“Inside Out” 2-27-22

Overview

Inside Out: The Real Source of the World's Mess

The world is a mess—and not only in the headlines. We see it in the naked aggression of an unprovoked invasion, in families torn apart, in children fleeing with backpacks while bombs fall. But we also see it closer to home: in our own thoughts, words, and deeds, in what we do to others and what others do to us. So what lies beneath it all? What is the fundamental problem that no political action can finally resolve?

In Mark 7:1-23, the Pharisees confront Jesus about His disciples eating with unwashed hands, charging them with violating "the tradition of the elders." That tradition had grown into a fence around the Law, eventually carrying the same authority as Scripture itself. Behind the complaint was a deeper assumption: that defilement comes from the outside in—that we are made unclean by what we touch, eat, or fail to ritually wash. The original purity laws of Leviticus had a real purpose: to set Israel apart and to teach that if outward purity was so demanding, spiritual purity is far more so. But the Pharisees had reduced holiness to performance. Quoting Isaiah 29:13, Jesus calls them hypocrites—a word that meant "actor," one who plays a part. They honored God with their lips while their hearts were far from Him.

Jesus turns the diagnosis inside out: "There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile." From within—from the human heart—come evil intentions: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, envy, slander, pride, folly. The problem is not our presentation; it is our core. Scripture never teaches that people are basically good. God deals not in better and worse but in perfect and fallen. The aggression we grieve in the world and the sin we confess in ourselves spring from the same root: a corrupted heart. This is why no law, treaty, or self-improvement program can finally heal what ails us.

David understood this. After his sin with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah, he did not call his actions a mistake or a bad day. In Psalm 51 he cried, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." That is the prayer Lent presses on us. As we enter Ash Wednesday, we are called to stop comparing ourselves to others and to honestly confess our sin in thought, word, and deed—what we have done and what we have left undone. And we are pointed to the only remedy: the Lord Jesus Christ, the pure in heart and sinless one, who bore our sin on the cross, absorbed the wrath of God in our place, and now works in us by His Spirit to make us new. We will not arrive this side of heaven; the old Adam lingers. But God is faithful, both to forgive us through the blood of Christ and to keep changing us until He brings us home. The gospel—not politics, not tradition, not pretense—is the word that gets to the heart of the matter, because the heart is where the matter lies.

Transcript

What's your open your Bible's please with me this morning to mark the 7th chapter. 2s

You'll find that on page 36 if you're using an edition of Holy Scripture, you'll find in 7s

the purest in front of you, mark the 7th chapter for our study today. 14s

We are literally, are we not seeing history unfold before our eyes this week. 20s

The naked aggression of an invasion into Ukraine. 27s

And it is the pictures of the faces of the Ukrainians that pierce the soul, does it not. 35s

It is the pictures of families being separated. 48s

The men 18 to 60 under law having to remain to fight. 50s

The families then making the decisions, do we stay together? 56s

Do we separate perhaps never see one another again? 59s

The images of people using a subway as a bomb shelter of trying to crowd onto transportation 66s

to escape little children with what they belong in a little backpack on their shoulders. 75s

As bombs drop and death occurs. 84s

We are literally seeing before our eyes history lived out. 90s

That those after us and historians after us will ponder and reflect upon. 97s

They said they a sad time in human history. 105s

The world is a mess. 112s

The world's a mess. 118s

But then again, the world has always been a mess since sin entered into the picture. 120s

And the messiness of the world is expressed not only in the larger country movements at times, 132s

but also individually in our own lives. 144s

Individually in our thoughts and our words in our deeds in our actions. 149s

And we can be a pole to can't we? 158s

And we should be. 160s

And we are in terms of what we see happening in Ukraine. 161s

And we say, how is it that humans can continually do this to other humans? 165s

It is the inhumanity that is so prevalent. 172s

But yet that is also witness individually in situations and stories of all people and all of us. 178s

In terms of what we do to others and what others do to us. 190s

Thoughts and words and deeds. 202s

The world is a mess. 208s

We see it so often in the movements of countries. 210s

And the world is a mess. 215s

We see it in our own lives. 218s

So what's the fundamental problem to this? 225s

What's the fundamental problem of it all? 229s

Because it goes beyond naked aggression of leaders and wanting to build their own empires. 233s

It goes beyond all that. 241s

There's something underneath it all. 243s

What is it that's underneath the expression of our own messiness in life? 245s

In terms of relations with others and their relations with us, what's underneath the phrase? 253s

The world of which we're all apart, obviously. 260s

What's underneath the phrase that the world is a mess? 265s

What's underneath it? 273s

Our text appointed for this Sunday in this series gets right at the issue. 276s

It's yet one more confrontation of the professional religious people with Jesus. 288s

There's been several already in the gospel of Mark. 294s

It's been confrontation over forgiveness and the ability to forgive. 298s

Confidentation over who Jesus is associating with, confrontation over fasting, 303s

confrontation over the Sabbath, confrontation over the casting out of demons. 309s

And all of a sudden we've got a different twist on this confrontation. 313s

Because now it comes to handwashing. 317s

But there's more here, much more. 321s

There what appears to be simply a hygiene issue. 325s

It's really not that at all. 329s

Look with me please. 332s

At verse 1 of chapter 7, 335s

Now when the Pharisees had come, some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him. 337s

They noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands that is without 343s

washing them. 352s

Leviticus outlines a whole series of what are called purity laws. 356s

Those were laws in which people were to be clean or unclean. 362s

And you could become unclean by what you touched or what you ate. 368s

And if you were then deemed unclean, sometimes it was simple as washing and waiting until the end of the day. 375s

Other times it involved a little bit more of offering a sacrifice of purification. 382s

There were these purity laws that abound it. 390s

And embedded in the purity laws was the purpose for why God gave them. 396s

The people of God through whom the Messiah was to be born were to be a separate people. 402s

They were to be different than the Gentile nations around them. 409s

And so all of the purity laws of cleanliness and what was making one unclean was to 414s

highlight the separate nature of the nation. 421s

But it was also to communicate that if it was so difficult to be richly pure, 424s

how much more difficult would it be to be spiritually pure? 433s

That's why God gave the purity laws. 439s

But the Pharisees, the Pharisees go a few yards further than that. 444s

Look when you please. 455s

At first three. 456s

For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, 459s

thus observing the tradition of the elders. 464s

They do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it. 467s

There are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze 471s

kettles. 476s

So the Pharisees in the scribes asked him, why do your disciples not live 478s

according to the tradition of the elders but eat with defiled hands? 483s

There we are. 491s

The tradition of the elders. 494s

The tradition of the elders was a compilation of teaching of rabbis. 499s

And it began to have and at this point did, the same authority as scripture. 507s

So you had the Old Testament and the tradition of the elders 519s

and there on the same plain. 526s

The tradition of the elders was created to be like a fence for the belief was. 531s

In order to keep from breaking the law, recorded in Holy Scripture, 539s

the rabbis put a fence around the law with a whole bunch of other laws 545s

to try and keep you from breaking the law. 552s

So they erected this fence here to try and protect the law. 555s

It was the tradition of the elders. 564s

But you see, the Pharisees viewed the issue as, 570s

there has to be that which is outside that makes someone clean. 575s

They called it a father of defilement. 580s

That one became unclean by what came from the outside. 584s

One was unclean according to the Pharisees from the outside 593s

in. 601s

What did Jesus think of that approach? 605s

Look on the please, at verse 6. 611s

He said to them, Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites as it is written. 616s

This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 624s

In vain, do they worship me? 629s

Teaching human precepts as doctrines. 632s

You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition. 635s

That word there, where Jesus turns and calls them hypocrites, 644s

in ancient Greek, classical Greek, that's the word for actor. 647s

That's the playing of a part. 651s

That's pretending to be someone that you're not. 653s

In the Gospel of Luke, the 12th chapter, Jesus said, 657s

beware of the yeast of the Pharisees. 661s

That is their hypocrisy. 664s

Jesus' numbers are all so distinction between the lips and the heart. 670s

The lip is that which is on the surface. 673s

The heart is the core of the being. 675s

Jesus says, you give me lip service. 678s

You praise me here with your lips, but it doesn't go any farther than the surface. 681s

It's not a part of the core. 686s

It's not a part of the decision-making. 687s

It's not a part of the heart. 690s

You give me nothing but lip service. 692s

And what you do is you replace the commandments of God 694s

with your human traditions. 698s

He goes on to say, inverse 14, then he called the crowd again and said to them, 703s

listen to me, all of you and understand, there's nothing outside a person 709s

that by going in can defile. 715s

But the things that come out are what defile. 717s

Jesus says, you understand, don't you? 728s

That it's not about issues of the father of defilement. 733s

You understand, Jesus says, that we are unclean. 740s

For you are unclean, not from what comes from the outside, 745s

but what comes from the inside. 755s

Jesus says, you're unclean, not from the outside in, 762s

but from the inside. 770s

Out. 775s

Jesus then, like an x-ray, 781s

boars into all of the dirty laundry. 787s

He says, verse 21, it's from within, 794s

from the human heart that evil intentions come. 800s

Fornication, theft, murder, adultery, 808s

Everest, wickedness, deceit, by sensuousness, envy, slender, pride, 812s

folly, all these evil things come from within and they defile. 821s

It's all the behaviors. 831s

It's all of the attitudes. 833s

It's not the flick of that which comes from the outside. 838s

It comes from the core of human's are. 844s

The problem is sin. 853s

It's self. 858s

The heart is corrupted. 862s

Jesus says, the problem is inside. 867s

We're tempted to try and act exactly opposite of that, aren't we? 880s

We're tempted to try and act as if the problem, the messiness, 884s

the sinfulness of human life is simply that which is on the outside. 890s

And so we put on the masks, we become the actors, we can play the parts 895s

to try and desperately convince ourselves what good people we are. 900s

I'm going to talk in my lesson today in between ours about Anne Frank, 907s

who believed that all humans were basically good. 911s

We want to believe that, don't we? 917s

But what is the witness of Holy Scripture? 919s

The witness of Holy Scripture never says that. 921s

Or we can do good things, but are we good? 925s

No God deals with the category of perfect or bad. 930s

Those are the categories that God deals with. 933s

And so the mistaken belief that somehow we are all basically good runs absolutely 937s

contrary to the witness of Scripture. 943s

When Jesus says, your problem, your problem isn't how you present yourself, 946s

your problem isn't trying to be right. 952s

Just your problem is with your heart. 955s

It's at the very core of your being. 958s

It's who you are. 961s

And that then expresses itself. 966s

That expresses itself in the naked aggression of invading a country. 971s

Unprovoked. 987s

There's no just war that theologians can maintain. 989s

Exist, there's no just war here. 995s

This is naked aggressive evil that comes from where? 997s

From the heart. 1006s

This is not a political difference. 1011s

This isn't any of that. 1013s

It's a hard issue. 1015s

That's lived out. 1018s

And in our sinfulness, in our thoughts, in our words, and our deeds, 1024s

it's a hard issue, isn't it? 1034s

Because it comes from within us. 1039s

This is coming Wednesday. 1055s

We enter into Ash Wednesday. 1058s

Ash Wednesday is an important time in the life of the congregation. 1062s

Because it forces us, the whole season of length. 1068s

It forces us to reevaluate ourselves. 1071s

Bibliically and honestly. 1079s

To take in a new seriousness, the words where we say, 1083s

we have sinned against you and thought, word, indeed, what we've done, and what we've left 1089s

undone. 1096s

It forces us to look at ourselves instead of comparing ourselves to others. 1097s

But to look at our own sinfulness. 1105s

I think of Psalm 51. 1112s

That's how Ash Wednesday begins every year. 1115s

Here was David. He's committed adultery with Meshiiba. 1119s

He's arranged for the murder of Bethsheba's wife. 1123s

Bethsheba is pregnant. He's going to cover it all up. 1127s

God raises up the prophet who confronts David with his sin and David by the grace of God is brought to 1131s

repentance. And he writes Psalm 51, he says, have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, 1138s

according to your abundant mercy, blood out my transgressions. 1147s

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. 1152s

I know my transgressions. My sin is ever before me against you. You alone have I sined. 1158s

And done what is evil in your sight so that you are justified in your sentence and blame 1166s

less when you pass judgment. Indeed, I was born guilty a sinner when my mother conceived me. 1172s

Then he says, create in me a clean heart, O God, create in me a clean heart. He understands what 1180s

the problem is. The problem is what it's not this, I made a mistake with Bethsheba. 1190s

I made a mistake in arranging for the murder of your riot. That was a mistake. It wasn't one of 1199s

my better days. No, this is David saying, I know what the problem is and the problem is me. 1203s

The problem is me. The problem is my heart. It's me. 1210s

Created me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. 1218s

Forgive me and change me and change me. 1228s

The Lord Jesus Christ does just that. The Lord Jesus Christ who is pure and heart, the sinless 1246s

one bears all of our sin upon the cross. He pays the death. He pays the death. He takes the 1259s

wrath of God upon himself. The pure and heart, the Lord Jesus Christ, takes on our sinfulness 1270s

that goes to our core. He says to us, forgive it. And then he is at work in our lives to change 1283s

us. Do we ever arrive this side of heaven? Absolutely not. Will the old Adam and old 1299s

Eve linger around? Absolutely. They will. But God is at work. Not only communicating the 1306s

cleanliness that is ours through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, but also communicating that He 1317s

is at work to put in us a new and right spirit to work at our hearts. That's grace, isn't it? 1323s

It's grace. We will watch in the days ahead, more of the horror thousands of miles away. 1344s

And we will be a people that understand what is the fundamental issue there? 1365s

The fundamental issue is sin. The fundamental issue is the heart. And we will see in our own lives, 1373s

the messiness of our own expressions of the messiness of the world. And we are reminded a new 1391s

of what the fundamental issue is. Our heart. But God at work in us, reminding us of the forgiveness 1399s

and reminding us of His changing of us until the day that He takes us home. 1418s

He reminds us that He has given us the word. Us the word that gets to the fundamental problem 1427s

that can never be resolved politically. It will never be resolved through political action 1442s

because it's a matter of the heart not the laws. He gives to us the word that addresses the 1453s

issue of the messiness of the world. And that is the gospel. 1466s

Because that's the word. That brings that glorious good news of a cleaning. That's the word 1478s

that God uses to change us. Maybe be faithful in using the tool that God has given us the gospel. 1493s

And may we hear with one united chorus around the world, a world cry, 1513s

create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me. 1524s