1
|
|
First son who has not participated in joy
|
2
|
|
[Luke
15:31-32]
"'My
son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is
yours.
But
we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and
is alive again;
he
was lost and is found.'"
|
3
|
|
There is a story about two sons in the
parable Jesus told.
|
4
|
|
The
second son asked his father to give his inheritance in advance.
And
he went to the city with the legacy received from his father, and he was
consumed.
Eventually he took care of the pigs
and ate the husks pigs ate.
|
5
|
|
The
second son regretted leaving his father's house and returned to the house
where
he left with the intention of becoming a slave in his father's house.
His loving father welcomed him back to
his son and opened a big feast
|
6
|
|
When
the feast was ripening, the first son came back from the field.
The
first son, unlike the second, always lived by the will of the father, keeping
his side.
When he entered the house, he heard a
festive feast.
|
7
|
|
The
first son asked the servant,
¡°Has anyone, even a precious guest,
come to our house? I hear a big feast in the house.¡±
|
8
|
|
The
servant told the first son.
¡°Your
brother is back. When the second son came back safely and well,
my
master took the fattened calf.¡±
The face of the first son, who heard
this, was turned into a very angry face.
|
9
|
|
The
first son decided not to enter the feast. So he stayed outside without going
in.
Seeing this, his father persuaded him
to come to his first son and enjoy the feast together.
|
10
|
|
The
first son was angry with his father.
¡°Look.
I've been serving you for years. And I have never broken your word.
But you have never even given a goat
to enjoy with your friends for me.¡±
|
11
|
|
The
first son continued to reveal his brother's faults and said,
¡°Then
the son who had exhausted his father's wealth with the prostitutes returned
home,
and the father caught the fattened
calf for him!¡±
|
12
|
|
The
first son was very angry with his father who forgave his brother.
And
he thought that he should not forgive his brother who had left his father
and
did something bad.
He thought it was ridiculous to
receive him as a son again.
|
13
|
|
His
father told this to the first son:
¡°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.¡±
|
14
|
|
The
first son was angry with his father's great love, who accepted his brother
again.
The
first son could not figure out his father's heart.
He stubbornly rejected his father¡¯s
will and refused to accept his brother.
|
15
|
|
Even
worse, he emphasized his service to his father and judged his father's love
for
his second son to be wrong.
If
he was truly a son who knew the heart of his father, he would have to leap,
hold his brother and rejoice together.
But he could not do that.
|
16
|
|
The
appearance of this first son was like the image of the Pharisees,
who
regard themselves as most holy.
They
hated sinners who come to Jesus and repent and return to Him like the second
son.
They did not know what God was most
pleased with.
|
17
|
|
The
most pleasing thing about God is that a soul that has left God is returning
to God
as
the lost second son
has
returned. We, being children of God,
should
rejoice and glorify God when they return to Him.
God
is the Father who repents his own wrongs and gives mercy to sinners.
I hope that all of you will be the
great joys of God by thinking and acting on
what is always pleasing to God.
|
(This
is the sample conclusion provided by CTM. Please feel free to change the
conclusion to best suit the listeners of your sermon.)
|