Pastor Barry's  "Chapter & Verse"  Say 213

August 1, 2018;       Luke 15:29;       59/260(III);       ‘Self Righteousness is Sin’

Luke 15:29 So he answered and said to his father, 'Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends.

The prodigal son had come to his senses and returned home.  The Bible says that he wasted his money on riotous living (v13).  All of the things that the world offers quickly lose their hype, especially when the money runs out.  The prodigal son was a Christian and possibly had never experienced what the world offered.  This young man soon realized that the ‘fun’ ends when the money is gone.  No one wanted much to do with the prodigal son when he was broke and he was humiliated with the only work he could find, which was feeding pigs.  When he did return home, his father, a type of Father God, who was constantly looking for him, forgave his son, restored him and rejoiced by having a party.  The father’s older son was working in the field of his father and did not know that his brother had returned home.  As the older son came near his home, he heard the joyous music and wondered what was going on.  When he was told that his younger brother had returned home and his father was having a party for him, the older brother was angry and resentful.  When the father spoke to the older son, the son told him that he had never done what his younger brother did, he had always worked hard for his father and the father never held a party for him.  The father told his angry son that everything he had belonged to this son.  It was right to rejoice because the wayward son returned.  The self-righteous older brother’s sin was just as wrong as his brother’s..