In the comparison series, we’re talking about the stories Jesus shared and the conversations he had with people who were comparing just like we do. And if you find these conversations helpful, and I have no doubt that you will, I hope you’ll check out the original Comparison Girl study along with my brand new teen version of this book, co-authored with Lee Mienhuis, titled Comparison Girl for Teens, Thriving Beyond Measure in a world that compares. Is there a teen girl in your life that you love? Come check out the fun quizzes and information that we have for her and for you at comparison

girl dot com. Now let’s jump into our conversation about comparison here in season seven on the live like it’s true podcast. Lindsay Schott, welcome back to live like it’s true.

Thank you so much for having me back again, Shannon.

You are just one of my favorite guests. You’ve been here two other times, and we had to have you back for a third because I just love talking about the Bible with you.

I do too.

That’s right.

That’s right. Mama Four, you are an artist. I have one of your paintings hanging in my kitchen. I love your work. You can find Lindsey’s artwork at an Instagram. We’ll link to her profile there. But you’re also the founder of something else that I’m part of, which is Teach Equip.

Tell us, just give us a quick snapshot of what that is. Yeah, Teach Equip. I started with my good friend, Kelly Needham, our mutual friend, and we started because we wanted to equip women in their local church and in our local church to handle God’s Word rightly and to have practice to do that, you know. So we exist to do that both in our local church and to equip other local churches to do that with their women, too.

That’s so great.

So I’m in Michigan, and I am leading a Teachy Cook group this year.

Yes, you are.

I’m so excited. We have like 12 women from four different churches. Ours is probably a little unique. Most groups, I think, will just have women from their own church. But because I do what I do, I’ve got like friends in lots of different churches in our area. So yeah, we’re starting a TTCWP group. So we’ll link to that if you’re interested, you know, in starting one of those at your

church. But we’re going to be talking today about this comparison story that Jesus told. Everybody says, don’t compare yourself, don’t compare yourself. Jesus wouldn’t want you to compare yourself. But what’s so interesting, Lindsay, is Jesus tells all of these comparison stories where he’s like actually comparing people.

Do you think that’s interesting?

I do think that’s interesting because it seems like at first, don’t compare, but maybe no one gives a reason why. Just don’t compare because it’s not good for you, right? Yeah. But in Jesus’ comparison, what he’s actually trying to highlight is, let me show you a better way. Because as human beings, we just naturally compare things to try and figure them out. And Jesus is always exalting, like, let me show you my way or how I see things, which

is great.

Yes, it is. Yeah, I think the reason we naturally say don’t compare is because it’s so painful sometimes, you know, when we’re when we’re comparing and feeling inadequate or we feel less than or just all these different icky feelings that comparison brings in our hearts and our gut. And so we just say, oh, don’t do that. Don’t compare. But Jesus has a completely other way of comparing, a comparing that gets rid of all of the value statements attached with comparing. So he’s just from a different kingdom, a different mindset. And so he is inviting us to compare the way that he compares. And so today we’re talking about comparing sin.

That’s what our story is focused on is comparing sin. So in my book, Comparison Girl, Lindsay, how I arranged the book is different ways that we compare, like comparing our wealth, comparing status, like comparing sin as the first chapter. I just I didn’t think it was the most interesting thing. I thought probably they would want to look at the chapter on comparing appearances or whatever. And so just because of the way that we were putting the book together, it fit to put it there.

But I started pulling people. I started asking them like, okay, of these chapters, which one do you think you would flip to first? Over half the people that I polled said comparing sin. That was the thing that they found most interesting or something about that topic they were drawn to.

Isn’t that kind of…

I’m surprised.

Are you surprised by that?

That’s pretty interesting though. I am surprised by that. I would not think that people would respond that much to like, yeah, let’s lean in there. I know. I wonder, you know, these are Christian audiences. I think comparing sin is a way that Christians compare in a way that the rest of the world doesn’t, really, right? So because we know what sin is, you know, we’re schooled in what God says is sin in

our Bibles, talks about sin. So it is something that’s unique about us. But yeah, there’s something to this topic. But I want to just start by telling a little story about my son. I told this story in Comparison Girl. So I’m sitting at the table one day and my, I think he’s about five years old. My son Cole comes over and his brother is in the corner. Do you have like a little chair that faces the corner in your house, Lindsey?

Lindsey Meyers We have a timeout corner. So yes, yes, we do. Katie Grant Yeah, that chair just kind of stayed there in that corner because it was used quite a bit. And so Cade was in the corner facing the corner and Cole comes over. Cade was probably about two years old. Cole comes over and said, Mom, you know, I’ve really just been thinking a lot about Cade and his sin, his sin problem. And so I was thinking that maybe we could have a little meeting. You know, you and dad and Lindsay and me, we could just maybe get together and have

some snacks and talk about, you know, thoughts on how we can help Cade with the sin. Oh yeah, we’re just going to sit here at the table, eat snacks, is he going to be over there, you know, in the corner, you know, as we’re talking about him and his sin, it just brought out like, this is what we do, right? We kind of enjoy looking, oh, look at that person over there, the obvious sinner over there in the corner. Let’s, you know, share some thoughts about that. Let’s, we enjoy being the one who’s not the sinner, right? We enjoy noticing someone else’s sin. And oh man, you know, not all of us are as overt as a five-year-old.

How do we act like that five-year-old does sometimes,

Lindsey?

Well, I am in the South, in Texas. And so one way that we’re dealing with sin is, let me tell you who we need to pray for. Okay. Let me tell you who we need to pray for so-and-so. Because they are stuck in this situation, right? And so it gets shared as we’re going to pray for them, but really it’s the meeting with the snacks around the table

talking to other people about what someone’s feeling. And the burden isn’t genuinely prayer, it’s let’s just share what’s going on. I think another thing is there’s still situations where when certain people who look a certain way come into church, people get stiff, right? Someone with full sleeves of tattoos and like a hat on where I’m from that it’s you can still see some people get like who’s that person what are they doing here?

They don’t look like our normal person so those are some of the more overt ways that I see it and some of the more subtle ways are see this happen in like small groups or home groups at our church one person has been bold enough to share something they’re really struggling in and they finally open up to community where it’s safe. And what happens is like, oh, thanks for sharing that. And then they are the only person who shares honestly. And everyone is happy to say, wow, that’s really hard for you. And they will not venture into what they are actively dealing with honestly right now.

Yeah. Yeah. I could imagine, you know, pornography being one of those things or, you know, maybe pride or marital struggle or something. And can you imagine the rest of the group kind of recoils like, oh, that’s, you know, too bad for you versus how are we supposed to respond? Yeah. You know, I hope that we will say, yeah, me too. Right.

Maybe not that particular sin, but yeah, me too. Like that’s the way, like leaning in. And Jesus is going to, in the story that he’s telling, he’s going to tease out those differences between being a yeah, me too kind of person or a, oh, recoiling, you sinner over there. And so this is such an interesting story. It’s very concise. It’s a short, concise story that packs a lot. And that’s what I love about stories, Lindsay.

This is not just a lesson on morality. No, this packs a lot of theology, some really good, rich theology in a story.

So would you mind reading it for us?

I would love to read it for us.

All right.

It is Luke 18, verses 9 through 14, and I am in the NASB, the 1995 NASB.

Thank you.

I love it.

I love it.

Okay, I’ll read it for us.

And he also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves they were righteous and viewed others with content. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself. God I thank you that I am not like other people, swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and I pay tithes of all that I get. But the tax collector standing some distance away

was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast saying, God be merciful to me, the sinner. I tell you this man went to his house justified rather than the other for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.” So this is our storyteller is Jesus, and he has set up the story telling us why he’s telling this story. There’s a problem that he sees. I think that’s interesting. He doesn’t often do

that, you know, but he’s pretty overt here. He notices a problem, and what’s the problem? The problem is that there are some who trusted themselves that they were righteous and so therefore they viewed others with contempt. Yes. You know, there’s this thing about self-righteousness. It’s based on self. There’s a problem there. There is a problem.

You know, like thinking of yourself as righteous, that’s the first problem. But there is like this connection between thinking of yourself as righteous and looking

at others with contempt, right?

Right, right. In one sentence, it connects a view of self with how you’re now going to treat others. And so while it might at first be like, I don’t know if thinking myself in terms of self-righteousness is that bad, this sort of instantaneously is like, whatever attitude you have in here is going to come out there. Yes. In this one, like we get the punchline at the start, like Luke, the author, is telling us what Jesus already knew, and that Jesus is going to deal with both the outer symptom of how you treat people is really an inner issue, a heart issue

about yourself.

Yes, and that word contempt, what does that mean? What is contempt?

I should have looked it up before today, but I think of contempt as sort of an inner ridicule, like a ridicule or almost a shame put on something else. All right, I’ve got the dictionary open here. It says, the feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration, worthless or deserving scorn. So it’s like this person, we’re talking about people here, contempt towards people.

Like this is someone beneath.

Right. I think currently within our Christian climate, there is a lot of, there’s a lot of contempt and there’s a lot of really violent disgust for people in the LGBTQ plus community and a lot of prejudice that this is the group of people beyond God and the worst kind of sinning that there is. And I’m not saying it’s not sin and I’m not saying that it’s okay with God, but that the disgust and the contempt can be taken away because these people are not beyond the pale of God’s grace. God is saving people in the LGBTQ community and they are willing to leave this life and he’s doing amazing things. I just stumbled on the story of

Beckett Cook, who I am loving. I love, I’m listening to this book, I’m so enjoying just hearing his story. And he was saved very suddenly, very quickly, I think in the 2008, 9, 10 region. And he was living a fabulous life in L.A. He’s a production designer, had a great career, great resume, hung out with a lot of famous people at all the cool after parties, like going to the Oscars. And at some point he finds it empty. I guess. Right.

He said, I remember hearing him talk just about that emptiness. Right. The total emptiness. And isn’t that just right that that’s what’s gonna happen Yeah, he was just empty enough that when he went to a coffee shop with a friend There were people studying their Bibles at a coffee shop, and he was like what do you ask them to me? Yeah, what are you doing? What is that? Yeah, so they tell him about the Bible We believe in Jesus who believe the gospel and then he goes What’s the gospel and they tell him and then he asked the question well, what do you believe that homosexuality and they go?

Well, we believe it’s a sin, but you could come to church with us. Invite him in. And he goes to church the next Sunday and he gets saved. He becomes born again there at that church. Doesn’t he start like weeping in the service? I think, yeah, the guy is the pastor’s preaching Roman seven. He’s just preaching through the Bible. Roman seven.

He says he’s resonating with everywhere. He’s like, I cannot explain it. I’ve been everywhere. He’s preaching. I resonated with it all. I come for ministry and prayer time afterwards, but I’m crying. I don’t know what to tell. The person who’s praying, I don’t know what to tell them to pray.

I’m just saying, pray for me. And he goes back to his seat and he says, Holy Spirit came into my life, into me. And he said this, this is what he hears. He hears God is real, Jesus is real, heaven is real, hell is real, the Bible is real, and welcome to the kingdom. And he was completely different after that, right? Radical change. And now he’s like, he walks with so much joy and like so much lightness and so much kindness and so much excitement that even when people are like, all right, you know, weren’t you

sad to leave all that behind you? And he was like, what? No, one, it was already empty. And two, like No. And so that is potentially what is on the other side of our disgust and contempt for a group of people that we think are beyond the pale of God. Salvation can happen and it is happening and they are not beyond God. And I’m so excited for stories like Beckett Cook and I want more people to hear more stories like that because it is happening. People are being saved by God.

I love that he saw something in them that he was willing to ask about, and I’m talking about in the coffee shop. And I love the way they responded, you know, they did not shy away from talking about sin is sin, right? But they welcomed him in, like, come on in. Come on in. That’s the right response. Let’s get rid of the spiritual resumes, right?

And let’s welcome anybody who wants to be part of this story, but it starts like the tax collector in Jesus’s parable saying, Lord, be merciful to me, the sinner. That’s right. Available to anybody. I love this quote in his book, Christians in an Age of Outrage. Ed Stetzer says, we can’t communicate disgust toward another person without saying something about ourselves in the process. Like we’re lifting ourselves up like we are the good, righteous, worthy person, and they are the one beneath us.

So we say both of these things in the same sentence, right, when we communicate, discuss, and that’s what Jesus is saying. Like he’s putting them together, you know, he’s saying that there are a type of person who they trust in themselves as righteous, and they view others with contempt. Others are beneath them.

And Jesus apparently has a problem with that.

Yes, I love that. He does.

I know.

And so like, this is one of those areas of sin that I think is sort of like the acceptable sins in the church. Absolutely. Right. You know, you just described it. Somebody walks in and they look a little different than you and you kind of, yeah, I get that stiffen up your spine, like, you know, or the side eye or people call it clutching your

pearls, right?

Clutching your pearls, that’s right.

The way I’ve noticed it is you’re in a small group. And like you mentioned, it’s the prayer, like, let’s pray for this person. But it’s like, you know, young people these days, can you even like those people over there are those sinful people, like those people who vote differently than me, it’s basically they sin differently than me, right? That’s basically what we’re getting at, is they just sin differently than we do. Like we are all sinners. But yeah, I’m sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself here.

So the story though, that Jesus tells is about two men who go into the temple. It starts off like a joke. Yeah, two guys walk into a temple. A Pharisee and a tax collector walk into the temple. Jesus, he’s so funny. That’s right, yes, two guys. And he’s going to tell a comparison story about these two guys. So the original audience, we have to first think like they did. What do they hear when they hear about a Pharisee and a tax collector walking into a temple? Well, in the story, Jesus uses two very different people, and one is very clearly set up to be the

good guy, and one is very clearly set up to be the bad guy. The Pharisees here, they’re the good guys. They’re the morally upright, the experts of God’s Word, the people who uphold society and their traditions of the people. They’re the people who tell other people, this is how you should be living. They’re people who hear the causes of others and adjudicate legally from the law. The Pharisee is technically the good guy in this story. So you walk in thinking he’s the pastor, he’s the, you know, Captain America, he’s the good guy, right?

So good guy, Pharisee. We don’t think of the Pharisees as the good guys because we know the whole story. They’re the ones who killed Jesus eventually. So we think bad guy, but we have to just erase that, you know, as we enter the story, we have to think like the original audience and think good guy. Okay. And then who’s the tax collector? And the tax collector is the bad guy. The tax collector is a guy who collects taxes on behalf of Rome, but he’s a Jew. And he’s a Jew who’s taking taxes from his own people.

And usually, either by threat of force or by force, taking a little bit more than what’s being asked of the Roman Empire, he’s taking from his people. And so, tax collectors are particularly traitorous. Yeah, yeah. They’re just traitors. And usually living, you know, maybe a more sinful life or less than religiously loyal life. And so they’re highly compromised and

they’re traitors.

Yeah. So and a little bit ostracized, I think, from the Jewish community. They were not welcome. Not at all. And so when we see these guys walking into the temple, it’s good guy, bad guy, tax collector. And one thing that I think is interesting, I wouldn’t have known this, but somewhere when I was researching this long ago, I read that what they would have pictured would be a corporate prayer text. So there were, you know, I think usually when you think of someone entering a temple or a church, it’s like you have these scenes in movies where somebody like goes into an

empty church and sits there to pray.

You know what I mean?

That’s kind of what I always have in my head when I picture someone going into a church to pray. Like some old downtown beautiful church with stainless windows. But no, this is like, there were corporate times where daily there would be times that you would enter to pray. So don’t just picture only two guys going into the temple. Picture a whole crowd of people that are entering the temple. But Jesus is singling out these two.

He’s going to notice the way that they pray.

It’s prayer time, but they’re going to, their prayers are going to not be very similar, right?

Yeah. They both did walk into the temple, but that’s about all they have in common. Everything else gets different, both from how they are, who they are, what they pray, how they pray, all of that’s about to get different. Let’s first talk about where they are in the temple, because I think that’s kind of interesting.

Yes.

We’re not really told where the Pharisee is. It just says that he stood praying to himself. But then we’re told that the tax collector stands far off, right?

Yes.

Yeah. Standing some distance away.

I love that. Yeah.

Yeah.

So there’s an altar in the temple, right?

And so we’re picturing maybe the Pharisee is close to the altar or where the others would be, but the tax collector, he’s far away. You know, he’s kind of, maybe he feels that distance. And of course, this, we got to keep remembering, this is a fictional story, you know, we’re gonna, we’re gonna like, suppose, but Jesus is painting a picture here of two types of people. And so then, so we’ve got the Pharisee and he’s in a public place and he’s praying out loud.

Well, it says praying this to himself, but it’s out loud, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

at least we hear his prayers like it. Yeah. Jesus is telling us his prayer. So tell us about his

prayer, Lindsay. What’s interesting? It is interesting that he comes into the temple. And by contrast to the text, there seems maybe the Pharisee is standing somewhat closer, you know, so as we’re trying to understand the story, so he feels good enough about himself that he feels like he can enter in, right? He’s like, this is my world. I’m comfortable here. I got this. I’ve got it. This is my place. This is my spot. Yeah, I’m totally comfortable coming in here. Right? Yeah. Doing that with God and standing before God. It’s interesting that the language that Jesus decided to use is saying praying to himself. I don’t know if the Pharisee in the story would have thought that, but obviously the observation of Jesus is, well, he’s not talking to God.

Right.

And now what he brings to God in his prayer is a thanks to God for how great he’s doing and how great he is. It doesn’t feel like this backhanded like, are you really telling God or are you handing God a spiritual resume?

Because that’s what this is.

Yes.

As you read it, it is a list of what he’s not, these bad things, other people, swindlers, unjust adulterers, or even this tax collector, which are legitimately not good things, right? Yeah, right. It’s not good to be unjust. It’s not good to be a swindler.

Yeah.

And he’s thanking God that he’s not that. And then he does say what he is. I fast twice a week, which is more than I fast if I don’t do that. Yeah, I don’t either. So he’s already more righteous than me for sure. And he tithes of all he gets. So his prayer is actually a spiritual resume. And so he’s coming to God saying, look at what I’ve got.

Isn’t that great? Thank you, God. I’m glad I have all this.

Yeah.

Have you ever heard of evangelism explosion?

I don’t think so. It was back in the 80s, 90s. I don’t remember exactly when it started or how it started, but it was like a way to train your people to evangelize. And so I was trained in my church and we would go out in groups. I think it was Tuesday night. I was like a teenage group. I was the leader and I must have been like a senior in high school or something. And then there were like

two younger teens that went with me and we would drive and visit these houses of teens who visited our church. And so we were trained to have a conversation about spiritual matters. And so the first it was called the diagnostic questions like if you died, would you go to heaven? But the second one is if you died and you stood before God and he said to you, why should I let you into my heaven? What would you say? And so it’s sort of diagnosing why would you feel comfortable in the front row, like entering that temple, marching right up to the front? Why?

And I listened to a sermon by R.C. Sproul and he was saying that they used the same discipleship training in a church that he was a pastor at. And they kind of tallied the responses that they would get from those questions. And he said something like 95% of the people who responded, why should God let you into heaven? They would list out, well, here’s the good things that I do. I go to church, I pray, I read my Bible, right? I mean, this is a pretty serious mistake that this Pharisee is making as he prays and doesn’t

realize it. And I just want to call attention, like we make the same mistake of our listeners. Like if you were asked that question, how would you respond? If God said to you, why should I let you into heaven? What’s your first thought? Is it something you do? Is it something that’s good about you? Jesus was calling attention like this is not the right way to pray.

Right.

I find that interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Or even one, ask yourself that question. If I didn’t go to heaven, what would my answer be? And then on a really basic level, when you sit down or when you lay your head on your pillow at night or when you finally get time to sit with God and you sit with Him, what is your first immediate feeling? Sometimes it’s joy, like I just love to hang out with Him. Do you have a first prick of

I don’t deserve to be with Him? I don’t know what He’s going to say if I come into His presence because when I look at my last three or four days, I haven’t spent time with him. And so when you feel this moment of maybe what if he doesn’t want to meet with me, or maybe I don’t deserve to meet with him, what matters next is your very next reaction, because that’s the key. It’s true that we give God great reason to not be in our presence, right? Of course. But the next moment, our reaction to that says a lot. And if we can say, it’s true.

He shouldn’t want to meet with me. I haven’t given him great reason. I haven’t given him a lot of evidences of my faithfulness or my goodness, but I do know this, someone else won that for me. Someone else won my ability to be with God today. And so I’ll enter in, right? I mean, we deal sort of in a tiny way with this interaction with God on a daily basis. Like the moment you just yelled at your kids and you know you blew it and you’re saying

to yourself, man, wish I hadn’t done that. And you go to God, are you going to God with a, I don’t know if I can tell my dad because I’m terrified of what he’s going to say, or are you saying, I got to go to my dad and tell him about this. I got to talk to him about this, right? Are we going to God with this first foot of like, well, I did it right. And so don’t be too critical of me. Are we going to him like hands up?

Like, I didn’t have it together. I don’t have it together. I believe you’re gonna love me because of Jesus. I mean, we deal sort of with this kind of interaction with God on a very everyday,

it’s so true,

almost as quickly as we breathe sort of moment.

You know?

Well, I wanna back it up though, to what you said that that feeling, like paying attention to that feeling that we have when we enter God’s presence. I think it’s good for us to notice that and to identify, how is my heart responding to God in this moment? And when I read a text of scripture, like when I read this story, how is my heart? What’s in me? What is my visceral response to this story, this information. What you said, too, reminded me of actually the night that our son Cade received Jesus

as a Savior. It was a really, really bad day. Like, I mean, I was working on a project, you know, you’re an artist, Lindsay, so I was caught up in some project. And so dinner was late and the kids were all grumpy and everyone had been, you know, I had blown up. My husband had said things that it was all of us. We just said all it was a very bad day. So after dinner, I said to my husband, are we going to do Bible time?

And he’s like, after all this? No, we are not doing Bible time. And I said, but we’ve just so demonstrated how we need the Lord, like, His word. And so he’s like, Okay, you’re right. So he pulled it out. And that was, I think, because it was such a bad day. And we were actually going through a booklet with the kids on the gospel. It just so highlighted how unfit we were for God’s presence.

And you know, it opened the door. And so that was the night actually that Cade responded to the gospel. It’s a beautiful story. I think if we are inoculated with how great I am, like praying like the Pharisee, we don’t have that correct sense of we enter saying, I am not fit to be here. I don’t feel comfortable here. I feel like I’m not wearing the right clothes. It’s not appropriate.

I remember I heard you speak at a Christmas event. What was the analogy you used for being in God’s hands? Yes. So a few years ago, I’m camping with my family and my sweet daughter, who’s about four at the time, and had a lovely day of eating whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. And that resulted in about a 9.30 PM puke fest in which she covered herself in vomit. And I had to take her home and clean her up. And in that moment, did I have any expectation that my daughter was capable of cleaning herself up?

No.

She had no ability to clean up what had just happened. I did it for her, and I loved doing it for her, and I cleaned her up, and I sent her to bed where she recovered. And so similarly with us, you and I, everyone under the condemnation of any sin, which is all of us, are covered head to toe in our guiltiness, in our unfitness, in the shame that we feel for who we are and the things that we’ve done. And the crazy thing is in some ways we rightly feel it, but then what happens next is what do you do with that feeling?

And there’s a lot of answers to what you do with that feeling. Many many religious thoughts that are not Christian and philosophical thoughts are trying to deal with that exact same feeling. And what’s compelling about Christianity is one, it affirms that yes, there’s something wrong with you. But number two, it says the solution is not you and the solution is not you making yourself better. Jesus does the cleansing for you. He takes on the punishment for you and he also has the power to resurrect you differently.

Within Christianity, the answer is unique. The problem of your shame and your unfitness is true and there is a solution and the solution isn’t you.

It’s someone else.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that’s so good. So the Pharisee in this story, he does not get that, you know, because the reason we know he doesn’t get that is because he comes in with his spiritual resume, like you said. That’s right. Right. Listing all the things he’s done right, all the things he has not done wrong.

And so here’s why I deserve to be here. I belong. And now the tax collector prays differently. So let’s contrast.

What does Jesus say about him?

Okay, so the tax collector comes in. His physical distance is different. He’s standing different. He doesn’t even look up, so he’s looking down. He’s not even willing to look up to where he believes God is. So he’s in this kind of stance of shame. And he’s beating his chest.

It’s not just a sadness that might make him bent over. It is an anguish and a sadness that makes him beat himself and say, have mercy on me. Be merciful to me, a sinner or the sinner. And that’s he just this blanket statement, not even a specific list of all his badnesses, just a blanket. This is who I am. This is what I do.

And the only plea, it’s only a plea. It’s just a plea for God to have mercy.

Yeah.

This whole prayer.

What do you find surprising about that?

I find a lot of things surprising. One in watching it, I’m surprised at how distant he makes himself. Physically distant, completely bent over, not looking at God and even beating himself. And then the way that he speaks of himself is the sinner and that he needs God’s mercy. So all of his self-concept is not, I mean, I think a lot of people are like, oh, he’s not in a good place. He’s not in a good place. He’s not in good thoughts about himself. And yet the perspective that Jesus is about to give us about this man is God saying, he’s in a great place. So my positive self-concept is not necessary for God to move powerfully in my life.

Ah, that’s so good, Lindsay, because like the Pharisee, he’s in a really good place. You know, he’s feeling good about himself. And that’s really our culture really is drawn to like, you’re in a good place. And this guy, not in a good place, but in the right place. We just were mentioning these words of spiritual resume. So I think to the Pharisee, if he was telling this story, he’d be like, this is a story about us comparing spiritual resumes and mine’s good. But what we know about the story is sorry, bud, you’re comparing sins.

Yeah, he’s in a place where what seems like a righteous resume is coming out is condemnation for him. It’s obvious you don’t know you need God. And for the guy coming with his list, internal list of what he’s done wrong, God is like, that’s right. I do like that. Well, and Ersi, in listing out all of his non-sins, he commits the sin of self-righteousness, right? Right. Which is what Jesus, he set up the story saying he’s talking to some people who trusted that they were righteous.

So it’s self-righteousness is the problem. Self-righteousness is, like that is a sin. That is what is missing in the tax collector. Yes, he has sinned in many ways, but not self-righteousness. That’s what’s missing on his spiritual resume. Actually, I think if he had a resume, it’d just be blank. He’s like, I got nothing. I’m not going to turn this in. I can’t even have this conversation.

I got nothing. I got nothing. It’s so compelling to know, like, in this story and in other stories, this one Jesus is telling, but to the people who come to Jesus really needy, he responds so graciously. He responds so graciously to need. And to the people who react and treat Jesus like they have no need of him, he has sharper reactions that are a little bit more negative to that. But to the needy, he is compassionate. And to the needy, he is so kind.

And to the needy, he is so generous. Yeah. And it’s another one of those stories. Oh, that’s so true. It is compelling. It is compelling unless you do feel good about yourself.

Then it’s less compelling.

Then it’s just real convicting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Exactly. And I love, too, that you pointed out the sinner. The NASB 1985 or whatever, 95. Because he says, God be merciful to me, the sinner. I think other translations say a sinner. And in my book, Comparison Girl, we actually use this story in the teen book that’s coming out and have them notice the sinner. And so my editor, as we’re talking back and forth, she’s like, I need a source for that.

And I could not find the source. And I’m like, I think it’s just the Bible. In fact, I did. I found it. It was this translation. God be merciful to me, the sinner. Like the sinner. It just is something different.

The sinner. Like this is not a story about comparison, right? This is a story about I am a sinner and I am not right before God. That’s how the Pharisee, he’s not comparing himself to anybody.

Anybody can find someone to compare themselves with.

Absolutely. Whatever bad sins you can think of, you can find a worse sinner than you. It’s not a sliding scale. It’s not, it doesn’t really matter what you have or haven’t done. The resume is irrelevant. All of us sin before God condemned. We should all be like this tax collector. Is that true?

Should we all respond to God in this way? Am I right in saying that?

Yeah, I mean, sure, biblically you have the precedence, right, that the Bible will later say that everyone is shut up under sin. Since everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, therefore everyone is guilty. I think that sometimes I can rub people the wrong way. I’m like, hey, I’m not that bad of a person. And we can go through the resume, I’m sure you’re a little bit less bad than everyone else. What I think everyone can resonate with, though, is do you have a sense of not being enough and coming to God thinking, I don’t know if I deserve to be here. And most everyone has some sense of that, right? And that’s almost a universal human wherever you are in the globe experience that I am distant from the being I need to be close to, and something is fundamentally wrong.

And I don’t think I have what it takes to fix it. That’s completely true. And more people, I think, feel that and sense that about themselves. I think to some degree we all feel that. Even those who are trying so hard to prove that they are righteous, they’re responding to something. They’re usually running from that sense of unacceptability.

Yeah.

And that’s what’s driving them.

Yeah, well, that’s what’s driving them.

They’re trying to… They’re trying to resume in perfection. Yes, I’m trying to do all the right things. So there is no shadow of a doubt. We are clear, right? I’m not a sinner because look at all these good things I’m doing. And yet, here’s the surprise in the story. The surprise is Jesus says, I tell you, that’s our key. I tell you this man, he’s talking about the tax collector,

the one who said, be merciful to me, the sinner. He went home justified. And the other guy didn’t. This is where Jesus is comparing. He’s saying, and this would have been surprised to the audience because they’ve been thinking, good guy, bad guy, good guy, bad guy. In reality, it’s two bad guys. Only one knew it. And the one who knew that he was a bad guy, who comes and asks for forgiveness,

asks for the mercy, he’s the one who goes home justified. That’s astonishing, right?

Yeah. These two polar characters, these two kind of clear characters for the readers, the Pharisee and the tax collector, occupy really certain spaces of good guy and bad guy. And then Jesus uses this phrase, but I tell you, he’s like, I tell you, because he’s inaugurating something very different, and he’s about to give this punchline like, but now I tell you, it was the tax collector who went home justified and not the other guy that you thought it was going to be. And Jesus uses that phrase multiple times through the gospel to give this new punchline to be like, I’m telling you something you didn’t know before.

I’m going to show you this. And it can be helpful to get characters that maybe more give us the visceral reaction of what these guys were. So it’s more akin to like a pastor and a drag queen going to church to pray. And then by the end of the story, it’s the drag queen beating his chest saying, have mercy on me, who went home justified, not the pastor who gave God his resume. It’s shocking. Yes, it’s shocking. It should mess with us, right? It should mess with us. We should feel like, oh, I don’t know if that’s quite right. That’s how the original audience would have heard this. And yet, like you’ve said multiple times, this is a compelling story, right?

Any of us can receive the mercy that we so desperately need. Any of us, any of us can say, God be merciful to me, the sinner, and we can be the one who goes home justified. That can be us, right? It’s the greatest news when you know you need mercy. And it’s not such great news when you don’t know you need mercy. Right. When you’re leaning on the resume.

This is pretty shattering. Yeah, it is. So I think the first part is to determine which one you see yourself as. Right. Do you see yourself as the one who doesn’t really need a lot of mercy? Well, this story should mess with you a little bit, right? Right. But in that moment, you can become the other one.

You know, this is not a story of exclusivity.

Right. It’s anything but. It’s a story that any of us can enter. It’s just crying out, be merciful to me, the sinner. Tell us about your story, Lindsay. Yeah, I love this because I feel like my story is similar in this. So I came to know Jesus when I was in high school, and I’m so grateful. My youth pastor at the time was really faithful to teach us the Bible and to teach us the

gospel. And he didn’t fill us with a lot of flattery, and he didn’t give us a lot of surfacy answers like you should just be good kids. He was telling a lot of good, privileged kids, hey, unless you come to Jesus and offer his gracious terms, your good grades, you being a nice kid, or will not be enough, will not be enough. And he really did tell us the truth that we were under the wrath of God for our own sin nature,

for who we are and the things that we did. So I was a good kid in high school, I was a really good kid, good grades, someone nice to my parents, doing the right things, making good decisions. And the miracle I think of me being born again is that even outwardly, having the right resume, I became convinced over time that if God asked me that question, why should I let you in?

I knew deep in my insides my resume would not be enough. I knew it. I knew that he was too holy, too good, too glorious. And I knew that even though I had the sense that all the right things were right on the outside, I knew that on the inside I did not have what He required. I knew that I wasn’t right and holy. And that is a miracle. That’s a miracle. Sometimes we talk about our testimonies like good kid testimonies that aren’t as strong as like dramatic ones. Not true. All salvation is a total miracle. And so I feel like my miracle is that I was good on the outside, but convinced I was not good on the inside.

And I was able to come to God totally needy, totally needy, and say, I do not have the holiness and the goodness inherently that would, you know, make me a good person to come to you. I need you to have mercy on me in Jesus, right? I struggled a lot too with faith, like with doubts. So I would try really hard to like believe, you know, and at 15 and 16, I’m trying to deal with questions like evolution.

And I don’t know if anyone else knows this, but I can’t see God.

How do you see that?

How do you see that?

I was really struggling with my faith. I was trying really hard to believe. And then it would just crumble over time into tons of doubts and tons of questions and I haven’t answers to those questions. And so I thought, well, now I’m really sunk because if I need to have faith to be saved, I don’t even have faith. So I can’t even do that right, right? So I felt a total despair.

But it was actually that despair that allowed me to come to God with total empty hands, total empty hands, and say, I am not good, I’m not faithful, but I think you’re a God who shows mercy because, Jesus, you’re willing to die. So I’m hedging my bets on you. Will you have mercy on me? And I was 15, and that’s when I became born again. And I really believe the spirit gave me faith. I mean, he came alive in me and I believed in him.

But it allowed me to come to him with totally empty hands. I had nothing, even though my resume looked right. The miracles I was convinced I was not right. And that’s when he moved in my life was when I was desperate, I had nothing.

It’s so good.

And I think a lot of people looking at you and me, Lindsay, would say today that we are good, whatever. We do have some spiritual resumes, like you and I both, you know, we teach the Bible, like we’re faithful church members, raising families to love Jesus, you know, we do have whatever, spiritual resumes. But I think more than ever, I am so aware of my lack. And that’s really a sign of my maturity, more so than 20 years ago, right? 20 years ago, I thought I had it figured out, and I am just more and more aware. And see the disparity between what maybe I project and the reality of my own heart, you know? So when I do sit with God and open my Bible, I’m back to that same like I am unfit for your presence.

I’m like a little kid who’s just thrown up all over myself. I can’t cry myself up. So the gospel isn’t just for that moment. I praise God for that moment when you were 15, 16 years old. Right. It’s for me, 52 years old. That’s right. Coming to his presence again and again saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. I’m still the sinner, but I have a place to point

to and it is Jesus on the cross. Like I have somewhere to pin my sin and go to find this grace and this mercy. It’s the cross and it’s available. It’s available to me. If there’s ever a question in my heart as I’m walking with God, even now, it’s like, is there a question of can I come before him again? And can I confess again? What’s going on with me? There’s such assurance. That’s like if I was ever wondering is he willing to forgive me? Is he willing to accept me? I now have a very clear portrait of his yes to me his yes to us is Jesus was willing to die and pay for that. Yeah, and that’s why Hebrews later will say like coming into his presence with confidence. Knowing that to ask for grace in our time of boasting, in our time of doing things right, in our time of nailing our spiritual resume, no.

In our time of need. Of great need. God is like, you can come confident, not because of your resume, but because you have great need and you know I’ll say yes, because that’s who I am. He’s gracious. He’s merciful, as articulated in the cross. Yeah, yeah, so good. So Jesus wraps up this story with a little upside down backward comparison statement.

I kind of built the book Comparison Girl around the upside down comparison statements and this is one way. Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. He who humbles himself will be exalted. I’m going to say a female version. Every woman who exalts herself will be humbled. She who humbles herself will be exalted. How does this story teach that?

Like why is Jesus summarizing this story in that way? I think so. Jesus and God sees through all the things that we build up, right? That the constructs of like, but I’m better and you’re not as good. And in some ways I, I think there’s probably so many good reasons why Jesus is ending it this way. But one is how God lays us bare in front of him and how we might create constructs of how I make myself better and how I make you worse than me

and God will see through all of it. And he defines things entirely differently than we do. And God in his grace is articulating that here. Just so you guys know, and hopefully you will respond. How you exalt yourself here means that in my world, you will be humbled. But here, what looks like being humbled, you’ll be exalted. Yes, it’s upside down and backwards. It’s the kingdom of God.

And so we want to live like the story is true. I don’t want to be the one who exalts myself in God’s presence. I want to be the one who humbles myself that he might lift me up. I don’t want to be somebody who God has to humble. I want to choose the humility. I don’t want to welcome sin into my life, but I want to respond to my sin. It’s inevitable. I want to respond to my sin

correctly. So how do we fail to live like this story is true?

I

Think there’s both inner and outer ways that we fail to live like this issue because obviously even at the top we were like there’s An inner heart attitude and there’s an outward action and so there’s there’s inner ways and outer ways that we buy into this idea the inner idea is when we are working for the spiritual resume because we believe that that Self-righteousness or that earning and that making that self effort to make ourself better is going to be the thing that makes the difference. Yeah. That’s the first attitude to deal with to say, gosh, not is that in me, but where? Yes. Because it’s there. And it does wear a lot of masks and it’s like, God is so faithful, he’ll convict us. So I think the first is the heart attitude, believing that the goal

here is my self-effort to make myself righteous. And I just want to interject, this kind of relates to the earlier episode that you and I did on rest. You know, like we talked about God is a God who on the seventh day rested to demonstrate we’re to be like this God who rested. And so if we’re working ourselves to the bone, right, if we are constantly pushing ourselves beyond just natural limits, perfectionism, you know, we’re not, we’re not getting enough sleep or we’re not, we’re irritated because we’re overworking ourselves, even for ministry. And you talked about how that was such a great conversation where you, you really gave it

to those of us who are working in ministry, girl, I got to show him.

I am one.

I know, but that would be a way we’re not aligning ourselves with Jesus. Let me put it that way, you know, because we’re living as though we have to produce a spiritual resume. That’s right. We’re living like the Pharisee. So go ahead. And what else were you going to say? I think that first inner attitude, if I’m living like I have to produce a spiritual resume, something is off.

Because both from this story and Galatians and Colossians were encouraged, a different resume was given to you by grace and it’s Jesus’. So think about your resume on your best day. There’s still nothing Compared to what was given to you by grace what was placed on you because of Jesus right the Colossians He took away the certificate of death as hostile to us and said we got his record So it’s like by faith except Jesus’s record and repent of my spiritual resume, which is in no way comparable. I think the doctrinal word would be imputed, right? His righteousness isn’t imputed to us.

It’s like it’s transferred. It’s like a accounting word where, you know, it’s tallied up and given to our account. And that’s how we’re exalted. You know, Jesus says whoever humbles herself will be exalted. That’s the way we’re exalted. We’re given Jesus’s resume. I mean, that’s being lifted up. I love that.

I think that’s the biggest focus of the inner attitude. What are your thoughts about your self-righteousness? How does that attitude come out? Really before God? Are you clinging to a resume? Do you feel a sense of need in yourself for Him? I think it’s also a reassurance for the despairing heart who consistently feels like a failure, who’s consistently despairing their resume isn’t good enough. Like maybe they’re not a big achiever, but they feel despair that their list isn’t good enough. That they look at me or they look at you, a Bible teacher, and they go, oh, well, like, I barely even go to Bible study.

I don’t understand the Bible, and I’m a really terrible Christian. So they feel this overwhelming despair. They don’t even have a resume to bring up. And they think to themselves, I’m a terrible Christian. Surely God is probably frustrated with me, too. I don’t feel comfortable in his presence and I feel awkward. This is a huge comfort to that heart to say, congratulations, you’re on the right side. Yeah, right. God is giving mercy to the person who feels despair about their need. And it’s just saying, I don’t have anything before

you. God is like, I see that. I love that. And in my kingdom, that attitude is welcome. So for the despairing heart, be comforted. He’s on the side of the sinner and of the needy and of the broken and of the weak and of the incapable. He loves that. Yes, that that’s living like it’s true, right? Being comforted, being assured is living like this story is true. And I would say too, we can live like it’s true when we accept and welcome other sinners.

Like there was there’s a sense in which the Pharisee was, you know, he’s he when he’s listing out his resume, he’s like, thanks that I’m not like that guy over there. Right. And I think the truth is, if we receive forgiveness from God, then we all entered through the same door, you know, the forgiveness of Christ. And so seeing ourselves as more like other sinners than unlike them. You know, I mean, there are obvious differences, but our disgust, there’s no place for that in the Kingdom of God.

It’s not a story that should invoke disgust, let’s put it that way. We should celebrate at the great mercy of our great God. Right. I think that’s the inner thing is that hard attitude, and this is the outer thing. One, I think we can kind of diagnose ourselves and if we’re sick we have symptoms and then you’ll get your symptoms and start working inward to a diagnosis. It’s always this one, this can help us diagnose ourselves. If we’re feeling contempt and disgust for a certain type of person or people, we can go, oh, you know, I’m doing that thing. And walking that inward to say, gosh, I’ve got

a hard attitude that says they’re beyond the pale and there’s something different than what I am and there’s grace for me but not for that. I think one that can walk us backward from a symptom into a diagnosis of a heart issue. And I think also the reality is that God was really concerned with how people were being treated here. That Jesus tells a story because he’s new a heart issue but he also saw that people were being treated with content and that Jesus really does care how we treat each other, how we treat people. This is kind of a practical thing that I’ve experienced with my own friends.

It’s like I do want to humble myself before God and know my need. Practically speaking with my friends, one of the easiest way for me to get my eyes off of me, whether comparing, because when you’re comparing, there’s no winning. You either have to be better than someone or you’re always worse than someone. Yeah, right. There’s no equal, right? There’s no like graciously taking us both unless Jesus is exalted then we don’t have to fight to be first because Jesus is first Yeah, exactly

but like Practically speaking to get my eyes off myself and not get stuck in the cycle of like am I good? I’m a better buddy. Yeah, right. I am like, how can I exalt that person? How can I lift them up? How can I affirm them? How can I encourage them? How can I help them today know that they’re loved and walk with Jesus.” That alone shifts the preoccupation in my brain, trying to figure out myself so much to be like, you know what? The Lord has sorted and he’s decided to put his affection on me, but who could I, on a regular basis, encourage today?

Who could I affirm? Who could I exalt? And that kind of view that is like, not only do I not want to treat others with contempt, but who could I honor? Who could I point to? Who could I affirm? Just on a practical level, like changes the self-obsession a little bit to just be like, how about let’s look for someone else? Let’s, yeah, let’s do something for someone else.

And it helps me, it helps me get out of sort of the rut and focus on doing good for another, which is liberating. It’s so good. You know, that word that we talked about earlier, disgust or contempt. I think in our hearts, when we have that attitude towards others, we’re looking at their sin and we’re saying, you know, they have done something I never have, I never could, I never would. Like, it’s just, it’s disgusting to me. And I have found myself, I never have, I never could. And it’s often like sins that just don’t even seem, how could that even be appealing?

But what helps me is to hear the whisper back. What if someone in the room says, yeah, but I have. What’s the response for them? What is the response? The only response is, you’re right. You know, there is no sin that is out of bounds for our great God and his mercy. But I just want to summarize what you gave us there, Lindsay. I think it’s really good. So internally, it’s the my heart’s response

to God. Do I feel that I need to bring a spiritual resume? The external way that we live like this story is true is looking at other people and not responding to them with contempt or disgust but wanting to honor them just as Christ has honored them. Right? Did I get that right? Yeah, that’s what I see. I feel like that’s the opportunity I see in front of us to live like this story is true. And one thing you were saying, Chana, reminded me, I was recently looking at Galatians, but like Paul in Galatians 6 kind of addresses like, how would one address another one in sin? So this is a really serious moment, like someone’s caught up in a genuine sin struggle. What

permission does Paul give this church, these believers, how do they handle that? It tells them to restore that person in a spirit of gentleness. That’s the permission we have. Not a brutal calling out of someone’s sin, not a tearing them apart, not treating them with disgusted words and contempt, not assailing them with our words. We who are spiritual are to restore someone in a spirit of gentleness. And then the second part, looking to yourself so that you too will not be tempted. I mean, adding into it, don’t think that you’re beyond the pale. What is possible? It is right for you to go. I could equally be tempted in this way or

knowing that you’re just as guilty. I think too, leaning into, you know, when you get to know someone, it changes a lot. You at first think to yourself, I don’t know how anyone could be addicted to drinking every night and drinking too much when they know it’s hurting their family. And then when you got to know an addict, when you got to know an alcoholic, knowing those people changes your understanding and your mercy and your compassion in the moment to dealing with that. So it’s possible the one way to live like is true is like actually get to know someone who you don’t right now fully understand their struggle. Ask them what it’s like.

See how they feel in it. And it starts changing your reaction. Yeah, rather than looking at that text collector over there, like, what if the Pharisee walked out with him? Tell me your story. We’re all part of this same story. Well, I think the text collector is excluded here in the story Jesus tells. styles. But the overarching story that I’m referring to is the one where there is a door

that sinners walk through. It’s the door created by Jesus back to God where sinners receive mercy. And so that is such a compelling, beautiful invitation that we all receive. Any last words,

Lindsay, on how to live like this story is true.

Even when I was reading for this, it felt like such a beautiful grace every day to be reminded of this every day.

Yeah.

To go, oh man, in my despairing moments where I think surely I’ve messed it up. Surely the last few weeks haven’t been great in my resume with God, to remember the story and go, the resume’s not the point. God responds to deep, genuine need and He’s kind. He’s merciful. So just sort of really basic, I’ve got tons of laundry to do. I’m trying to be present with my kids, like just to see that that’s the basis

I’m coming to God on is I am in need and I need your mercy. And God is saying yes to that, like great. And God is saying yes to that, like great. Yes, amen. And amen.