Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

I'll say bless the Lord if you say oh my soul.

Bless the Lord (Oh my soul)

Oh bless His holy name.

Good morning, my name is Eric and I'm the student pastor at The Glade.

I'm not here in the pulpit every week, but every now and again I get the genuine blessing of standing before God's people on the Lord's Day and say, "Thus saith the Lord," and I consider it no small thing.

I've been asked quickly to call attention to a resource that we are making available to you (mention packet and groups expo on March 20).

This is an opportunity for you to get plugged in.

We make it well known characteristics we hope to see out of healthy church members... that they go to worship, that they serve, they give, and they belong to a small group.

So we are making this available to you to shrink any barrier that may keep you from being in a small group.

We'll have group leaders available that day, here to speak with you about their group, when they meet, where they meet, and we cannot wait to see how God works in and amongst our people as we grow together in small group community.

...

I want to do a little thought exercise as we start this morning.

Close your eyes.

If you're not comfortable I'll just ask for you to think intently as I guide you along, here.

Imagine an incredibly moral and upstanding man.

Attends church regularly

Goes on mission trips

He tithes

Reads his bible - even memorizes parts of it

Never gets drunk - doesn't have a foul mouth

Loves his country and votes "the right way."

If anyone has earned their right to heaven... it would be this man.

In fact, that's been his goal, to live and believe rightly in the sight of onlookers.

That's exactly what he's after.

For someone to look at him and say, "he's such a good man."

Sadly, this man is bound for an eternal destination separated from King Jesus as he remains under his just judgement.

Because his faith was in how he could tilt the scales in his favor.

I've just introduced you to the modern-day pharisee.

(open your eyes - look around... if anyone's still got their eyes closed you can wake em up for me.)

We have the benefit of hindsight as we read scripture.

We look and we shake our heads of how insanely wrong they could get things... but I'll point out that in the days before Jesus, a pharisee wasn't scorned as a false believer... but seen as the pinnacle achievement in the world of faith.

We look to a couple of examples throughout the Bible.

Pharisees who seemingly had it all together.

Guys like Nicodemus, we read about his story in John 3 - right?

Where we find the renowned John 3:16.

Nicodemus - It's built right into his name... complied of two words -- nike (greek god of victory, and demos... the same root word where we get the word demographics -- meaning, people.)

So in short terms, victor of the people... champion of the people... pharisee.

He had it going on.

And yet what we see in this dialogue is his confusion because he undoubtedly knows a lot about God, but not enough to see His Son in front of His own eyes.

And you very well might be asking the very same question as Nicodemus... "How can one be born again?

How can one be seen as right in the eyes of a holy God.

That's where we're going this morning as we continue our series in the Gospel of Mark.

And as we read, I want you to think intently about your own walk with Jesus, is it categorized by routines and rituals?

Or is it a genuine--relationship.

Beloved, the central idea I would love for us all to walk away with in light of this passage is this: Purity, in God's eyes, is an issue of the heart, not of one's deeds.

If it helps you and you're a note taker, which I think is awesome, I've divided verses 1-23 in this way.

First we see: The Trap, The Turn, and The Truth (Take this slower to allow for writing)

The Trap - (vv. 1-5)

The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him.

They observed that some of his disciples were eating bread with unclean—that is, unwashed—hands.

(For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, keeping the tradition of the elders.

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.)

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?”

We see right from the jump a clue that this inquisition is not one made in good faith.

It says that the pharisees and the scribes had come down from Jerusalem to Galilee.

No doubt they had heard of the miraculous works performed by Jesus.

You can look at at the accounts listed just in chapter 6 alone and think, maybe they are pursuing Jesus in light of these things...

The feeding of the 5000, Jesus walking on water, the list goes on.

They hear enough to know that there is someone off in the distance that's causing trouble.

It was a "rally the troops" moment.

Let's go to Galilee and see about this hillbilly that thinks he's on par with us.

Again, you may look and shake your heads at such people, but it might be a bit a humbling experience if I asked you about your social media habits.

Who hear is guilty of doing a deep dive on someone on facebook or wherever and you turn to a close confidant and make some snide remark.

Because it's all too natural...

I know it is for me... to look judgmentally upon others.

Enough was the feeling of contempt for these men that they saw fit to travel a distance to 'shut him up.'

They scan and observe, not with righteous intent but selfish intent, and it's not even an issue that they find with Jesus but they try and pin him as guilty by association.

"Hey... those people that follow you.

They don't wash their hands before they eat."

All the germaphobes in the room are collectively wretching... but what is at hand (pun intended) is not an issue of hygiene, I assure you.

It's an issue of purity.

They were calling Jesus unclean.

Which is a bit ironic, right?

The pharisees are pointing out a biblical prescription from the Old Testament, talking about cleanliness laws, laws that were originally reserved for the priests before they entered the temple... and they amplified that law to all people.

And what was the purpose of that law?

To remind the people of God of a bitter reality that as you approach God, you do so as one who needs to be made clean.

So this ritual was established as an act of worship, not meant to be heartless, but meant to be a reminder brothers and sisters that we all come up wanting if you want to talk about how holy we truly are.

So here we see men twisting and manipulating acts of worship.

Theologically beating their chests and saying... "why don't you be more like me."

--

If you grew up in the 90s in conservative evangelical circles, like I did, you may be familiar with something known as "purity culture"

Which was a movement that coopted that term "purity" to mean almost exclusively maintaining a moral sexual ethic.

But what we are so often guilty of and what the pharisees are guilty of is having such a narrow view of what purity truly means.

If your thought of purity... being seen as right in the eyes of God... is limited to what all you can't do, then you have a narrow idea of what it means to be pure.

God desires purity out of us because he desires relationship with us.

He desires closeness with us.

But clean cannot dwell with the unclean.

So we have a problem at hand.

And instead of seeking to minister to that problem and go before God on behalf of the people.

The pharisees seek to wound and entrap.

We know that this line of questioning was not made in good faith because we do see such a pointed turn from Jesus himself.

So first we had the trap, now see the turn.

The Turn (vv.

6-13)

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.

They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines human commands.

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

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

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

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), “you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother.

You nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down.