congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have been in the parables now for, I think this is week four, maybe week three, I can't remember, but we've been here for a few weeks, and I have yet, at this point, in talking or going through the parables, to stop and think about the parables as a collective. What are the parables? Why does Jesus speak in parables? And to go too into depth would go beyond what we, are focusing on this morning, but I think generally speaking, we could ask, what is a parable? And I think most of us kind of intuitively know what a parable is. There's tons of different types of parables, depending on how broad you kind of classify what they are, but generally speaking, a parable is a short story with a point, or you could even say a word picture. Jesus often teaches in very clear ways, very systematic, structured ways, but sometimes he teaches by giving us these little word pictures, these little stories. I mean, this one's probably one of the larger of his stories, the more complex of them, but nonetheless, it is still a short story. with a point, a spiritual point, and as I have been studying these, and a couple summers ago I got to preach through the kingdom parables of Matthew 13, and one of my growing convictions as I have been studying and thinking through the parables is this, that we can't base our theology on the parables of Jesus. What I mean by that is not that we shouldn't glean anything from them. These are obviously Jesus's teachings. They are instructive for us in many ways, but so often we have this temptation with parables, with prophecies, to kind of extend them to their limits, to figure out every detail and kind of fit it into some sort of systematic mold, and I think that's quite dangerous when we come to the parables. We see this often in things like eschatology, You know, if you've heard the phrase, you know, the whole world is a wheat field, that is, I think, one extension that's a little bit too far, or, you know, even, we'll see in a couple weeks, Abraham's bosom, you know, there's this place that people have even created called Abraham's bosom, based on a parable that Jesus gave, or things like the secret rapture of the church. There's a number of things, you know, we can extend these parables too far, but then, you know, we wanna ask, what are they good for, if they're not meant for extrapolating to their utter extremes, what are they good for? I think what they are good for, most succinctly, is to reveal one thing, not a system of things, but each parable really has one truth that it is calling us, that Jesus is calling us to consider, and in this way, these things are, these parables are very effective. You know, Jesus could say that we are sinners in need of grace, which he does, but when he tells us the story of the prodigal son, we understand it, we feel it in a way that we might not by him simply conveying it. to us, and often in presenting these things, Jesus is calling us to do just that, to focus, to see something in a new way, to, many times really, to correct our faulty thinking by seeing something in a new way, and that's what we have this morning as we are told about this older brother, the second of the two sons of this gracious father, and as we consider this older brother, this good son, at least that's how he would probably describe himself, This story really challenges us to see ourselves, to see the world in a different way. In short, as we consider the older brother in this parable, Jesus really is challenging us through this to see ourselves the right way, to see ourselves for who we truly are. So as we consider this second half of the parable this morning, the first thing the parable is calling us to do, Jesus is calling us to do, is to consider how we see ourselves through this parable. Of course, that's what we did last week. That's what we typically do when we go to parables. We try and find ourselves in the parable, and this week, very easily, we are to see ourselves, at least to some extent, in the older brother. How do we relate? How do we maybe mirror the behavior of the older brother, even as we've already kind of seen that we are the prodigal in some sense? How also might we see ourselves in the older brother? this elder brother, and really as we have these two brothers before us, we are meant to see this really clear contrast between the two. The younger has been reckless, he's been careless, he's been godless and loveless in the way he's acted. He's rejected his responsibilities, rejected his family, and he's squandered everything he has. And then right as we are introduced to this older brother, we see quite the opposite. I mean, as he's introduced, he's coming from the field. He's coming from working all day in the field of his father, right? He's this dutiful son, this responsible son. He's doing everything that the father is expecting of him. As he comes tired from a long day of work, of faithfulness to his father, he hears a noise that he typically doesn't hear as he comes home from the field. He hears music and singing, and he's rather perplexed. He might already have an idea of what's going on, but he calls a servant to himself, and he's saying, what's with all the shouting, the singing, the dancing, the music? What's going on in there? Is his father preparing something for me, maybe? And yet the servant comes and says, no, actually, he's throwing a party because your younger brother has returned. He has come from being dead to being alive. And maybe understandably, the older son, as he hears this news, he is livid. He is angry. He is so angry, in fact, that he will not step foot into this party that is being thrown. He's standing out in the field. He's refusing to come in. As he's doing this, as he's making it clear how he feels about the situation, I think to an extent we could argue he's commendable in some ways, that we might say he's doing the right thing. I mean, especially as we remember the younger brother's actions last week. I think, to some extent, right, that the older brother would be angry about what the younger son did, that he still has this lingering frustration, this hurt, this, I mean, even just flabbergasted at what his younger brother did. You know, certainly there's this call to be gracious. His father's doing this gracious act. Maybe he should act like his father, but maybe he's thinking, well, someone has to stand up for my father's honor, my father's reputation. If my father's not gonna put his foot down, maybe I, as his son, should do something. I'm not going to acknowledge or condone the behavior of my younger brother. Yet as he's making it clear how he feels, the father comes out and we're told he pleads with him, he entreats his son to come into the party. While we would assume that the son is angry on behalf of his father, we find out that this anger is actually immediately directed at his father. He makes it clear who he is angry at as he explodes, as he goes off on his father. And clearly, as he unloads on his father, it's evident that this isn't just him kind of bursting out in this one-time thing. It's clear that he's been dwelling on something for quite some time here, that just like the younger brother had been rehearsing his speech to his father for a long time, so the older brother has this speech that he's been waiting, just waiting to tell his father. And he goes off on him, he yells. He reveals to his father just how he sees himself, how he understands their relationship to one another. He says, Father, in contrast to this younger son who you're throwing a party for, he says, look at me. I have served you all these years. I have never broken any of your commandments. I've kept everything that you have required of me. As we hear this, as we hear The way the son sees himself, conceives of himself, we want to ask, what is his fundamental problem? What's wrong with the way he sees himself? And the problem is he doesn't see himself as a son at all, according to his own words. I mean, even as his opening statement, he reveals, right, he says, I have served you this whole time. I've served you these many years. He's quite literally saying, I have been your slave this whole time. I have been acting as a servant towards you this whole time. And he goes on, right, I have never broken any of your commandments. I have kept your law completely. That's how he sees himself, this servant who has done everything according to the letter of the law. And again, as we are presented with this image of the son, we ought to ask, how do we see ourselves as we go about our lives? Do we act in this way? Is this the way we see ourselves as slaves, as those bound to keep the law of our father? I think it's fair to say that in many ways, the behaviors, the defaults of our life. This is how we carry ourselves. This is how we act. Maybe that pushes against you. Maybe you're not so sure that you think of yourself that way. Well, maybe we could think of certain situations and how we respond to those situations. I mean, most tellingly, we could Think of what happens in your life, what happens to you, where does your mind go when things go badly in your life? When things don't work out the way, just like this older brother, he maybe thought the party was for him, maybe he'd been hoping for this. I mean, clearly he had, because he complains about it. But when his younger brother gets the party and he doesn't, what does he do? He explodes on his father. When things go bad in our life, when we don't get the things that we want, do we question our relationship with God? Do we get angry at God for not doing what we expected? Or do we think maybe God is angry at us? God, you didn't give me this thing. What did I do wrong? What did I fail to do? Haven't I served you faithfully? What is lacking in my life that you haven't given me this thing, this new job, this new season of my life? Or if things continue to go bad, why does this keep happening to me? What's wrong with me, God? What is wrong with what I'm doing? Why isn't it working? Or maybe on the flip side, not just when bad things happen to us, but when good things happen to other people, how do we respond? Are we joyful with them? Do we rejoice with those who rejoice? Or do we have that sinking feeling, why didn't that thing happen to me? Why did that person get the fattened calf when I've never even gotten a goat before? Do we think maybe we deserve something more than someone else? even more than when things go bad for us. What happens when things go good for us? That, I think, is often a tell, too, of how we view our relationship with God. Who are we first to congratulate when things go well? It's ourselves, right? We don't, as often as we should, go to God, praise him for his grace, for his abundant goodness to us, but we say, look what I've done. I've kept your law, so therefore I deserve this thing. And as we consider, again, these two sons, even as the older brother sees himself as so vastly different from the younger brother, the irony of this story, or one of them, is that these two sons are struggling with the exact same problem as each other. Right, for as different, clearly, as the older brother thinks that he is from his younger brother, they both had this problem that they both thought their status with the father was dependent on their doing, on their accomplishment. That is the way they viewed themselves in light of their father and what he had to offer them. Right, on their achievement. I mean, the younger son, he clearly, you know, breaks that relationship with his father. He wants nothing to do with his father, When he returns, what is his plan? Well, I can't be his son anymore, but I can earn my way back into God's good graces. I can earn my way back into my father's favor by serving him, by doing things for him. Remember, what does he say? Don't let me be your son anymore, let me be your slave, let me be your servant. What does the older brother say? I've been your slave for these many years. I've been working for you. I've been serving you dutifully for as long as I can remember, and yet you haven't given me what I desired. As we see this. way of viewing ourselves that's not just destructive of our own lives, but is really destructive of our relationships, right? What does it do? It has destroyed his relationship with his father. He doesn't even see him as his father, he sees him as a taskmaster who is giving him his rewards, right? What he has earned for his labors. This is so dangerous for us as we are tempted to think in this way of earning, right? What do we see God as? Not as a loving heavenly father who wants to give good gifts to his children, but as a demanding taskmaster who's always watching us, waiting for us to make a mistake, or only rewarding us, only loving us when we are good enough to do what he wants. I mean, You can see the way he talks of his brother. He doesn't even recognize his brother as his brother, right? And you'll note in the story, he keeps saying, you know, your son, right? Not my brother, but your son, right? It's you and your problem. It's not me. He's not connected to me in any way. Again, this is often how we see ourselves, and this parable wants to challenge us. Is this true of us? Is this the way we ought to see ourselves? So the older brother, the father has let him air his grievances, he's let him explode and get things off his chest, and yet as he now has his turn to speak, what we want to see this morning is not just how we typically see ourselves, but even more importantly, how our father sees us. This parable calls us to consider how the father sees us. How is it that the father sees us? As this father speaks to his son, he sees him, he wants to affirm to him just that thing, that he is a son to him. He is not a slave, he is a son. You'll see even with his very first word, as his son has yelled and screamed at him, and now he, we can't import tone to this, but I think we can imagine his tone as he simply says, my son. very calmly, very lovingly, and even though the word choice here, he doesn't use the, there's a few different words for sonship or that relationship. Usually there's this more legal term for son, this term that is usually connected with inheritance and things like that. Yet here he uses this more, you could say this more tender word, this more relational word, not that there's this big disparity between legal and relational, but here this is what you would call your little child. He really says that, my little child, my little one, my son. And here in this one simple word, what is he doing? He's re-acknowledging, he's redefining the relationship with him. You're not my slave. But remember, you are my son, this word that speaks of this love, this tenderness, this nearness. He's saying that is what is true of you. And he goes on to affirm that, right? You are my son, and then note how he defines that relationship, reminds him of what has been true this whole time. He says, my son, you have always been with me. The idea being here, you have always been next to me. You have not been far from me. Or in other words, there is no rank here. You have this perception that you're at a distance from me, that I'm holding you at arm's length and I'm waiting for you to do more. What does he say? You have always been with me. You've always been my son. There's been no change. There's been no break in that relationship. Again, we can often, measure our nearness to God, how near that we feel to God based on our service to God, right? We feel closer to God when we're doing well, when we're obeying Him, when we're fully, when we're having good seasons of walking in the faith, and when we are stumbling, when we're struggling, when we're in despair and doubt. How do we often describe it? We feel far from God. We feel that God, not just that we're far from Him, but that God is far from us. He feels distant. to us. And yet, what does the Father say? You have always been with me. You've always been near to me. You've always lived in my house. You've been at my table. What's this, you know, you acting like a slave, you feeling like I'm not your father anymore. So often as Christians, we can look to what we are called to be as Christians, that standard, as the measure of God's love for us, rather than the response to what God has done for us, that we do that because, not to earn status in the family, but because we are members of the family. So as this father addresses his son, brothers and sisters, hear that, that God addresses you as his child, as his son, as his daughter, right, even when we have tiffs with our own parents or children, even as we have imperfect fathers or mothers, right, we know that, at least in most cases, that relationship cannot change, that no matter how far we go, that person still is our father, still is our mother, and yet how much more our Heavenly Father, who is even more faithful, even more loving, for him to say, you have always been my son, you have always been near to me. And then he goes on, not only have you been near to me, but then he continues, all that I have is yours, or all that I have has always been yours. You've always been in possession of it, is the point. And as he adds this, as he reminds his son of this, you can almost hear or imagine the heartbreak in his voice as his son has been thinking of himself as a slave, as one who doesn't have what he wants, who doesn't get what he wants. There's this sadness, not contempt, I don't think there's a rebuke here, but just this regret that his son has failed to see what he's had all along. That's what he's saying. You've wanted these things, you've been desirous, you've even been jealous of these things, and yet you've had access to them all along. You've never been without them. I mean, really what he's saying, the implication here is that if you wanted the fattened calf, you should have asked for it. The reason you don't have these things that you have been so begrudging me for is because you never came to me. You never thought that I would give them to you as your Heavenly Father, as your Father. Yet he says, in a sense, or essentially, I was willing, I was always ready to give these to you. All you had to do, son, was ask me for them. How true is this of us, that we fail to receive and to enjoy God's blessings because we just don't ask for them? And of course, this can be abused into a name it or claim it type of theology. That's not what I'm getting at here, but it is true. We fail to have, we fail to enjoy God's blessings because we don't seek. then, because we don't trust. Again, we think that it's this quid pro quo relationship God will give to me when I'm good enough, when I've done enough. Of course, we see that, you know, seeing God in that way is a short circuit to stunting our prayer life. If we don't see God as a gracious father who wants to give good gifts, we're not gonna pray to him to ask for things, to even imagine that he would do things for us. As we hear the Father's words, as we are reminded of who we are, we see that we are so often fixated on what we don't have, what we haven't received from Him, that we fail to see what, not only what He wants to give us, but what He has given to us. I mean, think back to last week, remember the problem or the, The sin of the younger son was, again, not seeing the graciousness of his father, not seeing his father as that which was best for him. He thought he could have it in the world. Even remember last week, I pointed out that we prayed these words, right, as we confessed our sins last week, we prayed that we wandered from God's ways, that we wasted his gifts, that we forgot his love, and that's true of us as that prodigal, but it's equally true of us as we act like the older brother, as we fail to see God as our heavenly father, we wander from his ways, we think we're distant from him, we depart from him. We waste his gifts because we don't ask him, we don't enjoy the things he gives us or wants to give us. And we forget his love, we forget that he's our father, not our taskmaster. Just like the older son needs to be told again, we too, how often we need to be reminded, You are God's son, you are God's child, God wants to tell you, he declares to you in his word as his people, I love you, you are my child, you are with me, you have everything, I've given you all that I have, you have access to it. God reminds us of that. As he reminds his son of his standing as a son, he also reminds him what it means to be in God's family, what it means to be a child of God. He concludes by saying, it was fitting that we throw a party for your brother. That was the right thing to do. Language is even a little bit stronger. He says, it was necessary. I had to throw a party for your son. There was no way around it. That was the only thing that would have been appropriate. And this is really, maybe you've heard this as a kid, maybe you've said this to your own kids, but in this family, this is what we do. In this family, we do X. That's what the Father's saying. If you're my son, this is how we act in this family. We throw parties for sinners. We welcome back our younger brother. That's what it means to be a part of God's family. So as we see the Father's response, as we see the older son's response to this party, Need to ask the question, is my standard of extending grace higher than my heavenly father's? Am I more withholding of grace than the God who saved me? Is that what I'm called to do as a son of God, to withhold, to wait, to be angry, to position myself above other people? That's the truth, if we are not receiving, if we're not trusting in God's grace, as the older son clearly was not, we will not, we cannot extend it to other people. So the father is saying, right, as you've received my grace, as you have received my love, so too now extend it to your younger brother. Really, he's in short saying, please come to the party, please celebrate with us. Again, right, you've been complaining all these years that you have never tasted the fattened calf. You can have the fattened calf right now if you want, you just have to come to the party, you have to celebrate with your repentant brother. So to we, we will never experience God's grace to its fullest if we cut ourselves off from the life of the church, the party of sinners who've been called back to their heavenly father. That's who we are. God's reminding us we are children of our Father in heaven. And yet while that is so true, that is essential, that is at the core of who we are, there's one more thing that this parable calls us to see this morning, not just who we think we are as the older brother, but also who we are according to our Father in heaven. But lastly, this parable calls us to see not us as sons, but ultimately to see the Son. in the parable, to see God's one and only son in this parable. I said earlier as we began, it's important that we are careful with the parables. We don't push them beyond what they are capable of holding theologically. I think we could make a whole theology of sonship here, and that would be dangerous. Are you the prodigal son? Are you the elder brother? Who are you? What's your identity? Of course there are ways in which we should recognize we have tendencies like the prodigal, we have tendencies like the older brother, and of course we see very clearly our Heavenly Father in this parable. But I think, and as much as it does want to show us that, that that is true in a sense, I think there's another element of this parable that it wants to challenge us because we are not that. We are not the prodigal son in a real sense. We are not the older brother in a very real sense. As we think about that, as we are challenged by that, we wanna remember again, who is it that gave these parables? What is Jesus doing with these parables? What did Jesus come to do? He didn't just come to give us parables, he came to do something for us, to accomplish our salvation for us. As he reveals this heavenly father, this loving father, we also see in the life of Jesus, in his ministry, in his life, death, and resurrection, we are really, you know, Come to terms, we were brought to face the fact that in reality, this is a fictional story that's meant to teach us some things, but in reality, in the real world, there is only one son. That the story of scripture is that there is one God, one father, there is a mass of humanity who has fallen away from him and there is one son, one only begotten son of the father. That's what we want to see in this There's only one son in contrast to our story who is the heir of all things. And then there are those who are found in him, united to him, that's who we are in reality, right? The question is we struggle with our prodigal nature, our older son nature, and we ask the question, we wanna wrestle with how, or we do wrestle with how do we know that the father, that our father will accept us? Is it just about us turning from our sins and coming back to the Father? Is it just about us realizing that we are not his servants? That's certainly part of it, but there is more to that. There is something that was done for us so that that might be true of us. I mean, even as we hear the older son's declaration in all of its bravado and all of its arrogance, you know, I have served you my whole life and I have kept all of your commandments. We chuckle because we know that that certainly can't be true of him. We know that certainly isn't true of us. Yet we do know that there is one who could truly say that to his heavenly father, that I have served you in all things, that I have kept all your commandments. Brothers and sisters, this is in fact why Jesus came, why God sent his only son, so that he might truly be the good son on our behalf, that he might truly be the obedient son. This one who, even though he had the standing as the son of God, he became a servant to all men, that he dutifully did all that his father required of him, not just for himself, but for the salvation of his people. We have this son who was faithful in all things, who never squandered his father's wealth like the prodigal or like the older son, this one who never despised his father or saw him in the wrong way, but this one, this God-man, Jesus Christ, who demonstrates God's grace, the Father's love for us in dying for our sins and giving himself up as a ransom for his people. That's the good news that we see, not just in this parable, but in the teaching, in the life, death, resurrection of Jesus our Savior. And now as we hear that message, what is our Heavenly Father calling us to do as his people? Well, same thing the Father in this story does. He's calling us to come and enjoy the party. Well, how do we do that? How do we come and celebrate, eat the fattened calf? Well, we do it the same way that the prodigal son did last week. We do so by dying. That's the call, really, of this story is as much as the younger son had to die to his sin, he had to die to his old ways of living, die to anything that he could claim as his own. I mean, so too the older brother had to die to his perception of himself. He had to die to earning anything from his Heavenly Father. He had to die to thinking his obedience could do anything. He had to receive, he had to accept God's gift as that, as a gift. So too we are called to die to our own self-righteousness, that lie, that impulse that we so often have that if we just do a little bit more, God will be happy with us. That is a lie from the devil. God cannot be happier with you than he is as he sees you clothed in Jesus Christ. That's why he can say to you, you are my son. All that I have is yours, you have always been with me. And it's true of us as we embrace Jesus, his son in the gospel. So brothers and sisters, hear God say to you once again this morning, you are my child. You have always been with me. All that I have is yours. And receive once again God's amazing grace as he draws you once again to himself and calls you to enter in to the joy of your salvation. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Let us pray. And Father, we thank you once again for your word, and we thank you for this parable that reflects, Lord, how we often see ourselves in you, but also points us to look to another. We thank you for sending your son to die for our sins, to give us new life in him. We pray that you would keep our eyes fixed on him, for we pray in Jesus' name, amen.