True Righteousness

In 2010, the deep water horizon off the Gulf had a tragic, tragic accident.

5,000 feet down below that oil platform, there was a breakage.

And this well, the Macondo wellhead, it burst.

And so over the next 87 days, 3.19 million barrels of oil flowed into the Gulf.

That's 130 million gallons of oil flowed into the Gulf.

It was the largest accidental oil spill in human history.

And as a result of what that well was spewing forth, it polluted the Gulf.

It had devastating effects.

Recovery is still happening.

This morning, Jesus is going to tell us about a different well.

It's not in the Gulf.

It's inside of you.

It's the well of your heart.

And up from that well is spewing forth things that pollute, that what Jesus says defile, that corrupt.

Things like murder and adultery, sexual immorality, theft, bearing false witness, slander.

They all come out of your heart.

Now, if we were to ask someone on the street, why do people do evil things, I'm guessing we get a couple different answers.

Maybe we'd hear something like this.

Well, it's the way you're raised.

The education you received or the home you were raised in or the economic advantages or disadvantages you had

or the ability to voice where you were or not.

So it's environmental.

That would be one option we would hear.

The other one would be, well, it's genetic.

It's physiological.

Maybe they're genetically predisposed to this or that.

Well, depending on how you answer that question will determine a lot of things.

Here's what's riding on the answer.

Here's what's riding on the street.

Now, are there environmental influences that shape us?

Yes.

Are there genetic influences?

Of course.

But are these the cause of the corruption that we see in our own hearts, our own lives?

What if the primary source of human evil is neither environmental or physiological, but it's spiritual?

It has to do with our relationship with the living God.

If that's the case, we're not going to find the ultimate solution in social sciences.

We're not going to find the ultimate solution in the halls of medicine.

If you would open up your Bibles to Matthew chapter 15, I'm going to read through verses 1 through 20, and it's like this.

Matthew 15 · chapter mention

If we saw Jesus on the street, if we saw Jesus on the street, and we asked Jesus, Jesus, what corrupts a human being?

What defiles a person?

He would say something like this.

Would you read with me in Matthew 15?

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said,

Why do you disciples break the tradition of the elders, that they do not wash their hands when they eat?

Jesus answered them,

And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?

For God commanded, honor your father and your mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.

But you say, if anyone tells his father or his mother what you would have gained from me is given to God, he need not honor his father.

So for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God.

You hypocrites!

Well did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said,

This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

And he called the people to himself and said to them,

Hear and understand, it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person,

but what comes out of the mouth.

But 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?

Jesus answered,

Every plant that the heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up.

Let them alone, their 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 Jesus said,

Are you also 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.

Jesus doesn't use the word pollution.

He doesn't use the word corrupt.

He uses the word defile.

To make common.

To kind of separate from that what's holy.

Jesus says what defiles a person is not external to you.

It's internal to you.

You're not defiled from the outside in.

You're defiled from the inside out.

Your greatest problem is not outside of you.

Your greatest problem is within you.

When Jesus talks about the heart, he's not talking about that fist-sized muscle that is pumping blood throughout your body right now.

He means the core of who you are.

Your essential being.

Your inner person.

Where you think, feel, and make decisions.

In the Hebrew mind, the heart was the center place of a person.

It's where they thought, felt, made decisions.

And so what Jesus is saying here in this passage is that your biggest problem is not your DNA.

It's not the family you were raised in.

It's not the neighborhood you live in.

It's not the opportunities you have or don't have.

The biggest problem you've got is your heart.

And what that means is we're responsible for what happens in our hearts.

We are responsible for our thoughts, our feelings, our words, and our actions because they all flow out of the heart.

Guard your heart above all else.

For from it flow the wellspring of life.

Proverbs 4.

So here's how we're going to move forward this morning.

We're going to walk through this account and we're going to see three encounters.

Between Jesus.

Verse 1 is between Jesus and a delegation from Jerusalem.

And then Jesus and the people.

And the third is Jesus and his disciples.

And all throughout it, Jesus is dealing with this issue of what defiles a person.

What makes them unclean?

Is it washing your hands?

Is it the food you eat?

Jesus says no.

It's from within.

It's from within.

After we walk through those accounts, I'm going to bring this to a point and then we're going to apply it to our lives.

So let's begin in chapter 15 verses 1 through 9.

Jesus.

An encounter between Jesus and a delegation from Jerusalem.

Now you've got to notice.

Now you've got to notice in 51, the Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem.

Up until this point, the Pharisees and scribes that Jesus has been dealing with have been local boys.

City cops.

County sheriff.

And now, the folks down in Jerusalem have gotten word about Jesus.

Now if you look at Matthew 14, 1.

Remember Herod last week, we learned God word of Jesus fame.

And he flipped out.

He thought it was John the Baptist.

Come back from the grave.

And here, we have the religious establishment that's in Jerusalem.

They get wind of Jesus.

What he's teaching.

And they're wondering if he's subverting them.

And so the way to think about these guys is they're not the local law enforcement.

These would be like the feds coming in.

Coming in from the capital to check things out.

The Pharisaical Bureau of Investigation.

Now in 15.2, they approached Jesus with a question.

Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?

They show up and they watch Jesus' disciples eat food without washing their hands.

Now you may be wondering, what is this tradition of the elders they're talking about?

Well, they're not talking about the Bible itself.

They're talking about a tradition that had been built around the Bible, the Old Testament,

to help explain the Old Testament.

It was an oral tradition.

Have you ever seen pictures of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. when it was being refurbished?

It had scaffolding built all around it so workers can work on the outside of the Capitol.

The only reason why you knew it was a Capitol, you saw the dome on the rotunda.

You said, something's in there.

The tradition of the elders was like scaffolding that the religious leaders had built around the Old Testament to help people understand it.

If there was confusion over what a particular passage meant or how it applied.

And so the intent was a good intent to help God's people understand God's word.

But here's what happened.

The scaffolding became permanent and authoritative.

So instead of appealing to the command, people would appeal to the scaffolding.

It's kind of like this.

It's instead of the halls, the acts of kind of our government happening in the Capitol,

it's like let's bring them out to the scaffolding.

Come live out on the scaffolding, everyone.

And so what was taking place was this tradition of the elders,

what was meant to explain the Old Testament,

started taking on authority on par with God's Scripture.

You get a sense of this in 15.2 when they say,

Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?

That word break is the word transgress.

They had raised it to such a degree that it's like,

Oh, naughty, naughty on you for breaking, transgressing the tradition of the elders.

And then in the second part of verse 2, they point to something.

Your disciples, they're transgressing the tradition of the elders for,

you see that at the end of verse 2, middle of verse 2,

for they do not wash their hands when they eat.

There's no command in the Old Testament

that requires all Jews to wash their hands before every meal.

There's no command.

There were Old Testament commands that required priests to wash their hands

before eating something that had been offered as a sacrifice.

What appears to have happened is that certain Jews took the specific command to priests

and they generalized the command to all of God's people.

So when the Jerusalem delegation sees Jesus' disciples not washing their hands before they eat,

whip, whip, whip, whip, whip, weep, we got a problem.

Now before you start thinking, man, those Pharisees back in the first century,

they made mountains out of molehills, I'll tell you what.

No playing cards, no dancing, no alcoholic consumption.

If you don't homeschool your children, something's wrong with you.

This kind of thinking exists today.

We can make things that are not God's Word on the same level as God's Word.

Now remember, behind all this kind of hand-washing thinking

is a deep and pervasive concern for ritual purity.

Being clean.

If a Jew touched something that wasn't clean, that Jew became unclean

and they would not be allowed to participate in the religious life of their family and friends.

Do you remember back in Matthew 9, there's a woman who has this 12-year-old issue of blood?

And no one would touch her because she was unclean, according to Leviticus.

If anyone touched her, they would become unclean.

What's amazing is she once touches Jesus and Jesus doesn't become unclean, she becomes clean.

That's what Jesus does.

So what's going on here is this.

This delegation comes up, they're looking for anything,

they see Jesus' disciples not washing their hands,

and they say, hey, you know, you're breaking the transgression,

you're transgressing the tradition of the elders.

They're essentially saying,

you disciples, you're unclean.

And this guy teaching you,

he's transgressing the tradition of the elders too.

He's not teaching what he should be teaching.

So there's the charge of subversion.

It's implied.

Now to Jesus' counter charge.

You're going to see Jesus do something here that may seem a little tough.

Up until this point, Jesus has kind of swapped some,

traded some words with the Pharisees.

We're going to see him bringing up a notch right now.

And he's going to bring it up a notch

because what's at stake is the right understanding of God's word

and rightly understanding the human condition.

That's why he's going to respond the way he does.

And we see his response starting in verse 3.

Jesus answered them and said,

and why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?

That word break is the same word that the Pharisees had used

up in verse 2.

Jesus is saying, let me just use that word transgress rightly.

You, why are you transgressing the commandment of God

for the sake of your traditions?

Jesus doesn't answer their question.

We're going to see him do this a number of times going forward.

But he turns it around on them.

And then he points to his proof.

His support.

He says,

in verse 4,

for God commanded,

honor your father and your mother,

and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.

Those are both taken from Exodus chapter 120, verse 12.

That's the fifth commandment in the Ten Commandments.

And the second one where he says,

whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.

That's taken from Exodus 21, 17.

And what they go to show is that this is God's word,

and it's serious when you transgress it.

If you revile your mom and your dad,

that's a capital offense.

And why he's doing that is because the Pharisees were making a capital offense.

And so if you notice,

in verse 5,

5,

Jesus sets up the command of God,

and then he says,

but you say.

This is what God's word says.

Honor your father and your mother.

But here's what you're saying.

You are saying,

if anyone tells his father or his mother,

what you would have gained from me is given to God,

he need not honor his father or his mother.

Here's what's going on.

It's a technical term called korban.

And what it was,

it's a kind of vow.

And the vow that was being made is like this.

An adult child would say,

well,

I have vowed to God to give half my wealth.

And then if there was a need that came up for his parents,

the Pharisees were saying,

don't break your vow to God.

Don't honor your mother or your father.

Follow through on your vow to God.

God, give that money.

Do you know where the money would go?

To the temple treasury.

Do you know who was in charge of the temple treasury?

The Pharisees.

Do you see what Jesus is putting his finger into?

He's hitting a wasp nest.

And so Jesus is saying,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

You guys are breaking a command.

By you saying,

in your tradition of the elders,

your tradition,

if you're saying you can break,

you don't have to honor your mother and your father

to keep your vow,

you're missing it.

And then Jesus goes on to say

that they're not only missing it,

they're invalidating the word of God,

God's commandments.

They're making it void.

It's a serious charge.

Jesus is very protective of God's word.

Remember, he came not to abolish it,

but to fulfill it.

He holds it up.

And when people challenge it,

he challenges them.

And so he concludes,

in order to keep a value,

invalidate God's command,

and then he accuses them

of being hypocrites.

Think about it.

God incarnate

is saying these men

are hypocrites.

You hypocrites.

Well did Isaiah prophesy of you.

And then he quotes Isaiah 29, 13,

which in its context

is spoken to Jews

who are in Jerusalem

who are just paying lip service

to God's commandments.

They were saying one thing,

but their hearts were somewhere else.

They were more devoted to human traditions

than obeying God's commands.

That's what's going on

with the Pharisees here.

They're so focused on the externals.

They're so focused on their scaffolding

just to make sure

you keep the scaffolding right.

Just make sure you're doing

the right things in the right way

and everything's just going to be fine.

Even if it invalidates God's commands.

It's Jesus' point.

And what Jesus,

by quoting Isaiah 29,

he's saying,

they have made their worship of God

vain,

hollow,

meaningless,

empty.

They're putting the man-made traditions

on the same par

with God's all-authoritative words

and so he says,

you're hypocrites.

My disciples aren't doing anything wrong.

You are.

So here we have our feisty Savior.

Our feisty Messiah.

And we're caught in between

the Pharisees and Jesus.

The Pharisees are saying,

keep the tradition of the elders.

Focus on externals.

Make sure your hands are washed.

Eat the right foods.

Don't be subversive.

Jesus is saying,

keep the commandment of God.

Don't build scaffolding

that is going to challenge

the authority of God's word.

He accuses the Pharisees

of being hypocrites.

They've invalidated God's commands

for their tradition.

So the question,

who's right?

Well, we know that Jesus

was a descendant of David.

He's born of the Virgin Mary.

He was tempted by Satan.

Didn't give in.

He preached the Sermon on the Mount.

He healed all sorts of people.

He did amazing things.

He spoke with authority.

He is God in the flesh.

He is Emmanuel.

And so Jesus is right.

He is the all-authoritative one.

Who is this guy?

Who is this guy

that when the Jerusalem delegation

comes up,

he just turns the tables on them?

He turns the tables on them

and calls them hypocrites.

Who is this guy?

Only God in the flesh

does that kind of stuff.

The second encounter

is between Jesus and the crowds.

And we see that

in verses 10 and 11.

And he called the people to him

and said to them,

hear and understand,

it's not what goes into the mouth

that defiles a person,

but what comes out of the mouth.

This defiles a person.

And in verse 15,

Peter's going to say,

explain to us the parable.

This is what he's talking about.

This kind of going into the mouth

and going out of the mouth business.

That's the parable

that Peter is referencing about.

And if you remember

from when we were in Matthew 13,

a parable is like vertical blinds.

It reveals the truth

of the kingdom to some

and hides the truth

of the kingdom to others.

And so when Jesus calls the crowds,

the people to him,

he speaks this parable to them.

And the focus is on the mouth.

But it's about what defiles a person.

And so it has to do with food.

More importantly, pure food,

clean food, or unclean food.

So the disciples are being charged

with transgressing

the hand washing regulations.

And so if they have dirty hands,

they put it on clean food,

they make the food dirty.

And if it goes into your mouth,

it makes you all the more dirty.

Here Jesus is focusing on

the eating of something unclean.

And what he is saying here

is such a seismic shift

for a devout Jew.

It was phenomenal

what Jesus is saying here.

If they had ears to hear.

Even the disciples who heard this

didn't quite get it.

It would take them decades

to figure this thing out

with the help of God.

Remember that this is a parable

and the kingdom meaning

would have been hidden

to many who heard.

And so Jesus speaks this parable out.

It's not what goes inside of you

through your mouth that defiles you.

It's what comes out of your mouth.

That's what defiles you.

So the contrast is between

coming in and going out.

What comes into the mouth

versus what comes out of the mouth.

It's all about defilement.

Becoming unclean in God's sight.

And what Jesus is saying here,

it's not what goes into your mouth

that defiles you in God's sight.

In Mark chapter 7,

Mark 7 · chapter mention

Mark says at this point,

parenthetically,

and therefore he declared

all foods clean.

So when Jesus says here,

it's not what comes into your mouth

that defiles you.

He's saying,

go have a ham sandwich.

It doesn't defile you.

He says,

hear and understand.

Speaking to crowds,

it's a parable.

Whatever he's talking about

is a new kingdom reality.

It's a new dietary regulation

for those in the kingdom.

And what it is,

is there are no dietary regulations

for those in the kingdom.

Because they don't make you unclean.

We're not told how the crowd responds,

but we are told

how the disciples respond.

So let me draw your attention to that

in verses 12 through 20.

This is the third encounter of this passage.

Jesus with his disciples.

Then the disciples came and said to him,

do you know that the Pharisees

were offended when they heard this saying?

And he answered,

and then Peter in verse 15 says,

explain to us the parable.

And so when his disciples

come to him

and ask for an explanation,

they actually ask for two explanations.

What about the Pharisees

and what about this parable?

And so Jesus picks up the issue

about the Pharisees first.

Did you not know

that you just offended the Pharisees?

Now that word offend

that you see in verse 12,

you know that the Pharisees

were offended when they heard this saying?

Probably talking about

his quoting of Isaiah 29.

That word offended,

if you look back to Matthew chapter 13

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

and look at verse 57,

remember that Jesus went to Nazareth

and he spoke with authority

and his hometown peeps,

do you remember what they did?

They were offended by him.

It's the same word.

What Jesus said was scandalous to them.

Jesus is being scandalous

to the Pharisees

for what he's saying.

He's speaking with authority.

He is correcting them.

He's exposing

what they're doing is wrong.

And they're upset about it.

And so the disciples say,

hey, did you know

you just offended them?

And Jesus responds

in verses 13 by 14

by saying,

you know what?

They're not planted

by my heavenly Father.

They're not from God.

In fact,

they're going to be uprooted.

And the last time

we read something like that

in Matthew 13,

it was uprooted

and thrown into the fire.

So what Jesus is saying there

is they're not from God.

And then he says

in verse 14,

they're blind guides.

The Pharisees love to be thought

of being teachers

of the people,

of leading people

into what the Old Testament

truly says.

And ironically,

they weren't.

Their emphasis

on their traditions

kept them from getting

the true meaning

of God's Word.

And so Jesus calls them

blind guides,

false teachers.

And they will lead

other blind folks

into a pit.

You know what?

Pits aren't good destinations,

generally speaking.

They're dangerous places.

They're deadly places.

Unless it's a barbecue pit.

Well, that is a deadly place.

Jesus sums up by saying,

let them alone.

Don't have anything

to do with them.

Don't go after their ways.

Don't let them guide you.

They're not going to lead you

into life.

They're going to lead you

into a pit.

So up until this point,

Jesus has called the Pharisees

from Jerusalem hypocrites.

He said that Isaiah 29,

13,

they fulfill it.

They're just paying

lip service to God.

They are elevating

the traditions of man

on the same level

the commandments of God.

He calls them

not planted by God.

They're going to be uprooted.

He tells them

that they're blind,

saying that they're blind guides.

Jesus says,

have nothing to do with them.

They don't have

the words you need.

And then he turns

to the parable

in verses 15 through 20.

In 15,

Peter says,

explain the parable to us.

And in verse 16,

Jesus kind of says,

no kind of about it,

do you not understand?

Jesus is surprised.

You guys don't get this?

You don't understand

what I'm saying?

And so instead of just

kind of like kicking them

out of where they were

and throwing his hands up,

I give up on you guys.

He spells it out for them.

I'm so encouraged by this

because I'm slow

to understand

what Jesus says.

And so to be able to say,

Jesus,

would you just explain this to me?

He's a risen king

and he loves

to make clear his word.

And so what he says

is what defiles a person

doesn't come

from the outside in,

but what defiles a person

comes from the inside out.

And what he's going to say

is we all have

a resident evil.

In verse 17,

he explains the first part

of the parable,

what comes into the mouth.

He says this,

do you not see

that whatever goes

into the mouth

passes into the stomach

and is expelled?

His focus is on

the pragmatics of food

running its course

through the human body.

You eat it

and then you digest it

and then you expel it.

Literally,

that means it goes

into the latrine.

Jesus is removing

any sort of

spiritualizing of food.

Eat it,

digest it,

and it ends up

in the latrine, guys.

It's just food.

And again,

Mark says here

that he declares

all foods clean

at this point.

Food doesn't make you

dirty in God's sight.

He's saying

to his disciples,

you no longer

need to be concerned

about what you eat.

You need to be concerned

about something else.

And that something else

shows up in verse 18.

If we're not

to be concerned

about what we eat

or if we're not

going to be concerned

about washing

our hands rightly,

what are we going

to be concerned about?

Jesus says,

be concerned

about your heart.

Be concerned

about that thing

in you,

that central

inner being

where you worship

from.

That's what you need

to be concerned about.

What comes out

of the mouth

proceeds from the heart,

Jesus says.

And this

defiles a person.

This is what makes

someone unclean

in God's sight.

It's like Jesus

is saying this.

Don't get me wrong.

Defilement is real,

but food isn't

the cause

of real defilement.

Nor is your washing

or not washing

your hands

the real cause

of defilement.

The real cause

of your defilement

is in you,

your heart.

And then he

elaborates on it.

It's what comes

out of the heart

is what corrupts us.

Look at verse 9.

Verse 19,

excuse me.

What proceeds

from the heart?

Evil thoughts.

Now, that might be

a little tough

for us as Americans

because when we

think about thinking,

you think with your head

and you feel

with your heart,

right?

Well, what Jewish

thinking would do,

they just kind of

squish it all together.

You think and you feel

in the same place,

your heart.

And so it's not unusual

for Jesus to say,

evil thoughts

come from your heart.

And those evil thoughts

result in things

like murders.

In the Greek,

it's plural.

And what that does

is it makes it

real concrete.

Where do murders

come from?

One's heart.

Taking a life.

Adulteries.

Taking another person's

spouse.

Where does that come from?

From the evil thoughts

of your heart.

Where do sexual

immoralities come from?

It's just kind of

a vague term

for sexual sin.

A broad term.

It comes from your heart.

Where do thefts,

it's getting plural.

All these are plural.

Where do they come from?

They come from your heart.

False witnesses

denying or distorting

the truth.

Where does it come from?

It comes from within you.

It's not environmental.

It's not genetic.

It's from your heart.

Where do slanders come from?

Speaking falsely

of someone else.

They come from within you.

You can't pass the buck

on someone else.

They're from inside.

God's going to hold you

accountable for that.

Jesus is saying

all these come from

out of your heart.

Now this isn't like

an exhausted list.

There's a whole bunch more

we can talk about.

The point is that

Jesus is making here

is that defilement

doesn't come from

the outside in.

It comes from the inside out.

From where we worship.

People don't murder people

because they haven't

washed their hands

or they've eaten pork.

People murder because

there's evil thoughts

in their hearts.

So Jesus is lovingly

explaining to His disciples

and us

that there's a resident evil

within us.

In the words of Jeremiah 17.9

it says,

The heart is deceitful

above all things

and desperately sick.

Who can understand it?

Jesus gets it.

John 2.24

Jesus knows the heart of man.

He sees the depth

of our defilement.

And you know what's amazing?

He loves us still.

It's the very reason He came.

He didn't come for the

sort of dirty.

He came for those

who were really defiled.

For the murderers

and the adulterers

and the immoral

and those who slander

and bear false witness.

Those are the ones

He came for.

So Jesus concludes

in verse 20,

These are what defile

a person

but to eat

with unwashed hands?

That does not defile anybody.

If you were to ask Jesus,

Jesus,

what makes someone

corrupt in God's eyes?

You know what Jesus would say?

Their heart.

The evil that comes

from their heart.

And that is the point

of this passage.

That's the unique contribution

of this passage

to our understanding

of God's mind.

He wants us to know

that our problem,

biggest problem,

isn't outside of us.

it's inside of us.

And so let's look

to apply this.

Jesus,

the first way

to apply it is this.

And it's on a lighter note.

Since what comes

into your mouth

is not what defiles you,

eat whatever you want.

Enjoy Doritos.

Have a Cuban.

Enjoy it.

It doesn't defile you.

It might shorten

your life a little bit,

but it doesn't defile you.

You might put on some pounds,

but it doesn't defile you.

So Jesus isn't saying

throw out wisdom.

But on a more serious note,

here's what we see

Jesus doing here.

He is authoritatively

making a statement

about the human condition.

He is saying

this is your real problem.

Don't buy the externals

of the Pharisees.

Let that behavioralism go.

No.

Pay attention to your heart.

Because what controls your heart

controls your life.

And so what Jesus does,

and I just want to expand

on this a little bit,

he helps us see

how wicked our hearts are.

We've got a radical evil

inside of us.

It goes down deep.

We have a pervasive evil

inside of us.

It's what the theologians

call total depravity.

We're not as bad

as we can possibly be,

but sin affects

everything that we are.

It pervades all of our life.

It's a controlling evil.

If you point to James 4

and you ask,

why are there fights

and quarrels among you?

James says,

is it not because of

the evil passions

that war within you?

It can be a controlling evil.

It's a polluting evil.

It's destructive.

It's disunifying.

It's divisive.

It's a deceptive evil.

The heart is deceptive

above all things.

It's a universal evil.

The heart problem

is not just limited

to the young or the old.

It goes across racial lines.

It goes across upbringings.

It doesn't matter

how much money you've got.

It doesn't matter

which neighborhood you live in.

Kind of how you spend

your time during the day.

Everybody's got a heart problem.

It's a universal evil.

And it's a capital evil.

God is not indifferent

about the resident evil

in our hearts.

He's deeply offended by it

because our hearts

were created to worship Him,

not disobey Him,

not mock Him,

not idolize other things

in His place.

John Calvin called the human heart

an idol factory,

just producing one idol

after the next.

Jesus prevents us

from minimizing

or justifying

the real problem we have.

We can't point to others.

We can't point to our DNA.

We've got to own

the problem inside of us.

It's evil and it's ours.

And it's against God.

And He rightfully condemns it.

But on that day

when you stand before the throne,

you will be held accountable

for every evil deed

and every evil thought.

Now,

if we just wrap things up right here,

you guys would be like,

well, that was a bummer.

I can eat pork now,

but you know what?

I'm really bummed out.

I'm really bummed out.

God,

I've got good news for you.

The good news is that

God's grace goes deeper

than your deepest evil.

A radical problem requires

a radical solution

and the cross of Jesus Christ

is that radical problem

that goes down deep

where sin is

and radically changes it.

God, by His Spirit,

comes to indwell you

and not only changes

your affections,

He gives you a new desire

to worship Him

and obey Him.

The good news is that

God's grace

is a pervasive grace.

When a sinner repents

and trusts in Jesus,

God claims all of that sinner

by the blood of Jesus.

Every square inch

of your life, Christian,

is claimed

by the blood of Jesus.

His grace will pervade

every area of your life

in order to make you

more like Him.

the good news is

that God's grace

is a pervasive grace.

The good news is that

God's grace

is an overpowering grace.

God's grace is more powerful

than sin in you.

God's grace breaks

the power of sin in you.

God's grace is an overpowering grace.

That's the good news.

Here's another good news.

God's grace is a sanctifying grace.

It cleans up what sin pollutes.

It transforms.

It redeems.

It makes murderers

into life givers.

It makes adulterers

into those who keep their vows.

It makes thieves

generous givers.

It makes liars truth tellers.

That's the good news

of God's grace.

God's grace is a universal problem

God's grace is that

God's grace is that the deceptiveness

of sin,

it is put,

it's exposed

by God's word.

It's seen

for what it is.

God grabs

onto slippery sins

and puts them to death

by His Spirit.

Romans 8.13.

The good news is that

God's grace

is freely offered

to all people.

The resident evil

in each of us

is a universal problem

of all mankind

and God offers

a universal solution.

God's power

to radically change

a human heart

is offered

to all people

everywhere

in the gospel.

God says

in 1 Timothy 2

He wants all people

to be saved.

God does not want

His image bearers

worshiping things

that are not Him

and so the gospel

goes out

to change hearts.

God's grace

is greater

than your evil heart,

anyone's evil heart.

And finally,

the good news

is that God

graciously offers

pardon

to those

with capital crimes.

It's true

that our evil

sinful hearts

rightly condemn us

but the one

speaking these words

do you know

what He's going to do?

He's going to say it.

I'm going to give my life

as a ransom for many.

He's going to go

to the cross

and He's going to

offer Himself

as a pardon

for your capital

crimes.

He's going to be

a ransom

for you.

He substituted

Himself

in your place.

He died on the cross

so that you can be

forgiven.

The good news

is that God's grace

offers

a great salvation.

brothers and sisters

this morning

we had to look

at something

heavy and hard

and that's inside

of you

in each of you

but it's not

bad news

because it points

to Jesus

and our need

for Him

and what only

He can do

and that is

to change

our hearts

and when He

changes our hearts

He changes

changes our lives.

Would you bow

with me?

God in heaven

I pray that

You would make us

people who pay

attention to

our hearts

and cry out

to You

to change

our hearts

and in so doing

change the way

we live our lives.

God I pray

for the parents

in the room.

I pray that parents

God would love

their children

beyond making

them behave right

to calling

them to repentance

to showing

them their

hearts are wicked

in need of a Savior.

God would You

make us parents

who gospelize

our children.

God I do pray

as well for this

church that we

would be a people

who don't focus

on externals

for external sake

but God we pay

attention

to the change

the gospel brings

to individual hearts.

Help us to proclaim

that faithfully

in Jesus name

Amen.