Inside Out Christianity

Have you ever met someone for the first time, and you were immediately struck by how nice-looking that person was? But after spending some time with them, all of a sudden, they didn’t look that good anymore? Not that their makeup got smeared or their toupee blew off; but once you talked to them and got a glimpse of their personality, you quickly realized that the inside did not match the outside.

And in the same way, you may have met someone who didn’t seem all that attractive, physically speaking—in fact, they may have appeared downright unattractive, but once you got to know them, they turned out to be an incredibly beautiful person inside. And once you discovered the beauty on the inside, it forever changed how you saw them, even on the outside.

People are not always who they appear to be. For instance, people probably see me on the street and think I’m just a crotchety old curmudgeon. But if they would take the time to get to know me, they would find that I can also be delightfully impatient and adorably cynical...

The title of our message this morning is Inside Out Christianity: Religion or relationship?

Matthew 23:25-28 25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside, you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

Jesus was telling these religious leaders that they put way too much emphasis on the outside while neglecting that which was most important; the inside. And that’s very common mindset today as well, isn’t it? We spend ungodly amounts of time and money trying to make our outside look as good as possible, but spend very little time and effort on improving our inside..

In Matthew 15 Jesus is once again being accused by the teachers of the law and the Pharisees. They saw some of Jesus’ disciples eating without first giving their hands a ceremonial washing. This washing was an important custom among devout Jews.

Apparently, the point of it was to cleanse themselves from contamination or uncleanness—especially after they come from the marketplace or somewhere else they would come in close contact with common “sinners.”

And so, when they saw the disciples eating without washing, they sanctimoniously ask Jesus why His own disciples neglected this very important ritual.

Jesus replied in verse 8 “ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 9 They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’” 10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11 What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean.’ ”

Peter asked Jesus to explain what He meant, and He answers beginning in verse 16, “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.’ ”

“Out of the heart....” The Bible has a lot to say about the human heart; what we look like and how we act on the outside are important, but it’s what’s in our heart that truly defines who we are. In fact, this whole great controversy between Good and evil is a battle fought in and for our hearts. That means that whether we will be saved or lost is very much a matter of the heart.

That’s why the greatest commandment is “Love the Lord your God with all your HEART, soul, mind and strength.

But, there’s a problem with the human heart; it’s corrupt.

Jeremiah 17:9 says “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?”

That’s why God tells us quite a few times that he desires to give us a heart transplant—he said, I want to take out your heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh..