The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector • Luke 18:9-14

Hi, and welcome to the Willow Ridge Church weekly podcast.

This is where you can find audio for our current and past sermons.

We hope that you enjoy this week's installment, and be sure to check back next week to hear

the latest message.

Thanks for listening.

Good morning.

I want to say this before we dive in.

I hope you all, whether you're here with us or whether you're watching at home or enjoying

the videos, but I guarantee you there's not a soul enjoying them more than Johnny Cobb.

And so, Johnny, it is just an encouragement every week to stand up here, buddy, and watch

you with those.

And so thank you so much for that.

But hey, to all the dads out there, whether you're gathered here with us or whether you're

at home, happy Father's Day.

You know, at our house, we've stretched it out.

This is Father's Week for me.

And so I've been leveraging and reminding my kids of that every time I see them.

Like, hey, do something special for me.

Do something special for me.

And so it's just a good time to be here.

And so for all the dads out there, godly dads, just striving hard to love your kids.

Thank you so much for all that you do and how you model that for your family.

I do want to say this before we dive in to God's Word this morning.

As much as we say that, we also recognize on days like Mother's Day and on days like Father's

Day that there are a group of people that right now, it's a bittersweet time maybe.

You know, for some, you can't be with your kids or maybe you can't be with your dad today.

For some of you, your dad maybe has passed on.

Maybe for others in here, you've never had a relationship with your dad.

And so on the day that everybody celebrates, there's a difficulty within your heart and

in your spirit on days like today.

And so just know if that's you, we're lifting you up and we're praying for you as you're

going through this day and this battle.

And just know that God is your heavenly Father who never fails you or forsakes you and who

deeply, deeply loves you in an unconditional way that we can't even begin to fathom or live

out accurately in this world.

I do want to say also before we open up our Bibles, many of you maybe already know that

Pastor Dave, who's been here for years, longest tenured staff member, probably been here longer

than most of you have been a part of this church.

Yesterday, after a battle that his dad had, some health issues that his dad had, his dad

passed away.

And so the Allen family is going through the mourning process together, knowing that his

dad is in heaven, knowing that one day they will be reunited again.

But I pray as we go from here and do whatever you're going to do today, that you lift up the

Allen family, that you pray for them as they walk through this season of life.

So would you join me as we go to the Lord in prayer?

God, I come to you and I thank you for the gift and the privilege that you've given me

to be a dad.

Lord, I know though that for so many of us, the word dad is a complicated word, right?

For so many of us, it could be associated with joy and with happiness, but also for so many

of us, it's connected to hurt and sorrow and pain.

So Lord, as we open up your word this morning, Lord, I pray that what we would glean from that

is the unconditional love of our heavenly father, Lord, of what you do for us.

And may today not be a day where we boast and we brag about what our earthly dads have done

or what we as fathers have accomplished, but could today be a reminder of who you are and

your never failing love for us.

And so Jesus, we thank you for who you are.

We thank you for your love.

And it's in your name we pray.

Amen.

And if you got your Bibles, go ahead and open up to Luke chapter 18 as we continue on in

Luke 18 · chapter mention

our series about the parables.

Now, as we go through this each week, there's three questions that are going to underline

every message that we're going to have there that I want you to ask yourself.

And these are three questions that I ask myself every time I read scripture, whether it's in

preparation for a sermon, whether it's for schoolwork, or whether it's from a personal

devotion and growth time.

And so we want to specifically look at these questions as we work through the parables.

Question number one is, as Jesus teaches, what does this teach me about God?

The second question is, what does this teach me about myself?

And then the third question is, what does this teach me about others, but specifically

speaking, how I treat others, all right?

So every time that we walk through these, these are the questions that we can ask.

Now, in Luke chapter 18, the parable of the Pharisee and tax collector, this has been an interesting

Luke 18 · chapter mention

study for me of what God has done in my years of both going to church, then getting saved,

then being a part of ministry.

This is probably the parable that I've preached in or read the second most, the most being the

parable of the prodigal son.

But the one of the Pharisee and the tax collector has been one that I've commonly preached from.

And it's been an interesting journey of what God has taken me through this week.

And so I pray for you, if this is a parable that you've heard time and time again, that

God and his graciousness and his faithfulness will show you something fresh and something

new.

And if not, maybe you're sitting there like, I've never heard this before, then wonderful,

excited to see what God's going to teach you as we work through this this morning.

So Luke chapter 18, we're going to read the entire parable, verses 9 through 14.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

So scripture tells us this, he also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that

they were righteous and treated others with contempt.

Then Jesus begins to tell the parable.

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

The Pharisee standing by himself prayed this, God, I thank you that I'm not like other men,

extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even 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.

Jesus says, 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.

And so Jesus tells us this story about two characters.

Jesus tells us this story of two individuals that would be very common in the context in

which Jesus gives this parable.

But what I want us to begin to land on is not diving into the story quite yet, but is helping

us understand the setting, the audience of which Jesus spoke to, and then also the setting

and the audience in which we will find ourselves here today.

And I want us to begin to think through this concept of viewing yourself versus viewing others.

Now, in your and my walk with the Lord, if we're not careful, there can begin to be this pattern

of positioning within the heart of those who say we are Christians, who attend church, who

do religious things.

If we're not careful, there can be a piece of our heart that when we look at sin, when

we look at our response to it, when we look at our pursuit of holiness, which is not a bad

thing, right?

We need to pursue that to have a position in the heart that says, I've arrived.

To have a position in the heart that says, I know what this looks like.

I'm good.

I've got this.

And here's some of the telltale signs of this in your life or in my life.

When we read the Bible, when we're engaged in the Bible study, or maybe even today when

we're listening to the sermon and as truth of what God's Spirit reveals to us begins to

come into our minds, we begin to think of all of the other people who need to hear it,

right?

And not us as the recipients of the ones that need to hear this.

Now, Jesus is very careful about this as from the very beginning of his ministry.

In Matthew chapter 7, it's in the heart of the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus begins to

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

deal with this.

And kind of paraphrased into my own words, Jesus, in speaking about judgment and following

him, he says, look, here's what you need to do.

You need to take the log, right?

Get a picture of this.

Take the log out of your own eye so that you may see clearly so that you can remove the speck

from your brother's eye.

There's a very intentional process of what Jesus is conveying to the people who want to follow

him, that the gospel, that the teachings of Christ cause you and I first to look at ourselves

and to inspect ourselves.

And what we will notice is that we have this log out of our eye.

And as a result of the sin that is in our life, we can't see others clearly until we remove it.

But our heart sometimes can be, we're walking around with multiple logs sticking out of our

eyes, pointing to other people, the little teeny tiny specks of dust that they have in their

own eye.

So what the gospel calls us to do is to remove, to examine, to work through so that now we can

see ourselves and see others clearly so that when we go forward into relationship with them

in humility, in grace, we can speak transparently about our lives, but also about their life.

So I'm not coming in a judgmental sense to rebuke you, but instead I'm coming as a person who

knows above all things, I am a work in progress, right?

I think of my life kind of the way that I view my backyard, right?

I'm getting there, but there's not really grass in these areas yet.

I'm getting there, but there's two half-built buildings on the other side, right?

Like, that's where we are.

That's who I am.

But as I recognize those things, God in his graciousness gives me the ability to see myself,

see clearly, so I can also speak truth into other people's lives.

And it comes out of a heart of kindness and compassion.

And so that's where Jesus is.

And this is what we need to see as we gather through in this parable, because it's so easy

in our life to go, Pharisee tax collector, Pharisee tax collector, Pharisee tax collector.

But for us, where does that have to begin?

A bunch of people walking around with logs.

Pharisee, Pharisee, Pharisee, Pharisee, Pharisee.

But are we seeing clearly?

So Jesus comes into this context.

And I love what Jesus says.

It says he's told this parable to some.

Now, Jesus is speaking directly to a group of people who were in the middle of a sin pattern

in their life, whether they had vocalized that to him or whether it was his divine nature to interpret

that, Jesus begins to speak.

Now, when Jesus speaks to our heart, Jesus does a wonderfully difficult but refreshing work.

When Jesus begins to deal with your heart and with my heart and the sin that's there,

I want to tell you, it's a hard, it's a draining, it's a difficult process.

I don't know about you, but I typically don't like knowing the things that are wrong with me.

I would rather you tell me the things that are good about me.

But Jesus does that in his kindness.

And then what we find is as our heart begins to align with his and we acknowledge those things,

there's the refreshing nature of the Holy Spirit that empowers us and recharges us to go forward.

So as Jesus is sitting, looking at this group of people and begins to convey this,

it's the difficult but refreshing.

So as you're here today and when you leave here, what we don't want this to be about

is how wonderfully terrible you are, right?

We want it to be how wonderfully good God is and what God is doing in our lives.

And that's where the refreshment comes.

So what is going on here?

Well, Scripture tells us, Jesus says this,

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

So it's kind of this two parts in.

The first part is this, they trusted in themselves, that's the key.

They trusted in themselves what?

They trusted in themselves that they were righteous.

That's where the conflict begins to happen.

Now oftentimes in our Christian verbiage, we use words and we use phrases and we ask questions like,

Do you trust Jesus?

Well, how are you trusting Jesus in this moment?

And most of the time when I use that phrase, when I hear that phrase being used,

here's what we're typically talking about.

In this season of life, in this difficulty of what you don't know, what you don't understand,

of what you're battling through.

Are you trusting Christ with the planning, with the time and the details?

We're asking people in this moment, do you trust that God is with you, that God is working things out?

And that's one way that we use it.

But this isn't necessarily what he is talking about here.

Jesus is talking about they trusted in themselves, not necessarily for the day-to-day actions of their lives,

but for their own righteousness.

They trusted in themselves for the right standing before God.

And what Jesus is wanting them to get to, what we have to get to here is this,

that in our standing before God, in the declaration that we are made right before him,

there is absolutely nothing, nothing we can do to obtain that.

But then it manifests itself in something else, that they treated others with contempt,

that they looked at others in their life with who they were, with what they had done.

And because there was a sense of arrival, because there was a sense of what they had perfected,

they did not see themselves through the gospel, they did not see others through the gospel.

And as a result, at the very end, Jesus says,

one went away justified, one went away right before God, and the other not.

The other not.

It's very interesting to see from these men's prayers,

both of their prayers, which we're going to walk through,

and we're going to give the Pharisees some slack.

Both come before God.

One walks away justified, one is not.

So what is justification?

Because we'll talk a lot about that today.

Justification is God's declaration.

No one else can make before him that someone is righteous in his sight.

It's what you and I have to have to obtain eternal life.

It's the standing at the judgment of what we're there.

It's what's written in the Lamb's book of life.

It is the justification that has happened into these individuals.

And so justification, it's a one-time act.

You're not repeatedly justified.

You are justified in the moment of your salvation.

Justification is when God moves you and I from the guilty crowd to the innocent crowd.

And justification happens when God imputes the work of Christ onto our account.

So here's what this means.

We talk about there's the sin debt that you and I racked up.

And Jesus paid that debt, right?

Jesus paid it all.

The hymn we, many of us, grew up singing.

So there was this sin debt.

And through the work of the cross, Jesus came and he paid that debt for us.

But that's only part of it.

So Jesus in your sin account did not bring it to zero, all right?

Jesus didn't balance it all out so that you could work up another debt.

That when Jesus justified you, he justified you unconditionally and eternally.

So that there's this credit that never runs out.

Because it's not found in your work or my work or your sin or my sin.

But it's all found in his sin.

I mean, in his life.

So that we are not at zero, but we are continually in the positive that we are fully justified.

And so today what we have to begin to understand is that are you justified in you or are you justified in him?

Is he where we find our means of justification?

And so we're going to look at these characters.

Character number one that Jesus talks about is the Pharisee.

And we're going to understand the reality that this Pharisee is deadly moral.

He is deadly moral.

Now, if you're not aware, the Pharisees were the religious rulers of Jesus' day.

And Scripture's pretty clear.

Most of Jesus' conflict comes with the Pharisees.

But it's also fair for us to say that Jesus didn't always have conflict with Pharisees.

In fact, we have a mindset almost in the church that every Pharisee was the bad enemy of Jesus and was always the enemy of Jesus.

But Scripture and early church history tells us that there were many Pharisees who actually became followers of Christ and leaders in the early church.

But what Pharisees were known for was their dedication to following God's law.

613 laws down to the detail.

There was no wiggle room for them.

If there was wiggle room, they sided on the side of the legalistic law.

Because they wanted to make sure that there was no point in time, if in any way, shape, or form, that knowingly or unknowingly, they broke the law of God.

So they even added laws on top of that just to make sure that they didn't do that ever.

And so they were known for following the law.

So the first thing that we know by Jesus even telling us that it's a Pharisee, we know that in their heart, what they long for and what they desire is to fully fulfill the law of God.

Pretty good guy, right?

Let's look at what he prays.

The Pharisee, the first thing is that he thanks God.

He thanks God.

Let's understand this as we're going to see how this is going to evolve with him.

He opens up his prayer, not with request, but praise.

That's commendable, right?

Like that's, I like that.

I find oftentimes that my prayers aren't like that.

But the Pharisee begins by, I'm going to thank God.

And here's what he thanks God for.

Number one, that he's not a thief, right?

Not a bad thing.

Secondly, that he's fair, that he does what's right.

He thanks God for his purity of spirit, sexual purity.

And thanks God for it.

Do you see what he's doing?

Like, God, all of these things, I thank you, I thank you, I thank you.

And then, in something that wouldn't be uncommon, there's someone else in the room, someone who's evil,

someone who does a lot of bad things, and I thank you that I'm not like him.

Now, maybe that makes us feel a little bit uncomfortable.

But I think we can think of a list of a lot of people who have done a lot of evil things,

that maybe if we find ourselves in their shoes, we would do the same thing.

And I do think there's a humility, a graciousness when we recognize that, that I could be like him,

but God, I thank you that I'm not, right?

It's only by God's grace that I'm not.

And that's what the Pharisee does.

The Pharisee also, very interesting, he thanks God for his growth.

And we're going to talk about this a little bit so we understand what he's saying.

He thanks God that he fasts twice a week.

So let's understand fasting.

Most of us don't do it.

It's very, if you want to have a low attendance Sunday, like, let everybody know we're going to be talking about fasting next week, right?

But fasting.

It says that he fasts twice a week.

Well, God's law commanded that everyone fast once a year.

Religious leaders were commanded by God's law to fast once a week.

But there were some Pharisees who decided that they were going to fast twice a week.

And it wasn't for boasting in themselves about why they fasted.

Here's why they fasted.

They fasted as a means and as a time for them to pray for those who would not repent,

who would not sacrifice, who would not fast themselves.

In the hope that they could atone for their sins and that God would withhold his wrath from those people.

So instead they would suffer for them.

That's commendable.

God, I want to come to you and I want to pray for you on behalf of all my lost friends.

God, that I want to fast for them and I want to lift them up.

And God, just hold back your wrath so that they may know you and know you in your kindness and in your fullness.

Pharisees doing a lot of good things.

A lot of what he's done, a lot of who he is.

He then says that he tithes on everything that he receives.

And I think this is important because this is tithing to a whole nother level.

So let me explain for a Pharisee what it meant to tithe on everything.

So that meant that he would tithe on his income before taxes, not after taxes.

It meant that if he, if the IRS, which didn't exist back then, right?

That's not the same tax collectors we're talking about, right?

But if he got a tax return, he'd have tithed on that too.

It meant that if he lived right now and got the stimulus check that he would have tithed on that as well.

Every source of income he would have tithed on.

If you would have given him a gift, it's his birthday, here's a $50 gift certificate, the Lowe's, right?

He'd tithe on that.

If he took out a loan, he would tithe on the loan, which meant this.

If he needed to purchase something for $200,000, he would have to borrow more than that so that he could tithe on the debt that he would have to repay, right?

If he was reimbursed for something, if he let someone borrow some money and they paid him back, he would tithe on it.

Do we see the level of dedication in this man?

Do we see all of the good things that he's done?

But in that moment, when he's asked, where does your justification come from, his answer fails.

His answer is, I'm not a thief.

His answer is, I'm not an adulterer.

His answer is, I'm just.

His answer is, I tithe.

His answer is, I fast.

That's how I'm justified.

Not once, but over and over and over again.

And here's what I find that many of us as Christians, we thank God for all of the wonderful things that God is doing and all the wonderful disciplines that are working out.

But there's this little piece in our heart that feels like that's what makes us good before him.

And it's not.

Because after the Pharisee being deadly moral, afterwards the tax collector comes in.

And what we see from the tax collector is he's deadly dependent.

He's dependent.

He knows that if he makes this out, it is only, only by the grace of God.

The tax collector who is evil.

The tax collector who is corrupt.

The tax collector who has sold off his own people, seeing them imprisoned, seeing them executed.

The tax collector making sure Rome had control from India to England over the people that they had occupied.

Who had sold his own parents, his neighbors, his friends, and his Pharisees away.

He, he is justified.

And that's not fair.

That's not right.

But look at what's going on.

Both come to God.

But look at how he comes to God.

He comes to God in the word that Jesus used with humility.

Scripture tells us that he stands in the back with his head down in unworthiness of what the God who he is there to worship.

Unworthy of his presence.

And then he begins to beat his chest.

One of the privileges that God gives me, and I do count him privileges, to officiate funerals.

What you find in doing different cultures is God giving me the opportunity to do different cultures, do different things at funerals.

And if it's not something you're used to, sometimes it can catch you off, catch you off guard.

But the tax collector comes in, and he begins to beat his chest as if he's at a funeral.

And what he's symbolizing is the death to himself of what he cannot do, of what he is not worthy of.

And then he says this, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

Did he need to grow?

Did he need to work out some things?

Did he need some accountability?

Did he need to push forward in the sanctification process?

Absolutely he did.

Did we need to begin to see the fruit of what's going on in his life, of what we've been talking about before?

Absolutely he did.

But his standing before the Lord was not based in his obedience.

His standing before the Lord was based in Jesus.

Church, here's, we're going to wrap up with this.

What makes you worthy to stand before God?

What makes you worthy to call out his name?

What makes you worthy to stand here and sing songs of praise?

What makes you worthy at home to fall down on your knees and cry out to him?

What will make you worthy one day when we stand before him in judgment?

And if anything else came to your mind other than Jesus, you've missed it.

And if you've added anything to Jesus, you've missed it.

Christ, in Christ alone, through faith in him and in his works.

Would you pray with me?

Lord, we come to you this morning thanking you for who you are, for what you've done.

Lord, we talk about works.

Your word calls us to that.

Our relationship is seen and it is known by what we do after we come to faith in you.

But Lord, I pray that so many of us in here, in this place today,

in our hearts, if we're honest with ourselves,

we find ourselves like the Pharisee.

Of what we deserve, of where we are.

Lord, in our ability to stand before you, we even thank you for.

But if it's anything other than Christ, it's insufficient.

If it's anything other than Christ, it damns us.

If it's anything other than Christ, it's not the gospel.

So, Lord, I pray that we would come as the tax collector,

regardless of the amount of time that we've been saved,

regardless of how many mission trips we've been on,

regardless of how much we give,

regardless of how many things we do,

regardless of how many people we've shared the gospel with,

that we come before you in our only means of right standing,

our only means of justification is Jesus.

The same justification that Paul received,

the same justification that the thief on the cross received,

it was enough, it was sufficient for both.

Every head bowed and every eye closed.

The hard part about this

is it's very easy for us to give lip service.

But the question I have for you today

is this.

Is it Jesus?

That's it.

Is it Jesus?

Him and Him alone.

Nothing about you.

Nothing about me.

Is it Jesus?

And if it's not,

do not do what the Pharisee did.

Do not walk out of here

in your own righteousness

that will damn you to hell.

Walk out of here

in the life that comes,

in the hope that comes,

in the justification that comes

by Christ and Christ alone.

It is His life.

It is His work.

It is His death.

It is His resurrection.

It is His blood.

It is all of Him.

One day,

we will all stand there.

And Lord,

I pray that our answer

will be Jesus.

Lord,

in only how you can do,

only who you are,

draw hearts

and change lives.

And it's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Would you stand as we worship Him?

Thanks again for listening to the Willow Ridge Church

weekly podcast.

We hope that you enjoyed listening to this week's message.

If you'd like to learn more about who we are

or explore additional resources,

visit us online at www.willowridgechurch.com

or by searching for Willow Ridge Church

on Facebook and Instagram.