Sermon Tone Analysis

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Anger
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Anger
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Getting to know the heart of God
Over the past two weeks we’ve been examining the parable story Jesus told about the two brothers, as found in Luke chapter 15.
Jesus told this story to a crowd of people which included both sinners and ardent followers of the law.
The followers of the law, were upset that Jesus would mingle with such people of ill repute.
To illustrate His heart, Jesus shared several stories.
The last one was a story of two sons, which has commonly been labeled the parable of the prodigal son.
Most people who read and study The Parable of the Prodigal Son concentrate completely on the character of the younger son, his repentance, and the father’s forgiveness.
And yet look at the text.
It doesn’t end with the return of the prodigal.
Almost half of the story is about the older son.
The story is about two sons, who are both alienated from the father, who are both assaulting the unity of the family.
Jesus wants us to compare and contrast them.
The younger son is “lost”—that is easy to see.
We see him shaming his father, ruining his family, sleeping with prostitutes, and we say, “yes, there’s someone who is spiritually lost.”
But Jesus’ point is that the older son is lost too.
Today we’re going to at least three things from the text:
1) A new definition of lostness,
2) what the signs lostness are
3) what we can do about lostness.
Lostness
1.
A startling new understanding of lostness—verse 28.
• The elder brother would have known that the day of the prodigal’s return was the greatest day in his father’s life.
• The father has “killed the fattened calf”, an enormously expensive extravagance in a culture where even having meat at meals was considered a delicacy.
• The older son realized his father was ecstatic with joy.
Yet he refused to go into the biggest feast his father has ever put on.
This was a remarkable, deliberate act of disrespect.
It was his way of saying, “I won’t be part of this family nor respect your headship of it.”
• And the father had to “go out” to plead with him.
Just as he went out to bring his alienated younger son into the family, now he had to do the same for the older brother.
• Do you realize what Jesus is saying to his listeners, and to us?
The older son is lost.
• The father represents God himself, and the meal is the feast of salvation.
In the end, then,
the younger son, the immoral man, comes in and is saved, but the older son, the good son,
refuses to go in and is lost.
• The Pharisees who were listening to this parable knew what that meant.
It was a complete
reversal of everything they believed.
You can almost hear them gasp as the story ends.
• And what is it that is keeping the elder brother out?
It’s because: “All these years I’ve been
slaving for you and never disobeyed...” (v.29).
The good son is not lost in spite of his good
behavior, but because of his good behavior.
So it is not his sin keeping him out, but his
righteousness.
• The gospel is neither religion nor is it irreligion; it is not morality nor is it immorality.
This
was completely astonishing and confusing to Jesus’ hearers at the time—and it may even be astonishing and confusing to you.
• Why is the older son lost?
• The younger brother wanted the father’s wealth, but not the father.
So how did he get what he wanted?
He left home.
He broke the moral rules.
• But it becomes evident by the end that the elder brother also wanted selfish control of the
father’s wealth.
He was very unhappy with the father’s use of the possessions—the robe, the ring, the calf.
But while the younger brother got control by taking his stuff and running
away, we see that the elder brother got control by staying home and being very good.
He
felt that now he has the right to tell the father what to do with his possessions because he
had obeyed him perfectly.
CSLewis – Great Divorce example
we understand that to become a Christian we have to repent of our badness.
but most people don’t understand you also have to repent of your goodness.
therefore, don’t invite people to convert to elder brother lostness or Pharisaism.
Two ways we try to be our own salvation
Jesus gave two extreme examples of brothers who didn’t want God’s ways, in other words…there are two ways to be your own Savior and Lord.
Ways we can be caught up in “lostness”, or in other words…miss the point of God’s desire for us to find salvation through Jesus.
• One is by breaking all the laws and being bad.
One is by keeping all the laws and being good.
Both are equally wrong, and miss the point of Jesus’ example, and God’s heart for us.
• If I can be so good that God has to answer my prayer, give me a good life, and take me to
heaven, then in all I do I may be looking to Jesus to be my helper and my rewarder—but he
isn’t my Savior.
I am then my own Savior.
• The difference between a religious person and a true Christian is that the religious person
obeys God to get control over God, and things from God, but the Christian obeys just to
get God, just to love and please and draw closer to him.
Signs of Lostness
2. What are the signs of this lostness: See verses 29-30.
Some people are complete elder brothers.
They go to church and obey the Bible—but out of expectation that then God owes them.
They have never understood the Biblical gospel at all.
But many Christians, who know the gospel, are nonetheless elder-brotherish.
Despite the fact that they know the gospel of salvation by grace with their heads, their hearts go back to an elder-brotherish “default mode” of self-salvation.
Here’s what the elder-brotherish attitude looks like.
Elder Brother Lostness
It is:
Elder Brother Lostness: Deep Anger
• A deep anger (v.28—“became angry”).
Elder brothers believe that God owes them a comfortable and good life if they try hard and live up to standards—and they have!
So they say: “my life ought to be going really well!” and when it doesn’t they get angry.
But they are forgetting Jesus.
He lived a better life than any of us—but suffered terribly.
Elder Brother Lostness: Joyless Obedience
• A joyless and mechanical obedience (v.29—“I’ve been slaving for you”).
Elder brothers obey God as a means to an end—as a way to get the things they really love.
Of course, obedience to God is sometimes extremely hard.
But elder brothers find obedience virtually always a joyless, mechanical, slavish thing as a result.
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