INTRODUCTION
Sermonic Theme
Opening Statement: There are many literary forms used in the Bible. There is poetry, proverb, legal document, dramatic narrative, hymn, sermon, theological treatise, personal letter, and apocalyptic vision. And sprinkled into all of these genres are figures of speech and word pictures that highlight what is being said. The form that a writer or speaker chooses to use in order to communicate his or her message indicates it’s meaning or how it should be treated or interpreted.
Review: We launched into a miniseries a few weeks ago that deals with Jesus’ use of parables or stories. Jesus was the master storyteller. Jesus used story or parable to connect with his listeners.
Clarification: Some of the parables were true stories taken from daily life. They are told as fact in the present tense. We’ve seen seed growing, yeast at work in dough, children playing, sheep grazing, and we all know what it’s like to lose something. Jesus told true stories about these things. Some of the parables were story parables. These stories, which may or may not have actually happened (the historicity is not important), are meant to convey a significant truth. Jesus made up some of these stories and used them as illustrations. Then there are example stories. They give us examples to either follow or avoid. They focus on the character and conduct of the individual.
Observation: While these stories teach us many good and wholesome things (as we will learn together), the parables do two other things that are easily overlooked.
First, the stories of Jesus indicate that He was fully acquainted with human life in its many experiences. He was knowledgeable in farming, sowing seeds, and reaping a harvest. Not only was he familiar with the workaday world of the farmer, the fisherman, the builder, and the merchant, but also he moved with equal ease among the managers of estates, the ministers of finance at a royal court, the judge in a court of law, the Pharisees and the tax collectors. His stories portray the lives of men, women, and children, the poor and rich, the outcast and the exalted. He knew about work and wages, about weddings and festive occasions as well as funerals and sickness. Clearly, Jesus used an understood, familiar truth in order to teach an unfamiliar or unrealized lesson.
Second, Jesus’ stories reveal His heart. They tell His autobiography and the autobiography of God. Do you want to know how God feels about people being a good neighbor, read the story of the Good Samaritan. Do you want to know how God feels when someone who is lost finally finds home again? Read the story of the Prodigal Son. Do you want to know how Jesus feels about people obeying His teachings? Read the story of the house built on the rock or sand?
Title: We’ll continue today by looking at The Pharisee and the Tax Collector OR The Pastor and IRS Agent
Proposition: Jesus told a story in Luke’s Gospel to teach us about the irony of God’s righteousness and man’s sinfulness.
Text: Luke 18:9-14
Recitation: 18:9 Jesus also told this parable to some who were confident that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else. 18:10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 18:11 The Pharisee stood and prayed about himself like this, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: extortionists, unrighteous people, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 18:12 I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of everything I get.’ 18:13 The tax collector, however, stood far off and would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast
and said, ‘God, be merciful to me, sinner that I am!’ 18:14 I tell you that this man went down to his home justified rather than the Pharisee. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.” The Message: He told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people: “Two men went up to Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: ‘Oh God, I thank you that I am not like other people – robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.’ “Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, ‘God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.’” Jesus commented, “This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but it you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.”
Key Word: The two characters in this story will be our main sermon points today because they represent, not just another job or occupation; they represent two different ways of looking at how we as people can approach and please God.
Background: The parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, is linked to Jesus’ parable about persevering in prayer, but extends it somewhat. It deals with the attitude with which we offer up our prayers to God as well as the attitude that we bring to God for salvation. There were two people in this story, two who were known only by their occupations and who represented both extremes on the spectrum of Jewish social life. One made his living as a Pharisee; he was at the high-end of the Jewish spectrum and was very respected by the people because he was a careful observer of the Law. He was like a pastor. The other man was a tax collector, an IRS agent; he was at the low end of things, with every little prestige, and money was his god and everybody knew it. Contrastively, one saw prayer and salvation as simply a discipline to be endured, a work to be performed. The other saw prayer as desperation, a place to turn when all other options have been exhausted. It will surprise you which one adopted these views in Jesus’ story.
Notation: I love stories like this and so did Luke because in Luke’s Gospel, the outsider (the sinner, the prostitute, the widow, the poor) is usually the one that finds acceptance.
Sermon
Opening Statement: There was a man named Pedro who lived near the Mexican border. One day Pedro walked up to the border station with a wheelbarrow full of sand. The border guard suspected Pedro was trying to smuggle something illegal into the country so he carefully sifted through the sand. When he didn’t find anything, he let Pedro pass. The next day Pedro showed up at the border with another wheelbarrow full of sand. This time the border guard made Pedro empty the sand out of the wheelbarrow and then he sifted through it. He turned the wheelbarrow over, inspected every inch of it but found nothing so he let Pedro pass again. This went on day in and day out for three years straight. The guard said to Pedro, “ I know what you’re thinking Pedro, you think that you will wear me down and one day I won’t check the wheelbarrow and then you’ll sneak something in. Well that’s not going to happen. I’m going to keep on checking you every time you come through here and one day I’ll catch you and then it will be over for you. One day Pedro stopped coming. Several months later the border guard was in Mexico and saw Pedro getting out of a brand new car dressed in an Armani suit. The border guard ran up to Pedro and asked him how it came to be that he was doing so well. Pedro said, “While you were searching through the sand for illegal contraband, I brought 1825 brand new wheelbarrows into the country and sold them at a handsome profit!”
Transition: Sometimes we miss the obvious! This is the case of the Pharisee and the tax collector. This whole parable turns everything upside down for the hearers of the story. Jesus often challenged the conventional way of thinking about God and the spiritual life. People thought the Pharisees were the heroes and that the tax collectors were the villains, the antagonists. But when Jesus is done with his story, it’s the other way around. The tax collector, the IRS agent, of all people, teaches us more about God and theology than the Pharisee, the Pastor. How ironic is that? When the story ends you find yourself loving the IRS agent and despising the Pastor.
OUTLINE
The Story
Key Word: This story is about two men who prayed two different prayers and who ended up with two different results.
The Pharisee (Pastor), The Prayer, The Result
Definition: A Pharisee was generally speaking a strict observer of the Law of Moses. We today have grown accustomed to thinking negatively of them as soon as we hear their name. However, Pharisees were highly respected and looked up to in their community. The people respected them. In the mind of the Jesus’ hearers, they’re the good guys.
Explanation: It’s not wrong to be a religious, God-fearing person. But in Jesus’ story, this particular Pharisee was not just religious and God-fearing; he was self-righteous and flashed looks of disdain and disapproval at others around him. This was the attitude that Jesus was after. The Pharisee went to the temple to pray. Jesus didn’t have a problem with that. It’s the manner in which his heart expressed itself while there. He was loud enough for everyone around him to hear how wonderful he was! In his thirty-four words, the pronoun I occurs at least four times. In addition, note how that he never asks God for anything in his prayer. He doesn’t confess anything either; but he sure confesses everyone else’s sins, particularly those who rob, commit fraud, and do adultery. He even mentions the fact that he fasts not once, but twice a week, and that he made sure to put an offering in the offering plate whenever he went to church.
Imagination: I can hear the Pharisees thoughts: “Why God should be pleased to have someone like me addressing a prayer to him. This is God’s lucky day! How often does God get the chance to listen to a prayer from someone who has such a clean life. God is really fortunate to have me on His team.” You get the feeling that he’s ready to negotiate some kind of spiritual contract with God as an equal partner in the Trinity. I think it is clear; he trusted in his own self-sufficiency. But that’s not all. Because of his attitude of self-sufficiency, he is setting himself up to miss the greatest opportunity of a lifetime – to receive the free gift of salvation and the Kingdom of God that the Messiah came to offer.
Application: When we demonstrate this attitude of self-righteousness, and strengthen this attitude by comparing ourselves to other people like the Pharisee did, we’re in trouble. We are in danger of missing the opportunity of a lifetime. The Pharisees act of comparison with the robber, or the fraudulent, or the adulterer, reminds me of a story about two brothers.
Illustration: They were known all around town for being as crooked in their business dealings as they could possibly be. They grew wealthy together but unexpectedly, one of the brothers died. The surviving brother found himself in search of a minister who would be willing to put the finishing touches to the funeral service that he had planned for his brother. Given the reputation of the deceased, it was not easy to find someone. He finally made an offer to a minister that was hard for the minister to refuse. “I’ll pay you a large sum of money if you will just do me one favor. In eulogizing my brother, I want you to call him a ‘saint’ and if you do, I will give you the money.” The minister, who was living on a limited income, never hesitated and agreed to the deal. When the funeral service began, all the important business people and associates who had been swindled through the years by these two brothers filled the sanctuary. Unaware of the deal that had been made for the eulogy, they were expecting to be vindicated by the public exposure of the man’s character. “Surely,” they thought, “a minister would finally tell the truth.” At last, the much-awaited moment arrived, and the minister spoke. He said: “The man you see in the casket was a vile and debauched individual. He was a liar, a thief, a deceiver, a manipulator, a reprobate, and a hedonist. He destroyed the fortunes, careers, and lives of countless people in this city, some of whom are here today. This man did every dirty, rotten, low-down thing you can think of. But compared to his brother who is here, he was a saint.”
I love that story because it reveals in a comical way that we can compare ourselves to someone else and end up feeling pretty good about who we are when in reality, it is we who stand in need of God’s grace and forgiveness. When we think things such as: “I might be bad, but compared to those people, I’m a saint.” That doesn’t cut it with God. It distorts the true picture. The issue is who you are and what you are becoming if you persist in living life your way. Those who choose to live a life of separation from God and His righteousness, will eventually get what they have wanted all along - eternal separation from Him. The Bible names this place Hell.
Summary: After listening to what Jesus had to say about this guy, it is clear that his righteousness was sufficient for himself; he did not need the righteousness that God was providing in Jesus. His religion was his righteousness. He had set a standard, a lifestyle, a concocted scheme and a set of rules that he felt fairly comfortable with being able to meet. And, he was sure going to make life hard for those who had not set the same high standards that he had set for himself. He was a product of his own achievement. Ironically, Jesus came offering a Kingdom and a Kingdom ethic that was not achievable outside of His work in our behalf. In fact, it was impossible, and that impossibility was designed to bring us to the end of our own striving and to simply cling to Him and His righteousness, but he Pharisee missed it.
Transition: As the narrative passes from the Pharisee to the Tax Collector, this is Jesus’ point precisely.
The Tax Collector (IRS Agent), The Prayer, The Result
Definition: The tax collector was usually a Jew that had been employed by the Roman government to exact taxes on people and collect what was due, plus whatever else he could get out of the payee. Tax collectors were Jews who worked for the ruling Roman authorities. They were considered both extortionists and traitors - extortionists because they were notoriously noted for collecting more taxes than was owned and pocketing the difference – and traitors because they served the occupying power of Rome. They were not appreciated and esteemed in the community, like the Pharisee.
Explanation: With this in mind, going to the temple to pray as this man had done was not something he would have done often. But for some reason, probably a guilty conscience, he needed a place to go where he could talk to God about his spiritual condition. He is overburdened by his spiritual condition. He won’t even look up toward God. The burden of sin had so pressed him down that he could only manage to cry out seven words: “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” And as he is saying this he keeps on beating his chest, marking, so to speak, the source of his sin – his heart. He recognized the holiness of God; he knew the great gulf that lay between himself and God – “[he] stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven.” His seven words reached the ear of God.
Imagine: But perhaps, we can hear the tax collectors thoughts as well: “I have cheated so many people. I cannot possibly pay it all back. If they only knew how I had defrauded them and how I have stolen from them. My lifestyle would disappoint so many people if they only knew the people I’ve cheated, the words I’ve used, the lies I’ve told, the lives and families that I’ve messed up.”
Application: It’s not that he has low self-esteem. One can have a very healthy self-esteem and still feel the way he felt. What he has is a broken heart and has nothing to offer God but a guilty conscience. He has realized what he has done to himself and others. You can know who you are and where you’re headed in life and still come to the place where this man is. Self-confidence and a healthy self-esteem do not contradict true biblical humility. Biblical humility is seeing only yourself as you measure up to God’s standard of holiness and realizing that you fall short, cast yourself in faith on what Jesus did in your behalf!
Question: The tax collector’s story begs the question: What brought him to this place of recognition? Why did he all of a sudden see the person that he was becoming and that he had become? We are simply not told. But based on our own experiences, life has a way of leveling the self-satisfied.
Summary: The tax collector came to God with empty hands. He had no merits and made no claims. There is not self-congratulation. Excuses and explanations do not enter his mind. Comparisons with others are not even considered. There is no summary of good deeds. There is no sense that God should feel privileged to have an IRS Agent talking to him. He knows that there is one primary problem - himself. And so, in desperation, not discipline, he turns to God in prayer. I am coming to see prayer more as desperation than discipline.
Conclusion: Look at what Jesus said 18:14 I tell you that this man (the IRS Agent) went down to his home justified rather than the Pharisee (Pastor).
The Application
Explanation: This story invites those who recognize that they don’t have the righteousness that it takes to please God. The story tells us that those who come to rely on God’s provision of righteousness in Jesus are the ones who will stand justified and forgiven before Him. When we recognize our sinfulness, our tendency to wander from the path that leads to life, it is then that we are in a position to be declared righteous, as the Apostle Paul teaches in Romans.
Observation: In recent years, I have come to see Christians and Christianity, not as a group of people who never commit a sin or make a moral or ethical mistake. While high morals and high ethics are a commendable goal, I have come to see Christians as those who realize how sinful they can be, how unrighteous they can be, and in full light of the awful truth, fling themselves on to the righteousness of Christ, trusting in His holiness, and relying upon his forgiveness for eternal life. The Gospel is Good News because is explains how I in my sinfulness can rely on Jesus in His righteousness to save me and then to make me more like Him.
Application: I have this specific application to make in closing today. At the core of this entire story is the question: Who are you going to trust for eternal life – yourself or God?
In light of this, all of us here need to come before God with open, empty hands. But maybe there is someone here who would like to do this today. Coming before God in this manner is not to say that you don’t have a healthy self-esteem. It’s not to say that you’re not reasonably happy with many parts of your life and your family. It’s not to say that you plan on living the kind of lifestyle that will make other Christians happy. It’s not to say that you have to start behaving in some strange, religious fashion and pray King James Version prayers. It’s not even saying that you will have to start hanging out with people who drink from “I love Jesus” coffee mugs that were made in China. One of the worst things you can do is drink from an “I love Jesus” coffee mug and be the worst worker in the office. So many people are not followers of Jesus for all the wrong reasons.
Coming before God with an empty, open hand is saying to Him, “God, the Christian life at it’s core (the Sermon on the Mount) is not just difficult; it’s impossible. My hands are empty. I do not know how to live this kind of life; therefore you must show me the way. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life…” If you’ve lost your sense of spiritual direction, He’s the way.
Quotation: “In the eyes of Christ a person confessing sin is nearer to true goodness than a person boasting of his goodness.” (F.F. Bruce, Theologian)
CONCLUSION
Conclusion: There are some Pharisees and tax collectors in churches today. We can even catch glimpses of them in our own lives. Which one would your life align with today?
Question: Have you ever turned your life over to God? Why don’t you do that today? You’ve blessed me in so many ways…yet hardly even tip your hat toward God.
