Luke 18:9-14 | "A Righteousness to be Thankful For"

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

There's an often quoted story, and from all I can tell, is entirely made up.

But it goes like this some normal person, some average guy, country bumpkin or a child maybe, stumbles in upon the master craftsman at his work.

The master craftsman is usually a sculptor and often is none other than Michelangelo.

With chisel and hammer in hand, Michelangelo stands before a slab of granite nearing the completion of his masterwork, the David.

Right?

That's how the story goes.

The unenlightened and the awestruck bumbler turns to the genius at his work and asks, How did you do that?

And Michelangelo replies, usually in a British accent, when people tell the story, it's really quite simple, my boy.

I take my chisel and I remove anything that doesn't look like David.

In a similar way, I think our Lord often uses a parable, like a sculptor uses a chisel to cut away all that doesn't reflect his image.

This week the Lord cut very deeply into my heart with a parable about righteousness.

And in that parable, he takes up two chisels, one chisel, a self-righteous man, and on the other hand, an unrighteous man, and he applies those chisels to our hearts with the skill of a master physician.

We could run the same thing as a surgeon, could we not?

And what we're left with after this parable is this beautiful sculpture of a righteousness we can be thankful for.

Not like the unrighteousness or the self-righteousness.

And so would you turn with me to the book of Luke, chapter 18?

Luke 18 · chapter mention

Man, that was cool.

I don't know if you guys could ever see this, but all of your heads dropped at the same time.

It is good to be among a people who loves the word.

Let's read.

I'll read it for us.

And actually, since we so honor the word, let's stand together as I read it.

Let's receive it in an attentive posture.

As the words from our Lord Himself.

Verse 9 of Luke chapter 18.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt.

He says, verse 10 Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus, God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week, 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 every one who exalts himself will be humbled.

But the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

These are the words of our Lord.

Amen.

Please be seated.

My friends, there are so many ways we could approach a parable like this one.

So many ways.

But I propose this morning that we take up the shared elements between these two descriptions of the self-righteous man that is the Pharisee and the unrighteous tax collector and place them side by side as we go.

So we'll look at their posture and how they pray.

And now here's why I think we should do this, because I want us to get into the mind of the very disciples who first heard this.

That's the only way we can ever know what really any passage means.

Because truthfully, in our modern world, you and I read this passage, we close our Bibles, bow our heads, and say, Lord, I thank you that I'm nothing like that horrid, hypocritical, self-righteous Pharisee.

Oh, thank you that I'm not like that.

Amen.

Don't we?

Don't we?

When we do that, we've out Phariseed the Pharisee at his own game.

And we've completely missed the point.

Completely.

Completely.

And so the only way to avoid that is to come to this parable like a disciple, sitting at the feet of his Lord.

A Lord who's overheard them, speaking with contempt.

A Lord who knows their hearts.

And who speaks.

Who speaks this parable.

So that's what we'll do together.

Look first at verse 10.

Two men went up into the temple to pray.

That's most likely the time of the evening offering around 3 p.m.

when a whole burnt offering is given at the temple, and the two men are assumed to be there as part of that corporate worship.

The offering has been made, and it's as if there's a break in the service for everybody to pray on their own for a bit.

They spread out maybe.

They pray aloud so that they don't just mumble under their breath.

Some might, some pray aloud.

We've seen Jesus comment before on the public prayer habits of the Pharisees who love to pray before men, right?

This is normal.

This is normal.

But while the two men are both Jewish and are both approaching the same temple at the same time for prayer before the same sacrifices, they could not be any different from one another.

One is a Pharisee, right?

A proud member of that most prominent Jewish group at the time of Jesus.

They took their Bibles seriously, and to his disciples, Jesus may as well have said, a prominent pastor and published author who your pastor quotes in his sermons went up to church to pray.

And when he says that, Jesus is painting the picture for his disciples of the very essence of righteousness in their minds.

So far, so good, frankly, right?

Pharisees go up to pray to the temple all the time.

Tax collectors, though.

Not so much.

Not so much.

They didn't really pray.

Frankly, a tax collector is the complete opposite of a Pharisee.

These Jewish men were opportunists.

They were swindling cheats who saw the gravy train walk by in Roman robes as a way to fuel their lusts and desires.

They stole money from their people in the name of a godless generation as they collected taxes and a little extra.

Right?

They were worse.

They were worse than Joseph's brothers who threw them into a well and sold him as a slave.

These Jewish tax collectors cracked the very whips across the backs of their brothers on behalf of the Roman oppressors.

If Jesus told you and I this parable, he may as well have said, two men went to church, one a New Testament scholar and the other a dirty cop who abuses his power to get rich by running drugs.

These are men who profited and preyed on people and made money off of their bodies.

Swindlers and cheats.

So these two men, a righteous man and an unrighteous man, both went up to pray.

But the first thing we see about the Pharisee is his body language and his posture is the first thing that starts to give us a clue that not all is right with this Pharisee's righteousness.

Verse 11, the Pharisee standing by himself, prayed thus.

He's just standing by himself.

Jesus is painting a picture of a fictional Pharisee that had stood up by himself, maybe even separated himself a little bit.

It was common to stand and pray.

But the by himself adds something.

And Jesus at least wants us to see a Pharisee who had separated himself to get some attention.

What's clear, and there could be more here, but what's at least clear is that this is a man who approaches God with confidence.

He walks up to the front of the room, lines memorized, stands up straight and erect before the Lord of hosts in the inner court of the temple.

Which isn't wrong.

It's not wrong.

The author to the Hebrews even commands you to draw near to God with confidence, to approach the throne of God boldly.

So it's not wrong.

But the Pharisee doesn't do it the right way.

More on that in a minute.

Look with me at the tax collector first.

The tax collector approaches God in verse 13, and Jesus gives us these three loaded and rich expressions.

He's just huge.

He's standing far off.

One.

He would not even lift up his eyes to heaven.

Two, but beat his breast.

Three.

And so we have this first century Sunday school dropout, a man born into the promises of God.

This is a Jewish man who knows.

But he scorned these things.

He sold his people and the inheritance with them for a bowl of Roman soup, like Esau.

This guy grew up in church.

Yet he chooses to approach God from far off, from a distance.

Your Bible only uses these two words together in one other place.

Revelation chapter 18.

Revelation 18 · chapter mention

At the fall of Babylon.

John uses these words, standing far off, to describe the kings of the earth, the merchants and seafaring tradesmen who will, I quote, stand far off in fear of her torment, weeping and mourning aloud.

This is a severe separation.

The tax collector trembles in the presence of his God because he knows he's next.

It's like the class, it's like how everybody at school backs away slowly when the class clown gets called out.

Like, oh.

It's a little bit like that.

But fearful.

Trembling.

But notice he's not trembling.

He's not trembling in the presence of the Pharisee.

No, no, don't make that mistake as if this is not a parable about how unbelievers feel uncomfortable in front of churchy people.

That's not what's going on here.

The tax collector is not ashamed in front of the Pharisee.

We'll see more about that in a minute.

He's doing things nobody would ever do in front of a Pharisee.

He's not afraid of the Pharisee, he's afraid of his God.

He's afraid of his God.

And they think, good, that's right.

And it is.

And it is.

Because this tax collector is an unrighteous man.

The second thing, he would not even lift up his eyes to heaven.

So racked with guilt in the face of his unrighteousness, he can't even look up.

He blushes to even that's the normal posture for prayer.

The Pharisees aren't way out of line here when they stand and they lift their faces.

You and I pray like that sometimes, don't we?

But the tax collector, he could not even do that.

And when Jesus says that in this fictional parable, he's trying to remind the disciples of a time when Ezra, when Ezra, that righteous man, prayed to God.

At a time when Ezra realized the people had not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations.

This is chapter 9, if you want to look it up.

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

And at the evening sacrifice, Ezra writes, most likely the same sacrifice here in our parable.

Ezra rose from his fasting and writes, with my garment and my cloak torn, fell upon my knees and spread out my hands to the Lord my God, saying, Oh my God, I am ashamed and blushed to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens.

That's Ezra.

Take that in for a second.

In the story Jesus is writing, the unrighteous tax collector was acting more like Ezra than the righteous and upright Pharisee.

Ezra, that scribe of scribes who every Pharisee wants to be when he grows up, Jesus is calling the self-righteous out at their own game.

You think you're righteous?

Why don't you do the works that Ezra did?

And we see that the unrighteous tax collector is behaving more like righteous Ezra than the Pharisee.

Do you see the chiseled chip?

And carve out what righteousness really means.

Because it's not what the not what the Pharisee thinks it means.

But it gets worse, honestly.

This tax collector is embarrassing himself.

He's beating his breast.

Now imagine this.

You and I, all of us here, are gathered for worship, just like we are this morning.

You're all singing, everything is great.

The music drops out, and we sing the most important lines of the song that grab the truths of Scripture wide open and gorgeous.

But there's a drug dealer in just off the street.

He's tucked back up there in the balcony, just absolutely sobbing.

You hear the gasps of his sniffles between words of the song.

I don't know if you know this.

In the balcony, if you drop a hymnal, you hear it.

He's making a scene.

But and I say that, guys, and it's not an exaggeration.

If anything, I'm underselling it, frankly.

Because that's what the task collector is doing.

The only reference we have to men beating their breasts in your Bibles is after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

The people walk away in Luke's account, mourning and beating their breasts.

And so what we see in the Pharisee is a posture of extreme grief.

Grief.

He is mourning.

He says a dead man attending his own funeral in advance to see that he's wasted his life.

He doesn't care who sees him making a fool of himself because all that's left to do is weep.

This is the grief of a man in torment, realizing that his condemnation before a holy God is certain.

It's coming.

It's all his fault.

There's nothing he can do about it.

Because in his time, in the time of this parable, the only hope for any man to be right with God was the covenant promises made to the patriarchs and the prophets of the people of Israel.

And tax collectors gave that up.

They gave that up.

They really were cut off from their people.

He was out.

He was really out.

But stay with me, friends.

The tax collectors, they weren't outcasts because the Pharisees were meanies.

The tax collectors were outcasts because they really had sinned against a holy God.

This tax collector really was cut off from his people and the promises of God.

But he prays, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

Rather, God, be merciful to me, the sinner.

He's looking around the room.

I'm the one.

Be merciful to me, the sinner.

Look back at that Pharisee's prayer.

Back towards verse 11.

Let's just correct some misconceptions about his prayer.

We often think that things are wrong here that aren't really necessarily wrong.

Because it's not wrong.

It is not wrong to thank God for our righteousness.

You should do that.

It's even not wrong in comparison to evildoers.

David does so in Psalm 26, verses 4 to 7.

Psalms 26:4–7

And Paul does so in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9.

1 Corinthians 6:9

It's not wrong to thank God for our righteousness, and it's not wrong to acknowledge the wickedness of other men.

Paul writes, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immortal, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers.

As a tax collector, none of them will inherit the kingdom of God.

Paul writes that.

It's not wrong.

It's also not wrong to recount the good things we've done when we pray.

Again, David does so in Psalm 17, verses 1 to 5, and Paul does so in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2.

Psalms 17:1–5 1 Thessalonians 2 · chapter mention

It's also not wrong to go above and beyond in our worship of God.

The Pharisee fasting twice a week is 100 times, 100 times more than is required by the law of Moses.

100 times.

His tithing describes a method of tithing that some estimate to be roughly 25 to 30 percent, way past the 10% expected of him.

See how far he's going and striving to be righteousness, to being right?

It's not wrong.

It's not wrong for you either.

In Christ, you and I are free to serve and worship God with glad hearts.

We are.

Would that all of you rose before the sun to seek God and study for three or four hours at a time?

Would that all of you fasted twice a week?

Would that all of you?

These are good things.

Would that we did them?

It would not be wrong.

You're not bound to the law.

So many of us think that we have to just do the minimum and skate by.

It's not wrong for you to come to church more than once a week.

I'm not gonna call you a Pharisee for that.

Promise.

It's not wrong.

Paul even says, right?

This here, this one.

Paul even says, I wish that you were all single as I am.

That would be crazy if he was writing a new law to be obeyed.

But what he's writing is a glorious freedom to serve Christ abundantly as he leads you.

No, it's not wrong to go above and beyond the minimum to worship your God as he leads and empowers you.

That's not wrong.

It's not wrong.

So, alright, Webb, that's great.

Thanks.

Now I don't know what's going on anymore.

What is wrong?

Something's wrong, right?

We can tell just by looking at it.

What is wrong with the Pharisee's prayer?

My friends, it's not what he says, it's what he doesn't say.

The Pharisee says nothing about the sacrifices he's there to participate in.

He doesn't even actually pray.

He asks nothing of God.

Instead, he takes the chance to tell God how righteous he has been on God's behalf.

The Pharisee can only boast in himself like this because the Pharisee doesn't see in the Old Testament what the author to the Hebrews saw that the annual sacrifices of atonement.

Accomplished only a reminder for sins.

Hebrews chapter 10, verse 4.

Hebrews 10:4

For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

The Pharisee doesn't get this, but he should have.

Micah chapter 6, verse 6.

Micah 6:6

With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams?

With ten thousands of rivers of oil?

Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression?

The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

No.

No, the power of the Old Testament's in God Himself, right?

David again.

David again, Psalm 51.

For you, my God, will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it.

You will not be pleased with the burnt offering.

No, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.

A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

This Pharisee thinks these ritual sacrifices of bulls and goats make him righteous.

Because he believes that the God of Israel is no better than the mute and dumb idols of the nations.

As if God can be appeased and manipulated by simple offerings of earthly dirt stuff, right?

Baal's mad, gash yourself with a sword, that'll fix it.

Asherah didn't sin, rain, offer some grain.

Enemy armies are encamped against us.

Sacrifice a child to Molech, that'll clean it up.

Somebody transgressed Yahweh's super specific rules.

We better burn a goat.

We better burn a goat.

That'll fix it.

Oh.

No, he thinks that the blood of the sacrifices washed away his sins, and now it's up to him.

It's up to the Pharisee to make something of himself.

You guys have to get this.

The Pharisee's problem is that he thinks the righteousness he produces from his own hands is enough to please God.

That the sacrifices just reset the score to zero.

The Pharisee trusts in himself, that he is righteous.

Verse 9.

He looks at the work of his hands and he sighs with satisfaction because it's more righteous-looking than the lives of other people.

And so he treats them with contempt.

It's as if if eternity was a best in show contest, as if it was judged by other men and we're just looking for whoever comes in first place.

Then yeah, he might have something.

That's not how it works.

It's not how it works.

The judge at the end of all time is not a man like you or I.

No.

God alone is the judge of all the earth.

And this Pharisee comes to that king and he offers him mud pies and expects a presidential medal of honor.

What will you say to the king of the ages when your life is called to an account?

What will you say?

Will we say, I served faithfully in my youth group, or I had my quiet times every day, twice a day even?

Or maybe we'll say, God, I thank you that I never missed a Sunday.

Maybe it's I gave generously whenever I saw a need, or I went on two dozen short-term mission trips, whatever it will be.

Maybe for you brainiacs, it'll be, I loved your words so much I color-coded the prophecies according to the chronological fulfillment.

Or maybe I zealously debated anybody with a deficient theology of salvation.

What will you bring?

What will you bring?

Oh my friends, don't hear me being.

These are good things.

Those are good things.

And your God certainly rejoices when you do them.

But he rejoices like a mother hanging fing hanging finger paintings on the fridge.

He doesn't he does so graciously.

Not because you've earned his praise.

So let me say this as plainly as I can.

Nothing.

Nothing you can do can make you righteous before a holy God.

Because to think that your works can get you right with God, guys, that's the that's the self-delusion of the self-righteous.

And it reveals what you believe God is like.

If we think that we're saying that God is like a man, that he should be impressed by the works of man.

The Pharisee has no idea how great God is.

And this is why, my friends, all the souls in hell are just as angry as they are sad.

They think that somehow God is unfair because he doesn't fawn all over the fruit of their hands.

It's in that way.

This Pharisee wears the spiritual mark of Cain.

Just like Cain.

He wears the spiritual mark of Cain before the Holy of Holies while he breathes out murder towards his brother.

My friends, this is the sad, sad picture of a self-righteous man.

And it colors everything else he said once you see it, doesn't it?

That's what's wrong.

That's what's wrong.

But the tax collector.

He gets it.

Right?

Look at verse 13.

What does he pray?

What does he pray?

He says, God be merciful to me, the sinner.

That word, be merciful to me, just one word.

It'd be better translated.

God make atonement for me.

Or maybe, God be propitiated for me.

It's only ever used in the book of Hebrews to describe the propitiation of sins.

And so Jesus paints this tax collector, then bowing his head in the courts of the temple, as the better teacher of the law.

This tax collector is even an Ezra-like figure, the one who rightly understands the sacrifices because he rightly understands his sin.

The sacrifices called out for a real and true and better sacrifice.

The cattle on a thousand hills belong to the creator of the universe.

What does the Pharisee have to offer God to make atonement for his sins?

Nothing.

Nothing.

And so in that way, this tax collector sings the gospel hope.

Nothing in my hand I bring.

And he cries out that somehow God would make a sacrifice great enough.

Because only God can.

Somehow God would make a sacrifice great enough to atone for the extortion, the injustice, and the spiritual adultery of his hands.

Because the Pharisee was right.

Verse 11.

The tax collector really was all of those things.

And so if you think as we are all tempted to, I am, that somehow we can erase our sins with extra prayer time or extra Bible study time.

Or even as some might misinterpret this parable to say that it's the broken, blubbering weakness of the tax collector that pleases God.

No, friends, it's not it.

It's not wrong to mourn your sin.

It's right to mourn your sin, but that's not what pleases God.

No.

No, Christian, you're a Christian.

Mourn like one.

Such mourning is the posture of one who waits for the saving sacrifice of God.

This tax collector, he waits for the Lord, like all the holy ones of Israel who longed after the coming Messiah.

He hasn't seen it yet.

He hasn't seen it yet.

And so he's stuck in his mourning.

You don't have to be.

But while he's there, he cries out for this propitiation to be made because he knows the blood of bulls and goats is insufficient.

And like Martin Luther before he was converted, spending countless hours in confession for his sins, this tax collector cries out for the sacrifices of atonement at a time when those sacrifices aren't even being offered.

He cries out for Yom Kippur on a day that's not Yom Kippur.

It's like he says, if a thousand bulls and goats were offered every single evening, my Lord, my sins would be too great before you.

Only you can make atonement for me.

And so he cries out.

He begs the Lord, he seeks the Lord, and in faith he casts himself upon the mercy of God for an atonement yet unknown but hoped for.

The Pharisee has none of that.

None of it.

And with that, Jesus sets down his chisel.

The parable is over, and you and I are left looking at a man puffed up with empty, if not disgusting, self-righteousness.

On the one hand.

And on the other hand, we're looking at an unrighteous man mourning in the ruins of his life.

Talk about a righteousness we can be thankful for, huh?

But then in verse 14, look at verse 14.

The parable's over.

But in verse 14, the very Lamb cries out.

Bear with me.

The firstborn Lamb of God, that perfect, spotless one without any blemish.

Jesus himself standing on the road to Jerusalem, having already declared that he would be lifted up to suffer and die.

The lamb on his way to the slaughter, the true and better Isaac following his father up the mountain, speaks.

He speaks in the shadow of a Roman cross that would carry the chastisement of God.

And Jesus of Nazareth, knowing full well that he and he alone was the sacrifice his imagined tax collector cries out for.

That he was the Passover lamb for which Israel waited.

Jesus says, I tell you, I tell you, this man went down to his house, made righteous, justified.

Jesus points to the tax collector like he spoke to the thief upon the cross.

And the righteous judge of all the earth says, Him, you shall be counted righteous, even as I am righteous.

The tax collector is an unrighteous man.

Justification does not rise up out of who you are, it's something that is applied to you.

When you justify a word document, you make it all line up rightly.

You do that.

And the lamb, the sacrifice itself, cries out from under the knife, even justified, because that's how Jesus saves.

By the power of his word, he declares men righteous, and that's how it has always worked.

Always.

The righteous of the Old Testament were not righteous because they had never sinned, nor because the blood of bulls and goats satisfied the wrath of God.

No, they were righteous because God in his mercy decided to forgive them and count them righteous.

It's a little hard to believe, isn't it?

Everybody says the Old Testament was this religion of works, but was not Abraham justified by faith when he believed God, and it was counted to him as, say with me, righteousness.

Salvation has always, even before the cross, always been by faith alone.

It has always been the free gift of God given not to righteous men, not to self-righteous men, but to unrighteous men.

Oh, my friends, behold, a righteousness you can be thankful for because it's a gift.

It's not yours.

Well, it is because it was given to you.

But the good news, the good news doesn't stop there.

It doesn't stop there.

Look, look down.

There's a little word in the Greek.

A little word in the Greek in the second half of verse 14.

The English Standard Version wraps it up into the word everyone.

Do you hear it?

It's the word all.

The word all is in your Greek.

Do you see the promise?

It's a promise of the incarnate word of God.

That eternal keeper of promises says, all, that is any, that is everyone who humbles himself will be exalted.

Without exception and without price, grace is given freely to all who humble themselves as a merciful God makes atonement for their sins and exalts them by making them righteous.

That's the exaltation he's talking about.

What higher position could there be?

What higher position could be given to an unrighteous men and women than to be remade in the image of Jesus Christ our Lord, new creations, new people, born again.

And it's in this way, through humility before the holiness of God, that we find the free gift of mercy and justification as God gives the righteousness of Christ.

A righteousness we can be thankful for.

And so I'll leave you now with this this masterpiece that Jesus has carved out of the hard granite of the hard granite of stony hearts like mine.

Here it is.

God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Humble yourselves, therefore, my friends.

Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God.

That at the proper time he may exalt you.

Would you pray with me?

Oh Father, we come before you as people.

People.

People who never who never think highly enough of you.

A people who who tends to think more highly of ourselves and more lowly of other people and never lift you high enough.

Because we never lift you high enough, Father, we think we think more of ourselves than we ought.

Oh, forgive us for this sin.

Forgive us for living as if the gospel's not true.

Give us strength this week and this day, as unrighteous people given righteousness by your mercy, to cast ourselves upon you.

And let let us let us, Father, proclaim loudly, may we boast, may we shout, may we rejoice, but when we boast, may we boast in Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior.

May we boast only in Him and in His merciful death and His glorious resurrection.

Father, worthy is the Lamb who was slain.

Worthy is the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world.

Give us the strength this week to worship you rightly and to not treat others with contempt.

Oh how we love you.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.