Luke, The Orderly Account of Truth - Humility Doesn't Have an Expiration Date - Luke 18:9-14

Grab your bibles and start training to Luke. Chapter eighteen.

That's what we're going to be. If you don't have

a bible, please grab on from our resource table in

the lobby. We'd love for you to keep that Bible

because we want you to have God's Word. We're going

to be in chapter eighteen, verses nine through fourteen.

Today. We only had eight verses last week. This week

we got six. That's it. We're going less versus.

But those six verses have a very very important reminder

for us as believers, and we have a lot to

say about them, really, but it's not just I don't

want to only say that.

This is what I want to say.

If you're in here and you're not a believer today,

my hope and my prayer and my just whatever I

want for it to happen today is for you to

be revealed who Jesus is and for you to put

faith in him. That's my hope and goal anytime we

open up God's Word is for those who don't yet

believe that they would believe. But today, as we're going

through this process, going through God's Word for us today,

there's a really important reminder for us as believe.

And.

I think that's all I want to say about that.

You guys ready, verse nine, you guys all turn there. Okay,

we're gonna read it, and they're gonna pay together. Starting in

verse nine, he also told this parable to some who

trusted in themselves that they were righteous.

And treated others with contempt.

Two men went up into the temple to pray, one

a pharisee, and the other 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. Fast twice a week, I give

tithes of all that I get. But the tax collector,

standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes

to Heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful

to me, a sinner. I tell you this man went

down to his house justified rather than the other.

For everyone who exalts himself.

Will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will

be exalted. Let's pray, God, we thank you for this

moment to open your word.

God.

We pray that we have ears to hear the message

that you would have for us today, God, that we

would take it to heart and we would put it

into practice in our lives. That we wouldn't hesitate to

trust you and what you've told us to do, or

hesitate to trust you and who you say that you are,

but we will believe you, and that belief would lead

us to action, the actions of obedience to what you've

called us to do and who you've called us to

be as your people. So God, let us hear this

word today and receive it with joy and gladness, and

we thank you again for this moment. Jesus name, everybody

said a men, all right. We've been in a series

called Luke The Orderly Account of Truth, and Luke is teaching,

walking through and teaching us all about what Jesus did

and taught throughout his ministry, because he did and taught

a lot while he was walking through and doing his

ministry on earth.

It's the gospel or.

The good news of Jesus that God sent his son

born of a virgin Mary, to live the perfect sinless life,

to die on the cross, paying the penalty owed for sin,

and all who look to Jesus and believe are forgiven

of their sins past present and future, and we get

to look forward to eternal life face to face with Jesus.

That's some pretty good news, right, amen.

That's amazing news that every wrong thing we've ever done

in our life is forgiven and forgotten. As far as

the Bible says, as far as the east is from

the west, it's very far apart, because.

They can never get any closer together.

As far as the east is from the west, that's

how far apart our sin is from us. Once we've

received forgiveness, that's an amazing good news for us as sinners.

And you guys remember last week's message. One more drip

on the rock. That wasn't the name of it, but

we should have named it that. One more drip on

the rock. That water as it drips consistently and persistently

on a rock over time, over those days, months and years,

and decades, we'll drill a hole right through the rock.

And I summarize it like this big change happens through

the persistent, simple and mundane things we do.

The big change happens through.

The persistent, simple and mundane things that we do, things

like reading our Bibles, things like prayer. When we pray

every step of obedience we take in the Lord or

to what he's called us to do and who he's

called us to be.

That's one more drip on the rock.

And last week we learned that we should be like

that persistent widow who was crying out to this unrighteous

judge for justice over and over and over again. She

was persistent in her request, but she was also persistent

in her belief that she would get what she was requesting.

And we should be just like that.

With God, we should have persistence, persistent prayers, and we

should have persistent faith. But as Jesus often does, and

we see this every time you read through scripture, he

tells when he tells us to do something, fallows it

up and gives us some helpful guardrails so that we

don't go too far or take it too far, because

oftentimes we're eager little beavers and we get told to

do something and we just.

Run off and go and go do it right.

It's like Peter when Jesus said he's washing the disciples

feet and he comes to Peter and Peter's like, don't

wash my feet, Lord, you can't wash my feet, And

Jesus like, I need to wash your feet. He's like, okay,

then wash my whole body. And he's like, calm down, Peter,

like I'm just gonna wash your feet. Right, that's how

we get a little bit, and that's how we get

sometimes when we hear what we're supposed to do from

the Lord. We hear something like ask God for what

you need and believe without a shadow of a doubt

that you'll get it. And what do we do next?

Thing we know is we're barging into the throne room

demanding stuff from God. We're just taking a little too far.

So it's awesome that Jesus would give us these reminders

to make sure we don't take these things too far.

So Jesus is gonna shift gears a little bit and

he's gonna tell another parable in our text today, and

it's all about humility. I don't know if you caught

that when we read through it. The whole parable is

about humility, humbling ourselves. It ends with for everyone who

exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles

himself will be exalted. Right, you guys saw that. So

we're going to see two people contrasted here in the

in the parable there's the first person is this quote

unquote righteous person, and the other person is a sinner.

One of these people exalts himself and the other person

humbles himself. And the main point being here that it

is the one who humbles himself before the Lord that

the Lord will exalt.

It's not the other way around.

It's one who humbles himself before the Lord that the

Lord will exalt. So the natural thing for us to do,

as believers would be to always remain humble, right, to

always remain humble, never stop being humble before the Lord

and before others who hears a heard of carnation instant breakfasts.

And this is not a plug for carnation inst and breakfast,

but some of you have For those who don't know

what it is, it's just powder. You get a glass

of water or milk, you dump a powder in there,

you stir it up real nice and look at that.

Instantly you have breakfast. You can drink it on your

way to work if you wanted. They have, you know, vanilla, chocolate, strawberry,

kind of like everything.

Those are the three biggest flavors.

But it's kind of think about it like a protein shake,

right as we do now we have protein powders. Or

if you remember slim Fast back in the day, yeah,

some of us. You remember slim Fast back in the day,

kind of that same thing. It's like slim Fast. But

many many moons ago, I was working at a job

and I am always late.

That's just how I am.

And so I was like, oh, I got to find

a way to speed up this morning process or my routine,

just to get out the door faster. So I decided, Oh,

these Carnations instant breakfasts are like the perfect thing to

do right.

So it's easy.

I can be getting ready, can run in there, I

can mix it up real quick, drink a little bit,

and go take care of whatever whatever else, get out

the door.

It's awesome. It's perfect. So the same.

Breakfast every single day. So Carnations into breakfast Vanilla was

my flavor of choice.

It's great.

So one day, running late, just like normal, run out there,

pour my glass of milks.

I do it with milk and then I pour the

powder in there. Stir it up. Great.

I take it, take a drink like I usually like,

drink like half of it in one drink, So like

chuck chug chug, chug, chug, drink it, put it down,

go back to start doing what I'm doing. And I

was like, something tastes funny. That doesn't taste right. So

I go back and I grab it and I smell

it and it straight up sour milk, and I was like,

oh my gosh. So I put it down. I grab

the container of milk and I start pouring it in

the sink. Yeah yeah, and there's some chunky stuff coming out.

I've never been more grossed out in my life. I

like got the sink on the faucet and I sticking

my tongue under there and I'm like trying to wipe

it off. It's like, I can't believe I did. That

is the sick, grossest thing in my life.

I look at the.

Milk carton and it's the expiration date on it said

it was a week past disgusting. I drank sour milk

and the whole thing is that just tastes it off,

and then you smelled it.

And I've never been more grossed out in my life.

That day.

I stopped drinking milk for years, and I am now

lactose intolerant.

It's really sad about because I loved milk before.

But milk has an expiration date for a reason, right

to tell us when to stop drinking the milk. It

has an expiration date, to tell us this is not

good for you to drink anymore. But do you know

what doesn't have an expiration date other than twinkies?

Humility? Humility.

I tell this whole story about me drinking sour milk

to tell you that our humility does not have an

expiration date. So today's message is titled humility doesn't have

an expiration date.

It doesn't.

We should never stop taking a posture of humility, taking

a posture of humility when we interact with the Lord

and when we interact with others in the world around us,

we should always be humble. That's what believers are called

to do, and who believers are called to be is

to be humble. Because those who humble themselves or excuse me,

those who exalt themselves, they will be humbled, But those

who humble themselves.

Will be exalted.

And in our text today we get another commentary note

from Luke in verse nine says he also told this

parable he being Jesus to some who trusted in themselves

that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. So

Luke starts this whole parable off. His commentary note is

he's setting up Jesus parable by telling us who's Jesus

actually talking to right now, because it's very important when

you're reading through any of scripture to know who's the audience,

who's the author, who's the audience. And it's a little

tricky in a narrative setting because you have someone telling

a story about something that someone said to another group

of people. Luke is telling us what Jesus said to

a specific group of people, and he starts out by

telling us who Jesus is talking to and sees people

who think they're righteous, which implies what that they are

in fact not righteous. Right, they're people who think they

are righteous, but they are in fact not righteous. But

not only that, they are looking down on others as

though they were superior to them. They're unrighteous people who

look down on others. That's who Jesus is telling us

parable to. And I'll give you one guess to who

these people are. It's kind of in the text, so

it's kind of the answers there if you just read.

But who was following Jesus around constantly thinking they were righteous,

looking down on others by and tying heavy burdens on them,

exalting themselves among people, taking the seats of honor among

men who were they It was the Pharisees, the religious elites,

the Pharisees, who are constantly being rebuked by Jesus for

their sin all over scripture. And I think that's what

makes this parable and so many others very funny to me,

because it's like Jesus walking up to you saying, listen,

I'm gonna tell you a parable and it's about you.

That's what he did to people.

He literally would do that. And God did the same

thing to David through the prophet Nathan. If you guys

remember in Second Samuel, chapters eleven and twelve. That's after

the whole Bathsheba thing. If you don't know what the

story is about, read it all because you will learn

a lot. But after this whole Bathsheba thing, the Prophet

Nathan comes to David and he tells him a story.

There's a story about a rich man who comes into town.

He's very selfish and he stole a poor man's lamb.

And he says this lamb is the It's the only

lamb that he had. And he loved this thing. He'd

considered it a daughter. That's how much this poor man

loved this little lamb. And David is big mad, like

he's mad. He's like, who is this man David wants?

He says, the man who did it deserves to die.

That's what David says. And you know what Nathan said

back to him, You're the man. You are the man

like you are the man in the story. Nathan is

confront unting David's sin, and he's telling him a story

that's about him.

It's the same thing Jesus is doing here to the Pharisees,

stories about you, bro, Like, listen up.

So Jesus is telling his story about the Pharisees to

the Pharisees, and he starts this parable by introducing two characters.

In verse ten, two men went up into the temple

to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collectors.

This is what the Jews did.

They would go to the temple to pray. And thank

God that we can pray anytime anywhere. I think that's

pretty awesome. You're sitting down to eat you can pray

you're going for a walk in the park. You can

pray you're laying down in your bed comfortably and lazily.

You can pray. We can pray.

Anywhere anytime that we want. But I do think that

when we pray, we should treat it with the same

amount of reverence as if we were in the temple.

And I remember reading this book by Calvin. I can't

remember full title, but it's about prayer, and it's written

in his language, obviously in the time where he wrote,

and it was super hard to understand, so they had

a whole index in the back. But reading this book,

there was one thing that stood out to me so clear,

and it was a challenge. He said, how dare we

get distracted when we're talking to the creator of the universe?

And I was like, oh, I.

Think we need to elevate our view of prayer with

the Lord and we spend time with him, even though

we can pray anytime anywhere, that we should still elevate

the importance of our prayer and elevate our reverence that

we have when we're speaking to the creator of the universe.

But back in our text, who were these two characters

and it matters that we know who they are because

of the point that Jesus is making. You got to

remember who these Pharisees are. They're the religious elite. They're

the ones who knew God's law.

They knew it.

They were the experts. They knew God's law and the

prophets the best. They're the ones that everyone would say,

if I'm a follower of God, then I need to

strive to be like these guys. That's who the Pharisees were.

They were the ones that they were suppre supposed to

lead and shepherd God's people.

That's who the Pharisees are.

And tax collectors, man, if you wanted to be hated,

become a tax collector. They were hated and considered the

worst of the worst sinners. They were Jewish people who

collected taxes on behalf of the government. But they were

told by the government that any excess that you collect

above what's required, you can keep, so they would just

up the price and get rich off of forceful removal

of taxes from their own people. That's why people hated them,

specifically the Jews. They hated them and consider them the

worst of all sinners. So when you read through the

Bible and it says he eat Jesus, he eats with

tax collectors and sinners, and those two phrases are together.

They really hated tax collectors.

So these are two characters you guys tracking so far,

these pharisees and tax collectors. But now we get to

look at how this pharisee praise And I just want

to say that what you believe will come out in

your prayers. What you believe will come out in your prayers.

Look at verse eleven. 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.

The Pharisee is anything but humble. He's anything but humble.

He thinks very highly of himself, so much that he'll

stand off by himself. He'll separate himself from everybody else,

all the lesser people when he prays, and he thanks

God that he isn't like any of them. Thank God

that I'm not like any of them, especially not like

this tax collector.

So I imagine the Bible.

That he's so disgusted at how everyone else is, but

how awesome he is. He says, I don't do the

things that these sinners do. No, I do the good thing.

I fast twice a week. I tithe on everything. And

so because we brought up in the text fasting and tithing,

I think we should do a super fast recap on

what those two are. This is gonna be our little

rabbit trail for the day. So hang on, buckle up,

we'll be back. Fasting is refraining from eating food for

a spiritual purpose or a spiritual reason. And I like

to say it's starving the flesh to strengthen the spirit.

That's how I like to put it.

And you see people all throughout Scripture fasting for all

kinds of different reasons, a bunch of them being repentance,

when asking for guidance, when praying to God for something,

and believing for him. Believing for him to do something

also is like a supplement in a way to worship

Him through fasting. Man shall not live on bread alone,

but on the word of God. Right, So fasting as

a way to remind ourselves of that fact that we

don't live on just bread alone. We need God's word

to survive and fasting is a great thing I think

for us to do now as we follow the Lord.

As you feel convicted, do it and then revisit the

verses about fasting, so you do it in the right way. Right,

we don't have time to talk about all that extra stuff.

But if you want to talk about it aftervice, I've

total him down to talk about it. So that's fasting.

But what about tithing? What is tithing? And the word tithe,

it just means a tenth. It means ten percent, and

the Jews were required to give a tithe within God's law.

But there were three different tithes.

So a lot of people will say, like, hey, I

ties with the church and they give ten percent, and.

Like do you give all the tithe? Because there was

three of them.

The first one is the most common one that people

would refer to as the temple tax. It's the tithe

to meet the needs of the temple and the priests.

So that's one tithe. The second tithe was the festival tithe.

They had tons of festivals and celebrations, and so this

was the tithe of the ten percent to pay for

those celebrations as they would travel to Jerusalem every year,

so this would happen every year. And then the third

tithe was a tithe for the poor, and that would

happened every three years where they would gather another tenth

of what they had and they would leave it in

the city for the poor, the orphans, the widows, or

even traveling strangers going through their towns. So it was

to help provide for the local needs in their community.

But this was all a requirement for the Jews under

the Old Covenant. Now for us New Covenant Christians, what

does that mean for us? Well, there's no specific amount

that's required for us as we give. What we say

is it's all gods anyway, and he has called believers

followers of Him to be generous with everything that we have,

and we're called to meet needs whenever we see Him

wherever we see them. So that's the call for the

New Testament believer. But if you want some more specific information,

we did a study on it and we have that available.

Just let any of the pastors know when we can

give you the study. It's only two pages front and back,

so it's not super long. But also Pastor Duncan preached

a great message on it about a year ago and

it was called Christians the Cheerful Givers.

That's on our YouTube channel.

So if you want more information about New Testament giving

and how all that works together, you can check that out. Okay,

rabbit trail over, guys, ready to come back?

All right?

This Pharisee stands alone and he thanks God that he

isn't like the other sinners.

Thank you God, I'm not like those people.

He doesn't do the bad stuff, he does the good stuff,

Like how awesome I am. He's elevating himself above others

because of the works that he does. He's looking at

what he does and saying I'm better than others because

of that.

But it's not just that.

He's also saying I'm righteous because of the good things

that I do. And this actually isn't a foreign idea

for us today. I was actually talking to Lank earlier

this week about it, and he brought up a great

point and I was like, I need to put that

in my notes for Sunday. This isn't a foreign thought.

This is actually something that's an idea that is permeated

into the Church of the America, in church all over

the place that if I just do these certain things.

I'm good with God, and I'll get into heaven. As

long as I give, as long as I serve, as

long as I'm nice to people, then I'm gonna go

to heaven. But those things don't make you righteous.

They don't.

So what we need to do is we need to

fight against that lie that has permeated the church today

and bring truth to it. And we're gonna talk a

little bit more about that in a minute. But the

big thing I want to point out though, is like

this is sneaky. It's something that could even get into

us where I love Jesus and I know that there's

only one way that I'm right, and it's through belief

in Jesus, But that sneaky little things like but what

if I what if I did a little more for him,

what he loved me a little more? What do he

accept me a little more? What if I stop doing it?

Does that mean doesn't accept me? So we got to

fight against that bad theology. Basically, just read our Bibles

and see what God trans says, and we're gonna talk

about it more in depth in a minute. But this

tax collector, this sinner that we see in our text. Today,

he's the complete opposite of the Pharisee. He's not elevating

himself right, look at verse thirteen. But the tax collector

standing far off, he wouldn't even lift up his eyes

to heaven, but he beat his breast saying, God, be

merciful to me, a sinner. So he's standing alone, just

like the Pharisee was, but for a completely different reason.

He won't even look up to Heaven when he prays,

but he looks down. He beats his chest in despair. God,

be merciful to me, a sinner. We've all been there, right,

Be merciful to me, a sinner. We've all felt like this,

beating our chests in despair. And if you haven't, and

I guess it's.

Parables for you. So listen, this is good.

But this is how a lot of us are when

we're made aware of our own sin. There's a point

in our life. We might have been just walking through

life being none the wiser to what our sin is

and what kind of condition that leaves us in. But

as soon as we are made aware of our sin,

then we start to feel this desperation. We're cut to

the heart, We're devastated at our own sin. I mean,

this is how a lot of us were when we

first met Jesus. This is why we cried out to

him in the beginning, right when we first put faith

in Jesus. And this is the level of humility that

we showed, and we first cried out to him for

him to save us from our own sin, something we

could never do on our own. And if we struggle,

if you've either never felt that kind of cut to

the heart over your own sin, or if there's moments

where we struggle to remember that, what I like to

do is I like to go back and contemplate the

cost of sin. If we don't remember how much sin weighs.

I think I preached the message on this a long

time ago, but it was like the true weight of sin,

Like what is it actually whigh? I like to go

back and look at the cost if I forget how

much sin weighs, because we read that verse and say

the wagelessin is death and we kind of just move

right on. But if we stop and think about what

it actually cost. The cost of our sin was the

life of the Son of God. He was every single

slanderous word that was thrown at him. It was every

lashing that he received with a rod, a whip, or

a cat of nine tails. It was every thorn from

the crown that was pressed into his head as the

blood started to pour down. It was every insult that

he was as he was stripped naked in front of

everybody and tried to make feel made him feel embarrassed.

It was every step as he tried to carry the

cross up the hill. It was every strike of the

hammer on the nail as they pierced his hands and feet.

Who was every moment of pain as he lifted himself

by the nails just to get one more breath. That's

what our sin costs. That's the true cost of sin.

And to take it just one step further, that's what

we deserve because of our sin.

We deserve that. But Jesus, who did.

No wrong thing ever did There was no deceit found

in his mouth. He didn't even lie. We've all told

uncountable amount of lies. He never even said anything bad

or wrong or deceitful.

He was perfect.

He didn't deserve any of it, but he chose to

endure it, endure it all so that we didn't have

to every single one of us should have felt the

full wrath of God because of our sin.

But Jesus stood our place.

And if you believe in Jesus and you call him Lord,

then all his righteousness is given to us. All of

his righteousness has given to us. And he took the

full punishment for your sin on himself when he died

on the cross.

Amen. And if that.

Doesn't slap the arrogance and self exaltation out of you,

I have no clue what will.

That has got to humble you.

God doesn't have to show mercy to any of us,

yet he still chose to when we didn't deserve it.

That should bring us to our knees. That should humble

us before him. Who am I? I'm nothing but a vapor.

We're here today, gone tomorrow, just a puff of air.

Who is man that you who are mindful of them?

God is so gracious and so merciful. And that's why

this tax collector stands far off, looking down, beating his

chest and desperation. God be merciful to me, a sinner.

And this is the posture of humility that God looks

on with favor. He looks on this with favor, Look

at verse fourteen. 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. The tax collector, this tax collector, sinner,

is the one who God justified.

Wasn't the pharisee.

Wasn't the pharisee with his rap sheet of good deeds,

he's all that he's done. That's not who God justified.

And justified means to be declared righteous, and in this

exact context, in the side of God, to be declared

righteous in the side of God.

It's not by our works that we're declared righteous. It's not.

It's not by the things we do that we are

declared righteous or in right standing with God. Like there's

no more issue or debt owed between us and God.

Look at Ephesians chapter two.

We should have this one on the screen, for by

grace you have been saved through faith, and this is

not your own doing. It is the gift of God,

not a result of what say it loud, not a

result of works, so that no one may boast. By

grace through faith, By grace, through faith, we are saved

through faith in Jesus. And the way that we get

this faith is through the grace of God.

He gives it to us.

That's how we get the faith in Jesus. God gives

us the faith. Nowhere in that equation is works nowhere.

And we know that our works comes after salvation. It

shows us and proves to us that we are saved.

We don't work enough that God owes us salvation. There's

no way, there's no amount of good works that gets

us a ticket into Heaven. It's by grace alone, through

faith alone, and Christ alone. That's how we're justified. That's

how we're declared righteous. We humble ourselves before the Lord.

We humble ourselves before the Lord, reach the point where

we stop trying to be our own savior.

There's nothing we could do. You can't do it.

But what we do is we submit to King Jesus,

who is the only one who can save us.

Amen. And Jesus is our model.

He demonstrates the most humility of anyone ever, anyone ever straight,

and more humility than Jesus. He is God, and he

came to earth as a baby. We got lots of

babies in our church. Right now, you hear Patricia's baby

crying right now, totally just She's like, please, don't point

it out. It's adorable. We love babies.

Babies are helpless, they can.

Do nothing on their own. They need us to survive.

Jesus went from being God to coming to earth as

a baby. No one's humbled themselves more than Jesus gone

from the highest high point to the lowest low point.

Look at Philippians chapter two, verse five through eleven. Have

this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ. Jesus,

who though he was in the form of God, did

not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant.

Being born in the.

Likeness of men and being found in human form. He

humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,

even death on the cross, which is the worst way

to die verse nine. Therefore God has highly exalted him

and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,

so that at the name of Jesus, every niece should

bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to

the glory of God, the Father Jesus went from the

highest high point to the lowest low point.

No one can show that level of humility.

And that is the model we're given in the model

that we're told to imitate. We're told to imitate Christ,

and this is the humility he shows. God will humble

the proud, he will humble the self exalted, but he

exalts the humble. So what does all this mean for

us today twenty five? If God humbles the proud but

exalts the humble, what are we supposed to do?

Should be humble?

I don't think this text is like terribly hard to understand.

He just kind of keeps saying the same thing, and

it gives an example saying the exact same thing, Like what.

Should we do in response to this? We should be humble.

We should literally humble ourselves. Don't be like the Pharisee.

The story is very clear. The Pharisees the bad guy.

He's the one that's wrong. Right. In most stories and

movies we watch, we're like, who's the bad guy? Who's

the good guy? The Pharisees are not the good guys

in the story. We should not be imitating the pharisees.

We need to imitate the tax collector. Look at the

tax collector. That's the one who got exalted. Stay humble

before God, and stay humble before others. That's what we

should be doing. Don't put yourself on a pedestal and

look down on others. Instead, beat our chest in despair

and cry out to God for mercy.

And then it's the peace that I want to add.

Stay that way, Stay that way, continue to be humble,

don't change because humility doesn't have an expiration date.

It doesn't.

There isn't a single point where we should stop being humble.

So I want to talk about those two things for

just a quick moment. Humbling ourselves before others and humbling

ourselves before God. So the first one, everyone say humble

or excuse me, Stay, stay humble before others. Paul says

in Romans three, for by the grace given to me,

I say to every one among you not to think

of himself more highly than he ought to think, but

to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure

of faith that God is assigned. In other words, don't

get too big for your briches. So I was told

growing up has anybody.

Else told that few.

Yeah, don't get too big for your britches. Don't think

too highly of yourself. And then, from a couple verses

earlier than the text we just read, in Philippians, chapter two,

verse three says, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit,

but in humility, count others more significant than yourself. That's

exactly opposite of what the pharisee was doing, isn't it.

He thought of himself as higher or better than others.

He was elevating himself and looking down on others. He

would put himself first. But that's not what we're supposed

to do. That's not what we're called to do. And

it's repeated, it's on repeat all throughout scripture. We put

others first. That's what the followers of Jesus do. We

put others first. It ain't about you, it ain't about me.

We should remain humble before others. And I love this

from Mark ten forty five. For even the son of

Man came not to be served, but to serve, and

to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus

came not to be served. He came to serve. So

we should humble ourselves and do the exact same thing,

stay humble before others. That's the first one and the

second one, like our text shows us today, say stay

humble before God, Stay humble before God. Why does God

look at the tax collector and justify him? Gives us

the answer, It's because he humbled himself before God. His

heart was broken over his sin, and he cried out

to God for mercy. And listen to what David said

after he was confronted by his own sin. And this

so the whole Nathan prophet Nathan calling out David, saying

you are the man. This is what David said in

response to that. And it's a Psalm fifty one for

you will not delight and sacrifice. You should read all

of Psalm fifty one. It's beautiful, but just these two

verses here, for you will not delight and sacrifice, or

I would give it. You will not be pleased with

a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,

a broken and contrite heart. Oh God, you will not despise.

It's a broken heart full of remorse over our sin.

That's what that is. That's what God looks on with favor.

That's what he will not despise. It's godly sorrow from

conviction that leads to repentance that leads to salvation. There

are two types of sorrow. There's worldly sorrow and godly sorrow.

Godly sorrow leads to repentance, which leads to salvation. Worldly

sorroworrow leads to death. I just feel bad about what

happened for whatever reason. But it's when I feel bad

because I know I did something that is against what

God wanted me to do as his child, that sorrow

leads me to repent and say, God, I'm crying out

to you, have mercy on me a sinner. That's the

godly sorrow and the broken spirit, the contrite heart that

God looks upon with favor. And if Jesus said, it's

not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.

Do I know that I'm sick? Do I know that

there's a problem. Do I know that I'm in need

of saving?

Every single person.

Who has ever put faith in Jesus has come to

that conclusion. I am sick, there is a problem, and

I need Jesus to save me. Every single person who's

ever come to Jesus knows there's something broken within me

and only he can fix it. Only Jesus can fix

this brokenness. But here's where I want to bring our

biggest challenge, and I want to do it through the

form of a question. If I can have the band

come up, please, our challenge for today with a question

is where have I become like the Pharisee and stopped

humbling myself before the Lord? Where have I become like

the Pharisee and stopped humbling myself before the Lord? And

if you are taking notes, write that down because you

should spend some time answering that question at home, because

I'm not going to give you a lot of time

to answer it right now. But wrestle with that question.

Where have I started to think I don't need God's

help anymore?

I don't need his help?

And it may not be I put a little like

side comment in my notes here. It may not just

be a conscious thought that you have. You might think

in your head like, oh, I totally need God's help,

But you look at your actions and they are communicating

something completely different. The way I walk through my life.

Are my actions communicating I don't need God's help?

When you come across a hard time.

Do you say, like I don't need to pray. Maybe

you don't even think that, Maybe you just don't pray.

Why don't you pray? Your actions are saying something, I

don't turn to the Lord for these things. Where have

I started to think I don't need God's help anymore?

It took us humbling ourself to come to the Lord

for help when we first when he first saved us.

So where have we said, I just put it this way,

don't worry God, I'll take it from here.

You take a break.

We need to remain in the same kind of humility

and dependence on God that we had when we first

turned to Him for salvation. Talk. Can you believers who said,

I know I was broken totally turned to Jesus and

said save me because I can't do it, and you

believe in Jesus wholeheartedly, where have you strayed from that

same kind of humility and dependence today? So the same

God who saved us as the same God who works

out our sanctification. Sanctification is like being made perfected, being

set apart.

It's the same God.

Who's working in you to will and to work for

his good pleasure. It's God working in you. He's doing it.

It's the power of God, the Holy Spirit that's transforming

you from one degree of glory into the next, more

into the image of who.

Jesus.

If there was nothing we could do in our own

power to save ourselves, then what makes you think you

have the power to change yourself.

Into the image of Jesus?

How are you gonna do that without God? I say

it this way. You don't only need an airplane to

get up into the air. You don't only need the

airplane for takeoff. You kind of need the airplane to

stay in the air and get to your destination safely, don't.

You It's the same thing.

Have we become like the Pharisees and started trusting in

ourselves for our own sanctification?

In your fight against sin? I can do it.

In your fight for holiness? How need you God take

a break in your fight for obedience to doing what

God called you to do?

Don't worry? I got this.

Have we forgotten to rely and be dependent upon God

for all of that? Have you started relying on your

own strength and trying to white knuckle your way through?

We sing a song that says and I've worked my

face years down to the bone, but nothing I did

could ever atone. That's speaking about working for your salvation.

But how does that apply? Why is it any different?

Once you are saved and you're working towards becoming more

into the image of Jesus, when does that ever change?

It doesn't. We have to continually rely on him. We

cannot do it apart from Jesus. We don't ever get

to stop relying on him. We don't ever get to

stop being humble and clinging to him. Like I said earlier,

just like twinkies, humility doesn't have an expiration date. I

think twinkies actually do have an expiration date, so please

do not eat them past their expiration date. But I

want to close with Jesus reminder that he gives us

from the Gospel of John, and the main idea is

that apart from him we can do nothing. And this

is John fifteen and the first five versus. I am

the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser.

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he

takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he

prunes so that it may bear more fruit.

So you're getting cut either way. That's a kind of

a comforting thought. Verse three. Already you are clean because

the word that I've spoken to you abide in Me

and I in you.

As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it

abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide

in me.

I am the vine. You are the branches.

Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it

is that bears much fruit.

For apart from Me, you can do what nothing.

A branch can't bear any fruit when it's laying on

the ground. It's useful for one thing, firewood. A branch

only bears fruit when it's attached to the vine, or

it's attached to the tree.

And that's the same way it works for us.

A believer that doesn't abide in, which abiden just means

to live in, be kept in, or remain in Jesus,

can't bear fruit. You have to abide to bear fruit.

For apart from Jesus we can do nothing. We must

remain humble and never stop relying on Jesus. Don't think

that we can do this Christian walk on our own.

We tell you all the time that we need it

to be with other believers. How much more so do

we need Jesus. We stay humble always, we stay humble

for others, and most importantly, we stay humble before the Lord, because,

unlike milk, humanity doesn't have an expiration date. It never

goes sour. At the proper time. God will exalt those

who humble themselves.

Amen. Can you guys stand on your feet please,