“How Goodness keeps us from God”
(Luke 18:9-14)
Series: The Gospel for Real Life (5 of 8 )
Team Preaching with Rev. Todd A. Linn and Rev. Rich Stratton
Words in Black: Todd Linn
Words in Red: Rich Stratton
- Take God’s Word and open to Luke, chapter 18.
If you’re visiting with us we are in the middle of a church wide study of the Gospel. We’re reading through this book by Jerry Bridges, The Gospel for Real Life. We’re reading two chapters a week and discussing our readings in Sunday school. Brother Rich and I are team preaching through a biblical passage each week that reinforces the readings from the book. Today we’re in Luke 18. Jesus tells a short story, called a parable, to illustrate how our desire to “be good” can actually keep us from God. Listen for this as I read the passage.
- Stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
9 Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:
10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
11 “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men — extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.
12 ‘I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’
13 “And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’
14 “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
- Pray.
Introduction:
If you’re familiar with Twitter then you know it’s all about saying something in 140 characters or less. I’m not a real big fan of Twitter because I just don’t enjoy reading peoples’ random tweets about what they had for dinner or who they saw at Wal-Mart. Most tweets are pretty lame; nothing more than sporadic bursts of useless, uneventful information for the world to read.
But if you’re interested you can follow some politician tweeting about his brackets. Or you can read Charlie Sheen’s latest tweets about being a warlock. And every once in awhile you may come across a succinct statement that gives you pause and really makes you think. While Jerry Bridges wasn’t exactly tweeting, he wrote something in one sentence that really packed a lot of punch. You may remember from your reading in chapter 10. In less than 140 characters, Bridges simply said, “I believe that human morality, rather than flagrant sin, is the greatest obstacle to the gospel today (110).”
Let me read it again. Bridges said, “I believe that human morality, rather than flagrant sin, is the greatest obstacle to the gospel today.” In other words, the thing that keeps people from God, the thing that keeps people from being saved, from entering heaven, is not flagrant, heinous sins like lying, cheating, adultery, and ungodliness, but rather being a good person; being morally upright, regarding oneself as a decent, human being. This goodness, this human morality, says Bridges, is the greatest obstacle to the gospel today. Many people are not saved because they do not see themselves in the proper light of the gospel.
This certainly is the case in the parable we just read. It’s ironic, but the parable shows how our sense of moral goodness may actually keep us from heaven. Look again at verse 9.
9 Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:
Jesus told this parable, this short story, to correct those who falsely regarded themselves as righteous; people who believed they were okay in God’s eyes because they were decent, morally upright people. These were the same people, incidentally who—last part of verse 9—“despised others.” These morally upright, decent and good people had a tendency to look down their noses upon others, people who were not so good and decent and upright. Then Jesus illustrates in verse 10:
10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
Now immediately Jesus’ hearers knew which of the two the good person was. Pharisees were “good” people and tax collectors were “bad” people. Pharisees were decent religious people and tax collectors were the bottom of the barrel. In New Testament times tax collectors were barred from public office and barred from giving testimony in court because it was believed you could never trust them. Now watch what Jesus says, verses 11-12:
11 “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men — extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.
12 ‘I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’
Do you hear the Pharisee’s sense of self-righteousness? Robert Stein says, “The Pharisee’s attitude was clear: God was very fortunate to have someone like him!” He wasn’t even praying! There is no petition here and he never once confesses a sin or asks for God’s help in anything. In fact, verse 11 says, “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself.” He prayed with himself. He certainly wasn’t praying with God! The NIV captures the sense even better. It reads, “The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself.” That’s really what this self-righteous Pharisee was doing, he was praying about himself. Count how many times he uses the personal pronoun, “I.” Five times!
How full of himself he was. “God I thank You that I am not like other men. And God, let me remind you of how bad other men are, bad men like extortioners, unjust men, adulterers,” and apparently he just then sees the tax collector who has also come to the temple to pray and he adds to his self-eulogy: “and I’m not like this bad tax collector over here, either!”
Do you ever hear a sermon and think to yourself, “Boy, I sure hope ol’ so-and-so is here this morning. He needs this!” Like the guy who always met the pastor after his sermon. He never seemed to think that he himself needed the preaching of God’s Word. It was always for everyone else. And so he would shake his pastor’s hand every Sunday morning following the sermon and say, “Good preaching. You really told ‘em!” And it didn’t seem to matter what the pastor preached, it was always for everyone else. “Good preaching,” He would say, “You really told ‘em!” One Sunday, the weather was such and the church so small that on this particular Sunday the only man in the congregation was this one man. So the pastor preached his message—a message heard only by the one man there—and at the end of the sermon the man took his hand and said, “Pastor, that sermon was the best message I have ever heard—and if they’d been here you would’ve told ‘em!” That’s how this Pharisee was. In his own eyes, he was okay. It was everyone else who was the problem.
Now watch the contrast with the lowly, despicably bad tax collector. You’ll note in the New Testament that people often grouped the tax collectors with prostitutes and sinners. I mean, everyone knew they were bad people. So verse 13:
13 “And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’
And I suppose if the good, morally upright Pharisee heard him he probably would have said, “You’d better ask for mercy, you lowlife sinner!” But now here comes the surprise. Jesus ends this short story with a statement that very likely paralyzed the self-righteous who were listening to Him. Verse 14:
14 “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Now maybe you and I saw that one coming, but odds are the self-righteous people hanging around Jesus were shocked beyond belief to hear that it was the dirty, good-for-nothing tax collector who went away forgiven while the morally decent, upstanding Pharisee went away un-forgiven. The tax collector humbled himself in the presence of God and so, was exalted. The Pharisee, however, exalted himself in the presence of God and so, was humbled.
We can thank Jesus for this short story and for the profitability of all Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16). This short story calls for three absolutely critical responses on our part. First, it teaches that:
I. We need a proper view of Self
Paul says, “Let him who thinks he stand take heed, lest he fall (1 Corinthians 10:12)” and, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought (Romans 12:3).” Our trouble is we think too highly of ourselves. We are patting ourselves on our backs like the Pharisee when we ought to be beating our breasts like the tax collector.
Our culture has so idolized self-esteem that we have a warped sense of our own righteousness. Popular books and talk shows tell us we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves and that, “I’m okay and you’re okay.” But Paul had it right in Romans 7:18. He said, “For I know that in me nothing good dwells.” We really can’t be saved until we have a proper view of ourselves, coming to terms with the fact that we are sinners deserving nothing but the wrath of God.
We noted earlier that there was no petition in the Pharisee’s prayer. Never once did he confess a sin or ask God for help in any way. Truth is this guy didn’t really need God. He was rattling off all of his accomplishments, all of the works he had done, believing that the doing of these things would make God look upon him more favorably.
By the way, the Pharisee was doing some good things. I wish more of us took seriously matters of holy living and tithing and fasting. These are biblical things we should be doing. The problem with the Pharisee was that he was doing these things for the wrong reasons. He believed his morality would earn him favor with God. He believed if he did the right things that he would become acceptable to God.
Most of us know that we are not saved by our works, by doing good deeds and avoiding big sins. We know that we’re not saved by keeping the laws of the Bible. But while we know we cannot earn God’s favor to become Christians, many of us then live our lives as though we could earn God’s favor as Christians. In other words, we know our good works do not earn us a place in heaven, but then, having received Christ as our Lord and Savior, we slide back into a performance-based religion, believing that if we do the right things we will earn God’s favor. If we avoid certain sins it will make us more acceptable to God.
But as Bridges says, “There is nothing you will ever do that makes you acceptable to God. You must be accepted for Christ’s sake, not only when you believe, but for all of your life. Regardless of how much you grow in Christ, you will never arrive at a point when your Christian character or conduct will make you acceptable to God. You will always be dependent on the perfect righteousness of Christ (102-103).”
This is why we spent so much time talking about justification. Remember that justification is God’s declaring us “not guilty” of all our sin. Justification is what makes us “acceptable” to God. It comes through Jesus Christ. Never forget this picture (one hand covering the other). When we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior the life and death of Christ is applied to us in this way: God charges our sin to Christ and credits Christ’s righteousness to us. God clothes us in the perfect righteousness of Christ. We are always dependent upon the perfect righteousness of Christ.
Remember 2 Corinthians 5:21 from last week? “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” So God clothes us in the righteousness of Christ forever. This picture never changes. God always and forever sees us this way and accepts us because of the righteousness of Christ.
So two questions (p.103) for each and every one of us. Ask yourself:
*Am I trusting in Jesus Christ alone for my salvation, or am I to some degree relying on my own morality and religious duties?
*If I know that I am justified through faith in Christ, do I enjoy the reality of it in my daily experience, or do I look to my own performance for my acceptance with God?
We need a proper view of self. Secondly,
II. We need a proper view of Sin
You can tell this Pharisee thought if he avoided the “really big” sins of extortion and adultery that he was doing well. But sin comes in many shapes and sizes and, as we grow in Christ, we become aware of just how sinful we really are. One of the signs of Christian maturity is a growing awareness of sin in our lives.
A few Sunday evenings ago I shared from one of Jerry Bridges other books, Respectable sins. This book challenges us to think about sins we wrongly tolerate in our lives every day. Let me read to you from a summation of this book:
“As Christians, we believe that all sins are considered equal in God’s eyes. Yet while evangelicals continue to decry the Big Ones–such as abortion, adultery, and violence–we often overlook more deceptive sins. It seems we have created a sliding scale where gossip, jealousy, and selfishness comfortably exist within the church. In short, some sins have simply become acceptable.” (Book Summary)
So what sins are “respectable sins?” We’ll share just a few:
- general ungodliness defined as a sinful attitude towards God
- anxieties and frustrations
- discontentment
- unthankfulness
- pridefulness revealed specifically in self-righteousness, even in a pursuit of theological accuracy, in prideful motives behind our achievements and revealed in a spirit of independence
- selfishness with our interests, time, money and inconsiderableness
- lack of self-control in eating, drinking and temperament, finances, entertainment and shopping
- impatience and irritability
- anger, even anger towards God, and the underlying roots of anger in resentment, bitterness, enmity, hostility and holding grudges
- judgmentalism and a critical spirit over differing convictions and doctrinal disagreements
- envy, jealousy, competitiveness and being controlling
- the sins of the tongue like gossip, slander, lying, harsh words, sarcasm, insults and ridicule
- worldliness shown financially, by our idolatry and in “vicarious immorality,” that is, the enjoyment of watching or reading the sinfulness of others.
The Pharisee could have benefited from thinking about sin in broader terms. And I suspect it helps us to think of sin in broader terms, too. I’ll bet many of us saw ourselves in the list.
We need a proper view of self. We need a proper view of sin. Thirdly:
III. We need a proper view of Salvation
The Bible says that the tax collector was the one who went away “justified” and not the Pharisee. Again, justification refers to our standing before God. Because of his humble confession and plea for God’s mercy, the tax collector was declared righteous. He goes away forgiven. The Pharisee, however, goes away still clothed in his own righteousness. Remember, verse 9 tells us that Jesus told the story to those “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous.” Because he was clothed in his own righteousness he remains un-forgiven.
And again, most of know that we do not get into heaven by our own goodness, our own righteousness. The Bible says in Romans 3:20, “By the deeds of the law shall no person be justified.” The problem, however is that we then start living the Christian life as thought it were all up to us. We live as though we earn God’s favor by righteous living, as though some how our works of righteousness make us more acceptable to God. To quote from our reading again:
Unfortunately, many believers do not live as if justification is a permanent, abiding state. They have divorced their hope of eternal life in heaven from their relationship with God today. They think as if they will ‘put on’ Christ’s robe of righteousness at death. Meanwhile, in this life they draw their sense of God’s acceptance from their most recent performance of Christian duties or their avoidance of certain sins. Their ‘robe of righteousness’ for daily living is not that which they have from Christ, but one that they have stitched together by their own performance (101).
So two questions (114) here:
*Are you trusting in the righteousness of Christ alone as the basis of your right standing with God, or are you still depending on your religious performance, even to a small degree?
*Are you, if you have clearly trusted in Christ alone for your salvation, still clinging to the idea that you must now earn God’s favor in this life by your own performance?
The Good News of the Gospel is that we don’t earn God’s favor in this life by our own performance. Once we have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we are clothed in Christ’s righteousness and are acceptable to God—forever. We will never be more righteous—not even in heaven! We are forever clothed in Christ’s righteousness. And when we remember this, we experience a joy and freedom that bursts forth into a life lived for the glory of God. We fast, we tithe, and we live holy lives not to earn God’s favor, but because we are happy that God see us, in spite of our failures, God sees us forever clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
- Stand for prayer.
Do you remember from your reading this week about the two men who kneeled for communion at the English church?
One was a former convict who had served time and was now out of prison. The other was the judge who had sentenced him to prison years before. After the service the minister asked the judge, “Did you recognize the man kneeling beside you?” “Yes I did,” replied the judge. “That was a miracle of grace.” “You mean that a man you sentenced to prison should be kneeling beside you?” “No, not at all,” said the judge. “The miracle is that I should be kneeling beside him. You see, that man knew clearly he was a sinner in need of a Savior. But I was brought up in a religious home, have lived a decent, moral life, and have served my community. It is much more difficult for someone such as I to recognize his need for a Savior. I am the miracle of grace (111).
“Human morality, rather than flagrant sin, is the greatest obstacle to the gospel today.”
- Let’s pray.
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