Self-Righteousness and True Justification: The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector Luke 18:9-14

Last week, as we worked through our series on Jesus’ parables, we talked about the doctrine of Hell. If you look at surveys or ask someone on the street if they thought they were going to go to heaven or hell, almost every person would say "Heaven.” And if you were to follow up with why they believed that, they would say something to the effect of “I’m a good person.” Or, at the very least, “I am not as bad as that other person.”

You will hear people try to justify their way of life by saying they are just trying their best, or being true to themselves and if you question their life, you are immediately answered with “Well who are you to judge anyway?”

The underlying belief that currently face in our culture is the same belief of every other major world religion.Other than Christianity, every faith and philosophy or way of life that teaches you are able to live in such a way that you are able to be good enough to be accepted by God or some higher power so that you can be blessed or enter heaven whatever that might look like.

Especially in our Bible-belt culture, we live in a world where people believe they can live a good enough life to justify themselves before God. In other words, they can be a good enough person with a little bit of Jesus on the side to get God to love and accept them in their own power.

First Moralistic, it simply means that you should try to be a good person.

The problem with this is that the good is vaguely defined.

In a culture of relativism, that says no truth is greater than any other truth, the good usually defaults to whatever seems right to you as long as it meets the Therapeutic standard.

By Therapeutic I mean doing whatever feels good.

So the morality of the individual is determined by whatever seems right to them as long as it feels right to them.

You will hear things like people need to be true to themselves, or who are you to judge how someone else is trying to live their life.

According to their worldview only one being can judge them and that is a god or being or force who is barely interested in them in the first place.

Finally, there is the element of Deism.

Deism is a belief that there is a God or higher being or force out there , but it is ultimately disconnected from the created world. absent from working in his creation. So our culture believes that as long as you try to be the best person you can be by doing whatever feels right to you, then God, however he or she or it exists will accept you in the end.

Basically, God is not that involved in your life and as long as you aren’t as bad as Hitler then you are a good enough person and will be blessed or rewarded in some way whether through karma, reincarnation, or whatever.

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is nothing new. In fact, it teach the same basic philosophy of every major world religion because all religions outside of Christianity teach some form of self-justification. In other words, that you can earn acceptance from God or some higher being or force through human accomplishment.

The big idea is that outside of the gospel, every religion or philosophy says that you and I can do enough in our life to be a good enough, or righteous enough, person that deserves to be accepted by God.

This idea has even infiltrated the Christian Church especially amongst Millenials who say that as long as your faith or worldview is vaguely connected to Jesus in someway, regardless of what the Bible says, then it is good enough to pass as Christianity. Who are we to judge.

During his time on the earth, Jesus constantly warred against the idea that you and I can do enough good works in order to make ourselves acceptable enough to be loved by God.

Have you ever wondered why some of the things Jesus says don’t really sound like grace? For example, in :16 a man comes to Jesus and asks, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” and Jesus replies, “If you would enter life, keep the commandments.”

“Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?

Or consider :25 where a lawyer comes to Jesus and asks, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” and Jesus responds, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Why does Jesus not share the gospel with these men? Why does he just give them the Law? Because the law is what they needed to hear. In both cases, these men had no idea how lost they actually were. They believed they could still earn God’s acceptance, the could still earn eternal life, through their religious good works.

“Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

That they could do enough to get God to love and accept them.

The underlying belief that currently face in our culture is the same belief of every other major world religion. Other than Christianity, every faith and philosophy or way of life that teaches you are able to live in such a way that you are able to be good enough to be accepted by God or some higher power so that you can be blessed or enter heaven whatever that might look like.

We deal with this same temptation in our Bible-belt culture. We live in a world where people believe they can live a good enough life to justify themselves before God. They don’t need to give their whole life to Jesus. They just need a little bit of Jesus on the side and they can take care of the rest to to get God to love and accept them in their own power.

What these two men and many people in our city struggle with is self-righteousness.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

The gospel has nothing to say to the self-righteous person. A person that looks at their life and say, “You know what? I’m a pretty good person of course God would love me and save me. I’m not bad of a person.” Someone that looks at their own self-righteousness as the basis for why God will save them has no concept of their need for grace and because of this they are deaf to the good news the gospel proclaims.

Jesus knew that you and I could never do enough to justify ourselves before God and as we look at the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Jesus is going to show us the difference between trying to earn salvation by Human Accomplishment, and being given salvation by God’s Grace.

Human Accomplishment vs. God’s Grace

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt:

Here Jesus is teaching a large group of people about the kingdom of God. In this group are some of his followers, curious onlookers, and some Pharisees.

And the Bible tells us that Jesus tells this parable specifically to people who were trusting in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt.

Jesus is telling this story for the benefit of self-righteous people.

Righteous here means holy, or living a life that reflects God’s own character and will

Jesus is telling this story for the benefit of self-righteous people.

So Jesus is telling this story to people who believe that in themselves, or in their own ability and works, they have made themselves acceptable to God despite their sin.

Righteous here means holy, or living a life that reflects God’s own character and will

The second thing at play here is that the way these people’s self-righteousness manifests itself in their life is by how they treat others.

So Jesus is telling this story to people who believe that in themselves, or in their own ability and works, they have made themselves acceptable to God despite their sin.

The second thing at play here is that the way these people’s self-righteousness manifests itself in their life is by how they treat others.

By treating other people with contempt, these self-righteous people are truly just living out what they believe. That they are better than other people.

They look down other other people and silently, or even not so silently, judge others thinking to themselves, “Can you believe they struggle with that? How pathetic are they?” I am so glad I’m not like that person. I’m so glad tat I’m holy.

And this is such an important parable for us in our day because even now, every one of us is tempted toward self-righteousness. Every single one of us is tempted to believe that our own works are the basis for why God loves us.

Well that’s not me! I mean, I know the gospel, I know that I can’t make myself right with God.

But what is so insidious about self righteousness is that it blinds us to three things.

It makes us believe that we don’t really need God’s grace. and because we don’t really need God’s grace, we don’t really see that what God did for us in Jesus Christ is worthy of all our worship.

Another way that self-righteousness insidiously gets into our life is that we don’t see our sin as big of a deal as it is. That we start allowing sin to fester in our life instead of putting it to death like the Bible says.

Finally self righteousness can be so insidious in us because we can treat other people with contempt. We can say to ourselves, “Man, can you believe their marriage, their parenting or their finances? I am so glad I’m not like that person.” And this causes us to not love one another.

The Big Idea is that self righteousness is detrimental to your Christian faith because it prevents us from loving God and loving other people.

And Jesus shows us this dichotomy between trying to earn salvation through human accomplishment and being given salvation by God’s grace by telling a tale of two prayers.

A Tale of Two Prayers

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

9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt:

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

Now to understand the full weight of this story, you need to understand the two characters in play.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

First, we have a Pharisee.

Pharisees were religious leaders in Jesus’ day who rose up between the Old and New Testament. They banded together because they were profoundly concerned with worshiping God and obeying his law.

But, eventually they became so enamored with their desire to be righteous, that they began to have confidence in their own obedience to the Law. They even added principles to the Law in order to make sure they obeyed God in every single area.

But here’s the thing about the Law. Paul tells us in that the Law was meant to act like a mirror. When someone looks at God’s perfect law it was supposed to show them just how holy God was compared to our own unholiness.

In other words, the law was given to help us see how we are not capable of keeping the law and in doing so drive us to Jesus for grace.

However, the Pharisees looked in the mirror of God’s law and saw their own righteousness. They saw only their own moral achievement instead of their profound need of God’s grace.

And this is why they constantly clash with Jesus because he doesn’t fit in their self-righteous box and instead continues to eat and minister to sinners who knew that they had no right to be in relationship with God but were given grace anyway like the Tax Collector in the story.

The Tax Collector

Tax collectors were absolutely despised by the Jews. They were considered traitors.

You see, the Jews longed to be a Sovereign nation once again. In fact, this is what they were looking for in the Messiah. Not someone to come and save them from the bondage of their sin, but someone that would come an free them from their political oppressors and establish God’s Kingdom on the earth.

And in Jesus’ day, Israel was ruled by the Roman Empire. And to fund their Empire, Rome used tax collectors from whatever region or province they were collecting taxes from.

This means that some Jews actually partnered with the Roman government in order to take money from their fellow Jews. And if that weren’t enough, Rome would have a quota that would need to be collected, but if the tax collector was able to collect additional money, then it went straight to their own pocket.

Because of this, tax collectors were the lowest of the low. They were the most hated people in the nation.

Contrasting the Characters

When we understand the stark contrast between these two characters, we will be able to see the weight of what Jesus is trying to say in a few moments.

The Pharisees were seen as the most godly men in society. They were universally respected and lifted up among people. If anybody was loved by God it was the pharisee.

The tax collector on the other hand was the lowest of the low. They were the most hated people group in the nation. In the eyes of the society around them, they were the furthest from God you could possibly get.

And it is in this cultural context that Jesus tells us the prayers of these two men.

The Prayer of the Pharisee

11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.”

11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’

Going to the temple to presumably worship God, we are told the Pharisee stands off by himself.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Standing was a normal posture for Prayer in Jesus day. Typically, Men would stand with their eyes and hands lifted toward heaven when praying as a posture that signified both praise and a need of God’s grace.

However, Jesus is clear that this Pharisee stood by himself. He chose to stand in a way that would cause him to stand out to everyone else who was their to worship.

Jesus mentioned this in when he said, And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others.

This pharisee really wasn’t that interested in worshiping God but rather receiving worship from other people.

5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others.

No doubt the Pharisee was standing as close as he could to the Holy of Holies because in his mind, that is where he belonged.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

He had turned something that was meant to show a worshipful posture to one that promoted his own pride.

Then we come to the Pharisee’s prayer.

All the sins the Pharisee mentions are those commonly associated with tax collectors.

They stole through extortion,

they were unjust because they cheated their neighbors in order to pocket the wealth

and the were adulterers because they commonly associated with harlots and prostitutes because these were the only other people that were as much of an outcast of societyas they were

If that’s not enough, the Pharisee explicitly names the tax collector in his prayer.

Remember the context. Tax collectors were viewed as the people who were furthest from God. What the Pharisee is essentially praying is, “God, thank you that I’m not a sinner that is far from you.”

That’s not a bad prayer in itself. We should be grateful that God gives us the grace to walk in obedience to him, but that’s the thing, it is only by God’s grace.

We do not walk in sin, not because we are so good and so righteous in ourselves, but because of God’s powerful work within us.

In addition to praying, “God thank you that I’m not some lowly sinner,” the Pharisee closes his prayer saying, “12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.”

12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’

The law only required one fast annually in preparation for the day of Atonement. The Pharisee says he isn’t just fasting once a year, but twice a week.

He also notes how he give tithes of all he gets. Jesus talked about how Pharisees were so stringent that they tithed to the Lord out of their spice racks ().

What the Pharisee was saying was that he deserved to be loved by God. It wasn’t that he thought he was sinless or perfect. He just believed that he had earned the right to be forgiven because of all his righteous works.

So the Pharisee’s prayer basically says, “God thank you that I’m not really that much of a sinner and also you should forgive me because of all the good things I do.” And Jesus moves from this prayer to the prayer of the tax collector.

The Prayer of the Tax Collector

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!”

13 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!’

Notice again the contrast between these two. Where the Pharisee stood to pray where he knew everyone would notice him, Jesus says that the Tax Collector stands far off.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

He stayed on the outer edge of the temple, far away from the Holy of Holies because he knew that he didn’t belong there. He didn’t deserve to be near God or with his people because of his sin.

What’s more, he wouldn’t even lift up his eyes because of his great shame but he just beats his breast and prays, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

In fact, in the Greek, the prayer of the Tax Collector is stronger. The tax collector uses a definite article to describe himself so its as if he is saying, God, be merciful to me THE sinner.”

In contrast to the Pharisee who touted his good works and self-righteousness, the Tax Collector goes before the Lord and says, “God, I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I steal, I cheat others and it feels like all I do is sin against others and you. I am a sinner deserving of your wrath, but will you please merciful to me.”

And Jesus is very particular about the word he chooses for “be merciful to me.”

Jesus uses a word that is not a general plea for leniency. It is not as if the Tax Collector is asking God, “please show me forbearance.”

Instead, Jesus uses a word that means “be propitious to me.” In other words, "make satisfaction for your wrath so that you can forgive me.”

He knew that he could never atone for his own sin, and so the tax collector is asking God to make atonement for him. He wasn’t asking God to overlook his sin or ignore it. But this sinner, who was seen in his culture as the furthest from God you could possibly get, was begging God to make whatever satisfaction would be required to forgive him of his sin.

And this is where we finally see the difference between self-righteousness and true justification.

Self-Righteousness and True Justification

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.

14 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.”

In what would’ve been shocking to his audience, Jesus says that the Tax Collector, this sinful man who everyone in Jesus’ day assumed was hated by God, when back home from this prayer justified. This man who was far off was brought near to God by his grace.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Even more shocking, talking about the pharisee Jesus says, “rather than the other.” He was explicitly saying that the Pharisee was actually the one who went home that day from the temple far from God and unsaved because self-righteousness can never atone for sin, but only true justification which comes from God.

So what is justification? What does it mean?

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

The first thing we see in this verse is that every single one of us has sinned against God.

Sin is anything we do that is not exclusively for the glory of God. It can ben doing an action that God says we shouldn’t like lying or stealing, or it could be not doing something that God has told us to like loving and serving others or being on guard against false teaching.

The Big Idea is that sin is disobedience of God.

And because we have sinned, we, like the tax collector are far off from God. The Bible says that in our sin we are not moral neutrals to God, we are his active enemies hating and despising him.

This is why Jesus’ statement that the Tax Collector is the one that goes home justified is so shocking. Because the Pharisees and Jesus’ followers knew the Bible. They knew said

The Lord is a jealous and avenging God;

the Lord is avenging and wrathful;

the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries

and keeps wrath for his enemies.

3 The Lord is slow to anger and great in power,

and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty

If that is true, this poses and extreme problem for us. If God says that he will by no means clear the guilty, what hope does any sinner have to be justified and made right with him because we are all guilty before him.

5 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

How God clears the guilty is through the propitiation of Jesus’ blood. God clears the guilty through his grace as a gift given by faith.

When we are justified by God’s grace as a gift, this means that we are declared righteous be God’s work, not ours.

Justified is a legal term.

It is more powerful then what we typically think justification. Normally people talk about justification as if it simply means forgiven of your sin.

But the way Paul and Jesus used it was not to say simply that you and I are forgiven of sin, death and resurrection of Christ, but that we are actually declared innocent from every sin we have ever done.

This is why God’s grace is so amazing. He doesn’t just overlook our sins or sweep them under the rug. Rather He himself pays for our sin in the blood of Christ as our propitiation.

What is that word?

This word is important for us today because in the Greek, it is directly related to the same word the Tax Collector used to say “Be merciful to me.”

Propitiation is a doctrine that says you and I had wrath against us because of our sin and God removes that wrath from us because he takes his wrath that he had against us and poured out his wrath on Christ on the cross as our substitute for our sin.

Remember we said that when he prayed that, he was asking God to make atonement some way to pay for all his sins, and here Paul tells us that the way God made atonement was in the blood of Christ that we receive by faith.

On the cross, God poured out all of his wrath against you as his enemy onto his Son Jesus Christ.

But thats not all God does. When Jesus died on the cross, he takes all of our guilt and shame and removes the punishment of God’s wrath that is waiting for us, but when we put our faith in him, we are also given Christ’s righteousness as our own.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

This verse teaches us about the doctrine of imputation.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Yes, we needed to have our sin paid for in Christ, but God also requires perfect righteousness from every human being. That is why Jesus was born and lived a sinless life under the law.

Martin Luther called this the Great Exchange. Basically, in the same way that God transferred your sin to Christ on the cross when he poured his wrath out on him, God transferred Christ’s sinless life to you.

So when God sees you, he doesn’t see a sinner, he deals with you and loves you as a son or daughter who has lived a life of perfect obedience because Christ lived a life of perfect obedience for you.

Some Christians live a life where they think God is always disappointed with them or that God hates them. The functionally believe that when God saved them in Christ he made them square. He brought them back to zero from negative infinity and said, “Ok. You better do better this time or I’ll get you!”

But that’s not what Justification by faith alone teaches. The Bible shows us that God didn’t just bring us back to zero, but that he actually declares you to be perfectly righteous in Christ!

This is why our self-righteous works can never save us and they didn’t save the pharisee in Jesus’ story. Our self righteous works can never measure up to God’s perfect righteousness.

However, when we put our faith in Jesus and his sacrificial death and resurrection, we, like the tax collector, are declared to be justified, or made right with God, because of his grace.

There are many Christians in the church today who believe in order to be saved, in order to be justified, you must have faith and grace and Christ, but that you need to add something else. They will believe they must have faith plus works. Grace plus merit. In other words, I must have Christ plus my own righteousness.

the Lord is avenging and wrathful;

the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries

But what Jesus shows us in this parable is that in one, perfect gracious moment, the most extreme sinner in the Tax Collector was pronounced instantly righteous without performing a single work, without doing anything of merit, without bringing any righteousness of his own to the table because he rested on the grace of God alone for his justification.

and keeps wrath for his enemies.

3 The Lord is slow to anger and great in power,

This is why Jesus closes his parable saying For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

He is trying to show us that if we exalt ourselves in our own righteousness, we will be humbled because our righteous works are like filthy rags to the Lord. In contrast, if we humble ourselves and beg God for grace in Christ, he will freely give it and raise us up on the last day to live with him for eternity in his holy presence.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Na 1:2–3.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

The Big idea of this story, what Jesus is trying to say, you could never do enough to be loved and accepted by God. We were so sinful and so disobedient that we had a debt that we could never pay. We could obey him perfectly for a thousand years and it would not be enough to cancel out even one of our sins.

But God gives grace to sinners. God sent his son to live a perfect sinless life to die on the cross and rise again three days later so that when we put our faith in Jesus you and I are forgiven of all our sins and actually declared to be righteous. Where God says, there is no wrath for you because Christ walked in perfect obedience for you. You are holy, and because of Jesus I love you.

That Is God’s message for you today. That God loves you because of Jesus.

Application

1. Receive Justification by Faith over Works

For those that have not put your faith in Christ, you must see how you can never be good enough or do enough to make you acceptable to God.

God will only love and forgive you on the basis of Christ and Christ alone.

The danger you face today if you continue to trust in your good works is to go home from this place just like the Pharisee trusting in your own self righteousness thinking it will be enough to save you.

Let today be the day you repent of you sin and your self righteousness and pray, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

2. Guard Against Self-Righteousness

This is a trap all Christians can fall into. We can be tempted to believe, “Well I’m saved now so I don’t have to deal with self-righteousness right?”

No we need to be constantly on guard against self-righteousness. This is a fatal trap that most Christians fall into. Remember we talked earlier how falling into self-righteousness can lead to a few big errors in the Christian life.

We don’t worship God as we should because we don’t really see a need for his grace

We minimize sin in our life and we don’t see it as big of a deal as it really is and we just let sin linger in our life instead of putting it to death

It can cause us to have contempt for other people.

So how do we grow to guard against self-righteousness.

How can we guard against self-righteousness because it is not something that can only blind us from seeing the gospel in our justification. It can also blind us from seeing the gospel in our sanctification as we grow to be more like Christ.

Confession and Repentance

Luther said that all of a Christian’s life is to be one of repentance.

Repentance is a change in mind that leads to a change in life. In other words, it is where we agree with God that sin is sin (that’s confession) and we turn from our sinful ways by God’s grace and walk in obedience.

Self-Righteousness makes us proud and we stop seeing sin for what it is in our life. We begin to see sin as an acceptable behavior instead of something that God commanded us to put to death by the power of his Spirit.

Self-righteousness prevents us from seeing that and self-righteous people don’t believe they need forgiveness, don’t believe they need grace and that is why we must continually confess and repent of sin.

What does that look like? I’m not unaware that many Christians have never been taught what it means to confess and repent of sin so let me give you a brief overview of what that means.

Conviction - Holy Spirit convicts your heart and shows you how you are not living in step with the gospel

Confession - You pray to God and agree with him that you are in sin and that you are his son or daughter and that sin has no place in your life. You also ask for his grace and his power to help you put this sin to death by the Spirit.

Repentance - The heart of repentance is changing your mind about who god is in your life. Anytime we sin, we are worshiping someone or something other than God and saying that sin is more valuable to us than God. Repentance means a complete change in heart where we say I don’t want that sin as much as I want to worship the Lord. God will you help me to worship you.” We turn from our sin and false worship to once again worship God.

Walk in the Spirit - You turn your life 180 degrees from that sin. This means you take whatever measures necessary to put that sin to death.

I think the problem with most Christians is that they just assume sin and death will just magically disappear from their life. That you just wake up one day and that sin or temptation is gone.

They don’t see the need for discipline and our responsibility to participate with the Spirit to put that sin to death.

So what I’m talking about hear is to listen to the Spirit’s conviction, trust that he wants to give you life in repentance and then make every effort to be obedient to him in whatever capacity you can.

That might mean you have to confess to people you have sinned against.

You might need to make restitution by paying somebody back that you defrauded.

You might need to change your daily habits to guard against drunkenness or gluttony

You might need to lock your technology down with parental controls

That doesn’t sound very Spiritual. But the Holy Spirit uses practical means and practical disciplines in our life to put sin to death in us.

Walking by the Spirit isn’t an emotional feeling or doing miracles. Biblically walking my the Spirit is more about practical obedience.

Walking by the Spirit is listening to the Spirit when he convicts us of sin or warns us of temptation and respond to that conviction by saying, “God will you help me put this sin to death in my life? God I want to do this sin and even in praying to you to help me resist this temptation I really just want you to give me my sin and forgive me after the fact. I want to worship you more than my sin, will you please give me that heart.”

And that is how we walk in repentance. Every time we are tempted with sin to pray to God and ask him to help us walk in obedience by his power.

Show Grace to Others

One of the reasons Jesus told this parable was because some people treated others with contempt. Self-righteousness can make us believe we are better than other people.

If you want a really good heart test if you are self-righteous you need to ask yourself,”Do you constantly judge others or compare yourself to other people?”

When we truly see that we are saved by grace alone, that we contributed nothing to our salvation, we are able to love others and show them the same grace that God showed us.

Instead of judging others and treating them with contempt as “lowly sinners,” would it not be better to come alongside them in order to love and disciple them? To constantly reminding them of the very grace that has so radically changed our own lives so that they too may grow in salvation in Jesus Christ?

Forgiving other people. Self righteous people don’t understand the full weight of the grace that God has given them and because of that they refuse the give grace to others.

Listen, we are going to sin against one another. Are you going to be so proud that you just right off that person or that relationship and say to yourself, “Who needed them anyway?

Forgiven people forgive. May we be a church that puts the grace of God on display as we forgive one another.

Conclusion

The parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector is such a beautiful story because it shows us is the true gospel. All any sinner can possibly do to be made right with God is to trust in his atonement for sin given as a gift in Christ. Human accomplishment can never earn what only God’s grace can give.

The one who told this story is the very one who made this grace possible. Jesus Christ. And there is salvation in no other name.

Let’s pray.

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