Luke 189-14. To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable. Two men went up to the temple to pray, won a Pharisee and the other tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself. God, I thank you that I'm not like other men. Robbers, evildoers, adulterers, and even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a 10th of all I get. But the tax collectors stood out of distance. He would not even look up to heaven. But his breasts and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalt himself will be humbled and he who homes himself will be exalted. The word of the word. Eli, thank you. Before I begin preaching this morning, I did want to recognize a visiting couple who is here. John and Claire Kenya. John and Claire Kenya, are you over here? Oh, Kenyan, okay. John and Claire Kenyan. Now, Vic just told me that you or John was our first assistant pastor here with Mark while he was in seminary or assistant intern. He helped lead worship. And what's that? He was a go for, okay? Kind of like I did in the past three years. Okay, great. The first go for that UPC ever had. And Claire also had was the leader of the children's ministry, right? So we are so thankful you're here and glad you're here. Welcome back. Good to see you. Glad you're here. Let's go before the Lord in prayer. Lord Jesus, the grass withers and the flowers fade. But your word, the word of the Lord, stands forever. And Jesus name. Amen. Now in these next four weeks, I'll be preaching a series entitled The Gospel Defined and Applied. And today we'll be talking mainly about true repentance if you haven't already seen from the children's message. But before we get into that, I did want to just briefly highlight just what the gospel is. You know, we always say this word gospel, but what does it mean? How do you define the gospel? I would just say it would be the good news of Jesus Christ. The gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ. What does that mean? Well, this basically simply means that we don't have to do anything as far as works to be credited as righteous. But God looks at us as righteous because of His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus died on the cross for us. And as a result, we are made right before God. This is amazing. This is an amazing reality of the Christian faith. And just yesterday, we celebrated the life of Chris Rostusia. Now, Chris was a man who believed in the gospel. He believed in the good news of Jesus Christ. And just yesterday, during the funeral, it was amazing to hear story after story of how many people were impacted by this man because of his faith. For example, there was a gentleman who came up here who just said it was because of Chris that he was bold enough to share his faith to other people. In fact, it was the first time they went out to evangelize together and share the gospel of Jesus Christ to others. And he was with Chris when he did that for the first time. And he gave credit to Chris and the Lord for that. There were many other people that just said, Chris helped them with their faith and encouraged their faith. But not only did Chris have this life on this life where he was defined by the gospel and he lived by those promises. But right now, the truth of the gospel is he's in heaven because he believed in Jesus Christ. And with that, there is great celebration. That's why I said earlier, we celebrated the life of Chris because he is with Jesus. Right now, celebrating an eternity. That is the gospel, that is the gospel defined and that is why the gospel is so important for us to understand. Now, next week, I'll be talking more about what the gospel is when we talk about faith. But today, I really want to talk about how we begin to apply this thing called the Good News of Jesus Christ in our lives. Now, when we give our testimonies, who here has given your testimony your story to someone before? Many of you, yeah, hands are up. A testimony, when I say a testimony, it means that you're sharing, you're basically, you're sharing to someone how you became a Christian, how you repented of your sins and you believed in Jesus. Now, many times when I hear testimonies, many times people just say, this is when I did it. I became a Christian, I accepted Jesus into my heart when I was 17 and this is what happened. And then after that, they just stop and they stop. And even though that's a great thing and we rejoice over that, and I love hearing stories after stories, I would say that the gospel is more than that. It's more than a one-time occurrence. In fact, it's a daily, continuous journey in our life. It is a continuous thing, not just a one-time occurrence. Martin Luther put it really well when he said this, that even after we are converted by the gospel, our hearts will go back to operating on other principles. Unless we deliberately, repeatedly said it to gospel mode. I love that word, gospel mode. And then he goes on to say, the truth of the gospel is the principle article of all doctrine. Most necessary is that we know this article well, we teach it to others and we beat it into their heads continually. Beat it into their heads continually. What does he mean when he says to beat the gospel in your head continually? I believe he means that to live a life of being defined by the gospel, it calls us to daily repent of our sins, to believe in the promises of Jesus and to obey in him. Now, when we repent of our sins and we believe in him, this leads us to want to obey. It gives us a desire to obey him. It's not just out of duty because God tells us to do it, but he also gives us this desire where we delight in doing his work. That's what I think the gospel is all about, this continuous journey. Now, in seminary, Dr. Steve Childers, I actually came up with the drawing of this. It's called the spiritual combustion cycle. And to start out, you have repentance where you repent of your heart issues. You repent of the sin that is held beneath the sin, as Mike's talked about before. And we'll talk about that in a minute. And then it goes to faith and the gospel to believe in the promises of Jesus Christ that we need a Savior who can rescue us from our sins. And after we do those things, it leads to this delight of obedience, to obey God's law, where it's just more out of sheer delight instead of just duty. Now, today, we'll be looking at repentance. Next week, the following weeks, we'll look at faith and obedience from the spiritual combustion cycle. Well, we all try to find happiness, right? I mean, many of us, many of you that I've talked to, we try to find happiness with a significant other, with success, with a career, with approval. Of course, a lot of you would say our happiness is found in Jesus. Well, Tim Keller, when he was talking about this idea where people are trying to find happiness in his new book, The Protocol God, it's a great book, I highly recommend it. He says that there are two ways that people try to find happiness. There's two ways that people try to find happiness. The first way is through moral conformity. And the second way is through self-discovery. These are the two ways that every one of us here at one time in our life, maybe now, are trying to find happiness. In this passage that Eli read to you this morning, talks about two different characters in this story, the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee was known to try to find happiness through his moral conformity while the tax collector was known to try to find happiness through his self-discovery. As we look at these two characters this morning, I challenge you to think about which character you relate to the most. Let's look at this passage, look 18 verse nine, it says to some who are confident of their own righteousness and look down on everybody else. You see the Pharisees believed that the only way they could achieve happiness was through moral conformity. In other words, they were rule followers. And this is what they would say. They would say, I'm not going to do what I wanna do, but I'm gonna do what tradition and the community wants me to do. You see the major problem with the Pharisees is that deep down the root issue was that they were longing for approval and acceptance. They wanted to be accepted by other people. And so they were willing to obey all the rules that were made for them, even if it wasn't from scripture. They just wanted to be included in the right crowd. And the only way they felt that they would be accepted by God and by others was if they just followed the rules. Look at this parable in this passage and see how the Pharisee just tried to follow the rules. First off, the Pharisee would go to the outer court of the temple and pray out loud. As a Jew, the Pharisee was entitled and enabled to go to the outer court of the temple where he could worship with everyone else. The only people enabled to go inside the inner court was the priest, but the outer court was open to anyone of the Jewish faith or of this faith. Well, the Pharisee came, who has a Jew? The Pharisee came and he wanted everybody to hear his prayer. He wanted everybody to see the good things he was doing. So he prayed out loud and he just was seeking other people's approval. Now, as I was reflecting on this passage this week, I couldn't help but think how similar I am to this man. There are many times where I seek people's approval. I seek acceptance from other people. And as your pastor, I repent of that. And let me tell you what I did this December. You're gonna be shocked. In December, I performed my first wedding ceremony. I was officiating my first ceremony. And it was to my best friend who was in college, great guy, he asked me to do it. It was on the beach in Destin, Florida, great time. Well, I was really anticipating this very nervous. It was my first wedding. And anyway, I get there and I knew he was gonna ask me to pray for the at the rehearsal dinner in front of, you know, 150 people or so. And that whole day, I was thinking about words I could say in the prayer because I wanted people to see that I was well read in the scriptures. I wanted them to see that I was this godly man who really knew how to talk to God. Well, you wouldn't believe that night what I prayed. I kept thinking through my head, what could I say? And this is what I prayed. I said, dear Lord Jesus, I thank you so much that you've brought Robin Rachel together after six years of being together. And tomorrow as they renew their vows, let me say that again, as they renew their vows, I said renew their vows. They haven't even been married yet. But I said, Lord, as they renew their vows, I pray that your presence will be made known. Afterwards, after the prayer, you wouldn't believe how many people came to me and said, Seth, do you realize what you just said? You know, renew their vows, what are you talking about? I don't realize, I didn't realize Robin Rachel had been married before and I said they haven't. I just accidentally said it. And the other thing I said was I said, Lord Jesus, I thank you that they've been together six years. Robin Rachel only knew each other for four. And so all these people came up and said, are you telling me, are you telling me something I don't know? I mean, Robin Rachel have only known each other for four and you said they've been together six years. Well, I tell you the story because my motives were extremely wrong. In fact, I was seeking approval and I wanted people to hear this elaborate prayer and in all reality, it led me to nowhere except for the affiliation. Well, that night I remember walking with Stephanie and my wife and wives are good at this, guys. But she basically just said, Seth, look, you know, you were seeking the approval of men and women. You were seeking the approval of man. But she said, you don't need to do that. You just need to talk to God like you'd be talking to me. And ever since then, my prayer life has changed significantly because I realize I'm not up here. I'm not up here to preach to man. I'm here to preach the word of God. And ever since then, it's helped me so much. But I realized then that I was wrong and I was just like the Pharisee. The Pharisee not only desired other people's approval by wanting them to hear his prayer, but he also wanted to convince himself that he was good. He wanted to convince himself that he was good. In verse 12, he says, I fast twice a week and I give a tenth of all I get. Now, Dr. Coffield mentioned it last week, but in this custom, there was only one requirement of fasting and it was one time a year during Yom Kapoor. This man wanted to go above and beyond the rules. And what he did was, he fasted twice a week. He did above and beyond what he was expected to do because he wanted everybody to know it. And he wanted to feel good about himself. He wanted to convince himself he was good. And so he told everybody, hey, I fasted twice a week. Look at me. And then he also says, and I also give a tenth of all I get. Now, not only is he giving a tenth to the church or to the synagogue, to a tenth of his, or as a tithe to what he's making, but he's giving a tenth to everything he buys. So he's going above and beyond the tenth. He's giving more than 10% here, but he wants everybody to know it. And that's the thing here, is that he just wants to convince himself. He's doing the right thing. If you look at verse 11 and 12, the word I is mentioned four times, four times, and this shows me that he's not only arrogant, but he also doesn't repent of any of his sins because he sees that there's no need for confession because he thinks he has it all together. He thinks he's kept all the rules. The thing that really stood out to me, as I looked at this man, that as you go on and read this passage, he compares himself to other people, and not only does he compare himself to other people, but he looks down on them. He started out by saying, God, I thank you that. Well, let me just tell you, anytime you start out of the prayer saying, I thank you that, it's probably not going to be good. It's probably going to be out of selfishness, and this is what he does. He says, I thank you that I am not like other men, like robbers or evil doers or adulterers or even this tax collector. You see, the Pharisee not only thinks he has it all together, but he looks down on the people who aren't like him. He would look at the tax collector, and you know what he would say? He would say that immoral tax collector who does his own thing is the problem with this world. And people like me are the solution. You know where this attitude leads? It leads to legalism. And I see it all the time. In our churches, I see it all the time. In my own life, I see it all around us, where if people aren't the way we are, then we shouldn't give them any time. In fact, just this past week, I was speaking with a former member of our church who left, he's going in the air force, and he's looking at other churches in his new state that he's at. And he was telling me that there was one church he went in, he felt good about, he went in, and all of a sudden the preacher started preaching. And the preacher said, he said, I'm really discouraged about our young generation. I just don't think they have it all together. I think they're very rebellious, and here's why. He says, I think our teenagers today are rebellious because they're wearing jeans to church. Now I look around this church, and I see a lot of jeans. I see a lot of shorts and flip-flops. I think it's great. But when I heard that, I don't want to be judgmental to this guy. I'm sure the Lord's using him, and I think it's great to dress up, I mean, in some ways to the Lord, but it's okay if you don't. I mean, Jesus calls you for who you are. But what I heard from my friend was this. My friend looked down, and he had jeans on. And he felt extremely, called out. He felt extremely embarrassed. And so you know what he did afterwards. I didn't want to talk to anybody because he didn't want to be seen. So he snuck out of the back and got out of there. He said, I'm so glad I got out of there without having to talk to anybody because I didn't want to be confronted. This is just an example out of many. But this just happened two weeks ago, or three weeks ago. I mean, this is going on in our world, and I think it's because of this attitude just like the Pharisee had. And so often, we fall into this. And do you, as how often do you act like the Pharisee? You know, how often do you get frustrated with people who aren't like you? How often do you feel more elite than others? I look at my own life and I fall into this trap all the time. I fall into it all the time. So that's the Pharisee. Let's change gears to the other character in the story. The tax collector. Let me give you a little background of the tax collector. The tax collector tries to attain his happiness through self-discovery. In other words, the tax collector would be free to pursue his own goals regardless of what tradition tells him, regardless of what custom tells him. In his view of things, the world would be in a much better place if there was no tradition and if there was no hierarchy or authority. These people, the tax collector, would say, I'm the only one who can decide what is right and wrong for me. I'm going to want to live and find my true self and happiness that way. You see, the tax collector is a type of person who makes up his own rules. In fact, if you do a study of the tax collectors, a lot of them were of Jewish tradition, but they would work for the Roman government. As a result of working for the Roman government, he would go to his Jewish people and tax his people from what he was supposed to tax, but he would also add an extra tax so that he could pocket some of that money. As a result, people despised this man. They despised him because he made up his own rules and he benefited from other people in a wrong way. But not only does he've been the rules by taking money from people, but he also made up his own rules by working on the Sabbath. A lot of times because he was working for the Roman government, there were times where he had to work on the Sabbath. He wouldn't go to the synagogue, but instead he would go work, so he would make up his own rules. These type of people would look at the Pharisee, and you know what they would say? They would say those Pharisees who think they have it all together, and they have all the answers and the truth are the problem with the world, and the progressive and independent people are the solution. Do you know what this idea of self-discovery usually leads to? It leads to having an attitude of having a license to sin. These people tend to be people who have been burned by a group of Pharisees and rule followers that they want nothing to do with the church. I've talked to many of you here at UPC who are now back in church, but as you grew up, you were just in a legalistic background, and you were in a church that had all these unrealistic rules that weren't even from Scripture, and you felt judged. And so as a result, you went off, and you left the church. You wanted nothing to do with the church. And there are so many people who love Jesus, where they want to love Jesus, but they hate the church, because they feel judged by the Pharisees as say, equal people. In fact, I've talked to many college students, not all of you, fall along this line, but there were some college students I've talked to who love being away from home. They say, finally, I'm away from mom and dad's rules. I'm out of the house. I can make up my own rules. I don't have to have a curfew. I got all this stuff. Many students I've talked to were tired of the rules they had growing up. And when they get to college, they begin to question everything. They even question their faith. In fact, two years ago, I remember talking to a young guy, and I said, hey, we were talking on the issue of pornography. And I just asked him, I said, hey, what are your thoughts on pornography? Do you think it's wrong? You know what he told me? He said, well, I'll think it's that bad as long as you do it in moderation, like everything else. If you do it in moderation, looking at pornography is okay, as long as it doesn't harm you. And I just looked at him and said, it's not okay. Because you're just feeding, you're giving sin an opportunity to creep in when you do that. In fact, you just need to cut it out of your life. Now, when I say this, I don't want to sound judgmental. I don't want to sound like I was judging this guy. But I'm here today to preach the truth. And this is the reality of our modern day America anyways. We're seeing this constantly with this attitude of this making up your own rules, of having a license to sin and do whatever you want. This is just a misinterpretation of the gospel when you think of it that way. But not only is it happening today, there's nothing new under the sun. Because it was happening during this time that Jesus walked on this earth. And we see it in the tax collector. We see it in the Pharisee in other ways. I've mentioned two types of people. The Pharisees and the tax collector. The Pharisee is a person who tends to be legalistic and self-righteous. The other person tends to be independent and against the law. Now, I would say that every one of us in this room has struggled one in one way or another with one of these individuals. We can relate to one of these individuals. Some of us here can relate to both at times. There's times in my life where I can relate to both where I look at the Pharisee and I say yes, I am a judgmental person. I seek people's approval. But then sometimes I get so caught up into that that I want to make up my own rules and be independent and away from that. And so I relate more to the tax collector. No matter who you relate to, my message today is this. We all need a repent of this. Instead of being legalistic, we need to understand the fullness of grace. And instead of doing whatever we want to do and having this license to sin attitude, we need to understand that God has given us a law to help strengthen our faith and fight against sin. The good news is this. Both of these individuals are loved by God. All of us here are loved by God. That's the good news of the gospel. Now Jesus spent a lot of his time preaching to the moralistic Pharisees because he wanted to prove to them that they were being self-righteous. He wanted to prove to them what they were doing, that they were arrogant, and he wanted them to repent of their sins and believe in him. But not only did he spend a lot of time with those who were prideful, but he spent a lot of time with the tax collectors and sinners and prostitutes. He spent time with those people who needed a savior, who needed love. When we see it all the time in the gospels, it's a beautiful thing. But the difference in this story is how these two men repented. Now to give you a good definition of repentance, I want to go to Wayne Grudum. He's a guy that's written a big, thick theology book. It's really good. But he says, repentance is a heartfelt sorrow for sin, a renouncing of it, and a sincere commitment to forsake it and walk in obedience to Christ. That's what repentance is. It's a great definition. If you look at the Pharisee, he didn't do any of that. He didn't have a heartfelt sorrow for sin because he didn't think he was sinful. He didn't renounce it because he didn't have anything to renounce of. And he didn't really have show us sincere commitment to forsake it and walk in obedience to Christ because he was walking in obedience to himself. So we see how not to repent. But in the tax collector, we see how to repent. Look with me at verse 13. We first see that the tax collector shows a heartfelt sorrow for sin because he stands at a distance away from the temple. The Pharisee wanted to be around everybody so everybody could see him and hear him pray. But this tax collector wanted to stand away because he was so ashamed of his sin. He was so torn up about his sin that he wanted to be away. He didn't even want to be recognized because he was so ashamed. But not only does he stand away in the background from the temple, but he also has a heartfelt sorrow for sin because he would not even look up to heaven. He couldn't even look up to heaven because he was filled with grief and sorrow. He felt so bad for what he did. So see how there was a heartfelt sorrow for sin from this man? I would also say that he renounced his sin by beating on his breast. To me, that's just a sign of him saying, get out of me, sin. Get away from me. He's pleading for God. Get it out. He's trying to renounce it and get it away. And finally, we see a sincere commitment to forsake sin and walk an obedience to Christ in his prayer. It's just a sentence long. He says, have mercy on me. He's asking God to show him mercy to give him what he doesn't deserve, to give him, to not give him what he deserves. He's pleading for mercy and asking God to not give him what he deserves. But in the prayer, he also identifies himself as a sinner. In the New American Standard Version, I love this version because it says the sinner, the sinner. And I love it when it says the sinner because he's not comparing himself to anyone else. He's just looking at his own heart. And I'm thinking to myself, so often, I look at people and I say, well, at least I'm not like that or at least I'm not caught in that sin. But this guy is not doing that. He's saying, I'm the problem with the world. I'm the sinner. He's identifying himself as the sinner. And I see that as a sincere commitment to forsake sin. We see him walking an obedience just from what Jesus has to say in verse 14. Jesus finishes the parable by saying that this man went home justified before God and the one who humbles himself will be exalted. This shows me that the tax collector wanted to quit his sinful ways and walk an obedience with Christ. Now, let me tell you something about this. Sin may have its influence on you, but it will never, never have dominion over you if you have Christ. Sin will be an influence. It will be a temptation, but it will never control you and be your ruler because Christ is our ruler. Christ is our ruler. That is the amazing truth of the gospel. And so when we hold on to this truth and cling to the cross, repent of our sins and believe that it's all because of him that we have an opportunity for heaven, then we can fight against sin. When we beat that into our heads, we beat the gospel into our heads. So when we repent, believe and obey, we can fight the influence of sin. One thing I wanted to mention about repentance, just quickly at the end, is that oftentimes when we ask God for forgiveness, we start just listing off things, behaviors that we've done wrong. For example, we may pray, Lord, forgive me for cheating, like I did earlier in the children's message, forgive me for lying, forgive me for lusting, whatever it may be. You know, although listing off our sins is a good way to repent, what we really need to be repenting over is our sin beneath the sin. And Mike's preached on it a few times. But in other words, when I say this idea of sin beneath the sin, we need to be repenting of the deeper issue of what's causing those behaviors. This is the idea that under our actions, there lies a deeper sin. And that sin would be making something or someone greater than Jesus himself. It would be making that into our true source of happiness and not Jesus. For example, let me say the sentence and fill in the blank for your own self. If I can only have, if I can only have, fill in the blank, then I'll know I'm a somebody. If I can only have whatever it is, then I'll know I'm a somebody. That's what the sin beneath the sin is. It's the thing that is causing the behavior. When we repent it, when we repent of our sins, we really need to emphasize that idol that we're putting above God, that we're putting in his place. So it could be the idol of success, comfort, pleasure, control, approval, like mine, it could be those idols, whatever it is. My brothers and sisters, give these over to God, cling to the cross and seek Him. I end today with giving you this hope. True repentance does not lead us to despair, but it leads us to joy. You see the more we learn the depth of our sin, the more we learn the depth of God's grace. That's the gospel. Whatever is holding you back this morning, give it over to Christ, let it go, cling to the cross and say, Lord Jesus, I am yours, save me. You see, Jesus has taken your sin and he calls each and every one of us to repent of that and to obey the good news of the cross and of Jesus Christ. Ladies and gentlemen, cling to the cross and say to Him, Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, the Savior, or the sinner, the sinner. Let's pray. Lord, I just thank you for the good news of the gospel and I pray that we will say the prayer, Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, the sinner. Lord, I thank you for giving us what we don't deserve. We deserve hell, we deserve death, but you've given us salvation and that is the gospel truth. That is the promise, that is why we believe in what we believe. And Lord, for those that have never believed and trusted in Jesus as their Savior, I pray that they will repent of those idols and cling to you and know that you approve them, that you accept them. God, I thank you for the good news of Jesus Christ and may we, each and every day, repent of our idols, believe in the good news and as a result, may it put in us a desire to obey you in Jesus name. Amen.