How Did We End Up Here?

Wednesday, September 23

We’ve been observing the question, how did I end up here. Yesterday we looked at Luke 15 and the prodigal story. We looked at how the younger son had to wrestle with that question when he was in the pig trough, how did I end up here? He came to his senses and went home, embraced by a father that loved him, even though he offended him.

Today, I want to keep going with the story from the older sons perspective because I think we need to ask the older son the same questions, how did you end up here?

Read Luke 15:25-32- 25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ 28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ 31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 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.’”

What did you notice about the older son? What about the Father? If you could answer for the older son, how did he end up here, how would you respond?

My uncomfortable push is that we can have a tendency to be the older son. I know I have.
We think we’ve always been with the Father, but you haven’t because our heart has wandered into religion, transactional relationship with God, rigidity. As the older son said, “look all I’ve done for you, yet this son of yours.” Some of you are older sons that need to wander back, run back to the father and put your judgement away and receive his grace, for yourself and for others.

Are you extravagant with grace, like the father, or are you stingy like the older brother? How you may have wandered from God and now you need to run back to the Father?