Sermon Cloud

TEXT

Mark 7:1-23: "Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, 2 they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands, holding to the tradition of the elders, 4 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.) 5 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?' 6 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; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." 8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.' 9 And he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! 10 For Moses said, "Honor your father and your mother"; and, "Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die." 11 But you say, "If a man tells his father or his mother, Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban" (that is, given to God)-- 12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.' 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 (OMITTED TEXT) 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.) 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.'"

This particular passage shows Jesus arguing and debating with religious and political elites. He never picked a fight unless it was necessary. We have to keep the entire theme together with this whole passage to get the gist of what Jesus is getting at.

STUDY

Verses 1-5: "Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, 2 they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands, holding to the tradition of the elders, 4 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.) 5 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?'"

Q-Why do you think Mark gives this explanation in parentheses?

A-Mark was writing this Gospel to Romans who knew little about all of the clean laws in the OT.

Q-Why do you think the Pharisees were so concerned with clean hands?

A-They saw clean hands as a sign of holiness.

Psalms 24:3-4: "Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully."

God desires clean hands and a pure heart. However, clean hands don't necessarily produce a pure heart as evidenced by Jesus' reaction their question. A pure heart is the only thing that will ultimately create clean hands (holy living), not the other way around. Clean hands without a pure heart will only make you self-loathing or judgmental and hateful towards others.

Q-What is good about the Pharisees' zeal to be clean?

A-They realized that holiness was important, desired to be holy, and were zealous for righteous deeds.

Q-What is so damaging about the Pharisees' zeal to be clean?

A-By adding traditions to the Law, they actually make it manageable and attainable and fail to see the weight of the Law. They actually become law-breakers and unholy in their zeal to be holy.

A-They had a wrong standard of defiled hands because they were the ones that determined you should wash your hands before eating, not God. Their judgment of the disciples was based upon their tradition, not God's Word.

Q-In what ways do Christians, in their zeal to be holy, create traditions not found in God's Word to judge others by?

A-Kind of music, worship styles, movies, what we wear, how little or how much money we make, vegetarians vs. carnivores, birth methods, diets, the books we read, where we live, what we drive, our friends, parenting methods, education (home school vs. public or private), whether we raise our hands or not during praise, etc..

A-However, this doesn't mean that the Bible doesn't speak to each of these issues. The point is that when we go beyond the Bible to create additional rules not give in Scripture that we can get into great danger.

Q-Is there such a thing as being defiled and unclean?

Q-How would you know whether your feeling of being unclean is legitimate or not?

A-By being soaked in God's Word and growing in our understanding of the gospel.

We all have a sense of being spiritual unclean and defiled. This is a universal problem.

The Pharisees were upset because Jesus' disciples refused to keep the clean laws. However, these cleans laws were given in the OT so that you wouldn't just stroll in before God to worship Him. The Priests had to wash their hands and feet before entering the Tabernacle. If you touched a dead person or animal you couldn't enter for a week. If you had diarrhea, had blood or puss, or even mildew on your utensils you weren't allowed to enter to worship until you were cleansed. There were foods you weren't allowed to eat that bring disease, like shellfish and other kinds of food. Anything that defiled you or made you diseased or sick kept you from worshipping God.

The worshipper in the OT had a similar relationship that a doctor would have if he were going to operate on someone. A doctor couldn't perform an autopsy and then stroll in and perform surgery on someone unless he scrubbed up and got clean. A doctor has his own rite of purification.

The clean laws taught something important. Sin does the same thing to the soul that dirt, disease, and decay do to the body. Dirt, disease, and decay isolate and alienate you from others (think of someone with a particularly contagious disease or how we treat the homeless because of the smell and dirt). Sin does this to relationships as it defiles the person and defiles us socially. Infection and decay tear the body apart, so sin tears the soul down and decays it.

Simply put, sin defiles us. It alienates and destroys us. It makes us unclean. This idea seems so outdated doesn't it? The idea that some things are dirty and others clean are not allowable in most social circles, yet we all know and experience what it feels like to be stained and defiled don't we?

1 John 1:8, 10: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us...10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."

Q-When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, what's the first thing they did?

A-They tried to cover their shame by sewing together fig leaves to hide their sense of nakedness.

Q-What did they do next?

A-They hid from God.

Sin defiles and causes us to feel unclean. Sin makes us shamed and want to hide from one another and God. Our sense of being naked, shamed, and defiled causes us to want to sew together our own fig leaves to hide our defilement.

Q-What was the Gospel back in the Garden in Genesis 3?

A-God's promise to send someone who will come to destroy our enemy?

Q-Did God allow them to remain covered by their own work?

A-No, God had to kill an animal as a substitute for their shame, and covered them by His own hands.

We're all washing. We're all spiritually OCD and trying to perpetually clean ourselves in various ways.

Q- What are some of the ways people are attempting to clean themselves?

Q- What are some of the ways you are trying to clean yourself? (This is much harder isn't it? It is easier to see how others are trying to clean themselves that it is to see your own attempts. This is why we need community).

Jesus shows us in this next passage, 6-13, how we attempt to clean ourselves by raising up attainable traditions and lowering God's Law.

Verses 6-13: "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; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." 8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.' 9 And he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! 10 For Moses said, "Honor your father and your mother"; and, "Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die." 11 But you say, "If a man tells his father or his mother, Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban" (that is, given to God)-- 12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.'"

Q-Why does Jesus answer their question so harshly and call them hypocrites?

Q-How do you think Jesus feels about hypocrites from this passage?

Jesus gives us an example of how we're trying to make ourselves clean. We're all trying to do self-cleansing. We all find a way to try and clean ourselves.

In this next passage, Jesus gives us a harsh analysis of how the Pharisees were trying to clean themselves, which teaches us in many ways how we do the same. We shouldn't pick on the Pharisees because the things they do, we do.

The disciples went against the traditions of the elders. These were teachings that were elaborated from God's Word and attempted to extrapolate out certain principles to make them binding upon us.

For example, when a Priest went in to worship in the Tabernacle, only the priests were required to wash their hands and feet before they went in to worship. However, the elders decided that since this was good for the priests, then it was probably good for the whole congregation to do the same. Then they began to say it was good and safe if you washed your hands before you prayed. Then all the ceremonial laws were picked part and put into a commentary and tradition called the Hallakah. This was not God's Word, but was tradition handed down and imposed by the elders.

As these rules became more and more imposed upon the worshipper, the real law was actually negated. This was Jesus' example about honoring your mother and father, and how in having men follow the traditions of Corban (setting aside everything for God) you would then be excused from having to care for your mom and dad. Jesus' point was that they held their traditions in higher esteem that God's Word.

In verses 22 and 23, Jesus shows how all-encompassing the Law is. He shows that from within, out of the heart comes evil thoughts which lead to evil deeds. Jesus is teaching, as He did in the Sermon on the Mount, that these outward actions are always preceded by an inward heart attitude. We are just as much murders if we've hated our brothers as if we actually murdered them with our hands. Murder in the heart happens first. We are just as much adulterers and fornicators if we first have lusted in our hearts after someone. We covet because greed, envy and jealousy is birthed in our hearts (desires) first. We lie and bear false witness because of our pride. This is a radical principle.

However, this is not an exclusive problem to the Pharisees. We do the same thing with God's Word. When we read about God's call for His people to live a particular type of life together, with a particular attitude towards one another and social ethic, usually what we do is find those verses that we're quite comfortable with to judge others, but then negate those that we think are outdated or perhaps with which we simply disagree. We all do what the Pharisees do. We all love to edit God's Word.

If you're a conservative, you take parts of the Law of God and you lift them up-like heresy or morality, alcohol or movies-while all but ignoring materialism, greed, or even environmental responsibility and prejudice.

If you're a liberal, you take other parts of God's Law and lift them up-like social responsibility, tolerance towards others, and radical inclusiveness-while all but ignoring personal accountability and responsibility, Law-keeping, etc.

With both of these sides, you lift up only part of God's Law, the parts that you like and want to use to further your cause, and you make it attainable and manageable.

If you're an independent or a libertarian, you think both sides are whacked out and you attempt to create an alternate vision of this world shaped in your own ideology while looking down upon both groups.

What each of them has in common is their need to hoist up their particular law, which is attainable for them and manageable by them, and judge others by it. All of them look down their nose at the other because that's how they feel clean. They have a law they can keep that others aren't, and they judge others for their failure and in so doing, make themselves clean.

Inside Man

There is a great movie called Inside Man with Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer and Clive Owen. The story is about a man, Clive Owen's character named Dalton Russell, who robs a bank and takes hostages. But as you watch the film, you realize that the robbers aren't simply interested in the diamonds in the safety deposit boxes for the money, but have other motives. The man who built and owns the bank, Arthur Case played by Christopher Plummer, has past sins that are hidden in that bank and the robbers are trying to find them and bring out the proof. The robber, Dalton Russell (Clive Owen), in a conversation says, "All lies, all evil deeds stink. You can cover them up for a while, but they don't go away."

Later in the film, the man who owns the bank explains that he got rich in Germany doing business with the Nazis during the holocaust. He admits this and says, "It was 60 years ago, I was young and ambitious. I saw a short path to success and I took it. I sold my soul, and I've been trying to buy it back ever since."

He later says, "I've spent my whole life serving humanity. You can ask anyone who knows me, they'll vouch for me and the things I've done." What was he doing? He was trying to self-clean by keeping the law once he realized he was wrong. He gave to charity and served humanity, all in an effort to self-cleanse.

But this is ultimately what sin does. It deceives us into thinking that we can scrub ourselves clean. Sin then can be defined as building your life, identity, hope and salvation on anything but Jesus. It isn't a lack of faith; it is a placing of your faith on something other than God: your intellect, your looks, your health, or your achievements.

In the movie Rocky, his girlfriend asks him why he has to "go the distance" in his main fight. Rocky replies, "Then I'll know I'm not a bum." In Chariots of Fire, one of the main characters explains why he works so hard at running the hundred-yard dash for the Olympics. He responds and says when each race begins, "I have ten seconds to justify my existence." Both Rocky and the runner are trying to find ways to make their lives count, to make themselves feel clean, to justify themselves.

But Jesus, however, likes to wreck our little self-cleaning projects and expose them for what they are.

Verses 14-23: "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 (OMITTED TEXT) 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.) 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.'"

The Village

Do you remember the movie The Village by M. Night Shyamalan? What was the reason the leaders of the village decided to lock themselves away from the world? Because they thought that sin came from outside a man. They were affected by sin in the world, so they created an alternate world, one they could control, and basically dug a mote, filled it up, and drew up the bridge to the world so they would be untainted by it.

What was the big "aha!" of the film? Someone attempts murder in their perfect little village. Someone that everyone thought was the sweetest and most innocent, out of jealousy. This showed them that their desire to protect innocence was impossible because sin was in the camp, not outside of it.

Jesus lays down the principle in verse 15, 18 and 23. He says it's not what goes into a person that makes you unclean, but what goes out. It's not from outside in, it's inside out that makes you unclean.

This is why you can't clean yourself because it isn't about scrubbing up or keeping yourself from things or people that will ultimately make us clean.

If you believe that defilement comes from the outside in, then working hard enough and keeping yourself from defilement will make you clean. So we create rules and regulations, traditions and stupid man-laws.

What we're not saying is that you shouldn't be wise, or you shouldn't keep yourself from sin. But realize that sin is not out there, it's in you! It comes from the inside out. This was James' point:

James 1:14-15: "But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death."

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

In Robert Louis Stevenson's book The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, you begin to see how hideous self-cleansing and attempts at self-righteousness are played out.

Dr. Jekyll, in this book, comes to realize that he is a mix of both good and evil in his heart and it begins to eat away at him. He wants his evil nature to go away. He thinks his bad nature is holding him back from doing good things. His hope is that his good self will win out and he'll be free from evil in his heart. So he creates a potion to separate his good nature and evil nature from one another, so that the good can win out and destroy the evil nature. However, he comes to see when he drinks his potion, that he's far more evil than he expected. He describes himself:

I knew myself, at first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine...[Hyde's] every act and though centered on self.

This hidden Hyde, when it is shown in him, is far more evil than he could imagine. He only thinks of himself and his own desires; he doesn't care at all who he hurts to gratify himself. He'll kill if someone gets in his way. What the author of the book is saying is that the best of people try to hide from themselves what is within by self-cleansing. They try to hide that enormous capacity for selfishness, self-absorption, and self-consumed passions.

Later, Dr. Jekyll realizes that he has this dark evil in him so he decides with all his might to rid himself of his self-centeredness and pride at the core of his being. He basically "gets religion" and starts to self-clean to smother out his evil nature.

One day, Dr. Jekyll is sitting on a bench in the park, thinking about all the good he's been doing, and how much better he was, despite Mr. Hyde inside of him. He sees himself as better than the vast majority of other people. Then the book says:

I resolved in my future conduct to redeem the past; and I can say with honesty that my resolve was fruitful of some good. You know how earnestly, in the last months of the last year, I labored to relieve suffering; you know that much was done for others...[But as] I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active goodwill with the lazy cruelty of their neglect...at the very moment of that vain-glorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most dreadful shuddering...I looked down...I was once more Edward Hyde.

For the first time Dr. Jekyll becomes Mr. Hyde involuntarily, without the potion, and this is the beginning of the end. Unable to control his transformations any more, Dr. Jekyll kills himself.

Jekyll knows he's a sinner, so he tries desperately to cover his sin with great stacks of good works. Yet all his efforts, instead of shriveling his pride and self-centeredness, only worsen them. Jekyll becomes Hyde, not because he didn't try to become good, but because of his goodness.

This is why Jesus is harsh towards the Pharisees in this passage. It is not only damaging, but destructive to the soul. Despite all their attempts to become clean and righteous, despite all their traditions to go beyond the law, they are in more despair and are far more hideous than they could ever imagine. So much so that they are deluded into thinking they're holy. That's how deceitful self-cleansing is.

They can't pray as much as they should. They can't serve their neighbors and much as they should. They aren't keeping their thoughts as pure as they should. They're not loving as they ought. All of this results in an overwhelming anxiety, insecurity, and irritability that leads to far worse sin than even those who aren't religious.

The Pharisee in all of us doesn't just damage our hearts and souls, it tears apart our community and society and does incredible damage to the progress of the gospel. Pharisees have to protect their righteousness, so they despise and attack any who oppose their practices or doctrinal beliefs. Churches are filled with self-righteous, intolerant, insecure, selfish, angry moralistic Pharisees who are incredibly unattractive.

This creates conflicts, gossip, slander, malice, bitterness, divisions and eventually church splits.

Q-How do we do this as Christians? How do we do this to one another?

There has to be a different way. There is, and this is what Jesus was getting at when He picked the fight.

Q-How do we get out of this cycle of hypocrisy and self-cleansing?

A-Jesus declared all foods clean.

Q-What is the gospel in this passage?

A-Verses 18b-19: "‘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.)"

A-Jesus makes everything clean again.

Q-How could Jesus declare the foods clean that God said we should stay away from?

A-Jesus said, "I do not come to abolish the Law, but fulfill it" (Matt. 5:17). Jesus is the fulfillment of what the food laws all pointed towards. Disease, defilement, and decay kept us from God. God was telling us that we had to be clean. Jesus is telling us there is a way to be clean that all these laws pointed to. They pointed to Him. Jesus wasn't saying that the Law wasn't important, but that it was so important, that God was so Holy, so pure, so clean, that He had to come and fulfill all the Law himself. The Pharisees made the Law lower, not higher. Jesus is showing that there is only one way to be clean, through Him. This is seen in Zechariah 3.

A-Zechariah

There is an incredible scene in Zechariah 3 that doesn't make any sense until Jesus accomplishes what it was speaking about. In this scene, God shows Zechariah a vision of Joshua, the high priest, standing before him with Satan standing at his right side accusing him.

Then it says something really shocking, and would have been unthinkable for a Jewish prophet.

Zechariah 3:3: "Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments."

Zechariah 3:4-5: "And the angel said to those who were standing before him, ‘Remove the filthy garments from him.' And to him he said, ‘Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.' 5 And I said, ‘Let them put a clean turban on his head.' So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the LORD was standing by."

Zechariah 3:8: "Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, for they are men who are a sign: behold, I will bring my servant the Branch."

Zechariah 3:9: "For behold...I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day."

This is Joshua, the high priest of the time. The only time Joshua would be in these kinds of garments would have been one day a year. The priest would enter into a part of the Temple where God's glory dwelt called the Holiest of Holies. The day was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

When Zechariah saw this scene, he would have understood it was the Day of Atonement.

We know from the Mishnah and other Semitic literature what would occur the week prior to this day. One week before, the high priest would go to an apartment in the temple and leave his family so that he wouldn't get in contact with anything that was unclean.

During this week he would practice for the Day of Atonement. One the night before, he would stay up all night praying, and the other leaders would be with him to help him stay up and stay strong.

On the Day of Atonement, he would get up throughout the day would wash five times from head to foot in public, behind a screen. The people wanted to make sure that their advocate, their high priest, the one who was going to bring a sacrifice in was clean and would be absolutely pure. He wouldn't dress in the normal high priestly garments, he would wear pure white linen when he went in that was bright and clean.

Then, he would make a sacrifice for his own sin, bathe and get changed again. Then he would make a sacrifice for the other priests that helped him that day, then he would bathe and get changed again. Finally they would take a goat that was perfectly clean in every way, and lay their hands on it, confess their sins and send it out of the camp as a scape goat. Another goat was taken, they would lay their hands upon the head of the goat and confess the sins of the people and they would sacrifice that goat for the sins of the people. These sacrifices would happen multiple times, over and over again.

Here Zechariah sees Joshua, the high priest, and instead of his clothing being white and clean, it says that he was wearing filthy garments. But the word used for filthy is a word that means excrement. He was clothed in garments that were soiled with excrement. They were unclean and filthy before God.

What God was doing was showing Zechariah how clean the cleanest of our garments really look to Him. All the washing, all the purification, all the ritual still falls short before Him. God is looking for a purified heart and that is not something we can do ourselves.

But instead of killing Joshua, the story says that He gave him pure garments and a clean turban and it says that He took away Joshua's iniquity. He took away Joshua's sin!

Then He promised in verse 9 that one day He was going to send forth His servant, a branch, who will take away the sins in one day! Zechariah didn't fully comprehend this, but we know what it means now because of Jesus don't we?

We know a perfect One that came. When He showed up as our high priest, what happened to him? It was the opposite of Joshua. He had a week of preparation before the sacrifice. The night before, He stayed up all night, but His followers instead of helping Him pray, slept. He was utterly alone. No one supported Him and prayed for Him. Then when He went to make a sacrifice, He wasn't clothed, He was stripped naked. He wasn't given a perfumed bath by the priests, but the perfume from a prostitute. His bath became the spit of the people who mocked Him.

Then finally, instead of getting beautiful garments to cover Him, he was clothed with the filth of the world, the excrement of our records was placed upon Him. He was then taken out of the city where they brought all the dead things and he was killed on Calvary.

Why? So we could be clothed in white linen and cleansed forever before God. This is what Revelations says.

Revelation 19:7-8: "‘Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; 8 it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure'-- for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints."

We're clothed because He was stripped naked. We're cleansed because He was spit upon. We have fellowship with God because He was abandoned.

1 John 1:9: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Now we can stand before the Father, absolutely beautiful! He declared all foods clean by fulfilling all the clean laws in Himself.