Inside Out: The
“Heart” of the Matter
Mark 7:14-23
Introduction:
There is the story of a father who told
his son to sit down at the table for dinner. The boy was having too much fun
playing and ignored his dad. Patiently the father again told him to sit down,
and again the child stubbornly refused. Finally, the father said, “If you don’t
sit down I’m going to give you a spanking!” The boy sat down, crossed his arms
and said, “I’m sitting down on the outside, but I’m still standing up on the
inside!” It is (relatively) easy to do what is
expected outwardly, but how are our hearts? When the prophet Nathan confronted King David with his sin, David was
convicted, and in his brokenness, as he saw his need for divine
intervention and he prayed, “Create in me a
clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me…” (Ps 51:10; cf. Ps 139:23,24). The God of mercy
and grace heard his prayer. There were consequences yes, but David was restored
to a right relationship with God, and even is called “a man after God’s own
heart.” In our study of Mark, Jesus has just rebuked the hypocrisy of the
religious leaders, holding to the external system of rules that had been
developed over the years while neglecting the weightier matters of the heart. They
needed a “heart check”! James got at
“the heart of the matter” when he wrote, “What
is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don't they come from the evil
desires at war within you?” (James 4:1, NLT). In another place Jesus said,
“…out of the
abundance of the heart his mouth speaks…” (Luke 6:45).
Did you have to run to the store Friday or Saturday before the
Superbowl? A bit like Black Friday? Imagine this… You are circling the parking
lot, hoping to find a spot so you can get in for that last minute item you
forgot to buy earlier in the week. Finally, you see an elderly couple walking
toward their car. They are moving soooo slowly! You feel like you
are getting older just waiting! Then the old man walks around the car and opens
the door for his wife. She gets in slowly and buckles up before he closes the
door. He hobbles around the car… meanwhile the guy behind you is beeping his
horn and waving his hand at you. Finally, the old guy gets in the car, starts
it, and seemingly five minutes later starts to back out. By now you’re
thinking, “What did I come to get?” Then, just as he pulls away, a van zips
around the corner into “your” spot! How do you react?
Anger toward the guy who took your spot? Toward the old man who didn’t move
quickly enough? Toward that impatient guy behind you? Or, should we focus on
our own attitude: was it really that important to get that spot, or even the
item you came for? What if the old guy’s license plate said, “Combat
wounded veteran”? Would it make a difference? Or what if his wife had just
gotten out of three months in rehab, and she really wanted to go to the store
just to do some walking, and something as little as the pre-game rush wasn’t
going to keep her husband from making her day a little happier? You get the idea? There is always a
backstory that we don’t know. We have received grace, we should extend
grace as well. What would Jesus do? How’s your heart?
The BIG Idea: When God gives us a new heart through faith in
Jesus, our life will begin to change, from the inside out! We'll consider that from three perspectives: The Principle 1)
stated; 2) explained, and 3) Illustrated…
I. The
principle stated: Superficial rules can’t change hearts (14-16).
14 And he called the people to him again
and said to them, "Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15 There is nothing outside a
person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a
person are what defile him." 16 [“If anyone has ears
to hear, let him hear!”]
As our passage opens, Jesus turns from the leaders
who He had just rebuked, to the crowd, and He speaks a short “parable.”. The
question of the Pharisees in Mark 7:5 had been addressed only in part: Why do some of your disciples not wash in
the traditional way? He showed the foolishness of supplanting the Word of
God with their traditions: they followed human traditions, yet neglected the
Spirit of the Law! After all, the Gospel He preached focused on
faith in God and trusting in His grace, not man’s traditions! Their traditions
were superficial, external rules. They somehow had come to believe they would
be able to earn God’s favor. The Gospel acknowledges our depravity and our total
inability to earn God’s favor. As Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who
can know it?” We need a new heart.
Have you heard the story of the little girl who wasn’t feeling good and
was taken to the doctor for a check up…
A mother took her four-year-old daughter to the
doctor's office because she'd been running a fever. The doctor looked in her
ears and said, "Who's in there, Donald Duck?"
The little girl said, "No!"
Then the doctor looked in her nose and said,
"Who's in there, Mickey Mouse?"
Again, she answered, "No!"
Finally he put his stethoscope on her heart and
asked, "Who's in there, Barney?
[the purple dinosaur!]"
The girl replied indignantly, "No, Jesus
is in my heart. Barney is on my underwear!"
Most of us probably don’t have Barney on our
underwear (If you do, I really don’t want to know!) but is Jesus in your
heart? If you have trusted Christ as your Savior, you have a new heart, a new life!
Paul said “If any man be in Christ—a New
Creation!” (2 Cor 5:17). It won’t be
instantaneous, sanctification is a process, but… *When God gives us a new heart
through faith in Jesus, our life will begin to change, from the inside out!
II. The
principle explained: What
we eat or drink doesn’t make us “unclean” (17-19). What goes in our mouth is neutral, in itself
is has no spiritual implications.
17 And when he had entered the house and
left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 And he said to them, “Then are
you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person
from outside cannot defile him, 19
since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he
declared all foods clean.)
When Jesus confronted the Pharisees about the hypocrisy of their
man-made rules that neglected the heart, he was always gentle and careful not
to offend, right? Not exactly. After all, they were the supposed experts in the
Law, the supposed “shepherds of Israel,” and they should have known better. So,
He pulled no punches. Listen to this, from Matthew 23:23-33,
23 "Woe to you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have
neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness.
These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 24 You blind guides, straining out
a gnat and swallowing a camel! 25
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside
of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and
self-indulgence. 26 You blind
Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside
also may be clean. 27
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like
whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of
dead people's bones and all uncleanness.
28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but
within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. 29 "Woe to you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the
monuments of the righteous, 30
saying, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken
part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' 31 Thus you witness against
yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of
your fathers. 33 You
serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?
As we read that
it is important to remember that Jesus is God, He knew the hearts of His
audience, including the religious leaders! We only see the outside, God knows
the heart. Rather than seeing this as motivation to judge what we perceive to
be hypocrisy in others, we need to use this text as a mirror and turn it on
ourselves. Remember Jesus, after the resurrection, asking Peter (the man who
denied Him) “Peter, do you love me?” We
need to ask ourselves, do we love Him? Really? How then should we live? Paul said in Romans 12:9, “Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good.” The Proverb says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for from it are the well springs of
life…” (Prov 4:23).
Mark
says that “When Jesus entered the house
his disciples asked him about the parable.” My first reaction when I read
that was, “What parable?” Jesus’ teaching in vv.14-16 seemed so transparent, it
seemed to me self-evident. But apparently this was a little like Nicodemus in
John 3, “How can a man be born when he is
old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus
was speaking to Nicodemus about spiritual birth, and he wasn’t
elucidating the human digestive process to the crowd and to his disciples! He was speaking about the actions that
proceed from the attitudes of our heart. What comes out of us in terms of
our attitudes and actions? That is
the point in this passage: When God gives us a new heart in Jesus, our life
will begin to change, from the inside out!
III. The
principle illustrated:
Sin is a matter of the heart, it comes from the inside out (20-23).
20 And he said, "What comes out of
a person is what defiles him. 21
For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual
immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22
coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride,
foolishness. 23 All these
evil things come from within, and they defile a person."
Notice that the “sins” Jesus points to here focus on our sins that
typically involve or affect other people… (focusing on 5-10 of the Decalogue).
We see sexual sin, murder, adultery, coveting envy… Ultimately all sin is
against God, but our relationships with other humans expose what is really in
our hearts. God promised through Ezekiel a new covenant that would include a change
in our hearts, and so result in changed lives. He said in Ezekiel 36:25-27,
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you
shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will
cleanse you. 26 And I will
give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove
the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within
you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
Notice that it begins with cleansing,
God pronouncing us righteous by His grace. That is justification. This New
Covenant also speaks about regeneration, a new birth, a new creation
that includes a new heart. It also speaks of the gift of the Spirit, God
himself who is with us and in us, to guide our new heart in making choices and
decisions that bring glory to God. That is practical sanctification,
growing in holiness, and that is an ongoing process. When I read this my mind
went to Galatians 5 and the contrast between the works of the flesh and the
fruit of the Spirit. We read in Galatians 5:16-25,
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and
you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh
are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh,
for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want
to do. 18 But if you are led
by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality,
impurity, sensuality, 20
idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries,
dissensions, divisions, 21
envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you
before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control;
against such things there is no law. 24
And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions
and desires. 25 If we live
by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.
Notice that there is a statement in v.16, and
then an admonition in v.25. Do any of
you ever use a GPS when you drive? I do… all the time. Sometimes I decide to
take a different route than the GPS is suggesting. I never find it faster to to take the Betsy
Ross bridge, but sometimes my GPS wants to send me that way. Our new life in
Christ comes with a guidance system we can trust. It includes a new heart, and
it comes with a GPS… God’s Presence in the Spirit! If we “walk in the Spirit,” recognizing His
presence and yielding to His guidance, we will
not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. V.25 reminds us that our will is
involved, “…let us walk in the
Spirit…” We need to trust the
Spirit and not override God’s GPS! We can trust Him, and the fruit of the
Spirit will be evident in our lives. We read in Luke 6:43-45 that Jesus said,
43 "For no good tree bears bad
fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, 44 for each tree is known by its
own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked
from a bramble bush. 45 The
good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil
person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the
heart his mouth speaks.…”
A pure heart comes from spending time in the
Word of God and allowing the Spirit to apply the truth and to expose sin and
cleanse us. The transformation is ongoing, and it happens from the inside out.
People will notice by the way. Like it or not, if you name the name of Christ,
you are a living letter, seen and read of
men. We are His witnesses, good or bad, effective or ineffective.
What is God saying to me
in this passage?
When God gives us a new heart through faith in Jesus, our life will begin to change,
from the inside out! Jesus said in Matthew
5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for
they shall see God.” I like the way The Message puts it, "You're blessed when you get your inside
world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.”
That is the heart of the matter! A new heart through faith in Jesus, and our life changed
and changing, from the inside out!
What would
God have me to do in response to this passage? First,
let’s look inward…
1) Do
you ever find yourself “sitting on the outside, but still standing up in your
heart”? I think most of us do, at one
time or another. Why do we do that? Could it be that we too easily neglect the
inner matters of our hearts? For years I
had in my Bible an excerpt from a letter written on October 2, 1840 by Robert
Murray M’Cheyne to a young man leaving for missionary service in Germany.
“…I trust you will have a pleasant and
profitable time in Germany. I know you will apply hard to German; but do not
forget the culture of the inner man – I mean of the heart. How diligently the cavalry
officer keeps his saber clean and sharp; every stain he rubs off with the
greatest of care. Remember, you are God’s sword – His instrument – I trust a
chosen vessel unto Him to bear His name. In great measure, according to the
purity and perfection of the instrument, will be the success. It is not great
talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an
awesome weapon in the hand of God…”
M'Cheyne understood that fluency in German was
not as important as intimacy with God. Long term missionaries need to learn the
language of the people they are going to minister to, and they need to study
the culture so they can be more effective in reaching them. But most
important is nourishing their own relationship with God. I know from
experience that a growing, intimate relationship with God is something that we
cannot assume, and it is indispensable for life on the mission field. But listen:
that goes for home missionaries—and that includes us all—people called to reach
out to our friends, relatives, and neighbors. Don’t put it off. First, guard
your heart, for from it are the well springs of life… Then, as God allows,
there is no better time of than right now to look for opportunities to shift
the conversation to spiritual things. Let’s look outward…
2) You
might think, share my faith? I wouldn’t know what to say… Think of the
questions Mark has been answering: Who is Jesus? Why did He come? What does it
mean to follow Him? You have been thinking through your understanding of the answer
to those questions. We are only six or seven weeks away from Palm Sunday and
Easter (already!). What a great time to invite someone to come with you to hear
the music and the message of Christ crucified, risen, and coming again – the Gospel
is good news – the best news ever! Greater love has no man than this, that
He lay down His life for His friends… He died for us, and He arose… and that
changes everything… AMEN.
Comments
Post a Comment