The prodigal God pt4

The True Elder Brother
Text : Luke 15:1-6, 25-32 NIV
Al t erna t e Ti t le: Everything I Ha ve Is Yours
Int roduc t ion: We have been looking at the story traditionally called “The Parable of the Prodigal
Son.” We’ve said that you will miss the radical message of the story if you don’t see that it is about
two sons—one immoral and “bad”, one very moral and “good”—who are both alienated from the
father and therefore spiritually lost. That is a remarkable message. But there is much more—though
it too is easy to miss. We must remember that this is the third of three parables, told to the same
audience, meant to be pondered all together. What do we learn if we do that? We learn: 1) the cost
of reconciliation, 2) that there is a missing elder brother, and 3) that we have a true elder brother.
1. The cost of reconc i l i a t ion—verses 29-31.
• What did it cost to bring the younger brother home?
• At first glance, it seems not to have cost anything. There is no punishment—he is just taken
in. The father opens his arms, puts new clothes on him, and that’s that. It’s free.
• Many people have pointed this out and then argued like this: “God in heaven is like this
father. He just accepts and forgives anyone who asks. There is no need for the classic
Christian doctrine of the atonement. Christians have taught that God cannot simply
forgive, that there must be payment for sin—but here we see that reconciliation is
completely free.”
• However, this is a great mistake. The reconciliation is free to the younger brother. But it is
very costly for someone else.
• The elder brother is furious with the father for receiving his younger brother back into the
family. He alludes to it when he says, “you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate
with my friends. But… you kill the fattened calf for him!” The elder brother is angry because of
the cost of this reconciliation.
• Remember—the father had given the younger brother his entire legal part of the
inheritance. And it was all spent—all gone.
• Yet now the father is restoring him into the family. He has already put a robe on him, and
given him a ring, which was probably the signet ring with which family members ratified
contracts. The younger brother’s fair share of the wealth is all gone, but now he is back, and
every robe, ring, fatted calf is coming out of someone else’s pocket.
• Everything the father has, now is legally the elder brother’s. He is the only heir of all the
father has left. So every robe, every ring, every fattened calf, every cent of the father’s, is
ultimately the elder brother’s. When the father says to the elder brother, “everything I have
is yours” (v.31) he is speaking the literal truth.
• So the salvation of the younger son is not free after all. It has already been extremely expensive—
look at the feast. And it will be extremely expensive. The father cannot forgive the younger
brother, except at the expense of the elder brother. He is the one who must bear the cost of the
reconciliation.
2. There i s a mi ssing elder brother—verses 1-10.
• The elder brother knows all this—that forgiveness and reconciliation is never free. Someone has
to pay. Either the younger brother has to come and earn his way back into the family, as he
offered to do (see verse 19) or he can come back in immediately, through forgiveness, and then
the elder brother will have to bear the cost. Salvation cannot be free. Someone has to pay, either
the sinner or his elder brother.
• The elder brother knows this and refuses to do it. So we listen to the story and see the elder
brother “being a Pharisee,” and we are saddened. But that is not where Jesus wants our minds
and hearts to remain.
• Jesus told his listeners three parables together—the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son.
• In each of the first two parables there is a lost object and someone who goes out, searches
for it, and brings it home with joy. The shepherd searches until he finds the lost sheep. The
woman searches until she finds the lost coin. So when we get to the parable of this lost son,
the listeners fully expect that someone will set out to search for the lost brother and bring
him home.
• To our surprise, no one does. Jesus is leading us to ask, who should have gone out to search
for this lost boy? And the answer would have been quite clear to 1st century listeners: it
should have been the elder brother.
• That was the reason that the oldest son got the lion’s share of the estate. It was his job to
sustain the family’s unity and its place in the community. It is the elder brother in the
parable who should have said something like this: “Father, my younger brother has been a
fool, and now his life is in ruins. But I will go look for him and bring him home. And if the
inheritance is gone—as I expect—I’ll bring him back into the family at my expense.”
• Jesus doesn’t put a brother like that into the story. Instead the younger son and the father have
to deal with a recalcitrant, resistant, self-righteous elder brother.
• But we don’t. The elder brother in the story is there to make us long for a true elder brother,
one who, if we go astray, won’t hold it against us but seek us and bring us back at any risk and
any cost to himself.
3. We ha ve a t rue elder brother.
• Think of the kind of elder brother we need. We need one who would not just go into a far
country, but who would come all the way from heaven to earth to find us. We need one who
would not just open his wallet for us, but pour out his life. One who would pay not just a finite
cost but an infinite debt, to bring us back into God’s family. And we do! It’s Jesus.
• See! When the father says to the elder brother “everything I have is yours” that is literally true of
Jesus. Jesus had all God’s glory. He had equal glory with the Father, but he emptied himself
(Phil 2:4-10.) He lost it all—for us.
• How do we get the father’s robe? Because Jesus was stripped naked on the cross. How do we get
the father’s feast? Because Jesus took the cup of wrath that might have the cup of joy. He is our
true elder brother—and he says so. Hebrews 2:11 says, “Both the one who makes men holy and
those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.
He says, ‘I will declare your name to my brothers’.”
• Jesus came to earth and truly obeyed his Father and never disobeyed his orders. He truly had the
right to all the Father owns. But instead, he came out and searched for us, and found us in the
pigsty, and carried us home on his shoulders singing with joy. And he gave us his robe, his ring,
his place, his wealth—it is all at his expense.