A Tax Collector Prays for Forgiveness

We pray out of our Loneliness, Vulnerability, Our hurts and Abuse. For comfort. But Forgiveness?

Examples of Prayer - others, wisdom, forgiveness? this will always be a need; sin doesn’t go away - how much trouble can you get into at home?

Luke Two Parables on Prayer (18:1–14)

First, the material before us is in parable form and therefore carries its own force to stir and provide the hearer to arrive at an interpretation. While some parables teach or confirm a teaching, others break up the soil of previous teaching and prepare for a new perspective.

Luke Two Parables on Prayer (18:1–14)

an elderly black minister read this parable and gave a one-sentence interpretation: “Until you have stood for years knocking at a locked door, your knuckles bleeding, you do not really know what prayer is.

Pray hard; Intense; Desparate; beating one’s chest

About? About sin , forgiveness

We all need forgiveness, right? Is this going to be a negative sermon? Not negative, the same word the Bible uses for forgive also means release / dismiss - slavery, imprisonment; debt; Freedom from the bondage of guilt, shame

Story: 2 men walk into a temple (sounds like a bad joke)- a preacher and a tax collector

Pharisee -

Tax collector - describe

2-part - a prayer God ignores, a prayer God hears

ignores superficial prayer

hears the desperate prayer

The Superficial Prayer: Pharisee - describe

eloquent, long, professionally trained prayer; impressive; authoritative (intimidates others from praying)

Defined in negative not like others

Defined by religious activity

No pain,pain is good Blindness no pain

The Desperate Prayer- tax collector - describe

The publicans collected taxes for the Roman government, and the Jews regarded them as traitors and extortioners. They grew rich by padding the tax assessments that they were to collect. they were held in utter contempt by their own people, so you can imagine how his parents felt.

Matthew likely was a customs official with a tax office by the lake; he was responsible for collecting customs duties on the lucrative fishing trade. So he would have been well known to the disciples involved in the fishing trade business

prayer of pain

Practical: Bad things done? Brokenness Life brings Mistakes bring Wounds bring Time to reflect Wounds caused by our actions and attitudes -

Beating his chest

the downward gaze / no eye contact; and the breast-beating—/ self mutilation; speak of a deep sense of unworthiness and embarrassment.

Agony Realization

Colossians 3:13 NIV

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

Luke 18:13 NIV

“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.’

Closing Unpleasant but liberating We all need during restrictions