Jesus, The Heart of the Matter
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We have gathered together today to praise the glory of God’s grace!
God is gracious to us in and through Jesus Christ our Savior.
We gather together to uphold the reality that we are saved by grace through faith—not by our works or obedience.
Here’s a question: Does God want your obedience?
Yes
But how we give Him our obedience is of utmost importance.
God does not want your obedience without your heart and you cannot truly give Him your heart without your obedience.
Obedience without the heart is legalistic religiosity.
The heart without obedience is the worship of a god in our image.
Obedience to God—obedience that is pleasing and beautiful in the sight of God—must come from a heart that loves God, that believes that God is our greatest good and that His ways are life and peace.
Obedience flows from God’s grace and the love it stirs up in our hearts.
In today’s text Jesus focuses in on the issues of the heart.
A Word of Judgment
A Case Study of Religious Unbelief (Hard and Defiled Heart)
The Heart of the Matter (is the matter of the heart)
A Word of Judgment
A Word of Judgment
Pharisees and Scribes—Jesus doesn’t fit their religious agenda—and the issue of tradition and ritual washings is the setting for this confrontation.
Mark 7:6-8
And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:
‘This people honors Me with their lips,
But their heart is far away from Me.
‘But in vain do they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’
“Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.”
This verse is insightful in that it isn’t a blanket statement against tradition in general—tradition was a massive part of the God-given and God-glorifying life of Israel.
This is a statement against tradition that leads to the neglect, rather than the loving obedience, of God’s commandments.
Jesus quotes a passage from Isaiah 29:13 and applies it to the Pharisees and Scribes.
The context of Isaiah 29 is one of judgement upon Israel—called here, ‘Ariel’.
Ariel was the Hebrew word the alter hearth where the ashes from the continual fire which consumed the sacrifices would collect.
It was a place of both judgement and of purification through transformation.
Judgment: Sacrificial animals—which through the laying of of hands became representative of the one making the sacrifice—were placed upon the alter and burnt up for the sins of the people in accordance with the divine judgment against sin.
Purification through transformation—the sacrifice placed upon the alter—again having become representative of the one offering the sacrifice—are purified by fire and transformed (the sacrifice changes from a piece of meat into smoke which goes up to the heavens) into that which is able to ascend into God’s presence.
By referring to her as ‘Ariel’, Isreal is declared to be the recipient of God’s coming judgment and purification through transformation.
A part of the coming judgment that God declares for rebellious Israel is a “spirit of deep sleep” (Isaiah 29:10)—which will manifest itself in an inability to understand what God is doing when He does it.
Isaiah 29:10-12
For the Lord has poured over you a spirit of deep sleep,
He has shut your eyes, the prophets;
And He has covered your heads, the seers.
The entire vision will be to you like the words of a sealed book, which when they give it to the one who is literate, saying, “Please read this,” he will say, “I cannot, for it is sealed.”
Then the book will be given to the one who is illiterate, saying, “Please read this.” And he will say, “I cannot read.”
The judgment of God upon the sin of Israel—Ariel—is the inability to understand the will, purpose and plan of the Lord that He will accomplish when He ushers in His Kingdom through His Messiah—which is what the entire book of Isaiah is ultimately all about.
Then in Isaiah 29:13-14, the Lord gives the reason for this judgment—it is this passage that Jesus quotes.
Isaiah 29:13-14
Then the Lord said,
“Because this people draw near with their words
And honor Me with their lip service,
But they remove their hearts far from Me,
And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote,
Therefore behold, I will once again deal marvelously with this people, wondrously marvelous;
And the wisdom of their wise men will perish,
And the discernment of their discerning men will be concealed.”
By quoting Isaiah 29:13 and applying it to the Pharisees and Scribes, Jesus is declaring that they stand in a long line of rebellious Israelites who stood opposed to the purposes of God and that upon them the ultimate judgment of ‘deep sleep’ has come.
In the very presence of the God they claim to serve, they stand in opposition to Him, His will and His purposes.
All of their speech is done in the name of the God of Israel and yet their hearts are far from Him.
The problem isn’t primarily about whether or not any of these traditions of the elders are good or bad—the primary problem is that they have so elevated these traditions that the traditions have become closer to their heart than God is—God is far from their hearts.
A Case Study
A Case Study
A Case Study of the Defiled, Hard Heart—Religious Unbelief
Mark 7:8-13
“Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.”
He was also saying to them, “You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.
“For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, is to be put to death’;
but you say, ‘If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given to God),’
you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother;
thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.”
The Pharisees and Scribes are making the claim that Jesus is opposed to the Jewish way of life and, therefore, opposed to God.
Declaring that He is able to forgive sins
Healing on the Sabbath
And not submitting to the traditions of the elders
In these verses, Jesus demonstrates that it is actually the Pharisees and Scribes who stand opposed to God and, therefore, to the Jewish way of life.
[Note the order: opposed to God and therefore the Jewish way of life—VS—opposed to the Jewish way of life and therefore God]
The practice of Corban was the practice of setting aside of something as a gift to God and closed to ordinary human use.
So, you would dedicate something, or some amount of money as a gift for God and it couldn’t be used for ordinary usage.
The problem wasn’t setting stuff apart for God, the problem is that people were setting apart the portion of their income or wealth that was supposed to be used to care for their aging parents and stating that it was dedicated for God.
By doing this they wouldn’t have enough money to care for their parents and would therefore be breaking the commandment to honor their parents.
Once this money is set aside for God, all someone has to do is to declare that something they want to do is being done for God—whatever it may be—and then they can use the money for that thing rather than on caring for their parents.
In this way, they undermine one of the 10 Commandments—honor your father and mother—and exalt their own desires.
Jesus says that this is what they were experts in—setting aside the Law of God for their traditions.
The Heart of the Matter
The Heart of the Matter
Have you ever heard the saying: “The heart of the matter is the matter of the heart”?
Well, that is exactly the point Jesus is making here in
Mark 7:14-23
After He called the crowd to Him again, He began saying to them, “Listen to Me, all of you, and understand:
there is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man.
“If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.”
When he had left the crowd and entered the house, His disciples questioned Him about the parable.
And He said to them, “Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him,
because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?” (Thus He declared all foods clean.)
And He was saying, “That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man.
“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries,
deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness.
“All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.”
Defilement and impurity before God are not a result of what goes into a person, or if there is dirt on their hands when they eat.
Defilement is an issue of the heart.
Mark 7:20-21
And He was saying, “That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man.
“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries,
Because it is the heart that is defiled and causes defilement what is needed to be purified before God is changed heart—a new heart.
This was not a new idea—it was a part of the prophetic hope of Israel and the prophetic promise of God:
Jeremiah 31:33-34
“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
“They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
Ezekiel 36:24-27
“For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land.
“Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.
“Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
“I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.
God promised to give new hearts to His people by writing His Law on their hearts in the New Covenant.
What nobody seemed to understand is that He was going to do this through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Romans 6:3-5
Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,
When we place our faith in Jesus as the One who has died for our sins, risen from the dead and who now sits at the Father’s right hand with all rule and authority, then we are united to Jesus by faith.
We are united to Him in His death:
His death has paid the penalty for our sins.
To be united to Jesus in His death, we must die to our old selves and live for God, believing that in Jesus God is for us and that His ways are best for us.
We are united to Him in His resurrection:
Because Christ rose to new life—He rose from the dead as the new, perfected human—after His death, we too are raised to a new life after we die to our old self through faith.
The new heart we are given is a heart that has the resurrection life of Christ making it alive.
Galatians 2:20
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
The problem with humanity isn’t that we don’t keep the rules well enough—the problem is that we don’t want to keep God’s rules because we really don’t want God.
Only faith in Jesus and the new heart that comes through that can change our heart. Because it is only by faith that we are united to Him who has died for our sins and risen victoriously to heal humanities brokenness.
When we trust in Jesus—our eternal God who has existed forever with the Father and the Holy Spirit and who has taken on our flesh, died and rose again for our sakes—when we trust in this Jesus, then we are untied to Him by faith and participate in His death and in His resurrection.
And though we do not receive the fulness of our resurrection life, we are given a new heart that loves and seek after God—albeit imperfectly—as a downpayment of the full resurrection life that is to come when Christ returns.
The heart of the matter is the matter of the heart and Jesus is at the heart of the heart of the matter.