The Pharisee & the Tax Collector – Luke 18:9–14 (July 19, 2026)

Amen.

Well, if you got a student in kindergarten through third grade, they can go ahead and head out to their class now.

The rest of us, if you would, go ahead and open up your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 18, and we're going to be looking at verses 9 through 14 together this morning.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible with you, no worries.

There should be one under a chair around you.

But you can also open up your bulletin this morning.

You can find the passage there.

It should be really helpful to you as you follow along.

This summer we're looking at the stories of Jesus.

What many of us probably know as parables.

They're these short little tales that really pack a pretty surprising spiritual punch.

You know, at first glance, the story we're going to look at this morning might not seem the most interesting.

It's really about two guys who go to the temple to pray.

That's it.

There's really not some massive tension, grand resolution.

It seems pretty mundane to us.

It's short, it's simple even.

But I hope you're beginning to realize this summer as we've been looking at these stories of Jesus that there really is a little bit more than meets the eye.

That there is more to what we maybe just first glance, and especially in this parable this morning, for starters, this is not a parable about prayer.

It's actually one about justification.

Now, maybe that doesn't seem any more interesting to you either.

Justification's a pretty big word.

It might be a foreign word to you.

It's certainly not one that you use in, at least I imagine, in the everyday conversation.

It's a pretty weighty word, a very theological word.

Might be one of those words that we think of as Christianese, words Christians use but really don't understand all that much.

But justification is actually a really important word.

In fact, I was reading a book on vacation that argued, I think, pretty convincingly, that we actually, every single one of us, no matter whether you're a Christian or not, this morning, understand the idea of justification.

And in fact, one of the things that our world most seeks is justification.

We long for it.

There's a real sense in which we are obsessed with justification.

See, to be justified, justification, it means being right or being good, being worthy.

Or the word that the author uses in the book I read, being enough.

What do we deeply want?

We want to be enough.

We want to be happy enough.

We want to be good enough.

We want to be loved enough.

We want to be successful enough.

We want to be worthy enough.

And where is it that we look to establish this enoughness?

What is it that we look to so often that we can know we're okay or that we really matter?

Well, I would argue, as the author of this book does, that it's actually ourselves.

That so often where we ground our enoughness is in our own abilities and our own achievements, who we are and what we do.

To find enoughness, we often look to our jobs, our careers, our resumes.

It's why if you ask any adult, how's life?

you almost have to respond with busy.

Because you want people to think you're busy.

You want to be busy.

That means you're important.

You matter.

Busyness gives us enoughness.

It's also why if you're a student in here, sometimes you might look to how good you do in a classroom.

Or maybe a success on a court or a field.

It's why almost every single one of us looks to relationships.

Do people like us?

Do we have a lot of friendships?

Do we have good friendships, real friendships, deep friendships?

We can look to marriage.

We can even look to our parenting to tell us that we're enough.

We can look to social media, make a post, did enough people like it, did people comment on it?

Did I get some DMs?

All sorts of things that we might look at and go, oh, this means I'm worthy.

I feel good about myself.

We can look to politics.

We on the right side.

Are we supporting the right causes?

You know, we can even look to our worship.

Do we attend church?

Do we hit all of our quiet times this week?

Have we been obedient?

See, I would argue that our culture, our world, is consumed with self-justification.

And that we, church, aren't immune from that same self-justification, that desire to justify ourselves.

My guess, if I was able to kind of get into your heart and into your mind a little bit this morning, many of us, if we answered honestly, we'd say we don't feel like we're enough this morning.

That there's this little pit, low grade anxiety that just says you're not smart enough, you're not good enough, you're not pretty enough, you're not cool enough.

Maybe your boss this past week told you that your work is not up to par.

Or maybe your kid is just throwing tantrums.

Just does not seem to obey.

Maybe you have a teen that's growing more and more distant or apathetic.

Maybe your spouse has begun to feel like a roommate.

Marriage has gotten to feel a little bit cold.

Maybe even it feels like your ship's passing in the night.

Things don't feel right in your marriage.

Maybe the number on the bathroom scale went up after vacation.

Or maybe the number in your bank account went down after vacation.

Maybe this past week you returned to an old sin.

One that you swore you'd overcome.

See, I think every single one of us, in some way, some form, don't feel like you're enough.

If you're anything like me, there's maybe even a mistake or something you did this past week that just sticks with you.

So often, anything like that sticks with you.

You can't get it out of your heart and mind.

See, Jesus' story this morning is all about justification.

Particularly, it's going to tell us the dangers of self-justification and self-righteousness, but it's also going to tell us the astonishing truth of where we might find true, lasting, real justification.

Friends, there is actually a way to be enough and to live in that enoughness, but we do not find it by looking to ourselves.

Let's look at what Jesus says in this parable, Luke chapter 18, verses 9 through 14.

Luke 18:9–14

Here's the story he tells.

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else.

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

The Pharisee was standing and praying like this about himself.

Greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week.

I give a tenth of everything I get.

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even raise his eyes to heaven, but kept striking his chest and saying, God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

I tell you, this one went down to his house justified rather than the other.

Because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

Here's our main idea this morning: righteousness is a gift from God, not something we earn for ourselves.

Righteousness is a gift from God, not something we earn for ourselves.

Friends, that is such an important truth that we need to get into our hearts and minds.

Our first point that we're going to look at this morning is the sin of self-righteousness.

The sin of self-righteousness.

See, Jesus does something a little bit unusual.

He only does this three times in the many parables he tells.

He gives us the moral up front.

He tells us the point, at least in part, right from the beginning.

Look at verse 9.

He told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else.

What is it that led Jesus to tell this particularly story?

Well, it is people who trusted in themselves, people who were confident in their own righteousness.

This parable, then, is Jesus' message to our attempts at self-justification.

It's his story, his parable to the self-righteous.

I think we need to remember this.

This is us.

See, there's this well-known account of an elementary Sunday school class.

They were going through this parable.

The teacher taught it and they studied it and asked questions about it.

In the end, the teacher asked, Is there any volunteers to pray?

One of the boys raised his hand and said, I'll pray.

And he began his prayer like this Dear Lord, thank you that we're not like the Pharisee in this passage.

It's funny and even cute, especially for an elementary student.

We can imagine that.

It's a little bit more difficult when we realize that that's how we just read that parable, too.

That actually we don't think we're the Pharisee in the parable.

We don't think we have anything to do with the Pharisee in the parable.

Jesus tells this story to us.

Friends, we have to remember that self-righteousness isn't something that you ever see in yourself.

No one ever thinks they're prideful.

No one.

No one who's ever acted in pride thinks they're prideful.

That's why it's so diabolical.

That's why it's so deadly, is because we're blind to it.

We might gossip, we might covet, we might lie, we might lust, but we see that as sin, and often we know that that is sin.

But when we act in pride, most of the time we think we're doing something good.

In fact, I would argue all the time.

We think that we're right.

That's what pride in part is.

Pride only ever sees other people's wrongs, never sees our own.

Friends, I just want us to be clear from the beginning: this story of Jesus isn't for your family member.

It's not for your neighbor, it's not for one of your friends, it's not for your boss, it's for you.

It's for me.

It's for us.

Jesus is telling this story to us.

And now, Jesus' sort of beginning might be a little bit unusual to give the moral of the story at the very beginning, but the way that he delivers this message is very customary.

As we've seen again and again throughout the parables, the primary point is seen by shock.

Maybe you read through that parable and you thought, well, that seems relatively mundane, but I promise you, the first hearers of Jesus' story here would have thought that it was staggering.

There would have been some that would have been appalled.

How can this be?

See, I think this is where we stand to most miss the point of Jesus' parable, is because we have such skewed visions of these two characters.

We have a very different understanding of a Pharisee today than Jesus' first century audience.

When you hear the word Pharisee, you immediately think self-righteous, hypocrite, and you're not all that wrong in some ways.

Nobody, not one of us, wants to be a Pharisee this morning.

But that is not how Jesus' first hearers would have thought about Pharisees.

Pharisees were the most godly, trusted, righteous men in society.

In fact, I don't even know that we can really make a comparison today.

Because there, we really don't trust anyone.

We think everyone is unrighteous or a little bit corrupt, except usually ourselves.

But I wonder if you think, this is the best I could come up with.

I wonder if you think back to when you were a kid in elementary school and you think about your teacher.

I don't know if you were like me, but I could never have imagined my elementary teacher doing anything or saying anything ever wrong.

In my little mind and heart, I thought they were all Mary Poppins.

Like just sweet, good, always did right.

And I don't know if you had some of this experience.

But as you got a little bit older, you began to see teachers in the wild every once in a while.

Is that teachers smoking a cigarette?

Are they sitting at a bar in a restaurant?

Not even necessarily that those things are like the worst things in the world, but you're just like, can my teachers have like real lives outside of the classroom?

Like, do like, are they real people?

We can't imagine them doing or saying something wrong.

That's not a perfect illustration.

I think that's a little bit about how people would have viewed Pharisees.

Pharisees were the picture of a truly faithful servant of God.

So you need to understand when we get into verse 11 and a Pharisee is mentioned, the people's hearts were warmed.

They were eager, excited to hear about the Pharisee, even hear how the Pharisee prayed.

Let's look at that prayer, verses 11 and 12.

He says, God, I thank you that I'm not like other people, greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week, I give a tenth of everything I get.

Now, you need to understand, probably much of Jesus' audience would have affirmed this.

They might have even thought, that's true.

Man, Pharisees, they're they're not like the rest of sinners.

They're certainly the exact opposite of a tax collector.

And they're so godly in how they pray, how they fast, how they tithe.

See, Jesus' audience might have heard this and they might have thought little was wrong or even interesting about verses 11 and 12.

No, the shock would come a little bit later.

In fact, if we ignore the second character, we're gonna get to that character in a moment in this story.

The real shock here with the Pharisee comes in just four words right in the middle of verse 14.

See if you can find them.

Right in the middle, it says, rather than the other.

Someone went home justified, but it isn't the Pharisee.

The Pharisee isn't righteous, Jesus says.

The Pharisee isn't right with God.

You might almost imagine murmurs in the crowds.

People going, impossible.

How could that be?

A Pharisee isn't righteous?

Isn't it good?

Friends, that is the right question.

Why isn't the Pharisee justified?

I wonder if you've asked that question before.

Maybe, especially if you're not a Christian, maybe you've wondered why isn't the seemingly good person right or justified?

Maybe even you're here this morning and thinking, can't I just be a good person and be okay?

Now, Jesus' parable doesn't tell the whole story, but it does give us significant insight into that dilemma or question.

Remember who Jesus is writing to.

Look again at verse 9.

Those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous.

Jesus very clearly is telling us that the Pharisee is trusting in himself that he is righteous.

I don't think that's hard to see in his prayer.

Yes, he thanks God, but there's someone, if you look at it, that's mentioned far more often than God in that prayer.

It's himself.

Do you see the five-fold eyes in this prayer?

Look at it.

11 and 12.

I thank you.

That I'm not like.

I fast.

I give everything I get.

Who's really the God at the heart of this prayer?

What I'd argued is it's not the true God, it's not God.

It's actually the Pharisee.

Now, church, I do think we just have to take a brief moment and look at ourselves just a little bit.

What about us?

Who's the God that is at the heart of so much of our praying?

I mean, how often sometimes does even our prayers sound a little bit like an acceptance speech at an award show?

I mean, think about how often we pray, and our prayers seem to be centered on our glory and not God's.

Seem to be so caught up in our good and not his people's good.

So often our praying, I think, would reveal a lot that we think about our own wisdom and what we want for ourselves and what we think is best for us, our wisdom, our ways, and not God's will and God's word.

But you know what?

That's not really the telltale sign of the Pharisee's self-righteousness.

No, his pride is most evident not in how he views himself, but in how he views others.

Look at it again.

The Pharisee praying about himself, Jesus says.

That's very significant.

He sees far off in the distance a tax collector praying, and his first thought is, how glad I am that I am not like that tax collector.

Meaning, how much better off am I than him?

Meaning, how much better am I than him?

See, why does he think that?

Why does the tax collector's first thought is, I'm so, or the Pharisee's first thought is, I'm so much better than that tax collector.

Because he's looking at his own works.

And he thinks his works are really impressive, and there's a sense in which they are.

I mean, he looks at his uh fasting, which is more and above what you were supposed to do in that day, what was called for.

He looks at his tithing of every single thing that he's gotten, and that is over and abundant.

He thinks about his goodness, his obedience.

You know, in the intro, I talked about the emptiness of self-justification.

But what we see here is that it actually has a lot of ugliness in self-justification.

See, I didn't mention this at the beginning, but here's what happens when we look to what we do, to our own accomplishments, our own efforts to justify us.

When we think that what makes us enough and worthy, well, what happens is when we succeed, when we begin to meet our expectations, what do we do?

We look down on those who don't.

We say things like, well, if only she had my self-control, if only they disciplined their kids like we do.

That's why we have such good kids.

If only they had my education, if they knew what I knew, if only they had our same high standards regarding TV or music or movies or tech, if only they served like we do in the church.

See, here's the bitter poison of self-righteousness and self-justification is it turns even good things, honorable things, parenting, work, worship.

And it turns them into things that don't glorify God, but actually glorify us.

Turns them into things that don't serve God, but actually serve our own sin.

Friends, what we began to see is that there was a reason why Jesus said that the Pharisees were whitewashed tombs.

That they were beautiful, polished on the outside, but dead, rotten on the inside.

Why?

Because they trusted in themselves.

That they were righteous.

Which means that made all of their actions, even honorable ones, almost become like the evil queen in Snow White's poison apple.

What was to nourish now actually poisons.

See, the Pharisee basks in his goodness, his obedience to the law.

And he does so while ignoring God and hating his neighbor, which are the very things that the law most centrally commands.

See, don't miss the point.

It's so clear.

The Pharisee isn't righteous.

The Pharisee isn't good.

He only thinks he is.

He's justified himself.

He's made it so that he looks righteous to himself or he appears good to other people.

But he doesn't love God and he doesn't love his neighbor.

Friends, righteousness, enoughness isn't something that we can earn.

And in fact, when we try to earn it, what actually happens is the exact opposite.

We become more unrighteous.

And we actually become more blind to the very thing that we most need to see.

And that is God's glory and God's grace.

See, righteousness is a gift from God, not something that we earn for ourselves.

See, let's look at that second point then, the gift of God's righteousness.

We've looked at the sin of self-righteousness.

Let's consider the gift of God's righteousness, because the Pharisees' failure to go home justified would have been shocking.

But not even close to the shock of the first phrase of verse 14.

Look at it.

The first phrase of verse 14 would have been unimaginable in a first century Jewish context.

Look at it.

I tell you.

Now just stop there for a second.

Jesus, I tell you, right?

This is the key statement in the entire parable.

Jesus, God the Son, become a human being.

The word became flesh, the authority of God.

I tell you, listen to this.

This one went down to his house justified rather than the other.

Who's this one?

Look at verse 13.

It's the tax collector.

Friends, that's crazy.

Jesus, at the climax of the parable, says, I tell you, the tax collector went down to his house justified.

Righteous.

That's what that means.

Right with God.

Right before God.

I don't think there's murmurs at this point, because I don't think people had breath to do murmurs.

I think there is a gasp in the crowd.

Now the problem is that for us, we're like, yeah, okay.

Like we look at a tax collector, we just are kind of ho-hum about that.

I don't think any of us like love the IRS.

Like there probably no one's like, let's go, IRMS, but we like can imagine someone in the IRS.

If you work for the IRS, really sorry.

I want you to know this.

You could be a good person.

You know, like we could think of you as a good person.

That's not like an impossible idea for us in some sense.

Friends, that's not how people spoke of tax collectors in Jesus' day.

Do you remember that Jesus again and again is ostracized for hanging out with who?

Tax collectors and sinners.

Why couldn't you just say sinners?

Like, like why tax collectors and sinners?

Because tax collectors were the worst sinners.

And in fact, in that society, they were worse than sinners.

That's the idea of a tax collector.

They were traitors.

They worked for pagan, godless, oppressive Rome.

They were the enemy.

I mean, think about it.

They collected money for Rome, and worse, they did it for their own pockets.

They did it for their own profits.

They exploited their own people.

They exploited their own families.

Sometimes they exploited their own poor.

And they did so for the greed of Rome and for their own greed.

You know, I know in America, like we love Rags the Riches movies.

Like I love them too.

Like I know we've heard story after story of the misunderstood, sinner, lowly person, and I think that's really great.

That's not how tax collectors were understood.

Tax collectors were vile.

Friends, they were corrupt.

They chose to backstab their own people.

You know, every scholar that I read was trying to figure out like, how do we, like, what's a comparison to our world?

Like, like, how can we get, not not exactly is a tax collector, what would a tax collector be like today, but how would a tax collector feel today?

Like, what would garner the same sort of reaction in our day?

And honestly, what most of these scholars brought up are things that I don't even really want to mention.

They're that harsh.

I think this maybe, maybe fiction can be a little bit helpful for us here.

So if you're a kid in here, you might think of the hyenas and the lion king.

There's nothing good about them.

If you've read a little bit, maybe a little bit older, you might think of Lucius Malfoy and Harry Potter.

You might think of the orcs and the Lord of the Rings.

You might think of the evil dwarf servant of the white witch and the lion, the witch and the wardrobe.

You might think of the Joker and Batman.

These would be characters and figures that we can't imagine doing something right.

We couldn't imagine the Pharisee doing something wrong.

They couldn't imagine the tax collector doing anything good or right.

They were beyond redemption.

And Jesus says, about the tax collector, not the Pharisee.

The teacher, not the terrorist.

Or the he says about the terrorist, not the teacher.

They went home, he went home justified, righteous.

Well, how can that possibly be?

Well, look at the tax collector's prayer, verse 13.

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even raise his eyes to heaven, but kept striking his chest and saying, God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Note a couple things.

The tax collector stands far off.

And he doesn't do so, probably with the same motivation as the Pharisee.

The Pharisee stood far off to be away from sinners.

The tax collector stands far off because he's that much of a sinner.

He doesn't even think he can be near normal sinners.

That's why he won't even raise his eyes to heaven.

Can't even imagine looking up to a holy God.

I wonder if you've ever felt that way in your sin.

I can't even imagine looking to God.

That's why Jesus describes him as striking his chest.

He grieves his sin that much.

This isn't mere talk.

This is real heartfelt repentance of sin.

But the real key is in his plea.

It's one of the most profound and plain in all of Scripture.

Look at it.

What's his prayer?

God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Now, friends, I think this is really important here.

The word for sinner actually is it's it's it's it's got an article in front of it in the original language.

So it's not actually a sinner, it's the sinner.

The Pharisee or the tax collector understands him to be not just a sinner among many, the worst of sinners, the sinner.

And he calls for mercy.

But you need to know this isn't the normal word for mercy.

He's not just sort of saying, God, be kind to me, be gracious to me.

No, this is one of the ways we know that Jesus' parable isn't just about prayer.

That actually it's something about, it's about something far more foundational than that.

See, the word that Jesus puts in the tax collector's mouth has to do with atonement.

If you look at your Bible, there might be a little footnote there.

Just in that little phrase, have mercy on me.

And if you were to follow that footnote, some of you will have it, some of you may not.

It would say another translation could be, God, turn your wrath from me, a sinner.

See, this word is the same word that's used in Hebrews 2.17.

Hebrews 2.17 is talking about Jesus, the great high priest, and this word is used to speak of Jesus' making atonement for the sins of the people.

That's why Jesus puts this story in the setting of the temple.

Two men went to the temple to pray.

The Pharisee went to the temple to be applauded.

But the tax collector has come to the temple seeking, pleading for God's sacrificial mercy.

See, the crowd doesn't know it yet.

But actually, the answer to how this vile tax collector could be justified ultimately isn't in the story, but in the storyteller.

See, the tax collector in this prayer, he's pleading for God to mercifully turn away the judgment, the right judgment for his sins, what his sins deserves.

Friends, here's what that means.

He's pleading for Jesus.

See, here's why self-justification is so unsatisfying, exhausting, and hopeless.

Because, like the tax collector, we're sinners.

And we can't make ourselves right, we can't make ourselves good.

We actually can never make ourselves enough in one sense.

And I think we know it.

I think every single one of us knows that there is something significantly wrong, that there is real sin in our hearts, and most of what we try to do is to try to cover it.

At best, what we can do is try to hide our sins.

The option that we most often resort to is to look for sinners worse than us.

That's how we justify.

See, there is actually only one solution to our sinful, unsatisfying, and desperate attempts at self-justification, and it's Jesus.

I mean, think about this for a moment.

How is it that the vile tax collector can go home justified, righteous in God's sight?

A vile sinner.

How is that possible?

Well, because his sin was placed on the sinless Christ.

Because Jesus on the cross took the judgment for our sin.

How is it that any of us, sinners, might be justified before a holy God?

It's because Jesus died the death that we deserved.

Jesus was struck so that we don't have to strike ourselves like the tax collector.

And then just as amazing, Jesus' obedience, Jesus's righteousness is credited to us.

Friends, God isn't making a false declaration here.

He's not just trying to give us a happy ending.

No, the tax collector's actually justified because Jesus has taken his sin and given the tax collector, in theory, his own righteousness.

See, friends, true righteousness is the gift of God.

We don't earn it, we only receive it.

I just want you to think about this for a minute.

Here is an enoughness that is secure, that can't be taken away.

Not by the world's hardships, but also not by our failures.

Friends, here is enoughness that doesn't make us prideful, but actually humbles us.

Here is an enoughness that doesn't make us more selfish, but actually more loving.

Not more judgmental, but actually more merciful.

And here is an enoughness for tax collectors, for Pharisees, and for all sinners.

Now, how do we receive it?

How do we receive this enoughness, this justification?

By faith.

By relying on God's mercy alone.

You need to understand this.

The tax collector is not the hero of the story.

God is.

Love this quote from Professor James Edwards about the tax collector.

Here's what he says: without merits to stand on, he must stand humbly before God.

Without merits to speak for him, he must plead to God.

Without merits to be rewarded, his only option is to plead for God's mercy.

He has nothing to stand on, he has nothing to speak for him, he has nothing that ought to be rewarded, the tax collector, before God.

No, he stands solely, nothing to offer before God.

The Pharisee stands before God in self-congratulation.

The tax collector stands before God in prayer.

Friends, I think there's a key question that every single one of us needs to ask this morning.

What are we standing on?

Like honestly, deep down in our own hearts, what are we trusting in?

Is it our own merits?

What we've done, who we are, or is it God's mercy in Christ?

See, I think there is a reason why Jesus told this parable in the context of prayer.

Because prayer so often does reveal things like this.

It reveals our hearts.

Puritan Robert Murray McShane's really famous for saying this: who a man is on his knees before God, that he is, and nothing more.

See how we pray, even how often we pray, our attitude in our prayers, it does reveal who we're truly trusting, whether it's in ourselves or in our God.

And self-justification, self-righteousness, it zaps the oxygen from our prayers.

It quenches the frequency and the fervency of our praying.

See, there is a reason why one scholar, I think, so shrewdly remarks about this parable.

Two men went up to the temple to pray, but only one of them prayed.

Christian, if you're here this morning, maybe perhaps this might be at least a part of the reason your prayers feel so rote, or your communion with God feels so cold.

I think it would we would do well to just ask God to reveal all the ways in which we are trying to establish our own righteousness.

All the different things that we're trusting in, whether our own abilities or in the things of this world for justification.

But I also think it would be wise to ask God to remind us, maybe freshly this morning, of all the ways then that we have missed the astonishing tax collector justifying mercy and grace of God.

Friends, righteousness is a gift from God, not something we earn for ourselves.

So just to finish, what is it that we do with a gift?

I think there's two things.

We receive it and we enjoy it.

Friends, first we receive.

You know, it's possible that this parable has surprised you.

Maybe you thought to be a Christian was to be a good person.

Maybe you've actually heard messages like this.

You've heard the gospel.

Maybe you've been gathering with us for a while now, even.

But deep down you can't shake this sense that you need to be better, that you need to do better.

Friends, I hope that you see this morning that being good or being better is not the good news of Christ.

It is not the hope of the Christian.

Our hope is in Christ alone, who He is and what He has done for us.

The Christian life isn't first and foremost about doing things for Jesus.

It's about receiving from Jesus.

And it's about relying on him.

My hope is maybe even this morning that you have come to understand that God's remarkable grace and mercy in Christ and your need of it.

Maybe you're a student in here, maybe even a kid with us.

I want you to know this is for you too.

The very next thing that's gonna happen in Luke's gospel is Jesus is gonna, in some ways, rebuke the disciples for not letting the little children come to him because the kingdom of God is theirs, he says.

Friends, my sincerest hope is that old or young or everywhere in between, that you would consider joining the tax collector in his prayer.

That maybe this morning you would say, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

You'd stop trusting in yourself.

And you would trust in Jesus alone for your salvation.

Do you know this?

This morning, it can be said of you, this one went home justified, righteous in Christ.

Enough.

We receive it and we enjoy it.

Church, brothers and sisters in Christ, I think we would do well to remember and rehearse this tax collector's prayer.

We are deep sinners in need of God's great grace.

But even more so, we need to enjoy God's gift of righteousness in Christ.

I think there are far too many of us sitting here right now who are striving for what we've already received in Christ.

There are too many of us who are actually trying to take the burden back that Jesus removed, to try to put it back on our shoulders.

I want you to think about this, Christian.

Think about the joy, the freedom of knowing that you are presently, eternally enough in God's eyes.

And that your greatest failure, your most plaguing sin changes nothing about who you are in Christ.

See, this life in Christ is not one in which we just constantly try to prove ourselves, to show that we're worthy enough and good enough, not on the field or the court or the classroom, not in our home, and especially not in the church.

Brothers and sisters, we don't need to just be continually going around trying to impress one another.

We don't have to do that.

We are children of God in Christ, we are heirs of the eternal kingdom in Christ.

And that means, as practical as I can get, that that low-grade guilt.

If you're a Christian this morning, that sort of anxiety, that fear, maybe even that just constant sadness, sense of failure, it's not inevitable.

It actually doesn't speak what is most true.

It doesn't define you.

Jesus does.

Friends, when you don't live up to the expectations of this world, what you think they are, your own expectations.

What a joy it is to be reminded that actually in Christ we are enough.

Christ has not has called us to rest, not exhaustion.

Now, that doesn't mean passivity, doesn't mean that there's no work, it doesn't mean that we aren't even striving, but it means that we're striving out of what Jesus has done for us.

It means that when Jesus was on the cross and he said it is finished, he meant it.

Your judgment is gone in Christ.

Your salvation is complete in Christ.

And now we can live freely, joyfully, with such hope in God's mercy, grace, and goodness.

Krishna, I pray that you would hear this right now.

In Christ you are justified.

You're right with God.

You are good in God's eyes.

You are loved.

You are enough in Christ.

And nothing can take that away from you.

Because it's not based on you or what you've done or what you will do, but on him and what he's done.

Church, this is what we get to enjoy.

This is how we are to live.

Knowing that righteousness is a gift from God, not something that we earn for ourselves.

Which means we live out of a gift, not in order to earn something.

Let's pray.