The Elder Brother

One of the things that many people don't know about my wife is that she loves to laugh. She enjoys a good joke, a funny story, and just being around people that make her laugh. One of her favorites things to do is to hind around the corners of our house and when you least expect, jump out from behind the corner and scare you. She things it is hilarious.

And I get so irritated, the only response I can give is "That's not funny". When we were younger, I used to be really worried that on one of her "Surprise!" moments, I would be so caught of guard that I would actually hit her. It never happened, but I was afraid it might.

Surprises are a part of regular living. Some surprises are good; other's not so good. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son found in Luke 15, Jesus is going to lay a surprise on the Pharisees that totally shocked them.

Most people who read and study the parable of the concentrate completely on the character of the younger son, his repentance, and the father’s forgiveness. And yet when you look at the text, it doesn’t end with the return of the prodigal. Almost half of the story is about the older son. 

The story is about two sons, who are both alienated from the father, who are both assaulting the unity of the family. Jesus wants us to compare and contrast them. The younger son is “lost”, that is easy to see. We see him shaming his father, ruining his family, sleeping with prostitutes, and we say, “yes, there’s someone who is spiritually lost.”

But Jesus’ point is that the older son is lost too. This week, we are going to discover a startling new understanding of elder-brother lostness, what the signs of it are, and what we can do about this condition.

The Undeserved Favor of God

After the Prodigal Son comes to his senses he begins the long journey home. He starts to practice his excuses. He knows a lot depends on his choice of words. The key to his strategy is to earn his way back into community (like many people believe today), to pay back his debt bit by bit as a hired hand. It’s the best he can expect in what is a desperate situation.

As he walked along the dusty road, his head downcast rehearsing his lines, he is astonished at a commotion ahead of him. Off in the distance, miles from home and coming towards him is the unmistakable figure of his Father running, not walking towards him. The son doesn’t know what to think. Before he can fall at his Father’s feet and beg for mercy, his dad is holding him up in a bear-hug, smothering him with kisses and showering him with tears of joy.

Stunned, the son pulls away and begins the lines he has memorized. This is the ticket home. Before he can finish the speech, the Father interrupts him, demanding that one of the servants clothe him with his best robe, place the family ring on his finger and kill the fatted calf for a celebration for the family and the whole village.

For his actions, the son deserves the Father’s rejection; instead he receives complete acceptance. Nothing in the rebellious son’s character merits mercy; instead the Father showers him with forgiveness. The son believes his only hope is to earn back the Father’s favor; instead he is smothered with a free gift of unconditional love.

As surely as the Father smothers his son with tears and kisses of joy, our Heavenly Father showers us with grace...underserved, unmerited and unearned favor. And in the Father’s love, just as the rebellious son is restored, fully and completely, to the family he had walked away from, we too can experience the wonderful restoration of God's love.

Here is the heart of the Christian gospel; long before we turn our face towards God in repentance, God is running towards us in loving embrace. The Apostle Paul famously said in Romans 5:8: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” While we were running away from God, God was running towards us. While we turned our back towards God in open rebellion, God was turned towards us in loving embrace.

Coming To Our Senses

Eventually, in Jesus’ story about the Prodigal Son, He tells us that the younger son finds himself as far from his family as he can possibly be. In a foreign country, living among strangers, broke and destitute, the younger son suddenly sees through the fog of his own rebellion. He realizes what he has squandered; he recognizes that his only hope for survival is to throw himself at the feet of his Father, begging for mercy. And so he begins the long journey home, all the way rehearsing his speech.

The term the Bible uses for the younger son’s awakening is “he came to his senses.” When he came to his senses, he began to turn back towards his Father. Repentance begins when we come to our senses.

How do we come to our senses? Can I suggest there are two ways? The first is through conviction. The Bible tells us that God’s law is written on every human heart. We know what is right and what is wrong. We find elaborate ways to suppress that knowledge, but try as we might, every now and then our conscience pricks us and we know the path we have chosen is the wrong one.

The second way we come to our senses is through circumstances; more often than not painful circumstances. The younger son “came to his senses” when his money had run out, his belly was growling for food and he was covered in the shameful muck of a pig sty. His circumstances had uncovered and exposed his rebellion. Pain has a very happy knack of getting our attention.

You see sin always leads to pain. Romans 3:23 tells us that "the wages of sin is death..." Sin always takes you down paths you don't want to go. Sin always leads to places you don't want to be. When a pastor is warning you of sin, it is not that the pastor is a killjoy who doesn't want you to have any fun. When God warns of sin, it is because, as your Designer, your Creator, He knows what will harm you. It is not harshness or legalism which leads to the warnings of sin...it is grace! God in His grace is trying to warn you from to not go down roads that lead to painful circumstances.

The journey towards healing and wholeness begins when we come to our senses. The journey home to our heavenly Father’s open arms of love begins when we wake up to our rebellion.

The possibility of restoration, healing, forgiveness opens up as we begin to turn away from our sin and instead turn towards the loving arms of God.

When God Ran

Last week, we began a journey into Jesus’ most famous story known commonly as the prodigal Son. It’s a story of two sons and a Father who loved them both. We began by looking at the context that Jesus told the story in, discovering that Jesus was directly responding to the accusation of religious people that he was a friend of the wrong people, people known as sinners, the rule-breakers. Jesus does not defend himself against the accusation. In fact he agrees with it! Not only is Jesus a friend of sinners, people supposedly lost to God are exactly the ones that are the focus of his life.

The story begins with the younger of two sons coming to his Father and asking for his share of the family estate. ""There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.'" Some cultural background at this point is really important. In Ancient Middle-Eastern culture it was customary for a patriarch’s estate to be divided on his death between his surviving sons. The oldest son was entitled to a double portion of what the other son’s received. So in a family of two sons the older brother would receive two-thirds of the estate and the younger brother one-third. The other rule, set in stone, is that the estate would only ever be divided when the Father died, and not before.

The opening shock of this story for Jesus’ audience would be this; effectively the younger son was saying to his father, “You are dead to me! I’m not waiting for you to draw your last breath, for your body to be buried deep. I want it all and I want it now!" This was a stunning, shame-filled slap in the face for the Father. His youngest son was by his actions saying to him I love what you can give me more that you. 

By his actions, the younger son was ripping apart his family. He was treating his Father as if he was dead and was walking away from his older brother. By forcing his Father into liquidating family assets, selling land and property, he was bringing down economic hardship. And all this would have been watched by the wider community, who would have been open-mouthed at the disrespect shown to the father. It was shameful. It was an incredible act of selfishness.

This week we are going to explore the motivation of the Prodigal's rebellion, the source of the turn-around in his life, and the grace that was shown to him by his father. Though each of us easily fall prey to the the Prodigal's real source of rebellion, the Good News is, our Father is always wanting to run to us to welcome us home!

Redefining Sin

The parables of Luke 15 were birthed out of the Pharisees' mumbling among themselves that Jesus ate and fraternized with sinners. Jesus knew what the Pharisees were thinking. He could overhear their muttering. However, rather than slinking away and avoiding their accusations of questionable behavior, He confronted them with three stories about lost things being found. Actually, to be precise Jesus tells one story in three different ways. Verse 3 says “Then Jesus told them this parable...” There are three different scenes to describe the same story about lost thing. Today, we are going to focus in on how Jesus redefines sin.

For the Pharisees, sin was merely breaking the rules. But in these stories, Jesus redefines their paradigm to help us understand that sin is so much more complex.

In the first a shepherd with one hundred sheep loses one. He leaves the ninety nine to go on a search and rescue mission for the lost sheep. He returns from the wilderness with the sheep on his shoulders, and invites everyone to rejoice with him over the return of the one lost sheep.

In the second scene, an nameless woman loses one of her ten silver coins. She turns her house upside down, until she finds it. And when she does find it, joy overflows, and again, a celebration!

In the third scene a rebellious son turns his back on his Father, losing himself in the far country. Broke and destitute, he turns towards home to live as a servant rather than a son.  But before he can spill out his excuses, his father,  the one he rejected, runs to him in an open, joy-filled embrace. The lost son has come home. And again, a celebration!

Luke 15 is three scenes telling the same story of lost things being found. Why? The Pharisees had a 21st century view of what was sinful. To them, a sinful person was someone who broke the religious rules. Sinful people were the rule-breakers. And rule-breakers are lost to God.

But in these three scenes Jesus goes way beyond the Pharisees definition of sin. Sheep were known as foolish animals. So the people hearing Jesus when he spoke this parable would immediately assume the sheep was lost because of its foolishness. It did a dumb, sheep-like thing and was separated from the rest of the flock and the shepherd that protected it. It followed its appetite into lostness

A coin is in inanimate object, incapable of thought and certainly incapable in itself of finding its way home. The coin is lost through thoughtlessness of its owner.

And the prodigal son finds himself lost in a far country because of his own poor choices. The son is lost because of willfulness.

The lostness of these three objects were not just the result of breaking rules. In these three scenes Jesus is challenging the Pharisees simplistic view of sin...that sin is breaking religious rules. Jesus is saying that people find themselves lost, far from God, for a complex set of reasons.

Tim Keller gives a great example. "Mr. Smith has a problem with abusive anger, he often flies off the handle and is verbally abusive and sometimes physically so. Why? Is his problem genetic? Is it a matter of brain chemistry? Is it just part of his inborn nature, 
as in the example of the sheep?  Or is his problem the result of a bad environment? Perhaps the result of poor parenting and family life? Was he, like the coin, mismanaged by his 'supervisors'? Or does his problem stem from selfishness and pride, as with the prodigal son?"

The answer is that usually, in varying degrees, it is all of the above. The fact is, usually sin (mistakes and failures) occur in our lives for a mixture of complex reasons: our foolishness, other's thoughtlessness, and/or our willfulness. Keller continues: "Sin is deeply complex. It is inborn in you, it is magnified by sinful treatment, and is deepened and shaped by your own choices."

Perhaps we can find discover a greater depth of mercy for the sinner when we realize the complexity of his lostness.

Redefining "Sinners"

Perhaps Jesus’ most famous parable is one involving two very different sons and the Father who loved them both. Many of us know it as the story of the Prodigal Son. For two thousand years this story has spoken to people across cultures and generations. Some commentators suggest that the multi-layered meaning of the story is the best summary of all of Jesus life, teaching and ministry.

Over the next five weeks we will be plunging into the depths of this story. But the context of the story begins in Luke 15:1-10:  Now the tax collectors and "sinners" were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." Then Jesus told them this parable: "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' 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. "Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.' In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”


In this passage, Jesus was surrounded by two particular and distinct types of people. There are the Pharisees, a group of very religious men who were committed to studying the scriptures and living a holy and pure life. They were the rule-keepers. The Pharisees were very committed to understanding and applying God’s law in living their lives. To help them do this, drawing on tradition and their understating of the scriptures they developed their own rules as to how one should live to please God. There were rules for everything: how you ate, how and when you worshipped, sexual relationships, how and when you bathed, what clothes you wore, what you did on the Sabbath...everything. These rules and traditions were collected in an extensive written record called the Mishnah. The Pharisees took particular pride in applying their life to keeping and upholding these traditions. They were the rule-keepers. Religion is about keeping the rules. The Pharisees in Jesus’ day were the rule-keepers.

Then there were the tax collectors and sinners. This was a motley group of outsiders, many of whom would have been shunned by Jewish culture because they had not kept the rules. If the Pharisees were the rule-keepers, sinners and tax- collectors were the rule-breakers. Tax-collectors broke the rules by not only associating with the Roman occupiers, but by working for them. People suffering from leprosy, or suffering long-term illness, or with a physical disability must have broken the rules to be suffering the way they did. Prostitutes broke the rules about sexual purity.

The problem for the Pharisees is that Jesus, himself a teacher of the law, spent time with the rule-breakers. Verse 2 says, “The Pharisees and teachers of the law muttered, This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” 

This was not an observation. It was an accusation. Sinners and tax collectors who were used to rejection and abuse, Jesus’ radical welcome and hospitality was Good News. For many of the Pharisees it was bad news. Jesus knew what the Pharisees were thinking, he could overhear their muttering. Rather than slinking away and avoiding their accusations of questionable behavior, he stares them down with three stories about lost things being found.

This story is usually told to remind us that God will rescue prodigals. But it is important to remember that the context of the story is the murmuring of the Pharisees about Jesus associating with the rule-breakers. The Pharisees, represented by the older brother, are going to discover that the sin of religious pride is just as rebellious as the sins of the Prodigal. Jesus redefined the term sinners to possibly include rule-keepers as well as rule-breakers.

An Astonishing Sacrifice

Yesterday, I reminded you that the Bible prophetically refers to Jesus in the Song of Solomon as The Rose of Sharon. Whenever we receive a rose or a bouquet of roses, you not only receive a flower with a beautiful bloom and fragrant aroma, there is also something on the stem that that can bring you pain...the thorns up and down the stem.

Those thorns represent the pain and suffering that Jesus endured as the sacrifice for our sins. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.” Jesus lived a life filled with love and compassion for men, women, and children. However, even after He had performed miracles and clearly demonstrated His love for mankind, He was rejected, falsely accused, beaten and put to death.You see, Jesus came to earth to die for you and me. Like a rose, His sacrifice is painful and beautiful all at the same time.

The whips that scored His back, the crown of thorns that pierced His brow, the nails that pinned Him painfully to the cross, reminds us of the ugliness of sin and the terrible price that hatred, pride, murder, theft, greed, and so on exacts on each of us. And that ugliness touches every human soul. The Bible tells us in Romans 3:23,  “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

So God, in His overwhelming, astonishing, love for us, gave His only Son to take our punishment upon Himself. Jesus allowed Himself to be arrested, tortured, mocked, and then executed in the most horrific way possible...a slow, painful death on a Roman cross. This was a sacrifice so painful that a new word came into human language to describe it: excruciating, which literally means the pain of the cross.

And that death was accompanied by loneliness, despair, anguish, heartache, betrayal, and a multitude of other emotions that we all experience at some point in our lives. But Jesus’ astonishing sacrifice on the cross reveals how great is His love for us, how completely He understands us, and how fully He feels your sin and shame, your pain and hurt, your disappointment, discouragement, and distress.

He understands it all … and longs to forgive you, to free you, and to restore your joy! You can live free because He died for you. “For God so loved you that He gave His one and only Son.”

The Thorn Part 1

Easter Sunday Sermon, Part 1

He's Alive

What a fabulous celebration service we had at Hickory Valley yesterday. We doubled our attendance, the worship was dynamic, the special music was uplifting, the dramas were challenging, and the presence of God was evident. Renae Miller and Galen Bell provided monologues during the message, with Galen giving the invitation to say "yes" to Jesus at the conclusion of the message. Ten people responded to the invitation and opened their heart to the life-changing love of God.

In John 3:16, Jesus gave us three amazing truths concerning God's great love. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  Jesus came to this earth because of love. He lived a life of love. He came with a clear mission. The Bible says in Luke 19:10, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” 

What was lost? Well, that would be you and me, all of us. From the moment sin entered the world, it entered every human life as well. Every one of us, almost from the moment we could speak, learned to say “NO!” and “MINE!” Our sinful and rebellious ways started early and continued long after we were old enough to know what we were doing. The Bible calls this sin, and it not only creates problems IN us, it creates problems FOR us. Sin damages relationships, divides families, and destroys all hope of a loving and eternal relationship with God, the kind of relationship HIS heart longs for, and ours do too. So God unveiled a mind-boggling, almost unbelievable plan.

Jesus literally brought the immeasurable love of God down to earth. He dressed it in plain clothes. And He showed us that it’s a love for everyone, man or woman, young or old, light or dark, then or now. On these days after Easter, I hope you can feel and OWN the love of Jesus for you. No matter what you’ve done, no matter how you feel, regardless of whatever dirt or darkness is in your life, you can know the measureless, matchless love of Jesus. The resurrection means that what Jesus did for the people He met in His lifetime He wants to do, AND CAN DO, for all of us. Wherever you are today, whatever mountain you’re on or whatever valley you’re in, He’s reaching down in love for you. All you have to do is take His hand.