Turn to Luke 18. We are going through the parables. We will be looking at another one this morning, Lord willing. We saw one parable already from Luke 18, verses 1 through 8, about the woman, the widow, who was always bugging the unrighteous judge for justice, for an answer, to give me some sort of relief from my misery. And so Christ gives this parable of this woman who bugged this judge to the point that he gave her her relief that she asked for, simply because she bugged him. He wasn't righteous. He wasn't trying to do the right thing, and Christ points this out. And then she gets her relief. So the point being that we should always pray. Well, when we get to verse 9 through 14, which is going to be the parable that we look at this morning, and it's a very popular parable. It's usually called the Publican and the Pharisee. Publican meaning another phrase for tax gatherer. Christ brings up, as he did in chapter 18 verse 1 with that parable on why they should always pray and not lose heart, here he gives at the very beginning in verse 9, he says, and he also told this parable to certain ones who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt. Verse 10, two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax gatherer. The Pharisee stood and was praying thus to himself, God I thank thee that I am not like other people, swindlers, unjust, adulterers, and even like this tax gatherer. I fast twice a week, I pay tithes of all that I get. But the tax gatherer, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, God be merciful to me, the sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted. It's interesting that in the first parable, verses 1 through 8, Jesus pretty much tells us how to pray, and now this parable, how not to pray. You actually can pray and waste your time. You actually can do things that would be better for you not to pray. Now, you would think that would be kind of strange because he's saying in the very, very first one how they ought to pray and not lose heart. With this, you need to lose heart and not pray. Instead of singing sweet hour of prayer, this is sweet hour of pride, as you can see. And if pride comes before a fall, sometimes pride comes before God. And we see it here in verse 9 through 14. Short parable. Straight to the point. You can't miss it. You see the purpose of the parable in verse 9. He tells you two purposes, which is what? He told this parable to certain ones who trusted in themselves that they were righteous. That's the target audience. I'm targeting those people who think they're right with God. And notice it's got a corollary here, and treated others with contempt. Because usually when you have the pride factor thinking that you're right with God, it's usually shown by the way you treat others with contempt. So that's the purpose of the parable. Jesus gives this parable for that purpose, is targeting those people. Now the point of the parable, not the purpose, but the point is the last verse in the section, which is found in verse 14. For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted. Now, if you'll notice, when he goes through this parable here, and he contrasts these two people, and Jesus was very simple in his storytelling. When you talk about a parable, there's usually a story that goes along, and then there's a point to the story that he tries to bring to bear on his target audience. It's a little different than a metaphor or an illustration or a simile that you can give and say, well, this is like this. The kingdom of heaven is like this, or it might be like that. That's not necessarily a parable. It's just trying to show you a picture, and it's like this. But many times, a parable starts, and then it moves, and then there's a conclusion, kind of like a story. And so when you have that, that's the difference between a parable and some other figures of speech that we're used to in our own language, and of course it was the same thing back here. And Jesus was a master at telling these things. And so if He wanted to target a certain group, or target a certain person, and many parables we've seen arose because of a situation that happened. Somebody would confront him with a question, or he came upon a situation, he would give a parable with it. But whether it's the Prodigal Son or the Good Samaritan, this ranks up there with the parables that people are most familiar with when it comes to Jesus telling the parables. Here's this guy who is a publican or a tax gatherer and a Pharisee. Why does he contrast a publican, tax gatherer, and a Pharisee? Why not two Pharisees? Why not two tax gatherers? Why not a Jew and a Gentile? He does these two because they're in stark contrast in the people's thinking of who's the good guy and who's the bad guy in society. It would have been the same thing for my target audience if I said there was two men and they went up to the temple to pray. And one was a five-point Calvinist, superlapsarian, amillennial, cessationist, partial preterist who believes in their historical grammatical interpretation approach to scripture. You can't get any more crossing the T's and dotting the I's than that. You could identify with that guy, you see. So the Pharisees, while we look at the Pharisees as bad guys, they're those religious crazy people that are always legalists and they're doing, you know, nuts, you know, when it comes to things before God. Back then, the people didn't see them like that. They had political clout not because they were politically minded. They had political clout because they were, in the society's eyes, righteous before God. He brings out some of these things that this Pharisee was doing and not doing. See, what he doesn't do in verse 11 is what he does do in verse 12. Both are being brought out. I'm not like this. I'm not like that. I'm not even like that guy over here. And look, here's the positive. I do this. And they did. These people would fast twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays. They were required to tithe, according to the law of the Old Testament, corn, wine, oil, and cattle in Deuteronomy 14. If you had those as your possessions, you were required when God would bless you in the harvest or bless you when your stockyard began to increase in its animal husbandry, to give to the Lord, to the temple. Because the people who served the temple there, the Levites, had no way of providing for themselves, number one, so it was very practical. But number two, it also showed something very, very commonsensical, which is God gave you that. Now, show your appreciation that God gave you that by giving back to Him. That shows His lordship over the ownership of your property, that He owns it and He gave it to you by grace. But these people, they just didn't tithe those things. You go back and you can read it in Matthew 23. They tithed the things in their spice cabinet. They would tithe their pantry. Anything that was considered surplus. So if they went to Walmart and they went grocery shopping, they bought a bunch of groceries, they'd come out and they would fill up the salt shaker and put a tenth of it to the side and would give that to the temple. Because that was the Lord's. And people knew this and they would hold themselves out to people to see this. Because we know that they did that according to Matthew 6 when they would offer up long prayers in front of people to be seen. So they held themselves out to be righteous. People then walk by and say, you people are legalists. They didn't do that. They respected Pharisees. They saw them as really trying to walk holy with God. You can't fault somebody for wanting to do that. You've got to admire what they're trying to do. I mean, you're going to the temple. If they beat you to the temple, they've already been there three times that week before you ever got there once. And they're not just putting you down when you get there your one time or whatever. It's just that in the back of your mind, you're looking at them and you're saying, well, you know, these guys got a leg up on me. They must really love God. They're taking their religion seriously. So Jesus takes that guy from the mix and he puts him in the temple. And then he takes probably the most despised guy in the society, a tax gatherer. A tax gatherer isn't like your IRS agent, okay, that we have here in our culture, okay. Tax gathering back then in the first century, especially in Israel. Remember, Israel's under subjection by the Romans. The Romans have conquered Israel. And so for a true Israelite, you always grew up with the mindset saying, you know, we're supposed to be, we're God's chosen people. And as such, we're a light to the Gentiles. We're God's favorite people that God's with us. Well, if we're God's favorite people, and we're supposed to be the tip of the spear, what are we doing underneath Roman subjection? These Gentiles that are subjecting us to their rule. They come in here and parade up and down our streets, bringing their Roman incense, these signs of their gods and things of this sort, but it's really the signs of the battalion or whatever. that they're part of, but yet it's coming into our property. So people really didn't like the Romans as such. They were viewed as the oppressors. Well, the Romans had to collect taxes from every country that they conquered. Israel was no exception. Well, they weren't going to collect the taxes. They got locals to collect the taxes. But if you're going to collect the taxes for the Romans, first of all, you're collecting taxes for pagans. You're going to go to your fellow countrymen and say, I need you to pay up. Caesar needs his cut. The thing was, If they questioned you and said, well, what are my taxes due? What does Caesar need from me? Well, for you, it's $1,000. You never had an IRS book to go check to see if the tax gatherer was actually charging you what Rome needed. Rome might only need $100. This is how the tax gatherer made his living. He just told you what you needed to pay, Caesar, and I'm here to collect. So you never knew if the tax gatherer was gouging you, overcharging you, tremendously or very little. And so they developed a reputation of being greedy, of being people who undermine their own countrymen. So when you put a tax gatherer up here in the temple, And you put a Pharisee there in the temple, you couldn't get more stark, two contrasting people praying to God than those two. And Jesus brings that up to the people. And He brings it to make the point of why you shouldn't be exalting yourself. And He's targeting people who do that. And people who, as He says in verse 9, trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt. Those were the people who were exalting themselves. This is a very simple message. It's not hard to figure out. Another point you need to understand about this parable, when he says in verse 14, he says, I tell you, this man, talking about the tax gatherer who prayed the very simple prayer, God, be merciful to me, the sinner, in verse 13, he says, this man went down to his house. He doesn't say he went down to his house with his prayers heard. Seems like that's the thing he should have said. I mean, that's what they were doing. That was the activity both of them were doing in the temple. Jesus says he went down to his house justified. Now, why would he say justified instead of having his prayers heard? Because that's the activity they both were engaged in. Because this little saying that Jesus says two other times as well, by the way, for everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled. He says it one other time when he talks about people who are trying to sit in these great seats at a banquet. He says you need to sit further away and then get called up. You don't want to be here and then get pushed down, because whoever exalts himself will be humbled. He says it there. He says it also in Matthew 23, when he's talking about the Pharisees once again, wanting to be called rabbi and father and all this. Don't do that. For whoever exalts himself, see, Entitlemongering will be humbled. So here's some two other different contexts where this phrase is used. And Jesus brings up the phrase one more time to be used. And He brings it up here in the context of two men praying. They're not doing something evil. This isn't some guy who's trusting in himself. And he's, I don't know, he's out there trying to steal so he can provide for his family. These people are doing something that's sanctioned by God. We're told in 1 Thessalonians 5 to do what? To pray without ceasing. So here, both men are praying. And once again, they're praying. And notice, they're not praying to two different gods. They're praying to the same God. So the place that they pray, they got that right, the temple. And the activity they got right, they're praying. So here's some things they had in common. They were similar. That was good. He didn't fault the Pharisee because he prayed. He doesn't fault the Pharisee because somehow he shouldn't have been at the temple. It's the wrong time of day or it's closed for the night or something. That's not it. But it's the contrast. And we spend more time with the Pharisee than we really do with the tax gatherer. And you see the negative and the positive in 11 and 12 with the Pharisee, and he brings that out on purpose. And he talks about, in reality, which man is justified, which isn't. Now, there are prayers you can pray that you should never pray. There are times, and you can read in the book of Jeremiah, God will shut down Jeremiah in his praying. Don't pray for this people, Jeremiah. No, it ain't you. I wouldn't hear Moses if he was here. I wouldn't hear Daniel if he was here. Samuel, I wouldn't hear him. These are great men that Jeremiah would have remembered that God heard their prayers and he says, I wouldn't have heard their prayers. It's them. It's not you. But here, it's you. Here's why I don't hear your prayers. And so this whole basic point, if you come before God in prayer, what are you thinking about in your mind when you go to pray before the Lord? We had a lot of prayer requests when we prayed today. When you pray before the Lord, one of the things you have got to keep uppermost in your thinking is, what do you think about you? Because He who ever exalts Himself, see, will be humbled. Now, a few questions you need to ask yourself, though, about this. And I think they're legitimate questions. Some questions that can arise here, especially in verse nine. Trusted in themselves that they were righteous. I mean, think about it. The Pharisee, when he says in verse 11, God, I thank thee that I am not like other people, swindlers, unjust, adulterers, and even like this tax gatherer. Is that a bad prayer? Is it bad to thank God that I'm not a swindler? Lord, thank you that you haven't put me in Romans 1 and let me go down that road and being given over to this and being given over to that and then finally be given over to a reprobate mind. Shouldn't I be thanking God for that? I mean, isn't that not a good thing to thank God for? And if I actually can point to somebody, you know, don't be that guy, they say on commercials. Or don't be that guy on the Yahoo News feed when you read about him and say, I can't believe a guy did something like that. I didn't know they made humans that were animalistic like that. And in the back of your mind, you say, you know, we even used a little phrase, saved by the grace of God, there go I. What's wrong with that? Thanking God that you're not like that. I mean, this guy's kind of doing that, but he's kind of not doing that, obviously, because he's being held up of what not to do and pray. So in a very real way, when we say, you know, I don't think it's wrong to be thankful. Remember, we used a little phrase, better than versus better off than. Yeah, I'm better off than those 18 people that the tower fell over there in Luke 13 and killed. I'm better off than those people. But Jesus is quick to remind us that what? But you're not better than those people that the tower fell over there. You're better off than them, but you're not better than them. That little word off is everything. I'm better off, but I'm not better than. And if you hold to that distinction there, you'll understand that simply because you have another day to live as a leper in the leper colony doesn't mean you're not a leper in the leper colony. And you have to understand the difference. So it's not wrong to be thankful that I'm not like this sinner over here or this group of sinners over there because God has been the difference maker in that, not me. See, there's the difference. Because this Pharisee here in verse 11, and the Pharisee stood and was praying thus to himself, to himself. All he could think about was how good he was in comparison to those people. That is never, ever, ever the basis of Contrast, I'm better than they are. You don't start with you. Now, if you start with the mercies of God, and you start with the grace of God, and the compassion of God, and you say, Lord, you have made me to be able to stand. You have made me survive where 18 other people have not survived. You have done that in your grace and kindness and compassion. That's a different take. See, that's not trusting in themselves that they were righteous. That's trusting in God that He was compassionate. Just the opposite. And remember, if you're going to be justified before God, your prayers have to start there. And notice, viewed others with contempt. Now, while I don't trust in myself to create my righteousness, Can I believe that I have righteousness from God? Yeah. So if I believe I'm righteous, that's not what he's condemning here. Oh, I better not believe I'm a Christian. If I believe I'm a Christian, I'll be proud and I'll be acting like this Pharisee. No. Paul even commands us in 2 Corinthians 13, verse 5, to test yourself, to see if you're in the faith. So make sure you're a Christian. Are you right with God? We ask you that question. Is God right with you and you're right with Him? And you say, yeah. Why do you say yeah? Are you exalting yourself again? Ah, exalting yourself, saying you're right with God. See, there's a thin line between assurance of salvation many times and false assurance of salvation when you look to yourself. God has made me what I am. God has given me His righteousness. God is the one who forgives me of my sins. So you're saying you're better than these people over here. I'm better off than those people over there. But I'm better off not because of me, see? I'm better off because of God. God has done this and God has done that. And if He didn't do those things, I would not be better off. Because I'm just as bad, if not worse, than those people over here. Now see, that's just not just the proper response and crossing your T's and dotting your I's. That really has to be in your heart when you pray. You can't just say that because it's doctrinally sound, which it is. You gotta have that when you pray, Lord, thank you so much. You know, I learn stuff from you guys when y'all pray. My prayers have morphed listening to y'all pray. You get a theological education when you get around people and they pray, and they pray In the Spirit, not talking about in tongues or something, but in the Spirit, true from the Holy Spirit, praying. And you realize, you know, that exalts Christ. We have a lot of things we can pray for. I mean, I'll pick on Frank a little. I remember being around Frank when Frank prays. He just blesses my heart, man. The guy just exalts the Lord. It's just one of those things that it's kind of like, not heavy duty, but it always gets back to this. Well, we're just thankful that you saved us, that you forgave us of our sins. And it's like, yeah, I need to remember that. I just can't run ahead. It's like, it's the same thing with being justified. Justified. That means I'm right with God. Now, when he says the tax gatherer was justified when he prayed, let me make sure we get something straight here, right? He is not saying that being humble is a sufficient condition for salvation. Let me make sure we get this straight. It's a necessary condition. It's not sufficient enough. There's stuff missing. If all you are is humble, and that's all you are, you're not gonna be justified before God. You have to be humble to be justified before God. But if that's all you have, it's not sufficient enough. It's not enough. So you understand the difference between sufficient conditions and necessary conditions. Sufficient conditions means there's more conditions that you need to have in the mix, in the hopper, to be justified before God. For example, you have to be justified by faith. He tells us that in Romans 5, verse 1. But I can tell you this, the opposite of humility, pride, is sufficient enough to condemn you. And you can read that in Habakkuk 2, verse 4, when he talks about this whole idea that the just shall live by faith that you find in Galatians 3, and you find the book of Romans 1, verse 17, the righteous shall live by faith, the righteous shall live by faith. The phrase right above it in Habakkuk 2, verse 4, is the contrast to that verse. And he says, as for the proud man, his soul is not right with God. But, here comes your verse, the just shall live by faith. What's he contrasting? You would tend to think he would say not the proud man. You would tend to think he would say the unbelieving man. The man who doesn't have faith is not right with God. But the man who has faith, see, would be right. But he doesn't contrast faith and unbelief. He contrasts faith and pride. Because the motherlode sin that keeps people from being justified before God is pride. It's what Jesus says, trusted in themselves that they were righteous. Thinking that I got all my ducks in a row, got my, you know, everything together, I'm good to go with God. So if I was to ask you, and I've done this before, and you can do this, and you heard it before, how many times have you asked people, I've asked people, Zoe and them might have asked people on the street. If you were to die today, die right now, in five minutes you would have died, and you were to stand before God, and He was to ask you, why should you come into heaven? Why should He let you in? And you know what they'll talk to you about? Their own righteousness. They start off with the I pronoun, not good. And it's about them. And they'll talk about, well, you know, I've done this, or I've done that, or I'm not like this, and I'm not like that. They'll sound like this Pharisee. Instead of, if Jesus Christ doesn't save me, I'm not getting in. If I don't have His righteousness, I'm not getting in. If He doesn't forgive me of my sins, I'm not getting in. I'm trusting that Jesus Christ did X, did Y, did Z. It's what He has done. You've got to have that answer. Pat, if I wake you up at 2 in the morning and ask you that question, you're standing at attention at your bed and can give that answer and recite it. That's Christianity 101 on the first day of class. It's that. You have to live in light of the fact you might be dead in five minutes. And if you can't articulate why you should go to heaven, why you should go to heaven. Should, obligation. I don't have a right to heaven. That's the whole point. That's why I need another man's forgiveness of my sins and another man's righteousness to be clothed with. That's the gospel. That's the book of Romans. In it, the righteousness of God is revealed. So when you stand praying, that is going to boom in your prayers. It's the undercurrent of everything we do. Not just down here, but when we even go before the Lord. I cannot trust in myself. I cannot even trust in my prayers. I've got nothing to trust in. Zero. Now, because I don't trust in myself doesn't mean I don't do something or think something or say something. It just means that I've got to look away from me. And like the tax gatherer, God, God, he's addressing God. The Pharisee was giving God his resume. This guy's giving him, giving God what? His sins. He's petitioning God for mercy He's not trying to say look at me look how great I am Pay attention over here. Did you see that the other day remember that with the old lady and walking across the street? Yeah, that's me. I can do that. I've done that I Preach sermons for you Lord You need me. How's this church gonna survive without me? I gotta have you know, you got to have me up here preaching, right? I mean, come on. See, that can happen to preachers, especially preachers. They lead the pack, Matthew 7. But we did this in your name, we did that in your name. Look, we were ministry-minded. We gave up, I mean, I gave up a six-figure salary over here. I could have done this from college. I could have majored in this over here. No, I did this with the Bible. I did you a favor, see? Doing God a favor, the great creator of all the universe, who now is indebted to you. Six foot height of dust, and he needs you now to run things and make things smooth. Because without you, I mean, you can't get by, right? See, we don't say those things, but they're easy to think those things, or at least to assume those things. Many times God flattens us on our back or puts us in a low spot, and we're like this tax gatherer. And he couldn't even look up his eyes to heaven. Remember, when they prayed, the place to pray, and you could pray at the temple, usually at nine in the morning, three in the afternoon were the times for prayer. You could pray all around. I mean, you could go there. But if you couldn't go there, it was kosher to face the temple. So you have to know, you have to have a GPS. These were the first inventors of GPS, the Israelites. Because we find in Daniel, he would open up his window, and what would he do? face Jerusalem and would pray three times a day. Why would he face Jerusalem? Well, if I can't be there, I can at least have my eyes centered on the horizon. Just over that horizon is Jerusalem, and I know God is there with His people in the temple or wherever else, and I can at least have my mind in the same direction and be facing that way. Now if you know this, I'll give you a little free tidbit here. In the old days, I don't know if they still do it now, but when they would have a cemetery, and you were buried in a cemetery, especially in Louisiana, your feet had to face toward Jerusalem. So that when you rose up from the grave on Judgment Day, you're facing Jerusalem. Back in the day, all cemeteries. So they had that mindset, facing Jerusalem. praying toward Jerusalem. This guy couldn't even lift up his eyes to heaven. And this beating of the breast, it wasn't because he was having heart pains or whatever. It's like in 2 Corinthians chapter seven, it talks about godly sorrow and you smite your thigh. I can't believe I did that. Beating of the breast was a common symbol. You can read it in Nahum, chapter seven, verse two. You can read it in the gospels when they were beating their breasts because of some Tragedy, catastrophe. It just meant someone's in real sorrow. And here's this guy in real sorrow. It wasn't just feigned. It wasn't just saying the words because it's the sinner's prayer to pray kind of thing. You know, nod with me as I pray along that, you know, you're a sinner and everything. Yeah, I'm a sinner. Can I blow a bubble now with my gum? Okay, yeah, I'm a sinner. And he keeps on going. That's not here. This is real sorrow, a godly sorrow producing a godly repentance, and that's what you have. So very simple, kind of closing here, it's a simple parable to understand, and it's evidenced in prayer. What's evidenced in prayer? One man being justified, one man being saved, another man not. And you would think the man who really deserves the salvation would be the religious guy. He's the guy who's putting the time and the effort and the work and all the you know, things for it, but that's not the guy. And so what is Jesus? Once again, targeting these people who think they're okay with God because they have all these outward accoutrements that's going on and they're producing and things of this sort, and God's not impressed with any of it. Just like with you, He's impressed when you come before Him and you're honest and you go to Him with your sins. You go to Him, notice how you have to know something about God, knowing He's merciful. Because you're asking Him for mercy. And you come like the welfare recipient you are in line with your hat in your hand, and you say, Lord, You have everything I need. I have nothing I can give. I have nothing to contribute. I can't add anything to my salvation. I need to be saved. I'm going to suffer underneath Your wrath in hell for all eternity if You, You don't save me. And when God does save you, and you have that testimony in your mouth, you'll never say, well, God saved me because I prayed a prayer. God saved me because I asked Him to save me. Of course, you know, kind of like Catherine the Great says, well, God's got to forgive, that's His job. That was her statement. I wonder if she went down to her house justified after making that statement. I don't think so. Well, you know, I tried that Christianity stuff. I prayed and nothing happened. Yep. And that's why you didn't get saved. You think God's a lackey. You think God's a means to your ends. You think that? I can guarantee you, you're going to be with dead Pharisee in hell. You're going to be nobody's lackey. You go to Him. You cry out to Him to forgive you of your sins and to make you right with Him. And you know something? If He doesn't answer your prayer, what are you going to do? You're going to stay there and you're going to continue to pray and you're not going to leave until he grants you your prayer. That's the parable above. That's the widow above. If you need to be saved, you go before the courts and you stay there and you don't leave. Now, that's how you ought to pray. That's how you should pray and not lose heart. But if you're going to be with this guy, And, you know, talk to God about your resume. Spare God. Spare yourself. Might as well eat, drink, and be merry. For the more you die, you don't need to be doing that. But if you're gonna be serious and talk to God about your sins and talk to God about forgiveness and Him giving you His righteousness, then stay the course. Because you know, He is, as He says, everyone who exalts himself shall be humble, but he who humbles himself, He doesn't say, maybe I'll, you know, He says, you know, maybe I migraine him, no, shall be exalted. There's a promise in that. And that exalting will be being saved in finding Christ. Let's pray.