Can you pray honestly with a heart in which the quiet conviction still smoulders that you are, after all, better than others? The sermon opens with the devil’s confession from the film The Devil’s Advocate, vanity is my favourite sin, and moves to the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18), recalling who both men really were in the eyes of Jesus’ first listeners. It turns out that coming to God empty-handed is hardest for those who are neither quite bad nor quite good. Listen if you want your prayer to centre on God’s grace rather than on your own merits.
Discussion questions
For your small group or for personal reflection after the sermon.
- Luke notes that Jesus told this parable to those who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else. How does its message change when you remember that Pharisees were then seen as models of devotion and tax collectors as outcasts?
- The Pharisee begins his prayer with thanks, yet he does not go home justified. What in his words in Luke 18:11-12 shows what his prayer was really focused on?
- The speaker pointed out how easy it is to think: surely I am better than a murderer or a phone scammer? Why do such comparisons lose all meaning when we stand before a holy and all-knowing God?
- The story of the Sunday school teacher who prayed, thank you that we are not like that Pharisee, shows how easily we fall into the same trap. In what situations do you notice yourself comparing yourself to others?
- Jesus not only taught humility but lived it: from His birth in Bethlehem, to washing His disciples' feet, to the cross. What about His humility most helps you understand the words: whoever humbles themselves will be exalted?
- How can you focus your prayers this week on what you owe God, and pray with the simplicity of the tax collector: God, have mercy on me, a sinner?
