Mark 7:14-23

And I wonder what have they figured out that the rest of us haven't figured out yet? But a good news, if you're dragging this morning, I'm a little nearsighted. So unless you clearly just fall over in your seat, I'm not going to notice if your, your eyes flutter a little bit. Uh, I hope you have your Bible this morning in some form and whether it's on your phone or your paper Bible and I invite you to open up to mark chapter seven while you're opening to the gospel of Mark Chapter Seven.

Just two events this week in the news that caught my attention and kind of crystallized as I was studying and praying through this text. And they may not seem related, but, but I'll see if I can't bring it together. The first one comes out of my home state of Colorado. You may have heard of the baker, uh, that the cake, Baker Jack Phillips of masterpiece cake shop. Uh, he has been in a seven year battle with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

He, uh, bakes cakes for anyone, does not discriminate but refuse to create a cake. Celebrating what to him. And to me was not a biblical marriage, a marriage between a man and a woman. Somebody came to him wanting something outside of that bounds and he said, you know, I'll bake you any cake you want, but I can't participate in what I don't believe is a biblical marriage.

And because he took that biblical stand on the definition of marriage, uh, and did not want to use his right of free expression and creating a masterpiece of cake for that. He has been in my view, persecuted by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission over the last seven years and even though that case went up to the United States supreme court and he was vindicated in his right of free expression has, is freedom of religion.

The Colorado Civil Rights Commission subsequently continued to persecute him pursuing yet another complaint against him based upon his stance of, of a, of again, a biblical definition of, of, of sexuality and members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission have labeled him because of his views as, and I quote, a despicable person and they've labeled what comes out of, he says in his defense of biblical marriage and Biblical sexuality as hate speech. Now hold on to that picture.

Let me give you another picture that came up in the news this week and you see the picture of our vice president Mike Pence up on the screen this week. The former vice president, Joe Biden was speaking to a group and he referenced Vice President Mike Pence and made the remark and offhand remark that he is a a decent guy, a decent guy.

You think that remark would just fly right under the radar, but no certain ends of the political spectrum said, how can Mike pence who takes a biblical stand upon what is marriage a biblical stand upon? What is biblical sexuality? How can he be a decent person? He is not a good person.

Both of these, what they have in common is they have at least one end of the political spectrum but it happens at the other end of this political spectrum is well one end of the political spectrum saying because of the position you take because of the beliefs that you hold, you can't possibly be a good person.

You are a bad person because of the position that you take and the position that you articulate and again, while that happened at the progressive end of the political spectrum, it happens at the opposite and the conservative end as well. Labeling people for their beliefs, for their stance as either good people or bad people based upon where you stand on the spectrum. And by the way, that doesn't happen just in the political spectrum that happens as well.

Even when we think of people in our church culture, we are quick as we'll see to label people based upon what we see externally, what we see them, hear them saying, what we see them doing, who we see them with. We are quick to label people to jump to judgments about that as a good person or that is a bad person and that really raises the question that I think Jesus addresses in our text today. What makes a person a good person? What makes a person a bad person?

That is essentially what Jesus is addressing. In Mark Chapter Seven Verses 14 through 23 let me read now from God's word spoken to us, submitting the crowd again. Jesus told them, listen to me, all of you and understand nothing that goes into a person from outside can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him. If anyone has ears to hear, he should listen.

Verse 17 when he went into the house away from the crowd, the disciples asked him about the parable and he said to them, are you also as lacking and understanding as the crowd, as the Pharisees? Don't you realize that nothing going into a man from the outside can defile him for it doesn't go into his heart, but into the stomach and is eliminated. Then Mark, the Gospel writer, adds the parenthetical. As a result, Jesus made all foods clean.

Then Jesus said, what comes out of a person that defiles him for from within out of a person's, out of people's hearts come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, these thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a person. Let me just give you a little bit of the context.

If you were here last week and when we were doing the first 13 verses of chapter seven you saw this, but chapter seven began with an exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees and the scribes over what they took issue with. They took issue in verse two that they had seen some of Jesus's disciples were eating their bread with impure hands that is unwashed.

They took issue with the fact that Jesus did not instruct his disciples to follow their traditions, their extrabiblical going beyond what scripture ever has said. Going beyond that and imposing rules and regulations for what to do to be a good person, to be a clean person. You go through these ritual washings before you eat your food. If you're going to be a good Jew, and if you don't, you're not a good Jew. You are a bad Jew. You are an unclean Jew. You are a bad or unclean person.

Now we saw last week, Jesus didn't directly, he didn't defend his position about why his disciples, why he didn't have his disciples eat with an unclean hands. In fact, he goes for the kill that we saw last week in verses six through 13 he attacks their tradition. That's what last week was all about what we billed outside of scripture. He attacked their tradition as a source of authority for declaring a person to be unclean or clean, good or bad.

And now in our text this morning, 14 through 23 he goes beyond that and now he explicitly rejects the idea that a person can become unclean, a bad person by anything external or the reverse is true as well. That a person can be a good person or a clean person by anything that is external. We'll see a little bit more about that in a minute.

You know, Jesus's disciples are with them here and again there is what he says is to the crowd and then there is the private conversation that he has with them. They had by this point, they had stopped washing their hands ritually. They'd stopped observing that tradition. Why? Because as we saw last week, Jesus doesn't have an issue with tradition unless that tradition is so disconnected from any scriptural purpose.

So ignores really God's true purposes that it actually becomes contrary to God's purposes and scripture. And that's what Jesus rejected in their ritual. Washings. So the disciples had stopped washing their hands. They were coming to understand this, this idea of traditions versus actually what's in God's Word and God's purposes. But they're still confused as I was when I first read this text. If Jesus is rejecting these traditions, then what makes a person unclean?

What makes a person clean or unclean? What makes a person good or bad? If, if it, if, if we're outside the realm of these rules and regulations that they set up. So let's ask that question cause it's not just valid to the disciples. It's valid to you and me. What makes a person good or bad? Is it, is that what you do that makes you good or bad? Can I or someone else look at you in the behaviors that you engage in?

And can we make a determinative, conclusive, um, uh, decision about whether you are a good person or a bad person? Is that who you associate with? Can we look at the character of the people that are your friends or your family members? And, and we can put you in a category, then you're a good person or you're a bad person based upon who you hang with, who you spend time with. Uh, is it what you expose yourself to?

Can we look at what you read and what you look on at online and what you watch on, uh, on TV or youtube? And can we draw some conclusions about whether you are definitively a good person or a bad person that is in essence the, the position of the Pharisees and, and later the rabbis and, and basically that they posed a universe in which all of us, we're not inherently good or bad.

We have good tendencies and bad tendencies in us, like two dogs fighting each other, you know, the, the good dog and the bad dog. Those two tendencies. And depending on which dog you feed more, you know, you become either a more and more of a good person or more and more of our bad person. So you know, what is it that the Pharisees said? It's important to make sure that you adhere to this list of our traditional, our traditions, our rules.

If you want to be a good person, it is important that you, that you don't be with those people, that, that you don't associate with those people. If you want to be a good person, a clean person, it is important what you expose yourself, whether to be a good person or a bad person and that that is the view of many today that whether you thought about it or not, it's probably the view of some of you. I mean, I couldn't pick you out, but that is so much part of our culture.

It's in the air that we breathe, that that is the way many of us think. You know, I'm not necessarily good or bad. I've got tendencies of both in my heart. I could go either way and by a decision of my will, I can become more and more of a good person or either the lack of decision or a bad decisions of my will. I become more and more of a bad person and that's the way we are taught to think about human nature. But Jesus teaches us another veal and he teaches us in what mark calls a parable.

Verse 15 you may not think of this as a parable. Mark identifies it as a parable. It's really short compared to all of Jesus's others parables, but it is a parable as we'll see. Here's the parable. Nothing that goes into a person from outside can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him. Well that that has the simple elements of a parable.

It takes a, a physical illustration, our bodies and what we eat and what happens to what we eat and how that affects us and it draws moral, ethical, spiritual truth from that, that that illustration and and really the point that that Jesus is making weather the crowd. Got it or not, probably doubtful is you're not made morally, spiritually unclean by what you eat.

You're not made a good person or a bad person based upon what you put into your body or whether you wash your hands before you eat something that you're putting in your body. Now, he doesn't give any more explanation to the whole crowd and, and they probably don't get it. I didn't get it the first time I read this and his disciples clearly didn't get it because in verse 18 later, when they are in private with him, they ask him to explain this, this parable.

And here's his explanation in verse 18 don't you realize that nothing going into a man from the outside can defile him. Here's the expansion of the parable because it doesn't go into your heart. It goes into your stomach, it goes through the digestive system and the digestive process and it goes into the toilet and it is gone. It does not stay with you.

Jesus is saying, you know, things can impact us physically, but because they pass through us that doesn't have any moral or ethical, uh, effect with, but that was the understanding of that day that you could become polluted. Let me give you an example from, from something I enjoy. I mentioned this before, but I try at least once a year to get over onto the Appalachian trail. Uh, I love long distance backpacking and so I'll go out for four or five, six days at a time to cover a lengthy distance.

And I'm often asked, you know, what do you do for water on the, on the trail when you're hiking the trail, you can't carry water with you. It's too heavy. And so you have to take advantage of the natural water sources. And there are streams like you see pictured there, there are many natural springs and they're marked with trail guides. So you know where to find them. And you're prepared to fill up your water bottles as, as you hike. Uh, but, but here's the thing, I filter my water.

There's varying kinds of filtering systems. And even though this water in many cases comes from pure springs or it comes from streams that you know that aren't anywhere near civilization, there's still the very real risk of bacteria like Grd, ah, in that water. I know people who hike and they don't filter their water and you know, I know some of them are just fine, but I don't want to take that risk because I know it's very possible and it has happened.

It happens frequently that a hiker drinks unfiltered water and get some water that is infected with Giardia or another bacteria and they become deathly sick and it ends there Ho there hike and worse and so that that that principle is, you know what I take into my body, what I drink and my body can have a polluting, a contaminating a poisoning. Even if you think about it affect upon me. That is the understanding that the rabbis took and applied to what happens to us ethically.

What happens to us spiritually? If you eat certain kinds of food or you eat without observing the, the rituals of washing your hands, you become not just physically contaminated. You become ethically, morally, spiritually contaminated. But Jesus is, you can't make that leap. Jesus says here that that they're concerned about becoming morally or spiritually defiled by what they eat is unfounded. He's saying, think of that process, that digestive process, it, it affects the physical body.

Contaminated water can affect your physical body. It does not affect the moral, the ethical, the spiritual part of you. And so his application, he said it already in verse 15, and he repeats it in verse 18. Nothing that goes into you from the outside can defile you. He's talking about moral and spiritual defilement. Um, really that that raises, I think what I've got here is the first point. Uncleanness. Whereas we think of it being a bad person, it is not the result of anything external.

It's not the result of external factors. And the reverse is true cleanness. What we think of being as a good person is not the result of external factors. You know, that's, that's really the belief held and our culture. We, we even tend to blame people's behavior on external factors. The fact that this person committed this crime is because of what happened to them in their childhood. That is an external factor that we blame their conduct upon.

Or this person was able to become a good person in life because they had all these advantages and their childhood. Again, that is attributing to external factors. Now, what is the moral and ethical and even spiritual quality of a person, but Jesus is saying just the opposite by his parable here. He's saying it's not what you do. It's not who you associate with. It's not what you expose yourself to that makes you a bad person in God's eyes.

Those may be indicators, but but they're not determinative. The God does not judge you solely on what you're doing and who you're with and what you're exposed to. Righteousness and holiness, how God looks at you. It's about something deeper than just your external behaviors. It is about something that goes more inward than simply a list of things to do or avoid to do. And that's what he says going on here.

And in 15 and 20 the things that come out of a person, not what goes into, but what comes out of a person, what is interior to us, that's what's defiling. That's what renders us unclean. That's what makes us a bad person. Defilement as they were thinking of a morally and spiritually, it comes from within us. So that leads to my second point, uncleanness. What we think of as being a bad person that is rooted in our interior and being our standing before God. Righteousness, holiness.

That is an inner spiritual quality, not an outward physical practice. We cannot judge it by behavior. Behavior may be an indicator, but we can't judge it. Determinative, Lee by that Jesus, by the way, calls that interior being that, uh, that, that we all have our, our hearts and we see that in verse 21 for from within out of people's hearts come evil thoughts. I mean, that's a semetic concept, but we use that as well.

We kind of get that, that we use the word heart, the term heart to describe the center of our personality. It's where you know our emotions come from. It's where our aspirations, our hopes comes from. It's where our will makes decisions.

It's where the actions that we eventually choose to do comes out of all of that as the center of our personality, what we think of as our hearts and so Jesus is teaching here the third point, uncleanness being a bad person or cleanness being a good person describes the inclinations of our heart. Now he he, he unpacks that in verses 21 and 22 and there there is a what sometimes is called a vice list.

It's a list of 13 terms and what Jesus is giving us here is a picture of what lodges potentially in all of our hearts that first term evil thoughts that you see there that that really I believe that that is the overarching category for the rest of them. Evil thoughts is probably better translated evil inclinations. These are the ways our hearts are inclined. These next 12 terms and you'll notice six of those terms, the first six terms describe actions.

These are actions that we are inclined to do. Not that we are going to do all these actions, but Jesus is saying all the potential for these actions. All the inclination of for these actions lies in your heart and my heart. And this is probably not an exhaustive list, sexual immoralities that is any kind of sexual behavior outside of the boundaries of marriage between a man and a woman. Thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions.

It's easy for you and me to pick out one of those like murder and say, you know, there's no way my heart is inclined for murder until you read what Jesus says elsewhere. That if you have a hatred in your heart towards another person, that is the inclination that can lead to murder. So I can honestly say, even though I've not committed the act of murder, the inclination to murder lies in my heart because I have hated people to that point.

This next six terms are not necessarily actions but their attitudes. Uh, inclinations that can be described best as, as the ways that my thinking and my emotions are affected, which ultimately then leads me to the decisions I make, deceit, lewdness or sensuality being given over to allowing my sexual desires to run whatever direction they want to run. Envy, getting to the place where I'm not just jealous, I, I actually have, have hatred towards someone who has things that I want.

Slander, pride, foolishness. All 12 of these Jesus is saying are found in the evil thoughts. The evil inclinations of a person's harder. Let me make it more pointed. All of these, our inclinations of my heart, all of these, our inclinations of your hearts, this is where the defiling conduct comes from. The evil inclinations of our hearts. And so real defilement as Jesus is defining it, real uncleanness, real badness, if I can use that term, that is a condition that comes from within us.

That is a condition that comes from our hearts. And so here's the biblical truth that is, I know countercultural, but we all have unclean hearts. When we think of impure, when we think of being bad, we all are. I heard Randall Johnson preached a sermon here. Someone was telling me after the first service years ago called bad to the bone, that that that is descriptive. That's George Thorogood doing it in a and a rock song. But that is descriptive of the reality of our heart.

We all are bad to the bone. We all have these evil inclinations of our hearts. So that cultural message, you know I have a coffee mug someone gave me for high school graduation. This pretty little picture on it and the lines follow your heart wherever it takes you as the worst advice out there. If we follow the inclinations of our hearts, these are the directions that can lead the inclinations of my heart. The inclinations of your hearts are not good inclinations.

They were at one time before the fall, before Adam and eve acting representatively in our place, chose to disobey God and live life their own way without him. But ever since that what we call the fall, our inclinations are tainted. Our inclinations are sinful and again, you may not commit every sin on that list. God forbid that you you you do, but you have the inclinations. As I have the inclinations, we see this not only in the words of Jesus, we see this throughout scripture.

The Old Testament scripture that just leaps out at me is God speaking through the Prophet Jeremiah, Jeremiah 17 nine the human heart, that center of our personality is the most deceitful of all things and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? Who really knows is you look at me, what the evil inclinations of my heart, how bad they are, who really knows. As I stand up here looking at all you, how evil, how bad the inclinations of your heart are. Only God does.

Now we clean ourselves up to come to church and and to conduct ourselves in society. We try in various ways to suppress those inclinations to keep them covered up. We don't want people to see we have those kinds of thoughts and inclinations, but here's the reality. What's in our heart eventually spills out the uncleanness, the impurity, the badness, so to speak of our hearts eventually spills out. You see that picture on the screen of, of a Coffee Cup. I love coffee.

Have it with me most of the time need more of this morning. But uh, the worst place for me to have coffee is in the car. You know, you go through Starbucks and you get that full full cup and you think you have the lid on. So I'm okay. But you forget one of those little green things that plugs the little hole. And so you have it even in the car carrier and then you're driving. And what happens? You hit a bump in the road that you didn't see coming.

A pothole, coffee spills out over your seat, over your clothes, or you're driving and you're trying to maintain adequate stopping distance, but you don't pay quite enough attention to that. You don't allow enough stopping distance. Traffic slows unexpectedly in front of you. You Jam on your brakes, coffee spills out. Now you can, like I do, you can become upset with a pothole.

And and those who maintain the the city roads, you can become upset with a line of traffic and you can say the reason that there is coffee spilled in my car and on my seat is, is because of that Pothole, because of those idiots driving in front of me who stopped too soon. But that's not the reason. There's coffee on the seat or on your clothes. The reason there's coffee on the seat, the reason that coffee has spilled out is because there was coffee in the cup.

That pothole may have brought it out, but it was there waiting to come out that that stopped traffic may have brought it out but it was already there. The reason that we react often sinfully that we act upon these inclinations is not because of the person who provoked us like the pothole. It's not because of the conflict that we become embroiled in like like that stop traffic.

It's because those inclinations are already in our heart and it's simply the normal events of life, of relationships and marriage and family and church. It's the inconvenience is, it's the things that frustrate us that cause. What is already in our heart to spill out. So you can try. Like I try to keep all that stuff covered up to deny that it's there, but it will spill out. It will spill out. And so the truth is I can't do it on my own. You can't do it on your own.

We can't make our hearts good. We can't eradicate on our own, these evil inclinations of our heart. We need the renovation of our hearts. We need the complete renovation of what's in our hearts. And the good news is that is just what God wants to do to each of us through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Again, I love even how he has promised this long ago before Jesus came up on the earth in the Old Testament, Ezekiel 36 God says, here's his promise.

I will give you a new heart and I will put a new spirit in you. I will put my spirit in you. And the effect of that is it will move you to follow my creed decrees and other words to do my will and to obey my laws. And that's the good news of the Gospel. That's why we exist as a church. The good news of the Gospel is that when we open our lives to the saving work of Jesus Christ and the resultant filling of the Holy Spirit, God gives us a new heart.

God begins that renovation project in our heart by putting the holy spirit in us, God begins to work to change the evil inclinations of our heart. Now, I purposely use, you know the, the, the illustration, the word picture of a renovation project. That new heart is not something we gain overnight. It's not like that. The next morning after I embraced Jesus as my savior and Lord, suddenly all my evil inclinations were gone. No fire from it. Renovation you think of renovating an old house.

It's a long process and the renovation project that God does in our heart through his holy spirit, it really is all our life on this earth. It is not completed until we see Jesus face to face slowly, just like the renovation of an old house. Slowly, God begins to work on those individual evil inclinations of our heart and slowly change them, slowly renovate them, slowly replaced them more and more with the fruit of the spirit.

You may be here this morning and, and you may recognize, hopefully, uh, you recognize who Jesus is teaching here. Yes. You know, I don't have a good heart and I, I've, I've tried to cover that up for a long time, but I, I see now even Jesus points it out. Nobody has a good heart. Uh, but, but I don't, I don't know that any renovation is happening in me. I don't see any progress.

And that may be because this morning or today is the day that that renovation project begins as you, as you turn to Jesus as savior and Lord, you put all of your confidence, your faith, confidence in him, you begin to follow him, not just as your savior and Lord, his promise to you is, I won't dwell. You buy my holy spirit and I'll begin that work. A renovation. You made it here this morning and you remember when you did that. That's my case.

But you may realize what, what I is I guess still got a long way to go. There's still a lot of my heart that needs to be renovated, and so that's my last point this morning, following Jesus means submitting to his ongoing renovation of our hearts. You know, I can resist Jesus' wanting to renew my heart to renovate my heart. I can cooperate, I can submit with it, and I can think of no better prayer that that I can pray or you can pray for ourselves every day on on our own behalf.

Then the last two verses of Psalm 139 search me o God and know my heart. No, it's in my heart. Try me, test me and know my evil inclinations, my my thoughts. See if there is any offensive, unclean, impure, bad ways in me, tendencies in me and lead me in the everlasting way. That is the prayer of a man or a woman who says, Jesus, I want to follow you. I went to to renovate my hearts. I want to become more and more like you. I, I agonize.

I am frustrated by the state of my heart, so I know I need you. That is the heart of a dependent man or a woman. Um, Jay Edwin or says this even better than I do a j Ed winter was a revivalist in the 20th century and he wrote a song, not really a him, but it's one that, that I remember from the church. I grew up in a, and so the Holy Spirit continually brings it to mind. It is based upon Psalm 139 but I think it's the prayer.

I think it's really the essence of where Jesus is leading us this morning. Listen to this. I won't sing it, but I will give you the lyrics. Search me, O God and know my heart today. Try me. Oh savior know my thoughts. I pray. See if there be any wicked way in me, cleanse me from every sin and set me free. And there's other verses, but let me just give you one more. The third verse, Lord, Take My life and make it holy vine. Do you hear that desire for renovation?

Fill my poor hearts, my heart that is filled with all these inclinations with vi, great love divine. Take my will, my passion, self and pride. There's that submission I now surrender. Lord in me, abide. May that be our prayer. Would you pray with me as we close? Jesus, we thank you for your clear, um, from and yet gentle teaching. We thank you for bursting the bubble.

Uh, if, if any of us came in with it this morning, that we are good people or we can be good people just by trying hard on our own. We thank you for showing us the reality though. It's an ugly reality and I don't like it about myself. Uh, that we are bad people, that our hearts are unclean. That all of these evil inclinations that, that, um, that you describe here and probably many more are women. Our hearts.

Lord, we confess there's nothing we can do about that in our own power or trusting in any abilities or, or impulses and ourselves. We need you. Jesus. We need, first of all, what you did at the Cross and dying and paying the penalty for the evilness in our hearts and the way that's lived out in our lives. And we need you. Secondly, Lord, by indwelling us, by Your Holy Spirit and beginning that lifelong renovation project.

Lord, if there's anyone here this morning who has not yet first turned to you, um, may this be today, the day as you, as you convict them, May, may come forward or to the back for prayer and, and make this day the day that you begin that renovation project in their life. Lord, for those of us who have come to that point in time, may we embrace these words from Psalm 139 is our prayer daily, even hourly. Search our hearts. Show us what is displeasing to you.

Reveal the evil inclinations that you desire to change. Make us whole. Make us like you. Jesus. We pray this in your name. Amen. I'm going to invite you to stand with us. I want to encourage you to respond as you feel called.