I can't say in proper words how
delighted I am to be here, how much I love your pastor, love
the gospel he preaches and just love the the warmth and the depth
and the sincerity and the reality of the fellowship that we have
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We're thankful and we often think
of pastors but we need to keep being reminded and I want to
remind you that your pastor preaches the gospel to you and to many
around the world and to many of us in Australia because you
are here. And so there is a real bond of unity in the fellowship
of the gospel and I'm just delighted to witness it. I'm thankful for
your hospitality. I'm thankful that I was allowed
to crash in their house a couple of days early because I'm not
very good at driving through snowstorms and all sorts of other
things. I was told you get to Kingsport as quickly as possible.
What a good thing to do. So it's good to be here. Thank
you so much. I appreciate it. I want to... Gabe got up in the
middle of the night and got my notes, of course, and then did
a summary of them. So there's a whole bunch of what
Gabe has said that I want us to look at again. And it's not
a bad thing to be looking at again in this remarkable story. Whenever we have stories in the
scriptures of two men, generally they're stories of all of humanity
pictured in two men. And here we have all of humanity
pictured coming to a place where they came to pray. They came
to, as it was, worship God. And this is a place where both
of them thought that they were meeting with God and both of
them thought that they were honoring God. and yet the end of these
two men is remarkably different. I just want to read you something
that prompted me to go to this passage of scripture. This was
written a long, long time ago and it was written by a fellow
getting to the end of his life. He says, I have at last arrived
at a degree of certainty as to two points in religion. First,
I am altogether a sinner, loaded with unworthiness, a fit companion
every moment of my life for the poor publican that we read here
in Luke 18, or the poor woman that was a sinner. I look upon
the ground on which they stood often with no small degree of
delight. With them I wish to spend my
days as they did. So should I upon that ground
conquer all my guilt, sin, the world and the devil. I am convinced that it is the
only ground on which we can conquer and thrive. The second point,
of which I am certain, is that God receives sinners as such,
and that therefore, as such, I may go to him. This last point
is the very life of the little religion I have. I was blessed
by those words. We are sinners and there is a
saviour. for sinners. A saviour for sinners. But here in this remarkable story
there are so many wonderful things to see. We have the simplicity
of the gospel. We have Christ glorified in salvation. He does all the saving. And for
us, who will in some time soon meet him, that which glorifies
Christ the most is the greatest comfort for believers. And this
is a story about the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a
story about grace revealed. It's a story about faith evidenced. It's a story about the word of
promise in power declared. You know the story well, and
I don't want to spend a whole lot of time dealing with the
publican, except that we need to acknowledge that the publican
is us. Adam Fliss, we are the publican. We do, if we come to
God, we do want to go to God saying, I thank thee that I'm
not as other men are. I'm not an extortioner. I'm not
unjust. I'm not an adulterer. I'm not
like this person. It's very hard for us to picture
in our minds how hated the publican was. He not only was filthy because
he was handling money, he was a traitor to his nation. It's
very hard. I don't know. These days, when
you want to think of the most despicable people you can possibly
imagine, some might turn to people in the Middle East and Muslims
and other people who do horrific things to people. Some might
naturally think of politicians, and it doesn't matter which side
of the fence they're on, but some might think of greedy people.
It's very hard for us to enter into how despicable the publican
was. It was a sin in the eyes of a
Pharisee to look at a publican. It was a sin in their eyes for
the publican to even dare to come to the temple. So I imagine
in the temple court this publican was hiding away in a corner as
far away as he possibly could because he knew what these people
thought of him and he knew what he was. It's just one of the
axioms of the gospel, isn't it? All the self-righteous see themselves
as righteous in their deeds or in their potential to do things.
And all of the truly righteous in God's sight see themselves
as nothing but wicked in all they do. This man looked down
on others, despised others. You might say to yourself, well,
I've never despised anyone. I'm really nice. Well that word
also means to take no account of. Is there someone that you
have just treated in just your minds as someone who is unworthy
of your thoughts or attentions? I have. We treat a whole bunch
of our society and the world in that regard, don't we? Here again is all humanity coming
before the Lord. And the Pharisee, he came to
receive a reward for services rendered. Didn't he? He wanted to receive a reward
for both what he didn't do and he wanted to receive a reward
for what he did do. He wanted to gain applause. He wanted to honour God in it. He said, I thank God. But who
was he really thanking? He says, I fast twice in the
week, I give tithes of all that I possess. Hold on a second,
who possesses everything? He's a thief, isn't he? He's
stealing the very glory of God. He's a man with no needs whatsoever. He comes to be rewarded before
God. And that is all of Adam's children
until the Lord deals with us in mercy and grace. The publican. The publican is
a man who reveals the glory of the grace of God in the hearts
of his people. You see, the Pharisee had no
need of grace and he had no need of mercy because he had merits.
He could bring something to God. He wasn't bowing. His righteousness
caused him to have no reverence for God whatsoever. He didn't really thank God at
all. He just mouthed those words. What a shocking declaration the
Lord makes of people who honour him with their lips and in their
hearts they're far, far from him. His trust was in what he'd
done. His trust was in what he hadn't
done. His trust was in that he could look upon someone else
in this world and think, I'm more righteous than them. I wonder
how many people have gone out of this world thanking God for
sending Hitler, because the rest of humanity can say, well, I'm
not as bad as Hitler or Mao Tse Tung, or you name them all, but
I'm not as bad as them. So at least on God's scale of
measuring things, I'm going to get a pass grade because of what
I've done. He had no need of grace when
there is so much merit. There is no need of mercy when
there is so much merit. He couldn't even pray to God
without despising another human being. He was ignorant. He was ignorant of who God was.
He was ignorant of who he was. He was ignorant of the very character
of God. There he was in the very temple.
It's extraordinary. As a religion, nothing hardens
the hearts of people like religion, especially false religion. Those
people went to that temple every morning at nine o'clock. There
was a lamb slain and that blood was spilled. saying that you're
a sinner and the only hope for a sinner is in a saviour. The
whole temple was about, was a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and
his salvation. And yet, they and their religion
were proud of it. The Pharisee in reality was a
wicked man who believed himself to be righteous. And the sad
thing about religion is that you will always find plenty of
company. If you're in a religion, If you've come out of a religion,
you realise the wonder of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. He
hadn't met God. He knew the words of God. He
came to the temple of God. He lived his whole life in what
he called the service of God and yet he hadn't met him. What
is salvation according to the Lord Jesus Christ in John 17
verse 3? That you know him. And to know
him is to love him. He had no knowledge of God and
no love of God and no thankfulness for a saviour. Let's go to the publican, and
I pray that the Lord causes us to know this story of the publican. It's a simple story, isn't it?
It's a really simple story. It's just in a few verses, but
I pray that the Lord causes us to come into his presence like
this publican did, and keep coming into his presence. If you ever
come into his presence like the publican, you're still coming
into his presence like the publican. He came to show, as the Lord
reveals in this parable, to show us how God works in mercy and
grace in the hearts of his people. He caused this man, who had lived
an outwardly wicked life, to come to the very place where
mercy was. To come as a beggar. He came to the temple looking
for mercy in the one place where mercy was pictured in the death
and the resurrection and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In that sacrifice, he came to the only one who could be merciful. He came to the place where God
meets and God makes his name to be known. He came looking
for mercy where God promised to meet sinners in mercy. He
came knowing what this other man would think of him. He didn't
care about the opinions of anyone except one. He stood afar off. And standing afar off, he's saying
two things, isn't he? In standing there, he's saying,
God has to come to me because I can't come to him. And the
gulf between the holiness of God and what I am and what I
see in myself is so great that the only possible hope for me
is that he makes all of that journey. That's exactly what he did, didn't
he, in coming into this world to save sinners like us. How can I, one so openly wicked,
one whose heart is wicked, one who is a notorious sinner, do
anything other than plead for mercy? God is holy. God is holy. infinitely holy. God can only accept that which
is perfectly holy in his presence. How good do you have to be to
be in the presence of God? The answer is really simple.
You have to be as good as God. You have to have God's righteousness. Tony and Gabe and I are doing
some building tomorrow and one of the wonderful verses that
I love so much in the scriptures is in Isaiah 28 and it speaks
of this stone that's planted He says in Isaiah 28 verse 16,
therefore thus saith the Lord God, behold, I lay in Zion for
a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone,
a sure foundation. He that believeth shall not make
haste. Judgment will I lay to the line
and righteousness to the plummet. and hail shall sweep away the
refuge of lies and water shall overflow the hiding place. The plummet is the plumb bob.
You who've done some building, we use spirit levels, and now
they use lasers and all that. But if you wanted to have something
that was perfectly perpendicular, you held it on a string, and
it had, one of my friends in church brought one in that his
father had, and the thing weighed about a pound, and it had, obviously,
at the very center of it, the string was attached, and at the
very other end of it was a sharp point, and it was so sharp that
you'd hurt yourself on it. And this is the picture that
the Lord is presenting here of how righteous you have to be
to be in his presence. He lays righteousness to the
plumbob. The plumbob, you imagine that
plumbob, it reaches from heaven to earth and it touches one point
only. And necessarily excludes every
other point. It marks the righteousness of
the Lord Jesus Christ perfectly righteous. And it necessarily
says that every other righteousness that anyone else has is not an
acceptable righteousness. And the only way you get from
here to there is in that righteousness, in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
a beautiful picture, isn't it? He is pleading for mercy because
he has no merits. He can't plead anything of himself. He bowed his head. He would not so much as lift
up his eyes to heaven. He can see no worthiness in himself. Don't you love how grace works
in the hearts of God's people? How he brought him to this place,
a place of humility and a place of contrition in the midst of
them who are proud about themselves. He took his place as a sinner
before God. Nothing in my hand I bring, nothing
in my hand I bring. Here I am just a sinner. And
he smote upon his breast. I love telling this story so
often because there's one of the fellows in our church and
he sits in the front row and every time I remind him of this
I hear this wonderful smile on his face because he just knows
himself to be a sinner. He beat upon his heart, didn't
he? Only God, only God in mercy can
show you that sin firstly is what you are. and therefore you
sin. Sin is a heart problem. God is
looking at our hearts. And when the Lord in Matthew,
Mark chapter seven, talks about what comes out of the heart, what's the first thing he says
that proceeds from the heart? Evil thoughts. You ever had an evil thought? I'm shocked by mine. Sometimes
I'm shocked by mine when I'm preaching, and sometimes I'm
shocked by them when I'm praying, and sometimes I'm shocked by
them when I'm singing. But out of the heart, that's
our problem, isn't it? Our problem is much deeper than
what our hands have done. Our problem's a heart problem.
He beat upon his heart. He was a sinner. by birth, by
nature, a sinner in practice, a sinner in desire. And I love
his prayer, he says in this prayer, Lord have mercy on me the sinner. The sinner. If God makes you
to be a sinner You and God and your sin and his salvation are
the only things that matter. What other people do and say
is not the issue at all, isn't it? You do business with God
as a sinner. You come to God as a sinner. I am the sinner. He bowed as a guilty man before
a righteous judge and said, I am worthy of your condemnation,
but I'm here pleading for your mercy, for your mercy. And what that word mercy means
is the mercy seat, the propitiation, the atonement. He's saying to
God, That distance is so great that the only hope of my salvation
is that there is a transaction between God the Father and God
the Son where all of my sins and all of my righteousness is
dealt with. He's looking to Christ alone.
This is faith in action, brothers and sisters. Sweet, sweet faith. He's saying that the only possible
hope of his salvation is that when that high priest goes in
to the Holy of Holies and he takes the blood of the bullock
and the blood of the lamb or the goat, he goes into that place
with that blood and my name is written on his heart and my name
is written on his shoulder. and he goes in there and he takes
that blood and he sprinkles that blood on the mercy seat. That's
what he's looking to in that temple. He's looking to the Lord
Jesus Christ and him alone. His sacrifice and him alone. God be propitious to me. God pour out all of your wrath
on my sins in the Lord Jesus Christ. You accept me in him
completely and perfectly. You can read about it in Exodus
and Leviticus chapter 16, but it's a glorious thing to go back
and look at the Day of Atonement and what it was for the person
to take that blood into that mercy seat. And the mercy seat
sat on top of the Ark of the Covenant and the angels of God,
the messengers of God looked down and what are they looking
on? They're looking on the blood. That's all they look on. They're
looking on Christ Jesus and him crucified. And that ark is such
a glorious picture as is all of this temple, the picture of
the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified. And inside the ark
is the unbroken law of God. Perfectly unbroken law of God. And on that mercy seat, God in
perfect righteousness and in perfect justice pours out all
of his wrath. on his son, pictured by that
blood that was shed. And what were you doing that
day if you were one of God's children and you were there?
What was your task that day when the high priest did absolutely
everything, picturing the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified?
Leviticus 16 says you to do two things. Absolutely nothing Absolutely
nothing, because all of it has to be done by the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's what the publican is saying,
isn't he? He's coming there saying, God is going to do all this,
has to do all of this for me, because I can't do a single thing
for myself. And the other thing you were
to do was to afflict your souls. I'm a sinner. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Nothing. As Gabe said earlier, and I meet
with it so often, I meet with people and one of the first things
in some roundabout way they'll end up coming to their assurance
of salvation. You've probably had hundreds
of conversations with people and somehow they want to have
some knowledge. How can I know? How can I know
that I'm saved? Well this publican gives us the
glorious picture of how we come, isn't it? We come right now and
we come just as we are and we come to the one place and we
come to the one saviour and we come with one request that he
would be merciful to us. We come to the one merciful one
We come in faith. We come looking to him. Faith looks outside of itself
and it looks to him and him alone. And how you came the first time
is how you keep coming. Turn with me to Colossians chapter
two, verse six. This is a very special verse
of scripture for sinners. There are many, many special
verses of Scripture for sinners. Colossians 2 verse 6, just listen
to these words from our great God. As you therefore received
Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk you in him. God's children never get above
coming this way. We never get above it. We keep
coming. Lord, be merciful to me, the
sinner. Lord, will you just look to your
son and see me in him. I'm crucified
with Christ, he said. I'm crucified with Christ, said
the Apostle Paul. I'm crucified with him. We were
crucified with him. We were buried with him. We died
with him. We're so united to him. that the Lord Jesus Christ gives
the law of heaven at the end of this passage in verse 18. He says, for everyone that exalted
himself shall be abased and he that humbled himself shall be
exalted. But listen to what he says, listen
to the Lord's declaration of this man. And may it be the declaration
that he pronounces on all of us and all who might hear us
if we come as this public indeed. He says, I tell you, that this
man went down to his house justified rather than the other. Firstly, I wanted to say that
this is what the Lord says. If you've received mercy, if
that blood has been shed for you, God declares you to be justified. I love thinking about justification. I love talking about it. I love
reading about it. I love how precious it is. One
of the things that we misunderstand, isn't it, is it's right and proper
for us to forgive. Be kind and tender-hearted to
one another, forgiving one another as God, for Christ's sake, has
forgiven you. And we need to bear one another's
burdens and we need to pardon one another's sins But in the
matter of justification, God does not just pardon sin. He removes it completely. So
your president and our king pardon people. They pardon guilty people
and those guilty people will never stand before a court in
this world and be accused ever again of those particular charges.
But they're still guilty. They've still committed the crime.
But in justification, God Almighty removes the sins altogether. That's what he's declaring about
this man. To be a justified person in the
eyes of God, according to the word of God, is to be someone
who has never sinned. Where are all his sins? They were on the Lord Jesus Christ.
They were laid on the Lord Jesus Christ, the lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. And sin cannot be in two places
at once. And God punished the Lord Jesus
Christ. The wrath of God fell upon the
Lord Jesus Christ. With all of my sins in him, he
bore our sins in his own body on the tree. And if he's borne
them, then I can't bear them. And if he's borne them and carried
them away, I can never be charged with them. Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? Who does the justifying? It's
God that justifies. It's Christ that died. That's
why this Christ can say of this man, I tell you, he went down
to his house justified. Justified. I love what Isaiah 32, 17 says. The work of righteousness is
peace. The effect of righteousness is
quietness and assurance forever. How do I know the Lord has pronounced
those words upon me? Well, we heard about it earlier
this morning, didn't we? I come into the presence of God
Almighty as a sinner. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
save sinners. And I keep coming now and I pray
that for everyone here that's what we do, isn't it? We come
just as we are. We come to the one place. We
come to the one person who can be merciful to us. We come to
the one who is merciful and just. We come acknowledging again and
again the fact that the distance is so great that God has to walk
every step of it right to where I am and pick me up in his arms
and take me to where he is and he has to do all of the saving.
I come bowed because I know what I am. I come again and again,
day after day. I'm just a sinner. I'm just a
poor sinner and nothing at all. But Jesus Christ is my all in
all. And I haven't grown any better.
And I haven't grown less needy. But I think I'm growing to love
him a bit more and appreciate him for what a glorious, glorious
saviour there is for sinners like us. May the Lord work so
in your hearts and may he be the one that pronounces justified
over you and that for all that we love and all that may come
to ever hear us proclaim this saviour. Thank you.