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But today we'll look at uh Luke 18 9 uh through 14. 18 9 through 14. Now uh I've been watching congregations for a long time and and the the temptation may be to lay your Bible aside. Don't do that today. Ever. And then uh keep it handy because we're going to look at the book of Romans. I sometimes slip and say the gospel of Romans with great respect to the scriptures, uh, because there's a lot of gospel in the book of Romans, and so we'll we'll look at that uh near the close when the preacher is finishing his sermon. Yeah, you've heard that before. A preacher's finishing his sermon, will he ever? Um hey, I wasn't born yesterday, I know what you're thinking. Uh hang in there with me today because you're gonna get some biblical theology, you're gonna get some soteriology, which is uh the biblical study of salvation, and I'm gonna talk about things, important things like like sin, like the atonement, like grace, and uh those kinds of things today, because every congregation is filled with Christians who may have not thought very much about what God did for them, and what God did with them and through them and wants to do through you and me. So I'm gonna remind you, if you haven't thought about it for a while, about what an amazing grace God has bestowed on you that saved a wretch like me and thee. And we're gonna meet a couple of wretches here in this parable and how God responds to one and how God responds to the other. I want you to uh think with me then about the possibility that um you might learn something today, and something that'll be valuable when you go to lunch today, as you witness to someone at uh at the lunch table, or as you uh go home and witness to one of your loved ones who who uh is allergic to church. As you go to work tomorrow or go to school tomorrow or engage in other activities across the back fence with your neighbor. Um this kind of stuff you're gonna need to get a hold of and remember and celebrate again today so that you can use it again tomorrow. Jesus taught justification by faith alone. That's been around among us for for eons, at least since the 15th century or 16th century or or so. We've been talking about that quite a bit. And answers the question how can a notorious sinner, how can a real rascal be made right with God? I've used the term jerk before. Maybe you know one. How can a notorious jerk be made right with God? There was the Philippian jailer who said, What must I do to be saved? There was the rich young ruler in this very passage, um, right after the one we're going to look at today, who said, What good thing must I do to inherit eternal life? You know, that song leading about ruined me this morning. You want to drink? No. I'm just complaining out loud.

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I sure enjoyed it because I wouldn't have the courage to lead these people in the wonderful grace of Jesus.

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Yeah, I got a quarter I'll give you later for that. How can a notorious sinner like me be made right with God? The thought in this in this text that I'm going to read with you is about keeping the law of Moses and doing good deeds and being a good person. Don't cut it. Are you with me? And you you may I may get an amen out of that. Maybe. Just maybe. Luke 18, 9. He told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself. God, I thank you that I'm not like other people, swindlers, unjust, adulterers, even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I pay tithes of all that I get. Are you tired of this guy yet? Verse 13. But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was he was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, God be merciful to me, the sinner. Our Lord said, I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Let's pray. O precious God, you have loved us to the uttermost. You've given us hope through Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. We acknowledge him as Lord, as the boss, the one who's in charge of this house and of this household and of these people. Guide us, O Lord, in these moments as we open this holy word together. And may it inspire and may it make us perspire a little bit. Ask you to guide us now, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. Here, Jesus teaches about grace. And yes, you may have picked up on a theme in our singing together, because I had the joy of picking out these songs for us to sing together. So thanks for that. I enjoyed that. And uh and I got to hear Susie pound them out the rest of the week while I was uh preparing for you today. The the story is about grace. Grace, by a simplest definition that I can come up with, is the unmerited favor of God. This parable is going to show and does show how to become a Christian. It's not about God's doing God's stuff like we want to do it, but doing God's stuff the way God wants it done. It's about God's deal and about trusting in God. And as this parable unfolds, you'll see that there's a paradox here between two individuals. Interestingly, a good person who gets it all wrong, really, a good guy who gets it entirely wrong, and then a bad person who ends up being entirely, beautifully, completely, blessedly justified or made right with God. The issue here is that sharp division between the gospel of Jesus Christ and every other religious system, or irreligious system, if you will, in our in our world today. The religious systems that require altruism, religious systems and religious functions that demand certain ceremonies or austerities or even surgeries, value systems that are errant and sound good on the surface and look good and feel good for people, but they don't move God. So the gospel is here to be presented in this uh short little story, this uh simple story with a divine meaning, to say, hey, look, you may think you're a good person. Check again. You may say to yourself, Well, I'm not as bad as that person over there. Or you should say, you may say, Well, maybe I'll I'm okay. I I sure hope I'm okay. I'm not sure, but I I sure hope so. So this parable opens up. Two people walk up to temple. Kind of sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, doesn't it? Two people show up at temple, but one's a Pharisee, the other's a tax man. The Pharisee. You know, those are the guys who are always giving Jesus grief. Well, they they they had reasons for that because they, as the Hebrew intelligentsia and Hebrew leadership, they were the religious insiders in Jesus' day and time. And this Pharisee, and you read that you read his language, he is smug, he is self-righteous, he has contempt for other people. He's kind of the kind of guy that just makes you want to throw up. He's just not fun to be around. And the very name Pharisee means to be separate. They were people who separated themselves not only from people, but above other people. And they kept themselves separate from lowlifes, unclean people, uh, people, places, and things that were considered unclean in their time. Look at verse 9 again. Jesus told this parable about uh to some people who trusted in themselves. They were righteous. I think Jesus would and Luke would mean to put that in air quotes, righteous, and viewed others with contempt. And and in this uh ninth verse, he trusted in himself and he trusted in his own righteousness, and he looked down his long Jewish nose to uh on everyone else. That was that was his way. He saw people and places and things that were all beneath him. He looked at people, places, and things with scorn, derision, ridicule, mockery, sarcasm, and threw on some more scorn just for the fun of it. This passage, as it as it says and uses the word in verse 9, is a biblical Greek uh term, exuthenio. It's it's a word that's only used twice in the Gospels. It's used here in the Gospels, and and it's used the other place that it's used is where the soldiers are stripping, beating, and hanging our Lord Jesus on the cross. They looked down on him with derision, ridicule, scorn, mark mockery, and sarcasm. That's the guy we're dealing with here. Two people show up at temple worship. One was the Pharisee. The other fellow was a taxman. He is known by the Hebrews as the Am Ah Am Haerets, the people of the land. He's just a regular guy. The Greeks would call him the Hoi Poloi. Everyone in his day considered him to be of those among the great unwashed, the lowlife, the unclean, those people that all the good people stay away from and decide not to like, because their daddy and his daddy and his daddy told them, don't like that guy because of what he does and who he is. Now the tax man in first century Israel would have been the guy who bought a Roman franchise from the Roman occupiers to have the right to collect taxes from everybody else.

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And keep a cut for himself. Everybody knew it, and everybody hated him for it, and they were mad at him about it.

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So it was easy for this Pharisee to say, I'm not like that guy. And everybody goes. Having bought that franchise, having been known as a traitor and taking advantage of his position to exploit and to extort, there are two guys who show up at temple worship. Both stand up to pray. Both address God. One in a loud, out loud, kind of disgusting fashion. You know, like you might see on TV once in a while where somebody just kind of really turns on the arousments. So they stand up to pray, they both address God. Both, after a fashion, reach for God's heart. Both in this two-way communication, one does badly and one does very well, with vastly different attitudes. They presented themselves before God. The Pharisee, as you note, is one of these guys whose I am better than you. I am greater than you. I am a it's big I and little you. God owes me. His prayer is a kind of Shakespearean soliloquy, isn't it? You look at that thing. You look at what he says. I do this and I thank you, and I'm better than all these swindlers and all these. And he goes on and on and on in this soliloquy. And Jesus presents him as praying to himself. It's not a silent prayer. He's just praying kind of out there by himself for himself. But at least he says thanks to God. No confession. And he's putting himself away and above others. As you used to say, uh he's tooting his own horn. You know, like Charlie Brown's teacher. You ever watch those shows with Charlie Brown? And how what's his teacher sound like? Like a like a trombone with a mute on it, and wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. That's Jesus seems to indicate that's what's going on in this man's prayer, tooting his own horn like Charlie Brown's teacher. And that's probably what it sounds like in the portals of heaven. All about externals, right hair, right clothes, right deeds, right words. And he could say, hey, it's in the Bible, right? All that stuff I prayed is in the Bible, right? Yeah, I tithe to the penny, and I'm the greatest, faithful, most dear to God person in all of history. And there'd been nothing like it ever before. He might say, I'm all that. I am all that. And that bum over there is not. You know what? Cottonwood, if that happens in this house, it kills worship. That hyper super Christian righteousness is sickening to the heart of God. And if that happens in the church, it's a worship killer. It douses the Holy Spirit fire and ruins the day for everyone. And I believe in my heart God turns away. Remember, the fellow named Saul of Tarsus, when he he uh he prayed aloud regularly and was in the book of Acts as a as a man who was persecuting Christ's followers, and by the ninth chapter of Acts, God took him down. God challenged him and knocked him off his horse and changed his ways and changed his heart forever. He called himself a Pharisee of Pharisees. He called himself more righteous than them all, a righteous man, struck down by the power of God, and God, though, did not give up on him. There's a passage in Philippians that I'd like to remind you where Paul writes of himself to the his favorite church, the church at Philippi. He said, Who were those who worship in the Spirit of God and glory of Christ Jesus, put no confidence in the flesh, although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else had a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more. Circumcised the eighth day, nation of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to the righteousness that's in the law, found blameless. But then he said, Whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. God got a hold of him and changed that man's life. I want to talk with you as we move along here about the scandal of the gospel. And it's right here in this passage in the 18th of Luke. That is, the scandal of the gospel is that some self-righteous go down to punishment, and the self-justified run into trouble along the way. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 says, For by grace you can, you know it, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's a gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. The Old Testament gave us the picture. Here's what sin looks like. Here's what sinfulness does to the heart of God. This is what sinfulness does to men and women and the population of the earth. Here's what sin does to ruin lives and destroy lives. This is what breaks God's heart. The Old Testament sacrificial system for its time did the job, but it taught of the cost and costliness of sin. The cost and costliness of sin, and God dealt with it on the cruel cross at Calvary himself. The tax man, on the other hand, had no right deeds to show off, nothing to brag about in his in his own life or through his own life. He was spiritually ruined, bankrupt. Nothing external about him could say, yep, that guy is bound for heaven. Nobody could say that about him and about his life. But dear ones, as we look at this parable, we see that an exchange happened between God and the tax guy. A divine exchange between God and the tax guy. He was at worship, and while he was at worship, though far off, in humility, he came before God as a broken soul, with a broken heart. And acknowledging his bankruptcy before God. And in this parable, he says, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. God be merciful to me, the sinner. And in that moment, he pleads mercy of God. And boom, he threw himself before God. And the sinner prays. And this he calls out before God, God, I acknowledge I'm a sinner. I ask you to forgive me. I ask you to bring me mercy. I ask you to be propitious to me. I am the sinner. Oh God, show me mercy. In essence, he said, God, apply the atonement to me. Apply your atoning, forgiving, merciful love to me. In this beautiful moment, as Jesus tells this story, this man's life was transformed. Not unlike the passage in Philippians or in Timothy chapter 1, there's a little passage, and you may want to find it. 1 Timothy 1, 12 to 16. He says, Paul says to Timothy, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has strengthened me because he considered me faithful. Remember, this is the rascal that got knocked off his horse in the book of Acts, a murderous rascal, Saul of Tarsus. He says, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me because he considered me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was more than abundant. The faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. He says it's a trustworthy saying, full of acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners among whom I am the foremost of all. Yet for this reason I found mercy. Glory, glory to God. Now this is the part where the preacher will usually say in the sermon, in closing. They already know, don't they? You know what that means, nothing. When a preacher says that. But I want you to go with me to the book of Romans. Now it's time for Bible study. The third chapter of Romans. Romans chapter 3. Been preaching to and with you and maybe at you. But Romans chapter 3 is the Bible study that closes, take us home here. Romans 3, beginning in verse 9. Oh, I love that sweet sound, Susie. I've told people over hundreds of years I've been doing this. That's a little bit of an overstatement. For them it felt like it, maybe. That sweet sound, the Bible's page is turning. I love it. Thank you for that. And if you have tablets, I love you too. This look at Romans 3, verses 9 to 12. And what then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have already changed that both charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. As it is written, there is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they become useless. There is none who does good, not even one. So we're all in bad shape, right? With sin, this matter of sin, as Paul declares it to the church at Rome. Then spin over, if you will, with me to the 21st verse, 21 through 26. But now, and Paul's notorious for that, beautifully notorious for that to say, but now, but now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, for all those who believe, there is no distinction. Did you see that in verse 22? Through faith in Jesus Christ. That's sola fide. That's Christ alone. That's where Jesus said, No one comes to the Father but through me. Hear that? Sola fide. I, for Christ and all who believe, there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All have missed the mark. None of us are going to make it on our own, on our own righteousness. Verse 24, being justified, that is, being made right, set over and being made right with God as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith. Now propitiation is a fancy New American Standard Text choice of words. Your NIV might say atoning sacrifice. Some Bible versions might use the word expiation, which is a means of payment for a penalty and to pay one's way out of slavery. And propitiation is that God is satisfied. God has been propitiated. God is satisfied with the blood of Christ to take care of me as I express my faith in Jesus. So I told you we're going to get some soteriology, and that's what this business is. Salvation history. This was to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance of God, oh, thank you, God, in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration, I say, of his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and the justifier. See, God plays both roles. God is the just and does the justification of the one who has faith in Jesus. Okay. Slow down with me and come along gently with me. Where the man said, God be merciful to me, the sinner. That's why we love the tax man, and Jesus did too. This is the way the tax collector prayed, pleading the mercy seat of Christ to cry out to God on his behalf. He had nothing, nothing, empty hands, nothing in himself. He was justified by faith, made right in God's view because of salvation won through faith in Christ's redemptive work on the cross. Now when I wrote this sentence, I thought, that's pretty good, Parsley. I want to read it again because I want to make sure you get it. Because it's all packed into this short sentence. If only we preachers could only be successful succinct. This is the way the tax collector prayed, pleading for the mercy seat of Christ to cry out to God on his behalf. He had nothing in himself. He was justified by faith, made right in God's view, because of salvation won through faith in Christ's redemptive work on the cross. I mentioned early, very early, a long time ago, when I started, that this parable shows us how to become a Christian. The tax collector's prayer is the nearest thing you get in the Bible to what we've always called the sinner's prayer. In forty some years of pastoral ministry, I've had the joy of sitting at people's dining room table or on their couch and leading people to Jesus. And I my way of doing the sinner's prayer is I want to, I want to get I want to get sin in there, I want to get uh uh repentance in there, I want to, you know, I want to get uh God's grace in there, and I want to get the gift of salvation in there, all in a short little prayer that people may or may not remember, and you may or may not remember when you prayed the sinner's prayer. And Daryl's may be a little different than mine, but I'll bet it's really, really close. And that is, and that is very simply, Lord Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross for my sin. I thank you for dying on the cross for my sin. I confess to you, Lord Jesus, that I'm a sinner, and I ask you to forgive me of my sin. Lord Jesus, be my Savior. Come into my heart and into my life and be my Lord, boss, and friend, and I will serve you as long as I am able. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Very close. If you had looked at the tax collector, you wouldn't have found a thing that made you think he was righteous. But all of a sudden, in that moment, as Jesus told that parable, boom, remember the boom? In that moment, he was righteous, and that righteousness was legal before God. That's what Martin Luther in the 16th century at the Elders Gate Church that turned the world upside down, the Protestant Reformation, when he came to understand and help others understand that he saw before God this justification by faith was a genuine righteousness, because we trust not in ourselves like the Pharisee, but in God's mercy, like the tax man. What people say about you or how you look or where you came from or who your parents were or are, no matter what, and that doesn't matter. It's that you throw yourself on God's mercy. That is what's relevant. And there isn't a hint in casual observers' eyes about this tax collector as he beat his breast that day in that parable, that he was doing business with God.

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And God was doing business with him.

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As he beat his breast in the first century Hebrew style of showing his repentance, his brokenness, and his sorrow, he cried out to God, Show me your mercy. Grant me your mercy. I am the sinner. That's the way the Greek puts it. I am not a sinner or among the whole bunch. We're just looking at me here, he said. I am the sinner. And yet he was the one who got through to God. He was the one who was heard. His righteousness was made faultless because God provided it on his behalf. This parable gives the basic gospel message and shows us how to be heard by God. Said another way, some people think they can be justified or made right and innocent in God's sight by good doing good stuff specified by some authority somewhere. Pharisees thought they got it. But really, Jesus said the tax man got it. Got what? Got God's mercy. Back to Romans chapter 4, and I'll come in for landing here shortly. Romans 4. What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham was justified, that is, out of fellowship with God, justified, being made right, righteous, and put in the right place by works, he has something to boast about, but not for God. What does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. For you accountants, that means you take take you are taken out of the debtor column and placed into the credit column because God did it. The tax guy repented, he made confession and agreed with God about his sin and asked God for mercy and was justified as God blessed him and changed his life. Today in this house, you can thank God if you have come to the place in your life where, like the tax guy, you said somewhere along the line, God be merciful to me. God propitiate me. God make yourself satisfied with me as I plead the mercy seat, the atoning blood of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the Living God, who died on the cross for my sin and was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. 1 John 3, 1. How great is the love that the Father has lavished on us. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time together. Thank you for a room full of patient souls. Thank you, Lord, for the chance to open the scriptures together and ooh, just just be awash in the good news of Jesus. May it be that the Holy Spirit will now do his work in every heart and every life, reminding the Christian of the abundant, lavish love and mercy and grace and forgiveness that has come upon us because of what Jesus did at the cross. Thank you, God, that also the Holy Spirit has his work cut out for him, to whisper in the sinner's ear and say, the good deeds aren't going to cut it, dude. Lord, help him or her to come to the place where they say, Lord, if I can't do it, no human can. I'm trusting you, O God. Waiting upon you, O God, to mercy me and to show your grace to me. Father, I pray that as sinners' prayers are whispered all across this room and out around this community as these Christians go to work this week, may it be that those who were lost will be found, that the unwashed will be washed in the blood of the Lamb and made brand new because Jesus is Lord. So, Lord, we trust you now, and we ask it all in the name of Jesus and thank you for that amazing, amazing grace.

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Amen.

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Stand with me and let's sing the national anthem for Christians. Amazing grace. Amazing grace.