Luke 15:25-32

This morning, I invite you to turn with me to the book of Luke once again, as we are still considering the parable of the lost sun. And I want to read verses 25 to 32 of chapter 15. Luke chapter 15, beginning with verse 35, or excuse me, 25. Luke 15, beginning with verse 25. Now his elder son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. Lo, he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, My brother has come, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry. It would not go in. Therefore came his father out and entreated him. And he answering said to his father, lo, these many years, do I serve thee? Neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment. Yet thou never gaveest me a kid. that I might make Mary with my friends. But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devired thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatty calf. And he said on him, son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meat that we should make Mary, and be glad, for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again, was lost, and is found. May God bless to us his sacred and holy word this morning. Many years ago, the name Juan Chavez, was high on the list of criminals wanted in Mexico. But this notorious criminal was beyond the reach of law. They could never catch. and every attempt proved unsuccessful. And then one day, without warning, he showed up in a courthouse in Saltillo, Mexico, and turned himself in. He simply announced, I am Juan Chavez. The presiding judge was aghast. Who brought you in? said the judge, the judge, to which Juan said, Nobody brought me in. This book brought me in. He held up a Bible. He was a changed man by God’s grace. He said, this book brought me in and back to pay my debt to society. He said, when I got back from one of my raids, among the loot that we had taken, there was this Bible. And at the time, we were hiding out in a cave, and I didn’t have anything else to do. so I started reading the Bible. And he said, I couldn’t put it down. And God, by grace, saved the man’s life. And so he turned himself in. The Bible, he said, changed my life. It is amazing when we see God reach down and save a sinner, especially the most violent, corrupt sinners, imaginable. It’s an incredible thing. and we see that in some ways in our text, that this young man who had spent a lot of time in doing evil with harlots and who knows what else he was engaged in, and yet God reached out and saved his soul and brought him back. Jesus has been telling the parable of a lost son. Now, remember, this story is meant to demonstrate that God receives publicans and sinners as verses one and two speak about of this chapter, which the scribes and the Pharisees were against. And they opposed this and complained that Jesus received publicans and sinners. And so they were making their complaint. Now, the parable of the prodigal actually is meant to lead us to this point. What about the elder brother? How did he receive this brother’s repentance? His brother’s return. And that’s what this is all about, because the elder brother represents the scribes of the Pharisees. And we’ll be looking at that as we go along here. The question is, how should you respond to the salvation of a lost sinner? Now, we find the elder brother. brother here was angry, he was finding fault, he was jealous. He was unable to share in the joy of the feast that was held when the younger brother returned. He refused to welcome his lost brother back home. When his father went out and pleaded with him and entreated him, he poured out his objections and no uncertainty. terms. The elder brother is like the scribes and the Pharisees. They objected to our Lord receiving sinners and eating with them. They murmured because he opened the door of salvation to publicans and sinners. They would have been better pleased if the Lord had just confined his ministry that is supposedly worthy of God’s blessing. those that like themselves and their party. But I’d like to look at the elder brother this morning with regard to the church at large. How do we receive publicans and sinners when they repent? Because I think this is what it is meant to teach us this morning. There are thousands who dislike a free full, unfettered gospel being preached. It bothers them. Sometimes that the lower classes of people become part of their church. And if they grudgingly receive the poor who have been saved, they wish to have them sit at their footstool, as James talks about, and not be treated with an equality in the body of Christ. So let us focus on that last idea here about the church receiving people. This will make the passage, I think, more lively to us as we consider it. Let me begin by saying this. You must not have a poor attitude about the salvation of sinners. You have to avoid being self-centered. As we read in verse 29, the older brother says, lo, these many years do I serve it. The elder brother here felt he had been cheated out of proper recognition because of how faithful he had been been. The first thought was not being generous. It was accusing. He had borne the heat of the day. He had worked hard. on his father’s farm. He had done his best to make it productive. While his brother was partying, he was sweating hard to make a living. But no one had thrown any celebration on his part. He didn’t get any fatted calf. He didn’t get any kid of the goats or anything. How easily you can resent someone who’s got attention. paid to him and your sense of fairness is never sharper than when someone else is receiving recognition. Your self-centered response is to ask why him and not me. Why him? Not my husband or my son. The happy experiences of others often crack your facade of niceness and reveal a deeper layer of bitterness and self-centeredness and resentment. Some years ago in a Presbyterian church, there was a young man of unquestionable gifts for the eldership. Who was elected to serve as elder in the church? He had not been a member of the church for more than a year. And so one day, shortly after he was elected as an elder, a woman complained to the pastor. The woman was closely related to two men who had been longstanding members of the church, but they were passed over for the eldership. And she asked the minister in a wounded tone, why is it that the last man that gets in the door is the one you made an elder? The sober consideration of the facts was ignored. It’s obvious that those to her son and her husband were not eldership quality while this young man was. He therefore reproached, he was there was, she therefore reproached the elder approached the elder to the pastor because of this. Just like The elder son who reproached his father for never giving him even a young goat so that he could celebrate with his friends. When your focus is on yourself and your own interest, you know your attitude isn’t really right. And that’s what we have here. So you must avoid being self-send. You must avoid being self-righteous. Verse 29 also. Neither transgressed I at any time, my commandant. So the elder son here, at least outwardly, had conducted himself in such a way, that he always obeyed what his father had to say. He had labored hard and diligently in the fields of his father. And whatever task his father gave him to do, he did. And he obediently carried it out. He had not run away from home. as his brother had done. He had not squandered his father’s inheritance, as his younger brother had done. He had not been gluttonous. He had not been drunken. He had not been sexually impured. In all this, however, you detect some carnal pride. I’m not like my brother. I’m completely different. You don’t pay attention to me. He bragged here about how much. how many years of service he had shown to his father. He insisted that he earned the right to his father’s favor. He thought of himself better than his brother, much better. There’s a danger of us looking down upon a fellow believer, of thinking of yourself more highly. than you ought to think. Such is the nature of sin and a human heart that your steadfast faithfulness can be turned into a beaming badge of pride in our lives. Suppose there’s a young woman in the church who falls into sexual sin becomes pregnant out of wedlock, a grievous sin. She repents of her sin. She comes to her sin. before the church and seeks forgiveness. Now, hopefully, the church will joyfully accept her and receive her back into the fold. Obviously, she has to live with the consequences of her actions. She’s going to have to, you know, raise a baby without the help of being married. And so that’s a struggle. However, it’s a struggle. Suppose there’s a chaste young woman, a virgin in the church, who has kept herself pure. She’s never been promiscuous, and she has faithfully obeyed the Lord, and yet she looks down on the pregnant woman. To her, the pregnant young lady will always be a scarlet woman. And maybe it bothers her that she has to take communion with this woman. who is pregnant. And therefore, she has a haughty spirit. She thinks herself much better than this other woman. Now, there’s no reasoning there’s for the grace of God, go I, in this. No thankfulness to God for preserving her purity and leading her not into temptation. God’s salvation is such. There’s never any room for self-exhaelvation. There’s never any room for pride, for bragging, for thinking of yourself better than others. So instead of being self-righteous, you have to remember the words of Christ in the book of Luke 17, verse 10. When you have done all those things which are commanded you saying, say, we are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was our duty to do. There’s no way. no reason for pride in that. That was your duty to do this. So you must avoid being self-righteous. You also must avoid being unloving. Verse 30. This thy son at devired thy living with harvents. Now you’ll notice here that the words used by the elder son betray a lack of love to the younger brother. This is seen in calling him this thy son rather than my brother. He refused to acknowledge the young man as his brother. The implication is that this person ought not even be recognized as part of the family. When Rayne and I were raising our children, we had a long-standing joke concerning her children. our children. Whenever one of our kids did something wrong, we would say, did you see what your son did? Did you see what your daughter did? Something like that. And the idea behind such a statement is that son, which left his dirty clothes all over the house, that’s your son. That’s not mine. Mine would never do that. Obviously, you know, that must come from the urban side of the family, you know. In a subtle way, you’re sort of disowning, the son. We did it in a joking way. But this is what the elder son is doing here. He may be your son, but he’s not my brother. Professing Christians can sometimes be very unloving when a wayward’s sister or brother repents, you shouldn’t treat them as if they are unwanted. As if they would have suited you better if they had remained. in their sin and not repentant. If you could be more pleased to have them remain at the swine trough than to repent, there’s something wrong. The Apostle John provides a sober reminder in this regard in 1. John 4, 20, and 21. If a man say I love God and hated his brother, he’s a liar. For he that loveth not his brother, whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen. And this commandant we have from him that he who loveth God love his brother also. That’s a pretty sobering statement to make. If the rich in the church must call the poor brothers, then the innocent must be willing to do so with regard to the repentant as well. So you must must avoid being unloved. and we see at times people not being that way. You must avoid being angry with God. Verse 30. Thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. Here the elder son actually rebukes his father for killing this calf to celebrate the younger son’s return. He didn’t even try to attempt, I think, to understand his father’s position he merely treated him as if he were crazy despite the father’s general entreating here and he did patiently try to entreat his elder son. The elder son’s still angry with his father. He doesn’t like what his father has done. Now you might be thinking how can a Christian be angry with God for saving someone? Is that even possible? Well, I refuse to the book of Jonah. If you read the book of John, he was commanded to preach to the Gentile city of Nineve, the great capital of the Assyrian Empire. The problem was the Assyrians were enemies of the people of God. So Jonah refused to go. Eventually, after the incident with the great fish, Jonah repented and preached to the city. He cried out that the city would be overthrown by God in 40 days for its wickedness. And the scripture says, So the people of Nunava believed God and repented. It’s sackcloth and ashes. So there is Jonah sitting outside the city under his little gourd, waiting for the fire of God to come down and burn up the city. And he becomes angry because the 40 days passed. and God did not destroy the city. So he’s angry with God. God being a gracious God showed mercy to the Assyrians. So God said to him, dost thou well to be angry? And Jonah is boiling over angry, and he’s angry with the Lord over this. Because he spared them. He spared these Assyrians. He steamed that God would show mercy these former enemies of his people. It’s this kind of spirit that we have to avoid because notorious sinners may repent. They may be saved. And we can’t keep the fire of God hanging over their heads when they repent. We have to accept them as those who have been changed by God’s grace. So you may have a poor attitude about the salvation of sinners, and that’s not good. secondly here today, you are urged to rejoice in the salvation of sinners. Now notice verse 32 here. It was me, it was suitable that we should make Mary and be glad for this my brother was dead and is alive again and was lost. It’s right. It’s the right thing to do is what the father was telling. is elder’s son. Your joy should be rooted in the fact that this is God’s work. God saved these people. God is glorified in the salvation of lost sinners. If the self-righteous could be saved by their own works, all the glory would go to them. But when a notorious sinner is saved. You know it was God’s intervention. You know he is the one that reached out and saved them. And therefore all the glory goes to him. It’s an amazing wonder of his love and grace to these individuals. The salvation of the sinner gives glory to Christ. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. It exalts is a turning work on the cross. Isn’t the salvation of sinners something the holy angels desire to look into? Don’t they have some kind of curiosity about this work of Christ? Ephesians tells us that they do. Pride makes it impossible to see the need for the cross. The salvation of sinners makes the display of God’s attributes in reaching out and saving a sinner more glorious. His mercy. His forgiveness. His kindness, loving kindness. All these things stand out when God saves the most wicked of men. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Nobody can’t except for God. And that’s what he does when he says sinners. The chant of the church has always got to be salvation is of the Lord. Look what God has done and rejoicing in that. He deserves all the praise. Who else could take a persecuting Saul and turn him into a gospel preaching Paul with the Lord God? Who else could arrest somebody like Paul? Paul was arrested by God, so to speak, on the Damascus Road. How glorious a change was made instantaneously by the Lord God in that salvation. Or to take a blasphemer like John Bunyan, who was so full of cursing and oaths, have him proclaim the sweet message of the gospel of Christ. Or to take a slay of traitor like John Newton from a slave ship and make him a preacher. How’s that possible? It takes God’s grace to do that. As the Egyptians once said about some of the plagues, this is the finger of God. They couldn’t duplicate it. Nobody can duplicate what God does in the salvation of sinners. And can’t we rejoice then in that? Can’t we look at it and say, what are we? wonderful thing that God can take the most wicked individual to change into someone who is God and serves the Lord. I’m reminded of what my brother said one time. He used to work with a man in Ohio who was very profane. And he happened to attend a church. And lo and behold, this guy’s the pastor of the church. And he’s like, he’s what’s this guy doing? But God had changed his life. And that’s the thing that stands out that God can change people and make them different than they were. So we should, our joy should be rooted in the fact this is God’s work. It’s a wonderful thing. Notice this. Your joy should be rooted in the fact that you are a recipient of the same grace. Did not that same grace. reach out and save you? You rejoice because you know you’ve been saved in the same way. You’ve had been brought the repentance. In fact, the truth of the matter is you’re brought to repentance almost every day because of your sinfulness and corruption within. You know what it means to bow before the foot of the cross. You know what it means. to be covered by the blood of Christ. You know what it means? Not to have sin imputed to you. Blessed it is the man who finds that, David said. What a wonderful thing. You see, only an arrogant Pharisee would think it beneath God’s dignity to save ungodly sinners. And yet, this isn’t the ungodly a holy sinner, the only one that gets saved. Who else is going to get saved but the one who realizes he needs a physician? The unrighteous. So you see God adding to the great body of his universal church, of which you are a member. If one saint is missing, the church is incomplete. And so God is still saving his people, his elect in this world. Can’t we say we have, Can we really say we have no need of that person? You know, this was wrong for God to save this person? Not to rejoice would be monstrous. But to rejoice is to appreciate the fact that you’ve been saved the same way as this person has. Well, the notorious criminal Juan Chavez shocked the judge by voluntarily turning himself in. He was changed by the book of the Bible. It was a testimony of God’s work of salvation that a soul such as his should be changed by divine grace. So here we have the parable of the lost son. And it ends and this is something that sometimes leaves us pondering without telling us about the elder brother. Did he change? Did he go into the celebration? What happened to him? Sort of like Jonah. When we leave Jonah out there outside of the city of Nineveh complaining to God, we don’t know how that ended either. We don’t know if he changed his attitude or spirit at that point or not. But what you do have is the same challenge addressed to your own soul. Do you love the lost? Can rejoice in the salvation, even of the most notorious sinner? Otherwise, we are scribes and Pharisees in our thinking. Let’s close with the word of prayer this morning. Well, with the Heavenly Father, we are people that have tasted of your grace and found it. Tasting of the Lord is good. May you bless us, Father, and help us as your people to rejoice whenever we see your hand reach out and apprehend a soul and bring them to Christ. Please, Lord, prosper our time here on this earth. We may reach out to others and may be rejoice when God saves others. For all depends upon you and not upon us and our abilities. But bless us, O God, we pray, that there may be salvation brought to men and women in this light. We ask these things in Christ’s precious name with thanks. Let’s stand for the benediction. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all. Amen.