The Older Brother

This is my sermon for the "older brother" in all of us.

This sermon is the second sermon in the story of the Prodigal Son.  We saw the young man take his inheritance early, and disrespect his father.  We saw the pain of the father to let his son go.  We saw the foolishness of the boy to sell off his inheritance, go to a distant land, and squander it away.  We saw him hit the bottom in a feedlot, come to his senses, and go back to his father to plead with him to let him be a servant in his father’s house.  Well, when he was a long way off the father saw him coming and ran out to get him.  The boy started to ask for forgiveness and his father interupted him and gave him his best robe, a ring, and sandals.  He then killed the fatted calf and they had a celebration.  Our story ended with the father gladly proclaiming, “This son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!”

We understand that this is a parable that Jesus is telling them in order for the people to understand that our Father God is a loving father who has patience for his children.  He runs to meet us when we repent.  God patiently waits for all people to repent and come to Him.  The younger brother in the story has hurt his father and broken the relationship, yet the memory of this dad is enough for the boy to want to return home.  This echoes Paul’s writing to the Romans where he states that “God’s kindness leads us to repentance.”

Now we will finish the story.  The boy has arrived back home after running a long and wild road.  He stopped and turned around, the father embraced him and throws a party.  We pick up the story at the party.

Luke 15:25-32, “Meanwhile.”  I’ll stop there.  Isn’t that always the way that things work?  This word “meanwhile” is hilarious.  It’s hilarious because everyone of us knows that “meanwhile” means there is a whole other story happening somewhere and it is probably working against the story that we are in.  There is something happening here and...meanwhile...something is happening over there.

Luke 15:25-32

“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.’”

The older brother is a fascinating character.  He is fascinating to me because there are times when I could not relate to the brother more.  There are attitudes that I possess where I can completely relate to this brother.  There are times when I am him.

 He is also a fascinating character because there are still other times in my life that I have the older brother right there in my presence judging me, hating me.  I can feel the weight of his disdain and dislike for me.  I can see him looking down his nose at me.  It’s a terribly uncomfortable feeling of weakness and shame.  Yes I have done wrong, but I’ve asked for forgiveness and you have no right to hate me like you do.

The older brother is one of the greatest characters in the stories that make up our collective history of thought.  He is the villan, righteously set against the broken hero.  He is what many people think of the church.  He represents that person who hates you for a pretty good reason, yet shouldn’t hate you.  He is the self-righteous, prideful, selfish, angry man.

You see, just like in real life, this older brother didn’t just snap.  No, there were deep-rooted issues in his own life that caused him to get so angry so quickly and to talk so horribly about his very own brother in such a disrepectful way to his father.  The words that went from his mouth came from his hardened heart.

How the Older Brother became the Older Brother

Evidenced in this parable are 4 key traits of the older brother

Self-righteousness

When the older brother is face to face with the father, the first thing he says is, “Look!  All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders.”  From what we can see of the father, I doubt the older brother was a slave.  However he claims that he was “slaving for his father.”  How do you like that?  The older brother claims to be a faithful slave to his dad while the younger brother comes back hoping to be a slave for his dad, and yet his dad restores him to sonship.  The older brother claims that he has never disobeyed his father’s orders.  I doubt that.  It sounds like an exaggeration.

Matthew Henry writes, “Note, it is too common for those that are better than their neighbors to boast of it, yea, and to make their boast of it before God himself, as if he were indebted to them for it.”

The sin of self-righteousness tempts all of us who go to church, follow Jesus, and do our best to not sin.  We start to feel good about how successful we are at not sinning.  We slowly begin to feel as though we don’t need to help of the Holy Spirit to keep us from temptation and we fall head first into the sin of self-righteousness, because we feel that we alone are so good that God should be glad that we are on His side, slaving away for him.

Pride

We know he is prideful because the father has to leave the party to come speak to the older brother, his pride would not allow him to go to the celebration.  Pride builds walls between people.  Pride is a separater.  Pride is a divider.    Pride is what drove Satan from the Father God and pride is what keeps Satan from the Father God.  Pride is the opposite of humility.  Jesus embodied humility as he became a servant to all on the cross.  God values humility and God hates pride.  There are some who say that pride is the root of all other sin.  The older brother wants his father to keep the door shut.

Unconcern for his lost brother

The older brother was not watching for his younger brother to return home.  In fact he didn’t know about the party until it was loud enough to affect his day.  The older brother declares to his father.  Father you are naive.  Father you are dumb.  Father you are wrong.  This son of yours spend all of your hard earned wealth on prostitutes!  How did the older brother know this?  He didn’t, he was speculating.  Not only is the older brother guilty of simply not caring for his brother, but he was filling in the holes of his brother’s life with worst case scenarios.The older brother makes a villan out of his younger sibling.  He even calls him “this son of yours” as though he is no longer allowed to be called his own brother.

Anger

Finally, the older brother is angry.  We know this because the scripture tells us he was angry.

Warren Wiersbe writes, “In my years of preaching and pastoral ministry.  I have met elder brothers (and sisters) who have preferred nursing their anger to enjoying the fellowship of God and God’s people.  Because they will not forgive, they have alienated themselves from the church and even from their family; they are sure that everyone else is wrong and they alone are right.  They can talk loudly about the sins of others, but they are blind to their own sin.”

Jesus has directed this parable to the pharisees.  The older brother represents those Christians (the people of God) who have never fallen into overwhelming sin.  They see a recovered alcoholic and wonder how someone could ever become an alcoholic in the first place.  They haven’t lost it all in a sin, therefore they have not developed a proper compassion for those who have lost it all and repented.  For whatever reason they feel that if someone else receives God’s inheritance is will likely shrink what God owe’s them from all their hard work.

But, this parable is not all about the older brother.  So the sermon is not ending here.  It is good for us to reflect on our lives and how we have characteristics that are dangerously close to the older brother in this story.  The sermon is not ending here, because this parable is about the great love of the father.

The Father

The great love of the father is very evident in the words that he spoke to his oldest son.

The father says “My son”

John Walvoord notices, “Interestingly the father went out and pleaded with the older brother to go to the feast.”  God is always inclusive.  God wants all people to come into the party.  God does not want to exclude everyone.  But, like the father in the story, God will invite, lead, prompt, listen, speak, but God will not force.  It’s terrible that there are people who, for whatever reason, will not just come into the party.  The party, of course, is Heaven.  God continues to count you as his sons and daughters.  He is patient with you, because he loves you as a good father loves his own children.

The father tells his son “You are Always with me”

My son, you have not tasted what it is like to be away from me.  You have taken for granted my protection and care for you.  You have taken for granted that I am here with you.  My widsom guides your success.

The father tells his son “Everything I have is yours”

I own the land that you farm.  The oxen that you use belong to me.  The house that live in was built by me.  All of these things I have gladly given to you.  It brings me great joy to give you these things.  I want you to have what I have.  I want you to possess all the good things that I can give you.  There is nothing that is available to me that I have not made available to you at the proper time and in the proper way.

The father tells his son, “We had to celebrate”

He didn’t say “I wanted to.”  He had to.  It is in the nature of the good father that he celebrates when his children return to him.  God’s highest priority is for sinners to repent and return home to him.

The father says, “the brother of yours”

He reminds the older brother that they are not adversaries, they are family.  We would do well to remember that.  You are not adversaries - you are family.

Conclusion

In this famous story called the Prodigal son, we see three characters.  The older brother and the younger brother both have major faults.  The whole human race falls into these two categories from time to time.  The only perfect character in the story is the father.  God is the good father who is patient with both of his boys.

So, have you taken the love of God for granted?

Like the younger son, have you taken your wonderful God-given gift of life and used it to taste all that the world has to offer?  Do you spend your days searching for happiness or longing to “live in another land?”  Do you not recognize that the love of God rests on you right now?  Do you not understand that you are made complete when you are in good standing by serving your father whom loves you?

Or like the older brother are you a prideful, self-righteous person who is divisive and uncaring for those who are lost?  Do you do the right things and therefore believe that God owes you heaven?  Hmmm

Let’s cast those feelings aside and end the sermon today thinking about the wonderful, patience, and enduring love of our Father God.  His love has been there since the world was formed and will remain when the earth has passed.  The love of God is sustaining force of our world.  If God did not love the world it would cease to spin, to grow, to bring forth life.  The sun would not rise, gravity would stop, and all of heaven and earth would fail.  If God did not love us we would have no hope.  But we do have hope because we understand that God, the creator of all things, loves us with an unconditional love.

Are you far from God?  Come home today.  He is watching for you.  Are you standing outside the party?  Come inside.  He is waiting patiently for you.  We will end with the words that the father spoke to the older son, may they be true of us.  “My son, you are always with me, everything I have is yours.”