The True Elder Brother

Worship Folder

Outline

Hook: Which of the brothers do you most identify with?

I. DIAGNOSIS
"The main thing between you and God is not your sins but your damnable good deeds.” – John Gerstner

II. DANGER
"Many have passed the rocks of gross sin – who have suffered shipwreck on the sands of self-righteousness.” – William Secker

III. DYNAMICS
"There is an entire psychological substructure that, due to the fall, is a near-constant manufacturing of relational leveraging, fear-stuffing, nervousness, score-keeping, neurotic controlling, anxiety-festering silliness that is not something we say or even think so much as something we exhale. ... And if you trace it, down to the root, you find gospel deficit. You find lack of felt awareness of Christ’s heart. All the worry and dysfunction and resentment are the natural fruit of living in a mental universe of law.” – Dane Ortlund

IV. DEATH
"By putting a flawed elder brother in the story, Jesus is inviting us to imagine and yearn for a true one.” – Tim Keller

Resources

• Kenneth Bailey, The Cross and the Prodigal
• Kenneth Bailey, Poet and Peasant
• Tim Keller, Prodigal God
• Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son