July 27, 2025 • 28 mins
In this episode, from a chapel service held on Tuesday 3 June 2025, Lionel Windsor, Lecturer in the New Testament Department at Moore Theological College, speaks on Luke 18:9-14 and the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.
He reminds us that the tax collector’s prayer is the foundational prayer of the Christian life, and that when we look for righteousness in Jesus, not ourselves, he grants it to us.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
Welcome to Moore in the Word, a podcast of Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia, that seeks
to glorify God through biblically sound, thought-provoking and challenging talks and interviews.
In this episode, from a chapel service held on Tuesday 3rd of June 2025, Lionel Windsor, Lecturer in the New Testament
(00:31):
Department at Moore Theological College, speaks on Luke 18:9-14, and the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.
Lionel reminds us that the tax collector's prayer is the foundational prayer of the Christian
life, and that when we look for righteousness in Jesus and not ourselves, he grants it to us.
(00:52):
We hope you find the episode helpful.
Father, we thank you for this wonderful truth of Jesus.
We do pray that you would now speak to us through your word as you.
Uh, bring it to us now.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
(01:14):
Well, the longing for justice is a deep longing of the human heart, and it's
when you're most wronged, that you most long for God to make things right.
When you're suffering without reason and nobody seems to care or understand.
Maybe that's you right now.
(01:35):
Do.
Do you ask God do you pray for his justice?
Last Tuesday in chapel we looked at a prayer for justice.
Justice in the face of the wrongness and the suffering of this world as we
live, as God's people, as we look forward to the coming of God's future kingdom.
(02:01):
When God will make all things right, when all will be revealed, when the judge comes,
but until he comes, there will be injustice.
There will be suffering, and God knows God cares, and he wants us to pray to him for justice as we trust him.
(02:29):
To make things right.
And in that context, Jesus told the story about the vulnerable widow and the unjust judge to teach his disciples to keep praying, to never give up.
Looking for him to come and vindicate his people to bring justice to his righteous saints.
(02:56):
And that lesson is vital for us.
But Jesus ended with a question, didn't he?
Luke, chapter 18, verse eight.
When the son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth?
What does that faith look like?
(03:16):
It looks like a prayerful trust in God's justice.
And then straight away Jesus tells another parable, another parable about prayer.
That's our parable for today, verses nine to 14, and it's a parable that digs even deeper into
(03:37):
God's justice and it forces us to ask more questions about ourselves and faith and justice.
Luke chapter 18, verse nine.
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others.
(03:57):
Contempt
because of course, as we cry out to God for justice, we are assuming something, aren't we?
We are assuming that we are the good guys because that means we'll win and the bad guys will get what's coming to them.
(04:20):
I want Jesus to return and give me what I deserve.
So Jesus tells this parable to make us ask, hold on.
Are we the good guys?
That feeling of, uh, moral superiority, it's a feature of every age.
(04:41):
It was strong in Jesus time, and it's just as strong in our world today.
Uh, whether it's, uh, the conservatives, the champions of, of morality and family values.
The new Puritans, the left wing activists for the cause of the marginalized and the environment with their sophisticated intersectional
(05:06):
algebra or the even newer reactionaries calling out the woke brigade, attacking the Harvard elites, restoring common sense to the world order.
So many in our world are confident of their own righteousness.
They're all looking down on everybody else and well, aren't you glad?
(05:28):
Aren't you glad that we are not like that?
Aren't you glad that we are the Bible believers?
We are not like that.
Those stupid moralistic fools in our world.
Oh, Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt.
(05:55):
Which might sometimes do you think, be you and me?
Jesus' story involves two people and two prayers.
Verse 10, two men went up into the temple to pray.
One a Pharisees and the other, a tax collector, and you couldn't get more opposite kinds of people that the Pharisees, the great role models.
(06:22):
For what ordinary good people wanted to be.
The Pharisees, the local heroes, the virtuous, the respected.
I don't know what the equivalents today would be for conservatives as Jordan Peterson for progressives,
maybe of Greta Thunberg, and they were better than that because they were the Bible people.
(06:44):
They took the Bible seriously in every area of life.
Whatever you think the moral high ground is, that's where the Pharisees were.
Tax collectors on the other hand were the dodgy, treacherous sleazeballs.
Those who made themselves rich from the misery of their fellow Jews doing the dirty work for the Roman Empire's fee collection system.
(07:11):
They knew how to squeeze their own community dry, getting the fees plus commissions for an equivalent.
Today, let's try the gambling industry bosses.
Who use their incredible technology to manipulate the vulnerable, to addict them, to the money and the gambling, to take the
food off the table of the children who, yes, pay their state taxes to stay loved and legal, and create misery everywhere.
(07:39):
Despicable, disgusting.
So, of course, which one is righteous and which one is unrighteous.
Obviously it's a set up by Jesus.
The Pharisee is righteous and he deserves justice, and the tax collector is unrighteous and he deserves utter contempt and condemnation.
And whose side are you on?
(08:01):
Which one of these are you?
Well, both of them go up to the temple to pray.
The fact that Jesus sets his story in that exalted place, the temple, it's very important.
This is the rebuild and expanded version of Solomon's temple, the place where God himself had promised to be present with his people.
(08:28):
It's the place of God's presence.
It's the place of prayer.
In One Kings chapter eight, we can read Solomon's own foundational prayer at the dedication of the temple.
One Kings 8 29 Solomon prays to God that your eyes might be open night and day toward this house, the place of which
you have said My name shall be there, that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place.
(08:57):
You see how similar it is to what Jesus was talking about?
Just a few verses before this story.
Verse seven, will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night?
Will he delay long over them?
When Solomon dedicated the temple, there were two things in particular that he prayed for.
(09:19):
There were two key subjects for prayer.
In One Kings chapter eight, and those two subjects are number one, justice.
Number two, mercy.
First, justice Solomon, when he prays, asks and expects God to act with justice, to be a righteous judge.
(09:40):
And what that means is to justify the righteous, to vindicate them and to judge, condemn, punish.
The wicked.
That's what God does.
Verses 31 to 32, if a man sins against his neighbor and is made to take an oath and comes and swears his oath before
your altar in this house, then here in heaven and act and judge your servants condemning the guilty by bringing his
(10:04):
conduct on his own head and vindicating or justifying the righteous by rewarding him according to his righteousness.
That's the first kind of prayer
and second mercy.
'cause the temple is the place where atonement happens.
(10:24):
It's the place where God deals with sin and deals with his wrath against sin.
So for example, verses 33 to 34, when your people Israel are defeated before the enemy because they have sinned against
you, and if they turn again to you and acknowledge your name and pray and plead with you in this house, then hear in
heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them again to the land that you gave to their fathers.
(10:51):
Those two prayers in Solomon's Temple, justice and mercy are reflected here.
The two men in Jesus' story, two men who went up to the temple to pray.
One, a righteous person, a Pharisee, and the other, an unrighteous person, a tax collector.
(11:13):
And the Pharisee's prayer is in verses 11 and 12, the
Pharisee.
Standing by himself prayed.
Thus, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortionist, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week.
I give tithes of all that I get.
(11:35):
This is the prayer of the righteous person.
In many ways, it's like many of the Psalms where David and others come before God remind God of their innocence.
That's what's happening here.
Righteous man is grateful and thankful that he's been enabled by God to live a good life.
A life that keeps the commandments.
(11:58):
It's especially good when compared to this tax collector whose sleazy life of self-promotion weaseling his way using the unjust
laws of the ungodly empire, has caused misery and robbed food from the tables and the children and the widows of the poor.
So the righteous man can stand up confidently and proclaim his own goodness.
(12:23):
He's kept the law.
In fact, he's gone above and beyond the law.
God's written law only required fasting on the day of Atonement.
The Pharisees had a system of fasting twice a week.
God's written law only required giving a 10th of the production.
The Pharisees tied to the consumer end as well.
But I wonder if you notice something about the Pharisees prayer.
(12:46):
Did you notice that it's not technically a prayer?
Oh, yeah, I know.
It, it, it looks like a prayer.
It smells like a prayer.
Jesus even calls it a prayer.
It starts with the word God.
It begins with a thanksgiving.
The form's all right, but it's not explicitly a prayer because the Pharisee never actually asks God for anything.
(13:14):
You think, oh,
what he is doing is actually kind of letting God listen in to his affirmative self-talk.
The main thing he wants to do is to signal his virtue to God to point out that he is righteous.
It looks a bit like Solomon's prayer in the temple, the prayer for God to justify
(13:35):
the righteous, but it's not quite because the Pharisee seems to just assume.
God will vindicate him and justify him, but he never asks God to do it.
He just puts it out there.
God, I just thank you for making me, me.
(13:56):
I'll just leave that information with you.
God.
Uh, God, you know what to do, and I'll just pop back down the mountain now,
verse 13.
The tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breasts saying, God, be merciful to me a sinner.
(14:30):
You hear the thing the tax collector does that the Pharisee didn't do what the tax collector does.
He reads the room, watch the room, it's the temple.
And in this room, there's only one person who matters, and it's not any other human being.
(14:56):
It's God, the holy God, the perfect God.
The God in whose presence no one can stand, who's glorious and holy presence brings pure
(15:17):
justice, who cannot admit the stain of any sin and this tax collector as he reads the room.
He reads himself rightly.
He knows who he's, he knows who God is, so he prays God be merciful to me, a sinner.
(15:44):
And what a very, very short prayer,
but the length isn't the thing.
This is a real prayer.
It's asking God for something, something vital.
God be merciful to me,
a sinner.
(16:06):
When he says be merciful.
That's a very loaded term, especially in the temple.
Uh, it's a term that actually is referring to atonement.
It's a word that in the Old Testament describes how God provides ways for sinners to have their sin
covered, dealt with, to have God's righteous anger against their sin taken away to use older language.
(16:26):
He's saying, God, be propitious to me.
Turn your wrath away from me.
The temple is the place where God has provided atonement, the, the altar, the sacrifices.
That's what it's all for.
When Jesus himself tells this story, he's almost in Jerusalem, isn't he?
(16:47):
Jesus himself is about to go and die on that cross to secure once for all that true
and full and real Atonements, the atonement that the temple was pointing to all along
to take on himself our sins.
(17:07):
God's wrath that we deserve for our sins to deal with it, to deal with it justly, rightly, wonderfully
mercifully, not sweeping sin under the carpet or pretending it doesn't matter, but dealing with it,
which is why Jesus himself is the place where God is both just and merciful
who brings justice for sin and at the very same time, turns aside his wrath.
(17:33):
As Paul says in Romans.
We justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.
This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins.
It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just, and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
(18:05):
The tax collector can recognize himself as a sinner.
In the world we live in, we're so often told that we must not ever think that we are sinners.
We must not ever think of ourselves as broken people.
Uh, more than that, we must never call other people sinners or broken people, because that's dangerous, that's damaging.
(18:26):
We need everyone to be safe.
So parents, teachers, authorities, celebrities, they're told their job is always to affirm.
They must never say someone is wrong or bad.
Never question anybody's goodness, because we desperately need to feel that we are good and worthy.
We need to feel safe, and we can only feel safe if we never challenged.
(18:47):
That's the world we live in because our world has no atonement and it's tragic.
All our world has to live by is that desperate need to feel confident of our own righteousness and to cover up anything that might deny that.
All our world has is positive self-talk and comparison with others.
(19:07):
All they have is what the Pharisee had thankfulness for, moral righteousness and prayer to yourself.
What we have in Jesus is something far more wonderful in Jesus.
We have the ability, we have the power, we have the freedom to admit that we are sinners
(19:30):
because we have a safe place in which to stand and say that Jesus, once for all death on the cross, makes it safe to admit that we're wrong
because it gives forgiveness, not condemnation.
And that's why this very, very short prayer is the fundamental prayer of our lives.
(19:53):
God have mercy on me, a sinner.
In fact, we've already prayed it in chapel, haven't we?
Because we're sinners.
But we can be fully confident in God's mercy because Jesus died for us to bring that complete forgiveness.
(20:14):
So who went down from the Temple Mount, having received justice,
who left the room having been vindicated by God justified.
I mean, the normal explanation, the explanation that is actually raised for us in One Kings Chapter eight, isn't it?
Is that the righteous are justified and the sinners are condemned.
(20:37):
That's what God is supposed to do.
One Kings 8 32, judge your servants condemning the guilty by bringing his conduct on his own
head and vindicating or justifying the righteous by rewarding him according to his righteousness.
But Jesus says the precise opposite.
(21:00):
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.
What?
God justifies the righteous, what a theological scandal.
It's because the temple isn't just the place of justice, it's also the place of mercy, of atonement, and that's what Jesus truly brings.
(21:28):
And that's why this parable is so important for Jesus to tell as he teaches his disciples about the end when he will return.
That's what he's been doing in chapter 17, when God through Jesus will bring about
His great purpose is to wrap up the world, to judge sinners and save the righteous.
Jesus tells this story to show us where to look for that righteousness.
Not in ourselves, but in him.
(21:52):
In his death, in his resurrection to keep looking to him, and this despised tax collector went home justified.
Why didn't the Pharisee receive justification from God?
Well, fundamentally, because he didn't ask for it, he.
(22:15):
He believed he was in the right already.
He was busy comparing himself to others.
He thought God would mark him on the curve.
Don't need a hundred percent in the normal distribution of rewards, are distinctions better than a credit?
It looks like he had a high distinction.
That's all he needed, but he was deluded because he needed much more than that.
(22:38):
He needed mercy from God just as much as the tax collector we all do.
I dunno if you feel more like a virtuous Pharisee or more like the scumbag tax collector, but ultimately it doesn't matter.
We're all sinners.
We've all done things we need to bring to God and our righteousness is not found in ourselves.
(23:01):
It's in Jesus.
So verse 14, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
A number of years ago on mission, I knocked on the door of a Muslim person.
As a team.
We were practicing storytelling, and so I shared this parable with him.
I thought this will be really helpful.
(23:21):
I asked him at the end who he thought God would accept, the Pharisee or the
tax collector, and of course, the Muslim person said, well, the tax collector.
I asked why.
He said, well, the tax collector acted virtuously.
He humbled himself and God shows mercy to good people like that as a reward for doing the right thing and being humble.
(23:42):
Evangelism fail on my part.
But Jesus isn't saying here that he's got some new kind of virtue called humility so we can virtue signal our humility before God and be rewarded.
No.
He's saying that if we're confident in ourselves, if we exalt ourselves, we won't
(24:03):
ask God for mercy in the first place and we'll be brought low on the last day.
But when we admit our sin before God come before God, to ask for forgiveness and mercy through
Jesus' death on the cross, when we look for righteousness to Jesus, not ourselves, he grants it.
(24:23):
We raised up to live with him forever.
So how will you go home today?
Will you go home confident that you're actually okay that your credit average before God is actually fine,
or will you go home justified right before the God of the universe, the holy God with your confidence in Jesus, not in yourself?
(24:53):
Well, we'd better pray.
And we have prayed this prayer and let's pray it again.
It's very short, yet the fundamental prayer for us to pray together.
Will you pray with me?
God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
Amen.
(25:19):
Thank you for listening to Moore in the Word, a podcast of Moore Theological College.
Our vision as a College is to see God glorified by men and women living for
and proclaiming Jesus Christ, growing healthy churches and reaching the lost.
"Huguenot" was the name given to Protestants in France who followed the teachings of John Calvin.
(25:40):
They suffered hostility and persecution under Catholic rule—most notably, during the St Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572.
The edict of Nantes in 1598 granted them some religious freedoms.
But after this was revoked in 1685 by Louis XIV, many Huguenots fled France in fear of their lives.
(26:01):
A substantial Huguenot population settled in England and are now considered the first religious refugees.
Many of their descendants later immigrated to Australia and maintained their Huguenot identity through the Huguenot Society of Australia.
The Donald Robinson Library at Moore College now holds the Society's extensive library and archive collection.
(26:22):
Join us on Wednesday, 8th of October from 5:30pm, when Pamela Summers, longstanding committee member of the Huguenot Society of
Australia will present an overview of the Reformation in France, the Huguenot persecutions and exile, and the Huguenot diaspora.
Find out more and register by visiting the Moore College website (26:39):
moore.edu.au.
That's moore.edu.au.
You can find out more and register by going to the Moore College website (26:56):
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(27:18):
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(27:44):
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Until next time.
Welcome to Moore in the Word, a podcast of Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia, that seeks
to glorify God through biblically sound, thought-provoking and challenging talks and interviews.
In this episode, from a chapel service held on Tuesday 3rd of June 2025, Lionel Windsor, Lecturer in the New Testament
(00:31):
Department at Moore Theological College, speaks on Luke 18:9-14, and the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.
Lionel reminds us that the tax collector's prayer is the foundational prayer of the Christian
life, and that when we look for righteousness in Jesus and not ourselves, he grants it to us.
(00:52):
We hope you find the episode helpful.
Father, we thank you for this wonderful truth of Jesus.
We do pray that you would now speak to us through your word as you.
Uh, bring it to us now.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
(01:14):
Well, the longing for justice is a deep longing of the human heart, and it's
when you're most wronged, that you most long for God to make things right.
When you're suffering without reason and nobody seems to care or understand.
Maybe that's you right now.
(01:35):
Do.
Do you ask God do you pray for his justice?
Last Tuesday in chapel we looked at a prayer for justice.
Justice in the face of the wrongness and the suffering of this world as we
live, as God's people, as we look forward to the coming of God's future kingdom.
(02:01):
When God will make all things right, when all will be revealed, when the judge comes,
but until he comes, there will be injustice.
There will be suffering, and God knows God cares, and he wants us to pray to him for justice as we trust him.
(02:29):
To make things right.
And in that context, Jesus told the story about the vulnerable widow and the unjust judge to teach his disciples to keep praying, to never give up.
Looking for him to come and vindicate his people to bring justice to his righteous saints.
(02:56):
And that lesson is vital for us.
But Jesus ended with a question, didn't he?
Luke, chapter 18, verse eight.
When the son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth?
What does that faith look like?
(03:16):
It looks like a prayerful trust in God's justice.
And then straight away Jesus tells another parable, another parable about prayer.
That's our parable for today, verses nine to 14, and it's a parable that digs even deeper into
(03:37):
God's justice and it forces us to ask more questions about ourselves and faith and justice.
Luke chapter 18, verse nine.
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others.
(03:57):
Contempt
because of course, as we cry out to God for justice, we are assuming something, aren't we?
We are assuming that we are the good guys because that means we'll win and the bad guys will get what's coming to them.
(04:20):
I want Jesus to return and give me what I deserve.
So Jesus tells this parable to make us ask, hold on.
Are we the good guys?
That feeling of, uh, moral superiority, it's a feature of every age.
(04:41):
It was strong in Jesus time, and it's just as strong in our world today.
Uh, whether it's, uh, the conservatives, the champions of, of morality and family values.
The new Puritans, the left wing activists for the cause of the marginalized and the environment with their sophisticated intersectional
(05:06):
algebra or the even newer reactionaries calling out the woke brigade, attacking the Harvard elites, restoring common sense to the world order.
So many in our world are confident of their own righteousness.
They're all looking down on everybody else and well, aren't you glad?
(05:28):
Aren't you glad that we are not like that?
Aren't you glad that we are the Bible believers?
We are not like that.
Those stupid moralistic fools in our world.
Oh, Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt.
(05:55):
Which might sometimes do you think, be you and me?
Jesus' story involves two people and two prayers.
Verse 10, two men went up into the temple to pray.
One a Pharisees and the other, a tax collector, and you couldn't get more opposite kinds of people that the Pharisees, the great role models.
(06:22):
For what ordinary good people wanted to be.
The Pharisees, the local heroes, the virtuous, the respected.
I don't know what the equivalents today would be for conservatives as Jordan Peterson for progressives,
maybe of Greta Thunberg, and they were better than that because they were the Bible people.
(06:44):
They took the Bible seriously in every area of life.
Whatever you think the moral high ground is, that's where the Pharisees were.
Tax collectors on the other hand were the dodgy, treacherous sleazeballs.
Those who made themselves rich from the misery of their fellow Jews doing the dirty work for the Roman Empire's fee collection system.
(07:11):
They knew how to squeeze their own community dry, getting the fees plus commissions for an equivalent.
Today, let's try the gambling industry bosses.
Who use their incredible technology to manipulate the vulnerable, to addict them, to the money and the gambling, to take the
food off the table of the children who, yes, pay their state taxes to stay loved and legal, and create misery everywhere.
(07:39):
Despicable, disgusting.
So, of course, which one is righteous and which one is unrighteous.
Obviously it's a set up by Jesus.
The Pharisee is righteous and he deserves justice, and the tax collector is unrighteous and he deserves utter contempt and condemnation.
And whose side are you on?
(08:01):
Which one of these are you?
Well, both of them go up to the temple to pray.
The fact that Jesus sets his story in that exalted place, the temple, it's very important.
This is the rebuild and expanded version of Solomon's temple, the place where God himself had promised to be present with his people.
(08:28):
It's the place of God's presence.
It's the place of prayer.
In One Kings chapter eight, we can read Solomon's own foundational prayer at the dedication of the temple.
One Kings 8 29 Solomon prays to God that your eyes might be open night and day toward this house, the place of which
you have said My name shall be there, that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place.
(08:57):
You see how similar it is to what Jesus was talking about?
Just a few verses before this story.
Verse seven, will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night?
Will he delay long over them?
When Solomon dedicated the temple, there were two things in particular that he prayed for.
(09:19):
There were two key subjects for prayer.
In One Kings chapter eight, and those two subjects are number one, justice.
Number two, mercy.
First, justice Solomon, when he prays, asks and expects God to act with justice, to be a righteous judge.
(09:40):
And what that means is to justify the righteous, to vindicate them and to judge, condemn, punish.
The wicked.
That's what God does.
Verses 31 to 32, if a man sins against his neighbor and is made to take an oath and comes and swears his oath before
your altar in this house, then here in heaven and act and judge your servants condemning the guilty by bringing his
(10:04):
conduct on his own head and vindicating or justifying the righteous by rewarding him according to his righteousness.
That's the first kind of prayer
and second mercy.
'cause the temple is the place where atonement happens.
(10:24):
It's the place where God deals with sin and deals with his wrath against sin.
So for example, verses 33 to 34, when your people Israel are defeated before the enemy because they have sinned against
you, and if they turn again to you and acknowledge your name and pray and plead with you in this house, then hear in
heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them again to the land that you gave to their fathers.
(10:51):
Those two prayers in Solomon's Temple, justice and mercy are reflected here.
The two men in Jesus' story, two men who went up to the temple to pray.
One, a righteous person, a Pharisee, and the other, an unrighteous person, a tax collector.
(11:13):
And the Pharisee's prayer is in verses 11 and 12, the
Pharisee.
Standing by himself prayed.
Thus, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortionist, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week.
I give tithes of all that I get.
(11:35):
This is the prayer of the righteous person.
In many ways, it's like many of the Psalms where David and others come before God remind God of their innocence.
That's what's happening here.
Righteous man is grateful and thankful that he's been enabled by God to live a good life.
A life that keeps the commandments.
(11:58):
It's especially good when compared to this tax collector whose sleazy life of self-promotion weaseling his way using the unjust
laws of the ungodly empire, has caused misery and robbed food from the tables and the children and the widows of the poor.
So the righteous man can stand up confidently and proclaim his own goodness.
(12:23):
He's kept the law.
In fact, he's gone above and beyond the law.
God's written law only required fasting on the day of Atonement.
The Pharisees had a system of fasting twice a week.
God's written law only required giving a 10th of the production.
The Pharisees tied to the consumer end as well.
But I wonder if you notice something about the Pharisees prayer.
(12:46):
Did you notice that it's not technically a prayer?
Oh, yeah, I know.
It, it, it looks like a prayer.
It smells like a prayer.
Jesus even calls it a prayer.
It starts with the word God.
It begins with a thanksgiving.
The form's all right, but it's not explicitly a prayer because the Pharisee never actually asks God for anything.
(13:14):
You think, oh,
what he is doing is actually kind of letting God listen in to his affirmative self-talk.
The main thing he wants to do is to signal his virtue to God to point out that he is righteous.
It looks a bit like Solomon's prayer in the temple, the prayer for God to justify
(13:35):
the righteous, but it's not quite because the Pharisee seems to just assume.
God will vindicate him and justify him, but he never asks God to do it.
He just puts it out there.
God, I just thank you for making me, me.
(13:56):
I'll just leave that information with you.
God.
Uh, God, you know what to do, and I'll just pop back down the mountain now,
verse 13.
The tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breasts saying, God, be merciful to me a sinner.
(14:30):
You hear the thing the tax collector does that the Pharisee didn't do what the tax collector does.
He reads the room, watch the room, it's the temple.
And in this room, there's only one person who matters, and it's not any other human being.
(14:56):
It's God, the holy God, the perfect God.
The God in whose presence no one can stand, who's glorious and holy presence brings pure
(15:17):
justice, who cannot admit the stain of any sin and this tax collector as he reads the room.
He reads himself rightly.
He knows who he's, he knows who God is, so he prays God be merciful to me, a sinner.
(15:44):
And what a very, very short prayer,
but the length isn't the thing.
This is a real prayer.
It's asking God for something, something vital.
God be merciful to me,
a sinner.
(16:06):
When he says be merciful.
That's a very loaded term, especially in the temple.
Uh, it's a term that actually is referring to atonement.
It's a word that in the Old Testament describes how God provides ways for sinners to have their sin
covered, dealt with, to have God's righteous anger against their sin taken away to use older language.
(16:26):
He's saying, God, be propitious to me.
Turn your wrath away from me.
The temple is the place where God has provided atonement, the, the altar, the sacrifices.
That's what it's all for.
When Jesus himself tells this story, he's almost in Jerusalem, isn't he?
(16:47):
Jesus himself is about to go and die on that cross to secure once for all that true
and full and real Atonements, the atonement that the temple was pointing to all along
to take on himself our sins.
(17:07):
God's wrath that we deserve for our sins to deal with it, to deal with it justly, rightly, wonderfully
mercifully, not sweeping sin under the carpet or pretending it doesn't matter, but dealing with it,
which is why Jesus himself is the place where God is both just and merciful
who brings justice for sin and at the very same time, turns aside his wrath.
(17:33):
As Paul says in Romans.
We justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.
This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins.
It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just, and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
(18:05):
The tax collector can recognize himself as a sinner.
In the world we live in, we're so often told that we must not ever think that we are sinners.
We must not ever think of ourselves as broken people.
Uh, more than that, we must never call other people sinners or broken people, because that's dangerous, that's damaging.
(18:26):
We need everyone to be safe.
So parents, teachers, authorities, celebrities, they're told their job is always to affirm.
They must never say someone is wrong or bad.
Never question anybody's goodness, because we desperately need to feel that we are good and worthy.
We need to feel safe, and we can only feel safe if we never challenged.
(18:47):
That's the world we live in because our world has no atonement and it's tragic.
All our world has to live by is that desperate need to feel confident of our own righteousness and to cover up anything that might deny that.
All our world has is positive self-talk and comparison with others.
(19:07):
All they have is what the Pharisee had thankfulness for, moral righteousness and prayer to yourself.
What we have in Jesus is something far more wonderful in Jesus.
We have the ability, we have the power, we have the freedom to admit that we are sinners
(19:30):
because we have a safe place in which to stand and say that Jesus, once for all death on the cross, makes it safe to admit that we're wrong
because it gives forgiveness, not condemnation.
And that's why this very, very short prayer is the fundamental prayer of our lives.
(19:53):
God have mercy on me, a sinner.
In fact, we've already prayed it in chapel, haven't we?
Because we're sinners.
But we can be fully confident in God's mercy because Jesus died for us to bring that complete forgiveness.
(20:14):
So who went down from the Temple Mount, having received justice,
who left the room having been vindicated by God justified.
I mean, the normal explanation, the explanation that is actually raised for us in One Kings Chapter eight, isn't it?
Is that the righteous are justified and the sinners are condemned.
(20:37):
That's what God is supposed to do.
One Kings 8 32, judge your servants condemning the guilty by bringing his conduct on his own
head and vindicating or justifying the righteous by rewarding him according to his righteousness.
But Jesus says the precise opposite.
(21:00):
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.
What?
God justifies the righteous, what a theological scandal.
It's because the temple isn't just the place of justice, it's also the place of mercy, of atonement, and that's what Jesus truly brings.
(21:28):
And that's why this parable is so important for Jesus to tell as he teaches his disciples about the end when he will return.
That's what he's been doing in chapter 17, when God through Jesus will bring about
His great purpose is to wrap up the world, to judge sinners and save the righteous.
Jesus tells this story to show us where to look for that righteousness.
Not in ourselves, but in him.
(21:52):
In his death, in his resurrection to keep looking to him, and this despised tax collector went home justified.
Why didn't the Pharisee receive justification from God?
Well, fundamentally, because he didn't ask for it, he.
(22:15):
He believed he was in the right already.
He was busy comparing himself to others.
He thought God would mark him on the curve.
Don't need a hundred percent in the normal distribution of rewards, are distinctions better than a credit?
It looks like he had a high distinction.
That's all he needed, but he was deluded because he needed much more than that.
(22:38):
He needed mercy from God just as much as the tax collector we all do.
I dunno if you feel more like a virtuous Pharisee or more like the scumbag tax collector, but ultimately it doesn't matter.
We're all sinners.
We've all done things we need to bring to God and our righteousness is not found in ourselves.
(23:01):
It's in Jesus.
So verse 14, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
A number of years ago on mission, I knocked on the door of a Muslim person.
As a team.
We were practicing storytelling, and so I shared this parable with him.
I thought this will be really helpful.
(23:21):
I asked him at the end who he thought God would accept, the Pharisee or the
tax collector, and of course, the Muslim person said, well, the tax collector.
I asked why.
He said, well, the tax collector acted virtuously.
He humbled himself and God shows mercy to good people like that as a reward for doing the right thing and being humble.
(23:42):
Evangelism fail on my part.
But Jesus isn't saying here that he's got some new kind of virtue called humility so we can virtue signal our humility before God and be rewarded.
No.
He's saying that if we're confident in ourselves, if we exalt ourselves, we won't
(24:03):
ask God for mercy in the first place and we'll be brought low on the last day.
But when we admit our sin before God come before God, to ask for forgiveness and mercy through
Jesus' death on the cross, when we look for righteousness to Jesus, not ourselves, he grants it.
(24:23):
We raised up to live with him forever.
So how will you go home today?
Will you go home confident that you're actually okay that your credit average before God is actually fine,
or will you go home justified right before the God of the universe, the holy God with your confidence in Jesus, not in yourself?
(24:53):
Well, we'd better pray.
And we have prayed this prayer and let's pray it again.
It's very short, yet the fundamental prayer for us to pray together.
Will you pray with me?
God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
Amen.
(25:19):
Thank you for listening to Moore in the Word, a podcast of Moore Theological College.
Our vision as a College is to see God glorified by men and women living for
and proclaiming Jesus Christ, growing healthy churches and reaching the lost.
"Huguenot" was the name given to Protestants in France who followed the teachings of John Calvin.
(25:40):
They suffered hostility and persecution under Catholic rule—most notably, during the St Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572.
The edict of Nantes in 1598 granted them some religious freedoms.
But after this was revoked in 1685 by Louis XIV, many Huguenots fled France in fear of their lives.
(26:01):
A substantial Huguenot population settled in England and are now considered the first religious refugees.
Many of their descendants later immigrated to Australia and maintained their Huguenot identity through the Huguenot Society of Australia.
The Donald Robinson Library at Moore College now holds the Society's extensive library and archive collection.
(26:22):
Join us on Wednesday, 8th of October from 5:30pm, when Pamela Summers, longstanding committee member of the Huguenot Society of
Australia will present an overview of the Reformation in France, the Huguenot persecutions and exile, and the Huguenot diaspora.
Find out more and register by visiting the Moore College website (26:39):
moore.edu.au.
That's moore.edu.au.
You can find out more and register by going to the Moore College website (26:56):
moore.edu.au.
That's moore.edu.au.
If you have not already done so, we encourage you to subscribe to our podcast
through your favourite podcast platform so that you'll never miss an episode.
For past episodes, further resources, and to make a tax deductible donation to support
(27:18):
the work of the College and its mission, please visit our website at moore.edu.au.
If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a friend and leave a review on your platform of choice.
We always benefit from feedback from our listeners, so if you'd like to get in touch, you can email us at comms@moore.edu.au.
(27:44):
The Moore in the Word podcast was edited and produced by me, Karen Beilharz, and the Communications Team at Moore Theological College.
The music for our podcast was provided by MarkJuly from PixaBay.
Until next time.
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