It’s Me, It’s Me, It’s Me O Lord, Standing in the Need of Prayer

Years ago when I was pastoring a Baptist Church, there was a godly old deacon who loved to tease with me on Sundays. “Way to go, preacher!” he’d say to me after a sermon, “You really got after all those sinners today.”  It was a running joke. There was probably no more humble man in our church, but he loved to talk about “those sinners” like he was outside of their domain. We both knew better.

Sadly, many in the church today do not. It’s easy to forget that Jesus had to die for us too. When you’ve been a Christian for many years, you can easily lose touch with the reality that you once were lost but have now been found. The more we advance in discipleship, the more we are likely to forget what it meant to be lost. “Sinners” are people who live immoral lives, don’t go to church and vote differently than we do. Sometimes, when we’ve got it really bad, “sinners” become the enemy. They actually devolve from the ones we’re trying to reach to the ones we’re trying to avoid.

So to help protect against the advancing “those sinners” mindset, I want you to learn an important theological term: The Sinner. It’s given to us by a humble tax collector in this parable:

But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ (See Luke 18:9-14)

This tax collector gets it. He understands that when it comes to God’s standards, the enemy is within. The problem with our respective worlds is not everyone else; it’s us. It’s me. The sooner I get my arms around the fact that in God’s eyes I am “The Sinner,” the better off I’ll be before God. When I go to church, the sinner that needs preaching at is me. When I listen to prayers, those sins that most need confessing are mine. And when we approach God together, I am the one who needs to approach most humbly.

Say it loud: The Sinner. Try it later in front of a mirror: The Sinner. It will keep you humble. It will give you perspective. And, it will help you appreciate grace. God, be merciful to me, the sinner!

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Next Blog–Tuesday June 12.