REBORN!
Greetings church family!
“He also said, “A man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the estate I have coming to me.’ So he distributed the assets to them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered together all he had and traveled to a distant country, where he squandered his estate in foolish living.” (Luke 15:11-13)
But he replied to his father, ‘Look, I have been slaving many years for you, and I have never disobeyed your orders, yet you never gave me a goat so that I could celebrate with my friends.’ (Luke 15:29)
In Luke 15, Jesus tells the story of two sons. The first Scripture passage above describes the choices of the younger son. He demanded his inheritance from his father, he received the inheritance from his father, and he lost all of his inheritance by way of foolish living. The latter Scripture passage describes the response of the older son when his father announces that he’s going to throw a party for the younger son who has come back home.
The older son did not ask for his inheritance. He knew the right thing was to wait until his father died in order to receive the inheritance. The older son wasn’t out living foolishly. He stayed home and dutifully worked around the house for his father. In contemporary times, the younger son might be the one who throws his life away with booze and sex and parties, and the older son might have been the one who got straight A’s, did all his chores, and followed the rules.
It is easy to come away from this story thinking that it’s better to be like the older son than the better son.
But two things stand out in Luke 15 in regards to the older son. First, the older son used the term “slaving” to describe his work for his father. The term “slaving” does not represent working from a mindset of love. Instead, that term indicates a transactional mindset. “I did for you, now you owe me.” The older son wasn’t helping the father out of love. This is evident in the following passage.
“Now his older son was in the field; as he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he summoned one of the servants, questioning what these things meant. ‘Your brother is here,’ he told him, ‘and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ “Then he became angry and didn’t want to go in. So his father came out and pleaded with him.” But he replied to his father, ‘Look, I have been slaving many years for you, and I have never disobeyed your orders, yet you never gave me a goat so that I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you slaughtered the fattened calf for him.’ (Luke 15:25-30)
If the older son operated out of love for his father, he would have honored the father’s heart for the younger son and happily joined the festivities. Instead, the older son, operating from a transactional mindset, basically said, “Father you owe me, not him.”
The younger son ignored the rules, while the older son complied with the rules with a transactional motive. Neither son operated out of love for the Father. The older son was just as lost as the younger son, even though the older, rule-abiding son never left home!
One more thing. If you still believe you are better off being like the older son than the younger son, remember this. It was the compliant “older sons” known as the Jewish religious leaders that demanded the “rebellious” Roman officials to crucify Jesus. I’m not promoting rebellion at all, but it seems as if an openly rebellious heart is closer to submitting to Jesus than a slavishly compliant heart is.
Thank God that Jesus died and resurrected to make lost sons and daughters into reborn children of God - born of the Spirit and not of the flesh. By laying down His life, He made a way for the openly rebellious to choose complete surrender and for the slavishly compliant to experience loving obedience!
What a joy it is to know that God is for you, God is with you, and God loves you!
Pastor Chris
