The Law and Your Heart

Call to Worship: Matthew 11:28-30 // Prayer

Adoration: Our Father in Heaven, you have given rest to our weary souls through your Son, our Lord. Holy is your name, for their is rest in no one else and nothing else but you alone. May your kingdom spread through our witness, for your are worthy. May your will be done among us, and may many more repent and be saved and come to live according to your will, for you are worthy.

Confession: Yet also we ask, please forgive us our debts. For in spite of you compassion, we have often run off into sin, even this past week. And in spite of your sovereign power, we have put our trust in other things to satisfy our hearts. Father, forgive us, for we have sinned against you.

Thanksgiving: And we rejoice, because we know the great compassion with which you hear our cries for mercy, and because we know that sovereign power of your Son’s death, by which all of our sins have already been forgiven.

Supp: And we ask that, as a congregation, you would help us to forgive those who have sinned against us, just as you have forgiven us for our sins against you; and we ask that you would give us our daily bread—that you would supply our needs, which are many, and all known to you; for we are weak and powerless, and have many health needs, and financial needs, job needs, friendship needs, and more—and in you is the compassion and the power to supply our needs; and we ask that you would spare us from temptation, yet when it comes, that you would deliver us from evil // and we bring before you also Bethany Baptist Church up north, and we ask that you would continue to bless them in Christ-centered unity and grow them in the confidence of their faith, that they might be a beacon of your redeeming love in their community // and Father, we lift up to you those who are immigrants in our country—especially those who have fled from wars or other threats, and most especially those who are our brothers and sisters in Christ: we ask for your mercy on them in all the difficulties of their situations, and that the believers among them would be empowered to share your gospel, that many might come to know you through their witness // and we ask for your church in Japan: we ask that you might direct their eyes to you more deeply, and might strengthen their hands for the task of spreading the good news in their country // and as we turn to hear your Word, we ask that you might use it to convict and encourage us in the way everlasting, that you might be glorfied in us…

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Benediction

2 Corinthians 13:11 ESV

Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.

Sermon

Introduction

In our songs and our preaching and our prayers, we talk a lot about redemption. We talk a lot about forgiveness through Jesus’ death, which really is the beating heart of Christianity. But if that’s true, then what place does God’s law have? If the gospel, and not the Law, is at the center of our faith, then what do we do with the Law? What do we do with God’s commandments and instructions?

We learned, earlier in Matthew’s gospel, that Jesus came to fulfill the Law. But does that mean, then, that God’s Law is done for us? This is a tricky issue.

It’s like driving a car on an icy highway and slipping. You need to do something to avoid one ditch, but if you over-correct, you’ll end up in the other. You’ll end up wrecked and stuck in the icy cold.

In the history of Christianity, there’s been a lot of error toward one ditch followed by over-correction toward the other. And when these errors and over-corrections are big enough, they can crash your faith into a ditch, causing great damage, or at least stunt your spiritual growth.

And over time, Christians have assigned names to these two ditches: when you drift and slip into the error of trying to earn God’s favor by keeping his Law, this is the ditch of legalism. Trying to be clean before God by keeping rules.

But when you throw the wheel over and dismiss the law entirely, this is the ditch of antinomianism (a fancy word for anti-law). And both of these ditches are deep and dangerous.

But what is the safe highway that runs between them? It is the road of neither jettisoning the Law from the Christian life nor trying to save yourself by keeping the Law. It is the road of understanding the proper place of God’s Law in our faith. And to show us this proper understanding, in our text today, Jesus responds to the legalistic Pharisees by first showing:

That their legalistic understanding of spiritual cleanness was merely a cover up of their sinful hearts,

=> remember, legalism means trying to be clean before God by following rules…

=> and in fact, as often happens with legalism, they’d added a bunch of their own rules to the situation…

So first, Jesus showed that their legalistic attempt to be clean in God’s sight was just a cover-up of their evil hearts,

And second, he showed that their evil hearts were actually making them unclean in a way that their legalism couldn’t help.

And in all of this they were actually voiding or ignoring God’s law, so that they had actually become blind to their own problem. But as we’ll see, those who pay attention to God’s Law are enabled to see their own uncleanness, which then directs them to run to Jesus, the only one who can make us clean. And so, the main point here is that Legalistic traditions hide our uncleanness, but God’s Law exposes it for our good.

Legalism to Cleanse Us: A Cover for Sinful Hearts

Now, this all begins, not with Jesus delivering a sermon, but with an attack from the Pharisees.

The accusation they make is found in verse 2:

Matthew 15:2 ESV

“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.”

Now, the word “unclean” isn’t used in that verse, but that’s basically what they are accusing the disciples of: “They’re unclean because they broke the tradition about washing hands.” So their hands were unclean, which made the food they were eating unclean, which then made them unclean as they ate it.

Now, this was a “tradition of the elders”—meaning, you won’t find it anywhere in the OT. The Pharisees claimed that it was on par with the Laws given in the OT. But in reality, it was mere human tradition.

And that’s typically what happens when folks veer into legalism: they find a way to take their own laws and treat them as if they are God’s laws. And so for the Pharisees, they feel like they’re accusing the disciples of real sin which has made them unclean in God’s sight.

So how does Jesus reply? Not with a straightforward defense of his disciples, but rather with a Counter-Accusation in verse 3:

Matthew 15:3 “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?”

Notice how similar his accusation sounds to theirs. Both start with, “Why do you break/why do they break.” But then notice the difference: Jesus says, “You guys are breaking the Law of God.”

“Oh, and by the way, you’re breaking God’s Law by following those very traditions you think my disciples need to follow.” And notice, he calls them—vs 3— “your traditions.” Meaning, they’re man-made. They’re not from God.

But what is Jesus talking about there? How is it that the Pharisees, by following their traditions, are actually breaking God’s Law? He gives an example in vs. 4-6:

Matthew 15:4–6 ESV

For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God.

So what’s going on there?

Well, the OT makes a big deal about children honoring parents. And the NT continues that, by the way. Some laws in the OT were specific to Israel and have been fulfilled in Christ is such a way that they don’t apply today. But others still do. And this is one of them.

Our culture celebrates childhood and teenage rebellion as normal—even healthy—but God does not. The first quote Jesus gives there, in verse 4, is from the 10 commandments in Exodus 20. The second quote is about a chapter later. And those quotes, in context, make it clear that Israel would stand or fall based on whether this command to honor parents was obeyed. Likewise, you’re unlikely to see long-term healthy church life apart from biblical family life—including that children are trained to honor their parents.

Why is that? Well it’s important for us to understand that this idea of honoring your parents isn’t a random or haphazard Law of God. It’s really just expressing the very fabric of how God made the world—that parents are designed to care, defend, nurture, and train their children, and the flip side of that coin is children honoring their parents.

OK. So that’s the backdrop. And what were the Pharisees doing? They were teaching that if you had some money and your elderly parents had a need, you could avoid giving the money to them by declaring that the money was devoted to God. So basically, their ancestors had devised a very spiritual-sounding way—a tradition—to get out of honoring your parents. And those Pharisees upheld that tradition over and against the clear teaching of God’s Law.

This is why Jesus says to them, at the end of verse 6, “You have made void the Word of God.” And again, this was an example of how their traditions did that.

But why did they do these things? What was driving their legalism?

Jesus gives a spiritual diagnosis of their problem in verse 7-9. He calls them hypocrites in vs. 7, and then in verses 8-9 he quotes from the prophet Isaiah to explain their hypocrisy:

Matthew 15:8–9 ESV

“ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”

That’s Isaiah 29:13. And so Jesus is saying that the problem in Isaiah’s day—that was about six or seven centuries before Jesus’ day—he’s saying it’s the same problem in his own day. And it’s the problem of legalism.

Notice: there’s two things going on there. First, there’s an external honor given to God. The talk, at least in public, gives honor to God. And at the same time, rules made by mere human beings are added to God’s Law. And these man-made rules are framed as rules that, if you follow them, you’re honoring God. In fact, you must follow them to honor God. But they are always rules focused on externals and ignoring the gospel. That’s the first thing. External honor to God.

And the second thing is, it’s always coupled with dead hearts and vain worship. The worship may be very solemn, or very passionate; there may be great knowledge of the Bible or passionate emotions on display, but underneath most hearts are far from God.

So, to sum it up, Legalism uses God-talk and man-made rules as an external cover-up for sinful hearts.

And this is what Jesus was exposing about the Pharisees: they taught a system where, if your heart didn’t want to honor your parents, you could get out of it with some man made rules. After that, just wash your hands—physically wash your hands—and you’re a clean law-keeper in God’s sight. Supposedly. But hidden beneath their rule-keeping were sinful hearts.

So Jesus was saying: “Your traditions don’t make you clean—they just cover up the law-breaking that’s going on in your heart.”

[Synthesis] Now, notice something here:

Legalism always ends up at odds with God’s Law. It’s inevitable, for at least two reasons:

First, if you try to cleanse yourself by following God’s Law, you’ll fail. The Law is good, but your heart is too corrupt to follow it perfectly.

If you’ve not yet believed in Christ, this is totally the case. Every effort you make to obey will be external or with the wrong motivation, a mere cover-up for your heart-problem.

But even if you’re a believer—yes, you’ve received a new heart; but it isn’t perfected yet. You’ll still fail to honor God’s Law in many ways

So in either case—believer or non-believer—if you try to find your status of cleanness before God by following his commandments, it won’t work. You’ll always fail, at least to some degree, making you unclean. And so, you’ll have to compensate by downgrading God’s Law. By pretending his standard is lower than it actually is, because that will make it possible for you to imagine that you’re truly keeping his law.

This is what the Pharisees did by teaching that—even if they didn’t exactly say it like this— “In the end, it’s OK if you despise your parents instead of honoring them in your heart. We’ll even make a way so that you don’t have to give them any of your money.” They downgraded God’s standard to make it seem that a twisted, evil heart was OK in God’s sight. That’s the first way they were at odds with God’s Law

But the second way is this: When you take something else and elevate it to the same level of God’s word—as they did with their traditions—it’s technically at the same level as God’s Word, yes. But when the two come into conflict, it always wins out over God’s Word—just as their traditions did.

Consider the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Now, there are some genuine believers who are Roman Catholic, yes. But Rome teaches that its traditions are on level with God’s Word. And so in theory, for Catholics, the Bible and Tradition have the same status. But in reality, that’s not how it works out. Recently, a Roman Catholic apologist wrote a book called, “The Obscurity of Scripture.” He argued that God’s Word is obscure, unclear—why? So that he could then argue that Roman Catholic tradition is needed to interpret it rightly.

Do you see what he did? Technically, the Bible and tradition are on the same level for him. But in practice, tradition sits over the Scripture and interprets it. Man-made tradition. And as it happens, the result is a similar kind of legalism which claims that you can become clean through rituals and rule-keeping.

And so Legalism usually operates by both downgrading God’s Law and adding human rules to it. And in doing this, it creates a bloated system of rules which, if followed, are supposed to make you clean.

But the major problem is that even if you are able to have some success in following these rules, they do not actually change your heart. And the heart is what matters to God, as we saw in verse 8. A cleaned up exterior with a rotten heart is no good. And so, in the end, Legalism is merely a cover-up for sin.

Legalistic traditions are supposed to make you clean, but they cannot fix your sinful heart.

Sinful Hearts: That Which Makes Us Unclean

[Exegesis] And then, in the second half of this passage, Jesus brings us full circle: your sinful heart is the source of your uncleanness. Look at vs. 10-11.

Matthew 15:10–11 ESV

And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”

Do you see that?

It’s not what comes into you from the outside that makes you unclean. In other words, the disciples did not become unclean in God’s sight by eating their food with unwashed hands.

Rather, it’s what comes out of you from the inside—in this case, evil or insincere words—that makes you unclean. And by teaching that, Jesus didn’t just give a general principle. He was also pointing out that these Pharisees themselves were unclean.

And of course, the Pharisees didn’t like that. But notice, Jesus wasn’t bothered by their anger. Look at verses 13-14. The disciples had just told Jesus about the Pharisees’ reaction, and he replied:

Matthew 15:13–14 ESV

He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

So the Pharisees, then, are spiritually blind. Psalm 119:105 says, “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” But they’ve made the word of God void with their traditions, and so they can’t see where they are going. The Law of God illuminates—and in just a moment, we’ll see how. But legalism makes blind.

And they aren’t just blind. But they are blind guides, leading other blind folks astray. They are perpetuating a whole system of legalism, and so both they and their followers are spiritually blind folks all headed for the same spiritual pit. And what is that pit?

Well, it’s the fact that their sinful hearts are making them unclean, but they can’t see it. They are unclean before God, and about to be uprooted by him in judgement, but they are unaware of the danger.

And here’s the thing: if they would actually sit humbly under God’s Law, their eyes would be opened to their problem, and they would have a chance to seek God’s mercy.

Now, to be fair, even the disciples don’t get what Jesus is teaching here. Peter comes up to Jesus and says, “Explain the parable to us.” Jesus replies, “Are you also still without understanding?” In other words, “It wasn’t a parable, Peter.” And so Jesus clarifies with an in-depth explanation in vs. 17-19:

Matthew 15:17–19 “Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.”

Do you see that?

Sinful actions don’t come out of nowhere. You do what you do because you want what you want. You do what you do because you love what you love. Sinful actions are not random. Sinful actions always find their shadowy origins in the heart.

Are you plagued by impure thoughts? They come from an impure heart.

Do you treat people poorly? There’s a proud or selfish heart behind that.

Did you tell a lie? Some evil motive lies behind it in your heart.

And these are the things which make us unclean in God’s sight.

So then, if you judge yourself by human traditions as the Pharisees did, you might be able to recon yourself clean. Focus on keeping a lot of external rules, and you can begin to think you’ve found some success.

But stand before the perfect Law of God, and let it judge your heart, and the delusion of spiritual cleanness will fall away. The more you study your own heart in the light of God’s Word, the more dirt you’ll find. And if you humble yourself to do that, you’ll say with Peter:

“Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord,”

Or with Isaiah:

“Woe is me, for I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips.”

If you stand before God’s Law, your uncleanness will be exposed in a way that it never is with legalism.

And so, in verse 20, we have the conclusion—“But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”

That’s a favorite verse of children everywhere, by the way.

But Jesus’ point is this: it’s not my disciples who are unclean for neglecting to wash their hands. It’s you who are unclean, because of your hearts. God’s law exposes the unclean hearts that legalism hides.

God’s Law and Your Heart

Now, at this point, you might be thinking, “Wow. That’s really heavy. I suppose it’s good to know the truth about your heart, but it sounds just gloomy.”

But at the beginning of the sermon, I said that God’s Law exposes our hearts for our good. So how can such a sobering thing be good?

To answer this question, we need to consider the proper use of the Law in the Christian life… and there are at least three:

The first is that God’s Law reflects God himself—it shows us what God is like:

The Pharisees thought to hide their unclean hearts beneath petty regulations. But the Law of God cuts through all that. And in this way, it shows us God’s all-piercing, all-knowing wisdom, from which there is no hiding. In God’s perfect wisdom and knowledge, he sees all the dark places of our hearts perfectly.

Or, the perfection of the Law shows us the perfection of God’s own character. God’s righteousness is totally pure. As John wrote, “In Him there is no darkness at all.”

And once you see this—God’s own perfection shining through his Law—the second thing is that it exposes your own drastic imperfection by comparison. You catch a glimpse of his righteousness—you really see it—and at once you know your own unrighteousness. And again, that’s a heavy truth.

But what happens then? Well, consider this: if you see your sin, you’re no longer blind. You can now see to avoid the pit that the Pharisees fell into there in verse 14.

Augustine said it this way: “The law [gives] orders, that we, after attempting to do what is ordered, and so feeling our weakness under the law, may learn to [beg for] the help of grace.”

In other words, when the Law exposes your heart as evil and unclean, that’s when the gospel starts to make sense to you. You start to see why you needed someone to bear the curse of the Law in your place, that you might be forgiven and cleansed, not by your own works of righteousness, but by his mercy.

And that is exactly what Jesus did: the Law is good, but it is a curse to sinners because it exposes our sin and condemns us. But Jesus took that guilt and condemnation and curse from us and placed it on himself in order that we might be freed from it. And that is why all who trust in him—even though we have broken the Law of God so much—are declared “clean” in his sight.

And then, even after you have been saved, again the Law exposes more evil in your heart. And as you see it, you run to Christ for mercy and help, which he freely gives.

So to sum up this second use of the Law: it exposes your sin in order to cause you to run to the gospel of Christ’s redeeming love.

And then, delighting in the redeeming love of Christ, we come to the third use of the Law: showing us how to walk worthy of our Lord. How does this work?

Standing in grace, and made into beloved children of God, we then desire to turn back and live for his glory.

And the law shows us what that looks like: If I want to glorify God, I don’t just need to show my parents external honor; I need to love them from my heart, for example. So this use of the law isn’t about getting clean in God’s sight—Jesus has made us clean by his blood. But this use of the law is about honoring the one who has already rescued us and made us clean.

And this is the proper place of the Law in the Christian life. Not antinomianism, where we discard the law and so remain blind to our sins. And not legalism, where we use the Law to try to hide our sinfulness. But the Law as a teacher, which first teaches us our total helplessness in our sin, and thus our need to be redeemed by Christ, and second teaches us how to live for his glory.

And so, this is how to use various moral laws and rules and ethical guides when you run across them in the Bible: let them expose your sin as needed, and confess it to God; then, refreshed in God’s mercy, let the law instruct your heart for how to imitate and honor Christ.

And if that’s how to use it in your own personal reading of the Bible, then that’s also how to use it when speaking Christ into another’s life. When you’re discipling someone, you’re not urging them merely to try harder. You’re urging them, sometimes, to turn from sin, receive God’s mercy afresh, and live for him—and you’re using the Law to do that. Other times you might be urging them to fix their eyes on Jesus, who fulfilled the law, and follow after him. But always, the Law is framed by the grace of the gospel, which is enough both to forgive our violations of the Law and empower us to live by it a little more as each year goes by.

And then, also, there is an important use for the Law in evangelism. Our non-believing neighbors usually do have a sense that there is evil out there. But the majority have very little sense of the evil inside. And you want to be gentle about this, and to do it in love. But there is some very bad news that folks have to learn in order to realize why the good news is good: their hearts are evil. And it is the Law that exposes that.

In the end, then, that is why legalism is so deadly. It twists the Law and then misuses it to try to hide our sin, which makes us unaware of our spiritual danger. Legalism hides unclean hearts. But God’s law exposes them for our good.

Lord’s Table

[invite servers forward]

Now, a moment ago I said that Christ carried the curse of the Law on himself. What does that mean? Galatians 3:13 says:

Galatians 3:13 ESV

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—

The curse of the Law is simply the reality that when you break God’s law, you become guilty. And if you are guilty, judgement is coming. But Christ took that curse and that judgement on himself when he was crucified, so that his people might go free. That is what he was doing when he gave his body to be broken as our bread of life, and his veins to be opened as the blood of the New Covenant of grace.

And so, we all who have trusted in his death have been redeemed from the curse. The curse is no more for us. It is finished. And in its place is the love of God shining through the cross of Christ—the Love of God vouched safe to us in this bread which symbolizes how he gave his body, and this cup which symbolizes how he gave his blood for us.

Now, this means that if you are not a believer yet, or if you are a believer who hasn’t yet symbolized your faith by baptism, [we are so glad you are here] but you shouldn’t partake in the bread and the cup yet. Instead, you should watch, and think about what these things mean: that Jesus gave himself up to death, so that if you come to him, you also will find forgiveness and be restored to God.

‌But if you are a baptized believer, and in good standing with your congregation—whether you’re part of Scholls, or part of a different gospel-preaching church—you should join us with joy, as we participate spiritually in Christ in this Supper.

‌[invite congregation to come forward]

‌‌[Passing out the bread + Cup]

‌‌‌‌1 Corinthians 11:23-24 “…the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.””

‌1 Corinthians 11:25 “In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.””

‌‌1 Corinthians 11:26 “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

‌[prayer]