Sunday Morning Worship Service November 1, 2020

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, good morning, and we thank the Lord for this Lord's Day. We can worship together as many have come and worshiped to worship in person today and More than I expected so we're gonna actually sing the songs.

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I When preparing for the service today thought I would be doing that that live stream procedure from four or five months ago where Kelly played

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Softly in the background and I just read the text of the of the hymns But enough are here that will actually sing.

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But before we do that a few announcements Just again because of we're trying to be safe with this

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Covid that is even affected some in our congregation Wednesday night. We'll just live stream again.

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It'll be a livestream midweek Devotional and prayer time so and that'll be seven o 'clock on Facebook live the church home page and so forth and then next

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Sunday we will plan Tentatively at this point we will plan in an in -person service in the morning just as a morning service again

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We're gonna kind of phase kind of back into some things And again because of the craziness, we don't know what tomorrow's bringing and so forth

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This is what we'll plan tentatively right now next Sunday morning regular morning service at 1030

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In an in -person service, so we'll not we'll not pass out that notice that says

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In -person is not recommended but not prohibited. We'll just we'll just not do that but we also had planned next

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Sunday evening a Reception for Nathan and Carissa a much delayed reception

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I Really felt for them when we you know, we scheduled this thing because we thought it would be safe their their wedding got messed up because of kovat and Restrictions and numbers could come and all that kind of thing.

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So we couldn't have a public Reception for them then so that well, we'll put it off to when it's safe now.

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We thought it was safe We could do it next Sunday evening after the evening service And then we get this resurgence and all this thing about you know

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You shouldn't have more don't have more than 10 people that can blah blah blah. So we're gonna we're gonna postpone that again

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Sorry, Nathan and Carissa But we'll postpone it to the following week at 6 o 'clock so on the 15th

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Again, we'll have the morning service and then No evening service, but at 6 o 'clock.

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We'll have a drop -in reception Plan a drop -in reception. I'm not going to say we will have

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I said we will plan to have a drop -in reception For Nathan and Carissa at 6 o 'clock

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November 15th And that was supposed to be the day that we began the eternal issues Bible conference

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That was going to be the 15th the 18th Chuck Kemp was going to come Sunday through Wednesday and we we communicated back and forth and Decided we needed to postpone that to another date next year not only because of you know, anything going on in,

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Illinois But he also suggested because of Ruby's Health her condition right now.

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He thought it would be wise for him to To postpone that meeting so those that Bible conferences is canceled.

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So we'll not have that on the calendar As we've gathered together to worship the

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Lord Psalm 36 verses 5 through 7 Say this thy mercy.

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Oh Lord extends to the heavens thy faithfulness to the clouds Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God.

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Thy judgments are like the great deep. Oh Lord thou preservest man and beast how precious is thy steadfast love?

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Oh God The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of thy wings

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We want to open the service this morning with a hymn on you have a handout sheet I believe and the hymn the perfect righteousness of God.

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It's an old hymn You can see the author at the top Albert and milled midlane passed away 111 years ago

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So it's an old hymn It's not in our hymnal But it fits very well with the theme of our our focus of our service this morning the perfect righteousness of God Kelly's gonna play the song for us and then we'll try to we'll try to sing it together.

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Okay Let's try it together

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Oh That's right

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Oh A sinner who believes is free

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Can say the Savior died for me?

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Can point to the Atoning God And say this made my peace with God Let's pray together.

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Our Father and our God, we are grateful today for your perfect righteousness, your righteousness that demands an atoning sacrifice for sin, your righteousness that secured, planned and secured, a way for sin to be atoned that would not only uphold your righteousness but would make us sinners indeed righteous.

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We thank you for your mercy seen at the cross and we thank you that in the cross of Christ and in the blood of Christ, we can rejoice in your mercy in sin's debt being fully paid and in our standing with you.

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Thank you for our privilege of worshiping you together today. We pray that you would bless in this service and encourage us and that you would speak to us.

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Father, we need to appreciate deeply your wonderful mercy. This we pray in Jesus' name.

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Amen. I want to read in Psalm 86. You don't have a copy of that, so if you want to take your

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Bibles and turn to Psalm 86, I want to read today verses 3 through 13.

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86th Psalm, beginning in verse 3.

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Psalmist writes, And attend to the voice of my supplications.

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In the day of my trouble, I will call upon thee, for thou wilt answer me. Among the gods, there is none like unto thee,

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O Lord. Neither are there any works like unto thy works. All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee,

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O Lord, and shall glorify thy name. For thou art great and doest wondrous things.

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Thou art God alone. Teach me thy way, O Lord. I will walk in thy truth.

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Unite my heart to fear thy name. I will praise thee, O Lord, my God, with all my heart, and I will glorify thy name forevermore.

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For great is thy mercy toward me, and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.

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A good hymn in response to that psalm is number 141 in our hymnals.

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It's the hymn There's a Wideness in God's Mercy. It's like the wideness of the sea, hymn number 141.

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I want to sing the first three stanzas. It's just a two -line hymn. There's a

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Wideness in God's Mercy, number 141. There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea.

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There's a kindness in his justice which is more than liberty.

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Mercy is welcome for the sinner, and more graces for the good.

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There is mercy with the Savior, there is healing in his blood.

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For the love of God is broader than the measure of man's mind, and the heart of the eternal is most wonderfully kind.

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Thank the Lord for the wideness of his mercy, his mercy that reaches even to us.

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Think about when Jesus was on the earth almost 2 ,000 years ago, and he showed wonderful expressions of mercy and kindness and grace to people right in front of him.

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And yet he also said, other sheep I have who will come and be my sheep, and them also

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I must reach. And here the wideness of God's mercy has reached even to us, and we thank the

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Lord for that mercy. As we pray together today, our missionary of the week is

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Jim Stroop, Jim with Law and Grace Jail Ministries, and Jim mentioned that only jail, last week

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I watched on live stream and he mentioned that the Whiteside County Jail was still open and it was possible for him to go, that changed this week, they closed it, so he wasn't able to go.

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So just pray for that ministry of reaching inmates with the gospel, pray that these jails can open up back, open back up soon, quickly for these chaplains to get in and share the gospel.

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Also, if you would pray for the family of Jerry Sailors, some of you probably got a remind message yesterday that Jerry Sailors passed away early yesterday morning, about 2 .30

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in the morning. Jerry was 96 years old, one of only a couple surviving charter members of our church.

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She'd been in the nursing home in Prophetstown for, lands six, seven years, it's been quite a while, and apparently there's been an awful lot of COVID going through that nursing home.

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She was diagnosed with it, but it was just a complication, she'd been failing in health for quite some time, so she passed away yesterday morning.

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The family is planning just to have a live stream funeral service only, so there's no visitation.

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Funeral homes are limiting visitation anyway, only 10 people at a time can be in the building and that kind of a thing.

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So that service, that funeral service is Tuesday morning at 10 o 'clock, and those who know, have known

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Jerry and would like to view that, watch that service, you can go to the McDonald Funeral Home Facebook page and it'll be live streamed at 10 o 'clock on Tuesday morning.

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So I want to pray for her family, for the daughters Carol and Diane and Janet and their husbands, and they will be the only ones at that service.

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So even grandchildren and so forth aren't even attending, traveling to attend. I also want to continue to pray for Tanya's son

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Timothy and pray for God to be gracious there. Continue to pray for our church family members who are dealing with recovering from surgery.

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Harold should be able to resume physical therapy soon. He should be going off and be tested again for infection this week, but pray for him that that would all be cleared up, that he could resume that physical therapy for Kathy as well in that regard.

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Bob has another round of chemo this week, so pray for his body to handle that well, and pray for their spouses also.

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It's always, I think, important to pray, remember the spouses of these people who are dealing with these afflictions.

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And then, of course, Tuesday is election day, and how could we not know that?

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All kinds of dire warnings associated with that, aren't there?

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Aren't we getting tired of that? But just pray for God to be gracious to us as a nation and provide us with good leadership and to provide for peace in our land.

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We're told to pray, 1 Timothy 2, to pray for those who are in authority over us, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, and that it is not out of line at all to pray that God would so work in our nation, in our elections, in our leadership, that the result would be that citizenry of our land enjoy peace, and that we have a peaceful climate for the sharing of the gospel.

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So let's look to the Lord in prayer, shall we? Our gracious Father and our

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God, we are again grateful for your mercy. Everyone in this room is a debtor to mercy.

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Everyone in this room needs mercy, even today. We are a needy people, and our greatest need is that of forgiveness and mercy at your hands.

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We are unworthy of the least of your favors, and yet hear how bountifully you bless us, you provide, you meet our needs, you give us health, you restore our health.

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We thank you for those in our congregation who had a bout with this

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COVID infection and have recovered from that, and didn't even have a great serious condition with it.

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We pray for others who are suffering with it, and Lord, we know that there are many in the hospital, there are many in nursing homes that are suffering greatly because of this infection, this virus.

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We pray for mercy, we pray for healing, we pray for a recovery of those who are currently positive with this virus, that are loved ones in connection to our own family, our church family.

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Father, we are a needy people as a nation, and we are a guilty people as a nation.

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We have condoned sin, we have condoned murder of infants, we have been guilty of great transgression against you as a nation, and we are unworthy of good leadership, we are unworthy of peace and tranquility in our land, we are unworthy of prosperity.

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Father, we pray not for what we deserve, we pray for mercy.

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We pray that on election day, it would be a day marked by peace, I pray that it would also be a day marked by clear decision -making in the elections, in the polls.

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I pray that there would not be any reason or justification for conflict after the fact, disputing the outcome, disputing the results.

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I pray that matters would be clear. I pray that by your grace, you would give us good leaders, leaders that would be interested in upholding the law and righteousness, they would also be interested in upholding the virtues of our own nation and the welfare of our nation.

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I just pray for your grace and for your mercy. Father, we also pray for these in the congregation who are hurting today, we think of we think of Timothy and I just pray that you would give comfort to him and give rest and peace there, but Father, we pray for your will to be done with this young man's life.

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We pray for Bob and a gracious response on part of his body to the chemotherapy that he receives this week.

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Pray for Jerry as she cares for him and bears the burdens, give her grace. We pray for Harold that this infection would be cleared up by this week, he could get back to physical therapy.

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Bless Shirley as she cares for him and works extra efforts, makes extra efforts to meet the needs in that household.

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For Kathy, we pray that you would continue to give improvement from the therapy she's receiving.

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Pray for Denny as he cares for her and bears a load as well. We pray for Jerry Saylor's family and loved ones as they travel to be here for this

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Funeral Tuesday. We pray that you give them a comfort of heart. We are grateful, so grateful that Jerry was a faithful child of yours through these many, many years and that she is no longer suffering with weakness and a clouded mind but has all of her faculties intact mentally and is enjoying the splendors of being with Christ.

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We thank you for her testimony through the years. Bless, I pray, in this funeral service on Tuesday and I pray that many who watch will likewise be blessed and their hearts warmed by what is said by her son -in -law as he preaches this message on Tuesday.

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Use that, we pray. And then, Father, I pray for Jim and Linda Stroop and Jim in particular and his ministry with Law and Grace Ministries.

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I pray that he and the chaplains will be able to get back in the jail soon and further that ministry to the inmates.

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May many of these that they witness to come to faith in Christ. May lives who are so broken at this stage of life be transformed by the glorious gospel of Christ, transformed by your wonderful mercy.

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So, Father, we ask these things in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. One other hymn we want to sing today is, likewise, it's new to us.

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It is, again, an old hymn. Wasn't enough room at the bottom of the page to put in the author number, but you see it's, the text is

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Augustus Toplety. He wrote this in 1776, so the year of our nation's birth, of our nation's independence, 1776.

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So, A Debtor to Mercy is the hymn. And again, because it's new, I'm going to have

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Kelly play it for us that we might learn the tune. All right, so you notice on that last line, you kind of hold that thing out there, hide all my transgressions from view.

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And there's a purpose for that. It's to emphasize the mercy of God that hides all of our transgressions from his view.

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Let's try the hymn together. And this first time through, let's just hear the melody as we sing it.

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We'll pick that up and then we'll go on to the second stanza, A Debtor to Mercy. A debtor to mercy,

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I come with your righteousness on.

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Of covenant mercy I sing.

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I come with your righteousness. A debtor to mercy, with me can have nothing to do.

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My Savior's obedience and blood, all my transgressions from view.

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The work which your goodness began, the harm of your strength will complete.

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Your promise is yes and amen.

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And never was forfeited yet.

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The future or things that are now, no power below or above, can make your purpose forego or sever my soul from your love.

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My name from the palms of your hands, eternity cannot erase.

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Impressed on your heart it remains, in marks of indelible grace.

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Yes, I to the end will endure, until I bow down at your throne.

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Forever and always secure, a debtor to mercy alone.

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Amen. Thank you for attempting that with me this morning. Well, if you would take your

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Bibles for a scripture reading and turn to Luke chapter 18. Luke chapter 18.

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I'm going to read verses 9 through 14 for our reading today.

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Chapter 18, the Lord Jesus is telling two parables at the opening of this chapter.

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We're looking at the second one. We'll say more about the first one in a moment. So Luke 18 verses 9 through 14.

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It says, And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others.

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Two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican.

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The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.

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I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican standing far off would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying,

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God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.

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For everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

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May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of his word. Brief prayer. So our Father this morning,

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I pray that we would do the heart work that this parable calls for and that Jesus told it for.

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I pray speak to us, O Lord. I pray through this brief story, this brief parable, we ask it in Jesus' name.

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Amen. Well, the closest experience I had to boot camp was not in a military setting.

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It was from the orders of one who had been in a military setting.

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I was in a PE class in high school, freshman year of high school, and our

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PE teacher was a former military guy who made sure that part of our physical education was to learn how to march in military form.

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So the first thing he had us do was to line up in certain structure, you know, four across, four back, something like that, and a certain distance apart from one another.

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And he says, now, everybody stand to attention. And you're talking to a bunch of freshman kids in high school.

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What was that? Okay, you know. And he says, this is how you stand at attention, men, to four to 15 -year -old boys, this is how you stand at attention.

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And he shows it. Chest out, shoulders back, arms straight to your side.

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Attention. Oh, everybody, you know, we all try to do that. What chest we have, you know, to try to stick them things out and stand at attention.

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And then he gets us figuring out how to do that. And then he's taking us through the steps of how to march properly.

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And, you know, everybody has to march in step. And while you're marching, you maintain that correct posture the entire time.

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And you, you know, left, left, left, right, left. And he's going through this thing, you know.

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He learned that, I think, in boot camp. I understand every recruit in the Army has to go to boot camp and has to learn what is the correct posture.

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Apparently, having the correct posture is critical for soldiers in our armed forces.

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I don't know all that is involved in the rationale behind that posture thing. I think it might have, some of it might simply have to do with discipline, but it probably has more to do with more than that,

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I'm sure. Well, in Luke's gospel, in chapter 18, Jesus tells two stories to teach us some valuable lessons about prayer.

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And the first of those lessons is that we need to be persistent in prayer.

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So the first story in verses 1 through 8 is about, is about that very theme.

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It's on the very theme, pray and pray persistently. But it's the next story, the next parable that Jesus tells, and that which we just read a few moments ago in verses 9 through 14, that tells us that there's a critical posture in prayer that we need to have when we're approaching

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God. And Jesus wants us simply to answer this question by telling this story.

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He wants us to answer the question, what's my posture? What's my posture?

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Now, in order for us to answer that question, we need to answer three other questions.

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Two of them are necessary to even understand what is my posture.

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And so the first question we need to ask, if we're going to answer the question, what my posture is in prayer, is the question of whether or not

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Jesus is speaking to me too. Again, look at verse 9. And I chose to also share this message from the

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ESV because of some of the terms that are more clear and helpful for us to understand.

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So in verse 9, it says, he told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with content.

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I want to zero in on that word some, first of all. And we're asking ourselves the question, is

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Jesus speaking to me as well as he tells this parable? He's addressing it to some in his audience.

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Now, who is his audience? His audience is made up of disciples. Now, here's how we know that.

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You go back to verse 1, and verse 1 says, he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not to lose heart.

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Well, who are the them? Who are they that he's teaching this parable about persistence in prayer?

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Well, again, we back up. As we back up into context, we discover back in chapter 17, verse 22, that he's speaking to his disciples.

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Verse 22 says, he said to the disciples. And who are these disciples that Jesus is talking about?

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Well, disciples can be a broad term that is simply referring to those who had enough faith in Jesus to follow him and learn something from him.

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So, for example, in Matthew chapter 24, verse 3, you don't need to turn there, but Matthew 24 is

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Matthew's account of this parallel account of this situation where Jesus is teaching the and it's on the

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Mount of Olives. And Matthew 24, 3 says, as he, Jesus, sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, tell us, when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?

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So these disciples who had gathered themselves together around Jesus in this setting are wanting to learn.

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They have enough faith in Jesus to believe that he has something to say, that he can teach us something.

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And so we need to pay attention and we need to learn. So they have the faith to follow and learn.

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And they also have enough faith in Jesus to have made some measure of sacrifice to follow him.

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In verse 28 here, for example, in chapter 18, Peter says, and this is in response to the interaction with the rich young ruler who

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Jesus told to give away all his money and come and follow Jesus. Peter says, see, we, speaking of his disciples, we have left our homes and followed you.

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What do we get is basically what Peter's asking. See, we have left our homes and followed you.

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We have sacrificed. We have given some things up in order to follow you. And disciples do this.

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So when we read in verse 9 that Jesus told the parable to some, it's some of them who are disciples.

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The point is that Jesus is focusing on certain disciples. What kind of disciples?

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Which ones? He's focusing on the self -righteous disciples.

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We see this because Jesus, we're told this. He told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous.

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They trusted in themselves. Well, you know what it means to trust, right? It means to put your dependence upon, your confidence in.

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And so Luke tells us that Jesus told this parable to some of his disciples who had their confidence completely in themselves.

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They are ones who thought that they were righteous because of themselves.

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So they might say something like this. I, because I have the ability to be righteous,

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I have the ability to be right with God. I have the ability in and of myself to please

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God. I have the ability to satisfy God's demands.

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Look at me. Look how righteous I am. I have the ability in and of myself.

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See, he's depending upon himself. I have the ability to fulfill God's will. Now, let me be careful here because we can say,

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I have the ability to be right with God on the basis of God's grace.

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By God's grace, I can be right with God. By God's grace, I can please

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God. By God's grace, I can satisfy God's demands. By God's grace, I can fulfill

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God's will. And yet, the honest disciple who even speaks totally trusting in and relying upon the grace of God would also have to say, even if I have done all that is called upon me to do,

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I am an unworthy servant. That's even what Jesus said back in chapter 17, verse 10, when he says, so you also, when you've done all that you are commanded, say, we are unworthy servants for we have done simply what is our duty.

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But not the self -righteous disciple. The self -righteous disciple looks at himself and he sees that he needs nothing outside of his own virtue, his own determination, his own effort in order to be righteous in God's sight.

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It's the self -righteous disciple. And Jesus is zeroing in. He's focusing in on this self -righteous one who is not only self -righteous, but he's pretty judgmental as well.

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Because look at what he says. He says, he's speaking this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous.

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And the King James says they despised others. The ESV puts it this way, treat others with contempt.

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Treat others with contempt. You know what it is to treat somebody with contempt.

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It means you look at that person and you determine their worth or their merit or their value on the basis of what you see in that person.

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And I'm pretty sure that everyone in this room has been guilty of this. Haven't you?

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You know, you see someone and you see how they're dressed or you see how many tattoos they have on them or how many piercings or whatever, and you draw certain conclusions about that person.

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You determine some things about that person. You can even come to some conclusions about that person's worth or value.

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Well, this is easy to do even in the context of the disciples. Remember because Jesus is addressing his disciples and now he's zeroing in on some of his disciples who are treating others with this kind of contempt.

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And so here's one disciple who looks at another and he says, well, that one doesn't have my level of interest in God's word.

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He doesn't show up at church as often as I do or whatever, you know, that kind thinking. He or she isn't nearly as obedient to God's word as I am and therefore he's not as valuable, she isn't as valuable to Christ as I am.

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Oh, that one must be far inferior to me. This is the kind of disciple, these are the disciples that Jesus is zeroing in this parable upon.

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Those who are righteous, they're trusting in their own righteousness and they're treating others with contempt.

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And so the question for us to answer from verse 9 is, is Jesus speaking to me?

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Is he speaking to me as well? Now really to answer that question, honestly, we have to answer the next question and we go to verses 10 to 13 to the story itself that Jesus tells.

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And the second question that we need to answer is, who more closely resembles you?

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He's speaking of two different individuals here in these verses. It's two men that went up to the temple to pray, one a

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Pharisee and the other a tax collector. So which of these two individuals more closely resembles me?

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Now these two individuals have some superficial similarities, don't they?

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They are in the first place both, they're both in the same family and I use that term broadly.

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What I mean by that here is they are both Jewish people, they're both descendants of Abraham.

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How do we know that? Because they both went to the temple to pray. Gentiles were not allowed to go into the temple area to pray.

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They had to stay in the outside the temple, there was this area called the Court of the Gentiles. They could pray out there in the

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Court of the Gentiles, but only Jews were able to go inside the courtyard of the temple complex and pray in the temple itself.

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Two men went up to the temple to pray. So both of these individuals are in the covenant of Israel, if you will.

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They're both at the temple and they're both going to the same place for the same apparent purpose.

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They went up to the temple to pray. And the other thing we can see that's similar between the two individuals is that they are both using the same basic outward posturing.

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Notice verse 11 says the Pharisee standing by himself.

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And in verse 13, the first part of the verse says, but the tax collector standing far off.

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So both of these men are standing. They have some similarities, but in spite of those similarities they are nevertheless radically different.

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They're radically different. They are, first of all, different in their reputations.

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The Pharisee had a reputation for piety.

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Everybody looked at the Pharisee and knew who the Pharisee was. They dressed in a particular meticulous way according to their tradition.

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They engaged in meticulous washings and behaviors out in public according to the tradition of the fathers, of the elders through the years.

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And because of that, people who couldn't or wouldn't live up to those traditional expectations looked at those who did with a certain measure of respect for their discipline and their piety.

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They were considered to be quite pious. Everyone knew that the good

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Pharisee was a meticulous law keeper plus. You remember

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Paul in his own conversion testimony, he said before he was converted, he said,

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I was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Keeping the law, I was absolutely blameless. Nobody had anything to hang their hat on when it came to me keeping the law.

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Paul could say regarding himself, I was quite the Pharisee. Pharisees had that reputation.

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Oh, quite the contrast though. The tax collector or the publican had quite a different reputation.

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It didn't matter how hard a tax collector would try on an individual level to be honest and not gouge people with their taxes.

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It was assumed that he would be dishonest and that he would gouge people of their taxes.

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And because there's, because so many did it, that was just the reputation of a tax collector. A tax collector was working for the wretched imperial government of Rome and that in itself was bad enough.

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But most of the tax collectors, it seems would add, would add surcharges on top of the taxes that Rome collected.

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And those surcharges became the pocket change or the retirement income of the tax collector.

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Everybody hated tax collectors. Nobody wanted to have anything to do with a tax collector, such as their reputation.

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So these two individuals that Jesus brings up in his story are radically different in their reputation.

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They're also radically different related to their motives for being at the temple.

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What are their motives for being here anyway? I mean, Jesus says they both came to the temple to pray.

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Isn't that their motive? Well, the real motive comes out as the story continues.

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The motive of the Pharisee comes out to be that of self -congratulation, of self -gratification, of self -exaltation.

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The Pharisee is there to get out of the experience, the pleasure of being able to recount his righteousness, his virtue.

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And he can do that pretty easily and fulfill that motive very easily simply by looking around and looking at everyone else that's there.

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Oh, sure, there are some other Pharisees there, but could any be as meticulous as this one? Oh, but not only are there some other

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Pharisees there, there's the rabble. There's the Jewish people who can't quite measure up to joining the

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Pharisee party. They're not quite so pious. And then there's those who are even worse, like this tax collector.

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Now, by the way, for the Pharisee, praying faithfully and publicly was like a favorite hobby on their part.

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In fact, look over a couple pages in your Bible at chapter 20 and verse 47.

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Jesus is telling the people, telling his disciples to beware of the scribes, to beware of the scribes.

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The scribes were Pharisees. Not all Pharisees were scribes, but almost all the scribes would be

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Pharisees, okay? So he says, beware of the scribes who like to walk around in verse 46, like to walk around in long robes and love greetings in the marketplaces.

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And they love the best seats in the synagogue and the places of honor at feasts who devour widows' houses.

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And note, notice this, and for a pretense, make long prayers.

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Oh, they love to make the long prayers that all might indeed hear them.

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And in Matthew chapter six, when Jesus is telling the, Jesus is on the sermon, delivering the sermon on the

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Mount, he speaks of the Pharisees' hypocrisy, who love to go to places and pray their long prayers very vocally so all could hear them, but he refers to them as hypocrites.

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And Jesus says, when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by others.

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Truly, Jesus says, I say to you, they have their reward. This is the

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Pharisee. This is his motive. I'm here at the temple to pray so that I might be congratulated on my piety, so that I might rehearse my virtue, so that all might know just how righteous

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I am. Well, then there's the tax collector. What's his motive?

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Why is he there? His motive is simply mercy.

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Mercy. He desperately needs God to show compassion and concern for him because he knows in the depths of his soul, he is in great difficulty because he also knows he is guilty of having committed some great moral or spiritual offense.

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The word that's translated in the publican of the tax collector's prayer,

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God be merciful to me, in other places is translated atone, to atone, atone for my sins.

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He's calling, he's appealing for merciful atonement. His motive is mercy.

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So they're radically different in their reputations. They're different in their motives. And then they're also very different in their underlying posture.

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Now, remember we talked about how they have the same outward general posture, right?

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They're both standing, but there's an underlying posture. There's a posture of the heart.

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And this is the critical posture. And there are two critically different, radically different postures seen by these two men.

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Their posture is different in their very demeanor, isn't it? Here's the Pharisee, verse 11 tells us, standing by himself as he prays.

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Standing by himself. He's standing aloof. He's standing off from everyone else.

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He's self -isolating, not because of COVID. He doesn't want, it's not that he's concerned about getting a virus.

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He's concerned about dirty people touching his garments.

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He's standing off by himself. The tax collector who's also standing, he's displaying a radically different demeanor, isn't he?

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He's standing afar off. It's not so much afar off from the

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Pharisee, though he certainly is, but it's speaking of being afar off from the sanctuary itself.

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You see there was this, there's this courtyard where the Jewish people could go for at times of prayer every day.

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And it was right outside the sanctuary, the holy place and the holy of holies, where only the priests could enter.

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Well, the Pharisee, being a good Pharisee that he is, would want to stand as close to that sanctuary as possible.

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Not the tax collector. He's standing afar off. He's displaying a completely different demeanor.

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It's not that he doesn't believe God is doesn't want to have anything to do with him. He just realizes

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I'm so unworthy even to approach him. He's standing afar off.

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He's downcast. He won't even lift his eyes to heaven. He's beating on his breast. He is a man who is ashamed.

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He is guilty. He's desperate. So they have very different demeanors.

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And they also pray, therefore, very different prayers. Because of their motives and demonstrated in their demeanors, they offer two completely different prayers.

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The Pharisee's posture in his prayer is one of pride. Pride in his spiritual superiority.

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I am not like other men. God, I thank you that I am not like other men.

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And then he rattles off those to whom he feels superior. And by the way, what is the basis of his superiority?

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Is it not himself? Is it not himself? Who gets the credit for his superiority?

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Doesn't he? Based on what he says? I mean, what does he say? I thank you that I'm not like other men.

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And then he finds his superiority in what he doesn't do that other people do.

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The last part of verse 11, I'm not like, I'm not an extortioner. I'm not unjust.

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I'm not an adulterer. I'm not even like this tax collector. And when he brings up this tax collector, sees him standing way out there in the, in the distance in the courtyard, his wretched tax collector, probably in some fine clothing, you know, because he has some means, the tax collector from stealing from all of God's people.

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Not like this tax collector. William Hendrickson commenting on that last statement.

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I'm not like this tax collector. William Hendrickson says this. He said he, the

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Pharisee, he had no idea that this despised tax collector was en route to heaven and they would never meet over there.

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His posture is one of superiority because I don't do what other men do.

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He's also expressing his superiority because he does what others don't.

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You see this in verse 12. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess.

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You think other people are holy who fast once a year on the day of atonement?

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That was the law requirement, by the way. That was the only required fasting day in the law, the day of atonement.

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But down through the years, traditions got added. And, and if you want to really be holy, you're going to do more.

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If you want to really be pious, you're not going to just fast once a year. You'll fast a couple times a month and then it got to be once a week and then it got to be twice a week.

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And the argument came like this. Here's why you want to fast twice a week because Moses went up into the mount on one day of a week and he came down from the mount on a different day of the week.

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So if you really want to be pious, you're going to fast on the day that Moses went up in the mountain and three days later you're going to fast on the day that he came down from the mountain.

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Then you'll be really pious. This is what our guy does. I do more than what the typical, the typical child of God does.

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I fast twice a week and I give tithes of all that I possess. You know, there's a very limited scope of what the law required the

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Jews to tithe on. They had to tithe on their livestock. They tithed on on some of their grain harvest and so forth.

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But there's a very limited scope of what they were to tithe on. But the tradition developed and it came to the point where you need to tithe on everything that comes your way.

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Every benefit that accrues to you. You have some herbs growing out there in your garden?

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Well, you need to tithe on those as well. The mint, the anise, you need to tithe on that mint and anise.

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And by the way, I know this may sound like, oh, you're getting on dangerous ground here.

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I want to be careful, but I want to be, I want to also be honest. Have you, have you heard the argument of, you know,

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I believe in tithing of my income as a basic standard for giving to the

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Lord. But have, have you heard this? That when you get, if you get a gift, say somebody sends you a gift of $50, you need to tithe on that $50.

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Or if you get some unexpected windfall, you need to tithe on that windfall.

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Now, mind you, I didn't say if you want to, fine. I said, you need to, if you're going to be right with God in your giving, you must do this.

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There's a radically different, radically different view there, isn't there? Idea there. So see that, that you get the $50 gift and you want to put an extra $5 in the, $5 in the offering plate, that's what you would call an offering.

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It's not an obligation. If you get a windfall of a, you know, a $50 ,000 inheritance, and you want to, you want to give $5 ,000 to, to, to your, your church or Christian ministries or whatever as a gift to the

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Lord, that's an offering to the Lord and God will bless it. But he also won't destroy you financially if you don't see.

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And my point is that we, we, we even in the, in the modern church, in the, in, in our circles, in our world, we have developed some of the same kinds of add -ons, if you will, to the law that the

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Pharisees did. And this is the Pharisee. He's, he's priding himself on giving far beyond even what the law required.

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See how virtuous I am. See how righteous I am because I do what others don't.

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Now, here's the thing about the Pharisee's prayer. He expresses no need of God whatsoever.

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He offers no requests. His prayer is essentially an, an unsanctified bragging session.

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Oh, but then there's the tax collector. The tax collector, radically different here in his posture.

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The tax collector, the tax collector's posture is one where he obviously clearly sees himself rightly.

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The first part of verse 13 says, the tax collector standing afar off would not even lift his eyes to heaven, but beat upon his breast.

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He sees himself as sinful. He sees himself as unworthy.

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Standing far off, he would not even lift his eyes to heaven. He sees himself as broken.

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He's beating upon his breast. He sees himself as needy.

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God, be merciful to me, a sinner. He sees himself rightly, but he also sees

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God rightly. Where is he? Why is he there?

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To whom is he speaking? How can he speak this way to this

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God? Because he sees this God rightly. He sees that this

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God is holy, hence his beating upon his breast, hence his not looking up to heaven.

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He sees that God is holy. He sees that God is righteous, but he also sees, listen, he also sees that God is redemptive, that God will have mercy, that God will atone for the sins of the sinner who comes to him in prayer and repentance and says,

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God, be merciful to me, a sinner. He sees God rightly, and then he calls on God rightly.

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God, he says, be merciful to me, a sinner.

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One of the shortest prayers in the Bible, isn't it? This prayer is elaborated on,

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I found the other day, even as in the course of my regular routine of devotional reading,

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I read in The Valley of Vision, the book of Puritan prayers, a prayer that elaborates upon this idea, and I think so very eloquently.

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The prayer goes like this, O God, thou injured, neglected, provoked benefactor, when

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I think upon thy greatness and thy goodness, I am ashamed at my insensibility.

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I blush to lift up my face, for I have foolishly erred.

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Shall I go on neglecting thee when every one of thy rational creatures should love thee and take every care to please thee?

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I confess that thou hast not been in all my thoughts, that the knowledge of thyself as the end of my being has been strangely overlooked, that I have never seriously considered my heart need.

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But although my mind is perplexed and divided, my nature perverse, yet my secret dispositions still desire thee.

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Let me not delay to come to thee, break the fatal enchantment that binds my evil affections and bring me to a happy mind that rests in thee, for thou hast made me and canst not forget me.

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Let thy spirit teach me the vital lessons of Christ, for I am slow to learn and hear thou my broken cries.

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God, be merciful to me, a sinner." And so he calls on God rightly.

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And so here we are. We have two questions we've asked. Is Jesus speaking to me personally?

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Am I one of those in that crowd of disciples that he's addressing? I can answer that question by looking at these two would -be disciples and asking myself, which of these two individuals more closely resembles me, the

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Pharisee or the tax collector? The final question we want to consider and answer is, how will you go home?

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Verse 14, Jesus says, I tell you, this man, the tax collector, he went down to his house justified rather than the other, rather than the

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Pharisee. Pharisee thought he was the one that was justified. Jesus says, no, this is the kingdom of Christ.

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It's topsy -turvy. The one who thinks he's justified because of his own righteousness, he does not go home justified.

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The one who is broken and sinful and needy, who comes to God and says, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

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This is the one who goes home justified. Jesus says, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, and then he explains, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

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So will you go home justified and exalted before God or alienated and abased before him?

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There's the sober question. Well, in this parable, Calvin summarizes it very well for us.

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Here's what he writes. He says, this parable shows us how pleasing humility is to God, so pleasing that no heart can receive

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God's mercy unless it is free from any kind of self -worth. If self -worth is its concern, access to God's grace is denied it.

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Thus, if we would heed Christ's call, we must cast far from us all arrogance and presumption.

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By arrogance, Calvin says, I mean the pride born of the fond belief that we are righteous as when a person fancies that he has something deserving of God's approval.

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By presumption, I mean a carnal sense of security, of trust in works.

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We must abandon all confidence in ourselves if we would be truly free to run to Christ that he might fill us with good things.

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For we never really trust him unless we learn to distrust ourselves.

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We will never lift our hearts up to him unless they are first laid low in us.

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We will never receive his true comfort unless we ourselves are discomforted.

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We are therefore ready to accept and receive God's grace when, having abandoned all self -confidence, we rely solely on his goodness and when, as Augustine says, having forgotten our merits, we receive

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Christ's gifts. End quote. This, I say, is the critical posture.

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Is it the posture of your heart? Is it the posture of my heart? God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

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Our Father and our God, we are so grateful this morning for your mercy that those who know, understand, and recognize that they are sinful people can come before you, cast themselves at your mercy, and find mercy, find redemption, find atonement, find forgiveness in Christ Jesus.

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Oh God, may we be tax collectors in this sense, coming before you, recognizing our need of mercy from you, and then, and then so graciously receiving it.

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This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. I want to close with the hymn in your hymnal, number 407,

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My Faith Looks Up to Thee, and just stands as one and two, stands as one and two.

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Those who are here, if you would stand with me and sing My Faith Looks Up to Thee.

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Strength, my fainting heart, my zeal inspire, as thou hast died for me,

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O may my love to thee, pure, warm, and changeless be, live in thine.

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Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ go with us and sustain us as we leave this place today, a people needing and depending upon the wonderful mercy and grace of our glorious God.