Our song for the month is “Not In Me.” You can listen to it and read the words by clicking here, and read lyricist Eric Schumacher’s explanation of the backstory and meaning of the song here.

This modern hymn is a meditation on Luke’s Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector:

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. Foreveryone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:9-14, ESV)

I believe that all Christians can identify with both the tax collector and the Pharisee. As tax collectors, we are sometimes crushed by the weight of our sin and tempted to doubt that God’s grace can reach us. As Pharisees, we are sometimes so impressed with our own good deeds that we are tempted to doubt that we even need God’s grace at all. Theologian Mark Seifrid writes:

On the one side we are subject to the danger of the despair that loses sight of God’s work in Christ. On the other hand, we are subject to the danger of a pride that falsely supposes that the power of salvation [i.e., the power to save] is ours, if only we realize its potential. Such a pride in its own way also loses sight of God’s work in Christ…. It does not see that what has been accomplished for us is located abidingly in Christ, not in ourselves.¹

In other words, we Pharisees need to be reminded that Christ’s death and resurrection not only paid for our sins, but purchased our justification. The cross doesn’t just wipe the slate clean; it writes on the slate: “Righteous!” We need to repent of not only the sins that put us in need of a Savior, but also the “good” deeds by which we try to negate that need. This song gives us the reminder that we need.

As despairing tax collectors, we sing and remember, “My God is merciful to me.” As repenting Pharisees, we add, “and merciful in Christ alone.”

^{1. Mark A. Seifrid, "Romans 7: The Voice of the Law, the Cry of Lament, and the Shout of Thanksgiving," in Perspectives on our Struggle with Sin: 3 Views of Romans 7, ed. Terry L. Wilder. (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2011), p. 164↩}