So the Holy Ghost imparts the life of God. The Holy Ghost puts some presence inside us and dwells inside us. He begins to reveal who we are. You're better than that. When you do something goofy He doesn't tell you off and scold you and chastise you, giving you a whipping. He doesn't do it that way. He says you're better than that. You're a king. You're not behaving like a king right now when you're carrying on with such a cranky attitude. That's not how kings behave, come on. You've got more in you than that! Let Me get control of your life a little bit and you'll see you can be a lot different. And of course the Holy Ghost reveals the Father. He reveals the Father.
I want you to have a look with me in Luke, Chapter 15. So we see what a wonderful thing Jesus called us to. How wonderful. See, the trouble is in getting in from our head to our heart. We'll have to talk about how to do that - when they get more insight. [Laughs] Okay, now we're going to have a look in Luke, Chapter 15. I want to show you what happens to many people in church. Church is wonderful. Church is the family of God, but church is God's design, needs to be run God's way. Needs to have freedom for the Spirit of God to move. Church is primarily His family, so therefore we need to walk and address one another as family. Of course if you're from a dysfunctional family well you'll have real problems as soon as you get into church, because you'll find that there's someone next to you from a dysfunctional family too. They don't love you very - they're not nice at all, they're horrible. But they're family so you've got to live with them.
So Jesus brings us into family. Now Jesus, in Luke, Chapter 15, the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Jesus to hear Him, but the Pharisees and the scribes complained, saying this Man receives sinners and eats with them. So here's the setting for what Jesus is about to tell you; He's in a setting where everyone who is a sinner and everyone who is a failure, everyone whose life was a shambles, a mess, who was from the other side of the tracks, they came to Him. They came to Him and they liked Him. He was nice to them. They didn't sense any judgement at all - no judgemental attitude, nothing. He didn't look at them and mentally look them up and down and decide whether you're in my world or not in my world. That's pride and judgmentalism you see. No, He didn't do that. He just made everyone welcome, so He was able to welcome them, hug them and eat with them and drink with them. So you know what the religious people, the church people's problem was? That Jesus ate with them. How can you be eating with that kind of person? How can you have them in your home? How can you be eating with such people! Don't you know what they're like?
You know they're so sinful some of it could get on to you and defile you. That's the thinking. That is the thinking, that some of the world's sin could stick on you and make you a mess. Well you can't have much in you if that happens. You've got the Spirit of God in you to make you clean. So then Jesus told some stories. You know the stories He told; first one about the lost sheep, second one about the lost talent and third one about the lost son, prodigal son. I don't want to talk about the prodigal son. I want to focus on the elder brother and we're going to look at the elder brother. We'll see if next to you is not an elder brother. If you've been around in church for more than a year probably you're an elder brother already, but you don't know. It's all very easy to tell, see your response to the unsaved. That just gives it up really easy.
Okay then, so you remember the story. Just to sum it up a man had two sons and the youngest son didn't want to live with the father. He wanted out, says dad I'd rather you were dead. Give me the dough. Get me out of here. Give me the money now, I want my inheritance in advance and he took off. Man, did he have a time. He blew all the dough, had a wild life with the women, the drugs, out there buying stuff. Man, life was great. Then he lost all the dough. There was an economic downturn, got into great despair, ended up feeding pigs and finally he came to his right mind and went back to his father with a humble heart.