Acts 11 By Peter Jeffrey

Don't be quick to answer. It doesn't matter much what the subject matter is, what do Christians
believe about money, what do Christians believe about marriage, what do Christians believe
about. Give it your best shot. And when you've worked out what you think the answer is in
your head, say the exact opposite and nine times out of ten you'll get it right. Now
you wouldn't think it'd turn out like that would you? In case you think I've made a mistake
I'll say that again. Work out what you think is the answer. Give it your best shot and
then when you've got it worked out in your mind say the exact opposite. Now this story
is a classic. There are two men at church saying their prayers. One is good, really
good and the other is bad by his own confession. I don't make judgments on people but if they
tell me they're bad I believe them because they very rarely do it. One is thoroughly
good and the other one is bad. They are both in church, they are both saying their prayers
and they both leave the building and when they leave the building one of them is right
with God and the other one isn't. Who would you put your money on? And that's why it is
such a turn up to the book. Now what I like about this Bible story, it's relatively uncluttered
isn't it? I mean when I first, the first year of my retirement I decided I'd read all the
Dickens novels in my local library. It wasn't a big effort but I read them all. I mean can
you imagine anybody being so dreary as to read all the Dickens novels? I mean I never
had a decent smiling day in the lot of them. Boy if ever a man wrote tear trousers. But
I tell you what, they make Inspector Morse look like a Sunday school picnic. The plots
are so complex. One stage I was starting to chart them out on a bit of paper so I'd remember
who belonged to who. The plots. By the way, have you ever watched Morse? I'd have to stop
watching Morse. I'm a 10 on, 10 off television I've been watching. No, 10 on. You know one
night I slept through the murder, I didn't know what they were talking about. Whereas
if you watch Inspector, if you watch Colombo, then you've got to stay awake for three minutes
haven't you? You know who's done the murder and it doesn't matter if you fall off to sleep,
it's just a matter of how far as he's bumbled along towards the conclusion. If you don't
mind me saying so, I think the Bible stories are more like Colombo than they are like Inspector
Morse. I mean you couldn't get a smaller cast, well I did see a man do a one man show one
night, but he was pretending to be two people. Now there's just two players in this story
and God. Just two players. And I want to have a look at them because you and I are here.
We're not like church, we're doing churchy things, we've read the Bible. I'm going to
say a prayer later. That pretty well makes it a churchy thing doesn't it? And when we
leave the building, we'll be right with God or we won't be right with God. And this exercise
would be worth doing for that alone wouldn't it? Do you know if you're right with God?
Well this story will help us to find out whether we are. And I want you to make a judgement
about that yourself so that nobody else does. It's a personal matter, it's not private but
it's personal. And it would be a good exercise too. I want to have a look at these two men.
If you look on your piece of paper at paragraph 10, it says two men went to the temple to
read. We know what they said because in the ancient world nobody had learnt to do things
inside their head. Julius Caesar was thought to be a genius in his lifetime because he
taught himself to read without reading aloud. Consequently he could read three times faster
than everybody else and nobody knew what he was reading. Well pretty everybody reads that
way. Can you imagine? Well we're nearly in that chaos now because in the train instead
of everybody reading their paper they all make a phone call. So we're all hearing everybody's
phone calls all over the place and not only in the train but everywhere else. I looked
out my window tonight and I heard this conversation going flat to the boards. I thought the bloke
must have been talking to somebody who was stone deaf. I looked out the window, he's
not talking to anybody and then he turned around and I realised he was. But the phone
wasn't turned on so I had to speak so loudly. How he got their attention at the other end
I've no idea. We know what these blokes said in their prayers because they spoke aloud.
Now here they are. The first one is called a Pharisee. He's in number 11. The Pharisee
stood up and prayed about himself. O God I thank you that I am not like other men. Robbers,
evil doers, adulterers or even like the tax collector. I fuss twice a week, I give a tenth
of all that I get. Now he is an interesting person. The Pharisees were a lay movement
at the time of the Lord Jesus. They were bit cheesed off with their local clergymen. They
said this bloke don't really know where they're going and they banded themselves together
and called themselves the serious ones. That's what the word means, the serious ones. I don't
know if you'd like to join the club of the serious ones but they were serious about getting
right with God and they were in deadly earnest about it. They thought God watched everybody.
They thought every action was seen by God and they thought on the day of judgment every
action would be accounted for. And so when he said I thank you that I'm not a robber
or an evil doer or an adulterer he's probably telling the truth. At the time these guys
were really up in action they had tabulated the Old Testament to find the rules. They
said the way to get right with God is to keep the rules and they tabulated 613 of them.
They knew the rules. Mind you that wasn't a bad exercise within itself. And they set
out to keep the rules rigorously and that's why he knows that he hasn't robbed anybody.
He hasn't slept around with anybody else's wife. And they were really strict in religious
observance. He didn't have to fast once a week let alone twice. So what is he the sort
of man who'd go to church morning and evening? He might have even taken a morning off to
teach scripture at school. He was good, really good, through and through. Not rat baggy,
but good. And in the presence of God he thinks he needs to remind God, which is a strange
sort of a thing in a way since he believed that God watched. But in the presence of his
Maker it is himself that he talks about. Oh God, I thank you that I am not dishonest,
evil or an adulterer. I fast twice a week. I give a tenth of all I get. And in the end
of the day he is not right with God. Don't you reckon that is the rock bottom pitch?
I mean if you're not going to be right with God you might as well sleep in on Sunday morning.
But to go to church and not end up right with God just appears to me to be the rock bottom
end. When I go down to Wollongong, from my place on the southern side of Sydney, I come
up on a back road into the Princes Highway at Ingedeen, there is an enormous sign. It
says Wollongong, Sydney. It's unambiguous, you don't have to pull over on the sign and
say I wonder what that sign means. I mean I have read signs, which I'm uncertain of
their meaning, but that one is crystal clear. And it is so big I can do it without my glasses
and I can hardly see anything without my glasses. But that sign I see. Wollongong, Sydney. I
was thinking about this parable one day when I got there and I thought to myself, if I
take a turn in that direction, it doesn't matter if I drive carefully or carelessly,
fast or slowly, I'll never make it to Wollongong. But if I drive carefully, every second gets
me further and further and further away from my stated goal. And in the stakes of getting
right with God, this man has taken a fundamental wrong turn. And every day gets him further
and further and further away from his stated goal. It's tragic beyond all belief. Now if
we have a look at the other man, he really is at the other end of the moral spectrum.
It's hard for us to try and imagine what he was like. He was scumbag of the first order
the tax collector. He didn't work for the government. He worked for the Romans who'd
overrun the Jews. And they had put a poll tax on everybody and they employed people
to gather it. They were notoriously dishonest. They squeezed everything they could out of
people. And they had the Roman army to beat up people who resisted them. So they were
in that order of thuggery and robbery. And they were notorious for it. No doubt he'd
paid heavily to start with to have gotten the job. But this man is ill at ease in the
presence of God. He's not up the front behind you. In the church I go to no one ever sits
in the front. I think you get some terrible disease in our church if you ever sit in the
front row. Because it's always empty. But he won't come down the front, he's up the
back. He's ill at ease in the presence of God. He knows he's bad. Whereas the other
man is confident in the presence of God. This man lacks any confidence. He wouldn't even
look up to heaven it says in number 13. He's beat on his chest. And he said, oh God, have
pity on me. Have mercy on me, a sinner. And in the stakes of getting right with God, that
man has taken a right turn. It's a turn up isn't it? You wouldn't honestly think it'd
turn out like that. Now I've got to take great care because I'm the man who goes to church
morning and evening. And although I don't take a morning off to teach scripture at school,
I teach the Bible many times during the course of the week. And I try not to be a robber
or an evil doer and I am not an adulterer. So I'm in prime Pharisee country. I need to
take great care for in the stakes of which one I am most like, I am most like him in
terms of outward behaviour. But I do identify with the other man entirely. He goes home
right with God. Now let me draw to your attention right up front. The good man is not excluded
because he's good. And the bad man is not acceptable because he's bad. Something's going
on at another level. The burning question is not are you good or not are you bad, but
in whom have you placed your trust? Who are you trusting when you stand before God to
be accepted by God or to be rejected? Whom are you trusting? I read in the book once
a clever thing. I'm always hoping I'll say a clever thing but I've never really pulled
it off yet. But I recognise clever, I'm a bit like a bower bird, I recognise clever
things when I see them. And this bloke said in the book you can work out the direction
of your faith by answering this simple question. If you were to die tonight and God were to
say to you why should I let you into heaven you say because whatever word comes next will
show who you're trusting. Now you wouldn't think you could do that with one sentence
would you? It really is clever. If you were to die tonight and God were to say why should
I let you into heaven you say because. I'll show you how it works. Let me run it past
these two blokes and you'll see how it works at number 11. I'll ask the Pharisee that question.
If you were to die tonight and God would say why should I let you into heaven because I
am not a robber, an evil doer or an adulterer. I fast twice a week and I give a tenth of
all I get. So who has he got his trust pinned in? Himself. In the presence of his maker.
That is the only person he talks about. He talks about himself in the presence of his
maker. Listen to the other man. If you were to die tonight and God were to say why should
I let you into heaven because God is merciful. You see he's got his trust pinned in a God
who will have mercy on him. Now they're really poles apart aren't they? And that's where
the big divide comes. It's who they've placed their trust in. One man trusts in his own
goodness and he's rejected. The other man throws himself on God's mercy and gets
accepted. And their trust is poles apart. And Jesus says everybody who exalts himself will
be humiliated and whoever humbles himself will be lifted up. Now why is it that God
can have mercy on people who don't deserve it? Because the guy doesn't deserve to be
forgiven does he? I mean that's pretty plain don't you reckon? He's cheated people, he's
wronged people, he's not good. And yet God can have mercy on him. Is it because he's
relatively soft in that head? Well the answer is no. God has taken action in Jesus. Right
at the heart of Christianity is the person of Jesus. He's what we're on about. And right
at the heart of Jesus is his dying on the cross. Now I went to church for years and
years and I knew that Jesus had been crucified. I'd said it in a creedal statement every week.
I'd said he suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. But I never
realised that he died for me. And one of my difficulties in church was I didn't listen
and I think that's why I went for so long without understanding what was at the heart
of Christianity. I used to play sort of mathematical games. Because 20 minutes really does seem
like forever if you're not listening doesn't it? Sometimes it feels like forever when you
are listening. But if you don't listen it's forever. And I sort of came up in boredom
one day for air and the bloke up front said, do you know that Jesus Christ died for you?
And I was so surprised I nearly answered him. I didn't know he died for me. I couldn't
for the life of me work out how somebody who died 2000 years ago could have any bearing
on my life. And he said I'll say that again. I'm always glad when people repeat things
because now I'm getting a bit hard of hearing. The whole world appears for me to be mumbling.
He said do you know that when Jesus died he died so that you could be forgiven? I did
not know. He said when Jesus died on the cross he took the punishment which your sins deserve
so you can be completely forgiven. Now I knew I was a sinful person nobody needed to point
that out to me. If you think you're not a sinful person you talk to your spouse they
'll soon disillusion you on that. But if you don't have a spouse come and see me I'll
talk to you for a few minutes. I mean people say they're not sinful they're fooling themselves
that's what the Bible says. If we say we're without sin we're self deceived. And I've
never known anybody who doesn't honestly believe that they've lived properly before God and
their fellow. The burning question is what can be done about it? And God took action
in the person of Jesus. When I'm teaching little children I often get them to say say
inside your head while I say that loud Jesus Christ died for me. Jesus Christ died for
me. Doesn't it make you a terrifically important person if Christ has died for you? That God
has set his love upon you and let his only son die so that you can be forgiven. One year
my Auntie Millie whose knowledge of juvenile delinquency was very poor indeed gave me a
magnifying glass for Christmas. She thought I would have loads of fun making little things
bigger and I did have quite a bit of fun doing that. When you get it out into the sunshine
man oh man you can have fun with a magnifying glass. I burnt some grass, I burnt my name
into the front fence, nearly sent my father into paroxysm. When I burnt down the fowl
house he said enough is enough. I don't know very much about physics but I know on a beautiful
day like today you go out and the warmth of the sun just lifts your spirits doesn't it?
So what a great country this is, what a great day it is. It's great to be alive. You run
it through a lens and you can bend the rays and bring them down to such a sharp point
with energy that the whole thing bursts into flames. Imagine a moral magnifying glass big
enough to pass the sins of the world through it. Your sins, my sins, old Uncle Tom Cubley
and all, six million through the gas chamber, a third of Cambodia in the killing fields,
a thousand injustices all over the world for all time and you bend it down until the consequences
of it fall on one man in one moment of time in history and listen to what the man says
when this happens to him. My God, my God why have you forsaken me is what Jesus said when
the sin of the world was placed on him. And the Bible says he, Jesus, who was without
sin became sin so that you and I can be right with God. It's possible to be forgiven for
everything. It's possible to start a new life in friendship with God. It's possible to have
Jesus as master of a new life, a forgiven life, a fresh start and it could be yours
and it could be yours tonight. Everything depends on you.