Sermon for Trinity 11

1 Corinthians 15:1-10  +  Luke 18:9-14

Take a moment this morning and consider the priorities in your life. That’s helpful to do, once in a while, because your priorities will determine your decisions and your behavior. The word, priority, by the way, comes from a Latin word that means “to come first, to come before other things.” You could make a list of the things in your life that come before other things. The fact that you’re here today (or watching the service today) would suggest that hearing God’s Word is a priority for you. It obviously came before any of the other things you could be doing at the moment. Surely your family’s happiness and wellbeing is a priority. Hopefully your health makes the list. And serving your neighbor in love, that should be a priority for you, as a Christian. I’m sure you could come up with other things. But what’s at the top of the list? What’s your top priority in life? And a different question, which may or may not have the same answer, what should be your top priority? Well, if there is a God, and if He takes any interest at all in human affairs—and it’s obvious to any thinking person that there is and that He does—then the top priority has to be being right with God; to have His favor, both for this life and for the next. It’s more important than family. More important than health or wealth. More important than life itself.

Now, if it’s true that being right with God should be the top priority, then the most important thing to know is how a person can be right with God. And there are two basic answers to that question, illustrated for us today by Jesus in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. How can you have God’s favor? We have the Pharisee’s answer: “Be a good person! Be right with God by doing the right things and avoiding the wrong things!” And we have the tax collector’s answer: “Flee in faith to God’s throne of grace! Be righteous before God by faith in His promised mercy!” You already know which answer is the right answer. But you still need to hear it again from Jesus’ lips, because the Pharisee’s answer—the wrong answer—is the one that your natural heart always wants to go back to.

If even you Christians need to hear Jesus’ answer again, and again and again, then the unbelieving Pharisees certainly needed to hear it. Luke tells us that Jesus told the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector to certain people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. That describes very many people in today’s world, too, people who think very highly of themselves, because they think they’ve done some very good things, things that, if there is a God, will certainly put them in good standing with Him.

The Pharisees knew there was a God. They knew many things about Him, true things, the things He had revealed about Himself in the creation as well as the things He had revealed about Himself in the Old Testament Scriptures. They knew His commandments; they knew His Law. One thing they didn’t know—because they passed right over it whenever they came across it in God’s Law—was that God’s Law demands, not only outward obedience, but perfect love for God first, and then for our neighbor, love that comes from the heart and shows itself with the hands and with good deeds. Sins of the heart and a lack of love in the heart are just as damning before God as any evil deed of the hand. The other thing they didn’t know—again, because they passed over it in the Old Testament Scriptures—was that none of their good deeds could erase, or make up for, any of their bad deeds.

And so we have this Pharisee in Jesus’ parable, a man well-respected and honored in the Jewish community, who went up to the Temple in Jerusalem to pray. How would we describe him, based on his behavior in the parable? He’s smug. Proud. Full of himself. And he’s so confident that he’s right with God already, because of how many good things he’s done, that he has no word of praise or thanks for what God has given him, no word of confession, not even a word of supplication, seeking God’s merciful help with anything. On the contrary, we see only a self-congratulatory “thank you” that I am not like other men—extortioners, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

Now, he’s an extreme version of a self-righteous person, apparently admitting no flaws in himself whatsoever. There are less extreme versions out there that fall into the same category. There are people who will admit that they aren’t perfect. In fact, they see the very act of admitting they aren’t perfect as one of their praiseworthy virtues! But ask them if they consider themselves good people, and most will answer, yes. Most will point to something good they’ve done, some deed of kindness or obedience, or at least how hard they try to be good. If nothing else, some will hope that, no matter how many bad things they’ve done, God may yet accept them because of some really bright, shiny moment of goodness.

This is how the world sees things. This is how all the religions of the world (except for Christianity) teach people to gain God’s favor, by doing good, by being honorable, by showing “love.” This is how people normally comfort themselves when a loved one dies. “He or she was such a good person. He must be in heaven. She must be with God.”

On the other hand, there’s the tax collector of Jesus’ parable, respected by no one, referred to as a “good person” by no one, including himself. His career was synonymous with extortion and thuggery, not to mention the regular betrayal of their countrymen in service to the Romans. How would we describe him, based on his behavior in Jesus’ parable? The tax collector, standing at a distance, would not so much as lift up his eyes toward heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner.’ He’s humble. Contrite. Sorrowful over his sins. He knows he doesn’t deserve even to look up toward heaven. He offers God no list of accomplishments, no excuses. Instead, he seeks something from God. He seeks God’s mercy. And he uses a special word for mercy in Greek. “Be favorable to me! Be propitious to me! Be merciful! Be gracious!”

Now, that word is related to the Temple itself. Within the innermost part of the first Temple—Solomon’s Temple—was the ark of the covenant, and the lid of it was called in Greek the Propitiation Place, or the Mercy Seat, or the Throne of Grace. It’s where the blood of atonement was sprinkled once a year by the high priest. It’s where God promised that He would be present with His people and would be gracious toward His people who sought Him there, because of the blood of atonement. But after Solomon’s Temple was destroyed, there was no longer an ark of the covenant in the Temple. It’s as if God no longer wanted His Throne of Grace to be enclosed in the Temple, as if He wanted Israel to start seeking it somewhere else.

Sure enough, the Apostle Paul, in Romans 3, refers to Christ Jesus Himself as the Propitiation Place or the Throne of Grace. He was the true ark of the covenant. His blood shed on the cross truly made atonement for the sins of all. And now all who flee to Christ as the Throne of Grace, all who seek God’s favor through faith in Him, receive God’s forgiveness. Or in other words, they are justified before God, they are right with Him, they have His favor.

This is truly the top priority, that which should be “first and foremost” in your life, what comes before everything else. As Paul also said in today’s Epistle: For I delivered to you first and foremost that which I also received, that…you have to be a good person? No, that’s not what he said. That you have to make atonement for your sins? No. That…what? What was first and foremost? That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. That’s first and foremost. That’s the most important thing, fleeing to Him in faith as the Throne of Grace, as the one who died for our sins and rose again.

That’s what the tax collector did by seeking mercy from God in the temple where He had promised to be merciful. That was his answer to the question, How can I be right with God? Not by finding righteousness within himself, but by seeking it by faith, as a gracious gift promised by a merciful God. And so Jesus shocked the self-righteous Pharisees with His conclusion: I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted. The Pharisee who tried to be righteous by himself failed, while the tax collector was counted righteous by God, through faith.

The same was true of the Apostle Paul. He had a sordid past, not as a thief or tax collector, but as a self-righteous Pharisee, as a religious fanatic, as a persecutor of Christians, until he learned that what the Prophet Isaiah had written hundreds of years earlier was true: All our righteousnesses are like filthy rags. As Paul wrote to the Philippians, Whatever things were gain to me, these I have counted a loss for Christ. Indeed, I count all things a loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.

And so the apostle humbled himself. You hear it in today’s Epistle: For I am the least of the apostles. I am not even fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But in humbling himself, there was finally room for God to exalt him. As he says, But by the grace of God I am what I am.

But notice this about the Gospel: It teaches us what our top priority must be, to be justified through faith in Christ. But the Gospel then gives us other priorities that flow down from the top one. Those who are righteous by faith are then called to be righteous in their deeds, in their works, to care for our families, to keep God’s commandments. The difference is, we’re no longer working to earn the favor of God. We’re working to serve the God who has already favored us in giving His Son into death for our sins, and in justifying us by faith in His Son, so that even the righteous things we now do are really being done in us by Him, as Paul also concludes about all his hard work as an apostle: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

Of the two answers we’ve considered today to the question, how can I be right with God?, Jesus reveals clearly what the Christian answer is: only by fleeing in faith to Christ, the true Throne of Grace, for mercy and forgiveness. Let that be your top priority! And then arrange all your other priorities around it. Trust in the mercy God has promised you in Christ Jesus! Flee to Him in faith! And you will not only go down to your house justified; you will also have everything you need to get through all the trials of this life and to lead a good, honorable, godly life of humble obedience to the God who has justified you by faith. Amen.

Source: Sermons

Sermon for Trinity 11

1 Corinthians 15:1-10  +  Luke 18:9-14

A few weeks ago, you heard Jesus, early on in the Sermon on the Mount, make a rather shocking statement—at least, it would have been shocking to His hearers. Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. The Pharisees appeared very righteous to the average observer. More than that, as we see in today’s Gospel, they appeared very righteous to themselves. And, of course, it wasn’t just the Pharisees. Other very religious people among the Jews at that time also thought of themselves as good, decent, honest people who had done at least most of what God had required of them in His Law, and who deserved His favor far more than the Gentiles did or than the tax collectors and “sinners” did. And yet, Jesus told them that they didn’t have enough righteousness to enter the kingdom of heaven. They didn’t have enough righteousness for God, the heavenly Judge, to declare them righteous, to “justify” them.

Justification, as you know, is a courtroom verdict in which God judges a person to be righteous, innocent, acceptable to Him, worthy of eternal life. The opposite of justification is condemnation, a guilty verdict in God’s courtroom. And God, the always-just Judge, in the courtroom of His holy Law, only declares a person innocent if a person is actually innocent. He only declares a person righteous if the person is actually and thoroughly righteous, as judged, not by our own evaluation of ourselves, but according to His commandments. But we have this underlying problem with our humanity. It’s fallen. It’s corrupt and diseased down our very souls. There is pride where there should only be humility. There is selfishness where there should only be selflessness. There is hatred where there should only be love. And there isn’t the devotion to God that should be there, all leading God to declare in His Word that, There is no one righteous, no, not one.

So the question of questions is, how can someone who is less than righteous ever be declared righteous by the God who cannot lie, cannot make a mistake, and cannot ignore the facts? Jesus shows us in today’s Gospel with the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. In the only verse in the Bible where Jesus Himself uses the word “justify” in this context, He teaches us that contrition and repentance is the only way to be justified.

Jesus spoke this parable to certain people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. That was typical of the Pharisees, that attitude of smugness and condescension. It’s the very definition of being “self-righteous.” Righteous in your own estimation, a good person in your own eyes. And these people were doing what most people do who think of themselves as “good people.” They “despise others,” look down on those whom they see as not good people. Now, it’s not wrong to recognize bad behavior as bad. It’s not wrong to notice when other people are sinning. It’s the next step after that where people tend to go wrong. They see the sins of other people, and then they start comparing, “those bad people” to “us good people,” and then they make the huge mistake of thinking that they stand in God’s favor because of what good people they are, how obedient they are to His commandments, vs. those “bad people” who are so obviously disobedient, and, therefore, must be rejected by God. This whole parable is designed to put a knife through such a false, ugly, self-righteous belief.

Jesus introduces us to the stereotypical Pharisee in this parable. He parades into the temple with his head held high. He knows he’s better than most of the riff raff around here. He has dedicated his life to his religion, and to living according to it, and to teaching it to others. He follows the Law to the letter (if not to the spirit). In fact, he loves the concept of commandments so much that he and his fellow Pharisees have added hundreds of laws and interpretations of laws to do even better than God originally commanded. He’s sure that he has the right doctrine—unlike those Sadducees, who deny the resurrection and the existence of angels. It’s time to go to God’s holy temple and give thanks.

Oh, but what does he give thanks for? O God, I thank you that I am not like other men—extortioners, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I possess.’ Jesus puts it as crassly as possible, painting this man as so full of himself that he dares to approach God with self-praise. Now, be careful! Hopefully you’re not starting to say a little prayer, “O God, I thank you that I’m not like that self-righteous Pharisee!’ We all tend to do it, and it’s a terrible, dangerous habit, comparing ourselves with others before God. It’s exactly why Jesus had to unfold the Law to the people in the Sermon on the Mount. They thought, like this Pharisee, “I’m not an adulterer!” because they had never cheated on their wives. But they were fine with divorce for any reason and remarrying as often as they wanted, which is also adultery in God’s eyes. And it didn’t even occur to them that looking at a woman with lust in their heart was also included in the sin of adultery in God’s judgment. And so on. They hadn’t committed big, outward sins, in their narrow definition of sin. And so they thought they were righteous and thus qualified for God’s kingdom, while they saw the sins of others and assumed they were disqualified.

But then Jesus gives us the example of the tax collector. Now, you remember what the deal was with the tax collectors. They were Jews who went to work for the Roman Empire, collecting taxes for the Empire from their fellow Jewish citizens. And the Empire allowed them a lot of leeway in how much extra tax they were allowed to collect, above and beyond what the citizen owed to the Empire, taking advantage of their neighbor for their own benefit. The vast majority of them did collect extra, and everyone knew it. They practiced extorsion and bribery and favoritism. They were like mafia thugs, going after someone who owed money to the mob, except that what they were doing was perfectly legal. That’s why they were so hated, and why they were seen as traitors to their countrymen. The lowest of the low.

And yet, this one wasn’t laughing it up with his friends and enjoying his wealth. He was standing off in a corner of the temple, almost hiding from the people, but not trying to hide from God. He didn’t look up to heaven with pride, or self-satisfaction, nor did he attempt to justify his sinful behavior and explain to God why he had to do it, for this or that reason. No, he hung his head in shame and beat his breast and said, God be merciful to me, a sinner. Now, clearly, it wasn’t just words. Jesus clearly implies that he means those words. He knows his sin. He isn’t proud of it. He isn’t comparing himself to anyone at all (although surely he could have found a worse tax collector than he was, or an outright murderer or rapist or something). Nor does he intend to keep stealing from people, because it isn’t genuine repentance to plan on continuing in the sin that you’re supposedly sorry for and asking forgiveness for. No, this tax collector has been crushed by the weight of his sins and by the threats of God’s judgment. That’s called “contrition.” He has changed his mind about his sins, has turned away from them in his heart, and now seeks nothing from God but mercy. That’s called “repentance.”

And you know God’s answer to his request, because Jesus tells His hearers what it is: I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted. The tax collector, the lowest of the low, was justified, received a “not guilty” verdict in God’s courtroom. How? Did God not know how bad He was? Of course He knew! But this is why Jesus came, to provide sinners with the one way to escape condemnation, to be justified before God: by contrition and repentance, which is to say, by faith in God’s promise to show mercy to sinners for Jesus’ sake.

Now, how does that work? Because the sinner is still a sinner, and the Judge has to recognize that. This is how God made it work: He gave His only-begotten Son into our humanity to be righteous in our place, and to take the punishment for our unrighteousness on Himself. As Paul said in today’s Epistle, Christ died for our sins. And as he writes later on to the Corinthians, God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that, in Him, we might become the righteousness of God. In His justice, God couldn’t let sins go unnoticed, or unpunished, nor could He ignore His own requirement for righteousness in His human creatures. So, He provided both the righteousness and the punishment in the Person of His Son. And now He’s opened up another courtroom, as it were, the courtroom of the Gospel, where He invites sinners to enter, in contrition and repentance, seeking His mercy and grace in Christ, the Throne of Grace, which is exactly what the tax collector was doing, seeking mercy from God in the place where He had promised to be merciful, in His temple, which was a type, a picture, of Christ Himself.

Now God calls out to all people, to Pharisees and to tax collectors, to the outwardly religious and to the complete pagans: Acknowledge your sins and turn away from them! Stop pretending to be righteous by your own right! You aren’t! And if you continue to exalt yourself, you will be humbled. Eternally humbled. So, everyone, learn from the tax collector to repent, to humble yourselves before God, and to hold nothing up to Him except for His promise to be merciful to sinners for the sake of Christ and the blood He shed for us on the cross. Everyone who humbles himself in that way will be exalted, will be justified, will be forgiven and accepted into God’s favor and into eternal life, not because of what we’ve done, but because of who Jesus is, in whom we trust. Amen.

Source: Sermons