In the second half of this story Jesus focuses on the older brother. You will either identify with the prodigal son or you will identify with the older brother, who didn’t share his father’s joy at his brother’s return. In this message we’ll look at the resentment, complaints and spirit of judgment from the older brother. God longs for a church where prodigal sons can come home, and people inside the church embrace them.
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Today is part two of the story of the prodigal son, as we look at the older brother.
Last week we looked at the prodigal son, and God’s desire for us to live at home with the father. Today we look at the older brother and God’s love for those of us who wrestle with resentment.
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I’d like to take just a minute to look at the setting of this story within the context of Luke chapter 15 so we can see the level of tension and drama in this story… and so we can appreciate, as we go through this story, the fearlessness and sheer gutsiness of Jesus as a teacher.
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Here’s the setting for all of Luke 15. This is verse 1.
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Really, there are three categories of people here in the first two verses of Luke 15.
There is, first of all, Jesus, who is a holy man, a devout teacher.
Then, secondly, there are all the sinners, tax collectors — spiritual nobodies who are flocking to Jesus. They’re a despised group of people.
Then there’s the third category — people who are thought of as spiritual giants, the Pharisees and the scribes, who are devoted to following God. Yet they couldn’t understand Jesus.
They say, “This man,” who claims to be holy and teacher, “this man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
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Now, sharing a table with someone in those days was a real serious thing. A nobleman, for example, might feed lesser needy people as a sign of his generosity, but he would never sit down and eat with them. That wasn’t done.
To invite someone to a meal was an act of honor. It was an offer of peace and community.
These religious leaders were deeply offended when Jesus shares a table with sinners.
What they’re saying, essentially, is, “He’s watering down the faith… sure, it’s no wonder he’s successful and can draw lots of crowds… when he junks all of our traditions. He’s no different than they are. No wonder he’s got so many people coming to him.”
They criticize Jesus and they hope maybe he’ll be embarrassed by what they say.
Maybe he’ll be apologetic and change.
That’s the setting.
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So in Luke 15, Jesus tells three stories. Each one involves something that’s lost.
Someone loses a sheep in the first story.
Someone loses a coin in the second story.
Someone loses a son in the third story.
Something is lost and then something is found.
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Jesus’s listeners knew the meaning that Jesus is laying out in these stories.
The sinners who are with Jesus hear these stories and they say:
“That’s me. That’s my story. I was lost like that sheep. I was missing like that coin. I was the prodigal son in a distant country. Now I’ve been found, and the one who found me is Jesus.”
Jesus in these stories, before both the sinners and these hostile religious leaders, is clearly claiming to be the one searching on behalf of God.
Jesus is saying in these stories to these religious grumblers, “Not only do I not apologize for accepting these people, I tell you flat out what you see is the work of God.”
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Now, that would be dramatic enough, but Jesus doesn’t stop there.
He introduces another character into the third story, and if you thought things were tense before, you haven’t seen anything yet. Jesus is turning up the heat here considerably.
This is a deliberate, in-your-face challenge.
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Alright, let’s read the third story. The story is in Luke 15, verses 11-32.
Last week we read the part about the prodigal son. Now let’s look at verse 25.
Remember what’s going on as Jesus is telling it. Remember the setting — these sinners who say, “I was lost but now I’m found,” and then these spiritual leaders who are grumbling about what Jesus is doing.
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Alright, now we’re ready for the story.
The prodigal son has come home. The father has started a party to celebrate.
Meanwhile, the older son was in the field.
When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on.
‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
The older brother became angry and refused to go in.
So his father went out and pleaded with him. 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. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 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.’
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One of the marks of the genius of Jesus’ teachings is that we find ourselves irresistibly identifying with the characters in them.
You can learn a lot about yourself by figuring out which one of the characters you identify with.
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An old Sunday school story; I don’t know if it ever happened.
A Sunday school teacher is teaching on the prodigal son to her class and she says to the class, “But there is one for whom the return of the prodigal son brings no joy and celebration. There is one who experiences only disappointment and bitterness and resentment… and who was this?”
One of the kids raises his hand and says, “The fattened calf.”
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I don’t know if it happened. If it didn’t, it should have.
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We learn a lot by who we identify with.
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What I have to say now, I say kind of by way of confession, which is, I understand about the older brother.
I’m the older son in my family.
And I know what it is to live to please my parents
And to want to be a model son
To want to have my teachers and coaches be proud of me
To try to do the right thing and to say the right thing
And to want to have people think well of me
As they must have thought and spoken so well of this older brother, who, after all, did not run off to a distant land and squander the property, but stayed home and worked with the father.
I understand, I think, a fair amount about the older brother, who generally tried to do right things.
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I usually dated the right girls… and I chose to go to the right schools… and I entered the right profession.
I did not run off to a distant country, at least not outwardly.
I grew up in Chicago… went to Lane Tech high school.
When you’re in high school in Chicago, the distant country was not too far away.
It was anywhere you could get drugs or alcohol… which in my case was a guy in my wood shop class.
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I didn’t go to the distant country.
I knew a lot of prodigal sons and daughters that did, and I would lament over their superficiality sometimes. I would pray for them in the church youth group sometimes.
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Part of the reason why I didn’t go to the distant country is because I really did want to do the right thing. But the truth is… part of the reason I didn’t is just that I didn’t have the courage to do that kind of thing.
Part of me was genuinely concerned for prodigal sons and daughters around me… and a part of me just felt kind of superior to them… and a part of me envied them.
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I had all of the sexual feelings that a young male adolescent has… and if you’ve never been a young male sexual adolescent, that’s a lot of feelings.
But I didn’t talk about them very much. I would often kind of pretend like I was above them.
I remember being in our youth group discussing behavioral issues… and feeling a sense of superiority.
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Of course, the irony is that right in the midst of all that there was this kind of judgmental self-righteousness inside of me.
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Jesus’ first command is the command to love — love God and love people. The judgement and self-righteousness kept me from obeying that first command. That meant, in the most serious way, I was spiritually sicker than the people I considered myself superior to.
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I understand something about the older brother… and I say that because it’s kind of an odd thing, but when you decide to come home, when you decide to stop being the prodigal son, one of two things will happen to you. Either you will become like the father or you will become like the older brother.
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It’s actually a fairly hard thing to stop being the prodigal son and not turn into the older brother.
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And I love you too much for that to happen here.
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So, today, we’re going to get real clear about the heart of the older brother. And some of you are going to be called today to come home to the Father… just as some were called last week.
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I’d like to ask you, as I teach this message, to look real seriously at your heart and ask God to identify and begin to remove any remnants of this kind of older brother syndrome from your life.
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Alright, here’s the story.
The older brother has been working in the fields, as he generally does, and as he approaches the house there’s a party going on.
Now, if all were well in the heart of this son, he would immediately enter into the party and enter into the joy, whatever the source of the joy was.
But he’s suspicious from the very beginning, and so he asks someone outside, “What’s going on?”
And that someone tells him, “Your brother’s come back, and your father’s killed the fattened calf.”
What this meant was — so much food was involved that the implication was — this is a party for the whole village.
There would be feasting and music and dancing that would go on into the night.
But then Jesus says about the older brother in verse 28.
“The older brother became angry and refused to go in.
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We’re going to talk about three marks of the older brother syndrome today.
And the first mark of this older brother syndrome is Chronic Resentment.
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This kind of anger is not explosive. It’s often not even revealed. But it’s the kind of anger that paralyzes and chokes what once may have been a generous heart.
This older son resented his brother for leaving in the first place.
And then resented him for repenting.
And he resented his father for taking him back.
And he resented all the people for coming to the party.
This resentment manifested itself, as it always does, in a refusal to enter into joy.
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There’s a sense in which the primary theme or at least a major theme in Luke 15 is the theme of joy.
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Let’s look at it real quick.
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In the first story Jesus tells, a shepherd finds his sheep, and Jesus says in verse 5:
And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’
[So now it’s the shepherd’s friends and neighbors, and then Jesus says]
I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
There’s joy with the shepherd, joy with his friends and neighbors, and joy in heaven.
Same thing in the next story.
A woman looks for a lost coin. Jesus says:
And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’
In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
And then the next story, this prodigal son who’s far away and he comes back home and the father embraces him and gives him a ring and a robe and shoes and he says:
Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
Shepherds, neighbors, friends, Heaven, women, neighbors, friends, angels of God, father, son, the village — everyone enters into joy all through this whole chapter… except one person.
The older brother has no joy!
There’s a party going on and the father and his servants and the whole village are there, and the person the father would most expect to be joyful is the one joyless person in the whole bunch… and the son refuses to go in.
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Now, this is much more serious to Jesus’ listeners than we might realize.
As the oldest son, the older brother would have a kind of semi-official responsibility to be joint host with the father at a public gathering like this — mingle with the guests, make sure everyone had enough food to eat and so on.
He would be expected to do this, and then if he had some arguments with his father, he would be expected to bring those to the father later… in private.
But at a minimum he would serve as a joint host.
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Coming to a banquet when you’re called was a serious obligation.
So when this brother refuses to go in, this is a highly dramatic action to Jesus’ listeners.
He deliberately, openly chooses to expose his father to public humiliation.
And everyone would notice and talk about this.
Jesus’ listeners would expect the father to be furious. And he had every right to be furious. He could simply order his son into the house. He didn’t have to reason with his son.
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Parents understand this.
When I was a kid and I tried to get out of doing something my parents wanted me to do, I would often say to them, “Why? Why do I have to do what you’re telling me to do?”
They might reason with me for a little while, but eventually when they got tired of my evasions or couldn’t think of any other reasons why, they would fall back on the appeal to power and authority, use the same phrase that all parents have used since Adam and Eve —
Why do I have to do what you’re telling me…
“Because I said so!”
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I hated that when I was a kid. I swore I would never say it.
Now I have children of my own… in 15 years of parenting, that’s one of my favorite sayings.
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The father could just order his son, “Get in the house… because I said so,” and the son would probably have gone. The son understands about orders.
But, you see, the father does not want another hired servant.
God does not want external obedience. He wants a right heart. And that cannot be forced and that cannot be given grudgingly.
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There’s a door to your heart… and you hold the key. God himself will not force that door open.
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So the father goes out… and in humble love, even though he could have come out in judgment. He goes out in humble love, just as he went out to the first son.
Jesus is kind of comparing here — just as he goes out to the first son in humble love when we expect judgment and anger, he goes out to the second son in humble love, and he pleads… although he wouldn’t have to do that. No one would expect him to.
But the son will not go in.
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The truth is, in a strange way, he enjoys his resentment.
He likes torturing himself, sitting out on the front porch… listening to the music… not going inside.
It feeds his sense of self-righteous superiority.
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I’ll tell you how resentment works for those of us who wrestle with the older brother syndrome.
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I read some time ago about a method that’s used in the very far north in the Arctic for killing wolves.
Hunters will take a slab of raw meat and impale it on a sharp knife and leave it out.
A wolf will come and begin to eat it aggressively. They’ll eat it even though they’re close to the knife. They’ll just continue to eat. And a wolf will begin to cut its own tongue on the sharp knife.
But because of the cold and because the wolf is in such a frenzy over its greed for food… and because the taste of the blood excites the wolf, it doesn’t realize the blood it’s consuming is its own blood.
It will go on in its frenzy until it cuts itself so badly that it bleeds to death… destroyed by its own appetite for blood.
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Frederick Buechner writes:
Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past or roll your tongue over the prospect of bitter confrontations, to savor to the last toothsome morsel the pain that you are given and the pain that you were giving back — in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.
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And so here sits the older brother. There’s a party going on, and all those who are seeking to live in the kingdom of God are at this party — all those who have learned and are learning to let go of resentments, learning to practice forgiveness, learning to live in truth-filled grace and mercy.
There’s a party going on. It’s how Jesus describes the kingdom of God.
And some of you are sitting on the front porch… and resentment is eating you away right now… and you won’t go in.
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You have a parent who didn’t live up to your needs, as no parent does.
Or a spouse who hurt you, as every spouse will.
Or a child who disappointed you, as every child has.
Or a wound from your work.
Or a wound from a previous job… or previous church.
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The truth is, as you know in your heart, you are enjoying the resentment. It feeds your sense of righteous superiority.
I’ll tell you as plainly as I know how — you are at the knife right now, and little by little, joy and mercy and graciousness and patience are being bled out of you.
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So I’m asking you now, will you let go of resentment? Will you begin to forgive?
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If you can’t do that, will you ask God for the grace to begin to forgive?
If there’s someone that you need to talk to and extend forgiveness to, will you talk to them? Will you do it now?
Will you make a phone call today if you have to? Will you go see them this week as soon as you can?
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There’s a spirit of resentment in this son. The father comes out and pleads with him, but he won’t go in.
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The next thing that we notice in verse 29 is this spirit of Chronic Complaining.
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.
Now, the first striking thing here is he doesn’t address his dad as “father.”
Titles of respect were very important in those days.
If you notice in this story, even the prodigal son, each time he speaks to address his dad, he addresses him as “father.”
But this son comes to his father with no respect, launches into his complaint…
“All these years I’ve been working like a slave for you” — now, there’s rich irony here in Jesus’ story — “and I’ve never disobeyed a single command.”
And he really thinks that’s true.
He says this even though he has just publicly humiliated his father by refusing to join the party.
He says this even though he defies his father’s deepest will, which is that he ought to love his brother and throw his arms around his brother.
“I have never disobeyed a single command,” he says… and the truth is, he’s never really obeyed one… not from his heart, which is what really matters.
He doesn’t know a thing about obedience.
He understands conformity. He knows about following orders. He knows nothing of the obedience that comes from a loving heart. He’s so blind, this son.
“All these years I’ve been working like a slave for you.” There’s such irony.
The prodigal son, remember, when he was going to come back decided that he would be a hired servant, a hired slave, but he’s so overwhelmed by the father’s love, he gives up on that project and becomes his son.
Here’s the son that stayed home, done the right thing all these years, but he’s not a son; he’s a slave.
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“It’s unfair,” he says. “This son of yours comes back; he gets a fattened calf. He gets big wages for doing bad. I get no wages for doing good. It’s unfair.”
This is in the heart of the older brother.
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He’ll go through his life as a perpetual unappreciated victim in his eyes.
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So I’d like to ask you to consider this question — is there a spirit of chronic complaint in you?
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I think of the man who’s been a Christian for many years, struggled with being a pastor, felt kind of unfulfilled in it.
Then he saw another man who for many years lived as a prodigal son who came home to the father, repentant, and became a Christ follower.
This other man, this former prodigal, entered into ministry and found great success.
The first man said, “I’ve walked the straight and narrow my whole life. Where did it get me? This guy messed up — bad decisions. Now he’s come and been forgiven by God. He has a great ministry and I’m struggling. It’s not fair.”
That’s the older brother syndrome.
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See, the older brother secretly thinks the prodigal son has had more fun.
He secretly believes or at least suspects that life is better in a distant country.
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So he says to himself, “If I’ve got to be home with the father, if I have to walk the straight and narrow, if I’m going to give up all that fun, I better be compensated.”
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Instead of rejoicing at God’s goodness to another person, the older brother compares it to his situation.
If anyone is happier or more successful or has a richer relational life or a more flourishing job than me, I cry unfair.
I don’t know how else to say this… this is really the most miserable way to live.
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There is a party going on!
It is the kingdom of God and it’s at work in secret ways here on this earth, and it is made up of all of those who have learned and are learning how to rejoice with those who rejoice, who learn to celebrate the good fortune of others, to live with the joyful heart of the father, welcoming all who come home.
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Some of you are here today, and you’re sitting outside the house on the front step and you refuse to come in… and you’re bitter because someone else has gotten the breaks that you’re so sure ought to come to you.
The question today is, will you learn to rejoice with those who rejoice? Will you learn the discipline of gratitude, to be grateful for your life, your gifts, your work, your relationships, the church God gives to you, the Bible God has given to you, the salvation God has offered to you? Will you be grateful for your life… because if you won’t, you’ll never be grateful at all.
Will you learn to rejoice with people who rejoice?
Will you look for people to rejoice with this week?
Maybe it’s someone who has repented.
Maybe it’s someone in your life who’s had tremendous success at work.
Maybe it’s someone who’s in a relationship that brings great love and joy.
Maybe it’s someone who’s children accomplish something remarkable.
Instead of thinking, “Why can’t it be me?” will you come to the party?
Will you throw your arms around them, write them a note, congratulate them, rejoice with them?
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Will you have the heart of the father or will you have the heart of the older brother?
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Alright, now there’s a third characteristic of the heart of the older brother… it’s A Spirit of Judgmentalism.
Look at verse 30.
But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
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Notice the phrase he uses to refer to the prodigal son. “This son of yours.”
Not “this brother of mine.”
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We do this, don’t we?
Parents do this kind of thing. A kid does something great — “Well, that’s my boy!”
Kid does something bad — “What’s that son of yours done?”
“Son of yours” is a phrase that would be said by someone who is outside the family.
Someone who is a stranger would say to the father, “How is your son?” That’s what the older brother is doing here.
He’s speaking as if he were not part of the family. He’s renouncing his brotherhood — “this son of yours.”
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Judgment is not just when someone points out what someone else has done wrong.
That’s not judgment.
I’ve had people point out what’s wrong with me, sometimes several times a day, but I know they’re for me. I know they want me to grow and flourish.
Judging is when you speak from a distance and you feel no compassion.
You have no obligation to help, and you secretly enjoy the failure of the other person.
You enjoy the experience of righteous indignation.
You appoint yourself to be watchdog for what is right.
You adopt a posture of suspicion.
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I remember when Kathy and I were in Ethiopia to adopt our daughter Amryn. We stayed in a hotel with a bunch of other couples who were also adopting.
One couple was from Mobile, Alabama. When they found out we were Christians, and particularly that I was a pastor, they asked me: “How do you start a church in California when there are no Christians out there?”
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There’s something inside of us that wants to judge those who are not like us.
The older brother’s doing that. He assumes the worst.
In the older brother syndrome, you project the worst onto people.
Notice what happened. Look again at verse 30.
But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
This is a real interesting part of Jesus’ story… where in the first part of Jesus’ story did he mention prostitutes?
He never did.
He said the prodigal son squandered the money on wild living.
There are various translations, but no mention of prostitutes.
Where did that come from?
The older brother just threw that in.
Maybe he’s thinking of what he would have done if he would have been the prodigal son.
Maybe he just wants to paint as bad a picture as he can.
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You see, there’s a party going on right now, and it’s made up of those who have learned what Jesus meant when he said “judge not.”
Just give up the whole business of trying to straighten everyone out.
There’s a party going on of people who recognize their fallenness and have entered into the community of forgiven sinners… and they’re struggling and battling against sin and, as brothers and sisters, helping each other to do it with truth and with grace.
There’s a party going on for those who have learned what Jesus meant when he said “judge not,” and some of you are sitting on the front step and you will not come in.
The truth is, you enjoy being the judge and the jury.
You may mask it with a veneer of piety. You may sound kind of religious and on the surface try to sound fairly positive or laugh fairly frequently, but the truth is, there is a kind of negative, judgmental spirit in you that surfaces, and it’s toxic.
You gossip behind people’s back.
You just reflexively find fault with those around you.
Passing judgment has become such a habit, you don’t even realize it.
There’s a cutting comment behind almost everything you say.
The question for you is, will you resign today as judge of the universe?
Will you confess the judgmental spirit that’s going on inside your heart that not only sees wrong but feels no compassion, no warmth, no obligation to help, kind of enjoys passing judgment?
Will you accept your position as another prodigal son or daughter who needs to come home?
That’s all you are.
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That’s the heart of the older brother.
And I know about that heart.
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But then the father talks to the older brother just as he talked to the prodigal son — verse 31:
“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.
The father kind of overlooks all of the insults that his son has leveled at him, and even though his son did not address him as “father,” he gives his son this title, “my son.”
It’s a very tender word.
Jesus could have used a more common word for son. The word he used was a word that was used for a little child. It’s a very tender word.
“My child,” the father says to the child who wouldn’t call him ‘my father,’ “You are always with me and all that is mine is yours.”
You remember, the younger son took his share. Now everything that’s left, all that’s there, the father says, “It’s all yours, son.” Every calf and every goat, every door, every nail.
“You are always with me and all that is mine is yours,” and what the father is really saying is, “Do you not realize that to live at home with me, to live in my love, to share all things with me, to partner together throughout life, these are the greatest gifts?”
The father says to his son what the father says to you and me right now.
“What I’ve been offering you all these years is me. What I’ve been offering you is me, and if living at home with me is not enough, then all the parties and properties and goats in the world will not be enough. Every time your brother’s in the limelight, every time someone else is celebrated, it’ll choke your heart.”
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The father is infinitely gracious with this son, and yet at the same time infinitely firm.
He will not apologize and he will not stop the party.
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Do you know what the older son is after?
He wants his father to feel really bad about what he’s doing and call the party off and punish the prodigal son… but the father will not do that.
The older son is not allowed that kind of power.
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You see, God longs for a church where prodigal sons can just come on in, and the people who are inside the church embrace them… just embrace them.
Verse 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.’”
“This brother of yours,” the father says — in other words, you’re still family. It’s not too late. You can still live as my beloved son. You can still enter the party as his rejoicing brother.
The father says, “For so long I lived in sorrow over a lost son. For so long I kept looking every day to see if he’d returned. Now that I have him back, must I lose another?”
Then there’s silence.
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The father looks into the eyes of his son, the older brother. What does he see?
Confusion, sorrow, hurt, anger? We don’t know.
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Now picture Jesus’ listeners, all of the drama and tension in this moment.
Some of them are filled with joy, because as they’ve heard this story, they think, “That was me. I was the one that was lost, and I’m back home. He says that my coming home is cause for God Almighty to throw this huge party.”
Some of them are burning with anger, because when he talked about the older brother, they knew exactly who he was talking about.
All of them stand there with bated breath waiting to see what Jesus will say next. What is the older brother going to do? How will it end?
Then Jesus just stops right at the climax of the story, and he walks away.
In the next chapter, Luke 16, we find he’s talking to a different audience, just his disciples.
He never finishes this story.
Why doesn’t he finish it?
Well, it’s not because he couldn’t think of an ending.
He’s the greatest teacher, the wisest teller of stories who ever lived.
It’s because the ending had yet to be written. It’s because all those listening to Jesus would have to decide.
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And now you have to decide.
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The story will end one of two ways in your life.
One is that the older brother turns away from his father, returns to the field, works in coldness and bitterness of heart and never went into the house again.
Did his work, maybe followed the rules, but he never went into the house and he grew to hate his brother and secretly he grew to hate his father… and when he died, he died all alone.
The story could end that way.
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Or it could end like this:
It could end that the older brother, after seeing the love of his father, falls to his knees and his hard heart is broken and made tender, and he came and he entered into the house and there he saw the skinny, wasted figure, the tear-stained face of his brother, and he remembered how once they grew up together and how they explored and played and fought and worked and loved each other.
He thought that his brother had been lost forever, but now they would never be apart, never again their whole life long.
His heart explodes with love and he throws his arms around his brother and he would not let him go.
He joins in the celebration, and he laughs louder and sings longer and dances faster and cries harder than anyone in the house.
The two sons are reconciled to their father… and the celebration goes on to this day.
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How does the story end? It’s up to you.
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Alright, let’s pray as Michaela and the team come to lead us in a closing song.
Blue Oaks Church
Pleasanton, CA
