Sermon # 4 – God have mercy on me, a Pharisee!
Good morning, Calvary. It’s good to be with you. In the words of the apostle Paul, grace to
you and peace from God our Father & the Lord Jesus Christ. Our passage today comes from the gospel Luke
chapter 18 (Luke 18: 9-14). I’ll give
you a couple moments to pull that up; and I’ll read it. We’ll be flipping around in the OT a little
to start out so if you grabbed the sermon notes, the reference will be on there
for you.
He (Jesus) 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 am 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.”
Opening prayer: (breath & relax) Lord, let us seek meekness and let not pride swell in our hearts. As compared to you we are little more than dust beneath Your feet. What little we have in wealth, beauty or intelligence, even these are gifts given from You. Every faculty of mind & body is a part of Your undeserved gift. We are sinners Lord; we’ve at times trampled on your law, been tempted by pleasures, passions and lusts. How can we flaunt ourselves proudly before You? Help us see ourselves through Your eyes, let pride in us wither & die to be replaced by humility and tender care for 1 another, Lord. As rainfall stays not on the hillside but flows down to the lowest valley, make us the lowest vale that the river of your grace, love & spiritual gifts may exceedingly flow through us. If we leave duties undone may our guilt strip us of any pride in ourselves & quicken us toward deeper devotion to you. When we’re tempted to think too highly of ourselves grant us to discern the wiles of our spiritual enemy. Help us stand with an eye toward the Captain of our faith and to cling tightly to our humble Lord, hide us in our Redeemer’s righteousness and let us ascribe all deliverance from sin to Your grace. And all of God’s people said….Amen.
Before we even get into our passage today I’d like
to take a little time with you to look at a few basic ideas that shape how we
study & read the Bible. My hope…my
expectation really is that Sunday is not the only day each week that you are
seeking after God through His Word, and I want to help you do that more
successfully. My
fear is from looking around at the Evangelical landscape today is that
much of Christian theology & thought has been reduced to a series of bumper
stickers, tee-shirts, tweets & slogans like: “Jesus is my co-pilot;” or
“I’m the head & not the tail” or “Christianity is not a religion, it’s a
relationship.” Just so you know
Christianity is actually both a religion & a relationship…but anyway.
Section #2 of your Sermon notes: Discernment 101
There are only a few basic rules to biblical study
but they can give you important guardrails, *hand motion* like on a bridge, to keep you from plummeting over the
side into an error or heresy of some kind. Those 3 rules for biblical interpretation are:
Grammar, the Audience & Context.
The Grammar of a passage– has to do with what is specifically
is being said, the words themselves, and if you don’t
want to bother with 7 years of ancient Hebrew & Greek studies then I’d
simply recommend getting in the habit of going online to a site like Bible
Gateway where for free you can look at a few different translations of whatever
passage you are studying. If you’re
interested there are three translations that I’d personally recommend the New
KJV, the ESV or the NASB. Often just by
looking at how the translators are describing the words, this can give you a
better understanding of a particular passage you are reading. Grammar.The Audience – has to do with to whom the passage is addressed or originally intended. For example, if I wrote a letter to Sandra & in the letter I described how much I loved her & looked forward to spending the rest of my life with her, and you read that letter. I would not be telling you I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you. You would merely be misapplying my words meant for someone else to yourself. The error in that case wouldn’t be with me as the author but with you as the reader. Unfortunately, this happens a lot with people who try applying the OT to themselves as if God wanted you a 21st Century American Christian to go hunt down some Amarites & begin murdering pagans. Grammar & Audience.
The Context – has to do with properly understanding the words around your passage to grasp the passage’s fuller meaning. Much like the golden rule for real estate is “location, location, location;” the golden rule for biblical interpretation is “context, context, and context.” For example if I said the US Constitution provided me with the “right to bear arms” & I took this to mean that I have the right as an American to own the strong, furry arms of a woodland creature (a bear) then I wouldn’t be properly understanding the context around the phrase; right? I mean personally, I wish that the constitution did promise me “Bear Arms”….but alas it doesn’t.
So these are our 3 areas of concern to not merely assume a passage’s point but to actually fully understand it. Our guardrails against error are: Grammar, the Audience & Context. But let’s look at some specific examples of what happens when we don’t apply these 3 simple rules to studying the bible.
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Example # 1 –
So I’ll start with an easy one: I could correctly
state that the Bible says, “Judas hung himself; go and do likewise,” that’s a
direct quote from Mathew 27 & Luke 10. But does the correct application of those 2
passages really teach us that God wants us to go commit suicide? I hope you know it doesn’t; it’s just
stringing 2 different out of context passages together when there subjects
don’t really go together. Now that is
easier to recognize as error when its 2 bad passages that are suggesting
suicide but so often you’ll hear preachers on the radio do the same thing
stringing together 2 nice passages like: if you just obey God’s laws you too can
have an easy, happy, prosperous life, so get to it. Are there several passages of Scripture that
say to obey God? Of course. Are there passages that seem to imply some
people in this life will have happiness & prosperity? Of course. But it’s important to not fall for mere slogans
& easy answers to life’s big questions but to take a critical eye *hand motion from the eye* to the
messages you are hearing not only out in the world but unfortunately today
inside the very churches that claim the name Christian.
It’s been said that Rick Warren has made about a
million $’s or so with his “Christian” diet book called “the Daniel plan” which
he says is loosely based off Daniel chapter 1. What I’d like us to do is flip back to the OT
to Daniel chapter 1 & let’s see if the point of Daniel chapter 1 is about
being a chubby Californian Pastor & how to lose those sinful love handles
or not. For context, Daniel 1 has
to do with the Jews that were taken from their homeland & forced to live in
exile in Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar in around 600 BC. This section specifically talks about Daniel
& the other Jews who did not refuse their new Babylonian names or their new
Babylonian education but did reject the “King’s table” (the diet of the
Babylonians) so the question for us is: was this because Daniel was like super
into yoga & local, organic farm-fresh veganism or because the OT
Mosaic Law required dietary restrictions for the Jews (aka eating Kosher)? Well Leviticus 11 give us a list of clean vs.
unclean animals, fish, birds & bugs that could & couldn’t be eaten by
the Jews. This would spell out the
specific Jewish dietary restrictions placed on Daniel & the other Jews
because they were keeping their faith even in this foreign pagan land. So Daniel is not a health nut, he was Jewish,
but to delve even deeper, what was the result of Daniel’s “Daniel plan diet,”
according to Scripture? Was it miracle
weight loss? Was it 6 pack abs like
Captain America?
Example 3 –
I promise we’ll eventually get to our passage, just
stick with me….so I went to college at a Nazarene University in Olathe (MNU)
& when I was done with the Bachelor’s program they gave me a key chain
& on it said “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you, to
give you a future & a hope…Jeremiah 29:11.” So popular is this passage that my old
church Olathe Christian painted this on the walls of their sanctuary. So let’s flip over to Jeremiah 29 & we’ll
see if this passage is telling us we’re all gonna be rich & successful in
21st century America. The passage itself
tells us it’s God’s Word via the prophet Jeremiah for the Jews in the
Babylonian exile. I’ll read vs. 1 – “These are the words of the letter that
Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem (notice the audience Calvary) to the surviving elders of the exiles, and
to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken
into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.” So right there verse 1 & we already know the
audience for this passage is not for us; it was for the exiled Jews
in about 600 BC. But let’s go ahead
& read the whole context of 29:11 so we can understand why God is
telling them this message that is not meant as prosperity promise to us.
Let’s read vs. 10 -13: “For thus says the LORD: When seventy years
are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill
to you my promise and bring you back from this place. For I know the plans I have for
you (Jews in exile, remember Calvary that’s the audience), declares the LORD, plans for welfare and
not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray
to me, and I will hear you (God’s describing repentance & faith
here). You will seek me and find me,
when you seek me with all your heart. I
will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your
fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have
driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place
from which I sent you into exile.” This verse is a declaration of a Sovereign God
whose promise was that it was God’s just judgment that these Jews went into
exile but that God would not fail to save these Jews’ children & grandchildren
as it would be 70 years before God would bring them home, back out of exile.
Background –
Now as we move back to the NT to our passage at
hand Luke 18 & we’ve got some experience now in understanding of what
aspects biblical interpretation we’re looking for, let me set up the context
for you. Over the last several chapters
of Luke Jesus had several run-ins with the Pharisees & taught several
parables on everything from prosperity in this life vs. salvation in the
afterlife in “the rich man & Lazarus” to Calvinism in the parable of “the
wedding feast.” That brings us up to
Luke 18…
What is a Tax Collector? The Tax Collector (sometimes called a Publican in other versions) was a collector of public taxes. Today, it’s easy to feel sympathy for him due to his humility, his chest pounding *action*, his down cast eyes & cries for mercy. Yet we need to remember who tax collectors were in those days. They were Jews hired by their Roman masters to collect taxes on commission from their own people. Like today, these taxes would be used to fund the empire’s military; the same military that often put Jews in chains & nailed them to crosses. The more these men could squeeze *make a fist* out of their fellow Jews, the richer they became. Symbolically the tax collector is the worst of the cast of characters in the Gospels, one hated & distrusted. In first century Israel, they were probably considered even worse than a prostitute.
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UPWARD – Relationship with God, Sola Fide & the Reformation
First let’s think about how this parable speaks to
our relationship with God. It’s been my
experience that people start coming to church for a million different reasons:
maybe they are looking to get connected with by members of the community, maybe
they are looking for purpose for their life, maybe they are looking for motivation
to clean up their lives. The thing that
I think I love most about this passage is Jesus’ emphasis on the doctrine of Justification
– how is it that we (sinners) can stand “righteous” before a holy & just
God. See you can come to God, to the
Bible or to church with a million problems & issues but Biblically this one
above all is the most important.
Now I can’t prove this by any historical study but personally I am absolutely convinced that there was a very important “Pharisee” in attendance at this message from Jesus. Liberal theologians today often try to pit the messages of Jesus against the messages of Paul as if they taught two completely different gospels. However if you put the words of Jesus from our passage side by side with Paul’s words from Philippians 3, it’s an amazing parallel. Jesus says: He told this some to who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt – that’s an exact picture of Paul in the book of Acts before his conversion. Paul says, if anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the himself, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, I was a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Then Jesus describes the tax collector as a man, humble & seeking mercy from God. Paul reiterates this to the extreme, he says: but whatever gain I had in obedience, I counted as loss, as nothing, for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, trash, dung in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from obedience to the law, but that righteousness which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. Paul, you see, preached the gospel of Jesus–and it was this gospel that saved him & changed his life forever.
You and I, we
come to God as empty, impoverished, desperate beggars. Like us, the tax collector recognizes his
sinful condition and seeks the only thing that can bridge the gap between
himself and God. “Have mercy on me,” he
cries, and we know from the end of the parable that God heard his prayer for
mercy and answered it. Jesus tells us in
verse 14 that the tax collector went away justified (declared righteous)
because he had humbled himself before God, confessing that no amount of works
could save him from his sin and that only God’s mercy could save him. If we are truly broken-hearted over our sin,
we can be assured of God’s boundless love and His forgiveness through Christ; knowing
that no amount of good works, church attendance, tithes, loving our neighbor or
anything else we do is sufficient to take away the blot of sin and enable us to
stand before a holy God on our own. That
is why God sent Jesus to die on the cross. His death is the only “work” that is able to
cleanse us and make us acceptable to God. Our faith needs no other support than this,
that God has accepted us, not because we earned it, but because the God-Man
Jesus Christ has earned Salvation for us.
Inward – The life of the believer, a deepening relationship with God
Now let’s consider how this parable applies to us
inwardly. There are 3 points that Jesus described
in this parable about why God spurned the Pharisee. First, because he trusted (or had faith) in
himself & his own righteousness to save him; he did not call on God for mercy
or grace & therefore received none from Him. That makes the Pharisee as modern today as he
was in 1st Century Israel. Even today there
seems to be an innate belief both in & out of the church that if I’m just a
“good person,” then that should be good enough for God or that if I think I’m
on average or even a little better than the other people I know then I must be
alright with God as well. The problem
with that mindset is it’s exactly the way the Pharisee thinks.
I hope that you are convinced about how serious repentant-faith is not only for unbelievers in conversion but for the whole life of the Christian. To illustrate this just think about the song Amazing Grace – probably the most famous Christian song there is. Amazing Grace, you may know was written by John Newton. Now if you know of John Newton you may know he was once a slaver transporting blacks from West Africa to the New World to work plantations & mines. He later went on to retire from seafaring & began studying Christian theology & eventually became a pastor. Now like Newton, you and & I may wish that we can go from pagan, through conversion & *poof* straight into saintly holiness but that is not how the Christian life is, it’s usually arduous, full of failures, repentance & continued striving toward that goal of becoming more like Christ. You may not know the rest of Newton’s story but even after he was saved he still led at least 3 more slaving expeditions before God convicted him of that area & he gave it up, and up until the time of his marriage on these trips he was still raping various young slave girls before he was led out of that sin as well. And I hate to make that gross & stark but that way we feel today about Newton’s sins - that disgusted feeling, is exactly how God feels about our own sins. We should be a people grieved by our own sin & quick to call on God for mercy & humble enough to repent of our sin & desperate to receive his forgiveness. That’s the quality that Christ honors in the example of the tax collector. The admonishment from the Lord is that Gospel-focus will keep our hearts humble & devoid of pride & unlike the Pharisee who exalts in himself & despises others.
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Outward – being a mask of God to the World
Finally as we turn outward, the Lord leaves us a command & an example. The command is to spread the word about this gospel of grace through repentant-faith to a world ingrained with a mentality toward works-based self-worth & works-based religions. To stand opposed to any world religions that would exalt doing over believing or participating over repenting in salvation. And this could be anything from Islam, to Mormonism, to Buddhism, or even to Catholicism.
And the example is this….Christ, who was more than a just man, a God who dwelt among us mere mortals. This God Man didn’t dwell amongst us in kingly mansions, riding in stately golden chariots, flaunting his wealth & privilege, wrapped in purple like a king. He lived among man content to be a servant, a helper, a friend to sinners. The one who could heal the sick, raise the dead, stop fearsome storms…the greatest, the best among us was humble, patient, lived self-sacrificially, showed mercy, showed love for those that hated him, & prayed for even the worst among him. Is a man like this not worth imitation?
There is some sense in scripture that God often works through imperfect vessels of clay, like you & I, so that when we look at men who went on to do great works for the Kingdom people like Peter, Paul, Martin Luther & John Newton, we don’t end up exalting & worship these men because we clearly see their flaws but at the same time we can see God at work in & through their lives even in the midst of their sins. Like candlelight that spills out of the cracks in a clay vase, Martin Luther would describe the life of a Christian like God wearing a mask. God is at work here, today, but he often works now behind the mask of you and I, he works through sinners like us to care for the church, to serve the needy, to evangelize the nations, to hold close those who’ve lost a loved one. God is at work, here, in the form an evangelist-mask, a neighbor-mask, a praise-team mask, a co-worker mask. What kind of worshiper will you be Calvary: a repentant believer revealing the God of grace to this world showing mercy & peace for one another; or a Pharisee who worships himself in pride & despises others?
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Let’s pray. Closing prayer – Father, to you we pray that our tendencies toward narcissistic pride & self-reliance is ended. Christ, we pray that you grant us thankful hearts & minds that know our own sinful tendencies. Spirit, we pray that you make known to us your Word, and God we thank you for what you’ve done for us in Christ, in grace and in mercy. God for the unbelievers who may be with us today I hope they clearly heard from myself & Your Word that they cannot do anything to merit your mercy but that You can grant faith, repentance, conversion & justification on them. Grant those graces Lord to our friends, our families, our children. Let us see You at work in our day with conversions & discipleship. Let our communities see you at work in us in peace & devotion to one another. Please be with the members this church, we pray that you mature us in the faith & use us to better your church & your kingdom.
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