The Righteousness Required

Well, this morning, as we once again return to that scene on the mountain where the Lord Jesus Christ has ascended and has sat down and opened his mouth and begun to teach the people authoritatively, we need to be reminded briefly of where we are in the Gospel of Matthew.

So, as we have walked into this place at the very beginning, we need to remember that the purpose for which Matthew wrote his Gospel, the Jew writing to other Jews, was to proclaim the King, the one who was to fulfill all of the Old Testament, the one that all of Scripture has pressed us towards as we have now arrived in the New Testament of the Word of God.

Christ the Promised King in Matthew's Gospel

So far, Matthew has identified Christ to us as that promised King, labeling him both as the son of David and as the son of Abraham, describing for us one who is obedient where Adam and all who are in Adam were disobedient, literally the one who is Emmanuel, God with us, that great light that has dawned upon those walking and sitting in darkness.

And as we came into chapter 5 and we began to look in earnest at the first major teachings that we see in Matthew's Gospel, as Christ ascends the mountain and sits down and begins to teach, the first thing that he does in this passage is describe for us the characteristics of his people, outlining for us in what we have traditionally known as the Beatitudes, those things that are not a list of things by which we can attain the kingdom of heaven, but rather those marks of grace that identify us as those who have been brought under the reign of King Jesus.

This identification of the church, of us as believers, shows that we should be those who are poor in spirit, who mourn over our sin, who hunger and thirst for righteousness, those who demonstrate mercy, who pursue peace, who go after purity in our lives, all the while not compromising the truth of God's Word or lessening the way in which it affects us.

This generates a group of people that Christ then identifies as those who are salt to the world and light to the world, who do both of these functions and ultimately endure persecution. All of these things exist for the purpose of showing us that grace transforms a life by the inward change of our hearts, bringing us to those who shine before men and glorify the Father.

But as we read this description of God's people and as we study the teachings of Christ, one of the questions that can begin to arise without proper understanding and without proper context and without proper study is, what does this King and this kingdom have to do with the revelation that God has already given?

In other words, as we walk into the New Testament, what does this kingdom that Christ is proclaiming have to do with the Old Testament? And as we began our work in verses 17, 18, 19, and 20, we saw Christ deal immediately with the potential misunderstanding that in some way he came to set aside the teachings that had gone before, that in some way that he came to abolish that which he actually came to fulfill.

Christ Fulfills Rather Than Abolishes God's Word

And we saw him in verse 17 emphatically deny this. In fact, he teaches us that he is not here to abolish, not here to remove, but in fact to fulfill all that has come before. We discussed over the last couple of weeks how he fulfilled the law and the prophets in his perfect obedience.

He was the substance that all of the types and shadows that were revealed to us in the Old Testament point towards. Ultimately, we are reminded, as they were reminded, that not one jot or tittle, not the smallest letter or stroke of the Word of God will pass away until all things have been fulfilled.

This word stands and will be accomplished because it is God himself, the one who cannot change, the one who does not fail, who reveals this truth to us. And so this morning, as we continue to press through these four verses, one of the things that you may recall when we began this short little section of four verses that I told you was this is a very important set of passage of Scripture that deals tremendously with the importance of the Word of God.

And so as we continue to press forward in that, what we do is we pick up and we see that this truth that is revealed to us in 17 and 18 presses us into this ultimate conclusion that we must reach regarding this truth that if this word cannot be abolished, it cannot be destroyed, it cannot be dissolved, then there is none who has the authority to loosen these commandments in any way.

In fact, if we really begin to think about this passage and we understand that Christ fulfills this law rather than abolish this law, then those of us who profess his grace cannot at the same time despise his rule.

And so we must deal with the truth. And so it is critical at this juncture as we begin to move. You may recall that I told you these verses are a hinge, a pivot point where the teachings that he has led us into in the first few verses that we run into and encounter in Matthew's Gospel begin to set the stage for the rest of the passage.

And so it's imperative that we understand and we read that the truth that we see, that this careful teaching, that this visible obedience that exists in the life of a believer is not what saves us. The truth is, is that we can live a life that outwardly professes this, that outwardly demonstrates this obedience that seems to fall in line, yet falls short.

The Danger of External Righteousness

In fact, Christ uses two examples that would have shocked the people in his day. He points back to the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees and he tells the people that unless their righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, they will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

The scribes taught the law, the Pharisees were known for their religious discipline, and yet Christ calls for something greater. The truth before us that we will deal with this morning is that because Christ fulfills God's Word, because he confirms the absolute authority of the Word, that his disciples, you and I, have not the right to either loosen the commands or separate the teachings from obedience.

That quite the opposite, we must be obedient, but we also must understand that the righteousness required for entry into the kingdom of heaven comes from Christ alone and not our obedience. And so as we take a look this morning, we see that this entrance, this deeper righteousness that is required, again is grounded in Christ.

It is received by faith, it is created inwardly by the Holy Spirit, and the display is the obedience in our lives. And so I would invite you this morning to take your copy of God's Word, and if you have not already done so, make your way to Matthew's Gospel.

In the fifth chapter, we will again read verses 17 through 20. Our focus once again this morning will be verses 19 and 20. And so having found your place, I ask that you stand for the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, sufficient, complete, and certain Word.

In the Matthew's Gospel, in the fifth chapter, beginning in the 17th verse and following, we find these words. Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.

For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

But whoever does them and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Almighty God, our most gracious Heavenly Father, we give thanks for your unchanging Word, a Word that you have given in full and perfect authority, a Word that not one of which will fail or falter. Father, as we come to this time where we have read the words that our Lord spoke on the hillside, Father, may we approach these words in humility.

May we submit ourselves to your teaching. Father, we pray that we would be guarded from weakening your commands or hiding behind outward religious activity. Lord, it is our prayer that as we study together that you would surge our hearts, that any sin within us where we have excused it or trusted in ourselves or sought this appearance of righteousness would be exposed, that we would see the perfection of your Word, the sufficiency of our Savior, the transformational power of your grace.

Lord, grant us humble hearts, attentive minds, and obedient wills. Enable us not merely to hear your Word, but by the power of your Spirit to receive it, to in faith move forward, walking according to that truth.

Asking all of these things in the blessed name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. You may be seated. So as we open up chapter or verse 19, excuse me, we come into contact with a word that's translated a little differently in the LSB than in the traditional language of English.

Normally when we interact with this particular verse, verse 19 begins with the word that is often translated as therefore. Here in the LSB is translated as whosoever then. Regardless of whether you translate it as therefore or whosoever then, the truth of what it does does not change.

This particular word is a conjuncting word. It joins these two passages together, meaning that what has gone before must be considered with what comes after. That this is not some idea that is detached from everything else, that he is not moving into some teaching that deals just with good behavior, but that he is continuing and drawing out an unavoidable conclusion that we come to regarding the permanence of the Word of God.

And so this particular word it leads us moving from this point to the next point. And so it says then whosoever or therefore then whoever annuls. That word annuls in the LSB often could be translated as break or diminish.

It carries the idea of dissolving or setting free from obligation. So what we see here is that Christ says therefore whoever hearing the truth that the Word did not, that I did not come to abolish the law and the prophets, that I didn't come to eliminate the law.

If someone hears that and does that and then teaches that, they will be determined as least in the kingdom of heaven. Now one of the things that we have to do here is understand that this is not an ordinary fact of believer just living life and sinning in ways that we do.

This deals specifically with a settled posture towards God's authority with and the Word of God. And it's demonstrated in the way in which we approach God's Word. You see the differences is that a believer who is coming to the Word of God, studying the Word of God, allows the Word of God to show us the sin in our life and then seek to mortify that sin, is entirely different from one who comes to the Word of God, who reads the Word of God, and then says I don't like what the Word says so I'm going to change it to suit me.

That's the difference in what's being taught here. This is this creation of an exemption or even simply reducing the force of what has been given and then to go forth from that and persuade others that obedience to God's law, that it's not required in the sense that the Word declares that it is required, that it does not carry the weight that it carries.

Sin as Deliberate Rebellion Against God

Now often our view of this, our error, tends to be when we think of egregious things. Typically our viewpoint is that sin is not really sin until it's really bad sin. That's a bad error because the truth of the matter is sin is sin.

And when we look at the Word of God and we understand what sin, how sin is defined, it's not missing the mark. I understand we can translate the word as missing the mark. That's not what sin is. Sin is deliberate rebellion against God.

Sin is when we decide what's best for us and to heck with what God thinks. Oftentimes, in fact more often than not, that begins with this small action. You see we don't need to tear a page from our Bible in order to rebel against God and his Word.

Think about the scribes. The scribes understood the Word of God. They preserved the words of God, but they shrunk the reach of the words of God. The Pharisees, they would live this and they sought to be obedient in the letter while again reducing the actual truths.

In the coming weeks as we study the remainder of this passage, we'll see Christ begins talking about murder. And absolutely they would have disallowed murder, said 100 murder is wrong according to the Word of God, yet it left room in their action for this unrighteous anger, for hatred, for contempt.

They would condemn the physical act of adultery while being okay with the thoughts and the lust in the heart that led to the physical action. So as we study through this passage, we see again that they will insist upon carefully worded oaths instead of understanding that even ordinary dishonesty is sinful.

You see they would seek to uphold the letter without understanding the full intent. Their effort wasn't to remove the command, it was to loosen or shorten or soften the command. And surely if we don't loosen or shorten or soften the command, we certainly want to loosen or soften the response to the command.

A proper understanding, one of the reasons that I told you when we began this section on these four verses regarding how important these verses are, is without a proper understanding of these verses, the remaining message that Christ delivers for us over the next three chapters is missed.

We fall short. William Perkins made the statement that Christ doesn't proceed to destroy the law, what he actually does is he proceeds to restore the moral law to its true sense and meaning. It's not an effort to eliminate something that's inferior, it is an effort to help us understand and help us see that these traditions, these evasions, these shallow readings are all in an effort to make a holy law manageable by men in a way that we have no need of Christ and of God.

The Law, the Old Covenant, and Christ's Fulfillment

Now we have to handle this passage carefully. We've talked a little bit about this already that the teachings of Christ here are not sending us backwards into this old covenant way of doing as if Christ had never come.

He's not sending us back to the old covenant shadows. This is an important truth today. I don't know how many of you keep up with current activities and current things that are happening around us, but there's a big movement.

The Hebrew Israelite movement is massive and that movement is all about taking you back to having to obey the law the way that the law is structured in the Old Testament as if Christ was not the fulfillment.

And so it says that you have to do this in order to obtain salvation. Very much like the Judaizers in the days of Paul that would come in and say, hey, hey, it's great that you have faith. It's great that you believe that Christ was the Son of God, but if you aren't circumcised, you aren't saved.

You're not part. And so now the teaching has become the same idea. So you understand that the reality of this, the implications of this are not as far-fetched as many would have us to believe. Within our own churches, we have seen this decline of the importance of the law.

Just love. If you love, then you're okay. But we define love in human terms rather than biblical terms. And when we define a term in human terms rather than biblical terms, what we have done is soften the law.

What we have done is loosen the truth. We need the reminder that the sacrifices and the ceremonies contained within the Old Testament find their fulfillment in Christ, that he is the substance of those shadows.

We need to be reminded that the judicial laws of Israel, even though they still today contain general equity to us to instruct us, we are not bound by the same law and response to the law as they were.

That was for the nation of Israel. The moral law is the enduring law because it is the law that reflects God's holy character. It is the law that continues to direct God's people. Ultimately, movements like the Hebrew Israelite movement basically are teaching that the fulfillment that Christ proclaims here is failure.

That because we have to go back to the old way, that what Christ did wasn't successful, which could not be further from the truth. The shadow gave way because the substance has come. Christ is our Passover.

He is our great high priest. He is the final true sacrifice. And the law continues under his authority. Second London Baptist confession of faith reminds us that Christ did not dissolve, but much strengthened the obligation of the believer to the law of God.

You see, we aren't under the law as a covenant of works by which we earn life. As a Christian, as a believer, we know that Christ fulfilled the covenantal demand. He bore the curse required by the law for our sins.

As a result of that, Romans chapter 8 verse 1 declares that therefore there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. But you need to understand, freedom from condemnation does not mean or equal freedom from the king.

Being free from condemnation does not mean that you can walk away from the commands of Almighty God. They still have bearing in your life. You and I will fall. You and I will struggle. But we are not justified by our obedience.

Rather, because we are justified, we are brought into a life of obedience. Charles Spurgeon put the matter very plainly when he said partial obedience is actual disobedience. The loyal subject respects the whole law.

Wholehearted Obedience and the Authority of Scripture

Understand, this is not a statement of, well, as a believer, you now live a perfect life, right? This is not a statement saying that you will perfectly obey every jot and tittle of the law in your life entirely.

What it means is that when we fall, when we struggle, when we fail, one, we don't make peace with our rebellion, and two, we rest on the finished work of Christ. That's what it means. That as believers, we struggle, but yet we turn around and we look at the word, and as the psalmist declares a little later in Psalm 119, that we read a few verses from this morning, oh, how I love your law.

I esteem all your precepts concerning everything to be right. We sit under the authority of the law, and we understand it in the way that Christ describes it here. Look at verse 19 again for just a minute.

Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments. Now, that's a difficult passage for us because we don't really want to talk about the fact that there's this rating system, but what he's getting at is just like he would go on later in Matthew chapter 23, and he would say to the Pharisees and the scribes, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe, mint, and dill, and cumin, while you would neglect the weightier provisions of the law, such as justice, and mercy, and faithfulness.

But these are things that you should have done while not neglecting the others. In other words, all of it is important, yet you're focused on these little things. You've missed the big thing. You should be doing the big things and not neglecting the little things.

Christ here in verse 19 says the least of these commandments. Again, there obviously is a greater weight carried to some things than other, but the idea and the understanding is that we seek to be obedient to all.

We don't wash away anything because it's those little things that we begin to wash away that ultimately lead to greater things. The command of a lesser comparative weight is not optional. Why is it not optional?

It's not optional because the authority of that doesn't rest in how significant you see it. The authority of that doesn't rest in how important you think it is. It rests in God himself. It's not a matter of whether we profess just a high view of Scripture.

It's a matter of whether we bow to Scripture, even when it contradicts our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions. John MacArthur once said, whatever Jesus thought of the Bible, that's what I think. The weight that he places upon things should be the weight that we place upon things.

But understand that any confession in our life must move beyond lips to life. It must move beyond outward action and speak to inward transformation. If you look at the life of Christ, not only did he affirm the inspired word, but he did so in such a way to eliminate the idea that it was some abstract teaching.

And then he submitted himself to it. Remember as we went through the temptation of Christ, how he responded? He responded according to the Word of God. He fulfills the Word of God. He answered temptation with the Word of God.

And ultimately, as we saw over the last two weeks, he declared that that word shall not fail. And so if he makes these claims, then we, you and I, who claim him as Lord and Master and Savior of our lives, do not have the option of standing above the Word of God as those who have the editorial pen in our grasp.

Rather, we sit in submission to it as servants to our King. And so as Christ continues, in this same verse 19, he moves on to say about this teaching and doing. He says that when one who loosens and teaches, and he compares that with the one who does and teaches.

I want you to notice that there's an order here. The order here is the first person is loosening it and then he's teaching it, but the second person is not learning it and then doing it. He is doing it and then teaching it.

He is being obedient and then going out. What this talks to us is about is the teacher's life. The teacher's life must stand beneath the message that he proclaims. Again, this is not sinless perfection.

All too often we expect sinlessness from the people of God. The people of God are sinners. The only difference, again, between us and a normal sinner is that we are sinners saved by grace. Nothing that we did, right?

All of Him. And so it's not the idea that we will move forward in sinless perfection. If only perfect men could teach, there was only one man who could teach, and that would be Christ Jesus. I mean, just look at the Scripture, right?

Peter failed miserably on multiple occasions. I've said before, Peter's like one of my favorite people because it's like looking in a mirror all the time. Open mouth, insert foot. Falter, falter, falter, be lifted up.

Peter denies our Lord three times, yet he was restored. Paul, not only did Paul begin by murdering Christians, he confesses that there's this continuing battle, war, that's waged in his life with sin.

James tells us, acknowledges that we all stumble in many ways. The truth that this isn't about whether a teacher needs grace. All of us need grace, and I would often argue teachers need more grace. It is whether the teacher submits to the truth that he proclaims.

Is the teacher repentant rather than defiant? Is he governed by the Word, or is he governing others by the Word while exempting himself? Most people are familiar with Paul's writing to Timothy. First Timothy chapter 4 verse 16, Paul joins life and doctrine as he writes, pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching.

Persevere in these things for as you do this, you will save both yourself and those who hear you. James 3 .1 contains a warning regarding a stricter judgment of those who elect to teach. He says, do not, many of you become teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive a stricter judgment.

Paul, in his letter to Titus, in teaching about an elder, said that they must be an example of good deeds, have purity in doctrine, soundness in speech. The man who handles holy things in a public manner better be trembling before holy things in a private one.

But hear me, brothers and sisters, this does not belong just to the pulpit, just to the elders. You see parents, you are teachers, teaching by words and by habits, by your reactions. Employers and employees are teaching by the integrity of the way in which we work.

Believers exert influence. You and I in our everyday, ordinary life are teachers. So don't think for a moment that when you read these words just say be careful about teaching because you're going to be held to a higher standard that you are exempt because your whole life is about this.

When we understand this, it transforms the kingdom ranking that we see here regarding least and greatest. As a kid growing up, I was always taught when, you know, when scripture talks about the least and greatest in the kingdom, it's always talking about the final fulfillment.

Brothers and sisters, that's not what it's talking about. Remember, the kingdom is all ready but not yet. This is talking about the here and the now. You see, in the world today, people are identified as being great in the kingdom when they are slick talkers or well-spoken.

The truth is, is that if you are going to be considered great, then you are those who are simply obedient in your ordinary life. This deals with the now. This deals with the pastor who refuses to soften the text even when obedience is costly.

It deals with the parent who confesses sin to a child rather than protecting an image of perfection. It deals with the believer who obeys even when nobody else around you is applauding or speaks the truth even when falsehood would be profitable or guards purity in your life or forgives because you have been forgiven or teaches others not merely by command but by example.

The way you live the life that you were called to live. But again, this way of life comes with a warning. R .C. Sproul reminded us spirituality can be a cheap substitute for righteousness. And just in case we misunderstood what righteousness is, he goes on to explain that, define it for us very clearly.

Righteousness is doing what is right in the sight of God. Not what you think is right. What is right in the sight of Almighty God. You see, we can think that we're right with religious language or emotional experiences or public visibility or even just our good reputation.

But all of those things can exist apart from submission to God. And apart from submission to God, it is utter failure. Christ is not impressed with spiritual performance detached from true obedience. Ephesians, as Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, he helps us to keep a proper perspective of this particular truth.

Ephesians 2 chapter 8. Ephesians 2 verses 8 through 10. He writes, as we're all familiar, for by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not of works, so that no man can boast.

We all know that piece, right? But do you think about the rest of the passage? For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand so that we could walk in them.

The problem is, is within the church today we've redefined that term good works. Good works has come to mean what we do to make other people feel better and ourselves feel better. And so it's us standing handing out meals or it's us going to a home or it's us doing for other people.

All of those things are great and they're wonderful but the good works that Christ is talking about in the Word of God, the good works that are defined for us in the book of Ephesians are not those good works.

It is the obedience in our life because you and I are saved by grace through faith, not works, and we are created in Christ for those works. Works that God prepared beforehand. Why? So that we should walk in them.

In obedience. Works is not the way to salvation but it is the fruit of salvation. Obedience is not salvific. Obedience is the result of your salvation. Then we move into verse 20. We have this first word here, for.

Now the word for is another one of those conjunctive words. A word that is important but it's also one that is a conclusive conjunctive meaning that it's bringing us to a conclusion. It's bringing us to a place.

Now what's interesting here is the place may be completely different from where if you were a first-time reader of this you thought it was going. Because many people would have read this and go, oh well what it means is I got to be perfect obedience and then I'll I'll be good.

Christ says no, no, no, no. Because the Word is perfect, because the Word will not pass away, because every jot and tittle of it will, because I am the fulfillment of the Word, because you can be as obedient as you think you can, you will not obtain this, then your righteousness must be greater to enter the kingdom of heaven.

The original language construction helps a little bit where English falls. You see English is a great language, right? But it's also a very confusing language. Oftentimes in English we can read the they begin to lose emphasis.

Take for a minute the the last clause here, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. In the English language it's really simple to dumb down that. In the original language however, it's not so much so.

You see it is very emphatic. It carries with it an extreme force. There is not a chance, a hope, or a prayer of you seeing the kingdom of God apart from a righteousness greater than that of the Scribes and the Pharisees.

The Pharisees' Outward Religion Cannot Save

Now this sentence carries with it less weight in the modern church because we don't really understand the Scribes and Pharisees as well as we should, because our opinion of them is marred by what we read in the rest of the Gospels.

We read what they did and we've labeled them as idiots. We've said, oh well, the Son of God, God himself in flesh was among them and they missed it. And we said, okay, well if they missed it then they must be pretty stupid people.

But we've missed the fact that these men were learned men. They were intelligent men. These men knew the Old Testament better than most of us will ever know in our lifetime. And yes, they missed it. They missed it because of the sin in their life, the sin in their heart, the reality of what it is.

But they were far from being ignorant. They were far from being unintelligent. They were far from not having all of the pieces. They were far from not living a righteous life. Consider Paul's words in Philippians as he lays out his entire curriculum vitae, shows us who he is and how he was perfect according to the law until he understood that he wasn't.

These men were known for their disciplined religious practice, for their careful tithing, fasting, prayer, purity, zeal for their tradition. Yet as we move through and we get to chapter 23 in Matthew where Jesus continually proclaims these woes, we see the decrepitcy within them.

They were more concerned with the outside than they were with the inside. This is why this warning comes in chapter 20. Christ doesn't want his followers to get the idea that they can simply be better Pharisees.

What he is trying to get his disciples to see, what he is trying to get the people that's sitting around to see, what he is demonstrating for us is that there is no righteousness that we can produce that will allow us to see the kingdom of heaven.

J .C. Ryle said of the moral law, it cannot save us, we cannot be justified by it, but never, never let us despise it. We should not walk away from the Old Testament. This brings two great truths to life.

First of all, it brings the truth to life that the law itself cannot justify because the law demands righteousness. The law does not create righteousness. If you read Romans chapter 3 verse 20, it tells you that the works of the law, no flesh will be justified for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

Because the law demands righteousness, then you and I with no righteousness of our own that is sufficient will not be justified by it. In fact, quite the opposite, you and I will be condemned. Secondly, the failure of us as sinners does not make the law defective.

We oftentimes have this idea and growing up in church, this is one of the things that I look back on and I think about. The law is taught in a way that it's almost as if it has no bearing on our life, it's extremely defective, and it's because we couldn't uphold it.

The truth is, is that no matter what we do, the law stands apart from that. It is holy because God who gave it is holy. It is righteous because God who gave it is righteous. It is good because God who gave it is good.

You follow the pattern. That law exposes our guilt. It identifies for us the standard of God. It does restrain evil, but the pharisaic righteousness is a lot like what you see today in modern life where we take a picture of something, right?

These phones are so advanced, I can still remember old Instamatic cameras and things like that where you got what you got and that was just it, right? If it was blurry, it was blurry. If it was really wonky, it was really wonky.

But now you can take a picture with your phone and with the help of a little software magic and AI and all this other stuff, you can make it look like somebody completely not even you, right? You can make yourself look like a supermodel.

Imagine me looking like a supermodel, right? But I could do it through AI. I can make myself something that I'm not. I could use this tool to massage until I'm happy. Pharisaic righteousness does the same thing with the law, with the standard.

It reduces the law of God until the sinner is happy with it. It gets it to a place where it's manageable by you and I, where we're okay with living it. Luke chapter 18 verses 9 through 14, we see a Pharisee and a tax collector praying.

We see the Pharisee praying, God I thank you I'm not like other people. Look how much better I am. I'm amazing. I got all my life figured out and everything together. I do everything I'm supposed to. I don't take any more than 99 steps on a Sunday or Sabbath.

I don't write down anything permanent on the Sabbath. I am a hundred percent obedient to your law God. First of all, just so we're clear, they broke the first command there, right? Having no other gods before because they placed themselves as God.

But their whole idea is, look how much better I am. But the tax collector enters in and he prays and he says, God be merciful to me, a sinner. And he can't even lift his eyes towards heaven. Christ says it was that man who went home justified.