A Heart Issue (Mark 7:1-23)

So this morning we're going to be in Mark chapter 7, and we're going to be going through verses 1 through 23.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

So if you don't have a Bible and you would like one, just raise your hand.

Brian would love to bring one to you.

We're going to be reading out of the CSB translation here this morning.

So as you're turning there and getting ready, or in Mark 7, like I said, just a few things.

As we read through these 23 verses, there's going to be three different people that Jesus is talking to.

Verses 1 through 6 kind of set up the stage.

And then starting in verse 6, he's going to be addressing specifically the religious leaders.

And then in verse 14, he's going to be speaking to the larger crowd that's already there.

And then verse 18, he's going to be speaking specifically to his disciples.

So there's kind of these three different crowds that Jesus is going to be talking to.

And as I was prepping the sermon and getting it all ready and looking through, I realized there's a lot of detail in here that I've gone into, and I was actually going through trying to see where I could shave some of those details out because I figured might just be getting a little too in-depth.

But they were really, those details and those word studies were really important to understanding the application that we're going to have at the end of this sermon.

So I left them all in there.

So hang in there with me as we kind of look at some of those details, because it will help everything kind of make sense in the end.

So just hang with me.

But let's stand, if you're able, for the reading of God's Word.

Mark chapter 7, beginning in verse 1.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

It says, The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him.

They observed that some of his disciples were eating bread with unclean, that is, unwashed hands.

For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, keeping the tradition of the elders.

When they come to the marketplace, they do not eat unless they have washed.

And there are many other customs they have received and keep, like the washing of cups, pitchers, kettles, and dining couches.

So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, Why don't your disciples live according to the traditions of the elders, instead of eating bread with ceremonially unclean hands?

He answered them, Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written, The people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines human commands, abandoning the command of God, you hold on to human tradition.

He also said to them, You have a fine way of invalidating God's command in order to set up your tradition.

For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother, and whoever speaks evil of his father or mother must be put to death.

But you say, if anyone tells his father or mother, whatever benefit you might have received from me is Corbin, that is, an offering devoted to God, you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother.

You nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down, and you do many other similar things.

Summoning the crowd again, he told them, so now he's talking to the larger crowd, listen to me, all of you, and understand, nothing that goes into a person from outside can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.

When he went into the house away from the crowd, his disciples asked him about the parable.

He said to him, So now speaking specifically to the disciples, are you also as lacking in understanding?

Don't you realize that nothing going into a person from the outside can defile him?

For it doesn't go into his heart, but into the stomach, and is eliminated.

Thus he declared all foods clean.

And he said, What comes out of a person is what defiles him.

For from within, out of the people's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, self-indulgence, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.

All these evil things come from within and defile a person.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you so much for your word.

I thank you for the access that we have to it, Lord, and all of the translations that we can so easily access here in this country, Lord.

And I pray that we would never take that for granted, that we can hold this right in our hands here today.

So, Lord, I pray, as this is your word, that you would speak it to us here today, that you would teach us, that you would help us to grow not only in our understanding of you, but our love for you.

Lord, I pray you would use me this morning as your mouthpiece, filled with the Holy Spirit to deliver your word exactly how you would like it delivered.

We pray these things in Jesus' name, and everybody said, Amen.

You may be seated.

So as we jump into this text this morning, we're going to be comparing and contrasting God's desire for us and Satan's desire for us.

You know, God's desire is being in a relationship.

His desire is love.

His desire is filled with grace and hope and peace for each one of us.

Satan's desire for us is chaos.

It's to kill, steal, and destroy as much of our lives as he possibly can.

And here is the key thing that I want us to think about as we're going through these verses.

If Satan can't get you to deny God in your life, his next course of action is going to be to try and make you as miserable as possible.

To bog you down with rules and with regulations.

So you start to work for things that he's trying to give us.

So that we start to work for things that are actually free.

You know, Satan wants to foster fear and hopelessness, hopelessness to cause pain and anxiety in our life so that we can lose sight of Jesus in the midst of a storm, just like we talked about last week.

So, and as you may have guessed as we're going through this, we're going to be talking a lot about legalism here today.

And Satan tries to do all of those things that we just talked about through legalism.

So keep that in mind.

So let's jump in to verse 1 right here.

It says, The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him.

They observed that some of his disciples were eating bread with unclean, that is, unwashed hands.

So you get the impression that these guys are not here for pure motives, right?

We've seen that a good number of them are already plotting against Jesus.

They've scrutinized him for healing on the Sabbath, for forgiving sins, for eating with tax collectors.

And now we see that these men had traveled from Jerusalem to Galilee, that's the southern part of Israel, all the way up to the northern part of Israel.

They've gathered around him, and it seems like they're just ready to pounce.

They're scrutinizing him, they're hovering, they're just ready for him or his disciples to do something wrong.

So at the first opportunity, they can bring accusations against him.

And as religious leaders, they did have some of this responsibility, you know, to look out for false teachers, to evaluate ministries and people that kind of popped up that they weren't familiar with.

But the correct way to do that is by holding those people up to God's word.

For the religious leaders to evaluate, is to hold up these ministries and these people up against God's word and biblical standards.

But look what they do.

They're measuring up Jesus and his disciples to the traditions of man.

That's how they're evaluating his ministry.

They measure up Jesus and his disciples' ministry to their hand washing habits.

You know, they weren't washing correctly in their eyes before they ate.

Which, you know, because of that, we can date this specifically in history as pre-COVID.

I mean, they weren't even using hand sanitizer.

Where were their mothers?

You know.

But they're looking at the hand washing of all things, of all the things that they see Jesus doing.

They're trying to narrow down or evaluate his ministry down to hand washing.

And why would hand washing be an issue here?

Well, look at verse 3 with me.

It says, and this is an explanation of why they're bringing these accusations.

Verse 3 for the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, keeping the tradition of the elders.

When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they have washed.

And there are many other customs they have received and keep, like the washing of cups, pitchers, kettles, and dining couches.

So Mark is giving us a little history here.

He's giving us the explanation of why all of this is happening right now.

He's letting us know what the custom is at this time in Israel.

So please note that these were not commands.

The hand washing, the ceremonial washing of their hands, they were not given by God to Moses to be in the first five books of the Bible.

You know, what's considered the law.

These were, as it says in verse 3, traditions of the elders.

We do see things, you know, about hand washing for Aaron, you know, the high priest and his sons in Exodus.

We see a little bit about ceremonial washing in the book of Leviticus, but there's nothing in the law about everyone washing their hands before they eat, or needing to do it ceremonially either.

So these traditions referred to here in our text this morning were in addition to the law.

We're in addition to what God had given them.

And at this time in Judaism, they had the written law, which we still have.

We have, you know, the the first part of our Bible here.

They had that at the time, but they also had something called oral tradition.

And what they did with the oral tradition is they basically took what we would consider as like a modern day commentary.

That's what the oral tradition was of the Bible.

And they at this time actually had it written down.

It started off as an oral tradition, but at this time it was actually written like a modern day commentary.

And that was to help people with the understanding and the application of God's word.

So nothing wrong with that.

We have those today, we read those today, nothing wrong with that.

But then they added a second layer to the oral tradition, which was interpreting the first oral tradition.

So they had the first oral tradition, and then they had their commentary on that, and then they added another layer of comment of commentary upon that as well.

And basically, um, as G.

Campbell Morgan puts it, they were reading interpretations of interpretations of interpretations of traditions.

You see how far away they've gotten from God's word at that point, with all of those layers that they were going through.

And some of the religious leaders and rabbis of this day were actually esteeming the oral traditions above God's law, above the written, you know, law that God actually gave them.

So, in essence, upholding the words of man over the words of God.

And think about it, this is what they're evaluating Jesus' ministry by.

Something that's so far removed from God's actual word.

You know, as far as we know, this oral tradition that we see talked about here in our text today, it may have started from a pure heart.

It may have started with really good intentions.

Someone, you know, as an act of worship, wanted to go above and beyond in their devotion to God by ceremonially washing their hands when it wasn't required.

And then maybe doing it a little more and a little more till they they reached a place where they didn't want to eat without ceremonially washing their hands.

But the problem always lies in when we take that extra step of what started as devotion, and then it turns into something that we take pride in.

This is where legalism starts to sneak in.

And that's when it crosses that line from going from worship or devotion to legalism.

And please hear me say this that legalism is actually the opposite of worship.

Worship is recognition of who God is, which leads to us realizing how small that we are.

Which leads us to recognizing that we can do nothing apart from God.

Nothing that's of worth.

Now, conversely, when you look at legalism, legalism at its core, you won't hear people saying this, but at its core is saying, Jesus, you are not enough, and I need to supplement you in order to be right with God.

I need to add my own rules in order to be right with God.

So that through my own effort, I will make up for where Jesus falls short.

And then on top of that, I'm not gonna just do that for myself.

Now I'm gonna try and hold other Christians to those standards as well.

Now, here's an example of legalism to help us kind of wrap our mind around it.

You know, somebody may say, you know, I'm struggling with foul language.

That's like, that's where I'm having the hardest time right now and where I need the most work.

Or maybe I'm struggling with pornography, or maybe I'm struggling with anger, or I'm struggling with violence.

Therefore, for me, I feel like I should not watch rated R movies.

And if that is you, praise the Lord, that's wonderful.

We need to set up those boundaries and parameters for ourselves to help us keep from stumbling.

When it turns to legalism, though, is when, and when it turns to sin, actually, is when we start to take pride in the areas that we don't have liberties.

Where we take pride in areas that we had to set up boundaries because of our weaknesses.

And isn't that so backward to take pride in areas that we had to set up boundaries for our uh weaknesses, but then it progresses and it keeps going.

And it says, well, you know, I don't watch rated R movies.

And you know, the more I think about it, you know, I don't think that other Christians should either.

And you know, in fact, if you aren't convicted of watching rated R movies, I'm not sure you're really a Christian.

And that's the progression that we how legalism starts and where it ends up.

So you can see how that can turn to pride and that can turn to judgment really quickly.

And I've actually experienced almost something exactly like this.

You know, growing up in high school and in college, there was a show on TV that I felt like all of my friends and peers uh were watching at the time.

And it was something that I had some personal struggles with myself, and I realized I can't watch that show.

That's just not good for me as a Christian to expose myself to that show.

I just have to remove myself from it.

So when my college roommates and stuff were starting to watch that show, I just would go upstairs or disappear or go and do something else.

Because that was something I was personally struggling with, and they didn't have that issue.

But what happened is I would do that, and then I would start to have these thoughts of, man, I can't believe they're watching that show either.

Don't they realize how bad that and man, how can they call themselves Christians and watch that show?

I realize no, that was just pure legalism and pride on my part because I had a weakness that I had to kind of put something up around.

But that is what legalism is at its core.

And it's what we're seeing from the Pharisees and from the scribes right here in our text here this morning.

These guys are fault finders, they're fault, finding fault in Jesus' disciples.

And this is not a spiritual gift, by the way, being a Christian fault finder.

But if you are, you're you're never gonna have a lack of work and opportunities for ministry because we're all at fault all the time, and we're all in need of a ton of grace.

You know, you've heard me say it before, and you'll hear me say it again because it's one of my favorite quotes.

And it's from Billy Graham.

He said, It's God's job to judge, the Holy Spirit's job to convict, and our job to love.

You know, we could sit here all day and find fault in each other, but what good would that do for the kingdom of God?

Now, if you're living in defiance of God and you're living in sin, you're gonna hear from the elders and you're gonna hear from me, you know, in that.

But if you're a true disciple of Christ, we need to be the greatest dispensers of grace to one another.

And we're seeing the opposite of grace from these religious leaders that are trying to find fault in Jesus.

They're taking this tradition of man, this hand washing, and they're trying to impose it on everyone.

And they're judging those that don't follow their oral tradition.

Look at verse 5 with me.

So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders, instead of eating bread with ceremonially unclean hands?

So this is not an issue of hygiene.

They weren't sitting there with filthy hands and like, ew, this is gross, Jesus.

Why don't you make them go wash their hands?

This is ceremonially unclean hands.

So the disciples' hands could have been sparkling clean at this moment, and the accusations would still be coming.

You know, it was a ceremony where they took, and like this is how it was in their oral written law.

Um, it was an eggshell and a half worth of water that they would use for the ceremonial washing of their hands.

So not enough to really get your hands clean, right?

This is just a sprinkling.

But think of all that Jesus is doing and teaching, and they want to discount it all because his disciples don't sprinkle their hands in the right way before they eat.

We're really seeing the heart of a legalist right here from these men.

Look at verse 6.

He answered them, Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites.

There's a word again.

As it is written, see, as it is written, he's he's separating from the oral law.

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

They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines human commands, abandoning the command of God, you hold on to human tradition.

So in verses like these, I so wish that we could hear the tone of Jesus.

Don't you, as he's speaking these words?

You know, is he speaking it with some righteous anger in his voice?

Starting to get upset.

Was he saying it with a tear in his eye because he actually really loved these people, but he could see the hardness of their heart?

Or was he kind of emotionless and just said this as a matter of fact?

Like, here's the facts, guys.

You know, we obviously don't know, but we do know that Jesus wasn't afraid to say things like they were, right?

He didn't hold any punches back when he's talking to these religious leaders.

And these religious leaders, they were used to being respected and to being honored and to being uplifted and put on pedestals.

They're not used to being talked to this way, the way that Jesus is talking to them, regardless of what his tone is.

And he flat out calls them hypocrites.

That's a big accusation, isn't it?

You know, the word hypocrite is the word used to describe an actor that speaks from underneath a mask.

Which is a very fitting description of these religious leaders here this morning.

Jesus says their hearts are far from God.

He said that they worship God in vain and made up laws and held them above God's law.

Those are some big accusations.

And actually, what Jesus is quoting here is from Isaiah 29, 13.

So these guys would be really familiar with what Jesus is saying, and what Jesus is telling them is you are the fulfillment of this prophecy that you know so well in the book of Isaiah.

Ouch.

They know exactly what Jesus is talking about.

And the first part of that passage in Isaiah says, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

They're actors.

These religious leaders were saying all of the right things.

They were looking the part of holy, God-fearing men, but they were doing it from under a mask.

And what was underneath that mask was pride.

You know, I was trying to think of how we may do this in modern day.

What is our application of this?

Because it's easy to look at these religious leaders and say, those doofuses, I couldn't they see?

But I was like, okay, Lord, how do we do this in our walk, you know, on a daily basis?

And I'm afraid that, you know, sometimes we might do this while we're worshiping through music, you know, where we're looking the part, but the heart may be far from God.

Where we're honoring him with our lips, but not meaning what we're actually singing to him.

You know, have you ever made it halfway through a song and realized, oh wow, I was.

Singing from memory, but I was thinking about lunch.

You know, or I was thinking about the football game that's coming up, or thinking about something big purchase that maybe you've been saving up for, or something like that.

Or maybe it looks like coming to church every Sunday and looking the part, but the people that you work with or go to school with or interact with or your neighbors would be shocked to find out, you know, that we attend church.

Or simply maybe it's that you say you are a Christian, but the actions that follow don't line up with that claim.

I think these are just some of the ways that we as Christians right now, even if we're following Jesus, can be hypocritical in the way that we're walking with the Lord.

Now, the second part of this quote from Isaiah says, They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines, human commands.

And this really gets back to the hand washing, this worshiping in vain.

And the word for worshiping in vain, it actually means fruitless.

That's one of the definitions in the Greek.

And it means there's no point to it.

Their worship is fruitless before the Lord.

And if you remember, John 15, verses 1 through 2 says, I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener.

John 15:1–2

Every branch in me that does not produce fruit, he removes.

And he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit.

Obviously, fruit in a believer's life is a result of an abiding relationship with Jesus.

That's how we name the church, because we want to be abiding in Christ and teaching others how to do the same.

But think about what Jesus is telling them.

He says, You've devoted your life to looking and acting a certain way, and in God's eyes, it's pointless and it's fruitless.

He's telling them that they would bear just as much fruit if they stopped worshiping God.

Think about that.

That's a big accusation that he's giving to these men that are used to being elevated and put on a pedestal.

Look at verse 9 with me.

He also said to them, You have a fine way of invalidating God's command in order to set up your tradition.

So you have a fine way.

That is sarcasm.

Jesus is being sarcastic.

And we're supposed to be just like the rabbi, right?

So, no, I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding.

I just find it really funny when we see Jesus using sarcasm.

But what he's saying is, you twist God's law so that it'll work in your favor, and then you're preaching it to these people as doctrine.

Verse 10.

For Moses said, honor your father and your mother, and whoever speaks evil of father or mother must be put to death.

But you say, if anyone tells his father or mother, whatever benefit you might have received from me is Corbin.

That is, an offering devoted to God.

You no longer let him do anything for his father or mother.

You nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down, and you do many other similar things.

So the gist of this is that these religious leaders had, or at least given permission to others, to use money and resources that they should have been giving to their mother and father, and saying, actually, this is something that I've set aside for God, so you can't have it.

Therefore, sorry, you're out of luck, Mom and Dad, but the money that I should be using to honor you, I'm going to be giving that to God.

So you're out on the street, you're out on your own.

So they took a written commandment, which is the fifth of the Ten Commandments, honor your father and mother.

And the religious leaders are teaching according to oral tradition, the one that's so far removed from God's word, if an offering to the Lord makes you break this written commandment, it's okay.

Just ignore the written commandment that God gave you in order to uphold the oral tradition that we've given you.

And the traditions of these men were giving the okay to go against God's heart of honoring your father and your mother.

And this is what Jesus is calling them out on.

Look at verse 14.

Summoning the crowd again, he told them, Listen to me, all of you, and understand.

Nothing that God that goes into a person from outside can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.

So most of you can probably finish this verse from Luke 6, 45.

Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, right?

This is what Jesus is addressing.

They're so concerned with ceremony and appearance and man-made vows that negate God's word that they have completely lost sight of God in their religion.

The law and traditions and legalism became their God and became their religion, and they left God out of the equation altogether.

Now, not all of the religious leaders of this time were this way, and not all of them were bad.

There were some that were honestly seeking the Lord.

But the ones that he's addressing here today, they sure have missed God in all that they're doing and all that they devoted their life to.

And we see in Matthew 23, verses 25 through 28.

Matthew 23:25–28

I'll read it to you, but if you're taking notes, Matthew 23, 25 through 28, Jesus addresses the same thing regarding the religious leaders.

And I'll read it.

He says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, there's that word again.

You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

Blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside may also become clean.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, there it is again.

You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of bones of the dead and every kind of impurity.

In the same way, on the outside you seem righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Whew, man, those are some accusations he's bringing, aren't they?

But in short, Jesus is saying, Stop worrying about how you appear.

Stop worrying about what people think.

This is all about a heart condition.

And that's where we need to start.

That's what Jesus is saying.

That's where we need to start.

It was with the heart condition.

And eventually, if you allow God's word to take root, the outside is going to match the inside.

But don't get the cart before the horse.

These Pharisees were getting the cart before the horse.

You know, it's like people that think that they need to get themselves cleaned up and looking good before they can come to Jesus.

And Jesus is sitting there looking at him saying, No, just invite me in.

I'll clean up for you.

And I'll not only clean up, but I'll make you a new creation from the inside out.

With the old passing away and all things being made new.

I'll not just clean you up, I'm gonna make you new.

But it starts on the inside.

And that's where sanctification starts for a believer, for a true follower of Jesus Christ.

And sanctification simply means to make holy and set apart for God.

It's the process that God wants to take each follower of his through.

And as Christ followers, it's something that God will be doing inside of us for the rest of our lives, the side of eternity, to make us more and more like Him.

And like I like to think of the process of sanctification as kind of like restoring an old car.

You know, Jesus says, that engine is messed up and it's on its last leg, you know, the heart of the vehicle.

And I don't want to just clean up that engine and make repairs and change the oil.

I want to give you a new heart.

I want to give you a new engine in this car that we're restoring.

You know, let's get that right.

And then we can talk about the transmission and the alternator and the wiring and all of those things.

And then once we get all of that running and great, then we'll talk about the upholstery and the rims and the paint job.

That's what Jesus' desire is to do.

You know, the religious leaders of uh that Jesus is talking to, they are kind of the opposite of that.

We'll stick with the car analogy.

It'd be like me inviting you over to my house for dinner and then saying, hey, come into my garage.

I want to show you something.

And then I take you into my garage and I show you a cherry-out 1967 Mustang with a fastback.

I don't have one of those by the way.

And it's just gorgeous and sparkling, and it's blue, and it has white racing stripes right over the top of it.

And you come out of the garage, and there it is, gorgeous, pristine, perfectly waxed, armor all on the tires, and you're like, wow, can we take this thing for a spin?

I say, no, you know what?

I dumped all the money into the body repair and the paint, and it actually doesn't run.

And then I open up the hood, and there inside is just this bucket of rust engine with holes in it.

It's been seized for over 20 years, and there's just corrosion everywhere.

Oil is splattered all over the place, leaking, the rats ate the wires out.

And you're looking at me like, you're nuts.

It would have been so much wiser if you had invested in a new engine and made the car work.

Because what's the point of a car that doesn't run, right?

But so often we come to Jesus and we're like, I want the paint job.

Let's do the paint first, Jesus.

And Jesus looks at us like, you want to look good on the outside while you're broken down on the inside?

And you're like, huh, well, as long as I look good, right?

These Pharisees, they have the paint job.

They have the rims, they have the upholstery, they look good.

But what Jesus is doing with his disciples then and now with us here today is he wants to give us a new heart.

And then he starts to sanctify us one thing at a time.

Then he'll say, Okay, now let's work on your mouth.

Let's work on your anger issues.

Let's work on the substance abuse.

Let's work on what you're watching or what you're looking at online until eventually the outside will start to reflect the inside.

Eventually, Jesus will get to the paint.

But like the verse from Matthew 23 that I just read to you, Jesus says, clean the inside of the cup, and eventually the outside may also become clean.

But if we try to skip to the paint job, you know what happens?

Legalism.

Pride.

Pride's imminent if we try to skip to the paint job.

It'll swell up with us within seconds if we're looking good on the outside, but the inside of us is still in shambles.

As we look at our text this morning, Jesus keeps, if you'll notice, Jesus keeps pointing back to the heart.

Back to the heart.

Back to the heart.

Look at verse 17 with me.

He says, When he went into the house, away from the crowd, his disciples asked him about the parable.

He said to them, Are you also as lacking in understanding?

So we see in Matthew's gospel that it's actually Peter that's asking this question to Jesus about describing this parable.

And we see in Acts 10.13 that Peter needs to learn this lesson again that Jesus is trying to describe to them.

When he says, Rise, kill, and eat, and there's a blanket filled with the unclean animals.

And initially Peter refuses and says, you know, I can't eat this unclean stuff.

But then we see again in Galatians 2.11, we see that Paul has to call out Peter regarding not eating with the Gentiles.

And what we see here is Jesus introducing that concept to Peter.

But as we see, Peter usually needs to do things in threes, right?

He denied Jesus three times.

Jesus had to say to him, you know, love my or um to feed his sheep three times.

And then three times he needs to learn this lesson that it's not what goes into you that makes you defiled, but it's what comes out of you that makes you defiled.

And the funny thing is, is that Peter asked Jesus in verse 17 to explain the parable.

And I think Jesus just sitting there thinking, what parable?

If you notice, there's no parable in the verses that we just went through.

The concept was so foreign to them that they couldn't accept what Jesus was saying at face value.

They couldn't comprehend that this could actually be what Jesus meant.

You know, that doesn't fit my narrative of what the Messiah should be, so it must be symbolic.

It had to be a parable.

He couldn't have actually meant that.

That's why Jesus is saying, are you also as lacking in understanding?

This is not a parable.

Like, just take what I'm saying at face value.

Look at the second half of verse 18.

Jesus goes on, he says, Don't you realize that nothing going into a person from the outside can defile him?

For it doesn't go into his heart, but into the stomach and is eliminated.

Thus, he declared all foods clean.

So if you remember, Mark is writing this, most likely getting all of his information from Peter, right?

So Peter, the one that had to learn this lesson three times, is dictating these things to Mark.

You know, so there's those parentheses right there.

Thus he declared all foods clean.

Peter finally got it.

This is what Jesus was talking about.

But again, Jesus is concerned with what is coming out from the inside.

The ceremonial hand washing laws in Exodus were symbolic, the true ones, not the ones that the religious leaders are talking about.

The dietary laws that we see in Leviticus, those were for safety.

They did nothing for spiritual cleansing.

But they started to think that the dietary laws, you know, what went in, made them spiritually clean somehow, or made them more holy on the inside.

And they started to rely on those things instead of relying on God.

And Jesus is saying, those practices don't make you clean spiritually.

The food doesn't go into your heart.

It goes into your stomach and then you pass it.

And the word heart here in verse 19, it's referring to the seat in the center of every uh of all spiritual and physical life within us.

It's not talking about the actual muscle, it's talking about the seat in the center of all physical and spiritual life.

And if you'll remember, Proverbs 4, 23 says, Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.

As we're going to see here in verse 20, Jesus is much more concerned with the spiritual condition of the heart.

He's much more concerned with what comes out of a man than what they're actually eating and what's going into their stomach.

Look at verse 20 with me.

And he said, What comes out of a person is what defiles him.

For from within, out of people's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, self-indulgence, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.

All of these evil things come from within and defile a person.

Again, not it's well, I guess I should say it's out of the heart that people sin.

It all begins there.

And then Jesus takes it a step further and says in Matthew 5, 27 through 28, You have heard that it was said, do not commit adultery.

But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

So if your heart is already committing the act, it's just as if you'd done it physically.

You know, and I think this speaks a lot to secret sin.

You know, what's going on on the inside.

Because that is just about that is just as bad as what's happening on the outside.

And I think we sometimes see our inward secret sin as justifiable in some way, or maybe not as bad as actually doing it physically.

You know, and we can justify it.

Well, you know, I'm not hurting anyone, or I still look good on the outside, or, you know, it's so secret that nobody can really even bring an accusation against me, so it's really not as bad as if I was actually doing it.

And we may appear like we have it all together, but if we've lusted after somebody, or if we've murdered somebody in our thoughts, Jesus is saying it's just as bad as if you had committed the act.

He's saying it's what's on the inside.

Jesus is saying it's what's on the inside that defiles us.

So my encouragement, my hope really for this church is that we wouldn't try to just look good on the outside.

We wouldn't try to look like we have it all together.

You know, I've come to really appreciate honest people that don't try to keep up appearances.

That when you ask them how they're doing, they don't just say, fine, fine, fine, you know.

When in actuality they're in shambles on the inside, they're dying on the inside.

I would much rather ask somebody how they're doing, and they say, I've murdered my boss in my heart multiple times this week.

And that's something I'm dealing with and going through, and I need forgiveness for.

I'm really struggling with fill in the blank.

Or even, you know what?

I just yelled at my kids on the way to church this morning, and I could use some prayer right now.

You know, at least I know how to pray for that person, or at least I know how to offer help to that person that's going through those struggles.

And I hope that we all have the grace to allow responses like that within our church.

And that we don't approach responses like that with legalism or with judgment, but with compassion.

Knowing deep down that we're just as guilty and that we need just as much grace as those people do.

And I want to close with this.

Jesus said in John 13, 35, By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.

That's what Jesus wants us to be known by.

Our love that we have for one another.

You know what Satan wants us to be known by?

Our rules.

He wants people to look at us and think, oh, those are those judgy rule followers.

Those are those people that always look like they've been sucking on sour lemons, you know, just kind of looking down their nose at everybody.

Those are the ones that look down on me because I do watch rated R movies.

That those are the ones that pretend that they don't have any faults or struggles and they're always looking down on my life.

That's how Satan wants us to be perceived by the outside world.

And you know what the world needs to see from us?

I think especially right now.

You know what?

I'm pretty messed up and I have my struggles, but Jesus is walking me through it.

He has me by the hand and he's helping me through all of this crud.

He's forgiving me when I fail, and he's giving me hope when I can't find it anywhere else.

And he's giving me peace that I can't even comprehend, but I have it.

You know, if that's what people saw when they see us, when they see Christians, I think every church in this city would be packed out right now.

If that's what people saw truly coming from Christians.

If people saw us not freaking out when the world is crumbling around us, because we know that we have an inheritance in Jesus Christ and security that can't be found anywhere else.

You know, if they saw hope in us that wasn't dependent upon the circumstances of our life, or wasn't dependent upon what was on the news that day, we have what the world needs.

But how will the world know that we have it?

Jesus tells us, by the love that we have for one another, by the love that we have for our neighbors, by the love that we have for the people that don't know Jesus.

Anybody here want a really hard challenge for the week?

Nobody?

Okay, we'll skip that part then.

But no.

There's two challenges.

You can pick.

I'll give you the hard one first.

To go and ask somebody, whether a neighbor, a school friend, you know, somebody that you work with, whoever it might be, to ask them this question, just by what you know of me, what does that tell you about my faith?

And what does that tell you about Jesus?

And believe me, that challenge freaks me out probably more than any of you.

But if you can't bring yourself to do this, here's the second, the second challenge that you could choose from.

At least ask yourself those questions the next time that you're interacting with somebody else.

What does my behavior and speech communicate about my faith and about Jesus to others?

Jesus said, by this everyone will know that you are my disciples.

If you love one another.

You know, our church's motto, the first thing that you see when our website pops up is love God, love others.

The greatest commandment.

Legalism works against both of those.

And it's the absolute opposite of loving God, and the opposite of loving others.

So my encouragement this morning is let's just be the biggest dispensers of grace that we can't possibly can.

Not ever enabling, but being those dispensers of grace, just looking at one another, asking, how can I love this person?

How can I help them?

How can I draw them closer to Jesus?

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you so much for your word.

I thank you so much for the love that you just shower and pour out on us incessantly.

It's incredible.

I thank you for the grace that you have shown us over and over and over, and that your grace is sufficient.

Lord, I pray that you would teach us to be more like you.

Lord, to see people like you see people and to love people the way that you love people.

And especially the people that are around us, Lord, to be able to dispense grace and love and care for one another.

Lord, to teach us to be more like you, we pray.

God, we lift all of these things up to you in Jesus' name.