Sermon Tone Analysis

Mark 7:1-

Let’s pray

Every so often when I’m talking to folks who don’t go to church, or maybe even don’t believe in God, or maybe they do but they aren’t really sure what they believe, and I kind of start talking about the things that I’ve learned that God has taught me over they years.

They usually all have some sort of a phrase or statement they make to push you back or give a little distance in the conversation.

They will say well.... I’m not really religious and that is the kind of statement they all make and I always respond well neither am I.

I really truly mean that from the bottom of my heart, I really don’y consider myself a religious person.

because religion has taken on a completely different form than what it was intended to take and it is exactly what were seeing here in this passage.

Religion today is bound up in traditions and rituals and semi mindless things we sort of do to go through the process or go through the motions of doing church, or doing the god thing, whatever the God thing happens to be.

(lent)

It really has lost alot of its meaning and importance, and what were going to see today is that god doesn’t want you to be religious, God wants to have a relationship with you He wants to know you, He wants you to learn from Him and hear His voice, He wants you to be lead by His Spirit but He doesn’t want you to be lead and governed by religious thought.

Jesus is confronting religion here.

Jesus is all about freedom, He is about freedom from sin, He is about freedom from fear, He is about freedom from religion.

Now here Jesus encounters these religious men these Pharisees and scribes, and to better understand them, we need to learn a little background.

Historical Background

Around the time of Ezra the office of scribe which was a religious office got a kind of upgrade.

Now the words scribe simply means copyist.

Today we would call them kinkos, or office max, or xerox or something I don’t know because their sole job was to copy the scriptures and that was fundamentally their duty.

But around the time of Ezra he changed all that for scribes because He was a teacher, and as a teacher he was very very critical of the children of israel.

They had been exiled into slavery because of their wickedness and at this time they were coming backn into their homeland god was restoring them but ezra was really critical of thier lifestyle.

How they lived their lives, becuase he wanted to teach them the Word of God and prevent them from coming under the judgement of God again.

But Ezra was a teacher even though He was a scribe so he functioned as a teacher and a copyist.

that is a great definition of a teacher, someone who explains the meaning of whats being read so the people could fully understand.

This passage in Nehemiah is talking about Ezra.

So Ezra is giving the people a sense of what is going on behind the passage and makes it clear for them.

So Ezra kind of jumpstarted a new definition of what it meant to be a scribe and after the time of Ezra scribes became known as experts in the law and teachers.

During that time leading up until the time of Christ they became very passionate in their desire to expand the law and define it.

But what ended up happening is that they started adding all of these rules and regulations, and all of these nit picky little things like how to wash your hands and i mean rules for exactly how to wash your hands.. How to measure out the water and all of these nonessentials.

By the time Jesus came along these rules were NOT what God had established these laws were man made.

They were also ridiculous.

These rules were called the Mishna which were oral man made traditions.

for example:

You couldn’t look at your reflection in a mirror on the Sabbath day..... WHY?

Because you might work....HOW could that make you work..

because if you saw a gray hair you might be tempted to pluck it out.

you couldn’t carry a handkerchief but you could wear one, because if you carried it thats would be considered working.

So if you wanted to take a handkerchief into another room in your house on the sabbath day, you had to tie it around your neck and wear it into the next rule because if you carried it you were working and breaking the Sabbath day law.

People were just locked into this legalism.

They called this legalism the TRADITIONS OF THE ELDERS

So in this passage you have a group of these scribes coming to check JEsus out and what do they find?

GASP These guys werent washing their hands right.

I mean wouldn’t it have been cool to see Jesus do all the things he did while He was on this Earth.... Healing the lame and leper raising the dead, causing the blind to see.

But all these guys did when they come onto the scene is say things like these guys arent washing their hands right… awoowoo

But you know thats what the law does it makes you nit picky and your always kind of looking at people to find out what they are doing wrong.

“Watch your step there partner because if your doing something wrong were going to find it”...

The Scene

Here come the scribes and they gather around Jesus they corner Him up…

The Problem

That doesnt mean they had dirty hands, its not like parents who are fixing plates and see very evident dirt on their kids hands are like GET IN THERE AND WAHS YOUR HANDS This is not whats going on.

It’s not that their hands are dirty its that they havent washed their hands accroding to the tradition of the elders.

Notice

He explains what they mean here.

He tells us that these people wouldn’t even start eating until they had gone through all of these rituals of washing.

Notice the wording in verse 5

In other words they are not accusing the disciples of violating God’s word, they are accusing the disciples of violating the traditions that have been handed down over the years which the Jews had elevated to the place of Gods word.

They made their rules equal to Gods word.

Thats whats going on here.

Jesus’ response

Mark 7:6

They are accusing Jesus and His disciples of not holding to man made tradition, and Jesus is accusing them of abandoning the word of God in order to keep their traditions.

In other words He says your coming to me with man made rules and regulations.

Of course that gets me to thinking what things are being taught today that are man made?

In other words are not IN THE SCRIPTURE but are things people believe as truth.

Even though they NOT in the Bible.

these types of wrong traditions come from two places

Institutional traditions

Personal beliefs

Now personal belief is not what Jesus is confronting here right because notice verse 8

so that is what Jesus is confronting in these men, hundreds of years of traditions being passed down from men.

Which can be very very powerful.

But Jesus isn’t coming down on traditions in general we all have traditions we hold to, like on Christmas we all open one present and then go look at Christmas lights.

we all have our traditions, thats not the problem

WHAT JESUS IS DEALING WITH HERE IS TRADITIONS THAT WE ELEVATE TO POSITIONS WHERE THEY ARE EQUAL TO GODS WORD

YOU DISREGARD THE COMMANDMENT OF GOD AND EMBRACE THE TRADITIONS OF MEN

YOU ABANDONED GODS WORD SO THAT YOU MIGHT CHOOSE MENS TRADITIONS

Thats why traditions like this are so dangerous:

EXAMPLES OF UNBIBLICAL TRADITIONS:

- YOU MUST BE ORDAINED TO BAPTIZE SOMEONE

Have you ever heard that one?

No one anywhere can show me where it says a person must be ordained in order to baptize someone.

Walking in purity yes, walking in obedience to Christ yes, but I will tell you I think there would be greater emphasis placed on discipleship if the person who leads you to the Lord baptizes you.

It’s like we trust people enough to share the gospel but not perform a baptism when baptism does not save you leading them to the Lord does.

While both are important which one matters the most the gospel presentation and the prayer for eternal life!

Only a pastor can baptise you in water… really where does it say that?

ITS NOT THERE

18:03

Paul is here signaling to you and me a danger, that people can be taken captive by the power of human tradition.

So is it still a danger today?

Absolutely it is and you have to be careful in what we place authority.

NOT tradition, because traditions get started because people start doing them, now if it is a tradition that’s started that’s Biblical then it is not a tradition it is a doctrine.

It’s something that God has established in His word.

We do communion, not because it is human tradition but because Jesus told us to do it.

When you come together do this in remembrance of me, so that’s not tradition it s a command.

We don’t baptize in water because it is a tradition it is a command.

But how many other things do we do in the church simply because it is tradition?

There is alot believe me.

But you know what even though tradition is still something that people follow today tradition really doesnt rule our culture like it has in past times.

times have changed alot.

What do we elevate today?

PERSONAL OPINION- We elevate this more today much more than we do tradition.

If somebody has strong opinions today about something we admire them and we will even tell them “Well that might be true for you”… which you pretty much have to take your brain out to say something like that.

Because something is either true or its not.