Gospel vs Religion

If you have your Bible with you turn to Mark 7. That's where we're going to be this week. And if you've been with us in this series, man, we've covered quite a bit of ground here in just a few weeks, six chapters in to a view of the earthly ministry, life and ministry of Jesus Christ according to the lens of Mark's account and his gospel.

INTRODUCTION

And we've seen in this series Jesus confront a number of scenarios so far. A number of enemies, a number of impossible circumstances. I mean, we've seen starting in Chapter 1 right out the gate of Jesus's baptism he immediately confronts Satan in the wilderness for 40 days and these temptations that were with him out there. Right after that he confronts not only Satan, but Satan's demons and then even confronts disease and his authority over disease.

And then in Chapter 3 he's going to confront his family, which oftentimes he'd rather take disease over family, but nonetheless he confronts them as well. And by the time we get to Chapter 5, then Jesus confronts even more of Satan's demons and then even death itself as he brings one back to life. And then last week we saw in Chapter six Jesus confront literally the need to feed 5,000 individuals not just physically, but spiritually and then turned right around and walk right into a raging storm and calm it by his sovereign power.

And we've seen all these scenarios that Jesus has confronted, but the greatest confrontation that Jesus is going to have thus far is in Mark 7 where Jesus is going to confront religion. And religion and is going to be an ugly thing that Jesus is going to stare right at here in Chapter 7. When you think about religion, when we think about religion in general, most of us try to think religion is kind of this system or structures of faith that appeal to a higher deity, a higher God and there's multiple religions that are out there that all appeal to their God and so called gods.

And we think that in terms of religion, but when you study through the lens of the gospel and through a biblical perspective of religion, what real religion actually is, is any effort by a human being to try and justify themselves or sanctify themselves before a holy God through their own human effort or external means at the expense of Jesus Christ. And that idea of religion, Jesus is vehemently opposed to because it cuts the very legs of why Jesus came in the first place which is to be our means of salvation and sanctification and not just in addition to all these other efforts that man can try to produce.

And so right here in this chapter, Mark 7, Jesus is going to confront religion. And I think in doing so he's going to show us the brokenness in the futility of religious efforts to try to earn the merit of God and try to make oneself clean through our own behaviors. And I think instead is going to show us that our greatest enemy that we have out there is not an external one, but it's one that's within us in our own human heart. And Jesus is going to hit that head on.

So look at this 7:1, notice the context that we're dealing with here right out of the gate. And verse one Mark tells us, the Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around Jesus when they had come from Jerusalem. And they had seen that some of his disciples were eating their bread with impure hands that is unwashed. And notice the question they ask Jesus in verse five. They asked him, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?

Now, something you need to know right off the bat this idea of hands not being washed for you this has nothing to do with hygiene. All right. Jesus in this chapter is not going to be antipurell. All right. This isn't going to be, hey, kids, go wash up before you eat type of thing. Has nothing to do with that. In fact, in verse three and four Mark inserts for us an editorial comment that gives us a little background about what's going on here.

He says in verse three, for the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders. And when they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves. And there are many other things which they have received in order to observe such as the washing of cups, and pitchers, and copper pots. And so, again, a few things to note about this, this one has nothing to do with hygiene, but has everything to do with ritual or ceremonial cleansing.

In the old Testament, in the Torah, the law of God that he gave to Moses and was handed down to the nation of Israel there was a particular command where God commanded the priests who were the mediator between God and man at that time before they engaged in their ritual or ceremonial activities the priest had to wash their hands before engaging in those ceremonies. All throughout the old Testament sin is symbolized by dirt. It's also symbolized by death as well as the actual penalty of sin is death.

And so the idea of having to wash the dirt off was this symbolism of being cleansed in the presence of God, or if a priest were to go touch a dead body or an unclean thing, an animal, they would need to wash themselves and be cleansed before they approached God because God was holy and God is not like anyone or any other thing. So we do not approach God in the way that we would approach anyone or anything else because he is holy and we are not.

But, again, this command was given to the priests only, but yet we're told here, by the time we get to 1st century AD, all the Jews and the Pharisees practice this. And so we see something change here. God did not command all Jews to wash their hands. He commanded the priest in that passage. And somehow we literally now get hundreds of manmade commands that spring up all of a sudden by the time we get to 1st century AD here and Mark tells us that's just one example of many that we could talk about, these manmade rules and laws that were created around the word of God.

So understand, we're not talking about God's law here. We're talking about manmade rules, six times in this chapter, six times in this passage. Jesus is going to rebuke the traditions of the elders. See that in verse three, the traditions of the elders, verse five, the traditions of the elders, verse seven, the precepts of men, verse eight, the tradition of men, verse nine, your tradition and verse 13, your tradition. Six times Jesus rebukes this and what we see what's happening here is that these manmade laws were interfering with God's law and were actually contradicting it.

There's a term for this. It's called legalism. It's the idea of taking a biblical principle that pointed us towards a higher purpose and shelving it aside in order to create manmade principles around it that had a lesser focus and then taking that lesser focus and making it binding on all people in a way that God never commanded. That's legalism at its finest here. And before we blast the Pharisees off for it because Jesus is about to do so here in just a bit, before we blast them we have to ask ourselves, how did they get there?

How does a functional legalist, how does these Pharisees, how do we get to this place where God commands this one thing for these one group of people for a different reason and all of a sudden we've got all these manmade things and telling everybody you better abide by these or you can't be accepted by God? How do we get to that place? And we need to ask this question because I don't think this is just true for the Pharisees. I think personally it's true for every one of us in this room.

I think we all, including myself, we all do it. We just may not be aware of it. And so I think for most functional legalists I don't believe they wake up in the morning thinking to themselves, how can I just really take God off today? How can I really just offend him? I got it. I'm going to take God's explicit commands in the scriptures and I'm just going to twist them a little bit and then I'm going to add on to it and throw some other things in and so all of a sudden we can have 100 things instead of just one thing and we can make it binding for everybody so God would really be offended at me.

Let's do it. I don't think that's what any functional legalist wakes up thinking. I think most of this began with sincere motivation to want to honor God, to want to go literally above and beyond to honor God is just that they were sincerely misinformed and ended up taking them to a very dangerous and dark place. And this situation I think it probably began with the Pharisees going, so God commands the priests to wash their hands before they enter in their ceremonial duties with him.

Well, if that's so they'll be clean before him, well, I should be clean too. And so, man, I should wash my hands. If we're talking about hands, let's be honest, my feet are dirtier. So I probably need to wash those and I probably should actually just take a bath every 10 minutes all day long just to make sure all these bases are covered. And you know what, I should probably go ahead and wash my clothes. Oh, and you know what, I was in the kitchen all day and I was touching pots and pans.

I need to bust out some palm olive so we can just go all after this thing and just cleanse this thing. And you start getting this point and then all of a sudden it's like, you know what, if that's what I need to do in order to be accepted before God, you probably do too. And so you know what, you need to, and if you don't then God is not going to accept you. And now all of a sudden fear sets in on everybody because we're all driven by fear like mug. Man, we'll go after that thing.

Fear is a crazy motivator, it's just an unhealthy one. And then we'll go and we get on this performance treadmill and legalism springs up. I think we do the same thing in our church. And I've talked about some of this before, but this is what happens literally. In my years of ministry I'll see folks that will come in and go, hey, it's Sunday.

We are in the house of God right now and we are here to worship God and we need to approach him with reverence and all, again, taking some biblical principles but now we're starting to form them in kind of our own worldview here and so we come into this place and we need to bring our best into this place.

And what happens is we go, you know what, I probably should dress up a little for God. Honestly, I probably should put on a pair of Dockers and you know what, if pleaded I may get extra credit with him. So let's go ahead and put that on. And you know what, in my parents' church we never wore hats because that was disrespectful. And so you see what I'm saying here, all of a sudden now we're appealing to tradition and we get pulled these things because this is what's going to honor God, right?

If we look our best for him and you know what, honestly, this is his house. And so we better be careful that we not bring any drinks in here because we might spill on his carpet. We might get this thing dirty and that would offend God. I cannot believe they would allow Starbucks into a place like this or something. We get on these lines like this and all of a sudden we start getting OCD with it and then we start telling everybody else they got to do the same. Here's what's unhealthy about that.

Two major problems the scripture is going to have with that. Number one is you have just set the foundation for dualism. You know what dualism is? It's where we're going to parse out the secular and the sacred. And we're going to say, you know what, this is the sacred. This place in here. And so we need to perform our best here, but never mind the fact that I beat my wife at home, never mind the fact that I cheat in my classes or in my business, never mind the fact that I absolutely neglect other biblical areas of morality, but in this place we're going to perform.

And we set ourselves up for this crazy dualism that God never intended. But then even if you were to go back a little bit further and trace the origin of thought, where did we get the idea that this is God's house? Last I checked when Jesus died on the cross the veil tore in half. God was no longer contained in a box. He dwells through his holy spirit in our souls and wherever we go, he goes. And so you see, you get a little bit of misinformation and then you start out of this zealous sincere drive to want to please God and then it starts bleeding out and then it's like everybody else needs to do it.

And next thing you know we are in a crazy land somewhere else that God never intended us to go. And not only do I think will these things over time like weeds just kind of spring up and overcrowd the Bible to the fact that the scriptures we get distracted from them, ultimately these manmade laws end up contradicting the scriptures and we get to a dangerous place. We've said it before, God did not give the 10 commandments so that we would at them and go, that's what I need to do to be in relationship with God.

I can do that. Not only can I do that, I'll double down. I'll do 20 because I think there's probably some extra things that I could support these things. But you know what, I think we should go 50 on this thing because I really think honestly we could really enhance what's happening in this 10 right here. That's not why God gave us the commandments. He gave us the commandments so we look at them and go, man, there's no way I can do that. I've absolutely fallen short.

I need a savior who can save me for myself and point us to Jesus Christ. But instead, we deny that for our own manmade traditions. Listen, I got to tell you is a big part of my testimony. Many of you know that I hail from the great nation of Texas and early on after the Lord saved me in high school struggled at kind of a church and just getting disciple and I finally went to college and landed at a incredible Bible teaching church. And it's the first time I'd ever heard the scriptures taught in front of me.

Every other place I had been, whatever the sermon series was, was based on whatever TV show was out lately and here's 10 steps to this. And it was the first church I was at where they just literally opened the word of God and started expositing the scriptures versed by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book and all of the word of God started coming alive to me. I was like, man, this is incredible. I could not eat enough of it up. God had spoken to me through his word and I could understand it.

And the lights are coming on. It's such a beautiful transformational season in my life. I'm so thankful for it and so thankful for the investments of that church, but I got to tell you something unhealthy was stirring in my heart. Over time I began to find myself falling more and more in love with the word of God and less and less in love with the God of the word.

And all of a sudden I started entering to what I call Bibliolatry. I started idolizing the scriptures and I started not reading the scriptures a grand narrative of God's grace and redemption, but picking them off like cherry picking verses that are based on behavior. And I found myself getting on this track where I felt like I need to perform morally in order for God to love me. Yes. I know he sent his son. I know Jesus died for me, but he certainly can't be happy with me right now.

And between my weakness of my flesh and incredible misunderstandings about the grace and mercy of God through Jesus Christ I began to just focus on behaviors and not only behaviors for me, but as I entered into early stages of vocational ministry I began to mandate those behaviors for everybody whom I preached to. And I would start railing on stuff. I would rail on alcohol because no godly person ever drinks alcohol and I'd start railing there and then I'll grab something else and I'll rail on this thing.

And next thing I know literally I'm just spewing on people because I want them to have the same standard of righteousness that I have and actually truth be known and I wanted them to be lower than me so I could feel better about myself and the whole dangerous problem in all of that is I never, even when I looked at people, I didn't feel compassion for people. I didn't feel compassion for their struggles and their vices. I looked at it not through a restorative lens, but through a punitive lens.

And if you did not perform, then you needed to repent. If you're not going to repent, you need to get out. Versus entering in and pointing to the hope and the sufficiency of the grace of Jesus Christ that can transform them from the inside out, not the outside in. And this legalism set in my heart and what began to happen was is it became an addiction. Legalism becomes insatiable because it makes us feel more righteous than we actually are. And we think we're earning the favor of God and other people aren't.

And what happens is you just start drinking this up. And I don't know if I shared with you before the story about the Eskimos and how they would catch wolves. They would literally take a big old knife and they would dip it in blood and then they would stick it in the snow and freeze it and dip it in blood, stick it in the snow and freeze it, dip it in blood, stick it in the snow and freeze it.

And they would do this over and over again until the entire blade was covered in this thick mask of blood and then at night they would take the knife, they would turn upside down, they'd stick the handle on the ground with the blade sticking up and over the night they would let the wolves come. And the wolves would come and they would smell that blood and they would begin to start licking it, and licking it, and licking it. And then they started getting insatiable and they would start lapping it up fast as they possibly can and had no idea they were drinking their own death.

That's exactly what legalism does in the church. That's exactly what religious effort will do in your life. It'll make you feel like you found life, but instead you are actually drinking your own death and Jesus has come to set you free. And that's why he's got such strong words for these Pharisees in this passage because these Pharisees had completely missed the boat on what it is that makes a person unclean. And in doing so, they would also miss the solution for what it is that would make you clean.

And so Jesus speaks to them. Look at this in verse six, he said to them, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites. As it is written, this people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men. Did you catch that? Literally taking manmade religion, manmade laws and putting it on the same level as scripture. And Jesus sums it up in verse eight by saying, neglecting the commandment of God you hold to the tradition of men.

That's a terrifying passage because both Jesus and Isaiah just testified here that it is actually possible for you and I to enter into a room like this on a night this and literally both worship and honor God with our lips tonight and yet have hearts while we're doing that that is completely far from Jesus. That's a scary place to be. Jesus had a word for that. He used it in verse six, it was called hypocrisy. It's painting an external picture of being alive to God when in reality you have the stench of death in your heart.

Jesus that's why he called the Pharisees whitewash tombs in Matthew 23 because you had this real pristine, clean statue here this little cement thing, but underneath it is a crypt. It's death that lies underneath. So what Jesus is going to do he's going to speak to this issue and show the futility of it. He's going to share one more example in verse nine and following. He says to them again, you are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.

And here's this example. He uses biblical scripture right here in verse 10, for Moses said, honor your father and your mother. He who speaks evil of father, mothers to be put to death. He quotes one of the 10 commandments. He said, this is what God has put forth. Honor your father and mother. There's no arbitrary meaning on that. That's what it is.

You do this and then he says in verse 11, and notice the word change, that was the word of God however in verse 11, but you say if a man says to his father or mother whatever I have that would help you is actually Corban, meaning it's been given to God, you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother. Thus, you invalidate the word of God by your tradition, which you have handed down and you do many things such as that. Here's what that means.

The Bible teaches that there's no voice out there that's higher than God's voice. There is no authority in your life if you're a follower of is Christ that is higher than the scriptures. I don't care what your parents say. I don't care what your professors say. I don't care what our culture says, what media says. There is no voice if you're a follower of Christ that is higher than God's and he's given it to us in his word. This is the final authority in all things and the Jews knew that, but they took that Biblical principle and they said, ah, we're going to create a loophole in this thing.

They found a way that if you had a piece of property and this property was yours, you could actually designate that property as Corban. Meaning it's a gift to God. It's an offering to God. I'm consecrating this piece of land to God. So that when your parents came to you and they fell on hard times and mom and dad come, maybe dad died and mom doesn't have any money left, whatever, maybe tragedy struck and they come to son or daughter and they go, we are having a hard time can you take care of us?

Well, the Bible commanded that you'd take care of us, but they appealed to a higher law that they made up. They said, oh, normally we would have this piece of land that we could just give you or we could put you on it and take care of you, but we actually just offered it to God. Sorry mom, sorry, dad. Can't help you out. Do you see that jacked up theology? I'll literally take the word of God and then I'll make my own manmade law and I'll twist the word of God so I don't have to obey the word of God so I can get out of something.

And that's exactly what they did. It was this focus on external religion to try to give the appearance that they were clean before for God. And Jesus then in verse 14 and following is going to drop a bomb on this. And I'm telling you right here, these verses we're about to read, Jesus in this text is going to crush all human religion and he is going to crush all secular psychology. And he is going to crush all secular counseling right here in this passage.

He says in verse 14, after he called the crowd to himself again he began saying to them, listen to me all of you and understand, there is nothing outside a man which can defile him if it goes into him. But the thing which proceeds out of the man are what defiles the man. If anyone has ears to hear let him hear. Jesus just said something here. He said, let me tell you something, I actually happen to agree with the Pharisees. Now that's crazy. That never happens, but it's just happened here.

He said, actually I agree with the Pharisees. I agree that my disciples are defiled. I agree that every human being is unclean. I agree with that. What I disagree with the Pharisees is how they got that way and what the solution is to make them clean. And Jesus then tells them, and what he's going to say here is listen, you are at odds with God not because your hands are dirty. You're at odds with God because your heart is dirty. You are unclean not because you failed to wash your hands, your pots, or your pans.

You are unclean because your heart is unclean. You need a new heart. And in verse 18 and following he's going to say, let me explain. Let me take the example of food here. See in the middle of verse 18, Jews knew that if they ate an unclean piece of meat whether it's pig or catfish, they knew that they would be unclean, but Jesus is going to tell them here. Listen, it was never really about food. That ordinance was put down as a symbol to show you your sin and show you your need for me.

It was never about food as an end. It was a means to a greater end. And so Jesus tells them in the middle verse 18, do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from the outside cannot defile him because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach and it is eliminated. Thus he declared all foods clean. Now, it's a big graphic right here, but understand his point.

He says, when you take that bacon wrap shrimp, all right, and you go to eat that sucker, that shrimp is not what makes you unclean because what does it do? It goes into your mouth, it goes down into your stomach and your digestive system and then it gets eliminated through your rear. All right. Now that's not my words. That's Jesus. All right. Take it up with him. So Jesus says you eat that bacon wrap shrimp you think that makes you unclean, of all the organs that little piece of meat traveled through what's the organ it never touched? Your heart.

This has nothing to do with external behavior. These external things are not what makes you dirty. You're not dirty because you slept with somebody over here. You're not dirty because you lied on this. You're not dirty because you cheated. Those are the symptoms of where the dirt came from, that's in your heart. It's your heart that needs cleansing. The sin is there. And he says in verse 20, that which proceeds out of the man is what defile the man.

For from within out of the heart of men precedes the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adultery, deeds of coveting, wickedness as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man. Did you hear what King Jesus just told us? Actions do not dictate the heart. The heart dictates our actions. In other words, Jesus says we're not as bad actually as the Pharisees think we are. We're actually worse.

We're actually worse because sin is not just something we do. Sin is enveloped in who we are. Broken is not just what we do, broken is who we are. You see, for the Pharisees it appears from all their external judgements on the disciples for their lack of doing what they thought they should do. It appears they take sin very seriously. But Jesus actually shows us they actually have a very low view of sin because they believe that sin is actually rooted in the external.

And therefore if you can just clean up the behavior then you're going to be okay and everything will be good before God. You'll be accepted. In other words, if they were sitting there counseling with Jesus right now they'd go, listen, so I struggle with porn and so I get it that God is not pleased with that. So if I just turn off the computer then God and I are good. Jesus just goes, man, you missed it. It's not about that. Well, listen, I'm an alcoholic and I love getting hammered on the weekend and I know God doesn't really like that and so if I just stay away from the bar then everything is good.

God will be good with me, right? Jesus says, no, it's not about that. Jesus says, your primary problem is much deeper than what it is you do. Your primary problem is rooted in who you are and it's rooted in the sin that's in your heart. Our problem is not that we just mess up from time to time. Our problem is that are messed up. And you see the assumption of the Pharisees, the assumption of Western culture is that we are all actually inherently good people who just do some bad things from time to time.

And so if we just clean up the behavior then God will be pleased and will be happy. We have a term for that. It's called therapeutic moralistic deism. We believe there's a God personal maybe, maybe not, but what will please him is through my morality. And if I can just do the right morality then he's pleased and I will be happy. That's your therapeutic term. So it's all focused on the external and Jesus comes and he blows it up.

This has nothing to do with fixing your behavior, changing your cognitive thought patterns and then everything is going to be great. We're dealing with a much deeper issue here. Truth be known, none of us really think we're as bad as the scriptures would tell us we are. We want to believe we're really good people. How do you know? As a Christ follower how would you know? Let me tell you how we know. That's what we believe by how unmoved we are by the gospel.

Meaning I can sit here and tell us Jesus died for us and he threw his death in the cross, he's forgiven us of our sin and we yawn. We talk about the wrath of God that has been taken off of us and put on Christ, how we've been reconciled to God who has given us clean hearts and we are not impressed because we heard that in third grade, man. I don't need that anymore. Let's move on. Jesus, I don't need you to savior anymore. I need a teacher. Give me some skills, give some techniques that can help me with this sin issue so this thing will go away. Show me what I can do.

Jesus goes, men, you've missed it. You've missed it. We buy into the lie by the way that if our circumstances were only different, then we'd be better. That's furthest thing from the truth. I can't tell you how many couples that all do dating counseling or even premarital counseling with who love Jesus, but they're struggling and sleeping together outside of the covenant of marriage. They know it's wrong, they know it's not God's best what they want, but their answer is, man, if we just hurry up and get married then that's going to go away, right?

Paul said 1 Corinthians 7, better to marry than burn a desire. And I'm like, yes. On one level you're right under the covenant of marriage that particular issue goes away. But can I tell you something, your issue is never about sex. It was about your heart. And the reality is you love your kingdom more than you love God's and you want your kingdom to advance at the expense of God's. And we have a term for that. It's called idolatry and it wasn't sex that was your problem. It wasn't lust that was your problem.

It's the idolatry of your heart and what happens is so you go get married and you feel like you're all good under God's eyes now and that idolatry just transfers to another area. Maybe it's finances, maybe it's family, but the heart issue doesn't go away. Jesus isn't after your deeds. Deeds will follow a transformed heart, but they cannot come first. It must start with heart. We must dig up the root sin and surrender it to Jesus Christ. Our problem is never a sex problem.

It's a heart problem. Our problem is not a pornography problem. It's a heart problem. Your problem is not a nicotine problem. It's a heart problem. Your problem is not a marriage problem. It's a heart problem. Yes, there is a time. Romans 8 tells us, when we need to put to death the deeds of the flesh by the power of the holy spirit and that day needs to come for sure, but that is a byproduct of the prime product. And that is having the heart dealt with first. Jesus said and after the other he wants your heart.

He wants you to surrender your idolatry to worship him and to pursue his kingdom and yield your heart to him so that he has it all. From the inside out he can transform. Now, here's the problem. If you look at this passage, it just ends here. The very next scene is Jesus goes out with the disciples, they're having a meal and a syrophoenician Gentile woman engages Jesus in conversation. She proves to be actually more grace filled than the Pharisees by all means, she gets grace unlike the Pharisees, but you're like, wait a minute. Go back, Jesus.

You just got done fileting my heart in those first 23 verses and you just leave us there? What is he doing? You can't tear up my heart like that. Tell me that, oh, all this external stuff really is nothing. It's all indicative of what's going on in here, you need a new heart, drop the mic and walk away without telling us how. He doesn't give them a solution here. Do you know why? Because he is on his way to the solution. And it's going to happen eight chapters from now in Mark 15.

And in Mark 15, the solution to your heart's problem is not... He has four ways that you can be a better you for God. Here's five ways of your best life now and then everything is going to be great. Jesus doesn't give us that in Mark 15. The solution that Jesus is going to offer is himself. And he's going to go to a cross and he's going to lay his life down for us and in doing so there are two categorical things that are going to happen when he gets to that cross. First is he's going to become the substitute for us.

He will take on and absorb the penalty for our sin that we deserved, which was death and he's going to take it for us before God. He will be the offering on our behalf. And what he's going to do in the cross is he will shed his blood and for anyone who has transferred their faith from believing that I must perform my own works and merits in order to please God and you surrender that and trust solely in the work of Jesus Christ and his grace, then his blood then covers your sin and makes your sin as white as snow, cast as far as the east is from the west, the deepest depths of the ocean he forgives you.

And by faith you are reconciled to God, not because of your works, but because of his and you are secured forever. But the second most amazing thing that happens is in that moment that you believe, in that moment that you put your faith in Jesus, in that very instant God sends the third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit to come and dwell your soul. And he takes your dead heart he doesn't just resuscitate it, he regenerates it. At the moment of conversion, you get a regenerated heart.

You get a brand new heart unlike the one you had before. One that now over time will learn to want to obey God, not to have to obey him. And then within that the Holy Spirit empowers you with the power that you do not have in your own weak flesh.

The very spirit of God, Romans tells us the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the power that's a live in you to give life to your mortal bodies that then enables you to do, Romans 8, and start putting to death that deeds the flesh that wage war against your soul and cut off those oxygen supply lines that are feeding you on the outside. But not in an order to make you clean, but because you already are clean.

That's the gospel. The gospel triumphs religion. Religion is futile. The gospel is life giving and all along God has been after your heart. A lot of us want to pit the God of the Old Testament versus the God of the New Testament. Ever been there, right? Oh, he's wrathful in this. It's the same God by the way and it's the same story. From Genesis to Revelation the entire story is the story of redemption.

It's the story of reconciliation. You're just looking at different facets of the same diamond, but the crown jewel is always pointing to Jesus. And what happens long before Jesus even comes to scene, people got this. They knew this. King David when he sinned with Bathsheba, when he slept with another man's wife, got her pregnant, tried to cover it up but didn't work. So he has her husband sent out and killed in battle to cover it up there, thinks he got away with it, walks away and goes, whew, that was a close one.

And then God sends Nathan along and bust him. Says, I know exactly what you did. God knows exactly what you did. And David is crushed. He's been exposed. His sin is no longer hiding. It's now been exposed. Do you know what David does shortly after that? At some point David pulls away and he pins a Psalm and it Psalm 51. And David says in that Psalm, God in light of my sin and I confess my sin to you. I'm a wicked man. I am not good and I deserve your justice and I deserve your wrath.

But in light of that, in order to rectify this thing, if I really thought that what you wanted was just external sacrifices and offerings to make this thing right, I would've brought them to you. If you wanted religion God, if you wanted my works, I would've brought them to you, but I know that's not what you want God. And in that Psalm hundreds of years before Jesus, he says what God wants is a broken and contrite heart. It's what he wants. It's what he's always wanted.

And you know what God did right after that, God forgave him, cleansed him and made David new. You know what David did right after that? He went and wrote another Psalm, Psalm 32. And in that Psalm he simply says that God has forgiven my sin and he's not only given to my sin, he's forgiven the guilt of my sin. Now what a beautiful thing it is to be cleansed from the inside out. And he says, let everyone pray to this God while he may be found and find their deliverance.

I don't know where exactly you're at as you walk in this room, but I can tell you God does not want just your external behavior and your religious activities that somehow that's going to impress him. What he wants is a transformed heart and you can't do that on your own. You got to surrender it to Jesus Christ and he will transform you from the inside out. If you have never put faith in Jesus Christ, I would tell you surrender your life now.

Surrender your heart right now to Jesus and let him make you clean from the inside out. And for those that have put their faith in Christ, you don't have to perform for God. As far as you've run right now, as much sin as you may be entangled in right now, if you are a true follower of Christ, if you've put your faith in Jesus, he is not letting you walk in shame and condemnation right now. He is not mad at you right now. He's simply beckoning, give me your heart. You can't do this on your own.

Surrender your heart. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to take a couple songs here at the end and we're going to have the time of just response. And I would love for us, all myself included, to spend some time here in the song asking as was asked in Psalm 139, God would you search me and know me? Would you see if there's any anxious way within me? Would you test my heart, God? And if there's any wicked way in my heart, let alone my hands, the hands are obvious, but if my heart is hiding sin, God would you expose it?

And would you confess it before God and walk in the freedom and the grace that he offers for you. His grace is sufficient for you. Let's pray. Father, we just want to confess our sin. We want to confess that our hearts are unclean and every one of us in this room at some point or another has tried to pursue some form of external religion to try to make ourselves right before you and knowing it is futility. It is drinking our own death. So God, our desire is to be made new, our desire is to have new hearts.

And God we praise you because you have provided the solution in Jesus Christ who has done for us what we can never do for ourselves. And so God would you come and make us whole again? If there is any hidden sin that we are hiding in our hearts and think that we fooled everyone else, would you expose that to the reality that nothing is hidden from you, but that Go