The Elder Brother Syndrome
About this sermon
In “The Elder Brother Syndrome,” Pastor Dean Odle presents a Scripture-centered message about family discipleship, spiritual leadership, pride and humility. Drawing especially from Proverbs 11, Luke 15, John 7, Luke 19, the teaching emphasizes that faithfulness in the home requires instruction, loving correction, protection, and a consistent Christian example. Odle connects that foundation with the conviction that leaders are accountable to teach faithfully, serve the flock, and model the character they proclaim.
Chronological teaching outline
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Odle focuses on spiritual leadership while working through Proverbs 11. The message argues that leaders are accountable to teach faithfully, serve the flock, and model the character they proclaim. It connects this with the conviction that faithfulness in the home requires instruction, loving correction, protection, and a consistent Christian example. The practical emphasis is to seek God in prayer and act on what Scripture requires.
Odle focuses on spiritual leadership while working through Luke 15. The message argues that leaders are accountable to teach faithfully, serve the flock, and model the character they proclaim. It connects this with the conviction that spiritual pride blinds people to correction, while humility receives truth and depends on God. The practical emphasis is to respond with honest repentance and concrete obedience.
Odle focuses on family discipleship. The message argues that faithfulness in the home requires instruction, loving correction, protection, and a consistent Christian example. It connects this with the conviction that repentance involves turning from known sin and bringing conduct into agreement with God’s word. The practical emphasis is to respond with honest repentance and concrete obedience.
Odle focuses on family discipleship. The message argues that faithfulness in the home requires instruction, loving correction, protection, and a consistent Christian example. It connects this with the conviction that leaders are accountable to teach faithfully, serve the flock, and model the character they proclaim. The practical emphasis is to respond with honest repentance and concrete obedience.
Odle focuses on prayer. The message argues that prayer expresses dependence on God and prepares believers to hear and obey Him. It connects this with the conviction that the inner life must be healed, guarded, and brought under the truth of God’s word. The practical emphasis is to seek God in prayer and act on what Scripture requires.
Odle focuses on pride and humility. The message argues that spiritual pride blinds people to correction, while humility receives truth and depends on God. It connects this with the conviction that leaders are accountable to teach faithfully, serve the flock, and model the character they proclaim. The practical emphasis is to practice patient, truthful love in relationships and conflict.
Odle focuses on the authority of Scripture while working through John 7, Luke 19. The message argues that Scripture is presented as the standard for doctrine, discernment, and daily obedience. It connects this with the conviction that the inner life must be healed, guarded, and brought under the truth of God’s word. The practical emphasis is to test the teaching by Scripture and apply it through faithful obedience.
Odle focuses on David’s example while working through Luke 7. The message argues that David’s choices are used to examine leadership, testing, repentance, and renewed dependence on God. It connects this with the conviction that biblical faith trusts God’s character and acts upon His promises. The practical emphasis is to remain watchful, grounded in Scripture, and ready to obey Christ.
Odle focuses on biblical love. The message argues that biblical love is demonstrated through truth, patience, sacrifice, and conduct toward others. It connects this with the conviction that God’s grace forgives and also trains believers to leave sin and live in obedience. The practical emphasis is to practice patient, truthful love in relationships and conflict.
Odle focuses on biblical love. The message argues that biblical love is demonstrated through truth, patience, sacrifice, and conduct toward others. It connects this with the conviction that patience is formed through testing and governs how believers respond to people and delay. The practical emphasis is to seek God in prayer and act on what Scripture requires.
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- 0:00:00
[Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] go ahead and take your bibles this morning i'm going to turn this down a little bit here take your bibles and turn to back to luke chapter 15. thank you jesus let me get set up here luke chapter 15 on the prodigal son and actually today i'm kind of glad that um we have the crowd that we have today it's kind of a church family day because i'm gonna going to deal with a little bit of family business luke chapter 15. just to recap in case you were not here last week and even if you were we need to recap a little bit just to remind you of how this came about but not last week but the week before when i was uh praying about what to preach um last weekend last sunday on um was at work and the lord just spoke to me very very clearly and he said the prodigal son and i told you that story last week about that a couple of days went by and i kind of forgot because you know that still small voice of god sometimes is so subtle you know you can let it drift away if your mind's too busy on other things you know and so i kind of let it drift away and then i was praying again and uh up on a ladder or the lift or something i was praying and uh and the lord said um i said lord what do you want me to preach on sunday and he said the prodigal son again so i i knew the story and of course i think i know it pretty well but of course i always go back and meditate if god tells me something i go back to the story i meditate on it i look up the greek words in the new testament the hebrew words in the old testament i meditate and look at different things that that go with it and try to get what god's saying to me out of that even though i could almost
- 0:03:00
quote the whole thing by heart but i want to hear what god's saying and i knew the whole story you know the whole story is not just about the sun that comes home but there's this other sun you know that's got some issues and i mentioned that a little bit last week but um i had no idea that when god told me to preach that that literally some of this would be literally going on and that god always i think begins to it's let's just put it this way it's good to hear from god amen and it's good that um you know your pastor i promise you one thing that i dedicate myself to is not just preaching a sermon but hearing a message from god what he is saying for this day for this sunday or for whatever meeting it may be i really go after god for what he wants to say so i want you to know that i i don't ever try to preach a message or teach something out of reaction to a problem that has arisen it just this time seems to be a coincidence almost that god was doing it ahead of time because he was already going to start dealing with some issues now what i'm going to preach on today is what i ended last week when i started talking about the elder brother you know about how he was angry and we're going to go back and read through the story a little bit but how he was angry about some things and about his attitude and but what we're going to call this today i think is the elder brother syndrome the elder brother syndrome and i'm just going to say this at the outset of this i actually wrote this at the top of my page here when i wrote down the elder brother syndrome this is this is something that we need to be very careful and this is also a continuation of really what i've been into the last three weeks now is going to be kind of a series on um evangelism and how we respond to and witness and share the gospel with other people and and today is kind of going to be our attitude our attitude toward the lost and our attitude and judgment toward those who are newly come to jesus christians um christians can fall into one of two traps we either fall into the trap of being way too tolerant of everything or we fall into the trap of being way way too judgmental and harsh and the thing about christianity is finding that balance and finding that balance not just with a group of people where there's kind of a blanket thing for everybody but you actually have to find that balance for each individual person because people are at different places in their walk with god or in their journey toward god and that's why the bible says in proverbs chapter 11 verse 30 you can
- 0:06:01
just write this one down it says in proverbs 11 30 that he that when it's souls is wise i want to tell you that to truly win souls to jesus takes great wisdom from god okay because you cannot always depend on some formula or pattern to handle a sinner or a backslider or a lost person or a prodigal son or an elder brother they all are different they're all in different places they all have different issues and things going on inside their heart and there's no way that there is some blanket way to deal with everybody the same way okay um and you'll see that this father didn't deal with this situation the same way and we're going to look at where jesus didn't deal with some situations the same way but let me just explain this to you please do not let a spirit of superiority or pride come over you toward brothers or sisters in the in the the church or toward new people that have just come to jesus or toward the pastor maybe how he's handling different people different ways be very very careful that you don't move into this elder brother syndrome be very very careful because let me explain to you what what the another definition of the elder brother syndrome is i call it the pharisee spirit and listen all of us and i'm just going to say this at some point or another in our christian walk we have done this okay but this is this is how you get there and and i'm jumping ahead a little bit but this is how you get there before you know it let's say you repent let's say you're getting your life in order you're getting cleansed and you're getting some things that were wrong right and you start feeling pretty good about yourself and then all of a sudden you begin slightly moving from trusting the blood of jesus and the goodness of god and the righteousness of jesus and you start just trusting a little bit in your own abilities and that all of a sudden because you've straightened up a little bit you're a little bit better than so and so and then all of a sudden you think now that you've maybe been studying the bible for a little while and you get a little bible knowledge and all of a sudden you know how to better handle a situation than the pastor does and before you know it you've just elevated yourself up to judge jury and executioner and let me tell you something even if the pastor's wrong or even if the situation might need some tweaking you just moved into some dangerous areas
- 0:09:01
that's going to hurt no one but yourself and it's it's easy to do humility true humility always says no matter where you are in your christian walk no matter how holy you are no matter how pure no matter how good you're doing or how bad you're doing humility always says that i am no better than my brother or my sister next to me or that sinner that's struggling because i used to be that and the only reason i'm not that is because god loved me god drew me god opened my eyes god help me and yes i had some responsibility to respond to it but it was still god's grace and god's help and god's mercy and i needed the blood of jesus to wash me just like he or she needs the blood of jesus to wash them and the moment you start thinking that you sit in a higher spot than somebody else you are on your way down the tubes because god lifts up the humble and he begins to put down the prideful and let me say this it you it actually says god resists the proud do you know what the word resist means it means that god actually begins to fight against you if you listen you think the devil fighting against you is bad you do not want god almighty fighting against you he will win amen he will win the war you will be humbled either you humbling yourself or he will do it trust me you want to do it amen now let's read this story and i'm going to we're we're going to be dealing with the issue of repentance the issue of of true humility let me say this repentance even that's not mixed always with humility is not real repentance you're gonna see that in this story let's read the story again we're gonna recap a little bit y'all don't mind that do you this is very important you and you know why we need to get this down church is because i don't want us to end up being like a lot of other churches that have their little cliques that judge other people harshly when god's working on them and let me just share something with you there are things going on in people's lives that i know about that you don't know about okay i know details counseling things i can't divulge if you got a problem with the way that i might be handling somebody's situation please do one thing come to me and say nothing to nobody else not a thing because
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