PARABLES OF JESUS: The Parable of Defilement

This podcast is the Ministry of Grankway Baptist Church.

For more information in our church, please visit Grandparkway.org.

My name is Lance Williams.

I'm the Spiritual Formation Pastor here at Graham Parkway.

Glad you're here.

We are continuing on in our uh summer sermon series on the parables of Jesus.

And as we do that today, we are in Matthew chapter 15, verses 10 to 20.

Matthew 15:10–20

And we had a great word last week from a guest, Stuart Rothburg, who told us a lot and showed us a lot about people over the years and throughout all cultures that do whatever they can to get God's attention.

And we'll piggyback on that today as we look at the parable of defilement.

The parable of defilement.

Now, when I say parable of defilement, that's not usually the greatest way to start your morning when you hear the word defilement.

But nonetheless, it is the parable that we're looking at today and the thing that Jesus is unbelievably refreshing and how he approaches purity and righteousness and just being right with him.

And so what I want to do today is just dig right in to Matthew 15, chapter, excuse me, chapter 15, verses 10 all the way to 20.

If you don't have a Bible today, there's one at the end of your row, and we're on page 821 of that particular Bible.

Read with me, if you will, Matthew 15.

Jesus says this, and he called the people to him and said to him, to them, Hear and understand.

It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a person.

Then the disciples came and said to him, Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?

And he answered, Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up, and let them alone.

They are blind guides, and if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.

But Peter said to him, Explain the parable to us.

And he said, Are you still without understanding?

Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled?

But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.

Now it's that last verse that gives us a hint that Jesus is talking about a broader context, which we'll unpack as we go through today.

But this is an unbelievable freeing message, a message of freedom that laws and rules and religion will never work.

The only thing that, the only process by which you will find acceptance with God is by believing in Jesus as Messiah, as God, as the Son of God, as the man God who came to earth, died for you, and in so doing, recreated you.

From what was once you, now that's been put to death, and now you are called to live in new light.

That's an unbelievable freeing message, one that if we're not careful, we can get real, real close to and just forget how unbelievably life-changing, life-altering it was for them and it has been for us.

Could you imagine your life today, however many years, however many days, however many minutes you've been following Jesus, could you imagine your life today as it once was?

Would you have the same freedom?

Would you have the same relationships that you have?

Would you have the same blessings?

I know if I looked at my life, there's absolutely no way if I kept on doing and living the way that I lived, there's no way that I would have even a wife or two beautiful girls, much less the beautiful blessing of living in God's presence and knowing it.

And believing it, and living as a changed man.

Today, Jesus tells this parable to us, but told it to them, and as he did so, he is challenging the establishment.

And he does so basically through three main points that we'll look at today.

The first one is this change begins with understanding.

Change begins with understanding.

Right there in verse 10, Jesus starts with two words.

The first one to hear, the second one to understand, both of them commandments.

Verse 10.

And he called the people to him and said to them, Hear me and understand me.

One thing is a biological just ability that all of us here today are hearing.

We'll hear a lot of things this week, but we may not understand them.

And so what Jesus is saying, don't just lend your ear to me, have an understanding by which you hear me.

That Greek word is tsunami for understand, not just to hear, but to understand.

It basically means this: to develop an intellectual grasp of something that challenges one's thinking or practice.

To think about something in such a way that you know it's going to challenge you how you live and how you think.

And inherent in that is realizing that whatever new information is coming my way, it's telling me and it's going to show me, it's going to put a big mirror to my heart and tell me I'm wrong and you're right.

And that was Jesus' posture throughout all of life.

I mean, he's the one guy that ever lived that kind of had that posture of, I'm right, you're wrong, and he didn't hold it over us and doesn't hold it over us.

And so he's telling the Pharisees, he's telling the crowd in general, he's telling his disciples, hey, this new information, understand this, that when you listen to it, not only are you capable of hearing it, that's for sure, that's assumed, but are you willing to submit yourself to it?

Are you willing to listen to it with this intent to repent?

And just to show how foreign that is for us, uh let me illustrate it like this.

Could you imagine this week that when your spouse uh gets mad at you for whatever reason or needs to tell you something or has a conversation with you, or perhaps it's one of your kids who's come home for July 4th and they're already on your nerves after four days of being home, or or whatever it may be.

Maybe it's with your coworker or your boss or whatever it is, there's conflict, right?

In this life, there will be conflict.

That's okay.

Our second point, which I'll get to later, it's okay to live in this conflict.

It's okay to even maybe even create a little bit of conflict if it's God word, if it's something that's that's that's motivated by pleasing and God's pleasure with us.

To just illustrate this, what if we what if we had these conversations with with these people that we have conflict with, and we listened to them, whatever their complaint was with us, whatever the new information they were sharing with us, what if we listened to them with this intent to repent that whoever it was that got done telling you all the things they needed to tell you, and you started to repent of things that you didn't even they didn't even mention.

You're just like, oh man, I think God said this to me and this to me and this to me.

I know those aren't your your gripes for me, but uh that's just that's what I feel like the Lord's saying.

It's so foreign to us that this whole tsunami, this this understanding with this intent to be challenged and to submit to that challenge, uh, that it's usually not how we relate to God or to others.

Instead, we usually relate kind of clinging on to whatever we can hold on to that we feel is right, that we feel uh has our justification in mind, and not reconciliation, not the other person's best interest for sure.

So this starts out with God saying, Hey, if you're gonna understand this, if you're gonna hear this, understand that change is gonna be required.

And what was Jesus challenging, and he lays out the parable, he says it right there in verse 11.

This is the thing that rocks the universe one person at a time.

He says, it's not what goes into your mouth, into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a person.

This would have been absolutely revolutionary for everyone around, which is why we would continue to read in verse 12.

They are offended.

It's revolutionary because what we see here is that the Pharisees have this strict sense of rules and tradition, and that's all just based in pride.

And what Jesus will continue to say is that rules are absolutely pointless.

Let me give you a little context.

In Matthew 15, verse 1, uh the Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?

Matthew 15:1

Now, notice what they're saying.

They're not saying, hey, why do your disciples break the law?

Why do your disciples uh dishonor God by breaking the law?

Instead, they've made up their own little rules that everybody would have known, and they're saying, Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?

Interesting.

And what is that tradition that they're breaking?

Last part of verse 2.

For they do not wash their hands when they eat.

Are you kidding me?

Hey, they didn't use germx before they down that taquito.

I have a problem with your disciples.

Uh I mean, look at what Jesus just got done doing.

If you just if you just read the headings in Matthew 14, Jesus feeds 5,000.

Jesus walks on water, Jesus heals the sick in an area of uh of Galilee.

I mean, Jesus is doing things that no one has ever done and no one will do ever again.

He's feeding people, he's performing miracles.

I mean, he's casting out demons, doing whatever it takes with his disciples.

He walks on the water, frightens them half to death in the middle of the night, but walks on the water.

And the Pharisees come to him and say, Your guys aren't cleaning their hands before they eat.

How ridiculous.

You see what rules do?

Do you see what legalism does?

Do you see what religion just absolutely whittles us down to?

We start caring about nothing.

Jesus is saying to all of us and all of them, and I'm going to repeat this because I think it's important for us.

When our righteousness weighs heavily on rules, when our acceptance, our purity, our holiness, when our identity weighs heavily on rules, tradition, and personal morality, there is no end to the rules that you and I will make up just so that we can say we've kept them.

Ouch.

When our purity, when our holiness, when our goodness, when our identity weighs heavily on rules, tradition, personal morality, there's no end to the rules that we will make up just so that we can say we've kept them.

The more rules, the more righteous you can become.

That's exactly why Jesus calls them hypocrites in verse 7.

And in verse 8, he says this people, these Pharisees, these religious experts, these people that you all have looked up to your whole life.

Yeah, these guys.

These people honors me with their lips, this outward expression of worship.

But their heart, oh, it's far from me.

In vain do they worship me.

They're not accomplishing anything.

Why?

Because they are teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

They are making second things first.

They're making the traditions of the elders, life and death.

Acceptance with God, unacceptance with God.

What a tragedy.

So the Pharisees had this lens, and perhaps some of us have this same lens in here today, or I know we know somebody with this same lens.

It's kind of like it's just the way it is.

But the Pharisees had this lens that they were God's people.

And so their goodness was assumed.

You've heard it said in this culture, well, I'm just not that bad of a person.

I'm still just, I'm a good guy, I'm a good lady, whatever.

It's the same, same heart comes out of that, that their goodness is assumed.

And so, in order to keep that goodness, that holiness, that righteousness, that purity, they had to keep rules.

And if the law wasn't enough, we learned from Stuart last week, if you were here last week, I mean, just some ridiculous rules, right, about the Sabbath, about hunting flies and fleas, uh, about uh Sabbath elevator, right?

You heard all these ridiculous rules.

Why?

Because apparently the 613 laws of God weren't enough.

And so to keep their goodness, because it's based on just an assumed goodness, that they can actually, well, they can just obey these rules.

They can obey these laws, but if they break these rules, then they become unclean.

They become unacceptable.

And so one of the rules was don't eat this, don't eat that, don't you need to set apart birds for this, you need to set apart the beasts here for that.

And all of a sudden the Levitical law about out in Leviticus really became the guiding light for the Pharisees.

And Jesus came and fulfilled every single letter perfectly.

And when he did so, he set us free in ways we never could have imagined.

That's why we'll continue to read, we'll get to our second point, that they were absolutely offended at the fact that he would just look at the Pharisees and say, That's not what makes you clean.

Germ X, are you kidding me?

A little alcohol right before you eat, a little water, that's not what makes you clean.

Instead, it's your heart.

And it's no wonder that he just says, Well, yeah, and you're evil, by the way.

I don't know if you knew that, but you're evil.

Unbelievable uh statements by Jesus because he doesn't assume the same things that Jesus, that the Pharisees assume.

The Pharisees assume that they're good.

And Jesus says, No, you're evil.

Apart from Jesus, apart from Christ, I, I'll be at the top of that list, I'm evil.

My heart's messed up, dark, black, gooey, no good.

And that's why Romans 3 says that none is righteous, no, not one.

No one understands, no one seeks for God.

All have turned aside, and together they have become worthless.

No one does good, not even one.

Jesus picks up on this and he says, Yeah, evil is assumed.

And oh, by the way, the only goodness you're gonna get is gonna be given from God.

It's not by rules, it's not by effort.

That's why it's by grace that we've been saved.

And it says in Ephesians 2, so that no one can boast.

You can't boast if it didn't come from you.

And so Jesus walked this earth, lived his life, drawing a dividing line between those that are in and those that are out.

Not because he was being judgmental, not because he was being rude, but because he needed everyone to understand and he needs all of us to understand.

Here's what the kingdom looks like, here's what kingdom living looks like, and here's what not your own kingdom looks like, living for you looks like.

And it flipped, it switched completely on everybody, which is why he said things like this in Matthew 12.

You brood of vipers.

Oh, gentle Jesus.

Verse 34, Matthew 12, you brood of vipers, talking to the religious establishment, the Pharisees.

How can you speak good when you are evil?

It's no wonder they wanted to kill him.

For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, very parallel to what we're talking about today.

For the good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.

I was having lunch with uh a family member of mine uh on July 4th, oddly enough, and one of the things that we talked about was uh uh someone got engaged.

My stepsister got engaged, and well, I said, Well, you know, we started talking about this guy, and you know, my dad's not approving, all these other things.

Uh, and we get into this conversation, and about four questions in, I said, Is he a believer?

And she said, Well, we're not really sure.

I mean, whenever we talk about it, what we hear is don't be so judgmental.

And I heard in that, that's a no.

That that'd be a no.

Uh, and which they come back to me.

Well, are you being judgmental?

No, I'm not.

No, no, I don't think I am, but because this reality right here of what Jesus said, who you are will eventually just come out and how you live.

Uh that's the reality.

It's not lip service, but it's out of the treasury of our heart.

It's where we store the things that we value.

These are the things that will eventually come out of us, and it's either evil, evil thoughts, and all the things that he'll talk about at the end of this passage, or it's the it's goodness because God transformed our heart.

The disciples are accused of having dirty hands, but Jesus says, but they have clean hearts.

And those that are accusing them, the Pharisees, they think they have clean hands, but the problem is they have dirty hearts.

And so there's this theology of the hand along with this theology of the heart that basically says this what do your hands look like in this whole process?

Are you clinging to laws and rules and self-justification?

Or are you living surrendered?

Realizing that I can't do this on my own.

I can't gain God's approval or his affection.

And so there's so much freedom in that.

I don't, I don't, there's no rules.

There's no rules.

That little Caesar's commercial comes to mind.

There's no rules.

And he takes his shirt off.

Oh, there's one rule.

Never mind, my bad.

Puts it back on.

But literally, in the kingdom, there's these the rule is glorify God.

That's it.

Love God, love others.

As I have loved you, so you love one another.

I mean, that's all God glorifying things, and it comes with hands that aren't closed-fisted and tight, not sharing it with anybody, but accusing people, punching people with these laws, or we could just go, all right, it's yours.

My life is yours because you've claimed me.

My life is yours because you've changed me.

So I pursue you with open hands.

Surrender to God.

Dirty, dirty because we're working, but cleansed in our heart.

Second point that I think Jesus is making, just a beautiful point.

The reason why I chose this passage in Matthew and not in Mark.

Mark misses out on this and skips this for a reason.

He emphasizes something different.

But Matthew says this in verse 12 to 14, which gives us our second point, which I'll explain.

He says, Then the disciples came and said to him, Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?

And he answered, Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up.

Let them alone.

They are blind guides, and if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.

Second point Jesus is making is basically this convenience kills consequence.

Convenience kills consequence.

Why do I say that?

Because the fair the disciples see what's going on, see that the religious authorities of the day are being offended.

They're being offended by their rabbi, by their teacher, by one man named Jesus, and he's coming to bring the kingdom.

And they're following him, they're aligned with him.

And so they look out over the crowds and they see, okay, this is gonna get a little dicey here if you keep going, Jesus.

If you could calm it down, maybe not be so offensive, that'd be great.

What are they saying?

They're trying to get Jesus to submit to their own comfort, to their own convenience.

Because if the Pharisees are all of a sudden challenged, remember that's where we started, this this intellectual challenge to submit that I'm wrong and you're right.

Oh, that's not good for the Pharisees.

They know the law, they're intellectual, right?

So disciples look around and they go, uh, can you not upset the apple cart here?

My peace and my security are more important than the kingdom you're bringing in.

They're offended, Jesus.

Their feelings matter.

And God, who created the Pharisees, Jesus in the flesh who created the Pharisees, as if he didn't know they were offended, does he care?

No.

And not that he doesn't care ultimately, but he's got a grander mission in mind.

And that's the glory of God.

That is to pursue and please his father.

That's why he says, These guys don't belong to my father.

Why are you so concerned about these guys?

They don't need they're not even in the kingdom.

I know that you think they're awesome because they have been for however long, and that's what they've made you to believe, but they're not.

I am.

Follow me, trust me, we're gonna get through this.

Doesn't mean you won't die.

I mean, he says to Peter, hey guy, I love you, Peter, and you're gonna feed my flock, but in the meantime, I just want to let you know, one point in your life, they're gonna string you up, buddy.

And I hate that, but it's gonna have to happen.

Why?

For my glory.

So that you'll be able to now, 2,000 plus years later, we get to tell the story of a man who put his life on the line, who was crucified upside down, because he didn't feel it worthy to be crucified in the same way that Jesus was.

Same guy that leads the charge here.

Says, okay, we still don't understand Jesus.

I got nothing.

Same guy.

Something happened, something changed.

They got it.

Somewhere between Matthew 15 and the end of Matthew 28, and continuing on.

Here's the reality that Jesus is warning all of us of is that we can kill our own consequence.

The life that we're called to live, it can be absolutely uh squelched.

We can quench this life of consequence that we're supposed to live if we live out of convenience, especially if we live unknowingly worshiping other people's opinion, worshiping whether or not they're convenient, whether or not they're comfortable.

And we become what Robert McGee says in his book on the search for significance.

We become approval addicts, we become people pleasers, and we live in fear of rejection.

Not rejection of God, but rejection of other people.

And all of a sudden we try and manage and control other people's impressions of us by what we say, by how we dress, by how we act.

And very little in the equation is how do I glorify God?

That's why some pastors and some preachers that I know have have you preached for the glory of God today right in the front of their Bible.

That's why other pastors and other preachers have this put in the front of their Bible when they go up to preach.

Don't panic, I'm with you.

There's no need to fear, for I'm your God.

I'll give you strength, I'll help you, I'll hold you steady, and I'll keep a firm grip on you.

That's Isaiah 41.

Pleasing God, pleasing others.

Because pleasing others is sometimes a little bit more measurable.

A little bit easier.

I can see it on your face if you like it or if you don't.

It's a dangerous, dangerous thing, and we'll pursue it without hesitation, without any conscious knowledge.

We'll do everything we we can to manage one another's impressions.

What the disciples are doing, they're saying, hey, they're offended, which really means, hey, the Pharisees are getting this.

They understand what you're saying, but they're not willing to repent.

They have no intent to repent here, and they're getting pretty angry.

And let me remind all of us as Jesus reminded all of them, you got to get your focus right here, guys.

These guys don't matter.

I know that you think they do, but they really don't.

Let me echo what Proverbs 29 says.

It says, the fear of man lays a snare.

It is a trap.

But whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.

What a great reminder as we understand what the disciples are trying to do here.

And I think they have a pure heart in doing this because God doesn't really rebuke them a whole lot in this.

They're just saying, hey, uh religious establishment is offended.

Jesus, you're offending them.

How do we do this?

Because if you're telling me I have to choose, I'm not really sure what to do.

And God's saying, don't worry about those guys.

Follow me.

No wonder he says, let them alone.

By the way, that's a sad place to be.

When Jesus just says to you, to your heart or to my heart, because we've guarded it all up with rules and regulations and traditions and Phariseaism and legalism, he just says, hey, let them alone.

The ultimate expression of despair and of lostness that God would just look at us and go, leave him be.

And why?

Because for his disciples it was distracting, it was convenient, it was comfortable.

He was redefining what it looked like to live a life that was consequential and for God's glory.

Not by external pressure, not by guilt, not by manipulation, not by what you have to do, but by what's going on in our heart, by because God has accepted us, we are called now to go and live lives of consequence.

This happens today.

This happened to me when I first became a believer.

I think I've told this story before, but I'll tell it again.

When I first became a believer, it was a pretty significant change.

This is some years ago now, back in 99.

But I was off at college living my own life, however I wanted to live it, thinking in my mind I was a believer somehow.

But kind of like, hey, you know, what's church for?

But to make up for Friday and Saturday?

Might as well.

And that's kind of how I lived, sadly.

And so still thinking I was a believer.

And then when I, man, when I became a believer, it was literally overnight.

And all of a sudden, word started to spread against my friends and my family.

And I had one person in my family set me aside one day at a family gathering.

Kind of pulled me aside and said, Hey man, uh, this whole Jesus thing, I'm so happy for you.

That's so great.

Awesome.

Good job.

I was like, okay, this is going to be going good here.

I can see how this is going.

He goes, hey, by the way, um, this whole Jesus thing, you know, could you keep him on Sundays?

This is literal conversation.

Could you keep him on Sundays?

Because, you know, it's just, you know, that'd be great if you could just keep him on Sundays.

Well, uh, no, I can't.

He's not something I just like a like a pet or like a puppet, I just bring out and we do a ventriloquist ventriloquist act.

That's not what we do.

He's not just something I put up and pick down based on convenience.

I mean, that's that's not that's not the life that God calls us to, the the life of consequence, not the life of convenience.

Well, if you could keep Jesus then on Sundays and Wednesdays, that would be great.

Okay, I just looked at that person and thought, yeah, uh I really can't do that again.

This is who I am now.

This is, I mean, this is everything to me.

This is my purpose, this is my drive.

God and Jesus, I mean, they are everything to me, so no, I won't be putting them down.

What was that person saying to me?

Hey, this life that you're living, if you keep living it, it's gonna be inconvenient for me.

You're gonna start challenging me in the way that I live, and I'm not okay with that.

So let me go ahead and just head this off at the pass.

And if by the way, I was fortunate to have somebody actually sit down with me and just say that to me.

We live in a world that they don't do that.

They don't just sit down and say that to you face to face.

Instead, they just give you kind of glances or looks or put in regulations at your work where you can't share the gospel.

And so if you share the gospel or you'll be a Christian just outwardly, and you start loving on people and sharing Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life, the only way, the only truth, and the only life, then you might be fired.

There's little things like that.

They're not going to sit down with you and tell you, hey, can you just not live a life of consequence?

Instead, they're just gonna expect you to.

And here's the sad part we have.

I mean, for the most part, we we have.

I saw a quote over the weekend that said, uh, uh, I think it was from Tozer, that said, 95% of what the church did, the early church did, uh, if if the Holy Spirit left, they would be sunk.

But today, 95% of what we do, we do without the help of the Holy Spirit.

And I'm not just talking about in the church as we gather, I'm talking about as we live.

What would it look like if you lived in dependence of the Spirit?

What would you live like if you live in dependence of God's acceptance for you first and then everybody else's acceptance of you?

What would that do?

How would that shape your mind?

How would that shape your life?

Because I would venture out to say, you're gonna offend some people, and it's usually the Pharisees.

You're gonna offend some people, and that's usually the world.

We have another parable that we were gonna preach later on this summer, but let me just tell you right now, it's the parable of the leaven of the Pharisees.

The leaven of the Pharisees is basically this that everybody wants you to follow the rules, especially the religious authorities of the day.

Today, the rule is take it easy.

Don't follow Jesus so closely.

I mean, after all, I mean, he is gracious, right?

That's the Pharisee of the Leaven today, is that it's pervasive and it's in our church, it's in every church.

It's, hey, take it easy, why are you doing this?

I mean, you're kind of threatening me here.

Jesus looks at this whole idea and he says, if you live a convenient life, it will kill and quench a consequential life.

Leads us to our last point.

And he just says this in the last five verses of Matthew 15.

Who you are is revealed in what you do.

Who you are is what is revealed in what you do.

Your behavior will eventually just speak to who you really are, your identity.

Let me just read verses 15 to 20.

But Peter said to him, Explain the parable to us, good old Pete.

Never afraid to just speak his mind, not faking it.

And Jesus said to him, verse 16, Are you still without understanding?

I love the way NIV says that.

Are you still so dull?

Verse 17, do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled?

Very practical, this Jesus that we love.

Verse 18, but what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, witness, slander.

These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.

The biggest problem and the biggest mistake that the Pharisees made is that they underestimated just the depth and the breadth of their own sin.

They really did approach God with the assumed goodness that I'm really not that bad of a person.

After all, I've been clean.

I mean, I've been keeping the commandments.

613, 5,000, doesn't really matter.

I'm keeping them.

And they misunder, they underestimate the breadth and the depth of their sin.

Because here's the reality: our problem, which is a sin problem, cannot be fixed by our own efforts.

Cannot be fixed by our own rules, by our own laws, by our own regulations.

Most of us think a little bit the same way.

We think that if we just don't sin, then we'll be okay with God.

But what the Bible says over and over and over again is not that sin is just a behavior, but that sin is who we are.

It's a state of being apart from Christ.

And so it's no wonder that all throughout the Bible it says, your works, if you don't have a relationship with me, they're worthless.

You can do all the right things in the world, and they don't mean a hill of beings to me.

It's mentioned in Matthew 7.

We have read from the Sermon on the Mountain.

Now this will be three times, which is a great passage.

This same thing that Jesus says in Matthew 7, again, about the false prophets.

Now you would think that false prophets would mean other religions besides Judaism, but he's talking about the Pharisees.

Matthew 7, verse 15.

Matthew 7:15

I want to read this and we'll pretty much be done.

Just beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

You will recognize them by their fruits.

Are grapes gathered from thornbrushes or figs from thistles?

So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.

And a healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

You may be asking yourself, All right, now tell me how to recognize them by their fruit.

What is this fruit I'm supposed to be looking for?

Glad you asked, Jesus says.

Let me keep reading.

Verse 21.

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.

But the one who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven, on that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name.

Sounds like somebody that would be in.

Sounds like somebody that has a relationship with God.

Looks like somebody that has a relationship with God.

The problem is there is no relationship with God.

They've just done these things.

We know that because of verse 23.

And then Jesus will declare to them, I never knew you.

For anyone who depends on things that we do for God.

And instead understanding that God has done everything for us to bring us into relationship with Him, to live these lives of consequence, to change our inside so that they flow out into being, these trees that bear this fruit of the Spirit.

Peace, joy, patience, love, gentleness, self-control, one of my favorites.

And so he tells them all these huge vice list in verse 19.

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual morality, theft, false witness, slander, and all these things we could talk about.

We could have an 18-point sermon on sexual immorality, theft, false witness, murder, adultery, all these different things.

And perhaps the only thing that matters that governs all of this, that includes all of us as guilty parties, so as not to assume goodness is that first thing he says.

These are the things that defile a man's heart.

Evil thoughts.

Oh man, I hadn't murdered anybody, but I got some evil thoughts, a whole lot of them.

That's what's coming out.

But for a person that's been made new, that's an oops.

That's an oops.

It's not something that defines them.

Instead, who they are generally comes out.

It is that fruit of the Spirit.

For the person that hasn't made, been made new, then all that God sees, no matter how good we think we are, are all these things, these evil thoughts, murder, adultery, theft, which I thought was an interesting one that he just threw in there.

It's not that we mess up.

These are the people that have a renewed heart.

The people that have a renewed heart, it's that heart that David had, a heart that was running hard after God.

It's not that you mess up.

We're gonna mess up.

It's that when we mess up, we're running hard towards God.

It's we're repenting, we're going, oh Jesus, please forgive me.

I don't ever want to do that again.

I'm running hard after you.

Wherever you're leading me next, I'll go.

Not because you're making up for anything, but because that's just where you know you're renewed.

And the heart that runs after the world is the heart that messes up and says, All right, let me see if I can duck and dodge the God that's looking for me.

Let me see if I can hide until the next time.

So the question I think that Jesus is probably asking all of us, and if he's not, I will.

If we think that we have good behavior that's good enough, and we rely upon our own works for even a measure of righteousness, even a measure of goodness, even a measure of acceptance with each other, much less with God, the question becomes when we look at the fruit that we're bearing, what kind of tree do we see?

What motivations are behind that fruit?

Is it to appease other people?

Is it to please other people?

Is it to uh uh avoid failure?

I mean, what is it that's really motivating us in our hearts?

Or is it this life of consequence that God's calling us to live?

This life to glorify God no matter what and no matter who stands in the way.

Which one is it?

Because Jesus is very clear it's one or the other.

He's very black and white, very little gray with our friend Jesus.

So that's the question that he sets before us.

It's the question that I want us to think about as we close today.

With that, would you hold your hands out?

Your God has changed your heart from what Jeremiah says is deceptive and desperately sick into the place that he calls home.

Go now and live as the place where God dwells.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.