Series on Luke
IV The Imperatives of the Kingdom
B Instruction in Rejection
23 Self Righteousness
Text:18:9-14
Introduction
One early morning there was a fire in an old house on a narrow street. A young man appeared at a window in his pajamas. The firemen quickly put up a ladder and said, ‘Hurry up, come down.” But the man said, “Wait, i have to change my clothing.” The firemen shouted, No,no come as you are, come as you are.” But he disappeared into the smokey room. Soon the stairs collapsed, the roof collapsed and his life was lost. If only he had come as he was. The parable today is about a man who thought he had to change his clothing to be saved and a man who came as he was. Jesus says the man who came in his pajamas was saved. The Pharisee is a man who thought he had to earn his salvation by his good works. The publican is a man who understood he could not earn it. He needed a gift, he needed grace, he needed mercy. Look with me today at two people, two prayers, and two patterns for life.
I Two People
The mistake is to think that we are only talking here about two individuals. We are seeing that there are two kinds of people in verses 9 and 10, To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. There is an everlasting gulf fixed between these two kinds. It was true before in the Old Testament, here in the ministry of Jesus, it is true now and it will always be. At the dawn of creation Adam had two sons. Cain and Abel. Their story in Genesis 4:1-5 clearly represents the same distinction as in Jesus’ story of the Pharisee and publican. It is a fact too obvious to ignore that the offerings of Cain and Abel represented two different attitudes. The sacrifice of Abel involved death and demonstrated his unworthiness. The sacrifice of Cain showed no recognition of his sin. Later on king Saul and king David brought offerings that were identical, but God rejected Saul’s and accepted David’s because he had a broken and contrite heart. Throughout the history of Israel the prophets brought the same message. In Isaiah 1 God says to israel, The multitude of your sacrifices, what are they to me, i have no pleasure in them. You are trampling my courts, your sacrifices are a burden to me because your hands are full of blood. In Isaiah 57:15 God says, With him will i dwell who has a humble and contrite heart. Let us learn that nothing has changed in human nature. There are many many people today who say God will save me because i am good, and then there are those like the publican who just say God be merciful. That is what the gospel is about because Jesus said, I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. What matters is not your past record but your present attitude. The Pharisee had everything but the one thing that mattered. The publican had nothing except what mattered. Which one was saved?
II Two Prayers
The difference in the prayers of these two individuals is obvious in verses 11-14, The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” The Pharisee is an “I ” man. His confidence is in what he has accomplished. What if he were alive today and i asked him “If you were to die tonight and come before God and he were to ask you why should i let you into heaven?” The Pharisee would say i did this and i did that. God would not let him in. The publican would say God be merciful. He would say, if i am to enter in it will have to be by another righteousness than my own. How about the righteousness of Jesus. Look at their language, look at their position, look at their body language, look at what Jesus says. First with withering sarcasm he says in verse 11 the Pharisee prayed to or about himself, not to or about God. secondly he says the publican was justified. the Greek word means “accepted as righteous” and it is a perfect passive. The perfect tense refers to an action in the past with a continuing effect. The passive refers to the fact he did not do it himself, it was done to him. So the publican was accepted as righteous by God’s action and it was a permanent contract. The Pharisee believed he himself was good enough, but the publican believed God had to be merciful or he could not be saved. Remember there are two kinds of people. As the parable makes clear, there’s a big difference between using the badness of others to define our own goodness, and using the goodness of God to define our own badness. If you are here today and unsaved the reason may be that you like the young man in the fire, and like the Pharisee are trying to change in order to be rescued. The gospel says come as you are. You will never be good enough to please God anyway, so throw yourself on his mercy. Jesus died to substitute his death for your death. He lived to substitute his righteousness for yours. Accept it.
III Two Patterns of Life
The saddest thing about the Pharisee is that his preoccupation with his good works kept him out of heaven. But there is another result almost as sad. The Pharisees were outstanding church members in their day. They despised others. As Luke tells us, they looked down on everybody else. They had many prayers like the one in this text. They used to pray in the morning, Blessed art thou, Lord our God, King of the world that thou hast not made me a stranger, a servant or a woman. Or they prayed, ‘I thank you Lord that i am not one of those who sit on street corners(money-changers),” or “Lord of the world judge me not as a thieving, lying, unclean city dweller. The one I like best as an example of extreme self-righteousness is Rabbi Simeon ben Jochi who is quoted as saying, “If there are only two righteous men in the world then he and his son were these, but if there is only one, then it was himself.” You see, their focus on their own good works made them judges of everyone else, and the Church can be filled with this kind of wickedness today. Bruce Larsen says someone once said to him, “Do you know what’s wrong with you, you judge other people by their actions and yourself by your intentions. If you would reverse that you would change your life. Judge others by what they meant to do and yourself, not by what you meant, but by what you did, which is how they see you.” All the gossip, all the bitterness, all the division in Christ’s Church comes from this pride. Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Humility is the keynote. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Consider the story of the proud young seminary student who rose to give his first sermon, immaculately groomed, superbly prepared, and certain to shine. He couldn’t remember a word, and reduced to tears he fled in humiliation. One old saint in the congregation was heard to remark to another. “If he had come in like he went out he would have gone out like he came in.” This is what Jesus is saying. The worst thing about the Pharisee here is that he was totally convinced that God loved him and did not love the less dedicated people around him. Dwight L Moody, one of the greatest evangelists of modern times, who founded many schools and Christian institutions once said, “I have so much trouble with D L Moody i don’t have time to find fault with the other fellow.”
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