About Tim Keller:
The Reason of God - Most Popular
Pastored in NYC for ??? Years.
Pioneer in the modern era of loving our cities and seeking peace and justice and loving our neighbors.
2 Corinthians 5:19 NIV
God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting peoples sins against them.
Prodigal:
Recklessly extravagant
Having spent everything
The Parable
Luke 15:11-32
11Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
13”Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
17”When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ 20So he got up and went to his father.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
21”The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
22”But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
25”Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27’Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
28”The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
31” ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”
2 Brothers who represent:
a different way to be alienated from God,
a different way to seek acceptance into the kingdom of heaven.
Luke 15:1-2
1Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
“Sinners and tax collectors” - they correspond to the younger brother.
“Pharisees & teachers of the law” - they correspond to the older brother.
Sinners and Tax Collectors:
Didn’t observe moral or purity laws.
Engaged in “wild living.”
They “left home” by leaving traditional morality.
Pharisees & teachers of the law:
Studied and obeyed Scripture.
Worshipped faithfully.
Prayed consistently.
Some History:
“To sit down and eat with someone in the ancient Near East was a token of acceptance.”
To whom is this teaching directed?
“The target of this story are not ‘wayward sinners,’ but religious people who do everything the Bible requires. Jesus pleading not so much with the immoral outsider as with moral insiders. He wants to show them their blindness, narrowness, and self righteousness, and how these things are destroying both their own souls and the lives of the people around them.” - (page 10)
“No, the original listeners were not melted into tears by this story but rather they were thunderstruck, offended, and infuriated. Jesus’s purpose is not to warm our hearts, but to shatter our categories. His story reveals the destructive self-centeredness of younger brother, but it also condemns the older brother’s moralistic life in the strongest terms. Jesus is saying that both the 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.” - (page 10)
Older Brother (typically)
Parent-pleaser
Responsible
Rule follower
Younger Brother (typically)
Rebel
Free spirit
Prefers the company and admiration of peers
When Christianity started it was a “non-religion”
Where’s your temple?
Where do your priests work?
Where do you make sacrifices?
Jesus was the FINAL Temple, the FINAL Priest, and the FINAL Sacrifice.
So the Romans called them atheists.
To most people in our society, Christianity is religion and moralism.
In Jesus’s life those estranged from religion and moral observance were intrigued and attracted to Him.
We see this in several places:
In Luke 7 Jesus meets a religious person and a sexual outcast.
In John 3-4 Jesus meets a religious person and a racial outcast.
In Luke 19 Jesus meets a religious person and a political outcast.
In every interaction, the outcast is the one who connects to Jesus and the religious person does not.
In Matthew 21:31 Jesus says:
“The tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom before you.”
In fact, most of Jesus’ teachings consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible believing, religious people of his day.
Act 1 - The Younger Brother
Act 2 - The Older Brother
ACT 1
SCENE 1
A short but alarming request…
“Give me my share of the estate.” Luke 15:12
Original listeners in the audience of this culture would’ve been shocked and amazed by this request.
In those days the division of a state only occurred when a father died.
The oldest son would receive a double portion of what the other children inherited. If a father had two heirs, the oldest would’ve gotten 2/3 of the state, and the younger would have received 1/3.
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 essentially saying:
He wants the father’s things, but not his father.
His relationship to the father has been a means to the end of enjoying his wealth and now he doesn’t want the relationship. He just wants out now.
“Give me what is mine.”
The father’s response is perhaps even more startling than the request.
This was an intensely patriarchal society, in which lavish expressions of deference in respect for elders and particularly one’s parents we’re of supreme importance.
A traditional Middle Eastern father would be expected to respond to such a request by driving the son out of the family with nothing except physical blows. This father doesn’t do anything like that. He simply divided his property between them.
Of interest is the Greek word translated as “property” here is actually the word bios, which means “life.”
The Father patiently endures a tremendous loss of honor as well as the pain of rejected love.
Ordinarily when our love is rejected, we get angry, retaliate, and harden our hearts.
But this father maintains his affection for the son and bears the agony.
ACT 1
SCENE 2
The son goes off to a far country in squanders everything he has through wild living. When he is literally down in the mud with pigs he “comes to his senses.” He devised a plan to return as a hired man.
Why a hired man?
Hired men were tradesmen and craftsman who lived in local villages and earned a wage. The son knew he couldn’t just apologize, but needed to “make restitution.” So the son is essentially saying “Father, I know I don’t have a right to come back into the family. But if you would apprentice me to one of your hired men so I could learn a trade and earn wage then I could at least pay off my debt.”
ACT 1
SCENE 3
The father runs…
As a general rule distinguished Middle Eastern patriarchs did not run. Children might run; women might run; young men might run. But the dignified pillar of the community, the owner of the great estate, would not pick up his robe, would not bear his legs, would not run. But this father does. He foregoes his dignity, shows his emotions openly, and runs to his son.
The robe…
The best robe in the house would have been the father’s own robe. An unmistakable sign of restored standing in the family.
The father is basically saying, “I’m not going to wait until you’ve paid off your debt; I am not going to wait until you grovel. You are not going to earn your way back into the family, I am simply going to take you back. I will cover your nakedness, poverty, disgrace, and restore you with the robes of my office and honor.”
The fattened calf…
In that society, most meals did not include meat, which was an expensive delicacy… Typically reserved for special occasions.
And no meat was more expensive than the fattened calf. This would have been done only on the rarest of occasions and likely the entire village would have been invited. We are talking about a massive feast. Something for all to celebrate… The restoration of the younger son to life, family, and community.
All of this challenges the older brothers with a startling message:
God’s love and forgiveness can pardon and restore any and every kind of sin or wrongdoing.
It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you have done.
In the Father’s house there is food to spare.
And there is no evil the Father’s love cannot pardon will cover and no sin that is a match for God’s grace.
That leads us to ACT 2…
Jesus didn’t end the story there.
There’s no mention of atonement of sin.
No need for a Savior.
When the older brother hears that the younger brother has been reinstated he is furious!
Now it is his turn to disgrace the father. He refuses to go into what is most likely the biggest feast and public event his father has ever put on. He remains outside, publicly casting a vote of disapproval of the father.
This forces the father to leave the party he is hosting to go out to speak to his older son. A very demeaning thing to have to do when you are the lord of the manor and host of a feast.
He pleads with the older brother to come in, but the older brother continues to refuse.
The older brother is especially upset about the cost of all that is happening.
“You’ve never given me even a goat for a party!” - v. 29
By bringing the younger brother back into the family, he has made him an heir again, with a claim to 1/3 of their now very diminished family wealth. This is on comprehensible to the older brother…
And he’s making a case for all that he’s done by perhpas saying:
I’ve worked myself to death,
I’ve earned what I’ve gotten,
My brother has done nothing to earn anything, yet you lavish him.
I’ve never disobeyed you!
I have rights!
I deserve certain things!
But perhaps the most disrespectful thing he does is the way he addresses his father… “Look!”
In a culture where respect and deference to elders was the most important thing this behavior is outrageous.
It would be the modern-day equivalent of trying to destroy someone’s reputation or career.
The older son has just given the father reason to disown him as well.
But again, instead, this father responds with amazing tenderness.
“My son… Despite how you’ve insulted me publicly, I still want you at the feast. I’m not going to disown your brother, and I don’t want to disown you, either.
Please swallow your pride, find compassion in your heart, and come inside.”
“Will you come inside or will you not?”
Then the story ends!!!
Will the family be reunited?
Will there be unity and love once again?
Will the brothers be reconciled?
Will the older brother be softened by this remarkable offer from his father?
These are all the questions that the audience would have had, but the story ends!
Why didn’t Jesus finish the story and tell us what happened?
It’s because the real audience for the story is the Pharisees and the older brothers.
Jesus is pleading with His enemies to respond to His message.
What is that message?
The message is the question at the end of the story…
Will you come home?
HOME is not a PLACE… It is a RELATIONSHIP.
HOME is where you belong.
It is where you are accepted.
The ring had the family signet on it. Like a family signature.
Younger brother… We want the things God provides, but we don’t want God himself. We want our independence, we want to live our lives the way we want to live them and think it will bring us ultimate happiness.
Some of them, when things get bad enough, like the younger son, decide to go home.
Older brother cares about the father’s things, but he doesn’t care about the father’s heart.
In the first act, we get a very traditional depiction of sin.
But at the end we realize both sons are alienated from the father.
Both sons want the father’s things, but not the father.
Both sons are using the father to get the things they want… wealth, status, etc.
One has been doing it by being very, very bad.
And one has been doing it by being very, very good.
The thing that is keeping the older brother from the father is not his sin, but his goodness… His righteousness.
He even says, “I have never disobeyed you.“ Exposing his heart, but he believes his right actions entitle him to the father’s things.
The younger brother was trying to get control by leaving and disobeying.
The older brother was trying to get control by staying and obeying.
The younger brother was trying to get control of all of the father’s things by breaking all the rules.
The older brother was trying to get control of the father’s things by following all the rules.
And Jesus is showing us that they are both lost.
They are both alienated from the Father.
They both lack the desire for relationship with the Father.
And they are both alienated from God.
So there are 2 kinds of lostness…
That’s why Jesus put the older brother in the story.
You can escape God as much through morality and religion as you can immorality and irreligion.
There are a lot of Christians who have an older brother heart.
They would say…
I try really hard. I try to be obedient. I go to church. I pray, I try to serve Jesus.
THEREFORE, “God, you owe it to me to answer my prayers, to give me a good life, and take me to heaven, when I die…”
If that is the language of your heart, Jesus is your model, he’s your example, he’s your boss, but perhaps he’s not your Savior.
You are really your own savior.
And all your morality, all your religion, you’re trying to use it to get God to give you the things you really want.
But not get God.
You’re not in it for the relationship.
Older brothers, obey to get things they want from God.
And when they don’t get the things they want or things they think they deserve, they get very angry.
Gospel-believing Christians, obey God to get God. To be close to Him, to resemble Him, and know Him, and delight in Him.
The most stunning thing about this parable is how it ends…
The Younger brother goes off, but humbles himself, repents, comes home, and is restored.
But the older brother is still lost. He’s not home.
And Jesus’s listeners know that Jesus’ point is.
Most of us think God wants good people and doesn’t want bad people.
But Jesus wants new people.
Many think the good are saved and the bad are lost, but they’re both lost and though they look different on the outside, they are no different on the inside.
We think we need to repent of our sins to be saved.
But Jesus suggests that some of us need to repent for the very reason we ever did anything good at all.
The 2 basic ways that humans try…
To make the world right.
To make themselves right.
To connect to God.
- Self Discovery
I’m going to live as I see fit.
I’m going to determine what’s right or wrong for me.
I’m going find my true self. - Moral Conformity
I’m going to be good.
I’m going to try really hard.
I’m going to comply with the moral code.
Both groups say…
“This is how everyone should live.”
“This will make everyone happy.”
But Jesus says, you’re both wrong.
You’re both lost.
You’re both far from home.
There are 2 ways to be your own savior.
Just as there were 2 approaches to try to control the Father and get control of His stuff.
One did it by being very bad.
One did it by being very good.
And there are 2 ways for us to try to get control of God, and the people around us, and our lives…
One is doing whatever we want.
One is being very religious and moral.
Both lead to lostness.
Both alienate us from the Father.
The Gospel of Jesus is neither morality nor immorality.
It’s neither religion nor irreligion.
Nor is it something in the middle.
It’s something else entirely.
Whether you are an older brother or a younger brother, the invitation is to come home.
Home = a relationship, where you belong, where you are accepted.
Come home.
The Ending…
Why would a storyteller as good as Jesus tell a story with no resolution?
Because He wants us to see ourselves in the story.
He wants us to see something that’s missing in our lives.
He wants us to long for something.
He wants us to seek something… To hope for home.
So how do we come home?
Whether you’re an older brother or a younger brother, the invitation is to come home. And Jesus says we need three things…
The initiating love of God
The father goes out to both.
You’ll never seek God, unless He first seeks you. And He is seeking you. He desires you. So that He can delight in you.
To repent… not just of our sins, for the very reasons we ever did anything right.
Then we can know that we have transferred our trust in ourselves to Jesus for our salvation. Otherwise, whether we know it, or not, we are still trusting ourselves, our ability, our goodness, and our righteousness to save ourselves.
We need to be MELTED and MOVED by what it COST to bring us home.
Remember the setting of the story…
Jesus is staying with, welcoming, eating with sinners and tax collectors… The younger brothers.
So this story is actually the third of 3 in a series in Luke chapter 15. In the first story, a sheep was lost, and someone goes to get it.
In the second story, a coin is lost, and someone turns the house upside down to go find it and get it.
But in the third story, the son is lost. But nobody goes to get him.
Why didn’t anyone go get him?
Jesus is forcing us to ask the question who should have gone?
And in that culture, the answer was simple, and everyone knew it. It was the older brother. You see, the older brother didn’t just get a double portion because he was born first. It came with responsibility, one of which was to take care of, and go after the younger siblings when they were lost. His job was to keep the family together, keep the estate together, and make sure the family stayed a family. To make sure that home was home. Where everyone belonged, everyone was accepted, and there was relationship.
If the younger brother in this story would’ve had a good older brother, the older brother would’ve come to the father and said, “Father, my brother has gone. I will go and search for him. I will search for him until I find him. And I will bring him home. I will do this at great cost and great expense to myself.”
You see, everything it took to reinstate the younger brother, was at great expense of the older brother. The robe, the sandals, the meal, the ring, all belonged to the older brother.
It was taken from his inheritance, his share, his things. he had to give up what was his in order to bring the lost, younger brother home.
Coming home, redemption, restoration is NOT FREE. It’s very costly. It was free for the younger brother, costly for the older. It always costs someone.
We – the collective human race – we need a true older brother. God can’t just bring us back into the family, adopt us, accept us, and put the ring back on our finger.
There has to be an older brother that’s willing to sacrifice so we can come home.
Unfortunately, the younger brother in this story, didn’t have a good older brother. He had a religious person for an older brother. A Pharisee.
We do not.
For us there is a True Older Brother.
There is one who loved the Father completely, and obeyed Him out of that love. He came to earth. He loved the Father with all of His heart, soul, mind, & strength. And His neighbor as much as Himself.
He earned the robe, he earned the ring, he earned everything.
But at the end of his life he didn’t get the royal robe, he gets stripped.
He doesn’t get the fattened calf, he gets vinegar.
He doesn’t get the ring of honor, he gets a crown of thorns.
And this true Older Brother comes to us and says, “I came here and did all this, and gave up my inheritance all for you…”
“You couldn’t be clothed unless I was stripped.
You couldn’t get the robe and the ring unless I gave them up.
I earned them all, they are mine.
But I freely give them to you!”
In other words…
Salvation is absolutely free for us.
But it is unbelievably costly for Him.
Jesus put a bad older brother in the story, so we could long for a true one… For Him.
We don’t just need an older brother that would go to the next town to bring us home.
We need an older brother who would leave heaven and come to earth to get us.
We don’t just need an older brother that would come get us at the cost of his wallet, but one that would give up His life for us to come home.
On the cross, Jesus died for our wrongdoings, as well as our self-righteousness, so we could come home…
At infinite expense to Himself.
Have you been MOVED and MELTED by what Jesus did for us to bring us home?
To the degree you’re able to see that will change your approach to God.
You won’t be into moral conformity, and you won’t be in the self-discovery.
You’ll be a true Christian.
In ancient times, as well as now, the way to celebrate was a feast.
Food, laughter, celebration, our hearts, and our bodies get what they need.
According to the Bible in Revelation, because of our True Older Brother, Jesus, God is going to make this world our home again. It says he’s going to wipe away all death, all suffering, all tears.
We will get new bodies and it will be the forever and ultimate feast.
(Isaiah 25, Matthew 8)
What if we really lived and believed like this was true, and the ultimate feast was coming?
We would walk in quiet confidence, humility, we wouldn’t be anxious about much, wouldn’t lose hope, would have more love and compassion, and we would trust and obey God, not out of moral conformity, or to get things, but out of relationship.
What are you looking to to satisfy your deepest needs of your heart for love and meaning?
Family?
Career?
Things?
It may be a good thing, but it’s not home.
It can’t bear the full weight of your soul.
And if you ask it to, you will always be wandering, always be traveling, and never home.
Q. Why does the story end the way it does? Unfinished?
Jesus is appealing to all of us.
It is participatory theater.
Whether you are an older brother or a younger brother the invitation is simple… COME HOME.
It’s the place you were created for.
The person you were created for.
There is a true Older Brother and He’s inviting you to come Home.