Misguided Prayer

I didn’t plan it this way, but
if the passage that Kevin read urges us to prayer in general,
it says, devote yourselves to prayer. And I mean, as a people,
we are typically devoted to far too little. We’re kind of half
in half out on everything. And here Paul calls us to dedicate
or earnestly apply ourselves to the matter of prayer. And
then he begins to characterize it and he says, keeping alert
in it. I mean, does that speak to us
or what? I mean, how many of you have
found yourself nestled in a far too comfortable position of prayer
only to awaken sometime later. Not exactly in the state of bliss
that some of the great saints found themselves in. Just dozed,
perhaps even drooling. Paul says, devote yourselves
to it, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving.
And it’s one of the fascinating things in the Greek here. is,
he says in verse 2, devote yourselves to prayer. Verse 3, praying.
I mean, it’s funny how many times we devote ourselves to something
and then forget about that which we’ve devoted ourselves to. We’d
be so focused on our prayer list and on what passage we’re in
that day. And then, you know, maybe who all’s coming to the
prayer meeting that we forget to pray. I’m preaching the wrong
passage. Let’s go, if we would. But if
that passage urges us to prayer, and we just learned last week
about the purpose of prayer and the urgency thereof, because
if you look back over your shoulder there in the first eight verses
of Luke, he urged us to pray in light of the return of Christ. Don’t give up. Persevere in prayer.
But here he gives us, if you will, the heart of prayer, the
attitude of prayer in the gospel of Luke. Luke 18, beginning in verse 9. And he also told this parable
to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous
and viewed others with contempt. Two men went up to the temple
to pray. One a Pharisee and the other
a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying
this to himself, God, I thank you that I am not like other
people, swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I pay tithes
of all that I get. But the tax collector, standing
some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes
to heaven, but was beating his breast saying, God, be merciful
to me, the sinner. I tell you, this man went down
to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone
who exalts himself will be humbled. That he who humbles himself will
be exalted. We’ve heard that phrase before.
We’ve even studied it to a degree. Everyone who exalts himself will
be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted. It is
one of the most repeated phrases in all of Scripture. And you
would think that given that fact that it is repeated and because
it’s repeated, it is a big problem with humanity. You would think
that we would make it an urgent study of our lives to eradicate
our hearts of all pride and pursue with all that reckless spiritual
abandon the grace of humility. But we don’t. We just don’t. J.C. Ryle said, see how firmly
pride and love of preeminence can stick to the hearts of even
the Christian man. The sin before us is a very old
one. Ambition, self-esteem, self-conceit. They lie at the bottom of all
men’s hearts. And often the hearts where they
are least suspected. I mean, it’s like bad breath.
If you have bad breath, you’re the last one to know. If you
have this sin of pride, you’re usually the last one to know.
You think you’re so humble. And that’s what J.C. Ryle says. Thousands imagine
that they are humble who cannot bear to see an equal more honored
and favored than themselves. The quantity of envy and jealousy
in the world is a glaring proof of the prevalence of pride. Then
he calls us to examine our hearts. And to that noble war with the
sin of self. Christ had been teaching on the
return that he would make to the world one day. Christ had
been sharing with his disciples for some time about the kingdom
of heaven. And the Pharisees, the critics
of Christ, were standing listening and they said, you keep talking
about this kingdom, where is it? And it gave rise to one of
the most detailed discussions of the kingdom of heaven that
Christ ever gave there in Luke 17. And as we turn the corner
into Luke 18, as is so often the case, we have this hard break,
new chapter, new thought, right? No, it’s the same thought. It’s
directly related to what Christ had just finished talking about,
that the kingdom is going to come as a great surprise to many. It was going to be sudden and
overwhelming and severe. It was going to take so many
people by surprise. There would be not even the time
to go back into their house and to grab one last belonging. And that’s why Jesus said that
you need to remember to pray. You need to remember to be in
a prayerful frame of mind. And he told that parable about
the woman who kept going and kept going and even to an unjust
judge who eventually relented. He had a hardened heart. He didn’t
even care about God, much less people. But her perseverance
finally paid off. It was because of his own selfish
motives that he finally yielded and he gave her what she needed,
legal protection. But Christ, touching on the subject
of prayer, can’t leave it just there. He can’t just say, persevere
in prayer and leave the subject untouched. Because there were
those around Him who were persevering in prayer. They were among the
best. They prayed numerous times throughout
the day and sometimes exceedingly great, long prayers. Great, long,
loud, public prayers. They were good at prayer. They
excelled at prayer. Jesus said the heart of this
prayer was rotten to the core. And that was the purpose for
which He told this parable. He had urged continuance or perseverance
in prayer, but now here the focus is attitude. What is the heart
of prayer? What is the spirit of prayer?
How and in what way? From what kind of a heart is
prayer supposed to emanate? I entitled the sermon negatively.
It was tough, tough rut to get out of. Because so much of the
parable before us is negative in nature, ultimately it has
a positive lesson. And we’ll get there, but I entitled
it misguided prayer. And I suppose the image that
comes to mind and probably even in my own mind when you use the
word misguided is some kind of a missile. Perhaps an arrow,
but more likely, and in my own mind, a missile. A missile that
was misguided and goes astray and ends up blowing up everything
but the target. Of course, the image that comes
to mind is, you know, in most people’s minds, the Scud missiles.
But even the Scud missiles did damage, right? Even the Scud
missiles hit something and that was part of their purpose was
just to kind of lob them into the air like some kind of ancient
catapult would do and do some kind of damage, wreak some kind
of havoc. But the image before us, when
I say misguided. It starts and it heads in the
right direction and it looks good initially. But in the end,
it hits nothing. It doesn’t reach God’s ears.
It doesn’t bring about the intended purpose of prayer. It doesn’t
engender communion with God. It doesn’t bring about results
from prayer, things asked for. It doesn’t even gain God’s ear. It is completely and utterly
misguided. If you would, I wanted to look
at four features of errant prayer. First of all, as I forecasted,
the attitude of misguided prayer. Look back, if you would, at verse
9. And he also told this parable to some people. And you don’t
have to be a scholar to know ultimately who he’s aiming this
at. They had dogged his steps almost
from the earliest moments of his ministry. The Pharisees and
scribes. He told this parable to some
people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous. Their estimate of sin was so
low. And their estimate of themselves
and their own merit, their works, their system, their religious
effort was so high that they really believed, as do countless
thousands in our own day and age, they really believed that
by their own merits they were prepared to stand before God. They believed that they could.
They believed that they could be justified on the grounds of
their own living and their own merits. They trusted in themselves
that they were righteous. That was their perspective of
God’s holiness. The great pastor that our nation
knew, James Boyce, said it this way. Your view of God will drastically
and dramatically affect your view of sin and your view of
self And really what we need in our day and age is a study
not only of theology proper, of God and His nature, but a
study of our own. I mean, do we have anything to
bring to God? Do we have anything in our own
hearts and lives to bring and commend to God? Was Toplity,
the great hymn writer, wrong when he said, nothing in my hands
I bring, simply to the cross I cling? Was he wrong? The Pharisees justified themselves
or attempted to do at every turn. Luke chapter 16, Jesus looked
at them and said, you are those who justify yourselves in the
sight of men. I believe the Pharisees deep
down knew that they fell short of God’s perfect system. But
in light of men’s eyes, They knew that they could be seen
and perceived as perfect with their dress and their pomp and
their attitudes. They could be seen as perfect.
Jesus said, you are those who justify yourselves in the sight
of men, but God knows your hearts. Paul had set that kind of thinking
aside in Philippians chapter three. He said, if anybody that
he ever knew, he had more confidence, more cause to put confidence
in the flesh. And he said, there’s no way that
I would go there. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence
in the flesh, I far more. But he said, I set all that aside.
All of that Jewish training, all of that exact and precise
living according to the law, he had perfected it. And he set
it aside. You see, the Pharisees had begun
to make their system of uprightness, their so-called system of justice,
consist of ceremonial minutia, living by all these little letters
of religious extremism and letters of the law. And it got to a point
where it so engrossed their thoughts that they lost sight of the true
or lofty ideals of God’s Word, righteousness and justice and
love. They forgot it. It became what
one called fetish worship. Fetish worship of the scruples
of the law. And what it tended to produce
in them, what it did produce in the end was self-confidence
and pride. You see, they figured out that
if I can do these little things, then I have arrived. Proverbs
chapter 30 says, There is a kind who is pure in his eyes, yet
he is not washed from his filthiness. That’s what they were. They really
believed that they had somehow arrived. You ever heard the term
holier than thou? You know, I was well into my
Bible studies after I became a Christian before I realized
that is a biblical concept. Isaiah 65, 5. You are those who say, keep to
yourselves. Do not come near me, for I am
holier than you. God said of them, they are smoke
in my nostrils, a fire that burns all day. God hates that kind
of attitude. God hates that attitude. And that’s what the Pharisees
embodied. The rabbis. for one another, they invented
the most ridiculous and farfetched titles. And that’s one of the
reasons I think I work this in about every six months and I
figure I’ll hit everybody. And then eventually people will
drop this reverend or even worse than that, the very right reverend.
Don’t call me reverend. The rabbis invented even worse
titles than that one. the most arrogant and pretentious
kinds of titles for one another. Light of Israel. I mean, how
brash would you have to be to allow yourselves to be called
Light of Israel? I mean, after all, wasn’t that
what God was? Uprooter of mountains. I mean,
here’s a guy whose prayer life had become well-known throughout.
Uprooter of mountains. The glory of the law. Here’s
a guy who had the Bible so figured out, he was beyond Bible Answer
Man. And yet, they described the great
mass of their fellow countrymen as accursed because they didn’t
know the law as well as they did. These were proud and hateful
men. These were men whose hearts couldn’t
have been any further from God. They spoke of their fellow men
as empty cisterns and people of the earth. And you know what
I liken it to? I liken it to that unbiblical
word laity. What is laity? It isn’t a biblical
term. And yet you have this mentality
in the church that it’s us up here who so often sit on these
big chairs. And you, the people, the sheep,
The laity, the people of the earth. That was their attitude. That was their attitude. Their
great sin, the sin of these people was that they despised the work
that Christ was doing in elevating people out of their sinful state.
Christ came to tax gatherers and sinners and repeatedly was
castigated by the Pharisees for that. Because ultimately, they didn’t
want them saved. They didn’t want them purified.
They set themselves as a perfect tool for them to exalt themselves. And if you purify these tax gatherers
and sinners, then where is our standard? They really rejoiced in their
sinfulness and degradation because it made it easier for them. They
could glory over this inferior class that much easier. The standard
just took it down a notch. The sin that Jesus denounces
here, said J.C. Ryle, is self-righteousness. The problem is, is that we are
all, every one of us has a touch of this. In varying degrees, we all embrace
this kind of self-righteousness, we all embrace some kind of a
system whereby we can pay God back. whereby we can earn a little
bit, or whereby we can get a little one-up over the other guy. J.C. Ryle said, we are all naturally
self-righteous. It is the family disease of all
the children of Adam. You know what I’ve learned about
family disease? If my mom has it, I’m going to
get it. My mom has arthritis. and I can
already feel the achiness in all my bones. My mom has cataracts. I’ve already had one. If my mom
has it, and today she lies on a hospital bed struggling with
shingles, I’m going to get it. And you know what family disease…
I mean, isn’t that one of the early questions that a doctor
asks? Do you have any history? And it’s almost like, of course
I do. Right? We know what the family
disease of Adam is. Pride. From the highest to the lowest,
J.C. Ryle says, we think more highly
of ourselves than we ought to. We secretly flatter ourselves
that we are not as bad as some and that we have something to
commend us to the favor of God. That’s the truth. That’s the
truth. We can stand here and look at
these men who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and
viewed others with contempt. And yet, you know what? Deep
down, we do the same thing. Deep down, we rank ourselves
and we like to fit within that bell curve, don’t we? We certainly
don’t want to be over here with those people that live like that.
And we think that because we don’t live like that, we’re in
the bell curve. Now, we don’t want to be too righteous and
be like these people over on the far extremes. No wonder one Puritan said the
cure for self-righteousness is self-knowledge. Self-knowledge. Once, let the eyes of our understanding
be opened by the Spirit, and we shall talk no more of our
own goodness. And that’s why I said a good
study of anthropology, what the Bible says about man, that we
are dead in our trespasses and transgressions. In fact, the
great sin of history is the sin of Pelagius that says, just like
modern psychology, man is basically good. There’s nothing in us that’s
good. There is no one who does good,
not even one. Once let the eyes of our understanding
be opened by the Spirit and we shall talk no more of our own
goodness. Once let us see that there is in our own hearts and
what the holy law of God requires and self conceit will die.” What
a glorious day that is. This is an unsaved man. I think
I told you about my own conversion. For years, I mean, I basically
had the four spiritual laws figured out and memorized. And then one
day, I probably would have introduced myself as a Christian, although
my life didn’t commend me as such. And then one day, taking
a secular class from the great American speakers of our day,
I came across a little speech by a then-to-me unknown pastor
named Jonathan Edwards called, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry
God. And for the very first time, I knew that I was the sinner
in God’s angry hand. That’s what he’s talking about.
We don’t have anything. We are absolutely in abject spiritual
poverty. We don’t have anything. And if
God doesn’t save us, we die. There’s a second feature of errant
prayer. Not only the attitude of misguided prayer, this pride,
but the illustration of misguided prayer. Two men went up to the
temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax gatherer.
And we know already a lot about both the Pharisees, the religious
elite. Well, I mean, what else do we
expect from them from going to the temple that stood on Mount
Moriah that had long since become this natural and fit place as
a house of prayer? I mean, when it says that the
Pharisee went up to pray, it’s a natural conclusion. It fits. It’s appropriate. But when it says the other, a
tax gatherer went there also, now we have a problem. There’s
going to be a fight. Tax gatherers were the hated
people. They were the servants of the Roman government, often
Jews who were perceived as selling out, who would go around and
collect the taxes of people. And I’ve heard some of you people
on April 15th and the same attitude existed with them. They hated
these people for doing that. They hated them for selling out
and they hated them for taking their money. You talk about taxation
without representation. There it was. They had no vote. They had very few rights. The
emperor wanted more money. He simply sent the tax gatherers
and exacted a greater sum. And it notes in verse eleven,
the Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself. You know, there
are many people who say, you know, what’s wrong with that?
Pharisee went to the temple, that’s what the temple’s for,
and he stood by himself and he was praying. It’s an interesting
word. And it’s a hard it’s a hard word,
but it’s you know what, when it says later, that the tax gather
was standing. It’s a different word. It’s a
different Greek word. And this word could almost be
rendered posing himself. And, you know, standing was the
ordinary attitude or position in prayer. That much is common. There’s no harm there. It was
a very common position for prayer. But when it says that he posed
himself, it’s like he looked and sought out the most conspicuous
place in the temple there was. And then he positioned his feet
and lifted up his hands and began to put on a show for all who
would watch. Jesus had rebuked this habit
before. In Matthew, chapter six, he said, when you pray, you are
not to be like the hypocrites. For they loved to stand and pray
in the synagogues and on street corners, so that they may be
seen.” That’s what they wanted. It wasn’t so much prayer that
they were after. To be seen praying. That’s what they wanted. They
wanted to be seen as righteous men of God. And they weren’t. They just weren’t. praying at
places where they could be seen was one of their most common
hobbies, if you will. But as I said, the word that
is used here is not the one for the tax gather, and it indicates
that he stood by himself almost as it were to avoid that contaminating
contact with the rest of the people. And he posed himself
so as to be seen. And he prayed to himself. I mean, do you not even get the
sense there that he prayed to himself? It’s like he muttered.
He’s going through the motion. And the words really ultimately
are only destined for his own ears. That’s really his intent.
They’re not really for God’s ears. He prayed to himself. You know what he was? He was
the object of his own idolatry. He was an idol worshipper. It
was just that him himself happened to be the object of his worship. His prayer wasn’t a prayer at
all. It wasn’t even a thanksgiving. It was only a boast. One said that he boasted for
in reality, he only with a slight phrase of thanks told God how
good he was. Did you notice that? He praised
rather than prayed, and he praised himself rather than God. He really
neglected to pray at all. As if he had no sin, he asked
no forgiveness. As if he had no defect or weakness,
he asked for no divine aid. And as if he had no needs, he
asked for no favors. There is no prayer, not even
in form. He asked God for nothing. And
this was no prayer. You know where the prayer ended?
Prayer ended at the very first word, God. As soon as God heard God, I,
that’s it. God can turn down the volume
on that prayer. He has that ability. You know what this is? This is
taking the Lord’s name in vain. Everybody thinks that it’s the
swear words and the swear words only. You know what taking the
Lord’s name in vain is? It’s to call out to the Lord
and to say, not really, or not now, or never mind. God, I… And the rest of his
prayer is all about himself. It’s all about himself. Look
at verse 11. The Pharisee student was praying
this to himself. God, I thank you. Sounds good so far. God’s already
tuned him out. God, I thank you that I am not
like other people, swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like
this tax collector. You see, he starts to get into
this attitude of Thanksgiving, but it really isn’t Thanksgiving.
It’s a prelude, really. for his own boasting so he can
go through all of his virtues, because everything that he points
out about the tax gatherer, everything that he points out about other
people, he says isn’t true about himself. Right. I’m not a swindler. Even though these were those
who robbed widows houses, remember. They didn’t even pretend they
what they the worst thing about them was they didn’t pretend
that it was illegal. They pretended that it was of God that they
go and take widows’ houses for the temple tax. They were the original unjust.
They were the original adulterers. They were spiritual adulterers.
Far worse. Matthew 23, you know it well. It is one of Jesus’ most pointed
words to the Pharisees. Listen to this. Woe to you, scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mill and dint and cumin
and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law, justice
and mercy and faithfulness. But these are the things that
you should have done without neglecting the others. How can
they stand there? How can he stand there and claim
that he’s just? How can he claim that he’s not
a swindler? How can he claim that he’s not
an adulterer when spiritually speaking, they were vile in that
regard? Later on in that same chapter,
Matthew 23, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for
you clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside
they are full of robbery and self indulgence. Their view of
themselves as fine, upstanding, just, honest, moral people didn’t
carry any weight with God. God saw them for what they were.
You know, later on, one arrogant rabbi, this was a prayer that
he commended to his students. I thank Thee, O Eternal, my God,
for having given me part with those who attend this school
instead of running through the shops. I rise early like them,
but it is to study the law, not for futile ends. I take trouble
as they do, but I shall be rewarded and they will not. We run alike,
but for the future life, while they only arrive at the pit of
destruction. I mean, what kind of arrogant
attitude was that that was born out of that pharisaical heart?
Another rabbi. Perhaps they should compile these
in little prayers of the rabbi’s commend. Another rabbi said this. He said there were three things
that a man ought to say every day. Thanks be to God that you
have not made me a Gentile, an unlearned man or a woman. I knew
that would wake everybody up. And then he goes on. He’s already
taught, oh, thank you for what I’m not by my own doing. Not thank you for rescuing me
out of these things and thank you for giving me the grace not
to be these things, but thank you for what I’m not because
of my own doing. And then he goes on, thank you
for what I have done. Oh, what a good boy am I. Verse
12, I fast twice a week, I pay tithes of all that I get. You
know what this double or twice a week fasting had no divine
sanction at all, never directed to fast twice a week. The law
appointed only a single day of fasting in the whole year. And
that was the day of atonement. Now, by the time Zachariah came
onto the scene, there were probably about four days of fast, but
only one, only one God told him to do. This twice a week fast was something
the Pharisees did through this kind of ascetic earning of God’s
grace and mercy. They even picked out the days
they picked out Thursday and Monday because they assumed those
to be the days that Moses ascended and descended from Sinai. They
had everything figured out. And then when he begins to boast
about tithing, you have people do this. All that the written law commanded
in the way of tithing was corn, wine, oil and cattle. Oh, but
these guys had taken it to this ridiculous extreme of, remember
when we looked at the passage, counting out little seeds, mint. I mean, stuff that just grows
everywhere like a weed, at least in my yard, an anise. I mean, the stuff is so prolific.
It comes up one year and you say, oh, how neat. The anise
made seeds. And then the next year, anise
is everywhere. Mint and anise and cumin. The tiny little seeds.
And they sat there and counted them out. Oh, this is what I
owe God. As if that was ever commanded them. And note this. Look at this. Look at the way
he says it. I pay tithes of all I get. It was all about getting. and of the supposed giving in
light of what he had gotten. It wasn’t all with which he had
been blessed. That wasn’t his attitude. Oh,
look, all that you’ve given me, Lord, and this is what I give
back. That wasn’t the attitude of his prayer at all. And I suppose if you stand back
and look at his prayer, note what is missing. What’s missing
is any dealing with sin. There’s no sorrow for sin. There’s
no confession of sin. There’s no asking for grace that
he might not go and sin more. There’s no acknowledging of any
guilt. There’s no emptiness. There’s no brokenness. There’s
no plea for mercy. It is all boasting. It is all
self. And there’s a third feature.
Not only the attitude of misguided prayer and the illustration of
misguided prayer, but the contrast of this misguided prayer. Look
at verse 13. But the tax collector standing
some distance away was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven.
You see, for this poor guy, he couldn’t be any further from
this feeling that somehow he deserved to be there. I mean,
haven’t you and I been there? If you know Christ, you have.
Oh, God, what am I doing here? Oh, God, what if somebody sees
me? Look at his attitude. He was
unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven. Haven’t you seen even
the most the vilest criminals? Don’t you love it when they get
arrested and they cart them out of the jail? And what do they
do? They’re burying their head in their coat. They’re ashamed
for their sin and their crime. And that’s where this guy is.
He’s burying his head in his hands. He can’t bear to look
up to a holy God. This is the very scene of Isaiah
standing before the Holy, Holy, Holy. You know what? The Pharisee had put himself,
didn’t he, in a class all by himself. I, I, I. Look what I do. I’m
not like them. And look at all I do and all
I’ve accomplished. Lord, you’ve got it pretty good
to have me on your team. Wouldn’t it be bad if I wasn’t?
That was his attitude. But you know what? This man classes
himself in a class by himself. And I want you to notice this.
tax collectors standing some distance away. He didn’t deserve
to be there. He knew it. He was unwilling to lift up his
eyes to heaven. He didn’t want to look God in
the eye. And he was beating his breast. And I don’t take this
to mean that this is this, you know, there there are religions
who who exercise this is some kind of a tradition where you
strike yourself three times as you pray, as if that’s supposed
to be some sign of penance. Some sign of penitence. You can
even take it to its ridiculous extreme and get yourself whipped
like they do in Islam and beat yourself silly. And it does nothing
for you. But I take this to be sincere. I mean, the man knew that he
had sinned against the holy God. His heart told him so. He wanted
to get rid of the pain. He couldn’t. He was beating his
breast saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And I take
that little definite article to mean that you know what? In
his own heart, he had come to the position where I don’t care
what anybody else is doing. He’s not like the Pharisee comparing
himself to you and you and you and you. I’m just a tick above
those people. This guy looks at everybody else
and says, Lord, I am the sinner. And the thing is, the forgiveness
for him was so elusive. He saw the holy standard, he
saw who he was dealing with. He saw that God was utterly and
completely holy, he knew his sin and people, if you have truly
come to Christ, there is that moment. Whether it’s Jonathan
Edwards preaching or someone where you know in your heart
that you are absolutely hopeless on your own grounds. You have
nothing to bring to Christ, nothing to commend to Him to save you. You are hopeless. And if it weren’t for God and
His mercy, And his glorious son who he sent as a savior. You
are lost and damned forever. You knew that you’ve come to
know that. And if you have it, you’re not
saved. This man came to that point. And it was a real petition, a
real prayer. One person said that a prayer that only contains
thanksgiving and profession and asks nothing is essentially defective. God knows we’re dependent. The
thing is, we’re prone to forget how dependent we are and a prayer
that doesn’t acknowledge our dependence by asking God for
something presumes upon God. We need to ask God daily for
grace. And that’s what the man did.
And it was a personal prayer. You know what? It wasn’t vague.
He didn’t say God bless all the missionaries in the whole wide
world. That’s how we pray, isn’t it? Oh, God, forgive all my sins. Right? Isn’t that how we pray?
Maybe it’s just me. It wasn’t a general prayer. And
it certainly wasn’t a prayer about anybody else’s sins. This
man is dealing with a holy God dealing with him. And it’s a
humble prayer. He knew he was a sinner. And
as a result, it’s a prayer for mercy. And it’s a prayer from
the heart. As opposed to the so-called prayer
of the Pharisee. There’s a fourth point. The fourth
feature of an errant prayer, a misguided prayer. Not only
the attitude, the illustration and the contrast, but finally
and fourthly, the result of misguided prayer. Jesus spells it out. Jesus says, I tell you, this
man, this poor sinner, this tax gatherer who couldn’t even look
God in the eye, that stood in the back of the church, didn’t even want to admit himself.
He went down to his house justified rather than the other. And I
take this to mean the justification about which Scripture speaks,
about which we rediscovered in the days of the Reformation.
Justification by faith. He knew he didn’t have anything.
And that’s the sad fact of so many of our days. They think
they bring even if it’s just a little something. Something. They feel like they’ve been invited
over to some big fancy person’s house for dinner, you know? So
I’ve got to bring a little something. I mean, after all, it’s God. He knew he had nothing. He knew
that nothing he ever did, not all the tithing in the world,
not all the obedience in the world, nothing would commend
him to salvation with a holy God. None of his works. But he went to God. He went to
God and he cried out to God and he cried out to the prayer that
God can’t ignore mercy. Oh, God. Oh God, be merciful
to me, the sinner. And people, if we haven’t come,
if you haven’t come to that point, if you don’t see yourselves as
the sinner, then you haven’t come to Christ. If you haven’t
seen yourself as having absolutely nothing to commend to God and
to stand before Him and to give to Him, then your prayer is a
misguided prayer. It’s an empty prayer. It’s a
pointless prayer. It isn’t even prayer at all. Charles Spurgeon said it this
way, Christian, is your heart haughty? Are you glorifying in
your graces or your abilities? Are you proud of yourself that
you have had holy frames and sweet experiences? Mark it. There is a destruction coming
to you also. You’re flaunting poppies of self-conceit
will be pulled up by the roots. I mean, what graphic words? It
says, don’t hope in yourself. Don’t put your hopes in yourself.
It’s empty and vain and hopeless. Let’s pray. Oh, Lord God, We too don’t deserve to be in
your presence. I pray, I hope that there isn’t
a one of us that thinks that they stand here or sit here this
morning as some kind of a good bargain for God, a good player. Lord God, we were absolutely impoverished.
Your Word says that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. We know in our heart we came
with nothing. We had no inherent goodness to
bring. We had no deeds to commend to
You. No works that would offset some of our sin. Lord, we finally,
by Your grace, by a work of Your Spirit, and that light shined
in our darkened hearts and we knew how utterly hopeless we
were. And it was only by Your grace
and Your mercy that we fell on our knees. It was only by Your
grace and Your mercy that You granted to us repentance. And You gave to us forgiveness.
You extended mercy towards us and not damnation. And You told us to stand. And
told us to stand and walk in newness of life. Oh God, grant
us that grace. For Your glory, in Christ’s name,
Amen.