23. The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were unclean, that is unwashed. The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands of ceremonial cleansing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash, and they observe many other traditions such as the washing of cups, pitchers, and kettles. So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, why don't you decide both live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with unclean hands? He replied, Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, hypocrites, as it is written, these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain, their teachings are but rules taught by men. You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men. He said to them, you have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions, for Moses said, honor your father and your mother, and anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death. But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corbina, that is a gift devoted to God, then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you've handed down, and you do many things like that. Again, Jesus called the crowd to him and said, listen to me, everyone, understand this, nothing outside a man can make him unclean by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean. After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. Are you so dull, he asked? Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him unclean? For it doesn't go into his heart, but into his stomach and then out of his body. In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean. He went on, what comes out of a man is what makes him unclean. For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, ludeness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man unclean. The word of the Lord, please be seated. With the new year upon us, I see it as my responsibility and really my privilege to get us thinking together once again on the same page, to take us sort of through a tune up as a church and to reorient us and focus us to get us back to the basics, to get us thinking the same way and believing the same things about what is most important in church life. It just so happens in a timing of things that I had planned this month ago, not thinking about what would happen on January 1st. This is the passage that we look at today and I'm not sure if we could find a better passage in terms of looking at that which is most basic and essential to Christianity. One of my professors in seminary, Claire Davis at Westminster Seminary said one time, he said, I don't do much teaching but I sure do a lot of reminding and I really think that's the role of a minister. Now one of the great things about this church and it should be more and more the case that a lot of you are brand new to the Bible, maybe new to Christianity altogether and so I am doing a lot of teaching but this is the first time you've heard these things but for a lot of you what I'm doing this morning is reminding and I want to encourage you, exhort you to sit up, put on your thinking cap, tune your heart to the frequency of the gospel and to really think about these things because these are essential to I think what God wants us to be and do as a church in the days and years to come. Now this story arose out of a very interesting situation that occurred in public. Jesus remember is up north in Galilee in Israel and some of the leaders down south in Jerusalem sent a delegation of Pharisees and teachers of the law to basically a snoop around. It's a fact-finding mission that they were like spies to discern who this guy was named Jesus and whether what he was teaching was really legitimate or not. Well they as they snoop around discovered that Jesus's disciples were not following the traditions that the religious leaders had set, particularly with regard to cleansing. Now we're not talking about the fact that they had poor hygiene or didn't wash their hands before dinner like we would think of it. It was talking about ceremonial cleansing, a religious right that they were to follow and so they approached Jesus and said you know why aren't your disciples following the traditions of the elders, the leaders of the synagogue. Well Jesus smelled a wrap. He knew their hearts just like he knows every one of our hearts and so he used this as an opportunity to give a pretty stinging rebuke to them about their whole philosophy and approach to spirituality. Things that are really basic and that's what you and I need to look at. Now it began with an indictment, a stinging indictment because they come up and say you know why aren't you, you really is what they're saying, why aren't you and your followers washing your hands like the rules of the religious leaders of the day have said. And Jesus said well why not you listen to the elder, one of the great elders that certainly was greater than any of the elders you talk about, the elder Isaiah. And so they quoted, Jesus quoted from the Old Testament where Isaiah called people like these followers hypocrites. Now a hypocrite literally is someone who's an actor, someone who pretends to be something they're really not, that there's not an authenticity in the externals comparing with the internals. That is the outside is very different from the inside. They're wearing a mask and he's calling them hypocrites because though they sound good on the outside, they worship me or honor me with their lips, their hearts are white years away from me. That was the indictment that Jesus leveled against them and then he then he told them about basically the general problem and he mentions it several times so that we don't miss it. Repetition is the key to learning. Repetition is the key to learning, right? And so in verse 8 and verse 13 he mentions it. You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men. Verse 13 you nullify the word of God. You just count it no-invoid by your traditions. Now these traditions probably started out of good motives, I'm assuming. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt. I mean the Bible is not the easiest book in the world. And some of the commandments maybe you say you know these aren't relevant to my life and one of the roles of a preacher is to hopefully make some of these things in the ancient world more relevant to the modern, even postmodern world. And so maybe they began this way writing up these rules but you know human nature is you get out of hand on these kind of things and boy they can make rules for everything and resilience of rules. By the time these were codified by this time they were still oral traditions but not too long after this they were put down and writing in what is today called a missionary that you may have heard of. And just to give you an example just on the purification of vessels, one of the things Jesus mentions here. Get how many chapters in the mission are. 30 chapters alone on the purification of vessels and you thought that your mother was pretty strict and hard. I mean these were ridiculous they got way out of hand and so that's the general principle saying look you've gotten away from the Bible because of all your rules and the net effect is you've considered the Bible no-invoid in your life. Then he goes to the specific example he's like okay you can anticipate what he can anticipate what they're thinking so he says okay let me give you a specific example just one and he talks about the fifth commandment. Now you may know that in the ten commandments you can kind of divide them into two chunks. The first four commandments are all referring to an individual's relationship to God. All right beginning with number five and going through ten the commandments relate to an individual's relationship with other people before God. And the first of those is the fifth commandment and it's sort of understood that the fifth commandment is all encompassing that it sort of lays the groundwork for any commandment any expectation that God has in terms of you and all of us loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. That's the way Jesus summarized it and so he says basically you have you have set aside the fifth commandment and the implication is because he says you do many other things like this you're setting aside all of God's law by your traditions and one of the traditions was where an individual could have property for instance and you could actually legally set that property aside by calling it Corbin all right which literally means a gift devoted to God so it sounds very spiritual. I'm not going to use this money for anything else or this property I'm going to use it as a gift devoted to God when the net effect was children who have responsibilities for their parents to honor their mother and father and that doesn't just mean with lip service it means using your resources to help your parents particularly as they are elderly. You couldn't do anything about it and even if someone changed their mind and went back to the courts described who would oversee the case would be obligated because of the traditions of the elders to say no that vow must be kept and that's why he says and you know that you don't let them do anything verse 12 because even though someone may change their mind they wouldn't be able to break that vow and so that's the specific principle that's being considered here that Jesus says you know this is just indicative of a whole way of life that comes about when you set aside the word of God and come up with a bunch of human rules then what Jesus does is he positively having been fairly negative about the way they confuse things he now positively sets forth his approach to things and this is where he says you know the focus is not on what goes into a person cleanliness but what comes out of a person the problem is now there the problem is in here and you can kind of imagine the disciples nudging each other and going yeah Jesus really you really got him on that he stumped him and yet I think you're some of them were sort of looking you know like a deer caught in the headlights they didn't really understand because when they got alone with Jesus I don't know who it was maybe his Peter that got up the gut to say you know Jesus what what you really mean by that story and Jesus once again you know his patients are amazing with the disciples but he says why are you so dull don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him unclean for it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach in the amount of his body I mean like Jesus said need I say more need I get more obvious to you these physical things that you consume bypass what is most critical to the human being in terms of their spirituality that is their heart now he didn't mean the physical organ of the heart but the inner person the soulish part of you and when he refers to going to a man he means that in the generic sense I feel quite sure that an individual to any of you male or female if not what goes in and out of you it's important but what's already there the heart is what's most important and yet it's so difficult you remember that sort of business self-help book that came out maybe five years ago called the main thing the premise of the book was the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing and yet it's so difficult to do that isn't that this is New Year's resolution time and we need to annie up again and reconsider the main thing in our life so I want to draw some conclusions from this story very specifically about what kind of church I think Christ the King needs to be and that means what kind of people individually we need to be and this pertains to you if you are new to us maybe for the first time this really defines who we are and who we want to be first of all I think what he's talking about here is the primacy of the heart you and I must be a church Christ the King must be a church that honors God with our heart see you said look Pharisees you hypocrites you play actors you honor me with your lips but you really fake we want to be a church that is authentic as authentic as humanly possible in this artificial world we need to be a church and individuals that honor God with our heart this is the focus of the Bible problems 423 says above all else guard your heart for just the well spring of life remember when the prophet Samuel went to to pick the second king of Israel and he went through the whole line of brothers only to come to little David I mean little pipsqueak David at that point in time and what did God say he said man looks on the outward appearance but God looks at the heart the inner person but we know the way the heart goes the way the prophet Jeremiah talked about it but the heart is is deceitful above all things and beyond cure I mean you ever feel that way that's the story of the Bible but from the very beginning with Adam and Eve where they were deceived by the evil one and let us stray I mean right there and even in the next chapter with their son Kane when God comes to him and says Kane what's up sin is crouching at the door it desires to have you that picture of desire where desires locate in the heart and that's the story of the Old Testament not of our faithfulness not of the great faithfulness of God's people but of the wandering hearts of God's people so that the plea of the prophet like Isaiah was don't just do this outward thing called circumcision but circumcise your what hearts that you might be real if the Jesus I think is just opening for us the doorway to transformation which begins in the human heart and it begins personally in your life and in my life I want to encourage you this year to make a rhythm in your life a day by day rhythm it goes something like this God I do not see my heart the way you do please show me the things of my heart now he gives a pretty sobering list at the tail end of this passage and the problem is some of us may be only look at the first couple and think we're okay well I'm not involved in sexual immorality I haven't stolen anything recently I'm not like that band of the seven men or so that have escaped from that prison south of San Antonio I'm not like them I'm not committing murder I'm one of the good guys but then you read on and you begin to see greed deceit envy are you in this of someone's career someone's bank account someone's body do you have thoughts that shouldn't be there that consume you are you better about someone that has wronged you these are the kind of things that Jesus is talking about they just feed and faster on our soul like leeches and so we need to ask God on a day by day basis God show me these things and then secondly and this may be the most difficult for us is to admit that we are powerless against them to admit that we're powerless against them to the Bible is not a self-help book the Bible is not first and foremost a how-to book how to improve myself in seven easy steps or 12 the Bible is first a book that as you and I read it it should be piercing in its conviction it should show us not that we're pretty good basically and just need a little help but that we're far worse than we would ever want to admit and at Christianity is not difficult it's impossible now why is that important it's important because part of that rhythm the end of that rhythm that you need to embrace day by day is that Jesus is powerful beyond measure that embracing him personally by faith is the way to renewal and transformation in our lives now mark does more in this passage and recording Jesus's words to present the problem all right but he does allude in a veiled way to the solution when he said in verse 19 insane this Jesus declared all foods clean how could Jesus do this only if he was God only if he was the true one who was clean that he lived a perfect life of perfection of purity of cleanliness internally in the heart as well as externally and then died in the place of the unclean that is you and I place our faith in him as we come back to him on a day by day basis we find strength and help that's the rhythm that we need to introduce it's not just improvement let me ask you this if you went to a restaurant and someone gave you a glass of water your beginning to take a sip of water and you look in it and there's a giant roach in the water what are you going to do now some of you are you know more manly than I am and you'll just take it out and drink the water but no I mean I'm
could you come look at this please I need a fresh glass of water why because it really doesn't help to take the roach out of the water because it's contaminated the whole thing and that's the problem with human nature that Jesus is talking about the problem is not out there it's in here it's in dinner it's real oh you may not be a murderer but you and I are filled with anger and hatred and bitterness we may not commit sexual immorality adultery but we do in our heart and we need an external one to come Jesus on a day-by-day basis to bring us healing soren Kierkegaard said oh the blessed this of always being wrong in God's sight that is not negative that is a prayer of freedom and liberation that there is a savior who is strong and powerful now secondly alongside of this and I need to wrap this up we need to be a church that really is a cardiac care unit intensive cardiac care unit what do I mean by that everything in our church needs to be centered around this understanding that the human heart is central and we are not basically good people that liberates us to be vulnerable with one another to be honest because my the basis upon which God loves and accepts me the basis upon which you love and accept me is not how good I am but we're on common ground as people who are very needy but have a strong savior and that's why we're having this changing hearts changing lives class on Thursday mornings to help jumpstart us as a church it's actually a privilege for us as a church to be doing this there's only a handful of churches nationwide that are able to use this curriculum right now and I encourage you to be part of that now finally how is it that you and I become churches that are like this cardiac care units it's by being churches of the word churches of the word see the problem the reason why the Pharisees did not go to the heart of the matter is that they employed a an approach to spirituality that bypassed the heart they were what we might call legalistic they invented all of these rules that are extra biblical and imposed them on top of the Bible what I really did was smother the Bible and that is one of the errors that you and I need to avoid if we're going to be a church of the word is to avoid legalism the second error the equal and opposite error is to be a permissive church where because everything is of grace and it doesn't matter how I live I don't need to be obedient to God's word God gave his word that we might grow and be different people let me read to you a prayer and I'm going to close with this a prayer of Thomas Prammer who was a great leader of the church in England in the 16th century he said this bless the Lord who has caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning grant that we may in such wise hear them read mark learn and inwardly digest them that by patience and comfort of your holy word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life which thou have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ it's that type of heart that I want every single one of us to embrace this year would you please come up with a plan a personal plan to read the Bible if not throughout the year and we have available available at the church life table guides to reading through the Bible in a year but if not in a year then two years and then come up with a way to spend good time in prayer and meditation upon God's word begging God through a prayer like this to give you eyes to see your heart the way it really is to admit it to admit your powerless and to welcome in a fresh way the true and living Savior who can and does change hearts even today and even in this church let's pray our Lord we need so much today and every day to come back to the basics to be a people that is refreshed and renewed by your word and specifically by the Lord of the word the Lord Jesus Christ the strong Savior who leads us and heals us and renews us Father grant that we would be a church that is a cardiac care unit that we would bring our friends those with whom our lives intersect here to get a sense of the culture of this church that it might be one that is focused upon the heart not upon the human self-improvement but upon a great Savior who does transform us more and more into his like this. Grant us your grace Father this year as we recommit ourselves to this purpose that we might bring honor to our great Savior as his gospel is spread throughout the land in Jesus' name we pray amen