Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Why You May Not Really Be Following Jesus | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 18.9-14

Episode Date: May 28, 2020

Sometimes we think we're following Jesus, but we're really not. That's how the Pharisees were. See if you're faith is like theirs as https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/keith-simon/ (Keith) dives into https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+18%3A9-14&version=NIV (Luke 18.9-14) to continues our series https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcast-series/how-to-follow-jesus/ (Learning to Follow Jesus). Interested in more content like this? Listen to https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/what-keeps-people-from-following-jesus-learning-to-follow-jesus-luke-5-27-32/ (What Keeps People From Following Jesus) and https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/should-christians-stay-in-or-get-out-and-serve/ (Should Christians Stay in or Get Out and Serve? ) Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. To learn more, visit our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (website) and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/TheCrossingCOMO (Facebook), https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ (Instagram), and https://twitter.com/thecrossingcomo (Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10 minute Bible Talks where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Right now, we're learning how to follow Jesus by working our way through the Gospel of Luke. What keeps people from Jesus? What keeps them from embracing the gospel of King Jesus from Christianity? Well, there are a lot of different answers to that question, but I think we're going to see one answer today that might surprise you. We're going to be looking at a parable in Luke chapter 18.

It's the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. And in that parable, we're going to be challenged by what keeps people from Jesus. See, I think one of the things we'd say that keeps people from embracing the gospel is their sin, that they love their sin, and that keeps them from God. And to a certain extent, that's true. There are people who that would accurately do. describe. But I think what we're going to be surprised with is that there are a lot of people, maybe even more people than we'd suspect, who what keeps them from Jesus isn't their badness,

but their goodness. It's their own goodness, their own righteousness, that keeps them from Jesus. See, it turns out that if you're not sick or if you don't think you're sick, if you won't admit you're sick, you won't go see a doctor. It turns out, that if you won't admit that you have a drinking problem, you won't go to a rehab center. It turns out that if you won't admit that you're struggling with depression, you won't see a counselor. It turns out that if you won't admit that you are a sinner, you will never seek a savior. Luke introduces the parable by telling us who Jesus is talking to. He says in verse 9,

to some who are confident of their own righteousness and look down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable. Now, I just love this phrase, confident in their own righteousness, and look down on everyone else. We're going to see that played out in this parable, but then we're going to come back and talk about how that might get played out in our life. So then Jesus' parable starts in verse 10. And Jesus tells about two men who go up to the temple to pray, one of the first of

Pharisee and the other a tax collector. Now, it's going to be hard for us to understand the shock value that this would have had in the audience that Jesus originally told this parable, too. We have this picture now of Pharisees as being the bad guys in the sense that they oppose God, and tax collectors, more or less, being the good guys, in the sense that many end up following Jesus. but in the first century, this would have been exactly opposite. People looked up to the Pharisees. They were not hated. They were loved, admired, respected.

They were the religious leaders, the upstanding moral people in the community, the people you wanted your kids to grow up to be like. And the tax collectors were they were sellouts. They'd sold out to Rome. They'd sold out their people. They were the bottom of the barrel. No one wanted to be a tax collector. So these two people, a tax collector and a Pharisee, they go up to the temple and the pray.

And the Pharisee, it says, stands by himself and prays, God, I thank you that I'm not like other people, robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get. So do you see what this Pharisee is doing as he's looking around and comparing himself to, to others and saying, God, I'm so thankful that I'm not like them. In other words, he's looking down on others while at the same time kind of pushing across the table his resume, saying, hey, look, I fast twice a week. I give a tenth of all that I get. Verse 13, but the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, God have mercy upon me a sinner. The tax collector comes empty-handed. Doesn't come with a resume, doesn't come with his own

goodness, isn't interested in trumpeting how good of a person he is, but instead casts himself on the mercy of God found in Christ. Jesus said that it's this man, the tax collector, that went home justified before God, not the Pharisee. And then he ends by saying all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Every Christian knows that we should be like this tax collector, in the sense that we should confess our sins to God and cast ourselves on His mercy. And yet, I think that every Christian has a little bit of this Pharisee inside of them, some more and some less, but we all struggle with this sense of our own righteousness. We all have this sense that we look around and think we are better than other people, that our sins never seem to

bother us as much as other people's sins. That we look around and say, yes, we know we're a sinner, of course, but we're not as big of a sinner as, and then you fill in the blank with the people in your friend group or the people you see around town or in the media. All I'm saying is that I think every Christian struggles with self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is so dangerous because it keeps us from God. When we are confident in our own righteousness, our own goodness, well, it means that we are distancing ourselves from God. Because Jesus said he came for sinners, not the righteous.

He came for the sick, not the healthy. Now, everybody's sick. Everybody is a sinner, but not everyone is willing to admit it. When we're willing to admit and confess our need, it is actually drawing closer and closer to Jesus, who came to meet that need, who came to die for sinners. That's why I said earlier that is often our goodness that keeps us from Jesus. One of the signs of a growing Christian is that they are willing to see, Their sin, admit it's sin, understand the gravity of their sin, and take their sin and take it right to Jesus,

asking him to forgive them, asking him to make them into the person that he wants them to be. Confession of our sin should be an ordinary part of the Christian life. But I want to think a moment about this idea that people who are confident in their own righteousness look down on other people. people. Now, sometimes this deals with issues of sin, obvious sin. We might think we're not as bad of a sinner as someone else. But there are also issues that are not necessarily sinful or righteous that we develop a self-righteousness about. Let me give you an example. Some people develop a self-righteousness about their choices for their kids' schools. You know, you've got the public school, the private school, the Christian school, and homeschool.

And instead of just saying, look, every family is going to be in a different situation, financially, temperamentally, with different kids, different needs, different heart, different vision, and they are going to send their kids to what they think are the best schools, given their situation, and that serious, God-loving Christians can come to different conclusions about what's best. Well, instead of doing that and having that attitude, there is a sense that I have to feel better about my choice than your choice. I have to look down on you. I have to have maybe public school righteousness.

And so then I would look at others and say, well, my kids are at public school because I am more generous with my money. I don't spend it all on private schools or Christian schools. We don't live in a little holy bubble like they do in the Christian school. school. We're out among the people being salt and light. We're not like the homeschool people who live maybe in the 1950s, the Amish who grew up on the little house on the prairie. No, we're public school. We're the cool kids. So there's a public school self-righteousness. But there's also a Christian school self-righteousness, right? And it sounds something like this. We care a lot about what our kids learn. And we want them to have a Christian worldview and be

around Christian influences, so we're willing to make sacrifices in our budget to send our kid to a Christian school. Now, I get that people send their kids to public schools, but they really shouldn't. I mean, their kids are not getting a biblical worldview. They're not getting the Christian life modeled by their teachers. So let's pray for those public school people. We're Christian school people. We're really committed to our faith. Of course, there's homeschool self-righteousness, right? It sounds something like this. God intended the family to be the primary spiritual and educational center, and therefore we have kind of made the more biblical choice. Our kids are so far ahead of where the public school kids are, and even the Christian schools. I mean, our kids are doing Latin and Greek. They are

way beyond the others. And I love my kids more. I hear people say they don't want to homeschool, because their kids drive them crazy. Well, that's not me. I mean, I really love being around my kids. And so that's why we've made this choice. We make financial sacrifices in order to be able to homeschool our kids. We cut back on the hours we work so that we can really be about our family. We're just a little more family-oriented than those who send their kids to school.

So my point is not that one of these are right and one of them wrong. hopefully you see the self-righteousness, the silliness in all this talk. And of course, no one says it quite like I have. I've tried to be a little bit dramatic, exaggerate it a little bit to make a point. But there is a sense in which we develop self-righteousness around educational choices. So as I record this, we are in the middle of a pandemic due to coronavirus. And I've noticed there's a self-righteousness that has developed around how, how you respond to the coronavirus.

See, I wear masks. I take this really seriously. I wear gloves wherever I go. I never go out. I have my groceries delivered to my house. I won't even go on a walk. I don't let my kids out of the house. I take this really seriously and you should be taking it as seriously as I do.

Or there are others who say, well, I go out and I do some things. I'm not scared. So why are you hiding in your house all the time? You can go for a walk on the trail and those gloves don't work. You look foolish in your mask. I'm going to take a picture of you and send it to my friends and make fun of you. So instead of saying, hey, look, there's some freedom here to handle this in different ways. And it might depend on your health.

It might depend on your own particular family situation. Instead of giving each other grace to handle things differently, we begin to develop a self-righteousness around it and then look down on other people who don't do it like we do. It's amazing the things that Christians, that people, human beings, can develop self-righteousness around. It's amazing the different ways that we are able to exalt ourselves and look down on others.

Well, let's conclude where Jesus did. those who humble themselves will be exalted and those who exalt themselves will they'll be humbled humble yourself before god come to him with your sin reject any thoughts any inclinations in your heart that you are righteous that you are good that you can look down on other people i love this tax collector's prayer god have mercy on me a sinner may that be our prayer more and more in our life. God have mercy upon me a sinner. And may I therefore not look down on others.

For who am I to look down on anyone else? Have mercy upon me, God. I'm a sinner. Amen. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with.

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