Transcription from audio file:
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Gracing our ears this morning are multiple accounts of two men presenting themselves before God, presenting sacrifices before God. First is that of Cain and Abel, brothers, sons of our first parents, one a keeper of sheep, and the other a tiller of the ground.
Both brought an offering to the Lord, and he respected Abel in his offering, but he did not respect Cain in his offering. It is challenging to conclude just from that text why this was so. Some inferences may be assumed, but it is by St. Paul’s letter to the Hebrews that we are taught why one offering was acceptable, and the other not, why one was a good work, and the other not.
By faith, Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and through it, he being dead, still speaks. Though both men were rightly offering sacrifices to the Lord, only Abel had the right condition of heart, for in it dwelt faith. The second pair of men in our hearing today comes by means of our Lord’s parable, which he speaks to those who trust in themselves that they are righteous and despise others.
Lord, grant us repentance where we see your word rightly apply to us. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. Consider first the Pharisee, a man numbered among many others of like mind who presumed that they could earn eternal life through satisfying God’s law.
They sought, as Cain did, to please God by their own righteousness, merits, and works, confident and content with keeping his holiness contained in outward doings. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week.
I give tithes of all that I possess. Heard from the Pharisee is much about the Pharisee. But isn’t it good that he does not rob others by extortion? Isn’t it good that he is not unjust in his personal business and dealings? Isn’t it good that he keeps the sixth commandment and does not give of himself over to a woman who is not his wife? God’s word confirms that these are good things.
Yet God in his temple hears a lot about what the Pharisee is doing, what God doesn’t hear are words from a broken and contrite heart. He hears nothing of how the Pharisee has failed, but only how he has seemed to succeed and thus boast in his good works. There is nowhere in his prayer to God a recognition of his sins or a semblance of repentance of them.
Works are good only when they are accompanied by faith, by an inner obedience of the heart that humbly acknowledges that there are far more sins dwelling within than there are good works happening without, and thus flees to God on the only basis by which such a heart can, in a cry for mercy. Consider then the other man, the tax collector, and the words that reflect his heart, his trust, his hope, his faith. Men of his profession were some of the most despised among Jewish society because they were, typically, unjust extortioners of their own brethren, wielding the authority of Rome for personal financial gain.
But this one stood out in our Lord’s parable. He was different. By his outward actions, especially in comparison to the fasting, tithing Pharisee, this man was assumed traitorous scum.
But his difference set him apart even from the Pharisee, for his difference was in the heart. Yet not even the most humble, contrite heart can earn the favor of God, though such a heart is necessary, for only such a heart, one that is stricken and sees its true wretched state, is God then able to regenerate and pour into it true faith from above. The tax collector, from the heart, sought God’s grace and mercy, favor based solely on God’s goodness and not a recognition of the works of man.
He sought his salvation and comfort in God and not in himself. He placed his hope in God and not in his own efforts. He found and received that which he sought.
For this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Beloved in the Lord, it is easy for us to misunderstand this or to live contrary to this, O most peaceful truth, without realizing that we are heaping a heavy load upon ourselves.
The fallen heart of man is bent toward gaining by our own doing, by our own merit, yet in our greatest need, this earning arrangement can profit us nothing. We can never, of our own efforts, do enough to gain God’s good pleasure. Know that in Christ, know that because of Christ, because of God’s grace in bestowing Christ’s righteousness and merit upon you, are you made good.
Do not allow your heart to convince you that praying, confessing, reading, hearing, singing, communing, coming to church are exhaustive burdens only to be done to earn God’s favor in his eyes. Do not rob yourself of what God gives by mercy. If you have the free gift of faith given by God that believes that Jesus Christ, true God and true man, lived a life full of perfect good works, all the way down to the heart, that he was crucified, died, and was buried for all your sins according to the Scriptures, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, then by that faith, Jesus’s righteousness is yours.
Therefore, whoever wishes to be relieved of the burden of works righteousness, whoever wishes to see that sin is conquered even in this life, whoever wishes to come to this temple of God, to pray to him with peace and confidence and joy, not in self, but in him, must take refuge in the merits and obedience of Christ, our Savior. See then the rightful place of good works in the life of those redeemed by Christ, that they rest after salvation. Works do not make a man good, but a good man does good works, just as the fruit does not make the tree good, but the good tree bears good fruit.
First one must be good and pleasing to God, then one can do good and God-pleasing works. Abel was good, thus his offering was good. The tax collector was good, thus his prayer was good, but their goodness was not from themselves, for it could not have been, just as yours cannot be from you.
Abel knew himself to be a sinner. The tax collector knew himself to be a sinner, and this to be so grievously true that he beat his breast, the very flesh covering the guileful heart, out of which come all manners of evil. Their goodness, our goodness, can only originate in him who alone is good, that is, our great God and Savior.
So take comfort in Christ, your peace, your righteousness, and look not to your good works, but to his for assurance of God’s pleasure and favor, and this comforting truth shall cause your forgiven, living heart to sing your Maker’s praises, as it is prepared to go to its eternal house, justified in God’s sight, having become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord, and in him alone. With great sigh of relief, then, let us ever boast in him alone. In Jesus’ name.
Amen.
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