The Difference Between Holiness and Tradition (Jake Enns)

I've titled our sermon this morning The Difference between

Holiness and Tradition. Traditions in and of themselves

are not right or wrong, they just are.

But the purpose for which they're practiced can be right

or wrong. A tradition can be a wonderful

thing to help a person or a people group practice

togetherness and unity and fellowship to practice their

beliefs. But they themselves, the

traditions themselves, they do not make a person right or

wrong. A tradition is only a vessel in

which the essence of the tradition is carried.

If the inner core of the tradition is gone, its meaning

is no longer there. The act of performing that

tradition then becomes hollow, empty, and meaningless.

The purpose of a tradition is to express a value or a truth and

to live out that truth. The truth is carried in the

tradition, but the tradition itself is not the truth.

It only communicates it. But that's where the issue lies.

It's very easy to have a tradition without truth.

A tradition can look very good, attractive, beautiful, but if

the content it advertises or promotes is not there, it's

meaningless and it becomes misleading, and it can lead to

an empty form of expression and even a performance trap.

When it comes to our worship of God, how we worship is the

tradition, but the purpose of it is the value.

We should always do it in holiness and reverence to God

and never for the sake of tradition.

Never go to church for the sake of going to church.

Go to church, yes, but not just so you can check off I went to

church. Holiness is of the greatest

importance. The word holy itself means set

apart for God, and holiness can never be compromised on and in

worshiping God, we do carry our worship in the vessel of

tradition. We worship a certain way.

Go to the Pentecostal church, they worship a certain way.

Go to South America or to Africa, wherever you go, they

all worship a certain way. That's their tradition.

But the content, the truth and the value can be the same.

It should be the same. So how we worship standing,

sitting, how we pray, standing, kneeling, tradition this morning

we want to celebrate communion toward the end of our service.

It's an ordinance that we as a Anabaptist, as believers, we

believe God instructs us to follow.

We do it a certain way. That's our tradition that we do

it. That's the ordinance.

We don't believe it's a sacrament.

That's a different topic altogether.

The ordinance itself is not a tradition.

It's a command that Jesus taught us.

So as Mennonites or Anabaptists, we practice communion and that

the how of the the actual event is our tradition.

When Jesus walked this earth, he sometimes condemned tradition,

but not for the sake of condemning tradition.

There were things that Jesus did that were required by the law

and as a Jew, Jesus did those things.

We can be sure he is a man. Never went to a synagogue.

Yep, was in the synagogue today. He never did it to check it off.

He did it because he wanted to connect with God and with

people. But they have a had a tradition

of Sabbath days. They would gather in the

synagogues. Jesus was not about tradition.

Tradition did not matter to him in so far as it having any

holiness value to it. He didn't condemn tradition as

sinful, and in and of itself he didn't.

There were some traditions he named that were nothing but

rules taught by men. We'll look at one of them today.

What does come out very clear is he condemned the idolization,

the worship of tradition. The Pharisees, on the other

hand, they're focused so heavily on tradition.

To them, it mattered so much. To them, it was all about the

tradition. They define themselves by how

well they were following the traditions.

They had a lot of them that they've constructed.

They had fabricated traditions for everything, it seemed, and

they were simply an outward show.

Before we go into the passage of this morning, I want to say a

few more words about this to get a bit more clarity.

How do they differ and how are they set apart?

See, holiness is about purity, the setting apart.

It's it's about being genuine, being true, being loyal,

sincere, no guile, no falseness, no falsehood, commitment.

Not for self, but for the other, for what we're set apart for

holiness is God focused, never self focused.

It's Jesus focused. It's about looking towards

Jesus, comparing ourself with Jesus, seeking to become like

Jesus, being the image of Jesus, reflecting that in our lives.

And honestly, we can't attain it by ourselves.

It's an it's an unreachable standard, so to speak, for us.

No human being can be perfectly holy on their own.

Every one of us falls short of that goal.

But with Christ as our Savior, His death on the cross, His the

gift of salvation, He when we repent and turn to Him, He

covers us. That grace covers us, and then

we are considered holy in His sight.

Later on when we have communion here, we want to celebrate and

remind ourselves of what it took and what it cost Jesus to bring

this to reality. And it's not easy.

Holy living is hard. It takes self denial.

And for many people, they don't like the self denial part of it.

And so that they can just adopt the tradition, just make it look

as though they are and they're not really, well, you know,

maybe no, it doesn't work. You just don't drift into holy

living. It's an ongoing journey, a

constant battle, and a constant effort to daily strive to seek

Christ. Tradition.

It's about appearance. Content doesn't matter as long

as it's accepted, and often times it's also more historical

focus. Looking back.

Well, how was it the past? I love history, I love history,

but it can never be the objective, it can never be the

goal. It's only a reference point from

where we launched to the future. Tradition is focused on on

making sure things stay the way they are, no matter if it's

relevant or not. Tradition by itself is not sin,

but it should not be held as sacred.

There are many good traditions, a lot of them people create

them. We have a Christmas family.

Traditions. I love them, but not because of

the traditions, but because of what they represent and what we

do. Traditions are only the vehicle

or the means in which the the the value is carried.

When it when a tradition becomes wrong is when it becomes about

the tradition. When the tradition becomes the

object of focus, then it's about the preservation of the

tradition at the cost of what the tradition represents.

And so that which the tradition was to elevate, was to

facilitate, is turned upside down.

And that now gives way to the tradition itself becomes

cancerous. When a tradition becomes more

important than its purpose, it's gone bad.

And what's worse is people based eternal security on tradition.

I'm the right person because I do or because my mom and dad

did. Mom and dad did, that was fine.

What I do is fine. Doesn't give me any hope.

They do nothing for a person. Traditions don't mean holiness.

Holy people will have some, but they're not the life.

Tradition often has an emphasis more on the how than the why,

and it can become a fatal trap. Many people in life based their

eternal security on following a set of traditions.

Check, check, check, check. I don't steal, I don't lie, I

don't whatever, don't commit adultery.

And I go to church, church and the events, OK, I'm a good

person that makes me a good person.

And then often times they're self-made traditions that

they've just kind of chopped out of a list of to do things and

they hope that that will outweigh the the bad they've

done and the end of the scales will tip in their favor and

Jesus will have none of it. So this morning we want to look

into Mark Chapter 7. We're going through the Gospel

Mark 7 · chapter mention

of Mark. We're not going to preach.

I'm not going to go through the whole chapter this morning.

There's a lot of content. So we're just going to pick one

story out of Mark Chapter 7 for this morning.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

In the Gospel of Mark, one of the points of tension between

Jesus and the religious leaders was the fact that in the eyes of

the Pharisees, Jesus didn't measure up, not to their

standards, not to their traditions.

The religious leaders, they felt threatened by what Jesus was

doing, by his ministry, and Jesus was kind of eroding what

they had built so carefully over a long period of time.

And his disciples were just not measuring up.

And as a result of Jesus not doing things right, he again and

again got into trouble with these guys.

So this morning we will see what happens again between Jesus and

the Pharisees. So let's read Mark Chapter 7,

Mark 7 · chapter mention

beginning verse one. We'll read to the end of verse 5

and they will stop. So then the Pharisees and some

of the scribes came together to him, having come from Jerusalem.

Now when this sauce some of his disciples eat bread with

defiled, that is, unwashed hands, they found fault.

For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash

their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the

elders. When they come from the

marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.

And there are many other things which they have received and

hold, like the washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels and

couches. Then the Pharisees and scribes

asked him, why do your disciples not walk according to the

tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?

Let's stop there. You can just hear the biting

accusation in their question. The Pharisees hated Jesus.

They they wanted to silence him in the worst way and nitpicking

it every last little thing that they could find to jab poke.

Timothy Geddert writes in this commentary on Mark and he says

this he says in chapter 6, Mark's portrait of Jesus the

miracle worker reaches a high point.

He has just fed 5000, walked on water and healed many sick

people. He is a famous teacher, a

compassionate helper, a wonder worker.

The mood is upbeat. What a shock then to begin

reading Mark 7. Jesus enemies, the Pharisees and

scribes have arrived. The Pharisees were last seen in

chapter 3, verse 6 responding to a miracle of Jesus by plotting

his death. The scribes from Jerusalem were

last seen in chapter 3, verse 22, accusing Jesus of working

miracles in Satan's power. This time the issue is

ceremonial cleansing. It is as though the Pharisees

and scribes point to Jesus and his disciples and say, Wash your

hands, you sinners, and Jesus looks them straight in the eye

and retorts, Purify your hearts, you double minded.

Niceties aside, the mood is tense and the words are harsh. 1

suspects that Jesus opponents are being caricatured.

Nevertheless, the point Jesus and Mark are making is crucially

important. Human tradition can become the

enemy of God's word. When that happens, the guilty

must be confronted and the cause of the problem must be exposed.

That is what we want to do this morning.

The tradition of washing of hands was something the Jews did

and some of Jesus disciples were seen not doing it.

So the first thing we see this morning in our passage,

tradition can blind people. It can lead people to believe

something that is not real. It can cause people to hold

something as valuable when it's just baggage.

It says here that the Pharisees and some of the scribes came

together having come from Jerusalem.

That was a long way away from where Jesus was serving at this

time. Jesus was up in the north there

between around the Capernaum area on his way up to Tyre.

So that's a long ways away now. On a map, it's on a straight

line. It's about 75 miles, but

counting curves and valleys and and ups and downs, it's more

like 100 mile walk, give or take that.

That's about 160 kilometers. That's roughly give or take from

walking from here to to London. Imagine a group of guys walking

up that far just to check things out and confronting him if

necessary or maybe setting out because we want to confront him.

If you wanted to walk from here to London to have a have a spat

with someone, they're pretty serious about that.

They meant business. And the first thing they see

when they get there, Jesus disciples, they're eating,

they're not washing their hands. Come on.

And they engage instantly right away.

What was so important about their washing of hands?

Let's look at verse 3 as particular for the Pharisees and

all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a

special way, holding the tradition of the elders.

I was fascinated by this since I googled this and on YouTube

there's actually Orthodox Jews that still practice this and

they show you how to do it. It's interesting.

God had given instructions in the Old Testament law to the

priests how they're supposed to go into the into the Tabernacle

and this basin of water, how they're supposed to wash their

hands a specific way they're supposed to wash their hands

when they served the Tabernacle. And this had become vague and I

couldn't find in the Old Testament, and maybe I'm missing

something, but I couldn't find a particular case where the

ordinary Jew was supposed to always wash their hands before

they ate or when they went to the market.

I couldn't find that. So, and, and the commentators

suggest this is just something the Pharisees concocted and

added to what God had established years ago.

And so they also had a very particular unique way how to

wash them, pouring water, so much water this way and that

way. It was very, very precise how

they should do it. Well, the disciples are not

doing it and they take offense at that.

And Jesus is not quiet, not this time.

You see, it's very possible to be totally, 100% sincere and

committed and dedicated and absolutely wrong, completely

blind. A person in that place in life

cannot conceive. Could I perhaps be wrong?

No, you've always done it this way.

But why? What's the purpose?

But God in his grace sometimes convicts a person and that

person, if the person is open to respond to truth, will say, you

know what, actually I'm worshipping that tradition.

It's not helpful. It's actually not good.

One speaker I heard put it this way, there'll be many people on

Judgement Day waving their resume of good works and so on.

Jesus say might I never knew you no relationship with you.

You see tradition is not what connects us to God.

A relationship with God is what connects us to God traditions

they will not carry us through what carries us through is Jesus

Christ the Spirit living in US. He was 12/14 says pursue peace

with all people and holiness without which no one will see

the Lord first. Peter one verse 15 to 16.

But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all

your conduct, because it is written to be holy, for I am

holy. You see, traditions do not equal

holiness. Outward appearance does not mean

inward reality. What something appears to be

from the outside does not mean it is on the inside.

Jesus saw that and he responded. Jesus pointed to the prophet

Isaiah and reminded the Pharisees of words that they no

doubt knew very well and were well familiar with, but would

have never thought that they would be directed at them.

Let's continue reading Mark chapter 6-7 verse 6 to 8.

Mark 6 · chapter mention

He answered and said to them, Well did Isaiah prophecy of you

hypocrites as it is written. This people honors me with their

lips, but their heart is far from me, and in vain they

worship me, teaching His doctrines, the commandments of

men for laying aside the commandment of God.

You hold the tradition of men, the washing of pitchers and cups

and many other such things you do.

Let's just pause here for a moment.

Let that sink in. See, Jesus is not content with

with just telling them what Isaiah said.

He has to preface what Isaiah said by calling them hypocrites

first. Yet why?

OK Jesus, you're just you're, you're jabbing and turning.

Well, did Isaiah prophecy of you as it is written?

He could have said that. He's not content to say that.

He says, well, did Isaiah prophecy of you hypocrites?

What's a hypocrite? It's an actor, a pretender,

somebody who's not real. In those days, they would have

also the, the plays and whatnot, the where people would would act

and so on. And that's, that's an actor

pretender. He categorized them.

When tradition blinds people, they take tradition and put it

where God's commands should be. And then people follow the

tradition instead of God's commands.

That's very misleading. It turns into a death spiral.

It's the blind leading the blind.

There's a phenomenon in nature, in the animal world.

It's interesting to watch and I've only watched it on YouTube.

I've never come across a real one.

It's it's the death spiral of an Ant colony.

It looks like that when ants are on a journey to hunt food, they

follow a scent trail. And if by chance that trail

loops and crosses itself over once, sometimes they just go in

a circle and they start going in a circle and they find piles of

dead ants like that because the ants got disoriented.

They follow the scent trail and it goes round and round and

round and round, and they all follow each other and they

exhaust themselves and fall dead.

They're busy running and never going anywhere.

It's a bit of a picture that comes to my mind when a person

gets stuck in a rut of tradition.

It's exhausting, It's hard work. You're not lazy, you're busy

doing what What doesn't help, no benefit?

When tradition becomes the focal point of more than what God says

in His Word, that's a death spiral.

Not just as tradition blind us, it literally replaces God's

commands. Jesus saw right through the

actions of these religious hypocrites.

But if we would have looked at them, if we would have seen

them, if they would come to our church, we would not be able to

see it. They looked devoted and they

were devoted. They're very committed, very

religious. They knew the Torah of the

Bible. What they had the problem was

the what they presented themselves as was not what they

were actually inside. Jesus says they honor me with

their lips. Their hearts are far from me.

They were saying the right things.

They were reading the right scriptures.

They're praying even almost not always the right prayers, not

always the right prayers. Sometimes they're giving money

to the temple. A long list of things they were

doing and checking off, making sure they were doing all these

things because they wanted to earn their relationship with God

and their approval of God. And yet Jesus says the worship

of me is in vain. Here's what happens.

The outward performance was there and often is in our time

as well existent. It does, it's there, it sits

there. The the substance is gone and

it's all hollow and empty and meaningless.

Sometimes in life we get so used to doing something a certain

way, it just becomes an extension of us.

We do it in our sleep. Reminded of a story of a young

couple had twins, of course, their first set of their first

babies and had twins. And so husband and wife, young

couple that they were decided to well, they're going to cry at

night. So one cradle by the by the

mother's side, one cradle by the dad's side.

And so when they fuss at night, just rocked the cradle, just

rocked the cradle. And so the mother's very keen on

doing everything right. And so at night time, her baby

there cries, She rocks the cradle, takes care of it, and

baby on his side cries and he rocks the cradle.

And that's what he does. And eventually he just keeps

rocking the cradle. And then the mother wakes up and

the kids up, he's just rocking the cradle.

The baby fuss, she gets up, walks around, picks up the baby

and holds him and he keeps rocking the cradle.

Just no sleep, just no sleep. Sometimes people mentally,

emotionally, just in their sleep, Yep, I did it.

Yep, checked off, never questioned it.

It's just baggage. Putting tradition above 1's

relationship with God is something that happened subtly,

incrementally, little by little, and we become shallow, lukewarm,

self focused, and then we become proud and what we've

accomplished. All we give to charity we do

church and it's totally self focused and then it expands.

Then we judge those who don't do as we do.

The output form has become the standard.

The inward content never gets questioned.

Jesus spoke up. You know, sometimes it's best

not to speak. Sometimes it's good to speak.

In Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse seven, that says there's a time

Ecclesiastes 3 · chapter mention

to speak and a time to not speak.

There's a time to be quiet and a time to talk.

Proverbs 26 forces, do not answer a fool according to his

folly, lest he, lest you be like him, answer a fool according to

his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.

So when do you speak? It's hard to discern, but in

this case, this was time. And sometimes we need to call

out when something has gone dead or gone bad.

Jesus spoke up. He zeroed in on part of God's

commands that they were setting aside.

The Pharisees were big on their laws and traditions.

Well, let's continue reading. Jesus is not done yet.

Turn to Mark Chapter 9, verse 79 to 13.

Now he said to them all too well, you reject the commandment

of God that you may keep your tradition.

For Moses said honor your father and your mother and he who

curses father or mother, let him be put to death.

But you say if a man says to his father or mother, whatever

prophet you might have received from me is Qurban, that is a

gift to God, then you no longer let him do anything for his

father or his mother, making the word of God of no effect through

your tradition which you've handed down and many such things

you do. We see how the religious leaders

over time had become not only being blind, not only replacing

God's commands with tradition. Then they turn and neutralize

God's commands that they may keep the tradition.

That's a very heavy statement that Jesus makes here.

Jesus goes for the very core of what's going on here.

He uses the 10 commandments to illustrate one of the

commandments to illustrate what's actually happening.

And the particular commandment in chapter the commandment #5

says honor your father and your mother, no exceptions given.

That means more than just saying hi dad, hi mom.

That means recognizing and acknowledging our parents as

mother and father and supporting them, helping them when they

come to the point in life where they need it, being sure we're

submissive or respective of them, not abusing them,

disrespecting them. Seen that day and age, there

were no social networks as we have today, Old age security or

pensions and whatnot. When a person became elderly, it

was the family that took looked after the person, and many

cultures and tribes still do that.

It's a good thing. First the parents raise the

children, then the children look after the parents.

In those times, as now, people also gave to the temple for

ministry. But the Pharisees, they were

very greedy. They were corrupt, dishonest

men. So they found a way for people

to give to the temple at the cost of helping their parents.

All a person had to say to his mom and dad was the gift I'm

giving to God is Corban. Nelson's illustrated dictionary

puts it this way. The writer says a word.

The qurban is a word applied to a gift or offering in the temple

that declared that gift dedicated to God in a special

sense. Once a gift was offered under

the special declaration of qurban, it could not be

withdrawn or taken back. It was considered totally

dedicated for the temple's special use.

Jesus condemned the Pharisees for encouraging the people to

make such gifts to the temple while neglecting the

responsibility to care for their parents.

According to Jesus, this was a clear violation of the higher

command. Honor your father and your

mother, making the word of God of no effect through your

tradition, which you've handed down to men and many such things

you do. I don't think the Pharisees had

counted on what Jesus was going to do here.

In their minds, they just knew Jesus wrong.

But Jesus opened the floodgate. This is who you guys are.

He wasn't finished yet. This incident with the Jewish

leaders confronting him and then he pushing back.

This had gotten to him and he couldn't just let it go.

Now he calls the people. Let's continue reading chapter

714. When he had called all the

multitude to himself, he said to them, Hear me, everyone, and

understand There's nothing that enters a man from outside which

can defile him. But the things which come out of

him, those are the things that defile a man.

If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.

When he had entered the house away from the crowd, his

disciples asked him concerning the parable.

So he said to them, Are you thus without understanding also, do

you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot

defile him because it does not enter his heart but stomach and

is eliminated, thus preifying all foods?

And he said, what comes out of a man that defiles him?

Jesus made a very clear, made it very clear this outward ritual

of hand washing was not important, had nothing to do

with being holy or undefiled as they would call it.

Hand washing was not where it was at.

In fact he took it further. He went from hand washing to

eating. He pointed out the tradition

does not does nothing for defiled heart.

Verse Chapter 7, Verse 21 to 23 For from without, out of the

heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries,

fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness,

deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride and

foolishness. All these things come within and

defile a man. Tradition does nothing for a

defiled heart. We have to remember, as

important as hand washing was for the Jews, and hand washing

is great guys, don't get me wrong, keep washing your hands

does nothing for the soul, nothing for the heart.

And Jews were particular but hand washing even more

particular. What they ate and still are.

Many of them, they don't want to be defiled.

And here in this case, Jesus demolishes the tradition of the

Pharisees about hand washing completely.

Again, hand washing is not sin. What value do you place in it?

That's the issue, the crowd to the crowd.

He said if a man eats that won't defile him, what comes out of

his heart that will. As meticulously and faithfully

as the Jews washed their hands, the sin in their hearts was no

less real and no less present. And especially the hearts of the

Pharisees. That was what was defiling them.

Faithfully washing didn't matter.

When the Pharisees went about when Jesus went about helping

people and the Pharisees and scribes went about criticizing

Jesus and judging him, Jesus went about calling the people to

holiness. On this occasion, Jesus engaged

the conversation and pointed out to them that they were falling

short today in that in their day.

I'm going to ask us this morning, where do we fit?

How about us? Are we more about tradition or

more about holiness? Are we focused on being in a

relationship with Jesus and walking in holiness with Him?

If we're not careful, we can so easily slip into giving God lip

service Sunday after Sunday, saying the right things, giving

some money. But then from Monday to

Saturday, life goes on. If there is no God, if the heart

is defiled, if the heart is unholy, there's no tradition, no

ritual, no physical practice, no ordinance, no amount of going to

church, no amount of doing good works, anything that will fix

that problem. The only way out is repentance.

Jesus wants that. He wants the heart.

He wants you and he wants me and he wants a relationship.

The question you, we, you and I must ask ourselves, do we want

it or do we just want Jesus to accept us in the mess without

changing us, changing the mess or the cleaning up the mess?

But I want this, I want that. Then we're still wrong.

We all know Jesus not OK with ritual at the expense of

relationship fallout. He gave Himself totally and

completely. When we give Him our hearts, He

has what He wants. This morning we've prepared

communion. We want to again remind

ourselves of what these did on our behalf, how He gave His

body, how He shed His blood, that through that we can walk a

newness of life and we repent and put our trust in Him.

We don't have to manufacture and construct our own holiness.

We receive it as a gift from Him.

He gave his body and shed his blood and opened the door for us

to come in. When we celebrate the Lord's

Supper, we remind ourselves that we're cleansed through His grace

and nothing not by ritual or performance.

So at this time, I want to ask our deacons to come forward.

Our worship team will come up and we will celebrate communion.

The worship team will lead us in a song and the deacons will hand

out the bread and after that one of them will will read a

scripture and pray and then communion will be celebrated.