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Text: Mark 7:1-14
Theme: When rites are wrong and when rites are right.
Play Fiddler on the Roof video.
When are traditions good, and worth keeping, and when are traditions evil, and should be abandoned?
That’s what our text for this evening deals with.
From a biblical viewpoint, how do we distinguish between a command of God, and the traditions of men?
You say, “Well, that’s obvious, isn’t it?”
It wasn’t so obvious to the people of Jesus day.
They had thoroughly confused the commands of God with the traditions of the elders.
The commands of God are revealed in the Scriptures, and are not amenable to human alteration.
Unfortunately, we live in an era when many people see the commands of God as merely traditions that we can take-or-leave (but that’s another sermon for another time).
Tradition, on the other hand, is established by habit or custom.
It will vary in its character from place to place, and from time to time.
Tradition is not intrinsically evil.
Traditions may be wise, expedient, and instructional.
In 1 Cor.
11:2 Paul commends the Corinthian believers for holding to the traditions just as I passed them on to you.
Yet, in Colossians 2:8 he warns the Colossae believers about being taken captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition.
Traditions become dangerous when men attempt to bestow the status of law, or a position of holiness upon that which is only manmade tradition, and not the express command of God.
Sometimes, traditions can become so deep-rooted that any attempt to change them can incur the wrath of the tradition’s defenders.
ILLUS.
Years ago when Kurt Kelloge was pastor out at Solid Rock he told me of an incident that caused a major brouhaha.
All he did was move a table.
But unbeknownst to him, it was a table that had sat in that same spot for sixty years.
He disturbed tradition, and felt the wrath!
Sometimes our traditions can actually separate us.
ILLUS.
Throughout most of the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, it was common practice for congregations to administer the wine of the Lord’s Supper in a common cup.
In Ukraine, they still use a common cup.
Why did that change here?
As more understanding developed about how disease is communicated, congregations began to migrate to the position that it might be more expedient to use individual containers.
But some brethren were so welded to the “one container” notion — after all, the Bible says that “Jesus took the cup” - singular — that they separated from those who opted for individual cups.
Tonight’s passage deals with traditions.
Traditions in our religious life or our church can be good as long as we continue to understand the spiritual significance behind the tradition.
But traditions can become evil when they are embalmed by time and become accepted as “a command from God” when they are clearly not.
That’s when they become burdensome, robbing believers of their joy in serving God, and separating them from fellow believers.
I. THE TRUE OF TRADITION: WHEN RITE IS RIGHT
1. some traditions are important
a. some traditions are valuable in communicating to us truth about God and truth about ourselves
A. THE CHURCH HAS CERTAIN TRADITIONS THAT ARE SYMBOLS OF A HIGHER REALITY
1. some of these traditions were instituted by Jesus Himself
2. we have the rite of baptism
a. Baptism could certainly be called a tradition
1) it is a ceremony, and a rite of initiation, but it is a symbol of a higher spiritual reality
2) baptism is an instruction that has been handed down to the Church by Christ, himself, and thus is one of our most important traditions
b. but while we hold to the importance of baptism, we recognize that it only has meaning because of what it points to
1) baptism points to the reality of a commitment to Jesus Christ
2) it is symbolic of Christ's saving work in the life of the believer who is baptized
3) baptism doesn't save – it is merely a symbol of what God has already done in the life of the believer
4) it is a beautiful symbol and a wonderful tradition
c. but apart from the reality it symbolizes, it is empty and meaningless tradition
3. the Lord's Table is another tradition in the church which is good
a. when Paul commended the Corinthians for keeping the traditions he had passed down to them, one of those traditions he is commending them for is their observance of the Lord’s Supper
b.
Jesus Himself instituted this ordinance, and He encouraged us to observe it often
c. but the Lord's Table is simply a dead ceremony unless we see the reality to which it points
1) unless we see beyond the cup of juice and the morsel of bread to the shed blood of Christ and His broken body, we will miss the reality of this living tradition
d. the Lord's Table points to Jesus
1) it points to His sacrificial death
2) it points to His unmerited grace
3) it points to the love of God in sending His Son, and the redemption of sinners through faith in Jesus
4. living traditions like the Lord's Table and Baptism only remain alive when we see beyond the outward ceremony to the reality behind it
a.
good traditions can tell us who God is and what He expects of us
b. they can help us to commune with God and to testify before the world
5. there are times when rite is right, but there are other times when rite is wrong
B. BAPTISTS HAVE CERTAIN TRADITIONS THAT ARE SYMBOLS OF OUR COMMITMENT TO BIBLICAL MANDATES
1. in Baptist life you can tell what is most important to us by the ministries we support
a. one of those ministries is mission work
1) in Baptist life you can often tell the season by the offering emphasis that is taking place in the church
a) if we’re taking the Annie Armstrong Offering for North American Missions, you know that Easter is close
b) if we’re taking the Lottie Moon Offering for International Missions, you know that Christmas is right around the corner
c) if we’re taking the Rheubin South Missouri Missions Offering, you know that school has just begun
d) what ever the hottest week of the summer is, you can bet that’s the week Vacation Bible School is taking place
b.
Sunday School is important to us because knowing the Bible is important to us
1) in most Baptist churches the Sunday School literature budget is always one of the largest expense items
2. in Baptist life you can tell what is most important to us by the architecture of our buildings
a. our pulpits are central and elevated which is our declaration that the ministry of the Word is central to us
b.
I’ve been in Baptist Churches that have a split chancellery with the pulpit to one side, and it’s just not right!
3. in Baptist life you can tell what is most important to us by how we govern ourselves
a. we are fiercely independent, and no one should even remotely think of trying to tell us how to run our own church, yet, at the same time, we thoroughly believe in cooperating with each other for the sake of the gospel
II.
THE TRAGEDY OF TRADITION: WHEN RITE IS WRONG
ILLUS.
In 1903 Czar Nicolas II was strolling the ground of the Kremlin when he came across a sentry who seemed to be posted in a very strange place.
There was no gate or door that he seemed to be guarding.
He was standing next to a patch of weeds.
When the Czar asked the soldier what he was guarding, he answered that he did not know.
When the Czar inquired of the Palace Guard commander he was informed that a sentry had always been posted there, but he didn’t know why.
He was just carrying out what the previous commander had done.
With his curiosity now aroused, Czar Nicolas began to investigate why a Russian soldier would be guarding a patch of weeds.
He discovered that in 1776 Catherine the Great had planted a rose bush in that plot of ground, and posted a guard so that no one would trample her newly planted rose.
As the years went by, Catherine died, and the rose died, but the plot of ground continued to be guarded.
For 125 years, a tradition had continued, the purpose of which had been lost in time.
1. there is a tragedy of traditionalism which the church experiences all too often
a. this is when rite is wrong
2. our text this evening speaks about the tragedy of tradition
a. here we see what Jesus thought about man-made traditions when they obscured God’s intentions
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