The Danger of Self-Righteousness

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There’s a picture that always makes me chuckle when I see it. I’ve given it to Brother Jack and asked him to put it up here for you. What we’re looking at is a public service announcement type of billboard that says, this year thousands of men will die from stubbornness.

Now, you may be wondering, why is he? I won’t name who just applauded like that. But if you’re wondering why I’m describing it, why I’m reading it to you, because people may hear just the audio later.

But the billboard says this year thousands of men will die from stubbornness. And then someone has spray painted, presumably a man has spray painted underneath it. No, we won’t.

And that just that just makes me chuckle every time. If you look at the billboard and you look at what it says underneath, it’s talking about encouraging you to get medical tests, encouraging you to get checkups and that sort of thing. And men have a reputation, sometimes deservedly, sometimes undeservedly, about being hesitant to go to the doctor.

Now, you know, I’ll go once a year for a checkup. I started that when I found myself as a single father. I thought, well, I need to do everything I can to make sure that my children aren’t orphans, but as much as it’s up to me.

But, you know, I might have a problem. I may have, and this is before COVID, I might have some congestion in my chest and be coughing and complaining, and my wife will say, you need to go see a doctor. No, I’m fine, you know.

That’s how we as men typically do. And there have been a lot of illnesses that have turned into something serious because we won’t admit we’re sick and we won’t go see a doctor. And so I think this billboard’s funny, but it illustrates something serious that maybe we ought to change, but let’s face it, we’re probably not going to.

It’s man’s nature. It’s how we’ve been all along. But because we don’t admit our problem, we can’t get help with it, or we won’t go look for help with it, because we won’t admit that there’s a problem.

And Jesus talked about this very thing even in His day. He said that it was the sick who need a doctor. It was those who acknowledge that they’re sick who are willing to go see a doctor, not those who have convinced themselves that they’re well.

That’s what we’re going to look at tonight as we continue our study of the book of Mark. We come to a place in chapter 2 where He deals with this issue, and he deals with a spiritual parallel that he draws to this issue. So we’re going to be in Mark chapter 2 tonight, starting in verse 13.

If you could turn there with me. If you’re using your phone to look up the Scriptures, there’s a link in our bulletin, or it’ll be right here on the screen for you. Once you find it, if you’re able to, without too much difficulty, stand with me as we read from God’s Word together.

It says, Then he went out again by the sea, and all the multitude came to him, And he taught them. As he passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax office. And he said to him, Follow me.

So he arose and followed him. Now it happened as he was dining in Levi’s house that many tax collectors and sinners also sat with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many, and they followed him. And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to his disciples, How is it that he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?

When Jesus heard it, He said to them, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And you may be seated.

So just to clarify a few things, this is just outside Capernaum, near the Sea of Galilee. We left off last week with Jesus preaching in Capernaum. And because word has gotten out that He healed a leper, now He’s being mobbed by people everywhere He goes so that He was trying to stay outside the towns and cities and minister in the country, and still people were finding Him wherever He was.

And so He was having to be very choosy about where He went and when and why. He did venture back into Capernaum, and it was such a standing room only crowd in this house than somebody cut a hole in the roof to let down a paralytic man into the house. After this, he left and went out to the sea.

It wasn’t a very long journey because Capernaum is there by the sea. And he sees Levi. And to clarify that as well, Levi is another name for Matthew.

Levi may have been his given name, and Matthew may have been a name that Jesus gave him. Or one may have been his business name, and the other his family name. We’re not entirely certain.

but Levi and Matthew are the same person. So he sees Levi, he’s sitting there at his tax office collecting taxes, and Jesus says, follow me. He’s already called some of his disciples to follow him, and he now picks Matthew.

And I’ve told you before, this call, follow me, is not just simply, hey, why don’t you come with me to do what I’m doing? It’s not just, hey, come spend the day with me. When a rabbi, when a teacher said, follow me, he was inviting you to uproot your entire life and walk with him day in and day out and learn from him, learn the things he taught, learn the things that he did, learn the things that he said and believed and felt, go where he went, eat what he ate, sleep where he slept, and basically pattern your life after him.

Now Jesus comes up to Matthew and says the same thing to him. This was a surprising choice for a lot of people because tax collectors were about as popular then as they are now. Right?

Who here loves the IRS? Anybody? Now, I’ve known people that say, well, I have a loved one that works for the IRS.

You may love that loved one, but nobody loves the IRS, all right? Nobody loves the agency. The tax collectors were about as beloved as the IRS, and they were more crooked in that day.

They had some loopholes that enabled them to take authority that they shouldn’t have had and charge people more than they should have. And, you know, if some of that money falls off into his pocket, who’s the wiser? So they weren’t well liked, they had bad reputations, and Jesus picked this man to follow him.

Well, Matthew, Levi, is so overjoyed at this that he throws a party. And he invites Jesus to this party. He invites all of his friends to this party.

He invites everybody he knows to this party because he wants everybody to meet Jesus. So he throws this party, and it appears to have been crashed. I was doing some studying this afternoon for next Sunday night and realized some things about the.

. . Once I looked at these stories in order, I realized some things about the guests that we’ll get into next week.

But the party was crashed by some people that. . .

I don’t know if they were on the guest list or not, but they’re kind of a surprising addition to the guest list if they were. There were Pharisees and scribes there. There were some of the religious elite.

And Jesus came to this banquet with people that we might not expect Jesus to go to this banquet with, and he sits down with them, and he did not waste the opportunity to minister to them. Now, it was shocking to the elites, to the religious elite, the political elite, the financial elite. It was shocking to the elites that Jesus would associate with sinners, that he would associate with people like this.

Now, the way I’ve always heard this taught is that you’ve got your tax collectors here who were basically treated like they were garbage, And when he says tax collectors and sinners, that he’s describing the class of people like the prostitutes and the drug addicts and the lowest of the low as far as they would consider it. That’s not necessarily the case. At least it’s not necessarily the case that it’s exclusively those kinds of people.

You see, for the Pharisees, anybody who didn’t live up to their exacting standards would be considered sinners. Now, I know by God’s standards, we’re all sinners. And I’m okay with that being pointed out from God’s word, that by His standard, I fall short.

Because He’s God. I know I fall short of His standard. But for somebody to tell me that by my standard, you sinner, because I fall short of their standard, that’s going to go all over me.

How many of you want to be told how you’re trash because you are not as good as this person over here? Do any of us like that? No.

No, as a matter of fact, we might have some choice words for them that we need to refer back to this morning’s message about love. You know, those are some fighting words. Anybody who didn’t live up to their standards were sinners.

These were the outcasts, at least as far as the elites were concerned. But it included everybody from down in the gutter to just everyday people who weren’t the Pharisees. So all of us, all of us who, you know, we’re trying to do the right thing and we love God, but we’re not living up to the Pharisees’ expectations, it would include all of us as well.

And the Pharisees are saying, I can’t believe He’s hanging out with those people. It was not just the people in the gutters. It was the everyday people who didn’t have their lives all together and knew it.

And that was really the problem the Pharisees had with them. Because outwardly, the Pharisees had it all together. They crossed every T and dotted every I of the law as far as they were concerned outwardly.

Most of us don’t have it all together. I don’t have my life all together. I’m a mess at times.

You don’t have your life all together, I suspect. I don’t know anything. I love days like this morning where I hear afterwards people are saying, was he talking about them or was he talking about them?

No, I’m usually talking about me, right? When I’m saying this is what we’re not doing and this is what we need to be doing, I’m usually talking about me. You just get caught in the crossfire, right?

But I suspect you don’t have your life all together and all figured out. I suspect you can be a mess at times too. And they were looking at people like that who didn’t have their lives all together and knew it.

And they were saying, I can’t believe Jesus is eating with those people. Because as a rabbi, as a religious leader, as a teacher of the law, they expected Jesus to live up to their standards too. They said, you should be just as holy as we are.

Now, what they didn’t realize is Jesus was holier than they’d ever dreamed about being. But see, they had their standards over here that they had put around God’s law. And they were saying, if you don’t live up to these standards, you’re not holy.

And they were confused. They’re almost offended that Jesus is not living up to these legalistic standards that they’ve set up. I mean, didn’t he know?

Didn’t he understand he should be doing all the things that they were doing? That he should be hanging out with the people that they would? But Jesus didn’t come to shun the people who fell short of the Pharisees’ standards.

He came to redeem the people who fell short of God’s standards. So Jesus ate with sinners. He ate with tax collectors and sinners.

And just as an aside note, because of the world we live in, it’s important because I hear this concept thrown around all the time. When we say anything about right and wrong, I hear all the time, well, Jesus ate with sinners, you know. True, He did.

But if you’re looking for some place in your Bible where it says, Jesus affirmed their sin or he joined in with them, you’re going to be waiting a long time to find it because it’s not there. Nowhere does it say Jesus. But that’s thrown out as kind of a club to beat us over the head with when we say anything about God’s standards of right and wrong.

Well, Jesus ate with sinners. If we say a particular behavior is not okay or a particular choice is not okay, by God’s standards, not ours. Well, Jesus ate with sinners.

Yes, he did. And he ate with them with no intention of leaving them the way he found them. But he never joined in with them.

And by the same token, you and I as his people, we should be friends with sinners. Yes, we’re sinners too, but by those standards, we should be friends with people who don’t have their lives all together. We should be friends with people who don’t know Jesus, but nowhere are we told that it’s okay to join them in what they’re doing that’s sinful.

He came to meet these people where they were, but he planned not to leave them there. His purpose in eating with sinners was to point them to how they could be reconciled to God. And so Jesus came and he presented himself as the healer of those who were infected by sin.

In this passage, he deals with sin like it’s an infection. That’s why he says in verse 17, those who are well have no need of a physician. Get a little tongue-tied trying to throw that word out there.

Have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Now here he’s comparing himself with a doctor.

And just like somebody would go to see a doctor for healing from physical ailments, sinners also need healing. And Jesus is the only one who can provide it. The Pharisees couldn’t provide them with healing.

If anything, all they could do was try to cover up the sin. As a matter of fact, for all their righteousness, all their outward goodness, Jesus called them whitewashed tombs. You ought to go back sometime and look in the Gospels at just some of the harsh words of Jesus.

We have this idea that Jesus just wandered around with daisies and sunshine in his hair and was just nice all the time. Jesus said the hard truth sometimes. He called the Pharisees whitewashed tombs.

What that means is you look good on the outside. You’ve been to or you’ve seen fancy tombs. I remember visiting when I was a kid the tomb of Andrew Jackson in Nashville.

Very impressive structure. And I think we visited Abraham Lincoln’s tomb as well. Very impressive structures.

Beautiful. In some cases, marble. There were columns at Andrew Jackson’s tomb.

A beautiful little facility, little building. But you know what’s inside? Dead men’s bones.

The rotting dead body inside that. And he said that’s what the Pharisees were. You look good on the outside, but there’s death and decay on the inside.

And they came with all their standards and their traditions and their customs that they burdened the people down with that really had nothing to do with God or His law. That were just this self-righteous attempt to make themselves look and feel better. They came with all of this as though they were the answer to sin.

And all they could do was cover up the problem. It’s like if somebody comes into the hospital with a gunshot wound to the chest, my answer is going to be put a band-aid on it because I’m not a doctor. I know that’s not the right answer, but that’s about the extent of what I can do.

Because I’m not a doctor. The Pharisees were dealing with sin in that same kind of way. Just cover up the problem because we really can’t do anything to fix it.

When the problem of sin was recognized, these people knew they didn’t have their lives together. Matthew knew that he didn’t have his life together. That’s why he was so excited about Jesus, about finding Jesus or Jesus finding him.

He knew he didn’t have it all together, but he knew he found somebody who could put it together. Jesus, when it came to dealing with the problem of sin, he was the only one who could bring healing. And so for those who are sick from sin, which includes all of us, everybody talks about the transmissibility of these variants of COVID and how easily it’s passed from one person to another and they talk about the rates.

Let me tell you, the infection of sin, the infection rate is 100%. The transmissibility is certain. From generation to generation, it just passed down.

Sweet little Abigail has a sin nature. I remember 10 years ago-ish, I said something about sweet little Benjamin over there being held by one of the church ladies has a sin nature. I thought I was going to have a riot on my hands from those church ladies.

But it was true. Abigail has a sin nature. I wouldn’t have put a pastor to have thrown up on me on purpose this morning where I had to change my suit before I came in.

But the transmissibility of sin from generation to generation is 100%. We’re all infected. We’re all terminal with it, as a matter of fact.

And so as the only one who can bring healing to that disease, that ailment of sin that rots us from the inside and separates us from God, Jesus called us to repentance and to find forgiveness and restoration in him. And the bottom line there is that there was more hope for the sinners who knew they were sinners than there was for the upstanding citizens who didn’t recognize their own sin. They were sort of like those men that we talked about at the beginning who refused to admit there’s something wrong and so they’ll never go see the doctor and then they end up dying of whatever it was.

Now ladies may do that too but it’s usually the men that get blamed for it. Who in this scenario was going to be healed? Was it the Pharisees who thought they were so righteous, but had sin of their own.

And so they’d never admit there was a problem and they’d never come to Jesus for healing. Or was it the sinners that the Pharisees looked down on and said, oh, you’re so sinful, but they knew they were sinful and they knew they needed Jesus and turned to him. And I’m not saying everybody at that party turned to Jesus, but there were people there like Matthew that, well, the Pharisees said, Jesus, why would you spend time with those people?

Those were the people who acknowledged their sin. Those were the people who walked away right with God where the Pharisees never did. As a matter of fact, Jesus told a story about a Pharisee that walked into the temple to pray and prayed, thank you, God, that I’m not like those other people.

And a sinner who walked in and was so ashamed that he could barely look up and just said, God, have mercy. And Jesus asked his followers, which one do you think walked away justified. Which one do you think walked away right with God?

See, the bottom line is that those who recognize their sin, those who are sinners and recognize their sin, have far more hope than those who are sinners and don’t recognize their sin. Because those Pharisees were every bit as sinful as the people that they were looking down on. But in their self-righteousness, they were so much further from God.

People don’t go to the doctor when they’re convinced that they’re well. And so when Jesus said, I’ve not come to, you know, it’s not those who are well that need a doctor, but those who are sick, and I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, he wasn’t saying that the Pharisees were righteous. And he wasn’t saying that the Pharisees didn’t need repentance.

What he was saying is that those people that you’re looking down on, those are exactly the kind of people I came for. Those who are sick with sin and recognize it and know they need help and are willing to come to me for that help. People like the Pharisees were every bit as much sinners, but the Pharisees were blinded by their own religious sense of self-righteousness.

They were blinded. They thought we’re good people. They had this list of outward behaviors that they did and didn’t do.

And as long as they kept that checklist in order, they thought they were they were good to go with God. And if we’re not careful, it’s easy to do the same thing today too. If we’re not careful, it’s easy to go down the list and say, well, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t have affairs, I don’t cuss, I don’t attend the movies, I don’t.

. . I’m not saying that that’s necessarily wrong.

I remember years and years ago, my pastor saying, we’re going to get a group together to go watch The Passion of the Christ, and we’re going to do and one of the older ladies leaning over to me and saying, you know, I remember when I was a little girl, if you’d admitted in church you were going to the movies, you’d be shunned. Okay, well, we’ve come a long way, haven’t we? But we have this list of all these things, all these outward behaviors.

And if I do all these things, and if I attend church, and I give money, and I’ve been baptized, as long as I’m doing those things, I’m okay. Listen, you can attend church, and you can be involved, and you can be baptized, And you can participate in the Lord’s Supper. You can give money to the church.

You can abstain from alcohol. You can abstain from tobacco. You can abstain from drugs.

You can abstain from the movies or TV or whatever it is. You can abstain from all these things and still end up separated from God for eternity in hell because you haven’t dealt with the real problem of sin, which lies in the heart that we all have. They were so blinded by their own religious self-righteousness they allowed that sin to fester and remain unaddressed.

In my years of ministry, in many cases, it’s been harder. It’s been harder to share the gospel with somebody from a religious background who doesn’t know Jesus than somebody from out of the gutter who’s never heard. Oftentimes, it’s harder to share the gospel with an upstanding member of society than it is with somebody who’s coming off drugs or engaged in things that they know they ought not to be engaged in.

Sometimes it’s because we get to feeling really good about ourselves. We forget that we’re sinners. Folks, Jesus came to bring hope to sinners.

Jesus was the answer to the problem that everybody at this party had. And it’s awfully sad that the Pharisees let their pride get in the way of the help that they needed. So I think we can look at Matthew as a positive example here of somebody who did not have his life altogether, who knew he was a sinner, and he was overwhelmed by the joy that he found in finding Jesus Christ. Because he knew Jesus could deal with his sin problem.

He knew he’d found forgiveness, and he’d found life, and he’d found hope. He threw a party, and he wanted everybody to know. The Pharisees, on the other hand, are an example of what to avoid.

Self-righteousness is a deadly plague that we must avoid. Because the more we think we are righteous because of how we live and how we behave, the more we think there’s something special about us that we’ve got it more together than other people. And so we’re in a better place with God.

The more we fall into that view, the more it keeps us from acknowledging our sin and seeking God’s forgiveness. And even as believers, we can fall into that trap. It doesn’t mean that we lose our salvation.

I think it means we for that time forfeit the joy of our salvation because we forget what an incredible gift God has given us. We start treating it like something we’ve earned. Those who recognize their own sin and understand how offensive it is toward God are the most likely to be repentant toward Him and to gratefully receive the forgiveness that He offers.

And my prayer for all of us tonight is that we would be reminded of the fact that we are sinners. Not because I want you to leave here feeling bad about yourself, but because I want you to leave here feeling good about who Jesus is and what he’s done for you. Matthew recognized he was a sinner, but he was overjoyed to have found Jesus.

And tonight, if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, the good news is that your relationship with God is not dependent on the checklist that you’ve got in your mind that’s been put there by tradition, that’s been put there by church. And I’m not telling you go out and live however you want. That’s not the answer.

But your relationship with God is not dependent on your performance. It’s dependent on what Jesus Christ has done. That’s cause to celebrate because if it was dependent on us, we wouldn’t have any hope.

But it’s dependent on Him. That’s why Matthew had hope and that’s why the Pharisees didn’t. And if tonight you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, you need to recognize that you’ve sinned.

We’ve all sinned. You’re not alone in this. We’ve all sinned against God.

It separates all of us from Him. Sin is anything we think, do, say, or don’t do. I got those out of order.

Think, say, do, or don’t do that displeases God. And we’re all guilty. All of us are separated from a holy God because of it.

And no matter how much good we do, it doesn’t erase the wrong that we’ve done. So Jesus Christ came to pay for the wrong that we’ve done. He came to take the penalty, the punishment that we owed.

And He was nailed to the cross where He shed His blood and died to do just that. It’s not about how good we can be. It’s not about what we have to earn or deserve.

It’s about what He did. And so if you’ve never trusted him as your Savior before today, I’d invite you to deal with the Lord tonight. Talk to him.

Acknowledge that you know your sin has separated you from him. Tell him you believe Jesus died to take your punishment and rose again to prove it. And ask for that forgiveness because Jesus has already paid for it.