Prodigals: The Older Son

Big Idea

Tension: Why is the older son still lost even though he has stayed home?

Resolution: Because he has never wanted the Father, only the father’s stuff.

Exegetical Idea: The older son was still lost though he stayed at home because he never wanted the father, only the father’s stuff.

Theological Idea: Until we understand that true salvation is restoration to God, we will always be lost.

Homiletical Idea: Until we understand that true salvation is being with God, we will always be lost.

Homiletical Idea: Apart from

Story

Review Story of younger brother

Asked for Father’s inheritance

Wandered off into a Far country

Came home: father ran to him, accepted his confession, brought him home again

Older Brother: Six ways the Older Brother is lost

He refused to go in: He rejected the Father.

Illustration: “It took you long enough...”

He refused to go in: He rejected the Father.

Four ways we see that the Older Brother

He believed he was entitled to his Father’s stuff because

All these years I have served you: He saw himself as a slave, not a son

I never disobeyed your command

I never disobeyed your command: He thought he had to do good works to have his father’s favor

He thought that he was entitled

You never gave me a young goat to celebrate with my friends: He would rather spend time with his friends than he would with his father

This son of yours came: He not only rejected the Father, he rejected the Father’s son. You cannot call God your father without calling sinners your brothers.

Devoured your property with prostitutes: He elevated himself over the Son.

Father: Six ways the Father offered salvation

Comes out to him and entreated: He refused to go in, but the father went out to him.

Son: the Father never has treated him as a slave, but always given him the title son

, you are always with me: The Father has never once desired what the son can do or what the son can give without the son himself.

All that is mine is yours: The son never had to earn salvation from him.

Your brother: The Father welcomed him to call him father and to call his brother brother. He welcomed him into his family.

It was necessary to celebrate salvation: Rather than judging one as better than the other, the father invites both lost children to be found. He invites the older brother to share in the story of the younger brother.

Six ways this mirrors the gospel

God initiates with us: Parable of the Lost Sheep

God adopts us as his own children

Jesus says I am the way the truth and the life

God never stops working for the good of those who love him

God welcomes us into his family

God welcomes us to recognize our lostness, so that we may be found ()

How does this end?

You know, the story doesn’t actually tell us how it ends. I think that is so that we will consider it, and think about how it might end, and think about how our own stories might end. But let me give you a couple possible scenarios:

Blows Up: There is a very real possibility that the older brother will tell his father, “I don’t need you, your food, your family, or your brother.”

Burns with Resentment: The older son might quietly live with resentment in his heart until the father dies, always resenting the father for welcoming his brohter back into the family

Come in and celebrate: There is the slim, but bright, hope that the older son will come in. Ands like his brother, he will no longer be lost, but be found.

We don’t know how this older brother’s story will end. Because this is meant to ask us how our story will end. How will yours?