Please open your Bibles to Luke chapter 18. And in the Pew Bible, you can find that on page 1115. What kind of people do you admire? Depending on your likes and interests, it could be athletes, artists, musicians, or performers. Or perhaps it's people who are leaders, people who are successful, or maybe those who dedicate their lives to serving others. I admire my wife. She is talented, smart, she genuinely cares for others, and puts their needs above her own. Aside from her maybe somewhat questionable taste in men, She's quite exceptional. What kind of people do you look down on? Perhaps your mind's a bit preoccupied with eight o'clock tomorrow night. The easy target is the cowboys. But if we listen to the noise of society around us today, it could be people who vote different than you, or people who have different opinions about masks and vaccinations. could be people who raise their children differently, or those people who drive below the speed limit in the left lane, or take 12 items into the 10-item-or-less express lane at the grocery store. The question behind both of those questions, though, is are you a good judge of character? What kept going through my mind this week was Disney's Aladdin. The sultan turns to his most trusted advisor, who happens to be an evil sorcerer bent on seizing control of the kingdom for himself, and says, one thing I pride myself on, Jafar, I'm an excellent judge of character. Uh-huh. Are you a good judge of character, though? How about when it comes to yourself? Are we comparing ourselves, judging ourselves based on our assessment of others? So often what ends up happening is that we are judging ourselves by our intentions, but others based on their actions. I've actually had the experience of being in a traffic jam and seeing someone using the shoulder to race up the side and avoid traffic. And I became irate when my wife says, maybe they have an emergency. To which I quipped, no, they don't have an emergency. They just think they're better than everyone else. So I clearly made the judgment that I believe myself to be better than them. Told you she had questionable taste in men. But it makes you wonder, what would it be like if we judged ourselves by our actions and others by their intentions? How much quicker would you be to seek forgiveness How much quicker would you be to forgive? Maybe making these kinds of evaluations helps us to cope with the pressures and stresses of daily life, right? In other words, it's a whole lot easier for me to write someone off as a deplorable human being than it is for me to enter into their struggles, to understand them. and maybe even have my perceptions challenged. Plus, I can post on social media about that terrible guy with 12 items in the express lane, and every like and every affirming comment is going to give me a dopamine hit that will assure me that I am more righteous than others. But at some point, we must deal with a very serious question. Is heaven grading on the same rubric? Is our criteria the same as God's? 2,000 years ago, Jesus told a story to some people who our text tells us trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. Seems to me people haven't changed much. Now some of these folks may have felt that what Jesus says here was a paradigm shifting gut punch. Maybe we will too. My hope is we will all be challenged by it, but also that we will leave here today very grateful that God judges on a different scale. So please join me as we read our text today. Luke chapter 18 verses nine through 14. This is God's word. 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'm 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. 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. Amen. Praise God for his word to us. Now I would like to organize the rest of our time this morning under three main headings. First is roll call. And here we're gonna look at the relevant characters. Second is two prayers and two gods. And third and finally transformed life. So our first heading is roll call. And the two obvious characters here, right, is the Pharisee and the tax collector. And if we limit ourselves to just the parable, just the story that Jesus tells, that would be the end of our roll call. And we'll look at these two a little bit closer as we look at their prayers. But if we look at the context of the whole passage that we read, some more folks come into view. The first is the people who heard Jesus tell the story. Luke tells us that he told the story to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. Now this group may have included some Pharisees, but we should not limit it to only Pharisees. What we want to understand is that it is a Jewish audience. And as such, they are predisposed to see Pharisees as the good guys. They're the religious leaders. In terms of outward piety, they are the best of the best. They work hard to keep the customs of Moses scrupulously. They are a Jews Jew. At the same time, this Jewish audience is predisposed to view tax collectors as the worst of the worst. And it's not just that they didn't like paying taxes. Who does? These tax collectors were collaborating with the occupying oppressors of Rome. And they were lining their own pockets by charging extra from their own people. They were traitors. And later documents showed that they were deprived of civic rights within the Jewish community. They were barred from testifying in court. You could not trust these people. And so for this group to hear that the tax collector went home justified before God, meaning that God had declared the tax collector righteous while God had no regard for the Pharisee was a shocking turn of events. The next group that we want to mention in our roll call is Luke's original audience. And we might miss this, but the original readers of Luke's gospel are not the same people who heard Jesus tell the story. It's about 30 years later, which when we're 2000 years later, 30 doesn't sound like a whole lot. A lot of us can remember 30 years ago. But there's significant differences between these two groups. Actually, Luke's audience is a lot closer to us than they are to Jesus's audience. For one thing, you have this massive history-alting events of the death and resurrection of Jesus. On one side, you've got just this small group of people that's saying, come see this Jesus of Nazareth. We think we found the Messiah. But on the other side, for Luke's audience, you have tens of thousands of people all over the Roman Empire proclaiming the good news that Jesus is both Lord and Christ, and he has given his life for your sins to reconcile you to God. Additionally, Luke's audience is largely made up of non-Jews. So they are not predisposed to see Pharisees as the good guys or the best of the best. Now we read six verses today, but this original audience would be unlikely to break the story down into six verse chunks. It would have taken large sections, probably the whole thing. And that's significant because if you start reading Luke's gospel from the beginning, By the time you get to our parable today, you will have seen no less than a dozen times where the Pharisees are opposing Jesus. They are not the good guys in this story. You would have also, by this time, seen several occasions where the tax collectors are responding positively to Jesus' message. They're drawing near to him, and one of them has even become one of Jesus' closest followers. So while Jesus' audience may hear this and think, impossible, no way God would accept a tax collector, Luke's audience, being mindful of their own shortcomings, may have heard this and thought, maybe God can accept me too. Our last group to look at is us. How do we stand in relation to this story that Jesus tells? I've said already that we're more like Luke's audience. While in Jesus' day, tax collector would have been a negative term, for us today, Pharisee is a negative term that describes someone who elevates the law over grace or someone who's just maybe kind of looks good on the outside but is really rotten inside. And this can impact the way that we read a text like ours today. Perhaps we approach it almost sneering, those rotten Pharisees, that is just like them. while at the same time thinking, sure glad I'm not a tax collector. Man, are they lucky that Jesus takes the worst of the worst. But I want you to note in verse nine that Luke does not say Jesus told a parable to some Pharisees. It says he told a parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt. In other words, we are not off the hook simply because we aren't Pharisees. The moment that we think of or treat with contempt another person or a group of people who are made in the image of God just as we are, then this parable is aimed directly at us. It does not matter if they are people of different faiths. Or if we take current events into account, it does not matter if they are racists or Marxists, or whether you feel that they are blindly surrendering their freedoms to the government, or whether you feel that they are clinging to their freedoms and killing grandma in the process. Doesn't matter if they're pro-life or pro-choice. Or which side they fall on in matters of gender identity or sexual preference. Now let me be clear. These issues do matter. And God's word has something to say about every one of them. What our parable today is showing us is that in every one of these situations, there is no room for us to trust in ourselves that we are righteous. And there is no room for us to treat others with contempt. And the reason is because of who God is and how we stand in relation to him. Now this is displayed in the two men in Jesus' story. And only one of them makes a proper assessment of God and his standing before him. So let's look there now in our second heading, Two Prayers and Two Gods. This parable is showing that our prayers will eventually reveal what we think about ourselves in relation to others, and in relation to God. And ultimately, a wrong assessment here could lead to us praying to a God of our own creation who doesn't even exist. Now, you should know a few things as background information before we look more closely at these prayers. First, In addition to set times for public prayer, people would have been coming to the temple throughout the day for private prayer. Also, while we are much more accustomed to our personal prayer being silent, and people of that day generally prayed out loud, whether public prayer or private prayer. So this tells us that in our story today, we should probably assume that there were others around and that others heard these prayers. And lastly, while there are numerous postures for prayer that we see in scripture, standing was the most common. And what I want you to see is that there is very little attention given to the Pharisee's posture. It's unremarkable. But there is significant attention given to his prayer. In contrast, the tax collector's prayer is very short, and there is more attention given to his posture. Both descriptions are serving the same purpose, which is to show us that what is most important is the attitude, or we could say the posture, of our heart as we come before God. As we look at these prayers, you can see that the Pharisee begins by addressing God with thanks. So far, so good. We have many prayers in the Bible that express thanks, and usually they go on to thank God for specific things that he's done. But notice that in the Pharisee's prayer, he never mentions God again. He goes on with a list of his own excellencies and accomplishments. Thank you, God, that I am so awesome. Rather than praying about what God has done, he informs God about what he is doing. He makes no request. He expresses no need. He seeks no forgiveness. He approaches God as though God should be impressed with what he offers. Isn't God lucky to have me on his team? As if it was not enough to boast of his own accomplishments, he then proceeds to tear down others in derision. There are so many things wrong here, but the primary issue is that the God he thinks he's praying to doesn't exist. A God that could be approached in that way is no God at all. A God that you have no need of, a God that's in your debt, is not a God worth serving or praying to. The true God of the Bible is not a God who is impressed with our religious acts or accomplishments. To be clear, We may please him. We can glorify him through such things, but not impress him as though we ought to be congratulated or have him say, oh, thank goodness for you, because my plan was in jeopardy. Why is this? It's because we could not even pray. without him granting us the breath to do so. It is his active will that keeps our heart beating, that gives us strength to do things. He formed the body we use to do them. Jesus says in John 15, apart from me you can do nothing. Apostle Paul says in Romans 7, nothing good dwells in me that is in my sinful flesh. And Ephesians 2 says that God has formed us and he's given us new life in Christ to do good works which he prepared in advance for us to do. It's like me lifting my son up so he can dunk the basketball. Yeah, he dunked the basketball. but he couldn't do it on his own. The bottom line is that while we are able to do things which are morally good, we are entirely dependent on God for the life and strength to do them, for the body with which to do them in, and whether Christian or not, it is only his grace that works in us enabling us to do anything morally good. It's kind of like me saying that I can travel 60 miles in an hour. Of course, I'm dependent on a vehicle to do it in, and gas to make it go, and the weather and traffic conditions to being favorable, because I can't do that on my own. And this being the case, Not only do we not have anything with which to boast before God, there's no place for us to treat others with contempt. When we do that, we take the grace of God and we turn it into our own personal achievement. I need to recognize that every ingredient necessary for me to be abusive to my wife and my children and to you, my congregation, it all resides in my heart. Every ingredient necessary for me to be an extortioner, an adulterer, an unjust, or whatever other sins may plague our day, it all resides in my heart. And it is only God's grace to purify me from the inside and to restrain me that keeps those things from being expressed in my life. So how could I ever boast before God? And how could I treat another human being with contempt? So we look at the tax collector's prayer, we'll see that he too sets himself apart from everyone else, but in a completely different way. It should be pretty clear by now that the tax collector has a very different view of God. He stands far off, ashamed to draw near. He won't even lift up his eyes. He recognizes. that he approaches a holy God whose law he has violated and to whom he is indebted. There's no self-congratulation. He comes with nothing. No merit to stand on. All he can bring himself to do is throw himself on God's mercy. I said that he too sets himself apart, but not not in looking at others with contempt. In the Greek, he actually says, have mercy on me. I am the sinner. The parables are example stories. It's not a historical narrative that this actually happened. But we can still consider, perhaps he heard the Pharisees' prayer that looked at him in derision, or perhaps as He came into the temple, the other people knew him, and they were sneering as he walked into the temple. There goes that sinner. Whatever the case was, he owned it. And he comes, God, I'm everything they say I am and more. Have mercy on me. Did you notice that Jesus' assessment of this man? comes after the story itself closes? In other words, Jesus tells us that he went home justified before God. But he doesn't know that. He does not know that Jesus was going to give his life for sinners like him. He doesn't have the rest of the New Testament that tells him that because of what Jesus has done, those who have put their faith in him can come to God confidently. seeking grace and mercy to help in our time of need. But he casts himself on the mercy of God, nevertheless, as his only hope. See, we have no reason to suspect that the Pharisee was lying as he described his accomplishments, that's kind of the things that Pharisees would do. His problem. was not that he had not progressed far enough on the path. His problem was that he was on the wrong path altogether. He thought that he could earn God's favor on his own. But Jesus tells us in John's gospel that he is the way. the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him. Jesus is the path. All that is required is to sense your need before a holy God and cast yourself on his mercy, trusting in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. The amazing thing The great privilege that you and I have over this tax collector is that you have the rest of the story. We have here a record of all of God's promises. We know what Jesus has done. And you've just heard the way to be made right with God. Every one of us here today has the opportunity to go home knowing whether we have been justified before God through faith in Jesus. If you are uncertain about this or you would desire affirmation of what God has done through you, excuse me, for you through Jesus, make sure you get that right. Please speak with me or any of our elders. You saw some of them up here this morning. I think I can speak for them. I didn't ask them, but I think I can speak for them in saying that conversations like that are our absolute favorite part of the role God has given us here. And it's also those things are provided by God for you, for your joy and peace. Let's turn briefly to our final heading, Transformed Life. You may have heard earlier how I said that the original audience would not have broken this down into six-verse chunks. Now, the advantage of us breaking it down like this is it allows us to turn things over and kind of understand particulars. But the downside is that you don't get the sense of the whole story. And no small section like this, no parable answers every question. So breaking it down can actually leave some other questions unanswered. Additionally, no parable tries to answer those questions or contains kind of a full scope system of theology. So with our parable today, there's a possible objection here, right? How can God call the tax collector justified when there's no evidence of him ever doing anything good. So in other words, are we saying that it doesn't matter how you live? And I said earlier that justified meant that we were declared righteous before God. And what a parable here and the rest of scripture confirms is that to be justified involves a new standing. a new legal standing before God, as opposed to moral perfection or even moral character of a particular level. It's that before God's judgment, you are pardoned. You are granted a righteousness that comes apart from the law through faith in Christ. So in short, to be justified means a new standing, a new relationship to God through grace, and this occurs in an instant. So we would say that it doesn't matter what you have done. You are not beyond the reach of God's grace. However, having been justified, we would then expect to see the fruit of a transformed life. Our short little parable doesn't show us this happening in the tax collector's life. But if you actually read the next chapter, you'll see a little story about a man named Zacchaeus. He's another tax collector. It actually says he's a chief tax collector. So if tax collectors are the worst of the worst, he's kind of the ringleader. But we see someone like that have his life completely turned around. just by an encounter with Jesus. I encourage you to read his story this next week. Now, there's another term, sanctification. And that's the word that we use to describe this life transformation. Unlike justification that happens in an instant, sanctification is a process that occurs for the rest of our life. And this transformation will take place at different rates and different people. And it'll be taking place at different rates within your own life. So I once heard of a man who said, before he met Jesus, he would cuss at the drop of a hat. But after meeting Jesus, he doesn't cuss so fast anymore. My little story about the person using the shoulder to avoid traffic. I used to have anger issues of a disqualifying nature that would disqualify me from being a pastor or a leader of people in any way. Well, that story shows you that I still have anger issues sometimes, but God has been working on me so that it's not disqualifying at this point. I still need his grace in my life. Let me summarize the whole sermon in one sentence. You are never so bad as to be beyond the reach of God's grace. But you are never so good as to be beyond the need of God's grace. Say that again. You're never so bad as to be beyond the reach of God's grace. You are never so good as to be beyond the need of God's grace. And if you can hold on to that, it will change the way you see God, yourself, and others. Grasping hold of that will crush Pharisee pride and cultivate tax collector humility. This way of looking at things will help you remember that the standard to which we ought to compare ourselves is Jesus. In any situation, if you view yourself as one in need of God's mercy and grace, you'll breed compassion towards others who ultimately have the same need. And as you grow in grace, It will eventually even root out the thought. Yeah, but they need it more. Like the tax collector. You'll approach God praying. Have mercy on me. I'm the sinner. And through faith in Jesus. You can be confident that you will receive that mercy. Let's pray. Almighty God, we thank you for your word to us, which helps us to see your holiness, and that we stand before you in need of mercy. We know that we have nothing in ourselves that would commend us to you, and so we seek your mercy for the sake of Jesus, who gave his life for sinners like us. Fill us with your spirit and cultivate in us a humility before you, and in our estimation of others. Forgive us of our pride. Help us to delight in our Savior rather than ourselves. Through Jesus we pray, amen.