“This Brother of Yours Was Dead and Is Alive Again” | Luke 15:1-32

Show Notes

Episode 721: 
In this episode, Chris and Jeff dive into the profound teachings found in Luke 15. We explore the famous saying, "this brother of yours was dead and is alive again," which encapsulates the heart of the parable of the Prodigal Son. We discuss the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the Prodigal Son. We emphasize the joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, highlighting God's relentless pursuit of the lost. We reflect on how these stories illustrate God's love and compassion, not just for the lost but also for those who may feel overlooked, like the older brother in the Prodigal Son parable.

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You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, happy Monday. We hope you love Monday's. Or just Monday, depending on how you feel about it. You might have to be happy. Oh I see, I thought could just be Monday. Yeah, okay, all right, Well either way it's better because now you're listening to the Bible guys. Have a Monday. Okay, all right, I'm with you on that. Chris, I'm Jeff. He's Jeff. We're the Bible Guys. Today it was a rough opener, buddy. They ain't gonna get any better than net. This week, people, we are diving into Luke fifteen, which is continuing our series What If Jesus Had a Podcast? Yeah, and it goes with famous sayings and today's famous saying is your brother This brother of yours was dead and is alive again. Oh, this is one of my favorite stories. It is you and I just preached on this. Yeah, ad Heritage to the hill. Yeah, it's gonna be great. Well. Hey, first of all, we have the only segment that has an official theme song, yes right, which is mail Bags there you go. Yeah, mail bags, we actually have a letter in from Sarah L. Hi, Sarah L. Sarah L says, my husband Lie love listening to you to every morning. Oh that's nice, thank you. Sarah, And she says, what's your quote? I can't believe this is my job unquote moment. Oh, I can't believe this is my job. Moment. Yeah, I can't believe this is my job. I remember the first time I've ever thought that in ministry. Yeah. In fact, I know the night, the very night. Okay. It was when I first went into youth ministry, and I couldn't believe that I was getting paid to hang out with teenagers because when I went in the youth ministry, I was only twenty one, and so I'm only a couple of years removed from being a teenager, right, And I remember I had an all night video game night. Now, back then it was PlayStation one. That's how old that was, right, And remember Sega Genesis with Sonic the Hedgehot. Okay, So I called it an all night Segathon, and so we had basically we locked ourselves in from like eleven o'clock at night till six in the morning. It was an all nighter, and we had other things also, But one of the things that we had was like eighteen or nineteen video game systems that were all over the church. Wow and anyway, And so here I am just like staying up all night. The music's going. There's like a Strobe wally ball in one room, you know. I'm playing Marvel Superheroes on the PS one, you know, on this massive projector on the size of a wall that's like as huge as you know, it's the whole church auditorium. And I actually remember thinking to myself, I'm actually getting paid right now, Like I'm getting paid to do this, to just to have fun all night. At least you're getting paid right right. Slice of Bolognian old record player. It's my bonus. But still yeah, but I'm still getting paid. And I remember thinking and I said out loud, I said to my wife, I said, I can't believe this is my job. Oh wow, Yeah, I have a similar one, except it's slightly different. So I worked at a church and I was the everything else pastor were you ever the everything else pastor? Oh? Wish? So this one week felt like it was never going to end, and the highs were so high and the lows were so low. So I was the worship pastor at the church and my wife was also in the music department, and after service the pastor had wanted me to include both modern worship and some old hymns and gospel songs. You want to be kind of those, and that doesn't ever make anybody happy. Nobody's happy, right, So I had a lady come up and tell me off not congratulate me or thank me for the two songs that I put in the thing for her. She was mad at me about the song I put in that somebody else would like, they had a different style. And then as soon as I got done with her, I had somebody come up and tell me I was a little bit of a coward because I didn't have the guts to just go ahead and make the full change, right, So I had both sides of the aisle were mad at me. So that was my Sunday on Monday, normally that was our day off. But I got called in and there was a problem with the water Maine out of the road. Sure there was, and so water's just spraying out and we got the water turned off and then found out it was gonna be like eleven hundred dollars to repair it, and the pastor didn't have the money. So some farmer brings his back over digs this hole. It's like eight feet deep, and nobody wanted to get in it, so they made me get in it. Water spraying everywhere, and I had to take off this old coupling and put in a new coupling, and the walls keep falling in. So all I'm thinking is I'm going to get crushed underneath these things. And it was about I don't know sixty degrees during the in the morning when I was working on it, my feet got numb, my hands got numb. I'm just shaking the whole time. And this was my Monday and my Tuesday. Okay, it sounds like those are two very lows. Yeah, yeah, very low lows. So then Wednesday night, I was the youth pastor and I was also overseeing our Ajana program. We had about two hundred at the time, about two hunredo hundred kids in the i Wana program, and both of those nights were big evangelism nights. So I ran in and I spoke in the children's thing, and then I ran over and spoke in the teen thing, and combined between those two things, we had like twenty something kids give the life to Christ right between teenagers and children. And it's a big mental shift to shift from teaching children walk right out the door and go teach teenagers. Right, It's a big mental shof So I came away going, this is amazing. I can't believe I got to be a part of this. And then on Thursday, I was rushing because we had this massive event coming up on Friday night into Saturday. On Saturday, we had like four hundred and something teenagers show. We had twenty something kids give their life to Christ for that, and then on Sunday, the next Sunday, we baptized like thirty something teenagers and children in the church. And so I remember looking back that next Sunday going, I got beat up, I almost got hypothermia, led like fifty kids to Christ and baptized thirty of them. What a week. I can't believe I get paid to do this? Right. Yeah, Wow, it was so hard that the whole thing was hard, But at the same time, the fruit was amazing. It was it was great. Yeah, dude, those were clean the bathrooms on Thursday. But of course you did. I did, of course you did. Yeah. It's it's a pretty humbling experience when you're paying your dues at a smaller church and you're the everything else pastor. Yeah, well everything else pastor is rough. But back then you have so much energy and you have so much you know, naivity, right that you're just like happy to be there. Yeah. Well I just felt like it needed to be done. Sure if I didn't do it, who was gonna do it? Right? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah, but you know now, I'm just like I think about those days. I one just want to think a nap. Yeah, it was amazing. So I can't believe I get to do this moment. I can't believe this is my job moment. Yeah, yeah, I get it on both sides. Yeah, and I still get I still get it at those moments like Freedom Hill. That was. That was that kind of moment, wasn't it. Yeah, like, I can't. Believe this is our job kind of it was, which is wonderful. We baptized but two hundred and fifty people. Yeah, it was amazing, So good stuff. You go there, it is, Well, do you have another one? Do you have anything else you need to share? For Sarah, Well, that was a good microcosm of how it works. Yeah, I would just say, I would just say ministry is the one of the most difficult and the most rewarding things in our case, right, because we're both in the same profession. Obviously, there's obviously other people listening who are thinking, hey, my job's very similar, right, you know, like there's not that much difference sometimes with especially if you do with people like customer service, you know, things like that. So I'm not saying that it's harder than all of our listeners, but i am saying it is very taxing because I'll tell you why. Because let's just say, something goes wrong in a church, right if you have a bad behind the scenes staff type leadership experience. The problem is is that it is not only your place of employment where you get a paycheck, which is you know, your source of you know income, but it's also your church, the place you worship, right, And so when you work at the place that you worship, sometimes you don't want to see how the sosage gets. Made and looking for pastoral care and all those things yere, you get it. And then on top of that, it becomes your social network. And so it's like your entire social life is wrapped up in most cases in the church, and then it's it. Then it's like then it's it's a faith kind of a thing where you sort of judge people are they acting in leadership? And that is that the way that Christ would act. So there's this measuring of like business versus faith relationship, and sometimes that's. Different, pretty difficult. So I think I think it's I think it's very very taxing because even though that other people work at other places, the good news is it's not the place you worship unless you work at. A church, right, right, right, I would say the other difficulty of ministry, the other challenge of ministry. There's a lot of difficulties, but the challenge would be it's twenty four to seven. There's never a time you're not a pastor at the church. Right. So we can have a church person go out to a party on a Friday night, have one too many, get a little wobbly, and nobody will go. I can't And he's an engineer. Right, And he's an engineer. Right, I can't believe in it there you were an engineer, right, Nobody nobody does that. But there. We're always in our families are always under the microscope all the time because there's never a time you're not the leader of a church. So that pressure can be significant. So there's there's some challenges that I think people don't see. But the other side of it is the blessings are just incredible. Like you said, when you we get the baptistew hundred and fifty four people on a weekend, it's unbelievable. Yeah, it's just unbelievable. We get to be a part of that. So it's the highs end the lows. Yep. Oh, what a great question, Sarah. Yes, And speaking of great questions, Yes, Jesus asked a pretty significant question, often to the Pharisees, not in this passage, but oftentimes what questions did he ask? Often times he asked questions though, Hey, wait a minute, I should have said the older brother asks. Okay, yeah, the older brother asks a good question. Yeah, that's it's a good question. Okay. Well, hey we are we are in Luke chapter fifteen. Boy, these poor people today having to listen through their their pod. Boy, this is they're having a rough morning. Give me grace, people, it's Monday, it's Monday. In Luke chapter fifteen, Jesus said, or the Bible says, text collectors and excuse me, wow, this little cough won't go away. Text collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people, even eating with them. So Jesus told him this story. If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won't he leave the ninety nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it. And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders when he arrives. So call together as friends and neighbors, saying, rejoice with me because I found my lost sheep. In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety nine others who are righteous and have it straight away. Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one, won't she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it. Once she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, rejoice with me, because I've found my lost coin. In the same way, there is a joy in the presence of God's angels when even one sinner repents. To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story a man who had two A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, I want my share of your estate now before you die. So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons. A few days later, his younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money on wild living. About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. And he persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his field to feed the pigs. Young farmer or the young man, became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding. The pigs looked good to him, but no one gave him anything. When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself at home, even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger. I'll go home to my father and say, father, I've sinned against both heaven and you, and i am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant. And so he returned home to his father, And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. His son said to him, father, I've sinned against both heaven and you, and I'm no longer worthy of being called your son. But his father said to the service, quick, bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him, and bring a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet, and kill the calf we've been fattening. We must celebrate with the feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now is found. And so the party began. Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working, and when he returned home, he heard the music and dancing in the house, and he asked one of the servants, what was going on. Your brother is back. He was told, and your father has killed the fat and calf. We're celebrating because his safe return. The older brother was hungry and wouldn't go in, or was angry, I'm sorry, and wouldn't go in. His father came out and begged him, but he replied, all these years, I've slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one goat for a feast with my friends. Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf. His father said to him, Look, dear son, you've always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. We had to celebrate this happy day for your brother was dead and has come back to life. He was lost, but now he's found. Well, there you go, I would say. I would say it has to be in my very very top teachings of Jesus. Right. So I think Luke fifteen sort of drives most of who I am, and I kind of felt that way even back when I was a teenager. So when I was a teenager, I had a pretty rough go, you know, and even at fifteen. I know, fifteen's pretty young to receive Christ, but I kind of felt like I lived a lot of life up until fifteen, you know, and I felt like it was a pretty rough goal, you know, and our family was kind of rough, our background was kind of rough, and you know, it could have been a lot worse, that's for sure. But anyway, all that to say, I remember discovering that Jesus loved me. I felt like the lost son. I felt like the lost coin. I felt like the lost sheep. And I felt like God pursued me and came out for me and saved me and rescued me. And uh. And then almost immediately I had a desire to help those far from God right. So uh, in my youth ministry, we always would like have a visitor contest where we would bring you know, so many visitors, you know, or guests. Uh and you know the most, you know, if you brought the most guests for these kinds of things, and uh, and man, I was just I was just great at it, you know, if I do say so myself. Right, well, you know, as humble as you are, we've already established. You I'm the most humble but you know what I used to do. We used to play poker on Saturday nights. So I would invite everybody over talk about some Some church people are like, I can't believe you're saying this on the air, But we did. We it's the worst thing you did. Yeah, that's right, but but we used to do. So what I would do My strategy was I would say, hey, guys, come over for poker, and we would have I'm not kidding, sometimes like to ten people over my house, which was a lot for my little house, and we would play poker. And sometimes it would be terrible, but sometimes we play all night, not even go to bed, and then say okay, but let's go to church, and which was not a good formula. But but you know, we don't only play nickels dimes, right, It was just you know, you know, five bucks or something, you know, and then the winner, who won all the money, because they would have to be a winner, he agreed to buy everybody breakfast, so it was really paying for your own breakfast. That's what it was, right. But but anyway, that's what we would do, and and that was my strategy, and that is how I brought people to church. And we sort s your y Your first key evangelism strategy is running an underground casino in order to get people to go to church. Yes, okay, and I'll be honest so that I would not advise that at this stage in your Walk with You. No, No, I don't think it's I don't think it's the most effective method. It is a method, but it's a thing. But let me tell you something. Though. They ran a contest saying whoever brings the most guests from January to May, the top five people gets to go to Ocean City, Maryland for free. And in those five months, I think I won. I hate you know, and it was going to sound terrible, but I won every year. Okay, So all four years I was in the youth group, and I think I won with about one hundred and sixty or one hundred and eighty people, right, And so I was bringing one hundred and sixty one hundred. I don't think it. Was sometime getting kids and bringing them to church. Well, sometimes my guests would bring a guest the next week, then that would count double for me. So I don't think it was one hundred and eighty individuals. But I bet you was probably one hundred and ten, one hundred and twenty people. Yeah, well yeah, yeah, so that's amazing. How many people say yes if you invite them, yes, right? Most people just say that they've never been invited, right, that's what most people say. I mean, if you take a survey amongst our people and say how many of you came by personal invitation, that's most people, right, not that if. You ask them, how many of you invited somebody this week, right, it wouldn't be very many, right, And that's the gap. The majority of people who come to faith get invited to faith. Yeah, but most people, less than five percent of all Christians will ever be a part of leading somebody to Jesus personally. Isn't that amazing? Yeah? Yeah, so there's a gap. There's so much opportunity, so much opportunity, and so the whole premise behind these stories it's not about the sheep, it's not about the coin, it's not about the son entirely. It's really about the fact that the shepherd was willing to sacrifice everything to find the lost sheep, right, he was willing to do everything in order to do it. It's all about the fact that the woman tore her house apart to find the coin. It was all about the fact that the father was waiting looking for his son, and as soon as he saw his son afar off, he ran to him. Right. That's the hero of the story is essentially God. God is the shepherd. God is the woman looking for the coin. God is the father waiting for a son. Yeah. Right, And let's not forget as well the details of the story. There's so much we could teach, but you know, we've taught one hundred million times. But one thing that I loved reading gosh, not even maybe ten years ago I read I forget the author's name, but the author talked about how God actually ran to both sons, right, and so it's like, so he runs out to his lost son. But then the older son is so discouraged. He goes outside and he says his father went out to him. Right. So his father was seeking the older son just as much as he was seeking the younger son. Which is so beautiful, right to understand that God the Father loves the ninety nine and the one. There's a note right here in my quest study Bible that I've been using, and it says, why so little concerned for the ninety nine sheep left in the open country, and it says they were not left unattended. We tend to assume there was only one shepherd, but the Middle Eastern shepherd would rarely go out alone with one hundred sheep. If a sheep was lost, the head shepherd would leave the rest of the flock safe and content with the hired helpers and go and search for it. God does not abandon his followers, but he zealously seeks the loss. Right. So in any shepherd, by the way, hearing that would understand that if a man has one hundred sheep, immediately you think, okay, what kind of operation is that. Yeah, I'm not sure that I have contemplated that. People might think he left him alone. Oh I've thought that all the time, because. Because I guess I've always had the idea shepherds didn't work alone. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, right, yeah, Well I always thought, yes, that's the first thing people will think, because it says he leaves the ninety nine right, and so that word leaves is a well he did strong word. Yeah, he did, right, But it doesn't mean that his operation of a hundred sheep is not a one man operation. No, there's no way it was Yeah. No way, so any but either way, though, I love how the lost Coin and the Lost Sheep stress that there's more rejoicing in Heaven over one sinner than over ninety nine that are already Christians. And so I always like to point out that it's more. It's like it's it says, more rejoicing. Now, that doesn't mean that there's not rejoicing over Christians, right, It doesn't mean that there's not plenty of rejoicing over Christians. It just means that there's more rejoicing over a single person who comes to Christ, which means the heart of God is for you know, the person who is far from him or who is lost. And so you know that that idea of going out, the importance of that lost sheep, the importance of the coin, and then the heart of the Father. The lost son shows the heart of the Father, right, like how much he loves the lost coin, the lost sheep, the lost son. You know, yeah, all three stories have that, right, There's more joy in having over one lost center repents returns to God in the same way there is joy in the presence of God's angels, even when one sinner repents and then at the end of the one of the prodigal suns and so the party began, right, And so that's one of one of our goals. I think about this often. I just want to every chance I get to start as many parties in heaven as possible. That's I think about it all the time. So, yeah, that's kind of neat. You remember Jonah. Jonah has four chapters, and remember he was Jonah was so mad at God. And then God teaches Jonah lesson. He gives him like a gourd or like a tree, right, and then the tree withers up and Jonah gets mad, and so God says to Jonah, you're more angry over this plant than you are over the fact that you know the entire city was far from me. And then what happens is the story ends, and we are not given Jonah's reaction, right, So it's like it's like we don't know if Jonah said, oh, you're right, God. We don't know if Jonah finally came around and said, I pent you're so correct. Now we are left to assume that he does right. But there's like a there's a master storytelling method here where the father in this case looks at the older son and says, we had to rejoice. And I love how he says, this son of yours. And then the father turns right around and says, we had to rejoice because this brother of yours, you know, is now found. And then it ends, and so we're not given the reaction of the older son. And and so I'll tell you what happens. Yeah, the younger son goes to work for the older son, and the older son inherits everything his father. That's what happened, right, That his life, right, right, he just had to adjust his attitude. Right, right. But but in this moment, right in this moment there there needs to be a realization, right because the son obviously does not get it. He doesn't understand, and he's angry and everything else. But but the realization part, it's just a I love Jesus's as your storytelling kind of a thing where you know, we become, you know, the Pharisee in the story. We become the person that's sort of like the lesson goes to us and we are left to decide how are we going to react? Well, all of this is in response to the fact that there are the deeply religious shocked that Jesus is trying to reach notorious sinners. Hey wait a minute, right, this is all supposed to be for us, and Jesus is like it was, No, it's about reaching them, right, It's about the ones that the notorious sys. Jesus wasn't becoming a notorious sinner. He wasn't letting them affect him. He was trying to reach them and bring them to God right and to change their life. And so this happens a lot where sometimes church people get mad about the fact that there's you know, surprising sinners sitting in the room or whatever, and you know, Jesus just didn't tolerate tolerate it. Yeah, I remember one time, I'll tell you a real quick story. Didn't tolerate the bad attitude about the fact that there were sinners in the room. Let me say it, yes, yes, I remember. Dave Wilson told a story about he was the Lions chaplain for thirty something years and they had a Baba study and they invited somebody who was not a Christian from the Lions. He was a player, and every babble study he would bring alcohol and then he would. Then he would like, you know, pour the wine and say everybody, let's drink or whatever. And there were some deeply religious, faithful follower people of the Bible Study that says, hey, we have to disinvite him, we have to ask him not to stop coming. And then Dave Wilson's like, listen, he goes, I don't think that bringing alcohol to Baba study is a good idea. He goes, but I am not going to He goes, do you understand the kind of people that we want to come to here? Are those kind of people? Because he just doesn't know any better, right, He just doesn't know that that's probably not a good thing to do at a Bible study, right, And so he's like, no, we're not going to disinvite him. In fact, we're going to make him feel comfortable as much as we can and still being in the guidelines of our own conviction that kind of thing. But we're but we're not going to offend him and ask him to stop coming. Well, turns out that they led this guy to Christ eventually because they didn't want to shun him, the religious leaders shunning somebody whatever. So they so he leads them to Christ. And that guy turns out I wish I could remember who who was? But this guy leads, Uh he was the backup quarterback and he led Baker Mayfield to Christ. And and and so who's who's now Dave is mentoring currently? And who was it? Stafford was? It wasn't Stafford it was but anyway, it doesn't matter, but but but but but it's uh, but it was it was somebody on the team who ended up coming to Christ and leading other people to Christ. And it was all because, uh, you know, they attracted somebody who didn't know any better, right, And it's like, it's like that, that's kind of a brilliant thing, right, when people who have no idea who God is walking through the door notorious sinners, right, and they have no idea. Like we had one d in vacation Bible school who had a shirt shirt on that was inappropriate, and I was like, she doesn't know any better, but I'm glad she's here, but change your shirt anyway. Well, Hey, that's definitely our time, so we'll see you next time on the Bible guys,