Jesus had a way of getting to the heart of the matter; he had a way of taking a situation and telling a story to address matters that needed addressing, he used parables those stories about a made up situation, to get to a point that he knew his followers or would be followers could do with some knowledge about and some insight on.
He took everyday situations and used them to show the very heart of God, the essence of the love of God, and how God wants relate to people, and how he wants them to relate to him.
In his book “The Jesus I Never Knew”, Philip Yancey, quotes J. B Phillips telling of how a senior angel is showing a very young angel around the universe and that the junior angel is amazed and the work of the creator the, "splendour of whirling galaxies and blazing suns", and then the senior angel shows the young angel, a floating ball of a planet that "looked as dull as a dirty tennis-ball to the little angel, whose mind was filled with the size and glory of what he’d seen." The senior angel then tells the young angel that God the creator himself spent time on that ball and that he loves and cares for the creatures that live there. "the little angel face wrinked in disgust . ’Do you mean to tell me," he said, "that He stooped as low as to become one of those creeping crawling creatures of that floating ball?" The senior Angel replys, " I do , and I don’t think He would like you to call them, ’creeping crawling creatures’ in that tone of voice. For strange as it may seem to us, He loves them. He went down to visit them to lift them up to become like Him."
God the creator of the universe in the person of Jesus came here and taught us how we can relate and be in relationship with Him, God the creator of the universe.
What weight does that give to his words…to the relationship you have with him, to his Heavenly Father and to his Holy Spirit… to GOD?
I find myself awestruck at times that God would want to, let alone does have contact with me.
Jesus tells a story to some of his followers in Luke 18 and I believe that they were some of his immediate disciples. If you look at verse 1 of this chapter Jesus had been addressing and teaching disciples, was it some of them who were a bit to confident of their own righteousness it appears, who were I think a little struck with awe at their own wonderfulness, who were a little confident, a bit upright, a bit pious and pompous about themselves and looked down…not because they were taller or up a ladder, on everyone else. If you require further convincing of this, have a look at the way the disciples treated people who brought their babies to meet Jesus in verses 15-17. He told them this parable; Luke 18:10-14.
1) So here are two blokes, the Pharisee bloke and the Tax collector bloke.
a) As we know because the Pharisees keep turning up in the gospels, these blokes were not exactly flavour of the month with Jesus and visa versa, but they were seen at the time by many as pillars of the community.
How is it that Mister Pharisee prays?
Think about it as we look at his prayer, by the way, what is it we do when we pray? Any ideas, what is prayer? How does he pray?
Lets see what he says, he prayed about himself, he gave thanks, but in doing so cast judgement upon others, and then he told God that he was right with him. It’s as if he said “Thanks God that I’m not as bad as other people, including the tax collector bloke and by the way I do more than what is expected of me, so there.”
b) The tax collector, I find intriguing. These blokes may have been alright with Jesus, but with the local Jews, they were never popular, they were pond filth, foam, froth, in fact they were seen as scum. Tax Collectors worked for the Romans, who were the invading force and very brutal powerful land lords. On Rome’s behalf the tax collectors took taxes and they made sure that their commission was anything but fair. They could because they had the whole weight of Rome behind them.
You may remember the story of Zacchaeus; he makes a staring guest appearance in the next chapter of Luke as a Tax Collector who was so short that he had to climb a tree to see Jesus. There’s a great little children’s song about him, the first verse goes like this:
Now Zacchaeus was a bad man,
He was tight and hard and mean,
He gathered in the taxes, every penny, every bean,
He cheated and he swindled and he fiddled where he could,
He had a lousy reputation and in town his name was mud,
(Reid/Mayfield)
This is how tax collectors were seen.
2) So we have two blokes, one who was a pillar in the eyes of most (the Pharisee), and one who was seen as a collaborator with the enemy (the tax collector). But how was it that each of these men approached God?
a) The Pharisee it appears “stood up and prayed about himself” and we know what he said, it was all about his being thankful that he wasn’t like others and then he spoke to God of what he did for God.
It wasn’t that he was thankful that God had put him in a place where he hadn’t needed to struggle with things such as poverty – that may have lead to him becoming a robber, or things that may have resulted in his doing evil no matter its shape, or that his need too make a living of any kind, had resulted in him collecting tax for the Romans. He was just thankful that he wasn’t like the sinners. Maybe he had not heard that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Just maybe he was along way from the place on his journey from where he wrote those words. Yes, the Apostle Paul was a Pharisee before he came to know the Lord.
b)The other bloke, the Tax Collector was sure of his place before God, while the Pharisee thought he was the ‘Cats Pajamas’, the Tax Collector knew he wasn’t even the ‘Mouse’s Undie’s’.
So here he is before God this Tax Collector, not even able to look up, beating his breast with grief for his past actions, and what were his words “God have mercy on me a sinner.” He knew he’d blown it, he knew he was in the wrong in God’s eyes, and here he was in the most holy place in the nation, in the Jewish world, The Temple with his head bowed, beating himself up asking God, the most Holy, the Creator of the universe for forgiveness, the God who banished his ancestors from the Garden of Eden for their sins, the God who lead his people across the desert for forty years on a journey they could have taken in a few months, the God who allowed the fall of two kingdom’s because of their sin against him. How do you think this God, this Holy God would judge this sinful, sinful, sinful man?
What was it that Jesus said about this man, this I was real turn up for the books for those who saw God as being the Ogre with a big stick, that it was this sinner who went away justified before God, …”For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” The Tax collector humbled himself he was genuinely sorry.
It appears from this passage that ‘Humility is foundational to right relationships with God’ (SBI).
The tax collector went away justified before God what does that mean?
He went away in a right relationship with God, he went away justified before God…Justified, I’ve said it a few times now… what does it mean? [Just as if I’d never sinned], In God’s eyes this man was because of his humility, now alright in his eyes, God saw him as being alright, he was now righteous, because of God’s grace. His relationship with God was in a right place. His humility was foundational to his right relationship with God.
Two men – one in the eyes of those in the temple – very proper, the right kind of man; the other you wouldn’t want around for dinner, you could get a reputation as one who mixed with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus did. (Mark 2:16)
The one, who was justified before God, was the Tax collector he was right before God because he approached asking for mercy, he was humble.
The poor old Pharisee just didn’t get it he thought he was the bee’s knees, the cream of the crop but in doing so, judged others.
3) There’s a wee lesson in there for all of us and I think it is stated really well in the 139th Psalm, a little prayer we all can pray as we approach God as we come before the Holy One. It goes like this; “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my [anxious] thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”(Psalm 139: 23-24)
As we journey through life and come across people who are different to us do we judge them; I know I have.
There is a lesson for all of us that if God is to know our heart and he does, it is not likely that any of us will be without some fault…Now that’s just a considered opinion and I’m happy to be corrected. Hands up all who are without fault, all those who have never been out of sorts with anybody else or God. Great we are all in good company!
There are reasons for this and I won’t elaborate greatly on why we sin, it could be circumstance, it could be lust, it could be a case of they’ve got it and I want it, there may be a great number of reasons.
But! And this is a key point in coming to justification, to that place of ‘just as if I’d never sinned,” to salvation.
It’s this…when we allow God to search our hearts, which he does any way and allow him to show us our offenses that’s the biggy and lead us in his way everlasting, he will. We realise we can come to God… we don’t even need to go to the temple; we can stand before God and say just what the tax collector said. “God have mercy on me a sinner.”
God, who answers our prayers, will do what is right and quickly. He will answer that prayer and you will be justified in your relationship with him. You see humility is foundational to right relationships with God.
4) Once we are in that right place with God we can be useful in his plan for our lives. I would like to think that this Tax Collector bloke went away and didn’t continue in these sins, but like Zacchaeus, did what was right and gave half of what he had to the poor and paid back four times what he’d cheated people out of. For what use is it for any of us to go from a place of being right with God to a place of wrong.
I’d like to issue a challenge today, are you in a place where God is challenging you? He may be challenging you not to judge, to put something aside, it could be something that is in the way of that right relationship with him. It could be he is asking you for a new commitment; it could be that he asking you to recommit or simply to submit to his will for your life. It may be he’s asking you to put yourself forward to a place of ministering for him and to others.
I have here a number of copies of those verses from Psalm 139. If you fit any of those categories, if God is challenging you today, please come for ward and take one and pray this prayer as you allow God to work in your life.
It maybe that you’ve carried a burden of sin that you would like to give to God asking him for mercy, you can come today to Jesus burdened and leave justified with God, just as if you’d never sinned.
