
Your Brother Was Dead
A Study of LUKE 15:28–32
SCRIPTURE
LUKE 15:28–32, ESV
But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’
OBSERVATIONS
1. The father came out. He either noticed or was told that the older son wasn’t inside celebrating with everyone else. His father wanted him to be a part of the celebration, even though he did not.
2. The older brother does not acknowledge his brother, but calls him his father’s son. His father is the one to say “your brother”.
3. The older brother feels like a servant, not a son. He says, “for these many years I have served you, and never disobeyed your command…” To him, everything still belongs to his father, because he has not yet inherited it. This is true even in how he describes his brother’s inheritance (which, once given, ought to belong to him, right?) as “your (the father’s) property.”

4. From the father’s perspective, as his son, everything is already his. This is also evidenced in the fact that the father gave the inheritance earlier to the younger son. The father sees what he has as presently already belonging to his sons’ in terms of ownership.
4. The older brother cares about celebrating with friends. The father cares about celebrating as a family.
5. The younger brother’s interactions with the older brother are never mentioned. He doesn’t play a part in this discussion, even though he is the reason for it. The father doesn’t have him come outside.
APPLICATIONS
1. God notices us. That’s just such an encouraging thought. I’ve definitely been ‘outside-looking-in’ at a party, wondering if anyone would care if I left, but God cares. He wants us to celebrate with Him! Especially when people come home — as though we saw someone who was dead come alive! Those scenes in war movies, when someone who was MIA comes home, the emotions that elicits — that’s how I should feel when someone comes back home.*
2. Recognizing our family. The word family has a lot of emotions attached, but at it’s core, I think family are the people we embrace unconditionally. They’re people who we didn’t choose, but who we were given, so we don’t get to choose to love them, we just do, even when they hurt us**. Even people who I disagree with and who I dislike, people who have done things that have hurt me and the ones I care about, when they turn around and change, I should celebrate them, not judge, criticize, or be skeptical of them.
3–4. Recognize who I am. I am not working for God like an employee or a servant. We don’t do what we do out of obligation, but out of love. My love for Him, and His love for me, and our love for our family. To that end, everything that God has, I have. Paul calls us co-heirs, and we have the same access to the Father than Jesus did when He was on earth. I don’t need to beg. So long as I’m with God, it’s like being at home — I just need to go open up the fridge or the pantry. Perhaps most importantly, what other people are given doesn’t take away from what I have.
5. What matters is how I respond to others, not how they respond to me. Maybe the brothers had a great relationship. Maybe they had a horrible one and he was really glad when his younger brother left. Either way, I shouldn’t be waiting on an apology or for someone to beg me to forgive them — I should be the one extending my forgiveness and reaching with my love anyway. When people come to Christ, we as the church should be the first to celebrate them — not try to fix them.
CONCLUSIONS | Truly celebrating others comes out of me getting over any feelings of poverty or resentment in comparing my past or present to anyone else’s, and realizing that I already have all of God, which is more than enough!
PRAYER
Dear Heavenly Father,
Help me to love more openly and expansively, knowing that I have an infinite store of resources through you that you have already given to me. Help me to see that what you give others enriches my life and our world, and that it doesn’t take away from your blessing towards me.
Give me your heart to love people and to care about the lost as though it was my sister who was in their shoes.
Remind me of who I am and give me security in Your love.
Thank you for your overwhelming generosity, love, and joy. Thank you for your patience and gentleness towards us when we don’t see what you see, and when we sometimes get caught up in our narrow ways of thinking.
You are such a good God, and an amazing Father!
We love You.
In Christ’s name we pray,
Amen.

*When I say “come home,” I mean it in the sense of someone either expressing faith in Christ for the first time, or coming back to church, or coming back into relationship with a group of Christians. Home is God’s house, and family is capital C-Church, the great body of people who believe in Christ.
**Embracing people as a part of a family does not negate consequences and boundaries. I won’t go into all my thoughts about family here, but suffice to say that I think embracing means engaging. It means kindness and care and celebrating and encouraging and loving as best we can.

