Humility and Repentance
Introduction
Years ago a man by the name of Christian Herter was trying to get re-elected as governor of Massachusetts, and one day he arrived very late for a BBQ. Herter hadn’t had a chance to eat breakfast or lunch so he was really hungry. As he moved through the line, he held out his plate and the serving lady gave him one piece of chicken.
“Excuse me, do you mind if I get another piece of chicken? said Herter. “I’m very hungry.”
“Sorry,” the lady replied. “I’m supposed to give one piece to each person.”
“But I’m really starved,” said the governor.
The lady shook her head and said “Only one to a customer.”
Normally Governor Herter was a modest man, but he was so hungry that he decided to throw his weight around a little bit.
“Madam, do you know who I am? I’m the governor of this state.”
The woman hesitated and then replied, “Do you know who I am? I’m the lady in charge of chicken. Move along, mister.”
Sometimes people get too big for their britches, don’t they? Governor Herter fell prey to what some of us struggle with now and then: pride. And pride can sometimes result in self-righteousness, causing us to look down on other people.
Unfortunately, some people seem to suffer from a permanent case of self-righteousness. And people that think that they’re superior than others and perfect in every way tend to have a much more serious problem than a lack of humility: they’re in danger of facing the wrath of God when they die.
In this article, we’re going to read a simple but profound story—a parable, really—about a pharisee and a tax collector. A religious leader whose job it is is to lead other people to a true and saving knowledge of God. And then there’s the New Testament version of the IRS, the person responsible for collecting taxes for the Roman government.
Our passage is Luke 18:9-14.
A pharisee and a tax collector. Total opposites. One is proud and the other is humble. One’s self-righteous and the other’s contrite. One has a warped idea of his standing before an all-powerful and all-knowing God, and the other recognizes his short-comings and his creator’s perfection.
An Audience That Is Confident Of Its Own Righteousness
While the writer doesn’t say who Jesus is talking to here in Luke 18, Luke 17:20 says that Jesus is talking to pharisees, and verse 22 of the same chapter says that the disciples are also there. Who is listening to Jesus in Luke 18? Who is the Lord speaking this parable to? We don’t know for sure, but it seems likely that it includes one or both groups.
Regardless, the Lord makes His point, as He always does. And it’s a doozy.
Let’s start by reading verse nine.
Luke 18:9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:
The first thing that we find out is that Jesus is speaking this parable for the benefit of some of His listeners who are “confident of their own righteousness.” In fact, these people apparently look “down on everybody else.” In other words, these listeners think they’re better than everybody else and reek of self-righteousness.
Now that we know the kind of people that Jesus is speaking this parable against, let’s find out what happens.
Two Men Go Up To The Temple To Pray
Luke 18:10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
It was customary in Jerusalem at the time for the Jews—and this was particularly true for the religious leaders of the time—to flock to the temple to pray. There were three scheduled times of prayer each day: mid-morning, the time of the evening sacrifice, and at sunset. Of course, people could go to the temple at other times to pray privately if they wanted.
Jesus tells us about two Jews who go to the temple to pray. A Pharisee and a tax collector. We already know a little about Pharisees. They were the religious leaders and supposed role models for the Jewish nation.
And tax collectors or publicans? Well, it’s hard to imagine how any group of people could be more despised and hated by their fellow Israelites than tax collectors. Most of them worked overtime to bilk every cent that they could out of the Jews. Anything that didn’t go to Rome ended up in a tax collector’s pocket. The more they could extort from others, the wealthier they could be.
So these two guys are about as opposite as they can be. Neither one would be caught dead inviting the other to a party. They have virtually nothing in common.
And yet, both are here at the temple to pray.
A Self-righteous Pharisee
Luke 18:11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.
I laugh almost every time I read this verse. This Pharisee is as obnoxious as they come, isn’t he?! I mean, how arrogant and self-righteousness and down-right mean can somebody get?
This guy doesn’t come to the temple to pray to God almighty, he’s here to pat himself on the back and to show off for whoever else is around! The text says that he prays about himself. The King James Version says that he prays WITH himself. His prayer’s a joke.
The text doesn’t say if anyone other than the tax collector is nearby, but this Pharisee wants attention so bad it’s hard for me to imagine that he would just show off for one guy. I kind of think there are many other people here in the temple as well. That would be the case if it was one of the regularly scheduled prayer times.
Imagine if you were this tax collector or one of the other people who may have been there. You show up to worship the Lord, to show your respect and to make yourself right with Him. Almost as soon as you show up, quiet and respectful, this Pharisee stands up and walks in front so that everybody can see him.
This guy can’t wait to show off. He can’t wait to show everybody how religious he is. And he can’t wait to show superior he is to other people like the tax collector.
“God, thank you that I’m not like other people, common people, sinners like this guy over here. Just look at him! He’s got sin written all over him. What scum! What a contrast to me!”
As I read this passage I remember about a quote from Don Johnson, the actor. He said this:
“There aren’t any of these bleepin’ actors that are better than me. None of them. Nobody. Not De Niro, not Brando, not Jack, not anybody. You walk out there on that street right now, go up to two people, ask them what they feel about Don Johnson. You got a 50-50 chance of someone saying, ‘Who?’ and the other person saying, ‘He’s a god.’”
Like the Pharisee in this parable, Don Johnson is full of himself. Neither of them has a grasp on reality.
Luke 18:12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
In other words, “Lord, you know what a good guy I am. There’s nobody, but nobody more religious than me. Who else goes to church every Sunday? Who else is here every Wednesday night? Who else fasts and tithes as much as I do? Who else helps the poor? Who else is my equal? Who else is your favorite?”
Even though God had commanded the Jews to fast once a year, on the day of atonement, Pharisees fasted on Mondays and Thursdays. And why? Well, most of them wanted to look holier than the common folk.
Pharisees also went overboard in terms of tithing. They even tithed every little thing that they got out of their garden.
Luke 11:42 “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.
In other words, their tithing was done with impure motives. They were legalistic and their so-called commitment to God was a farce. They were religious, but they weren’t really followers of God. They were too proud and self-righteous.
In Isaiah 65:5 the Lord tells the prophet how disappointed and angry He is with people like the Pharisee we’re reading about, people who say to other, supposedly inferior, people: “‘Keep away; don’t come near me, for I am too sacred for you!’”
The Lord goes on to say that “Such people are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day.”
Now let’s look at Matthew 6 and the sermon on the mount, and see what Jesus has to say about people like this. Phonies and show-offs. God sees through facades like his. People like this Pharisee might fool other people, but they don’t fool the Lord.
Matt. 6:5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
What condemnation! People that pray in order to be seen by others are hypocrites! In fact, whatever temporary and shallow reward they might get from their little shows is all that they’ll get. There’s no reward for the unredeemed and self-righteous.
Now skip down to verse 16 and we’ll see the kind of fasting that guys like this Pharisee were famous for.
Matt. 6:16 “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
Once again we see that Jesus says that the benefit of phony religious activity, like making sure everybody sees how holy you are because you’re fasting, is temporary and shallow. Oh, a handful of people that don’t know any better might buy into this guy’s act, but that’s all the reward there is. God’s not impressed. And in terms of salvation, that’s tragic. We’ll talk more about that in a few minutes.
Now let’s go back to Luke 18 and read the rest of the parable. Even though we’ve been shocked to hear how arrogant the Pharisee is, Jesus’ listeners probably wouldn’t be shocked themselves. This was probably an everyday occurrence for many of them, something they’ve observed many times.
Meanwhile, any Pharisee in the audience would be nodding in agreement with this fictional character looking down on and condemning the common folk.
“Yeah, pray it brother, pray it!”
On the other hand, any disciples who are listening, while they might recognize the hypocrisy of the Pharisee and resent it, it was still something that was all too familiar to them.
But Jesus said that two people went to the temple to pray. We’ve read about the religious leader, but now read about the tax collector. It’s probably safe to say that most—if not all—of the people who were listening to this parable despised tax collectors.
Let’s see what happens next.
A Humble And Repentant Tax Collector
Luke 18:13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
Notice that the tax collector does just the opposite of what the Pharisee does. He doesn’t walk up front to be in the spotlight. He doesn’t make a showy prayer about how great he is. He doesn’t compare himself to other people.
No! The tax collector stands in the back. The tax collector can’t even bear to look up to heaven. The tax collector even beats his breast, a sign of grief and mourning. This man—unlike the first one—is well aware that God is holy and that he—like all of us here today—is a sinner.
Rom. 3:10 …There is no one righteous, not even one;
This is one of the most interesting—and blunt—verses in the whole Bible. It anticipates the question, oh, come on, there’s not even one righteous person, someone who does right all of the time? What guys like the Pharisee we’ve been reading about. Surely somebody like Him is righteous. He certainly thinks that he can stand before God as blameless.
The answer, of course, is no. Romans 3:10 says “…There is no one righteous, not even one.” None of us is righteous on our own. None of us can stand blameless before a holy God.
No matter how hard we may try to live a good life, sooner or later we’ll slip up. We’ll make a mistake. We’ll sin.
And in God’s eyes, we only have to slip up once to be denied heaven. That’s all it takes. Even one sin separates us from God and His perfect standard.
Carl Yastremski, a Hall of Fame player for the Boston Red Sox, certainly grasped the concept of falling short. As he approached his 3,000 hit, Yastremski was asked if all of the attention would go to his head.
The first baseman said this:
“I look at it this way. I’ve been at bat over 10,000 times. That means I’ve failed 7,000 times at the plate. That fact alone will prevent me from getting a swollen head.”
A batting average of 1,000 has never been achieved and is widely regarded as humanly impossible. But that’s the standard against which every hitter is measured. Sort of like God’s perfect standard in terms of sin. All of us fall short.
Matt. 5:48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
There are two verses that describe God like this: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty.”
Those verses are essentially saying that the Lord is sinless, sinless, sinless. Perfect, perfect, perfect. And, as we’ve seen, you and I—and the people in this parable—are sinful, sinful, sinful.
No matter how much we try to clean up our lives, we keep making mistakes, we keep on sinning. We can’t do it by ourselves. We can no more help ourselves than a surgeon could operate on her own cancerous tumor. We can’t help ourselves. Nobody can.
To further complicate this problem, God is just. In other words, He HAS to punish sin. It’s part of His nature.
Exod. 34:7 “…he does not leave the guilty unpunished…”
Ps. 45:7 You love righteousness and hate wickedness…
The tax collector—even though he’s spent his adult life rooking his fellow Jews out of their hard-earned money—understands the holiness of God. And he understands that he falls short of God’s perfect standards.
Somehow, some way, this man has reached the point where he recognizes all of his imperfections and is clearly humbled by this realization. You can tell how much he’s broken over his sin, can’t you? You can tell how this is tearing him up inside.
This is a man who has a clear and accurate picture of the relationship between God and human beings.
Let’s see what happens next.
The Exalted Are Humbled, And The Humble Exalted
Luke 18:14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
What a shocking climax to this parable! Pharisees, disciples and anybody in between who were listening must have had their mouths open in disbelief!
You mean the Pharisee—the religious guy?!—isn’t justified? The guy who’s clearly superior (at least in his own eyes), the guy who tithes and fasts isn’t righteous in your eyes? How can that be?
And you mean the tax collector—this scum bag of a sinner—is justified? The guy who’s on the bottom rung of society, the guy who isn’t worthy of one ounce of compassion or mercy is righteous in your eyes.
You mean the Pharisee isn’t forgiven for his sins and isn’t going to heaven?!
You mean the tax collector is forgiven for his sins and is going to heaven?!
How can that be?!
Godly Sorry Versus Worldly Sorrow
The answer is repentance. That’s when someone is so contrite, so upset at how they’ve lived their lives, that they make a sincere effort to change and follow Christ. It’s more than just a confession of wrongdoing. It’s a radical change of the mind, followed by a change in behavior.
The Bible is very clear. There’s no saving faith, no forgiveness of sin, no going to heaven, without Godly repentance. Repentance and faith go hand in hand. We can certainly try and talk about them as separate concepts, but when it gets right down to it, they really can’t be separated.
By the way, repentance isn’t the kind of sorrow that much of the world experiences. Listen to 2 Corinthians 7:10.
2Cor. 7:10 Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
“Worldly sorrow” is the kind of sorrow that reacts to the fear of being caught and punished. There’s no intention of not doing the same kind of things again. It’s just covering your tracks and trying to weasel out of the predicament you’ve put yourself in. I know, because I used to be like that.
Matthew 27:3 says that after betraying Jesus, Judas “was seized with remorse.” It’s clear from Scripture, however, as well as his fate, that Judas didn’t repent—he was just sorry that he was caught, and frightened and afraid. Two verses later it says that he hanged himself.
That’s an example of worldly sorrow, not Godly sorrow or repentance.
Here in the United States in recent history, we’ve witnessed worldly sorrow from the highest office in the land. Almost a year of repeated pleas for forgiveness, but no apparent repentance, because repentance isn’t just words, it’s actions too. And actions speak louder than words.
Worldly sorrow isn’t the same as Godly sorrow if the person asking forgiveness doesn’t really come clean and continues to prevent the truth from coming out. The whole idea of repentance is accepting full responsibility for your actions, no matter the consequences.
In my opinion, what we’ve witnessed in the U.S. from our own president appears to be a not-so-hidden agenda to avoid punishment and rebuke, not genuine repentance.
In God’s eyes, words of sorrow and regret are empty if they’re not backed up with a visible commitment to make things right with God and anyone you’ve sinned against.
The tax collector’s words and actions shows that he recognizes what true repentance is.
Isa. 66:2 …”This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.
The Pharisee isn’t humble, but the tax collector is. The Pharisee isn’t contrite in spirit, but the tax collector is. The Pharisee doesn’t tremble at God’s Word, but the tax collector does.
The tax collector is the one God esteems, and the tax collector is the one who “went home justified before God.”
And why? Because he recognizes that as a sinner—as all of us are—he’s helpless before a holy and sinless God. On the other hand, the Pharisee is like a lot of people then, and now, who think they can earn God’s favor and get to heaven by doing good things.
Those people count on their own, human efforts—flawed efforts that fall far short of God’s holy and perfect standard. According to the Bible, good works—even doing a bunch of religious things and humanitarian things—is useless activity in terms of trying to somehow earn God’s favor and forgiveness.
Eph. 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -
Eph. 2:9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
Conclusion
Let’s look at one more passage in Luke 5 before we close. We’re going to read about another tax collector—not a fictional one, but a real one. And along the way, we’ll see a very, very important concept regarding repentance and saving faith. It’s an eye-opening truth.
Luke 5:29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them.
Luke 5:30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
Luke 5:31 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
Luke 5:32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
What does Jesus mean when He says “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick?”
Just this. If you think everything’s ok between you and God, like our friend the Pharisee, then you’ll never experience salvation, you’ll never have your sins forgiven, and you’ll never go to heaven.
You see, we have to recognize that we have an incurable problem, an incurable disease. A disease called sin, something that only faith in Jesus Christ can cure.
1Tim. 1:15 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners…
People who think that they’re just fine, people who think that they’re healthy and right before God on their own merit are deceived and will never experience heaven. Sooner or later they’ll find out that their human efforts to get to heaven is fruitless. They need help.
When Mohammed Ali was in his prime, he was about to take off on an airplane flight. When the stewardess asked him to fasten his seat belt, Ali said, “Superman don’t need no seat belt.” Without missing a beat, the stewardess said, “Superman don’t need no airplane, either.”
Ali saw the light and fastened his seat belt. He’s like a lot of people who think they can do everything by themselves, even get to heaven on their own. They don’t need any help.
“There’s no problem, here!”
But the Bible says we ALL need help. None of are superman or super woman. Without the forgiveness that comes through faith in Christ, our destiny is a life riddled with guilt that will end in judgment.
We can think about it like this. The word Gospel also means “good news.” And what’s the good news? That Jesus Christ—God Himself—came to earth in the form of a man, lived a perfect life, was crucified for our sins and raised from the dead. And anyone who places his faith in Christ receives the Lord’s righteousness and will never be condemned for his sins.
That’s good news. But the person who doesn’t even admit that there’s bad news—in other words, judgment in the life to come for personal sin—could care less about the good news. In fact, to them, there’s no reason for good news because they don’t believe that there’s any bad news.
They deny personal sin. They’re blind to the need for salvation. To them, there’s nothing to be saved from!
Tragically, that person is deceived and will face the wrath of God when he dies. That’s not my opinion—that’s what the Bible clearly teaches, including Jesus Himself.
The great physician, Christ, has the cure that sinful human beings need. But if we don’t admit that we have a problem, then we’re not even going to bother to seek a cure.
“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
But somebody might argue that “It’s no fun recognizing that you’re a sinner.”
And that’s right. It’s not fun at all. Nobody likes to be humbled like that, and nothing—absolutely nothing—is more humbling than when you recognize that you’ve blown it with God and can’t do anything to make it right.
I’ve been there, and so have those of you who are Christians.
If you’re just now realizing how helpless you are as a sinner before a holy God, take heart. There’s two things that you need to know.
Do you want to get rid of that guilt that you’re carrying around, the kind of guilt that I lugged around before becoming a Christian? Do you want to forget the past and get a fresh start? Do you want to clear your conscience?
The first thing that you need to know is this:
2Pet. 3:9 The Lord…is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
1Tim. 2:3-4 God our Savior…wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
God wants you to repent. He wants to save you from your sins.
The second thing you need to know can be found in Matthew 11:28-30. This is Jesus talking.
Matt. 11:28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Matt. 11:29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Matt. 11:30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Jesus will take away the burden of your sin. No more guilt. You’ll be treated with gentleness. And you’ll find rest for your soul.
If that sounds good to you right now, then do what the tax collector does in verse thirteen, and say, right now, before you leave this article and Web site, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Repent, trust Jesus with your soul, and make a commitment to do whatever He asks you to do. And that includes Christian baptism.
If you do that, if you humble yourself by admitting that you can’t do everything yourself, then God will exalt you and the healing process will start right away.
And Jesus will say this about you: I tell you that this man—or this woman—or this child—went home justified before God.