The Gospel of Mark | Heart Check (June 24th, 2018) - Mike Armstrong

Alright, if you would grab your Bibles, your copy of God's Word, and if you would turn it to uh Mark chapter 7 as we continue along in our Gospel of Mark uh series here.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

Now um I don't know how often uh you go to your doctor to get a checkup, but um but I went to my doctor recently for the first time in oh man, I don't know, years and years and years.

Now um everything was fine, okay.

Rest assured, everything was was fine for the most part there for sure.

But but listen, why do any of us go to a doctor?

Why do why do we go and see our doctor or go to a clinic or or whatever it might be?

Well, there might be a couple of reasons.

One is uh you know you're sick, right?

I I don't feel good and and I I'm looking for a prescription here or multiple prescriptions.

I need some, you know, I need some doctorly advice here.

Or or maybe for you, uh you think that something might be wrong.

Right?

I'm I'm not I'm not totally sure here, but I just I kind of want to get some answers and maybe some blood work or or you know, rule out some things.

Or maybe a third reason would be that you know you you feel pretty good, right?

I feel fine.

There's nothing that I sense, but maybe for you you want to make sure that things are really fine.

And and so you get that that testing done and that work done to just make sure that there's nothing kind of developing, you know, under the hood uh that could pose some problems maybe a little bit uh down the road here.

Well, hey, checkups are a good thing.

Checkups are a good thing.

Well, Mark chapter 7 really serves for us today as a as a checkup.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

It's and it's really about the condition of our hearts.

Now, not the the physical condition of our hearts so much.

We can leave that to maybe some doctors, but but really our our spiritual conditions.

That makes sense?

Okay, all through the Old Testament and all through the New Testament as well, through the entire Bible, God is very consistent in his message that it is all about the heart, right?

We've just been singing those songs, getting ourselves ready for this here, right?

He's consistent about that.

He's also very persistent.

Perhaps you've noticed this in your life, he's very persistent in coming after our hearts and exposing our hearts as well.

Why?

Well, because when he has our hearts, he has us.

He's got us.

Okay, so as we really look into this passage here today, we're gonna ask an extremely direct question.

Okay, we're not gonna like kind of be fuzzy about this and go around this.

We're gonna go right for it here.

And the question is really: is my heart far from God?

Is my heart far from God?

Have I drifted away from Him into spiritual complacency?

Am I cold?

Is there a coldness that's developing in my heart where I don't really love him and I don't really love other people, maybe the way that I used to, or certainly the way that the Bible calls me to.

Maybe I'm I'm getting kind of into this, into legalism, and I'm trying to earn something that God has earned for me.

I'm trying to impress God.

Maybe your heart is far from God because of just straight up sin.

It's idolatry, it's it's rebellion, and I've I've walked away from Him.

Listen, am I am I far from God or am I close?

Do I even know?

Do I have the first clue about these things?

Have I thought about it?

Right?

It's heart check time today, as it is every day for a Christ follower.

All right, this is where we're headed, this is where we're going.

So let's prepare ourselves uh once more by going to the Lord in prayer, crying out to him for him to have his way.

So let's pray.

Join me as we do that.

God, we come before you, our holy God, who is able, willing to expose our hearts.

Lord, I pray that you would do that here today.

Lord, I pray that we would be willing.

Lord, I pray that we would be willing to have our pride crushed.

I pray that we would be willing to humble ourselves.

Lord, I pray that we'd be willing to have you uh enter in today to meet us wherever we're at, Lord, if it's if it's sinful patterns that have gone haywire, Lord, if it is a bunch of external religious living that uh we think is what you're all about, but really you're not.

You want much more than that.

You want our desires, you want our hearts.

Lord, I pray that we would be willing to let you have your way.

But Lord, even if we are not, Lord, I pray that you would have your way anyways.

Lord, I pray that you would break through the crust of complacency and hardness and rebellion and all of that, Lord, and exalt the name of Jesus Christ in our hearts in this place.

God, I pray that you would give courage to us in this.

Lord, I pray that we would see and realize that you are a sweet and loving and kind God who wants what's truly best for us.

God, lead us to repentance.

Lead us back to you, Lord.

We pray these things in your name.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, now why does God go after the heart?

Okay, why does he do that?

You know, why should we, you know, check the state of our hearts and how are we doing in these areas, and why should we do that so often?

Well, because in the Bible, your heart is really considered your, I don't know, control center.

That's kind of how I see it.

It's like central command kind of for who you are.

Okay, when the Bible talks about your heart, it's talking about the core of who you are spiritually.

Okay, that's really it.

So it is where your heart is where your your thoughts and your attitudes and your desires and affections, and ultimately those things translate into action on the outward, right?

That's where all of those things originate.

That's where it all begins, in the heart.

Your heart is, again, it's everything according to the Lord and according to his word here.

Now, if that's true, if it's true that the heart is that important, then we really better be asking these questions, right?

How am I doing here?

Is my heart far from God?

We're gonna see that as the primary question from this text here.

And here's the first one.

If you've got notes and you like to jot things down, here it is.

It is, okay, it is far from God if I elevate traditions and outward behavior over what God actually says.

Yeah, that's how we know our heart's far from God.

Take a look at this here now.

In Mark chapter 7, starting in verse 1, as we work our way through these verses here.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

Take a look at your Bible.

It says this.

Now, when the Pharisees gathered to him, that's Jesus, um, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem.

Okay, so here we go, here we go again with these guys, right?

It's like the scribes and the Pharisees, they hear about Jesus.

They is his fame is spreading, and of course they don't like it at all, and they come, they're trying to nitpick him, and of course, that just gets darker and darker and darker as they ultimately want to kill him.

We're gonna see that in future chapters here, but we have another run-in, another run-in with these guys.

Okay, and here's what it says: keep going.

It says, They saw some of his disciples, he saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that are defil were defiled, that is, unwashed.

For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands, listen, properly.

Properly how well holding to the tradition of the elders.

Okay, notice here how it doesn't say holding to the scriptures.

Okay, but no, they're holding to the tradition of the elders.

Okay, and keep going, and when they came from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.

And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.

Okay, and the Pharisees and scribes, they asked him, Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?

Okay, so you getting this here?

You you following along?

They were they were extremely, I kind of OCD is sort of a good way of thinking about it, I think, about their very elaborate, okay, man-made traditions and and rules that they've kind of concocted, they've they've created these things and adopted and now hold under the scriptures?

No.

In line with the scriptures?

No.

Above the scriptures, right?

These are the things.

This is the standard in their minds.

Okay?

And beyond that, okay, they're just appalled by the disciples and Jesus and how they're behaving here.

Like, why don't you guys behave like us?

Why aren't you as godly as we are?

You know, here's how Jesus responds.

This is great, verse 6.

He says to them, Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites?

Okay, so you know it's gonna about to get good, right?

It says this, as it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

It's far from me.

That passage, you got a pen?

You need to like highlight that, underline that.

That is, that's the core of it here today.

Their heart is far from me.

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

You leave or abandon the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.

And he said to them, You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition.

Okay, and so here he gives us an example here of how they were doing that.

Verse 10 says, For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.

Okay, so that's what the law says.

Jesus takes them back to the scriptures, right?

But then he says this, but you say, if a man tells his father or mother, whatever you would have gained from me is Corbin, that is given to God, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down.

And many such things you do.

Now, Corbin, what's that all about?

Okay, Corbin comes from uh the Hebrew word for offering, okay, comes from the Hebrew word offering, which uh was really a traditional custom kind of instituted and and created by the by the rabbis and observed, observed by the Jews, that kind of operated sort of like deferred giving, if you're familiar with that at all.

Alright, so a son, what a what a son could do is he could you know essentially will his property to become the property of the temple once he dies.

Okay, but in the meantime, he's able to, he's allowed to uh have control over that property and and those assets.

Okay, the problem with this practice and and this tradition in everyday life is what it would do is it would deprive uh the the son's parents of financial care that was the son's responsibility according to the scriptures.

And so he didn't have money for them, he wasn't taking care of his parents.

And so Jesus, he is just like shredding this this custom.

He's like, this is this is a joke because the Pharisees and the scribes, they were holding to Corbin in a way that actually hurt families and subverted the Holy Scriptures, which of course they thought they were super awesome at obeying.

Like we're great at this.

And then Jesus says, Many such things you do.

Like, this is just one.

You want me to go on?

I can all kinds of traditions that you were elevating over this, and actually it's forcing you to disobey the Lord and harm other people, people that you were supposed to love and and cared for.

This kind of thing runs rampant, and because of these things, he says, your heart is far from me.

You look okay on the outside.

You're you're giving to the church.

That's what that's what Corbin was.

That looks pretty good, right?

On the outside, but your heart is uh it's ice cold.

He's like, I want your heart, not your possessions.

Everything on this planet in the universe belongs to me already.

I want you.

Now, verse 14, take a look at that now.

Okay, so he's kind of done speaking to the Pharisees and the scribes, and says, and he called the people to him again, and he says to them, Hear me, all of you, and understand.

There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him.

But the things that come out of a person are what defile him.

And when he had entered the house and left the people, okay, so he's with the Pharisees and the scribes, and then he was with the kind of the crowd, and now he's, you know, got some one-on-one time with his disciples.

His disciples asked him about the parable.

And he said to them, Then are you also without understanding?

Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from the outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart, but his stomach, and is expelled.

That's a lovely picture.

Thus he declared all foods clean.

And he said, What comes out of a person is what defiles him, for from within, out of, look at the heart of man.

He's talking about the heart again, right?

Out of the heart of man come evil thoughts and sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.

All these things come from within, and they defile a person.

Alright, so the so the Pharisees and the scribes and many of the Jews were, they were, they were militant about observing food laws, the the scriptures down to you know the nitty-gritty and you know, all of that, but then even going beyond that, thinking the scriptures weren't enough.

And so they were creating even more of these rules, and they were super hardcore about the things that they that they ate and didn't eat.

Why?

So that they didn't become ceremonially unclean.

Now we talked about a bunch of this stuff actually back when we uh went through the book of Galatians, but but Jesus here, he's declaring that the foods that go into your body, they don't make you spiritually unclean.

He's like, you're missing the point of the scriptures, the the whole purpose of those Old Testament law laws.

They were to give sinful people a much better sense of what it means to approach a holy God.

So you gotta think about this.

Yeah, and so you had to take great care that your sin was repented of and and cleansed before you would ever enter into worship in the temple.

I think sometimes in in today's day and age, we're so loosey-goosey, we go so far the other way, we don't have any heart preparation, and we just walk in here and we wonder why, well, it didn't really impact me.

Well, yeah, did you prepare your heart at all coming into this?

They were like the opposite.

They were so into preparing uh their hearts for that, and it involved these elaborate, you know, cleansing rituals, and they would offer sacrifice to represent the cleansing of their hearts from sin.

And so the overarching focus then, okay, and it is here in the text as Jesus is saying this, and and also for us now is what kind of state our hearts are in as we approach God.

Okay, the Pharisees and the scribes and many of the Jews, they were missing that.

They weren't thinking about the condition of their hearts whatsoever, not at all.

They made it entirely about outward behavior and following the rules and again manufacturing these traditions and and not just doing that, but taking immense pride and how they how they did in all of that, and thinking that their performance impressed God.

Not only that, they were so proud and so arrogant about it, they actually thought that it made them better than other people.

And then they got into this comparison game, thinking that others were below them, and listen, extreme, extreme arrogance and pride, a life of burdensome legalism and spiritual deadness and again disdain towards others instead of loving them well, which is what the Lord and what the scriptures are continually pointing us towards and pointing them towards, and and and and worst of all, it culminated in a rejection uh of God and his commandments.

That's what was at stake here.

All the while thinking, guess what?

I'm good.

I'm totally fine.

God is is super pumped about who I am and where I'm at and how I'm living.

This is spiritual blindness to the nth degree.

And it led their hearts where?

Far! Far from God.

Now listen, if you want to see an example of of this today, look no further than the Canadian Church.

Right?

Really, honestly, generally speaking, I think we've we've fallen into these same kinds of practices where we've we've elevated certain traditions and and certain behaviors and and and certain models over what God actually says.

I mean, how many churches are are becoming way more about entertainment?

We've gotta wow people and and and so it's gotta be flashy and it's gotta we've gotta what does the word of God say?

Preach it, proclaim it in season, out of season.

There's nothing flashy about that.

It it gets in there as it's hopefully doing even today and just makes us feel uncomfortable.

And after a while, sometimes we don't like that kind of thing, and so we subvert the scriptures and where it's going, and we gotta win people with other things.

I think the church in many ways has become about social gatherings instead of true biblical discipleship.

How do we grow?

How do we humble ourselves?

How do we be broken before the Lord and ask him, cry out with desperation, Lord, would you do something in me?

It's become about pragmatic approaches to church growth instead of God's people just praying.

Lord, would you do a work in our town?

Lord, would you start with me?

God's people gathering and saying, Holy Spirit, move.

That's how the church is gonna be anything of worth.

Not like going to conferences to figure out how I can grow my church from this many people to that many people.

How can I get rid of things in my church that people don't like?

Garbage, garbage.

Church is distracted by the overabundance of comfort and building many kingdoms instead of being on mission.

It's not about these walls.

We don't even own these walls, right?

It's going out, witnessing, being bold.

It's churches becoming far too much about charismatic leaders who are super gifted and package ministry and their words in real slick ways instead of leaders of just humility.

Where's that gone?

Leaders who are just broken before the Lord and weeping and tears and actual biblical maturity.

When we elevate these types of things, these traditions, these ways of life above what God's word actually says, they lead to a nation of churches whose hearts are from God.

We should not be surprised about what we see across Canada.

Now, listen, it can be real easy, I think, to kind of call out that that big C church, you know, all the while kind of absolving ourselves from responsibility and not really looking at what's going on.

Going on in here.

And we're like, yeah, you know, the church.

You know, out there, and yeah, them.

Yeah, what about you?

What about me?

How are we doing with this?

Is your heart far from God today?

Because you put more stock in outward behaviors and certain traditions instead of what God's really interested in, which is the health of your heart.

Now, what kind of makes me feel a little bit uneasy here is I kind of read through this and I read through a lot of the gospels and and Paul's work and Peter's work as well is you know, certainly we see it with Jesus, that he always spoke most sternly with who?

Israel's leaders.

Right?

So if you're the pastor of this church, which I happen to be here, right, or or you're a small group leader, or you know, you're a teacher and harvest kids or or in harvest youth, and you've got some some leadership ability, and the Lord by his grace is allowing you to exercise that here, or you lead one of our ministries, or you're on our leadership team, or maybe you're kind of aspiring to those things, and as the Lord is working in you, He's He's starting to push you in that direction of leadership.

Well, guess what?

It's us that Jesus is speaking to here.

Do we get that?

I think sometimes we so focus on the fringe people, the people that come in our walls and they kind of sit there and they they don't really get involved all that much.

And sometimes we like, why aren't you getting involved?

Well, listen, Jesus speaks most sternly with us, the core people in the church, the leaders.

That's the parallel here in this passage.

So listen, do not make the mistake of thinking, well, you know, I'm I'm leading here and I'm serving hard and I'm and I'm heavily involved in the life of our church.

I'm what you would uh consider a core part of what God's doing here.

Therefore, my heart is close to God.

Don't make that mistake because are you sure?

Are you sure it is?

Maybe.

I mean, I'm not saying it's not for sure.

Remember, understand this, hold to this right here.

What you're doing externally doesn't always tell the whole story.

It doesn't.

Maybe you are super involved, but perhaps it's it's all kind of become tradition and outward behavior and performance for you.

Meaning that, yeah, sure, you're you're leading, you're you're serving, but your heart's not exactly in it.

Maybe for you, uh a telltale sign is is the grumbling.

Right?

It always starts with the grumbling, and it happens kind of subtly at first, but then it turns into complaining.

And man, this takes a lot of effort.

And I've got to I've got to prepare a harvest kids lesson and I've got to teach this.

And what about my Saturday night?

And I work hard through the week, and man, I gotta get up early, and I gotta be here, and I gotta, you know, sweat before people's alarms even go off.

And you know, I gotta actually look at the questions before I show up for small group.

Maybe for you it's it's grumbling, or or perhaps, you know, you're like so skilled and and and so gifted that you can kind of get by on sort of just mailing it in.

I've got the ability, I know how to talk myself out of a wet paper bag.

And so I don't I don't have to prepare, I don't have to get my heart ready for this.

I I can fake it till I make it, sort of thing.

And so you're getting by on a really a sad lack of effort.

Or again, maybe you're just coming, you know, week in and week out.

It didn't always happen like this, but it's been it's been happening.

You come to worship, you come to small groups, you're serving with with next to no heart preparation for what the Lord desires to do in you through our times as we gather as his church in corporate worship on Sundays or or in people's homes through uh throughout the week, whatever it might be.

And so, yeah, technically you're you're here or you're going to to small group, but but deep down you're know you know that you're kind of leaning away from any type of authenticity with these things, any type of vulnerability, any type of transparency in relationships, whether it's with God or or or or with people.

Okay, but in all of that, okay, those are just uh just a couple of examples.

Right?

In all of that, you've gotten dangerously comfortable with this approach.

Okay, to the point where it's just kind of become tradition for you.

And in so doing, you know what you've done?

You've redefined what the Christian life is all about.

You've you've moved the goal line, you've moved the standard.

Okay, the Lord wants my heart, he wants me to be all passionate for him, him to be on the throne, idols broken, humility, repentance, all of that kind of thing.

But I've kind of moved it to over here to the point where it looks pretty good, and I'm kind of satisfied in that.

But again, my heart's not really in it.

And you're disconnected from any real experience with the Lord and with others that you could have in these things.

And either here, listen, either you know it, but you don't care, or perhaps worse, okay, you've become so so blind that you're like the Pharisees and you're like the scribes here, where you're just like, I'm good, right?

Totally fine.

I'm just gonna continue to go down this path and do this thing because no one's really asking how I'm doing, and I'm kind of carrying on, and nothing bad's happened so far, and I haven't experienced any trials or any difficulty, but but listen, you've lost your way.

Your heart is far from God.

Understand that if we don't push ourselves as leaders in this church, remember that's who I'm talking to, that's who Jesus is talking to primarily here.

If we don't work through these things, we uh our church will atrophy.

Yeah, we'll continue to come here and we'll continue to sing some songs, and we'll continue to carry a shiny, crisp, new Bible that we don't open up through the week.

We'll continue to put our offering in the bag as it goes by.

We'll continue to sign up to serve somewhere, but our hearts won't be in it.

That's a problem.

Because what the Christian life is all about, what God has really called us to, what the church is supposed to be about, all of it really becomes just a shadow of uh of what it's supposed to be.

And if we continue to elevate all of this tradition and all of this kind of cold, nominal, lukewarm Christianity, guess what happens?

God gets far less glory than he deserves.

Everything that we do should be about God's glory.

That is the primary mission of our church.

Now hold on a second, Pastor Mike.

I thought you said that our primary, our mission as a church was to make disciples.

Yeah, it is, but to glorify God by doing that.

Right?

God gets the glory as we give our lives to him, as we serve from the heart.

We don't do that.

Guess what?

We're robbing him of glory.

So what do we do?

Right?

What do we do here?

How can you and I tell if if our heart is far from God?

Well, by doing a deep dive and a plunge into it.

You gotta understand how your heart functions.

Learn to see the signs, learn to recognize how it how it works and how it operates.

Listen, start with your thoughts.

Okay, what do I what do I think about God these days?

Right?

What do I think about his word?

Do I think it's pretty great?

Or do I think it's boring?

What do I think about the church?

Do I think it's like awesome and I and I need it and I need people in my life to push me towards uh a greater Christ-likeness?

Or do I just see it as an as an accessory to my already busy life?

I'll just kind of add that on.

What do you think about all of these things?

What's your attitude about all of this?

What's your attitude?

What are your desires all about?

Do you want to be near God?

Or if you're honest or you're like, nah, like I'm kind of cold about this.

All of those things, thoughts, attitudes, desires, all of that, that's what leads to the actions that you are now living out.

So you gotta go into the heart and take a look at all of that.

Look beyond the outward religious behavior.

Don't get fooled into thinking just because you're doing a bunch of good things on the outside, therefore you're good.

Your behavior might be flawless.

You might be so far from the Lord because of your good behavior.

Do you understand that?

Your good behavior is making you think that everything's fine when really it's not your heart is cold.

How else?

How do we figure this out?

Well, take a look at the list here that Jesus gives us.

He's like, this is the stuff that's in your heart and coming out.

Verse 21 to 23.

These are the things that pollute us, these are the things that defile you.

He's saying it's not about the food you eat.

Yeah, it just goes in and comes out.

Your heart's everything.

Look what it says, it's evil thoughts.

What's your thought life like?

What's it been like this week?

Sexual immorality.

Now we're getting convicting, right?

Theft.

Well, I haven't like stolen anything from anybody.

How about robbing God of glory?

Murder.

I haven't killed anyone this week, so I think I'm fine there.

That was a joke.

Bad joke, I don't know.

Remember, Jesus though, what does he do?

He equates hatred with murder, right?

And so he said, Do you hate people?

Guilt, same level here.

Adultery.

Is it adultery in your life?

Is it coveting?

I really I want this thing so bad, I'm so focused on it.

That never happens, right?

Today, not for us.

Wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, just straight up foolishness.

Okay, these are the things that defile you.

Hey, so what's the answer?

What do we got to do?

One word repentance.

It's repentance for what our our foolish hearts have gotten sucked into here.

And it's a return to the word of God.

That's always gonna be it.

Instead of whatever traditional, you know, outward behavior-focused distractions that got us all, you know, twisted up in the first place.

We tend to become preoccupied and elevate over the word of God.

It's it's repentance every single time.

It's turning away from all of these things in brokenness, confessing them and saying, Lord, I'm coming back to you.

It'd be the worst thing ever.

It would be a crime if you left here and be like, wow, the word of God really showed me a couple areas that I need to work on.

Garbage.

You can't work on it.

You can't fix it.

You gotta throw yourself at the mercy of God.

God, would you please forgive me?

I am so broken, I am so lost, I am a wreck despite what my behavior seems to suggest.

Lord, by your mercy, by your grace alone, work in me, change me, redeem me, make me new.

That is repentance.

You do that, you're headed down the right road towards a heart that is in a good place, a heart that is close to God.

Don't try and like work on a couple things this week.

Let's repent.

Second thing here.

FYI, there's only two points here.

So you're thinking, well, we're gonna be here till 4:30.

Okay, second point's a little shorter, too.

Is my heart far from God?

It's not if I'm desperate for Christ's presence and power above all.

Okay?

Verse 24, take a look at this now.

And from there Jesus arose and he went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

Okay, so he leaves Galilee now.

Okay, that's to say, that's saying something, right?

He's kind of like leaving the Jews.

You guys are rejecting me, you don't get it.

I'm going to the Gentiles now.

And so he entered a house, it reads, and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden.

Jesus is far too famous now.

But immediately a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet.

Now the woman was uh was a gentile, uh Syrophoenician by birth, and listen, she begged him, okay, begged him to come to cast the demon out of her daughter.

And he said to her, Let the let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.

But she answered him, Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.

And he said to her, For this statement you may go your way.

The demon has left your daughter.

And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.

Now this back and forth that takes place here between Jesus and this Gentile woman is it's kind of interesting, right?

The the, you know, taking bread from the children and throwing it to the dogs.

That whole thing, that whole, that whole part is about how God's mission and his plan to save people is is to bring the gospel to the Jews first, and then and then to the to the Gentiles.

Okay, so to the children first, then the dogs, it says.

Now, typically that term dogs was like a super derogatory term, right?

And and it was really how the how the Jews thought of the Gentiles, right?

They they you know, and so you might be wondering here, like, well, why so harsh, Jesus?

Like, what's up with that tone?

Like, she just she just wants help, right?

Her poor daughter, what's with the response here?

Well, in this instance, actually, Jesus, he actually uses a slightly different word there for that word dogs in the Greek, referring not to like a like a filthy street mongrel who's defiled and and unclean, which is which is why Jews would call Gentiles that.

Okay, not he wasn't referring to that, but rather like a like a family pet.

Okay, so if you're a dog lover here, you can rejoice.

Okay, Jesus doesn't just hate all dogs, okay.

And so in the the woman's response is actually pretty amazing considering all this because she recognizes the special privilege and the and and the position that that Israel had here to receive the gospel first.

She doesn't argue that point.

She's like, yes, Lord, no, I understand that.

Right?

In verse 28, she says, yes, Lord, even the dogs, though, under eat under even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.

And what she's saying there is, she's showing immense desperation to receive the coming Messiah and the blessings that he brings.

Remember, she she begged him, right, in verse 26 to save her daughter from this demonic oppression.

The sad commentary here that you can read into this is that she, a Gentile, recognized who Jesus was here more than Israel did.

She got it.

She has a crystal clear.

Her heart was in a better place than the Jews' hearts were.

The Pharisees, the scribes, more specifically.

Now, verse 31, the last section here in this chapter, he says, Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the region of the Decapitus.

So the Decapitus was a group of ten Greek cities.

Okay, and they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment.

And they, notice this, begged him, okay, same language as the the woman, begged him to lay his hand on him, and taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting, touched his tongue, and looking up to heaven, he sighed and said, Ephatha, that is, be opened.

And his ears were opened, and his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

And Jesus charged them to tell no one.

But the more he charged them, the more zealously he proclaimed it, and they were astonished beyond measure, saying, He has done all things well.

He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.

Again, another example here of Gentiles showing greater desperation for Christ's presence and his power in their lives than the Jews.

Right?

They get it.

Whereas the Jews seemed much more interested and distracted by this game of religious one-upsmanship.

Okay, but you know, who could obey the traditions, you know, better, right?

And not even realizing here how hard and how cold their hearts were becoming through that game.

The Gentiles, they weren't interested in all that.

They didn't have all of those same same customs and and and everything, and they didn't care.

They just straight up they wanted Jesus.

That's it.

They begged him to be to be near.

They wanted his presence close.

They wanted his power manifested in their lives above all.

Listen, Mark chapter 7 is a painful and stark contrast here of hearts.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

The Jews' hearts, they were far from God.

The Gentiles, they, you know, who shouldn't have understood maybe, they were the ones that really want him.

They wanted to be near him.

Their hearts were close to him.

Which, of course, what God wants from all of us.

And the simple question, then again, is for you and I, we've got to ask ourselves this.

Do you and I, do we want Christ's presence and his power above all?

Are we just flat out desperate for Jesus?

Does that describe you?

Does that characterize your life?

Again, it's not about religious duty, it's not about this, you know, pious performance.

It's so easy though to get caught in that hamster wheel, isn't it?

I'm constantly going back and assessing this in my life and realize, man, I fell into this again.

I'm kind of thinking that that's what it's really about, but it's it's so not.

It's about hearts that long to just draw near to God and and be near our mighty Savior.

You want to know my life verse?

I don't know if this is like a, I don't think it's a classic life verse that that people have, but for me it's I've got it written on a very artsy looking piece of wood in my office.

But it's from Psalm 73, verse 28, just the first part, and it says, But for me it is good to be near God.

Psalms 73:28

For me, it is good to be near God.

Any thoughts at why that might be my life verse?

Because I'm so horrible at it.

Right?

I so forget.

And again, it's this distraction with just going through the motions.

Wait a second, you're a pastor.

Doesn't that mean you're like a professional, awesome Christian?

No.

It means that it's super easy for me to go through all the duties of, you know, going to the office on Tuesday and meeting with the staff and having meetings with people, getting into the Bible and studying it as a textbook only, and preparing my heart for that, and sending some emails and You know, then spending a day writing a message that I think will sound right and all of that.

And it's very, very, very, very easy to do all of that without my heart being engaged.

It's very easy.

And so I have to remind myself constantly, it is good for me to be near God.

Near Him, not distance, close.

And a simple way of identifying whether your heart is close or far from God is simply asking, do I want him?

Do I want him?

Drop that down.

Nah, it's so simple.

I'll remember it.

No, you won't.

Write it down.

Do I want Jesus?

Not do I pretend that I want him, not can I say that I want him.

Do I actually want him?

More than I want to look good.

More than I want to seem impressive to people.

More than I want to simply control God through my religious duties so that he now owes me a good life.

So that he now owes me the answers to my prayers.

Lord, look what I've done.

I've obeyed you, I've slaved after you, and you're giving me this garbage?

That's showing that a heart is far from the Lord.

Do you want him?

Do you want more of his presence, more, more of his power, more Holy Spirit power at work in your life to his glory?

Listen, Harvest, if we truly want God to be glorified above all else, we can talk that game with the best of them, can't we?

If we truly want that in our individual hearts, in our lives, we want the Lord to do a work in our town, we want the Lord to do a work in our church, guess what?

We have to have soft hearts.

We have to have soft hearts that are close to his.

That's it.

So how's yours doing?

How's it doing?

Do a heart check today.

Don't be like, well, you know, I'll do that tonight.

I'll do that tomorrow when I get up and do my devos.

Or I'll just kind of do a mail-it-in prayer to make me feel good that I ask the Lord to do some work.

But again, my heart's not really in it.

See how dumb we are about that kind of stuff?

I'm just kind of describing myself, right?

Lord, I said a bunch of words to you, therefore now the onus is on you.

No, heart's engaged.

If you don't want these things, admit it.

Just admit it, Lord.

My heart is hard.

I don't know how to fix this.

I wish I cared, but I don't.

Now you're cooking with fire.

The Lord can take that all day and do an amazing, amazing work.

Do a heart check today.

And tomorrow, and the next day.

Because again, according to your heart, according to God, rather, your heart is everything.

So once again, let's let's repent of these things.

The things that have kind of usurped God and taken the throne of our hearts.

Idols, good things, straight up rebellion and pushing God away and sinning against him and saying no and rejection and all of it.

Let's let's in repentance bring these things before the Lord in prayer and allow him to work.

I'm gonna pray right now.

And if you would agree with me that yes, I need some serious work done on my heart, listen, would you just would you just pray along with me in your spirit?

Would you cry out to the Lord for this?

Listen, if you have never done this before, if you were not a follower of Jesus Christ, do that right now.

Repent.

Give your life to Christ.

Turn your sin over to him.

That's why he went to the cross.

That's why he died.

So that your sin would be forgiven.

So you would trust him by faith, recognizing that that's why he died.

So that he would take my sin and forgive it and throw it away and deal with it.

It never has to be held against me anymore.

And instead, give me his perfection, his righteousness.

That now becomes mine, and that's now how he looks at me.

Turn your life to Jesus Christ.

Do it today.