Series: Stories of the King Sermon Title: See the heart of God our Father Passage: Luke 15:11-32 Preacher: Dan Weyerhaeuser Date: 7.23.17 Who likes movies? My favorite sports movie was Rudy. Yours? Favorite comedy? Favorite drama? (Lincoln) Anyone here ever seen The Wizard of Oz? Did you like it? For me, this is the truly frustrating film of all time. I’ll admit that the tornado scene and crushing the Wicked Witch of the East with the house was a strong start. But then, Dorothy spends the entire film “following the yellow brick road” to get to the Wizard of Oz whom the “Good” Witch of the North said could get her home. All along the way, she worries about whether the Wizard will see her and what sort of reception she might get. But when she finally meets him, having been kidnapped by those flying monkey things (that still give me nightmares) and almost DYING, she finds out the Wizard is a fake. And THEN, the “Good” Witch of the North has the audacity to show up and tell her that she ACTUALLY could have gone home whenever she wanted if she just clicked her ruby slippers together three times and says, “There’s no place like home!” What a joke!
I GET that the journey for Dorothy was not outside of her, but inside. At the movie’s start she wanted to run away from home but eventually realized that everything she was really looking for she’d HAD at home all along. But for someone to go to such lengths and dangers looking in a DISTANT place for what has been in their grasp all along just feels like a colossal waste, doesn’t it? TRUTH: in the real world, people do this all the time. People spend their lives trying to fill the infinite, cavernous void in their souls with all kinds of pursuits and not only come up empty, but miss REAL life that is right before them. As we open the New Testament, we meet Jesus, the Son of God, Who walked on the earth and reaches out to us with God’s redeeming love. HE is Who we all need! But the ultimate question is this… if a person turns to God, what kind of reception will they receive? He is the Almighty! He is clothed in unapproachable light. He is holy, and hates evil. In the parable we read today in Luke 15, Jesus wants us to know… Main point: Our Father welcomes all who admit they need Him and ask God is real, and He welcomes all who admit they need Him and ask. My promise…what your heart longs for, you find in Him! 1) This message is for people here who are considering God. (Every Sunday, there are folks with us who would not say they are Christians, but are wondering if God is Who they are looking for in their lives. If that’s you, we are honored that you are here. I want you to know that you are welcome to be a part of this church family as you try to figure this out). 2) But this message is for ALL of us because we can let things HIDE from us what we have in our Father’s grace and love! Jesus’ parable in Luke 15 will help us all with that. Open up to Luke 15. Charles Dickens called this parable the greatest short story ever written. (Great Expectations is an elaboration on this story). CONTEXT: Our parable starts in v. 11. But it can’t be understood unless you start in 15:1-2. Luke 15:1 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming to hear (Jesus).
What a GREAT line! The Romans, who occupied the land of the Jews, recruited Jewish men to be tax collectors to collect taxes from their other Jews for ROME. You can imagine how much they were hated. (They were also notorious for taking more than Rome required and keeping the rest.) But here, THEY were coming to hear Jesus. And with them were sinners. How bad do you have to be to be just called a “sinner.” Luke doesn’t elaborate on what “sins” the sinners were committing, but we can guess that they were secular Jews who didn’t attend synagogue. In our culture, it seems normal to stop going to church, but in the 1st century Jewish culture, people who stopped going to the temple because they didn’t see the point were called sinners by the religious leaders. They were outsiders! But HERE, ALL the tax collectors and sinners…were coming to hear JESUS. There is a different kind of energy in this scene. These folks were FINDING in Jesus something that compelled them to leave their day-jobs and flock to where Jesus was. But there is also conflict. Mingled in with them was another group with a different attitude. Listening and complaining (v. 2) were Pharisees and experts in the law. THESE
2 men react badly to Jesus! Notice, what they were complaining about was not Jesus’ theology. They complained because… “…(t)his man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Jesus was forming friendships with the tax collectors and sinners and THAT is what made them go berserk! The Pharisees and experts in the law might have studied the Bible for years, but somehow they completely missed the heart of God. And so… 3 …Jesus told them (three) parable(s)…
V. 4-11 Jesus shows us that the heart of God is like a Shepherd Who seeks his lost people until He finds them and, in his joy, gladly bears the burden of restoring them when they repent. V. 12-13 Jesus shows us that the heart of God is like a woman who sweeps out every corner of her home until she finds what was lost. And in BOTH parables Jesus says God CELEBRATES when lost people are found. THIS is the heart of God which HE has towards the tax collectors and sinners who were coming to hear Him. If the Pharisees and experts in the law had God’s heart, THEY would be celebrating too. But instead they are complaining! Then we come to our parable in v. 11… Luke 15:11 Then Jesus said, “A man had two sons.
The two sons in the parable encapsulate the two groups of people Jesus speaks to. The tax collectors & sinners are the younger son AND the Pharisees & experts in the law are the older son. What we will see: 1) God welcomes confessing rule-breaking sinners, 2) God challenges un-confessing rule-keeping sinners, and 3) God surprises and heals the willing with His grace! 1.
God welcomes confessing rule-breaking sinners By “rule-breaking-sinners,” I am describing the tax collectors and sinners who abandoned traditional faith and traditional morality. They probably used to go to the synagogue when they were younger, but to them it was empty ritual. They never connected with God. Now that they are adults, their motto is, “You have to follow your heart, not rules.” They could be moral people… its just that all they saw when they saw religion was rules not the God behind it. TRUTH: You cannot separate pursuing joy from pursuing the God who GIVES joy and not end up with something dull, boring, and meaningless. But that’s where the younger son was! He loved the idea of living a wild-lifestyle. He’d been raised in the home of a good father, never wanted for food or clothing or shelter or safety and was loved by an INCREDIBLE father. But NONE of these mattered because his heart was captivated by the hope of being rich and independent. And as long as that hope captivated him, he was blind to the love of his dad right before his eyes! So MUCH was this the case that… 12 The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the estate that will belong to me.’
He asked his dad to sell 1/3 of their inherited land and give him the money he thought would make him happy. Q: How would that request be received by YOUR father? The younger son wanted to have all the money he could get SO MUCH that he was willing to say to his dad, “I wish you were dead so I could have it now!” Think how must that have torn up his father? AMAZINGLY… …(the father) divided his assets between them. (I’ll come back to that) 13 After a few days, the younger son gathered together all he had and left on a journey to a distant country…
He was never coming back. What did he want? …there he squandered his wealth with a wild lifestyle.
This is what the tax collectors and sinners have been like. Even though God had only been good to them in giving them life and love and every good gift in their lives (just like all of us), they had set their heart on getting pleasure in everything BUT in God. TRUTH: We can fall into this sin as Christians. We can “taste the goodness of God” and give our lives to Him. But we can still be drawn by the “tractor beam” of the promise of other things to satisfy us without God and when we do, we forget what we have in Him! I want Lakeland to be excited to be together because we not only love each other and are a place of healing, but because we are working together we are a part of Jesus transforming people and homes and neighborhoods and churches and our whole community. I REALLY want that. But some days, if I were to be honest with you, I want
3 this because I believe it says something about whether or not I matter. I know I’m in that place when the greatest emotions I have are not about my heavenly Father’s love for me, but how I think Lakeland is going… good or bad.
Do YOU have anything in your life like that? Have YOU ever felt like if you just had success, or a person who understood you, or the respect of others, or great kids, or kids at all, or a higher salary, or a different house…THEN your heart would be satisfied? Group question: Sometimes I feel if I had ______________, I’d be truly happy. (Examples I’ll suggest…Success, love, family, riches, health, opportunities, etc. Y ou know because they are the things you think about repeatedly… and have the most feelings about!) Truth… all of these things are good, and in their right place, gifts from God. But when I look to them to do for me what only God can, not only do I come up empty, but they BLIND me to the love of God I already have! The boy’s discovery: HIS pursuit of pleasure had blinded him to his Father’s love and goodness! Gratefully he ran out of money and hit a hard time (These are a GIFT!) 14 Then after he had spent everything, a severe famine took place in that country, and he began to be in need.
He’d given himself to pleasures that had an expiration date and left him less whole, not more whole. Whatever fair-weather friends had flocked to him when he was spending money, they are gone. V . 15 the boy hires himself out to feed pigs (something a Jew would never do!) His low moment… 16 He was longing to eat the carob pods the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
But then a critical moment happens. 17 But (t)hen he came to his senses
Pain can be one of the great gifts of our lives. If you’re here because life really hurts and you know SOMETHING has to change, you are in the spot of this young guy. The “light” went on and the mist vanished and… he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have food enough to spare, but here I am dying from hunger!
Hired workers were entry-level-minimum wage workers. But so good was the boy’s father towards them that even THEY have food enough to spare. The boy thinks, “What am I DOING?! I would be better off as one of them!” Can you imagine his regret at what he’d HAD and walked away from? And so he says… 18 I will get up and go to my father and say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired workers.”’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.
His father’s welcome was TOTALLY unexpected!
But while he was still a long way from home his father saw him, and his heart went out to him; he ran and hugged his son and kissed him. 21 Then his son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
His father didn’t even CONSIDER what the boy offered. He didn’t need the boy to BUY BACK his love. 22 But the father said to his slaves, ‘Hurry! Bring the best robe, and put it on him!
He is welcomed into the warmth and possessions of the family. Put a ring on his finger
The signet ring of the family, giving him authority to make decisions in the family name. and sandals on his feet! 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it! Let us eat and celebrate, 24 because this son of mine was dead, and is alive again—he was lost and is found!’ So they began to celebrate.
NO one had thrown a party like this in this town before for every one in the town! The father “welcomed the boy and ate with him” and this had NOTHING to do with what the son brought to the Father… in the slightest! NOW the son values his Father and THIS is what was lacking before. Context: Jesus tells us, “God welcomes confessing law-breaking sinners.” Shock of all shocks, you can’t do enough to “deserve” to be God’s child. He welcomes you if know you need Him and ask! Do you? Remember, Jesus’ parable was especially aimed at the Pharisees and experts in the law who sneered at Jesus welcoming the tax collectors and sinners. What we see in this is that… 2. God challenges un-confessing rule-keeping sinners
4 Ironically, the Pharisees and experts in the law were the spiritual leaders of the day. When they saw crowds of people who had not been to “church” in forever flocking to Jesus to hear about God, you’d think they’d be excited. But they had no joy in it at all! TRUTH: While they looked spiritual on the outside, THEY were just as far from God… maybe FURTHER, and JUST AS MUCH in need of the grace of God as the tax collectors and sinners. But they don’t realize it because their hard hearts were hidden underneath their good moral behavior. They were “rule-keepers” who were also sinners, but unlike their brother, they were NOT confessing! Jesus challenged them. Let me set the stage… Luke 15:25 “Now his older son was in the field.
The older bother is out doing his job, like usual As he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the slaves and asked what was happening. 27 The slave replied, ‘Your brother has returned, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he got his son back safe and sound.’
Did he miss his brother? Did he have compassion for him? Not at all. 28 But the older son became angry and refused to go in.
Ironically just like the younger brother had done violence to the family by leaving, the older brother is doing violence to the family by not coming in. He was saying, “I won’t be a part of a family that has HIM in it!” He wants no part of it. Again, His father notices HIS absence from the party. His father came out and appealed to him,
What comes next is a picture of a law-keeping sinner. This is what someone is like who has reduced their spiritual life to obeying commands and traditions rather than loving God. 29 but he answered his father, ‘Look! These many years I have worked like a slave for you, and I never disobeyed your commands.
WOW! The older son says “serving you has been like being a slave.” He hasn’t loved his father or trusted him or been grateful. He’s obeyed but its been all obligation! How do you think THAT sounded to this loving father? TRUTH If that is what the spiritual life of the Pharisees and experts in the law, no WONDER the tax collectors and sinners weren’t in church. If religion is just rules, where is the life in THAT? (It isn’t… it’s a relationship with our loving father… but they were completely missing this!) TRUTH: The Pharisees and experts of the law found their identity in their spiritual practices but in a worldly way. “Identity factors” are things about us (male, female, black, white, first generation immigrant, second generation immigrant, republican, democrat) that help us understand who we are. Our self worth and self-image are wrapped up in these things that we trust in to bring us a joy! (I have gone to an Ivy League School, or I have raised a great family, or I have a respectful job, or I am highly skilled at something). The Pharisees and teachers of the Law led a community that prized their spiritual activity. But notice, as long as our identity factors are based upon our own efforts and accomplishments, they automatically also cause a feeling of superiority. You feel better about who you are than those who haven’t gone to an Ivy League school or done as good as a parent, or etc. Worldly identity finds a joy that, by definition EXCLUDES others, like tax collectors and sinners. Therefore they felt superior to those Jews who were moral failures (Keller). TRUTH: When you find significance in your “more,” (more success, more attention, more love, more friends on Facebook or “likes” to your posts, that you are more attractive, _____________), then inwardly you are sliding into the heart of the older brother! It is so easy to do! Flight back from India, we were randomly bumped up to Business class on a new 747… when we were called first to board, I somehow felt more important than the other people at the gate. How ridiculous is THAT? Gary Thomas joked, “Its good getting away from all the riff raff.”
Question. Have YOU ever noticed that you have a nicer car, or higher salary or thinner figure, or better grades, or greater skills than someone else, and somehow felt more important than them because of this? Group question… Sometimes I feel good about myself for being “better” than others 1) Never 2) Rarely 3) Sometimes 4) Often 5) Always
5 It COULD be, “I feel badly about myself because I’m WORSE than others? Be honest! When we feel good about ourselves because of comparison, 1) we are living like the older brother. We are all made in the image of God. He MADE us as we are and PLACED us where we are! There’s no reason for comparison. MORE, when we do THIS, 2) we are missing what we have in the Father’s love, which is OURS by grace. TRUTH: We obey the commands of God because we love our Father and trust that what He commands is given by His love. We obey the God we love and trust, Who loves US! His commands don’t take life, they give it. I was washing the dishes on Thursday and Josh came into the kitchen for a hug. I asked him, “Could you get the classes in the family room?” He didn’t say, “Oooookaaaaay!” He said, “Sure dad!” and off he went in joy!
But the Pharisees and experts in the law didn’t get this at all! The older son had no better relationship with his father than the younger son. Their relationship was with the commands of God, not with God! Of course here stands what they need, if THEY would confess their need. 3. God surprises and heals the willing with His grace The real surprise in this story is the FATHER… again and again! (Prodigal means “excessive.” It should be known as the parable of the prodigally loving Father.) First, when his son asks for him to divide his estate… he does it. So he divided his assets between them.
He endured the wound and let His younger son go. 1) God wants our trust and love, not obligation! He could have forced his younger son to stay. But he didn’t want his compliance, he wanted his love, which he knew at that moment he didn’t have! Apparently his son’s love was more important to the father than his possessions. If we reject Him, He lets us go! Question: Ok, but then if I “come to my senses,” how God will respond? 2) G od watches for our return. 20b But while he was still a long way from home his father saw him,
The father wasn’t in the house occasionally looking out the window and just happened to spot the younger son. He was outside, scanning the horizon, like he had done the day before, and the day before that, and every day since his son had traveled to a distant country, squandered all his wealth, got into need, and come back. He was thinking about his son all the time… as God does about you! This was the same as his older son… 28 But the older son … refused to go in. His father came out and appealed to him
The father NOTICED that his older son wasn’t at the party! He went out to the older son. 3) He runs to us in welcome. He went out to the older son, as he did to the younger 20c … and his heart went out to him; he ran and hugged his son.
God comes close to US! (Jesus is here because God comes close!) His Spirit is here TODAY because He is close! THE Father wrapped up his garment around his waist and took off running. 4) He welcomes the confessing with grace: With the younger son, notice again v. 20…
he ran and hugged his son and kissed him 21 Then his son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
NOTICE: the kiss came before the confession. The boy was right… he HAD sinned, first against heaven (all sin is against God) and the Father. He had done great harm to his father and their relationship! But the Father loved him still. 5) God’s free welcome was costly to Him. In Deuteronomy 21:18-21, a son who dishonored his family like this could be stoned. If the people of the village had seen the younger son return, they could have executed him. But with the Father hugging his son, the stones thrown because of the son’s sin would have hit the Father instead. Irony… Jesus, who tells this parable, would pay the price for the tax collectors and sinners’ forgiveness. This boy cried out to his father and his father welcomes him, robes him, and feasts Him. But Jesus one day will cry out to his father from the cross and receive, instead, silence! He isn’t feasted, but vinegar-ed. He was not robed but stripped. He got the rejection we deserved so we could be forgiven… so God could fall on us in love before we
6 repent. HE died. When he called, the Father did not answer so that when we call the Father always answers (Keller).
He knows everything… and He loves you by grace! His grace and love is the most revolutionary thing you’ve ever experienced in your life! This speaks to US too, though. Group question… If I really believed God loved me by grace, my life would be _____________ (1) Unchanged 2) Somewhat helped 3) Significantly better 4) Transformed)
Response 1) Younger Son sinners looking to things outside of God to give you what only He can, trust God’s grace and repent. Why is it that so many pursue pleasure with such unhappy results? A lot of the misery in our world seems to have been initiated in the pursuit of pleasure? You can’t purchase lasting joy. You can purchase thrill, but it always leads to boredom and worse! If you pursue pleasure, you will pursue things that will eventually control you and make you less whole, not more. What you CAN do is pursue God Who gives pleasure as a gift. HE and His love is what makes you whole! So “repent.” Repentance is not weakness and it will not disempower you. It is simply the confession of what is true, that you, like everyone else, have a tendency to look to things other than God to give what He alone can give you. Own it! Tell Him so! Thank Him that He loves you by grace! 2) Older son sinners, are many of us in church. We look good on the outside, but our hearts can be cold towards God. We know it if we feeling like the “more” we have than others is what makes us important or special. TRUTH: Soon no one will remember you or care at all what you’ve done. Worst of all, your feeling superior obscures you from seeing your Father’s love. A: Trust God’s grace and repent! Confess it. Promise: He loves you… whether you are a “success” or not, or noticed or not. He PUT you where you are! Thank Him for His gifts but tell Him again that it is HIS love you want! 3) Church, churches tend to attract older brother types. As a church, we want to welcome younger brother types. That means we take on the Father’s heart! Someone joins us who’s life is not even CLOSE to being put together (just like most of ours AREN’T). We want to run to them and hug them and kiss them… okay that would be weird! But we want them to see in our eyes our DELIGHT that they would join us while they are still seeking. I want to challenge us to express the welcome of our Father to every person you ever meet generally, but ESPECIALLY here! Then we are more like HIM! Main point: Our Father welcomes all who admit they need Him and ask
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Small Group Leader Notes July 22, 2017 From Pastor Dan… Hi my friend, This is a CLASSIC passage of Scripture. There is of course far more in this parable than we can get to today. But its basic message is clear in which Jesus shows us the heart of our Father and what He wants for us. NOTE: While Jesus shared this parable with “sinners” and tax collects (people outside the Kingdom Jesus was inviting to become citizens of the Kingdom), He shares a message that is life-giving and healing to us all when we believe it and take it to heart. In these verses, we see God’s heart towards us and what He wants from us. My encouragement is not that you make every observation you can about the text. Rather, my encouragement is that you get at the main point Jesus is making, and help your people see God’s heart in the Father and believe it. I am praying that your time with your folks is tremendous this week! Warmly, Dan Our Scripture Study… Series: Message #: Sermon Title: Passage: Preacher: Date:
Stories of the King 6 The heart of God our Father Luke 16:14-31 Dan Weyerhaeuser 2017-7-9
SMALL GROUP QUESTIONS Getting to know each other: Describe a time when you’ve been truly loved. Personal Study: As you study (read, reread, consider, ponder, reread) the passage, list observations you make from the text. What is the main point of this passage? How is the theme developed? What “Aha’s” come to you as you read? What questions come to mind? How do you respond to the God seen in these verses? Bring your observations and questions to your Small Group this week! —————————
Luke 15:11-32 1. Read Luke 15:1-2. Can someone describe the groups in this scene? Form the message…. CONTEXT: Our parable starts in v. 11. But it can’t be understood unless you start in 15:1-2. Luke 15:1 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming to hear (Jesus).
8 What a GREAT line! During Jesus’ day, Israel was occupied by the Roman Empire. The Jews HATED this! The Romans recruited some Jewish men to be tax collectors to collect taxes from their fellow Jews for ROME. You can imagine how much they were hated. (They were also notorious for exacting more than Rome required and keeping the rest.) But here, THEY were coming to hear Jesus. And with them were sinners. L uke doesn’t elaborate on what “sins” the sinners were committing, but we can guess that while these people were Jewish, they had long ago quit going to the Synagogue. In our culture, it is normal to stop going to church, but in the 1st century Jewish culture, secularists who didn’t go to services at the synagogue because they didn’t see the point were called sinners by the religious leaders. They were outsiders! But HERE, the ALL the tax collectors and sinners…were coming to hear Jesus. There is a huge energy in this scene. They were FINDING in Jesus something that prompted them to abandon their day-jobs and flock to where Jesus was. But there is also conflict. Mingled in with these unlikely listeners was another group with a different attitude. Listening and complaining (v. 2) were Pharisees and experts in the law. THESE men react badly to Jesus! Notice, what they were complaining about was not Jesus’ theology. They complained because… “…(t)his man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Jesus was forming lasting friendships with the tax collectors and sinners and THAT made them go berserk! The Pharisees and experts in the law might have studied the Bible for years, but somehow they completely missed the heart of God. And so… 3 …Jesus told them (three) parable(s)…
V. 4-11 Jesus shows us that the heart of God is like a Shepherd Who pursues his lost people until He finds them and, in his joy, gladly bears the burden of restoring them when they repent. V. 12-13 Jesus shows us that the heart of God is like a woman who sweeps out every corner of her home until she finds what was lost. God calls friends to CELEBRATE finding what was lost. And Jesus says, “THIS is the heart of God!” which HE has towards the tax collectors and sinners who were coming to hear Him. If the Pharisees and experts in the law had God’s heart, THEY would be celebrating. But instead they are complaining! Then we come to our parable in v. 11… Luke 15:11 Then Jesus said, “A man had two sons.
The two sons in the parable encapsulate the two groups of people Jesus speaks to. The tax collectors & sinners are seen in the younger son AND the Pharisees & experts in the law are seen in the older son. What we will see: 1) God welcomes confessing rule-breaking sinners, 2) God challenges un-confessing rule-keeping sinners, 3) God surprises and heals the willing with His grace! This is an incredible story! 2. What is it that provokes the Jewish leaders’ complaints? What does this tell us about them? They don’t like it that Jesus “eats with sinners and welcomes them.” It was not his theology but his welcome and grace and love for the tax collectors and sinners that they didn’t like. Context: Jesus tells both the “tax collectors & sinners” AND “Pharisees and experts in the law” three parables. In the first two, Jesus describes God as one who diligently seeks those who are lost until he finds them, brings them back, and celebrates their return. 3. V. 11 Jesus begins a third parable about two sons. From v. 1-2, who do the two sons represent? The tax collectors and sinners were seen in the younger son and the Pharisees and experts in the law were the older son. 4. V. 11-24 What does the younger son want, and why? How does it go for him? Even though he is loved by a great man and wants for nothing, he got it in his head that being rich and free to live a wild lifestyle would make him happy. The promise of this actually felt better to him than the love of his father, so much so that he asked his dad to sell off 1/3 of his land and possessions (likely ancestral land
9 handed down for generations) so he could go off on a binge. After he goes to a distant land, and squanders it all, times get hard and his wild-lifestyle has nothing to protect him.
5. Can you see this same attitude in our world today? Group discussion question. TRUTH: The pursuit of pleasure is the least pleasurable thing a person can do. How much misery has been the result of people’s plans to get pleasure. TRUTH: You can’t find joy by pursuing joy. You find it by pursuing the God of joy who gives joy as a gift and is, HIMSELF, the One we were designed to live on. 6. What does the younger son realize and do? He realizes that even the day-laborers who work for his dad are better off than him. So good is his father than they have food enough to spare. He thinks, “I will return and work off my debt.” (That’s an educated guess). He is simply aware that he no longer deserves to be a son since he has despised both his father, family, and his God. 7. How does his Father respond to him? What does this tell us about God? Group investigation of v. 20-24. 8. V. 25-32 What does the older son want and why? He is not happy at all with the return of the younger brother (just like the Pharisees and teachers of the law are not happy at the tax collectors and sinners return). When you are a legalist, you have no joy when others find grace. The father accepting the son was an affront to their entire way of life. What was the point of their meticulous, slave-like obedience if others could be loved without the same work? What we realize is that the older son’s relationship with his father wasn’t any better than the younger sons… worse actually. 9. While he had remained home and been “good,” what do we learn here about his relationship with his father (or lack of it)? He was driven by obligation, not love and trust. What appeared like high spiritual living was actually just a legalistic veneer. He didn’t love or trust his father either. THIS is what Jesus is saying is true of these Pharisees and teachers of the law. 10. Is it possible to try to obey the commands of God and yet feel like a slave? What is missing with this? Love and trust of God! 11. How does his Father respond to him? In exactly the same way that he came out to his younger son, the father humbles himself to come out to his older son and appeal to him to come in. He explains that he too has everything the father has to give. But it is clear that the older son never comes to his senses. He too needs to repent and confess his need of the Father’s love, but he never does it. 12. Does the older son realize he is lost? Why or why not? No… he has confused slavish obedience with a loving relationship with God through faith. 13. What does the older son NOT realize and do? He doesn’t repent and believe. 14. What do we learn about God from this parable? How does it help us?
