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25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, 26 and he asked one of the servants what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother is back,’ he was told, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’ 28 “The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him. ~ Luke 15:25-28
The posture of the religious says: "Since I earn God's favor, everyone else has to earn it." They think they earn God's favor by being good and moral. The problem with this mistaken idea is: we can not be good enough to either earn or maintain God's favor. Both our justification and our sanctification are couched in God's grace.
In order to be right with God, we must have a personal relationship with Him. And, in order to make this possible, He came to befriend those who are honest about their hopeless condition. The honest, in their culture, were the outcasts, the inappropriate, those who had been rejected by religion. These were the one's who had failed so much, they had given up on their efforts to get it right.
In Luke 15, the Lord Jesus tells three stories to demonstrate just how this required relationship is initiated. Due to the fact that the Fall has alienated us from God, something had to be done outside of man in order for us to be brought into a personal relationship with God.
We have seen that the Prodigal son, while in pursuit of the life he thought would fulfill him, dropped to an all time low. His plans wore him out and left him destitute. And, it was out of this posture that he cried out to God. After crying out to God, this son who deserved a woopin', is introduced to the one who took the woopin' on his behalf.
In v.25 of our text, we read, "Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house." The older son, who represents the religious, had been out in the field that day working. And, astonishingly, his father hadn't told him anything about his younger brother's arrival. This is explained by the fact that just like the younger brother, this older son had no relationship with the father. Being out in the field was a metaphor for where he was in terms of the father. The younger son was in a far country, the older son was in a far field. Both were far off from the father.
As the oldest son approached the house, he heard music and dancing. It is at this point that the religious leaders to whom the Lord Jesus is speaking connect with the story. The oldest brother represents them. They have a safe place in their souls for his approach to life.
In v.26-27 we read, "He asked one of the servants what was going on. ‘Your brother is back,’ he was told, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’"
The older son's heart should have been filled with joy, but it was filled with resentment. The outrageous conduct of both his younger brother and his father was more than he could stand. The seemingly foolish father had received his wayward son back into the family. To the older son, this was the worst because the father was using his resources to throw the party for the son who did not deserve it.
And so, in v.28 we read, "The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him." The older son had no love for his brother because he had no love for himself. And, he had no love for himself because he was trying to earn his father's love. This explains why he didn't rejoice that his brother had repented.
In addition, the oldest son had no love for his father. He didn't share his father's response because he had not the father's love. Oh, the father loved him, but he received it not. This is a typical, religious hypocrite standing on the outside condemning the gracious work of salvation. Anger is the only emotion he feels. And, the religious leaders thought their posture was right.
The Legalist does not believe in grace. He does not understand acceptance that is not earned. He understands that free forgiveness is limited. He thinks, "If one does not appreciate forgiveness by producing good works, then that one does not deserve it."
And so, the Legalist does not go into the party. And, what we have here is a public display of private hatred. He cannot enter into his father's joy because he lacks the infrastructure in his soul for this type of joy. And, the rebar of this joy is the love of his father. The Legalist is the person who hangs out at the house of God but he does not know the heart of God. This is the greatest deception that has ever invented and it is the characteristic of every false religion on the planet.
Salvation comes only to those that are spiritually bankrupt, destitute, impoverished and fall on their faces as beggars before God because they have come to the end of themselves.
The older son shares his younger brother's former malady, he is also a rebel. Unlike his younger brother, he's not an outward rebel, he's an inward rebel. He's a secret sinner. He feels all the same lusts that his brother felt, but he hides them because legalism never changes our flesh. He covers up his real condition and never fulfills them because he is earning his father's blessing. And so he's driven by pride more than he's driven by baser things. But the base things are still there.
The religious are the hardest to reach with the gospel because in their minds, they don't need to repent. But, the Lord Jesus came to save sinners. He came to rescue those who have tried it all and have come up languishing.
In the last part of v.28 we read, "His father came out and begged him." The Father seeks both the religious and the irreligious. The older brother missed in sharing in his father joy over the return of his younger brother. If we have no relationship with God, our ability to love others will suffer.
D. L. Moody was traveling in the highlands of Scotland. He saw shepherds keeping sheep and he noticed that the sheep were wandering away. So, he engaged one of the shepherds in a conversation.
The shepherd said, "There's a particular type of grass that these sheep will go after. It's very sweet and they love it. This is why they wander away, and sometimes they even jump down into the landing in a real steep place, ten or twelve feet below, in order to eat the grass."
The shepherd went on to say, "Now, they can't get back up. In fact, they require a rescue operation. They isolate themselves by the jump and they eat the grass. And as their shepherd I leave them there. After a while, when they notice their plight, they start bleating, they crying out, but I leave them there. I wait till they've eaten all the grass. And I leave them there for days until they're so weak that they're going to faint."
Then Moody asked, "Why do you do that? Why don't you just rescue them?" The shepherd responded, "Because, if I were to jump where they just jumped, I would scare them. Then they would jump out over the cliff and kill themselves. So I have to wait till they're so weak they can't jump. And then they just let me carry them and I lift them up and take them to safety."
Sometimes, we have to lose a lot before we say, "I give up." And when we say, "I give up," the Shepherd says, "Ah, you're in the right spot." To which we respond, "Lord, I'm at the end of my rope." "Good, " He says, "Now I can rescue you. Let me teach you that your success at every level is dependent upon me."
