Amazing Love (Part 7 of 7)

Family celebrations are typically happy occasions, but that can change quickly if anger or resentment come into the picture. Today on Truth for Life Weekend, Alistair Begg explains how an older brother's refusal to join a family reunion actually revealed a lot about his spiritual condition. We're in the final message in our series titled Amazing Love. Now we come to these final verses, where Jesus delivers the Scud missile to the grumbling and muttering Pharisees who are identified in the opening section of the chapter. These individuals that were so sure of their own position and were able to look down their noses at everybody else are about to find themselves identified with this other son who had been mentioned at the beginning but has been offstage for the whole time.

Now, remember, Jesus has been telling these stories one after another. He says there was a fellow, and he had ninety-nine in the fold. We lost one. He went to get it, broke it back on his shoulders, and everybody rejoiced, and so there's rejoicing in heaven. Lady lost her coin. She had nine, but she needed the tenth. She got the tenth.

She brought it home. They had a tea party. Everybody rejoiced, and there's rejoicing in heaven. So he's gone from one in ninety-nine to one in ten to one in two. And his listeners are waiting to see how this story's going to end. Is it going to be the same way? Well, there's an inkling of it now, perhaps with the introduction of the brother.

Perhaps this is what we're waiting for. And now the news is going to be, and when the older brother found out, he rejoiced as well, and they had the most fantastic party that the family had ever seen in all of their lives. But it doesn't happen that way.

And so their ears must have perked up. The older brother, said Jesus, became angry and refused to go in. You see, the contrast in the story that Jesus is telling is not a contrast between a profligate son who went away and made a hash of it and another son who stayed home and made a great job of it. The contrast is between the penitent prodigal who understood his need of the Father's grace and the impenitent older brother who saw in himself no such need at all. He could understand why this messed-up brother of his would need intervention, but not him.

And that's the contrast. Because the younger son is now bound to his father in a relationship of grace. He came back up the road saying, I prepared to be a slave in your house.

And he has given his bedroom back, and it's all redecorated for him, as it were. The elder son has actually been living as a slave in the house. The younger brother is united to his father by grace. The older brother is united to his father in a relationship of legal obligation. In fact, if we had longer, we could go through this.

You could put two columns down, and we could write in them if we had time. On the prodigal side, he is a son by grace. On the older brother's side, he is a son by law. On the prodigal side, he's done nothing to merit God's kindness.

On the older brother's side, he's done everything to earn it. On the prodigal side, this is salvation by the sheer mercy of God. On the older brother's side, this is an attempt at salvation by obedience and the keeping of the commandments.

Now, this isn't to say that son number two wasn't at least outwardly a good, steady, faithful son. Jesus is not here saying that the Pharisees were all rotten. Oh, sure, they had hypocrisy that was part of their existence, but they weren't the sort of archetypal hypocrite on two legs. These people had given their lives to religion. These people were concerned to know God.

These people stayed up late in the night reading the Torah, searching it out, telling others how they can also live by these obligations. So it's not that this older brother represents some kind of pathetic creature. No, we should think of him exactly as he's described—as a good, steady, faithful son. But you see, when the Bible says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, that does not eradicate the degrees of difference that exist amongst men and women.

Right? Not all of us have committed murder. We have all sinned. Not all of us have violated every command in the way another has.

So that there is a distinction—not a distinction in terms of whether a man is a sinner or not a sinner, but all are sinners, but the sense of sin and the expression of sin works itself out in different ways and in different people's lives. So there is a vast difference between these two brothers. But it is a relative difference.

Right? One of them definitely lived better. You can't argue that. He lived better. He stayed home, he shined his shoes, he went to work, he did his business.

He was present when he said he would be present. His life, from one perspective, was a better and a more constructive life than his brothers who made a hash of it. But the difference is relative, because they were both equally sinners.

Both equally in need of mercy. And it was this fact that the elder brother couldn't understand. Because he represents the Pharisees. You see, the Pharisees despised the publicans and the sinners, because they'd given up on the law.

They'd said to themselves, Listen, we have broken so much of this law—I mean, we are so messed up, we have so many tickets in our glovebox—that there is no way in heaven that we're gonna be able to get ourselves out of this mess by going down this particular avenue. The law for them was a useless avenue to God. And consequently, the Pharisees said, You are not the people of the law, therefore you are rejected by God, therefore you have no prospect of eternity in the welcome of the Father. They saw sin in quantitative terms. Therefore, they regarded salvation as the rendering of sufficient obedience to the law in order to build up enough credit in their account so that when push came to shove in the matter of the judgment, they would be able to say, Yes, we did this and this and this in the debit side, but we did this and this and this in the plus column. And they believed that they were going to be welcomed into heaven on the strength of that. So their approach is the opposite of grace. The absolute opposite of grace.

Their approach is one of contentment under legal obligation. And that explains the predicament of the older brother. Because he failed to see that sin is not simply acts of wickedness and disobedience, but sin is a heart of rebellion against the Father.

And he had a heart of rebellion against his Father, expressed differently from the rebellious heart of his younger brother. But nevertheless, he was in the same predicament. And he was in need of the same mercy. And what he deserved, he should not be asking for. And what God was willing to give. There was no basis for him to receive.

Well, I hope you're following that. There was for him a discovery that he didn't want to make. Oh, no, he's not back, is he? There was for him a sympathy that he could not express. The absence of a forgiving heart on the part of the elder brother is an indication of the fact that the elder brother himself had never understood forgiveness. You will never be a forgiving person. I will never be a forgiving person until I have discovered the amazing forgiveness that is granted me in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the way in which you offer forgiveness to others, the way in which I respond to others in forgiveness, if it is a grudging, mean-spirited stay in the garage for the rest of your life forgiveness, it is an indication of the fact that I have not understood the way in which God throws his arms around me, smothers me in kisses, and calls for a party to begin.

There is no human explanation for this, you know, is there? No, you see, it's grace. It's grace. And the danger of certain chunks of American evangelical fundamentalism is that it has actually never understood grace. And in the absence of grace, it has lived with lists, and it has lived with obligations, and it has lived with shibboleths, and it has lived with accretions, and it has lived with rules.

And it says to people, If you will do this, and if you will meet that, and if you will come there, and if you will fulfill this, then there's a chance, you know, which is nothing at all about the way that the father grabs the boy up the street, is it? It's all grace. He deserves a hiding. He gets a hug. He deserves to stay down in that mess. He's given a new bedroom. He deserves to walk the streets in his sorry outfit and with his stinky smell of the pigs on him. And he's given a bath, and he's given all of the radiance of his father's welcome.

It's a wonderful story. And you would think that anybody would want to go to this party, especially his brother. But he refused to go in.

Well, why was that? Well, finally, because the very necessity of it all he couldn't understand or he refused to accept. He resented the irresponsibility and rebellion of his younger brother. And after all, he was the picture of loyalty and responsibility and faithfulness and obedience.

The elder brother saw himself as spiritually sound, if you like, and healthy. Therefore, he couldn't grasp the reason for which the father so joyfully welcomes the prodigal home. Because he couldn't see that he was as much in need of grace as this useless brother of his. You see, the proud and the self-righteous always feel that they're not treated as well as they deserve. The son looked at this event, this party, this celebration, in terms of rewards.

After all, that's the way he viewed his relationship with his father. If I do this, I get so many points, and once I get a certain number of points and I get my frequent flyer miles, then maybe I'll get the fattened calf. Something has gone horribly wrong here, for this guy has drawn down all of his credit points. He has no credit points. He's now in the dumper in relationship to credit points, and suddenly it's let the good times roll, and the party has begun.

What in the world is going on here? The answer is grace. What he receives he doesn't deserve. The younger son was able to sing a song which his older brother had never fathomed. And so the father explains to the boy, he says, Listen, this isn't a reward.

This is a must. You need to understand the nature of salvation itself. And what had happened, of course, is what happens today. The fact that this older brother realized that his younger brother had a relationship with God that was based on something he didn't understand pointed out to him the fact that his relationship with his father was not as it should be. For those of you who have recently been converted, and you have discovered God's grace in all its truth, and you're now surprised that your husband or your father or your brother or your sister are resentful of you in a way that you cannot fully fathom—after all, you simply told them that you have found the answer to your life, that you have discovered forgiveness for your sins—what is the problem with this? Why would they not come to the baptism? Why would they not participate in the celebration?

I'll tell you why. Because you have become a catalyst in their lives for showing them that they do not have a relationship with God. They now realize, If this is what it means to know God, I don't know him. If this is what it means to love the Father, I don't love him. If this is what it means to be welcomed by his goodness, I never have. And instead of it drawing him in, instead of him falling down at his father's knees and saying, Father, I'm in need of the selfsame grace that you've bestowed upon my younger brother, because although I haven't been where he's gone, although I haven't seen what he saw, although I haven't participated in what he participated in, Father, I have to tell you, I've been living like a slave in your house. I've been resentful of you. I've been doing things so that people would say, Didn't he do well? I've been refraining from doing things simply because I was afraid that I would get caught. But from my heart, Father, I live like a slave in your house.

I'm a Pharisee. The father would have taken him in in an instant, wouldn't he? After all, it had been a big day for the dad. Earlier in the day, running down the road, the people saying, What happened to Samuel? What's going on in the street? Then they see him coming up the road with an unrecognizable, stinky character. And then a few hours have elapsed, and suddenly people are falling up to say, Could you turn that music down, please?

Turn that music down. What do you think's going on here? What happened to Samuel now? And then some of them said, You know, I was watching out my window. I was looking out of the kitchen window.

I know what it is. The younger boy's back. Came back a royal mess, but apparently a huge party. The older boy came by, and the last I saw, the father and the older boy standing on the doorstep having an unbelievable argument. And it looked to me like the father was saying to him, entreating him, Come on! Come in! And the last I saw was the older brother turned his back on his father and said, Away with you!

and all of this, and he stomped off back out into the fields. Would anybody choose hell rather than heaven? Yes! Why? Pride! If I go in, I'm going to have to admit that the only way in is on my knees. If I go in, I'm going to have to admit that I am a messed-up character as well. I'm not the perfect little daughter. I'm not the exemplary little housewife.

Oh, sure, I've kept it going. Yes, the people look and say, Yes, ten points for this and five points for that. But inside of my heart, says the individual, I know what I'm really like. And if I am to go in, then I'm going to have to go in on my knee. Oh, I would much rather go in with my head held high, with the people clapping and cheering and congratulating and saying, Hey, you made it!

Well done! Like that scene in Tommy Boy when it starts, and he goes up into the university there, wherever it is, and he's looking on the board to see the results, and he's pushing forward and pushing forward the dreadful, sad life of Chris Farley. But there he is, and he's pushing forward, and eventually he looks, and he goes, I got a D! I got a D! I'm going to graduate! I'm going to graduate! And he goes off, running through the canvas, I'm going to graduate!

I did it! You're coming to church, you're trying to get a D, you gave up on an A a long time ago, a B plus has passed you by, you're down to a B, you got a C average, you're in a C minus, you now hit D. You know that the chances of making it are dwindling with every passing endeavor to try and live like a slave when the Father welcomes you as a son. You see, this message, this scud missile, this sting in the tail brings in many of us who were reared in Christian homes, who've learned to play the game, who've learned to talk the talk, who've learned to get by on our wits. But when our friends have come now to Christ, and many of them have been radically changed, they have been a catalyst to show us we don't actually know the Father. And instead of bowing our knee and crying out to the Father for mercy, we retreat to our enslavement and our activities and all of our endeavors.

And the fact that we are surrounded by so many like us should hold no safety for us. For it is a broad road that leads to destruction, and it is a narrow road that leads to life. Oh, you see, God, the Father here in all of his beauty.

The judgment of God is not God sorting out the human race into a group that he likes that go to heaven and a group that he doesn't like that go to hell. Rather, the picture of him here is a Father overflowing with grace and generosity and opening his arms to all. To the boy who did a bunk and made a hash of it, he got lost. And to the boy who stayed home and lost out. A Father who overflows with grace and generosity, a description of God's amazing love, from today's message on Truth for Life Weekend with Alistair Begg. Please keep listening.

Alistair will be right back to close with prayer. We hope that listening to Truth for Life fits conveniently into your weekend schedule. There are additional options for listening that can make it even easier. You can now hear Truth for Life on your Apple Watch. If you have an Apple Watch Series 3 or later, open the podcast app on your phone, search for Truth for Life programs, and subscribe. That way you can access it on the watch.

Find out more by going to truthforlife.org slash applewatch. And as a reminder, this is the final weekend we'll be offering Nancy Guthrie's latest book titled God Does His Best Work With Empty. This is an encouraging book that shows how when we feel empty because of loneliness or loss or discouragement, that's never a problem for the Lord. In fact, he often uses our emptiness as a way to draw us into a deeper relationship with him. And when you get to the final chapter in this book, there's an opportunity for you to deepen your relationship with the Lord by following a written prayer. The prayer uses scripture as a basis for talking to God about the emptiness that invades each of our lives. When you read God Does His Best Work With Empty, you'll be challenged to look upward rather than inward.

Request your copy today by visiting truthforlife.org. Now, here's Alistair to close in prayer. Once again a hymn helps me Marvelous grace of our loving Lord Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt There on Calvary's mount outpoured there Where the blood of the Lamb was spilt Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace Freely bestowed on all who believe You that are longing to see his face Will you this moment his grace receive? Grace, grace, God's grace Grace that will pardon and cleanse within Grace, grace, God's grace Grace that is greater than all our sin Father, we pray that you will look upon us in your mercy this night Do not treat us as our sins deserve We recognize that we need to be born from above Otherwise we cannot see nor enter the kingdom of heaven Come down, O love divine And seek thou this soul of mine and visit it With thine own ardor glowing Lord, grant that those of us who have been away down the road and in a royal mess May come back on our knees And discover the wonder of your loving embrace And for those of us who've been trapped in a form of self-induced slavery And we're in the horns of a dilemma now, because most of our friends think we are Christians, that we do know you Help us, Lord, to fall down by our beds before we go to sleep tonight and say, Father, I want to know you. I want to live my life to show you All the love I owe you I'm a seeker of your heart And then when the morning sun rises over the trees We'll do that for which we've been created We will glorify you We will enjoy you forever We will praise you still In Jesus' name we pray, Amen I'm Bob Lapine, thanks for joining us Listen next weekend as Alistair takes us to Psalm 119 He'll address the common and yet crucial question, How does the Bible apply to my life? The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life Where the Learning is for Living