Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bible Doesn't Say That and here's your host Jack Potts.

Yeah, I got it. I got okay. I love you. Okay, bye. Oh, it's me Jack Potts and welcome back to another episode of The Bible Doesn't Say That. Can you welcome to the stage for the fourth time, Stephen and Savannah. Yes, we've upped the stakes this week to ten whole dollars per question if you get it right. Here we go. Does the Bible say cleanliness is next to godliness?

Yes. 

Oh, no, the Bible doesn't say that. Yeah, here's the thing. I highly recommend good hygiene, okay? But you know, in biblical times, there was no showers. Kind of stinky in here. Okay, I'm sorry, Stephen. Looks like Savannah has a chance to pull ahead. Savannah. Are you ready? 

You know it, Jack. 

She's ready. Okay, for ten dollars and potentially the lead, does the Bible say charity begins at home? 

You know that sounds nice, but I don't think that's in the Bible. You actually got that one correct. That's right. Rodney tell them what they won. 

Well, Jack,  Stephen's still has five dollars and Savannah now has fifteen dollars. I cannot wait to see what happens next. Looks like Savannah has good luck coming her way. 

Well, you know what they say? When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane. Isn't that right, Savannah?

I make my own lanes, bro.

WEll, you heard it here first folks. It's me Jack Potts, signing off and reminding you to read your Bible.

Well, good morning church. Thanks for being with us again today. If you're on line with us today. Hey, welcome into the house if you're in one of our venues today, thanks for being here. I know you don't get this. But in my life Sunday's are like Super Bowls. Every Saturday night, I am literally like a kid at Christmas. I look at my alarm clock like 10 times during the night and in the mornings I lay there.  I mean, I'm just ready to go every single week to be able to share just what is in His Word. And I know you don't get that I see you pulling in the parking lot. I watch the battle that's in your family. But hey, I drive here by myself. So it's just me and the Lord. Something happened this week that reminded me of a elementary school story. And I'm not like a lot of you guys. I don't remember a lot about what happened in my early school years, even some of my high school years. Some of you guys can like walk through every teacher you have ever had and remember them.  Some of you can remember all your friends.  Their are years of my life that I don't even know if I just blocked them for emotional purposes, or I just don't remember them but I ran into a friend from elementary school this week that reminded me of a story. And it was a story about my favorite teacher in elementary school. And my favorite teacher in elementary school, her name is Miss C. I'm not going to say her name. Because I'm a local kid. And I don't want to out her, alright?  If she's around, but Miss C, she wasn't my best. She wasn't kind of my favorite because she didn't give any homework. She wasn't my favorite because she was the nicest. She wasn't my favorite. I mean, here's the deal. She had the worst cigarette and coffee breath of anybody I've ever met in my entire life, but it was the 80s and that was okay back then. Right? I mean, you could literally smoke at school and no one cared back then. But I remember when Miss C became my favorite teacher. And it reminded me of the story this week. So one of my best friends was Jason and he sat kind of right behind me in a second grade kind of diagonal.  And one day we came back from lunch and Jason wasn't with us. It was like where's Jason?  And so we started asking around and Miss C wasn't in the room. Jason wasn't in the room.  And it was like weird. So by three or four minutes went past and we kept asking, where's Jason? Where's Jason? Well, finally, Miss C walks back into the room and she's got this look on her face like, okay, that's a little bit different. And then Jason comes back in the room. 

Now, here's what you need to know about Jason. He was one of those kids that every single day, something went down that he was in trouble. You may be that kid, kind of in elementary school. You may be sitting beside that kid. That was that kid in elementary school, but he was always in trouble. And I'm not talking about like, over the moon, like, suspended from school, but he was just always like a dripping faucet of mayhem. Well, Jason, finally after a few minutes, he walks back in the room and his eyes are kind of well, you could tell he'd been crying a little bit. And he had a blood stain on his shirt, like, all the way down right here. And it was like, oh, my goodness, Jason, what happened? He just shook his head. He shook his head. He kind of got on his desk, and he gave me kind of that stance. And we started asking around like, what happened to Jason?  What happened to Jason? Well, nobody knew what happened to Jason and then all of a sudden we asked this one girl that kind of sits beside and we're like, what happened to Jason? And it was that girl in class that knows everything. You know the one I'm talking about that no matter what info you need, you go to that girl in second grade and she knew right? And she said, I know what happened. Like what happened? She's like Miss C finally had enough of Jason and she smacked him right in the nose. She bloodied his nose. And it was like, Are you kidding me? She's like, no, I promise. I promise. She did,  ask him.  I'm like Jason, what happened? He just shook his head. We're like, it's true. It's true, Miss C, she's a savage. I mean, she just had enough of this kid. And she about broke his nose in the hallway and came back in. Well, here's the deal, man. This message, it spread throughout our whole class. Our whole class that day. It was the most well behaved class for the next couple of days in the history of our elementary school. Well, here's the deal. It didn't just stop at our class, this message of the savage Miss C spread through the whole second grade. And it was like don't cross Miss C, she would walk down the halls and people would literally go other directions from this lady. And it was like, oh my goodness, I remember nobody said a word for like three days in our class. It was just like, Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. And we just kind of came in and out. Well, on that Friday of that week, I mean, I played a prank on my friend Jason. And it was just one of those deals, and he got really mad and so embarrassed, and he broke the man code. He broke the man code of not tattling, and just take it. And I remember he was like, Oh, yeah, watch this. And he walked up to Miss C's desk, and I can see him telling her what I did to him. And I was like, no, don't do it and he was like, okay, watch this. I'm about to do it. He did it. He walks back. He's got this little smirk on his face. He's like what are you gonna do now? And it was like, what in the world? 

Well, here's the deal. Nobody ever talked to Jason about his nose anymore because he was embarrassed, right? So anyway, about a minute later, Miss C says hey Matt can you come see me at the desk? We need to talk. And I was like, oh, no, I'm not going up to your desk. I mean, this ain't the Green Mile. I'm not I'm out. I'm not going that way. This is not my death sentence. So she's like, Matt right now. I was lik kay, I'm up. So I walked up to her desk and she stood in front of me. And she's like, Matt, did you? And I just remember, I was like, I was so fearful in this moment that I started to kind of have those little shakes. Like, this lady is about to smash me, right? This lady. She's like, Matt, what's wrong with you? I'm like, I don't want you to hit me. I said it out loud. I was like, I don't want you to bloody my nose in front of my class. And she was like, Whoa, I would never do that. I was like, Yes, you would. I said that. I was like, Yes, she was. She's like, Matt, what are you talking about? I said, you did it to Jason. You bloodied his nose. You broke his nose. I mean, we saw the blood. She's like, Matt. I would never do that to any of my students. I'm like, but you did. She's like, no, I didn't I promise you I would never do that. And then it hit her like, oh my goodness. This week has been the perfect week in this class. And she looks up and she says, Matt, does everybody think this? I was like, yes.   Everybody? She looked at the class. She goes do all of you guys think this?  And we were like, you're a savage. Yes, you did this. And she goes, listen class, Jason has allergies and his nose was bleeding. And I helped him,  I got him some tissues. I helped him with his nose. And I brought him back into class. She goes, does everybody like in the school believe this? We're like, yes, you're a savage. In then, she talked us off the ledge and told us that no, I would never do this. Here's why I tell this story. Remember, I laughed out loud in the Kroger parking lot this week remembering this story, because here's the deal. When you've got the wrong idea about someone or something, it can incredibly impact how you deal with that person. I mean, it can impact your relationship with that person. It can impact how much time you want to spend with that person, how you want to deal with that person, how you love that person how scared you are of that person. Here's the deal, Miss C, she was so rattled in this situation, that she not only let me off for prank and Jason, but she gave us recess the rest of the day. And I'm pretty sure we made her cry because she thought everybody thought she was a savage in this classroom. 

But here's the deal. This is not just true with other people, it's true with God to.  How we see God directly affects how we deal with God, how we speak with God, how we serve God, how we minister alongside with God, and that's what this series is about, that we're walking through right now. It's about taking some of these phrases and some of these sayings that we have kind of attributed to God or attributed to the Bible and in debunking them because when we believe wrong things about who people are, it affects our relationship with them. But when we believe wrong things about God, it affects how we deal with God in our lives, how we deal with other people in our lives. And what we've done is we've taken some of these sayings that are either half truths, or they're really not even in the Bible or at all or maybe our grandma just kind of drilled them into us so much that we kind of felt they were truths and we debunked them and said, No, that's not the God of the universe. He would never be like that or do that. And we've been walking through these topics.  Week one  we looked at this idea of that God will never give you more than you can handle. And we debunked that. We said, no, God will give you so that you will rely on his power and his presence. And week two, we said  that it doesn't really matter what you believe as long as you're sincere. And we said sincerity is a big deal in our faith. But sincerity comes after the object of our faith. We said all roads don't lead to heaven. And we do have a responsibility to know that Jesus is the way. Last week we looked at Proverbs 22:6 and we looked at this idea, and we debunked the idea that a godly home always produces a godly kid. And we said that's not what the Bible says.  

The Bible is telling us that we should train our kids, we should look at our kids and godliness and train them according to their bent, but it's not our responsibility, how they turn out. That's up to God. We can't take that on ourselves. And some of you walked out of here last week, like whew, Matt, thanks for that. I feel like a train wreck of a parent. There was even a couple parents last week, and we were leaving here and their kids were running around here, they were being kids, right? You can't say don't run in church anymore. We have a gym, you know, I mean, you can you can run in church now. And so the kids were running around and they looked up at me after the service. They're like, hey, Matt, thank goodness, it's not my fault, huh? And I was like, well, I'm not sure that's where the message went. But hey, I appreciate the fact that you were listening. Well, this week's phrase is a little bit different. This week's phrase is one that if we had kind of vote on it, it would be at the top of the list, because it's incredible how many times I've heard this even spoken from other believers. And normally it comes in two situations.  It normally either comes when we're not doing anything, and we're laying on the couch and our mom really just wants us to get our sorry tails up and do something, or it comes when we feel like we figured everything out. And we're looking at somebody and we're kind of getting a little judgy on them. This week's phrase is this phrase right here. It's this, it's the one we're going to debunk. God helps those who help themselves. God helps those who help themselves to which I know. There's so many of us that are like, wait a minute, Matt, my mom said that to me. Yeah, she wanted you off the couch. Right? She was tired of your lazy bum attitude. And she probably said that some of you're like Matt, that's in Hezekiah chapter 6? No, that's not a book of the Bible. And it's not even in the Bible.  But here's the question, where did it come from? I mean, where did this come from and why is it that so many people believe this is in the Bible? Did you know that Jay Leno, you know if you're old enough to remember this, Jay Leno was prior to this guy named Jimmy, something, you know, Jimmy Fallon, on The Tonight Show, Jay Leno was the first person that came up with this idea of jaywalking, or these man on the street interviews, and he would go find the dumbest people on the entire planet and he would ask them questions, right? That was kind of his goal. And it was funny. It's great. And so one of his best segments on this ever was Jay Leno walked up to people on the street and said, an you name one of the 10 commandments? Can you name one of the 10 Commandments? To which, can I tell you what the number one answer to that question in Los Angeles was?  God helps those who help themselves. He helps us.  It was the number one answer in Los Angeles.   But you're like, well Matt, that's probably not, that's just, Los Angeles and that's a different world out there. No, no

Barnum, the Christian researcher, Barnum did a survey and did a research project and he found that 82% of Americans believe that the phrase, God helps those who help themselves, is in the Bible. And listen to this 52% of Christians,  52% of Christ followers think that this is a major theme in the Bible.  It's a major thing, not even just there. So where do we get it? We find it all over history. We find it in the Quran. Allah says, hey, until you take care of yourself, I'm not going to take care of you. But we find it first. The first time this phrase comes up and I thought this was pretty interesting. The first time it comes up, it's in the first century, it's in one of Aesop's Fables. Now, if you're a literature person, you'll remember these. They were kind of Greek Fables that were out there that kind of had some points in them for culture and in Aesop's  Fables, it tells the story of this guy, he's driving his cart down the cart path, he goes off the path and all of a sudden he's stuck and he calls out to the Greek gods.  Can you help me I'm stuck? There's nothing I can do and the story goes that all of a sudden Hercules, the God of strength appears to this guy. And he says, Hey, get off the cart, put your shoulder to the wheel, and get to work because the gods will help those who help themselves. That's where this phrase actually comes from if you want kind of the history of this phrase.  But here's the deal, Benjamin Franklin picked it up in 1736  and he wrote about it in one of his annuals to America.  He wrote it and it became this cultural and this colloquial phrase that kind of filtered down from generation to generation. And then the Puritans grabbed on to it a little bit, and looked at it for my works based salvation idea. And then it's filtered down into our kids because we just want them to turn out right and so we just say it a little bit, and then it filtered down into this idea of I just do more good than I do bad. Everything's gonna be alright. And here's what this phrase does to us though. Here's what I want you to see this morning. This phrase backs us in a corner. It backs us in a little bit of a corner. And there's really three reasons we believe this is in the Bible, I think. And the first one is pretty obvious. These aren't your notes. But it's pretty obvious. It's, most of us believe it's in the Bible, because we just don't read the Bible. And then that's a whole nother day. We don't have time to kind of go down that path. But we attribute a lot of things to the Bible, because we just don't read it. The second thing is, is we believe it's in the Bible, because there's, there's really some credence to this idea that God has asked us to walk out our faith. God hasn't just kind of spun us off and said, Oh, good, thank goodness, you got your get out of jail free card now go do what you want to do. He's called us to serve him to work for him to obey and to walk out our faith. But here's the third reason. The third reason that we believe this so much, is here it is, Satan really wants us to. He wants us to believe the saying and I need you to hear this morning. Satan, he wants us to believe that God only helps those who help themselves because he wants us to see that this life that we walk in Jesus is really more about us than God. That's Satan's goal. And this hurts, right? That was his goal from the beginning, all the way through time, he wanted us to see ourselves as equal to God playing as much a part of this life as God does. Because here's what that does. When we believe that God helps those who help themselves, we're advancing Satan's cause. Because here's what it does to us. Here's the problem with it. This idea and I put this in your notes, it lulls us to a false sense of believing that I don't need to depend on God for my spiritual transformation. Or I can just instead, work my way into a right relationship with Him. Satan wants us to do this, right? He wants us to do this. And this is a little bit heavy. So I want to just look at this for a minute because here's what this means. 

Satan wants us to believe that our spiritual transformation how we walk with God, how we get closer to God, how we walk out our faith and become more like God is more up to us than it is God because He knows that when he does that, that we're gonna fail and we're gonna feel like we never live up to His expectation. He knows that about us. Now you need to hear what I'm not saying in this message. So don't even send me this email. All right. I'm not saying in this message that we shouldn't walk out of faith. I'm not saying that we should not dedicate our lives to being obedient and following after who God is. I'm not saying that at all. I'm not saying there's not this level of obedience and walking in Jesus's name. I'm not saying that. Here's what I am saying. I'm saying that it's not primarily up to your power and your will to walk out what God has asked you to be. Now, that should give you a little bit of freedom. That should give you a little bit of freedom because here's what I know about some of us. We put so much pressure on ourselves and not God. We've put so much strain on ourselves feeling like why can't I just do this to where God You need to let me do this, you need to just fall in line with me. Because here's what the Bible does. The Bible is incredibly clear that we cannot live a life of following God without God being primarily in control. So here's what we're gonna do this morning, I'm going to give you one of what I think is the best examples of Jesus debunking this idea that we can live the life that He's called, that we can somehow bless God by being so obedient to Him. And I want you to turn to the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of Luke chapter 18. And I want to look at one of these parables that Jesus gave us.  Now, a parable if you haven't been around the church, a long time a parable, it's an earthly story with a heavenly meaning Jesus used these stories. When He kind of saw his audience he needed to talk to his audience in a way they can understand it, and he gave them these ideas about how his kingdom and how it looked to walk out there. And, Luke 18 is one of these parables where he teaches us what it looks like to live in his power and not just being full of our religious selves. All right, Luke 18, lets start in verse 9, I just want to read part of this parable to you. It says this, verse 9, it says, this is Jesus talking, "To some who were confident in their own righteousness, and looked down on everyone else." Now pause right there, because that's enough right there just to go all morning. Why? Because Jesus is defining the people that he's talking to right here. He's looking at a whole bunch of people that are looking down their religious noses at other people that are struggling, and they're saying, why can't you just get yourself together? Why can't you just get your life together? Why can't you be like us and live the life that God is going to bless. Alright, so Jesus defines his audience and then He goes on into the parable. Check it out. Jesus told this parable verse 10, "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector."  Now, I love what Jesus is doing right here, because you got to know a little history to kind of feel the weight of what He's doing. Jesus picks these two groups of people, He picks these incredibly opposite groups of people to tell this story about what would have caused the same amount of emotion and the same amount to the crowd, both of them.  On this side, you have the Pharisee, right? 

On this side, you have the tax collector, and there was this incredible emotional idea for both of them. Because here's the deal. If you were a tax collector during this day, nobody liked you. You were a cheater. You stole from people. You were working for the Roman government. You were over taxing people, you were basically the scum of the earth. Nobody wanted to deal with you. You were probably an Alabama fan. I mean, it's just kind of how you dealt with life where they dealt with you, they let you into their presence, but they really probably didn't like you. But if you were a Pharisee that somebody just checked out right there if you were a Pharisee. Now for us, when we look at parents, these were like a right because we're seeing it through the lens of Jesus. But as a Jew in first century when you looked at the Pharisees, they were your example. They were your people that lived life that that did the right stuff but dedicated their lives to living for the Lord that dedicated their life. So walking in righteousness and doing all the things that they were called to do, you would have been a person that probably was the PTA president at your school, you would have loved your wife. You went to every HOA meeting. I mean, they would have been that person that did everything right. You love your family. You did everything you said all your prayers you never miss church. You rested on Tuesday afternoon. So you got to see that the 11 o'clock service you did everything right. Okay. You did what needed to be done and look at what Jesus said because I love this because we're already judging right here. We're already like, oh, that person, he probably gonna get it right, wrong. Like who says verse 11? 

The Pharisee, he stood by himself, and he prayed.  We're going to get to that in a minute. And listen to what he said, God, I thank you that I am not like other people-robbers, evildoers, adulterers, and even like this tax collector," he's calling them out. "I fast twice a week and I give a tenth of all I get." So Jesus says, this guy's all by himself and look at what he does. He starts off with this prayer. And this prayer, it starts off amazing. It starts off as a classic Psalm of praise that you would have heard in every Jewish temple, you'd have heard it in every synagogue. God, I thank you. Now here's the deal. If he would have stopped praying right there, it probably would have been one of the best prayers in all of the New Testament just like us. I mean, tell me you haven't ever been in a prayer moment in your life or if you just stopped a couple of sentences before God would have probably honored it a whole lot more than He did later on. Right? But look at what this guy said, God, thank you. I thank you. Then it changes. It changes real quick.

I thank you that I'm not like the rest of these people.  Now before you start judging you've said this before you've said this in your in your little religious bubble you've said this before God I thank you I'm not like their family. Oh, I thank you. I'm not like that I think you I don't struggle with that. I think you I'm better than that. I thank you that my sins are not theirs, alright?  I thank you that I'm not like these other people, this Pharisee starts to call people out. And these aren't normal people. They're at church. They're there to worship. They're not like on the street. Remember this life he's dedicated, this Pharisee he's dedicated his life to this right living. And then he gets even better look at what he does. Then he moves from thank you to calling people out and then he moves to start bragging on how he has blessed God. Wow. You know, you're in trouble when you start bragging to God, how you have blessed God, like the God of the universe is like, man, I'm just really thankful for you. I mean, I really thank you for feeding that person right there. Thank you because without you Matt, I don't know what I would have ever done. I don't know how I could ever got this life, right. I don't know how I could have ever created this planet if it weren't for you being on this earth.  But that's what the guy did. He's like, God, Listen, I've taken this life really seriously. I'm taking you very seriously God, look at these fools. I'm glad I'm not like him. And then he starts dangerously taking the leadership away from God and putting it on what he has done. And how he has operated this level of self pride, don't get so judgy yet because we've lived there, haven't we? We've lived there. If there would have been a reporter in the room. Mr. Pharisee how did you get to this point? God wouldn't have even shown up in the picture. Well, you just know I'm dedicated and I just kind of keep my life above where everybody else is and I don't do all the rest of that stuff that those people do and I just tried to live a clean life where Jesus is and he's like okay, I get that. Why? You ever thought about why this Pharisee is right here in this moment? He's in this mode because he believes fully that God helps those who help themselves. He believes that in his core. And so what does he do? He comes out for God and he's telling God how he is helping himself so that somehow God may say, Okay, well, good, you've got there, thank goodness, come on into my kingdom. But that's not how God operates.

Do you know what this does to us? You know, when we believe that God helps those who help themselves a couple things happen in our life to the spirits who show us. Number one, it causes us to push others away. When we believe that for some reason we got to this point where we've helped ourself enough and the other people haven't. It gets us into this point where we push other people away. Remember in verse 11, in verse 11, what did it say? It says, The Pharisees stood by himself and prayed. What does that mean? If you kind of go into the history, you know how the temple worked, it meant this.  They all walked into the temple courtyard together and the Pharisee being all about himself and what he feels like he has done he separated himself from the crowd and walked even closer to the altar, putting his back to the crowd, as if it were something that he deserved. And he was more deserving than the rest because of how he was acting in his life. What does he do? He begins to turn his back on these people and he begins to say, hey, I know you sinners, I know you got a lot going on. But I because of who I am, I'm separating myself from the crowd of worshipers because I'm better than you. But not only does it help us push others away. Number two, it creates, man this is so good, this arrogant heart in us. When we believe that this spiritual life is on us. When we're living the spiritual life. What does it do? It creates this arrogance about us. If you read back through this passage, you can do it. I mean, I challenge you all week long to read this prayer of the Spirit. 

See, when you read back through it, you'll see the word "I" four times maybe five depending on which version you're in. You know what that tells me? The pronoun "I" tells me that this guy is taking his face off of God and he's put it on himself in arrogance. In arrogance. Let me ask you something when you see the plight of humanity, do you put the hey, I'm glad I'm not like them or do you put the idea of God would you move in them?

You see what's doing to him, right? It's pushing others away.

It's creating this arrogant heart and it's easy to do when we feel like we're in control we put God secondary and ourself primary and then number three, what else does it do? It fills a critical Spirit in us. When we believe like we're walking this life, and it's on my power and my presence. It creates this critical amount about us remember, what did he do? He removed himself from the crowd. He didn't want to be around the crowd. And what did he do on top of that?  He put himself in the judgment seat of these other people, rather than God being there. Rather than God being there. Remember what did he do?  God, I'm so glad I'm not like these evil people, like these other people, like these other people.  These are people that are just there to worship God and this guy's so critical about them and he's now looking at them saying, I've got it figured out and you don't. But number four, it gives us this inference that when we live like this thing's up to us,  then it produces a social blindness. It produces the social blindness. And here's what I mean by this, for those of you that are not literal thinkers, let me just kind of give it to you. Here's what the guy literally does. He stands up in front of the crowd, and he says, hey, you know, I know you guys are struggling. But if you guys would just live your life, how God wants you to live it, you probably wouldn't be in the situation that you're in. Now that one hurts, doesn't it? Because we've all said that before. We've all looked at the plight of humanity that are struggling, that are poor, that they have, been hit with just deep wounds in them, and maybe it's just me, or maybe self confession. And we've said if you would just turn your life to God, if you just work harder for God, if you just obey more for God, you probably wouldn't be in the situation that you're in. What do you do in that moment?  You are taking it off a God and you're putting on yourself and you're saying that there is some level of obedience that God waits for us to step into prior to stepping into our lives. But that is workspace salvation.  That is not from God. It's not from God. I mean, this guy, he just pauses and he says, hey, they really should have lived better. I'm gonna go over here and pray. I'm gonna go over and pray. Here's my thing that represents a lot of churches in America. But can I just pause for a minute and just say this, I'm so thankful that this place doesn't have this spirit.  That we're not a church that looks at the poor and the oppressed and the needy and the hurting and turns our back on them and goes, hey, you should live life better. 

That's not the life of Burnt Hickory. And can I just tell you something? If it was, I wouldn't be here. I just need to tell you thank you for not being the critical spirits. Thank you for not being the people that are just dogging on people all the time because they just don't have their lives put together. Pray for them. Thank you for being that because it's really easy to slip into judgment and pride when you think that it's on you. But let's keep going because it'd be really depressing if that was the end, right? Let's keep going, alright? Look at verse 13. The story shifts, Jesus, He shows us the other side of the story. I love this, look at what he says.  "But," verse 13, or anytime there's a but, something good is coming. "But the tax collector, stood at a distance.  He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner."  Now when you think of praying, you think of how you taught your kid to pray. You put your hands together, you bow your head, you do your little God prayer, here I am.  No, no, that's not how they did it. They would have been in the temple, they would have stood as strong as they could in the temple facing the right spot, and they would have lifted their eyes to God and they would have literally tried to make eye contact with the heavens or they would have been on their face before God laying down. That was kind of the two options of this moment, but this guy, he couldn't even muster enough strength to look up to heaven and he was basically so hurting.  He was so broken, he was in so much need, realizing that he needed God's power. He couldn't even look up the God and what does the Bible say he started to do? He started to beat on his breast, and I'm not talking about hey look at me. I mean, I'm not talking about a score to touch down or I just hit the walk off. He's beating his breast, being critical of his spirit saying, God, I've got myself into a situation that I can never get out of. That's what he's saying. I don't know how I've gotten here. I'm so hurting. I'm so hurting and now look at his prayer. Because I guarantee you if you'll just memorize this guy's prayer, it can change your life. It's one of my favorite prayers in all the New Testament, he looks up to God, and he's a God, have mercy on me, a sinner. 

Now in English, it looks like the guy is saying God, you know what I got a little bit of a sin problem. God you know what, there's some sin in my life?  God, you know what, there's some areas of my life that I just kind of struggle with every now and then. But that's in English and that's because for some reason the translators into English gave us this idea of the word there is "a" but here's the problem. The word is not "a", the word in the Greek is the word "the".  It is a definite article. Remember the difference between an indefinite and a definite article? I know school started but here it is.  An indefinite article is just kind of like this ethereal kind of like you're grouped into kind of a general group. And,"the" is a definite article.  Now read it with the word "the" there and look at what the Bible really says. God help me for I am "the" sinner. Now that's powerful, right? That is way more powerful because what does he say? Not God, I got a little bit of a problem here. No, no, he's saying God I'm the sinner of all sinners. I have so much sin in me, I don't know what to do?  I don't know how to get there. I don't know what to do?  God my heart is so simple.  God in my helplessness, in my shame where I can do nothing. This is what he's saying, right? Help me. I just need you to feel this difference because if you don't feel this difference, you might as well just head to Cracker Barrel now. Because this is what it's saying. It's saying and I need you to feel this.  The weight of the Christian life does not primarily rest on us people that have a little bit of a sin problem. The weight of the Christian life rests on the power and the presence and the love and the godliness of the Savior of the universe, Jesus. That's the power. That's the point of this whole parable.  It's to show us no matter how religious you are, doesn't matter what you think you have done for God. What matters is, that you  the sinner come before the God and beg for mercy.  And beg for mercy. If that changes in our walks with Jesus, I'm gonna tell you something, the power of God in this place and this community will never be the same.  Look at verse 14, look what Jesus says, I love this.  "I tell you, that this man", he's talking about who this man is the tax collector, "rather than the other, went home justified before God.  For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled. All those who humble themselves will be exalted."  

What is Jesus saying?  He's saying, you are the one that's going to be justified.  What does justified mean?  Made right before God.  It's a it's a huge word in our faith.  Justified means that God sees us through the lens of Jesus, sees us through the lens of who and the blood of the cross of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus.  The one that went home justified is the one that realized that he could not do anything for God.  That all  he could do was to ask for God to direct him and give him power. That's what he's saying. What this is not saying is God helps those who help themselves. It's saying the opposite. And here's the principle that Jesus is giving. He's giving us the principle that God helps those who cannot help themselves. He says, you cannot help yourself to get to God. You can't. You cannot help yourself, get the power of God. That is on God. What you can do is position yourself to hear from Him. That's what you can do. The principal God helps those who cannot help themselves. He helps the helpless, weak, he rescues the helpless hurting, the rescue broken, the rescued sick, and most importantly, he rescues the lost. Here's the second principle.  God, man this is so good,  He specializes in hopeless situations.

He specializes, look, you might have come to church today. You may be with us online today and you feel like this is the end. There's nothing you have to offer there's no way you can get to God. There's nothing you can do to please God. Here's the good news in that. That's where God wants you. Why? Because he specializes in hopeless situations and not situations where we stand before Him thinking that we're blessing Him, thinking that we are in control.  And you see this all through the Bible, right? You see the Israelites being delivered from Egypt, God help us you see us standing at the Red Sea with a Pharaoh's army behind them and the sea in front of them. God help us,  you see this in the book of Daniel with Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego,  go God, I can't do it. Help me you see it in the New Testament and Matthew, Mark and Luke, when their disciples are in the boat and it's just being rocked and just ravaged and they think they're gonna die. They finally yell out Jesus, we can't do anything help us. Please hear me if you're in a seemingly helpless situation this morning. You're in the best spot for God to step in and to reign in your life.  You're in the best spot.  Why? Romans 5:6, right? You see at just the right time, "While we were still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly." What did Jesus do? Jesus was so willing, He wrapped himself in flesh, He went to the cross and listen to this, ah this is so good, Jesus made Himself helpless, so that He can help the helpless. Have you ever thought about that?  He emptied Himself and became sin, so the helpless can be helped.

So those who had no hope could have hope. He took our place, He became our substitute. He went to the cross, He rose from the grave. Why? Because there's nothing else we could have done. He became our substitute. You say, Matt what does that have to do with the story? Look back at verse 13. There's one word that we didn't look at.  I need you to see this and you see how specific and how much you need to love the Bible. Look at what verse 13 says.  It says, "But the tax collectors stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but he beat his breast and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Now, I don't expect you to get this unless you're just like a super Bible nerd. But listen to this. The word mercy in Greek is the word eleos.

Eleos is pity or compassion. It's used hundreds of times in the New Testament. Every time the word mercy is used, the word eleos is used except for right here. Right here is the word hiloskomai, for some reason. For some reason, the Bible translated this as mercy but here's what this word really is. It's the word hiloskomai. You know what the word hiloskomai means? Substitute. It means perpetuation if you want a big Bible word.  It means this. This guy got before Jesus, he got on his face, have mercy, become my substitute. I can't do it. That changes the story doesn't it?  That changes how we like the story. Why? Because Jesus is our substitute. He is our hiloskomai.  That's what it's saying.  It's saying that Jesus will help you in your helpless situation.  Who did Jesus justify?

The guy who realized he needed a helokomai, a substitute.  I read a story a couple weeks ago out of the LA Times it was an old story and just popped up and it was about a city that there was just north of LA and they had a speed trap. We all love some speed traps, right? And this was a little different.  In the speed trap, when you  got caught speeding, they didn't hand you a piece of paper. They literally put you in the cop car, took you straight to the judge and put you in front of the judge right then.  They were on the bench 24 hours a day while this was going on. One night a single mom that just could not hardly make it she didn't have $1 to her name. She was driving home from work to get home to relieve the babysitter and the single mom gets pulled over speeding and she knew she was speeding. There was no question about it. She was trying to get home. Well, they say, hey, get in the car, let's go. They put her in the cop car. They take her to the judge, she stands in front of the judge and judge says, "Ma'am, you got two options in this court. We do this pretty quick. How do you plead?"   She says, "Well, I'm guilty. There's not,  I mean I can't argue this." I'm not gonna say my speedometer was wrong. What do you mean 10? Over No, she was guilty. She knew she was. He says, "Well you got two options. You can either pay the hundred dollar fine or you can spend one night in jail. Two options is pretty easy. What do you wanna do? How would you like to pay your fine?"

She looked at the judge and  she's just sobbing out of control and she says, "Judge, I don't have any money. I got nothing." He said, "So what what would you like to do?"  And she says, "I guess I'm just gonna have to spend the night in jail. Can I make a phone call?"   And he says, "No, you cannot."

She looks at him. The judge stands up from behind his bench and instead of rappeling the gavel and sending her out he folds up his robe really nice, he sets it in his chair and he walks out and stands right beside this girl and this girl's like what in the world is going on and she looks up at him he looks at her and he reaches in his back pocket and pulls out his wallet and pulls out a fresh $100 bill and hands it to the bailiff and says, "Hey, I want to pay for this girl sin.

Can I do that?"  And the baliff says, "Sure."  He reaches over and he hands him the money and he looks at the girl the girl is broken and the judge begins to cry. This girl just jumps and just gives this guy  the biggest hug ever,  kisses him on the cheek and says you don't know what that means for me. I could have never done that. And he says, "I know daughter.

I know and this is for you. And this is for the grandbaby.

I love you." The judge was her dad.  It was her dad. Here's the deal. That's the mercy. This story is talking about.  The hiloskomai. Come on. The question today is this. Do you need Him?

Do you need Jesus to take you off your religious high horse and to help you realize that he's all you got? You can't work your way there. You can't act your way there. You can't be good enough. It's not gonna work. I promise you, you're always gonna feel guilty.

When you realize the judge, why?  He has to be right. God has to be right.  Why? He's just. He has to judge us. But what did He do?  He sent Jesus.

Why?  So that when we say God have mercy. What do we saying? Become my substitute? Become a substitute.  This morning I don't know how you walked into this place.  I don't know if you've given your life to Jesus or not but hey, I can tell you this.  The Bible says that all who call on the name of the Lord  should be saved.   The Bible says that He is one prayer away from becoming your hiloskomai. So where are you going to leave it today? Are you going to go home, check out some Fox News and just say I'm glad I'm not like those people?

Are you gonna go home? God become my hiloskomai.  Lord Jesus today, help us to see that you Jesus are my starting point.  You specialize in helping those who can't help themselves and God all who call upon the name of the Lord should be saved that you're an asset. An ever present help and the time of need. God in the quiet of this moment in our homes and in this church today, I just pray for repentance from being religious. God I pray for repentance of having a Pharisees heart. Feeling like we're somehow blessing you. And God I pray for a spirit during these next couple of moments. I'm just calling out to You our hiloskmai, our substitute, surrendering to Your power.

You know with your heads bowed and your eyes closed, I just want us to sit here for a minute today. Because I just feel like some of us this is exactly where we're at. We've tried this thing on our own. And we've never felt good enough. Guess what you're never going to be good enough and that's okay. I feel like there's some of us that have possibly lived as religious of a life as we could. And the problem is we've never met Jesus. Do you need Him today to come into your life to forgive you of your sins to become your Savior, your Lord?

If that's you today, man I would encourage you to do two things. Number one, I just need you to just say God have mercy, I'm a sinner, come into my life and save me. I'm yours. 

If that's the prayer of your heart today, as soon as the service is over, I'm going to be down here in the front if you're online with us, or if you're in the room with us, if you will just text the Next to 678-506-2462 here's what that'll do for you. It'll walk you through how you can let us know what decision you've made today and somebody will reach back out to you to explain to you what it really means to walk in Jesus.   Lord, walk with these people.  Lord give us a moment today, Lord, not to be in a hurry. There are no other services behind this one.

Just to sit in this moment and surrender to Your power. Thank you, Jesus. It's in your name, Amen. Let's stand and sing for a minute.