Have Mercy on Me!

Introduction

Opening Illustration (Evangelism): One thing I love about the weather warming up in Chicago is the opportunities for evangelism. Last week I was out at UIC, got to share the gospel with quite a lot of students and faculty of different backgrounds. Wonderful conversations. Very often the conversations will arrive at this question, “What must a person do to be saved.” The answers I get are so sad to me. Whether I’m speaking with agnostics, or muslims, or Hindus, “I must obey God, and he will see my good work, and grant me permission to Heaven.” And I’ll say, “But don’t you know that God’s Word says he doesn’t just judge our actions, he sees the condition of our heart. He sees all the wrong motivations that exist, and so even our good deeds, are tainted.” It’s fascinating watching students wrestle with this, often for the first time. What is perhaps the saddest for me, is that very often when I speak to those students who are taking the title Christian upon themselves, I’ll ask this same question, and I’ll have the same conversation.

Personal: The Christian faith is far more that external obedience to God’s commands. No person can ever be saved by works of the law. We are saved by Christ’s death in our place on the cross. The challenge of course is that so much of our mindset in any given moment forgets this, and we revert back to thinking about our relationship with God in terms simply in terms of our own obedience.

Context: Today we continue our study in the Gospel of Luke, in a short passage that shows us two different people who went into the temple to pray, a Pharisee, and a Tax Collector. These two people represent for us two forms of religion. The Pharisee representing just about every form of religion the world has ever concocted, and the Tax Collector representing true religion, authentic Christianity.

Luke 8:9–14 “And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’ Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away. And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.”

Explication

I EXPLORING THE HEART OF THE PHARISEE

We begin our time together by first exploring the heart of this Pharisee. Let’s understand this man.

Exploring the Description: There are details provided for us in this text that tell us all we need to know about this man.

Pharisee: First, we are told that this man was a Pharisee. We have encountered the Pharisees quite a lot at this point in the Gospel of Luke. While not every Pharisee was a carbon copy of each other, there are certain patterns of self-righteousness and self-importance that we discover in Luke’s gospel that certainly feed our understandin gof this man.

Stood By Himself: Second, we see that this Pharisee stood by himself. The idea here is that he had a special place reserved for him, in the upper part of the chamber, perhaps closer to the Holy of Holies. He went to the VIP section, the space he had earned by right of his title.

His Standard of Measurement: Third, the content of his prayer begins by thanking God that he is not like other men. He sees himself as one who is righteous. And his standard of measurement, is other men. He looks at extortioners, unjust men, adulterers, and he says to himself, “Well I’m not that. I am far more righteous than they are.” And he is so bold as to thank God that he is not like those other men, that he is more righteous than those other men.

The Tax Collector: Fourth, he finishes this prayer by looking across the room, at another man who is praying. This is bold. Now, its not just men he can think of in his mind, but he sees another human. And he doesn’t see a man praying. He doesn’t celebrate the fact that this other broken man has found his way into the temple. He stands aloof across the room, in his self-righteouesness and he uses that man’s plight, to prop himself up, in prayer!

Fast & Tithe: Fifth and finally, he states two ways that he had exemplified, according to his own standard obedience to God’s law. “I fast twice a week” (which was more than the law ever demanded of people), and he tithes on all that he gets. He gave away 1/10th of all his earnings every year.

Primary Mistake: This Pharisee is assessing himself, and his righteousness, his standing before God incorrectly. He has based his evaluation of his godliness on external comparison between him and others. The single standard that we are to assess ourselves by, is Christ and His Word. We look to the law of God and we are to evaluate our own heart according to that standard. One of the great problems with assessing ourselves in comparison to others, is that we can't see the heart. That's what God is judging

Broken all 10 Commandments: The truth that if this Pharisee were to properly understand the law of God as Jesus taught us to understand he would see that how guilty he is. He has broken virtually all ten commandments in this little dialogue.

Have no other gods beside me: This self-righteous Pharisee we are told “trusted in himself that he was righteous.” He made himself a god, and took his place in his temple.

Don’t bow to idols: What was this Pharisee other than for others to treat him as an idol to be adored in the temple of God. The hope that others would see him and be impressed.

Don’t Misuse God’s Name: Here is a man who is supposed to a spiritual guide, who is to handle the word of God in such a way that others taste of God through him. But he is misusing the name of God, to grant himself a title.

Honor the Sabbath: While this particular text does not mention the Sabbath, we don’t have to stray too far in Luke’s gospel to see Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees for missing the point of the Sabbath. Men like this were constantly rejecting Jesus for healing others on the Sabbath, not realizing what the Sabbath was for. The Sabbath was designed by God for rest and restoration. These self-righteous Pharisees, were abusing the sabbath every week.

Honor your Parents: The heart of that law is that we are to show honor to all those in positions of authority. Here is this Pharisee undermines the position he holds, by failing to use the position to serve God and serve others, and instead using the position to serve himself, to elevate himself.

Do Not Murder: Jesus teaches us in the Sermon on the Mount the true depth and purpose of this commandment. He teaches us that if we look at a brother with anger in our heart than we are already guilty of murder. Does not this Pharisee look across the hall at this tax collector with a whirlwind of negative affections, certainly of which anger was a part. Does he not hold resentment and bitterness towards this man, a man who has also come into the temple to pray.

Do Not Commit Adultery: All through the prophetic literature we see that Israel is guilty of committing adultery against their God. Here, that is exactly what this Pharisee is doing. Instead of worshipping God, he is worshipping himself.

Do Not Steal: This man is guilty of all kinds of theft. He has stolen the title of spiritual leader when in certainty he is of no character to hold such a position. He has stolen the Lord’s time by exalting himself when he sho uld have been exalting God. He has stolen the Lord’s space, by elevating himself within the temple. He has stolen this tax collectors dignity, by using him as an example to elevate himself as self-righteous.

Do Not Lie: This Pharisee stands condemned under the law, while literally praying to God that he is in good standing because he is obeying the law. He is a liar who refuses to acknowledge the truth of the depth of his sin. That he stands condemned under the very same law the tax collector stands condemned.

Do Not Covet: This man, above all else, covets self worship. He wants the eyes of Israel on him. He wants the best seat in the room. He wants to be exulted among men. He covets with greedy eyes, the praises of man.

What’s the Point: What is the point of showing you this? This Pharisee is so relateable. We, as fallen humans, tend to try to make our religion as easy as possible. And the chief and primary way we have thought to do that, us turn religion into a set of tasks to be done. This makes religion very easy to measure success. You either have or haven’t completed the tasks. And its quite easy to measure your success against others because you can tell who has completed the task and who hasn’t. Our modern Pharisaical tasks might sound something like this: Go to Church on Sunday, read your bible every day, find a way to give back to the community, financially support the ministry. Are these good things. Yes of course. So is fasting and tithing for the Pharisee. But you can do all of those things, with excellence, and just like that Pharisee be far away from God. Because God is after the heart. He’s after you. And if this Pharisee would take the time to really look at the law of God, and evaluate his heart properly, not by outward actions, but by inward affections, he would discover his overwhelming need of a Savior.

Maybe You: Maybe that is you today? Maybe you inherited a form of Christianity that is content with outward obedience, and forsaking the affections of the soul. Look to the law of God, and let the law of God do what it was designed to do, push down on your conscience and reveal your deep need of a Savior.

II EXPLORING THE HEART OF THE TAX COLLECTOR

Let’s turn and explore this tax collector.

Exploring the Description: What can we learn about this tax collector from this passage.

Tax Collector: First, this man is described as a Tax Collector. Many in this room might have a sense for who this man was, but we need to take a moment to understand this man. This was a Jewish man who worked for the Roman government. That alone was enough to make him largely an outcast within the Jewish community. But, tax collectors were notorious thieves, who were known for getting wealthy by extorting those paying their taxes. Tax Collectors were so synonymous with sin that in the Scriptures we often come across the phrase “sinners and tax collectors.” An equivalent in our mind might be something like a “gang leader.” Your thoughts towards a well known local gang leader might help you understand this Pharisees thoughts towards that tax collector.

Standing Far Off: We notice that he is standing far off. This indicates that this man felt he did not belong in the temple. From a distance he could see where holy men were positioned, and he knew himself. He knew that he was full of sin and full of guilt, and so he felt no sense of anything being owed to him.

Would Not Lift Eyes: We’re told he would not lift his eyes to heaven. Here this man begins to pray, but he is like a small child before his father when the child knows he’s made a mistake, and can’t look the father in the eye. He’s guilty and he knows it.

Beat His Breast: This is a physical movement of anger, not towards another person, but anger over the sin that dwells within him.

Be Merciful: He cries out to God, “Be merficul to me a sinner.” Mercy is when a person does not get the punishment they deserved. The cry of this man’s heart is for mercy. This scene is deeply personal and powerful. This man is putting on no show. He is crying out from the bottom of his heart, as a sinful man, that recognizes how far he has fallen short, sees God in his holiness, and cries out to that God for mercy.

Justified: Jesus says that of the two men in this scene, it is this tax collector who “goes down to his house justified. That word means that God has looked upon his condition and declared him righteous. Those listening tot his saying of Christ must have been in shock! To declare a Tax Collector the rightoues one over a Pharisee would be the equivalent of taking your favorite story and suddenly discovering that the hero was the villain, and the villain was the hero. “

Measuring by the Beatitudes: What is it about this tax collector’s faith that is so powerfully clear about the kind of faith Christ is looking for? The Tax Collector hasn’t checked the checkboxes. He has not earned any position of spiritual authority among men. But this tax collector is a living witness of the faith that Christ commands. This tax collector is not falsely comparing himself to anybody else. He has a very good understanding of the law of God. He’s broken it. He’s in need of a Savior. One of the best tools we have for seeing the heart behind the law, are the beatitudes. When Jesus preached the eight beatitudes he was summarizing the kind of heart, the law of God was always intended to produce. Let’s consider the first three beatitudes.

1 Blessed are the Poor in Spirit: To be poor in spirit is to recognize one’s deep spiritual humility. It is to see sin in one’s life. To be aware of one’s own spiritual misery far more than anyone elses. This Tax Collector is broken in his spirit. He has not come into the temple with any sense of his own righteousness. He comes bankrupt. He has nothing to offer God, other than a broken and contrite heart.

Isaiah 66:2 “… But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”

2 Blessed are those who Mourn: Second, “Blessed are those who mourn.” This is not just speaking about those who are sad over circumstances in their life. The second beatitude builds upon the first beatitude. It is speaking of those who mourn over the sin in their life. These are the blessed ones. The ones who see in themselves their own unrighteousness. Here in this passage, this Tax Collectors is weeping over his sin, beating his chest over the reality of his own corruption.

3 Blessed are the Meek: Third, “Blessed are the meek.” To be meek is not to be weak, but rather it is to in a position of utter surrender. It is to not be playing defense, defending oneself against charges. But rather it is a position of submission to authority. This man exemplifies meekness in his standing off to the side. He knows he has earned no place closer than where he stands.

Invitation: Friends until we learn religion like this Tax Collector, we can have very little of Christ. There no way to God without first seeing yourself rightly. Each of our spiritual conditions is like this tax collector. In the eyes of the world, we may have it all together, but the truth that there is a viper’s nest of false affections, ungodly desires, and self-serving appetite that lurks within our heart. And we can’t fix it. No amount of therapy will heal that sickneses. No amount of attending Church can rescue us from the spiritual pit we’ve fallen into. We need a Savior. The only Savior to man is Christ Jesus crucified. While two men went into the temple that day to pray, only one went home justified, saved, redeemed, restored. The tax collector. That Pharisee was more lost than he would ever dare imagine.

Application

I would like to spend a greater amount of time today in practical considerations that flow quite naturally from this text.

1 I want to know the horrible depths of my sin, in order that I might truly experience the wonderful heights of the Gospel: It is a great tragedy that we have lost the ability to practice biblical reflection. We are so busy that we can never sit with a single idea and let it run its course in our mind and in our heart. But if we want to move our religion towards this tax collector, we need to sit long enough in our own sin in order to see its root.

Thoughts: We are not just guilty of our sinful actions, like this Pharisee false believed. Indeed we are all guilty when we fail. But there are two deeper levels of sin to labor through, to see all of it. We are guilty for our false affections and wicked thoughts. In our thought life we can commit all kinds of sin that wer are morally culpable for. I can make a person suffer in my thoughts. I can take revenge in my thoughts. I can harbor the most wicked and vile and perverse ideas in my thoughts, each of them making me guilty as if I committed the sin itself. And oh how we entertain wicked thoughts. How we fail to cut them off at their root, but mull them over like a spider playing with a wounded fly in its nest, entertaining the feast that will come.

First Motions: But still there is deeper. Where did those thougths arise from? What hornets nest dwells inside of our heart that produces such wicked affections. Before our mind is ever activated to think about a sin, inside our heart lurks corruption, perversion, all kinds of ungodly affections of the soul. And we stand guilty for the dung hill of corruption that causes the odor that permeates thoughts, that sometimes produces visible action.

Seeing the Gospel in Full: See I want to see the root of it, like this Tax Collector. Because then I can glance up and see the heights of the cross at Calvary. I can see the extent of what Christ died for to reconcile me to God.

2 I want to love Christ more than I love Christianity: Second application, I want to love Christ more than I love Christianity. This Pharisee was exalted for his pursuit of religion. He memorized more verses than you or I ever will. He knew the traditions, and excelled at all things proper for church-going people. And he loved it all. Religion was his thing. How he looked forward to the Sabbath day when the saints would gather! How he looked forward to theological debates and conversations! How he enjoyed the training of new recruits into the ministry! He loved his religion far more than he loved his God.

Christ at the Center: At the center of the Christian faith is Christ. If our Christianity is more about the stuff Christians do, and not so much about a living relationship with Christ, our Savior, then we are far more like this Pharisee than the tax collector. Same thing, we just look a little different. There are a lot of mistakes we can make in Christianity, but this is not one I want to find myself making. I want touchpoints with Jesus in the morning and throughout the day. I want to store up his word in my heart, not because I’m supposed to, but because I love, and His word gives me life.

3 I want to hate my own sin far more than the sins of others: Third, I want to hate my own sin far mor than I hate the sins of others. Here I want to think more deeply about the great mistake of that Pharisee, and how easy it is to find ourselves guilty of that exact same mistake. That Pharisee believed in his own righteousness primarily because he looked across the aisle, and saw the outward sins of a tax collector, and determined himself to be the righteous one. He had not learned to hate his own sin. He had not learned to see himself as “the chief of sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). He had not learned to say with the Apostle “But by the grace of God, I am what I am” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

Perhaps I can provide us with some simple and very practical means whereby we might develop this sense in us.

Use Other’s Sins as a Means of Self-Discovery: When a sin is discovered in another person, utilize that discovery as an opportunity to further examine your own soul, to discern in what way and to what degree that very same sin lurks in your own heart. If a young man shares with you an addiction to pornography (perhaps a sin that you gained mastery over years prior), ask yourself what variety of that sin promulgates in the recesses of your heart and mind. Perhaps you are prone to lustful thoughts. Perhaps you are prone to wandering eyes. Perhaps you do not watch X rated film, but you give yourself a pass on R rated sexual content, telling yourself “well its not pornography.” See the commonality, and determine to weight your own sin in this category as far worse than your counterpart.

Read the Stories of Scripture Experientially: Second, learn to read the stories and the characters in the Scriptures, experientially. Meaning, use their flaws, their weaknesses, their mistakes, their troubles, as reason for reflection on your own life. When you read of Elijah’s fear of Jezebel that caused him to run away, pause and reflect about what voices cause you to experience a fear about expressing your faith freely. When you read of Cain’s murder of his brother Abel, pause and ask where unwarranted anger has bubbled up inside of you, where you have thought about harming others, or getting revenge. When you read of the cowardice of the spies who brought back the bad report of the land of Canaan to Moses, ask yourself when you have shied away from a bold Kingdom task because it seemed impossible, or too large for you. When you read of Sampson’s foolish trust of Delilah, ask yourself when you have excercised poor discernment in who you bring near, and who you trust yourself to. What we want to do is permit the scriptures to function as a mirror in our lives, revealing who we really are, and how great our need of a Savior is.

4 I want to spend my greatest religious effort developing my heart and affections over my outward actions: Lastly, spend your greater religious effort strengthening your heart for Christ. It is far too easy to settle for a religion like these Pharisees. It is far too easy to let our Christianity become a series of habits that constitute the culture of our life, and to miss Jesus in the midst of it. At the center of Christian faith is a person, Jesus Christ, who beckons you ever and always into deeper waters with him. There is no greater achievement in the Christian life, then to be able to say, this year I have grown wonderfully in my love of Christ. Labor diligently to have him in the forefront of all of your actions. Think of him when you rise, plead with him when you pray, enjoy him as you commute to and from work, invite him into your family time, teach him to your children, see him at work in the world around you, sing of him when you join with the saints on a Sunday morning. He is the priceless jewel.

Conclusion

And if you find today, that you can barely do any of those actions, but all you can do is beat your chest like that tax collector, let God know how weak you are, how little you can actually do, how sometimes your affections are all wrong, and your actions follow, and how much you are dependent on God’s mercy to simply forgive. I tell you, if that be the posture of your heart, then like this tax collectory, today you go home justified.