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"He spoke the parable to some who trusted in themselves…" which means that the Lord spoke this message for every one of you. By not loving God with ALL your heart, soul, mind and strength, you by default, by your old-Adam "hard-wiring" trust in yourselves instead of God. Your sinful nature puts far more confidence in modern medicine, research science, mutual funds, and tax-deferred annuities than in the Holy Trinity. Your fallen nature relies more on family, friends, job and government, for handouts, purpose, home and sense of identity than on the Lord.

Christ told this story to those "who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others." That is you again. You simply don't love your neighbor as yourself. You can be nice to your spouse, children and close friends-sometimes, but you don't sacrificially give to others as God desires you to. Washing away all the dirt from the outside of a person won't reveal a cleaner person deep inside; instead it will only show the source of the foulness-a sinful heart. Scraping away all the tough imperfections, eccentricities, disagreeableness and daily short-comings, won't leave you with a 'heart of gold,' but only dead-men's bones. If you were righteous you wouldn't get sick, tired, old and dead. If you were better than those whom you despise you wouldn't need Christ and you wouldn't need to be here today and every Sunday.

Christ tells you in His Word that you must put Him and His Kingdom before spouse, parents and children. He instructs you to pick up your cross and follow Him; follow the way of suffering and martyrdom. Jesus commands you to love those who do you evil and to give also your inner shirt to the man who requests your outer cloak. You are told by the infallible Word to forgive others-all others-all the time. What are you going to do? Nothing. The Lord does.

The Lord loves you so much that even though you don't do what He demands you do, He makes you part of His Royal Family nonetheless. He places His heart in your cadaverous chest cavity and His spotless blood in your corroded veins and arteries. He satisfies your eternal thirst with the Waters of + Life and nourishes your growth to the final trump by the Bread of Heaven and the Cup of Immortality. Reborn in Him, by Him, your new creature sees the Commandments with spiritual eyes and knows your failure, and also knows your Savior. You can with the help of the Holy Ghost confess before man and God that you are poor miserable sinners in thought, word and deed. Your new Man and new Woman know that because you are Pharisee by nature, but a Saint by Grace, Love and Adoption in Christ, you are also like the publican. Tax Collectors were the lowest of the low. Tax Collectors were scum, outside the Jewish family of faith. Sinners are the lowest of the low. Unrepented sin and unconverted sin will bring one to the lowest parts of hell. Unrepented sinners are ex-communicated and outside the banquet hall where the Feast of Forgiveness is celebrated. But in reality, Jesus crushed the publican with His uncompromising demands and that hitherto lonely and solitary Tax Collector was delivered unto Him by His favor and absolution. The publican went to his house justified; right with God. That Holy Temple in Jerusalem was now the publican's rightful home away from homes. The publican in our parable is a sinner who knows he's a trespasser by God's Word, and who knows He's a pardoned and free son of God by God's Word. The gestures, words, and thoughts of this humble (yet grateful) Tax Collector are a pattern for all regenerated Christian-for all of you. That is the "what."

The "what" is easier to grasp than the "how," and then the "now what."

Since Christ brings liberation and not burdens, this parable is not a list or must-do- manual for your daily activities. Since Jesus pardons but doesn't demand you then satisfy something He didn't quite get to, or take care of, this parable is not Law, prescription or morality play. See yourself as the Pharisee, the one who does not love your neighbors as you ought to, but see Jesus Himself as the publican. Recognize yourself in the hollow and empty boasts of the pompous gas-bag Pharisee, but then see Jesus as the kneeling, groveling Tax Collector.

Your sinful self only indicts yourself more and more when you look to yourself and your deeds and works. Do you want to brag on your fasting twice a week and giving tithes of all that you possess? Do you honestly want to say you're not like other men in your actions of disobedience?

Christ Jesus the un-created Second Person of the Infinite and Ultimate God-Head left His place of heavenly community, where He was worshipped by a host of six-winged Seraphs, to become the despised tax-collector, the tax-collector of sin, death, hell, and decay. The true Son of Man and legitimate heir of Abraham became an outcast amongst His own people of Nazareth and One treated like an illegitimate bastard and common criminal by the very Priests and Bible Scholars who were supposed to have been preparing people to receive their Messiah. Jesus went about His business, His Father's business, for 33 years, gathering in all the sins of the world, collecting all the debts which were owed His Father by sinners, by you. Jesus pure, sinless, immaculate and Holy became a despised and ridiculed outcast for you. Jesus fasted not twice a week but fasted unto death on the Cross. Jesus fasted from Holy Communion with His Father as He bore the gluttony and drunkenness of your misdeeds and selfishness. Jesus didn't tithe anything-He gave His entire Work and Life; He gave torrents of His Blood and the very Flesh of the spotless Lamb of God. Jesus on the tree was kneeling before the very Throne of Judgment saying "I am a Sinner on behalf of my flock; though I am sinless, yet I take all their baggage of bad upon Me, hold me guilty, punish Me but let them go free" Jesus kneeling like the publican He was willing to become for your sake, didn't have to smite His breast because the Jews and Romans took care of all the smiting, hitting, spitting, spiking, and crowning. Because Jesus was so merciful to you that He willingly took your place on the Blood Altar of Justice, because He willingly refused ANY mercy from the Righteous Judge, you are now given ALL MERCY-ALL JESUS, you are placed into His RISEN and TRIUMPHANT Company-you are veritably placed into His bosom so that His Works are Yours, His cleanness is Yours, His Life and Eternity is Yours. You can now with full confidence say "God, be merciful to me a sinner." You can say it and know that He is, and always will be, your Mercy, your Righteousness, and your everything. Be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven.

In the Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost