Hello. My name is Frank Johnson, and I am speaking to you today from my video blog, ProdigalGod.com.

Today’s message will be the fifth in a seven-part series entitled, “Wayward Sons and a Prodigal God.”

Throughout this series,I’ll be basing my comments on Luke 15:11-32, so if you’d like to open your Bibles to that passage, you will be ready to follow along.

Let’s get started.

Last time we were together, we finished looking at the life of the younger son in the story we traditionally call the “Parable of the Prodigal Son.”

And we looked primarily at the reaction of the father to his younger son’s sin, and we found that the health of the relationship between the younger son and his father did not depend on correct behavior on the younger son’s part but instead on the love of the father.

Today, we’re going to begin looking at the life of the elder son and discover how his inner slavery prevented him from experiencing a full love relationship with his father.

The Elder Son: His Slavery
Let’s examine for a moment the life and attitudes of the elder son. Do you remember his philosophy of life? Like his younger brother, the elder son believes that a successful relationship with his father depends on correct behavior. But this belief leads him to a different philosophy of life: faithful performance of duty merits reward. If you do the right things, your father will reward you. If you live right, your father will accept you and love you. So you have to try as hard as you can to do everything right and not make any mistakes.

And so not surprisingly, much of the elder son’s life revolved around his work and around his performance of what he understood to be his duty to his father.

When his younger brother returns from the far country, the elder son is in the fields, working. He’s performing his duty to his father. We see this in verse 25.

And in verse 29, while arguing with his father, he compares himself with his younger brother in the area of performance of duty. He doesn’t understand why his brother is rewarded when he hasn’t performed his duty to his father, but that he (the elder son) is not rewarded even though he has worked hard and faithfully performed his duty to his father. This is exactly the philosophical problem with which the Pharisees and scribes were struggling.

The elder son says to his father, “Look! For so many years I have been serving you, and I have never neglected a command of yours (I’ve performed my duty to you); and yet you have never given me a kid, that I might be merry with my friends; but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with harlots (he has not even come close to performing his duty to you), you kill the fattened calf for him.”

Do you see the elder son’s mentality: faithful performance of duty merits reward. He thought that if he did the right things, his father would reward him. He thought that if he did the right things, his father would accept him and love him.

And many of us unfortunately tend to live our lives before God according to this same philosophy: faithful performance of duty merits reward. If I just do all the right things, God will reward me. If I just live correctly, God will accept me and love me. If I can just be holy and righteous, then I can live in intimacy with God.

What the elder son failed to understand is the same thing we fail to understand: we don’t need to strive to gain the Father’s acceptance and love because we already have His acceptance and love.

Do you notice the focus of the elder son’s words: “For so many years I have been serving you....” One translation says, “All these years I’ve been slaving for you....”

In fact, the Greek word which is translated “serving” in verse 29 literally means “to serve as a slave” and comes from a root which can include the idea of bondage.

The elder son sees his work as slavery. As an aside at this point, the major difference between a slave and a son is that the slave has virtually no relationship with his master, while the son is expected to experience a great deal of intimacy with his father.

The elder son believes that the only way to gain his father’s acceptance is through faithful performance of duty. He has never neglected one of his father’s commands. He finds his security, stability and meaning in life, not in his relationship with his father, but in what he does, in the performance of his duty.

Refused Intimacy
We’ve seen the elder son’s philosophy of life. He believes that he should be rewarded for the faithful performance of what he believes is his duty to his father. Now, let’s examine his attitude toward his relationship with his father.

And the one thing which stands out above all else in this regard is that the elder son refused to enter into intimacy with his father.

Verse 28 says, “But he became angry, and was not willing to go in; and his father came out and began entreating him.”

“(He) was not willing.”

The Greek word which is translated “not willing” in verse 28 literally means “to wish, to will, to want, to desire, to be ready to do something.” It’s a gutsy word—a word of purpose and resolve; it implies a choice of the will and determination. And the verb is in what is called the imperfect tense, which signifies continuous action. He continually refused to enter into his father’s house.

“(He) was not willing to go in.”

He was not willing to go into his father’s house. What’s happening inside his father’s house? A meal, the symbol of intimacy. He was not willing to enter into intimacy with his father.

Notice in verse 29 that the elder son is willing to eat the fattened calf, but not with his father. He wants to eat it with his friends, not with his father. He wants intimacy with his friends, not with his father.

And so, the elder son continually refused to enter into intimacy with his father.

Why did the elder son refuse to enter into intimacy with his father? The answer to that question lies in something we’ve already seen. The elder son was constantly striving to gain his father’s acceptance and love, which means that he didn’t believe he yet had his father’s acceptance and love.

Why would anyone want to experience intimacy with someone who did not accept nor love him? Since the elder son mistakenly felt that his father did not love nor accept him, he did not desire any form of intimacy with his father.

Again, the verbs in this verse are in the imperfect tense, signifying continuous action. Thus, the elder son’s choice to not enter into intimacy with his father was not a casual decision. It was an attitude of his heart which had been reinforced over and over again by countless one-time decisions to refuse intimacy with his father.

The elder son was driven by his goal and purpose to faithfully perform what he thought was his duty to his father. He thought that by faithfully performing his duties, he would gain his father’s acceptance. But he was blind to the fact that he had always had his father’s acceptance. In the faithful performance of his duties, the elder son ignored the desire of his father’s heart: intimacy.

Who Was The Wayward Son?
Who in this parable was the wayward son? Was it the younger son? He was wayward at the beginning of the story, but he came back to his father and was no longer wayward. But the elder son remained wayward throughout the story. He didn’t go to the far country like his younger brother. But he didn’t have to take a long journey to reach the far country, because the far country was always in his heart [Lloyd John Ogilvie, Autobiography of God: God Revealed in the Parables of Jesus (Ventura: Regal Books, 1979), pg. 10].

The “far country” does not consist primarily of sinful actions. Instead, the “far country” consists primarily of separation from the father.

What the younger son had done in the far country was relatively unimportant. What was important was that he had been separated from his father. He did not experience intimacy with his father while he was in the far country.

On the other hand, the elder son did everything correctly. He had never neglected one of his father’s commands. He had faithfully performed what he felt was his duty to his father. Deafened by his drive for acceptance and love, though, he did not hear the cry of his father’s heart. He remained separated from his father. He continued to refuse to enter into intimacy with his father, and in this, he was forever a citizen of the far country.

Many people today are just like the elder son. We are consumed by our drive for the acceptance and love of our Heavenly Father. And we think that the way to gain our Father’s acceptance and love is through the faithful performance of our duty, through doing all the right things. But we are blind to the fact that we have always had our Father’s acceptance and love.

This concludes the fifth part of our seven-part series entitled “Wayward Sons and a Prodigal God.”

I hope that you will join me next time as we begin to examine the reaction of the father to the elder son’s attitudes and actions.

Thank you for joining me today.