Lies My Older Brother told me

Intro

We are in a new Season at REC where we are prayerfully cultivating a heart for the lost.

Why: Because there is nothing closer to the heart of the father than when one of his kids returns to him.

Jesus said this:

Luke 15:7 NIV

I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

I want there to be parties in heaven as a result of this ministry as a result of this church as a result of your witness to the world

If you are here this morning and you know Jesus then you are God’s instrument

God wants to use you to see the lost sheep, the wanderers come home.

And we have been in the story of the prodigal son…This is week 2 of that story…

Today we are going to talk about the Elder brother…The first week of this series we all filled out cards as to who we are praying for….Who is that one person who we are praying for

Who do we want to see come to know Jesus in a powerful way?

And then we have been looking at the story of the prodigal son…And I will tell you what…Last week’s sermon was easy…Why?

It hi lights not just the story of the kid who messed up so bad that no one should have forgiven him…In fact, biblically the kid should have been publically humiliated and stoned to death…But The father had different plans

The mercy and the forgiveness of God is revealed in the story of this lost son

After dishonoring him, after dishonoring ourselves…after the dumb decisions…It is a stark and amazing thing that God would forgive and restore us even after that type of sin

So I want to read the story today again…with new eyes…Because many don’t see it…But there are two kinds of rebellion that Jesus is teaching in this story…The obvious rebellion and the not so obvious rebellion…

Luke 15:11–32 NIV

Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate. “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ “ ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ ”

So last week we looked at just how obviously wrong the younger son was for asking for his father for the inheritance early…For squandering it in wild living

and then we looked at how the father welcomes him home and restore him…

But there is another son in this parable.

The older brother…

So before we dive into what happens with the older brother we have to remember that the older brother actually stands for someone here

Jesus was teaching this parable to tax collectors and sinners….The Tax collectors and sinners are obviously the younger son. They are so obviously far from God that it is obvious to them and to everyone else

But the other people that Jesus wants to tell this parable to are the pharisees…The ones who are professional religious people…

Jesus had tough things to say to them through out his ministry

I can’t go over all of them…

There is a part called the 7 Woe’s of Jesus where he calls the religious people white washed tombs…

Jesus is essentially telling them stop having confidence in your own righteousness

No one is righteous, our righteousness comes from Jesus and nowhere else.

Let’s look at another parable that Jesus tells real fast:

Luke 18:9–14 NIV

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

To some who were confidant in their own righteousness!

What you are supposed to see in this story is the superiority that the pharisee feels over anyone else

what you are supposed to see is that this pharisee believe that he is better than the sinner

The attitude of a pharisee is that he has it figured out. He is doing life better than the tax collector.

He has been in church his whole life, he loves God, he has always followed the law…He has never had a public embarrassment…He has lived the model life..

What Jesus is trying to point out through his ministry is that there are two type of lostness

You can be the type of lost where you are living in outright rebellion to your father, to his values, to who he is!

Or you can be the type of rebel who hides your rebellion behind your obedience…You do all the right things but your heart is far from God

You are the type of rebel that lives a good life

you are the type of rebel who has learned the whole bible and you carefully observe what it says

This rebel never uses foul language, this rebel

You might be the type of rebel that you would never ever consider yourself a rebel you dont even really know that you are one, the only indication that you are a rebel is that

You have found it really easy to judge the younger brothers of the world…The ones who are obviously wrong, the ones who obviously are morally repugnant because you know they voted differently than you… They are easy to judge

And the moment we are in judgment of others we put ourselves on this untouchable pedestal

I want to look at the conversation between the older brother and the father in the next couple of minutes and really pull it apart

So as we read in the parable when the younger brother comes home the father is elated

He gives the son his robe, which welcomes him back into the family

he gives his son a party with a fattened calf! Which is the most elaborate and expensive feast in the ancient world

And now the older brother is coming in from his day in and day out grueling labor…His very hard work and this is what we see:

Luke 15:25–27 NIV

“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

The son investigates…

There is a party that he doesn’t know about…

He is standing outside….And remember what does this party represent? It represents the Joy in heaven when one lost person is returned to the father

That is the point of the party.

Luke 15:28

Luke 15:28 NIV

“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him.

The older brother became angry and refused to go in.

There is a very obvious point here

Lie #1 “If my life doesn't go the way I think it should I have a right to be angry”

The older brothers apathy and anger toward his father is hidden behind layers of self-control.

I think the older son was disgusted with his brother and angry with his father…But it’s all hidden and tempered with self-control…

See if you have been in church your whole life…You have been in Bible studies, you have had accountability groups…It is easy to morph into an older brother because you have self-control!

It’s easy to get angry when you have it all together and you see people get rewarded when they don’t have it all together…

You ever get passed up for a promotion by a less qualified person?

Have you ever had the thought…Gosh I have done everything right all of these years, why is it going good for them and not me?

Now for the older brother he’s been going to church a long time, he has mastered self control…It’s not very obvious as to what he is doing…

Now don’t hear me wrong self-control is a great thing, we all need it…The younger brother had none and you see where that got him

But we have also found that this really great religious self-control is a great way to hide our own rebellion

The self control of the son is to stand outside and refuse to go in…It’s the kind of self control that says…I’m angry but it’s a righteous anger (When it in reality is not…Its a selfish anger)

To go into the party would have meant that he entered into the joy of his father…

In his own anger, in his own feeling of feeling passed over by his father, he can not enter his father’s joy…

So he is living in open protest and rebellion to his father, using his self-control he refuses to enter father’s joy…The text says…He became angry…and refused to go in…He is staging his own rebellion

So let’s look again at the older brother’s speech maybe he has a few good points

Luke 15:29–30 NIV

But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

I want to look at all of the claims of the older brother: In a little segment that I want to call

Lie 2: “If I live a good life I should get a good life”

Look all these years I have been slaving for you and never disobeyed

He is boasting about his own obedience to the father while the whole time refusing to enter into the joy of the father.

Elder-brother obedience only leads to a slavish, begrudging compliance to the letter of the law.

This is the pharisees in a nutshell. The pharisees lived in a slavish compliance to the law.

And the moment it all goes wrong for older brothers…what do we say…I’ve been a good person, I have paid my tither, I have gone to church, I have led bible studies…SO WHY ME! Where is my good life?

Lie 3: “I am not as valuable to you as my younger brother”

You have never even given me a young goat…

The older-brother lacks the assurance of the father’s love.

Look there is this huge display of love and affection for the idiot who squandered everything but here I am…Model older brother over here literally working all hours of the day and I GET NOTHING!

“You never threw me a party.” There is no dancing there is no festiveness…You value him more than you value me!

See what is not stated, what you have to read between the lines to understand in this text is that the older brother is trying to earn his salvation by controlling the father because of his goodness, you will never be sure you have been good enough for him.

You simply aren’t sure God loves and delights in you

What are the signs of this lack of assurance?

Maybe every time something goes wrong in your life or a prayer goes unanswered, you wonder if it’s because you aren’t living right in this or that area.

Another sign is that criticism from others doesn’t just hurt your feelings, it devastates you.

This is because your sense of God’s love is abstract and has little real power in your life, and you need the approval of others to bolster your sense of value.

You will also feel irresolvable guilt. When you do something you know is wrong, your conscience torments you for a long time, even after you repent.

Since you can’t be sure you’ve repented deeply enough, you beat yourself up over what you did.

But perhaps the clearest symptom of this lack of assurance is a dry prayer life

A vibrant prayer life won’t get you material possessions or a better job or even the promise of being healed but a Vibrant prayer life will give you a deep assurance that you are loved by the father

Lie 3: “My goodness should pay off”

You rewarded the son who financially weakened us and publically shamed us!

The greatest injustice of the older brother is when repentance is rewarded more than their long righteousness

If you have been a christian for a long period of time you might ask yourself the question, shouldn’t my goodness pay off.

I’ve done everything right in my life and everything is going wrong

You have to see another thing about this that matters so much too…

The situation here between Jesus and the pharisees…

See Israel is God’s covenant people. The people to whom God has entrusted his law with in order to be a blessing to the world

And here comes Jesus showing the way that grace, mercy and forgiveness are supposed to be lived out under the law and they can not fathom it.

All of Israel is shocked by the grace of God.

When the father divides the estate…Now the father is still in control of the money and property while he is alive…but it really belongs to the older brother

So when the father says, Everything I have is yours…that is true

But the father is now killing a fattened calf and throwing a lavish party and now accepting back this younger brother who is a liability…

IT EATS INTO THE OLDER BROTHER’s Inheritance

Lie #4 Lie“If my younger brother wins then I lose”

This older brother hated that his younger brother had the favor of the father…

He almost had this view that the favor of the father is somehow limited and couldn’t extend to him

Obviously the older brother is wrong…But he is Jealious of the blessings that his younger brother is getting that he obviously doesn’t deserve….

If you have ever caught yourself saying any of these phrases then you might have an older brother spirit.

For those of us who have been the younger brother and who have been transformed by Jesus and then been in the church

Maybe we are years removed from the moment of our salvation

We start to feel pretty good about where we are with our lives

we begin to feel pretty good about how much we have changed but there is a switch that is made…

We begin to feel superior

We begin to act like older brothers and you know what…

Some older brothers, even though they have a lot of self control end up leaving the father because They have done all of the right things but they didn’t get any of the blessings they thought they would get

I don’t want you to get the idea that everyone who doesn’t know Jesus is a younger brother…There are a great deal of older brothers out there…Who refuse to come in because their goodness hasn’t paid off.

The father’s response

Luke 15:31–32 NIV

“ ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ ”

The message of the father: “I love you”

Look the father goes to both sons…And to each one he gives an assurance of his love!

and in the anger and bitterness of the older son he looks at the lavish party and is like Dad why would you spend so much money on him!

Why would you give so much for this rebel!?

And the reality is that this party, the robe, the ring were all signs of the love for the younger son!

The father running to the son…not waiting for the rehearsed speech

But in the anger and resentment the older son says see how much you did for him…

but then the father reminds the older son

ALL I HAVE IS YOURS!

This is a literal statement…All the land, the flocks the servants

I mean this younger son got a cow and a party

But look out older son its all yours! do you realize that you are with me and have taken me for granted

do you realize that you have been with me and in your careful obedience to my rules you have broken relationship with me…

Response (BAND)

You may have sat through this whole message and not realized something so I want to make it really clear as to why I am preaching on this today

You can be the best church attender in the world and be just as lost as the one who runs away and squanders his fathers money in wild living…

Because subtly and over the years of coming to church you can sink into a quiet rebellion

Subtly it can become more about the style of music than the worship of Jesus

Subtly it can become more about the version of the bible that is the best rather than the author of it

Subtly and over the years it can become more about people living the way you want them to live rather than living this the amazing freedom of Jesus…

What I find so remarkable about this Parable is the response of the father…He goes to both sons and tells them that he loves them in very different ways…

He goes to both sons and gives them a remarkable tone of compassion

And as we as a church declare that one matters…It’s not just the obvious ones who run away and are great rebels

It’s for you and me too…

For the ones who have been going to church all their lives and we think we know better than Jesus how to run the kingdom

If you are here and I have been talking about you all morning then you might be an older brother….

You know you are the older brother…You know there is resentment…You know there is broken relationship with the father

and there is one thing that the older brother could have done that would have changed everything

The father’s invitation to him is to enter into his joy

To come inside and celebrate

The father’s invitation to the older son is for him to be with him and experience his joy

Come into the celebration feast/enter the joy of the father

That is the invitation…Especially for older brothers

There is a feast that Jesus invites us to…

Its his passover meal, its his last supper where we declair that he is the lord and

as we take of this meal we are reminded that the father wants a relationship with us…

So maybe your an older brother today, standing outside, I want to invite you to take this meal and maybe there needs to be an admittance…

Father I’m an older brother

I am sorry I have turned our relationship into empty religion

On the night that Jesus was betrayed…He had older brothers and younger brothers in the room…

And he held up the bread and said this is my body, take and eat…DO this in remembrance of me

And then he took the cup and he said that it symbolized his blood and that it is the new covenant in his blood