We’ve been looking at Luke 15, the chapter that contains the parables:

• The Lost Sheep
• The Lost Coin
• The Two Lost Sons (most of the time called the parable of the Prodigal Son, but that’s much too narrow a look)

We opened by observing that the parables were designed to get the attention of the self-righteous religious leaders. For as many powerful sermons that have been preached (and rightly so) about the graciousness of the Father toward the younger, wayward son, many of those sermons have missed the true point of that story: the Father’s graciousness toward the older wayward son! Remember, the sheep was lost outside the fold and knew it was lost. The coin was lost inside the house and didn’t know it was lost. The religious leaders are the older brother. The brother who was:

• Angry

But he was angry and refused to go in. (Luke 15.28, ESV)

• Arrogant

But he answered his father, “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!” (Luke 15.29, 30, ESV)

“Never disobeyed your command.” Really? But did he know his father’s heart? The father had servants to work in the field. Who would go search for the younger son?

• Alienated

His father came out and entreated him… (Luke 15.28, ESV)

The story ends with the older brother still outside. Alienated from the Father. Alienated from the restored younger brother. Alienated from the joy. (I want to write more about that tomorrow.)

Which one of them left for home that day made right with God? It was the humble tax collector and not the religious leader! For everyone who praises himself will one day be humiliated before all, and everyone who humbles himself will one day be lifted up and honored before all. (Luke 18.14, TPT)

The Apostle Paul was once an angry, arrogant, and alienated older brother.

As the Jewish leaders are well aware, I was given a thorough Jewish training from my earliest childhood among my own people and in Jerusalem. If they would admit it, they know that I have been a member of the Pharisees, the strictest sect of our religion…I used to believe that I ought to do everything I could to oppose the very name of Jesus the Nazarene. Indeed, I did just that in Jerusalem. Authorized by the leading priests, I caused many believers there to be sent to prison. And I cast my vote against them when they were condemned to death. Many times I had them punished in the synagogues to get them to curse Jesus. I was so violently opposed to them that I even chased them down in foreign cities. (Acts 26.4 – 11, NLT)

For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort, though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more! I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault. I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. (Philippians 3.3 – 9, NLT)