HOW TO BE HEARD BY GOD

FATHER JIM FOSDICK

ST. MARY OF THE SNOWS ANGLICAN CHURCH

OCT. 28, 2007

Lord of light - shine upon us. God of love fill our hearts with your wisdom. Holy Spirit, bring yourself closer to us in my words and how we hear them, in our thoughts and how we think them. Use this time - and use us to accomplish your good will. Amen.

“I’ve gotta crow! I’m just the cleverest fellow t’was ever my fortune to know.” That’s the beginning of Peter Pan’s instructions to the Lost Boys. The entire song is about how to avoid the responsibilities of mature adulthood. This from the same character who also sings I won’t grow up. Susan and I went to the musical Peter Pan at Northland Pines Friday night and it was a marvelous performance. The, “I’ve gotta crow” lyric stuck with me as I thought about our gospel reading for today. You see what the Pharisee was really doing was crowing. I think he was also saying he was the most religious person twas ever his fortune to know. In telling this parable about two people who prayed, Jesus was teaching a lesson about spiritual maturity. The Christian faith is often a matter of opposites. Whoever would have his life must lose it. Whoever would be exalted must be humbled. It is more difficult for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. The meek shall inherit the earth. In prayer, Jesus says, the more humble we are, the more likely we are to be heard.

There was a very lost, wicked, and rebellious man who decided it would be good for business if he went down to the church and joined it. He was an adulterer, an alcoholic, and had never been a member of a church in his life.

But when he went down to place membership, he gave public testimony to the church that there was no sin in his life, and that he had grown up in the church, and they readily accepted him as a member. When he went home he told his wife what he had done, and his wife, a very godly lady, exploded. She condemned him for being a hypocrite, and demanded that he go back to the church the next week and confess what he really was. Well, God used his wife to really break him, and he took it to heart.

The next Sunday he went back to the church, walked down to the front again, and this time confessed to the church all of his sins. He told them he was dishonest, an alcoholic, an adulterer, and that he was sorry. They revoked his membership on the spot. He walked out of the church that day scratching his head and muttered to himself: "These church folks are really strange. I told a lie and they took me in; and when I told the truth they kicked me out!"

In our gospel today Jesus tells a story of two men in a similar situation who had totally different results. One man tried to talk himself into God’s kingdom, but he didn’t make it. One man tried to talk himself out of God’s kingdom and he did make it. Let’s take a look at the passage in Luke 18. Now Luke makes it plain who Jesus told this parable to. In verse 9, it says, "Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others." Now if you want to know whether or not you are being addressed in this parable, let me ask you some questions:
· Do you ever look at people who don’t go to church, and think you are better than they are because you do go to church? If so, Jesus is talking to you.
· Do you ever look at people in prison, and think you are better than they are because you are not? If so, Jesus is talking to you.
· Do you ever look at people who are divorced, and think that you are better than they are because you are not? If so, then Jesus is talking to you.
· Do you ever look down your nose at anyone for any reason, and think you might be better than them? If so, Jesus is talking to you.
I promise you, every one of us will find ourselves somewhere in this story, because at one time or another, all of us are guilty of thinking too highly of ourselves and of trying to impress God by faking following Jesus.

Today, I want to spend some time on what impresses God and what doesn’t.
            First I want to suggest that you impress God when you don’t try to. In VERSES 10-12, we read, "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men--extortionists, un-just, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’" I know immediately you are ready to jump all over the Pharisee because he was, to say the least, a bit arrogant. Quite frankly, he REALLY was the religious version of an Eagle Scout, an over achiever who worked hard to get where he was. He dotted every religious "i" and he crossed every theological "t." He went strictly by the book. He had a heart for religion; the problem was his religion had no heart. He was standing in the center of the inner court right in the heart of the temple. The reason he stood there was because it was where he could be heard the clearest and seen the best. He let everybody know just how wonderful he was. First of all, we read that he fasted twice a week. Now the Old Testament only required a Jew to fast once a year on the Day of Atonement. But this man fasted 103 times a year more than he was required.
Then we read that he tithed everything that he possessed. Now the Old Testament only required that you tithe your income. But this man tithed everything that he earned and everything that he owned. In other words, he was a double tither. Now there is nothing wrong with fasting more than once a week, and there certainly is nothing wrong with giving more than a tithe. But the problem was, this man thought back then what a lot of people keep thinking today--he thought his goodness gained him brownie points with God. He thought God accepts a person based on what they do for Him, or in other words, he thought he could get to heaven by his good works. He was religious and proud of it.

Susan and I recently had friends from college visit us. We spent Saturday afternoon on the deck talking about faith. Two of them currently claim to be atheist or perhaps agnostic is a better word. They are willing to consider there may be some higher power, but it’s not like the God of the Bible. If I could sum up their view of life it’s that you live and then you die and that’s the end of it. While you live it’s good to be a good person and care about others. The wife of this couple asked me if there was anything wrong with that. I said nothing at all unless of course it’s not the way things really are. It’s fine to believe that this life is all there is unless there really is a heaven and a hell and who you put your trust in determines where you end up.

If you put your trust in anything--church membership, church attendance, baptism, communion, religion, good works—anything at all other than Jesus Christ, to make God accept you, you are fooling yourself. The Pharisee thought that God would be impressed with all that he was doing. So now we learn the first clue on what impresses God. What impresses God is when you don’t try to impress God. I read about a fifth grader that came home very excited from school one day. She had been voted "prettiest girl in the class." The next day she was even more excited when she came home, for the class had voted her "the most likely to succeed." The next day she came home and told her mother she had won a third contest, being voted "the most popular." But the next day she came home extremely upset. The mother said, "What happened, did you lose this time?" She said, "Oh no, I won the vote again." The mother said, "What were you voted this time?" She said, "most stuck up."

Well this Pharisee would have won that contest hands down. He had an "I" problem. Five times we read the little pronoun "I" in these two verses. He was stoned on the drug of self. He suffered from two problems: inflation and deflation. He had an inflated view of who he was, and a deflated view of who God was. As a revival preacher once said, “He couldn’t see the truth because his “I’s” were too close together.” His pride had made him too big for his spiritual britches.

C. S. Lewis once said, "A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and of course, as long as you are looking down, you can’t see something that’s above you." This Pharisee had fooled himself about himself. He says, "God, I thank You that I am not like other men." But he was like other men, because "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." There was a man on trial charged with burglary. As he was standing there, the judge said, "Sir, you can let me try your case, or you can choose to have a jury of your peers." The man thought for a moment, and said, "Your honor, what are peers?" The judge said, "Well, they are people just like you." The defendant said, "Forget it, I don’t want no thieves trying me!"

VERSE 11 says, he "stood and prayed thus with himself." The original Greek manuscript actually says, "he stood and prayed to himself." The sense of it is not he prayed silently but rather that he prayed to his own being. When you approach God with pride, you wind up talking to yourself. Someone said, "The only person God sends away empty is the person full of himself." Prideful prayer is nothing more than an echo in your own ears.

Another lesson I think we can learn from today’s gospel is that humility impresses God. Real humility… not the OH please it was nothing all the same time asking for applause type of humility. The contrast Jesus gives would have been easily recognized to those hearing this parable. A tax collector was as different from a Pharisee as the Pope is from a Postal Worker. Tax collectors were the scum of Jewish society. They were the IRS of the Roman government but they were crooks. They charged exorbitant rates, they skimmed extra money off the top, they would steal candy from a baby, and a Social Security check from their own mother. They were considered traitors to the nation of Israel. Just look at Zacchaeus, who we read about in Luke 19. He had become rich as the chief tax collector. When Jesus went to Zaccheus’ house people grumbled that he had gone to the house of a notorious sinner. Tax collectors were so despised they could not hold public office or even give testimony in Jewish court because their word was considered worthless. The tax collector was to the Pharisee what an outlaw is to the sheriff. This man no doubt was a liar and a cheat.

But now the story takes a strange twist. The Pharisee tried to impress God, but wasn’t able to. The tax collector was not trying to impress at all, he was just being humble of heart, and that impressed God immensely. Humility impresses God. This tax collector was as humble as the Pharisee was proud. You could see it in his feet. VERSE 13 tells us, "And the tax collector, standing afar off,"

The Pharisee went to the center of the court and stood in the sunshine where he would be noticed by the most people; the tax collector stood on the outer edges of the court of the Gentiles in the shadows, not caring to let people see him pray. Maybe that’s why none of you sit in the front pews. In any event the tax collector  just wanted to have a dialogue with the Lord God. You could see his humility in his eyes. The passage goes on to say that he "would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven." The Pharisee was too proud to look up; the tax collector was too ashamed to look up.

You could hear the sincerity in his voice. For he says, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" This sounds very much like the Jesus Prayer… “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God have mercy on me a sinner.” Well, God heard his prayer, for in VERSE 14, Jesus said, "I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other." Do we all understand the concept of justified? It means made just in the eyes of God. The phrase I like to remember this is Just as if I’d, never sinned. The highway to heaven is paved with humility. Now on the outside you would have thought the Pharisee was much closer to God, but on the inside it was the tax collector who was close to God.

We find out why in the following verse. PSALM 34:18 says,
"The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit." What impressed God so much was this man was simply willing to humble himself before God.
It hit me as I was thinking about this, that there is only one thing worse than being a sinner. The only thing worse than being a sinner is not admitting that you are one!

Let’s see if I can sum up what we’ve been talking about this morning. In VERSE 14, listen to what Jesus said about the man who impressed God. "I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be abased, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
The Lord Jesus draws a conclusion from this story that shocked his listeners. Remember the Pharisees wore the white hats, the tax collectors wore the black hats. If you had taken a vote in that crowd as to which man God accepted, and which man was safely in his kingdom, the Pharisee would have won by a unanimous landslide. But there’s only one vote that counts, and that is God’s vote. The first thing we should all learn from this is that it isn’t important how we see ourselves, but only how God sees us. A corollary to this is that it isn’t important how others see us, it’s important how God sees us. If you feel you aren’t measuring up to your friends or the world’s expectations, the first thing you should ask yourself is, “How am I measuring up to God’s expectations?” If you can stand before God and say, “I believe in your Son and I am seeking every day to follow Him.” then you can have confidence or blessed assurance that you are measuring up in His eyes. Remember that your friends don’t get a vote on your entrance to heaven. Jesus’ vote is the only one that matters.

The second thing we need to learn is that mercy is something we cannot earn or pay for. It is given freely by God, but only to those who have admitted that they need His mercy. Many years ago a man conned his way into the orchestra of the Emperor of China, although he could not sing or play an instrument. Whenever the group practiced or performed, he would hold his flute against his lips, pretending to play, but not making a sound. For years he received a good salary and enjoyed a comfortable living. Then one day the Emperor requested a solo from each musician. Well, the flutist got very nervous. There wasn’t enough time to learn the instrument. He pretended to be sick, but the royal physician wasn’t fooled. On the day of his solo performance, the imposter took poison and killed himself. That is where we get the old expression; "He refused to face the music."

The way to impress God is simply face the music. You can face the music now and be a part of the heavenly choir, or you can face the music later and be a part of the satanic screechers.
When you finally realize that you have absolutely nothing in your life aside from Christ, you have finally impressed God.

Do you really understand that you are a sinner? Do you recognize that apart from Jesus you can do nothing? If you do, then you have the prerequisites for salvation but not salvation itself. Someone once said that believing in Jesus only qualifies you to be a demon because even the demons believe Jesus is the Son of God, they just don’t follow him. Paul makes the connection between recognizing we are sinners and what we must do about it in Romans chapter 7, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.!” Later in Chapter 10 Paul says explicitly how we are to be delivered through Jesus Christ. “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart (that is the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved.” You will be saved. Not may be saved. Not some will be saved. YOU … WILL be saved. It’s you we’re talking about and it’s your eternal life that is at stake.

Paul goes on to explain how this works. “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” It’s not enough to believe. It’s not enough to go to church every Sunday. Each of us has to confess with our mouth to be saved. Notice too that it is not enough just to confess with your mouth, you have to believe in your heart. Maybe you’re like the Pharisee. Maybe you think because you observe the practices of the church you are not a sinner. Maybe you believe that church attendance will save you. It won’t. Both Mark and Luke report what Jesus said to the rich young man who asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus bottom line was, “Follow me.”