what the world has taught us and how we naturally think. But that is not the way of God. The way of God is the way of Grace. It is easy for us to misunderstand our relationship with God as a process of work and reward. We can easily fall into the trap of thinking that we have to earn the love of God by our good behavior, enthusiastic service, generous giving, regular devotions, faithful attendance, full obedience to the commandments, and forget that God’s love is a gift of His Grace. The love of God cannot be earned. We are to receive the love of God given to us in Jesus Christ and then love God and serve our Father out of gratitude and joy. When we begin to think we can earn God’s love and deserve God’s love, we start to become like the older brother. We begin to despise those who are not working as hard as we are. We begin to resent those who are receiving God’s grace and who have not earned it like we have. We disown and distance ourselves from love and grace and mercy and forgiveness.

The Scribes and Pharisees believed they had a relationship with God as a reward for works of righteousness. Jesus wanted the Scribes and Pharisees to understand that a relationship with God was based on love, mercy, grace and God’s forgiveness for repentance. The Scribes and Pharisees looked beautiful on the outside but did not have an understanding of God and a heart for God. They were as self-focused as the tax-collectors and sinners, only they were self-focused on their own righteousness. They claimed to know God but were enemies of God because they did not realize that they were sinners before God just like the tax-collectors and sinners.

For me the key to knowing the love and Grace of God and coming into a true relationship with God is knowing that you are a sinner before a Holy God. This Holy God who will judge all sin is also willing to forgive and accept you in Jesus Christ, who paid the punishment for your sins. The younger son recognized his sin and came to love his father, but the older son did not, and despised both God and his brother. Those who have received Grace and Love, express Grace and Love. The Scribes and Pharisees did not need the Grace and Love of God in their self-righteous lives and did not know the Grace and Love of God. As a result they did not love God and sinners as Jesus did.

In closing let me read to you once again the parable John read at the beginning of the service. [Luke 18.9-14]

God is Compassionate to repentant sinners and it is repentant sinners who have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Let me encourage you to come to your heavenly Father today as a sinner, for you will never be accepted by God if you come in your own righteousness.