Luke's Gospel

We're gonna read verse 9 to 14 of Luke chapter 18. To some who were confident of their own righteousness, and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable. 2 men went up to the temple to pray, 1 a pharisee, and the other a tax collector. The pharisee stood by himself and prayed God, I thank you that I am not like other people, robbers, evil doers, adulterous, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and give a tenth of all I get.

But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, God, have mercy on me a sinner. I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Heavenly father, we thank you for these words, and we thank you that this is a book like no other book, that this is a book of your breath of your word.

We thank you that all of the scriptures are God breathed. We thank you that these are the words of eternal life. We thank you that by these words, we can be born again. And by these words, we can be sustained and grown as disciples of the Lord Jesus. We thank you father for Phil, and for Catherine and for Amy and Matthew and for how they have come to see that your gospel is the power of God for the salvation of all who will believe.

We thank you that they have come to appreciate that the words that we have just read are your words and that they have been born again through these words. We thank you that even in times of difficulty and suffering, when they felt like they couldn't hold on perhaps, that you have been faithful to hold on to them, that your words has been their light and their foundation and their rock. We thank you father for the stories that we've heard this evening, and for how they all point to the glorious lord Jesus Christ. We thank you, Lord, for the way in which the church has played such a big part in their lives. For Sunday school and for Seoul and for rooted and for contagious and for the faithfulness of Christian ministers in other parts of the world.

We thank you for using your church to bring them under the sound of the gospel and to bring them to life. We thank you for the joy that it's been just to sit and listen to them this evening, all pointing to your glory. And we prayed that as we now spend some time thinking about these words that you would speak to us. And father, for each 1 of us, would you humble us? So that we do not leave here like this pharisee thinking that he was good enough in himself.

But that we would leave like this tax collector, beating our chest, realizing that we are sinners, and turning to you for mercy. Speak to us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. What I what I love about Jesus, what I love about his parables is, that he says, basically, what no 1 else will say. And I think that's quite good. Sometimes you need some someone in your life to actually come and challenge you, not just to sort of pat you on the back, not just to reaffirm you, but actually to try to reshape you and make make you think about what where you're at.

And that's what this little story does. I I was at a wedding some years ago. Thankfully, I can't remember whose wedding it is. And I can't remember where it is, but I remember this rather obnoxious woman at the wedding. If it was you, I'm sorry, But I'd never met her before.

And for some reason, she tagged onto me and was telling her telling me how wonderful she was and how she will be on the top table. And I thought, you better be careful. You never know these things. And she went on and on. Yes.

Of course, I'll be on the top table. I knew these couple. I know them blah blah blah. And she went on and on like that. And I was thinking, well, I'm glad I I definitely won't be on top table, and that means I won't be with you.

Now I didn't say that, but it went on like this. And then we queued up together to look at the list of where she was sitting. And her face went gray. She was not only not on the top table. She was on 1 of the least tables far away.

And if I had invited her, I'd have put her there as well. It's a terrible thing, isn't it? To think you're something that you're not? And to be revealed, to be exposed in that way. Or it's a terrible thing to base your life on something.

And you say, I I believe this is right and this is true, and you find out that isn't it true. It's just a falsehood. It's actually a lie. It's not not what you should be basing your life on at all. They're they're devastating things.

And this is what this little story is doing. Here is Jesus, and he's telling this little parable, and it's so important because he's talking to people that think they're on the road to heaven, but he says, no. You're on the road to hell. I mean, that is quite shocking, isn't it? That's what he seems to be saying in this.

People that that literally think that they're gonna have chiseled on their gravestone rest in peace but they won't be resting in peace. So these are like, who else speaks like this? I mean, who else speaks like this? And this is what he's worth hearing him. He tells us that I think it should come up.

He tells us in verse 9, that little number 9 there those are the numbers of the verse numbers. He says, to some who were confident of their own righteousness, here are confident people of their own rightness. And look down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable. The reason he tells this parable are that there are people that think they're right that think they're gonna sit at the top table and couldn't be more wrong. 2 people in this parable, 2 types of people.

Jesus is great at doing these contrasts. There's a bloke called and they're polar opposites these people. There's a bloke of Phar. Now you gotta remember Faracy, that's a good 1. Okay?

He's the good of seriously seriously good bloke. Religious bloke. He knows all the right religious words and all the right religion. He's good bloke. If you had him as your neighbor, you'd be very pleased.

He would be faithful. He would be committed to you. He would go out of his way to help you. So here is this is a good person, a good and religious person, a pharisee. The word, Pharacy means set apart because he wanted to set himself apart for god's laws.

That's how religious he was. He's a set apart 1. So he might have come across a little bit sort of holier than thou type person, but he's a good good bloke. Sort of bloke you happy to down your street, yeah, or as a neighbor. The other bloke that Jesus tells us about is this tax collector.

Now tax collectors went along with what were known as sinners. The a tax collector was a bad people. He was a traitor to his people and and all of that. But not only that, he he was he was a fraud, he would steal, he would rob from his people, He would be pretty dominant and quite violent. So he's a baddie.

So you get you get a goodie and a baddie here. Someone that you'd want as a neighbor and someone as you wouldn't want as a neighbor. And their poles apart. So in the sort of religious thinking of the day, they're poles apart. Yeah.

1 is good, 1 is bad. And Jesus has chosen these opposite ends of this scale. So to show us a surprising thing. To ask us the question, who will be right in God's site? Our maker's site.

Now, they're the differences. They do have similarities. They're both blokes. They both go to the temple. And they both go home, we're told.

And they go for the temple for obvious reasons. See, they're not ignoring. You gotta get these people. Neither of them are ignoring their own soul. They're not ignoring God in 1 sense, and they're not ignoring their own destiny or their own soul.

They're taking that seriously at the very least. So they go to the temple and the temple is the place where it symbolizes God. They're going to God. They're not they're not treating life lightly. They're not atheists.

They're not sort of just getting on with life as materialists. They are quite serious about their inner being their soul. And they're going to get right with God. So that's what happens here. And Jesus says in verse 14, that will probably come up I tell you that this man I'll tell you who that man is in a minute.

Rather than the other, went home justified. That's right with before God. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Jesus absolutely disorientates us here. And this is why he's so amazing as a teacher.

He absolutely disorientates us. He says, the tax collector, that's this man, is the 1 who's right before God. The bad man, And the good man hasn't got a hope. It's extraordinary. I mean, what is he talking about?

It's the very opposite to what we think. It's the very opposite. Now I think Jesus is worth listening to. Because he's so not just because he's radical, but he actually is dealing with an issue here. How could the Phar who is so good in many ways.

And as we'll see publicly, you know, before the public comes out as someone who's who's a good man. You know, he's a good man, believes in himself, you know. How can this man who publicly sort of shows that he's good, and people love him. And, you know, they would they would sort of you would hug him and say, oh, you're a good man. You're a good man.

How could he get it so wrong? He thinks he's going to heaven. He's on the road to hell. Says Jesus, extraordinary. Well, you see it in the prayer.

So that's the first thing I wanted to see, these 2 characters. The second thing is the 2 prayers, 2 types of prayers. Did you notice it? Here's the pharisees. This is the good man's prayer, and you see a false confidences in him.

So it says, the pharisees stood up and prayed about himself. God, I thank you. That I'm not like other men, robbers, evil doers, adulterers, and then he looks around and he sees this baddie and says, or even like the tax collector. And he's not. He isn't a robber and an adulterer.

Yeah? He comes across as a good man. The the actual Greek because this was written originally written in Greek and we've translated it into English. The actual Greek says the pharisee stood up at 3, took up his position. That phrase stood up is he took up his position.

He's posing. He's taken a position This is where it's a it's a bit of a public performance for him. He's wearing the right gear, and he's posing. He's confident in himself. He wants people to know that he's you know, he's a good, he's a brave man, you know, he's confident in himself, and that's what he wants to look.

So he's posing before people. He's exposing himself as this You know, I'm a good man. I'm true. I really am genuinely true to myself. And I am not a I'm not an adulterer, you know.

See see what's going on here. Now in verse 11, Where it says, prayed about himself. You see the focus is not God at all. This is the problem with the prayer. The focus is to him.

Everything is about him. His public performance is about him. He starts off quite well in the prayer. God. That's not a bad start if you're gonna pray to God to start with that.

God, but I takes over. Did you notice that? Just just let me read it. God, I thank you. That I am not like other people, robbers, evil doers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector, I fast.

Twice a week and give a tenth of all I get. He prayed in fact, the phrase that is used in that verse 11, prayed about himself, could equally be translated from the original Greek, prayed to himself It's a soliloquy. He's talking to himself. It it's a it's a bit like an athlete you know, before the race. He's talking to himself.

So it's like a pep talk. Come on. You've eaten the right food. You've been training for years. The atmosphere is right.

The other contestants you could do this. Come on. Come on. He's sort of talking to himself. The pharisee took up stood up and prayed about himself God, I thank you that are not like other men.

You've got to imagine how unbelievable this is. It's a bit like queuing up to go to the doctor, you're in the waiting room, you go into the doctor, And the doctors got his stethoscope on in his blood test and all kinds of stuff. And and you go in and say he says, can I help you and you say, no? I'm just here to tell you that I've examined myself actually and I have a 1 health and I'm way better than the miserable so and so's that we're in the wait room, particularly the next block that's coming in. I mean, he's disgusting, to be quite honest.

I would put a mask on He's probably got all of that, you know, corona disease. He's got every I mean, I'm alright. And the doctor would say what the what on earth did you come here for then? That's what's going on here. And Jesus says, in verse 14, I tell you this man that the tax collector rather than the other.

That's the pharisee, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted, here's a man that's totally taken up with himself, and he thinks he's better than everybody else. You see that? Here's a man that thinks really, in some ways, he doesn't really need God. He can boast before God.

I'm a good man. I'm a brave man. I'm a man that goes to the temple. I'm better than other men. I haven't done this.

I'm true to myself. You can you can hear it. You can hear it with him. He's self confident, and it's a false confidence And then, this is what happens with that sort of false confidence. You have to try to show yourself as better So you compare yourself to others.

You have to, in order to give yourself a boost of confidence, show that you're better than other people. And so he turns around and he says I'm not like them. I'm true to myself. I'm not like them. So that's the 1 prayer.

The tax collector's prayer is totally different. It's totally different. The tax collector didn't post. Look at verse 13, but the tax collector Stood at a distance. No posing here.

No public coming out as it were. He's just I I I I don't even deserve to be here. He stands at a distance. There is real humility here. We thought he beats his breasts It's it's a gesture of profound distress.

I mean, if anyone's I should not be here. That man's right. He's way better than I am, but it comes bursting out of him. And then look what he says, this dynamic sentence and you find that this is a real prayer now. Look, but the tax collector stood at a distance.

He would not even look up to heaven but beat his breast and said God starts with the same word as the pharisee. God have mercy on me a sinner. There's no parading of how brave and good he is, but he's a total failure. The tax collector is dependent on In fact, when that that little phrase again in the original, It is not just have mercy on me a sinner, but it's actually have mercy on me the sinner. It's like on the worst person you could think of.

I can't think of anyone worse. I know my own heart. It's rotten. I really am bad. He's right when he points at me.

But he uses a little phrase that our translation doesn't bring out very very well. Where it says God have mercy on me, the sinner. That word mercy, it's a very interesting little word. It's full of bible thinking. The word mercy, it means this, be mercy seated to me.

Be mercy seated to me. Now what on earth does that mean? You have to go back to the old testament. And what you had is the tabernacle, the place of meeting with God. Like the temple.

And in there was a very special holy place where God was supposed to be. No 1 can just walk in into it. But in in there where God was, you know, represented, symbolized to be was a box. It's called the Ark of the Covenant. You've probably heard of that, you know, with all of trying to find it and all that nonsense.

But it was an art. There was it was it was a box. And in the box were the 10 commandments. Like Matthew was talking about. The things that God says this this is how I want you to live and they're broken.

So they're in the box and they're broken. On top of the box is layered with gold. On top of the layer of gold, were 2 angel statues, and they're looking down into the box in gold, looking down with their wings touching like this, looking down. And they're looking into the box and seeing that the 10 commandments have been broken. But we've broken them.

We've broken all over 10 commandments. The very things that the holy God says, this is how I want you to live. Most of us don't even know what the 10 commandments are. So, you know, how could we keep them? We don't know them, but we've broken them.

But that layer of gold over the box is called the mercy seat. And even though the all peace angels see that we've broken the commandments, that a priest would come in once a year, with an animal that was pure and clean that represented people had given its life. And the blood was put on the mercy seat. And the blood covered the broken 10 commandments. That's what this man's praying.

I'm the sinner. God, I have done What you said don't do and I've not done what you said do. But there's a blood sacrifice. There's a mercy seat. Be mercy seated to me.

And that's what Jesus came to do. Jesus didn't even didn't just tell these amazing stories. He came to give his life. So at the end of Luke's gospel, which were not there yet. If you come along, you can hear the story.

He dies on a cross. He sheds his blood. For the forgiveness of sins. And that's what's happened to the Cooper family. The miracle of God, so loving sinners.

He could have said to the Cooper family, you just go your way. You go into politics. You go and do whatever it is you you wanna do in London. He broke into their lives and showed them that he loved them. He could have said to to Catherine, well, you feel unloved.

You are unlovable. But he said, I love you. I've died for you. I've shed my blood. And this man says, on the basis of what you do at the mercy seat, on the basis of what Jesus does on the cross, have mercy on me.

And Jesus says, he's right with God. It's so simple, isn't it? If you're sitting here thinking, I don't need God, You're the pharmacy. That's I mean, that is quite a shocking thing to say, I know. You're a guest here, and I'm shouting at you and calling you a pharmacy.

But you are according to Jesus. But if you're someone and this is the beauty of the Christian message, for those of us that know. We failed. We are such a failure. We failed people.

We failed our loved ones. We failed God, but Jesus is our mercy seat. Then we pray like that. And that's what the Cooper family have done. They're not perfect.

If you know them, you know they're not. But that's why they need a savior. Isn't it? I I I actually don't need a profit to tell me what to do. I need a savior to save me from what I do do.

And that's what this tax collector did. If we exalt ourselves and try to excuse ourselves and say that, you know, we've got through life and It's all about me. Or are we saying, it's all about what God has done for me. That's the Christian message, and that's what we've seen. And that's what we see in baptism.

Remember, it's a birthday. Jesus is the 1 that cleanses us. Remember, it's a burial day. He's the 1 that died and rose again for Remember, it's a birthday. We've been born into this family.

That's what it's about. We're gonna sing 1 last song and it is a it's it's it's 1 of the most famous songs ever written. It's been voted many, many times the most popular song in the world, and it's called amazing grace. And it is amazing grace that God would come to us. And have a think.

Do you know that amazing grace? And if you don't, why wouldn't you ask him today to be your savior and lord? And wouldn't it be great? Wouldn't it be great? Next week, we got you up here and you're being baptized because you've had a bath day and a burial day.

And a birthday. Why not? Why not? Why wouldn't it be you? Or at least investigate Come and come under.

Listen to Jesus. Come under his influence. Come and listen. You don't have to sing. You don't, you know, you could just come and listen.

And you will find how interesting he is. And you might be angry at him. We love that because he really does go for us sometimes. Because that's where you're starting to think things through. You may be an agnostic.

Well, come to agnostics anonymous. And I hope 1 day at the door, I'll put my hand out and say, not you, Wouldn't that be what why not? That you could know the love of God by admitting your sin and asking him to be merciful to you.