Mark Sermon Manu Week 18

Adds:

Call to Discipleship

Intro/Welcome

Today we get the ‘experts of the law” coming down to check on the ministry of Jesus

It doesn’t take them long to find something wrong.

But Jesus has a word for them

a word they aren’t able to receive

as so often is the case when we hold too tightly to our ‘correct understandings’ of how life works.

Jesus has a very important message for his disciples today, and therefore a very important message for us.

What matters most to God is the heart, nothing more and nothing less.

What is the Heart?

Biblically the heart is the center of who you are.

Proverbs 4:23 NIV

23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

Proverbs 27:19 CSB

19 As water reflects the face, so the heart reflects the person.

The center of who we are

In the heart dwell feelings and emotions, desires and passions.

The heart is the seat of understanding, the source of thought and reflection.

The heart is the seat of the will, the source of resolves.

Thus the heart is supremely the one centre in man to which God turns, in which the religious life is rooted, which determines moral conduct.

Jesus wants your heart, another way of saying he wants all of you.

Bible

We’ll be in Mark 7:1-30

Pray

Luke 4:18–19 ESV

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

The Pharisees and Scribes

Mark 7:1–5 (CSB)

1 The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him. 2 They observed that some of his disciples were eating bread with unclean—that is, unwashed—hands.

3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, keeping the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they have washed. And there are many other customs they have received and keep, like the washing of cups, pitchers, kettles, and dining couches.)

5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders, instead of eating bread with ceremonially unclean hands?”

They are probably coming to discredit Jesus, as has already been indicated in Mark

Mark 3:6 CSB

6 Immediately the Pharisees went out and started plotting with the Herodians against him, how they might kill him.

Mark 3:22 CSB

22 The scribes who had come down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and, “He drives out demons by the ruler of the demons.”

They are not friends of Jesus

not here to cheer him on

but to catch him and discredit him.

Jesus Indictment

So Jesus responds to them.

Mark 7:6–8 (CSB)

6 He answered them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written:

This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. 7 They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines human commands. (Isaiah 29:13)

8 Abandoning the command of God, you hold on to human tradition.”

Matthew’s Version is a bit harsher, there Jesus simply says

Matthew 15:3 CSB

3 He answered them, “Why do you break God’s commandment because of your tradition?

What’s going on here?

Jesus’ quote of Isaiah points us to the problem

he says ‘their hearts are far from me’

Is that what is going on?

The Pharisees were the most religious of their day.

but Jesus says they are not worshipping the True God, but rather the traditions of men.

They have exchanged the commandments of God for the

Traditions of Men

Why?

perhaps to grasp at power

perhaps to control

no doubt, they began with good intentions, but over time it becomes about the rules and regulations rather than the relationships with God.

Don’t we all do this too some extent?

We may come to know and love Jesus

And sometime later we are arguing with ourselves if we have been good enough for Jesus

if we have done enough for Jesus

We move beyond the gospel, which says Jesus did everything for us.

that God’s love is demonstrated in the life and death of Jesus

and that nothing can separate us from the love of God

yet, here we are again, feeling distant from God

that he is someone disappointed with us.

that he doesn’t love us.

That’s a problem.

anytime we substitute what Christ has already done for what we need to do, we’ve moved beyond the gospel.

The Religious leaders had done the same thing

it became more about keeping the law, than loving the Law Giver

Why? b/c we are all prone to go back to self

What did that look like for them?

Example 1: Cleansing hands.

The Mosaic Law only stipulated that the Priests had to wash his hands and become ceremonially clean

But over the years, this got reinterpreted to mean that all ‘good jews’ performed the ritual cleansing.

This probably originated from a good intent to invite the common people into the experience of God

but over the years, as so often happens.

It became more about the rule than the intention behind the rule

or as Jesus says, they have lost the heart of the Law.

he gives another example.

Example 2: Corban

Mark 7:9–13 (CSB)

9 He also said to them, “You have a fine way of invalidating God’s command in order to set up your tradition!

10 For Moses said: Honor your father and your mother; and Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must be put to death.

11 But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or mother: Whatever benefit you might have received from me is corban’ ” (that is, an offering devoted to God), 12 “you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother.

13 You nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many other similar things.”

Corban literally mans “set aside for God, or devoted to God”

So you could set aside a sum of money for example, to be devoted to God and once that vow was made it could not be broken.

Jesus says God’s command is to honor your parents supersedes and vows made such as declaring something corban.

This would be like you setting aside a large sum of money as an offering for the church, but your parents come into need and since you have already ‘vowed’ this money for church you refuse to help them in their need.

This is setting the letter of the law above the heart of the law.

Jesus says this is just one instance of how you set the traditions of men above the commandments of God.

Now before you judge the pharisees, let’s take a moment to see how we do the same thing today.

especially in church tradition.

How many divisions in the church have come from traditions, or shall I say, preferences over and above God’s Word.

Jesus commanded us to love one another and he prayed for Unity

but how is that going in the contemporary church where we divide over almost anything.

Mode of Baptism

Understanding of baptism

Predestination

spiritual gifts

Would we serve Christ better if we loved each other in-spite of our differences rather than divide over them?

I mean wars have been fought, blood has been shed over differing understandings of baptism.

Is that really what Jesus desires?

Not Just in the Church, but in our Society

This isn’t just a religious problem, it’s a human heart problem.

Whether you are democrat or republican?

How you understand the nature of the universe?

Secular or religious?

Capitalist or Socialist

Black or White

We fail to love one another on a massive scale.

And this is exactly Jesus’ point.

the problem isn’t any of the issues of our day

The problem isn’t Scripture

The problem isn’t how the Jews understood the Law

The problem is the Human Heart

The problem is IN HERE not OUT THERE

This is so important to Jesus that he turns to address the crowds:

Mark 7:14–15 (CSB)

14 Summoning the crowd again, he told them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 Nothing that goes into a person from outside can defile him but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”

Jesus disciples the disciples

Now this is not an easy lesson

Nobody thinks they are as bad as they truly are.

The Longer I have walked with Jesus i have seen that I’m far worse off than i’d ever thought

Even his disciples aren’t getting it.

Mark 7:17 (CSB)

17 When he went into the house away from the crowd, his disciples asked him about the parable.

They think it’s some kind of mystery, a parable

They don’t understand the magnitude of what Jesus is saying.

But Jesus disciples them, because this is a really important lesson.

one that they will need to learn again and again

Just like you and I.

The Problem of the Heart

Mark 7:18–23 (CSB)

18 He said to them, “Are you also as lacking in understanding? Don’t you realize that nothing going into a person from the outside can defile him?

19 For it doesn’t go into his heart but into the stomach and is eliminated” (thus he declared all foods clean). 20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him.

21 For from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, 22 adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, self-indulgence, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within and defile a person.”

Jesus now makes explicit what was implicit

the problem is our hearts

the center of who we are

from the heart comes all kinds of evil

So what we need is a clean heart, a pure heart, a New Heart.

This is precisely what Jesus came to do.

the first step for us all is:

Realization and then Confession.

Acknowledge and Confession

We have to first acknowledge that we don’t get it, that we don’t understand before we will listen to Jesus

that’s exactly what the disciples do! good for them.

at least they know where to go for Answers.

But we must also acknowledge and confess the hardness of our hearts

and the evil things that come out of our hearts

in our thoughts

some of the things we think about are shameful (me too)

But that doesn’t mean we aren’t a follower of Jesus

it just means Jesus isn’t done with us

And what matters is what we do with our hearts.

We come to him and acknowledge our sin and confess it

and he will forgive and renew us.

1 John 1:9–10 (CSB)

9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say, “We have not sinned,” we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

And so we see the pattern here:

Realize the truth and Confess it

Repent of false beliefs/actions

Receive forgiveness and grace

Be Renewed by the power of the Spirit and New Heart

The Gospel of Jesus

This is exactly what Jesus came to do

To give us new hearts by faith through the love of God

Jesus gives us his perfect and pure heart

He takes our sinfulness, our hard hearts and gives mercy to us.

On the Cross he became:

evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, 22 adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, self-indulgence, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.

So that for those who believe in Him might become like Him

Saved by Grace through Faith unto good works.

Titus 3:4–8 (CSB)

4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, 5 he saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy—through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit. 6 He poured out his Spirit on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life. 8 This saying is trustworthy. I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed God might be careful to devote themselves to good works. These are good and profitable for everyone.

We have been cleansed by Christ through the regeneration and renewal of the Heart.

We are far worse than we ever dared believe, but more loved than we ever dared hope

The Gentile Woman

Mark demonstrates the simplicity of faith and the vastness of God’s mercy and grace but what he adds next.

Mark 7:24–30 (CSB)

24 He got up and departed from there to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it, but he could not escape notice.

25 Instead, immediately after hearing about him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit came and fell at his feet.

26 The woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she was asking him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, because it isn’t right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” 28

But she replied to him, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

29 Then he told her, “Because of this reply, you may go. The demon has left your daughter.” 30 When she went back to her home, she found her child lying on the bed, and the demon was gone.

I take this story to be an illustration, even though it actually happened.

Jesus has just made this point about nothing external can make you unclean

If the proper inference from the teaching of Jesus in 7:1–23 is that all foods are clean (v. 19), the lesson to be learned from 7:24–30 is that all people are clean!

In other words, God’s plan always included the Gentiles

If accepting food was hard, how much more these unclean people.

Yet Jesus grants this woman's request.

This woman who had faith, the faith the size of a crumb of bread.

The disciples had seen thousands of people fed with miraculous bread and still had trouble seeing Jesus for who he was

This gentile woman needs only a crumb of bread b/c she sees who Jesus is.

Closing

The problem is our hearts.

It isn’t other people, it isn’t the law, it isn’t the Scriptures

It certainly isn’t Jesus

the problem is IN HERE

We need a New heart

and if you don’t have a new heart — Jesus wants to give you one today.

If you are following Jesus already,

ask yourself:

Where am I holding on to my understanding of things?

Where am I trying to control or exert power over people or circumstances?

These come from an unbelieving and hard heart.

Jesus wants to renew your heart today

to wash it anew

to restore it

where do we need to

realize and confess to God and one another?

Where to we need to repent and turn back to God and lay down our demands?

Are you able to receive form God? mercy and forgiveness, grace upon grace

Be renewed by the power of the gospel and by His Holy Spirit.

Let’s Pray together now.

Closing Prayer