The prodigal son is making his way home.  His clothes are tattered.  He’s dirty.  He stinks like a pig.  He’s hung over. His pockets are empty.  All he has are the smelly rags on his back.  And he’s rehearsing a speech for his father.  Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son.  The boy is thinking about how miserably he has failed his father.  He’s spent his father’s retirement savings.  Ruined the family reputation.  Been with women he didn’t know and drugs you’d never heard of.  Wrecked his health.  Gambled away the family ring in a poker game.  How could his father ever forgive him?

Maybe he could get a job and pay his father back.  Maybe he could join the peace corps and repay his debt to society.  Or become a monk.  Or even work as a grunt in his father’s company.  At least he could eat.  He was so hungry!  His growling stomach made it difficult for him to hear the sound of his father running out to meet him!  His dad hugged him like he was returning home as a college grad or war hero!  He threw his arms around him and kissed him!  He told the servants to bring the boy a robe, a ring, and sandals.  Meaning, “You’re my son, and no son of mine is going to be dressed like this!  Fire up the barbeque!  Bring on the drinks!  Time for a celebration!  My son has been found!

Meanwhile, the responsible older brother came in from where he was working in the fields and saw the party going on.  He got a scowl on his face and grumbled, “No one ever threw me a party!”  The father pleads with him to understand, but the jealous son won’t listen.  He yells about how he has always tried to do everything his father wanted him to do, but when his nix-nux younger brother came home after blowing all their money, you’re just going to forgive him and let him be part of this family again?!  And he refuses to join the party.

We heard that parable today.  And you’ve heard it before, I’m sure.  But you know what?  Writer Max Lucado suggests there is a second chapter, a sequel to this story… now, I had never heard that before so I had to check it out.  It’s pretty interesting.  I would call the sequel: “The Older Brother Strikes Back.”  It starts a long time ago, when…the older brother resolves to ruin the party.  To rain on the forgiveness parade.  If Dad won’t exact justice on the boy, I will.

“Nice robe there, little brother,” he tells him one day.  “Better keep it clean.  One spot and Dad will send you to the cleaners with it.”  The younger brother waves him away, but the next time he sees his father, he quickly checks his robe for stains.  A few days later, big brother warns about the ring.  “Quite a piece of jewelry Dad gave you.  He prefers that you wear it on the thumb.” “The thumb?  He didn’t tell me that.”  “Some things we’re just supposed to know.”  “But it won’t fit my thumb.”  “What’s your goal – pleasing our father or your own personal comfort?” the spiritually superior brother jibes, walking away.

But Big Bro isn’t finished.  With the tact of a Revenue Canada auditor, he taunts, “If Dad sees you with loose laces, he’ll take the sandals back.”  “He will not.  They were a gift.  He wouldn’t… would he?”  The ex-prodigal then leans over to tie the laces.  As he does, he spots a smudge on his robe.  Trying to rub it off, he realizes the ring is on his finger, not his thumb.  That’s when he hears his father’s voice. “Hello, son.”  There the boy sits, wearing a spotted robe, loose laces, and a misplaced ring.  Overcome with fear of this father who loves him so, he responds with “Sorry, Dad!” and turns and runs.

Too many tasks:  Keeping the robe spotless, the ring positioned, the sandals snug – who could meet such standards?  Gift preservation begins to wear on the young man.  He avoids the father he feels he can’t please.  Even though his father loves him regardless.  He quits wearing the gifts he can’t maintain.  And he even begins longing for the simpler days of the pigpen.  “No one hounded me there!” (Max Lucado, Come Thirsty, adapted)

Well, that’s the rest of the story.  The sequel.  What?  You don’t have that one in your Bibles?  It’s there, alright.  In the book of Galatians.  Thanks to some legalistic big brothers who were jealous of the Gentiles getting welcomed into God’s family, the people in the Galatian churches forgot how God had given them grace in the Gospel, and started worrying more about how to keep the requirements their big brothers were telling them were necessary to stay in God’s good graces.  And it had taken their joy away!

Here’s what was happening.  Some of the Jews in Galatia who had come to believe in Jesus were reluctant to give up many of their traditional practices and laws.  Not eating certain meats.  Having to be circumcised to be a part of God’s family.  And to take their jealousy out on the new believers who weren’t used to these things, they demanded that their laws and customs had to be observed by all Christians!  They were teaching their brothers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” (Acts 15:1).

Paul was upset!  And you can just feel his disappointment in his letter to the Galatians: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ…16 [We] know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.” (1:6-7, 2:16)

“So the big brothers of these newer believers weren’t telling them they had to wear a ring on their thumb, but that they had to be circumcised in order to be saved.  The Father might let you in the gate, but you have to earn your place at the table.  God makes the down payment on your redemption, but you make the monthly payments.  Heaven gives the boat, but you have to row it if you ever want to see the other shore.” (Lucado, Come Thirsty) 

This kind of teaching concerned Paul, because these new believers He had led to Christ were abandoning their faith in Christ for the sake of human teachings and customs.  Paul’s letter is a call to recognize the danger of mixing faith in Christ with human opinions.  And there is an urgency to this letter, because eternal consequences were at stake!  Paul was pleading: “Don’t Delete the Good News!”  By rejecting the One who calls you to grace, thinking you have to earn your way in, or by accepting man-made teaching as Gospel.

In the first five verses of this letter, Paul reminds his readers what the Gospel is.  It is the grace – the underserved love that comes from God and won us our salvation through Jesus Christ.  It is the peace with God – the result of God’s grace.  It is the fact that Christ gave Himself for our sins and rescued us from evil by dying for us and rising to life again.  Because of this, friends, you have been given God’s grace!  And you have his peace!  Free!  No conditions.  No cost to you.  That is the Gospel.  That is the Good News.  There is no other Gospel!

What astonished Paul is how quickly the Galatians were abandoning that good news.  They were throwing it in the trash.  Deleting it as easily as we press that button on our computers. They were in the process of falling away from faith.  So Paul is telling them: Hey!  Any message which tells you another way to be right with God, or says you have to add something to what Jesus did for you to be right with God is not a good-news message at all!  And it can only ruin that real good-news message!  It can take your joy away!  And even your faith!

Friends, God does not accept us into his family because of anything we do.  If you start doing certain things because you think those things will make you right with God, you’re pushing the delete button on his grace – his gift to you!  God accepts you into his family because He wants to be your father.  And because Jesus made you right with Him. Trusting in or relying upon any other message other than the Gospel is going to harm you.  So will thinking (or making others think) you have to do something to earn it.

We’ve been both brothers, haven’t we?  We have been the Big Brother.  Looking down on other brothers or sisters in Christ because you feel they really don’t deserve to be labeled “Christian.”  Have you ever let people know, either directly or subliminally, that their standards of practicing faith aren’t up to yours?  They aren’t in church enough, don’t dress well enough, don’t participate in enough, and just don’t do enough for God?  Have you ever made others feel, even subconsciously, that obviously to be a real Christian, you need to do be at so many Bible studies, so many church events, and have so many-pictures-of-Jesus on your walls at home?  Do you feel that ex-convicts deserve the same chance to be part of God’s family as you do?

We have also been like Little Brother – like the Christians at Galatia who were being led astray by the big brother types.  Haven’t you wondered how God could ever give you all He gives you freely and unconditionally and undeservedly?  Have you had thoughts in the bottom of your heart that the reason you may end up going to heaven one day is because you have been a good person?  If so, you are like 33% of Christians polled in a survey who feel they will go to heaven by their good works.  Have you let others make you feel guilty for doing something that God hasn’t forbidden you to do?  Or not doing something God hasn’t commanded you to do?

Or like the church in Galatia, are there people here today who have been abandoning the Gospel that was preached to you, and searching for other teachings of men?  Teachings that are based on human reason and thinking, but end up deleting and erasing the joy of the Gospel?

There’s a reason we do these things.  We are programmed to want to earn what we get.  All of religions in the world, except for Christianity, are designed to help us make some righteous god happy.  Because by nature, we hear the call of our conscience and we know we must make someone happy.  We are doing something wrong that we must do better at.  We have failed.  We are sinful.  We need to make things right.  But try as we might, we just can’t.

But God can.  And He did.  He has done it all for us with Jesus.  Don’t delete his grace!  Listen to Him!  You are already right with Him through Jesus!  Live your life to thank Him, not to run in fear from Him!  You are forgiven!  And you are a member of his family!  You are the prodigal son!  Your Father ran to you, threw his arms around you, and kissed you.  He gave you the ring and the robe, guaranteeing your place in his family.

And now you know what to say to the big brothers of this world.  No need for frantic robe cleaning or rules for ring wearing.  Your deeds don’t save you.  And your deeds don’t keep you saved.  Grace does.  The next time your big brother tries giving you a message different from that, loosen your sandals, set your ring on your finger, and quote the Apostle Paul: “By the grace of God I am what I am.”   Amen.