Kennystix's podcast
This Man Went Down to His House Justified
the following resource is from desiringgod.org. Many of you know that I spent a large part of the sabbatical about ten weeks, a little more on the commands of Jesus, writing a book that will be called "What Jesus Demands from the World." I want to thank you for that amazing privilege to spend ten weeks, about eleven hours a day, doing nothing but thinking about what Jesus commanded. One of the things that came clear in those meditations was that the commands of Jesus only make sense and only have their proper force in the context of what Jesus did and who he was and what he thought about the nature of my heart and how it relates to God. You can't take a commandment of Jesus like "love your enemies" or let your "yes" be "yes" and don't take an oath or pray that you may not enter into temptation or lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. You can't take a command of Jesus and properly use it, properly understand it without asking several larger questions like "What difference does it make that the eternal, incarnate, fully divine son of God spoke these words?" Or second, "What difference does it make that the main reason he came was not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many and to purchase forgiveness for all who believe in him?" What difference does that make in the way you handle the commands of Jesus? Or the question, "What about our rebellion? What about the fact that we are so evil Jesus says we have to be born again in order to even see the kingdom of God? Does it make a difference that that's true when you handle the commands of Jesus?" Or another way to say it would be that the cross at the end of the gospels casts a long shadow over the entire gospels. Every verse in the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, is to be read in view of the cross under the shadow of the cross. So children, let me give you a question to ask Mommy and Daddy at lunch today, okay? Now first I have to make a statement and then we'll have the question. My statement is, "You should all read the gospels backward." Now children, when you got home and you have lunch today, you look at Mommy or Daddy and say, "Why did Pastor John say we should read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John backward? Why did he say that?" Okay, and parents, you will be ready to answer them, right? And I'll give you the answer so that you'll be ready. Sharp children will remember the answer, but it may be perplexing that you're supposed to read the gospels backward. So parents, here's what you should say to them. Tell them, Pastor John meant that when you start reading at the beginning of the gospels, you should already know what's at the end of the gospel, namely that Christ died for our sins, that he rose as the Lord of the universe and every verse from the beginning to the end should be read in light of the fact that he died for our sins, he rose, today he's alive, he's ruling. That's the way the verses have to be read. Now, I'm not making that up. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all tip us off in their own way that that's the case. Matthew, chapter one, she will bear a son and you will call his name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. This Jesus with all these commandments and all this ethical talk is coming to save sinners. Chapter one, Mark is the most remarkable example. It's only 16 chapters, eight of them deal with the last week of his life. That's an odd biography, half the biography on the last week. Get the point, the point is, he came for that. He came for that. Everything he did, everything he said is in the light of that. He died, he rose, he did something majestic at the end of his life. Luke, chapter one, fear not. This is an angel talking for behold. I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people. For unto you this day is born in the city of David A. Tell me, a savior, chapter one, or is it chapter two? It is chapter two, yes. Chapter two one, there's chapter two 10. A savior is to be born, and here he is. This little baby is not just here to teach and give commands. He's here to be a savior. And John, chapter one, John the Baptist sees Jesus, and God, he's a prophet. God grants him to see, and he says, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So chapter one, chapter two of every one of the gospels, Mark with his structure is telling us these gospels are to be read backward. You know the end. If you try to interpret the teachings, the commands of Jesus without having blood all over them, without having the shadow of the cross, you won't get it right. The gospels are to be read backward. They are not little tips. These commandments, they're not little tips about how to have a better family, how to feel better about yourself, how to have a prosperous business makes me wanna throw up when I hear secular business people talking about the principles of Jesus in their business. They need to be saved, they need to repent and get into their faces. Jesus didn't come to make your business work. He came to rescue you from hell and to give you everlasting pleasure in his presence. The commands of Jesus are descriptions of the way new human beings behave, who have been born again, who therefore have been enabled supernaturally to see the glory of Jesus, who have recognized the incredible outrage of their sin, who have ceased to trust in anything about themselves and have cast themselves entirely on Jesus for mercy, for righteousness, for forgiveness. And that's where we are now at Luke 18, 9. So if you have a Bible, I do hope you'll open it. Luke chapter 18, verse nine. Jesus is looking into the eyes of a man who didn't get it, he saw that and he didn't get it. He didn't know how to be justified. He didn't realize that everything written in the Old Testament, the Pharisees knew it backwards and forwards and he's one of them. He didn't realize that everything written in the Old Testament was written to lead to a redeemer. It's leading to a savior. It's leading to the righteous one. It's leading to a substitute. He didn't get it. So what was his mistake? His mistake was that he tried to trust in his own righteousness. Let's read it together. He told them a parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. That's the situation. That's Luke setting it up and then Jesus talks. Two men went up to the temple to pray one a Pharisee. That's the model religious person. The other tax collector, you know who they are? They're the quislings, the traders, the ones who compromise with Rome and collect the taxes and cheat and fraud. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed, "Thus God, "I thank you, oh, I thank you." That I'm not like other men. Extortioners, unjust, adulterous, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get. The tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breath saying, God be merciful to me, sinner. I'll tell you, this man 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. Now you can tell by the climax of verse 14 what this text is about. This text is about how to be justified. You see that in verse 14? You make no mistake, this man, not the other man. There's a way to do it and a way not to do it. This man went down to his house justified. Now, the story is being told before Jesus died, but to read the Gospels backward. Jesus knows where he's going for these people. He's going to the cross. He's completing his obedience. He's rising from the dead and they expect us now to see the essence of what's here and then complete it with the end of the story. What's the problem? That's what we have to get clear. What's the problem? Verse nine, he told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. Here's what you must not do, Bethlehem. If you should care about anything this morning it should be, oh God, oh God, don't let me do that. 'Cause that's what this parable is about. It's about what becomes of a man who does that. Trusts in himself that he's righteous. That's what this is about. Don't do that. Now, to not do that, you got to know what that is. And there's a lot of people who don't understand what's being condemned here, what's being rejected here. So I want to really work on this with you because everything hangs on this. Your life hangs on this. Your eternity hangs on whether you trust in yourself that you are righteous. If you do, you will go to hell. And if you don't, but you do what the public can did, then you will go to heaven justified. So everything hangs on getting this right. So please stay with me for a few minutes. Three things I want to say about this Pharisee and what it means that he trusted in himself that he was righteous. Number one, his righteousness was moral. Number two, his righteousness was religious. And number three, his righteousness, he believed, was the gift of God's grace. Verses 10 and 11, let's first see number one. Two men went up to the temple to pray. One a Pharisee, that's the one who trusts in himself that he's righteous. And the other, a tax collector, yet a terrible reputation of sin. The Pharisee standing by himself prayed this way, God, I thank you that I'm not like other men. And then he says three things that he's not. Extortioner, that means a robber. He doesn't cheat and steal. Second, unjust, he's not unjust, he's just in all of his dealings meticulously upright. Third, adulterers, this man is faithful to his wife. I believe him, no reason not to. So notice the morality of his righteousness. The relationships with other people are moral. This is not just ceremonial stuff. This is moral righteousness. Second point, his righteousness is religious. It is ceremonial, verse 12. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get. Now those two statements don't have so much to do in how you relate to other people, whether you steal from them or cheat on them in sexuality or cheat them unjustly. That has to do with kind of the vertical, pious dimension of life, the religious dimension of life. I fast and I tithe. This man is morally upright and religiously devout. That's the way he's presented, that's the way we're supposed to take him. Now here's the third observation. His righteousness, he says, is a gift from God. This morality, this piety is a gift from God and he thanks him for it. Verse 11, the Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus, I thank you, I thank you. You're the one who did this. You're the one who helped me be moral. You're the one who helped me be devout. You've given me this inclination and I thank you for working in me this moral religious righteousness. It is from you. And I thank you for it. He is not, to use the words of theologians, he is not a Pelagian. Most of you don't have a clue what that means. A Pelagian called after Mr. Pelagius, 1500 years ago, is a person who believes that without any help from God, our wills are capable of producing the righteousness we need to have. That's Pelagianism, this man is not a Pelagian. Pelagianism is wicked, this man's not a Pelagian. He says, I thank God, God did this in me. We don't even know if this man is a semi-Pelagian. Now a semi-Pelagian is a person who needs help. They believe they need help, I need God. I'm dead in my trespasses and sins and I've got to have divine jumpstart. I've got to get divine help, but a semi-Pelagian believes that the human will remains enough free that it can smash God's intention down and ultimately rules his life. We're not Pelagians or semi-Pelagians at Bethlehem. We believe it takes God all the way to get us saved. We give all the credit to God. He subdues John Piper's will and makes me willing to believe. And if I try to resist him, he knocks down my resistance and keeps me for himself. Praise God, that's the only reason I wake up a Christian in the morning. It's because God is on my side working to keep me believing. This man may be that way, doesn't say. It's not the intention of Jesus to draw attention to it. The problem here is not whether this man believes he produced his righteousness or God produced his righteousness. He says God produced it. This man's problem is very simple. He trusts in God produced righteousness as what will commend him for justification. That's clear. This man trusts in himself that he is righteous. Let's make sure we get clear what that sentence means. He trusts in himself that he is righteous. Does not mean he trusts in his ability to make him righteous. That's not what it's saying. He's already said, I thank you God. You have produced righteousness in me. When it says he told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, Luke did not mean he's telling this parable about legalists. This is not about legalists. A legalist is a person who's trying to earn his salvation by thinking he can produce it. And he earns his way to heaven by impressing God with his moral ability. This man is already forsaken that. He said God, you worked it in me. I thank you for my moral righteousness. I thank you for my religious righteousness. I thank you for my badge. And he's going to hell. He may believe entirely in the sovereignty of God for all we know. He may say, not I, but the grace of God in me has worked this righteousness. I thank you God that I have a righteousness that's from you. Oh, I thank you that I have a righteousness in me. His mistake was not in taking credit for his righteousness. His mistake was that once God had given it to him, he trusted in it as what would be the basis of his justification. He's not a legalist. Do you see why I would spend the last part of my sabbatical on this? This is what I did. I spent 10 weeks on Jesus' commands, which is one of the paragraphs that was huge for me. And then I devoted myself to trying to understand why there are so many Christian teachers today who are turning away from the historic biblical doctrine of justification by faithful on them, the basis of Christ's righteousness alone and taking the stand that this man takes. That's what I want to know. I wanted to understand what is going on in people I know in very influential New Testament and Old Testament and systematic theologians. What is going on that the most precious doctrine in the Bible is being forsaken for this Pharisaic position. So I spent weeks reading these people, wrote a 25,000 words trying to understand why they would surrender this. Why? Why? Now, I don't want you to be among that number. I don't want this church to make that mistake. I want this church to be such a clear bright beacon in the Twin Cities for how to be right with God though you have sinned your life away, how to be right with God, and it isn't the way the Pharisee did it. What did the public do right? What did he do right? Verse 13. But the tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but beat his breast saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I'll tell you this man went down to his house, justified. That means declared righteous, just accepted in the court of heaven. God counted him righteous, just rather than the other. What did he do? Here's the essence. And then we have to fill it up with the end of the story. You only have the essence here. You only have the dynamic of the relation with God. The end of the story is yet to happen. The righteousness has not been completed in the obedience. He was obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Our obedience was not yet completed by the Lord Jesus. So you can't talk about all the details here. You can only talk about this essential dynamic. The rest of it has to be finished at the end of you chapters later. And what he says is what this man did right was he totally looked away from himself and anything in him, anything in him, anything in him, totally, totally, totally away from himself to God's mercy, which is now in Christ our righteousness. Faith is not looked to here. Faith is to look it away. You don't look to your faith as the ground of your righteousness. Faith is to not looking at faith. Faith is not looking at faith. If you're looking at your faith, you're not believing. Faith is looking away. Faith is a glorious gift of self-forgetfulness and seeing the one righteousness that will count in the court of heaven and saying, mercy, mercy, may I have it as a sinner. And you will have it, you will have it. So that's what he did differently from the Pharisee. Be careful. Let's you say, of course he looked away from himself. He didn't have any. But I do. God has been merciful to me. I grew up in a Christian home. He's worked in me. I haven't committed adultery. I've been spared all kinds of things. I do have a righteousness. I'm a moral person. And you know what? You're right. And you should thank God for it. Sing about it. But don't, please, don't walk into the court of heaven and put that on the table as the ground of your acceptance with God. You have been able to do that because he already accepted you because of Christ alone. Sanctification, this progressive growth in righteousness which all of you are manifesting who have any saving faith at all is built on justification. It's built on a rock solid confidence that I have been accepted, forgiven, declared righteous in the court of heaven once for all. And now my Christ who is my righteousness is producing in me on the basis of that standing, a righteousness that is growing. And I am thankful for it. I will say I thank you God that I have not cheated on no El. I will say that. And I'm thankful for it. I'm deeply thankful that my wayward heart has not been allowed by the sovereign God to be addicted to pornography. I could list moralities that I am very thankful that I have as a pastor. We have qualifications for elders here and those elders when they pass should be flat on their faces saying, I thank you God that there's enough in me by your grace that the church recognizes me as fit to be an elder. We have to talk that way but whoa to us. If we do what Luke says this Pharisee did, he trusted in himself that he was righteous. That was the basis and the foundation of his justification. He laid it before God, not because he thought he could earn anything. God had worked that in him and he was laying it out there as the basis. That's the very word that some of these teachers use today who have departed from the glorious biblical truth of justification by faith alone on the basis of Christ's righteousness alone. Dan quoted one of the most precious verses. Second Corinthians 5, 21. God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin in order that in him, in him, we might become the righteousness of God. Oh, I spent days on that verse, reading articles that are tearing it to shreds. And abandoning what 1500 years has said it meant, in order to warrant putting our God wrought obedience where Christ's righteousness belongs. So my closing plea is this, Bethlehem, let us give Christ all of his glory, not half of his glory. This is my biggest concern. When I'm talking with young people that are forsaking this doctrine, the way the conversation usually ends after all of our exegetical arguments is, I look them, look the guy in the eye in Cambridge and with tears, plead, I said, please, please, just consider that when you go this way, you will rob the king of half of his glory. Because one of the glories that our Lord Jesus means to get for himself and his father means for him to have is that he be both our objective external righteousness, which is counted to be ours by faith alone and the one who creatively works righteousness within us, not either or. If you split this off and say, that's not in the Bible, we don't need that. He is a sanctifier working in us righteousness when we present ourselves before God. We will not take credit. We will simply lay works. We have done and thoughts. We have had and affections. We have had which God worked in us and we'll lay that before God and say, God, that is, I pray, now the basis on which you will vindicate me in this court. If you do that, I wanna give you four words for you in verse 14. Let's go to verse 14. I tell you, this man, the tax collector who simply looked away from himself to God's mercy went down to his house justified and here come four words that should scare the hell out of you. Rather than the other. He didn't have to say that. He could have left it open ended. He didn't have to come in about what becomes of his Pharisee. This moral religiously pious, God exalting, trust her in his righteousness. He didn't have to comment that he was going to hell, but he did. He said the tax collector went down to his house justified. One, rather, two, then three, B, four, other. So here's my terrifying question. Four, other, so here's my terrifying warning. If you forsake Christ as your everything before God as the basis of justification. If you look away from Christ's everything to what he has worked in you as the basis of your justification, that applies to you. I don't know how else to take this text. I don't want to say that. I know people like this. I don't want to say that. I am bound to say it. It's there rather than the other. If you are a person in whom God has worked righteousness by his sovereign free grace and you really, and I want to say this carefully because I don't think some of these people really believe it. If you really believe it, if you really believe the righteousness that God is working in me will be the basis on which in God's court, I am counted, righteous, justified, accepted, you will go to hell. I don't know how else to take the words rather than the other. He wasn't justified. And if you're not justified, tell me the opposite of justified in a courtroom. Condimmed, guilty, condemned, condemned. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in, in, in Christ. Why? He's everything for us. You got it? Can we be this? Can we stand on this? Can we celebrate this? Can this animate our children's discipleship? Our youth ministry? Teenagers, you get this? Can you talk about this tomorrow to your friends? Can you talk about this parable now and tell them, okay, how good you are? And I don't care whether you've worked it or God's worked it. If you offer that to God, as your basis of being declared righteous will work, Jesus came to do that for us. Get glory for your Jesus by the way you believe and the way you share the gospel. I pray that as we move to three campuses and 800 of you volunteer for children's and youth ministry and we worship together with all of our heart that this truth will be the rock under your life. Some of you right now are facing unbelievable challenges in your life, physically very threatened. Marriages tottering. Work seems to be coming apart at the seams. Children flippin' out, doin' things that just break your heart. I pray, oh God, let it happen, that underneath the storms, that's the winds beat against you, this doctrine will be like a rock for you. Just be a sweet, deep, mighty, powerful place to stand Christ is my all. Christ is my righteousness and you'll know what you mean. You won't be resting. You won't do verse nine. They trusted in themselves that they were righteous because God had made them righteous. That is not what you're gonna say. You're gonna say, Jesus, no matter what you work in me, I'm lookin' to you. I'm lookin' to you and not what you work in me as the ground of my acceptance with your father and all what a sweet peace will come into your life. God wants you to enjoy the assurance of your salvation. He wants you to have a place to stand so that you can't be blown over. Blessed is the man, this is the fighter verse, right? You know this, say this with me and then I'll keep goin'. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night. I'm gonna keep goin' 'cause I got a point I'm closin' with. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that brings forth its fruit in season. His leaf does not wither in everything he does, he prospers. When you sink your roots down into Christ, you like a tree, it's what we want our children and our young people to be, a tree, so that when the winds beat the roots are down there in Romans and Galatians and Luke 18, nine to 14. Gracious Father, I wanna thank you for your mercy and I just wanna do the tax collector thing for imperfect pastor John Piper. God, would you just be merciful to me and this church? You have worked some things in us and I thank you for them. But Lord, we don't make this mistake that the Pharisee made. Please, don't let us make it. We do not look to what you've made us or worked in us to commend us or vindicate us for justification in this courtroom. Father, if there's any here for whom this has been brand new, would you open their eyes to see it and say, I can't believe it. If that were true, that would be the best news in all the world, which it is. So God, save sinners, strengthen saints and get all the glory for your son, both the righteousness that he is for us and the righteousness that he works in us and the second built on the first. In Jesus' name I pray in it. - Thank you for listening to this resource from desiringgod.org. If you found it helpful, we encourage you to enjoy and share from thousands of resources on our site, including books, sermons, articles and more available free of charge. Desiringgod.org exists to help you treasure Jesus more than anything else because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.
Neither your good works nor the righteousness that Christ works in you will ever justify you before God. Jesus himself is your righteousness.