Beyond the Weekend: Parables
The stories Jesus told and what they mean for your life today.
Why did Jesus teach in stories? Because the deepest truths about God are often found in the ordinary moments of life.
In the parables, Jesus takes everyday things, a lost sheep, a dinner party, a farmer planting seeds and uses them to show us what God is really like and what it means to follow him.
This summer, we’re spending seven weeks in the parables from Luke’s gospel. Whether you’ve heard these stories a hundred times or this is your first time, you’re invited to come and hear them fresh.
June 27/28–August 8/9
The Confrontation
Read: Luke 18:9-14 | Listen: Luke 18
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable. Luke 18:9
As Jesus’s popularity grows, so does the hostility of the religious leaders. The Pharisees are a group of leaders known for meticulous devotion to God’s law, yet they consistently oppose the very One the law points to. Rather than humbly receiving Jesus’s teaching, they respond with increasing resentment, even plotting to kill him. Jesus confronts their hardened, wayward hearts, patiently calling them to the life of God’s kingdom, but they are unwilling to listen.
What about us? Are we willing to heed his warnings about having self-righteous, proud hearts? One of the greatest dangers in the Christian life is subtly replacing dependence on God’s grace with confidence in our own performance. We can think we’re right with God because we go to church, read our Bible, or engage in acts of service. This was the mindset of the Pharisees. But, as Jesus’s rebuke makes clear, it is only a merciful God who can raise sinners like us to new spiritual life.
TODAY: Pray for an open heart to Jesus’s teaching. Ask God to grant you a humble posture that’s receptive to his correction wherever needed. As you pray, take heart in the character of God, who not only convicts of sin but leads in the way of everlasting life. Consider praying something like this: “Father, please help me this week to see you accurately and to understand the nature of my sin. Help me yield to your teaching and have a humble heart that is fully surrendered to you. In Jesus’s name, amen.”
