A Better Way

We are continuing our series, "A Tale of Two Sons." And before we get into that message, I've invited Bailey. Bailey is a senior at Queen Creek High School. She attends our Queen Creek campus. She's going to share a key passage with us that we're going to get to later on in the message. And I've also invited her to pray over us. - Thank you. - To do that, Bailey? - Yeah. - John chapter 13, verses 35, verses 34 and 35 says this, "A new command I give you, love one another. "As I have loved you, so you must love one another. "By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples "if you love one another." Let's pray. Holy Spirit, come. God, I just want to start by thanking you for this day. Lord, what a blessing it is to wake up this morning and get to experience another beautiful day here on your earth. God, I just pray for everyone here today, whether in person or online, that you would just give them peace. God, maybe they're coming here looking for answers, forgiveness, direction, God, whatever the case may be, I pray that you would provide and show up right now in this moment. God, I thank you so much for Robert, and I pray that you would just speak through him. I pray that you would use him as a vessel to reach each and every one of us.

God, I just want to thank you for this church that we get to come together, gather, and learn more about you and your word. Jesus, we love you, and we thank you, and it's in your sweet name, we pray. Amen. - Amen. (audience applauds) - Bailey started a Bible study at her high school, and there's dozens of students that are going to that, and she also preached her first sermon last month at our student ministries in Queen Creek. (audience applauds) And I'm so grateful for all of you who pour into our kids and students, for all of you who make investments into them. Thank you, thank you. And I do want to say something to all the young parents, meaning you have kids that are birthed through four years of age, I had an opportunity to meet Bailey's parents, and they've invested a lot into her as parents, one of the most important things we can do as parents is to lay a foundation of faith in the life of our kids. And kids will make their own decisions and all of that, but we can do some things as parents that really help set them up for a lifetime of following Jesus. And so if you're a parent of younger kids, something we do at Sun Valley is parent child dedication,

and there's a couple of classes that we do, and we're gonna give you some best practices, some really simple things that you can do in the lives of your children, especially when they're young, to really lay a foundation of faith for them as they grow into adults. And so if you're a parent of younger kids, would like to invite you, our first class is actually happening next week. You can go to dedication.sv.cc. And after a couple of weeks of that, what we'll do as a church is we'll actually pray over you, pray over your family and over your kids in service. And so if you'd be interested in that, you can go to dedication.sv.cc, allow us to walk alongside you in that, and allow that input to lay a solid foundation for the future of faith in your children. As we continue this series, we're talking about a parable that Jesus gives in Luke chapter 15. In fact, he gives three parables. And the third one that we've been talking about each week in this series, some of you, even if you're new to church, maybe you've heard of, it referred to as the parable of the lost son. Yet as we pointed out each week in this series, it doesn't start out that way.

Jesus says there was a man who had two sons. And it's a parable about a relationship between a father and his two sons. And what I wanna talk about today is the relationship between the two brothers. And if you are new, again, this is your first week here. Let me give you a little recap of this parable that Jesus gives. Now, parable is a made up story that's meant to prove a point. And so what Jesus is doing is he's making up these stories, this series of three stories, and he wants us to begin to ask these questions. Who is God in this story? Who are we in this story? And what is it that you and I are supposed to learn? And so he gives this parable, and he talks about there was a father who had two sons, the younger of the two brothers, says, "Dad, I want my inheritance now. "I want nothing to do with you, "nothing to do with the family." And the father actually does. He gives him his portion of the inheritance, he goes off and he squanders it. His life hits rock bottom, he's miserable, he decides to come back and his father embraces him and welcomes him back into the family. Meanwhile, the older brother, after he squandered all of that wealth,

and he's resentful and the father goes out and says, "Will you please come join this celebration, "this brother of yours that was lost has been found. "Let's celebrate together." And Jesus ends it there. And so we don't know what the older brother does. We never know if he enters into the party, but the context of these parables, Jesus is talking to religious leaders who are looking down on all the obvious sinners that Jesus is spending time with, that Jesus is showing grace towards, and they can't stand that. And so Jesus gives us parable to prove a point. And it's fascinating to me what never happens in this parable. What never happens in this parable is the two brothers never once interact with each other. In fact, the silence between these brothers is deafening. And so I wanna talk about the relationship that exists between two brothers. And I feel like I know some things about sibling relationships. I have growing up between my step siblings, X step siblings, and biological siblings. I am one of 14 siblings. It doesn't even count in-laws. I couldn't do that kind of math. That's a lot of siblings. And so I understand the dynamic. I understand relationships between siblings.

And the sibling that I was closest with growing up was my older biological brother. And my older biological brother, he and I, this was in the dark ages of growing up when we didn't have the internet. We would ride bikes to places. We would play games, we would play sports. And he and I, we invented this game, and it was where we would just pretend to be cops with like low grade superpowers. Like nothing, nothing too extreme. And when I say low grade superpowers, think of like the spectrum of superpowers. On one end, you have the greatest superhero of all time, Superman. This is not up for debate. I don't wanna hear your arguments right now. (audience laughs) We can talk about it offline later, but Superman would be the greatest of the superheroes. And then you have those that have like low grade superpowers. This would be like Hawkeye or Batman. (audience laughs) I know I'm offending some people right now. Batman doesn't have any superpowers, guys. Some of you are devastated right now to hear this. He's just really rich and creative, okay? So my brother and I, we would play these games, and we were more like Batman, where we just, you know, we could do some really cool things.

I mean, still Batman's awesome, but he can't like really fly. He can't like shoot laser beams out of his. I don't know why I'm going down this path, okay. So my brother and I, we pretend to be cops with like low grade superpowers. And we would play this game whenever we would get bored. And he and I were really close. And every now and then that game, something would happen or we would be playing sports or we'd be riding our bikes. And my brother would turn and it would go real bad for me. And eventually he would become my greatest nemesis. And sometimes he was my number one enemy. And other times he was my greatest ally. And sometimes it was in the exact same day that this would happen. And if you've grown up with siblings, you know sometimes those who are closest to you, your brothers, your sisters, nobody can hurt you like they can. 'Cause they know you. They know what gets under your skin. They know what they can say, what they can do to really bother you. There's times my brother was my greatest nemesis. There are other times he was my greatest ally, where I would get in a fight at school or somebody would be picking on me and he would find out about it.

And my brother had a code of conduct where only he could beat me up. Nobody else was allowed to. And so if he found out somebody was picking on me, he would go and he would finish the fight on my behalf. Sometimes he was my greatest ally. Nobody can hurt you like a brother, but nobody can help you like a brother either. Eventually I outgrew that game and my brother has continued to play that game. He's now an assistant chief of police and continues to be a police officer with low-grade superpowers. But in Jesus' parable, he's talking about these two brothers. Never once do they interact with each other. And I mentioned this a moment ago, it's actually a series of three different parables. There's a parable of a shepherd who loses a sheep. And so the shepherd goes off, looking for this one lost sheep, leaves the 99 behind, finds that sheep, brings it back, there's a celebration, throws a party with his friends because this lost sheep had been found. Then he tells a parable of a woman who loses a coin. She has 10 coins, she loses one of the coins, it's a valuable coin. And so she goes searching for this coin and when she finds it,

And then Jesus tells a story of a father who has this lost son. And nobody goes searching for the son. Which begs the question, as Jesus is giving us this pattern of three stories, a sheep is not nearly as valuable as a human being and yet somebody goes searching for the sheep. A coin is just stuff. Money yet somebody searches for the coin and a human being made in the image of God is lost and nobody goes searching. Culturally at this time it would have been the responsibility of the older brother to go searching for his younger brother. And yet it never happens. In fact the two brothers never even have a conversation anywhere and the silence is deafening. Jesus is pointing out in this parable there's this great chasm between these two brothers and this chasm is great because the two brothers have two very opposing worldviews. One brother has this worldview that we'll just call religion. And what religion is focused on is seeking after blessing through earning, seeking blessing by doing all of the good works. That's one worldview. The younger brother has a worldview that we will just call rebellion. And rebellion is also seeking blessing, seeking blessing through seeing something and taking it and seizing it for oneself. They're both after the same thing, they're both after blessing, they're just doing it in two different ways. This worldview is all about look at what I do, look at my behavior. And if I do enough good things then God owes me. This worldview says I'm not really good at being good or I don't believe that God's actually going to bless me if I do the good things or maybe that God's even real. And so if it looks good, tastes good, sounds good, it's for me. Two opposing worldviews and both will self-destruct. The worldview of rebellion will self-destruct.

Why? Because sin is stupid. Because sin always over promises yet under delivers. Sin will always take us further than we want to go. It'll keep us longer than we wanted to stay and it'll cost us more than we were willing to pay. That's the nature of what it is. And so people that live under this worldview of rebellion, I'm just going to go and I'm going to take whatever I think will give me pleasure in life, eventually that world self-destructs. You and I have seen it again and again, we've seen it in our own lives. How many people have just destroyed their lives chasing after pleasure? And that's exactly what happens in this parable with this younger brother. He goes off to this distant land and he squanders his wealth in wild living, seeking blessing through taking. And what happens, his life eventually self-destructs. There's a famine in the land. He can barely work. He's starving. He's dying. Jesus says, verse 17, when he came to his senses, he said, this is him talking to himself, he said, "How many of my father's hired servants have food to spare? And here I am starving to death. I will set out and go back to my father and say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants." This younger brother, this worldview of rebellion, life hits rock bottom. I'm gonna go to my dad and say make me like one of your servants, I will just serve you, I will earn the blessings. I will work for the blessings. Problem is religion self-destructs, just like rebellion self-destructs. Religion doesn't work. And one, it doesn't work because nobody is righteous. Here's what religion is.

All faith, all religion on the planet is advice. If this is God and this is us, we were made for a relationship with God, we're separated because of sin. Religion is advice of here's what you and I have to do to work our way to God. Every different religion is different rules, different bits of advice, but ultimately that's what it is, it's advice. Here's the problem. What do you and I have to do to work our way to God? The Bible teaches you and I just have to be perfect. That's it, perfection. How's that going? There's two types of people, those who are perfect, and those who are sinners, that's it. Quick survey, all locations. How many here, right now, you'd say, yeah, I'm doing good at the perfection thing. One of the other services a couple of hands went up. (congregation laughs) I was like, I don't know how to respond to that. (congregation laughs) Guess we all make mistakes. No one's good, no one's perfect, no one is righteous. That's problem number one. Problem number two is when you have the worldview of religion, pride begins to seep in. And pride will destroy your relationships. First and foremost, it'll destroy your relationship with God.

'Cause what we're actually doing is we're saying, God, I don't need you, I'll be my own savior. I'm gonna try and just jump through enough hoops. I'm gonna try and work my way to you and we're separating ourselves from God. The Bible says God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Religious people tend to be prideful. Give you an example. Different categories, same idea. Earlier this year, I started working with a trainer for the first time. And this coach is telling me about nutrition. And he's telling me, hey, there's clean food. And Robert, there's everything that you eat. (congregation laughs) And so we're gonna move to eating more clean food and stop eating everything you eat. Two days. That's how long it took me to start judging people who weren't eating clean food. Two days, that was it. I still had all this food in my system. And I'm going, oh, I can't believe they eat that. How silly is that? That's what happens when we become religious. And we have this religious worldview. It could be that we're working on some behaviors in our life and we're actually doing pretty good at something because religion, what it can do,

if you put in enough effort, you can't actually begin to change some of your behaviors. It can be effective in doing some of that. And then you start looking down on everybody else who hasn't done what you've done. And it takes about two days. And you start becoming judgmental of others. Or it's not going that great. And so now you're just living in shame. And what happens is you now have to hide what's actually going on in your heart. And it becomes about managing the behaviors in front of everybody else. And so you begin to distance yourself from God, but also from the people around you. And what happens when we have this religious worldview? And I've seen this again and again in the church. And it's just wrong. What we do is we start to judge people who sin differently than we do. 'Cause all of us fall short. Yet we'll find something that we don't struggle with and we'll go, oh, I can't believe they struggle with that. And that pride begins to destroy relationships where it turns into shame, but it implodes. It self-destructs. The best that religion can do is it can change some behavior. It cannot change the heart. The father welcomes the younger brother,

embraces him, puts sandals on his feet, robe on his back, gives him the ring, the family emblem on there, restores him, throws him a party and the older brother, whose life is self-destructing because of his pride, his resentment, he finds out that there's a party for the younger brother. He refuses to go in. but he, this is the older brother, answered his father, "Look, look you," to hear the disdain for his father in that. In the original language, it would have been offensive, "Look, all these years, I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders." He would have raised his hand for perfection. Hear this, "Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends what is happening." Here, his religious worldview is imploding and he's saying, "Hey, guess what, I have desires too that I wish I could just go out and have a party with my friends." And he's going, "I know maybe I just need to express my rebellious heart. Maybe I just need to start seizing whatever it is that I desire. Maybe that's how I'll get my blessing." Both sons are seeking blessing. Both these worldviews, even though there's a chasm between them, they're very similar. Both sons are seeking blessings, they're just doing it in their own ways. Both of these worldviews are self-destructing for both of these brothers. Both of them are 100% focused on themselves. Both brothers are lost. Do you see it? And there's this chasm between the two. One of them says, "I'll become a slave." The other says, "I am a slave." Both are miserable and the father gives the same invitation to both of them. To the younger brother, he says, "I'll become a slave." No, no, no. The father invites him into relationship. Something different. To the brother who says, "I am a slave." He says, "No, no, no. You're my son." Invites him into relationship. This is what the Christian life is about. It's not about religion trying to work our way to God. It's not about rebellion. I'm just going to chase after everything that my heart desires. God invites all of us into something different. He invites us into relationship made possible by the cross of Jesus that God emptied himself,

took on flesh, lived the perfect life. There's one person that's lived the perfect life. It's Jesus. And he laid down that life on behalf of you and me so that he could open up this way of relationship with our Heavenly Father. And he conquered death proven by the resurrection. In Romans 8 talks about how we receive the Holy Spirit, a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance, and the Holy Spirit doesn't make us slaves. He invites us to be adopted as sons and daughters in the family of God. God is building a family where God is Father and you and I are His children. A spiritual family, which means here in the church, if you are a follower of Jesus, you are my brother or my sister. It means that my kids who I'm raising who have surrendered their life to Jesus, this is weird, my sons are actually my brothers in Jesus. My daughter is actually my sister in Jesus. If you're here and you're 90 years old, Bailey, who is here, who is praying a moment ago, she's your sister because of her faith in Jesus. God is building up His family and He's restoring relationship, not just between us and the Father, but between siblings. You and I were not made to follow Jesus just on our own. We were made to follow Jesus in the context of the family, of the community. And man, nobody can help you like a brother. If you're here and you're the younger brother, you're more in that rebellious worldview and I believe all of us are both at times. But if you're here and you're like, yeah, I kind of identify more with that younger brother, you actually need older brothers in your life. And by the way, a lot of older brothers were younger brothers and their life was so miserable, they're like, I'm going to try the religion thing. And a lot of the things that they're doing now in their life, it's because they learn some hard life. teach you from experience, some of the things that they've learned along the way. And older brothers, man, we need younger brothers and younger sisters, those that are coming to faith in the Lord. Here's what happens. If you follow Jesus and you experience relationship with them for a long time, eventually you can start to drift into religion and forget about it's all about God's grace, that the relationship that we have with them, it's built a hundred percent on grace. And having younger brothers and younger sisters reminds us of the amazing grace of God that transforms lives. Christian life is all about relationships. And it's through a right relationship with the father that the relationship between these brothers can be restored. How does a younger brother and an older brother, how do they reconcile if a younger brother has a right relationship with a father, receives grace, is reminded of his

adoption as his son, that it is a relationship that is built on grace, not his works. And if the older brother can step into this relationship of grace and join the father in celebrating the younger brother who was lost and has found the brother that he should have been seeking after this whole time, it's when they both enter into the party. What the father is saying is, hey, why don't you guys join me together? This is what the Christian life is about. The father doesn't care about the stuff and the inheritance and all the things that everybody's worked up about. He cares about the relationship. Bailey read this a moment ago. Jesus was talking to his disciples in John chapter 13 verse 34. He says, "A new command I give you, love one another." That's not a new command. Oh, but he qualifies it. "Love one another as I have loved you." Oh, that's a different kind of love. That's not the kind of love that you earn that you work for. That's grace. So you must love one another. And Jesus says this, "By this, by what? Your love, the way you love one another, brother to brother, sister to sister, by this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another." So how do I know if I broke and free from religion? How do I know if I broke and free from this worldview? Here's how you love God and you love people, especially younger brothers. How do I know if I broke and free from this worldview of rebellion? Here's how Jesus says, you're left for God and you're left for people, especially older brothers. The world will know that you are my followers by the way that you love one another. Both religion and rebellion will destroy your relationships. But a right relationship with the father will restore relationships with your brothers and with your sisters. Relationship with God isn't something that we earn. It isn't something that we seize or take. Relationship with God is something he freely offers for us to receive, to step into that relationship. It's a relationship that is built on grace. And grace is opposed to earning. That's religion. But this is important for us to understand. Grace is not opposed to effort. And let me explain the difference. Grace is opposed to earning, meaning there's nothing you and I can do that would make God love us any more, any less. There's nothing we could do that would revoke this invitation that God has given for us to be His children. That would be earning. Grace is opposed to earning, but it's not opposed to effort. Think right now of a relationship that is really important to you in your life. I want you to just picture in your mind that person. And I don't know who you have in your mind, but I'll tell you this. In that relationship,

there is some level of effort. My wife Lindsay and I, we've been married for decades, and I'll tell you, we both put in effort in our relationship, and there are disciplines in our relationship. We make time for one another. Last night, we went on a date, and when we go on dates, here's what we do. We put our phones away, and we listen to one another. We ask questions. We're interested in what's going on in each other's lives. We're interested in what's going on in each other's hearts. We're interested in the good, the bad, the ugly, the frustrations, all of that. We make time for one another. We choose to serve one another. We express gratitude to one another. This is effort. These are disciplines, but it's all relational. Do you see the difference? In your relationships that are important to you, I promise you, there are some disciplines. It might not always feel like effort, because some relationships are so natural, and they're so beneficial. It doesn't feel necessarily like effort, but I promise you, you are putting forth effort. This is true in our relationship with God. And so if you're hearing, you're like, "Oh, you know what? I'm going to stop reading my Bible. I'm not going to get up in the morning and do a quiet time and pray, because that sounds a lot like religion." No, don't hear that. Put forth effort, not to earn God's favor. Put forth effort in your relationship with God. This is why we choose to give, to serve, to spend time under God's teaching, to listen, to wait on the Holy Spirit, to pray, and to actually ask God questions and just sit in

silence. That's effort for us to build relationship with our Heavenly Father, because when we spend time with our Heavenly Father and we put forth effort and disciplines in that relationship, here's what happens. It begins to transform our hearts. And the goal of spending time with the Father is to become more and more like Him. Jesus is the perfect representation of the Father. Colossians 1.15 says the Son, talking about Jesus, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. Meaning if you want to know what God is like, you look at Jesus. We relate to God through the person in the work of Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit, who is at work within us when we put forth effort relationally with God, He begins to transform us, not just changing behaviors, no, He actually changes our hearts. He begins to transform our desires. We begin to see the world the way He sees the world. This transformation happens relationally through the Holy Spirit. And if you're a follower of Jesus, you love God, here's His plan for your life. It says in Romans 8, "We know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." For those God for new, He also predestined to what? To be conformed to the image of His Son. Jesus is the representation of the Father. He is the image of the invisible God. And God's will for your life, His plan for your life, is that you would be conformed into His image, that He might be the first born among many brothers and sisters. Henry Nowhan concludes in his book, "The Return of the Prodigal Son." That the goal, if you're here and you're an older brother, you're in the world view of religion, the goal is not to become less like the older brother. The goal for younger brothers is not to become less like the younger brother. The goal for both brothers is that they would become more like the Father.

That churches, brothers and sisters, that we would rejoice when younger brothers come to faith, when younger sisters come to faith. When people who maybe their life looks like it's a mess, but they're beginning to open up their hearts to the grace of God, that we would join the celebration. In fact, we would do the work to prepare the way for them to enter into this family. That we would choose to give, we would choose to serve. willing to share our faith, our story, that we would invite them to church to hear the gospel, the good news, that's what gospel means, that when you and I couldn't work our way to God, God worked His way to us and the person of Jesus. And younger brothers, that we would become more like the Father, that we would be willing to invite the older brothers in, to bleed with them, come join the celebration with us, be patient with them. The goal is to become more like the Father, and in that, to love one another, and it's by that that the world will know where His followers. If you're here and you've never surrendered your life to the love of the Father, I want to invite you to do so right now. It's not something you have to earn, it's not something you have to take, it's something He offers to you freely right now, and if you want to receive it, He will give you a new relationship with Him. He'll gift you with His Spirit, begin to transform you from the inside out. If you're here and you're ready to surrender your life to the love of the Father, I'm going to invite you to pray with me, and if you would church, something we do is we open up our palms, this is a posture of receiving, it's also a posture of releasing. So as we close our eyes, if you're here and you're ready to surrender your life, maybe you've been trying religion, you've been trying to earn God's favor. His invitation is to just be His child, His son, His daughter, to receive that as a gift, to be adopted in. So maybe you would imagine just releasing of religion and receiving a relationship. Maybe you've gone down the rebellious road and you've been trying to take all that you desire for yourself and it's not, working, His invitation is to receive a relationship.

So maybe you would let go of that rebellion in your mind and you would open up your palms to receive adoption into the family of God by grace. In your own heart and mind, you can talk to Him and you can say, "God, I know that I need a Savior, God, I'm giving up on religion, I'm giving up on rebellion and I choose to receive relationship with you. Not because I'm good but because you're good." But I say yes to the invitation, Jesus, thanks for paying the debt of my sin. Thank you for conquering death and offering me life. I surrender my life to you, Jesus, you are Lord, you lead me from this day forward. And for all of us, God, would you help us to live as sons and daughters? Would you help us to break free from religion and rebellion and to put forth effort in relationship with you and relationship with one another and may the world know that we are your disciples by our love for one another? We pray in Jesus' name, amen. (gentle music) (gentle music)