In a famous Oxford debate, Chesterton and Bernard Shaw traded brilliant ripostes, each convinced he knew humanity’s greatest problem. A similar clash of certainties plays out in the temple, where a Pharisee and a tax collector pray (Luke 18), and Jesus answers the question of what makes me right before God. The sermon brings in a pastor celebrating forty years of ministry, a gangster from the 1990s, and the man who wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace”. Listen, and see what your heart is truly captivated by.
Discussion questions
For your small group or for personal reflection after the sermon.
- In verse 9 Luke says Jesus told this parable to those who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else. Why might the original listeners have been surprised by how it ends?
- The Pharisee was telling the truth about himself: he fasted twice a week and gave a tenth of everything. So what was wrong with his prayer, since he was not the one who went home justified?
- After meeting his old high school classmate, the pastor in the story thanked God that he had not wasted his life like him. How can gratitude for God's guidance quietly turn into a sense of superiority?
- The preacher noted that comparing ourselves with others leads either to self-justification or to discouragement. When do you most often catch yourself ranking people in your head, and what does it do to you?
- The tax collector came to God empty-handed and asked for mercy, just like David and John Newton. What do these stories tell us about whether any sin could be too heavy for God's grace?
- The sermon ends with the thought that we are right before God when we marvel at His goodness more than our own. How can you concretely bring that sense of wonder into your prayer this week?
