Sermon Tone Analysis

Luke Chapter 18: 9-14

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

What is a Parable?-

Parables were short stories and lessons used by Jesus in order to teach.

A common description of a parable is that it is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.

Jesus explained that His use of parables had a two-fold purpose: to reveal the truth to those who wanted to know it and to conceal the truth from those who were indifferent.

I pray that the Spirit of God open up your hearts to hear these truths and I pray that you respond to them.

Let's open the Word of God to the 18th chapter of Luke's gospel, Luke chapter 18, and we are looking at a beloved and familiar parable which our Lord taught, the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.

I want to read it to you and then we'll consider again the marvelous significance of this parable.

Luke chapter 18 verses 9 through 14.  Here's what the Word of God says:

Reading of the Verses-

"And He also told this parable to certain ones who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt.

‘Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee stood and was praying thus to himself, “God, I thank Thee that I am not like other people, swindlers, unjust, adulterers or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week.

I pay tithes of all that I get.”

But the tax collector, 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.’"

Initial Explanation-

This was certainly a jolting, stunning idea conveyed by the Lord Jesus in this story.

When He came to the punch line and said the tax collector went down to his house justified and not the Pharisee, He put Himself 180 degrees away from the prevailing Jewish idea of salvation, and for that matter, the idea of salvation shown of all world religion.

Jesus was saying, "It is not the man who is good who is justified, but the man who knows he is wicked that is justified."

The dominant religious idea in Judaism at the time of our Lord, the dominant religious idea in the world always, then and now, is the idea that good people go to heaven, that if you are moral and religious you can achieve salvation, escape from divine judgment, become acceptable to God.

It's a matter of how good you are, how moral you are and how spiritual or religious you are.

This is frankly the big lie that dominates the world, that people can earn heaven by being good enough.

You remember I told you last time our first point was the comprehensive audience.

Look at verse 9, "He told this parable to certain ones who trusted in themselves that they were righteous."

This is for everybody who thinks that you get to heaven by being good enough, who trust in themselves, says our Lord — or says Luke as he records this text — who believe that they can achieve a relationship with God through their morality and their spirituality and their religiosity.

Reason for the Parable-

Look at verse 9, "He told this parable to certain ones who trusted in themselves that they were righteous."

This is for everybody who thinks that you get to heaven by being good enough, who trust in themselves, says our Lord who believe that they can achieve a relationship with God through their morality and their spirituality and their religiosity.

Now we know that leading the parade of self-righteous people, people who think they can be good enough to enter heaven was the Pharisees, this group of Jews who were fastidious law-keepers, because back in chapter 16 and verse 15, Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men.

You are those who make yourselves righteous in the sight of men but God knows your hearts."

They led the parade of those who lived with the illusion that you can earn salvation, that you can be good enough for God to accept you.

This parable is told for the benefit of anybody who thinks that way.

There are only two possibilities in the world.

Either you can be good enough to achieve a right relationship with God or you cannot.

Either you can earn salvation by morality and religion or you cannot.

That's all there is, really, to discuss.

Whatever the religious label is, it is either a conviction that you can or you cannot.

The true religion, the religion of Scripture, the true way of salvation says you cannot by your own effort, your own self-righteousness, your own morality, or your own religiosity, or spirituality please God in any way, therefore earn acceptance with Him.

Every other religious system in the world is a system of human achievement to one degree or another that assumes that you can do something to achieve a right relationship with God.

Pharisees:

EXPLAIN WHAT A PHARISEE IS?: In this story, you have the Pharisee, who is the epitome of achievers in morality and religion.

He is the most fastidious careful law-keeper on the planet, and he's associated with the Old Testament law and so he's very close to the revelation of God.

And so, he's as good as it gets, but not good enough.

The self-confessed sinner, on the other hand, is as bad as it gets, the most despised of all outcasts, and yet he is the one of whom Jesus said, "He went down justified,” or just, or right, or righteous with God, acceptable and approved by God.

It would be an attack on the holiness of God, in their view, to say that the worst of sinners is justified and the best of righteous men is not.

And so, he's as good as it gets, but not good enough.

The self-confessed sinner, on the other hand, is as bad as it gets, the most despised of all outcasts, and yet he is the one of whom Jesus said, "He went down justified,” or just, or right, or righteous with God, acceptable and approved by God.

That idea to religious people in the religions of human achievement, that idea to a Jew in the Judaism of that day and particularly that idea to a Pharisee would constitute a kind of outrage.

It would be an attack on the holiness of God, in their view, to say that the worst of sinners is justified and the best of righteous men is not.

And so, he's as good as it gets, but not good enough.

The self-confessed sinner, on the other hand, is as bad as it gets, the most despised of all outcasts, and yet he is the one of whom Jesus said, "He went down justified,” or just, or right, or righteous with God, acceptable and approved by God.

That idea to religious people in the religions of human achievement, that idea to a Jew in the Judaism of that day and particularly that idea to a Pharisee would constitute a kind of outrage.

It would be an attack on the holiness of God, in their view, to say that the worst of sinners is justified and the best of righteous men is not.

And so, he's as good as it gets, but not good enough.

The self-confessed sinner, on the other hand, is as bad as it gets, the most despised of all outcasts, and yet he is the one of whom Jesus said, "He went down justified,” or just, or right, or righteous with God, acceptable and approved by God.

That idea to religious people in the religions of human achievement, that idea to a Jew in the Judaism of that day and particularly that idea to a Pharisee would constitute a kind of outrage.

It would be an attack on the holiness of God, in their view, to say that the worst of sinners is justified and the best of righteous men is not.

The Pharisees were self-righteousness and smug in their delusion that they were pleasing to God because they kept the Law—or parts of it, at least.

As Jesus pointed out to them, however scrupulous they were in following the finer points of ritualism, they failed to measure up to God’s standard of holiness

The Pharisees were self-righteousness and smug in their delusion that they were pleasing to God because they kept the Law—or parts of it, at least.

As Jesus pointed out to them, however scrupulous they were in following the finer points of ritualism, they failed to measure up to God’s standard of holiness

So there is a question that could be brought up, who gets into the kingdom of God and how do they get in?

Who is qualified?

Who is acceptable to God in the kingdom?

Jesus answers that question here and He answers it.

If you just take the word "justified" for a moment, it means to be held as righteous, right.

It means to be declared guiltless, forgiven, acquitted, cleared of all charges.

And that is necessary for someone to enter into God's kingdom.

You have to be acquitted, you have to be forgiven, you have to be cleared, you have to be declared not guilty.

And human religion says you can achieve it on your own, and Scripture says you absolutely cannot.

The issue is simple then.

Again I say either you can or you can't, and if you think you can, whatever the religious label you wear, you're on the wrong side of reality.

If you just take the word "justified" for a moment, it means to be held as righteous, right.

It means to be declared guiltless, forgiven, acquitted, cleared of all charges.

And that is necessary for someone to enter into God's kingdom.

You have to be acquitted, you have to be forgiven, you have to be cleared, you have to be declared not guilty.

And human religion says you can achieve it on your own, and Scripture says you absolutely cannot.

The issue is simple then.

The whole issue starts with an understanding of what God's requirement is.

And if you go back to the book of Leviticus, you hear Him say, "Be holy for I am holy.

Be holy for I am holy.

Be holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy."

And He establishes a standard of absolute holiness.

No one can meet that standard.

Jesus reiterates it in the New Testament, , "Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect."

God's requirement is perfection.

And though the Pharisees were as good as it gets, as good as you can possibly be,  Jesus also said to them in , "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven."

To understand that is to understand the bottom line.

You have to be as good as God, you have to be as holy as God, you have to be as righteous as God.

And either you can achieve that, or you can't.

Scripture's clear that you can't, that you can't.

says, "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified."

You can't do it by keeping God's law.  says that, simply this, "Anyone who tries to come to God by keeping the law will be cursed because you can't do it."

And says, "If you offend in one point, you're guilty of violating all of it."

So there's no way to God by morality, law-keeping, and religious effort.

Verse 10

"Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector"