GETTING IN (3): PROPITIATE ME

(Luke 18:9-14)
September 18, 2016
Intro Farmer Jones called Bob Tateyama and said, My best milking cow
has a fever. How did you treat old Bessie when she got sick a couple years
ago? Bob replied, I put a mixture of cod liver oil and Turpentine in her
food once a day for 4 days. Farmer Jones thanked him and implemented the
solution. But after 4 days, the cow died. Farmer Jones called Bob again: I
gave me cow that mixture just like you said, but my cow just died. Bob said,
Yep. So did old Bessie. Okay, so the point is, repeating a failed process and
expecting different results is a fools errand. Thats exactly what Jesus is
trying to prevent with this wonderful, grace-filled parable.
It is addressed to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous
(v. 9). Where did they get the idea they could self-justify -- bend the rules and
declare themselves right with God? They got it from their leaders the
Pharisees who believed their good efforts obligated God. The people followed
their example. But the end was going to be death not life. Jesus told them in
Mt 23:15, For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and
when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as
yourselves. If your solution kills you, it will kill your followers as well.
The true way of salvation had been there all the time in their OT Bible. Isa
45:22, Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and
there is no other. God didnt say, Turn to yourself and be saved. He said,
Turn to me. Jonah got that when he prayed from the belly of the fish,
Salvation belongs to the LORD! We can no more save ourselves than Jonah
could. Spurgeon hit the nail square on the head when he said, Salvation is
looking from yourself to Jesus. There are men that quite misunderstand the
gospel; they think their righteousness qualifies them to come to Christ;
where SIN is the only qualification for a man to come to Jesus.
To teach that, Jesus gave this stunning parable 2 men, 2 prayers, 2 radically
different results. Jesus gives 2 photos Jesus to say, This is who you are. This
is who you must be to be accepted by God. The first photo shows a Pharisee
working from the outside in completely self-oriented determined to be
good enough, and in fact, probably better than most of us. Yet across that
photo, Jesus stamps, LOST. Lost. Unacceptable. Not justified.
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So who is declared righteous? The tax collector, a bottom-feeder. Jesus is

showing salvation is within the reach of anyone. The only qualification is
that we have sinned -- and repent. This man realized he had nothing to offer.
His approach is God-centered, not self-centered. It is inside-out from the
heart, not outside in. And Jesus declares, 14 I tell you, this man went down to
his house justified, rather than the other. Across this picture, Jesus stamps in
capital letters: JUSTIFIED. SAVED BY GRACE. So lets examine what it
took to get that verdict? What is required to be accepted by God?
I.
The Wrong Way Outside-In (Self-centered)
II.
The Right Way Inside-Out (God-centered)
A. Humility Before God not trying to bridge gap himself
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But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to
heaven, but beat his breast. This man reeks of humility. He dared not even lift
his eyes, but beat his breast a sign of extreme sorrow. The Pharisee was
seeing himself from his perspective; this man was seeing himself from Gods
perspective and it led to deep sorrow, contrition and guilt. It is always so when
men really see God. Job whom God called a blameless and upright man
(1:8), when he stood alone before God reacted with deep humility. Job 42: 6)
therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes. David, a man after
Gods own heart, described his encounter with God in Psa 40: 12) For evils
have encompassed me beyond number; my iniquities have overtaken me, and I
cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my head; my heart fails me.
John, Ezek, Isa, all reacted the same when they got dose of their reality. They
saw themselves for the hopelessly lost sinners that we all are. The Pharisee in
Jesus parable removed from the crowd and approached the altar on his own,
but this tax collector made no effort to bridge the gap between himself and
God. He saw the gap for what it was unbridgeable by human effort.
When a sinner comes to God, it is not to bargain or negotiate not like the
Pharisee was doing. You cant negotiate when you have nothing to offer.
Outside of Christ we are spiritually dead, with no claim on God whatsoever.
That is a catastrophic position to be in. Catastrophic and humbling.
Early in the Civil War, unknown U. S. Grant captured in quick succession Ft.
Henry on the TN River and Ft. Donelson on the Cumberland at a time when
Union hopes were at a low ebb. The original Confederate commander, General
Pillow, had escaped leaving Gnrl Simon Buckner who had served with Grant
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in Mexico to surrender. Buckner asked for terms. Grant famously replied, No

terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender. Having no
recourse, Buckner surrendered. When the men met, they talk pleasantly about
Mexico and then Buckner said, General, as they say in Mexico, Mi casa es
su casa (my house is your house) and the surrender was complete. And so it
must be with God. Unconditional surrender are the terms. That tax collector
offered nothing of his own doing, but surrendered his life to God no
negotiation, no bargaining, no hold back. Total surrender.
B. Repentance to God
The Pharisee was self-justifying; the tax collector was repentant. According
to v. 13 he says, God, be merciful to me, a sinner! Except the English
translation does not have it quite right. He does not say a sinner. There is a
definite article there in the Greek. He says God, be merciful to me, the
sinner! As opposed to the Pharisee who said, I am no sinner, this man
humbly acknowledges, I am the sinner. Wow! What a difference! To solve
the problem of righteousness, of acceptance by God, you must come to
understand repentance in the fullest sense. Hard to do in a society in denial.
If you think of sin externally and comparatively, like the Pharisee, theres
always somebody who is morally worse than you, right? So if youre thinking
of sin comparatively, youre only ever a sinner; youre never the sinner. By
only looking at individual, outward sins, the Pharisee judged himself to be
comparatively so free of sin as to be essentially no sinner. But the tax
collector was looking beyond the external, individual sins to the sin beneath
the sin to the fact that he was by nature a sinner. He realized that his
individual sins were a reflection of a greater problem of a heart that was
conceived in sin. True repentance must eventually get past the individual acts
to the sin nature beneath it all. And thats what this man was doing.
When this man says, Lord, me merciful to me, the sinner, what he is saying
is, I confess that my worst problem is not the individual acts of larceny and
betrayal and rebellion that have characterized my life; my worst problem is
that I am a sinner from the inside out. It is my heart that must be changed.
And if we want to fix the righteousness problem, we must do the same. We
have to at some point say, Lord there have been periods in my life in which
Ive lived pretty badly. Ive done things I should not have done. And there
have been periods in my life in which Ive been pretty good and Ive kept my
nose clean and done the right thing. But now I see the reason I did the good
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things was pretty much the same reason I did the bad things. Ive always
wanted to be my own Savior. Ive thought I could put you in my debt and
not to be in your debt. Right action; wrong motives! And it has not worked. I
am still hungry for approval. So today, I repent the sin beneath not only my
sins, but the sin beneath my GOOD deeds. I need your grace. Please replace
my heart of stone with a new heart, and give me the righteousness of Christ
in place of my sin. That is true repentance.
The day we can swallow our pride and say, My record is bad, but my nature
is worse. The guilt I feel is real, thats the day there is hope. Ed Clowney
used to say, If you have a negative self-image, maybe youre just being
realistic. He was right! David said in Psa 51:5, Behold, I was brought forth
in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. True repentance not only
acknowledges individual acts of sin but the indwelling sin that caused them.
Ray Pritchard tells of sitting in his chair one day watching a ballgame.
Suddenly there was a loud crash from the backyard. Before Ray could even
get up, his youngest son ran in and said, Mark broke a glass in the screen
door. But right behind him, Mark came running in and said, Dont worry,
Dad. I only broke part of it down by the corner. When Ray went to check,
sure enough there was a hole about the size of his fist in the lower right-hand
corner of the glass. The boys had gotten his golf clubs out and were practicing
their swings. One got away and went through the screen door, but Mark was
sure that it was okay because he had broken only part of it. Dad had to explain
that even though only part was broken, the whole needed to be replaced.
Similarly God assures us in Jas 2:10, 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but
fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. There is no such thing
as breaking part of the glass, being a little pregnant or being a moderate sinner.
We are all the sinner! Until we confess that, we have no hope of acceptance
by God. Brennan Manning notes: Paradoxically, what intrudes between God
and human beings is our fastidious morality and pseudo-piety. It is not the
prostitutes and tax collectors who find it most difficult to repent: it is the
devout who feel they have no need to repent. So have you confessed the sin
beneath your sin and your goodness? Only when we confess we are the
sinner can His forgiveness flood our heart. Thats repentance.
C. Faith in God

God, be merciful to me, [the] sinner! His faith is entirely in God; not in
himself. But there is a beauty in Jesus words here that goes deep beneath the
surface. Once again, you cant see it in the English. I hate to say that, but there
are times when translators simply cant express the depth of meaning in a
word and that is the case here. So follow closely. The word merciful that
Jesus uses is not the normal Greek word . That word is used, for
example, later in the chapter, Lu 18:38 when a blind man calls out to Jesus,
Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! Care for me. Help me.
But the word the tax collector uses goes much deeper. It is the Greek verb
, which means to propitiate or atone for. He knows he needs more
than mercy. Mercy first requires sins to be paid for and so he cries out, God,
be propitiated to me, the sinner! Propitiation. Big word. Whats it mean?
Provide satisfaction, pay the penalty for me. Thats what hes asking. Or,
God make atonement for me, the sinner! I cant do it myself! Hes not just
asking mercy; hes asking God to pay His penalty. Thats faith!
The imagery comes directly from the OT temple. The center of the temple was
the Holy of Holies which was entered only once a year on the Day of
Atonement. Inside was a box -- Ark of the Covenant which was highly
symbolic. Above the ark was a cloud which represented the presence of God.
Inside the ark was the tablet on which God Himself had written the Ten
Commandments. That symbolized one had to pass the scrutiny of the law to be
accepted by God. But who could pass that scrutiny? No one, so over the Law
was a gold cover called the mercy seat. In Hebrew it was called caphar,
covering. In Greek hilastarion the very word the tax collector is using. By
faith he is asking God to be his mercy seat! But in the OT, mercy could only
be granted when sacrificial blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat
symbolizing payment for the peoples guilt and allowing God to forgive them.
All of that symbolizes that sin must be covered. It can only be covered by a
blood sacrifice. On the basis of that sacrifice God could forgive sin. And that
is what this man is pleading. God, please be my mercy seat to cover my sin. I
know you cannot just overlook my sins, but I want to come, and I need your
mercy to atone for my sin. And did God answer that prayer? Oh yes, He did.
How? I Jn 4:10: 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he
loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation (mercy seat, same word the
tax collector used) for our sins. So, listen! God sent His own Son to be the
sinner; taking the place of that sinner, so that based on Jesus payment for his
sin, God could forgive him and declare him righteous. Want to know what it
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means to propitiate? II Cor 5:21, For our sake he made him to be sin who
knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. It
cant be stated any simpler than that. He took my place on the cross so I
could take His place having full acceptance by the Father. Wow.
And it only gets better. I Jn 2:2, 2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not
for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. In other words, He has
made payment for the guilt of anyone who will come to Him by faith and
accept His gift. Anyone who will humble themselves before God, repent to
God and place their faith in God can be saved. The Pharisee tried to cover his
sins by comparing with others and denying them -- and he went home lost as
could be. Still the sinner! The tax collector trusted God to cover his sins and
he went home justified. Thats the gospel, Beloved. Its not what we can do;
its what He has already done that justifies us. In the words of one of our
great new hymns: Because the sinless Savior died, / My sinful soul is
counted free; / For God, the Just, is satisfied / To look on Him and pardon
me./ To look on Him and pardon me.
Conc -- On May 21, 1946 in Los Alamos, NM a young scientist was
conducting an experiment to determine the amount of U-235 necessary for a
chain reaction critical mass that would ignite an atomic bomb. As he had
done many times before, he pushed two hemispheres of uranium together.
Then just before the mass became critical, he would push them apart with his
screwdriver, interrupting the chain reaction. But this day, just as the material
became critical, the screwdriver slipped! Instantly the room was filled with a
dazzling bluish haze. Young Louis Slotin, instead of ducking and possibly
saving himself, tore the two hemispheres apart with his bare hands and thus
interrupted the chain reaction. By his quick action, he had saved the lives of 7
other people in the room. But he himself had suffered a lethal dose of
radiation. As he waited for the car to take him to the hospital he told a
companion, Youll come through all right. But I havent the faintest chance
myself. Nine days later, he was dead of radiation poisoning.
Similarly Jesus on the cross broke the awful chain reaction of sin that had
would otherwise have destroyed mankind. Jesus became the sinner in the
place of that tax collector and in the place of every other person who will
place their faith and trust in Him. So who represents you this morning the
Pharisee or the tax collector? Are you still the sinner or have you asked
Jesus to be the sinner in your place? Two men went to pray; or rather say, /
One went to brag, the other to pray; / One stands up close, and treads on
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high, / Where th other dare not send his eye. / One nearer to the altar
trod, /The other to the altars God. The difference? Repentance! Lets pray.
Sing Before the Throne of God Above.