Humility in Prayer

When was the last time you heard someone talk about “the pearly gates?” It is interesting that even for those who do not know much about Christianity or the Bible are still familiar with this concept. All of us probably have an image of sparkling or golden gates in the clouds above, with maybe an angel or the Apostle Peter standing in front to greet and talk with anyone who approaches. Maybe you have heard a joke about the pearly gates or even told one. No judgement, perhaps that was an appropriate joke to tell! Or maybe, you have or you have heard someone else confront someone about their eternal destiny by asking them, What would you say if someone at those gates asked you why should I let you into heaven?

I’d like to ask you a similar question this morning: On what basis could you enter God’s presence in heaven? What could you say?

In reality, we all have to answer that question more frequently than we think. We often “enter God’s presence, so to speak.

Hebrews 4:16 NKJV
Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

What right do you have to go to God in prayer? I believe that the parable, or story with a spiritual meaning, that Jesus tells in Luke 18 answers that question, and I believe it is the one we should ask when we think about humility in prayer.

In this parable, Jesus gives two men who pray and who each have different outcomes at the end of the story. Let us look at the two men, their two prayers, and the two outcomes that we find in the story.

Two Men

The first man Jesus calls a Pharisee. What is a Pharisee? The Pharisees were a religious sect of Judaism that desired to separate from the Gentile influences (namely, Greek Hellenistic philosophy) and adhered very strictly to the Law of Moses. In their efforts to maintain Jewish piety and the Law, they also rigorously obeyed the teachings of Jewish teachers called Rabbis as well.

During the time of Jesus, the dominant “party” of Judaism was that of the Pharisees. When Jesus used a Pharisee as a character in His parable, His audience would have generally pictured this character as an expert and a pious man. Pharisees were well respected.

Today, we use the term as a pejorative because they were antagonists in the Gospels. We have an aversion to religious self-righteousness today that makes it clear to us that someone who is so obnoxious about their religion must be a jerk! But this would not have been the case to those who first heard this story from Jesus. The parable would have definitely been a subversion of their expectations. They expected the Pharisee to be the informed one in all matters of religious life and conduct. The Pharisees were the ones who were always justified in their actions, and they would win any contest of piety for sure! We need to understand this to get the full gravity of Jesus’ parable.

A man named E. Earle Ellis wrote a commentary on the Gospel of John and his heading for Luke 18:9-14 was this: “The Churchman and the Politician.” We do not have many words at all to talk about a religiously pious person in a positive light. Why do you think that is? That is a very culturally important question for another time, but suffice it to say, we do not use the word “churchman” anymore and we do not really have a word to replace it.

For Jesus’ time, the pious elite were the Pharisees. For Earle’s time, it was the churchman (a man committed to the church). For us today, a pious individual is magnanimous, or we could use a word with much more baggage: tolerant. I am not saying now this is good or bad; that may be a worthwhile discussion for later.

The reason I bring this up is to help us understand how the people hearing Jesus would have heard His story. The Pharisees were the gurus; they were the guys who had it all figured out. Even for those of us who might take issue with the virtue of tolerance, we naturally tend to look up to the people who we perceive as being truly nice in a genuine way. They are the pious people in our society.

So imagine then we have on one side a genuine, nice guy, the kind of person everyone wants to be around, and then on the other side you have the sleaziest local bureaucrat, who would sell his soul for one more vote.

I want to ask you, outside of Christ, which has more standing before God? Which has more standing before God, the Pro-Life atheist, or the LGBTQ+ activist? The unbelieving suburban mom or the prostitute? These are important for us to think about when it comes to how we view and treat others, but I ask these questions today to help us ask this question:

On what basis do you approach God in prayer? What gives you any standing before God?
We must approach God in humility based on His mercy, not any other basis.

What are the things that help you to feel alright about yourself? What are you able to hang your hat on, and say, “I may not have it all together, but I’m pretty alright because…”

We need to be honest with ourselves and honest with God.

Two Prayers

Now that we have a firm grasp on who these two men were, let us look at each of their prayers.

Luke 18:11–12 NKJV
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’

Who is this prayer talking about? And what is this prayer trying to accomplish?

A self-exalting prayer focuses on self.

Let me ask another question: What is wrong with being a Pharisee?

Is it wrong to be zealous for God’s Law, and to love It? Is it wrong to teach others to obey God’s Law? Is it wrong to adhere to restrict yourself to be holy? Is it wrong to think that others should do the same? Is it wrong to judge others according to God’s Law?

We have this aversion to rules and regulations, as if anything that restricts my “freedom” is oppressive. If someone loves rules, then they are a bad person who does not love people enough. They are up tight and reductive. But for millennia, the God has expressed Himself through what we call the LAW. The Torah, another name for the Law, is in substantial part just a list of rules. Yet, the Psalmist says, “I love thy Law.” Would you call Scripture Pharisaical hypocrisy?

So we should not be so ready to throw around the term Pharisee, and we should not be so antagonistic or uncomfortable with loving God’s laws. They are Good with a capital “G.” And they tell us about our great God.

So where exactly did the Pharisees go wrong? The idea of a group who is zealous for the Law of Moses and dedicates themselves in careful ways to remaining holy sounds great! The problem could be represented as really one of motivation. As Pastor Thomas preached recently, motivation is so crucial as we approach God. Prayer is talking deliberately to God, and as we approach Him in prayer, we must ask ourselves, “Why am I doing this?”

What do you think the Pharisee’s motivation was in prayer? To exalt Himself. Look at how many times he talks about himself. Look at the way he compares himself to others.

And look at these words: “with himself.” Damning. Have you heard the expressions that your prayers go no further than the ceiling? How many prayers have I prayed that were actually to myself? How much ministry have I done that was actually to myself?

Without humility, we can never experience the joy of communion with God through life. Humility is a necessary ingredient to fellowship with God.

James 4:6 (NKJV)
But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.”

May we reject the self-exaltation of the Pharisee that we might truly know God in Christ.

Comparison of my spiritual performance to others always seeks to exalt self, and not God.

Of course, Biblically we know that there is an aspect of “separatism” to holiness. Throughout the Torah, especially in the Book of Leviticus God was clear to call the fledgling nation of Israel to be a distinct people, a holy people, or a separate people. But I do believe there is a danger here.

The Pharisees worldview was fundamentally “circumspective” or “neighbor-spective.” When we begin to emphasize our “separatism,” we walk a fine line between distancing ourselves from the pollution of a godless culture and using our compliance to exalt ourselves over others.

It’s not a problem to look around at others, but the moment that I view spiritual life as a competition to see how much godlier I am than others, I am exalting self and not God.

We just need to ask ourselves, who is being lifted up here? Me or God?

Is there any ounce of comparison to any human not named Jesus in how you see yourself before God? Is there any part of you that makes excuses for your sin by saying, “Well, at least I didn’t do such and such like so and so did?” Or “At least I did such and such, unlike so and so?”

A humble heart does not compare itself to others, but instead to God and His holiness.
What do those who truly understand the nature of God do in His presence? Let us look in Scripture.

Isaiah 6:1–5 (NKJV)
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!” And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.”

Luke 5:8 (NKJV)
When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”

They acknowledge their sinfulness. By contrast, what does the proud do? They never get the slightest glimpse of the gap between them and God because they are too busy enjoying the endorphins of looking at the gap between themselves and others. They lack repentance.

Two Outcomes

We have seen the two men, and we have seen the way that they approach God. Now we find the outcome of their approach to God.

What is the difference of outcome in the text? We can look at verse 14:

Luke 18:14 NKJV
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Jesus says this corrupt, traitorous politician is justified, and the “pious” man is not. He uses the word justified. But wait, I thought we are talking about prayer? Well, really prayer is just the example scenario for what Jesus was getting at. He was really talking about what kind of person is justified and one is not.

“Justify” in this sense is a kind of legal term for our standing before God. Those who are justified are declared innocent before God. They stand before Him as righteous people! Justification is such a beautiful word that becomes so ugly when we add any iota of self to it. It’s like water. The source matters quite a bit.

The point of Jesus’ story is that only those who are humble and confess their lowliness before God can be justified because they depend upon His mercy. Look again at the prayer of the tax collector:

Luke 18:13 NKJV
And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’

What is he dependent upon? Look at what he is relying upon before God. Not his own performance, because he admits that he is a sinner! He accepts that because he is a sinner, he needs mercy. A humble heart does not seek to justify itself before God, but always seeks justification in His mercy.

And Jesus explains that this man is justified. Those who are justified are so not on any basis of their own but based on God’s mercy. Why?

God lowers those who lift themselves up in prayer and lifts up those who lower themselves in prayer.

This is what it means to have humility in prayer: to approach God confessing our need for His favor which we have not earned, and His forgiveness which we do not deserve. Jesus explains why our expectations have been subverted, and the worst guy is accepted by God and the best guy is not.

Conclusion

This is the peace and rest of the Gospel, that I cease from the comparison to others, the constant posturing, and the deadly pride of lifting myself up. And now that these things have ceased, I can relish in the mercy that Christ died and rose again to give me in Him. It is only in Jesus, and His work that we can experience real justification. In His life and death, He modeled the humility we need.

Therefore, we humble ourselves as He did, that we might experience the benefits of His humility.

In a sermon on this passage, John Piper said, "[The justified] have recognized the incredible outrage of their sin, … have ceased to trust in anything about themselves, and have cast themselves entirely on Jesus for mercy, for righteousness, [and] for forgiveness.”

Walter L. Liefeld, says that the Pharisee had “a contractual relationship with God whereby He would accept the Pharisee’s merit in exchange for justification.”

What is the economy of your standing before God? Are you resting in the charity of a generous God, or do you constantly have to strain to lift yourself up to prove your worth?

The point of the parable is to ask, “What are you trusting in for justification?” Look at those whom Jesus is talking to:

Luke 18:9 NKJV
Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others.

They trusted in themselves, and the result was that they looked down upon others. They despised them. They counted them as nothing. No count yourselves as nothing so that God may count you as righteous.

A humble heart seeking mercy from God will find it.