(Luke 15:25-32)
"He devoured your property with prostitutes, and yet, you are going to kill the fattened calf for him?! I have never once disobeyed you, I never once complained, and I have remained a loyal son all of these years, but you never gave me a young goat so that I could celebrate with my friends. And yet, you kill the fattened calf for him?"
There's a lot here that I've overlooked before. When it comes to the parable of the prodigal son, we often focus on the younger brother and neglect to look at the importance of the older brother's reaction. I don't know about you, but I often look down at the older brother in astonishment. He is so fixated on himself that he cannot find any room in his heart to celebrate with his father, his brother, and the rest of the household. Undoubtedly, he was enjoying the absence of his younger brother before his return home. "Good riddance," was probably his response to the news that his younger brother had squandered his entire inheritance on prostitutes and was wrestling swine for scraps of food. However, the older brother's response to his father's reconciliation with his brother is worth noting when considering sexual immorality.
First of all, the older brother is in the field when his brother returns. He had been working all day long. It was not until he worked a full day that he returned home to find a grand celebration underway. He could smell the fattened calf roasting, he could hear the laughter in the home, the servants were running about as if it were a holiday, and the older brother was perplexed as to what would cause such a lofty celebration. People were laughing and carrying on. There was music and dancing. Although he didn't know the cause for the celebration, he never expected what he was about to find out.
Tired from a full-day's work, the older brother grabs one of his father's servants and asks, "What is up with all the festivities?"
"Oh, haven't you heard?! Your brother came home!"
"What do you mean my brother came home?"
"You know, the one that asked for his entire inheritance, squandered it on prostitutes, and was eating slop with pigs, he's home!"
"Yes, I understand that, but why the party? Has my father gone mad?"
"I don't think so. He seems overwhelmed with joy at the return of your brother. He even killed the fattened calf in celebration!"
"WHAT?!"
"I said..."
"I heard what you said! Be gone!"
"But don't you want to join the rest of the family?"
"I will have nothing to do with this party. It is total and utter foolishness to embrace my disobedient, foolhardy, selfish, ungrateful younger brother with such a display of affection, grandeur, and excess. What has he done to deserve this reception? How could my father be so foolish? No, tell my father that I refuse to set a foot in that house while my brother is under its roof."
The older brother is obviously furious. He has been laboring all day in his father's fields, and he comes home to find his father embracing his younger brother who demanded his inheritance prematurely, spent it on prostitutes and partying, and never worked a day in his life. He has always obeyed his father, honored him, and he did so without complaining once. But this was too much. It was bad enough that his father allowed his younger brother to come back, but to celebrate his return was too much. He felt betrayed. He felt neglected. He was angry and refused to go in.
His father hears that he has returned home from the fields, and that he refuses to enter his home because of the celebration of his brother's homecoming. He excuses himself from the dinner table, leaves the house, searches for his older son, finds him, and entreats him to join him and his younger brother at the table.
"My son, please, I beg of you, come in and greet your brother! He longs to see you again and embrace you as a brother once more. Why won't you come in?"
"Why? You dare ask me why, father? Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me so much as a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him! I have given my life for you, father! I have obeyed you and honored you with my every breath, father. I have not once strayed from your side, I have not once asked for anything in return for my service, and yet you show more love towards my younger brother, who has done nothing but shown you contempt and dishonor, than you have ever shown me."
I can only imagine the amount of tears streaming down his face as his anger swelled and burst in this angry tirade. Which one of us would not be overcome with jealousy and resentment if we were in his shoes?
The feast was prepared, both were welcomed to the table, but only the younger brother sat at the table. Despite a lifetime of devotion and obedience to his father, the older brother drew the line here. He refused to go into the house and eat next to his undeserving brother. He loved his father, but not enough to love and forgive his brother.
"Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found."
The story ends there. It's as if the choice is set before you. Will you remain outside despite your father's entreating, or will you go in, embrace your younger brother with open arms, and love him as much as your father does? If your father can forgive your younger brother, then surely you can too. After all, your brother never sinned against you. He didn't take your inheritance and squander it. He took his own inheritance from your father and squandered it. He didn't abandon you for a life of partying, prostitutes, and reckless living. He didn't betray your love and loyalty. He betrayed your father, he squandered your father's money, he abandoned your father to enjoy a reckless lifestyle, and he spit upon the face of your father and his love for his youngest son. If your father can forgive your younger brother, then why can't you?
Those guilty of sexual immorality don't always receive the warmest welcome into the Church of Christ. Believers, many of us have been the younger brother, but all of us resting in Christ are standing in the older brother's shoes now. How do we react when someone guilty of fornication, prostitution, adultery, and homosexuality walks through our church's door and says, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants?” There's not typically a grand reception. Not even a warm reception.
They bear the scarlet letter, and we cannot let their presence in our congregation ruin our good name and reputation. It's a good thing the younger brother returned home and was seen by his father at a great distance and not by his older brother. His older brother probably would have run to him too, but then he would have pushed him away, derided him, spit on him, and cast him off to die.
"You don't belong here! Father could never forgive you. Leave now, and never come back here. You do not deserve father's forgiveness, and how dare you come crawling back here expecting to receive it! Be gone, you fool. Leave."
Perhaps your intolerance of the sexually immoral in the church is less obvious than this. Perhaps you treat them nicely, you welcome them into the building, but you would never dare invite them over to have dinner with your family. Despite the young lady's public profession of faith, you will not let your daughter go to church camp and share a cabin with a girl that used to be a lesbian before she was forgiven by your Father. Even though the man has repented and is bearing good fruit, you can't stand it when the former adulterer is talking with your wife after he has been forgiven by your Father. That young lady used to be a prostitute, and you don't want her around your children in nursery. Your Father forgave that man guilty of a long list of sins, but no matter how much your Father entreats you, you will not accept him as your lost brother (perhaps not even a hired servant).
The message we send is loud and clear: You are unwelcome in my Father's house! We are not necessarily jealous. We do not necessarily bear a grudge. It's not that we resent them. It's just that, well, they can't be trusted like every other sinner in our midst. Yes, it's wonderful that our younger brother has returned home and that our Father has embraced him with open arms. If God is able to forgive him, then I should probably too. I get that. But, to kill the fattened calf? That's going too far. To embrace him as a brother? Unthinkable. Our Father might not want us to, but we feel obligated to treat our younger brother as a hired servant rather than as our brother. They can live in the same house that we do, but they cannot enjoy the same status as the rest of us. Look what they did, after all? They are guilty of sexual immorality! There can be no reward for such behavior! Forgiveness can only go so far. I love them, but I will never trust them. I'll pretend to be their friend while I'm at church, but I'll have nothing to do with them elsewhere.
"I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God."
(Rev. 2:2-7)
Strongs explains that the Nicolaitans were guilty of, "Mingling themselves in the orgies of idolatrous feasts, [bringing] the impurities of those feasts into the meetings of the Christian Church." The Pulpit Commentary explains that the Nicolaitans taught that, "Neither idolatry nor sensuality could harm those who had been made free by Christ. The moral enactments of the Law had been abrogated by the gospel, no less than the ceremonial." Overall, they were antinomians who spread dangerous and destructive heresies throughout the church.
There is a great difference between a homosexual man or woman who has repented of their sin and one who uses the gospel of Jesus Christ to justify their lifestyle. There is a profound difference between a man or woman that struggles with pornography and one that continues in sin that grace may abound. There is a stark contrast between a young man or lady that seeks marriage after living a life of fornication and one who continues to unite Christ's body with that of a prostitute. There is a difference between the sexually immoral that find forgiveness of sin in Christ and the sexually immoral that seek to abuse the grace of God.
We must hate the works of the Nicolaitans in our midst. We should not bear those who do evil in our midst. We should cast out those why claim to be resting in Christ by faith for their salvation but are found to be false by the way they live. But we should never abandon the love we first received. This is a heinous sin, and Jesus warns the church in Ephesus that should they not repent, He will remove their lampstand. Jesus warns His church that if she will not receive those who call themselves apostles and are, then He will remove His light from her, she will grow dark, and He will place His lampstand somewhere else. Yes, we must guard against the Nicolaitans, but we should not cast out or be hard-hearted towards those who lived a life of sexual immorality and are now seeking reconciliation with Christ and His church.
Our sexually immoral younger brother has received forgiveness for his many sins by Him whom he sinned against. Our Father has welcomed him into His house, has slain his only begotten Son for him, and invites him to sit at His table and dine with Him, not as a hired servant but as a beloved Son. Are you going to be the older brother who sees your sexually immoral younger brother at the Lord's Table and be appalled by the sight, refusing to eat with the likes of him, or are you going to listen to your Father's exhortation and lovingly embrace your new-found brother? Unlike the parable, each and every Christian believer was once the younger brother before they played the role of the older brother. There is not a single one of us who has earned his place in our Father's house and at our Lord's table. God has had compassion on us all, run to us while we were still far from Him, embraced us in His open arms, kissed us, placed perfect robes of righteousness on us, placed upon us the seal of His promises, and equipped us all with a readiness given by the gospel of peace. If we have received such a reception back to our Father's house, how could we possibly deny our brothers and sisters who have also squandered their inheritance on licentious and reckless living?
Alas, it is not our job to welcome them but rather to make them feel welcome. The Father welcomed the younger son home, and the older son made the younger son feel unwelcome. The older son had far more reason than any of us will ever have to reject his brother's reconciliation with his father's household. By the biblical account, he was working in the field all day and never once disobeyed his Father. That is unlike any man or woman who finds shelter in the Kingdom of God. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Therefore, if an obedient son was wrong not to welcome his brother after his father forgave him, how much further are we from righteousness by denying sinners welcomed into our Father's house? Be careful not to reject the brother that your Father found and restored to life. Such behavior does not go unpunished by God.
Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.
(Mat. 18:32-35)
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