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Luke 18:1-14 How Do You Come to God?
Luke chapter 18 reading verses 1 to 14 hear the word of the Lord and 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 and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying Give me justice against my adversary.
For a while he refused but afterward he said to himself though I neither fear God nor respect man yet because this widow keeps bothering me I will give her justice so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.
And the Lord said hear what the unrighteous judge says and Will not God give justice to his elect who cry to him day and night. Will he delay long over them? I Tell you he will give justice to them speedily nevertheless When the Son of Man comes Will he find faith on the earth?
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 up his eyes to heaven But beat his breath 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. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word.
Well, what are you willing to keep working at? You know a lot of people go from one thing to another in their life different interests that kind of come and go. Different kinds of exercise. Jazzercise was popular for a while.
Then there was Zumba. That was a craze. I don't hear much about them anymore. Where do they all go? Maybe weightlifting for some or running or cycling. Maybe another kind of pursuit like learning a language like Mandarin.
Or championing a cause, you know protests for social justice were widespread last June, but soon faded away. Political interest rose over the last couple of months and will probably recede now for a while but maybe it's some other kind of thing like fishing or boating or bowling or golf.
They are they have all the gear people do they get the gear they get the fishing rods and the hooks or a boat. They get on it they have on a trailer and on their dry in their driveway. Maybe they have a monogram bowling ball.
With a designer bag in their closet or an expensive collection of golf clubs. All of which they hardly touch anymore. Or maybe it's like learning some subject like the Puritans which you all love with this Wednesday.
Being the 400th anniversary of the landing of both the pilgrims of Plymouth. Plymouth Rock the beginning of the first Puritan colony. I hope you'll have enough interest peaked. By all the hoopla, which doesn't exist.
But I hope you'll have enough interest peaked by this anniversary to pay attention to our English Sunday school series. Especially the six videos that I'm making myself but even if you do even as intense as your interest hopefully will be.
You become a lover of the subject and you watch my videos and you buy books and you want to talk about it. There will probably come a time. Believe it or not. I know you think I'll never stop loving the subject.
I just can't talk about anything else, but there will probably come a time. When your interest will fade. Like jazzercise or Zumba like a lot of people I've seen with running or swimming or trying to learn a language or champion some cause.
The the interest seeps away. Like air out of a balloon until it becomes something You used to be interested in or you used to do. For some knowing God is like that. They went through a phase when they were eager.
It seemed to know the Lord they they pray they read their Bible. They went to church for every meeting. They listened to every sermon. They even took notes. Every Sunday school lesson even on the Puritans believe it or not.
They came to the prayer meeting. They listened to their favorite radio or internet preachers. They went to conferences and served in ministries, but then after a while like that balloon the interest fades away seeps out.
They drop out of one meeting after another one ministry after another. And then even the private devotions the disciplines began to fade away, too. So that they're hardly praying or reading their Bible anymore.
And I wonder whether this pandemic and the lockdown That has shut many churches will be the cause of many people who had already lost probably many of our had already lost interest a long time ago. But we're still going just out of habit.
Because they were raised to go to church or whatever and they have forgotten why they went but they just kept going out of habit. I wonder now that the pandemic has sort of broken that habit. Whether that will mean that they will drop out of church permanently, you know when everything goes back to normal, hopefully very soon.
Still they they realize they'll wake up on a Sunday morning and realize, you know I'm just not that interested and they would just rather sleep late. They don't want to go.
Back.
Well, what are you willing to keep working at? It's what you're willing to keep working at day after day year after year. Decade after decade. Those are the things that you're really interested in that you're really passionate about that you really believe in.
Now, there's nothing wrong. I don't think there's anything wrong with taking up a pastime like bowling or taekwondo or Studying the Puritans for that matter and eventually decide. Okay. I've had enough of that.
It was fun, but I'm gonna move on to something else. Now don't spend your life like some people do who never seem to be interested in anything and never apply themselves to anything and just Live to pay bills and keep breathing.
But you know, you really don't have to dedicate yourself religiously to everything some things you can. Just let go and you get tired of taekwondo or running or fishing or reading the Puritans. But it's it's those few things.
Maybe supporting your family your or your family themselves. Hopefully seeking God. That you that you keep working at. No matter what no matter the setbacks no matter that maybe nothing seems to change for a while.
If it's your children, nothing seems to change for a while. You just keep seeking God like we all. We all keep eating. Don't we just seem to never get tired of that one say I'm gonna stop eating now. I don't I don't like it anymore.
Are making money because we want to support our family because it's not just a hobby. It's not just a passing interest. It's your life. How do you come to God. Well, we see that here in two parts and two connected and easily interpreted parables in the whole Bible here it is.
Well first the persistent widow and second the Pharisee and the tax collector. You come to God we see by first persistence second by Penitence. Now first we come to God by persistence. Now Jesus's parables are at least to some people the hardest parts of his teachings to interpret.
But this has got to be the easiest parable to understand that the persistent widow. Maybe the Pharisee and the tax collector is the second easiest. Verse 1 plainly spells out for us what it means. It says he told them and them that is that's his disciples is continues from chapter 17 verse 22.
Where's the the disciples he's speaking to he told them? This parable quote to the effect that they ought always to pray and not to lose heart. Well, there it is. That's what this story is about. It's not a lesson on how you should always pester and nag your way to get whatever you want out of everyone.
You know don't apply this like to your husband or wife. I'm just gonna keep at it until they wear them down. No, it's about prayer. How do you come to God? Will you come like a widow? You come like a widow in a society where women had no power and she wasn't just a woman notice Jesus specifically makes her a widow.
So she has no husband like to back her up. She is the epitome of powerlessness. You come to God like a powerless Person like someone who has no leverage. You have nothing to offer. There's nothing you can impress God with nothing you can entice him with no way to compel him.
To do what you want him to do. Well, she came to a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. In other words, he didn't care he didn't fear that God would judge him for not dispensing justice and he didn't care about his reputation if Everyone knew that he did dispense justice.
He's not an elected judge. So he doesn't have to look good to the public. He's not worried about re-election. You aren't going to be able to persuade him to issue the right order. With arguments based on justice on what you judge should do what the law requires you to do.
No, it's not gonna work as if he's duty-bound to give her what she wants or somehow he'll get ashamed before his neighbors. He just doesn't care. So she has nothing to offer. She has no bribes. She can make she has no husband who can do something for him or maybe intimidate him and and he doesn't care.
That her cause is just. There's just no way to get this judge to do what is right?
Except.
That she just continues to come. Keep coming. She keeps coming keeps pleading. Give me justice. Now how much does she want justice. Against her adversaries. How much does she want it? It's like the way many of us bowl.
Maybe we all of us would like to be a perfect bowler 300 every time. But we're not we don't really don't want it enough to practice day in and day out. We don't want that much. It's just kind of a pastime.
Maybe we do occasionally so like the way I'd like to be a I'd like to be a muscular Weightlifter. Yeah, I like to if I could if I could be like an Olympic quality weightlifter I would do that if I could just snap my fingers and be one I would do that.
But I don't actually want that enough To lift weights. That that desire to be strong weightlifter is not enough to motivate me to go lift weights. It doesn't rise to that level or is it more like the way?
Here with this woman how much she want justice is it more like the way that we want to eat. It's kind of it's regular. It's Constant. It's a craving and she kept coming day after day to his court, you know raising your hand.
Give me justice.
Pleading.
Give me justice. At first the judge thought well she could he could just ignore her. But she continued then she gets to be an annoyance. Maybe she maybe he'd tell her to go away scowl at her. Get out of here get out of my court.
I don't want to see you again, but she stays at it every day. And there she is crying out for justice. It's embarrassing. Eventually, he decides it's easier to give in to her and to put up with her incessant begging.
She kept coming to him so much so that eventually this judge who didn't care About justice didn't care about the widow didn't care about how he looks. Gave in gave the widow what she wanted who had absolutely she had absolutely nothing to offer him yet.
Still he finally just threw up his hands said, okay, I'll do it. All right, though. I neither fear God or respect man yet because this widow keeps bothering me. I'll give her justice. I guess her persistence did it he says in verse 5 so that she will not he will not beat me down.
Literally, she will not just wear me out. Just exhaust me. I can't take it anymore with her continual coming.
That's.
How you come to God you you never stop? Winston Churchill said at the the depth of the of the worst part the deepest pit of World War two. He's for Britain. When it looked like late 1942 when it looked like it was Britain alone against the Nazis.
He said never give in. Never give in. Never never never never. It's all exact quote Calvin Coolidge the president said press on. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not.
Nothing is more common than unsuccessful individuals with talent. Genius will not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not. The world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are.
He said omnipotent a little bit overstated there nothing that we have is actually omnipotent, but you get the point. And the popular movie the Shawshank Redemption seemed like it's played every week if you missed it last time it was shown.
Don't worry. It'll be back on in a few days. But the Shawshank Redemption the main character Andy wants to improve the prison library. But he has to rely on money from the state legislature of Maine now.
He's a powerless prisoner. He has nothing to no way to compel them to give him money, but he's persistent. So he writes a letter to them once a week, you know letter after letter after letter after enough letters.
They finally sent in the money with a reply hoping please stop sending us letters. Persistence. Now little did we know for watching that movie for the first time that all that time. While he's doggedly expanding the library.
That he's been digging a tunnel through the wall an inch or so at a time.
Slowly.
Persistently. How do you come to God like that.
Persistently.
Every day determined. Digging your way by prayer into his word seeking first his kingdom his rule in your life and your family. Sure, you can go through fads when you concentrate on something. You read more books you listen to more lessons you dig deeper.
You study the Puritans, but even when the fads fade away still every day. You're still digging.
By prayer.
Even if it feels like you have just a little hammer little hammer and you're trying to get through concrete You're persistent. The result will be that God will give you what you seek Himself. After all if this crooked judge Who gives a powerless widow what she wants?
How much more will God who is not crooked? Who is just? Righteous, how much more will he give us who are his people? His chosen ones called the elect here. Notice the verse 7. He calls us his people the elect.
How much more will he give him them the elect? How much more will he give us what we seek? The crooked judge and God are Contrasted here. Even the crooked judge will give in to persistence. How much more will God who is not crooked?
Who cares about his people who elected them in the first place? How much more will he give his people justice if they cry out to him? He says day and night Jesus asked will he delay long over them? It's a rhetorical question the answer is Well, of course not.
The crooked judge delayed because he was crooked. He didn't care about justice. He didn't care about the widow, but God does care about his people the elect. He chose them now. It might feel like a delay sometimes Because we're impatient but here Jesus promises that he will give his chosen ones vindication.
Speedily he says. Speedily.
The slaves in America probably thought justice was being delayed when they prayed for almost 250 years for justice. And yet it came.
Speedily.
God loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword.
So.
How do you come to God? It's not like some people think it's a kind of a one-time experience. Like getting a vaccination thought that you pray once sinners prayer and once you've done that you don't really have to pray anymore.
You're off the hook. You just go about your merry way. No, you want always to pray. Jesus said always to seek God to plead your kingdom come. You need to make prayer a regular Part of your life. That's why we have a weekly prayer meeting so that we are always praying now.
I know some of you can't make it often because of work. Then you need to make sure that you are always Praying and always I think it means it is a permanent a regular part of your life. Like the way you always eat.
I mean you're actually, you know every constant second eating. But it's just every day you you eat every day. You praise Part of your life. It's not a fad you go through like when you took a bowling or golf or video games.
We live in an age when people think. People think that faith is a feeling they're feeling like they have faith and if you're full of Feeling like you have that faith. Well, then you are. You're gonna pray.
That's the way they think and so they pray when they full feel full of faith and then they forget to pray. When they feel empty. But if you are full of faith You will be faith full to pray. But then the question Jesus asked this haunting question the end of verse 8.
Nevertheless, I was however Despite the promise Jesus just said this promise that God does indeed God will indeed Speedily answer the persistent prayers of his chosen ones. He will do it still. Even though we have that promise he asked when the Son of Man Comes the Son of Man the one who brings in the kingdom of God on earth when he when he finally fully Answers our prayer your kingdom comes when he comes when that happens.
He asked will he find faith on the earth. Where's faith? Will there be some? Who believe persistently who as here have faith? That shows in Faithfulness. You know faith grows faithfulness. You're full of faith if you have true faith and so our faith full.
When Christ comes again, will he find faithful believers persistently seeking him or will he find just a bunch of people who are treating? Him like it was a fad like he's a hobby. Okay, I did Zumba for a while I did the Lord for a while and then I went to jazzercise.
So like that. This is something they do until they get tired of got it and then move on to something else will he find fateful seekers. What's implied in this is that when he comes many will have fallen away.
He will find some who who sought the Lord like they went through a stint of playing golf Who exhausted their faith so that it never matures into faithfulness, but true faith Matures into faithfulness as our statement of faith says the grand mark that Distinguishes that sets apart true believers true believers from superficial Professors that is people who profess who claim to believe but don't really the mark that sets them apart is perseverance is.
Faithfulness.
When the Son of Man comes Will he find faith? Faithfulness on the earth will he find. Fateful seekers are just exhausted fad believers. Hobby Christians whose interest in God and prayer has has seeped away.
When Christ returns the person of persistent prayer will still be praying. Will you how do you come to God? Well first persistently and secondly. Penitently. Now penitent is probably a word that you Protestants aren't used to hearing.
It sounds too close to penance. So maybe we don't use it a lot for that reason, you know, like acts do people do. Acts of penance prescribed by a church and supposedly it to order or earn salvation. We usually just say repent.
We have some fundamentals today who say we don't even have to repent that all we have to do is claim that we believe In some bare facts and we're saved even if we don't repent. That's the false doctrine.
They call free grace of what is technically called in theology called antinomian ism. But we see here and in many other places in the Bible that that's just not true to be justified before God. That's be declared right before God and a right good relationship with him.
You must be penitent. Defined as a sorrow and regret for having done wrong. Repentant. It's what we saw Paul talk about it. Remember in 2nd Corinthians that godly grief. Contrasted the worldly grief worldly grief just cares.
It's kind of been embarrassed or maybe it's gonna get punished. But a godly grief it cares that that's offended God and we hear from Jesus is a picture of it and Notice in verse 9 the picture is shown directly to those he says who were confident of their own righteousness.
Now we have a lot of people today who are confident of their own righteousness. They think they're moral. They've been to church. They prayed the right prayer. They've done the right ritual. They have some basic knowledge.
And so they are sure they are righteous. That is they they're sure they think that they're right with God. And so no matter how much they sin. Remember how many lies they tell how much slander they spew how hateful they are.
They are absolutely sure that they are right with God. They're sure they're saved. They've never tested themselves as you saw at the end of 2nd Corinthians two weeks ago. They will like here they will look down and everyone else treat them with contempt look down on other people including people who tell them to examine themselves to see if they are in the faith because they know that they are right and.
For just those kinds of people the Lord Jesus tells this story here. It is just for you now hopefully not for you people here, but I'm talking to the. That confident person out there a very religious person goes to the temple to pray.
Right. He's go to the temple I guess because that's where all the religious people are. So he goes there he wants to be seen by them. He's the kind of put scriptures on strips on his forehead today. He'd be the kind of put some on his Facebook page or bumper stickers on his car.
He fasts twice a week and he ties he stands up to pray. He close to the center of the temple the most prominent space he can find. So everyone can see him in verse 11 and he prays here says about or literally Greek if he prays toward himself.
He sounds sounds reverent enough. I mean if you look at his words Sort of he sounds thankful to God. He begins to talk about to God. He knows how to put a prayer in the right words so that they sound Right starting off rightly thanking God that he's not indulging in sin.
So he's even thanking God that he's not sinning. Yeah, but you know, it sounds pious enough, but it's really all about himself. He's informing God. As though God doesn't know that he's not a swindler and an adulterer or a greedy traitor like that.
Like that tax collector over there. He was confident. He had that that religious swagger. That so many people like but the tax collector a collaborator with the Roman Empire and most of the tax collectors Use their power to take more than they deserved so they were often just greedy Oppressive people.
Well, he was it says Jesus says he was a far-off. He's in some obscure corner. It's hard to see because he wasn't there. To be seen. Anyway, he wasn't there to show off how religious he was. He was crushed by a sense of his own sinfulness.
He was so contrite. If he didn't dare Jesus says he didn't dare to look up to heaven as if he could look God in the face. He knew he couldn't he was Ashamed he was penitent. He felt his repentance and he beat his chest and said at the end of verse 13 God be merciful to me a sinner.
That translation shows his penitence now. Notice he's he's not informing God of how religious how righteous he is compared to other people. He's pleading with God like the widow. Knowing he is helpless.
That he has no he's no leverage on God that he's not impressing God with how much better he is compared to anyone else. Nothing in his hands. He brings empty-handed. He knows he needs. He utterly completely depends On a mercy that he has absolutely no power to get from God.
He is completely like that widow powerless. Now if that were a complete translation of what he said, you know be merciful to me a sinner. If that were a complete translation of what he's what he asked God for that would be a powerful example of penitence but what he actually said is Even more powerful he addresses God first and then he asked.
Simply not simply really not simply for mercy. Not simply for just a forgiving grace. Forgive me, but the Greek word there he asked for for God. Oh God, give me it means.
Propitiation.
Fancy word we don't use much. An atoning sacrifice an atonement. Obviously asked God for God to do the work of appeasing God's righteous anger at his sin. For God to do what only God can do to make him right with God.
He literally pleads God.
Propitiate me.
Atone for my sin God settled the debt my sin owes.
Because I can't.
God take away the whole your holy anger at my sin that I rightly deserve. Because there's nothing that I can do to take that anger away. That's what he's asking God for. And then he calls himself literally in Greek there he didn't say a sinner have mercy on me a sinner as in our translations, but literally he says.
The sinner.
Propitiate me the sinner. I'm the sinner. The conservative religious guy was saying I'm so much better than all these other people, you know, there's no swindlers those sexually immoral people milling around in the streets out there especially better than that that Pathetic tax collector over there.
The penitent person though is saying I am the sinner. He's too aware of his sin to be aware of other people's relative badness. Because he prays for atonement. He prays for God to do what only God can do to make him right with God.
Because he has that that godly grief that awareness of sin having trudged through the swamp of conviction. Knowing his helplessness that nothing in his hands. He brings to God. He goes home. It's Jesus says he goes home.
Justified that is declared righteous. God declares him Righteous. Now the other guy so confident declared himself Righteous, he declared his own righteousness. But he went away unknown to himself. Guilty sinful.
Rejected by God the penitent man declaring himself the sinner. Pleading for atonement. Propitiation for God's wrath to be paid for he goes away declared God says righteous by God. Right with God for. Because it's explaining why the Lord Jesus explains at the end of verse 14.
Why the penitent man goes away righteous? For everyone. Who exalts himself? Everyone who gets up confidently with that religious swagger. Sure that he or she is better than those other people out there.
Better than those homosexuals better than that. It's ridiculous looking guys, but they're sagging pants better than the people staying home from church because they're just too lazy sleeping in bed. Or maybe those better than those guys that go out and make money on Sunday morning because all they care about is making more money.
Everyone who looks at those other people and thinks I am better than them. I have an advantage before God.
Exalt me.
Everyone who thinks he or she has some leverage on God some way to impress him by how how much whatever I've been I've been to church. I've abstained from these popular sins. Look how much I've given.
How good a neighbor I am. Everyone who thinks they have something in their hands they can bring to God. To impress him with to say look look how much better I am than those other other sinners. Everyone who does that?
Exalting themselves. Because they're not penitent. They have no sense of their own sinfulness of how much they have offended a holy God. Everyone like that Will be humbled. But everyone like the tax collector.
Who is penitent? Who says I am the sinner. I? Need an atoning sacrifice. I need you God to take away my sin.
Everyone like that Will be exalted Lifted up from this world of sin from the judgment that is coming. God will reach down and Lift up the chin of the bowed head. The bowed head that's too ashamed to look up to him.
God will be the lifter of their head lift them out of condemnation and Exalt them to be sons and daughters of the king. How do you come to God? Well, not as a hobby. Something you take up for a while as long as the interest strikes you.
Like bowling or golf or some short-term interest like the Puritans that is satisfied after you've read a few books. You come to God.
Constantly.
Helplessly with nothing in your hands you bring to make God give you justice. Give you the salvation for yourself or your child or your husband or your wife the grace the breakthrough you need. You cry to him day and night with faith That he is good That he will swiftly give you justice and your faith and God's goodness fills you so that you are full of.
Faith.
Faithful.
So when the Son of Man comes He will find you faithful. How do you come to God not arrogantly boasting before God. How much better you are than all those other people out there who hardly ever bother to go to church.
Hardly ever bothered to give or to live right, but you come penitently. Conscious of your sin and the punishment that those sins deserve and the fact that there's nothing that you can do to cure Yourself of your sins.
Your sins do two things to you. First They make you deserve God's wrath his holy anger and second they make you impure the sinner. You need a double cure To plead. Let the water and the blood from your wounded side which flowed be of sin my sin.
The double cure curing me of the wrath I deserve and making me pure. Rock of ages cleft crucified for me. Rock of ages the propitiatory atoning sacrifice cleft for me.
Let me.
Me.
The sinner. Oh God let me hide myself in.
Thee.