A sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas on June 14, 2026.
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ 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 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” (Luke 18:9–14).[1]
Last week, we considered the Parable of the Persistent Widow, through which Jesus teaches we “ought always to pray and not lose heart” (Matt. 18:1). Today, we are considering the subsequent Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, confronting those “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt” (18:9). Though separate stories, the two are connected: The first teaches us that we ought to persistently pray and persevere; the second teaches us how we ought to pray. The first reveals our need to trust the character of God. The second reveals the danger of self-righteousness and our need of God’s grace and mercy.
Our parable today is quite short, because prayer is never merely about the words we say. Prayer is an approach to God. It is a posture of the soul before the Lord of heaven and earth. Our parable involves two men, two prayers, and two postures. Two men in the right place, at the right time, doing what appears to be the right thing.
One is a Pharisee. By all outward appearances, he is the man you would expect to be accepted. He is moral, religious, disciplined, respected. He knows the Scriptures, keeps the Law, cares about holiness, and avoids scandalous sins. The other is a tax collector. By all outward appearances, he is the man you would expect to be rejected. Tax collectors were despised as collaborators with Rome, often greedy, often corrupt, often enriched at the expense of their own people. But on this day, standing in the temple, one man trusts in himself and the other cries for mercy. And one went home justified; the other condemned.
The Man Who Trusted Himself
Let’s consider first the Pharisees and the orthodoxy of his prayer: He goes to the locale of worship, the temple, to pray; he assumes the appropriate position of temple prayer, standing, likely in the inner court;and he addresses God specifically, likely lifting his eyes heavenward.So far, so good.
He also gives God thanks, readily confessing there are sins to be avoided. He clearly knows right from wrong and willingly calls sin sin. But as the prayer unfolds, it becomes apparent that though God is addressed, he is not the focus of the prayer.Count the personal references with me: “I thank you that I am not like other men… I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get” (18:11-12).This is not really prayer. It is a comparative, moralistic, self-congratulation in the presence of God.
The Pharisee prays, “I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector” (18:11). He measures himself not by the holiness of God, but by the visible sins of others. And isn’t this one of the ordinary strategies of the sinful heart? We look away from ourselves and into the world, find someone worse, and then we feel better. Perhaps we say, “I may not be what I ought to be, but at least I am not like that man. . . . At least I have not done what she has done. . . . At least I am not dishonest like him. . . . At least I am not worldly like them. . . . At least my children are not like theirs. . . . At least I know the Bible. . . . At least my theology is sound. . . . At least I take worship seriously. . . . At least I fast twice a week. . . . At least I give tithes of all that I get.” This is, what J.C. Ryle calls, “the family-disease of all the children of Adam,”[2] self-righteousness in all its glory.
Now, to be clear, is there a place for expressing gratitude to God for graciously restraining us from particular sins. Indeed! If the Lord has kept you from sin, thank him. If the Lord has preserved your marriage, thank him. If the Lord has kept you from dishonesty, addiction, violence, adultery, or greed, thank him. But that is not what the Pharisee is doing. He is not marveling at grace; he is boasting in his perceived performance.
Where do we see this most evidently? We see it in his contempt. After all, Luke tells us, the parable was given specifically for those who “trusted in themselves that they were righteous” and “treated others with contempt” (18:9). The two go hand in hand: Self-righteousness does not produce compassion but contempt. If I trust in myself that I am righteous, I will inevitably look down on those who do not measure up to my standard. The problem is not that the Pharisee recognizes sin. The problem is that he does not see his own.
The Pharisee stands in the temple, but he does not ask for mercy. He mentions God, but he does not confess sin. He gives thanks but knows not grace. He compares himself with another, but he does not humble himself before God And so, he receives nothing, because he asks for nothing. The Pharisee trusts in himself, but the tax collector cries for mercy.
The Man Who Cried for Mercy
This is the contrast within the parable: “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!’” (18:13).First, consider the posture of his prayer: He stands far off, possibly referring to the outer court of the temple, and away from the Holy of Holies[3]He will “not even lift up his eyes to heaven,” but down in sorrow for his sin.And he beats his breast, an outward expression of contrition.
Second, consider the petition of his prayer: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (18:13). He addresses God, not to boast in his morality but to cry for mercy. The ESV translates his confession as “a sinner” but the article is better translated “the sinner.” His confession concerns one sinner: himself. He does not compare himself to the Pharisee, or anyone else, but stands coram Deo, before the face of God, confessing, “I am the sinner!” and so casts himself upon the mercy of God. The beginning of the fifty-first psalm might serve as this man’s monologue:
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment (Ps. 51:1-4).
His posture and petition reveal that he knows he has sinned against God, and God only.
Third, consider the place of his prayer: He “went up into the temple to pray” (18:9). Of course, we can pray to God anywhere, but for God’s Old Covenant people, the temple was the designated place of worship. You will recall that Jesus ravaged the temple merchants saying, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers” (Matt. 21:13). But the temple was also the place of sacrificial worship, where the priest would present the sacrifice for the sins of the people, where the blood would be shed and sprinkled. The temple worship testified that sin must be dealt with, guilt must be covered, God’s wrath must be averted, atonement must be made. Possibly for this reason, when the tax collector cries out, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”, he uses the Greek verb, that literally means “make propitiation.”[4] His pleading implies a specificity: the atoning mercy of God.
And it is here that we should hear the gospel. How can God be merciful to sinners and remain just? How can God justify the ungodly? How can God pardon guilt without pretending guilt does not matter? How can God forgive a tax collector, or a Pharisee, or you or me, without compromising his holiness? The answer is by atoning sacrifice and so points us to the cross of Christ.
The temple was not an end itself but pointed forward to Christ. The sacrifices, the priesthood, the mercy seat, all of it, pointed forward to him. Jesus Christ is the true and final atoning sacrifice. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. At the cross, God did not ignore sin but judged it. At the cross, God did not sweep guilt away but placed it upon Christ. At the cross, the sinless one stood in the place of sinners, “whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Rom. 3:25a). Christ bore the wrath we deserve, so that sinners might receive the righteousness we could never earn. This is why the tax collector’s prayer is your prayer and mine: “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.” Faith does not come to God saying, “Look what I have done.” Faith comes to God saying, “Look upon your Son.” Faith does not say, “I am worthy.” Faith says, “Christ is worthy.” Faith does not say, “I have made atonement.” Faith says, “Christ has made atonement for me.”
The writer of Hebrews explains this clearly and comfortingly: “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession” (Heb. 4:14). And because our high priest is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, because he has been tempted as we are, yet without sin, we are invited to draw near. How? Not with self-confidence but with confidence in Christ alone, we “draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (4:15-16).
Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love, and pow’r.[5]
The God Who Justifies Sinners
“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector” (18:10), but of only one, Jesus says, “went down to his house justified” (18:14). The man who trusted in himself was not justified. The man who cried for mercy was.
The word “justified” is a legal term, meaning to be declared righteous. And only God can declare a sinner righteous, not by works, not by merit, not by comparative righteousness, not by religious performance, but only by God’s grace through faith in Christ alone. To be justified is to be accepted by God as righteous in his sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone.[6] The tax collector went home justified.
Then, to this paradoxical pronouncement Jesus adds, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted” (18:14). This principle runs throughout Scripture: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (Jas. 4:6). He brings down the mighty from their thrones and exalts those of humble estate. He fills the hungry with good things, and the rich he sends away empty.[7] He chooses what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.[8] He saves not the righteous but sinners.[9] The tax collector did not humble himself so that God would owe him justification but humbled himself because God owed him judgment.
This is the paradox. The way up is down. The way to be filled is to come empty. The way to be justified is to stop justifying yourself. The way to receive righteousness is to confess you have none of your own. The way to draw near with confidence is to come through our great high priest who gives mercy and grace.
J.C. Ryle says, “Mercy is the first thing we must ask for in the day we begin to pray. Mercy and grace must be the subject of our daily petitions at the throne of grace till the day we die.”[10] There is no stage of Christian maturity where we graduate from “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.” The more mature we become, the more clearly we see both the depth of our sin and the greater depth of God’s grace. The Pharisee’s downward glance at the tax collector revealed that he did not understand grace. But the gospel turns our eyes away from comparison and fixes them upon Christ.
Before the holiness of God,
we are all undone;
before the cross of Christ,
there is mercy for all who come.
[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version
(Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).
[2] J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Luke, Vol. 2 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 193.
[3] Lev. 16:2
[4] ἱλάσκομαι, Frederick William Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, 3rd Ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), 473-474.
[5] https://hymnary.org/text/come_ye_sinners_poor_and_needy_weak_and
[6] WSC Q.33 https://opc.org/sc.html
[7] Luke 1:52-53
[8] 1 Cor. 1:27
[9] Luke 5:32
[10] J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Luke, Vol. 2 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 195.
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