Jesus Heals the Heart

What happens when you squeeze a tube of toothpaste? Isaiah's not here to answer rhetorical questions, so I need some help. Toothpaste comes out. So when you squeeze a tube of toothpaste, toothpaste comes out. Why does toothpaste come out? Because it's what's in there. We never actually wonder what's going to come out when we do this routine practice, hopefully in the morning, in the evening, other times during the day. But when you squeeze something, what's in there comes out. I want to say this is absolutely as routinely true of us. When we're squeezed, What comes out is what was already in there. And that is difficult, hard news to hear. Because when the temptation of sin squeezes us, that desire is what was already in there. When frustrations and difficulties and trials squeeze us, what comes out was already in there. You know, I hear people say, you know, they made me angry. No one can actually make you angry. Someone can hurt you and provoke you, but anger is our response. When it comes out, it was because it was already in there, and that's discouraging. You don't fall into lust. You might see something, but that lust you experience is your own lust bursting forth from the heart that you choose to entertain and embrace. As we just heard from Jesus, the sins that defile us, they come from within. And this is a hard, essential truth of Christianity. If you think about sin, just the very nature of sin seems to have a blame-shifting aspect to it. You go right to Genesis 3, and that's the first response of man. Adam, what did you do? Well, that woman you gave me, Eve, what did you do? The serpent. It's not taking responsibility for what we've done and what we have produced, but looking to blame someone else. And we've actually gotten quite good at this. It's the way I was raised. My upbringing, it messed me up. That thing that happened. I haven't had a good enough education. It's my friends, they're bad influences. My job, it just doesn't pay me enough. My spouse. And we're constantly doing. It's not just blame shifting, but saying we deserve better. As we look at this passage, the main teaching there is driven by Jesus very clearly with the end emphasis. What really defiles a person isn't something external that happens to us. No, what really defiles a person is something that comes from within us. Our main problem is from within and God's help. comes from outside. Our main idea this morning is Jesus has come to heal our hearts. Jesus has come to heal our hearts. And just for the order of the passage, I've ordered this in my traditions, God's law, my problem. My traditions, God's law, my problem. If you look at the passage, there's a, the first half really emphasizes this contrast between tradition and commandments. The traditions of men is mentioned over and over again. I hope you heard that as you heard the passage read. If you look at 14 to 23, the word defile captures the emphasis of that passage. Let's look at verse 1. Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, okay, we we have significant characters in introduced, and some of the scribes. We have the religious leaders gathered here together, and they've come from Jerusalem. So these aren't just any scribes, these are the elite scribes. They come to hear and to see Jesus, and what they saw, verse two, they're observing, as disciples, they eat with defiled hands, meaning unwashed. Now, as a recovering germophobe, I can appreciate the desire for cleanliness and sanitary washing of hands, but it's one thing to say that's not sanitary. It's another thing to say this is a defilement, a declaring of unclean, making you of an unclean, unfit to go and approach God in worship and gather with others around a meal. The key question of this passage is, what defiles you? And the Pharisees have one answer, and Jesus has another answer. So the Pharisees come, they're asking Jesus, they're observing, rather, what's going on with the disciples. And I want you to notice verse three and four in my text, in the Pew Bible, it's in parentheses. This is like a divinely inspired study note for us. Mark is most likely writing to Greeks, the Greek Christians in Rome, and so he's trying to inform them of the Jewish customs to kind of make sense how the Pharisees would get to this kind of observation that having unwashed hands means you're unclean. Now, I want to be very clear. The Old Testament, God's Word does have ceremonial washing of hands. A priest would have to wash before going into the holy place of God, the temple. There was a proper practice of washing of hands, but what Mark is helping us see here is that they've gone beyond what Scripture has said, and they've added to it. They've added these traditions and traditions. And one of the theories behind this, one of the interesting ones, is this is because Greeks and Jews were interacting more. And so whenever you're at the marketplace, Greeks and Jews are coming in contact with another and Jews would have seen Greeks as unclean. So any kind of interaction, any kind of contact would have meant you need to be washed. And so many traditions of men, so many extra commandments, aren't they just like that to kind of create a superiority of classes? There's the Gentiles. And there's the Jews, and we wash because we don't want to be in contact to be defiled by those kinds of people. There's a sense of superiority with extra commandments and traditions. The Pharisees are watching. If you go back to Mark 3, 6, we've already seen the Pharisees are upset with Jesus and his teaching. They've already plotted his destruction. That is a response of some of the Pharisees. And then we see the main concern. Verse 5. Pharisee describes, they ask him, that is Jesus, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands? Now, we have kind of this view of what's happening We know who Jesus is. We know he's going to go to the cross. He's going to rise again. We know he's actually God the creator who's come down in flesh. But let's just be amazed at a moment that the authoritative teachers of God's law are coming to God and questioning him about their own laws. This is kind of the epitome of just foolish pride. They don't realize, I assume, who they're really talking to. But we see here just absolute foolish pride. It's a picture of rebellion. The most dangerous rebellion is one where we insist upon ourselves over God. There's a self-deception where they don't realize who they're talking to and how they're insisting on their own way. So let's just back up and make one simple observation before we move on in the story. The main problem they have here is that they are demanding their opinion tradition on others. There's no problem at all for the Pharisees to say, after I go into the market, I want to wash. The problem is that as the teacher of God's people, they're teaching everybody else to follow their opinion. They're enforcing their view on everyone else, and they're even enforcing it upon Jesus, the author of the law. Now, There's also another key issue in that they don't understand or appreciate God's Word is sufficient. You don't have to come up with these extra laws and traditions and regulations and limits and commandments. If you actually believe God's Word is sufficient, you don't have to come up with extra things to improve upon it or to clarify it. It's just simple. God has said enough so that we know who He is. who we are, how to obey him, how to please him, how to enjoy him. The Pharisees, they feel as if God's word is not good enough and clear enough. They believe they are authoritatively teaching further commands. They're binding the other conscience. Let's continue, verse six. We're in our second point, God's law. And here Jesus begins to answer their question, He never answers their question directly. They probably wish he would rather than what he does. And he said to them, well, did Isaiah prophesy of your hypocrisy? This is not how you win friends or, well, you're influencing people, this is Jesus. This is kind of like, this is a very, very, very direct Very harsh, but here we see the Messiah, the true prophet. He is frustrated because these are the men who are supposed to be teaching God's people, and they're teaching them their own ways. Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites? As it is written, your hypocrisy is so bad, God has already pre-stated it. And let me go back to the verse. Isaiah 29, 13. Now, a lot of people have a life verse. I don't think anyone has this embraced on a coffee mug or on the refrigerator. But this verse does apply to people because God says this is true of many, and it's terrifying. Your hypocrisy has already been spoken of as it is written. This people honors me with their lips. but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commands of men. They have vain worship. Their lips move, but their hearts do not. The first commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart. Notice that the true worship is loving God and his law. True worship does recall, require, and, and call us into obedience. But it's, it's obedience to God. We oftentimes think of Jesus as, as, as against the Pharisees because He's against the law. No. Jesus has come to fulfill the law. He's trying to set straight what the actual law, law is. The contrast Jesus makes could not be stronger. Verse six, Isaiah prophesied of your hypocrisy. Verse eight, you leave God's word and hold fast to your own commands. Verse nine, you reject the commandments of God to establish your own tradition. And then verse 10, they would believe themselves as the authoritative teachers of Moses. Notice what he does there in verse 10 and 11. For Moses said, verse 11, but you say. You're far from Moses. Jesus is making clear he's teaching what Moses has brought forth. He is the fulfillment, but you are contrary. What he's pointing out here is that the Pharisees and the scribes, they're religious hypocrites. One of those dangerous sins, one of the most dangerous habits and commitments to treat our way as if it's God's way, to have a religious commitment to our self-deception? I want to make it very clear that Christ has come to establish the law, to fulfill it. He's come to clarify it, to bring us into it so that we can enjoy it. The very command, love the Lord your God, is central to what we do. Now we see the problem is twofold. First, they're demanding their traditions on others. They're insisting others have to follow their opinions and teachings. But now Jesus has brought it to another level. Not only are they insisting on their own traditions, they're actually disobeying God's law. So the first problem is they're insisting everyone else has to agree with them on their opinions. Secondly, they're actually minimizing, denying and rejecting God's law. The emphasis of Jesus' rebuke is you're figuring out ways of getting around the law. This is what Ligon Duncan talked about in one of the lessons we looked at as men in looking for loopholes. They see the commands, but we want to find loopholes. How am I special? How can I get around this? I want to be very clear. Jesus used an example. Verse 9. He said to them, you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition. For Moses said, honor your father and mother, and whoever reviles our father and mother must surely die. He's quoting there from the Ten Commandments, the very clear word of God. Verse 11. that you have said. You have led God's people away from that commandment, and you have said, if a man tells his father or mother, whatever you would have gained from them is Corban. And Corban is a word, it's a gift from God. I'm going to take the money that I should be setting aside for your well-being in your elderly years when you can't care for yourself, and I'm going to give it to God as a special gift. Some kind of twisted religious superiority there. wanting to be a special kind of Christian, or a special kind of believer with your gift, rather than doing with it what God actually says. Honoring mother and father is a lifelong commandment. You don't graduate out of that. You don't get old enough to where you don't do that anymore. There is a season where you stop obeying as a child, but honor is something that's called for regularly. And one of the clear ways of honoring parents is caring for them in their old age. I do want to just praise God and thank some of the members. It has just been a joy to see how you have cared for your parents. It's been a wonderful lesson to watch that. It's so important to care for the elderly. The widow care gets its own chapter in the New Testament, 1 Timothy 5. Jesus is pointing out the hypocrisy. God has said, honor your mother and father, which means you care for them in their older age. And instead of caring for them, you're pretending to give a special spiritual gift to God. Hey, mom, dad, I'm giving a special gift of God instead of baying that commandment. Now it is as crazy as it sounds when you say it out loud. He's pointing out how they insist upon their own way, verse 12, then you no longer pay him to do anything for his father and mother. Thus making void. You're denying the very word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do. It is amazing. I see this in my own life. I like the idea of doing something special, not the mundane, regular practice of spiritual discipline. Finding, finding loopholes and finding ways of thinking through it. What does it really look like to, to trust God? That's the thing about how to apply this passage. I want to point out first, Romans 7, 12 makes it very clear. God's Word is holy and true and good. We are a people who are not anti-law. We're not called to be anti-law. We're called to be followers of Christ who has a law. He says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. We have to look at God's word and say it's good? It's trustworthy. The problem with the law is we oftentimes try to use it in ways it's not intended to be used. The law was never meant to look at it and say, I'm gonna obey it so I can earn my salvation. No, the law is there to show us how sinful we are so we look up to God, to Jesus Christ for grace. The law then is used to help us know how to follow that Jesus who has given us grace. I wonder, are we guilty of looking for loopholes like the Pharisees and the scribes? Do we look for God's law when we ask, how can I most clearly and most faithfully follow you, Jesus, in what you have said? Or do we find loopholes, special cases, why that might not apply to me, why I might have a little way around or above the law with my own circumstances? Let's think through some commands of Scripture that seem to have easy loopholes. The first one is honoring parents. If you're with your parents, this is a time to really listen up, children. It's easy to say I don't wanna honor my parents because, well, they're not fair. They don't give me the things other kids give me. Other parents give kids, they're my friends. They're so strict. Children, the harder your parents resist your request, the more that most likely means they love you. That feels and sounds counterintuitive in every way, but if your parents are willing to say no to you, that's a demonstration they love you. They're keeping something from you that they don't think is helpful. Do they not always give you good things? Do they not always give you food and shelter and care? If they're holding something back, trust that's a sign they love you. Saying no is not easy. Because we have a compassion for you. We care. But if you have parents that say no to you, praise God. Another way we oftentimes excuse ourselves is with lies. I was listening to a radio broadcast recently, and a teacher lied about a student who didn't have a lot of money about being her son so that he could get medicine. And the radio hosts were saying, well, this is clearly a lie, but the intention was so good. They couldn't deny the lie, but they also didn't realize, okay, that's insurance fraud. That's also lying and stealing. We excuse ourselves with kind of a higher intention. That's like the tradition, right? I have a higher intention than what I know is right or wrong. We break the law when it's advantageous. Another one. Forgive as you have been forgiven. This one's hard. It is hard to truly forgive as God has forgiven us. Ephesians 4.32. Matthew 18, forgive 70 times 7. Forgive as the king forgave the servant. You don't know how bad it is. You don't know what kind of person they are. You don't know how much it's hurt. No. The culture emphasizes that your hurt justifies. Forgiveness is something we look to Christ for. Forgiveness is a command of Christ. Forgiveness is a promise, by the way. Let's just pause there for a second. It's a promise that I will absorb the debt I think you owe me. I'm not going to talk about it, dwell about it. Forgiveness means we do not hold that action against them in a way that seeks further punishment. There's many ways in which we try to find loopholes. But let's get to the real focus of the problem, my problem, our third point, verse 14. So Jesus has been asked a question. He's given them a very direct, sobering answer, right? Your hypocrisy's already spoken of. The contrast between what they're teaching and the law is so clear. And then he calls the people. He sets aside. He leaves them with that weighty answer. In verse 14, Jesus calls the people. He's gathered the crowd to him. 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 things that come out of a person are what defile him. Okay, we have two basic simple teachings. He's making a denial and he's making an affirmation. He's denying that something from outside of you defiles you and he's affirming that it's what comes from within that defiles. Now we need to just kind of take a pause and acknowledge it goes 14, verse 14, verse 15, and then in my text it goes to verse 17. What happened to 16? Some folks will like to point at this and say, look, the Bible has ears. At some point, a scribe, when making his translation, or his copy, he added in a text, he who has ears. Because that was a normal thing Jesus would say in this kind of a situation, and so it was added at some point, and we see it in the text. I actually want to make it very clear, this actually brings how trustworthy the manuscripts we have are. We have such faithful, early, numerous manuscripts that we can tell when a scribe in this area, in this region, made an error and we can bring a correction. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the original text or texts. It actually shows how many copies we have and how early they are that we can actually find where one scribe made an error that caused some confusion. God's Word is trustworthy. Let's go back to verse 15. He has these two teachings. It's a negation. It's not what comes from outside. It's an affirmation, but it's what comes from out of a person. It comes from within. And then notice verse 17. He goes from the crowd. He enters the house. And now it's just him and his disciples. And they asked him about the parable, this kind of mysterious teaching that didn't have a lot of detail. So they're asking for more information. Verse 18, he said to them, are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart, but his stomach, and is expelled? Thus he declared all foods clean. Now as we look at this, verse 18, 18 and 19 are explaining that first half, that negation. Do you not see this? Do you not see what's happening here? It should be obvious. Secondly, I wanted to point out, he emphasizes the heart, not the stomach. It's not what we take in and digest for our normal energy and practice of consumption for life that defiles you. It's the heart. It bypasses the heart, it goes to the stomach. The heart is the seed of emotion. The heart is the seed of desire. The heart is our thoughts. The heart is where we produce ideas and desires. That's what defiles. And then verse 19, you have this wonderful parenthesis. Thus he declared all foods clean. Now, I am pretty sure that wasn't real obvious to disciples at the moment Jesus said this, but most believe Mark is there writing with Peter, and if you remember, Peter had the vision in Acts 10 where he saw that all animals are now considered clean, and if that's true, I could see Peter wanna say, hey, make sure you understand, I now see what Jesus is saying, all foods are clean. Well, why were they ever unclean? they weren't unclean to themselves. God just said, I'm going to decide, I'm going to declare these foods are unclean and these foods are clean because I want people to understand there's unholy and there's holy. And if you're going to be my people, the holy God's people, you're going to be holy. You're going to figure out how to, I'm going to teach you how to set apart, to be set apart. In the New Testament, he teaches us in different ways of holiness. And so he's now declared all foods are clean. Newcomer believers, go celebrate with a bacon-wrapped scallop this afternoon. Verse 20. He's denied it, right? So it's not what goes in your stomach. It's not what you take in, in the digestive system to get energy for life that defiles you. It's not what happens to you. It doesn't come from outside that defiles you. Verse 20. What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. There has to be some order in the list. The first seven words in the Greek are in the plural, implying what appears to be that they're repetitive acts. They're actions that are done numerous times. The last six words are in the singular. They appear to point to more of an attitude. This is difficult. Because it challenges the way I like to blame shift all of my problems. But I know it's true because if you're like me and you've ever tried to sink down and just figure out, okay, in my heart what you find is a spiraling abyss of darkness. Let me entertain that anger and let's see how far that goes. Let me entertain that lust and see how far that goes and see the fruit of it. Let me entertain that coveting and discontent and grumbling and see where that goes. When I turn inward, there's a dark, dangerous place. What Jesus says here is true. What Jesus says here is true about us. And it's hard. Is it really that bad inside of there? Is it really my heart that produces these kinds of things? It's quite hard because it's actually pretty embarrassing, isn't it? If folks just knew the kinds of desires or thoughts that just pop up in our heads, can you imagine if an email went out that just listed out the kinds of things we've thought while here on Sunday morning? All right, some of you are getting it. Some of you are like me, a sinner. And just the things we thought about somebody else. Or the way we were distracted while singing of the grace of God. We can't even focus on the very words of grace. This is why in Come Thou Fount I love the lyric. Tune my heart to sing thy grace. That's how twisted it is. I need tuned. I need fixed. Just to, just to be able to fix my heart on the grace of God. We walk through this list. Sexual immorality. This is just any sexual desire or activity that's outside of marriage of a husband and wife. We try to figure out how to be more permissible. We try to figure out what to do to practically enjoy something beyond God's good design. Stealing, murder, coveting, adultery. These are repeat actions. I'm unhappy, so I'm going to do something about it. The attitudes, sensuality. of being consumed by lust, slander, always thinking and speaking poorly of others? The heart is not a blank slate. It produces evil. It produces wickedness. Our problem does not come from outside. Our problem comes from within. And until we truly embrace that, we cannot see that the solution comes from outside. We like to think if I just get in deeper and I try to figure things out and I try to fix them, then I can internally work it out. But no. No. The problem is inside what comes out. The solution comes from outside. The same Jesus that is pointing out what's really wrong with us, He is the, He's the solution. He has come down to walk among us, to live the life we should have in every way, in every righteous way. He came and died on the cross to take the punishment for all of these sins that come out of us, that never came out of Him, but yet He was judged for them. He rose again, and now He gives us His Holy Spirit. Jesus is at the right hand of the Father. Where's the Holy Spirit? For the believer, He's in your heart. He's right there where the problem is. Healing. Helping. Changing and transforming so that we can actually delight in God, think about Him properly, and rejoice in Him. The solution comes from outside, but it's right there where we need Him, Jesus Christ, sending His Spirit to heal us. In order to be healed, we have to recognize I don't want to embrace that sin. I want it fixed. And I can't fix it. I need the Spirit to change my heart. I need to submit to Him. At the most basic level, what Jesus is doing is battling the false religion. False religion is giving lip service to the law of God. It's overvaluing our opinions. It's having very little compassion on others, and it has a false love for God. And by false, I mean it is loving something as if God, but it is not God. What he comes to do is establish true religion. He's come to love us so that we might love him. He has come to love us so that we might actually know how to enjoy him and obey his laws to enjoy him more. What Jesus has come to give us is himself. so that He can heal our hearts. What comes out of us is what defiles us, but Christ has come to help us. Turn to Him. If you're a believer this morning, cry out to Jesus. Ask Him to come to you, to show you His grace, to first show you your sins so that He can show you His grace, so that He can begin that healing process so that you can be reconciled with God. If you're a believer and you're having a difficult time rejoicing in Christ, what sin are you seeking to protect that needs to be healed? And by healed, I mean put off. What Paul says in Romans 8, mortified. Let us rejoice in Christ by rejoicing in Him as our Savior and the one who gives us the true law.