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Well, the word justification
or justified appears all throughout the New Testament. It is a word
really that every Christian needs to know, needs to understand,
needs to really grasp and wrestle with. And the reason is because
this word justification really lies, lays at the center and
heart of the message of the gospel. Nobody truly understands the
gospel until they really plunge the depths, the breadth, the
width, the scope of this wonderful Word. And so what is justification? I think it's important for us
to sort of define it, at least in a very simple way, before
we enter into our text this morning. So put simply, justification
is the act of God whereby He declares a sinner righteous. I'll repeat it again. Justification
is the act of God whereby He declares or pronounces a sinner
righteous. This is a legal declaration. It is forensic in nature. It is very similar to the way
in which a judge would pronounce a defendant not guilty in the
court of law. And I mention this because as
our sermon title suggests, as it states, our passage this morning
is really a story about justification. It's a provocative parable that
teaches really who is right before God. In Jesus' day, the people
that would have heard this parable would have stood absolutely stunned. The parable would have really
been a paradigm shift, would have flipped a common belief
upon its head. And for many that were there
that heard this parable for the first time, some of them would
have been, quite honestly, offended at Jesus' words. And so today,
this parable continues to speak, continues to challenge us in
the very same way as it did when Jesus first told it. And so this
is what we're going to be looking at today. Before we dive into
our passage, let us first read this parable, and I want to invite
everyone to open their Bibles and read Luke chapter 18, verses
9 through 14 with me. Luke chapter 18, verses 9 through
14. Here now are the words of the living God. And it reads, he also told this
parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous
and treated others with contempt. 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 am 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. And 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. This is the word of the Lord. So this morning I don't have
any sort of outline. We'll simply just walk through
these verses together. So let's just begin first and
foremost with verse 9. I'm going to read it again. Luke
writes, He, that is Jesus, also told this parable to some who
trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others
with contempt now verse 9 really sets the settings that's the
context of When Jesus told this parable and first we learned
that really Jesus is telling a parable and a parable is simply
a metaphor drawn from either common life or nature and it
was a story of or an analogy that was meant to really make
a particular point, and oftentimes Jesus really didn't give the
meaning or explanation to these parables, leaving many to really
ponder in their minds really what the point of the parable
was. What was its meaning? What was its application? And
really, this was Jesus' preferred method of teaching to the crowds,
teaching His disciples as well. One-third of Jesus' teaching
is parables, and it's not something that He invented, but He did
rather popularize them. We found them all throughout
the Gospel. And so here before us, we see Jesus beginning to
tell a parable. The second thing I want us to
notice in verse 9 is that this parable is actually directed.
It's trying to target a specific type of person. First, Jesus
aims this parable. He describes this person as someone
who trusted in themselves that they were righteous. These were
these people who had a confidence in themselves, in their right
standing before God. And the basis for their confidence
in themselves was simply because of who they were. Or put in the
negative, who they were not. They put their confidence in
themselves because of what they did. Also stated in the negative,
what they didn't do. If you were to ask this type
of person, what makes you righteous before God? What makes you believe
that you are righteous before him, righteous before this holy
and righteous God? Answers would have been everything
from, I follow God's law, to I'm a Jew, to I go to the temple
to make sacrifices and I pray and fast often. Really, the sin
or the person that Jesus is describing here is a self-righteous person.
But Jesus not only targets this sin of self-righteousness, but
He also calls out their treatment. Jesus says, read with me in the
text again, they trusted in themselves, they had a faith in themselves.
And it was not only trust, but it was also the treatment of
others. Jesus describes them as treating others with contempt. This Greek word contempt really
conveys the idea of considering something or someone to be absolutely
worthless. This word contempt is actually
used to describe the treatment of Jesus at his crucifixion by
the Roman Empire. Peter also uses this same word
for contempt to describe the ways in which Jesus was rejected
by the Jews. And the assumption here is that
their self-righteousness caused a sense of moral superiority,
of judgment that led them to neglect and have a disdain for
others that they themselves considered to be unrighteous. And so in
summary here in verse nine, Jesus gives a parable directed at a
self-righteous person who has contempt in their heart for those
who they regard to be sinners. You're saying it's the root cause
of this sin of self-righteousness, this contempt that they have
for others. Really, to boil down these two sins, really hatred
in the heart for people, a self-righteousness, this trust in themselves. If
we're to boil down these two, really it comes down to the sin
of pride. Pride is an ignorant, exaggerated
valuing of oneself. One theologian even put pride
as, it is really the idolatry of self. Pride is a monstrous
sin with a history that leaves everything in its wake in destruction
and chaos. Pride was found in Satan, in
heaven, and it is this sin that turned angels into devils. Pride
also continued in earth with our first parents in paradise,
wanting to be like God, and it turned a righteous image of God
into a child of wrath. And the end of the history of
pride, ultimately, for everybody who is prideful and continues
in this sin, in all of its manifestations, ultimately leads to hell. One
famous British pastor and evangelist and also author said that pride
is the national religion of hell. And we read all throughout the
Proverbs, too, of the warnings about what pride does. Proverbs
8, verse 13 says, pride and arrogance are the way of evil. Proverbs
16, verse 18 says, pride goes before destruction in a haughty
spirit before the fall. Dear saints, pride is a dangerous
sin. And why is that? Well, where
pride begins, dependence on God ceases. by the very nature of
pride is to trust itself rather than anything else. It doesn't
want to place its trust in God. Pride also sees no need for grace
or mercy from God, no help from others. Pride can only want and
view self above everything else. This is a description of a self-righteous
person. And secondly, the nature of pride, wherever pride begins,
love ceases as well. The nature of pride is to justify
self, and to condemn others, to judge and compare others to
the standards that we believe that we meet. Pride never seeks
to extend grace and mercy as well. And you're saying verse nine
is important for us because there is no sin that man is more prone
to fall into than pride. It's common in all people, common
in all places, times, and generations. It's found in the Christian and
the non-Christian, J.C. Rowlett writes that pride
really cleaves to us like our own skin. Pride is also one of
those sins that is hard to find in ourselves, but we can surely
detect it in others. Pride is blinding. But I think verse nine is helpful
because really this description of this idea of having contempt
in our heart really helps us to diagnose where our pride might
actually lie with a simple question, which is who do you have contempt
for? And the reason why this question
is so revealing is because it's often the case that self-righteousness
and contempt are holding hands together, they're friends. Sometimes
the people we are frustrated or angered filled with the most
hate towards is really not fueled by righteousness, but rather
self-righteousness. Very much like checking your
fuel gauge to see if you need a refill or not, sort of a litmus
test of where we're at. This question could very well
indicate areas of your life where pride actually lays. And in all
honesty, verse nine is just very revealing, because although Jesus
is trying to target a specific type of person, which we'll get
to here in a moment, The reality is that all of us carry some
self of self-righteousness and struggle with the sin of pride
in various areas of our life, and therefore, really, this parable
is for all of us in some way, shape, or form, and we ought
to heed, really, the meaning of this parable. It's for all
of us here in this room. And so we now go to verse 10.
Read with me. Jesus says, two men went up into
the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. Jesus introduces these two men
which would have been very familiar to the people of his day. These
two people were familiar, rather, for two very different reasons.
One was highly respected, let's say famous, and you could say
the other one as highly despised, which would be infamous. Now,
the Pharisee would have been a man that would have been viewed
as someone with an upright character. He would have been regarded as
someone that was a member of the most conservative sect of
Judaism, both politically and religiously. They weren't the
liberals that were the Sadducees or the weird back sort of people
out there in the negative called the Essenes. These were a conservative
sect of Judaism. They were teachers of God's law.
They were men devoted to the Lord. And they were often seen
in public places both praying and fasting. Their clothes also
were very distinct from the common people and their attire that
they would wear. In fact, the name Pharisee actually means
separated ones, or those who are separated, so those who are
set apart. And they were the Jewish model
for religious purity and piety. This was the Pharisee. But now
we look at the tax collector, and this person was infamous.
hated amongst the Jewish people. One even commentator said that
in the eyes of the Jewish community, they were the scum of the earth.
They were hated. Tax collectors in Jesus' day
were viewed as traitors to the Jewish community. And the reason
was because they were employees of the Roman Empire. They were
government employees. Tax collectors were often extortioners
as well, especially towards their own people. They were viewed
as crooks and thieves. And they would often charge more
than what the Roman Empire would request in order to pocket some
of the extra cash for themselves. Today, just to use an illustration,
the equivalent today would be like an American worker working
for the Chinese government after they conquered the United States.
They were sort of the IRS employee of the CCP, and they would extortion
their own countrymen. There were traitors, there were
crooks, there were people that were not seen very fondly. And the tax collectors were also
known as being the dregs of society, the outcasts, because they weren't
supposed to participate within the community as well, and therefore
they were often seen with prostitutes, thieves, and murderers. And so
they were placed in this category amongst the Jewish society as
being really the apex example of what a sinner was. To the
Jewish audience before Jesus, the tax collector and the Pharisee
could have not been more opposed and opposite to one another. Just even Jesus saying, a tax
collector and a Pharisee, this would have gotten everybody's
attention. People would have known that these were polar opposite
people. Jesus says in verse 10 that both
of these men went up to the temple for the purpose of prayer. The
temple was the central place for Jewish worship. The temple
was the location where God himself would have dwelt. The temple
was also a place where sacrifices were continually being offered
for the atonement of sin. And both the tax collector and
the Pharisee are entering here in this parable to pray to the
Lord. And Jesus allows us here in this
parable to actually hear the words of their prayer. And he
does it for one reason, and it's to reveal the spiritual condition
of both men. We can often affirm certain doctrines,
we could affirm and recite some of the greatest Christian creeds
that we have, but as many people have pointed out, what we pray
often reveals what we really believe, not only about God,
but also ourselves. And this is one of the reasons
why Jesus takes us in to what their prayers actually are. And so let's look at verse 11 and
12. Jesus begins with the Pharisees' prayer. Jesus says in verse 11,
the Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus, God, I thank you
that I am 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. Now here, if there was a prayer
that ever oozed pride, it's this one. We'll look at some of the reasons
here. First, you see that there's no recognition or no acknowledgement
of sin or need for God's help. Prayer contains no confession,
no plea for mercy. The prayer is absence of any
really acknowledgement of any transgression. Second, we see
that this is a self-centered prayer. Although the appearance
is towards God, the true object of his prayer is really himself,
and we even see this in his posture. In fact, when Jesus says that
the Pharisee was standing by himself, it really assumes that
he is standing alone in an area which would have been seen by
others. It's not prayer, it's a performance. We know this prayer
is also self-centered because he repeats the word I, referring
to himself, a total of five times. If you look at the text with
me, I thank you that I am 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. One commentator writes, the Pharisee
glances at God but contemplates himself. This is exactly the
prayer of the Pharisee. And also it's self-centered because
instead of praying for his neighbor, he thanks God that he is actually
not like them. Self-righteousness. Third, there's a tremendous amount
of self-righteousness in his prayer. He wants God to know
what he has been doing and what he has done. He wants to make
his piety known to God. The Pharisee reminds God of his
extreme faithfulness to him. Although the Mosaic law required
for the people of Israel to fast once a year on the Day of Atonement,
the Pharisee is telling God that he actually fasts twice a week.
And although the Mosaic law required a 10% of his tithes, the Pharisees
were very meticulous of tithing everything that they received,
even spices, not only income, not only their crops, but it
was to try to show their faithfulness, their righteousness before God. J.C. Ryle writes, sort of summarizing
this prayer here, he writes that it's nothing but a boasting recital
of fancy merits, accompanied by an uncharitable reflection
of his brother's sinner. In short, it hardly deserves
to be called a prayer at all. Now I want us to turn and reflect
on our own prayer. our own life in prayer. How is
your prayer life? It's another way that we could
diagnose the areas of pride in our lives. When we come to the
Lord, is it a recital of fancy words? Is it filled with uncharitable
reflections and descriptions of our neighbor? Is it absent
of thanksgiving? Is it absence of confession of
sin? Are they prayers filled with
ourselves? It's the only time you pray in
public. And I ask these questions because
sometimes how we pray, what we pray, and when we pray reveals
what we truly believe about ourselves and God as well. He that does
not feel the weight of his sin never brings it to the Lord.
He that does not feel his need for God's grace and mercy never
comes to him. And often the reason we never
come before the throne of grace is because of pride. And like
the Pharisee, we believe Me, myself, and I have it all under
control. Our prayers might not be exactly
like the Pharisee, but in many ways there are elements of pride
that maybe we might find in ourselves. Prayer could be, in the way that
we pray, an area of pride within our lives, especially towards
God. But what about the tax collector?
Let's look at his prayer. Read with me verse 13. Jesus says, 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.
The tax collector, his prayer is very, very different from
that of the Pharisee. It's very evident just reading
it. And first, the tax collector, we can see that he has a sense
of shame. and recognition of his sin. In
the first place, he's standing far off, which communicates that
there's this cautious approach to God. He doesn't come to him
lightly. He knows who he is before his
creator. It also says that he would not even lift his eyes
to heaven. I've heard some people say that
the eyes are the window to people's soul, and you could even tell
if someone is ashamed or even lying to you. I remember one
time my brother, going through a particular issue, said that
he had did something. And he came to me and didn't
look at me and said it, and I said, you're lying to me. And he automatically
looked down, and automatically I knew he was lying, right? And
there was just this sense of shame of not wanting to look
at me because of who he was lying to, right? There was a sense
of shame. And in the very same way, we have this here. The tax
collector feels a sense of unworthiness in himself, not in other people.
You could say that the only sin that he really sees is himself. Second, the tax collector is
sorrowful, and we know that. because it describes that he's
beating his breast, he's striking his chest, and in Jesus' day,
this was an outward sign of those who were experiencing tremendous
grief. In fact, in Luke 23, verse 48,
the people that witnessed Jesus' crucifixion are said to have
returned home beating their breasts after what they witnessed, which
was the crucifixion of their Savior. And so there's shame,
there's sorrow, there's an acknowledgement of sin, And third, the tax collector's
shame, right, we really learn the root of all this, and it's
already been said, but the tax collector's shame and sorrow
are because of his sin. And we find this in his prayer.
It is a short prayer, but although it's not a prayer of length,
it definitely is one of weight. He says, God be merciful to me,
a sinner. It's a short prayer that contains
both a plea and a confession, and the plea is for God's mercy. He says, be merciful to me. It is a petition for God to withhold
the punishment he rightly deserves because of his sin. The tax collector,
confessing that he is a sinner, knows that ever since the garden,
the consequence of sin is death. However, I want us to note something
that isn't found quite obviously in our translation, but what
the tax collector is actually asking is something a little
bit more specific than mercy, although it does contain it.
In the Greek, the word translated in our Bible, merciful, is helelestai,
a Greek verb that literally means propitiate or atone. In other
words, what the tax collector is asking God is this. God, provide
a propitiation, an atonement for me, a sinner. And the reason
the tax collector is pleading with God for a propitiation,
an atonement, is because of the sacrificial system of the Old
Testament. The Old Testament required a perfect, spotless
animal, whether it be a lamb or a goat or a bull. and this animal itself would
die, would be sacrificed in your place as a substitutionary sacrifice. The high priest would lay the
hand on the animal, which represented the transferring of your sins
onto the animal, onto this innocent animal, and the priest then would
proceed to slaughter the animal alive on the altar, which represented
God's wrath towards sin. The sacrifice represented the
requirement for the atonement of sin. The sacrifice represented
both the averting of God's wrath, but also the complete removal
of your sin as well. This is what the Pharisee is
actually asking the Lord. The tax collector's prayer is
very similar to that of the psalmist in Psalm 25, verse 11, where
he says, For your name's sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for
it is great. It is also like the psalmist
who writes in Psalm 79, verse nine, when he says, help us,
O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name, deliver us
and atone for our sin for your namesake. And in summary, the
tax collector does not boast in what he has done, but rather
he places his confidence completely and utterly on the Lord. There's a sense of humility.
Instead he simply cast his entire mind, his body, his soul upon
God's mercy, asking God to provide him something that he cannot
do for himself. You see here a vast contrast
to that of the Pharisee. He has no confidence in himself
to make a propitiation, to be righteous before God. He's a
man that utterly recognizes his sin before his holy creator. And dear saints, like the tax
collector, do we recognize who we are before our Creator, especially
when we come to Him in prayer? We live in a culture where the
subject of sin is avoided, and the category of sinner is often
rejected. We don't like to think that we are sinners. We may think
others are sinners. It's a hard pill to swallow to
confess that we have sinned and that we are sinners ourselves.
But the Bible teaches with clarity that all of humanity, you and
I, no matter what we have done and who we are, all have fallen
short to the glory of God. We have all sinned. And sin is
actually a word that's used both in the Old Testament in Hebrew
and also in Greek as a description to describe what would be an
archer missing his target. All of us has fallen short of
God's law. All of us are breakers of God's
commandments. We are all transgressors of his
law. Paul says in Romans chapter three
that none is righteous, no, not one. No one understands, no one
seeks for God. All have turned aside and together
we have become worthless. No one does good, no, not even
one. In Isaiah chapter 64 verse six, the prophet writes, we have
all become like one who is unclean and all our righteous deeds are
like polluted garments. Like autumn leaves, we wither
and fall and our sins sweep us away like the wind. Ecclesiastes
chapter 7 verse 20 says, there is not a righteous man on earth
that does good and does not sin. And the list of the description
of all of humanity as sinner could go on and on and on. But understanding our sinful
condition is important because it's honestly and truly what
makes the gospel the gospel. Prior to becoming a Christian,
You know, I attended church very often, went with my father, and
if you were to ask me, you know, what was the gospel, I'm not
sure that I would be able to actually explain it to you. Fast
forward years later when I'm in college and I'm handed this
book by R.C. Sproul, What is the Gospel? I'm
sorry, not What is Reformed Theology, it was the book. And I'm reading
the first section, which is about covenant theology, so, you know,
at the time as a young Christian I was absolutely lost But the
second half of the book is about the doctrines of grace. And there
was a chapter that was simply called Total Depravity. And when
I read that book, read that section rather, read that chapter, it
was finally the moment where it clicked for me as to why I
needed a savior. Having a sense of one's own sin
is important. It makes the gospel the gospel.
It makes the good news the good news. One ought to understand
what the bad news is before we can understand why the good news
is good news. And I mention this because he that does not realize
that the consequences of sin is death will never plead for
God and his grace and mercy. He that does not understand that
his sin is an offense to God will never see his need to be
reconciled with him. And as it was for me and many
of us here, he that does not see himself as sinner will never
see their need for a Savior. We'll never see that sin is actually
the thing that separates us from God. This is something that the
Pharisee, rather, the tax collector recognizes. Now let's look at
verse 14. Lastly, read with me Jesus' final
words. of this parable. This is where they would have
been stunned. This is where the parable becomes
provocative. Jesus says, And simply put, what
Jesus is saying is this. It is the tax collector Not the Pharisee that God actually
declares righteous. It is actually the tax collector,
the irreligious. Not the religious that went home
that day righteous before God. It was the traitor, not the pious,
that was made right with God. And once again, this parable
would have stunned, would have offended, it would have confused
everyone who heard it. Because Jesus often didn't explain
the meanings of his parables, many would have been left asking
the question, how can this be? And for many of us, for many people,
this is actually the question that we have after hearing the
parable itself. Dear church, this parable really
exposes a common error in the mind of man in false religion.
which is the belief that people can gain God's favor and attain
a right to standing before him simply by being good enough.
It's common to believe that if your good works outweigh your
bad works, heaven's door is open to you. Or that so long as your
moral bank account in the end is somewhat in the positive or
not in the negative, salvation is earned. There are many people
that assume that just because they attend church every Sunday,
that they pray often, that they tithe, they attend Bible studies,
they give to charity, they support conservative politics, or vote
for a certain politician, they might preach every Sunday, maybe
be involved in activism, civil rights activism, that it is those
things that will merit your justification, your right standing before God.
Just like it is a common belief today, so it was in Jesus' day.
However, Jesus blows this notion of earning our righteousness
before God right out of the sky. What Jesus is saying is that
if you believe you can merit God's justification through what
you do and what you are not and who you are, you're wrong. It's false. No amount of good
works can earn justification. rather the one that leaves home
justified as the one that recognizes their sin and places his faith
completely and utterly on God's mercy and grace for the right
standing before God. And dear church, this is the
gospel in a parable. It's actually good news. God's
grace and mercy was manifested 2,000 years ago in the person
of work of Jesus Christ, the same one who tells this parable. He is the propitiation that the
tax collector desired. Hebrews chapter two verses 17
says that Jesus was made like us so that he could make propitiation
for the sins of his people. First John chapter two states
that he is the propitiation for our sins. In first John chapter
four, he says that God loved us and sent his son to be a propitiation
for our sins. In Romans chapter three, Paul
states, for there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall
short to the glory of God and are justified by his grace as
a gift. Through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by
blood to be received by faith. And in summary, what all these
texts are telling sinners like us is this, that not only does
the death of Jesus cover our sins, remove our guilt, but it
also averts the wrath of God. The way we receive this atonement,
the way that we receive this propitiation is not by works,
not in a confidence in ourselves, but rather through the simple
act of faith in Jesus Christ. It is a faith that does not rest
on our own accomplishments, but rather the accomplishment of
Jesus Christ himself. who died and lived for us in
our place to be reconciled to God. And dear church, my prayer
is that we would say like Paul when he wrote in Philippians
chapter three, I glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in
the flesh. I count everything as a loss because of the surpassing
worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have
suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in
order that I might gain Christ and be found in him. Not having
a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that
which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from
God that depends on faith. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father,
we thank you, Lord, for sending your Son to be that once for
all propitiation, Lord, for sin, for averting God's wrath, for
living the life that we cannot live, Lord, and accomplishing
a righteousness, an external righteousness for your people,
Lord. Lord, help us to be a people that pray, Lord, and recognize
their sin. Help us to not have confidence in the flesh. Help
us to mortify our sin of self-righteousness, contempt for other people. Help
us to thirst and have a desire for your grace and mercy in our
life. Help us to pray often and come to you, Lord. And Lord, continue to sanctify this
church, Lord. Continue to sanctify us, Lord, through your word,
through the sacraments, through prayer. And Lord, we ask all
these things in Christ's name. Amen.
A Story About Justification
Series Luke
| Sermon ID | 4112509456272 |
| Duration | 36:57 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Luke 18:9-14 |
| Language | English |
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