Cleaning the Inside
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Introduction
Introduction
People are often concerned about appearances, no let me rephrase that, people are often obsessed about appearances. That’s why we have mirrors in our houses, in our cars, in our desk at work, in our purse.
We can also be concerned about the appearance of our car, our house, our cloths, our phone, the list goes on.
Worldwide 382 billion dollars are spent each year on beauty products.
We are also concerned about appearances when it comes to our reputation.
Most people want to be viewed as moral and upright, we want people to think that we have impeccable character, even if we don’t have, we want people to think so.
Jesus warned us about spending so much time on our outward appearance, without considering the condition of our lives on the inside, that place where is doesn’t so readily show. This is the very thing the Pharisees were often guilty of.
37 While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. 38 The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. 39 And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.
Now in verse 38 where the Pharisee is surprised that Jesus did not wash before diner may seem pretty reasonable to us. Especially these days as we have all had to concentrate on washing or sanitizing our hands at every opportunity. To us it makes sense to wash before diner, especially if you have been engaged in some activity that soils your hands, and it makes sense from a hygiene point of view.
But that’s not what is really going on here. You see the washing that the Pharisees did was a purely ceremonial act, and cleanliness was not the object of it. These ablutions, the washing, had become elaborate and frivolous. They were not even based on Levitical law, but upon Pharisaic tradition and the so-called Oral law. These were not things required by the Mosaic Law but practices which had been added by the religious leaders of the day. They had added these practices to ritually purify themselves from the perceived contamination they had received from spending time in the company of Gentiles and other unclean sources and conditions.
This lesson is also recorded in the book of Matthew.
Matthew 23:25-26
25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
The Pharisees appear righteous, but on the inside, they are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Imagine if you will, taking the trash out. Around our house we use those black plastic bags to line the trash can. When it gets full you pull it out of the trash can and then tie it shut with a little built-in drawstring. It looks pretty good on the outside, all black and shiny, but inside it is likely to be filled with all manner of disgusting things. This is a great example of something that looks good on the outside in dire contrast to what’s on the inside.
During WWII the British forces engineered a deception to gain an edge in the war. They constructed inflatable tanks and trucks that looked real from the vantage point of an enemy surveillance aircraft but were only filled with thin air. It caused the enemy to concentrate its forces in areas that were no real threat and enabled the allied forces appear much stronger than they were.
It was just sort of deception that goes on in our own lives when what’s on the outside does not match what’s on the inside.
To avoid the kind of hypocrisy displayed by the Pharisees we need to clean both the outside and the inside. So how do we begin to clean up the inside? First is:
Through Conversion
Through Conversion
This means by being “born again.” It means putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ and asking Him to come into your heart and yielding to His leadership in your life.
Jesus taught the necessity of a "new birth:”
3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
This new birth invites the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the water that symbolizes the washing away of sin.
5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
Christ makes the invitation, we make the decision, and He does His saving work in our lives.
22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;
The next step after conversion is the:
Obeying and Proclaiming the Gospel
Obeying and Proclaiming the Gospel
The Word which causes rebirth is proclaimed in the gospel. The word Gospel means “good news.”
εὐαγγελίζω (G2097) euangelion, yoo-ang-ghel'-ee-on
24 for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, 25 but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
The good news, the Gospel, euangelion, is the message that Jesus wanted everyone to hear.
15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
When one obeys the gospel in faith, repentance, and baptism, their sins are washed away through the blood of Christ.
5 and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood
Being born again is that first crucial step toward cleaning the inside, but cleansing continues.
Through Sanctification
Through Sanctification
What does sanctification mean?
The word is (G37) hag-ee-ad'-zo, and it means to be set aside for a special purpose.
When I was in the Marine Corps, I had a very special handkerchief that I kept in a special bag. This handkerchief was the one that I used to put a mirror shine on my dress shoes and my boots. That handkerchief was only used to shine shoes and as the years went by it had become softer and more adapted for this particular use. It was set aside for this specific purpose. I would have never used that handkerchief to wipe up a spill or blow my nose. The very thought of it would have horrified me.
It is the same principle when we are sanctified. We are set aside for a special purpose. We are no longer engaged in so many of those activities that are popular in the worldly existence of so many other people. As a child of God we are that special handkerchief that has a specific mission. Our mission is to praise and glorify God. Our primary purpose is to worship Him.
Shortly after Saul, soon to be known as Paul, was struck down on the road to Damascus, Jesus had a little talk with him concerning his own sanctification:
16 But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, 17 delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you 18 to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
An important element is the process of sanctification toward cleaning the inside is:
Putting off the Old Man
Sanctification involves becoming "holy", becoming "set apart." This requires us to seriously address those things which defile a man.
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.”
Putting off the old man is not just a onetime act; it is a continual process. It is something that requires a continued vigilance. It is easy for us to relax and slip into those old habits, those old practices, those things which defile us. We have all heard the accounts of people who did mighty things in the name of the Lord and then in the end let the “old man” slip back into their lives and destroy the things that they had accomplished.
And take this warning my dear friends, don’t ever get the point where you think that this could not happen to you. Do not take such pride in your standing with God that you think you could never fall, because you can. It takes special effort to stay the course.
It is somewhat like flying an airplane on instruments. You can fly an airplane without looking out the window. In fact, that is what is required if you are flying in the clouds. You can’t see the ground, or the horizon, so the only way to keep the airplane upright and headed in the right direction is to use the instruments.
Normally there are six primary flight instruments you have to watch, you have to scan each one in turn, you cannot become fixated on any one instrument. You have to watch the altimeter which shows your altitude, your airspeed, your directional gyro which is like a compass, an artificial horizon which tells you if your wings are still level. You have to scan all these instruments, not stopping to dwell on any one, lest the others go astray. It requires constant vigilance. If you lose concentration and things get really out of hand, you may not be able to recover the airplane. You may crash.
That’s why so many people crash their cars from texting while driving. They are concentrating on that one instrument, their phone, why everything else goes terribly out of control.
It is the same with our Christian walk. It requires constant vigilance. Just like that pilot who has many instruments to watch, you have many elements to monitor in your life to be sure that you stay on the narrow path that leads to salvation and spare yourself the wide path that leads to destruction.
5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming.
And of course, putting off the old man requires us to:
Putt on the New Man
It is not enough to get rid of the old, we must replace it.
19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
What are the characteristics of this New Man?
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Now instead of being mired in the works of the flesh, we are producing the fruits of the Sprit.
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
Are you walking around with the appearance of being clean an upright on the outside, while the inside is in need of attention, while the inside if full of dead men’s bones? It can be a fairly easy job to put on an appearance, it’s a lot more difficult to clean up those things that are on the inside. If fact, we can’t clean up the inside. We don’t have the strength. The only way the inside can become clean is through a relationship with Christ, and a genuine effort to follow in His leading.
The path is difficult, but the choice is simple, look to Jesus for true conversion and sanctification, or remain as "whited sepulchers.”