The Tax Collector’s Wisdom

0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): Are you ready to be amazed? Today, I am going to amaze you with something you’ve never heard. When we talk about the Pharisee and the tax collector, you don’t want to miss it. On the More Faith, More Life podcast.

0:00:10 – (Steve Gray): You were made for more than the status quo. I’m Pastor Steve Gray, and this is the More Faith More Life podcast. This podcast is for Christians with an ambitious heart who want to be more for their family, do more with their career, and see more of God’s promises. Their life. I’ve spent many years as a worship artist, minister, nonprofit leader, bold truth speaker, and most importantly, father and spouse. When I was in my early 40s, I was craving more.

0:00:38 – (Steve Gray): More from God and more from life. I’d done everything I was supposed to do. My life was good, but it wasn’t good enough. So I spent the following years diving into the word of God and searching for the biblical principles of that would bring me closer to God and help my purpose and life flourish. That’s what I want to share with you. In every episode, you’ll get practical tools based on real life experiences that you can put into action to redefine your faith and ultimately your life.

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0:01:21 – (Steve Gray): Hello everyone, and welcome to another More Faith More Life podcast. So glad you could be with us. And I want to remind you to tell your friends you subscribe. Tell your friends. As I share Kathy a lot, of course here Kathy’s with me as usual. But as I share, I don’t want to sound exclusive or egotistical.

0:01:39 – (Kathy Gray): Right.

0:01:39 – (Steve Gray): I just know our subject matter is subjects that are not getting taught hardly anywhere. And there’s really a. There are a lot of complaints. Not from me, but I mean, a lot of people are starting complaints and I’m just getting tired of hearing about my feelings and how, you know, God cares about my feelings and I, you know, and I can be so sensitive that I’m, you know, somebody hurt my feelings and God loves me. Even though I’m not becoming anything, I’m not being transformed. So kind of they’re starting to want to hear Bible instead of Sigmund Freud. Okay. So that’s why I encourage people who listen. Please tell other people and subscribe and I want to remind you about the book you can still get, of course, the new book, Mighty like Gideon.

0:02:24 – (Steve Gray): And it’s a great book with lots of little jewels that you probably haven’t thought of. And that’s the other thing I want to say. I quit years ago going to Christian bookstores or where they sell Christian books. And here’s the reason why I like books, but I quit going to those because most of them were the most popular titles are all when you first walk in. And a lot of people, they don’t ever get past those titles to get to the section of theology or context and doctrine and the deeper things of understanding the land of the Bible and what it was and how it worked and how those people worked. And so that’s what I wanted to read about and so that I could take that and apply it.

0:03:06 – (Kathy Gray): Right.

0:03:06 – (Steve Gray): Rather than take it and make something emotional out of it. And today we, today would be a great, Today’s going to be a great example of how we could take something emotional and, and turn it into a teaching, but we’re going to keep it in context today. So anyway, be sure and tell your friends and do that now, tell them what we’re going to talk about today. And I let me bring out again, you may think you know this parable, you may have just read it real quick.

0:03:33 – (Steve Gray): I haven’t heard it preached very well at all, but I’ve, I’ve preached it a lot. So we’re going to get it right in context maybe the way you’ve never heard it before. So let’s tell them what we’re going to do.

0:03:42 – (Kathy Gray): So this is from Luke 18 and the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector to some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else. Jesus told this parable, okay, I wanted.

0:03:58 – (Steve Gray): To stop there because you got to get it in context of what is Jesus feeling? He’s bothered about those who are confident of their own righteousness and they look down on other people. Now, if you haven’t been around religion much in your life, you think, okay, that’s them. The problem is that’s us. Or I should say that’s Christianity has a lot of that.

0:04:23 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:04:24 – (Steve Gray): In fact, Christianity has worked hard to make people confident of their own righteousness. And they say it’s not. They say it’s the righteousness of God and we’re the righteousness. They say that. But then have you ever noticed, like they say, we’re saved by faith, not by works. And then you become a Christian and all of a sudden they start telling you how you’re all the stuff you’re supposed to do and act. And all of a sudden you start Feeling a little uppity. And then Christians start looking down on other people who are not at their level.

0:04:56 – (Steve Gray): And Jesus doesn’t like that. Because we’re going to see in a minute that those who think they have the confidence don’t better not have it. And those that are not confident are the ones that possibly depending, Jesus accepts. So let’s see that. So that’s it. He. He’s saying he’s going to. He’s. His parable is. Is for those who are self-righteous and confident, confident in their righteousness and look down on other people.

0:05:27 – (Steve Gray): This is the context of this parable.

0:05:29 – (Kathy Gray): Context. Want me to go on?

0:05:31 – (Steve Gray): Yeah.

0:05:32 – (Kathy Gray): Okay. Two men went up to the temple to pray. One a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, God, I thank you that I’m not like other people. Robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and I give it. 10th of all I get.

0:05:54 – (Steve Gray): Okay, so now more context. All right, first of all, the temple that we’re talking about now, because they went. Where were they going? To the temple to pray. Now we have to take it out of the Christianized, culturized prayer meeting where people are sort of just mumbling and holding, standing in a circle and they go around the circle and everybody prays a little prayer. And the music’s always real quiet, right?

0:06:20 – (Steve Gray): The people don’t understand. A lot of times when we have prayer, I like to have the music loud and stuff, but it’s always real quiet. Whisper prayers. Very reverent, very, you know, Elizabethan English oh, dear heavenly Father, bless us. Oh, I can’t even do it. Thou art the greatest, you know, thou and this and thighs and all that. Okay, that’s what we. So two men went in to pray and we think, oh, that’s. That’s probably what they were doing. Okay, now let’s set the scene of what it was really like.

0:06:51 – (Steve Gray): What it was really like was people prayed loud, okay? Especially the competent people, because they’re going to re. They’re going to reinforce their reputation by people hearing them. Cause who does he really talk about? Well, he talks, okay, he talks about the sinners. Yeah, but that’s not what he’s. What he’s saying, is it? He’s saying, I’m glad I’m not like those people. So he’s reinforcing himself in his self-confidence and looking down on other people. That’s what he’s doing now, that’s bad enough.

0:07:22 – (Steve Gray): But people prayed it out loud. Okay. Out loud. So he could be heard. Then on top of that, it’s a loud place anyway because people everywhere are praying out loud. You’ve been, you’ve been to the, to.

0:07:37 – (Kathy Gray): The Wailing Wall, you’ve been to right there in Jerusalem.

0:07:39 – (Steve Gray): And some people do pray quiet, especially if they’re Christians. If they let them in there, got to put the yarmulke on. But you see, people are really at it. Some of them really praying. Okay. On top of that, then they’ve got the loud noise of the, of the blood sacrifices going on. So the sacrifices are going on in front of them. So they can see next of a lamb are being slaughtered and the blood is being shed and they’re sprinkling the blood.

0:08:08 – (Steve Gray): So it’s loud, it’s boisterous, it’s bloody. It’s just a scene that we don’t understand much. Okay? So you have to understand before you understand this parable, Kathy, you have to understand not only the sound or what that guy said, you have to understand what that guy sees, what will, what everybody sees. Okay? So they hear the prayers, but they’re also looking up at the sacrifices. Blood is being shed, it’s bloody, it’s powerful.

0:08:43 – (Steve Gray): Because without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness or remission of sin. Right? Right now we have the blood of Jesus, a one-time sacrifice. But blood was shed back then. It had to be reoccurring until the final sacrifice who came. And another great story, another great teaching. Okay, but are you set up now? First of all, this guy is praying loud. I’m glad I’m not like these other sinners.

0:09:11 – (Steve Gray): Okay, now we have the tax collector who would be considered a sinner, okay, because they’re collecting taxes for Rome, not taxes for the temple, because you go and pay your temple tax. But they are Roman tax collectors. Oh, and Roman almost always. So the Roman tax collectors who are Jewish people, they felt were traitors. And the Romans then gave them liberty to collect as much tax as they could get.

0:09:45 – (Steve Gray): First of all, they had to collect enough for the Romans. There was a certain amount, okay, that you would have to collect from somebody, but if you could squeeze more out, that’s how you got paid. You didn’t get paid by the Romans. The Romans didn’t pay you to collect taxes. You squeezed it out yourself. Just like we talked about the, the shrewd manager who would go and say, pay my owner, and then he would charge above that.

0:10:12 – (Steve Gray): So that’s how he got his pay. And the way he was shrewd is he canceled his pay, and then so the price went down. And that’s how he. They kept friends. Well, the tax collectors would set it higher than it really is, and you wouldn’t know because you don’t want to cross Rome. So then you pay them, and they got money out of it, too. So they were considered sinners because. Because they were betrayers. Okay, now we don’t know all that, but we do know, remember, Zacchaeus is a tax chief. Tax collector, Chief 1. So that means he’s over other tax. He’s set. He’s over other tax collectors.

0:10:49 – (Steve Gray): And then at the very end, when he’s with Jesus and Jesus is in his home, what does he say? And if I have. If I have cheated anyone, I’ll pay them back more. Whatever. To whatever time it was. If I’ve cheated anyone. So there’s the setup with the tax collector. Okay? So he’s considered a sinner because of that. Now we might. We might consider it a sin that he’s cheating people, but it’s also the Roman system, that was not considered a sin, but was considered a way of doing business.

0:11:23 – (Steve Gray): That’s how the Romans did business. Okay, okay. You can weigh that out for yourself, right? But anyway, Jesus is not referring to the tax collector. Two men went in, right? Jesus makes no reference to him being a tax collector at all, that he’s a bad person or that he’s even a sinner in that way. But the Pharisee does. The Pharisee does he. He calls him a sinner. Okay?

0:11:52 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah.

0:11:52 – (Steve Gray): So Jesus does not put him in the same category as the Pharisee. So let’s just start there again, okay? The Pharisee calls him a sinner and says out loud. Okay? Out loud. I’m glad I’m not like this tax collector. Now who hears that? The tax collector. The tax collector heard it. Oh, you know how we now read the tax collector?

0:12:19 – (Kathy Gray): Okay.

0:12:20 – (Steve Gray): So he hears himself being talked about.

0:12:22 – (Kathy Gray): Okay? But he stood at a distance. He would not even look up to hell, but beat his breast and said, God have mercy on me, a sinner.

0:12:33 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. So Jesus in the thing doesn’t say, now we have this sinner tax collector. He just says he’s a tax collector. The other guy says he’s a sinner, but that’s just a little reference. Okay? So he hears this. Now read the first line again, what he says? He.

0:12:52 – (Kathy Gray): He didn’t look to heaven.

0:12:54 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, okay.

0:12:55 – (Kathy Gray): But he wouldn’t even rest.

0:12:56 – (Steve Gray): He wouldn’t even look up.

0:12:57 – (Kathy Gray): Right?

0:12:58 – (Steve Gray): He wouldn’t Even look up, he’s just downbeaten. He heard this guy talk about him and he just kind of, you know, drops his. Just in shame, basically. All right, and then what does he say?

0:13:12 – (Kathy Gray): Okay, or what happened? And then he beat his breast and he said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

0:13:20 – (Steve Gray): Okay, now that’s a very, very important line that Jesus has put in there because in the New Testament there’s only two references to anybody beating their chest in agony. There’s only two references. That’s one of them. The other reference to them beating it in agony was when they stood at the cross and they realized what they did and they beat the soul. I think the Roman soldiers beat their chest.

0:13:46 – (Steve Gray): Yes, in agony because they wrote, what have we done? So that’s the level of pain that this guy’s in, that he beat his chest and then the level of pain. They were at the cross, they beat their chest at what they had done and what they were looking at. So that’s only two instances. So this is pretty agonizing, right? Yeah. Now what’s he say next?

0:14:09 – (Kathy Gray): I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified.

0:14:14 – (Steve Gray): Well, let’s back up. He says, he asked God, God have mercy. God have mercy on me, a sinner, a sinner. And that’s all he does. So he, he’s hit with those words. He beats himself in over the top agony. This is over the top. That’s what Jesus wants us to realize. It’s over the top. There’s a lot of people feel shame or a lot of people feel about their sins, but you don’t see them beating their chest and it’s just an egg. That was an act of agony in their day, you know, and its only other reference in the Bible is at the cross. Okay, then have mercy on me, a sinner.

0:14:47 – (Kathy Gray): Okay, yeah.

0:14:48 – (Steve Gray): So now we have to put in what, what is the whole thing that he’s seeing. So the Pharisee sees the blood sacrifices, sees that, but we get the feeling as we look at the culture that Jesus is trying to say this Pharisee doesn’t feel like he needs any of that. He doesn’t need that blood. He’s already self-righteous, he’s already righteous and confident. So he, he doesn’t need a blood sacrifice, but he looks down on other people, would you think? But this guy and these other people, they need this.

0:15:27 – (Steve Gray): Okay, so the blood sacrifice is going on. It’s loud. I mean, you can imagine the lamb screaming when it was killed, you know, you know how it Would be, you know, the blood flowing and all that and sprinkling. Okay? So then the tax collector beats his chest, calls himself a sinner, but he also sees what everybody else sees. He sees the blood sacrifice. He sees it up there and what he is expressing. Just like we see the Pharisee is not coming out and saying everything we don’t. Jesus doesn’t have the Pharisee coming out and saying, I don’t need this.

0:16:04 – (Steve Gray): Right? But we get the feeling he’s saying, I don’t need this. Well, just like now, the tax collector doesn’t come out and say everything he’s feeling. We get the feeling, we get the impression I should say that. He’s saying, help me. I need. I need this.

0:16:19 – (Kathy Gray): Right?

0:16:20 – (Steve Gray): So what he’s doing, the Pharisee is looking up and saying, I don’t need this. And the tax collector is saying, God, let this work for me. I need this. I. I need that. Because if one’s called a sinner and the other’s not in the thing, then Jesus flips it and he says, which one goes away justified? You can read that now.

0:16:43 – (Kathy Gray): Alrighty. I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God.

0:16:49 – (Steve Gray): Cool. So cool.

0:16:50 – (Kathy Gray): So cool.

0:16:51 – (Steve Gray): Because number one, why was the one that was supposedly he says, well, I mean, he says, I don’t sin. I don’t do this, I don’t do that. I don’t. Maybe he’s right. But why did he then not go home justified? Because he didn’t take what God was doing and receive what God was doing for him as a need. Why did the other one, who. Maybe he was a sinner. Maybe he was cheating people. How did he get justified?

0:17:19 – (Steve Gray): Because the blood worked for him. See, he said, let this work for me. Forgive me of my sins. I’m a sinner. So he knew his need, so he got justified. Not because of his works. And the Pharisee didn’t get justified because he was so perfect that the tax collector got justified because of what God was doing had just worked for him. Now, the other cool thing about it is this is religion for you now. And this is so wonderful.

0:17:49 – (Steve Gray): So now it says they left. How did they leave?

0:17:54 – (Kathy Gray): The one man went home justified before God.

0:17:57 – (Steve Gray): Yeah.

0:17:58 – (Kathy Gray): Rather than the other guy.

0:17:59 – (Steve Gray): Okay, now we know that. But do they know that? Our hope is that the tax collector, when received it and went a home, sin there. I’m a sinner, but my sin has been paid for. Because forgiveness in their day work just as well as it does today. It’s A different system of blood sacrifice and forgiveness of sin. But that blood still worked. We got to remember that. So he goes away justified because that blood worked for him.

0:18:34 – (Steve Gray): The joke of it is, though, there’s a joke on it, is the one who goes away thinking he’s justified is not. And he leaves the temple not justified before God, but thinks he is. That’s the joke on us today, is when we have such self-confidence. Not self-confidence. Say it for me. Righteous conscience. We’re conscious of it. So say it for me. Read. The Pharisee was. He looked down on people who were confident of their righteousness. Thank you.

0:19:05 – (Steve Gray): And look down on other people. Okay? And those people leave church every Sunday confident that everything’s worked for me. I’m in good standing. I don’t need anything more. I don’t need anything else. I’m doing the right thing. I’m following the rules. But that’s. It’s not following. The boundaries are good. Okay. The stuff he mentions are good not to do. But that’s not what makes us. As we’ve mentioned before, it’s walking by faith, having faith.

0:19:35 – (Steve Gray): You know, Jesus said it’s faith in the name of Jesus that healed this man. Right? It’s faith in the blood of Jesus. We read Hebrews 11. It’s faith by faith, by faith, by faith it pleases God. God is pleased by our faith. And. And that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him. And so that’s the joke on it. And that’s the flip. Now this is important. We go back in the time we have left. We go back on culture. Because when Jesus told the parable, what is his audience thinking?

0:20:10 – (Steve Gray): What is the. Yeah, the crisis moment. He puts them in crisis. Yes, because without his interpretation, they automatically are going to think the Pharisee goes away justified. The tax collector is a sinner and goes away a sinner. That’s what they’re going to think. But he flips it. Just like when we talk about the rich man, Lazarus, and Lazarus, the poor man, Lazarus ends up in the bosom of Abraham and the rich man ends up in Hades or hell.

0:20:38 – (Steve Gray): And it’s flipped Jesus. The crisis that gets the Jews is the re. Role reversal to where sinners and prostitutes and tax collectors were getting something. They are the prodigals coming back. Their eyes are being opened. But they know they need help. They know the Pharisee, the same thing could do the same thing.

0:21:05 – (Kathy Gray): Right?

0:21:06 – (Steve Gray): I mean, he’s not opposed to the Pharisees, but they can’t get it. Because they don’t know they need help. And he said about them, he said, if you knew you were blind, then you could see.

0:21:22 – (Kathy Gray): Then you could see.

0:21:23 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, but because you say we see, your guilt remains. That’s the Pharisee. He’s saying he. So his guilt remains because he says, I don’t need this, they need it. I’m here announcing how good I am basically, isn’t he? Yes, how bad you are. How good I am. That’s him. That happens in Christianity all the time and it’s dooming people.

0:21:48 – (Kathy Gray): It is.

0:21:50 – (Steve Gray): Oh, wait, there’s one more line. We left out the very last line.

0:21:53 – (Kathy Gray): For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

0:22:01 – (Steve Gray): Humility is a powerful, powerful thing to God. And do you know why I’ll conclude with this? Those who exalt themselves, well, that is the Pharisee is exalting himself and he’s doing it out loud, in my opinion. And obviously the tax collector is humbling himself, beating himself, you know, feeling terrible about himself. Okay, so why is God so set on this humility of exalting yourself and humbling yourself? Why is he so set on that?

0:22:31 – (Steve Gray): Because this started the whole battle. Lucifer exalted himself, who became the devil? Satan. He exalted himself and, and took one of the third of the angels with him. But the rest of the angels are humbling themselves, saying, holy, holy, holy, and obeying God. So by humbling himself, he’s demonstrating the attitude of heaven, not the sin of heaven, because the angels are not sinning, but. But the attitude of the angels is in him saying, have mercy on me, have mercy on me.

0:23:07 – (Steve Gray): But the Pharisee has the attitude of Satan. He, he’s exalting himself in front of the, of the altar of God. See, in front of God’s altar, he’s obviously exalting himself in front of God’s altar. The tax collector is humbling himself. So that’s why it works. It works. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not making excuse for the tax collector. If he’s cheating people, he shouldn’t do that. Go out. We hope he goes out and stops cheating people like Zacchaeus did. Okay, but that’s not the point here.

0:23:42 – (Steve Gray): The point is who is exalting themselves and who is humbling themselves and why that is so important to God and the. And what they are looking at while they’re exalting them, what they’re seeing while exalting yourself and what you’re seeing while you humble yourself. Now go into church today where people are worshiping and praising or the Bible’s being read or the sermons being preached and there’s people in their ego and self-exaltation, confident of themselves and looking down on other people while the word of God is being taught or prayer is being prayed or songs are being sung. And they have and they still take that in the presence of God, in God’s house, they still have that.

0:24:25 – (Steve Gray): That’s why some people are in trouble, right? And the interesting thing is that they’re in trouble and they don’t know.

0:24:32 – (Kathy Gray): They don’t know it.

0:24:33 – (Steve Gray): Just like he’s going to walk out of the church and miss God. So we need a revival of humility and we need to revival the presence of God and we need to revive humility in the presence and glory of God. Anyway, that’s the parable in context and isn’t it powerful of the Pharisee and the tax collector piece by piece. And that’s why I want people to listen and get these pieces that you can get. Anybody can learn this, but you don’t seem to hear it much today.

0:25:05 – (Steve Gray): And I tore it apart for you and I hope that it was good for you today. The Pharisee and the tax collector till next time. Bye-bye.