Only the Sick Need a Doctor

A warning against self-righteousness  

There are two kinds of righteousness in this world: one comes spiritually from God through Jesus Christ and the other is of natural origin…self-righteousness. These two forms of righteousness are opposed to each other, as the things of the Spirit always stand in opposition to the natural order. 

They cannot co-exist. 

If you grasp one, you cannot also hold on tightly to the other at the same time. 

Before my spiritual eyes were fully awakened to the truth, I was drowning in self-righteousness. 

Overly concerned with my own rightness, my own interpretation, my own “wisdom”, I was ACTUALLY darkened in understanding and alienated from the life of God (Ephesians 4:18).  

I could easily see all the faults of others. With precision like laser targeting, I could hone in on what was wrong with and in the lives of others. 

But, my own faults were greatly diminished in my own eyes. 

I didn’t have problems with lying like others I knew. I wasn’t a swindler, like some of those around me. I wasn’t a hypocrite or recreational drug user. I gathered others to myself to confirm my assessments and opinions of the sinful - the ones with whom I was certain God was displeased. 

I, of course, wasn’t among those unfortunate souls. I thought quite highly of my spiritual self if I’m going to be honest.

My heart was rock hard and ice cold. Tragically, I was not aware of my spiritual heart disease. There is a way that seems right to a person, but in the end it leads to death (Proverbs 14:12).

Even after I was first made aware of my sorry spiritual state, I was absolutely convinced the problem couldn’t be THAT bad and would be short-lived. I lived a better, more upright and moral life than many other professing believers.

I was a VERY good (religious) Christian, after all. 

When I shared some of what I was encountering in the spiritual realm with a young Christian woman locally, her comments about me being “dry bones coming back to life” greatly offended me! 

I wasn’t dead, I insisted. 

Oh, but I was. 

A dead woman walking.

And I was offended for a good reason. 

That’s exactly what THE TRUTH does to a self-righteous, arrogant person. Jesus, the truth, is the stone of stumbling and the rock of offense (1 Peter 2:8).

The Son of God had much to say about self-righteous people. I would have done well to pay attention to His words. If I had, I would have self-diagnosed spiritual pathology much earlier in my life, and run with lightning speed to the supernatural medical office of Dr. Jesus. 

No one who believes they are healthy seeks out a physician. Only people who know that they are sick, knocking on death’s door, will do that.

In Luke 18:9-14, Jesus told a parable about a Pharisee and a tax collector. Pharisees were the most knowledgeable, respected, scripturally literate, religious elite of that day. 

Tax collectors, on the other hand, were considered outcasts, scum of the earth, betrayers of their brothers and the nation of Israel. They were universally hated, and for good reason. 

This is what Jesus said…

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘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.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

When Jesus intentionally added Matthew (Levi), a tax collector to his band of disciples, the Pharisees took great issue with his choice of friends. (Mark 2:13-16).

Why in the world, they pondered, would a true prophet associate with such sinful people?

This is when Jesus replied, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

The closer you draw near to God, the more you will become aware of your need for his grace and His absolute holiness. You will be so overwhelmed with how blessed you are to be saved from your own sinfulness, it will be difficult for you to find time to contemplate the sins of others. 

At that point in time, you will focus only on how to encourage your fellow runners to cross the finish line in the great race of life. You will do everything possible to ensure you yourself are not disqualified in the process.

This was the Apostle Paul’s experience. Look at the progression of how he saw himself as he matured in his walk of faith:

Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— (Galatians 1:1 - circa 55 AD)

For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. (1 Corinthians 15:9 – circa 56 or 57 AD).

To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, (Ephesians 3:8 – circa 60 to 63 AD).

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. (1 Timothy 1:15 – circa 6 4to 65 AD).

Because the canonized Bible is not organized in chronological order, it can be easy to miss such revelations. But here we can clearly see that Paul progressed from referring to himself as an apostle called by Jesus himself, to the least of the apostles, to the least of ALL saints, to the ABSOLUTE WORST sinner!

I did not understand that when I walked in self-righteousness. I could not understand it because I was walking in darkness.

But now, I understand it perfectly.

The more intimate your relationship with God, the less self-righteous you will become. If you are only growing in more self-righteousness with every successive revolution around the sun, then you are also most certainly moving further away from the God who loves you.

The Pharisees stood in the very presence of God, yet they had no understanding of who He really was. They were knowledgeable, but blinded and walking in total deception. The reason for this is given in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

A preoccupation with the faults and sins of others, while making excuses for and ignoring our own sins is one sure sign we’re not anywhere near the Kingdom of God. That’s modern-day Pharisee-ism. The Lord referred to people with such attitudes as children of hell (Matthew 23:15). Man’s self-righteousness is like a filthy, menstrual rag before the Almighty God! (Isaiah 64:6)

Instead, we must turn our attention inward and allow the Spirit of God to complete his work within us. 

In Matthew 13:15, Jesus said,” For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.’”

When we allow the Spirit of God and the Word of God, twin spiritual surgical instruments, to perform open-heart surgery on our diseased hearts, only then can we turn and be healed.

The Great Physician wants to circumcise every hardened, self-righteous heart today (Romans 2:29). 

Only the sick need a doctor.

Will you give your consent for the surgery?