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.
The Pharisee and Tax Collector
Teach Us to Pray
Of all the spiritual practices the disciples could have asked Jesus to teach them, they chose this one: prayer. Jesus himself not only taught them how to pray, but through stories and parables he showed how humble and persistent prayer can change reality. “Breaking through to heaven”, that’s how John Ortberg described prayer, and that’s what we’ll seek to learn alongside Jesus’ disciples during Lent.
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15 sermons
