The Posture of Prayer, 17th May 2026

This week Pastor Josh continues looking at prayer and how our hearts should be postured when we pray. He looks at the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax collector in Luke 18. 

Transcript

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If you have your Bible, physical Bible or Bible on your phone, we're going to work through a parable together. We've been looking at this series on prayer and really how to pray. And this morning I want us to look at this parable that comes in Luke chapter 18. And really it talks about two attitudes of how we can approach God in prayer. But Jesus is teaching in Luke chapter 18, and he uses a parable to get across his point. Parables really is a fancy word for stories that Jesus tells. Earthly stories with a heavenly meaning. What Jesus is saying in the parables has a spiritual, heavenly kingdom of God, reality to it, but he uses earthly circumstances to help the disciples and us understand what he's talking about. And this parable is interesting because Luke is writing and he actually tells us who Jesus is directing this parable to, who specifically he's talking to. So who was this parable to? It tells us Luke chapter 18, verse 9. It says he also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else. That's who he's telling it to. Those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else. Just to break that up quickly. Tells us some who trusted in themselves. These were people who thought they were good people. They believed in the good things that they did. And they they trusted that that made them righteous. The biblical definition for righteous just means to be made right before God. So they trusted that the works that they were doing made them right before God. The works, the good deeds, the sacrifices they were making, they trusted that that made them right before God. They believed that they were righteous, that they were morally right before God. And because of that, I think he tells us that they looked down on everyone else. Your Bible might say they despised everyone else, and that the the literal meaning of that means to make nothing of or to devalue. And so what they were doing is this was a people who thought more of themselves than they did of others. They judged everyone else to be less valuable than themselves, they judged everyone else to be less holy than themselves, everyone else to be less righteous than themselves. That's who Jesus was speaking this parable to. Those who trusted themselves and those who look down on everyone else. And before we start thinking to ourselves this morning, that's okay, this parable's not for me. I don't fit into those two categories. Might I suggest that maybe we examine ourselves a bit more closely. Because maybe it's just me. But I think everyone at some point probably falls into one of those two categories, at least. First of all, when's the last time you faced a problem in your life and your first reaction was to worry? Was to panic, was to stress. Maybe you thought I better handle this myself. And your last thought is actually to bring it to God. That's trusting in ourselves. Or are there times when you read your Bible, you pray, you do something charitable, you do something good to help somebody, and you think to yourself, God loves me more now. That's trusting in ourselves for our righteousness. God's love is not dependent on our works. God's love is dependent only on Him. And so maybe we fall into that first category more than we like to think. Or maybe you think to yourself, the second bit can't be me. I don't look down on everyone else. I read this passage at the start of the week. And journeying with that for a week, I quickly realized how quick I am to judge everybody. Maybe you've come into church this morning and you thought, how would they come to church dressed like that? He's up there preaching in trainers this morning. We're so quick to pass judgment on others. And when we do that, we value them as less than us. Or we value ourselves as higher than them. We look at people and judge them based on their appearance, based on the colour of our skin, based on their religion, based on their relationship status. Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us when we become more Christian, we have more of a right to judge people. I actually think it's the opposite. When people describe Christians who aren't Christians, what's one of the first words they say? Judgmental. And that shouldn't be the case because it's not our place to judge. You see, I think the closer we get to God, the more we actually realize how broken we are and how in need of a saviour we are. I was reading Isaiah chapter 6 this week, and it's the famous well-known story of Isaiah, and he has this vision of God. Sees God face to face. And his reaction isn't, oh look at me, I know God so well, I've seen this vision. But his reaction is, woe is me, for I am ruined. Because I'm a man of unclean lips and live among people of unclean lips. Because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of armies. He saw God and he didn't feel like he was on his high horse. Instead, he felt his sin. He saw how broken he was before God. There was no place for him to feel high and lofty or to judge other people. The good news though, God didn't leave him in that place. In the vision, his lips, because that's where he saw his sin came from. They're touched with a coal and he was a piece of coal and he was told, Your iniquity is removed and your sin is atoned for. We don't consider ourselves broken or sinful people to sit about feeling sorry for ourselves. But we do it because it points us towards the one who atones for our sins. Jesus is the only one who can save us, the only one who can restore us, the only one who can give us a life to the full. So we're in no position to judge anyone. And it's tricky. Because I didn't think I was a judgmental person until I read this passage at the start of the week. Every single day I've been catching myself. I think we're more judgmental than we like to think. But instead of judging anyone, it's our job to meet them where they're at. Because we have the greatest news to tell them. God loved the world so much that he sent his one and only son to die for them so that they could be restored into that relationship with him. That's who this parable was for. Those who trusted in themselves and those who looked down on people. Might I suggest this morning, it's maybe then for us as well. So what does this parable actually say? Let's read it. It says there, beginning in verse 10, Two men went up to the temple complex to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee took a stand and was praying like this. God, I thank you that I'm not like other people, greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fire I fast twice a week, and I give a tenth of everything that I get. And we'll stop there. In this parable, two men go to the temple to pray. One's a Pharisee, one's a tax collector. We're going to look at these two characters and what they pray, but first we'll begin with the Pharisee. Pharisees were the religious leaders at the time of Jesus. They were experts in God's law. But they used that to gain their own power and their own prestige. But for the people listening to Jesus speaking this parable, if there's to be a hero and a villain in this story, the listeners certainly would have considered that the hero was to be the Pharisee. Because they were considered the epitome of godliness to an average person at the time. It tells us that the Pharisee took his stand. In other words, he got into possession. He made sure everyone could see him praying. He wanted people to see him praying. And he praised that prayer. God, I thank you that I'm not like other people. And then he goes on to list their sins. And he tells us how good he is. He fasts twice a week. He gives a tenth of everything he gets. He can barely really even call this a prayer. He spends the whole time praising himself or slating other people. I was reading about this this week, and someone said that the Pharisees' prayer is so laden with self-congratulation that it can barely get off the ground, let alone wing its way to the listening ear of God. You see, Pharisees prayed a lot. The fact that he's a Pharisee in this parable and his praying wouldn't have been surprising. Some Pharisees were to pray 18 times a day. And when that time came, they were to start stop and take a stand, make sure everyone could see and to pray. That's what he was doing. So that was expected. But his prayer is probably unexpected. He thanks God for making him better than other people. Especially, he says, this tax collector. There was a rabbi saying at the time, and many of the Pharisees were also rabbis, just teachers of God's law. Pharisees were experts in that, so the two kind of went hand in hand. And this was the saying. A true rabbi ought to thank God every day of his life that he was not created a Gentile, that he was not lower class, and that he was not born a woman. I think that saying really shows us the heart behind his prayer. They saw themselves as superior. And that comes out in his prayer. But what I actually think the biggest problem with the Pharisee's prayer is that he's blind to his own sin. It's very easy to read this parable and think, God thank you, I'm not like this Pharisee. That's actually really close to what he prays. Jesus is not describing someone who's openly rebellious or someone who's obviously immoral. He's describing a man who would be disciplined, who would be religious, who would take his faith seriously. The problem wasn't that he had no standards. The problem was that he'd built his own standards of what righteousness looked like. And that standard of righteousness that he had built wasn't in need of God's mercy. So how is he blind to sin? Because we see that he can tell right from wrong. He lists other people's wrongs. He can see what greed, adultery, and injustice look like. He tells us that. But what he cannot see is the pride within him. The pride that is quietly taking hold of his own sense of righteousness. He cannot see that comparison has become his measuring scale. That contempt for others is sitting right alongside his religious discipline. He's so quick to judge others before himself. He thanks God, but he never confesses his own need. He never asks for mercy. He's praying, but there's no sense of repentance there in him. But also to anyone who drifts towards that assumption that our discipline replaces our dependence on God, that our obedience replaces our humility, and that our comparison with others can substitute our brokenness before God. See, this Pharisee was full of pride, and yet he couldn't see it. Because he was so concerned with other people's sins. And yet, how often is that us? Maybe it's not as obvious as the Pharisee, maybe you don't go around saying, God, I thank you that I don't look like that. But Jesus doesn't tell us parable so that we can identify the Pharisee in history. But he tells us that we can ask ourselves a harder question. How often do we adopt his attitude? Never say it as bluntly as a Pharisee does. But it can surface in us in more subtle ways. It can surface in how we think about others and how we regard our own selves in comparison to other people. And surface in how we're quick to point out the sins of other people so much that we actually become blind to the sin in our own heart. The Pharisee in this parable is a warning to us. Because it suggests that it's possible to be in the temple or in church, praying prayers, doing the right things, but distant from the heart of God. The real question is not whether we can identify the Pharisee in this story, but are there moments when we can recognize the Pharisee in ourselves? Moments when we're more aware of how we compare to others, more than how much we need God's grace. Moments when we're quicker to notice the failure of others, more than the pride in our own hearts. Moments when we say we're thankful, but we're not broken before God. We say we're faithful, but we're not dependent on Him. We say we're religious, but we're not repentant. We keep dabbling in the same old sins and we haven't turned our back on it. That's even partially true this morning. Jesus doesn't invite us into that to feel shameful. But he invites us into that because when we approach him in prayer, he wants honesty. I heard this week that the doorway into grace is not confidence in ourselves, but clarity about ourselves before God. But it's to realise how much we need Jesus in our lives. And when we see that, we'll realize how much everybody else needs them too. That's the Pharisee in this story. So what about the tax collector? We read of him as it goes on. It tells us this in verse 13. But the tax collector standing far off would not even raise his eyes to heaven, but kept striking his chest and saying, God turn your wrath from me, a sinner. I tell you, this one went down to the house justified rather than the other, because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. It's amazing, really, the fact that the tax collector is even mentioned in this parable, let alone that he's in the temple praying. Tax collectors at the time were social outcasts. There was a law that if a Jewish person turned tax collector, they were supposed to be excommunicated. They could visit the temple, but only on the same terms as someone who was an unbeliever. They could only come to the outer court, but they could not approach the altar or the sanctuary for prayer. Which is probably why in this parable it says that he was standing away off. But everything about this tax collector that we see is different to the Pharisee. He stands at a distance, he won't even lift his eyes to heaven. He beats his chest. There's that a symbolism at the time of feeling grief and feeling sorrow that you would beat your chest. And his prayer is incredibly short. He says, God, turn your wrath from me, a sinner. Or some versions say, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. There's no resume there, there's no comparison to other people. He's not even trying to defend himself. There's no attempt to balance out the bad stuff in his life with the good things that he's done. Just complete honesty before God. He sees himself clearly, and because of that, he throws himself completely on the mercy of God. What makes this prayer so powerful is that the tax collector has nothing to bring except his need for God. He understands that the foundation of approaching God is not proving yourself worthy, but it's admitting that we're not. And Jesus says at the end of that passage, this is the man who went home justified before God. That would have been shocking to the people listening. If they were listening to a parable about a Pharisee and a tax collector, the Pharisee was supposed to be the hero. He was supposed to be the righteous one, the one that comes out on top in the end. And yet Jesus says, the tax collector, he is the one who's justified before God. Not because God overlooks his sin, but because humble faith receives what pride refuses to ask for. Mercy. Mercy, that's what the tax collector was asking for. And he was justified before God. You see, the Pharisee speaks many words, but he never once asks for God's grace. The tax collector, he barely speaks at all. But his whole prayer depends on God's grace. Maybe this morning that's where Jesus is leading us. Not into false humility, not trying to pretend we're worse than we are, but into that place of freedom, of finally dropping the performance, the facade before God and coming to Him in prayer, honestly. Because the doorway into grace has never been perfection, but it's always been mercy. And that's the good news of this parable, is that the mercy to this tax collector is freely given. It's freely given to those who need it. That is the good news of the gospel. Every single one of us in this place is in need of God's grace. John chapter 3, verse 16 tells us, for God loved the world in this way, that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. That is mercy and grace in a nutshell. Mercy simply is withholding something that someone deserves. God loved the world in this way, that he gave his one and only Son. That is the mercy. That we deserve punishment for the sin in our lives. The Bible tells us that, tells us that the punishment for sin is death. That's what we deserved. That's the debt that we owe to God. And because of that, our relationship with God was broken. But we're all created for that relationship, for that longing for Him. God knew that, and He loved us so much, He knew that we could not pay that debt on our own. And so He sent a Son Jesus out of mercy to save us, to die in our place. And because of that, we received grace. Grace is receiving something that we don't deserve. We don't deserve not to perish and have eternal life. But God gives us it anyway. That is the good news of this parable, of this story. This task collector didn't deserve the mercy of God, but he gives them it simply because he asked for it. This morning, if you've never received that mercy and grace of God, all you have to do is ask. Come before Him honestly and ask. And He will give you that mercy and grace in abundance. If we look at these two characters, who do we think we align with most? I think I'd like to align with the tax collector most. But I think if I'm honest, I'm probably more like the Pharisee than I like to admit. I'm judgmental, I'm prideful, and compare myself to other people. That's not how God wants us to approach him in prayer. That's not the posture he wants our hearts to have before him in prayer. The cure for that is simply to remember this verse. To remember Jesus on the cross. To remember that there is nothing we have done that has saved ourselves. It's his mercy and his grace that saved us. And it's sufficient to continue us. Our job, simply, off the back of that, is not to sit and judge people. It's not to devalue people. It's not to think of how many good things I've done. But our job simply is to not judge, not discriminate, not disqualify, but to tell everyone this good news. Because this good news is on offer for everyone. God doesn't discriminate. So why should we?