Good morning. Glad that you're able to worship with us today. My name is Pastor Michael Hamrick. I'm the pastor, the lead minister, I should say, here at First Baptist Church of Morton. That's a long title. I got to figure out how to shorten that, but we're good. We're excited to be here today. We're excited to worship with you.
A couple of announcements before we get going. On the back of, or excuse me, within the bulletin and on our bulletin board, Friday, October 18th, we're needing some help for a service opportunity by working the concession stands at the Morton High School football game at, what time was that? Two different time slots on the bulletin board. I go to Jen for everything still, okay? She is awesome, but it's on the bulletin board, so if you'd like to help serve in that opportunity, make sure you see those times up there.
We're starting something at the end of October, so if you'd like to help serve in that opportunity, make sure you see those times up Tuesday, October 29th at 6 p.m. here at the church. It's called Prayer Connection Night. We've been talking a lot about prayer. We're going to continue to talk a lot about prayer over the next few weeks, and we're going to have a time on that day, that night, to come together, have a short devotional about prayer, our focus of that night's prayer, and then have a time of connecting with one another to the Lord through prayer. So come out for that. It'll be here in the sanctuary at six o'clock. You don't want to miss that.
And then something I've been hearing a lot about, our ladies' Christmas tea is coming right up on November 4th at 6 p.m. It's a Monday night. It's for our ladies ages six and up, so you make sure you want to save the date. And I believe there's flyers out in the foyer area, in the lobby area, so make sure you grab those. Invite, invite, invite. I hear that that is an amazing turnout and something that we love to do and have a great time of fellowship together during that.
So with all of that being said, let's go ahead and start worship today. Good morning again. Glad that you're able to be here. We're in Luke chapter 18 if you want to turn over there. We'll get there in just a second, Luke chapter 18.
As we've been talking about, we've been talking about what does Jesus say about prayer. We've talked a little bit about the Lord's Prayer, obviously, or the disciples' prayer, teaching the disciples how to pray, what they should be praying for. And then we talked last week about Jesus going and making the prayer at the Garden of Gethsemane and what he was experiencing at that time of grief and sorrow, potentially loneliness, knowing his disciples were all going to abandon him.
The problem that was there with the disciples of not being there with him to pray, the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak, Jesus says to Peter. As we see this, as we talked about this, there's one other way in which Jesus talks about prayer. There are many different types of prayer, and there are a lot of different ways in which Jesus talks about prayer. He talks about prayer, but another format in which he uses is parables—stories that drive home a point, a topic, trying to drive home an example of what he wants the people to live by.
And so today we're going to look at two of those parables. They're pretty short, and then we will partake in Lord's Supper here at the end of service as well. So we're in Luke chapter 18, and today we're going to be talking about praying with persistence and humility.
Both of these parables, we're going to see in the first one, persistence, and in the second one, we're going to see what it means to be humble before the Lord, and what that example looks like of what Jesus presents. The one thing that we have to understand before we actually read the passage, though, is we are not going through the entire book of Luke. We haven't been. So what we need to do is we need to understand the context.
Now, one other thing I wanted to mention last week and forgot to was that we have, obviously, four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Each of them have a lot of similarities when they have some of the same stories, some of the same things that happen in teaching, but there's a lot that maybe Matthew writes about that Mark, Luke, and John don't write about, or a couple of them write about, and the other two don't.
So one of the things, and I didn't bring it up here because I brought it up last week and I forgot it, was a book called The Harmony of the Gospels. What that does, what that resource does, is it takes all of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and it's super helpful to see where Jesus is. There are times in a gospel, whether it be any of the four, when you're reading and it seems like you're going from one event to the next, to the next, but then you go to Luke's gospel, or Mark, or the other ones, and you don't see that story, and you're like, wait, where am I?
The reason is that different authors had different points as to what they were driving home in their gospels, in their good news. So today, Luke, where are we? What is happening? What's the context of what's going on? Well, right before this passage that we're talking about to start with, and then the next one, we see that Jesus was discussing with his disciples actually about his second coming, and he could tell that in giving the disciples this information, it seemed to bother them.
They weren't fully sure what was happening. They didn't fully understand what he meant by the second coming, or the Son of Man coming before, and it says that. The reason that it's so interesting that he's talking about that is because when he sees this discouragement—not discouragement in the sense that the disciples are giving up on Jesus—but the worriness, I should say, of the disciples, of trying to process what he's telling them, trying to learn everything that he's taught them over these years, and now he's telling them he's going to go away and then come back.
Who wants to encourage them? And what's amazing that Jesus does is the example that he gives is right after he tells them this, he's going to give them two parables that talk about prayer and their faith. He says, because I see the discouragement, I see the worriness that you have, and because of that, I want you to understand you can still talk to the Lord. There's still faith in what we have.
So the first parable that we're going to see is the parable of the persistent widow, is what my Bible calls it. And it says in verse one, then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. This is the direct message as to what this first parable is going to be talking about, the persistence of prayer. We are to continually pray again and again and again.
But then notice what he says at the very end. He says that they should always pray and not give up. Now, if you're reading a different translation than the NIV, it may say not lose heart, not to become discouraged with prayer, to not stop praying, to not let the discouragement of this world get you to stop going before the Lord in prayer. You would not give up in the walk.
So then he goes into verse two, and he's going to tell them, I'm telling you this parable to teach you a lesson. He says, in a certain town, there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. Sounds like a great judge. I don't fear God, and I really don't care what anybody thinks of me. If you're somebody that's going before this judge seeking grace or mercy, can I get a different judge, please? Like, call for a mistrial? Can I call for a different trial? I'll take a jury, something, right? Besides whoever this judge is.
But the reason he says this is so important because the context of the history of what's happening in that culture, if we don't read it and research it, you may not know it. One of the important things was that the rule, the judges of that day that were around them, most of them were elected by the Roman government, the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire who neither feared God nor cared what people thought.
So when he's telling the stories to his disciples, he's telling them about a judge that would be a judge in the context of when they live. It makes sense to them. They're like, yeah, pretty much. All the judges we see, Jesus, are like that. So he's telling them this story about who this judge is. It's somebody who's unfair. He doesn't care about anybody. He doesn't care about what people think of him. He doesn't care about opinions. He's unfair. He's not a good judge when it comes to caring for the people of his community.
So then he says in verse three, and there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, grant me justice against my adversary. Then we're introduced to this widow. And at that time, the judges of the day were bound to show special attention to the widows, even though they didn't care. And this judge didn't care about the people. He didn't fear God or any of these things.
There was this common consensus and almost a law amongst the land of that day was that widows were to be taken care of. Now, was it always perfect or always happening? No, but that was the goal. We look at Jesus and his disciples. What does he tell the disciples to do? Make sure you're taking care of the widows, right? That was his important detail.
And there are many reasons, but a few here that we're going to talk about as to why the widows were defenseless. The first one, they had no husband to speak or fight for them. At that time, in that culture, the husband was to take care of these things, was to look out for their wives, was to provide for them, which we'll talk about in a second. But in any case, to make sure that their wives were not taken advantage of, meaning losing land or taking advantage of them personally.
The next thing that we could make a case for is they were poor most of the time. Again, no husband in that culture means no income. Now, we don't know based upon what Jesus gives us of this woman if she had family. If you had family, usually the widow would go back to be with their mom and dad until they're married off again, hopefully. But again, that's a distant idea in that culture.
But here we see that this widow is going to go before this judge and she makes one simple request. And it's one sentence: grant me justice against my adversary. Now, because our culture is obsessed with crime shows, you can laugh. You guys, we see it all the time. It seems like every week there's a new crime show coming out, whether it be fictional, whether it be documentaries about real events, obsessed with it.
And here, this woman wants justice for something. But Jesus doesn't give any other details. He doesn't say what was the crime, what was the problem, what was happening to her. All he says is that she comes before this judge and just says, grant me justice against my adversary. Now, this sentence is more profound than we think. She does not come to this judge and say, grant me all that I ask of you for my favor.
You know, judge, rule in my favor that I win this court case. What does she say? Give me justice against my adversary. Whatever that means, whatever justice looks like in the situation that she's in, may it be done. Don't overlook my case. Don't overlook who I am just because I'm a widow. But take the case, listen to what's happening, and rule with justice and truth. It's a simple request. Just grant me justice.
But that's not where it ends. Verse four, for some time he refused, but finally he said to himself, even though I don't fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice. Notice in verse four, he repeats something that Jesus had already described about this man. He says, for some time he refused, but finally he said to himself, even though I don't fear God or what people think, this is something that he is justifying to himself.
He's trying to get it clear to his brain and to his way of living and his thought process and the way he conducts himself as a judge. I don't fear God. I don't care about what people think, but this lady has not stopped badgering me about this case. I will finally listen and I will, what it says, I will see that she gets justice. She kept bothering me over and over again. And he would see that she got justice.
Now what's another interesting fact about this? The Bible is interesting. And if I use that word a lot, I'm sorry. It happens. I find it interesting. It's part of my career, right? But as we look at what this phrase means in the Greek in verse five, it's not necessarily what we think of. It says yet because this widow keeps bothering me.
Now, when I think of bothering somebody, I have a six-year-old and a four-year-old. And if you want to know what it means to bother somebody, just put a camera in their bedroom and watch them fight, right? They're bothering one another. Most of the time, Finn comes in mad about something. And the reason is, is Ellis is bothering me or Ellis vice versa comes in. Finn is bothering me, right? It's nagging. It's nudging. It's all these things.
But in the Greek, that's not really a fullness of what this means. See, the word in the Greek refers to denote the wounds and bruises caused by boxers. The widow was like a boxer leaving their opponent black and blue with bruises. This wasn't just a nagging. This wasn't just this lady is annoying. Get her out of my hair. This is somebody who had a legitimate case who was coming before the judge seeking justice.
And he says, you know what? She has beat me up enough. It has hurt me enough to some capacity. It has wounded me enough and bruised me to where I'll listen. It wasn't just a nagging. It was a bruising. It was as he was spiritually and physically going to this judge and in a way boxing him and punching him to listen to this case. You think that adds a little bit more depth to this parable than just somebody being annoying?
But then it says she wore down the judge with persistence, her boldness to make her claim known again and again. Think about the shoes that she is in. I say this last week when we were talking about the shoes that she is in. I say this last week when we were in the Garden of Gethsemane with Jesus. We have to get into the shoes of the people that we are reading about.
Now, granted, this is a parable that Jesus is telling. It's not necessarily a true story that he's telling. He's just driving home a point for the disciples to understand something. But as we get to this and as we try to examine this illustration that Jesus is giving, if she is a widow and she goes before a judge who is a man who is annoying him over and over again, somebody who has no compassion for people, she is a widow.
She is a widow who is annoying him over and over again. Doesn't fear God, doesn't care what people think about him. Doesn't he have every right to just get rid of her? Doesn't he have every right to not listen and just go to jail, go away? But he doesn't. He listens and he hears out and he says, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice so that she won't eventually come and attack me.
Notice this is still this judge and his selfishness and his arrogance about himself. He says, I'll get rid of her. I'll make sure that she gets justice, but I won't do it just because she's bothering me. I'll do it because why? So she won't come attack me. She won't come and kill me for something and not listening to her. Again, his good intentions of hearing the case were not rooted in spiritual goodness.
It wasn't rooted in loving God, so I'll listen to my neighbor. It was rooted in whatever's best for myself. But he says, I'll listen to it. So then in verse six, and the Lord said, listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?
If the widow was granted justice because of her persistence to an unfair, unrighteous, unjust judge, then how much more will God answer those whom he loves? Think about it. If this woman, out of her persistence in making a request to somebody who does not care about her, has every right to get rid of her, has every right to not listen to the case, yet guarantees a time and place to issue justice in this situation for his selfish need and his selfish desire, how much more will God listen to our prayers as Christians?
How much more will God listen to our prayers as Christians? How much more will God listen to our prayers as Christians? How much more will God listen to our prayers as Christians? He said, I love you enough, I'm sending my son to die for you, so that we can have a relationship again because I care about you. I don't want you to end up in hell separated from you forever. I want you to be with me in eternity, in glory.
Think about the compassion and mercy that God has to say, I've done everything I can to offer you salvation. Trust him shall He offer in internships. All you have to do is accept it. Then in this idea of what he's telling the disciples, he says, if an unjust, unfair judge is going to give justice because of the persistence of this woman continually asking, then wouldn't the Father listen more closely and intently and more quickly than somebody who doesn't care about you?
I've said it from the beginning when we've been talking about prayer. Why would we hide our feelings from the God who knows everything already? Why would we hide how we feel about the future when we pray to a God that already knows the outcome? And here it's the same thing. Why would we not be persistent to a God who says, come and talk to me? Come before the King. Here's how to pray.
It's not like God said, I'm going to make it a secret. We're not going to have a secret handshake. We're not going to have a secret time of prayer. You magic spell to get me to listen to you. When you come in faith to the throne of God, you are saying, I'm saved by Jesus, and it's the only reason that I can come before you is because of him.
And then Jesus says, like we talked about two weeks ago, I want to tell you how to pray. I want to show you what it means to pray. But it doesn't mean pray and then just stop. Jesus in this parable is calling for Christians to be consistent and persistent in our prayers.
But there's one more thing that's not said here, and I don't want to add to scripture. I just want to fully capture the entirety of it. Two things. Number one, we should also be persistent in our listening. Think about how quickly we may be, and some of us are very good at being persistent in our prayers, but we're not persistent in listening to the answer.
And then the second point, when God gives us the answer, we have to accept it. And we have to move forward in his will. It makes no sense to go before the Lord and ask for an answer to prayer, and he gives the answer, and it's not the answer you like, so you go back to God and say, God, give me an answer to prayer. Doesn't make sense.
Think about it this way. I have small children, so a lot of my illustrations are either sports or small children. I apologize. How would I think? If my kid, if Ellis comes to me and says, Dad, and asks me a question, and I give him an answer, I'm going to give him an answer. I'm going to give him an answer, and he says, okay, so can I do this? No, I just said no. Why would you think I'm going to change my mind?
So if I tell him, if he comes up to me and says, hey, Dad, can we have McDonald's for lunch today? No, we're going to have, you know, my mom used to say, no, we have McDonald's at home. That's not what she said, but very similar. No, we've got stuff at home. Okay, so Dad, can we have McDonald's today? No, we're not having McDonald's today, right?
It's this idea if we are persistent in our prayers, and we have an expectation that God is going to answer our prayers because he said he will, then when he gives us an answer, why do we second guess it? Jesus, in this answer, and in this parable, is saying, you need to be persistent in prayer.
You need to go to God as much as you can, but at the end of the day, his will will be done. Remember, we talked about that two weeks ago in the Lord's Prayer. May his will be done. And then in verse 8, Jesus says, I tell you, he will see that they get justice, talking about God, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?
See, Jesus ropes it into what he was just talking about before this, which we didn't discuss today, but we saw that in the previous chapter, he's talking about Jesus coming back. He's talking about the Son of Man coming down from heaven. And so notice what he says. When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?
But the danger is not that God won't keep his promises. The danger that Jesus brings up is that when the Son of Man comes, will God find anyone faithful on the earth? There is more danger in the weakness of people's faith than the strength of God's promises. There's more danger in the weakness of people's faith than the strength of God's promises.
Who are we to second guess a promise that God will keep? Who are we to second guess a promise that God will keep? Who are we to second guess a promise that God has made? If we as Christians are saying we believe everything that the Bible says God is, and we believe all of the promises that are listed over and over again, why in the world do we have any authority or any way of thinking about this to go before the Lord and say, you know what, I really don't know if you're going to keep your promise?
It doesn't make sense. One more child illustration, I'll move on, I'm sorry. Happened this week. Finn comes up to me, and if you haven't met Finn, he's four, but he's feisty like a ten-year-old. Like, he's ready to go. He's excited all the time, wrestle, whatever. And he comes up to me, he kind of starts messing with me, and I was like, dude, go away. And he kind of keeps going.
I said, Finn, you better stop. And he keeps doing it. So what does a dad do? You grab him, you start tickling him, right? Tickle him. I said, are you done? And I stop. He goes, yeah. I said, you promise? No. Okay, tickle him some more, right? And then you stop. Are you done? Yeah. Are you promised? Yeah. Are you going to break your promise? No. I don't believe you. Tickle him some more, right?
But it's the same idea. It's the opposite. Who are we to go to God and say, are you going to keep your promise, God? I know you told me this, but Lord, I really don't know if you're going to keep your promise. I don't know if what you said is going to happen. If he says it's going to happen, it's going to happen.
But for some reason, in the way that we all get sometimes, the season of our lives, the circumstances that are happening, whatever it is, we may get into a rut where we start second-guessing what God has already told us. We can't do that. And in this idea, Jesus is saying, be persistent in your prayers, but also understanding when I've answered and I've given justice, I've given mercy or grace or whatever it is that God has given to us, accept it and move on in his will.
Persistence. The next parable is something that I always chuckle at because it seems so outlandish to us that somebody would do this. But yet, when we look at our culture nowadays, it's really not that far off from what some people may do. So he says in verse 9, to some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable.
I love the way Luke writes this because he doesn't flat out say the Pharisees. He doesn't flat out say the Sadducees, the Sanhedrin, the religious leaders. He doesn't say any of that. He just says to some who were confident of their own righteousness. It's a great way to look at this. And then he says, and looked down on everyone else.
Now, the way Luke writes this, if you're reading it in that culture, if you're reading it at that time, you immediately read that and you go, Pharisees. Like you immediately, the followers of Christ would immediately know who he's talking about. But then Jesus tells this parable in verse 10. Two men went up to the temple to pray. One, a Pharisee, and the other, a tax collector.
It's amazing how Luke writes. I am not an author. I don't ever claim to be. As a kid, I said I wanted to be one. It was the weirdest year that I thought that's what I wanted to do when I grew up. Makes no sense. But when I read this, all I can do is chuckle because Luke is writing in this very, like, nice way of putting it.
He's putting it in a way that's saying there were some people who were kind of full of themselves. They kind of thought that they were better than everybody. They looked to their own righteousness. They looked down on everyone. And then he gets to the parable and he goes, Jesus says, two men went to the temple, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
Like, Jesus jumps straight to the point. He's like, yeah, one's the Pharisee. He's going to put it straight forward. Now, these two men, which are very important for us to understand. The Pharisee, of course, the religious leader. Somebody who was teaching the law of God, or was supposed to be. Somebody who was supposed to be coming alongside the people and leading them closer in their walk with the Lord.
Somebody who was supposed to be teaching and guiding. Somebody who was supposed to be a shepherd. Then you have a tax collector. Tax collectors were very much looked down upon by the other Jewish people, mainly because a lot of the times they were other Jewish people, but they were recruited by the Romans to collect the taxes.
We see it all through the New Testament of these tax collectors who would take the money that they needed for the Romans, but then would tax on more so that they could make a better living as well. So the other Jewish people around the time and around that context would hate, hate the tax collectors.
So these two men are going to go up to pray. It's pretty interesting that you see these two men because the Pharisee is expected to go to the temple and pray. He's expected to be there, to offer religious sacrifices, to be in the traditions and rituals. Tax collector, not so much. Tax collector would be looked down upon, if not shunned by the other Jewish people that were there.
But in this parable, Jesus says, they're both going to go up and pray. Verse 11, again, I think that this is such a far-fetched idea, but in reality, maybe it's not. And as I thought about this, what is he actually saying? In this verse? Well, one, he's considering his own righteousness still. He's still looking down upon people. But notice what he does. His prayer was, God, I thank you that I'm not like other people. Robbers, evildoers, adulterers.
He's comparing himself to other people around him. Now, let's think about it for a second. If you ask somebody if you're a good person, I'm not talking to other Christians. I'm talking, you go up to a random person on the street, doesn't go to church, doesn't have any religion, and say, are you a good person? I would kind of make the assumption or make the bold statement that they would say, yeah, I'm pretty good.
Oh, really? Well, why do you say that? Well, I didn't kill anybody. Well, I didn't really steal anything except for that pencil in third grade. Well, I don't really tell a lot of lies. Well, I'm not like my sister-in-law. She's a work, right? Like, that's the type of thing. You start thinking about how somebody is going to start comparing themselves to other people.
It's not hard to inflate our ego. It's not hard to inflate our ego. It's not hard to think of our own righteousness when we start comparing ourselves to others. When we start looking at other people in whom we deem lesser than, whether we say it or not, there's still certain things that we look down upon other people in.
Like I just said, I gave a bunch of examples right there. Well, I didn't kill anybody, so therefore I'm better than this person. But is that our prayer life? God, I thank you that I am not a bad person. I am not a murderer in jail. But that I have a career and a family and this and that. It's a weird way to pray.
But this is what the Pharisee decides to do. He thanks God that he's not like these other people. And then he points out, or even this tax collector. Verse 12, I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get. Now, the Pharisees were said to have fasted on the second and fifth days of the week. And it turned into some sort of merit. Something that they were proud of.
They used to show it how they were better than other people. They would fast. And there were times of fasting that the people of Judaism would have. But the Pharisees would do this every week. And they wouldn't just do it once a week. They would do it twice a week to make themselves appear better.
Very quickly, I want to tell you a story about fasting real quick. Because it's one that I feel very ashamed of and I've repented of. And I've asked forgiveness from my best friend. But when we were in high school, he used to live around the corner from Buffalo Wild Wings. And every so often, we'd just say, hey, let's go, like it's like 50 cent wing night or whatever. Let's go get wings with everybody.
And I go over to his house. He's like, hey, we're going to meet up with so-and-so, a couple people at Buffalo Wild Wings. Let's go. My best friend's about 6'2", 6'3". And he looks at me and he goes, ah, no, I'm not hungry. I said, Scott, you're not a big guy, but like, yeah, you are. What do you want? What do we, no. We're going to go to Buffalo Wild Wings. Come on.
He goes, no, no, you guys just go and then come back to my house. We'll all hang out. I'm like, what is wrong with you? No, come on. Like, let's go. Badgered him. I badgered him. I said, come on. Got in the car. It's literally a two-minute drive. And he goes, okay, I wasn't supposed to tell you this. I said, what's that?
He goes, I'm fasting. I was like, had two responses. My first response is, as a typical high school student, why? Second response is, to somebody who had already felt they called the ministry, okay. And so I asked him, I said, well, why are you fasting? And he said, well, we're going to a conference. He was going with another group, and the encouragement was that we fast leading into the conference as a way of getting our minds, our hearts ready for the Lord.
And it's a great way to do it, sure. And I said, oh, that's awesome. That's great. And he goes, and I wasn't supposed to tell anybody because in the Bible it says you're not supposed to tell people that you're fasting. You're not supposed to make it a big thing. And I said, oh, yeah. I'm sorry about that.
He goes, so I'll go with you, but I'm not eating anything. But he goes, since you know, you got to be doing all the excuses. I said, okay. So we go to the Buffalo Wilds, we're sitting down, and everybody's like, Scott, you're not getting anything? And he goes, no, I'm not hungry. And that was my cue.
So what did you guys get? Like, turn the subject to help him out, right? And I thought about this and I thought about it and I looked back on it because I had never done it at that point, never fasted before. I didn't really fully understand what that meant. And I looked at it and I looked at his heart and Scott, and for example, for clarification of who he is, I baptized him in high school. He was already a Christian, but he wanted to be a part of our church.
And I had the amazing opportunity of baptizing him. And so we were very, we're still very close. And so I looked at his heart and he said, man, he was doing it for all the right reasons. He was doing it biblically. He did it by not telling anybody. He didn't want to make it a big deal.
But in two sentences in this story that Jesus is telling, the Pharisee is praying to God, I'm amazing. I'm not like them. I fast twice a week, Lord. Then he says, and I give a tenth of all that I get. Now, this wasn't just the tenth that they were called to give by the Jewish law to support the Levites. The Pharisee was taking this even further to the other things and in tithing on every single possession that he had.
Every little detail. He made sure to tithe on it. But then it was the way of saying, look at how great I am. But then it says the tax collector stood at a distance. Now, when we think of that phrase real quick, we think of the Pharisee standing by himself somewhere and then the tax collector way over there. And that is true, but it's more in depth.
When they're at the temple, the Pharisee is actually as close as he can get to the Holy of Holies without going in where he'll be killed. But as close as he can, and the tax collector is out almost in the common area. If he was a Jew, he would still be in an inner courtyard. But if he was a Gentile, he'd be further back because they weren't allowed into those inner courtyards.
So when it says that this tax collector stood at a distance, this wasn't just the example like setting the stage of how far apart the guys are. It was almost another illustration of showing how the Pharisee thinks that he is as close to God as he can be and the tax collector as far away as possible.
And then we see verse 13. He would not even look up to heaven, but he beat his breast and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. One verse, one word, or excuse me, one sentence that he says. He can't even look to heaven. He's not even going to act like he's good enough to come before. To come before the Lord.
He's not going to stand close to the Holy of Holies because he doesn't even believe that he should be there. He beat his breast. And this doesn't mean he just thumps his chest. Ooh, microphone, sorry. Doesn't mean he just thumps his chest and then just kind of stops. It means he repeatedly hits his chest in anguish and pain, essentially, to get across how sorrowful he is.
And one simple line that he says, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. The tax collector understood who he was. He understood his role in society. He understood he was looked down upon by everyone. He understood that he was a sinner in need of a savior. He understood that he was not supposed to be close to God. He shouldn't even be in the temple to begin with, according to his own idea of what that meant.
He humbled himself. And then we see the last verse, verse 14. I tell you that this man, the tax collector, rather than the Pharisee, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
We understand the Pharisee and what he was saying. We get that he thinks he's better than everybody. We get that he thinks that he is righteous in his own eyes before God because he follows the law or gives more tithes or fasts more. But Jesus says no. The one who is justified before God is the tax collector who doesn't believe that he should even be in the same room as the Pharisee.
That's why it's so interesting to me. I had a conversation when I was in California. I may have told a story. I repeat stories. I apologize. It happens. But I was in California and I met with this lady. She wanted to rent one of our rooms at our church building to teach karate, self-defense and whatnot. I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. I don't know if we have the space, but I'd love to meet you.
I'd love to just walk you around and see if we can work something out. She says, great. She shows up. I walk her around the church, show her what we have, realize we don't really have the space for it, but we're in the sanctuary and I was showing her our sanctuary and everything and her son was with us and we were talking.
We talked for two and a half hours about religion. And she believed in positive and negative energy. That was her thing. I said, okay, that's interesting. I don't believe that, but okay. And we talked some more and somehow the conversation got to sin and what it means to sin and what it means to be separated from God, which is all God doing.
I was praying that somehow I'd share the gospel. And I said at one point, I said, well, you know, I'm on the stage and just because I'm the one preaching doesn't mean I'm not a sinner. I sin all the time. But the thing is, I understand I've been forgiven by the grace of Christ and I repent of those sins to turn closer to him.
And she stopped me. And she goes, it's the first time I've ever heard that. And I said, what? She goes, a pastor say that he sinned. I said, well, ma'am, you've been going to the wrong church, first of all, because we all have. We're all sinners. We're all humans.
And so for me to think that just because I'm up here on a Sunday morning sharing the gospel, sharing God's word, teaching something that he's shown me, to think that that makes me better than anybody else is ridiculous. To think that I have some sort of greater grace than anybody else is ridiculous. We are all sinners in need of a savior.
We are all separated from God, but brought back to him through Jesus Christ. And so when we look at it this way and we look at what's being said here, we have to come before the Lord humbly to understand who he is.
Now, what's interesting, and this is a reference back to our first message when it talks about the Lord's prayer. How does that prayer start? Our father. When I said that I made that point, I said, the Jewish people would not be okay with saying that because they're like, no, we're not calling God our father. That doesn't compute with us.
But here, later on, as we read this parable, Jesus is saying, yes, I'm your father, but understand you are the child. Like, yes, you have every right to call out to me and say, father, come close to me. I need you and I will be there. But also understand that when you come before your father, you are the child needing correction, needing discipline, needing structure, needing focus and purpose.
You're still a child. So it's two ways of looking at this. Yes, I am a child that needs a father. Yes, if Ellis or Finn come up to me and say, dad, I need you, of course I will help them. But at the same time, if they come to me and I look at them and say, what are you doing? And I have to correct something. I have every right because I am the father.
So when we look at how the Pharisees were praying, going close as possible to the Holy of Holies and crying out to God, God, I am thankful that I am me. I'm grateful that I am awesome. I'm grateful that I am better than everybody. God's like, well, it seems like you got it all figured out. Good luck with that.
And the tax collector who says, I can't even bring myself to get any further into the sanctuary, any further into the temple. I can't look up to think that I can even look at God. That I understand that I am a sinner. Lord, just please have mercy on me.
And Jesus tells them, those who will be justified are those who are humble. We are to go to the Lord in everything with persistence, but also with humility. We're to have to continually be in prayer. We're to have to continually be in prayer to the Lord, but also in the right state of humility to make a request.
The idea that we think that we can go before God and expect Him to answer a prayer in the way that we want it, expect God to give us riches upon riches, and expecting God to grant us our desires is not biblical whatsoever. Because over and over again, Jesus says, those who come before the Lord are the meek, the humble, those who pick up their cross daily and follow Him.
So as we see, as what Jesus is saying, the last thing that we're going to talk about in these three weeks of what does Jesus say about prayer is He says, come before me constantly, persistent. Be persistent with your requests and your prayers and your gratefulness and thankfulness. Be persistent.
But come before me with humility as well and understand at the end of the day, I am the Father and you are the child. As I pray, the ushers are going to come forward and we're going to partake in Lord's Supper. So you bow your heads with me and pray.
God, thank you so much for today. Thank you that we can come before you. Lord, we just pray that each day we are reminded to be humble before you, our God and our Father. We ask that you teach us each day that you are right there with us, asking us and telling us to be persistent in our prayer. We ask for more guidance of your spirit. We ask all of this in Jesus' name. Amen.
I'm going to step down so we can take of our Lord's Supper. But before our deacons go and pass out our elements, I want to read a passage for us. And then what we do is they will come around, pass out the little wafer. I'll read a passage. A passage of Scripture will partake. Then they'll come back out with a cup. I'll read a passage of Scripture. Then we'll partake.
So I want to read for us a passage. We don't normally talk about it at Lord's Supper time, but I thought it was pretty important. Lamentations, chapter 3, verse 19. It says, I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.
Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed. For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, the Lord is my portion. Therefore, I will wait for Him.
Let me pray for us, and then we'll pass out the elements. God, thank you so much for today. As we come before you during this time, we ask that you help us get our hearts and our mind right to take of the Lord's Supper, to remember, remember that this is a symbol of your body, a symbol of your blood, broken and shed for us. We ask that if we have anything in our minds of sin, of guilt, that we come before you in repentance before we partake. In Jesus' name, amen.
1 Corinthians chapter 11, Paul is correcting what the Lord's Supper should be, what we should be doing to partake it. Verse 23, he says, For I have received from the Lord what I also passed on to you. The Lord Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, took bread. When He had given thanks, He broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
Partake. Right after this, Paul says, in chapter 11, verse 25, he says, In the same way, after supper, He took the cup, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this whenever you drink it in remembrance of me. For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.
You partake. I want to pray for us, and then we're going to have one more song, and then we'll be dismissed. Will you pray with me? God, we come before you during this time, again, to take a moment to be grateful for our salvation, for the death and resurrection of your Son. Lord, we pray that we never take this for granted, and that each time we take this Lord's Supper, we remember the salvation that He has offered, and of course, that He's coming back.
We thank you for all that you are and all that you do in Jesus' name. Amen.
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on Oct 10, 2024
