You are listening to the podcast of Richland
Hills Baptist Church. We are located in Richland
Hills, Texas. Our desire here is to believe,
live, and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.
As you're listening to our podcast today, if
you have any questions, you can find us on the
web at richlandhillsbc .com. God bless you. Would
you open your Bibles this morning to Luke chapter
18? And we'll be looking at 9 through 14. Luke
chapter 18, 9 through 14. This past year, I think
it was last year, I was looking online one day
and I saw a house for sale. Looked like a good
house. For our family, it was big. It was not
huge, but it had two stories. It had a basement.
It was yellow, but you know, you can paint a
yellow house. That seemed okay, right? You know,
it had enough bedrooms. Again, it had even a
mother -in -law suite. I thought, wow, maybe
one day my mom could come to live here. And so
it seemed nice. Not that we were in the market
to buy it, but you know, it looked nice. So one
Sunday afternoon, Just on kind of a whim, Brayden
and I jumped in the van and we drove over there
with a friend who's a realtor. It wasn't her
property, but she went over there with us. This
house was not at all like the pictures online.
It was indeed yellow, that is true. It was definitely
yellow, more mustard yellow. It had three different
types of wood siding on it. You know, it all
looked very, you know, that can look nice. Sometimes
this did not look nice. You walked inside, and
I think the living room could fit about four
of eight people in our family. You said, well,
just knock the wall out. Well, you can't because
behind the wall was the stairwell going to the
basement. Let me tell you about the stairs. It
was like a mountain climbing up and down. But
I tell you that it was very, very steep. I mean,
when you climb back, it was like climbing a ladder
almost. Well, you know, it's okay. We went through
the house and they did have bedrooms. So that's
true. Then they said, well, there's a bonus room.
I said, well, that's nice. Okay. And then on
the bonus room, there was a nice deck. And I
said, well, that's nice. Okay. That could redeem
this house. Well, the deck, they had a sign that
said, please don't go out on it because it was
bending down like this. The driveway looked like
a little earthquake had hit it. It was so concrete,
it was all messed up. The basement, if we could
just live in the basement, that was the best
part of the whole house. You know, it's funny
that online it looked a certain way. Like it
looked doable. In person, Braden and I were like.
That was the worst house you've ever seen in
our entire life. I mean, it was terrible. Even
the realtor, she couldn't find anything good
to say about the house. You know, sometimes that's
the trick of being a realtor, isn't it? You clean
up something on the surface, on the pictures,
on the wording, to try to make it seem better
than it really is. You see, in the spiritual
realm, it's not much different than that for
a lot of people. You see, for a lot of people,
we spend a lot of times cleaning ourselves up
on the surface to really mask or hide what's
on the inside. You know, you can post all the
really nice quotes when you're Facebook. You
can put the Christian bumper sticker on your
car. You can do all the religious things. You
carry your Bible with you. Wear the Christian
t -shirts. You're at church every Sunday. You
can do all the things. But if your heart is not
right with God, then none of those things really
matter, do they? You see, it's the inside. It's
the spiritual realm. You see, there are many
a people who on the surface may look good, but
their hearts are rotten. And this morning, we
are going to see a parable where Jesus is going
to really ask that question. What is it or who
is it that can be right with God? What is it
that makes a person right with God? What does
that mean to be right with him? So this morning,
we're going to look at that Luke chapter 18,
starting at verse 9. He also told this parable
to some who trusted in themselves that they were
righteous and treated others with contempt. Two
men went up to the temple to pray. Pharisee,
a tax collector. The Pharisee standing by himself
prayed thus, God, I thank you I'm not like the
other extortioners, unjust, adulterers, and even
like this tax collector. I fast twice a week.
I give eyes of all that I get. But the tax collector,
standing far off, would not even lift up his
eyes even to heaven, but beat his breast saying,
God, be merciful on 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. One who humbles himself will
be exalted. Father, may you bless your word,
the reading, preaching, teaching of your word.
May we see what it means to be right with you.
Lord, what a heart that is right with you looks
like. And so may we hear and obey your words.
In Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I believe to understand
this parable, we do have to look a little bit
at the context of what Jesus is doing right even
here in this chapter of Luke. In Luke 18, right
at the beginning, there's another parable that
Jesus tells. It's the parable of the persistent
widow. There was a widow and she was there and
in this city there was a judge. In this judge,
it says that he neither feared God nor respected
man. But this widow, she kept coming to him every
day to ask for justice. She was having an issue
with an adversary, and she was asking justice.
Every day, coming to the judge, give me justice,
give me justice. Now, he was unjust. He was really
a wicked judge, and he wouldn't grant it. But
afterwards, I mean, after another time. This
lady, she keeps coming day after day after day,
and finally, even this wicked man, even this
unjust judge, he even says, I don't even fear
God or respect man, yet because this widow keeps
coming to me, keeps bothering me, it says, I
will give her justice so that she will not beat
me down with her intentional coming. He's like,
I'm tired of this. I'm going to give her justice
just so she can get her off my back. Just get
rid of her. And it's really an interesting parable
because in the Lord says, hear what the unrighteous
judge says. And will not God give justice to
his elect who cry out to him day and night? Will
he delay long over them? I tell you, he will
give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless,
when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith
on earth? It's something that Jesus does quite
a bit. He uses the parable of lesser to greater.
If even an unjust judge at times can eventually
relent and give justice, how much more will the
God of heaven give justice to his people? How
much more if his people come to him in faith
continually, if the wicked judge can do it, certainly
God, who is greater and not wicked in any way,
of course he will. And so what Jesus is showing
here is a picture of faith. And one of the elements
that we see of faith that is persistence. One
element of faith is persistence. Going to God,
coming to Him in faith, believing that God will
do it. This widow, she believed eventually that
this judge would relent. And faith is that we
come to God believing that He will do these things
for us. That He will give justice. That God will
save us even as we think of the spiritual realm.
We come to God in faith. So Jesus is showing
what faith looks like. So really then He's going
to give another parable. In essence, this is
another parable that's going to show us what
true faith looks like. True faith looks like
persistence. Now what does true faith look like
in this parable? So he tells a story. Now one
of the things Jesus does in this story that's
really interesting, it's a wonderful storytelling
technique, is he's really going to juxtapose
two people. He's going to take two people, you're
going to see the righteous man and the sinner.
He's going to take two people and he's going
to paint a picture for us to see these two people
and for us to decide who do we want to emulate?
Who's the good guy and who's the bad guy? You
know, it's a story technique that's used in movies
and books. And one movie in particular that I
was thinking of was Rocky IV. You know, I got
to do a Rocky movie. Rocky IV is probably one
of the best Rocky of the franchise. If you remember
Rocky IV, this is where he's fighting the, he's
got to fight the Russian, you know, in the Cold
War era. And Rocky, you know, his, I hope I'm
not spoiling this for you. You know, his good
friend dies. So he's going to fight in Russia,
Ivan Drago. And so he goes there in the cold
wasteland of Russia. And one of the techniques
of this one particular scene, this is the training
montage of Rocky that they're famous for, right?
In the training montage, they show, they juxtapose
the Russian. He's training in the high -tech
facility. He's there with all the people. They're
watching him and they're looking at him, checking
his stats. They're even juicing him up, right?
Putting a needle in his arm. I mean, you see
this picture of it almost like a machine, right?
That's the idea. And then you get Rocky. He's
out in the, again, this wasteland. He's working
out in a barn, basically. He's doing all the
Just basic things, lifting up carts and people
in the cart, running to mountains. And this picture
in this movie, right, it's meant to elicit a
response. You're like, oh, that Russian. That's
not good. He's a bad guy. Barak, he's a good
guy. He's doing it the right way. Same way, that's
exactly. What Jesus is going to do here, he's
going to show us. He's going to elicit a response.
But what's really kind of interesting is there's
going to also be a twist. This is actually a
twist ending. You may not realize it because
we're not in that day. We're not a person in
Jesus's audience listening. You see, we know
the rest of the story. We know. who the bad guy
is in this. But if you were a person in Jesus'
day, an original audience member, this story
would hit a little differently. You see, when
Jesus begins, he says, I'm going to tell you
a parable. There's two people, a heresy and a
tax collector. Well, if you were sitting in the
audience with Jesus, then right away, I mean,
you would know who the good guy was. The good
guy was the Pharisee. I mean, they believed that.
I mean, he was the righteous guy. We talked about
this a few weeks ago. Wow, I mean, he's the good
guy, obviously. He's got everything together.
He's religious. He follows the law. The Pharisees
often seemed to be admirable to the people. That
was who they wanted to follow. I mean, they believed
God. They followed God. And so when he's telling
this story, I mean, immediately he is going to
be a good guy. But listen to the Pharisee. He
says, God, I thank you that I'm not like the
other man. So right away he's praying. So to
set it up, he says, listen, there's two men in
the temple to pray. You hear the beginning of
that prayer. So they're there praying. So two
men, the Pharisee, the good guy that people would
think, and then the tax collector. D .L. Moody
said that really this prayer of the Pharisee
is what you would call a prayerless prayer. There's
not really any prayer there. But here, as he's
at the temple, he's there and he's praying to
God and just listen to the words. I thank you,
I'm not like the other men. Extortioners, unjust,
adulterers, or even like this, tax collector.
I fast twice a week. I give everything, I give
tithes of all that I get. And so right there,
you hear his prayers. Do you see how many times
the word I was in there? I did this. I'm not
like that guy. I'm better. Do you hear his boasting?
It was as if he was saying, God, you've made
a lot of good things in this world, but I'm your
crown jewel. I mean, God, I mean, look at me.
I mean, just look at my life. And I mean, I'm
not like all these bad guys out there. I mean,
I'm clean. I do all the things. I post verses
to my Facebook page. I mean, I'm out there. I've
got a Jesus bumper sticker. I mean, there's many.
He's got it all together. He's not doing bad
things. He's not out there, you know, hurting
people or harming them. He is, in his eyes, righteous.
And the people, though, they would think, well,
I mean, this guy, look at him. He's tithing.
I mean, this guy would be on all the church committees.
Everybody would like him. And the people would
see that, yeah, he's not like these other people
out there. And then comes the tax collector.
I mean, immediately, when Jesus says tax collector,
that would elicit an emotional response of the
people. Immediately, they think, oh, gosh, tax
collector, trader. Wicked, bad guy. The tax collectors
most certainly were the bad guys of that society.
I mean, they'd work with the Romans, the occupiers,
the people that were in charge, persecuting their
people. And the tax collector would work with
the Romans. They would pay what's owed to the
Romans and they'd take more for themselves. They
were greedy. Sinful. They would shudder at how
wicked these guys are. They would think immediately,
he's the bad guy. He's the guy we don't want
to be like. They're swindlers. We don't want
them. And so you see this picture. But I want
you to hear his prayer. Standing far off. He
wouldn't even lift up his eyes to heaven, but
beat his breast saying, God, be merciful to me,
a sinner. That was his prayer. His prayer wasn't,
God, you know, I've tried real hard. Yeah, I've
made some mistakes, but God, I've tried real
hard to be good. God, you know, I thank you all
to give me a chance. No, his prayer was much
different. He said, be merciful to me, a sinner.
You see, nobody had to tell this tax collector
that he was a sinner. Nobody had to point a finger
in his face and say, you're a sinner. I mean,
he knew it. Everybody told him, but he knew it
in his heart. He understood that he was far away
from God. You didn't have to convince him of
his sin. He already knew it. I mean, he was so
aware of his sin that he didn't even, couldn't
even look up to the heavens. He couldn't even
look up. He just kept his eyes down and he was
ashamed. Beat down by the world. This is a man
that, again, we, our day, would pass by and think,
ah, he'll never get his life together. This guy.
Here he was. Before God. And Jesus does something.
So powerful. Again, the listener would say, well,
yeah, I mean, of course. Of course he's like
that. I mean, he's a sinner. Jesus says, I tell
you, this man went down to his house justified.
It's like if Jesus asked that question, who is
justified? They'd all say, well, the Pharisee,
of course. He's a good guy. And Jesus says, no,
no. The Pharisee, the one who went home justified,
the one who God heard his prayer was not the
Pharisee. It was the sinner. It was the lowly
man. It was the man that everybody cast away
and said he'll never get his life together. Jesus
said it was that man who went home justified.
Why? For everyone who exalts himself will be
humbled, but the one who humbles himself will
be exalted. Jesus right there is showing us a
faith. An element of faith is coming to God in
complete humility. Coming to God without a charade.
without a mask, without a facade. Not trying
to clean ourselves up to somehow make ourselves
more acceptable to God. Coming to God stripped
down. Coming to God without any sort of anything
that could somehow make himself look better.
Did you see the tax collector there? He offered
nothing. Absolutely nothing. He offered nothing
to God. He just said, be merciful to me, a sinner.
God have mercy on me. That is the twist, isn't
it? You see, what Jesus is showing is that the
person that God hears, is the person who realizes
that they have nothing to offer. The person that
God hears and justifies is the person who comes
to God with empty hands, with nothing. Who are
we in this story? You see, the Pharisee, here's
the problem. The Pharisee wasn't actually as
good as he thought, was he? The Pharisee actually
really didn't have his life together. He worshiped
who? Himself. You see, while he pretended to
worship God, while he thought he worshiped God,
when you see that prayer, he worshiped himself.
It wasn't God, it was himself. God, I thank you.
That I'm not like a sinner. God, again, he's
saying I thank you, but it's really, God, you're
lucky to have me. I mean, God, I'm a good guy.
This man was really worshiping himself. And then
the other thing that we know he didn't really
have his life together is that one of the commands
that he should be from the Old Testament is he
was not loving his neighbor as himself, was he?
He looked down on this guy. And Jesus shows in
other parables that, hey, he's your neighbor.
This man wasn't really following the law as he
thought. So Jesus, if he were here to ask us,
is anyone here like that guy? Is there anyone
here or listening that is spending their life
trying to make themselves look good on the outside?
Are you trying to clean yourself up? Are you
trying to make others think something about you?
Are you pretending? You know, it reminds me a
little bit of this past week. at camp, the theme
of camp was God's relentless love. God's relentless
love for us. And it was from Lamentations was
the main verse. But one of the passages that
we studied was the passage of the parable of
the prodigal son. We studied that on several
occasions, really. And many of you know of the
two sons, and the younger son goes to his father
and asks for his inheritance early, which really
was insulting. It was like, Dad, I wish you're
dead so that I could get your money. And so the
father gives his son his inheritance, and he
goes off. He lives in wild living, right? He's
out there. He's having the time of his life.
He spends everything. Then there's a famine and
he has nothing. And here, this young man, he's
out there and eventually he's so hungry, so broke,
so in need that he goes to work to feed the pigs.
The lowly pigs. In fact, he was so hungry that
he desired to be fed with the pods that the pigs
ate, but no one gave him anything. He couldn't
even get pig food. And so he says to himself,
he says, you know, I'm going to go back to my
father as basically a hired servant. How many
of my father's servants have had more than enough
bread? I will say to my father, I've sinned against
heaven and before you. I'm no longer worthy to
be your son. Treat me as a hired servant. Just
like that tax collector almost. He's like, I'm
going to go to my father and just say, have mercy
on me, essentially. I'm going to be like one
of your servants. I'm not your son anymore. I'm
just going to let me work for you like a servant.
Of course he comes and his father sees him along
and embraces his son as his son. Not as a servant,
not as a hired person, but as his son. And part
of that was that young man's, it was certainly
the father's love, but that young man's humility
to come back to his father. We'd imagine if he
came back expecting, Dad, I'm back. Take me up.
Dad, you have to take me back. I'm your son.
But he didn't do that, did he? But then in that
story, what's really interesting is we call that
the lost son. But I believe what Jesus is also
showing here is that there's... Really two lost
sons. But one doesn't know he's lost. The older
son, he sees all that his dad's doing. His dad's
having a party for this son. But when he comes
near and he sees all the partying, hears the
music, sees the dancing, he brings his servant
over and says, what's happening here? The servant's
excited. He says, listen, your brother has come.
Your father's killed a fattened calf and received
him back. He's safe and sound, but the brother
was angry. He was mad. His father came out. He
said to his father, he said, look, look at all
these years I've served you. I've never disobeyed
your command, and yet you haven't even given
me a young goat. But when this son of yours,
this son of yours who devoured your property
with prostitutes, you killed a fattened calf
for him. I mean, what have you done for me, dad?
And he said to him, son, you were always with
me. And all that is mine is yours. It was fitting
to celebrate and be glad for this your brother
was dead and alive. He was lost and is found.
You see, the older brother was really, I say
he's lost because he didn't understand the grace
of his father. He didn't understand what he had.
He thought that by doing all these things that
somehow that made him, But the father is saying,
listen, you were my son. It's not that you're
here. I love you and I love my younger son because
you're my son. And the brother couldn't believe
it. Imagine if these were the people in the parable
of the tax collector and the sinner. Again, the
older brother could do the same thing. He could
come before God and say, God, thank you I'm not
like my brother. I thank you I'm not like that
guy who spent all my dad's money on wild living
with prostitutes. I've been here all the time.
And the younger son would be like that tax collector.
Have mercy. Who are you? Are you the Pharisee?
Are you the older brother? Who thinks, hey, I've
done everything I need to. I live a good life.
I live a clean life. God ought to accept me.
I mean, nothing bad should happen to me because
I'm doing all the good things. I mean, I'll go
to heaven because I'm a good church member. I
tithe. I go to Sunday school. I even come to
church on Wednesday night. I mean, there's not
many people like me. There's a lot of people
in this world like that. There's a lot of people
in a lot of churches, on a lot of church roles,
that think that somehow that coming to church,
sitting in a pew, Being in a building is somehow
sufficient to be right with God. That all the
externals are what make a Christian. Or are you
like the other guy who's broken? You see, we
live in a broken world. We live in a world that
is broken with sin. We live in a world of addiction,
sexual morality. We live in a world of crime
and all the things, right? You just watch the
news, you see it. And maybe there's somebody
here today who's broken. Who realize they don't
need me to say, hey, you're a sinner. Because
they know it. And the message of this is that
if you come to God in humility, say, God, have
mercy. Forgive me. And we know the fullness of
the gospel message is that we can ask for God's
forgiveness because of what His Son, Jesus Christ,
has done. We're eligible for forgiveness because
Jesus has paid the price. He died on the cross.
He took our place. And because of that, we are
now allowed to have forgiveness. But we have
to come in faith, believing, persistent like
the widow, humble like the tax collector. And
so maybe there's someone here that needs. God's
forgiveness. You might be thinking, well, I couldn't
do that because I've, you know, what would people
think? I've been a church member my whole life.
It doesn't matter what we think. It matters what
God thinks. If there's anybody, someone who's
listening, if you've never truly put your faith
in Christ, you've never trusted in Christ, you've
been trusting in yourself, come to Him. If you're
broken and you have nothing to offer, you're
not trusting in yourself, you're just broken,
come to Him. Believe. But there's another element
here. One of the things that Jesus is doing is
he's showing, again, the error of the Pharisees.
I've been guilty of this, and I'm sure many of
us have. We sometimes look down on people in
our society, don't we? I mean, if somebody walked
in today, they didn't look like... We think they
ought to look. They looked a little rough. You
could smell the smoke of cigarettes or other
things trailing behind them. Maybe you could
smell alcohol in their breath or holes in their
clothes. If they came in, we'd be a little suspicious.
What do they want? It's true. Sometimes their
people do come in and want things and need things.
But that'd be immediately what we think. What
do they want? Why are they here? If they came
in and maybe they didn't seem to live the lifestyle
that we think they should live. They need to
get their lives together. This is a respectable
place. And we may not say things like that here.
But sometimes we think it. Sometimes we drive
by people in the road and think, there's another
one. We see the person struggling with drug addiction.
Why can't they just stop? Why are they doing
that? What Jesus is showing here, I believe,
is that we should have mercy on people. But we
should also believe that God can save anyone.
That there is nobody too far gone. You see, that
tax collector, he's too far gone. They would
never think a tax collector, could come back
to God or come to God. The people would think
the tax collector was the worst of the worst.
I mean, no tax collector could be a believer.
And so part of this is for us to believe that
God can save anyone. That if there's anyone in
your life and in my life that seems so far gone,
we never give up. We never stop praying for them,
believing that God can save them. I mean, it
doesn't matter how desperate in sin they've become.
I believe that God can save the broken. That
God can do a work of mercy in their lives. And
listen, there are story after story after story
of people who have been totally consumed by sin
and they come to Jesus and he does a miracle
in their life I mean that's really the miracle
all of our lives God can do it and I believe
that if we want to continue serving God in this
church if we want to continue to be a church
that Preaches the gospel, reaches people. I believe
that we have to always be ready and open to serve
all people. To be willing to bring in even the
people that don't fit the part, look the part,
smell the part. And say, you know what? In this
room here, you're going to hear about Jesus.
And my... or in my presence, you're going to
hear about Jesus. Let me tell you about someone
who can change your life. And I want us to be
a place of reference. A place where people can
hear about Christ. So who are we? Are we the
Pharisees? Coming with self -righteous faith?
Or are we the tax collector coming with humble
faith? Let us pray. Father, we thank You for
Your Word. Lord, that's a powerful parable. And
Lord, sometimes we can see ourselves in different
parts in a parable. Father, my prayer is if there's
any of us in here today who maybe we feel like
we've played the part of the Pharisee a little
bit. Trusting in ourself and our good works and
our righteousness. Trying to clean ourselves
up. Trying to look Christian. But Lord, maybe
our hearts aren't right. Lord, we can try to
clean ourselves all up, but if our hearts aren't
right with you, it doesn't matter. And so, Father,
I pray that if there's anyone here who, Lord,
needs to truly be right with you, to lay aside
self -righteousness, lay aside religion, and
to come to you in faith. Lord, if there's others,
if there's someone else here who's tired because
they've been living a life from you. They know
their sin. They know that they're separated from
you. Father, I pray that if there's anyone in
here like that, that this morning they would
come to you in faith. Believing that you can
save them. That you can restore them to you,
Lord. That you can bring freedom to their lives.
Father, maybe even someone's listening in, Lord,
but Lord, may they hear and believe and put their
humble trust in you. Father, would you help us
to be a church who Lord, doesn't look down on
those who are struggling or lost in sin, but
a church. Lord, the church that welcomes people
and says, come, hear about Jesus, he'll change
your life. God, may we be that church. Lord,
a place, a people, not just a building, but a
people. That love the broken. That love the hurting.
Lord, the people even in our communities, our
homes. Lord, that people that are hurting would
come to us because they could sense our love.
And God, may we always have the gospel on our
lips. Ready to share what Jesus can do. God,
let us not look down on people, but to help them
look up. So God, may you teach us. May you guide
us. May we leave here today with the desire to
have a humble faith. May you work in our hearts
now.