Beware Pharisee-ism
Around this time of year, I’m starting to think about Christmas carols! Our church’s carols are on 1 December this year – if you’re in the area, we’d love to have you join us for that at 6pm.
One of the great Christmas songs that we always sing is “O Come All Ye Faithful”. But I once heard a preacher say that we should leave that song for the Sunday after Christmas! Because even the least faithful church-goer usually shows up at church on Christmas day. But it’s the really faithful who show up the next week!
Faithful Christians Today
Would you call yourself a faithful Christian? A good, committed Christian? A real child of God? Maybe you don’t know the answer to that, or maybe you would say “yes”. Maybe you’d say, like King David in 2 Samuel 22:24: “I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin.”
My own denomination, the Church of the Nazarene, is passionate about holiness. Our anthem says “holiness unto the Lord is our watchword and song!” And we believe in the glorious possibility of a holy and faithful life. Where others might insist that humans will always be slaves to sin, and sin every moment in word, thought or deed, we see in the New Testament a wonderful possibility for holiness for those saved and sanctified by God’s grace.
The Call to Holiness
In fact last year Dr. Shaun Mellors preached at our church, I remember he caused a bit of a stir because he said that we should not call ourselves sinners anymore – we should recognize ourselves as saints before God! And this freaked the congregation out! Because many of us have been taught over the years that we are just stuck in sin until we die. We never learned that holiness is possible through God’s sanctifying grace.
But some of us have heard the call to holiness and would look at our lives and say, “Yes I’ve been faithful.” And it’s to those people, primarily, that I would like to share a word from Jesus this week, from Luke 18. Jesus is talking to those who think: “I’ve been faithful and good!” We find it in Luke 18:9-14: “To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ 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.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Humility in Faith
This is a story that hits me every time I read it! It’s always a bit of an ouch – because I have noticed that I can very quickly fall into the patterns that we see in this Pharisee, if I’m not careful.
Friends, be careful. Our enemy is a clever one. If he sees that you are faithful and strong in your commitment to faith and to the church, he’s going to come at you in different ways. He’s going to try turn you into a Pharisee – faithful, but full of it!
Be faithful today, but don’t be a Pharisee – looking down on others and proud of your faithfulness. You’ll find that the moment you’ve become a Pharisee, you’re actually not as faithful as you think you are.
