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CONNIE: Which are more important, words or deeds? Talk or action? Join us today as we conclude our study of the parables of Jesus with an answer that might surprise you.
Giving God’s trumpet a Certain Sound for 75 years, this is the Voice of Prophecy.

CONNIE: Hello, I’m Connie Jeffery,

LONNIE: and I’m Lonnie Melashenko.

CONNIE: Lonnie, a few weeks ago we did a program called “When Works Do Count,” and I remember that in that program you talked about how there are times when our works are important—and you said that in that parable Jesus was teaching us that simply saying you’re going to do God’s will is not enough. It’s important to actually get out there and do something. But I get the impression from today’s program that you’re going to be looking at the other side of the same question.

LONNIE: Well, Connie, it’s important to understand the importance of both what we do and what we say as Christians. Just giving lip service to something is never enough. But in the parable we’re looking at today, we find that the words we say can be extremely important to our salvation. And as part of our broadcast today, we want to encourage our listeners to use their words not only for their own salvation, but to lead someone else to have stronger faith in Jesus. We’ve invited our old friend Don McClure to join us again to share some insights into the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, which we’ll be studying today, and also to share with us about the Someone Cares ministry he and his wife lead out in. I spoke with Don in our studios recently.

CONNIE: Let’s listen in.

LONNIE: Hi Don, welcome back to our program today.

DON: Hey, it’s good to be here.

LONNIE: Don, you’ve been behind bars, humility, when that comes into a person, that is as important as anything in God’s sight, am I right?

DON: Absolutely! You know, we…out in the world…you go to prison because you want something someone else had.

LONNIE: And you had an attitude didn’t you?

DON: A bad one! If you had it I wanted it. Your money, your car, your wife, but when I found the Lord and learned that giving was so neat…because God promises that if we give without any greed or thoughts in our mind. I know a doctor at a church…He called me up one night, and says what are you preaching on tomorrow, and I told him. He said I don’t want to hear that, and I said I beg your pardon, and he says I don’t, he say’s I support the church and all of my money keeps this church going and if you preach on that I’ll quite the church and my money will go away along with the church. Nobody was going to tell me what to do, so I preached my original sermon and he came and he left and he left the church. The church at that time had 57 members and he was 90% support of the church. The church now has 247 members, is paid for…His giving in thinking was wrong. He gave a lot, but he gave for personal return. The Tax-Collector in the Bible, he gives humbly. I’ve got a group of inmates in prison, who every month send 6 bucks, and when you make 9 cents an hour and give a penny of that per hour, that’s a lot of money.

LONNIE: Everybody is important to God. The prisoner who repents is as holy to God, as any body else.

DON: When I come on your show and when I speak in a church, and when everybody wants to hear about all of the terrible things that I did before…But that’s before…

LONNIE: Repentance puts you right with God.

DON: Yeah. When I had all of this gangster stuff I had a lot of money…Now I do well because the Lord promises me that I am going to get by on His will.

LONNIE: But now your bank account has 100 hundred bucks in it, but you have the cattle on a thousand hills.

DON: That’s right: Lonnie it is so fun to know that you can tap God’s bank account anytime you want.

LONNIE: Just briefly, tie into this concept that everybody can find God, no matter who or what you’ve done.

DON: If somebody outside reaches inside, and somebody inside is changed, it lights alight that cannot be put out. Men and women in prison are rejected and neglected. Families forget about them, they’re unforgiving. The Lord gives us credit for what ever we give and we receive his continence continually.

LONNIE: But you the people at home can get involved with our prisoner ministry, and it’s perfectly safe right?

DON: Just imagine a match in a dark room and that is what you can do in the heart of a prisoner tonight by writing to him or her.

“This Little Light of Mine”, Judy Wolter, from There Comes a Time CD.

CONNIE: You probably recognized that cheerful little tune, “This Little Light Of Mine, I’m Going To Let It Shine!”

LONNIE: I must say, Connie, that’s what Don and Yvonne McClure are doing through their Someone Cares outreach. And the great thing about their program is that it focuses on helping people in prison, but also on helping people outside the prison become involved in sharing their faith.

CONNIE: We enjoy having Don on our program from time to time, and he tells us that after he’s been on the broadcast, many of our listeners contact him about becoming involved in prison ministry through Someone Cares.

LONNIE: It’s a wonderful program that allows people to write letters to prisoners without fear, because each letter goes through the post office box at Someone Cares on its way to and from the prison.

CONNIE: To learn how you can be involved in this ministry, contact the McClures at 260-492-7770, or write to them at Someone Cares, P. O. Box 15338, Fort Wayne, IN 46885. We’ll give that information again at the end of our program, and you can also visit our web page ad VOP.com or the Someone Cares web page at someonecares.org to learn more. Right now though, it’s time for Lonnie’s message.

When All Is Said and Done

“It just kind of brings meaning to what I’ve been doing for the last twelve years of my life.” Those were the words of the man I suppose we could call the world’s second best athlete—at least if you buy into all of the hype surrounding the Summer Olympics held in Athens, Greece this year. Bryan Clay took the silver medal in the decathlon at Athens, and I must say I admire a man who can excel in ten different events. Bryan came from behind—kind of out of the shadows. He hadn’t gotten much publicity before the games; most commentators’ attention was focused on another U.S. athlete who was regarded as having a better chance at the gold.

But there, in the background, in the shadows, Bryan Clay kept on keeping on. He fought and struggled and worked, never getting much publicity, but never quitting either. And after twelve years of struggles, he finally could say yes! This makes it all worthwhile.

I’m not much of a sports fan myself, but I do like to peek in from time to time when the Olympic Games are going on. And when I see a man or woman come from behind—out of oblivion so to speak—and find their way to the medal pedestal by dint of sheer hard work, it warms my heart.

It’s a thrill, isn’t it, to see someone at the height of their game, whatever that game may be. Whether it’s softball or gymnastics, swimming or dressage, when you see someone with a medal hanging around their neck, you know it didn’t just happen by accident. They didn’t just walk off the street and say, “Hey—that looks like fun! I think I’d like to try it. Hand me that discuss, let me see how far I can throw it!”

No, an athlete who wins an Olympic medal has devoted his or her life to one sport. They’ve worked at it, pushed their way through pain, and just kept on keeping on when thousands of wannabes have thrown in the towel.

And if they get the chance to stand on the pedestal with their nation’s national anthem playing as their country’s flag rises, they have earned the right to be there. Their hard work has paid off.

We all like to think that hard work pays off. That if we have achieved some goal in life, it’s because of all the effort we put in. And in most aspects of our life here on earth, it’s true. The person who works the hardest often does get the prize.

And so it’s not surprising that we tend to want to carry this sort of thinking over into the spiritual world as well.

Is there such a thing as a spiritual athlete? Consider the words of the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 9. It’s unlikely that Paul ever got to witness an Olympic game, but there were athletic festivals in his day. One in particular, the Isthmian Games, was held in Corinth every two years, and Paul probably was in town when the festival was held. Winners were not given gold medals in those days. They received a crown instead—much like the crowns of olive branches that we saw Olympic athletes wearing in Greece. But in Corinth the crown was made of celery!

Yes, you heard right. Celery—that crunchy green vegetable your mom used to pack in your sack lunch when she sent you off to school. Keep that in mind as we read 1 Corinthians 9:24-25: “Do you not know,” Paul writes to the people of Corinth, “that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one” (NRSV).

Paul speaks of himself as a spiritual athlete and encourages us to think of ourselves in the same way, and to strive for eternal rewards, not celery wreaths.

If you were to ask the apostle, “Are discipline and hard work an important part of the Christian life as we prepare for heaven?” his answer would be yes.

So, what are we to make of the story that Jesus told, which we find in Luke 18—the story we call the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector?

It almost seems to teach the opposite idea. I’m going to read the entire parable now from Luke 18, verses 10 through 14. As I read, be thinking about this question: What is Jesus saying about the value of good works in God’s judgment?

“‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other . . .” ’ ” (NRSV).

What is Jesus’ reaction to the Pharisee who has worked so hard and doesn’t mind listing all his deeds on his résumé?

It’s plain and simple: good works do not justify us. Good works do not save us. No matter how many good things we do, or how many bad things we avoid, it will never be enough. We can’t achieve perfection by what we do, or don’t do.

Does the name Nadia Comaneci ring any bells in your mind? Does it take you back to the 1976 Olympics in Montreal? Do you remember that tiny little 4’ 11”, 86-pound Romanian girl who stole the hearts of people all around the world? She was only fourteen years old, but she accomplished something no one had ever done before. After her routine on the uneven bars, the scores came up across the board 10, 10, 10, 10! A perfect score! Such a thing had never been seen in Olympic gymnastics scoring. But she did it again and again, going home from Montreal with seven perfect 10s, three gold medals, and one bronze.

Certainly all her hard work paid off.

But you know I’ve noticed something, in the years since then. You seldom if ever see a 10 anymore at the Olympics. I’m not sure whether it’s because they’ve made the scoring more difficult, or whether gymnasts just aren’t as good anymore. But somehow, perfection seems to be just out of range.

I have a feeling, don’t you that the judges want to keep it that way. After all, if you keep handing out 10s, what does that leave to strive for?

But getting back to our biblical story: is that the way God is? Is He always setting the standards a little bit higher, so that no matter how good we get—no matter how hard we try—we’ll always miss the mark by just the slightest bit. We’ll get a 9.875, or maybe even a 9.92, but never a 10?

If that’s the lesson you get from the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, I hope you’ll go back and read it again.

Why did the tax collector—a man regarded by his countrymen as one of the worst of sinners—go home justified while the Pharisee, who was known to be one of the most law abiding citizens, went home unjustified?

Was it because of what they had done, or because of what they had said?

You know, in a sense, Jesus was just retelling a very old story here. The Pharisee should have known the story, and should have a understood its application to his life. But it seems he needed a reminder.

I’m thinking of the story of Cain and Abel. You remember that story—it’s found in the fourth chapter of the Bible. It starts out much the same way as today’s parable: two men come before God seeking justification. Cain brings some of the fruits and vegetables he has grown. These things are the proceeds from his hard labors, and he presents them before God on the altar.

Abel also brings some of the produce of his farming activities to present before God. But there’s a difference.

The testimony of the fruits and vegetables on Cain’s altar is: God, I hope you appreciate all the hard work I’ve done to produce these goodies for you.

On Abel’s altar we see something different. And we see a difference of attitude as well. You see, as soon as Adam and Eve sinned, they were in need of a savior. They were in need of forgiveness; just as we all are to this day. We are all deserving of death, and we need a substitute—a savior—to die in our place. And Abel’s offering demonstrates an awareness, and acceptance, of this fundamental principle of the plan of salvation. Abel brought a little lamb to sacrifice—a sacrifice that required the shedding of blood, the taking of a life. This sacrifice symbolized his recognition that he himself deserved to die for his sins.

He wasn’t offering the hard works of his hands as some sort of appeasement to God. He was acknowledging his sin and asking for forgiveness. And God acknowledged his sacrifice but did not acknowledge Cain’s offer of the works of his hands.

Now let’s go back to the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Let's focus on the end. Jesus describes the scene at the temple:

“ ‘But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted’ ” (Luke 18:13, 14, NRSV).

In Jesus’ story, the tax collector is like Abel. He comes to the temple acknowledging his need of a savior—acknowledging his need of forgiveness—and pleading for mercy.

And do you know what? He gets exactly what he asks for.

Notice Jesus doesn’t condemn the Pharisee for his hard work. The only thing the Pharisee did wrong was to place his confidence in those works instead of in God’s mercy. His attitude demonstrates a total misunderstanding of God’s character and a lack of understanding of the nature of sin. Any time we fall short of God’s plan for us, it is a sin. And no amount of good works can erase those sins. God is not like Lady Justice, blindfolded and holding a scale with our goods deeds on one side and our bad deeds on the other, waiting to see which side is heavier on the day we die.

God is perfect, and only perfection is good enough for Him. But God is also a merciful, and He wants to forgive our sins and shortcomings. He actually wants to give us a perfect 10. He wants to erase the negatives from our score. If we’ll just admit that we need an eraser taken to our lives. That’s why Jesus says, “‘all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.’ ”

At the end of life, or at the end of each day, when all is said and done, what’s said will actually matter more than what was done. We really ought to try to do our best. Actually, we ought to be like the Pharisee who was trying to live up to God’s will in the best way he knew. But we also need to be like the tax collector—after we’ve done our best to live righteously, when all is said and done, what we need to say a is, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!”