Sermon - Trinity XI 2022 - Luke 18:9-14

The Pharisee and the Publican, James Tissot, dated between 1886-1894

Christ died for sinners and the humble sinners are justified.

1. Pride flows from faith in self.

2. Christian humility flows from faith in Christ.

What kind of people will be saved? This is a fairly important question, since we would all like to be saved. Some say that “good” or “nice” people will be saved. Some say that so long as you claim to be a Christian and pray sometimes you’ll be saved. Or it’s becoming pretty common to believe that everyone, or almost everyone, will be saved regardless of anything else, afterall many say we’re all going to the same place anyways.

But how does God’s Word answer this question? St. Paul wrote quite plainly: “Christ died for our sins.” In other words, Jesus died for sinners, and therefore the kind of people who are saved are sinners. But this is kind of tricky: since all people are sinners, does that mean that all sinners will be saved? Not at all! Only those sinners who have faith in Christ for their salvation will be saved. St. Paul reminded the Corinthians of this: “I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.” Or Jesus said at the conclusion to today’s parable: “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.”

So today we shall meditate on the fact that Christ died for sinners and that the humble sinners are justified. Our Lord teaches us that (1.) False pride flows from faith in self, and that (2.) Christian humility flows from faith in Him.

In Jesus’ Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, we first need to set a few things straight, otherwise it can be easy to make wrong conclusions. So the first thing to consider is the setting for this: “two men went up into the temple to pray.” So the location for this is Jerusalem at the temple. Each day in the temple sacrifices were made for the sins of the people, and after sacrifice there was a time for public worship and prayer. This means that both of these men had just returned from the sacrifices performed for the forgiveness of their sins, and now they were praying together in the temple.

The next things to consider are pharisees and tax collectors. Pharisees were good Jews. For example, St. Paul and Nicodemus were pharisees. It was a sect of Jews who were, among other things, quite particular and fastidious in their observance of God’s Word. So when the Pharisee says that he’s not an “extortioner, unjust, adulterer, or tax collector,” or when he says that he “fasts twice a week, gives tithes of all he gets,” that was all probably quite true. Let’s be clear, it’s good that he lived according to God’s Word, that’s not the problem with the pharisee at all.

Tax collectors on the other hand were not good Jews. They were extortioners and unjust Jews. I suppose no one has ever liked tax collectors, but tax collectors in ancient Israel were legitimately wicked. Consider for example Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector and rich, after he heard Jesus from the Sycamore tree he repented and gave half of his wealth away to the poor and anyone he defrauded he paid them back fourfold. Being a tax collector made him a notorious sinner. Again, let’s be clear, it’s not good that the tax collector was a sinner who defrauded people and stole their money, that’s not what made him good.

So understanding all of those things, we come to realize that the really significant difference between the pharisee and the tax collector isn’t external but internal. Both of them are in the temple, both of them are praying, most importantly both of them just came from the sacrifices. This means that atonement had been made for each of them and God offered them both the forgiveness of their sins. So in terms of sinfulness the playing field has been leveled. The difference between the two is in their hearts. The pharisee trusted in himself that he was righteous.

So it is that pride flows from faith in self. Notice who the pharisee focuses on in his prayers: himself. He’s not thanking or asking God for forgiveness, he’s praising himself and his own actions, his own personal acts of piety. He stands by himself, setting himself apart from the people around him, thanking God saying “I am not like other men.” Other men are sinners, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, and tax collectors, but not him, he’s a good guy, he’s nice. His faith is in himself.

This temptation to pride and to have faith in oneself generally comes quite naturally to us. For instance, when problems arise in our lives, we’re quick to blame others and their faults, rather than to confess our own sins and faults. We gossip and badmouth others because it makes us look and feel better about ourselves. If we can put others down then we can exalt ourselves above them. This is ultimately what happened with Cain and Abel, Cain couldn’t stand that Abel’s sacrifice was accepted by God and not his own, since he was without faith, so Cain rose up against Abel and killed him. We don’t usually outright murder each other, but we still too often treat others with contempt and attack them with our words.

In effect this pride means that we end up rejecting God’s forgiveness since we don’t believe we need His forgiveness. Afterall, what did the pharisee say? “I am not like other men.” I’m not a sinner, I don’t need forgiveness, I don’t need to hear that I’m forgiven because I’m just such a perfect person. Without faith that trusts in God, forgiveness isn’t received by the sinner, and so the pharisee went home not forgiven. The sacrifice was made for both pharisee and tax collector , but without faith in God the pharisee didn’t receive that forgiveness.

Instead of pride Jesus teaches us to be humble. Christian humility flows from faith in Christ. Notice how the tax collector prays and whose actions he focuses on: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” This man doesn’t elevate himself above others, but he knows that God forgives sinners, so that’s what he confesses to be: a sinner. Whose actions does he focus on? God’s. This man has faith not in himself, but in the Lord.

And what does he desire the Lord to do? “Be merciful to me.” Or more accurately to the Greek, he says “propitiate me.” Propitiation is when God’s wrath over sin is satisfied. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was propitiatory because God’s wrath over sin was satisfied through Jesus’ death on the cross. Sin makes God wrathful, He hates sin, so much so that sinners deserve His wrath. The reason for this is that good cannot dwell with evil, just like light and darkness cannot coexist. So God who is perfectly good cannot coexist with sin. God who is the light of the world cannot coexist with those dwelling in the darkness of sin, because the light destroys the darkness, good destroys evil.

What Jesus does is He satisfied God’s wrath over sin by atoning for the sins of all people. God’s wrath against sinners was poured out upon Jesus on the cross, so that our sins may be forgiven. In Jesus our sins are forgiven. Like St. Paul wrote: “Christ died for our sins.” So when the tax collector prayed: “God, propitiate me, a sinner,” he was expressing faith, trust, in God to forgive his sins, and through his faith he was justified and received that forgiveness of sins. This is why he went down to his house justified.

This repentance over sin and faith in Jesus to forgive sins is Christian humility. Instead of comparing ourselves against others and trying to look better than them, we simply confess our own personal need of forgiveness and trust in God who forgives our sins. This is what we’re confessing when we say: “I am a poor miserable sinner.” Miserable doesn’t mean that we’re really sad or gloomy, it means that we are people who need God’s mercy, we are people who need the propitiatory sacrifice of Jesus on calvary. Jesus came to forgive sinners, and I’m one of them, I’m one of the sinners that Jesus came to rescue.

This is all true regardless of how notorious our sins may be. We sometimes make the mistake of thinking that I have to be a really bad notorious sinner to be forgiven. Not so! Christ died for both the tax collector and the pharisee. Both of them were sinners. The pharisee could’ve received God’s forgiveness had he also been repentant of his sins and had faith in God to forgive him. Similarly, the life of the tax collector would’ve no longer looked like it previously had, he would’ve been like Zacchaeus who turned his life around. He and the pharisee would outwardly look identical in terms of their good works from now on.

We need to be careful that we don’t emulate the sins of the tax collector and the pride of the pharisee, but rather that we emulate the humble faith of the tax collector and the holy lifestyle of the pharisee. That truly is a good life. Pride fills a person with constant anxiety, since you’re always comparing yourself to others. Pride also makes you lonely, since you’re so busy tearing others down and placing yourself on a pedestal. But humility frees you from both loneliness and that prideful anxiety, since you find yourself in the community of believers and your hope is in God who has had mercy upon you by forgiving your sins.

The end is better for the humble too. “The one who humbles Himself will be exalted.” Christ humbled Himself by taking on our human flesh, dying on the cross, and being buried in the ground. Yet God the Father exalted Him by raising Him from the dead and ascending Him to heaven. By the humility of Christ we humble sinners shall be raised from the dead and go to our Father’s house justified, exalted all the way to heaven.