Absent From The Party

Dr. Stanley highlights the second half of the parable of the prodigal son. Though he has the appearance of a devoted son, the older brother’s heart is full of bitterness and jealousy. Don’t let self-righteousness poison your relationship with God or His children.

God is saying to you today:
God will never leave you alone. No matter what situation you are facing, God is with you. insert Amen
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God is saying to you today:
Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. – 1 Thessalonians 5:18

Start your day off, right? With the free in touch.
Devotional subscribe today in touch with Dr Charles Stanley, reaching the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ through sound biblical teaching.
Next on in touch, absent from the party, Jesus was a master storyteller.
Not only that he knew exactly who his audience was.
When you look at the 15 chapter of the gospel of Luke, which is where our text is, you’ll know that he knew exactly who was in the crowd who was listening and who was watching.
So that chapter begins with these words.
Now all the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near to him to listen to him.
Both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying this man receives sinners and eats with them.
And then he talks about the prodigal son.
And so we usually know this as the story of the prodigal son.
And the first part of it is about that.
But I want you to see that there’s another side of the story of the prodigal son.
We know that story that he decided that he lived long enough at his, with his family.
He wanted his share of what was coming to him and he decided he’d leave home. He left home.
And the Bible says very clearly that he wasted his substance with his living.
And when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in the land and it was, he was POed and he ended up in a hog pen and uh eating hog food pods they call them.
And so we look at that and then we see how he finally came home and the rejoicing that was going on.
And I think what a wonderful story of forgiveness that God demonstrated through Jesus about the son.
There’s a whole another story here and that story is one we don’t mention very often.
And I wanna say this right up front. Everybody can find their life themselves in this parable.
For example, there’s the prodigal son.
Then there’s the father who went after who waited for him and forgave him.
Then there’s another son and that other son is the one I want us to look at, particularly today.
We talked about the son coming home. And now what about the eldest son?
So I want you to ask yourself the question, which one of these characters best describes you loving Father Wayward son or the son who did not leave home but stayed there.
So look at it for a moment.
And as I think about that, I think about uh what happens here in beginning in the 25th verse now the oldest son was in the field.
And when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.
So think about this, the part is on. Nobody has invited him.
He just came in and found out the party was going on, what in the world is going on.
And so the eldest son was in the field when he came and approached the house and heard the music.
He summoned to one of the servants and began inquiring what these things could be.
So he said to him, your brother has come and your father has killed the fatted calf because he’s received him back safe and sound.
Imagine what the brother felt. But he became angry and was not willing to go in and his father came out and began pleading with him.
But his response was this, but he answered and said to his father, look for so many years.
I’ve been serving you. I’ve never neglected a command of yours.
And yet you have never given me a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.
What kind of a dad are you?
But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes? It’s interested in.
He didn’t name a whole lot of sins. He just named the horseman. You kill the fatty calf.
And he said to him, son, you’ve always been with me and all that is mine is yours.
But we had to, we had look at this, we had to celebrate and rejoice for the brother of yours was dead and has begun to live and was lost and has been found, period.
So the title of this message is absent from the party.
I want you to think for just a moment.
I want you to think about what was going on in this man’s heart, in his life and his thinking when he came home feeling like he’d been ostracized, overlooked.
Well, if my brothers all that important, then why didn’t they tell me about it?
So what I want you to see is this, it’s easy to criticize other people who are living in sin without looking at ourselves real easy to do.
And all of us have done it.
We looked at other people’s sin and think how awful that is and never stopped to think about.
Well, what, how do I compare with that?
The next, the next few words I’m gonna give you are words that describe this elder son.
First of all, verse 28 says he was angry. Naturally, he was angry. He got ostracized.
Nobody told him about the party because his father said we had to celebrate, he was angry.
Secondly, he was jealous.
Look in verse 29 but he answered and said to him, father, look for so many years.
I have served you never neglected a command of yours.
And you’ve never given me a young goat so that I may celebrate with my friends, very jealous three.
He was very bitter. Listen to that.
But when this son of yours who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you kill the fatted care for him.
Resentment looking in 29.
But Hansen said to his father, look for so many years.
I’ve been serving you very resentful about the fact that he had been faithful in the household, doing his job and not getting any recognition.
Verse 29 rejection. So many years I have served you. You didn’t do this for me.
He felt rejected and rejected his father as a result.
Every single one of these, the verses are here, anger, jealousy, bitterness, resentment, rejection, and unforgiving.
Here’s what you’ve done. Now look at me very unforgiving about it in verse 30.
But when this son of yours came and who’s devoured your wealth of prostitutes?
You killed the that care for him. Very disrespectful. Look, if you will in verse 30.
But when his son, this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth and notice he makes those words very, very pronounced.
This son of yours verse 29 very accusative. Look. Here’s what you’ve done.
You’ve never given me that and then very self righteous.
I’ve been with you all these years. I’ve done everything you asked me to do.
And then verse 30 caustic biting, piercing words.
But when this son of yours, not my brother, when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes.
You kill the fatted calf for him.
Now, when you look at his accusations, you can understand why I felt it.
And sometimes, uh, we are prone to be critical of other people when they’ve sinned, sinned against God in terrible ways, awful ways, horrible ways sometimes.
And oftentimes don’t stop to think. What about us?
So I want us to look at a few lessons here and what Jesus is saying to these Pharisees and said, you see, you keep the law, you’re very, you’re very evidently keeping the law.
But what about your attitude? And so there are two pig pins in this parable.
One is in a foreign country and one is at home.
This boy was in the pig pen at home.
He never left home, but look at his character, anger, jealous, bitter, resentful, rejecting, unforgiving, disrespectful, accused of self righteous and caustic body.
Your son, here’s what you did for him. You’ve never done that for me.
Sometimes we can feel very pious about things.
And what I want you to do is I went through this passage looking at myself.
Lord, do I have any of this stuff in my life? It’s simple.
It’s wicked, it’s vile, it has nothing to do with the righteousness of living a holy life.
Listen to this anger, jealousy, bitter, resentful rejection, unforgiven disrespect for accusing, self, righteous, caustic, biting and piercing.
And you’ve thought about something in your own life. Already.
I’ll bet two pig pins, one of them was home, one of them was away from home.
And what Jesus was saying is you can go to synagogue every Sabbath.
What about your heart? What about your attitude? What about your view of others then?
Thank you, me. In this way.
You can be in the pig pen and not even be aware of it and go to church on Sunday or do nice things or give or whatever it might be.
It’s the condition of the heart.
What do I think one son was aware of his sinfulness humbled himself in the hog pen.
He was an embarrassment to everybody but his brother who never left home who was faithfully serving his father was in another kind of hog pan, self righteous and then full of anger, bitter jealousy, bitterness, resentment, rejection, unforgiving, disrespectful, accusative of self, righteous, caustic, biting and piercing you say, why do you keep, why do you keep bringing that to my mind?
Because I want us to look at ourselves and see is any of that true of us?
Would you not agree that none of that fits a follower of Jesus?
None of that fits a person who’s been born again.
And I think there are a lot of people who live in that second pig pen.
They don’t realize they’re there all kinds of attitude and prejudices and unbelief and false doctrine and so forth, but just attitudes.
And even if you think about what Jesus talked about most of all in all of his teaching wasn’t necessarily performing miracles or giving us a doctrinal statement about something it was about attitude.
Jesus knew how to drive straight to the heart to help us to examine ourselves, understand what’s going on.
So one son was so desperate, he was feeding on the pods that the drop from the tree that the hogs were eating and he had to, he had to beat the hog to the pod.
The other son can sit down at this awesome meal physically but emotionally, it was the poison of unforgiveness in his heart because he may have been at home.
But there was no oneness between him and his father.
He may have done everything his father told him to do.
But what about what he felt? What did he feel?
Anger, jealousy, bitterness, resentment, rejection, unforgiveness, disrespectful, accusing of self, righteous, costly, bitter piercing attitude.
So the path of freedom from the of life is paved with what repentance and surrender to the will of the father, admit it, acknowledge it, confess it and come home to the father.
And so I look at that passage and remember what Jesus said, come to me, all you that labor and the heaven la and I’ll give you a rest.
Come on to me, all of you, none of us are perfect. We’ll never be perfect.
And this passage of scripture is so descriptive.
Thank of those who stand on the outside and criticize us for our mistakes and failures.
Those who try out life and just mess it up badly, have to come home and shreds emotionally.
And those who are pious, full of jealousy, anger, criticism, prejudice, you name it.
And what, which of the two is in worse condition?
Probably if you ask Jesus, which one do you think he would have said?
I think he would have said the boy who stayed at home and looked good was in a whole lot worse condition than the boy who messed it up bad and was genuinely repentant and said, I’m going home, I’m gonna make this right.
I’m going home as a servant to my father. I don’t even deserve forgiveness. I don’t deserve acceptance.
Jesus wanted the Pharisees and the sad to see is not our status, our position, our wealth, our acceptance, our titles.
It’s the condition of our heart. You can live in a dump, be a saint.
You can live in a castle and not be fit to live with.
It’s not all that outward stuff, all of us at some point in our life, in some way, whatever it may have been, all of us have sinned against God.
And you may be seated here today thinking I don’t know why I showed up this morning.
I don’t feel like I’m worthy to be sitting among a bunch of holy people.
You should never feel like that you’re so sinful. You can’t come to church.
You should never feel like things are so bad for you that you wouldn’t be accepted if you told us what you’ve done.
That’s not the issue. Jesus never turned away a sincere repentant sinner and he ascended his Pharisees.
And you look good, but look at your heart.
This boy blew it all in a hog pan and you all blow it all and go to church.
Listen, every single one of us can find ourselves somewhere in this story.
We talked about the product coming home and here’s the product of so that stayed at home and you may be thinking, but you don’t know how bad I am.
I think God knows and listen to this verse of scripture for God so loved the world.
Everybody that He gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have advertising life.
And he did not say except if, but he says, come home and I’ll forgive you.
And I want to invite you to ask the Lord Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sin.
I don’t care how far down you think you are.
You think you’re helpless and hopeless, you’re never hopeless as long as God is and He’ll always be, you’re not hopeless.
You ask him to forgive you.
He’ll forgive you. Not only that He sends his Holy Spirit into your life to enable you, encourage you, cover you, shadow you energize you to provide everything you need to live a clean godly life, whatever habits you may have whatever course of action you’ve taken is heading in the wrong direction.
Today, you can turn around by asking for his forgiveness, surrendering your life to him and asking him to guide you to friends to the right church, to listen to the gospel of Jesus Christ and begin to grow in your Christian life.
You don’t have to stay in the pan. You don’t have to stay there.
Father, we confess that we would all be and the big penny were not for your grace.
Amazing grace that has reached down into our lives, dealt with our sin.
While the blood of Jesus, our sins forgiven and name written in the lamb’s book of Life.
And we have you as our life through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Father. I pray that you speak to every single one of us today and that we’d be honest enough to answer the question.
Am I and a hog pen out of your will?
And it’s very evident the matter of your will or am I in the hop sort of hidden away?
And nobody knows what I’m going through. I pray that you’ll speak to her heart’s father.
I pray for somebody here today and somebody who has been listening or watching knowing in their hearts where they are spiritually and emotionally to be willing to confess their sinfulness to you and recognize that you have provided grace through the cross to forgive us of anything, everything and all things forever.
You said, if we confess our sins, which means if we agree with you about them, you are faithful and just that is you can always be counted on to do it, to forgive us of our sins.
And not only that clean us up, cleanse us from all unrighteousness, all sin and give us a fresh new beginning.
No one may know where we are in the hog pins but God, you know, and as you love both of these boys the same, we pray that wherever we are and whatever hog we’re in today, we choose to turn around and come home and thank you for a new beginning in Jesus.
Name. Amen.