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Running Alone By Martin Shadwick

Everyone wants to be independent.
We train to be independent from a very young age.
For example, you start off getting driven to school
or walking to school with your parents.
But then as you get older, you're walking by yourself,
or you're catching the bus or the train to school.
In fact, I remember a time when I was in high school
when the deputy headmaster got stuck into us during school assembly
because there were some boys who were being picked up by their parents
after school training for sport.
They were getting picked up rather than catching the bus
or the train home by themselves.
He thought, you guys, you're young adults,
you should be able to catch the bus or the train home by yourself.
We're encouraged to do things ourselves, to think for ourselves.
It's ingrained in us.
Of course, we don't want total independence.
No one wants that.
I mean, there are times when you do have to depend on people.
But if it were really up to us, people would choose independence.
People would choose not having to depend on other people.
And so when it comes to relating to God,
we apply the same thinking and want to be independent of Him too.
Sure, God may be around to give a helping hand,
but for the most part, we can get along without Him.
And anyway, God's like a parent, right?
And what parent doesn't look forward to the day when the children are independent?
Surely God is fine with us being independent of Him.
Surely God is fine with us relying on ourselves.
Is relying on yourself the way to be okay with God?
Is running life, is running alone the way to be okay with God?
Is it true that God helps those who help themselves?
As we look at today's passage, I trust that we'll find some answers to those questions.
And as we do come to that passage, let's pray and ask for God's help.
Heavenly Father, we want to thank You for the Bible.
It is Your Word written down for us.
Father, we ask that You will help us to understand what You say to us
and also to change our lives in accordance with what we learn.
And we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
So in that first verse of the passage that Janelle read out for us,
straight away, Luke tells us the kind of people that Jesus aimed this story at.
Verse 9.
To some who were confident of their own righteousness
and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable.
Jesus told this story to people who depended on themselves to be okay with God.
That is, when these people thought about themselves, they thought,
yep, I'm okay with God. I'm right with God. I am righteous.
And why? Well, it's because they trusted in themselves,
whether it was because they thought that success or not hurting people
or having the right motivation or trying your hardest was the way to be okay with God.
And that sounds a lot like the average person off the street.
Some people reckon they're not really a bad person.
So, of course, I must be okay with God.
Well, Jesus introduces us to two people, a Pharisee and a tax collector in verse 10.
Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
Now, a Pharisee, what is it? Well, a Pharisee is a respectable, upright citizen.
They're members of a particular religious group.
But they're well regarded not just in religious circles but also in social circles.
They were serious about keeping God's commandments.
And so if your son said to you, hey, Dad, I want to be a Pharisee when I grow up,
you wouldn't be trying to dissuade him.
A tax collector, though? A tax collector is a cheat.
Someone who had sold out to the Romans, a traitor to the Jews.
You see, tax collectors were Jewish people who collected the taxes for the occupying forces of Rome.
Not only did they cheat their own countrymen, but they'd sold out to the Romans, to the enemy.
You would not want your son to be a tax collector.
The stage is set. Two men have gone up to the temple to pray.
You've got the good guy, you've got the bad guy, facing off in a prayer showdown.
Who is God going to accept?
It should be obvious, right? It's plain obvious.
The good guy will be accepted, the bad guy will be rejected.
Listen to what the Pharisee prayed in verses 11 to 12.
The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself.
God, I thank you that I am not like other men, robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.
What the Pharisee did was pretty impressive. He wasn't greedy, he wasn't dishonest, he didn't sleep around.
He didn't eat food twice a week, which is much, much more than what the religious commandments said you had to do.
He gave a tenth of everything he got, and we're not just talking about money,
but even down to the very herbs that he grew in his garden, he would give a tenth of those.
This guy was squeaky clean. It sounds like you'd be hard pressed to find any dirt on him.
He's a picture of success. He's better than the robber, he's better than the evildoer, he's better than the adulterer.
If he were alive today, he would be the CEO of some great big corporation.
He'd be the sort of guy who'd start a foundation and donate millions to charity.
He's a picture of independence. He doesn't need the help of anyone to be as good as he is.
As you listen to what the Pharisee does, he sounds like a good, self-reliant person,
confident that what he does is enough to be okay with God.
Isn't that a bit like us? We take pride in the good things that we do.
We take pride in our achievements. It's only natural. I mean, when you do something well, you're pleased with yourself.
And we're so used to that achievement and performance syndrome that we apply the same rules to how we relate to God,
and so we think, yeah, the way that we do things, our works, earn us merit before God.
But when we dig a bit deeper into the prayer of the Pharisee, well, things aren't quite shiny and hunky dory as you might first expect,
because really, the Pharisee is just full of himself. He basically prays to God and tells God the good stuff he does.
Imagine praying to God and boasting about how good you are.
God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, pimps, drug pushers or pedophiles.
I'm a highly successful management consultant, and I give money to charities like World Vision, the Red Cross, the Red Shield Appeal.
What sort of prayer is that? It's disgraceful to come before God and recite a list of good things that you've done,
because they think that's what God wants. Can you imagine a person turning up to God who defines what is good
and telling him the good stuff they've done and expecting to be okay?
Can you imagine trusting in what you think is good when you come before God who is perfectly good in character?
Bushfires are a part of Australian life. Every summer, there's a campaign to make sure that people know what to do
if there's a bushfire heading towards their house. You know, it's stuff like clear the leaves out of the gutter,
make sure there are no overhanging tree branches, cut those down, fill up water buckets, fill up your pool if you've got one,
stuff like that. But even if you've taken those precautions, if a raging firestorm comes your way,
you're not going to be able to stop it with your garden hose. How foolish is it to trust in your garden hose
when there's a bushfire raging and about to descend on your house and consume it?
How much more foolish is it to trust in your good deeds when you come before the Lord God Almighty,
who both made the universe and sustains everything in it?
And when you think about it, who is this Pharisee depending on? He's depending on himself.
The Pharisee thinks he's good enough for God. How arrogant is that?
How arrogant is it to think that a person is good enough for God?
What good thing could he possibly do which might earn him merit before God? What thing?
Friends, if you're trusting yourself to be okay with God, you're going to be in for a very rude shock.
Whatever way that trust shows itself, there's trouble afoot. Sincerity is not enough. 50% or 51% is not enough.
More good deeds than bad deeds is not enough. God demands perfection.
Now, how does the tax collector pray? Let's have a look at verse 13.
But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said,
God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
He recognized his place before God. He was a sinner in need of mercy.
Now, when you think sinner, you think a really bad person, an axe murderer or something like that.
But the heart of sin is saying no to God's rightful rule over our lives.
Sin is ignoring God and putting ourselves in the driver's seat. And that's how everyone lives.
People live as if they are in charge, as if they are the one who is calling the shots.
Everyone wants to run their life their own way rather than God's way.
And that means that everyone is a sinner.
And the punishment for being a sinner, a rebel, is death and the anger and judgment of God.
Now, we don't want to admit it. I don't want to admit it.
But we're all proud. And it really irritates us to have to ask for help.
Worse still is they have to ask for mercy.
Because not only are you admitting that you've done something wrong, you're actually asking for leniency.
But this tax collector has got it right. This tax collector has got it right.
We cannot think, we cannot live independently of God and expect to be okay.
We cannot think that we can run alone and be okay in God's sight.
That tax collector recognized his place before God and that is that he was a sinner.
He was in the wrong and he had to ask for mercy.
Asking for mercy is putting your life, your faith into the hands of someone else.
It's saying, yes, I've done something wrong, so I deserve to be punished, but please don't punish me.
An appeal for mercy depends purely on the other person, not you.
And the cry for mercy comes when you know that you have done something which is wrong.
A couple of years ago, I was invited to two weddings, which were both on the same day.
Now weddings, they're always social occasions and I think I was having a great time,
picking up friends and just really enjoying myself.
So I left that first wedding a little bit later than was probably wise or prudent or what I intended.
And I was driving to the second wedding through Centennial Park.
So I was a bit anxious. I really wanted to get to that wedding on time, so I was driving too quickly.
Looked in my rear-view mirror, lights flashing. The park ranger pulled me over.
I thought to myself, great, that's it. I'm really going to be late now because I'm already late
and then I'm going to receive a ticket that's going to take time for the park ranger to ride that ticket.
I'm stuffed.
What happened instead, though, was the ranger had mercy on me.
I didn't receive a ticket. I was let off with a warning.
I deserved that speeding ticket because I was driving too fast, but I received mercy.
How does God's mercy come to us?
God can't just sweep our sin under the carpet because his character is a character of justice.
Sin is a really serious thing. It's deadly serious to rebel against God.
If God's justice demands punishment for sin, how can God show us mercy?
Someone's got to take the punishment for those sins which have been committed.
And normally that's the one who committed those sins.
And the punishment is death, which is separation from God.
However, Jesus came to earth to die and take the punishment for sins which we had committed.
You see, when Jesus died on the cross, he didn't die because he had committed sins.
He died because of the sins that you and I committed.
On that cross, Jesus took our place and died the death that you and I should have died.
Have you seen the movie Armageddon with Ben Affleck and Bruce Willis?
You know, one of those outlandish action movies. I love them.
The basic plot of the movie is that you've got an asteroid hurtling toward earth on a collision course,
and a bunch of oil rig workers have to save the day.
This unlikely bunch of heroes fly to the asteroid in a space shuttle in an attempt to cut a hole in the asteroid,
drop a nuclear bomb into the asteroid, and then blow it up so that the two halves miss the earth.
At the climax of the film, the hole's been dug, the bomb's ready to go,
but it's not possible to blow up the bomb by remote control.
Someone's going to have to stay behind to blow up the bomb, giving up his life to save the earth.
These oil rig workers, they draw straws to find out who it's going to be, and the short straw falls to Ben Affleck.
But at the last minute, Bruce Willis steps in, swaps places with Ben Affleck,
so Bruce Willis blows up that bomb, losing his own life, sacrificing his own life,
but in so doing, saving the earth.
By his sacrifice, Bruce Willis saved the world.
What he did in Armageddon is like what Jesus did on the cross.
One man died to save many. One man died in place of many.
The difference is, while Bruce Willis died to save people from physical death,
Jesus Christ died to save people from spiritual death, from separation from God.
Jesus Christ died to save sinful human beings like you and me.
But Jesus didn't stay dead. He rose to life.
Jesus' resurrection is the proof that Jesus has conquered death and sin.
We know that the punishment for sins has been paid for in full because Jesus rose from the dead,
so God's mercy is now available to us. God's forgiveness is now available to us
because God's justice has been satisfied.
God's mercy is available to us because of the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Jesus finishes his story in verse 14. Have a look at that.
I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God,
for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
The guy who asks for mercy goes home okay with God, declared right in the sight of God.
He goes home justified, and it's not because of what he's done.
It is definitely not that. It's purely because of the mercy of God.
In this verse, we also see the great reversal. Our expectation is the good guy,
he should be accepted by God. We expect the independent guy to be accepted by God.
But that's not how God operates. He who humbles himself will be exalted.
He who exalts himself will be humbled. The independent one is humbled.
The dependent one is exalted. The dependent one, the one who acknowledges his status before God as a sinner,
the one who depends on Jesus to be okay with God. This is the one who goes home justified.
I have one last question to ask you as I conclude,
and it's for those of you who are trusting in yourselves to be okay with God.
If all it takes is a bit of effort on your part to be okay with God, why did God send his son to die?
Why did God sacrifice his son if people could be okay by doing more good things than bad things?
That would be disgraceful. It would be like I kicked down the front door of my house to get in
when all the windows and the back door was open.
Is God so incompetent that he would come up with such a half-baked rescue plan?
No, friends, the only way to be right with God is to depend on the death and resurrection of Jesus on our behalf.
Independence is not the way. Jesus has done everything that is necessary for you to be saved.
If you continue to live life independently of God, you will face death and God's anger.
Don't do that. Come to the cross. Ask for God's mercy. Turn to Jesus and depend on him.
Friends, if you would like to become a Christian, I'm going to pray a prayer,
the sort of prayer that you might pray to become a Christian. This is how it goes.
I'll read it out to you first, and then I'll pray it afterwards.
Dear God, I admit that I've lived independently of you. I admit that I am a sinner.
Thank you for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Thank you that he paid for my sins and that he rose from the dead.
Please have mercy on me. Please help me to depend on Jesus.
I'll pray that prayer one phrase at a time, and if that's a prayer that you want to pray to God,
pray that in the quietness of your own mind and God will hear you. So let's pray together.
Dear God, I admit that I have lived independently of you.
I admit that I am a sinner.
Thank you for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Thank you that he paid for my sins and that he rose from the dead.
Please have mercy on me. Please help me to depend on Jesus. Amen.
If you prayed this prayer, be assured that God has heard you,
and because of what Jesus has done, God has accepted you, and you've been forgiven.