Beloved congregation in the Lord Jesus Christ, one of the age-old questions you find it in Job chapter 9, is that how could a sinful man be reconciled to a holy God? It's a question that every man, woman, and child has to answer. How can we who have broken all the commandments of God, who have kept none of them, who are enemies in our mind, who are alienated from the living God, how can we be reconciled to a holy God? This is what you find in the garden with Adam and Eve. What you find are two people running from the Lord. They're not seeking after God. They're running from God. And by default, what man does when he runs from God is he puts on his fig leaves. This is what he does. He covers himself. He knows he needs a covering before a holy God. And what does he do? He puts on that which he thinks is sufficient to be able to stand before a holy God. Man has not changed since the fall. Fallen, unregenerate man is still running from God and is still trying to put on fig leaves. What he thinks is acceptable before a holy God, we need to learn right from the garden. Number one, it's God who comes to man. It's God who rescues man. It's God who takes the fig leaves off and clothes man with the animal skins. It is God who brings salvation to the hearts of men. It's not man pursuing. It's not man willing. It's not man running. It is God. And yet we still have, in our day and age, men running about all over the landscape, and they are, how can I make myself right with God, is the thought that's going on in their mind. Like the rich young ruler coming up to Jesus, what good thing must I do to inherit into eternal life? You cannot. There's nothing that you can do. that can cause you then to be accepted into the kingdom of God. There is no way by our works in our fallen nature can we make ourselves acceptable to a holy God. We must be covered with the skins of Christ. And that's what the skins represent in Genesis 3. They represent the righteous robes of Jesus Christ, the only way one can be reconciled to a holy God. And yet, we still have today those that spurn the gospel and are trying to go their own way. They're sons of Cain. Cain thought it was enough that he bring the sacrifice of the fruit of the produce of the ground before the Lord. And Abel brought the first of his flocks. You can tell, as the writer of the Hebrews says, that Abel came by faith. Cain did not. He did not have faith. And people have a tendency to say, well, it didn't matter what he brought, just as long as he brought something, it didn't matter. Because by faith, Abel brought the correct sacrifice. It was a sacrifice that represented atonement that could only be found in God's provision, and that is reflective of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And there's other sacrifices, I understand, in the Old Covenant. This is early on. The Levitical law hasn't been given yet. and all those different types of sacrifices weren't yet given. This was clearly that which was to represent the sacrifice of the Savior in atonement, a covering which we need for our sins. And Adam would have taught his sons this, but Cain, not having faith, does his own thing, goes his own way. And beloved, that's how man is without faith. He will always go his own way. He will always think that he is God in his own mind to be able to choose what he wants, when he wants, and how he wants it, and where he wants it. He will spurn the counsel of God. He will plug his ears at the truth of God's word, and he will run headlong onto the broad road that leads to destruction. Now, the scripture presents, as we have here in our text, two men, and you have two prayers, and you have two results. And the scripture often presents twos in this way. You have the straight and narrow, and you have the wide and the broad road. You have, as Jesus speaks about the two builders, you have the wise builder, and you have the foolish builder. You have the narrow gate and you have the wide gate. You have the children of darkness and you have the children of light. And you recognize that the scripture goes on that way. You have the ten virgins, but you notice the virgins are divided into twos. Five wise, five foolish. And so it is, he's using this particular parable to deal with people, as Jesus said, who thought that they were righteous and they despised others. So this is not righteousness that we have in Christ. This is those who thought of themselves, they were righteous. Self-righteousness. So Jesus spoke this parable to them. Now, notice how significant it is that he speaks about prayer in this parable that we're gonna see this morning, but even in the parable before it. And he speaks about a parable that men always ought to pray. And notice in prayer before the Lord, how revealing that is of the heart. of the things that you say in your prayer before the Lord reveals the condition of your heart. And that's what your mouth always does. The tongue always reveals what's going on in your heart. The heart is the storehouse and the mouth is that which communicates the words that are stored there, the thoughts that are stored there. So, as Jesus said, what comes out of a man's mouth is coming from his heart. And how much more, when we're before the Lord in prayer, that that reveals the things that are going on inside the heart. So, clearly in this time, there were many of the Pharisees, that sect of the Pharisees, a sect of the Pharisees that arose between what's called the intertestamental period. After the book of Malachi, and then around the time of John the Baptist, that's when the Pharisees, this sect, began to become prominent. They were those that separated themselves from the liberal contingency in Judah, and therefore they were thought of as righteous people, outstanding people, upstanding citizens, godly individuals. And they took it and ran with it. They would pray on the street corners to be seen by men. They would do all of the things that they did to be seen by men. They were those that Jesus said that were lovers of money. And he said, it's hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Why? Because he says, they trust in their riches. Pharisees were those trusting in their rituals, their performance, the sacrificial system. They believed in all of those things of the old covenant, but the point was that they were trusting those things and not what they pointed to. So they were viewed by the people, by the multitudes, as godly individuals. But you know, it's revealing, isn't it, that Jesus speaks about their hearts. And he says, you are like whited tombs. You look good on the outside, but inside you're a rotting corpse. You worship as commandments the doctrines of men. And he said to the Pharisees, All too soon, all too often, what you do is you displace the commandments of God for the sake of your tradition. Beloved, how often do we do that in our day and age? You know, we have a tendency when we see things like this about the Pharisee and the tax collector, we want to immediately say, well, we're like the tax collector. This is who we are. We're the humble people. The truth is, we all have to fight the self-righteousness in the soul. You have to fight against the old desires, dispositions, loves, affection, direction, standards. How often do we want to judge ourselves among ourselves? Which Paul says, we're fools when we do that. But instead of judging according to the standard of God's Word, things aren't always as they seem on the outward. We have an outward life. And we have an inward life. The inward life is the real, is the true us. The outward life oftentimes is a facade. It's a fake wall. It's like you're looking at some, the newscast, and behind them looks like a great city. It's not the city, it's a facade. It's made to look like the city, but it's not the city. If we are not those that are constantly reflecting upon the gospel and recognizing that my salvation is Jesus Christ, we can be like this Pharisee as well. We can begin trusting in the things that we do. I go to church every Sunday. I come every worship service. I throw money in the plate. I've been a member all my life. I was baptized in this congregation. I went through catechism class. I went through the rite of confirmation. I confessed my faith. I've taken the Lord's Supper. Been baptized as an infant. I have done all the rites and things that the church requires. I'm a member. What do you mean I'm not in the kingdom? I'm a member. And here's the trust. It's in all those outward things. Good things. The things that don't bring salvation. They point you to salvation. Baptism points you to the washing away of your sins. The Lord's Supper points you to the broken body and the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our righteousness. So, this is the constant thing that needs to go on in our lives as well, is that reflection. I know some people don't like that. I know there are those that don't like you to bring up that you need to reflect upon the things going on. Well, Paul says that, doesn't he? 2 Corinthians 13, he calls us to examine ourselves. Look into your own heart. Is your trust truly in Christ crucified on your behalf? And that is what you are relying upon as your righteousness before a holy God? Is He your entrance into the kingdom of heaven? Or are you trusting in something else? Now, it wouldn't be an issue, would it? Christ brings it up, demonstrates that it is an issue. It is a problem. Because we can get all caught up with the forms. We can get all caught up with the symbols and not look beyond what the symbols represent. How often have you taken the Lord's Supper and all you thought about was the bread and wine? You thought about how the wine tastes. You thought about how the bread tastes. Now, I get it. We're sensual creatures. We have taste buds. So I get, I understand that. But how often do we stay there with the bread and the wine and don't go beyond to what that represents to think about the Savior's broken body and shed blood in our place that we might have life and that more abundantly? You see, that's what happens with the natural man. It's what happens with those who are members of the church who are not born of the Spirit of God. They can't go beyond the natural. They always remain in the horizontal. We need to be those that are vertical. We go from the bread and the wine immediately to the right hand of the throne of God, to our Savior. whose broken body and shed blood was given for us. So, Jesus is going to deal with those, as He says in verse 9, He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves. Now, the parable, the Greek term parabolae, means to throw something alongside of something else. It's something for comparison, for contrast. It's something that helps us to be able to think through the implications and what He is saying here. And that's what Jesus does with the parable. He spoke lots of parables. And without a parable, He didn't speak to the unbelieving world, as He said. So He is speaking directly. Notice how direct this speaking is against a particular group. Oh, we don't like that today. Don't speak against them. They might be the best givers in the congregation. Don't speak against them. Jesus speaks against the self-righteous. And as he says, that they thought they were righteous, and because of this, they despised others. So here it is, just in this one verse, if I'm thinking and reflecting upon and trusting in myself, that I've done this, I've done that, I've kept the ceremonies, I've been to the sacrifices, I've been to the temple, I've done this, I've done all these things, as the Pharisee is saying. And this guy has not. Clearly, I'm better than this guy. And so, necessarily, he looks down on this man. And that's what it means. He accounts him as nothing, as worthless, as of no value, this other human being. They despised others in trusting in themselves. So here's the parable that Jesus gives. Two men went up to the temple to pray. Now, it's alluding to the fact that they were both going up to the temple probably at the same time. One of them, being a Pharisee, he has a different posture. He has a different attitude. He has different words than what we find with the tax collector. But they're going up to the temple. There were set times that people would come up to the temple to pray. This might have been the ninth hour. It might have been the third hour of the day. So either nine in the morning or three o'clock in the afternoon, they were going up to the temple, and they were to offer their prayers to God. Prayers, petitions, lament, your grieving, whatever. You bring that to the Lord. And here they were going to do that. So they both understood something. They both understood that God hears prayers and that they were to be faithful to come before the Lord and offer prayer to God. They understood this. They understood sacrificial systems. The Pharisees certainly understood it. And we find the tax collector understood it as well. So here they go, the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee, as I had said, he was one who was esteemed. He was well-spoken of in the community. He was one who separated himself from the liberal contingency in Judah. And so they looked down on everybody else. The Pharisees and the self-righteous of the day were considered the priest and the Levite of those that had no dealings with the Gentiles. So this is what we find in the parable with the Good Samaritan. The priest and the Levite walked on the other side of the road when they had seen that man lying there in the ditch. They wanted nothing to do with him. So these two men, they come, this tax collector, and they're going to come and pray. The tax collector is hated. He is a man who was a Jew. Zacchaeus was a tax collector. He's a Jewish man who was employed by the Roman government to exact taxes from the Jews. And they became wealthy being tax collectors because the only stipulation was that you took a certain percentage. Anything that you got over and above that was yours to keep. So they became notorious as those who were thieves among their own peoples, working for the Roman government. So you can see that this man was not well spoken of. Verse 11. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. Now, the construction here in the Greek is that he went into the temple, and he went in with his face towards heaven. His eyes lifted up towards heaven. You can see the posture. It's a posture of arrogance. It's a posture of self-reliance. It's a posture of confidence in himself. You could see he's tilted back. His head is raised up towards heaven and his eyes lifted to the heavens. It almost speaks of a man who doesn't have any shame. I'm not a man who has a shame and guilt about anything, because I'm different from all these other riffraff of the day. So he stood and he prayed, notice, with himself. With himself has the idea of being away from the riffraff, but also that his prayer was to himself. that he was not praying to God. Notice something in his prayer that we find that what is there and what is not there. This is what he prays. It's an act of praying, but he says, God, I thank you that I'm not like other men. And the whole idea and the emphasis there is that he has made himself to differ. And you see that because this is the things that he says he does, which make him stand out head and shoulders above everybody else. I mind myself to differ by doing these things. He says, I'm not like the other men, extortioners. Well, people that are taking money and with an exorbitant rate. and really fleecing the flock. I'm not like that. He says, I'm also not like the unjust. I'm a just person. I always obey the laws. You know, Saul of Tarsus was a Pharisee. And Saul said that he was one who was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. You bring them all together, I'm on top of the heap. I kept all the commandments of God. There is nothing that I had left undone. You know, beloved, you know when he came to see himself as a real wretch, is when the Holy Spirit regenerated his soul and the law came alive in his heart. And he says, I, through the law, died to the law that I might live to Christ. He recognized at that point he had not kept any of the law. The law demands perfection. not only in action, but also inwardly in thought. We are to be in perfect obedience to what God calls us to and stipulates in His law. We come into this world as those who have the consequences of Adam's sin, which is referred to as original sin, imputed to us. We come with a vicious nature, a God-hating nature. We don't want God. The psalmist says we don't even want God in our thinking. We're running from the Lord. We establish self-righteousness within ourselves. We compare with one another. Go to the prison. Have you ever been in a prison? Have you ever visited in the prison? It's easy to go into the prison and see those that are on death row for murder, for killing their whole family, or whatever, and you think to yourself, well, I'm not like them. Because that's what society wants to do. We want to call those people monsters. I've heard it say on the newscast, they don't even have a soul, they said. Oh, they have a soul. And they're not monsters. They're human beings just like us. And that's the depth of depravity that reaches to the soul of man. You know, beloved, they're more like us than unlike us. But we want to set them aside and say, monsters. It's a whole different class. They're not like us. They're not of the human race. These are monsters. That's a tendency that goes on with self-righteous people. The man says, I'm not an adulterer. Well, there's two ways to commit adultery. You commit adultery physically by being physically in a relationship of sexual that is not your spouse. Or you can lust after a woman or a man. And as Jesus said that you who have done that have committed adultery already in your heart. We're all guilty of that. But this Pharisee wasn't. I've never lusted. I've never lied. I've never broken any of the commandments. That's why I'm so well esteemed in society in which I live, and people love to see me praying on the street corner, because I'm a holy man. That's the idea that he had of himself. He says, especially I'm not like this tax collector. Now he's the real dregs of all the dregs. He's the worst of the worst. He is the bottom of the barrel right there. I'm not like him. I'm better than him. Now, notice when I said that this man is thinking that he made himself better is because of the things that he did. And this is what he said. I'm not like these because I've done this. I've fasted twice. The law commanded one fast a year before the Day of Atonement. He says that he fasts twice a week. Talk about supererogation. Boy, I've gone above and beyond the call of duty. It's the extra credit people, right? He says, I give of tithes that all of I possess. Now, he was only commanded in the law to give of that which is his increase, that which he gained through labor he is to give. He's not talking about the things that he didn't work for. He says this, that he tithes of The little things, he would tithe them. The mint, the cumin, and the anise. The smallest seeds are things that he would tithe. He found a little seed, he would tithe that. I don't know how you do that. That's what he said he did. Because I'm scrupulous. I'm holy. I'm righteous. I'm an upstanding. You see the attitude that this guy has about himself? What do you see missing in this prayer? What do you see missing, and I'll say this, you've heard me say this, it's not often what men say, it's what they don't say. That's why I hear preaching, it's not necessarily what they say, it's what they don't say. There is such a fear of men today that guys won't say what needs to be said. What is he missing? Something that is included In every prayer, a true believer prays, Lord, forgive me. Lord, I have broken your commandments. I am unworthy of the least of your benefits. Help me. Teach me. Lead me. Instruct me. Give to me. that demonstrates the bankruptcy that one recognizes of themselves. You don't find that at all with the Pharisee. Then Jesus speaks about the tax collector. And he comes in and he's standing afar off, probably like at the door of the temple. because he finds himself unworthy even to come into the temple. Remember the man, Jairus, who had a daughter who was dying? And when he came to the Lord, and the Lord says, I'll come and I'll heal her, he says, just say the word. I am unworthy that you should come under my roof. The man had a true understanding of himself. This is this tax collector. He stands afar off, and would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven." Look at the attitude of the heart, which is coming out in the posture of the man. The other man, the attitude is, I am righteous of myself. I have a right to stick my nose in the clouds. I have a right to stand looking up to heaven with my eyes looking to the Lord. I've made myself to differ. This man doesn't even look up. The humility that comes out of this man because he knows what he truly deserves. He doesn't raise his eyes to heaven, but notice that he beats his breast. You know, this is where the seed of emotions, this is where it all happens in the inward man. Not the muscle that pumps your blood, but the inward man, the soul. And so you find the man beating upon his breast, knowing that it's from within that he finds the corruption. And he uses a present tense. He uses a tense that means a continual action. So the man keeps beating upon his breast as he comes near the temple door. That's the humility. That's one who knows who he is. Beloved, you can't read the Word of God and not know who you are. Whenever you come into contact with the true and living God, you are revealed who you truly are. Because the Word of God is sharp and powerful and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. It's that which divides the joints and marrow, the bone and the sinew, and it's a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the thoughts of a man's heart. It tells me what's going on in here. to the Negro spiritual. It's not my mother, it's not my father, but it's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer. It's me. This is an attitude. You can tell by this man's attitude that the Holy Spirit has been at work. You know, the parable of the sower reveals particular ground. There is the wayside that the seed is thrown, the birds come. There is the stony ground. There is the thorny ground. And then there is the good ground. And you know, the weeds choke out one. There's no depth of earth for the other. The birds take the seeds of the other. But then the good ground. The good ground is that which is prepared. It's cultivated. And then when the seed hits that soil, it germinates. and it produces. Now the difference between the soils, the good soil and the bad soil, the bad is demonstrated in three particular ways, the good in one way, is that the Holy Spirit has cultivated the heart to receive the seed of the Word when it comes. That's the whole idea of the parable of the sower. The fallow ground, the hard ground, it's always recalcitrant to the Word. This man gives evidence in his life that the Holy Spirit has done a work in his soul. And he is seeing and he is under the conviction of his sin. He recognizes who he is. Whenever the prophets came near a holy God, what did they do? They fell down, they proclaimed a curse upon themselves. What do you find with Peter? When Jesus steals the wind and the waves, he falls down, Lord depart from me, I'm a sinful man. Because in the presence of a holy one, I realize how vile I truly am. You come to the word, it exposes the condition of the heart. He says in his prayer, pretty simple, he shows in his posture, his attitude, he said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Now, nuances. What you don't see in the English text. Is that the merciful there, it comes from the root word hilisterion. Hiliskomai is the Greek term. And it means to provide an atonement for me. What did this man knew? He knew that the only way that he could come into the presence of a holy God is through an atonement. And he knew that it had to be provided for him. Because he couldn't do it. And he cried out to the Lord in that prayer, God, be merciful to me, provide an atonement for me, a propitiation for me. And it says he called himself a sinner. He uses a definite article in the Greek text. The sinner. The only time that that's ever used is with the Apostle Paul, who called himself the chief of all sinners. How do you look at other people when you think that you are on the bottom? How do you look at other people when you realize, I have broken all the commandments of God? It's a different attitude, isn't it? The way that this tax collector, who was despised by the community, looked at people, and how the Pharisee, who was loved and exalted by the community, looked at people who were completely different ball fields. One was a constant looking down at all of the riffraff. The other was that there's not anybody that I wouldn't serve, because I'm no better than anybody else. Jesus says about these two men, see, in the outward, you're watching this scenario unfold, and you're thinking that this man, who is the Pharisee, went down to his house, and he must have been accepted by God, because he's a holy man. This tax collector, certainly he was rejected. He didn't even make it into the temple. You're looking at this and you're viewing this from the outward. And as I said, things aren't always as they seem. This man who was a Pharisee left the same temple that he went in, in the same posture, same attitude, unchanged. no asking for forgiveness, no recognition of violation of the commandments of God, only touting His self-righteousness and how good He is. And this tax collector, he left humbled and rejoicing. And this is what Jesus said, I tell you, this man, the tax collector, he went down to his house justified rather than the other. He went down as one who was declared just in the sight of God. Beloved, how are we declared just in the sight of God? We are declared just in the sight of God the moment that we have faith. Faith in Jesus Christ. is that which brings the justification of God that we are declared righteous and holy because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to us. Where did that faith come from? Faith is a gift from God. So who do we give thanks for the faith to believe in the only Savior and then being declared righteous in the sight of God? We give thanks to God. We give thanks to Christ. We give thanks to the Holy Spirit. Not to us. Not to us. But unto your name, O God, we give glory. He's justified because of the work of God. He's convicted. He's got an attitude. He's got a different posture. His hope and his trust. Help me. Give me. Forgive me. Notice that he equates here the exaltation of one with salvation. Everyone who exalts himself. Everyone who thinks that they have earned or merited salvation. Everyone who exalts themselves and puts themselves in a book of memorandum of how great I am and look at my memoirs is one who will be humbled. You'd be humbled at the resurrection of the just and the unjust When you hear those awful words, depart from me, I never knew you, into the lake that burns with fire. But he says, he who humbles himself. And that's what true faith does. It humbles us. True faith causes us to recognize in believing, trusting, looking to the teaching of God's word, that I'm a wretch. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found. I was blind, but now I see. I didn't find my way home, I was found. I didn't make myself to see, I was blind until sight was given to me. It's like the man born blind, Jesus gives him sight to see. So it is, us. We're born into this world spiritually blind. We're given sight to see. Beloved, it's revelatory of whether or not you came in here this morning as a Pharisee or a tax collector by your life of prayer. God, be merciful to me. Lord, I've sinned against you. Lord, help me. Lord, my hope is in you. If I don't have Jesus, I have nothing. This man who was humbled in the sight of God, he was exalted. There's always the two men that gather together every Lord's Day. I don't know your hearts. How did you come this morning? Did you come trusting your church membership? Did you come trusting that you're a good person? Did you come trusting in all the outward forms? I've been baptized. I take the Lord's Supper. I'm a member of the church. I throw a few trinkets into the offering plate. Is your hope in that? Are you trusting in that as your entrance into the kingdom of heaven? If it is, then you've exalted yourself. And you will be humbled. But if you came this morning, knowing the only right that I have to come before a holy God is Christ. His perfection, His righteousness, His perfect satisfaction, His perfect holiness imputed to me. That's how I stand. I stand by faith. I stand looking to Him. There is no other hope. All of the ground is sinking sand. On Christ is the solid rock. And this is how I stand, looking to Him. I come pleading the mercy of God, the forgiveness of God, the help of God, the guidance of God, because I need it all. This is saying I lack everything of myself, but I have everything in Christ. Beloved, are you trusting him this morning? Just simply say this, if you have Christ by true faith, you're believing on Him, you came that way as a tax collector this morning, you have everything necessary for your salvation. Christ has accomplished your salvation. Your sins have been atoned for. He has provided a propitiation for you. He has given you an atonement. He has covered your sin with His precious blood. You go down to your house as one who is righteous. This is the promise that God gives. Come to Christ, lay hold upon him, and the righteousness that you need is granted to you. The forgiveness that you need is granted to you. And you always see yourself as one who is constantly in need of the only Savior given among men by which we must be saved, Jesus Christ. That one goes down to his house justified. Amen. Shall we pray.