#358 - Jay Risner // When Being The Good Kid Makes You Miserable

A party is happening, the lost son is home, and one person refuses to come inside. We dig into the older brother’s anger in Luke 15 and uncover a form of spiritual danger that looks “good” on the outside but is hollow on the inside: resentment. When faith turns into scorekeeping, service starts to feel like slavery, obedience becomes leverage, and joy dries up fast.

We read the closing verses of the parable and pull out three traits that expose the older brother’s heart: resentment toward his life of service, resentment toward obedience as a transaction, and resentment toward the Father’s grace. That last one cuts deepest, because grace is unearned favor and it dismantles any identity built on performance. We also connect the older brother to the Pharisees and scribes who could not handle Jesus’ radical mercy, and we ask why “doing everything right” can still leave someone far from God.

You’ll hear a sharp insight popularized by Tim Keller: in Luke 15, Jesus defines sin not only as rebellion (the younger son) but also as self-righteousness (the older son). That means real repentance is not just turning from obvious failures; it also means turning from pride, comparison, and the need to be owed. If you’ve ever felt bitter when someone else gets grace, this conversation will put language to it and point you back to the Father’s heart. Subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a five-star rating and review to help equip more men for the fight.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Daily Blade. The word of God is described as the sword of the spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

Reading The Older Brother Scene

Resentment Toward Service And The Father

Resentment Toward Obedience And Reward

Resentment Toward Grace And Mercy

Self Righteous Lostness And Repentance

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Welcome back to the Daily Blade. Again, this is Jay Reisner, lead pastor at Faith Bible Church in Edmund, Oklahoma. And we're at the end of the week, almost all the way through the story of the Lost Son, and I hope you've hung with me. And I've read very little of the actual text as I've done these devotionals, so I'm finally going to read from this parable. Let's read Luke 15, verses 28 through 32. The setting is a party being thrown for the lost son. But he, the older brother, became angry and was not willing to go in, and his father came out and began pleading with him. But he answered and said to his father, Look, for so many years I've been serving you, and I have never neglected a command of yours, and yet you have never given me a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours comes home, who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him. And he said to him, Son, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for for this brother of yours was dead, and has begun to live, and was lost, and has been found. So from the closing verses of this parable, I want to bring forth three properties of this older brother character. He stands out as the only miserable person in all of these parables in Luke 15, and we have to ask why. And the answer is because he's eaten up with resentment. First, he resents his life of service. Did you notice that he that he speaks to his how how he speaks to his father? He says, Look. Now it doesn't matter what culture or what time you're living in. When you're ticked off at someone, you tear into them by saying, Hey, look. Look, for many years I've been serving you. Does that sound like a son who loves his father? Is that a son who delights in working for and with his dad? Absolutely not. I've been serving you. Little brother chose not to serve you, and now you're rewarding him. Where's my reward? Where's my party? Dad tries to respond saying, But but you've been with me this whole time. But the older son doesn't care about his dad. His mentality is good sons serve. Good sons go out to the fields every day. They do the work and they don't complain. That's the older brother's mentality on serving. And because of that, he resents his father. Dad, I'm doing the work. Little brother wanted you to die. But the truth is the elder brother wanted the father to die also. He was just more determined to wait it out. He didn't love the father. He resents his service. Well, second, and similarly, he resents his life of obedience. He says, I never neglected your commands. And what's embedded in that thinking is sort of a quit pro quo approach to his father. The formula is, I obey, you bless me with stuff. But little brother disobeyed, and you blessed him with stuff, and now you're giving him even more stuff, the robe, the ring, the fatted calf. You've never even given me a goat. What good is obedience if you can just get rewarded for disobedience? And the father stands there pleading, saying, But but but son, we had to celebrate. A lost sinner repented, he was dead, and now he lives, he's home, he's here for good. But the older son he doesn't care. He doesn't have a category for rebellious son being celebrated. And here we learn he's just as lost the older brother is as his brother was. He stayed at home, but his heart is so distant from his father. One more area of resentment. Lastly, he resents his father's grace. To be shown grace is to be shown favor or kindness that's not earned by your performance. The doctrine of salvation says that God saves us by his grace. So not by our works or our worthiness, lest any of us should boast, but by sheer grace. And the kind of people who resent grace are the people who think that they've pretty much done everything right. That's this position of the older son. That's the heart of the Pharisees and scribes that this older son in the parable represents. Their commitment to the law led them to despise and condemn all those who were not equally committed to the law. That's what these scribes and Pharisees are dealing with in this story. They can't handle grace. They can't handle a teacher like Jesus, they can't handle his radical mercy. It's upending their entire understanding of salvation. They can't rejoice because grace not only disempowers them, it redefines their whole existence. So instead of changing, instead of killing themselves, like the character Javert in Le Miserab, they will eventually kill Jesus. That's the depth of this older brother's resentment of the Father's grace. See, we're naturally lost. We are helplessly lost, we are willfully lost, and apart from the grace of God, we can be self-righteously lost. We can be blind to our need for grace by our projections of outward goodness. One of the things that Tim Keller points out in his teaching on this parable is that in Luke 15, Jesus defines sin in two ways. In the younger son, he gives us a definition of sin that's very traditional, basic rebellion. But in the older son, he turns the table. The older son is not lost in spite of his goodness, but he's lost because of it. It's not his sins that are keeping him from the Father, it's his damnable good works. So not only do our sins need to be repented of, but our self-righteousness does also. When was the last time you went to God, not just for your overt sins of rebellion, but for those sins of self-righteousness.

Share The Podcast And Closing

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Go to Him today. Thank you for listening to today's episode. Before you go, if you want to help equip other men for the fight, share this podcast around and leave us a five star rating and review. Stay sharp.