Luke: The True Elder Brother (15:11-32)

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This is Pastor Creighton.

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The holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to Luke, chapter 15, beginning at verse 11.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

And Jesus said, There is a man who had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.

And his father divided divided his property between them.

Not many days later the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living.

When he had spent everything, a severe a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need.

So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of the country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs, and he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread?

But I perish here with hunger.

I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

But his father said to his servants, Bring quickly the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, and bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let let us eat and celebrate.

For this my son was a dead, was dead, and is alive again.

He was lost and is found, and they began to celebrate.

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 to one of the servants and asked what these things meant.

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.

But he was angry and refused 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 have never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends.

But when his son but when the but when this son of yours, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him?

And he said to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.

It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead and is alive, he was lost, and is found.

This is the gospel of Christ.

So this this parable that we're looking at this morning, it has deeply affected me personally over the years.

It's one that I always come back to very fondly.

Um, and I'm sure many of you here, uh, if you're familiar with the Bible, you come to this as well.

And you may see yourself in this text too, and it's something you hold very dearly.

This this parable is a famous parable.

It's one of those parables and texts in the Bible that people hold dear over the years and centuries.

Psalm 23 is another one, Genesis 1 is another one.

So I come up here very um nervous to talk on this text because it's one that people hold dear.

Um, and I just don't want to people just hold it very dear, I hold it very dear, and sometimes it's hard to speak on a text you hold very dear because you're gonna put I'm gonna end up putting my own thoughts into it.

So just have mercy for me.

Um but this text is very important for us.

It's very it's life-giving, it's very humbling text, and it's one that we're gonna look at together.

And Jesus in this text shows a completely different way to live.

And it's not one of self-discovery, and it's not one of being religious.

So, in this in this um text that we're looking at, we're gonna look, we're gonna view it in a different way.

We're gonna view it kind of like a Netflix TV series.

Um, but I don't know if anyone's familiar with Netflix and TV series, but when I when there's a good TV series, I tend to binge watch it.

I don't know if I'm the only one, but we're gonna do that here.

So in this parable, I've broken it up into five episodes, and that's how we're gonna go through it this morning.

So please turn to uh Luke 15, verses 11 to 32.

Luke 15:11–32

It'd be very helpful if you have your Bibles with you.

And if you don't, in the bulletin, it also has the text, and it'll probably appear on the screen as well.

So, episode one, Jesus' audience.

Um, so I'm gonna go back a bit into in the chapter to verses one and two, because it's very important yet you see this uh before we enter into it.

So I'll just read it, verses one and two.

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to Jesus, and the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them.

It's very important that we get um just the audience that is around Jesus for this, because it it speaks heavily into this parable that we're looking at.

So he's surrounded by tax collectors and sinners.

Who are these people?

In one of my previous sermons on Luke, um, I've talked about tax collectors, and they're actually called a better translation would be a toll collector.

And just a quick reminder: this is someone who would bid to the Romans for certain areas of land, not to own the land, but to be able to tax or um put tolls on the land and just charge these enormous tolls to the to their own people, their own Jewish people.

And people despised these toll collectors because they just took advantage of everyone.

And then sinners would just be people who lived just horrible lives contrary to what the Jewish law would teach.

So these people would just be considered almost scum of the earth to the Jewish leaders.

And then you see them, you see the Jewish leaders also in this, the scribes and the Pharisees.

This is the elite of the time.

These are the people who made all the decisions within the Jewish community.

These are the people that would never affiliate themselves with toll collectors or sinners.

And then they're grumbling, but they see Jesus, this one who, this person who claims to be a rabbi, eating and being with them and talking and listening to them.

And they're grumbling about it.

They're on the outsides looking in.

So this is very important that we remember these people, because as we go through this parable, you'll begin to see Jesus talking about these people.

So that's episode one, episode two, scene one.

Reckless younger son, loving father.

Verses 11 and 12.

And he said, There is a man who had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.

And he divided his property between them.

Now this symbolizes what the son is asking here in this time was that he is asking his father to give him something that he shouldn't have access to until his father died.

So what his father or what is the younger son is asking basically is that I want you to die and I want your stuff.

I don't care anything about you, just give me the stuff that's coming to me.

And what would happen is that normally, uh, because he's the younger son, he would get one-third of the property, and the older son would get two-thirds of the property.

And you see in verse 12 that the father splits the property in two.

And property in this time is extremely valuable.

So when you think of wealth, um it was landowned.

The more land you had, the more wealthy you were considered because you can have animals and other things involved on the land.

I didn't know much about land prices or land value until I married Amy because she had two acres before I married her, so that's that was a bonus.

Um and but early in our marriage, before COVID, we got the land appraised and we got it appraised, and it wasn't actually that high of a value, surprisingly.

And then during COVID, we got our land appraised again, and the value of the land skyrocketed.

Um it's interesting that COVID made people more aware of value, how valuable land is.

But the people in this time, in this context, would know that land is super valuable.

So that's what the father would do.

The father had to sell one-third of his property and give it to the son, and he does it.

Crazily does it.

Because in this time, he would fathers would never do that.

A father would normally excommunicate the son for even thinking of asking about that.

Everyone in the town would have helped the father do this, to kick the son out for being so disobedient.

But the father doesn't do this, the father just gives it to him, gives it to the son, which is just mind-blowing if you think of the context.

Scene two, verses 13 and 16.

Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property and reckless living.

And when he had spent everything, a severe a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need.

So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his field to feed pigs.

And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

So he leaves, this the younger son leaves.

He gets what's coming to him, he gets his property, gets all the money, and he leaves, and he goes into a fire country.

So he not only just disrespects his family, he also disrespects in this time, everyone was a part of a community in Jewish culture.

There wasn't no very not really many individualistic um in this time.

Everyone was a part of a greater community, and he leaves this community and le and goes to another area.

So he's leaves his family and he leaves everyone else in the community.

And then you see here as he begins to spend the money, he's having a great time, he makes lots of friends, um, as people who have a lot of money and that who flaunt it.

They always have this big group of friends around them.

But then at right at the end in verse 16, you see that he was alone.

His friends left him.

This is the common problem for very affluent people who show off their wealth.

You see it in music videos, they have all this these friends, you see it in Netflix documentaries, all these people are surrounded by them, they're all they have the big posse of people.

But when they lose all their money, their friends are gone.

And this is what happens to them.

A very real, very human thing happens.

People just leave him.

He's alone, and he's craving food, and he wants to be fed, and he wants to eat the food that the pigs are eating.

He's in dire need.

Episode three, scene one, verses seventeen to nineteen.

But when the son came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread?

But I perish here with hunger.

I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer to be called your son.

Treat me as one of your hired servants.

It's interesting that this section starts with, but when he came to himself.

In a very popular Netflix um TV show called The Office, there's a scene during a Christmas party where Michael, the boss, is hosting a Christmas party, and there's booze at the party, and one of his employees is an alcoholic.

And she ends up helping herself heavily to that, to the booze, and he decides to bring her to a rehab clinic.

She was not willing.

And through this scene, he's almost like he tricks her into the car to go that they're going somewhere else, and they go and they go, and he gets to the rehab place, and she realizes Meredith realizes it, and he's dragging her in.

He drags, he ends up getting her and drags her in.

And then the person at the reception says, You can't do this.

You can't force somebody into it.

And he has a moment, an epiphany.

And this is very true in somebody who's living very recklessly.

You can't force it, it has to happen to themselves.

And this is what happens here when he says, But when he came to himself, it's a big moment.

And we see the son getting ready to go.

And he you can just picture him, he's getting ready, he's practicing his speech, that he's gonna come, he's gonna be repent before the father, but he's not gonna call himself worthy of being his son.

He's gonna try to be a hired servant.

A hired servant in this time is someone who would end up apprenticing somebody.

So he'd become the apprentice, but he would live in the town.

He wouldn't live on the estate, his father's estate.

And he would work continually and he would work off the pay's debt.

So that's what he's going, that's what's going on here as he brings, he's getting ready to go to his father.

He's made his speech, he's ready to go.

Scene 2, verses 20 to 24.

And he arose and came to his father, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned before you, and I am no longer to be called your son.

But the father said to his servants, Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, and bring the fattened calf, and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.

For this my son was dead and is alive.

Again, he was lost and is found, and they began to celebrate.

You see the father coming to the sun, he sees them far off.

But in this culture, fathers don't run.

It is um, if they were seen running, it's actually a form of them putting themselves down.

And this is what the father does.

You can picture him picking up his robe and running out to the sun.

It'd be like almost, it's like almost waiting when you're waiting for a package that you really want, and you keep looking out the door.

This is what's going on here.

The father every day is looking for his son to come home to him.

And he does it, and he sees the sun and he goes out.

He doesn't care about anyone's thoughts about him.

He goes out to the sun and showers him in love and doesn't let him give his speech that he's been practicing, just cuts him off and showers him with gifts that mean like symbolize that he's brought back into the family, and there's celebration.

This would be a great time to just end the sermon.

Very, very fitting, very nice, feels good, very warm.

But there's another character in this TV series, episode four, Angry Older Brother, loving father.

Verses 25 to 28a.

Now his older son was in the field, and as he came, he drew near to the house, and he heard music and dancing, and he called one of the servants and asked, What these things meant.

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.

But he was angry and refused to go in.

In some sense, we can relate to the older brother here, that this his younger, his sibling, has disrespected the family, has embarrassed the family in the community, has gone off and spent his share of the inheritance, and now has come back and wants back in.

I'm sure many of us can relate to this, that we would feel a bit a bit off in this.

Picture like toiling all day in the field, and you come back, and there's your younger brother who's just done all that stuff, and then he won, he just comes back in freely, and your father just lets him in.

I would find it hard.

Um, but this is the parable, so there's a reason to it.

Um so scene two, verses 28 to 32, we're just ripping through this because I gotta get to the point.

But he was angry and he refused to go in.

His father came out and entreated him.

But he answered his father, look, these many years I've served you, and I never disobeyed your command.

Yet you gave me, oh, sorry, I've never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, and I'm that I might celebrate with my friends.

But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.

And his father said to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.

It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead and is alive, he was lost, and is found.

Now, what the older son does here is very disrespectful to the father.

Just like you think about the way he is talking to the father.

Very hard, cold.

Does he even call him father?

And then when he talks about the son, he just says your son, doesn't even acknowledge the son.

And then he doesn't also go into the father's celebration for the son.

He stays on the outside, and the father has to go in.

What is Jesus trying to say here?

What is he trying to show in this parable?

Well, remember the audience at the beginning, the tax collectors and sinners, the scribes and Pharisees.

It's pretty obvious that the sinners and the tax collectors are the younger brother, and the scribes and the Pharisees are the older brother.

But the thing that Jesus is trying to say here is that the younger brother, very obvious, classic Christian or classic situation, the person that's wayward comes in, repent is repentant, and comes into the father and comes into the celebration.

He has lots to be sorry about, he has lots to come before God to the Father about.

But then we see the older eld, we see the elder brother, and it's not so much an obvious case by if you think about by our standards.

What do you do if you don't have anything to repent of?

The older brother was very obedient, did everything the father wanted, took care of the property, took care of the land, worked the land, always with the father.

Always, if you think about it, it could be if you compare it, if you bring it to ourselves, it'd be like if we're always, we read scripture every day, we pray every day, we do all these things, we go to church, we volunteer, we tithe.

What the older son is doing here is that he's banking on his good works to the father to get his inheritance.

What Jesus is trying to show here is that the road to self-discovery, which would have been the younger son, to doing what you want to do, to doing everything you think is right, defining your own way, your own truth, going off, doing your own thing, doesn't lead to freedom.

And then the other way, the religious way, doing all these things that make you think that you think you're getting good with God, that you're very obedient, that you follow all the rules, you hit all the boxes, it doesn't lead to freedom.

Self discovery need to repent of rep of reckless living.

The religious need to repent of doing good for the wrong reasons.

That's what Jesus is trying to show here.

And until we come to a place where we can say to God, I am hopeless.

I try to live a good life, but I do it as a way to get right with you or As I do these things because I want to define my own truth.

I want to define my own way.

I am hopeless and I need your help, Lord.

You need to do that.

This is what He this is what Jesus is trying to show here is that we need the Father's help.

We need to allow him to come to us.

Or he needs to come to us.

Now the Father in this is very loving.

He's constantly steadfast through it all.

And he invites them both into the feast.

The younger one goes into the feast, but the older one doesn't.

And he looks past their faults.

Jesus in this parable is always also showing something different that we must take into account here.

That forgiveness costs something.

Episode 5, final episode.

You might be wondering, what do I mean by forgiveness costing something?

Well, picture this.

Picture that you've been saving up for a very pricey, let's just say a lamp, that you really want this lamp.

It's vintage, it's antique, or it's modern, whatever suits you.

And you've been saving up for this lamp, and you're like, you really want it.

And you finally save up enough and you get it.

And you put it on like a nice spot in your house in your living room.

And you have friends over.

And then you're showing off the lamp.

You're like, look what I got.

But then one of your friends knock it over.

In this moment, you have two things will happen.

The friend will either be deeply sorry, or the friend will start making excuses that they accidentally knocked it.

But in each case, you're gonna have to decide to either forgive and absorb the cost of the lamp, or you're gonna ask for repayment.

If we look back to verses 11 and 12, we see that the father is dividing the property.

He divides it between them both, the two sons.

And even though the father may be calling the shots of everything that's going on right now with the other part of the two-thirds that's left, that property is actually the older sibling's property.

And we see here the father is just lavishing the younger son with it, with these things that would have been the older sons when the father passes.

And the significance of an of a calf, this is something that would be of immense value that the father slaughters and makes for the celebration.

The whole town would be here.

This isn't just a personal event.

Everyone would be involved.

And it would have been the elder son's duty to come in and support the father, to show support, to not embarrass his father, to make him leave.

But he doesn't do it.

He doesn't forgive the younger son, the younger son, his brother, and he doesn't even acknowledge his family, the go-in.

See, and then the parable ends.

It ends like this, just cliffhanger ending.

It leaves us wanting more.

It leaves us wanting a true, better elder brother.

But you don't get that.

You just get a bitter, angry elder brother that wants justice, that wants repayment, that wants everything.

Scene two.

And the gospel message is also a message of good news that it's not that you must tick all these boxes, and then God will love and accept you.

The gospel message is that the fathers of the the messages of a loving father seeing humanity, his created humanity, completely lost, either in reckless living or stuck in moralism, trying to better themselves to be right with God.

But both ways are hopeless.

But there is hope, and this hope is in the true elder brother, the true elder son, and that is in Jesus Christ.

The Father sent his son into the world to live amongst us, to take on the cost of what it would take for us to become right with God, and for us to be forgiven.

And then he dies on the cross and rises from the dead in order to be that true elder brother.

The thing that's interesting about when you read the Gospels is that they're written for a reason.

They're written about somebody and they point to something.

And everything in the Gospels almost like links together.

And the thing with chapter 15, we just looked at the last parable, but there's two quick parables right before it.

And it's a parable, each parable is about someone being something being lost.

One is a sheep, one is a coin.

But in both parables, someone goes out to look for the looks for the sheep, looks for the coin, and then finds it and brings it back, and there's celebration.

But in this one, no one goes out to the Son and looks for him, searches for him.

The Father sees him when he's close, but no one has gone looking.

But the thing with the gospel is that the true elder brother, the Jesus Christ, goes out to you, pulls you in, brings you into the Father.

He draws you in.

That is what the longing is here for the elder brother.

It's Jesus Christ, the one who is going to come to you and draw you to himself and leads you to the feast.

And there will come a day, because the Christian hope is when Jesus will return.

And that when that day happens, those who have put their faith and trust in Jesus will come to the feast of the marriage supper.

The Father will draw them in with the Son.

And we'll hear the Father say, He'll say, Welcome home.

Welcome home, daughter.

Welcome home, son.

And you'll hear him say out loud, he'll say, Spare no effort, spare no expense.

The feast is ready.

And we'll hear the Son, Jesus Christ.

He'll say, Amen.

That is the point of this parable.

It points to the true elder brother, and that is Jesus Christ.

And that is who we can put our hope, our faith, and our trust in.

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that your gospels point to Jesus.

They're not just aimless stories, but they have a meaning, a deeper meaning, and they point to Jesus.

Father, we thank, I thank you that He is the true elder brother.

He is the one who will look after us.

He is the one who has absorbed the cost of what it means for us to be forgiven freely.

He did it freely.

He wasn't grumbling or anything.

He wanted to do it.

And Father, I praise you for that.

And Father, help us to always remember that you are compassionate, you are loving, and that you care for us.

And you've sent your you've sent your son to this world for us.

And then I pray us in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

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