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Piety or Purity?
14 Plays3 days ago
Series: Discernment of Jesus' Person
Mark 7:1-30
Recommended
Transcript
Unspoken Rules in Church Communities
00:00:01
Speaker
If you ever spent a significant amount of time in church, you know that we love our rules, don't we? We love coming up with our own rules, often unspoken, but nonetheless, we expect you to follow them. We say things like, boy, we're so glad you're here this morning. We sure hope you feel right at home.
00:00:29
Speaker
You might not want to sit there, that's where the tailors sit.
00:00:35
Speaker
Man-made rules, right? We also say things like, come as you are, just not dressed like that. Man-made rules. One of my all-time favorites, God loves the cheerful worshipper, just not with your hands in the air.
Man-Made Rules vs God's Principles
00:00:55
Speaker
Man-made rules, right?
00:00:59
Speaker
Legalistic rituality is this term. And it can run the full gamut of issues from whether or not you homeschool your kids to the type of clothing that they're allowed to wear or not wear. Whether or not you should read or watch Harry Potter. I know the audible gasp. Whether or not you should consume alcohol. Uh-oh.
00:01:26
Speaker
Somebody's like, this list is growing increasingly distressful to me. How about your political allegiance?
00:01:35
Speaker
Uh-oh. How about your stance on the death penalty, on abortion, your attitude towards war, so on and so forth, right? These man-made rules that we come up with. And friends, it's a dangerous trap, these man-made rules.
00:01:55
Speaker
that often become a more important criteria of acceptability before God than do the actual principles of God's word itself. In other words, following the rules somehow becomes more important than following God's word. We end up following these manmade rules for the sake of following rules, to which all the rules followers say amen to that.
00:02:23
Speaker
And if you are naturally a rule follower, you like rules. Some of you are ah bent a different direction, where when you hear a rule, immediately you're you're thinking, how do I come up with the exception to that rule? Some of you are shaking your head right now. The problem is when these rules that we check off, these checklists that we make, somehow we think this makes us acceptable before God.
00:02:53
Speaker
God loves Republicans.
00:02:58
Speaker
Cute bumper sticker, right? Bad theology. Dangerous theology. That somehow your allegiance to a political party, well, that somehow makes you acceptable to God.
Theology and Political Affiliations
00:03:14
Speaker
All Democrats are evil. Same bumper sticker, by the way. Same company makes both of those.
00:03:24
Speaker
Same dangerous theology. That somehow, if you vote a certain way or you vote the other way, that somehow makes you acceptable before God.
00:03:41
Speaker
That somehow being a fan of the Dallas Cowboys makes you acceptable before God. Okay, maybe I went too far there. We all know that God loves the cowboys.
00:03:56
Speaker
Man-made rules, right? And we think somehow if we follow these man-made rules that were acceptable before God.
Mark 7: Ritual vs Morality
00:04:04
Speaker
Friends, this is what we're going to look at today as we peel back these two stories in Mark chapter 7.
00:04:11
Speaker
It's this idea you'll see in your outline of rituality or following man's rules versus morality following God's rules or God's word or God's commands. You can substitute all those. And we're going to look finally at what does it mean for you and I today. How do we Stop this problem of legalism. How do we get this out of our environment that we so easily seem to fall into? Mark chapter seven, if you will, Mark chapter seven in your Bibles. You'll know last week we studied what? The feeding of the, yeah, the 5,000 or you could put 10,000 up to 15,000 in there. It's this five loaves of what? And two loaves of two fish, right?
00:04:59
Speaker
he he He started this bread story last week, and he's carrying these bread crumbs, if you will, into today's story as well. Two episodes today, and you're thinking, no, pastor, not twice as long, no, no.
Ceremonial Cleanliness Debate
00:05:16
Speaker
Two quick episodes in chapter seven. One that has to do with the disciples eating bread with unwashed hands, and the second one of a Well, Sarah Phoenician woman who's pretty much seen as unclean and how she's more accepted than this first episode. We're going to look here at this first episode with me. Look, ah verse 1 through 15 and following.
00:05:47
Speaker
Not today, Satan. That's what my youngest daughter says. Whenever something goes wrong in the middle of the sermon, she says, not today, Satan. You won't have rule over that. Chapter 7, verse 1 says this, ah One day some Pharisees and teachers of the religious law arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus, and they noticed some of his disciples failed to follow Jewish ritual of wash of hand-washing before eating.
00:06:12
Speaker
my My verse here, this next verse 3 is in parenthesis, the Jews, especially the Pharisees, do not eat until they have poured water over their cupped hands, as required by their ancient traditions. Similarly, they don't eat anything from the market until they have immersed their hands in water. This is about one of the many traditions that they have clung to, such as ceremonially washing of cups, pitchers, and kettles. Verse 5,
00:06:36
Speaker
says the Pharisees and the teachers of the religious law ask them, saying, why why do your disciples, why don't they follow our age-old tradition? They eat without first performing this hand-washing ceremony, to which Jesus replies in verse 6, I love this, you hypocrites.
00:06:56
Speaker
Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you. For he wrote, These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.
00:07:12
Speaker
For you ignore God's law and substitute your own tradition. Then he says you skillfully sidestep God's law in order to hold on to your own tradition. For instance, Moses gave you the law from God, honor your father and your mother, and anyone who speaks disrespectfully of the father mother or mother must be put to death.
00:07:29
Speaker
But you say it is all right for the people to to say to their parents, sorry, I can't help you. For I have vowed to give give to God what I would have given to you. And in this way, you let them disregard their needy parents. And so you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own to hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others.
Purity and Religious Practices
00:07:53
Speaker
Well, let's stop at verse 13. So what's going on here? what What's the problem here? Well, initially the issue is this hand-washing that's going on or or should be going on that's not going on, right? The disciples
00:08:13
Speaker
are eating common food, and they have yet to wash their hands, and the Pharisees are saying, you know, ah for lack of a better term, how dare you come into worship wearing blue jeans?
00:08:27
Speaker
Well, welcome, we want everybody to come in, just don't wear those blue jeans, right? We want you to eat food, but you know, you should be washing your hands, ceremonially cleaning yourselves,
00:08:41
Speaker
You should be following, I like this, our traditions, or the traditions of the elders, verse ah five says, to which Jesus calls the same practice in verse seven, the precepts of men, the laws of men, the rules of men, the tradition of men, verse 13 says, your tradition. You know, Mark's letting us know there's two things going on here. He's saying there's men's rule, this man-made rule in God's rule.
00:09:09
Speaker
in In the Old Testament, friends, the hand-washing was just reserved for the priests, and it was only done when they were handling ritual food, something that was not common. And what they've done is they've taken this regulation, this rule from God's Word, and they've taken it and said, well, it's not just for the priests, it's for everybody.
00:09:39
Speaker
It's not just for ceremonial food, it's without washing your hands? And I like Jesus. he's a you know Jesus, for lack of a better word, calls them out. How dare you You hypocrites. What's a hypocrite? Somebody who says one thing and does something else, right?
00:10:09
Speaker
That's what a hypocrite is. You're missing the point by telling them they have to obey these manmade rules. You're ruining it for them. This manmade rule has now become more important, if you will, than God's rule.
00:10:36
Speaker
It's become a more important criteria of acceptability before God than God's word itself. And he says, look, how dare you do that? And I think sometimes we just think Jesus is this non-confrontational, loving, engaging, which he was. But there are times in the Bible when The people are so off track, he has to say, you hypocrites. You're missing the point. Let me turn over these tables that you're exchanging money in the courtyard. That's not the pacifist Jesus, that's the righteous anger Jesus. And he's saying this here to these folks, how dare you do that to my disciples? How dare you put this extra yoke, if you will,
00:11:31
Speaker
And I like here, he goes on in verse six, he says, this this people honors me with their lips, but their what? Their heart is far from me. They're saying one thing, but their heart is something completely different. That's like you coming into church with a smile on your face, but you're but you're angry inside.
00:11:53
Speaker
You ever been that way? You come to church and something's happened right before you come into church? Gotten into an argument with your spouse in the car on the way in? I know that never applies to any of y'all. And it sounds like this in your car.
00:12:07
Speaker
Like dogs fighting against each other. And what happens? You open the door and you step outside and you open the doors to the church. Hey, brother. Hey, sister. It's so good to see you. Things are so great. Oh, I love my wife. She's my husband. He can't do anything wrong. Right? It's this masquerade. It's this mask that you're putting on. That's where that word hypocrite comes from.
00:12:33
Speaker
right in the Greek, this masquerading, putting on a mask and not showing what's really going on. And he's saying here, you know, you say one things with your lips, but man, your heart? So something completely different. The heart here, y'all, is the the very essence of a person, right? The inside of a person. I just put a note, how funny it is when we see each other in church.
00:12:59
Speaker
Women, y'all might be a little bit different. I might give y'all a pass this morning. But I'm gonna tell you, man, what do we do? Hi, brother, it's good to see you. How's that shoulder doing? How's that back doing? Oh, how's your job? Job, all right? but All these external things. one Fellas, when was the last time you walked up to somebody at the church and said, how's your heart doing? how How's what's going on in here? How's that? Now, ladies, y'all might be better at that than we are.
00:13:26
Speaker
You'd be surprised if you ask somebody what's really going on in your heart. They might tell you some things that's really bothering them.
00:13:37
Speaker
Jesus is more concerned about moral purity, if you will. This is this following or being obedient to his word. And he'll tell us as we walk through here, he says, the The immorality or impurity purity, or the the pretty if you will, both the negative and the positive, it comes from the heart. It's not what goes in. It's not not washing your hands and eating a certain type of food. It's not eating bacon. How many times I've taught a class and I've had people come up to me, are we not supposed to eat bacon, pastor? You know what? I say, if you don't want yours, will you please give me your portion?
00:14:16
Speaker
It's not the food from the outside going in that defiles a person, Jesus makes his point. He says it's what's in the heart that defiles. You know how I know this? All through my Christian walk, I've had an opportunity to... to minister to different men at different ages, different stages of life. And you'll be surprised when everything's going great in their lives and you talk to somebody, boy, just, you know, that that external person is so, everything is going great. You put them under the littles of strain.
00:14:50
Speaker
I worked, up we did ah ah we were talking about hurricanes right before I came in here. you know We did a ah hurricane Harvey relief effort where our church went out and helped people fix up their house after the hurricane came through. And you get a bunch of Christian men together and they're all trying to power tools and smashing things. You'd be surprised at some of the things that come out of these people's mouth. File words when things aren't going well. And you look at them and I was shocked. You know what that is? That's from the heart.
00:15:20
Speaker
You almost can't stop that from coming out, what's what's really going on in inside. the The Pharisees assumed here that somehow eating with unwashed hands was the problem. Jesus says, no, no, no, the the problem here is obeying God's rules over man's rules, and you' and you've basically flipped them. And that's problematic. And I thought to myself this week, don't don't we do this sometimes?
00:15:48
Speaker
I don't know about you. When I read my Bible, when I study my Bible, and I get to the Pharisees, and and and and I'll just confess right now, I think about other people. Oh yeah, that guy, he's like the Pharisees. You know who's like the Pharisees? I am sometimes, and you are sometimes.
00:16:11
Speaker
Because I think to myself, we often take something that's good, something from God's Word, and and it's like it's almost not good enough. We have to do something with it. We have to somehow add on top of that. Can I give you an illustration? You could say no, but I'm going to do it anyhow. Ephesians 5, 18. Oh, and this is going to rattle some feathers. Trust me, I know it. I already said it.
00:16:36
Speaker
when I was reading it this morning. I thought, circled it, underlined it, question mark. That means caution for me when I read it. Ephesians 5, 18, do not get drunk with wine, which is rebellious or dissension, depending upon how your translation says, but says but rather be filled with the spirit, right? Don't be filled with one spirit, be filled with the other spirit.
00:17:07
Speaker
Spirit, wine, get it?
Risks of Adding Human Rules to God's Word
00:17:12
Speaker
We take that really good thing from God's word. Good, valuable, profitable, but somehow that's not good enough for us. You know how I know this? It turns into good Baptists don't drink. Uh-oh, a lot of longtime Baptists right here shaking their heads going, I can't believe he just said that.
00:17:37
Speaker
Good Baptists don't drink. Makes a great bumper sticker. But it's bad theology. It's dangerous theology. Because what it does is it takes God's word and by no means, brothers and sisters, am I encouraging you to go out and get drunk. But I will tell you the very first recorded miracle that Jesus does is turn water into wine. I'm not saying that he's out getting drunk. That's not what I'm saying.
00:18:03
Speaker
But there are some very staunch Baptists who take a stand and say, I'm not going to drink. It's wrong to drink, to which I say to you as your pastor, I don't drink. But it's not for the reasons you think I don't drink. It's because I used to be a drunk.
00:18:22
Speaker
I don't know what a polite or way of telling you that. Many of you who've known me for a long time, when I first came here, I told you that's part of my unenviable past. I don't drink because I can't do it. I won't do it. um You may very well be able to navigate that. So i it would be wrong for me just to say, blanket, don't drink. But do you understand what i'm what I'm saying here? I don't want you to, I'm sure I'll get some,
00:18:51
Speaker
e-mails this week. We often take something good right from the Scriptures, and and then we have to somehow manipulate that, adding an extra rule on top of it or expanding the scope of that. That's not what not what God calls us to do.
00:19:10
Speaker
right If the Pharisees thought that the disciples were unclean in this scenario, then our second episode with this woman – boy, is they're just going to think she's really unclean – this woman that we're going to read about, she's Sarah Phoenician.
00:19:27
Speaker
right Who are the Syrophoenicians? Where do they come from? If you know your Bible at all, I'm not gonna assume you do. um They come from the Canaanites.
Syrophoenician Woman and Ritual Impurity
00:19:35
Speaker
right this is So she's got Canaanite DNA in her and she's historically the Canaanites are enemies of the people of God, of the Israelites. She's a Canaanite, she's a woman.
00:19:53
Speaker
She's verse 26, your translation may say she's Greek or she's Gentile. She's non-Jew, and to top it all up says her daughter is what? Possessed with an unclean spirit. Right? This next episode screams ritual uncleanliness.
00:20:14
Speaker
Let's read. Verse 24 and 27 says this.
00:20:20
Speaker
And I like the heading. I don't know if your heading says, as my heading says, the the faith of a Gentile woman. But 24 says, then Jesus left Galilee and went north to the region of Tyre. He didn't want anyone to know which house he was staying in, but he couldn't keep it a secret. Right away, a woman who had heard about him came and fell at his feet. Her little girl was possessed by an evil spirit and she begged him to cast out the demon from her daughter. Let's pause there.
00:20:51
Speaker
So we have this woman, desperate, a Gentile, unclean, throwing her feet throwing herself at the feet of Jesus. Does it sound familiar? We literally just talked about this a couple weeks ago. but The woman who was hemorrhaging for 12 years, do you remember that? Ritualistically unclean, and Mark's making a point here, he's putting these two together going, the most unlikely of candidates is going to do something remarkable. And so she throws herself at his feet in desperation, similar to this woman. And she says, you know, I'm just seeking your help. Would you heal my daughter who has this demon? I mean, can you imagine the audacity of this woman, a Canaanite, Syrophoenician, a woman, throwing herself at Jesus' feet? I mean, she might as well have been wearing blue jeans.
00:21:51
Speaker
The t-shirt, coming to worship here with a service dog.
00:22:00
Speaker
Man-made rules, that's all I'm saying, y'all. How easy it is for us to inform an opinion about somebody without knowing the full story.
True Acceptability to God
00:22:13
Speaker
So if we're not meant to adhere to man-made rules, if that doesn't make us right or acceptable before God, what what does? And let's look here at what Jesus says here, the explanation of what is acceptable to God. Verse 17 to 23, 17 says this,
00:22:31
Speaker
It says, and Jesus went into the house to get away from the crowd, and disciples asked him what he meant by the parable that they had just heard. Don't you understand either? But you gotta love Jesus, right? I mean, how how often is he teaching something in parables, and the disciples are right there with them, the very ones who should be getting what Jesus is saying, and they're just they're just clueless. And he's like, you too? You too, Brutus, really? Come on.
00:22:59
Speaker
Don't you understand, he says? Can't you see that the food that you put in your body can't defile you? Food doesn't go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes out into the sewer. By saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in God's eyes. And then he added, and it is what comes from the inside that defiles you for from within out of a person's heart comes evil thoughts. Now here's this valuable list of vices. Just read with me. These are the evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. I practiced all that list, by the way, reading today. And all these vile things come from within.
00:23:50
Speaker
Can I just tell you something when it comes to a list like this in the Bible? Most often, when you get a vice list like this, the author's telling you, categorize all this as sin. Because our tendency, if you're like me, which I think you are, when you start going and seeing this list, you go, okay, not a thief, not a murderer, not an adulterer.
00:24:17
Speaker
Yeah, pretty good. All right, that's what we tend to do with with a vice-list like this. Well, this passage might not concern me. It might not apply to me because I don't and i not yeah um don't do all this. But then I like, he throws an envy and greed and lustful desires. Pride. Oh, by the way, what just when you think you don't have anything, oftentimes we'll just throw pride in there and lying. Those two catch everybody. And if it doesn't, you're lying and you're prideful.
00:24:49
Speaker
God see me after service.
00:24:53
Speaker
Jesus explains to us real quick here, friends, what is acceptable before God. It is this idea of moral purity, obedience to God's mandates. It's not merely about food laws or washing your ah hands. Jesus takes it. you know He's saying, this is a much bigger issue than what you're dealing with. You're dealing with man-made rules.
00:25:18
Speaker
He explains this basic principle of moral purity or impurity. He just tells us the negative here. And he says defilement is not something external that you come in contact with, but it comes from the inside, right? It's not what goes into the person that renders one unacceptable. It's that sin, any of those things in that list that comes from the person's heart. Why is it so important for us to go, brother and sister, how's your heart today?
00:25:46
Speaker
because that's what matters to God. He doesn't care about the mask you have on outside. He doesn't care about the new car you're driving or the new property you bought or how great your marriage supposedly looks on the outside. He cares about what's going on in the heart. It is indeed a matter of the heart. He wants us to be faithful and obedient to His word.
Applying Biblical Teachings Today
00:26:15
Speaker
How do we apply this today?
00:26:19
Speaker
I'll just put just a couple of notes for us real quick if we can go there. And I wanted to keep this simple because I think ah think what we end up doing often as we beat ourselves up over these man-made rules and you go, you know, I'm like that for some reason, I'm wired like that. How do I take something that was written all of these years ago in Mark's gospel? How do I take that and make that real to me this week? What does that look like?
00:26:44
Speaker
I put first, don't mistake liberty for license. this is the This is the go-to answer to anybody who was raised in a very legalistic denomination. And you know who you are, because I was one of those people too early on.
00:27:01
Speaker
It's all these rules, do this, don't do this. If you do this, you'll be acceptable. If you don't do this, you won't be acceptable. And what happens is you send your kids out into the world when you launch them out after high school and they go, yay, I'm free. I'm free of mom and dad's religion. I'm free of all those rules. And they go hog wild. they They really do. And if you're shaking your head, no, well, you're fooling yourself because Most of y'all were hog wild at one point or another. Rejecting legalism doesn't mean hang loose. Doesn't mean living an undisciplined lifestyle. Being free in Christ doesn't mean free to sin. It means being free from sin.
00:27:52
Speaker
It's not legalism to obey the Lord Jesus Christ. And I just put a note, pat Brother Pease often says, let your yes be a yes and your no be a no.
00:28:05
Speaker
You know, how great would it be if we just let our lives on that principle alone? What I say, I mean. I'm not saying one thing and leaving another life. I'm not saying don't go drink alcohol and then you see me over here at the the beer garden.
00:28:20
Speaker
which I don't know if they sell beer there or not, but just by the name, I'm telling you, they very well may sell beer over there. Don't worry, you're not gonna see me over there at the beer garden. Self-control, I put, is a fruit of the spirit. So don't make the mistake of liberty is ah don't don't mistake liberty for a license. Second, don't replace reality with rules um Some people advocate living the Christian life by vows and by rules and they say, you need to read your Bible and you need to pray so many times a day. and Matter of fact, they'll say, you need to be here in church every Sunday. And I saw of Levi here earlier, he might have stepped out. I saw him and he said, hey, I missed church last week. I said, congratulations.
00:29:08
Speaker
You have the freedom to miss church so often every so often, right? Just don't make it a habit. It's when we become so legalistic that we we beat ourselves up and we feel guilty when we're when we're out of church a Sunday. And who knows what happened? He came up with some crazy story that the train was parked on the tracks and he couldn't get out of his house. Whether or not that's the truth, I don't know, but it sounds plausible. In Cameron, the the trains rule everything around here.
00:29:37
Speaker
Should you read your Bible and pray every day? You bet. just Just don't be so legalistic about it. Don't beat yourself up about it. It's not about following the rules. It's about this loving relationship with the Savior who loved you and who died for you. And I'll just end with this. Repeat after me, if you will. God loves the cowboys. No, I'm joking. I'm just making sure you're awake. Repeat after me.
00:30:06
Speaker
Go for morals, not rituals. May we be a people whose faith produces obedience and whose life embraces moral purity. Amen.