Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Around the end of the second century, so roughly 200 years after the ascension of Christ the Mishnah was completed.

Now, the Mishnah is a Jewish word which means “repetition.”

It was a compilation of Jewish oral law and tradition.

It was composed by Rabbis from all walks of life and its intention was to be a supplement to the Torah, which is the first five books of our Old Testament, or the books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy).

The Mishnah is a large collection of sayings, and traditions, arguments, counter-arguments that seek to touch on all aspects of daily living.

After the Mishnah was completed rabbis discussed its teaching, wrote down their thoughts and commentary.

More teachings, more laws, more traditions were added until about the 5th or 6th century when all of it was gathered together to what the Jewish people call the Talmud.

Today, this is what the Jewish people study at length to know how they are supposed to live that would make them pure or clean before God.

It’s an enormous amount of writing and law and tradition.

To study or read one page a day of the Talmud would take you over seven and a half years to get through.

Now, within these Jewish writings and traditions they say that their intended purpose is to “put a fence around the Law.”

Meaning this, that the Jewish people, the religious leaders saw tradition, see tradition today as a way to protect God’s Word and assist people in living it out so that they would be clean and pure before God.

Now, when I say the Talmud seeks to touch on every aspect of daily life to assist people in living out the law, I’m not kidding.

For example:

We know from God’s Word that the Sabbath is to be a day of rest.

If you’ve been with us through our series in Mark you know the Pharisees held that command to an unbelievably high standard.

They accused Jesus repeatedly for violating the Sabbath (Mk.

2:23-24, 3:1-2).

And so, in order to assist the Jewish people in obeying this law, a fence was put around it.

And so, in the Talmud today you would read that looking in the mirror on the Sabbath is forbidden.

Why?

Because if you saw a gray hair you might be tempted to pluck it out and therefore, perform work on the Sabbath.

You can’t wear false teeth on the Sabbath.

Why?

Because if they fell out you’d have to pick them up and would perform work.

Rabbis once debated at length about a man with a wooden leg.

If his home caught fire could he carry his wooden leg out of the house?

Is that work and thus a violation of the law?

Spitting is permitted on the Sabbath, but with certain regulations and parameters.

For instance, you need to be careful where you spit because if your spit landed in the dirt and you scuffed it with your sandal, you’d actually be cultivating the soil and performing work.

I lived in New York City for a season many years ago, before I was married.

I had a friend that I got to know who lived in a Jewish neighborhood.

I would go to visit him often on Saturday, which is the Sabbath day in Jewish teaching.

I’d get on the elevator to go up to his apartment and then all of a sudden be swarmed with several Jewish people cramming onto the elevator with me asking me to push the button for them for their floor because pushing that button was considered work.

Today, if you were to go to New York City and walk around Brooklyn, where my friend lived but also encircling the island of Manhattan you’d see a wire that surrounds it.

Jewish law forbids that people leave their homes on the Sabbath but this wire, called the “Eruv” allows people to go about their daily activities on the Sabbath because that wire symbolically connects all homes in New York.

And so it allows them to do what they want without feeling like they are breaking Jewish tradition.

Problem

Now, I mention these things not to mock or belittle the Jewish people but honestly, hearing these things shouldn’t cause us to giggle, it should cause us to mourn and grieve for them.

They’ve enslaved and burdened themselves to law and tradition thinking it will make them clean before God.

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day, the Pharisees placed these weights and burdens on the backs of people telling them that to be accepted and clean before God, pure before God you must do this and not do that.

And the traditions and rules just kept coming and coming.

More than anyone can carry.

I mean hearing these traditions, these rules that the Jewish people subject themselves today thinking that rigid obedience to them will cause God’s face to shine upon them if they’re just obedient enough, if they just put one more fence around the law to help them obey perfectly, can’t we hear the hope and relief Jesus gives when he says in Matthew 11.

Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Human beings, by default, by our very nature look inward for acceptance, for hope, for salvation, to be made right.

We want to solve our own problems.

We don’t want to look outward, we don’t want help from anyone else.

We recognize there’s a problem within us.

We recognize there’s brokenness and so we’ll create rules or traditions in our own lives to help us obey or be a better person but then look for ways to get around them.

I mean, that’s what the “Eruv” wire in New York is all about.

“Okay, the law says I can’t leave my home on the Sabbath (not Scripture, just tradition) so what can we do to “obey” the law but still do what I want to do without any disruption in my life?

Let’s put a wire all around the city so that I can point to it and say that wire is connected to my home so I’m not violating the law.”

It’s madness, it’s foolishness, and it’s revealing a serious issue within all of us that Jesus addresses in this text.

Main Aim

God’s Word, not human tradition, not man-made rules is what brings freedom and life for it’s God’s Word that reveals Jesus to us.

And we need Jesus because our hearts are broken, depraved, enslaved to sin.

And no amount of rules, traditions, or parameters will ever make our heart right.

In fact, the more rules we create, the more boundaries we set up, the more fences around fences around fences we put up only reveal that our hearts need redeemed.

We don’t need more rules, we don’t need more boundaries, we don’t need more fences in our lives to make us clean.

We need a new heart that only God can give.

Big Idea

And so, here’s what we see today in this text.

Acceptance from God is not achieved through the creation of more rules but from a new heart.

Body

Now all of us, apart from the work of God in our lives and hearts have Pharisaical tendencies.

When we forget the cross, when we fail to rest in the sufficiency of Christ and his perfect life we revert back to works-based righteousness.

The term you’re probably more familiar with is legalism.

A legalist believes that strict adherence and obedience to the law makes them right with God.

Obedience brings acceptance.

Obedience brings purity.

Obedience makes us clean.

Obedience gives us value and worth.

It gives us superiority over others who don’t live like we do.

We become clean through our own self-perceived goodness.

And so, as Jesus addresses the Pharisees here in Mark 7, I want to draw it out so we see our own legalistic tendencies and the damage it does to our lives and relationships and fellowship with God and why what we truly need to be truly clean is a new heart that only God can give us through the work of Christ.

We don’t need reform, we don’t need to just do better.

We need new life, we need to become a new creation.

And so look again at the text here.

Specifically for this first point, verses 1-7

Mark 7:1-7, “Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.

(For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.

And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.)

And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”

And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”

What does Jesus confront the Pharisees over here and what must we guard ourselves against lest we drift into legalism?

How do we know when we begin to drift into legalism?

What’s the characteristic of a legalist?

Number one.

Legalists justify themselves by comparing themselves to others.

Mark is addressing in this narrative the issue of ritualistic cleansing.

It was a practice, it was actually a mandate from God given to the priests back in Exodus chapter 30 and chapter 40.

Before the priest could enter the tabernacle to offer a sacrifice for the people before God he had to wash his hands and his feet.

The ritual symbolized the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man.

We can’t come before God without first being cleansed.

Now again, this command was given to the priests, not the ordinary Jewish person but over the years it was adopted into ordinary Jewish custom through Pharisaical teaching and tradition.

That’s why you see in verse 3 it says the Pharisees and all the Jews do this, “holding to the tradition of the elders.”

They can’t point to God’s Word to validate this practice, just their man-made traditions.