Humble Prayer

Please turn in your Bible to Luke 18, Luke 18. We'll resume the series Pastor Tim's doing in Genesis next week, but today we're doing Luke 18, nine through 14, which is known as the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, sometimes called the Pharisee and the Publican.

That can be found on, well actually I'm not sure which page that's found on the Pew Bible, but hopefully you can find it. When you have that, please stand for the reading of God's word. Luke 18, beginning in verse nine.

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus. God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift his eyes up to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We ask that you would guide us by your word, that you would show to us the glories of your gospel in Jesus Christ, that you would help us to understand the great salvation that you have given in him.

In Jesus' name, amen. You see that this is a parable about trusting in self. This is something that exists in every one of the world's religions, some kind of trust in self. Your right standing with God, with your maker, comes through yourself and what you do.

This is something where Christianity is different. In Christianity, your right standing with God does not come through what you do. It comes through what Christ has done for you. Now, this is the case even with those religions that have some sort of mimicry of the gospel.

They might have something else that you are supposed to put your trust in, some kind of leader, some kind of thing. But ultimately, because those things are no sure anchors for the soul, like Jesus Christ is, it will ultimately end up devolving into a trust of self.

This is also true for those who have no religion in the formal sense of it, who have non-religion, right? This is true of atheists, of agnostics. They might say, well, I don't need to be right before my maker because I don't have a maker.

But everyone believes they must be in the right. You know, they have a notion of right and wrong. They have some way that they make themselves right, and they think it's right to do some things and not to do other things.

And so, this is even more true in a way of them, that their rightness comes from themselves. And this is a pervasive thing that invades into people's minds. Now, what this passage is about is not just that problem of self-righteousness, it's a problem of trusting in self, but it is the question of how does one make himself right with their maker?

How does one be right with God? Especially as they come into his presence, as we see the Pharisee and the tax collector have come into the presence of God. How do they leave that presence as one who is justified, as one who is right with God?

So we see this in the beginning, that they come to the temple to pray. Now, it is a very significant thing to come into the temple of God, to come into God's presence in order to pray. I considered us singing the hymn that we have in our hymnal that has the words of Psalm 15.

Psalm 15, I'll go ahead and read it for you. O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? That's in his temple. Who shall dwell on your holy hill? It's Mount Zion, that's where God dwells. He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart, who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend, and whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord, who swears to his own hurt and does not change, who does not put out his money at interest, and does not take a bribe against the innocent.

He who does these things shall never be moved. And so the question is, if one is to be blameless to come into the presence of God, who is the blameless Loan? What should we, what should we be trusting in?

Now, who is this parable directed to? It says he told this parable to some who trusted in themselves. Now the discourse at this point has bounced back and forth a few times. You see that this concern has started way back in chapter 15.

It says in 15 .1, now the tax collectors and sinners were drawing near to hear him, and the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, this man receives sinners and eats with them. So he's been concerned about this contempt of Pharisees towards tax collectors all the way since chapter 15.

But it's gone back and forth between him addressing the Pharisees, and then he says to his disciples in chapter 16 .1, and then he speaks to the Pharisees later on in 16, and then he speaks to the disciples again.

And so at this point, he's gone from speaking to the Pharisees to speaking to the disciples. And now, rather than switching back to the Pharisees, we don't see that clean transition that we had seen before.

Then he said to the Pharisees, then he said to the disciples, et cetera. What we see is, then he says, then he said to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous. And so what we have here is not a switch of the audience, but a narrowing down of the audience.

So he is still talking to disciples, but he's talking to those disciples who trust in themselves. So this is a danger of disciples. These are those who have left the Pharisees, or the ranks of the Pharisees, or some other group, but they still have the mindset of a Pharisee.

Okay, so he tells this parable about a Pharisee to those who are not Pharisees, but have the mindset of a Pharisee. And this is especially, this is especially concerning for those who identify as Christians, for those who regard themselves as disciples of Christ, because you have a gospel, because you know that you are saved through the work of Christ, not through your own works.

And so the idea that you would be guilty of having this mindset might seem very foreign to you, but this is the case of many. Many do not realize that even though they have joined the ranks of disciples, they have the same mindset of those who are no disciples at all.

This was the case when I lived in Virginia, right? It's very frequent in the Bible Belt. You run into a lot of people who identify as Christians, but really have the mindset of the world that their right standing is coming from themselves.

It's not coming from God. It's not coming from an alien righteousness that has been purchased by Jesus Christ. It is coming from themselves. And so it is especially dangerous for those who are among the ranks of disciples to be deceived into thinking they believe one thing, but then with all of their thoughts and actions and behavior and the way they treat themselves, the way they view themselves, the way they view others with contempt, for the opposite to be true, that they have not actually left the world's religion, but have embraced it within the confines of the disciples.

So there's an exercise I'd like to do with you. I'd like you to think of someone who because of their actions, because of the way they live their life, has less righteousness inherently than you do. Okay, take a moment, look around, find somebody.

Okay, think about somebody who has less righteousness than you do. All right, now if you've thought of someone, this sermon is for you, okay, because Bible's clear, there's none good, no, not one. No one has any kind of inherent righteousness.

Now there's some of you who knew what I was doing, but you still thought of someone, right? This is for you too. This mindset is so, it encroaches, it sneaks in while we are unaware. It is very, it's something that we should be constantly vigilant about, constantly on guard about, to ward off this mindset that our right standing comes from ourselves rather than from Jesus Christ, rather than from that alien righteousness that he gives to his people.

And so here they are, these people who have come up to the temple, come up maybe even with Psalm 15 in mind. Who is it that can approach God's presence? And you see the tax collector and the Pharisee have both come.

One stands further off, the other closer, much more confident that he is one who is able to come into the presence of God. And you see the righteousness of the tax collector. Says, I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.

Okay, so he fasts twice a week. You know, apart from what we see around the Day of Atonement, there's no particular fast commanded in scripture. Someone fasting twice a week is really, really might seem like they're going above and beyond what God has required.

And then on top of that, he says, I give tithes of all that I have. You see elsewhere, Pharisees tithe on mint and dill and cumin, and the idea is not that this is beyond what God has required, but that others would neglect, they would tithe on big things, they neglect tithing on small things, but the Pharisees care enough, they tithe on small things as well.

And the Pharisees are those who really are following God's commands to a degree beyond what most people do. You know, they have devoted themselves to right beliefs, to right actions, to right thoughts, to right worship.

And you see that on a number of things. You know, they aren't like the Samaritans, they have the right temple, they have the right priests. They aren't like other Jews who have loose morals. You see even Herod, one of the most prominent figures in their society, had taken his brother's wife.

They don't have loose ethics around marriage like that, although Jesus has taken them to task for some of their marriage ethics. In comparison, their marriage ethics are better than many. And they have right doctrine.

They believe in the angels, they believe in the resurrection unlike the Sadducees. The Pharisees have, on all these counts, they are following God's laws better than all those around them. And the tax collector, you see the tax collector, and you should just, you are supposed to, as you read this parable, know, Jesus' audience knows what a tax collector is, right?

Someone who has sided with Rome and is assisting Rome in oppressing the Jewish people, right, essentially acting as a traitor in a way, taking money from them. They have a reputation for taking an extra cut, right, so that they can make themselves rich.

And no doubt, this Pharisee, if he's coming in with this kind of guilt, has engaged in all the practices that people would expect a tax collector to have engaged in. And so he humbles himself before the Lord.

And the expectation that you would have, if you see this, you see this one who's really dedicated himself to following God's law, you see this other one who has not dedicated himself at all to following God's law, not until this moment anyway, and you would expect that the one who's going to come away right with his maker, right with God, is the one who had dedicated himself to following God's law.

But just the opposite is the case. It is the tax collector who comes away justified. And Jesus says, I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, for the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

Now this is a very similar statement to what Jesus had made a second ago and at the end of Luke 17. He said, whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. And then he said an identical thing back with the parable of the marriage feast.

He said, whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. And so this is the question for you today, and this might be more relevant than you are even aware. He is telling this parable of two people who have come up on Mount Zion, who have come up to the temple.

Okay, he's telling this to people who are not on Mount Zion, who are not at the temple. All right, where are you right now? Hebrews 12, 22 says, for you have come, speaking of Christian worship, for you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels and festal gathering.

The Bible explains that in the New Testament, in New Testament worship, he has destroyed that physical temple in 70 AD, that is gone. Where God dwells now, his presence that is here, God is omnipresent, he's everywhere in one sense, but he is with us in a special way to receive our worship when the saints are gathered together.

You are right now on Mount Zion. Okay, you right now are experiencing a spiritual unity with saints across the globe, with those saints who have passed, and even angels have come into the presence of this place to experience this worship with us.

Okay, this parable that Jesus is telling is more applicable to you right now in this moment than it is to you when you read this in your bedroom. This parable that Jesus is telling you right now is more applicable to you in this moment than it is to even his audience he's speaking to, because you have come to Mount Zion.

So you need to ask yourself, when I leave this place, when I come down from this mountain, will I come away justified, right with my maker, or will I not? And so let's look at these two. That's the task before us.

We need to look at these two and see, well, if it's not the Pharisee's dedication to the law of God and all these things that had made him right with God, and if that didn't work for the Pharisee, but yet the tax collector who's not done these things comes away justified, what has the tax collector done?

What has the Pharisee done? So let's consider these one by one. First, we'll spend most of our time on the Pharisee. So consider, yeah, consider what the Pharisee does. Right, the Pharisee, he stands proud, he speaks of the particular things he has done, and he gives thanks to God for who he is.

Now, one conclusion that many people make when they read this passage is that it would be wrong to thank God for who you are. Okay, it is not wrong to thank God for who you are. Let me read several passages to this effect.

Acts 17, 26, and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods in the boundaries of their dwelling place. God has decided where you live, God has decided all your steps.

Psalm 16, six says, the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. Okay, so David is crediting God with where he is, even what he is. Psalm 139, 16 says, your eyes saw my unformed substance.

In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them. Ephesians 2, 10 talks about him preparing our steps beforehand for us, those good works that we might walk in them.

Okay, God has prepared all these things beforehand. He has done much for us. He is the one who justifies, he is the one who sanctifies, he is the one who makes holy, he is the one who protects from temptation.

Okay, the cure for this is not to not thank God for who you are, right? And to not thank God for your holiness. That would not be a cure to this, that would be far, far worse, okay? So the problem is not thanking God for your present situation, right?

Or thanking God for who you are. The problem is that is not what the Pharisee is doing. What is the Pharisee doing? What's his confusion here? The first part, first problem here is he doesn't know what to thank God for, right?

I said God sanctifies, God makes holy, God justifies, he makes you right with him. God protects from temptation. Are these any of the things that the Pharisee is thanking him for? No, he's thanking him for that which has not come from God, but that which has come from himself.

Okay, he's focused on himself rather than on these things being origin for God. He may phrase it in the name of thankfulness, but he's not really being thankful. He's not thanking God for the things that God has done.

He's not recognized what God has done. Okay, so the first thing is he doesn't know what to be thankful for. The second thing is he doesn't know who to be thankful for, too. He doesn't know who to be thankful to, okay?

So it may look as though he's thanking God, once again, but is he really? The way the ESV translates this, it says the Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus. Some of you might be using a different translation.

You might see it said a little differently. Most literally, it says something along the lines of to himself, he stand and prayed. So for example, the Nazbi, so let me say that again. To himself, he stands and prays, right?

So the Nazbi translates that as standing and praying to himself, he says. Okay, the implication, even in the way this is written, is that he's not really praying to God. He is praying to himself, almost, right?

He's saying thank you, God, but his posture is toward himself, okay? So he's not really being thankful to God. He's being thankful to himself. In Luke 17, in Luke 17, verse seven, it said, will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, come at once and recline at table?

Will he not rather say to him, prepare supper for me and dress properly and serve me while I eat and drink and afterward, you will eat and drink? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded?

So you also, when you have done all that was commanded, say, we are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty. This man is not one who sees himself as a servant who has only done his duty.

He sees himself as one who has gone beyond that, right? And so his thankfulness is not truly to God. It is to himself, and that's even the way the Greek is phrased, that that thankfulness is to himself.

And you see this all the time. You see people thank God who are not really thanking God, or you see people talk in the language of Thanksgiving who are not truly thankful. You see this every year at Thanksgiving, right?

You've got atheist coworkers, people who don't even believe in God. They go, they celebrate Thanksgiving. They talk about how thankful they are.

Okay, who are they thanking? Who are they thanking?

They're using the language of Thanksgiving. The implication is that they're thankful, but they're not thankful the way that thanks is really supposed to be given, given to God.

What are they thankful to?

Themselves, maybe some people around them? Okay, so people can use the language of Thanksgiving to God and not mean it at all, and this is a very frequent thing that happens. Now, because of all this, the Pharisee is prideful.

Because of all his misunderstanding, because he's not sure what he should be giving thanks for, he doesn't know who he should be giving thanks to, he is prideful. There's a lot of ways that we could break down his misunderstanding.

The first thing is he is misunderstanding about the standards of God, right? What are the standards of God? The standards of God are written in his law. It is perfection. Now, not only that, but God has now given us Jesus Christ so that we may know, even in human example, what that perfection looks like.

But Jesus says in Matthew 5, 48, you therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. The requirement of God is perfection, but this is not the standard that he is comparing himself to. He is saying the opposite.

He's saying, I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. Okay, he does not compare himself to God's standard. He's comparing himself to a made-up standard of others.

And people do this all the time. This is the standard way people think about it. They think about averages. They think about how they're doing compared to averages. You know, a lot of people, when they consider whether or not they're right with God, some do it explicitly, thinking that it's all weighed out in the balance.

As long as I've got more good actions than bad actions, more good than bad, it will work out for me. Other people would reject this, but in the way they act, you can tell that it's true. You know, they think that, oh, as long as you're trying your hardest, or something like that.

And so he does not, he's confused. He misunderstands God's standard. Now, one thing that I think would be really helpful for people, and even for this Pharisee, is even if you were to do that kind of comparison, even if you weren't to compare yourself against the perfect law of God, because, you know, I understand, and even God understands, in sending Jesus Christ, he understands that there is something that is helpful and good about making human-to-human comparisons, right?

If you are going to compare yourself to other people, first of all, obviously, you should be comparing yourself to Jesus Christ, but it would be wise of you not just to compare yourself to those around you, but to compare yourself to saints in ages past.

You know, once you start doing that, and you realize those things that were held highly, and the righteousness, at least in the outward obeying God's law of previous times, compared to now, you'll see many areas where you lack that you wouldn't, just looking at your peers, right?

And the same is true for the Pharisee, and you see this throughout Scripture. You know, they consider themselves right, they're the ones who are on the side of the prophets, and Jesus, Stephen, he compares them to the prophets.

He says, you're the ones who would stone the prophets, right, so if there's going to be some utility in comparing yourself to others, then do not limit yourselves to just those around you, okay? Spread farther than that, but then, of course, never to the exclusion of God's perfect standard.

Now, the other thing he's confused about is the purpose of the law. Like, not only what God's standard is, but what is the purpose of the law? So he's using the law as a way of making himself feel better, right, feel better about himself.

What is the law doing? It's popping him up. He's saying, I checked off this box, I checked off that box, I checked off that box, and it's building him up and up and up, right? That is not the purpose of the law.

The purpose of the law is, well, one of its uses is the opposite, right? There are, traditionally, there are three uses of the law. One is as a curb, right, to restrain evil. Second is a mirror to show you who you are in your need of Jesus Christ.

The third is as a guide to tell you how you ought to live. Okay, so those are the three uses of the law. Now, that second use of the law, as a mirror, is to show you your need for God's mercy, right, is to show you who you are and every way that you lack.

He is using it as the opposite. This is not a mirror designed to show him his faults. It's a mirror designed to show him what he has, right? It's a rose-colored mirror, right? He's looking in a rose-colored glass and seeing himself beautifully.

So he misunderstands the second use of the law. He misunderstands merit, that he would be able to, by his actions, achieve some kind of merit. Now, there's different kinds of merit. A lot of these are terms from Roman Catholic theology, but there's one term that's condign merit, which is something that, in and of itself, truly is that meritorious, like the sacrifice of Christ really is that meritorious.

There's another kind of merit that's congruent merit, where, okay, it's not actually, it's not quite enough, but it's in that trajectory. So someone who's trying their best, right, they might not have done it, but you go ahead and give them a free pass because they were trying their best and it was congruent with what God wanted.

All right, so there's these different ideas of merit where people say, well, maybe I'm not doing all of it. Maybe there's some grace that needs to be involved. But there's still this implicit idea of merit.

There's no such thing in the Bible as our actions being meritorious in that way. The only thing that comes close to that is the Reformed notion of pactum merit. Okay, pactum merit is the idea that through God's covenant, he has counted that which is not meritorious for rewards, you know, eternally.

Right, and so that is when we do good works as prompted by the Spirit, those works are not perfectly good, right? They're corrupt, they're mixed with our own corruptions, our own imperfect desires, et cetera.

But God, in Jesus Christ, accepts them and rewards them. Okay, but none of this has to do with our right standing before God. Okay, first of all, it's not meritorious in any way beyond his covenant. And secondly, it's not something that gives us right standing with him.

That was as regards rewards, right? So he misunderstands merit. And then he misunderstands God's grace. Grace is a gift, it is something from God, it is something that is needed because we have nothing to offer.

But once again, people often see grace as something that's filling in the gaps, as something that's necessary but not sufficient. Ephesians 2, eight and nine says, for by grace you have been saved through faith.

This is not your own doing, it is not of works, so that no one can boast, all right? Not of works, so that no one can boast. Now, there are a lot of people out there who would say, okay, yes, I would not boast.

Yeah, there's no reason to boast. God's grace is enough. But, you know, I still need to try my hardest, right? I still need to do something. And this is the mindset a lot of people have, even if they aren't willing to say these things.

But a lot of people are willing to say these things. I spoke a few months ago with some Jehovah's Witnesses who said exactly this. I said, you know, this passage isn't talking about boasting, it is talking about having grounds to boast.

And they said, oh, yes, yes, we would never boast, we would never boast. But, you know, you've gotta do your best, et cetera, et cetera, right? Okay, so what you're saying is you have grounds for boasting because you did your best, but you wouldn't actually ever say it out loud.

Okay, that is not what Ephesians 2, 8, and 9 has in mind. What it has in mind is a grace that is sufficient, a grace that is completely necessary in all aspects because there is not one iota of what God has required that we are capable of fulfilling.

And this is the way that we all tend, that our minds tend, apart from reminding ourselves of the truth of the gospel. Because we are sinners in a fallen world who sense a need to make ourselves right, and because of that fall, there's a tendency to reject God, a tendency towards sin.

The tendency of our mind is to not look to the gospel, but look to ourselves. It is a tendency toward delusion. I knew a lady once who was under the delusion that she was going to start a theater, this is something that she could do.

She had no experience in the arts, no experience in theater, but she just had her mind that this is what she was going to do, and she was so delusional that she started cutting up all her clothes to make costumes, and then after a week or two, when she finally woke up from this delusion, she found out that she had no clothes, just like Adam and Eve in the garden.

Okay, this is the kind of delusion where you think one thing, you're puffing yourself up with all kinds of delusional ideas, and then you wake up naked one day, and you realize that you are not clothed before your maker, and you need perfect righteousness, and you do not have it.

There are a lot of problems that come from this self-righteousness, this idea that this righteousness comes from yourself. The first one, and this is contextually the most poignant one. There's a lot of things I'm talking about here, but the one that you should be observing most contextually is the notion of powerless prayers.

This makes your prayers powerless. There's a connection between this parable and the previous parable. You know, you've got the previous parable was about prayer, right, this being a metaphor for prayer.

This one is about two people who are praying, and it says in verse nine, he also told this parable, right, there's a connection here. These are following each other, and I've made a comment about the ESV before.

This is one where I think the ESV does a pretty good job of trying to show you the connections. There's one place it could be modified to show you the connections between these two more. A lot of the words that are used in here, depending on which translation you use, in Greek, they look very similar.

They have similar roots. In English, they don't necessarily. So I wanna read these two parables again to you, and in a way that shows you some of the connections. And he told them a parable. This is verse one.

He told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said in a certain city, there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. There was a widow in that city who kept coming and saying to him, give justice, give me justice against my adversary.

Now, give me justice. In some translations, that's going to be something like avenge. But give me justice is good here because that's the root I want you to see is just, just, just, okay? And we might say one who is just is righteous, okay?

So these all have to do with righteousness. They have to do with the outworkings of righteousness, which are vengeance, right? So justice, right here. Give me justice. For a while he refused, but afterwards he said to himself, though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, same word, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.

And the Lord said, hear what the unrighteous judge says, right? This is the unjust judge, okay? He is unrighteous, he is unjust, same root. And will not God give justice, once again, same word, to the elect who cry out to him day and night?

Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice, same word, to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? Okay, so there you see, the widow says, give me justice.

We have an unjust judge, but a God who is just, okay? Now, verse nine, he also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, same word, okay? We could say they were just.

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were just, right? That they're just of themselves. And treat others with contempt. Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus. God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, same word, unrighteous, unjust. Adulterers are even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get, but the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, made just, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. Okay, so, you know, you've been clued in that that word just is important.

There are only a couple of times here where it's been changed to, I think only a couple of times where it's been changed to righteous or where the ESV has opted for the word righteous because that's the word we tend to use to describe someone's right standing, but if you change this with just, you see all the times it's talking about justice.

This is talking about God granting justice by avenging. This is talking about him being a just judge compared to an unjust judge. This is talking about people having a status of being just. This is talking about God making people just, okay?

So this is all about justice. This is all about righteousness, and these are even the same roots being used here throughout, if you were to read this in Greek, okay? So there's a lot of connections here.

So what is the first parable about? First parable was about praying, remember, and this was coming after the context of Jesus's return, so praying for Christ's return, praying for God to send vengeance, praying for him to avenge his church.

Okay, so it's praying for the results of justice, that God would give justice, that the results of me having right standing with you, that that would be made manifest, okay? What is this one about? It's about achieving that justice, that right standing.

Okay, so the first parable was about the outworkings, the results of right standing with God. This parable is about receiving the right standings with God, okay? So if you've got the self-righteous mindset, and you're praying for God to give you justice like the widow did in the previous parable, and you're asking for the results of righteousness, the results of justice, but you don't know how to pray and ask God for the actual right standing to be justified, to have justice, what does that mean for your prayers?

Well, if you're asking for the results of justice, but not for the origin of justice, you can't have one without the other, right? It's asking for a second story without having the first story built. It's just not something you can have.

So you will have powerless prayers if you allow the mindset of self-righteousness to creep into your life. Secondly, you'll have what Jesus said here, that they were righteous and treated others with contempt.

You will have contempt. Now, this could be the more violent kinds of contempt, you know, hatred, or it could just be viewing people very lowly and condescendingly. They will treat others with contempt.

And this would be very natural. This is very natural if it is the case that God's standard is this low bar, and you're meeting it, and they are not. It is a very natural way of thinking it. You can imagine a situation in a workplace where you have worked really hard to become vice president, but then the owner of the company, the CEO, whoever, he decides to make his son vice president.

You know, this guy who is just fresh out of college, has no idea what he's doing, doesn't even know how to dress, and he's given that position, you would say, no, hang on, I earned this. This is just like, this is just not right.

You know, you would have reason to feel some kinds of sense of injustice there. If that premise were true, right, if that were God's standard was some lower comparison average standard. And then, naturally, the result of that would be that there'd be a lack of unity.