The Prodigal God Part 3 - The elder brother...

"He's adding things up, "I've worked myself to death and earned what I've got, but my brother has done nothing to earn anything, indeed he's merited only expulsion, and yet you lavish him with wealth! Where's the just in that?" (from Prodigal God by Timothy Keller).
The father makes known to the elder son his desire for him to join in the celebration of the lost son. We do not know what he chose. Jesus left the story open for the Pharisees to respond.

Will we accept God's ways over our own? Will we be happy for His will?
In a recent sermon at the Ligonier Conference, Burt Parsons said, ": "If you don't believe that Osama Bin Laden could be the elect of God, then you don't believe the gospel."

The Prodigal God Part 2 The younger brother...

Luke 15:11-32

Jesus tells a parable that begins with the younger of two sons asking for his father to give him his portion of the family estate. "...this division of the estate only occurred when the father died. Here the younger son asks for his inheritance now, which was a sign of deep disrespect. To ask this while the father still lived was the same as to wish him dead. The younger son was saying, essentially, that he wants his father's things, but not his father."

This statement really strikes me, because I think believers in Christ and unbelievers a like do this. We want God to be what we want him to be, when we want him to be, but want to stop short of giving him the honor He is due as creator and sustainer of all.

The younger son was asking his father to tear apart his life, his land and his identity and the father seems to do it without question.

The son leaves home and squanders everything until he finds himself feeling a bit jealous of the pigs lunch. He decides on a plan to beg to serve as a hired hand in the father's house.

The response he finds as he comes in sight of his father's estate is astounding. His father sees him coming and RUNS to meet him. Just as amazing he sends for the robe! "The father is saying, 'I'm not going to wait until you've paid off your debt; I'm not going to wait until you've duly groveled. You are not going to earn your way back into the family, I am going to simply take you back. I will cover your nakedness, poverty, and rags with the robes of my office and honor."

This shows how lavish and prodigal (prod-i-gal: 1. recklessly extravagant. 2. having spent everything.) God's grace is. "Jesus shows the father pouncing on his son in love not only before he has a chance to clean up his life and evidence a change of heart, but even before he can recite his repentance speech. Nothing, not even abject contrition, merits the favor of God. The Father's love and acceptance are absolutely free."

This story in no way is over at this point. Remember, Jesus is telling this parable in response to the snide comments of the Pharisees. Part 3 next time...

The Prodigal God Part 1

Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

"Most readings of this parable have concentrated on the flight and return of the younger brother- the "Prodigal Son". That misses the real message of the story, however, because there are two brothers, each of whom represents a different way to be alienated from God, and a different way to seek acceptance into the kingdom of heaven."

Two groups of people are present at this teaching..."Now the tax collectors and 'sinners' were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law..."

The younger brother is the sinner or tax collector. They have left "home" or "respectable society" to live however they want...wild living. The older brother is the religious leaders. "They held to the traditional morality of their upbringing. They studied and obeyed the Scripture. They worshiped faithfully and prayed constantly."

The sinners "were gathering" to listen to Jesus. The religious were scrutinizing every move Jesus made, in this case, why he was eating with sinners and tax collectors. It is in answer to this question that Jesus tells this story.

"Through this parable Jesus challenges what nearly everyone has ever thought about God, sin and salvation. His story reveals the destructive self-centeredness of the younger brother's moralistic life in the strongest terms. Jesus is saying that both the irreligious and the religious are spiritually lost, both life-paths are dead ends, and that every thought the human race has had about how to connect to God has been wrong."

I love this quote!! "So whose side is Jesus on? In Lord of the Rings, when the hobbits ask the ancient Treebeard whose side he is on, he answers: 'I am not altogether on anybody's side, because nobody is altogether on my side...[But] there are some things, of course, whose side I'm altogether NOT on'."

"...religiously observant people were offended by Jesus, but those estranged from religious and moral observance were intrigued and attracted to him." (Luke 7, John 3-4, Luke 19 and Matthew 21:31) "If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. If our churches aren't appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we'd like to think."

The Prodigal God

I have just finished my first reading of The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller. I usually soak a book up slowly, but I felt compelled to keep reading to the end of the "story". As a result, I plan to go back through and process in order each point to ponder and hopefully blog as I go. If you have read this book before, PLEASE comment. If you haven't read this book, get the book and PLEASE comment. :-)

All I can say at this point is that according to Timothy Keller's explanation of the story of the Prodigal Son from the Scripture (he says more appropriately called The Story of the Two Sons), I find myself to have acted out the part of both the elder brother and the younger brother.

Until my next blog, I'll leave with this quote from Jonathan Edwards' sermon "A Divine and Supernatural Light".

"There is a difference between believing that God is holy and gracious, and having a new sense on the heart of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. The difference between believing that God is gracious and tasting that God is gracious is as different as having a rational belief that honey is sweet and ...having the actual sense of its sweetness."