Who hasn’t heard the story of the prodigal son? In spite of blowing his inheritance, he was welcomed home by his father. We love to hear about God’s amazing grace, and about how it’s never too late for anyone to turn and be forgiven.

But there’s another son in the story who was estranged from his father, and precisely because of the father’s forgiveness. For when he heard that his father had welcomed his wastrel brother home, the older son, the responsible one, became angry.

And it’s easy for us to see why. After all, in order for the father to have given his younger son his inheritance, he would have had to liquidate 1/3 of all his property – and in those days, that meant selling land and livestock. The rest of the family would have thus been impoverished so the younger son could live it up and have a good time.

Moreover, when he saw how the younger son was welcomed home, the older son began to wonder why he himself had been so faithful over the years, working so hard to undo the financial damage the younger son had caused.

But the irony here is that the older son was just as focused on material things as his younger brother had been – the only difference is that he was trying to keep things while his brother was trying to spend them. Both brothers had missed the main point, which the father told him in verse 31: “You have always been with me.”

And that’s the point Jesus is trying to make in this whole chapter: Because God’s greatest desire is a relationship with us, because God loves us enough to seek us and find us when we are lost, our greatest desire should be not only to draw closer to Him, but to help others do the same thing, no matter how far away from God they may be at first. In short, because we matter most to God, God should matter most to us. Does He?

Luke 15:25-32 (NAS)

25 “Now his older son was in the field, and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.
26 “And he summoned one of the servants and began inquiring what these things might be.
27 “And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’
28 “But he became angry, and was not willing to go in; and his father came out and began entreating him.
29 “But he answered and said to his father, ‘Look! For so many years I have been serving you, and I have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never given me a kid, that I might be merry with my friends;
30 but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with harlots, you killed the fattened calf for him.’
31 “And he said to him, ‘My child, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours.
32 ‘But we had to be merry and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.'”