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Excerpt from Perfected: Trading Shame and Striving for Wholeness in Christ by Bethany Broderick (© 2025). Published by B&H Publishing. Used by permission.
In Luke 15, Jesus told the story of a good father who had two sons. The younger son was impetuous and lustful. He selfishly demanded his inheritance from his father, as if wishing his father were dead, but squandered it away in a life of “reckless living” (v. 13 ESV). He eventually became destitute to the point of eating discarded pig food. Ashamed, he began walking toward his father’s house, hoping that he could be welcomed back as a lowly servant.
“But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him” (v. 20). Running was one of the most shameful acts for a Middle Eastern man in that culture, yet the father humiliated himself so he could set his son free from his own shame.[1]He welcomed his son back home with open arms and threw a grand feast in his honor.
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The older son had remained by the father’s side during his brother’s rebellion. He strove to honor his father, learn their trade, and obey the rules. Yet he did not do so out of love for his father, but from a selfish desire for reward and recognition. The older brother may have appeared faithful, but he was just as self-centered as his younger brother. When he saw his wasteful brother being celebrated with a fattened calf, the older brother lashed out in anger toward his father. He believed his brother was receiving better treatment than he had received.
Again, in his extravagant love, the father sought out his prideful son and entreated him to enjoy the celebration: “Son, . . . you are always with me, and everything I have is yours” (v. 31). The father reminded his eldest son that while the younger brother starved with the pigs, he had freely enjoyed the abundance of the father. All the father’s blessings were freely available to him as well, whether or not he fulfilled the cultural expectation of being a good son.
While this parable is often titled “The Prodigal Son” in our English translations, Jesus focused his story not on the two wayward sons but on the forgiving father. The narrative does not center on the excessive guilt of the younger brother or the unbridled pride of the older. Rather, it tells the story of the father’s extravagant grace. It was the father who chased after the younger son who hung his head in self-condemnation. It was the father who beckoned the older son held captive by his self-righteousness.
Just as both sons needed to be reminded of the goodness of their father, our heavenly Father rescued us from the bondage of our sinful pride—whether it manifests as self-condemnation or self-righteousness. While I have played the role of both brothers in my life,it’s the older brother with whom I more often resonate.
He did all the right things and was still woefully unhappy. He spent his life trying to prove his worth to his father, yet he still felt empty. In his vain efforts, the older brother missed the love and acceptance his father freely offered him.
I have spent much of my Christian life striving in self-righteousness instead of resting in the righteousness of the perfect Son, Jesus Christ—“the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Heb. 12:2). Years of bitterness and anger passed before I realized that I was welcomed into the Father’s house just as I am. But despite the lavish love and forgiveness available to us, many believers, like me, still hang our heads in shame and strain ahead in striving.
Perfected Once for All
We aren’t the first generation of believers Satan has weighed down with shame and striving. The same legalistic struggles pervaded the early church, especially the audience of the book of Hebrews. The unknown author wrote this rich sermon to a congregation of Jewish Christians a few decades after the death of Christ. Emperor Nero was ramping up persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, and these young believers struggled to find their place when they were rejected by both religious Jewish culture and the secular Roman culture. Taking advantage of this pressure, Satan began tempting them to look back to rituals and rules of Judaism that appeared safer and more controllable than the sacrifice and surrender of Christianity.
In the first nine chapters, the author of Hebrews knocks down the pillars of this gospel of works one after another. No angel can provide better revelation of God than Jesus. No spiritual leader like Moses or Abraham could keep the law of God better than Jesus. No priest, sacrifice, or temple could bring them into the loving presence of God than the better perfect priest, sacrifice, and temple of Jesus. Jesus is better than anything we could ever offer him—better than anything we can do to make ourselves whole.
The Spirit-inspired words of the author knock down pillars in my own life as well. The belief that God withholds his approval and blessings when I fail. The pressure to prove myself to God and those around me. The prideful self-sufficiency that refuses to turn to the gracious Father, the compassionate Savior, and the comforting Holy Spirit.
In the tenth chapter of Hebrews, the author narrows in on one of the biggest strongholds in the lives of these believers. He addresses the sacrificial system which had been in place since God delivered his people out of Egypt. In this chapter, the author attempts to set right the balance between God’s law and God’s love. The writer of Hebrews wants the church—both then and now—to rest in the perfect work Christ accomplished for us on the cross. We no longer bear the weight of making ourselves good enough before God because “he has perfected forever those who are sanctified” (Heb. 10:14, emphasis added).
Hebrews 10 relieves us of the burden of self-righteous works, declaring it impossible for our own good deeds to take away our sin.[2] Yet it also gives hope to those trapped in self-condemnation, reminding us we have confidence to enter the presence of God by the blood of Christ.[3] So whether we feel pride or shame in how good we are today, Hebrews 10 beckons us to trade our shame and striving for wholeness in Christ.
The Law Never Satisfies
I still struggle to rest in God’s love for me rather than my own work for him. It’s easier to fall back into my old habits of obeying the law in my own strength rather than relying on his Spirit to work in me. I’m tempted to focus on my adherence to rules rather than my relationship with God.
I must daily remind myself of the law’s place in God’s redemptive story. The law reveals God’s holiness and humanity’s sinfulness, and it points us to the hope of a perfect Savior. But adherence to the law could never bring life.[4] Only through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ could we at last be made children of God.[5] “Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Our faith is not in God’s law but in his love.
Obeying the law will never satisfy us like the love of Christ can. No amount of good works can ever make us feel enough like resting in the good work Christ has done on our behalf. Rather than staying trapped in the cycle of self-righteousness and self-condemnation, we can lift our eyes to Christ who has perfected us and made us whole in him.
So whether you’re more like the younger brother who squandered away his father’s riches or the older brother who wasted the privilege of his father’s presence, the heavenly Father will forever welcome you back to him. You can reject the lie that God wants your good behavior more than he wants you to run to him with your heart, broken and humble.[6]
And you and I can trust that, in his grace and love, God is always running toward us.
When you feel like God’s affection for you is determined by your good work for him, you can trade your shame and striving for the truth that:
I am enough because God loves me unconditionally.
[1] Kristi McLelland, Jesus and Women in the First Century and Now (Nashville: Lifeway Press, 2019).
[2] Hebrews 10:4
[3] Hebrews 10:19
[4] Galatians 3:19–22
[5] Galatians 3:26
[6] Psalm 51:16–17
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