What He Said About Spiritual Pride Series

Series: What He Said

Title: What He Said About Spiritual Pride

Text: Luke 18:9-14

Thesis: In the story of the Pharisee and the Tax-Collector Jesus does not compare their deeds… he compares their attitudes. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled an those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Introduction

Columnist for the New York Times, David Brooks, reflecting on human overconfidence wrote, "We're an overconfident species." He calls it a "magnification of the self," and he believes this glut of self-esteem is especially rampant in the United States. To back up these claims, Brooks cites an array of statistics, studies, and observations:

• When pollsters ask people from around the world to rate themselves on different traits, Americans usually supply the most positive self-ratings.

• Although American students do not perform well on global math tests, they are among the world leaders in having self-confidence about their math abilities.

• Compared to college students from 30 years ago, today's college students are much more likely to agree with statements such as "I am easy to like."

• 94 percent of college professors believe they have above-average teaching skills.

• 70 percent of high school students surveyed claim they have above-average leadership skills, and only 2 percent are below average.

• Brooks observes that a few decades ago it would have been unthinkable for a baseball player to celebrate himself in the batter's box after hitting a home run. Today it is routine. If you watch football games you likely see tacklers celebrating over their opponent as if they have just slain a dragon and ball carriers leaping to their feet and pointing downfield as if they are about storm the beach at Normandy. They are ridiculous displays of arrogance.

• The number of high school seniors who believed that they were "a very important person": in the 1950s—12 percent; in the 1990s—80 percent.

• According to Brooks, American men are especially susceptible to the perils of overconfidence. Men unintentionally drown twice as often as women (because men have great faith in their swimming ability, especially after drinking).

"In short," Brooks concludes, "there's abundant evidence to suggest that we have shifted a bit from a culture that emphasized self-effacement—I'm not better than anybody else, but nobody is better than me—to a culture that emphasizes self-expansion." (David Brooks, "The Modesty Manifesto," The New York Times, 3-21-11)

Keeping that sense of what some may perceive as our own individual exceptionalism in mind, then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else. Luke 18:9

I. Two People

Two men went to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax-collector. Luke 18:10

In his sermon Good Guys, Bad Guys and Us Guys Haddon Robinson reminds us that the Pharisees were good guys and tax-collectors were bad guys. He likened them to the old westerns we watched where the good guys wore white hats and rode white horses and the bad guys wore dark hats and rode dark horses and the good guys always out-rode and out-shot the bad guys and rode off into the sunset singing “yippee ki yay” or “high ho silver away” or “happy trails to you until we meet again.”

We contemporary Christians have been conditioned to immediately conclude that the Pharisees were self-righteous hypocrites, which they often were, however they were also good and godly people who aspired to be good and godly people.

Tax collectors, on the other hand were known to be corrupt businessmen. They bought the right to tax in much the same was as contractor bid for government contracts today and taxed as much as the market would bear… as long as they made their scheduled payments to Rome, Rome did not care how much they kept for themselves. So tax-collectors tended to get rich by taking advantage of the public through excessive taxation.

So Jesus begins this story with two people. A Pharisee, who is a moral pillar of society and a tax-collector who is a despised and despicable member of society.

A. A Pharisee – Admired and respected.

B. A Tax-Collector – Despised.

Both men are there at the Temple for the specific purpose of praying so we have two prayers.

II. Two Prayers

The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed… while the tax-collector stood at a distance. Luke 18:11 and 13

A. The Pharisee’s Prayer

The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else. For I don’t cheat, I don’t sin and I don’t commit adultery. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! I fast twice a week and I give a tenth of my income.’ Luke 18:11-12

The Pharisee, as I mentioned earlier, was a good person. He was correct in pointing out his piety. He wasn’t a sinner like everyone else. He didn’t cheat. He wasn’t an adulterer. He fasted twice a week. He was a faithful tither. I would guess that he could have rattled off several more things he was good at.