The nature of Sin
The Gospel of Mark • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Introduction
Introduction
Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 3043 Books Ok Not Words on Sabbath
During the afternoon, I asked Dr. Klausner (professor in the Hebrew University in Jerusalem) if he would sign my autograph album to which he replied, “No, I am sorry; but it is the Sabbath.” I did not know until I made inquiry that night that the Talmud asserts that writing two words in succession is work, and if a man even signs his name on the Sabbath he has broken the Law.
As those of us gathered in his study discussing one subject after another, Dr. Klausner would climb a little stepladder and bring down some heavy tome from his shelves, open it, point to some relevant passage, then return the book and soon take down another. The Talmud says nothing about bringing down books from shelves as work—to write two words would be labor, but to develop a perspiration by reaching up for volumes and vigorously discussing them is not work!
This is a perfect illustration of what our Lord meant when he talked about his contemporaries “holding the tradition of the elders” (Mark 7:3).
—Dr. Wilbur M. Smith
Talk about missing the majors for the minors! I’m sure you’ve all had a situation like that when the thought in your mind is “really?”
Jesus can relate!
Mark 7:1-23
Mark 7:1-23
1 Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, 2 they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, 4 and when they come 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.) 5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ 8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” 9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 11 But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban” ’ (that is, given to God)— 12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.” 14 And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15 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.” 17 And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
Big Idea: Jesus defines what is clean
Big Idea: Jesus defines what is clean
Jesus defines what is clean and unclean
Jesus defines what is clean and unclean
Just a note, Jesus isn’t against hygiene here, he’s against false holiness! So wash your hands!
We can see a major change of action based on what Jesus approved
The first was prioritizing people
The first was prioritizing people
5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”
So the disciples as we saw in the last few chapters did many things with many people and those actions would have been misconstrued as unclean.
The healing of the people Mark 6:53-56
The feeding of the 5000, Healing the woman with the chronic illness and loosing blood, the healing of Jairus’s daughter.
These actions could be seen as unclean! The Pharisees are so focused on image that they as Mark 7:13
13 thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
Keeping the law/worship as intended
Keeping the law/worship as intended
Another way he defines what is clean is by exposing the heart behind keeping the law.
The Pharisees were performative to the point they hurt others
6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ 8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” 9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’
The law of God was made for us
4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
The hope and encouragement that the word was to give the people had become whip in a taskmasters hand. The scripture was given to us to live by. They had baptized their ends with the word.
Jesus flips this on it’s head. He is calling them unclean for warping his word
The desire to obey God for what he has said is truly to be undelfied. You can keep the Moral law by the power of the Holy Spirit.
It’s man’s actions that
How the Pharisees got it wrong!
How the Pharisees got it wrong!
Confusing Cleanliness for purity.
Consistent with the way that the Pharisees overrated they began to conflate these ideas of actions of purity with personal holiness.
The word here is best understood
Lexham Theological Wordbook κοινόω
κοινόω (koinoō). vb. be impure. Describes the action of something or someone becoming ritually or morally impure.
In the Gospels, every instance of koinoō refers to moral impurity. Whereas the Pharisees would have understood the term to refer to ritual impurity, Jesus turns it on its head and insists that moral behavior is what makes one impure.
Look at the verse:
2 they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.
The word for defiled here is actions that make you impure. The PHars had come to the place that we are very fimaler with today that if you did things out of the approved cultural terms you become unclean.
Today we call that cancel culture, I watched a video of a young man in a mask alone outside saying he was uncomfortable walking down the street in the suburbs because it had to many American flags hanging up. This is an approved cultural phenomenon right now. While it causes me to role my eyes he will be commended for not getting into the culturally unclean love of country. Those that he comments on are the same in today’s pharisees minds as the one Jesus’s day. This isn’t unique to one side of the political aisle, but it is what cancel culture looks like.
Jesus demonstrates what real impurity looks like.
14 And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15 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.”
Your actions, words and deeds are what defiles you because you and I are sinners before a Holy and perfect God.
If you’re performative in your holiness as that man was, or what some would call virtue signaling. Companies and people do this all the time to show that they’re good people.
If your doing church to be seen, as the pharisees your in this boat.
(expand as you will)
Who We today are dealing with today
Who We today are dealing with today
the Pharisees around us
The Flesh
English Standard Version Chapter 7
18 And he said to them, “Then iare you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart jbut his stomach, and is expelled?”6 (kThus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, l“What comes out of a person is what defiles him.
This is our constant enemy around us. We’re fighting this old nature that wants to lead us to our own destruction.
The Old man, the flesh, it’s like a Trojan horse at the gates of the soul constantly tempting you with goodness but inside it is about bring death.
The Ways to Not Address sin (3 Pitfalls)
The Ways to Not Address sin (3 Pitfalls)
Pitfall 1:
Pitfall 1:
When you replace repentance with actions
Exchanging one sin for another. You may no longer drink to excess, but instead you have pride.
45 Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”
This is not a way to handle sin. The old man has tricked you, the devil is laughing as you’re just taking worse sin upon yourself.
Pitfall 2:
Pitfall 2:
When your natural dispositions make you less inclined to specific sins
You may not be an angry man, a person consumed with lust, a person prone to this or that idoltry or addiction, but that deosn’t mean you are therefore naturally repellent to sin. If you just by the nature of how God mad you aren’t lustful, angry, greedy or other easy to identify sins you actually have to examine yourself. A man who is constantly bringing to the Lord his anger is better off then a man blind to his own ails.
We are quick to the wailing child, but it’s the quiet one that also needs to be looked after just as quickly.
Pitfall 3:
Pitfall 3:
When all you do is handle Sin by avoidance.
Many will fall into a sin and realize the error, but mistaken backing off, maybe whole cloth, for a season and consider that the action to overcome sin.
It’s the power of the Holy Spirit that kills sin in us, it is our submitting daily to him and carrying our cross that destroys and weakens the power of the old man. Not taking a Lenten season off. The abstinence means nothing and accomplishes nothing if done as a check list or faithless action. You’re white washing the tomb and the sun and rain of life will remove the paint over time leaving the death inside unchganged.
3+ Ways to Actually Kill Sin
3+ Ways to Actually Kill Sin
Apply truth to your Soul
Apply truth to your Soul
The word of God is a sword that cut’s through
12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Satan’s wiles and the flesh’s torments have nothing on the truth.
When Temptation rises up and you have God’s word hidden in your heart you can do as Christ did with Satan and as he did with the Pharisees in this passage. Use the word to resist evil and sin.
The flesh and the devil love the Christian outside the word, because you then arm going about unarmed!
The word is a mirror that we see ourselves more clearly by! Ps 19:8
8 the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes;
104 Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.
When you see the precepts you must measure yourself by the word and you see how Christ is and who he wants you to be!
Worship God
Worship God
When sin erupts, when the Old man fights againsit us we get sluggish and comfortable it leads us to as Isaiah says:
7 There is no one who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities.
So you must rouse yourself to faith, seek action,
19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart,
Awaken yourself up. Sin leave you deadened, God requires you to have vigor about your faith.
Sin is creeping at your door waiting for you to tire and sleep. Your flesh promises you delights it has not intention of delivering. So worship God with action and delight. Be robust, sing proudly, go to extreme in commitment to Christ. You will see change in your life if you take all action to bring God glory. All founded on faith.
Stay within the body of believers! Satan and flesh love Christians outside the church! When animals are alone they are easier to hunt. When you’re sick and alone it’s easy to be consumed, and the devil is a lion looking for someone to devour! You not only are forbidden to do the faith alone, your heavenly father knowing how sin works gives you the church to protect you from the devil.
Cultivate...
Cultivate...
in your heart a hatred of all the sins that flow from yourself
Puritan Reformed Theology: Historical, Experiential, and Practical Studies for the Whole of Life Brakel on the Seventh Commandment
Brakel exhorts us to respond to sexual sin by seriously pursuing holiness, according to the biblical pattern of putting off sin and putting on righteousness. He admonished us to cultivate “in one’s heart a hatred and aversion for, and hostility toward all uncleanness of heart and whatever issues forth therefrom” (Amos 5:15; Rom. 12:9; Jude 23).34
15 Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.
23 save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.
Hate is not a word that Christians like in their mouth, but do you hate sin? Do you when you see sin rise up in you want to kill it? Does your sin make you see it for what it is?
You must grow in yourself a desire to remove it. Cut it off pluck it out. You must strave what causes it to grow. Beg JEsus for the strength to overcome it Phil 4:13
13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
You Can be made Clean
You Can be made Clean
Repent and believe
(Give the Gospel
