Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, as we come to this final opportunity together that we've had over the course of this weekend, looking at Luke chapter 15, looking at this familiar parable, I trust we have found encouragement in the focus we could have on the waywardness, the reckless, squanderous waywardness of the rebellious son and seeing the father's love and mercy toward him. I trust we have been helped as well in looking at the bitterness, the resentfulness, the smugness of the self-satisfied, self-righteous elder brother and recognized as well that in all of this we are being taught And I pray that it has been clear in the way we have sought to open these passages up together that the focus has not ultimately been on either the rebellious younger son or on the smug and self-righteous elder brother. But the emphasis has been on the amazing love of the father. Amazing love How can it be that Thou, my Lord, shouldst die for me? And I trust that as we have had opportunity to reflect on these things together, we have been able to say as I need to say, I find myself all over this parable. Because I can identify with the waywardness of the younger brother. I can identify with that desire to go my own way, to do my own thing, and to live at a distance from God. To scratch every itch the world tempts me to scratch, and to do everything that is displeasing to God. I trust all of us can recognize ourselves in the younger brother. They also trust all of us, at least many, if not most of us could recognize ourselves in the smugness of the older brother as well. I trust we are blessed when we finally come to the conclusion this is about the amazing grace of God. And wherever it is we are standing right now, however it is we might want to be described as the older or the younger brother, our help comes from the Lord. We need this Jesus. We need His grace. We need His mercy. This God who is rich in mercy because of the great love with which He has loved us. We need him so, so very much. But as we conclude our time together, I want to seek to wrap things up with an overview of the things that we are taught here in this parable by asking the question, where do we see this love of the Father? Where do we see that? Now we know, of course, from the teaching of all of the Bible, we see it in Jesus Christ. We see it in the work of God, our Savior. 1 John 4 verse 9, In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. And this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us. sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. We see it in Jesus Christ. We haven't yet fully appreciated the love of God, how we see it, where we see it. If we're looking at this particular portion of Scripture in this parable, this whole portion of Luke chapter 15, if we forget to ask, who is speaking this parable? It's Jesus, the one whom the Father sent. And I want to submit to you this evening that it's Jesus who is the elder brother that should have been. It's the Lord Jesus Christ who is the elder brother to us that this elder brother in the parable never was. and he is the elder brother we desperately need. He is the one who has come to seek and to save that which was lost. He is the seeking shepherd who hoists his lost sheep on his shoulders and brings them home. He is the good shepherd who laid down his own life for the sheep was therefore dead and is now alive. No one took his life from him. He laid it down of his own accord, but he took it up again. He is alive. He is the resurrection and the life. He is the one in whom we have this life. He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the way home. He is the way to the Father. He is the seeking Savior. He is the better big brother. And I want to proclaim the grace of God to you this evening. The amazing love of our father in sending the better big brother and the three things I want us to consider together as we look at this standing back from everything we have seen together in the course of our study of this passage. are these in the first place we want to speak of the implied expectation the implied expectation as I'll seek to show you or seek to demonstrate to you there is something Jesus is pushing us toward in the way these or this rather parable unfolds in its three components the implied expectation We want to look as well at the infinite expense. The infinite expense. And then finally in the third place the implications that ought to be expressed in our lives as we live with great joy sharing in the father's rejoicing as we go forth from here on our way rejoicing in the love and grace of God. So in the first place I want to speak of the the implied expectation. We didn't take the time to read the whole chapter, but we have a couple of times read the whole chapter. And just call your attention again to the way it began. Luke Chapter 15. Remember the tax collectors and sinners were drawing near to hear Jesus. The Pharisees and scribes were grumbling. They were murmuring. They couldn't stomach this. They had no place for that. They were grumbling about the gospel. They were grumbling about the fact that he's a friend of sinners. They had no understanding of their need for him to have come into the world to save sinners of whom they too were chief. This man receives sinners and eats with them. So he told them, verse 3, this parable. Now we have, as I've said, focused on verses 11 and following. But the whole thing is this parable. And the whole thing begins with a little teaching about a shepherd with a hundred sheep who loses one and then a woman with ten coins who loses one of those. We spoke of that briefly in our first address. But I want to call attention to that again just to remind us of something I believe the Lord Jesus Christ is doing. An expectation He is building. for his hearers, something we should have been waiting for, looking for, longing for. So in the case of the shepherd with a hundred sheep, one goes lost and he doesn't take it in stride. He is earnestly concerned for that one lost sheep. He leaves the ninety and nine and he goes and he seeks that sheep out and he finds it, brings it home rejoicing And he calls for others to rejoice with him. We spoke of the rejoicing that is in heaven. Same with the woman who loses her coin. She cannot stop until she finds it. And when she finds it, she calls others to rejoice with her. And again, we remember the conclusion. There is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who rejoices. And we're reminded of the great rejoicing of God himself who shouts and sings over us with loud singing and rejoicing. But now, if you have seen the progression, one out of a hundred sheep goes lost, one out of ten coins goes lost, and it's arguable that those coins are perhaps each worth more than one sheep in those days. You're seeing an intensification. Now we have two sons. A certain man has two sons and one of them goes lost. But what did you see with the sheep? The shepherd goes looking. What did you see with the coins? The woman goes looking. What are we expecting when we hear of a son who goes lost? Someone ought to go looking for him. That's the expectation I submit to you is implied in the teaching that is laid out. Why doesn't anyone go looking for Him? And whose task is it to go looking for Him? And I would submit to you that the task should have been that of the older brother. I will find Him. This would be the answer of that question posed by Cain. To God, am I my brother's keeper? Yes, you are. You are your brother's keeper. This is a covenantal expectation that certainly would have lived among Jesus' hearers in the day that he spoke this parable. The shepherd goes after his sheep. The woman goes after her coin. What's the big brother doing? He should have been the one who was after his brother. He should have been the one when the younger brother was gone who was on the ramparts looking and longing to see that his brother was coming home. He should have been the one when his brother returned who would be eager to get in there and rejoice in the celebration along with everyone else. But we know from our study of this parable and the way the Lord Jesus Christ lays it out that that was the furthest thing from the truth about this big brother He had no interest, no concern, no compassion for the lostness of his younger brother. He was smugly self-satisfied in the fact that he was the one who stayed on the farm. He was the one who worked his fingers to the bone. Remember, we saw already in 15 verse 12, that when the younger son had asked for his inheritance, the father divided the inheritance among them. And remember, we had suggested at the time that when that was done, the younger son would have received one-third, the older two-thirds. The firstborn would receive double. And the reason that was The practice, according to Old Testament legislation, was because the older brother would have the responsibility to see to it, with the father's passing, that the well-being of the family was preserved, that the line of this inheritance was maintained, that their place in the community was kept and upheld And so this older brother should have done a lot more than simply be on the ramparts looking for his brother. The older brother should have been the one who said, Dad, I'll go. I'll go. I'll go to that far country. I'll do what I can to seek, to encourage, to challenge, to woo, to love, to bring back my rebellious brother. I'll do what I can to show Him the love of His Father. Everything has been entrusted to me. I have the resources with which to do it. And Father, if it so happens as it is likely to be, that He wastes it all and squanders all of His property, I'll bring Him back at my expense. He'd been given two-thirds of the inheritance, had he not? That's what brothers do. You are your brother's keeper. In his very helpful book on preaching, Preaching Christ in All the Scriptures, Edmund Clowney, does something on this parable in the course of his discussion. He makes reference to a news article from Life Magazine in 1965. And the account is of these two brothers, Daniel and Donald Dawson. Daniel Dawson was a fighter pilot in the Vietnam War. And when Donald, who had remained home in America, learned that it was likely that his brother Daniel had been shot down over the jungle by the Viet Cong, Donald Dawson took it upon himself to basically sell all that he had to equip himself with the resources to go to Vietnam and to find his brother Daniel. He left his wife with $20. And back and forth and up and down, to and fro, he waded through the jungles looking for his brother. And he was so persistent And his search became so well known that on either side of the battle, there was room for him to make his way and to engage in the search. And he simply became known as the brother of the pilot. The brother. This is my brother Daniel. Have you seen my brother Daniel? That's what brothers do. Sadly, In this human story, in this real account, we aren't able to speak about a happy ending. The fact of the matter is that Donald ran out of resources and there was nothing more he could do. As it ends up, Daniel had indeed been captured by the Viet Cong and he had died in captivity. And Donald had no way either of finding that out, or even if he had found that out, no way of bringing his brother Daniel back to life. But what a picture of what big brothers do. Back to the elder brother in our story, in Jesus' story, this parable. He was ashamed of his younger brother. He considered him to be a real loser. He was frustrated by the way this younger brother of his had squandered all of his property. And he really wanted nothing to do with him because he was so much better. He had always walked in obedience as you recall that was his sense of it. You also recognize that in that this elder brother was so much different than the Lord Jesus. I wanted to have us read together as well from Hebrews chapter 2 and I would turn there in Hebrews chapter 2 Begin reading at verse 10. This is the Word of God. Speaking of Jesus. Speaking of the Lord Jesus. We call him the better big brother. We learn throughout the book of Hebrews that Jesus is better than everything you could have imagined in the Old Testament. He's the better mediator. He's the better sacrifice. He's better than the temple. He's better than everything that was given us in the Old Testament. We also take this up in the confidence that as Hebrews 1 verse 3 said, I'll just read that in the pre-context and just set it before you. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. He is the radiance of the glory of God. He is the exact image of His Father. You see, the older brother in our story, in no way did he reflect the heart of his father. But the Lord Jesus Christ, who becomes our elder brother, is the exact image of the radiance of his father. He truly reflects the heart of his father. And so we begin reading further about him. Hebrews 2 verse 10. It was fitting that he for whom and by whom all things exist and bringing many sons to glory should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. Speaking of the father about the work of the son. For he who sanctifies, and those who are sanctified, all have one origin. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers. Saying, I'll tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation. I will sing your praise. That came up in one of our discussions, didn't it? This reference from Hebrews chapter 2. The Lord Jesus Christ singing this is a quote from that suffering psalm of Jesus Psalm 22 the words that begin my God my God why have you forsaken me. These words of Jesus in Psalm 22 also end in that psalm in the confidence that he has done it. The work has been finished. You can almost watch Jesus suffer on the cross when you read through Psalm 22, but the end is very confident because of what he's done and that the word will go to all the nations. Every knee will bow. In that context, as I've been taught to sing Psalm 22 in the context of the the hymnal psalter hymnal that we use. We are just allow me to say to you a group of churches that seeks to be dominant psalmist if that's of any help to you dominant psalmist. But we speak of singing with the Lord Jesus Christ. It's Jesus Christ who's singing these words in Psalm 22 amid the thronging worshipers Jehovah will I bless amid my brethren gathered there his name will I confess that's Jesus singing together with us. And I just want to finish reading this portion to the end of verse thirteen and again I'll put my trust in him and again behold I and the children God has given me. Hope to come back to that but to call our attention to what is said of the Lord Jesus In Hebrews 2 verse 11, he's not ashamed to call us his brothers. The older brother was deeply ashamed. He was embarrassed about the recklessness, the foolishness, the wickedness of his younger brother. The Lord Jesus Christ is not ashamed to call us his brothers, his brethren, his brothers and his sisters. Now you think about that. We have given Him every reason to be ashamed. We have given Him every reason by virtue of our recklessness, by virtue of our self-righteousness. And nevertheless, we read of His mercy. He is not ashamed to call us His brethren. I hope that encourages you deeply of your need for him and of the blessing that is to be found in him. So the implied expectation, someone should have gone out to look. I want to develop that further in the second point when we speak there of the infinite expense, the incredible expense. Some people have looked at this passage And they've said it seems all too easy. And it seems as though the father was just far too soft and indulgent. Seems as though whatever happens doesn't matter. And you can sort of just presume upon the grace of God and everything is going to be OK. And when you take that line of thought, you end up with a kind of weak-kneed Christianity. I don't think we can call it Christianity. It really has no expectation. There's no call to repentance. Or even to the point where people speak of a universal salvation. You've heard of a book called Love Wins. The idea that in the end everyone is going to be saved anyway and people suggest that perhaps that kind of openness and looseness is found, taught in a parable like this. But is it really true? Is it really true that this parable doesn't teach anything about the cost of redemption? And I would submit to you it doesn't. Again, being pushed through what Jesus is showing us about the elder brother to realize he's the one we need to see, he's the one we need to go home trusting. You recognize that in calling for a feast, killing the fatted calf, providing the best robe, putting a signet ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, incredible expense was undertaken. That was no mean feat. As I mentioned, the killing of the fatted calf was a very illustrious affair, and you would say a very costly affair. But now the question is, who's going to pay for it? Remember what we saw in verse 12? The father had divided the inheritance among the two of them. Begin to understand perhaps the anger of the older brother and his unwillingness to go in. Have you seen the bumper sticker on the big RVs that you pass along the highway? I'm spending my children's inheritance. So the older brother has the sense when the father is putting a robe on him, giving him the signet ring, giving him the family credit card, so to speak, and hosting his big feast, he's spending my inheritance. It's coming out of my pocket. And he's not at all interested. All that I have is yours, the father had literally said to the older brother. And he's not interested. But again, the contrast, right? Between the bitter big brother and the better big brother, the Lord Jesus Christ. Of Him, it can even the more intensely be said, in the language of 15 verse 31, of the Father to the Son, all that I have is yours. He's the exact image of the radiance of the glory of God. Everything you say about the Father, you say about the Son. All of the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily. But this is what He's done. This is the extent to which He has gone to seek and to save that which was lost. We've seen that He didn't cling to, didn't lay hold of the glory that was rightfully His. But He emptied Himself into the taking up of our humanity. He poured His life out on the cross. You see, the extent to which He's gone to seek and to save that which was lost, He has come into this far country. He has become a curse for us. He has gone all the way to the cross. He's come to seek and to save the lost, lost people like Matthew the tax collector. I haven't come to call the righteous. He wasn't after, in that sense, the 99 not needing repentance, didn't think they needed repentance. He'd come to call sinners to repentance. He'd come to call other tax collectors like Zacchaeus, seeking to save that which was lost. He needed to go through Sychar, through Samaria, because he had a divine appointment with that woman at the well in Samaria. She needed to know the one who stood before her was He. He was the Messiah. He found her. It needed to be that that man who stood, or hung rather, on his right on the cross at Calvary, who could hear those words from his Savior's lips today, You'll be with me in paradise would be found by Jesus at work seeking and saving that which was lost even as he was hanging in obedience on the cross in our place. You see the infinite expense. You see the extent to which he has gone. You understand what he has done to come to seek and to find you in the pigsty of your sin? And are you glad for the way in which in his finished work he comes now to embrace you, to lay his arms around you, to kiss you and to bring you home? Are you glad for that? Do you understand that we're speaking of infinite expense, not merely the kind of expense that the elder brother in our parable would have had to own up to, to cop up for. He didn't merely empty his wallet, he poured out his life. He didn't pay a finite debt for the cost of a fattened calf. He paid the infinite debt against sin by enduring the righteous wrath of God in our place. He has enabled us to be clothed in robes of righteousness because He hung naked on the cross instead of us. And He welcomes us into the feast of His lavish love because all there was for Him was myrrh and a cup of sour wine and vinegar. And more than that, The cup of the Father's wrath which He drunk down to the drakes. At infinite cost. But remember who He is. The God-Man. God in the flesh. All that I have, the Father says to this Son, is yours. his true God. He was able to work his way through the curse of God and endure it, live to tell about it, and he could endure infinite wrath and the infinite worth of his divine person for us. That's who he is and that's what he's done. Remember Donald Dawson? Had to go home empty-handed. He ran out of resources. He was a good big brother, but he could only do so much. But the better big brother who has come to seek and to find us To wrench us out of the pigsty of our sin. Has not run out of resources. And he hasn't given up. He hasn't had to give up. He doesn't go home empty handed. He's not ashamed to call us his brethren. Do you remember how that portion from Hebrews chapter 2 ended? In the confidence that we have this Jesus who has come to seek and to find us. who's bringing us home. Here I am, Father, with all the children you've given me. I found them all. The rebellious ones, the self-righteous ones, all those who come to the Father through me, here I am, Father. All those the Father gives me will come to me. And of those who come to me, I will in no wise cast out. Father of all that you've given me, I have lost none. Here I am, Father, and all those you have given me at infinite expense. Behold, it is written in the book of me, here I am to do your will. Psalm 40. He's done it. He's come to find us. And he's brought us home. And we live in that joyful confidence that that day will be a day of great rejoicing. And the Lord Jesus Christ will not go empty handed. None will go lost, none who put their trust in him. So it remains for us this evening to ask about the implications for our lives and how they are to be expressed. And I would just leave you with two twofold thoughts. And I would express it this way. Trust and obey and show and tell. Trust and obey and show and tell. The bottom line is we need this Jesus. Whether you are better identified with the younger brother or with the self-righteous older brother, the bottom line is we need this Jesus to bring us home. We come to the Father through Him. If you are living in a far distant country tonight, that is, if you are living at great distance from God, If you are living your life as though God were dead, if you are living your life in rebellion and unrepentance, you need to come home. You need to come to the Father through Jesus Christ. You need to come home. Or if you're a Christian tonight, and you believe you've trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet you're living like the younger brother, You need to repent. You need to turn from your wicked ways and return to your God. And I can encourage you, He will have mercy on you and He will abundantly pardon. There is forgiveness with God, but you cannot stay in a life halting between two opinions, saying you're a Christian and living like the devil or living in the ways of the world. or if we are better described still, as proud, smug, and self-righteous, self-confident, impatient, ungracious, unloving, unforgiving. Like the elder brother, we may well be in the house. We may well be on the farm. We may well be in the church, in the pews. We need to come home to Father. Come to the Father through the Son and find life and find great rejoicing in Him. So trust Him. Trust and obey. This isn't easy believism. This isn't everything's going to be okay and you never speak about walking in a way that pleases the Father. That's not what this is about. So over against our tendencies as the younger brother, we no longer see obedience as something we detest, something we want to run away from, something we think is boring and old-fashioned. And over against the tendencies of the older brother, we don't see obedience either as something we accomplish that we can stick a feather in our cap or something we do with grim drudgery as a sort of duty with no love for the Father. Because of the love of the Father shown us in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have a new desire for obedience. The Lord Jesus Christ, who has brought us home to the Father, has not only forgiven us by the work that he's done for us, he continues to work in us and through us by his Holy Spirit so that we want to live for him and we find obedience delightful. And we are amazed, we are continually amazed by the fact that he says of us, I'm not ashamed to call you my brothers and sisters. So we say before the world, I'm not ashamed to call him my Lord. We trust and obey. And we show and tell. That is to say, because the Lord Jesus Christ has perfectly demonstrated to us, and the Father is sending His own Son to us, He's shown us, this is who I am, this is what I'm like, this is my heart! May that heart of the Father experience in the love of the Son Abound and be reflected in the love that we have for others. May we not be those who are so frustrated and ashamed and disappointed with the sin of others around us that we just keep our distance and leave them to themselves. May we be those who in love reach not waiting for them to come to their senses so much as we go out and find them and go out and show them and enable them to experience the love of the Father as we have come to taste that love in our own lives. Is it not our great privilege that we have come to share in the rejoicing of our Father? Hasn't it been a great blessing for us to know in our lives that as we have come to the Father through Jesus Christ, God the Father himself rejoices over us with loud singing? Don't you think there ought to be more of that? Don't you want to see others come to the same conviction, be brought to the same faith and live in the same joy? So let us pray that our lives might reflect the spirit of this loving father in our ability to speak of the blessing that he has sent his only begotten son. He found us while we were dead in trespasses and sins, children of wrath serving various lusts and pleasures just as were all the others. But God, who is rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, has made us alive together with Christ. It is by grace that we are saved. This is his amazing love. Thanks be to God. Amen.