3:30-Tim Keller
Lack of spiritual vitality is still the main problem in churches today. Any solution cannot be too programmatic, but also not too vague.
Diagnosis and Treatment
“Prodigal” means recklessly extravagant (prodigy, prodigious). Prodigal love for the prodigal son.
He makes the case that the parable is not about the younger brother, but the older. The context is Jesus’ dealing with the Pharisees. The younger brother is like the sinners around Jesus; the elder brother, who stays home with the father, is about the religious people around Jesus. The parable even ends with the older brother.
The main point shows that both older and younger brothers are both alienated from the father’s heart, in both cases both are lost and the father has to go get them, the younger only wants the father’s money (he doesn’t love him). But the elder brother does not love the father either; he’s only concerned about how the estate is being used. Both want the money. The younger brother tries to get it by being very bad; the elder tries to get it by being very good. “I’ve never disobeyed you,” he claimed. The brothers both tried to get the father’s things by their behavior.
For the elder brother, Jesus might be the example or helper, but not his Savior and Lord, because the elder is trying to be his own savior and lord. “Look I stayed home,” he said. Underneath, there is no difference between the two. Both are alienated. The elder brother never comes in to the feast (salvation). The bad boy is saved and the good boy is lost. The good boy is lost, not in spite of his goodness, but because of his goodness.
Religion operates on this principle: I obey, therefore, I am accepted. The gospel is exactly the opposite. Two people, both operating on opposite principles, will sit beside each other in church. Elder brothers are making God a means to an end.
3:42
The source of spiritual deadness: Elder brothers, are trying to get leverage over God because of how they are trying to live; they are judgmental, yet insecure, but their standing with God is based on their performance. As a result, there is no fruit of the Spirit, but, instead, selfishness, pride and backbiting.
Elder brothers get incredibly angry when their lives do not go well. Not just sad, but furious. What does this show? They believe God owes them. They say they believe the gospel, but they really don’t.
When elder brothers face criticism, they either respond with vicious criticism or simply wither. They either meltdown or melt down the criticizer.
Elder brothers pray, but they are petitionary prayers. When things are going bad, there are a lot of prayers. When things are going good, there are few if any.
Elder brothers are often loathing of others. If your self-image is based on having right doctrine (not on what that doctrine is about) you’ll will loath anyone who disagrees with you.
Elder brothers cannot forgive. You cannot stay angry and bitter at somebody unless you feel you are superior to them. “I would never do that.” Holding grudges forever is another symptom of elderbrotherness.
Repentance is being sorry for wrongdoings. When Pharisees broke the law, they repented, but they were still Pharisees. Even their repentance became a means of gaining leverage on God. Repentance is not just about being sorry for sin; it is being sorry for the wrong reasons of our right doing.
Genuine repentance will help us break through to a new level of rejoicing.
What did it cost to bring back the younger son?
Nothing? A ring and some party items?
The father had divided his estate and divided it in half; all of that money was gone. All that was left was that which belonged to the elder brother. The elder brother did not care for his younger brother. He should have gone to find his brother while he was gone from home.
It is true that the father can only bring us home at the expense of our true older brother. The only reason we can put the Father’s robe is because our true older brother was stripped naked on the cross. The only reason we can drink the Father’s festal cup is because our true older brother drank the cup of sin for us. Everything that we receive from the Father is at the expense of our true older brother.
Five Basic Ideas on Deeper Repentance and Renewal
1. The leader must work this into one’s heart.
Spiritual deadness is bound up in “performance.” It is elderbrotherness.
2. If a preacher/teacher, communicate beyond biblical principles to the gospel.
To the degree that you see you have true spiritual riches in Christ, you’ll quit trusting in it and it will just become money. I have to take them to the cross again. Don’t teach or preach anything without bringing it to the gospel.
3. Get a group of leaders together, take them through a book like “The Prodigal God.” Don’t work it like a class. Let them see it through me.
4. Get it through the church.
Use either small groups, or throughout the church.
Missed #5 somehow.
I remember being in the 9th grade, sitting the back of Mrs. Howard’s math class at Riverdale Junior High School. I was a teacher’s aide and spent almost as much time doing nothing as doing something. My desk, as it was, sat beside a bookcase that had just one or two books on it (it being a math class, after all) one of which had a black cover with the title in bewitched looking red letters. I did not know at the time those two words had come from a Beatles song: Helter Skelter.
