What defiles man

Matthew 15:10-20

a. Defilement is from inside (15:10-14)

b. Our heart is what defiles (15:15-20)

1. INTRODUCTION

2. BODY

a. Defilement is from inside (15:10-14)

i. So verse 10 starts with Jesus now answering the crowd by telling the crowd, Hear and understand. It’s interesting here that Jesus addresses the crowd because whenever He speaks of hearing and understanding, He referred to only His disciples.

ii. In 13:10, His disciples asked Jesus why do you speak to them in parables? Jesus was speaking to the crowd (13:1-9) teaching them about the soils and speaking in parables and His disciples asked Him this question. Then in 13:13, Jesus says I speak to them in parables, because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing, they do not hear nor do they understand.

iii. And yet, here in 15:10, Jesus gathers the people and tells them hear and understand. This shows that Jesus desires all to hear and understand. This doesn’t mean that all will hear and understand, but rather, His desire is that all would understand. Jesus provides this to all the people here.

iv. Then Jesus says in verse 11, it is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what comes out of the mouth this defiles the man. When we fast forward to verse 15, we see that Jesus was again speaking in Parables. This goes again back to this tension of making it known to everyone, but only those who will believe can believe.

v. So when we think about what Jesus is saying here in verse 11, it goes back to 15:2. The Pharisees had accused Jesus that His disciples break the traditions of the elders by not washing their hands when they eat bread and this means that because they didn’t wash their hands, now the food they are eating is dirty hence, Jesus’s explanation here in verse 11, it’s not what you eat, even if you say that the food they are eating is dirty, that pollutes the man, but that man is polluted because of what is inside.

vi. I think it’s easy to gloss over the fact that Jesus isn’t talking about the food, but we need to read Leviticus 11. Leviticus 11 defines how the people of Israel are supposed to eat. God gives dietary restrictions to the people of Israel of what they can eat and how to eat them. So it makes sense that the Pharisees were questioning Jesus and His disciples asking them why they were eating without cleaning their hands. Afterall, Yahweh had provided restrictions to what they could eat and what they shouldn’t eat.

vii. So the significance here with Jesus’s statement is significant because it goes back to the idea of Matthew 5, where Jesus elevates Himself to that of God. Jesus is making it clear that He was saying something that contradicts God because God made it clear they were not allowed to eat dirty food. This is why in verse 12, the Pharisees were offended because they know the Law. They know what God wanted from them and they were well accustomed to what God had said. Afterall, this is what they studied their whole lives. This is what they devoted themselves to.

viii. But again, Jesus is making it clear that it’s not about the external but the internal. God’s restrictions in the Law were not just about what they shouldn’t eat. This is why He writes at the end of Leviticus 11:43-47 the purpose of why they shouldn’t eat. It wasn’t just simply they couldn’t eat certain things. But it was be holy for I am holy. It was to worship God and acknowledge that my life is under His guidance. My life is trusting in Him and believing and trusting that He knows what is best for me. It is to be like Him. Verse 45 encapsulates this idea by telling them, “For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God.” God was making it abundantly clear that they are to love Him for what He did. You should remember what I did for you. Thus, you shall be holy as I am holy. Again, the response to God’s love for you is that you be like Him. It echoes the same sentiment as 1 Corinthians 11 and Ephesians 5.

ix. Verse 13 So Jesus responds with a unique statement. Jesus answers them by telling them that every plant which My heavenly Father did not plant shall be uprooted. Everyone who is not of God, they will be judged. Then in verse 14, Jesus says leave them alone. They are blind guides of the blind. The reality is, it’s not simply that only the Pharisees will be judged, but all those who don’t believe in Christ. It’s not simply people who eat dirty food that are judged, but those who have a dirty heart. These people are the ones that will ultimately face judgment from God.

x. Again, borrowing the language from Isaiah 29:13 and Jesus’s statement in verses 8-9, the ones who give me worship with their mouths but their hearts that are far from me, those are the people who be uprooted, for they are blind.

b. Our heart is what defiles (15:15-20)

i. So in verse 15, Peter now speaks on behalf of the disciples and asks Jesus, explain the parable to us. Explain to us what you just said. What do you mean by what you said?

ii. This is one of those verses where we can be frustrated and be wondering how could they ask? It seems pretty easy to understand. But these verses are for us. All of us have blind spots and sometimes don’t understand why certain things happen or we might be having a hard time understanding certain things. And yet, the Bible shows us that we can always ask questions to God.

iii. Verse 16 is interesting as well. It almost sounds like Jesus is asking this question to Peter, but most likely, Peter was not the only one who didn’t understand. Due to the fact that Peter was the representative of the disciples, it seems likely that the other disciples didn’t fully understand either.

iv. This almost sounds like Jesus is frustrated with the disciples. Another strong reminder that although Jesus sounds frustrated, He nonetheless listens to them. I love passages like this because it shows me that the Bible is human. It is not that God was frustrated, but it shows the humanity of Christ. Jesus was really a person. He wasn’t questioning them to find out their intentions, but was showing the sense that His closest people, even they didn’t understand Him.

v. This reminds me of my inability to understand Him at times in my own life. Yes, I know He is God. Yes I know He is faithful. Yes, I know many things about God. And yet, there are so many times in my own life, that I ask, Lord, please help me, where are you? We come to lack understanding and this passage shows us, even in these situations, God is faithful to answer.

vi. We see Jesus explain in verses 17-20. Verse 17, Jesus begins to explain what He referred to in verse 2. It isn’t simply that we eat and the physical food defiles us. Jesus says in verse 17, that when you eat something, it passes through the mouth and into the stomach and then is eliminated.

vii. What is the significance of this statement? Well, this speaks today to questions like, is it okay if a Christian gets a tatoo? Is it okay for Christians to go to the bar? Is it okay for Christians to smoke? We might think that Jesus was talking strictly about food, but Jesus is addressing a much deeper issue. It isn’t just the external things that defile the person. It is often easy to judge a person by conventional standards, external behavior because that’s the only thing we can go by. But Jesus tells us by going further than the obvious. The question is, why do we do these things? It’s not that the external is good or bad. The question is, why do we want those things?

viii. Jesus is making it clear here in verse 18 that the problem is not so much what goes in, but what comes out of the mouth. The things that defile the man are the things that come from inside. Jesus explains further just incase we don’t understand in verse 19. Out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.

ix. It’s important to note that out of the 6 things that Jesus speaks about here, 4 of them come out in the 10 commandments. What’s more interesting is that they come exactly in the same order from you shall not murder (6th commandment) and going down the order. Jesus was clearly thinking of the 10 commandments here because He was dealing with the Pharisees. Afterall, the Pharisees were experts in the Law.

x. So Jesus was making it clear, that it’s not simply about breaking the 10 commandments, but stressing the heart when we break the 10 commandments. Why do we break them? Because Jesus is making it clear that the we break the 10 commandments is because our hearts are wicked.

xi. Jesus completes this by stating in verse 20, that these things, these are the things that defile a man. Eating with unwashed hands, this doesn’t defile a man. External things don’t defile the man. It’s the internal reasoning, that defile the man.

xii. So why is Jesus constantly talking about the heart? Because that is the purpose of the Gospel. The Gospel doesn’t just simply address what we should do or what we shouldn’t do. But the Gospel’s main purpose is to deal with the heart. The Christian life is not filled with what we should or shouldn’t do, but rather, it is to address the condition of the heart. All those in Christ, will seek to please God and by pleasing God, we will refrain from the things of the world. This is why the Gospel in and of itself is ethical in nature, but that is not the primary function of the Gospel. The Gospel’s purpose is not to make better people. It is to create new people in Christ. It is a total upheaval of the heart and through this new life, people change and people undo things in their lives. Things that are no longer helpful, we stop doing and things that are helpful, we take on.

xiii. This is why Jesus constantly preaches about the heart because at the heart of the Gospel, it deals with the human heart. One of the best passages in all of Scripture regarding salvation is found in Ezekiel 36:22-28.

xiv. What we see in this passage starting in verse 22 is that salvation is nothing we’ve done or even for us, but for God. The reason God is about to act is for His name and His glory. Then in verse 26, that He will give a new heart and put a new spirit within you. Lastly, He will remove the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

xv. This passage makes it clear that we have done nothing to receive our salvation or participated in our salvation. It begins and ends with God.

3. CONCLUSION