Most of us could tell stories of meeting someone who is self-righteous. Who could calculate the damage caused to the reputation of Christ and His Church due to the arrogance of self-righteous people who claim to be Christians? But before we point our fingers as those who we “think” are self-righteous, I am wondering if you and I can detect self-righteousness within ourselves? The fact is, the potential for self-righteousness is always lurking around us. If we are not careful, intentional and prayerful, we can get swept into its currents without realizing it.

Jesus gives us a portrait of a self-righteous person in the Parable of the pious Pharisee and the tax collector recorded in Luke 18:9-14. If we can walk away from this Parable able to detect self-righteousness in our own lives, then perhaps we will have the ability to recognize it, confess it, turn from it and walk in God’s forgiveness.

Luke helps us by introducing the Parable with the purpose of the teaching. He writes in verse 9 saying the audience of Jesus were some who, “Trusted in themselves that they were righteous,” and also that they, “treated others with contempt.” Herein lies the secrets for detecting self-righteousness. It begins by thinking we are self-sufficient and then it leads to treating others with contempt. This is a sin we cannot afford to ignore, so let us explore it further.

Self-Sufficiency
When God addresses the sins of His people in Jeremiah 2:13, it is worth us noting that the temptation to commit these offenses are greater in our day than they were in the Prophet Jeremiah’s day! Read carefully what God says, “For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns than for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” This is strong language from God Almighty to His people…not sinners but to His redeemed people! He says first, we have forsaken him, the fountain of living water. What He means is that we try to find our satisfaction and the quenching of our soul’s thirsts in other things, other than God Himself. We try money, power, prestige, sex and many other things to fulfill the desires of our soul. Yet God says, He and He alone is the fountain of living water. Have you ever been so thirsty that no other drink could quench your thirst except water? It seemed like other drinks only made you more thirsty. Our soul is the same. Your soul has been made for God and God alone and He is the only One who can satisfy it.

So what is the other sin we have committed? The answer is that we have hewed out cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. In other words, we have become self-sufficient. Think how insulting this is to the Almighty. Instead of us repenting and turning back to Him to satisfy our soul, we sin further and rebel harder thinking we can satisfy ourselves leading us to greater self-sufficiency. When we begin to walk down this path, God does not call it a mistake, He calls it evil.

Contempt for Others
The sin of self-righteousness is when you trust in yourself for God’s approval. Jesus adds a second test for detecting self-righteousness. It is “contempt for others.” We see both self-reliance and contempt for others in the prayer of the religious Pharisee. Luke records him saying, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get” (Luke 18:11-12).
In stark contrast, Luke records the prayer of the tax collector who was standing afar off and was so humble before the Lord that he would not even lift his eyes toward heaven and beat his chest saying, “God, be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13). Jesus says in verse 14 that because the sinner humbled himself, he was both justified and exalted. The same is true in our lives. When we humble ourselves before the Lord, He will exalt us and justify our lives, but when we rely on our own goodness, our own intentions or our own strength, we will remain in the filth of our unrighteousness.

An Offense Toward God
I use the strong word of filth because it is exactly what Isaiah 64:6 calls our self-righteousness before the eyes of the Lord, “filthy rags.” The sin of Cain in Genesis 4:2 was self-righteousness. God demanded a blood sacrifice, not a sacrifice of produce from the land. Do you know why God demanded a blood scarce in the Old Testament? It is because the “Life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11). Sin is death, but blood is life. Hebrews 9:22 says, “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”

Can you see the offense of Cain in the eyes of the Lord? He tried to bring the fruit of the land. Even if it was his best produce, it was an offense before God because only the life of blood can pass over the death of sin. What Cain did was self-reliance, it was the height of self-righteousness.

My friend, if you trust in your goodness to enter Heaven, you are committing the same offense as Cain. Even if you are a good person, a moral person, a kind person or a religious person, you are not good enough in God’s eyes and you never will be. Without the blood of Christ applied to your life and covering your sins, there is no forgiveness of sins in your life.

Do not be guilty of self-righteousness, which is relying on your own goodness and having contempt for others. Instead, look to Christ and ask for His righteousness to come into your life.