Turn with me back to Luke chapter
18. Luke chapter 18. We were here
last Wednesday night. We were looking at the first
eight verses where our Lord told a parable of a woman who had
a great need and her continual coming to have that need provided
for. And in reading on down through
the next few verses after that, our Lord gave another parable
here and he's laid it on my heart for us to look at it for the
message this morning. Verses 9 to 14 will be our text
and it says, He spake this parable unto certain
which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised
others. Two men went up into the temple
to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee
stood and prayed thus with himself. God, I thank thee that I am not
as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as
this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give
tithes of all that I possess, and the publican standing afar
off would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but
smote upon 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 every one
that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth
himself shall be exalted. What I'd like for us to talk
about for a minute is self-righteousness. What it is to be a Pharisee and
what it is to be self-righteous. And then I'd like for us to talk
about sinfulness. What it is to be a publican and
what it is to be sinful. And then I'd like for us to talk
about what actually justifies a person before God. What actually
justifies men and women before the throne of God. Now this is
a very important thing to talk about and the reason is because
there are a lot more self-righteous people in the world than the
world realizes. There are a lot more sinful people
in the world than the world realizes. And there are a lot less people
in the world who understand what it is to truly be justified before
God than the world realizes. I'm going to repeat all that. There's a lot of truth in that.
There is absolute truth in that. This truth is what man needs
to be faced with. This is honestly what all men
and women need to be faced with if we are going to come to know
anything of God, anything of ourselves, anything of salvation,
anything of eternity. If this world is gonna have any
hope of understanding their true condition before God, it has
to start right here. We need to be faced with this
right here. This is the truth. There are a lot more, I mean
a lot more, self-righteous people in the world than the world realizes. And there are a lot more sinners,
sinful people in the world. than the world realizes. And
there are a lot less people in the world who understand what
it truly means to be justified before God than the world realizes. We can bring that down a little
closer to home by saying there are a lot more self-righteous
people in Kingsport than Kingsport realizes. There are a lot more
sinful people in Kingsport than Kingsport realizes. And there
are a lot less people in Kingsport who understand what it is to
be truly justified before God than Kingsport realizes. Now verse 9 says, Luke 18 verse
9, it says, and he spake this parable unto certain which trusted
in themselves. That's where man goes wrong.
That's where men and women go wrong. They trusted in themselves. What that means is they did not
trust in Christ. That's what it means. If it's
one, it cannot be the other. It cannot be both. It cannot
be both. Either we are trusting in ourselves
or we are trusting in Christ. It cannot be both. Man, ignorantly
and foolishly says, oh yes, it can be both. That's what man
thinks. That's what man says. Oh, it
can be. I can trust in him and trust in myself too. Not according to God. Not according
to God's Word. Here's a true reality that we
must come to realize. Only God's Word will stand. Men and women, we can say what
we want to say, but only God's Word will stand. Only God will
be true, and every man will be a liar. Look with me back one
page to Luke 16, verse 13. It says, no servant can serve
two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other,
or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot
serve God and mammon. What is mammon? Anything other
than God. Anything in this world. So our Lord immediately exposed
a great error. He spoke this parable to those
who trusted in themselves. And I'll tell you, that is a
great number of people in the world. That's a great, great
number of people. I, along with the Apostle Paul,
I have really entered in to how Paul spoke in Romans 9 and Romans
10. His heart was breaking for those
in religion, people in religion. Most people in religion are trusting
in themselves. Most people. People think that
the word religion is a good word and that's a good thing to be
in. It's not. It's not. The word religion is
used in the Word of God five times. The word religious is
used two times. All of them are spoken of in
a negative way, but one. All of them. James said, if you
want to know what true religion is, if you want to talk about
true religion, he said, it's this, go visit the fatherless
and the widows and their affliction. That's a good work. Other than
that, every time it's mentioned, it is mentioned to expose the
lies of false doctrine. every time. It is always used
to expose, our Lord said, hypocrites. That was the word he used. Hypocrites. Worshippers of their own selves. Worshippers of their own works. And they're doing it in the name
of worshiping God. Back in Luke 18, our Lord said in verse 9,
He spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that
they were righteous. They saw, or they thought they
saw, they believed that they saw the works of God in themselves. They saw the commandments being
fulfilled in themselves. And we can enter into that. We've
been there or we know some who are there. They see the works
of God. They see the commandments of
God. All of that being fulfilled in themselves. They saw themselves
as being religious. That is a self-righteous person. Seeing it right here in myself. That is a self-righteous person. Verse 9, and he spake this parable
unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous
and despised others. That word despised means looked
down on. They didn't see in others what
they saw in themselves. When they looked to themselves,
they saw religion. And they were satisfied with
what they saw. They looked right here and they
were satisfied. liked what they see. They trusted in themselves
that they were righteous. That is a self-righteous person. That is many, many people in
religion. And it's not a good thing to
be. That's what our Lord was exposing and that's what I want
to declare first. It is not a good thing to be. God's people are not in religion. They're not. God's people are
not in church. People say all the time, you
know, I've got to get back in church. We finally got back in
church. We got to get them back in church.
God's people are not in church. They're not in religion. God's
people are in Christ. God's people are in the Lord
Jesus Christ. God's people are not trusting
in the fact that they are in anything but Christ. He is all they have. He's all
they're in. They are especially not trusting
in the lie and the false hope of a self-righteousness. God's people cry, God forbid,
they look at themselves and oh, the last thing they see is a
self righteousness. Look with me back at Luke 16
again. Luke 16 verse 15. And he said unto them, you are
they which justify yourselves before men. And that's what religion
will do for a person. That's what religion will teach
a person to do. Do everything he or she can do
to try to hide the sin that they know that they have, so they
can convince other men that they're right with God. They may convince other men,
but they'll never convince God. Verse 15 says, He said unto them,
you are they which justify yourselves before men, but God knoweth your
hearts for that which is highly esteemed among men. What is highly
esteemed among men? Religion, self-righteousness. He said, it is an abomination
in the sight of God. This is what our Lord said. He
said, I did not come to call the righteous, the self-righteous. He said, I came to call sinners
to repentance. Sinners to repentance. If we
had time, we would go to Genesis 4 and we'd look at what Abel brought
and look at what Cain brought. See what God accepted. If we had time, we would go to
Isaiah 1 and hear how the Lord said, I'm done with all your
religion. I'm turning my eyes from it.
If we had time, we'd go to Matthew 7, how they came and professed
everything they'd done before Him. He said, it's all iniquity
in my eyes. I reject it. Every page in this book declares
the fact that God did not come to call the self-righteous. He
came to call sinners. He came to call sinners. Back
in Luke 18, there are a lot of religious
people in this city. There are a lot of self-righteous
people in this city, but I'm going to tell you this, it would
be pretty self-righteous of us to not think that there was self-righteousness
in this room. It'd be pretty self-righteous
of me to not think that this body right here was prone to
self-righteousness. The self-righteousness that this
flesh is, tries to consume it. It is so, so prone to it. We all need to be warned of self-righteousness. Because it is, and this is a
big statement, it is the only thing Self-righteousness. It is the only thing that will
keep us from being justified before God. It's the only thing. It is the
only thing that God will turn us away for bringing to Him. It is not our sins that will
keep us away from Christ and the salvation that is in Him.
It is not our sins. People think, well, I can't come
to Christ, I'm too sinful. It is not our sins that keep
us away from the Lord Jesus Christ and the blood and the mercy that
He has. It's our self-righteousness,
and we're gonna see that right here in this parable. This is how we can spot self-righteousness. This is how we can know if self-righteousness
has consumed us and overtaken us with its lie and with its
false hope, okay? Self-righteousness produces this
word right here. This is how we can spot it. This
is how we'll know it. It produces this word right here,
I. That's how we'll know it. Self-righteousness says, I did
this and I did that. I have done and I will do. If we hear that coming out of
our hearts and coming out of our minds, we are trusting in
ourselves that we are righteous. And based on the Word of God,
the only hope that we have is to get rid of it quick and run
to Christ. Fall down before Him. Verse 9,
it says, He spake this parable unto certain which trusted in
themselves that they were righteous and despised others. Two men
went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other
a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed
thus with himself, God, I thank thee that I am not as other men
are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast
twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess. Do we hear the self-righteousness?
Does it sound familiar? That's what the nature of this
flesh is so prone to do. It is so prone to it. The Apostle
Paul said, that was me. That was me. Turn with me over
to Galatians chapter 1. Galatians chapter 1 verse 11. He said, But I certify you, brethren,
that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man, for I
neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation
of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my conversation
in time past in the Jews' religion. How that beyond measure I persecuted
the church of God and wasted it and profited in the Jews'
religion above many my equals in my own nation, being more
exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. I, I, I, that's
what he said, I, I, I was a self-righteous Pharisee. In Philippians 3, he said, I
was circumcised the eighth day. I was of the stock of Israel.
I was of the tribe of Benjamin. I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews.
It was all about me. It was all about me. Verse 15
right here, he said, but when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's
womb, and called me by His grace, He revealed His Son in me." And Paul said, when He revealed
His Son in me, I immediately realized there is none righteous
but God. Only God is righteous. Concerning
man, there's none righteous, no, not one. All of our righteousnesses
are filthy rags. Our only hope is to submit to
the righteousness of God, which is a person. The Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness. Christ is the only thing that
is perfect and acceptable in the eyes of God. That's what
it means to say Christ is the end of the law for righteousness.
That means He's the only thing that's perfect and acceptable
to God. Paul realized that and he explained
that in all of his writings. He realized that to bring our
own self-righteousness to Christ is to say, I don't need yours,
I have my own. But Christ's righteousness, that's
the only one God will accept. Therefore, if we bring our own,
if we bring our own works, and if we bring our own perfection
to the judgment throne of God, all we can be is turned away. That's all we can be. For that
reason, Paul said, I now count everything that made up my false
religion and my self-righteousness to be dung, that I may win Christ and be
found in Him, not having mine own righteousness which is of
the law, but that righteousness which is through the faith of
Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. What he was
saying in all that was, I'm a publican. I'm a publican. That's what Paul
wanted everybody to know. That's what I want everybody
to know. I'm a publican. I'm a sinner. I'm not trying
to put on a front for anybody. I'm not trying to put on a front
for anybody. I'm not trying to hide anything
from anybody, especially not God. The only thing that I can say
about me is I haven't done anything right. The only thing I've ever done
is sin against the God that made me. That's the only thing I've
ever done. I know it. Everybody knows it. That's the other man that our
Lord described in the parable, the publican. Look with me back
at Luke 18. Republicans were notorious. They were well-known sinners. They were Jews who were tax collectors
from other Jews to give that money to the Romans. Jews that got tax money and gave
it to the Romans. Not only were they seen to be
traitors, they were known to be crooks. It was a known profession
of crooks. It was known that if a Jew owed
the Romans a hundred dollars, the publican, the tax collector
would go to that man and say, you have to pay $150. And then he would skim 50 off the
top, put that in his pocket and send a hundred to the Romans
like they were owed. In studying the publicans, it
said they were very brutal, very violent in taking the money
from the Jews. They were the mafia. That's what
they were. Well-known, notorious. You paid or else it got violent. You paid or it gets violent. They were not just sinners, they
were sinners by profession. If anyone had no right to commend
himself to God, he was a publican. He couldn't hide anything from
men. Everybody knew beyond any shadow
of a doubt that man has no righteousness of his own to trust in. And here's
the truth, neither do we. Neither do we. This publican
is who we must identify ourselves with because that's who we are.
We look at a publican and say, no, that's too bad. I'm not that
bad. Oh, yes, we are. Yes, we are. Not one soul in
here has a righteousness of his or her own before God. But if God will reveal that to
us, like God revealed it to Paul,
and like God revealed it to this publican in our Lord's parable
here, then according to the Word of God, this is the hope that
we can have before Him. If God will reveal to us what
we are, and reveal to us what we don't have, and reveal to
us where we can get it, a righteousness before Him, justification before
Him, which is in Christ alone, And if God will cause us to come
running to Christ alone, then here's the promise He has to
us. Verse 9, He spake this parable unto certain which trusted in
themselves that they were righteous and despised others. Two men
went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other
a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed
thus with himself, God, I thank thee that I am not as other men
are, extortioners. That's what that publican was.
Everybody knew it. Unjust, that's what that publican
was. Everybody knew it. Adulterers,
or even as this publican, I fast twice in the week, I give tithes
of all that I possess. That's the Pharisee. Now the
publican says in verse 13, the publican standing afar off would
not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his
breast. He was doing that because God
broke him. And that's what God does for
all of his people. He smote upon his breast. God
revealed the truth of what he was, who he was, and he was saying,
I hate myself. I abhor myself. I hate what I
am. I hate what I've done. I hate
everything that I see in myself. And this is all that I can say.
This is all that I can bring to you. This is all that I have. He said at the end of verse 13,
God be merciful to me, a sinner. In saying that he said, Christ
alone is righteous. He alone is worthy. I'm not. I don't have anything of my own
to plead before you except mercy. That's all I have. That Pharisee
said, I'm not like other men are, I'm better. The publican
said, I'm not like other men are, I'm worse. The Pharisee said, I've covered
myself in my own good works. The publican said, I've covered
myself in my own sin. The Pharisee said, I'm worthy
of reward from you. The publican said, I'm worthy
of wrath from you. The Pharisee laid a long list
of things before the Lord. This is everything I plead. The
publican laid one before the Lord. One. I need mercy. I need mercy. God, be merciful
to me. Pour your blood on me. That's where mercy is found.
It is found in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. This man's
only hope and our only hope. Sometimes I think about the fact
that, oh, this will become real to us the day we stand before
that judgment throne. And this is what I hope comes
back to us and it will for all of God's people. I hope this
recall comes back. The only hope a sinner has is
to plead for mercy in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
it. Say nothing else but that. May that come back up to us the
moment we stand there. Say nothing else. I need mercy
in the blood of Christ. I need mercy in the blood of
the Lamb. I need the blood that you sent to redeem sinners from
their sin. This publican was crying, Lord,
please have mercy on me. Take your wrath from me. Take
my place for me. You're all I have. You're all I have. You're my
only hope. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Now watch verse
14. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I tell you, this man went down
to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone
that exalteth himself shall be abased. And he that humbleth
himself shall be exalted. May God teach us that this morning.
Everyone that exalteth himself, everyone that recommends himself
to God, who should be saved? I recommend myself. I'd like
to put myself on that list. Everyone who exalts himself shall
be abased. Refused, rejected, cast down,
cast out. But this is what he said. He
that humbleth himself." Every man that humbles himself.
This is what John the Baptist cried, I must decrease. He must increase, but I must
decrease. Peter said, humble yourselves
therefore under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you
in due time. Our Lord said, he that humbleth
himself and begs for mercy through the blood and the righteousness
of Christ alone shall be exalted. Shall be exalted. May God teach
our hearts that right now. Right now. There is a place where
the Lord Jesus sheds the oil of gladness on our heads. You know what that oil of gladness
is? His blood. Oh, the gladness of being covered
in the blood. It is a place than all besides
more sweet. It is the blood bought mercy
seat. If we try to add anything to
God's mercy, to recommend ourselves to Him, we'll never make it in. Never make it in. But if His
mercy is all that we have, then we have all we need. God be merciful
through the blood of Christ to me. God be merciful to me. Let's
all cry out for that. God be merciful to me, the sinner. Alright, let's all stand together.