October 20, 2024 "The Power of An Honest Confession"

ReNew Ames Messages

Short little parable: two people go into the Temple and pray. A Pharisee and a tax collector. The tax collector goes home justified. Let's walk through this parable slowly and talk about how easy it is to think that we're "not like the Pharisee." Now there are also two words we should talk about: sin and sinner. Yeah, we have an aversion to those words for various reasons. BUT, Jesus insists on using that word, "Sinner." So then we should talk a bit about what the Bible says about sin. There are different perspectives of sin we have in this parable. The Pharisee sees sin as something you do - he makes a list. It creates an us versus them kind of scenario. The tax collector, however, does not make a list. He simply calls himself a "sinner." For him, the concept of sin is more than just the "wrong" things that we do. It's deeper than that. Sin is something he has - it's like it's infected him. From his perspective, sin is something that has become a problem for everyone. And when we have a problem, we typically want to do something about it, right? What do we do with our sin? Well, we have some options. First, we can avoid it or say that we don't have it and that other people do. That's what the Pharisee does. Problem is, it doesn't do anything for us. We remain unchanged. Next, we can obsess over it. The tax collector could have done that - his list of sins was a mile long. We can wallow in our guilt and our shame. We can beat ourselves up for it. Problem is, when we do that we wind up cutting ourselves off from the divine and from other people. We don't want that. There's another option - we can confess it. We can be honest about it. Jesus insists on us talking about it and confessing it because there's power and healing that comes along with honest confession. Speaker: Aaron Vis Scripture: Luke 18:9-14 http://bible.com/events/49336012