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Please open your Bibles to Luke, chapter 18. We’ll be reading from verses 9 through 14.
Luke, chapter 18, verses 9 through 14.
In the Pew Bible, this is on page 1042.
Luke 18, verses 9 through 14.
Hear now the word of the Lord.
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt.
Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee standing by himself prayed,
God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week, and I give tithes of all that I get.
But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
Let us pray.
Lord, we thank you that we are able to come before you to your throne through the blood of Christ.
We thank you, O Lord, that we are able to worship you in this way freely.
We thank you, O Lord, for your word that you have given us this day.
I pray, O Lord, that you would strengthen me, and despite my weaknesses, that your word would be proclaimed faithfully.
I pray that the gospel of Jesus Christ would be clear, and I pray, O Lord, that you would work in each one listening, that this would be an encouragement to them.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Amen.
Please be seated.
It makes the job of the one preparing a sermon much easier when the writer of the gospel tells us the meaning or the parable is.
Often when the gospel writer records for us one of Jesus’ parables, there’s no explanation.
So the believer is left to interpret it from the context.
But other times the author or Jesus himself gives us an inspired interpretation.
And in our passage this morning, Luke gives us the reason why Jesus gave us this parable.
And this reason helps us to understand the parable correctly.
Luke wrote that Jesus told this parable because he came across people who trusted their own righteousness.
Now, while these two things are hard to separate, as they are often found with one another, these two, a contempt and finding trust in one’s own righteousness, will be the outline for today’s message.
Christ is giving us two warnings through today’s parable.
The first is, do not look down on others.
And the second is, do not trust in your own righteousness.
First is, do not look down on others.
And the second is, do not trust in your own righteousness.
Before we take up our passage directly this morning, it’s important for us to understand the context in which Luke gave us this story.
So let’s consider briefly Chapter 17.
Turn over to Chapter 17 and we’re going to read verses 20 through 33.
Luke 17, verses 20 through 33.
Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them.
The kingdom of God, nor will they say, Look, here it is, or there.
For behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.
And he said to the disciples, The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.
And they will say to you, Look there, or look here.
Do not go out or follow them.
For the lightning flashes and the lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in the sky in his day.
But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man.
They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all.
Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.
But on the day when Lot went out of Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
So it will be on that day when the Son of Man is revealed.
On that day, let the one who is on the housetop with his goods in the house not come down to take them away.
And likewise, let the one who is in the field not turn back.
Remember Lot’s wife.
Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.
As Jesus neared his death in the next few chapters, he warned the people about his second coming.
The first time that Christ came, he came with a message of repentance and preached that the kingdom of God was at hand.
But the next time that Christ comes, there will be no preaching of repentance and the kingdom of God will be consummated in all of its glory.
The first time that Christ came to this earth, he was humbled and he was judged for the sins of his people.
But the next time that he comes, like the days of Noah and Lot, there will be judgment and this time it will be final.
And when he comes back, according to Jesus, there will be no warning.
And Jesus’ warning here is simple, but it is somber.
Do not wait to turn to Christ.
Do not cling to the world or the things of this world, because I am coming back and once that happens, there will be no second chances.
The believer and the unbeliever alike must realize that the second coming will occur and when it does, there will be no warning.
And thus we must prepare this day, today, for that reality.
Jesus goes on in chapter 18 and verses 1 through 8, and he tells a parable that teaches us that we must, as preparation for his second coming, continually persevere in prayer.
Because as he says in verse 8 of chapter 18, Christ will come back and he will, on that day, bring justice for his people.
And Jesus ends this parable from verses 1 through 8 with a question in verse 8.
He says, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on this earth?
And this question transitions us from the previous parable to our parable this evening in verses 9 through 14.
For what does true faith look like?
Jesus shows us one aspect of genuine faith through our parable of the two sinners in their two prayers.
Let us now turn to this evening’s passage and consider the first warning of Jesus.
That is his warning against pride.
Jesus begins this parable in verse 10.
He says, Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
Right away, Jesus sets the scene with a great dichotomy.
A Pharisee was one, as we all know, who was respected greatly by the Jews and would have been welcomed at the temple.
This man would have known his Old Testament scriptures like the back of his hand,
and from all outward appearances would have been one of the most virtuous and religious among all those in Israel.
He kept the Mosaic Law so meticulously that he would develop further traditions to ensure that he would not break any law.
Anyone from the first century Jewish perspective would have considered him, of all people in Israel, to be righteous.
On the other hand, we have a tax collector, one who was hated by the Jews and was seen as one of the worst individuals in society.
They not only took money from hardworking citizens, but took more than they were legally compelled to.
In other words, they used their authority and they abused it to steal from fellow citizens.
Now, none of us like the tax man. None of us like paying taxes.
But we would certainly dislike him much more if he were forcibly stealing more than we were required to.
In this reality, the reality that tax collectors stole from the people was an open secret to all who lived under Roman rule.
And this is why the Jews hated the tax collectors so much.
So Jesus sets up the listener, identified as self-confident and pompous with one of the greatest opening lines that he could have come up with.
You can imagine what they might have been thinking.
That’s just a bit on the nose, Rabbi. We all know who is right and who is wrong in your parable before it’s even begun.
It would be a bit like me telling you a story and beginning with the words.
A longtime pastor of a conservative Bible-believing church and a drug dealer went to a church to pray.
You would all think that no matter what came out of my mouth next, the moral of the story would clearly favor the pastor.
But of course, Jesus gave this line to set up the audience for a shocking twist at the end.
To drive home the important point that he was going to make.
Jesus structures this parable along three dichotomies or three contrasts.
In verse 10, we have two men. In verses 11 through 13, we have two prayers.
And in verse 14, we have two very different results.
We have already looked at the two men in our story, so let us now consider their two prayers.
As we have learned from chapter 17, Jesus has now turned his teaching towards those around him, teaching them about his second coming.
And in verse 138, he taught them about prayer and he continues this theme of prayer,
but shifts towards focusing on what our attitude should be like in prayer.
And the first thing that we all notice when we read this prayer of the Pharisee is the confidence that he has that he’s better than everyone around him.
He begins his prayer by saying, God, I thank you that I am not like those other men,
extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
This Pharisee clearly saw himself as not having the same problems as the common man.
He thanks God because he isn’t like all those other people around him who have all those sins and all those problems.
You might be tempted to think to yourself when you read this,
well, what’s wrong with thanking God that he has spared us from sin, from other people’s sins?
After all, we often hear people say, but for the grace of God, I would be doing that.
I would be committing this sin or that sin, meaning if it weren’t for the grace of God in my life, I would be like that person.
This statement is true, and it’s a good sentiment to have if it comes from a correct understanding of the gospel.
But the Pharisee betrays the fact that his words come from a place of pride.
He says, I thank you that I am not like other men.
This blanket statement shows that he believes that he is somehow above everyone, somehow has a better moral capacity from all men around him.
He believes that those around him have sinned greatly, but he has somehow been spared from evil himself.
This is made completely clear by his very next words.
I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.
So the basis of him thanking God for him not being like others was not the grace of God, transforming his life, but his own works that he had done.
And this, of course, confirms the fact that his prayer is not a genuine prayer of thanksgiving, but a prayer of boast.
He has come to the temple not to offer up a sincere prayer to God, but to boast about what he had done.
This stands in stark contrast to the prayer of the tax collector in verse 13.
Luke writes, But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift his eyes to heaven, but he beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
In contrast to the Pharisee, this man understood his own heart, and he understood where he stood before an all-holy creator.
He understood that there was nothing to be prideful about, and there was nothing to boast at when looking at others.
And thus he did not compare himself to others in his prayer, but praised to God only regarding his own state.
He humbly came before God and acknowledged his own state and asked for mercy.
This is really the key difference between those who are proud and those who are humble.
The man who is prideful does not understand or will not admit the state that he is in.
He has wrongfully overestimated the goodness of his heart and the mightiness of his own actions.
As Obadiah 1.3 says, The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clests of the rock, in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, Who will bring me down to the ground?
The prideful man looks at what he has done and who he is and believes that he is enough.
He does not understand that anything that is good in him is only by the merciful hand of God.
Whereas the humble man looks at himself through the lens of scripture and understands the dire straits that he is in,
and does not even attempt to compare himself to other guys, other people around him who he might think are more sinful than him.
He merely throws himself at the mercy of Christ.
Now this is an easy mistake for us to make.
It’s often how we justify ourselves before God.
If you were to go right now on the internet, on YouTube, and you were to look up street preachers and their interactions with unbelievers,
or those even in the church, they will often ask the question, Are you a good person?
And almost without fail, they all answer, I am.
And if the street preacher starts to ask questions that calls the goodness of this person into question,
they almost always fall back on, Well, you know, I have done some bad things, but I’m not as bad as some people.
I’m not like the bank robber or the murderer. I’m not that bad.
And this shows that they do not truly understand the state that they are in.
They don’t understand the depth of the sin that they consider to be small sins.
Against an almighty God who is perfectly holy and perfectly just, even the smallest sin requires eternal judgment.
So we must push against any feeling that we might have that we are better,
for we are all only saved by the mercy of God and the blood of Christ.
Over this past week, I have read many comments on the Internet celebrating the tragedy that took place.
And it was easy for me to have a similar thought.
Thank God I’m not like this person posting this evil comment.
That thought did not just come from the reality of me acknowledging God’s grace in my life.
But there was an aspect of me thinking that somehow there was something in me that was better.
But that, of course, is wrong.
I do have a better faith and my God is true and their God is false.
But it is my God who is better, not me.
And so that prayer should turn from one of comparison to one of confession and one of prayer for the evildoers that they would repent.
For pride has no place in the believer’s life.
And Jesus tells us why in verse 14.
Verse 14, Jesus says, For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
The man who is prideful and sees himself as more than he is cannot and will not confess his sins and see a need for his Savior.
But the one who humbles himself, that man will confess his sin.
So when Christ comes back and he finds a man with false faith in the work of Christ, but in his own works, Jesus says that he will humble that man.
But if he finds that you have humbled yourself and confessed your need of a Savior, then there is a wonderful promise that he will exalt you.
That raises the question, why is the humble man exalted and the prideful man humbled?
This question brings us to our second warning, which is Jesus’s warning not to trust one’s own righteousness.
Jesus says this at the beginning of verse 14.
This man, meaning the tax collector, will go home justified.
This, of course, was the twist at the end of the parable that Jesus set Abbeon up with the first line.
But why does the man who was a known degenerate, a man who had nothing to bring before God, justified, but the one who in man’s eyes was righteous, not justified?
Was it merely because one was prideful and the other was not?
Is it merely because one understood the doctrine of justification and the other did not?
No, it’s because one of them pointed to his own works and the other pointed to none, but merely threw himself at the mercy of his Savior.
We know from other passages that there is no justification when one points to his own righteousness.
Let us now turn to Philippians 3 and we will read verses 4 through 11.
Philippians 3, 4 through 11.
Philippians 3, verse 4.
Indeed, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
Indeed, I count everything as a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.
For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him,
not having righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith,
that I may know him in the power of his resurrection and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
that by any means possible I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
If anyone could point to his works, for the basis of getting into heaven, it would have been the Apostle Paul.
He says that as to his righteousness under the law, he was blameless.
What he means by this is not that he never sinned, but that from a human perspective he was the poster child for works’ righteousness.
But he considers that all rubbish. He considers all of his works, his good works, rubbish. Why?
Because there is no salvation in pointing to your own works.
There is only righteousness that is imputed to us by Christ through faith.
And that righteousness, as Paul says, is from God.
You see, the tax collector in our passage this evening understood what Paul was writing here.
Not in the intricacies, not to the detail that Paul lays out here, but he understood the heart of what Paul was writing.
That is, that he had nothing to offer when coming before God.
As Isaiah writes, we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
Therefore, all he could do was confess his own shortcomings and his own wickedness and throw himself at the feet of a merciful God.
The distinction between the Pharisee and the tax collector is that the Pharisee trusted his own works,
and the tax collector knew he had nothing to offer and merely prayed for mercy.
Now, God would be perfectly just to reject this man’s prayer.
God would be perfectly just to reject my prayer and yours as well.
We could pray constantly for mercy every day of our lives for our sins that we have committed, but God would still be just for judging us.
But God is not merely a God of justice.
God is a merciful and he is a gracious God, and that is why he has graciously given us this parable.
One day, as he warns in chapter 17, he will come back and there will be no warning.
He could come back tonight, or he could come back tomorrow, or maybe 500 years from now.
Whenever it is that he does come back, will you be found to have trusted in your own righteousness,
or will you be found, like the tax collector, this evening to have thrown yourself at the feet of the Lord and begged for mercy?
If you do not know the Lord and you find yourself justifying yourself or looking to the good things in your life and trying to outweigh the bad with them,
I would implore you to heed Christ’s warning, for one day he is coming back, and on that day he will humble those who are proud.
So humble yourself and cling to Jesus.
And if you do know the Lord, our parable reminds us that we have a loving and a merciful God,
who no matter our sin, no matter our struggle, we can come before God and confess all of these things to him.
And we can go home confident in the fact that we are justified by the work of Christ through our union with him.
Your faith does not have to be the deepest. You may not understand all the intricate details of theology,
but if you humble yourself, like the tax collector, before your creator and ask for his mercy, you will be saved.
I would like to conclude with a quote from J.C. Ryle from his commentary on this passage.
He writes,
Let us leave the whole passage with a deep sense of the great encouragement it affords to all who feel their sins and cry to God for mercy in Christ’s name.
Their sins may have been many and great, their prayers may seem weak, faltering, unconnected and poor,
but let them remember the tax collector and take courage.
That same Jesus who commended this prayer is sitting at the right hand of God to receive sinners.
So let them hope and pray on.
Let us pray.
Lord, we thank you that you created each one of us.
That out of your abundance of love, you have not only created us, but you have sustained us and allowed us to continue to live despite our sin.
We thank you, O Lord, for preserving your word that we might have the revelation of our Father that we can trust.
We thank you, O Lord, most of all, for your Son Jesus Christ and the work that he did on this earth,
for living a perfect life for us and for going to the cross and taking the punishment of our sin.
We thank you, O Lord, that we can have confidence through the words of that same Son,
that if we humble ourselves before you, that if we confess our sins, that you are faithful to forgive us and to save us.
Pray, O Lord, that as we leave this place and we live this week,
that our hearts and our minds would be constantly reminded of this great truth,
that you have loved us enough to send your Son to die on the cross for our sins,
and that you have offered us a new relationship through that blood.
I pray, O Lord, that we would live in light of this reality, that we would live with joy, that we would live with love, and that we would live in obedience to your word.
In Christ’s name, I pray. We pray. Amen.
Please rise as we sing the hymn, M441.