Be Humble or Be Humbled
Luke 18: 9-14
How happy and honored I am to be here with you this morning. Brothers and Sisters we are all here today by the calling of Our Father. We have come to worship Him, the Great I Am. The only Worthy One who has graciously inclined His attention to us this morning. Let our eyes, ears, hearts and souls be open to His presence, Love and teaching.
What a great morning, God is here with us! Let us not forget that He has set us free from sin…..he has loved us when we did not deserve it…..he has saved us when we did not even know we needed to be saved. He has set in place the events of this world so that we will receive His salvation found only in His Son Jesus Christ, the Blessed One.
So let us recount some of his Great deeds. It was He who created the earth in six days, out of nothing. It was He who set Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and walked and talked with them, because He was lonely. Because of their sin, it was He who expelled them, never to return. It was He who destroyed the world with water, commanding Noah to build an Arc and to collect two of every animal.
It was our great Father who sent Abraham to find and claim the Holy Land and years later, it was He who led Moses and the Israelites out of slavery and into the Promised Land and it was He who forged a Covenant between them.
We understand how God saw the depravity of man and sent his own son Jesus Christ to pay the debt that he knew man could never pay. And Jesus came and was true to the scriptures. He taught us of a new way. And a new Covenant was forged in his Blood, making the old Covenant Obsolete.
By His work of salvation on the Cross, and by the His sacrificed Blood our debt has been paid and now we stand as new beings before God. No longer objects of his hate but now his beloved Children. Alleluia. God has done it all for us. Alleluia God is Great!
We come to Him this morning as ones who have been redeemed. Not because of anything we have done, but by the gracious hand of God.
Let us not forget our places. Let us come to God this morning seeking his blessing and remembering is Great deeds.
Let us not forget the Five Pillars of our Faith. We are saved by:
1.Sola scriptura: “Scripture alone”
2.Sola fide: “faith alone”
3.Sola gratia: “grace alone”
4.Solo Christo: “Christ alone”
5.Soli Deo gloria: “to the glory of God alone”
These are the things most dear to our hearts.
And you know that our Father has been leading us to a deeper understanding of our relationship to Him. In recent months, He has called us to grow-up and be mature in our faith. How do you do this? By reading His word and making ourselves available to the work of the Holy Spirit... the work of Sanctification. And also to find and understand our proper place.
Let me paraphrase the thoughts of Paris Reidhead. “If you became a Christian because you wanted victory in Jesus, then you became a Christian for the wrong reason. You are only being selfish, and trying to save you own hide. If your became a Christian because you want to spend eternity in Heaven, in paradise with God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, then you became a Christian for the wrong reason.” But if you became a Christian because you want to serve the Great I Am. The only Worthy one, then you became a Christian for the right reasons. "IT'S NOT WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO GET OUT OF GOD, IT'S WHAT'S HE GOING TO GET OUT OF YOU."
That set us on the right. It gave us a good grounding to start our journey to Heaven. When we think like this we are pleasing God. And that is what our whole lives should be. That is our FREE WILL. Not that somehow God gives us the right to choose Him. But That it is God who chooses us. And he us gives a certain number of days on this earth. Our freewill is what we do with those days. We can spend them worshiping ourselves or doing what is pleasing to God.
With that in mind we can surely understand the First Question of the Longer and Shorter Catechisms.
What is the chief end of man? To Glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.
With this in mind let us look at our scripture today. I am afraid that many of us will have a rude awakening when our Saviour comes for his church. You may be smug and self-righteous thinking that you by paying your tithe and coming to church is enough for you entrance to heaven. But I tell you, if you are not wholly committed to Christ, you have not done enough.
As our Christ warns us in Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
And let us look at today’s scripture, we see that Jesus tells a parable because he sees that some to whom he was speaking, “trusted themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt.”
He tells of two men who went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee standing by himself praying this prayer, “God I thank you that I am not like other men, extortionist, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
He said, “I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.” Does that sound like someone you know? Does that sound like you? You see when we try to justify anything before the Lord, we will always fall short. In other words, we can never do enough. We can never match what God has done for us. You can never pay God back, the debt we owe is too much. And as soon as you realize it, then you will know what it means to be a Christian.
Our scripture tells us” But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift his eyes to heaven, But beat his breast, saying, “God be merciful to me a sinner.
Can you see the difference? Being a tax collector was a hated job, no one would have any to do with him. But the Pharisee was loved and respected and probably did many benevolent things. The difference was in their hearts. The Pharisee was boasting of himself, while the tax collector begged God for mercy. Jesus states, “I tell you, speaking of the tax collector, this man went down to his house justified.” Rather than the other.
My late mother –in- law Betty Craycraft, used to say “You are rewarded in Heaven for the good things you are not rewarded here on earth.” Let me tell you she must be in a high place of honor for she did many unsung things in the name of God.
Jesus ended his teaching by saying” For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humble himself will be exalted.”
Friends, let us find comfort in this lesson. Humble yourselves, and give the glory to our Father. Get real, in your relationship to God. We were made for God, not the other way around. So remember, you can never make God Happy unless you come with a humble heart.
