The 11th Sunday after Trinity Sunday | August 23rd, 2009
Dear Saints,
As a pastor there are a few questions that I am always asked. Some of them are difficult, even impossible to answer. Some are filled with sorrow and pain, but there is a tough question that I love to hear, and it's something like this, “Pastor, why doesn't everyone believe the Gospel?”
I love that question because asking it means that you have heard the glory and wonder and comfort of the Gospel. The word “Gospel” come from the Greek word euongelion, which literally means “good news”. And this is a fitting name, what better news is there for us sinners that Jesus has died for us. We hear those words, “Christ died for sinners” as the most wonderful words that could ever be spoken to us, we treasure them, we speak them to our children, we tell them to our neighbor, we write them in our books and in our minds and hearts. We love those words of Gospel, they are our life.
I was visiting with someone this last week and we were talking about the troubles of this life, and they said to me, “Pastor, I just don’t know how someone could live without faith.” True. If you were to take a Christian and say, “You can only have one thing in this life, what will it be?” They would say, “The Gospel, the good news that Jesus died for sinners.” “The Gospel or your house?” “The Gospel.” “The Gospel or your food?” “The Gospel.” “The Gospel or your family?” “The Gospel.” The Gospel or your life?” “The Gospel is my life.” We sing this all the time, “Take they my life, goods, fame, child and wife, Let these all be gone, they yet have nothing won. The Kingdom ours remaineth.”
And so, for the Christian, these words are the most precious and dear treasure in all the world, and our joy comes from knowing and believing them. And this brings us back to the original question, “Why doesn't everyone believe the Gospel? Why are there people in this world who hear the Gospel not as good news but as bad news?”
The answer is in our Gospel text. Our Lord Jesus tells the parable that is before us today of the praying Pharisee and tax collector to a specific audience. “He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt.” (Luke 18:9) In these words Jesus describes the sinful heart of man, “they trust themselves that they were righteous.” That's your sinful flesh, and this sinful flesh hates the Gospel.
Think about it this way: remember we said that the Gospel is the good news that Jesus died for sinners? Well, to be a person that Jesus died for, we have to first be a sinner, and that's the rub. Our flesh clings with a death grip to the illusion of its own righteousness. For our sinful flesh to receive the gift of the Gospel it has to first put down the lie of its own goodness, its trust in its own good works, its faith in itself and know that it is sin, a poor miserable sinner.
Pride is the opposite of faith, and this is why not everyone receives the Gospel; men would rather be proud and self-confident than humble beggars at the feet of God. And this is godlessness.
But, dear saints, we have to be careful here, because this is not just the sinful flesh of the pagan unbelievers that live out there somewhere, this is your sinful flesh, and mine, and it knows how to work the system, how to make itself look good. Our sinful flesh knows how to dress up its pride in religious clothes.
The Pharisee in the text, after all, was not out in the streets picking people's pockets or something like that -he was in church, praying. He wasn't praying to the true God, but to his own god, namely himself, but he was there going through the motions of religious activity.
The Pharisee, standing by himself, [we might translate that, “he prayed with himself”] prayed thus: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.' (Luke 18:11-12)
This Pharisee had plenty of good works, and the flesh loves this. The flesh loves your good works because in each and every good work that you and I do it looks for an opportunity for pride, an opportunity to overthrow faith. Your sinful flesh, and the devil too, would love for you to have such marvelous good works that you no longer need the Lord's forgiveness, His grace and mercy. And this is dangerous.
I remember at the seminary we had a thought experiment that went something like this, “If the devil could build a society, say a city, what would it look like?” Think about that for a bit; what do you think? My first thought (and I think this was true for all of my classmates) was of some dark, dirty stinky alley with trash everywhere, screams coming from the windows, men with scruffy beards and clubs roaming the streets, something like that.
But the more we talked through it, the picture began to change. The more we thought about what the devil loves and what he is working towards, the more our city became a beautiful town with fountains and clean streets and smiling faces and churches full of people to hear the preaching of the law and how God could only be pleased when these laws and rules are kept. This would be a city full of good works, and full of people who trusted in them for their salvation, a city entirely destined for hell.
Now if you don't believe me, look at the text: there's a Pharisee and a tax collector.
Which one lives in a nice neighborhood with clean streets (well, in this case they probably both do!), which one has a life full of good, wholesome behavior, which one knows darkness and deceit, and which of these men belongs to the devil and which belongs to God? Is it not the tax collector who belongs to God, who is justified, forgiven of all his sin? And is it not the Pharisee who belongs to the devil and his kingdom, and who is insulated from the grace of God by his own pride?
Now all of this is not to say that we aren’t to do good works, but that we aren’t to trust in them. It is sinners that God saves; it is sin that He forgives. If we want to have God's mercy, we must first be humbled in our sin, we must know that we need that mercy.
It is only when we know the deep sinfulness that clings to us, when we know the darkness of our own heart, when we know the godless pride that haunts us, that we find ourselves in fellowship with the tax collector, and we cry out, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” (Luke 18:13)
It is this humble faith that the Lord accounts for righteousness. The Gospel is the Lord's answer to our despair, not our pride. It is His response to our sin, not our good works. And so the Christian knows, we know, first of all, that we are sinners. And more, we know that Jesus died to save sinners, to forgive sinners, and to live with sinners forever.
“I tell you, this [tax collector] 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.” (Luke 18:14)
Amen.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
