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First son who has not participated in joy

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[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.'"

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There is a story about two sons in the parable Jesus told.

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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.

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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

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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.

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The first son asked the servant,

“Has anyone, even a precious guest, come to our house? I hear a big feast in the house.”

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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!”

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.)