Luke 18:9-14; The Presbyterian and the Tax Collector

Ben Griffith September 21, 2025 Faith Presbyterian Church Birmingham, AL

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Chapters

• 0:00 Why Jesus Told Parables
• 3:22 Reading Luke 18:9–14
• 4:54 Parables Pierce Our Defenses
• 7:43 Reframing Pharisee and Tax Collector
• 12:11 The Real Problem: Self-Justification
• 16:53 The Resume We Hide Behind
• 19:50 The Symptom: Contempt for Others
• 22:37 Who Are Your “Others”?
• 25:07 The Invitation: Bring Your Nothing
• 28:46 Losing the Game to Win Grace
• 31:33 Justified: More Than Forgiven

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:23

Our passage is Luke 18. You can see that printed in your bulletin there. This semester, in large group on Tuesday nights on campus, we've been going through the parables of Jesus in the New Testament. The parables are the short stories that Jesus tells to tell the truth about who he is and what his kingdom is like. And we typically think about the parables of Jesus like they're maybe cute little uh stories or vignettes that illustrate Jesus', that he uses like sermon illustrations, something like that. I don't think that's actually a good way to think about it because the parables are sermons themselves. They're not sermon illustrations. They are the truth itself in narrative story form that Jesus is trying to get across. And because they are the truth, because they are the sermon itself in narrative story form, it means that his stories have a way of piercing through our armor and our defenses in ways that just simple information transfer sometimes doesn't, right? Like good stories can capture our imaginations and can um and can capture our hearts in ways that just simple information transfer doesn't. Jesus knows that, and he's a master storyteller. And his stories, these parables contain in nuclear strength, concentrated form, the whole story of the Bible. Everything that Jesus and that and that God has to say in his word, from Genesis to Revelation, the whole story about who we are and who God is and what his kingdom is like. It's all here in the parables. The way I've talked about it with our students is to think about it like the wardrobe in the Chronicles of Narnia. Um, the Pevancy kids at the beginning of that series, they stumble into this wardrobe that is like the entryway into this whole world, right? And like what's inside the wardrobe is so much bigger than what it looks like on the outside. And what that's what these parables are like. What's on the inside is so much more than what it appears to be on the outside. And y'all, Jesus tells us these stories because he knows that, like Kurt Thompson says, we all live out of a story that we believe to be true about ourselves. Whether you realize it or not, and whether you've framed it like that before, we all live out of the story that we believe to be true about ourselves. And Jesus tells his stories in order to transform our stories. He wants to wake us up from the fiction that we might be living in and wake us up to a beautiful new good reality about who we are and about who he is. And so he tells us these stories. Let's see how he wants to do that this morning. Our passage is Luke 18, beginning in verse 9. This is God's word. He 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, and one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. And the Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners, adulterers, unjust, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and 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. Amen. This is God's word, and we need his help to understand it. Please, please pray with me. Lord Jesus, please send your spirit to restore to us the joy of your salvation by letting us have ears to hear and eyes to see what you have to tell us here in this parable. We pray that you would help us to see ourselves as we really are. Help us to see you as you really are. And by doing that, Lord, restore to us joy and rest and freedom in new and fresh ways. And we pray this, Lord Jesus, in your name. Amen. All right, here's where we're going this morning. Three points. Um, the problem, the symptom, and the invitation. That's where we're going this morning. All of us have a problem that Jesus needs to expose. And that problem might be so deep-seated in our hearts that we don't know that it's there. But there's always symptoms of that problem that show up on the surface of our lives and reveal that that problem is there and that it might be worse than we think. And Jesus wants to invite us to do something about that problem, to restore to us joy and freedom and rest. So the problem, the symptom, and then the invitation. So, first of all, the problem. Jesus starts his story off like this: two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. Now, I don't know, maybe you grew up in the church, maybe you're familiar with this story. And because we've because we might be familiar with it, because we've already heard that what their prayer life sounds like, and because we might already have a category for what a Pharisee is and for what a tax collector is, um, it's possible that what you just heard Jesus say was something like this two men went into the temple to pray, and one was a self-righteous, pompous, narcissistic, arrogant, religious, and the other was a humble, sincere, genuine, honest, broken, vulnerable man. That's what you think you heard Jesus say. That's how I how I hear it at least. I mean, I think that the Pharisee, I picture him like Shooter McGavin from Happy Gilmore, right? Or like he's that politician that you just can't stand. Um, he's smug, unlikable, conceited, and he's just got this arrogant smirk on his face that just makes you want to slap him. Right? Like that's the Pharisee, how I think we tend to picture him. But the tax collector, you know, it we probably have some amount of like pity and compassion for him, at least. I mean, we feel kind of sorry for him. He's he just seems humble and broken and like at the end of his rope, and at least he's at least he's working. I mean, his job isn't that great. He's a tax collector, but he's at least he's a hard worker, right? Like, y'all, when we picture the two characters in the parable like this, we're gonna miss everything that Jesus has to say, and we're gonna get it dead wrong. It's really important to hear the story and for it to land on us the way that Jesus intends for it to land, and to hear it the way that the original audience would have heard it, because what Jesus intended and how I think the original audience heard it was something more like this. Two men went to the temple to pray, and one was actually a really good guy, and the other was actually a scumbag. For it to land like Jesus intends for it to land, we need to hear him saying something more like this. Two people went to the temple to pray, and one was your sweet, gentle southern grandmother who like sits on her porch reading the Bible three times a day and goes to church four times a week. And you genuinely think that the last time that your sweet grandmother ever sinned was like five years ago when she said a bad word because she burned the biscuits she was taking to the church picnic that day. And the other, y'all, is like whatever the opposite of that is, like every culture has its own idea of what the bottom of the barrel, like furthest from God and from religion, kind of person is. Every culture has that kind of you know, person we can draw, we can draw to mind. I'm not gonna use the illustration I use in large groups, it may not be appropriate in this setting, but that's who these two characters are. The tax collector is actually a scumbag. He lies and cheats for a living. He's a professional thief from his own people. He's not a good person. One writer says we should probably imagine him the way that we would think about like a Chicago mafia pimp or somebody like that. And the Pharisee, y'all, he the Pharisee try to imagine him like a genuinely good person. To be called a Pharisee today is not a compliment, but it was back then. He had a good reputation, he's likable, he's respected, he's generous, he's a really good dad, and he's a faithful husband. He is who I want my kids to grow up to be, and maybe who you want your kids to grow up to be. He knows his Bible. And listen, y'all, he's like actually, quote, walking the walk like he's doing it. His outward behavior is actually motivated by God's word, and he's trying to live that way. He's tithing and he's giving sacrificially, probably a lot more than you and me. And listen, look, there's genuine, like real gratitude and thanksgiving that's evident in his heart. His prayer, as much as we might criticize it, he is genuinely thankful that God has arranged his life in such a way that he knows and walks with God. And he's just telling God, thank you for that. Like, listen, he looks over at the tax collector and with true sincerity, he says, There but for the grace of God go I. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, y'all look, you could do a lot worse than right than that, right? That that doesn't sound so bad when we put it in those terms, right? It's easy to hear his prayer as if he's just an arrogant narcissist and to think that that's why he's not forgiven. And that's not true. He's a genuinely good person. The problem is, according to Jesus, that genuinely good people can totally miss the gospel and never enter into the kingdom. And it's not because they're bad, it's because they're good. You see, it wasn't the Pharisee's sin that was keeping him from being made right with God, it was his righteousness that was keeping him from being made right with God. It wasn't all his mistakes, it was all of his successes. There was a giant gap that that never closed between where God is and where he is, where God is in his holiness and righteousness and goodness and where he thought he was. There's a giant gap that never closed. And for the religious people like them, and y'all for people like us, we think that that gap only is there and remains because of all of the bad stuff about us, because of our sin and our mistakes and our failures. And that's true, and there's more to the story. Because Jesus wants us to see that that gap didn't remain there because of how wrong and bad he was. The gap remained there because of how good he thought he was. And that's the problem that Jesus is exposing in all of our hearts in the story. The problem, if we want to put it this way, is that we're all playing a game. And it's the game of self-justification. It's the game of believing, and we all come into the world with hearts that are wired to play the game. We all think that we can do something about the gap that exists between where God is and where and where we are. We all play the game thinking that I can either do good things or avoid bad things and manage or do something to impact the gap that exists between where God is and where I am. And y'all, we come into the world thinking that we can play the game, and we all probably think that we're doing pretty good at it. Um we're scared to death to believe the gospel when it tells us that the game's over and that we lost. Y'all, that's how Jesus opens a story. He says he told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous. Trusting in yourself that you're righteous. There it is, playing the game of self-justification. It's knowing that there's a gap that exists between you and God and thinking that you can do something about it. Um, think about it like this. Several years ago, I saw one of those investigative, like documentary news shows, Dateline or whatever, something like that. And it scarred me to life. And if you've never heard of this kind of thing, I'm about to pass my trauma on to you. Um, but the story was about these nice, clean, like, you know, four and five-star hotel rooms that have been cleaned up for the next guests. And the documentary like news crew goes into these hotel rooms that have just been prepped and cleaned for the next guests, and they're flawless, and everything's in the perfect and right place. And the documentary news crew goes in there, turns all the lights off, and then turns on one like special UV light bulb that let's just say reveals stains and messes that you didn't know were there, and that are in places that you just don't even want to think about. And in an instant, what appeared to be so clean and put together and good, when you see what's actually there underneath it all, you see that it's actually pretty ugly. And y'all, that's what Jesus is doing here. He wants to shine a UV light into your hearts and into my heart, underneath the good behavior and underneath what could look very put together and good on the surface. And he wants us to see that there might be something underneath what is very clean and put together that's actually really ugly. And what is it? It's that it's our deep-seated tendency to justify ourselves, to play the game of self-justification, to trust in our own righteousness, to believe that I can do something or not do something that will affect and impact that gap between where God is and where I am. And y'all, it's like when God shines the UV light into our hearts underneath what's clean and put together, when he looks underneath appearances, he can see, if you want to think of it this way, it's like he can see that we're all holding a resume. That's what it, that's what it means to play the self-justification game. That you're holding on to some kind of resume and pulling it out of your pocket all the time and saying, God, look at fill in the blank. God, look at how hard I'm trying. God, look at look at how I've grown in this area. God, look at how I've not sinned in this way in at least two weeks. Or God, look how sorry I am for the way that I that I did that. God, look at how good my theology is. God, look at how I'm not a train wreck like this person. God, look at fill in the blank. Y'all, what is on your resume that you think is impressing God right now? It's probably something really good. It's probably something pretty impressive. But what do you want God to notice about you when you pull out your resume and say, God, look at what's there? That's what it means to play the game of self-justification. And y'all look, it's really important to notice that the prayer of the Pharisee here, I know we're all pretty critical about it. It like it, yes, it sounds pretty bad, right? Like the prayer of the Pharisee sounds so self-righteous and arrogant and me-centered and all of that, because he's literally saying, God, look at this. Look at this about me. Don't you notice this about me, God? Look at what I did here. Y'all, it's just it's just Jesus letting us hear out loud what's actually going on in our hearts when he shines that UV light underneath good appearances at what might be really going on. The Pharisee is just showing God his resume. God, look at this. Look at this about me. He's just saying out loud what you and I might have been saying quietly all week long. And maybe what you've come to church saying this morning in your hearts, holding a resume, playing the game of self-justification. The problem, y'all, is that we're all playing that game and we all come into the world wired to play it and thinking that we're doing pretty good at it. And no, the problem is that if you have anything on your resume other than Jesus, even if it's something really good, it's something that's actually keeping you from Him. That's the problem. What about the symptom? Secondly, the symptom. When we think that God's interested or impressed with our resumes, when we play the game of self-justification in our hearts, notice that's something that's going on in here, but there's something that will show up and bubble up on the surface of our lives. It's a symptom on the exterior that's evidence of something on the interior. What is it? Jesus tells us in verse 9, he says he also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. There it is. The game of self-justification, of trusting in your own righteousness, will always, without exception, Jesus says, produce disdain or contempt for someone or for some group that isn't like you and that you think that you're better than. When we're saying deep in our hearts, God, look at this resume. God, look at this, notice this about me. Without exception, it means that you're gonna notice all the people who don't have as impressive a resume as you do. And they're gonna be less than. They're gonna be other, they're gonna be different. Ralph Davis says, when you trust in your own righteousness, it means that you must despise someone. You have to. Because, well, if they're equal to you, then you can't regard yourself as so righteous anymore, can you? You see how that works. Playing the game of self-justification, self-righteousness will create a class of others who just don't quite get it like you do, who aren't quite as moral or spiritual or whatever as you are. When we think we can do something about the gap that that exists between where we are and God, he's saying it's going to cause a gap between you and the other people in your life that you don't think are quite up to snuff or have as impressive of a resume as you do. And so the question is, how is this showing up in in our lives this morning? Um, how is it showing up in your life this week, this symptom? Who are the others who always make you feel just a little bit better about yourself when you think about them? Who are the people that just don't get it like you do? Whatever it is. And yeah, look, maybe like the idea of like disdaining them or having contempt for them. Maybe you're like, I don't hate anybody. I think Jesus might be going a little overboard there. Like that's a little strong. But you know, it could just look like having having pity towards a person or a group that is just below you. Or having, you know, maybe you think it's compassion, but it's actually, it's actually just disdain that's wrapped up in what feels like pity. Jesus is saying there is gonna be a group or a person in your life or world, either across the street or in your church or in culture somewhere, that because you think you can do something about the gap between you and God, there's gonna be a gap between you and them. And you won't be loving your neighbor as you're called to, you say. And y'all, it's a lot more subtle than we think it is. So, how is that symptom of the problem showing up in your life and my life? And how is Jesus calling us to be aware of it and to repent? So that's the problem, that's the symptom, third and last, the invitation. What do we do with this? Look at verse 13. But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but he 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. Y'all, there's an invitation here. It's an invitation into something scary, into something costly, into something risky and unpleasant, and it's an invitation into more life and joy and freedom than you and I can imagine. Watch this. While the Pharisee is in one corner of the temple and he's having a hard time pulling his resume out of his pocket because it's so long and impressive and it's so detailed. Here's this scumbag over in the other corner. And notice that he's pulling something else out of his pocket, but it's not, it's not so much a resume as it is a criminal record. He's pulling out of his pocket all the reasons that God should reject him and that he knows it and he's honest about it. It's like the Pharisees over here pulling out his resume, he pulls, he reaches in his pocket and he's like, God, all that I've got is all the reasons that you should walk away from me. It's all I can give you. It's all I've got. I've got nothing here. I shouldn't even be here. I'm guilty and I can't do anything about it. Notice that his brokenness and his desperation have finally woken him up out of the fiction that the Pharisee is living in and into the reality of the fact that the self-justification game is over and he lost. You see, you can see how the inner cry of his heart is different. Notice that he's not saying, God, look at this. He's not even saying, God, look at how sorry I am. God, look at how, look at how sincere and repentant I am. God, look at how much I hate my sin. God, look at how determined I am to do better. Because, y'all, that's just another version of a resume. That's saying, God, look at this. And notice that his heart is singing a different tune completely. He's saying, God, I've got nothing. Help me. Nothing. Y'all, that's the one thing that the Pharisee doesn't have. It's the one thing that you and I don't want. It's the one thing that when you and I realize that we have it, we want to get rid of it as soon as possible because nothing is a hard and scary and risky thing to have. We want to have something. But nothing's a hard thing to have. And here he is, and the only thing he's got is his need. The only thing he's got are all the reasons why God shouldn't have mercy on him. And all he can mutter is, God, help me. It's interesting that in the Greek, he probably says something more along the lines of, have mercy on me, the sinner. The sinner, not a sinner. It's like he doesn't even notice anybody else in the room anymore. He's just convinced that, like, of all the people on the planet, he needs God's mercy the most. And it's it's like the Pharisee definitely noticed him, right? Because the Pharisee's playing the game of self-justification and he's holding on to his resume, which means he's going to notice the people who don't live up to that resume. And the tax collector, though, he's not playing the game. He's not holding on to a resume. He knows that it's over and he's lost and he's got nothing. Think about it like this. When I was playing, when I was playing high school basketball, I'm not going to tell you what year that was, because when I said the year in the first service, it just made me feel old. So just imagine it not being as long ago as it actually was. But when I was playing high school basketball, we made it my junior year to the overall state basketball uh tournament that was played in the Mississippi College Coliseum in Jackson, Mississippi. And the first game of that tournament, we showed up and we were actually a pretty good team, but we got our brains beat out by 50 points that first game. I can still remember it. I don't think I hit the rim all game long. It was terrible. Um now I think about that game often. I mean, not that often. It's but I think about it. Um I want you to imagine if I were to get in the car today and drive back to that Coliseum and put on my old jersey and lace up my old shoes and get out on that Coliseum floor and start dribbling around, shooting threes and making layups and all that. Genuinely thinking that I can do something about that game. Like genuinely thinking this three is gonna make a difference. I can I can do it. Y'all, like you'd say that's delusional. Like the game's over. You lost, bud. Like the the banner's hanging up in somebody else's gym, the the trophies in somebody else's case, it's it's over. Get over it. Y'all, that's what the tax collector accepts. That's what he feels deeply. He's saying about himself that the self-justification game that he's been playing is over and he's lost. The buzzer has sounded years ago. The trophy was handed out and he didn't get it. It's over, he lost. He's saying, all that I've got to give you is my need and my and my hope that you'll give me mercy. That's all I've got. He's saying everything on my resume actually counts against me. I've got nothing to give you. All I've got is all the reasons that you shouldn't give me grace and mercy, and I'm asking for it anyway. Y'all, the invitation for us here is to take off the stupid old jersey and shoes that we're wearing, thinking that the game is still being played. The invitation is for us to believe deep down, deep in our hearts, that the self-justification game we've been playing is over and we lost. And to always live in that posture. Notice this is not a parable about the beginning of the Christian life. This is a parable about the posture of a Christian his whole life. The invitation is to embrace our need, to admit that we've got nothing, and to discover what the tax collector discovers. And that's y'all, that when you bring your need and your nothing to Jesus, when you live in that posture and admit that the game's over and you lost, you always get infinitely more than you asked for. Notice what Jesus says. He says, I tell you, this man went down to his house justified. Justified. That's so much more than just forgiven. You see, justification, you may be familiar with that word. It's one of these fancy Bible words that means not just the pardon and forgiveness of sins, but it actually involves being declared righteous. If the if the tax collector was simply forgiven, he walks home from the temple that day with a clean slate. But if the tax collector leaves justified, it means that he walks home and in God's eyes, he always told the truth. And he never cheated anybody. And he was always just and fair, and he always loved God and his neighbor perfectly. He walked home not just with a clean slate, but with a new record. That's what it means to be justified when you admit and live like the game's over and you lost. Jesus gives you his trophy and says you won. Like the only pathway to winning is to admit that you lost. And to live like that. That's not just the entrance into the Christian life, that's the continual, perpetual posture of the Christian, the whole Christian life. Robert Capin says it like this He says, This admittedly is a terrifying step. And you are you will cry and kick and scream before you take it because it means putting yourself out of the only game that you know. For your comfort, though, I can tell you three things. Number one, it's only one step. Number two, it's not a step out of reality and into nothing like it feels like, but it's a step from fiction into fact. And then third, it will make you laugh out loud just how short the trip home really was. Y'all, the invitation is to live in this posture our whole lives. That tax collector on the way home had a deep awareness of only two things: his need and the grace of God for losers who have no hope other than free grace. So the only things he knew. And y'all, Jesus wants, he doesn't want you to graduate out of that place. He wants to, he wants you to keep graduating further and further into that place, into that posture of knowing that Jesus loves nothing. And he wants you to have nothing because he wants you to have him and everything that he came to give you and himself. Wants you to move past the place of knowing that you've got nothing. Jesus is very interested in you and I never moving on from that place and that posture because he wants you to live in the joy of knowing that his smile on you is not for anything that you can do, but his smile is for losers like you and me who have no hope but free grace. And when we bring our nothing for him, you don't, or to him, you don't get a frown. You get the smile of a God who is ready to justify you and give you everything. When you give him and when you live with your nothing. May God make that more and more true of us today and this week in the rest of our lives. Amen. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, we pray that you would make yourself beautiful and believable to us more and more in a new and fresh ways. Having nothing and living face to face with all of the reasons why you shouldn't give us grace. It's a scary and risky thing, but give us the grace to believe that it is the pathway to life and freedom and joy. Help us to believe that you love losers who have no hope but free grace, people like us who have nothing, and give us the grace to believe that and to keep living in the light of that good news. In your name we pray. Amen.