The Tale of Two Prayers: Finding True Humility

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Today on Real Life Radio.

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If you’re a Christian tonight, you already have the Holy Spirit in you. But as believers, we are to be asking God perpetually for the Holy Spirit to come upon us for power. And we need power. Yes, as His children we fail. But listen, so much of our failures happen because we’re not walking in the power of God.

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This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I’m David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God’s Word, the Bible. Did you know there’s an easy way to stay informed on the latest biblical events shaping our world today? Check out the Happening Now section at jackhibbs.com. Now, these live events feature Pastor Jack Hibbs alongside special guests diving into current events, cultural shifts, and how they align with biblical prophecy. It’s a unique blend of Bible teaching and real-time analysis that helps you make sense of today’s headlines through the lens of Scripture. Happening Now is not just about information. It’s about equipping you with the truth and encouraging you to stand firm in your faith, no matter what’s happening around you. Now, these discussions are eye-opening, they’re thought-provoking, and they’re a great way to stay spiritually grounded in a rapidly changing world. Whether you watch live or catch up on past events, Happening Now will help keep you connected to God’s Word and what’s going on in the world today. Visit jackhibbs.com and click on Happening Now. Don’t just watch the news. Understand it from a biblical perspective. On today’s edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack now continues his series called The Parables of Jesus with a message titled Parable of the Pharisee and Sinner. Now, whenever Jesus spoke to the crowds, he often spoke using relatable stories with common everyday themes the Bible calls parables. And in this parable, Jesus is teaching about humanity and true righteousness. You see, the Pharisee in this parable trusted in himself. When he prayed, he prayed about his own status. Rather than seeking mercy, the Pharisee praised himself and scorned the tax collector, missing the very heart of humility Jesus was teaching. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that unlike the Pharisee, the tax collector exhibits precisely what Jesus spoke about. We’re to come to God recognizing our sinful condition, humbling ourselves before him so that he can show us his boundless love and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Now with his message called Parable of the Pharisee and Sinner, here’s pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.

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Verse six, behold, you desire truth in the inward parts inside the character of you. And in the hidden part, you will make me to know wisdom. Here’s the fifth request, purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Number six, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Number seven, make me hear joy and gladness. Listen, the bones you have broken may rejoice. Here’s his eighth request, hide your face from my sins. Here’s the ninth request, blot out my iniquities. This is the next one, what, 10. Create in me a clean heart, oh God. 11, renew a steadfast spirit in me. 12, by the way, you can thank God for verse 11 that you live in the New Testament era, this does not happen. Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Thank God that that does not happen in the New Covenant. In those days, in the Old Testament, the Spirit of God would come upon them and leave them. To be born again is to have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you. Look at verse 12, he cries out still, restore to me the joy of your salvation. Again, he cries, uphold me by your generous spirit. And when I, listen, then, only then, the word means only then, I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners shall be converted to you. Here’s a cry, a request again. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed. Wow. I’m a murderer, he says, oh God. The God of my salvation. And my tongue shall sing aloud of your righteousness. Oh Lord, here’s the last request. Open my lips. And my mouth shall show forth your praise for you do not despise sacrifice or desire sacrifice or else I would give it. You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God, here it is, are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. These, oh God, you will not despise. That’s the key to tonight. Who does God listen to? Listen, I don’t mean this to, I’m not saying this to be mean. I’m not saying this to attack anybody. Please get this. Are you listening, church? I understand your intentions are sweet and it’s necessary at times. But when we say, you know, come forward and pray with people. Pray with the prayer elders. That’s an opportunity for you to pray with someone else and biblically to receive prayer. It’s biblical. But when you grab us and say, Pastor, will you pray for me? Or will you pray for my family? The answer is yes and we’re gonna do that. But do you understand something? God hears the prayer of those whose hearts and spirit are broken and contrite. A Christian is of a broken and contrite spirit of heart. That is a Christian, meaning God hears my prayer just as much as he hears your prayer. He doesn’t hear my prayer or your prayer more than my prayer or your prayer. When you pray, he hears you. He’s not unjust. I know you and I feel unworthy. Don’t you feel unworthy? We all feel unworthy. I don’t feel worthy enough to talk to God, to pray to God, I can’t do it. Look, some of us have learned how to handle our unworthiness more than others. You know what that means? We’ve learned this, God welcomes the unworthy. Some of you haven’t even learned that yet. You’re not trusting him enough yet. You’re still trusting in you still. I can’t pray, I’m not worthy. This guy was so worthy that he entertains God with his prayer. Hey God, you can hear it, you can feel it. Hey God, boy aren’t you glad I’m praying to you now. It’s me, of course all heaven knows who I am. I tithe all kinds of stuff. I fast all the time, look it’s me. You think God heard that? All God hears is nails on a chalkboard. Think of it. James chapter 4, verse 6 tells us, James 4, 6 says, but he gives more grace, therefore he says, God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. Philippians 2, verse 3 says, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourself. Not looking to your own interest, but each of you to the interest of the other in your relationships. with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality or something to be pursued with God, something to be used to his own advantage. Verse seven, rather he made himself, listen, nothing by taking the very nature of a servant. a human being made in human likeness and being found in the appearance as a man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death even the death of the cross this is our example man So, look, skip ahead for a second. We’re not there yet, but skip ahead to verse 13. And the tax collector, standing far off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. See the word merciful right there? That word just, and by the way, look at those seven words. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Boom. This week celebrates, what is it? The 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. Took three minutes for Lincoln to read it. He was not even the keynote speaker, though he was president. He was the second speaker. And very few people heard him, he spoke so softly. 272 words, three minutes, considered the most powerful speech ever given in human language, in English, possibly, Ever. You ever read that thing? I posted it on my Facebook today because it’s so awesome. You gotta read it. He said it yesterday, 150 years ago. Seven words right here that the Bible tells us God will not reject. These words, God be merciful to me, sinner. The word merciful here is the Greek word God. Is there a propitiation for me? That’s what it means. God, has someone stood in the gap for me? Listen, you need to hear this. No matter how you feel, no matter what’s going on in your life, this man, this is for us tonight. Jesus is telling us this guy, a notorious sinner, says, God, will someone pay the price for me? You know what that means? He’s completely bankrupt. He understands he’s broke. He can’t earn God’s favor. This is encouraging. Who will God hear? Who will God listen to? Every one of us tonight who will say, oh Lord, I’m a sinner. Jesus, I love you, but I’m so disgusted with my perpetual failing, if not indeed in my thoughts. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. How often have you prayed this prayer to God? I hope often. Why? The closer you are to the Lord Jesus Christ, the closer you are to the light, the more of the filth in our own hearts he exposes. And instead of him saying, whoa, look at that filth, get out of here, Jack. No, he says, hey, Jack, look at that. You’ve got dirt under your nails. You’ve got mud behind your ears. You’ve got, I mean, whatever he points out. And only the man or the woman who can say, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Jesus says, yes. Not the person who says, well, God, yeah, but look at the guy next to me. That person does not go away justified. You know what we need to do? We need to make sure that our hearts are in the right place regarding this. We need to be very careful that we’re not communicating to people that we are, and this is a tough thing to say, you guys. It’s hard to communicate this. Yes, we’re Christians. We are God’s kids. We have a completely different standard. Our morality is higher than those that we might work with or live with. We’re different. We’ve been changed. But the moment we begin to try to communicate that standard to them as something they should attain to, listen, you and I never attained to those standards, did we? God has been working in your life. The Holy Spirit has been calling you into a deeper relationship with him. He never spoke to any of us and said, clean up your act and you can be my child. Our human nature is like this, you know, someday when I get my life together, then I’ll become a Christian. When people say that, they are admitting that there’s a standard that they can’t meet, but I wonder if sometimes that standard’s been communicated from us to them. God sets the standard. He does the work in our lives.

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You’re listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com. And for now, let’s get back to our teaching. Once again, here’s Pastor Jack.

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In this cry, this man is dependent upon the Holy Spirit. The self-righteous man is not. Listen, let’s do this right now because it’s late already and I’m not going very fast. Let’s do this right now. Let’s pray for a moment. And let’s search our hearts. And maybe you’re not a Christian tonight. Here’s what you do. If you’re not a Christian tonight, just sit there and say, God, you’re real. You’re real. What’s going on, God? Speak to me. Don’t be afraid. But listen, if you’re a Christian tonight, let’s search our hearts tonight. Wouldn’t it be amazing? There’s enough of you here tonight that if God did a number on our hearts, imagine if we were renewed in our joy and boldness to know that God forgives sinners, he forgives us as his children because we fail miserably, and… He wants to hear us, and not only hear us, listen, Jesus said this. Now, remember, this parable’s about prayer. When you pray, he speaks in Luke’s gospel and Matthew’s gospel. He says to the believers, he says to the disciples, when you pray, ask your Father for the Holy Spirit. Now, that’s an interesting statement, because if you’re a Christian tonight, you already have the Holy Spirit in you. But as believers, we are to be asking God perpetually for the Holy Spirit to come upon us for power. And we need power. Yes, as his children, we fail. But listen, so much of our failures happen because we’re not walking in the power of God. This goes right back to where we began. The sinner becomes dependent upon the Lord. The self-righteous man is dependent upon himself. This church, your pastor, all of us together, we need to be dependent upon the Holy Spirit more. Let’s pray right now together. Father, we come to you tonight. We still our hearts before you. We ask you, Lord, to search our soul as your people. Father, we pray that you would begin now, Lord, to turn up the light, as it were, upon our hearts tonight. each of us individually, what is needed to be brought to the surface in our minds of something, of those things that you want to cleanse. Lord, we are your kids. But even in the family of God, the line of communication can be cluttered and we can lose your power. Lord, as we sit silent before you now, As we wait, Lord, on you, we pray, Father, that as these things come to our minds, we would silently deal with them. Maybe it’s temper. Maybe it’s worry, fret. Maybe it’s a relationship or an ungodly relationship. Lord, speak to us tonight. We know, Lord, that your word tells us that you desire that which is of the inward parts, the inward heart. Church, as we just pause right now to consider now before him, this is a hard thing for us to do. The temptation to grab your phone or to think about silly, unrelated thoughts are heavy or big. Stop now. What is Jesus saying to you? What is the Holy Spirit speaking to your heart? Father, we look to you to forgive. You are kind and you gave us your son, Jesus. And Lord, we pray tonight that as a church that there’d be nothing between us and you. Father, that you would strip from us, Lord, our busyness that we hide behind, the noise of our culture and of our lives. Lord, we pray that you would break that stuff down Church, tonight as we wrap this up, Father, we just pray that you would be so thick and so present to your church tonight as we just seek him right now. For the Christian tonight, this is not for the non-Christian, I’m talking to the Christian tonight. Christian tonight, the Bible in various forms, using various settings, we see believers empowered for action. I don’t give one moment’s consideration to the terms used. The moment that you were saved, the moment you trusted in Jesus Christ, the Bible tells us that you were baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ. And by the way, that is a singular once in a lifetime moment. You were put in the body of Christ. You were saved, done, sealed with the Spirit of God into the day of redemption. That’s not what I’m talking about tonight. Tonight I’m talking to you, Christian, to this church tonight where the Bible speaks over and over again about the Holy Spirit not coming inside of you, he’s already there, but the Holy Spirit’s power coming upon you to walk your life in victory. Jesus put it this way. He said, you fathers who, even though you are fallen in a world of sin and corruption, you know how to give good gifts to your children. And you give them good gifts. When a child asks for an egg, you don’t give them a scorpion. He says, when they ask for bread, you don’t give them a rock. He says, how much more will your heavenly Father give to you the Holy Spirit to them who ask? And I’m asking you tonight, Christian, have you ever, in the spirit of this parable, have you ever been so absolutely brought to the point where you cannot be dependent upon yourself anymore? It is impossible. You won’t do it. You can’t do it. It’s a recipe for failure. You will not lean on your own strength anymore. to get victory over that habit or over that issue or over that weakness or over that pain. And you’ve come to the end of your rope, as it were. This is a good place to be. Because Christian, listen, tonight you can say, dear Lord, come upon me with the power of your Holy Spirit. Ask him now right where you’re at. Lord, come upon me with your power. to endure this issue or this situation. Come upon me with your power to overcome, Lord, my past or my setbacks or my sin or my temptation or my whatever. Maybe you’re here tonight as a Christian and you’re saying, I want to serve God, but I don’t have the power. That’s right, you don’t. Thank God you don’t. Ask him for his power tonight. Right where you’re at, you ask. Jesus says that your father will give you. In all of your living, Christian, we need to repent of doing things in our own strength or in our own power. We need to be more dependent upon him. Whenever we think that we can do it, we are much like this Pharisee. So Heavenly Father, I ask in Jesus’ name that you would come upon us, fill us, baptize us, overwhelm us, Grant unto us the unction of your Holy Spirit to live in the power of the Spirit, to speak in the power of the Spirit, to love in the power of the Spirit, that the fruit of the Spirit would emanate from our lives. That God in that power, there’d be a true manifestation of holiness. That we would forsake the things that corrupt us. That we’ve allowed, we’ve tolerated into our lives. I know that whenever God’s word goes out, and maybe you’ve been coming here for a while and you’ve been hearing the word of God. You know the word. You love the Lord. But things have been so predictable in your life. Easy, actually. There’s been no… Urgency. It’s not required of you, see. You’re just existing. You love God, you’re going to heaven. That’s not the issue. But you can’t remember when was the last time you said, oh God, bless my life right now. Oh Lord, fill me with your spirit. Oh Lord, come upon me for this thing. And I’m gonna ask you tonight, just communicating with your God, ascending to the hill of the Lord as it were, to appear in his presence in prayer and request. I believe there are Christians here tonight that God is calling you to open your heart and venture out and Service to him. Ask him, Lord, what is it you’d have me to do? And then respond to him. And if you’re not sure, respond anyway. Watch what he does. Put yourself in that place of having to cry out to God for his power to be manifested in your life. And watch what he does. I am asking the Lord for you, for me, to create a holy, precious, divine, beautiful pressure that would be used of God to create in our lives the next chapter of growth for us. I pray that the biggest thing of all would be love. I think we as a church, if we love God and love one another first and ask him to manifest his love in our lives, everything else just will fall into its place.

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pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called Parable of the Pharisee and Sinner. Thanks for joining us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack’s series called The Parables of Jesus. It’s a series that highlights the teachings of Jesus while he was ministering here on this earth. And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

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So as you heard from our broadcast, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And if you’d like to know what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life personally, we would love to help you out with that. Go to jackhibbs.com slash know God. That’s K-N-O-W God. And there you’ll be guided through what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life and the freedom that you’ll find in knowing God. Don’t miss out. That’s the know God tab at jackhibbs.com.

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You ever feel like your Christian values are under constant assault? In a world where biblical truth is often labeled hateful or backward, how do we stand firm without becoming combative or isolated? Pastor Jack Hibbs wants to help you find answers with this month’s featured resource, When Culture Hates You. It’s written by Natasha Crane. And in this straight-talking book, you’ll discover how to tackle tough conversations, maintain biblical convictions, and respond to cultural hostility with both grace and truth. Now, think of it as your essential guide for navigating a world that often views faith as the enemy. You’ll learn how to speak confidently on issues of morality, identity, and belief without losing sight of God’s love because sometimes the strongest stance is one that balances conviction with compassion. Now, if you’re ready to stand strong in an ever-shifting culture, look no further. When culture hates you, it’s available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash realradio. One more time, jackhibbs.com slash realradio. This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We’ll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.