The Lie You Believe About Morality

I. Introduction

Hey! Thanks for taking time to watch this video. As the title implies, I want to talk about morality, which seems to be a pretty hot topic in our country these days. And I want to address the topic from a Christian perspective—not in a way to beat you over the head with talk about how immoral you are, but instead to address the way we tend to think about morality in our country. Especially the way we tend to think about morality and God.

When you think about someone who lives or did live a moral life—someone who you or society would view as the epitome of morality—who comes to mind? If you lived through the 80’s and 90’s, one name stands out above the rest. He was a man who captured the attention of not only pop-culture, but the entire country, and he was affectionately known as “America’s Dad.”

Early career free of risque or racially charged material

Developed a reputation for his passion for inner-city youth

Provided educational and economic opportunities for at-risk kids

Took time to teach early-childhood reading skills to children

His hit TV show instilled America with a sense of family values and moral uprightness

His personal life, just like his public life, seemed to exhibit the same moral integrity.

Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Football Association’s Gold Medal Award

received an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from twenty-five universities, including schools such as Yale and John Hopkins University.

No one who lived in this man’s era could say they were as moral or as just as Bill Cosby. No one compared to this man. That is, until everything came crashing down around him when sixty women accused him of drugging and assaulting them. What came to light was the fact that his private life wholly contradicted the public persona he had built. He was, in fact, not the morally upright man he wanted people to see.

I have no doubt in my mind that throughout the years, when he was violating the very morality he championed so fervently, he thought to himself, “Of course I’m good. Look at all the good I’ve done. I’m nothing like other men and my legacy proves it.”

No doubt he was convinced that if his transgressions were discovered that his reputation would uphold him before the court of public opinion. But as we now know, the façade of his morality failed.

Today, I want to look at a story from the Bible which talks about morality and what happens when our morality simply isn’t enough.

comes from a letter written by someone named Luke, who investigated the reports he heard about a man named Jesus and then recorded all of the eyewitness testimonies and facts about Jesus he could uncover.

Jesus—as Luke and other Christians claimed—was God.

Enter with me, if you will, into Luke’s world and hear the story Jesus told. Listen as I read.

Luke 18:9–14 NLT

9 Then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else: 10 “Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not like other people—cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! 12 I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’ 13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ 14 I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

II. Body

I. The Pharisee within each of us loves a good comparison

What we see is that Jesus’ story is about two people—a pharisee and a tax collector. And since we don’t have pharisees today, the title doesn’t mean much. So, let me try to paint a picture for you.

What is a Pharisee?

Let’s talk about a man--we’ll give him a personality and call him Doug—who you might call a hypocritical Christian. Doug is the morality police.

He’s the person who walks around with a loftier-than-thou attitude condemning everyone around him for what they say and do.

He attends church four times a week and makes sure everyone knows about it.

Furthermore, Doug harps about the fact that anyone who doesn’t attend church so faithfully is surely going straight to hell—and that probably includes you.

Worse than that, you’re sure that if you happened to show up at Doug’s church one Sunday morning, he’d stand right next to you and make sure you knew you didn’t belong—church was for saints like him, not outsiders like you.

The worst thing about Doug is that even though he always seems to preach about morality, he doesn’t practice what he preaches—that’s why we find him so offensively hypocritical. Doug is a pharisee.

1. We often compare ourselves to easy targets (Luke 18.11b).

When the pharisee in Jesus’ story spoke to God, listen to what he had to say:

“’I thank you, God, that I am not like other people—cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income’”

Luke 18:11–12 NLT

11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not like other people—cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! 12 I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’

Did you catch what he said there? Did you hear it? He essentially said, “God, thank you that I am not like all the evil people around me. I’m simply and obviously so much better.”

In order to justify himself—to make himself sound right and good—this pharisee compared himself to people who he believed were well below him on the moral ladder.

Do you know why we accept his comparison so easily, though?

Not necessarily because he’s right but because inside each of us there is a little pharisee that loves a good comparison.

We do it all the time, often without even thinking about it. We think and say things that project ourselves as:

smarter/wiser

more moral

more athletic,

better looking

stronger/faster

more quick-witted

with higher principles

and as far more worthy than someone else

And here’s the kicker—we always pick an easy target to compare ourselves against.

No one’s walking around going, “boy, that Mother Theresa was quite a dirt bag, huh? Where was she when I dropped off my old shoes at Goodwill?” No, instead we look for the easy target:

the wimp

the seemingly unattractive

the underachiever

the social outcast

the inmate

the bad friend

and the worse enemy

people whose mistakes in life seem bigger than our own. And we do all this so we can feel better about who we are.

2. Our comparisons give us confidence in our own morality (Luke 18.12).

Each of us has developed a moral standard to which we hold ourselves and other people around us. And somehow, coincidentally enough, we always manage to remain above our morality line while those to whom we compare ourselves don’t. Right now, I guarantee there is someone somewhere sitting in a prison going, “yeah, I may have killed a couple of people but at least I didn’t hurt children.”

3. We believe if there is a God, we are certainly moral enough to be accepted by Him

All of us have this intrinsic need to feel better about ourselves, to assure ourselves that we are good and decent and righteous. And when we do this, when we make these comparisons, we become convinced of our own moral superiority. We grow confident that if there really is a God, certainly we have earned His good graces. He’s got to accept us--we’re certainly better than the people around us.

II. When we compare ourselves against God’s perfect standard, we will recognize our deficiency (Luke 18.13).

Speaking of easy targets, let’s consider this tax collector in Jesus’ story. A tax collector in Jesus’ day would have been a Jewish person who signed up to work for the Roman government in order to extract Roman taxes from his kinsmen.

Jewish tax collectors were disliked by the Romans simply because they were Jewish

they were hated by their Jewish brothers and sisters because they were traitors—sellouts, colluders working for the Roman government and bleeding the Israelites dry.

To get a sense of how people felt about tax collectors, let’s see if we can find a contemporary comparison.

Don’t you love getting those random scam calls like three times a day? Sometimes it’s your long-lost nephew who got arrested in Mexico and he just needs $400 to bail out. Other times it’s someone who claims to be a debt collector and the police are on their way to your house if you don’t pay up right now. These stories seem obvious to some people, but in reality this scam industry nets nearly two billion dollars a year by taking advantage of people. And you know who they’re fooling? They’re preying on the infirmed and the disabled—the easy targets among us.

I read an article last year about an older gentleman who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. Sometimes he was lucid and thought clearly, while at other times his disease struck him hard and he had trouble discerning reality. Some of these scam callers identified him as an easy target and he was hit over and over to the tune of thousands of dollars. When he was lucid, however, he would recognize he had been taken advantage of and lament his inability to protect his nest egg. Eventually, after having been repeatedly targeted in his diseased state, he gave into his depression and ended his life for fear that he would lose everything his family had. These scammers took not only his money but his livelihood and eventually his life. Often, we think of people like these scam callers and we say they deserve every bit of the hell they have coming to them.

Tax collectors in Jesus’ day didn’t take advantage of strangers, but instead took advantage of their own people in order to get rich. And their people hated them for it. They were despised, rejected even by their own families because of their collusion to bleed their neighbors dry.

And when this particular tax collector entered the temple, no one would have thought he belonged there. Consider what Jesus says about Him,

Luke 18:13 ESV

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!’

1. We must acknowledge who God is

Although the pharisee entered straight into the temple, the tax collector stood far off.

Whereas the pharisee lifted his voice and spoke lofty things about himself, this tax collector wouldn’t even look up in God’s direction as he cried out.

Why was this man so dejected? Why, when he came to this temple, did he come with such despair? Firstly, because he knew who God is. Let me tell you who God is—what this tax collector knew to be true.

God is a creator—the creator of the universe. Everything we see, smell, hear and touch in the natural world was created by God. From the smallest cell in your body to the largest exoplanet NASA has yet found—everything in creation was designed and created by God. Nothing that exists, exists apart from God’s creative hand.

And the pinnacle of that creation is you and me. God created humanity unique among the rest of creation. He designed us to live in a special relationship with Him. If you’ve ever wondered why you were created, know this—you were created, you were designed to commune with God.

God is also the King and Judge who alone has total authority to declare what is right, what is wrong, and how His creation should function.

God alone has the right to determine what is moral and what is not.

He alone has authority to set the standards for humanity, to decide the rules by which we should live,

to dictate the terms of how we should live in relationship with Him.

He alone has the authority to judge the actions, attitudes, and morals of people. God is a passionate Creator, a loving King, and a just Judge.

2. We must acknowledge who we are

The second reason this tax collector was in such despair was because he knew who he was. Listen to what he says when he prays:

“‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’” (Luke 18.13b).

The tax collector calls himself a sinner—a Christian term which often gets lost in translation. We often think of a sinner as someone who is inherently evil—most sinners are locked up in jail, right? They’re the ones who we rightly compare ourselves against because they fail to maintain even the loosest moral code.

Such a definition, however, gives us the wrong idea. The word sin isn’t so much a moralistic term but it has to do with relationship.

Although God created us to live in relationship with Him, we have all rejected God and rebelled against His authority over us. That rejection and rebellion made this tax collector a sinner, and it also makes you and I sinners.

We have violated the very relationship we were created for and have rebelled against the King of creation. That is sin and that is why each of us, all of us, are sinners, and we desperately need God’s mercy.

III. Your morality will never merit God’s mercy.

This tax collector recognized the very thing you and I need to come to terms with:

BIG IDEA: Our morality can never earn God’s mercy.

We can think ourselves to be moral people, but such lofty thoughts can never make us right with God. You can continue to compare yourself against the worst person you can find, but the reality is such a thing only makes you feel good; it has no actual standing with God.

What you really need, what your soul longs for, is forgiveness from the one who holds your very life in His hands.

1. Your sin separates you from God

Apart from God we are all in a desperate situation. The Bible tells us that the penalty for our sin—for rejecting God—is death (Rom. 6.23).

Though our life here and now might last seventy or eighty years, the reality is we are all bound for eternity. We will either experience eternal life as a citizen of God’s kingdom, having been restored in our relationship to Him, or we will experience eternal death and spend all of eternity separated from God, eternally suffering apart from Him.

Such is the consequence, the legal demand made against us for having rejected God.

Remember, I said God is also a judge and we all stand in God’s courtroom, on trial for having rebelled against Him, awaiting His verdict.

Will we receive a sentence of death, or will we receive God’s mercy and be declared justified—not guilty—and be given eternal life?

2. Jesus is God’s mercy for the humble

This is where the Christian Gospel comes in. The good news is that God has made it possible for you and I to be justified, to be restored in our relationship to Him.

If you will throw yourself upon God’s mercy instead of relying on your own self-righteousness, God is ready to forgive you and declare you not guilty!

The Bible tells us that God stepped down from heaven and for a short time became a man—a man named Jesus. And this is what the Bible says about Him, that:

“God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Rom. 5.8).

You see, someone has to be punished for sin. Someone has to be held accountable. Someone has to be sentenced to die.

That someone, those someones, should be you and I.

BUT! God shows His great mercy by sending Jesus to come and take on that punishment for you and I.

3. We must respond by repenting of our sin and submitting to Jesus as Lord

Our acquittal in God’s courtroom starts by adopting the attitude of this tax collector.

We must admit that we are sinners—that we have rejected God—and we must repent,

which is to heartfeltly ask God to forgive us for our sins.

The Bible again tells us that:

“If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10.9).

You see, although Jesus died in order to absorb the punishment of our sin, He proved that He was God by raising to life—something testified to by Luke and so many others who were eye witnesses of Jesus’ life and death.

If you will admit your sin and place your faith in Jesus as God—the one who died in your place to save you from your sin—the Bible tells us that God will forgive you, restore your relationship with Him, and invite you to live eternally as a citizen of His kingdom.

This is what Jesus declared when he told the crowd in Luke 18:

Luke 18:14 NLT

14 I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

You see, the pharisee believed the lie that His morality earned God’s favor—that He could live a good enough life that God would accept Him. In doing so, he showed yet again that he had rejected God.

For by trusting in his own self-righteousness he made himself out to be his own god.

The tax collector, this sinner, on the other hand, recognized that there was nothing within himself that could restore the immeasurable offense he committed by rejecting God.

Therefore, he threw himself at the feet of God, pleading for mercy, and he found it.

III. Conclusion

Today, I want to ask you a question—have you believed the morality lie? As we have talked today, have you felt your heart stirring, recognizing that you have been living a lie?

I’m here to tell you that God is beckoning you to acknowledge Him, to turn to Him and ask for forgiveness. You’ve been living a God-sized lie and you need a God-sized truth to combat it.

Jesus—God who came to earth to take on your punishment—died so that you might live and raised from the dead to restore you to God so you might spend eternity with Him. There is nothing you did or can do to earn such a gift; it is freely given to those who ask God for His forgiveness and who turn to live in a restored relationship with Him.

I want to take a moment to pray and if you’ve been feeling this stirring in you, I would like to invite you to pray with me. I’ll ask everyone to bow your heads and if you’ve felt compelled, pray silently with me. Let’s pray.

PRAYER

God, I recognize that I have lived my life rejecting you. I have rejected who you are, your authority, and your rightful place as King. I have rebelled against you, believing in my own morality to guide me, and I now see that I have lived a lie. I am a sinner and I need a great Savior because I cannot earn your mercy. I recognize that Jesus came and lived, he died, and he raised to life in order to take on the punishment that I deserve. I ask that you would forgive me for rejecting you—for rejecting Jesus as King, as God—and turn my heart from unbelief to belief. Restore me to you. I ask that, because of what Jesus did, that you would forgive me for my sins. Save me as you did the tax collector in this story. I pray these things in the name of Jesus, Amen.

If you were stirred today, I would love to talk with you. If you prayed that prayer with me, I’d love to talk with you. If you wanted to pray with me but you just weren’t sure, I want to talk with you. Don’t go away with unanswered questions. Even more so, don’t go away having experienced the relief of no longer living a lie but having placed your trust in Jesus to receive God’s mercy without talking. I want to answer your questions and hear your amazing story. Thank you for giving me time to speak with you, and I hope our time was as remarkable for you as it has been for me. God bless.