The Lost Brother, Part 1 | God’s Rescue Mission

We do have one more chance to look at Luke 15, so if you turn there in your Bibles, you’ll be right in the right place. This is the parable of two lost sons and a very loving father. Some believe that the prodigal represents the non-Christian and the elder brother represents the Christian. It’s how they divide this up. Christian, non-Christian. And while it’s true that no one finds salvation in God who does not follow the same route as the prodigal, we need to see that both the older and the younger brother are the targets of the father’s love and his desire to seek lost sinners.

Every sinner who finds salvation in Christ, every sinner who is reconciled to God, he comes to see himself as the prodigal. Every single sinner, older brother, younger brother, everybody in between, every sibling in that, corrupt children of wrath family. Every single one sees himself as the prodigal, utterly destitute, enslaved to sin, dressed in nothing but filthy rags, penniless, friendless, degraded, depraved, and without any hope whatsoever in the world. When God comes to him in that condition, it’s God who takes the initiative, it’s God who grants regenerating grace. The sinner recognizes in that grace, he recognizes that he is truly poor in spirit, he is spiritually destitute.

He recognizes what his condition really is and he is humbled to the core, mourns over his sins. He mourns over his sins. He doesn’t look lightly upon his sins. He, he grieves over them, and that’s the evidence that the grace has taken hold of him and then God in Christ, runs to the guilty sinner in compassion, embraces him in his love, kisses him with a kiss of reconciliation and it’s a picture of God justifying the penitent sinner, covering him in the white robes of Christ’s righteousness in that moment.

It grants him in that moment the right of sonship and the full privileges of the Kingdom of God all at his access in Christ. The reconciled sinner, having been immersed like this in divine grace, he becomes a meek person. A reconciled sinner is not pushing his weight around. He’s not demanding his rights. He’s humble, he’s teachable, he’s someone who is eager to serve others and to show the love that’s been shown to him. He hungers, even thirsts for righteousness, which is why he’s often in the company of the redeemed. He is eager to be among the saints, eager to hear the word preached, to obey the word that’s proclaimed to him.

He’s attending to the regular means of grace, communion, Lords table, fellowship of the saints, partnering in the Gospel. He prioritizes any opportunity he can find to assemble with the saints. That is what salvation looks like. It’s the pathway of salvation which every Christian takes, no matter what kind of sinner he or she may have been. That’s the character of every true Christian, humble, meek, rejoicing in the truth, celebrating the grace of God in the household of faith.

There are others, however, who remain aloof. There are those who stand apart. They take really the posture of the older brother. They are the proud. They are those who are of a critical spirit. They think they know all the answers. They are the judges. They are the critics. They find reasons everywhere they look for complaining for grumbling, faultfinding, usually targeting other human beings, but ultimately their gripe is with God, not with man.

So the father here in our text in verse 23, he has called for a celebration, hasn’t he? He’s called for a celebration. He wants everyone to come into his home and share in his joy, verse 24. Why is that father? “Because this son of mine was dead and he’s alive again. He was lost and he’s found.”

Proud sinners are aloof from that. They’re critical, they refused to come near. They refused to enter in and celebrate. These are the ones who are portrayed by the older brother in this story. These are the targets of Jesus parable, which is the entire 15th chapter of Luke.

I wonder sometimes, where Christians, true Christians who have entered in through the narrow gate and they walk on the narrow road, and they count themselves to be the prodigal of prodigals as they come to faith in Christ and they look behind them. And they see wow, what a deep mess of mud that I was wallowing with the rest of the pigs!

They marvel that God would be so gracious to reach down and save them, but often it happens that overtime they lose sight of what God did for them. They lose sight of the love of God. They lose sight of compassion for sinners. And they start to resemble over time, becoming old and crusty and embittered, they pile up a list of grievances, different ways people have hurt them, and they don’t let go of that bitterness, and they don’t forgive. I wonder if sometimes even Christians can fall into this pattern exhibited by the older brother here.

If that could be you. Perhaps today is a day of great deliverance. Perhaps today is a day of freedom for you. Where your heart can be unshackled from the bitterness and unshackled from the resentment where you can finally forgive, where you can finally free those who you think that have hurt you so deeply. The older brother in this story is not one of those Christians who has wandered away.

The older brother in this story is picturing the Pharisees and the scribes. Not a Christian, not a believer, not a lover of God, not a lover of Jesus Christ. It’s interesting because what many would argue is the greatest, the richest, the most detailed, the most beautiful parable that Jesus ever told, notice that he has directed this parable to the very worst of his critics.

He’s delivered this beautiful story to those who were constantly criticizing him. Dogging his steps, eager to catch him at any moment that he turned around. Notice he delivers this beautiful story to those who would ultimately crucify him. Such amazing love displayed by our Lord and Savior, amen?

In verse 24 they had just begun to celebrate. We just want to clarify exactly whose celebration this is and what exactly it is that they are celebrating. So I’ll just give you the punch line to those questions. This is the father’s joyful celebration.

People tend to focus on the prodigal as if he is the one who’s being congratulated at this party. It’s understandable, after all, his story has been the focus. His story has occupied our attention for most of this chapter, but really, he’s been an object, a target of the father’s efforts. His rescue is a tribute to the father’s wisdom, the father’s compassion, the father’s kindness and love. The prodigal, who is now returned and reconciled, he’s not there by his own merits. He stands in their midst in that company as a trophy of the father’s grace.

 He’s a trophy, he’s a symbol that points to what the father has done, so it’s not pointing at himself. It’s pointing at him. That’s clear in the telling of the story as Jesus here has studiously avoided using any language of repentance, even though it’s pictured here. He avoids language of repentance. The verb metanoeo, or synonyms to repentance like epistrepho, to turn, to return.

There are plenty of opportunities here to talk about the son returning, or turning away, on returning to his home. Jesus avoids the language because that could confuse people into thinking he repented on his own, that’s not what he’s done. Lots of language here about coming and going, no language about repenting, turning, returning. It’s not there, it’s pictured, but it’s not there. So the party is not for celebrating the son.

It’s not for everyone in the village to come and congratulate him because he’s repented because he’s returned to the home. You finally got your act together, kid. Welcome back, pat him on the back. You know it’s never accurate really to congratulate a Christian for having faith as if it were his own doing, Ephesians 2:8, clearly tells us it’s not our own doing. “By grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing. It is a gift of God. It’s not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

The party is to boast about the father. The party is in honor of the father. The party is to celebrate his role in saving his son, because he’s essentially here raised his dead son to life, he found his lost son and brought him home. And so the party is for him, not to honor the prodigal, but to glorify him in the work of the prodigal. The prodigal gets no glory here, the father gets all the glory. He’s the one who had compassion. He’s the one who’s used great wisdom. He’s the one who took initiative, ran out ahead of the village, and he affected the rescue of this undeserving prodigal.

Well, the people who are listening to Jesus tell this story. They know this. They understand intuitively they know what the villagers would have been thinking because they themselves are villagers. They know that none of the villagers would come to a party in honor of this prodigal son. There is nothing in him to commend him to anyone whatsoever.

Everything about his life has been total disgrace until the father got a hold of him. Until the father embraced him and hugged him and threw himself on his neck and kissed him and covered him with his own robe and put his ring on his finger and restored him into the house, that’s the father’s doing. The son only repents in light of the father’s love. He took initiative, the son responded.

So they’re not going to come to a party to commend the son, to rejoice over him. They will come to a party to honor the father, that is fitting that is appropriate. Now at this point, we’ve got to imagine that Jesus’ audience is feeling very uncomfortable in this whole telling of the story.

The whole, the whole thing, has left them feeling deeply unsettled and ill at ease because it has been one scratch of the record after another, one scratch of the chalkboard with fingernails after another. All of it violating all their cultural, social, sensibilities. The story here started with a shockingly abhorrent behavior of this man’s youngest son. Leading to some, inevitably bad, consequences for that disgraceful behavior and when the son had the audacity to hatch a plan to come back to the village, earn back his father’s money, earn back his lost reputation, Jesus’ audience thinks that the punch line of the story will be in the outcome of the plan.

They’re asking, will he succeed, will he restore himself? Will he pull himself up by his own bootstraps? Get back in the game and have a life ever after? Or another option, will the villagers find him? Will they perform that dreaded kezazah ceremony and banish him from their midst? Big question, will justice be served? Because in their minds, justice would be served either way. It would be just and right for him to pull himself back up. It would be just as just and right, and maybe even in their evil little hearts they’re thinking even better for him to be punished, banished. Well, due to the father’s gracious intervention, what they expected, what they had hoped for even didn’t happen, did it?

The son didn’t work his way back. The village didn’t deliver the due punishment for his sins, so in their minds, justice at this point is forsaken because of the father’s indulgence. This is unacceptable and they feel set up at this point. They’re totally dissatisfied. They’re ready to revolt and walk away, if Jesus weren’t so captivating.

This is exactly where Jesus, the master storyteller, this is exactly where he wants them. Especially the Pharisees, especially the scribes. He takes the unstated questions of their hearts about justice, about rightness, about what’s fitting, what’s appropriate, and he throws them up on the big screen for everybody to see. Story should be finished at this point.

It should resolve beautifully in the father’s joy and everyone barring none who celebrate the father’s joy, but for those who are dissatisfied, for those who remain unsettled and want, the father managed to pull off here. Jesus addresses those unresolved questions about justice, about fairness, about what’s right and in so doing, he fulfills the purpose for which he started telling the story in the first place.

Remember how he started the story back in verse 11? He’s telling a story about a man who had two sons. The younger of the two sons has had the center stage. His sins are the more prominent ones. They’re the obvious sins, the ones that you can’t ignore because they’re all external. He lives his life on the edge. He wears his heart on his sleeve and everybody could see it, easy to judge him.

But his older brother is in the background. He’s mentioned, but he’s hidden. He’s mentioned even in verse 12, but he’s really been hidden from view until now. And for anyone in Jesus audience who is paying close attention, the older son’s behavior here is somewhat puzzling. For example, when the younger son said, verse 12, father give me the share of property that’s coming to me. I mean, they’re caught up in the shock of that kind of statement that he’s basically saying, father, I want you dead because I want you, I want my inheritance, I want it now. I don’t want to wait around until you’re, you know, six feet under. Just give me the goods. Give me the stuff so I can go off and do my thing.

It’s reprehensible and were caught up in that moment, but the but it really the older brother, he’s there too. He ought to be the first to rebuke that younger brother of his. He really ought to be the one who strikes him in the face to get his younger brother’s attention, to confront his younger brother, correct him. How dare you say that to dad.

The father should never have had to deal with such a brazen play for his money, not from anyone, let alone his own son, his flesh and blood. No rebuke came. No slap of correction. No stinging rebuke. Instead, the older brother seems to have acquiesced at this point, he’s accepted the distribution of his father’s estate because he divided up between both sons. He goes along with it.

None of that is said overtly, mind you, but Jesus has included those dynamics in this story. He’s the master storyteller, again, he’s, he’s setting the stage here early. But the point that he’s going to make later, which is now for us today. But I’m telling you, everyone listening would have made that mental note. Everyone listening, it would be for them like a splinter in the brain. They’re left wondering what’s up with the older brother. That’s an unclosed loop in their mind. It’s unanswered question. It’s an unresolved problem for them. What happened to him?

Well, Jesus comes back in verse 25 and tells us what happened to him. “Now his older son was in the field.” After hearing a story about a profligate son left unpunished. The crowd, ah, it’s finally feeling some sense of relief. Okay, alright, we’re returning to the older son now alright, good the good boy, the farmer he’s back on the farm he’s doing what an older son is supposed to be doing. Maybe there’s some justice that will come out of this convoluted tale, after all.

The crowd shifts its attention now to the older brother. They find in him their hero. He’s the hometown boy. He’s the poster child for true Judaism. Pharisees especially, the scribes too, they found nothing whatsoever to commend in the younger son, nothing to commend the father, but they see in the villagers there’s some justice that could be had, and now that that’s been set aside, now they see, ah, the older brother. Here’s where our hopes are going to be fulfilled. Here’s where Jesus, the great rabbi, he’s going to get to the good part.

All their hope for justice, for propriety, for a proper and fitting end to the story. It’s all wrapped up in the older brother, and they’re all wondering what is his take on what all that’s happened. What is his take on his younger brother coming home and his father throwing a party? What’s his take? What is his view of this unwarranted celebration? We begin to find out in verse 25. “Now his older son was in the field and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music, and dancing.”

This picks up the theme of distance, right? That we already saw in the younger son. He’s so far out that it takes a while before he can even hear the music and the dancing, the symphonia, and the chorus. Those are the two Greek words. Symphonia, meaning a group of musicians who play a variety of instruments. In their day, it would have been lyres and dulcimers and flutes. There’d be a drum to keep time for the chorus. The chorus was leading that traditional round dance that the guests would participate in. Musicians would play the drum, kept time, the guests dance.

And this is all happening, by the way, when the older son is out in the field, he’s ostensibly doing what he’s supposed to be doing. He’s a nobleman, so he’s a master of his father’s estate, so you, you know he’s not doing any manual labor out there. He’s got no calluses on his hands, he’s more like supervising the farm workers, you know, carrying the clipboard, drinking sips of coffee, you know the type. Doing that all day, barking orders. Without his knowledge, without any consultation with him whatsoever, a party has started back at the house and he has no idea.

Why? Because he is far away. Somewhat distant on what’s apparently a very large estate, there’s a vast acreage here and he’s far away. He’s in the back 40. And the distance here is more than geographical. The distance here is relational. This is a metaphor. Jesus is foreshadowing here. He is showing us that the older son, like his younger brother, he’s also at a great distance from the father. It’s far enough away that he has no clue what’s going on back at home. Relationally he’s got no idea of what’s going on in the father’s world and in the father’s heart.

As the older son came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing, in verse 26, says he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. If he were close to his father, drawing near to the house and hearing the festivities, don’t you think that would lift his heart? Build his anticipation? He, I mean he’d be eager to get back and see why his dad threw a party excited about jumping into the mix.

His aim would be to get right in the house as soon as possible. Talk with his father, figure out what’s going on and after all as the master of the house, he’s got a very important role to play in serving this great banquet. He’s got to get up to speed. He’s got to get educated in a hurry because he wants to serve his father’s interest. If he were close to the father drawing near the house, hearing his, those festivities would build his anticipation, wouldn’t it, and he’d be anticipating joy not, not dark thoughts. Upon arriving home, his first priority should be to go to his father to know the meaning. He should go to his father to get the reason to get the explanation of what’s going on, and then he can enter into his joy and then he can serve the purpose of glorifying his father’s work and his father’s grace. But instead, verse 26, he summons a servant.

 What about you, my friend? Fellow Christian if your heart has become hard, if you need to, like the older brother, thaw out, and remember the grace of God to you, that found you when you were nothing more than a prodigal covered in filth dressed in filthy rags. Let this story provoke your repentance, restore you back into the father’s house, so you can take your seat and honor the father.