Where’s My Heart?
Spiritual Heart Surgery
Mark 7:1-8
Morris, the loudmouth mechanic, was removing the cylinder heads from the motor of a car when he spotted a famous heart surgeon who was standing off to the side, waiting for the service manager to come take a look at his Mercedes. Morris shouted across the garage, “Hey Doc! Is that you? Come on ova’ here a minute.” The famous surgeon, a bit surprised, walked over to where Morris the mechanic was working on the car. Morris straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag, and asked argumentatively, “So, Mr. Fancy Doctor, look at this here work. I also open hearts, take valves out, grind ’em, put in new parts, and when I finish this baby will purr like a kitten. So, how come you get the big bucks, when you an’ me is doing basically the same work?” The surgeon leaned over and whispered to Morris the loudmouth mechanic, “Try doing it with the engine running.”
Now, I don’t want to take anything away from mechanics because what they do is amazing and impossible to me, but what they do does not even compare to what a heart surgeon can do. At my last church, we had a gentleman who went through the heart transplant process. He waited until a donor was available, and then, a doctor took out his heart and replaced it with another. It took over eight hours of surgery, but the surgeon was able to take a heart out of a 30 something year old woman who had died and placed it into a man in his late 50’s. Then, they shocked the heart to restart it, and the man fully recovered from the surgery to have a life that was much improved over what it had previously been. He had more energy, strength, and stamina than he had with his previous heart. That is completely amazing to me.
This morning, I know I am not dealing with heart surgeons, but I want to call on you to act like one. It’s sort of like the catchphrase, “I’m not a doctor but I play one on TV.” I want you to take a look at your heart and allow God to do some work on it. This morning, we are going to start a series called Spiritual Heart Surgery. And, just like regular type of surgery, this is not going to be easy. It is not going to be painless. It is going to be delicate, because it requires us to get outside our comfort zone and requires us to change. I want us to take an honest look at our hearts through the eyes of God to see what we need to do to have a heart that God desires us to have. And, to do this, it is going to require change. We may have to change our mindsets, our habits, our traditions, and the like. That is never easy, but we will perish if we don’t do it. Just like the heart transplant, we will die and live a life short of what God has for us unless we take out our heart and replace it with God’s heart. First of all, we must find out where our heart is. Let’s take a look at our Scripture this morning in Mark 7:1-8.
The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were “unclean,” that is, unwashed. (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers, and kettles.) So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with ‘unclean’ hands?” He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
“These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.”
You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.”
This morning, let’s take a look at where our heart is by looking inwardly at how we act. We need to ask ourselves some tough questions in order to do that. Before we go any farther, let’s ask the Lord to bless our time.
Do I Have the Heart of a Pharisee?
How many of you remember the story of the ugly duckling? I always felt bad for the little guy. He never fit in. Even though he thought he was a duck and tried to act like a duck, he always was ridiculed by the other ducks. They would not accept him. Finally, after growing up, he found out that he didn’t belong with the ducks anyway. Even though he talked, walked, and acted like a duck, the truth was that he was not a duck. He was in fact a swan, but he did not find that out until he saw what other swans looked like and grew into one himself.
You know, in the Christian life, we are satisfied with just being a duck. Even though God looks at us as a swan and has created us to be like one, we try our hardest to fit in with the other ducks. And, as long as we are accepted, we will continue to act like a duck and we will miss the majesty and beauty of being a swan. I call it settling in as a Pharisee instead of striving to be a Christian. Let me explain.
The dictionary refers to a Pharisee as, “A member of a Jewish sect that flourished during the 1st century B.C. and 1st century A.D. and that differed from the Sadducees chiefly in its strict observance of religious ceremonies and practices, adherence to oral laws and traditions, and belief in an afterlife and the coming of a Messiah.” However, the word has caught on and continues to be a word that describes people today in its second entry when it describes someone who is, “Sanctimonious, self righteous, or hypocritical.” Plus, the thesaurus says being a Pharisee is synonymous with being a backslider, crook, fake, fraud, quack, sham, swindler, and even a wolf. So, being a Pharisee is not shed in a very good light, but these were supposed to be the most religious people of their time. They went to church. They gave in the offering plate. They sang songs during worship time. So, what is their problem?
In our Scripture, Jesus had been going around doing miracles and healing the sick. He had been teaching in a way that was new and powerful. And, he had just finished feeding the five thousand. Now, he found himself in a crowd of Pharisees who were the religious leaders of the day. They could have asked Him anything. He was at their disposal. They could have picked his brain about his teachings. They could have asked for further guidance. They could have asked Him how He was performing all these great miracles. Instead, what do they ask? They ask Him why His disciples didn’t wash their hands before they ate. If you think about this question for just a bit, you can begin to see how silly it is. If you got the chance to ask God one question, how many of you would ask Him if He had washed His hands? Not me, but they thought it was important because it was against their laws and traditions. Pharisees love putting limitless rules and restrictions on people because it gives them a guide for which to follow. It gives you a way to measure your holiness. If you adhere (or at least appear to adhere) to all the rules, then you must be holy. There’s only one problem. We can’t follow the rules.
Think about Adam and Eve. They were created in the image of God which meant that they were created perfect. Then, God gives them how many rules? He gave them one. Could they follow one rule? No. So, if two people who were perfect could not follow one rule, how do we expect ourselves who are born into a sin nature to follow a whole list of them? It is not possible. But, that’s where being a Pharisee comes into play. They think that following God is still about abiding by all the rules. Deep down, they know they can’t do it, but if they at least appear to follow them in the eyes of everyone else, then they are OK. And then, you might as well add more rules onto the rules you already have so that you can appear even more righteous. Finally, it gets to the point where your faith boils down to how well you can follow all the rules, and that is a bad idea. But, it does show you why they would be so preoccupied with the eating habits of Jesus’ disciples.
Let me give you an example of what I am talking about from a 1968 article that Pastor Timothy Archer found on the Internet.
“I recently read about a poll conducted among American Catholics. The most startling revelation of this poll was the fact that more than 60% of American Catholics feel that abstinence from meat on Friday is more important than Jesus’ admonition to ’love our neighbor as ourselves.
Rather shocking isn’t it? In fact, I would go so far as to say it is downright appalling and pitiful that so many could have such a warped concept of what Christianity is all about.”
I don’t want to just criticize those who go to the Catholic Church this morning though. How many of you would answer that going to church every Sunday is more important than loving all our neighbors as ourselves? Or, how many of us would put the fact that we have to sing 2 hymns and 3 praise choruses each week as more important than loving our neighbor? It’s easy to say that loving our neighbor is more important, but do our actions show that?
Think about all the rules we place on ourselves when we get in the Pharisee mindset. One of the topics that always comes up is drinking alcohol. In the church of God, that is a complete no-no. But, the Bible says nothing against having a drink of alcohol – it only comes out against getting drunk. Now, I don’t want you all to think that I have a drinking problem – I abstain from it, but I want to make a point. When I pointed that out to several people in a former church, they immediately pointed to the verse in 1 Corinthians that says your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit and so we should not contaminate it. Well, I have two Biblical arguments. First of all, if this is true, what is more harmful to your body – drinking a glass of wine which is shown to be good for your heart or drinking a soda which rots your teeth and has no nutritional value. Jesus settles this question later in the chapter in verse 18 when he says that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him unclean. But yet, we want to place more rules on ourselves and declare having a drink as a sin on par with murder and theft. We do the same thing by limiting how long the service can be or how many times we can sing through a song. These are preferences put down as law. They are not Biblical mandates even though we treat them as such.
Do I Talk Like a Pharisee?
Before I went to college, I never had cable television before. We got approximately 3 channels at home depending on which way the wind was blowing. So, when cable came as a part of my room and board fees at college, I was excited. But, I noticed two things about cable. The first thing I realized was that more channels do not necessarily mean that there is more to watch. Secondly, I found myself watching reruns of shows that I had watched at home on my three channels. I think that is why I fell in love with the game show network. I got to watch all the old game shows that I grew up on, and they even had some on there from before my time. One of my favorites in this category was a show that first premiered in the 1950’s called “To Tell the Truth”. Does anyone remember this show? They would bring out three people who claimed to be the same person. The announcer would tell the contestant something about the real “Joe Smith, for example his occupation, and then, the contestant would ask the three people questions to determine who really was “Joe Smith”. This was a tough game. If “Joe Smith” happened to be a doctor, they would all act, talk, and pretend to be a doctor so as to avoid the contestant being able to determine who the real “Joe Smith” was. And, most of the time, they did a good enough job to make the decision very difficult for the contestant.
Why was this decision difficult? Well, it is easy to talk a good game. It is much harder to put that talk into action. If “Joe Smith” were really a doctor, it wouldn’t be very hard to spot him if the point of the game would have been to perform surgery. Two of the people would have been seen as phonies right away, so it would not have been much of a game. But, when we only have to use words to convince, it is much easier to make people think you are something that you are not. The same is true in our spiritual lives. It is much easy to use our words to make people think we are a Christian than it is to prove it to them with our actions.
This is where the Pharisee rears his ugly head again. If you were to put two Pharisees and one Christian on the show, “To Tell the Truth”, it would probably be very hard to tell which person is which. Why is that? Our Scripture this morning tells us that these people come near to God and honor Him with their lips. They even worship Him and are involved with teaching. They would know some Scripture. They would probably know many of the hymns and songs that were sung in the church by heart. They would promise that they would pray for you, and they would have knowledge of the Bible stories. So, what is the problem here? Apparently, according to God, lip service is not enough when it comes to being saved. Our hearts must be in it as well.
After giving these words of our Scripture, Jesus goes on to explain to his disciples in more detail what he meant by this teaching. He tells them in verse 21, “For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean’.” This went along with an earlier teaching in which he stated that you will tell whether you are dealing with a good tree or a bad tree by what kind of fruit it bears. If it bears good fruit, the tree is good and visa-versa. So, we can begin to see that we can’t tell of the quality of a person by the words that they say. We have to look at the heart the way that Jesus looks at the heart, and we can only do that by seeing the fruit that is produced in their lives. If they are producing good fruit, such as love, joy, peace, and patience, then they are a Christian. If they are not producing these types of fruit but talk like they are a Christian, they are a Pharisee. Does your fruit match your words?
How Can I Change?
So, what can you do this morning if you think you are a Pharisee? You need a heart transplant. You need to take your human heart of stone and replace it with a heart after God. To do that, you must fall in love with Jesus. You have to make your Christian walk about a relationship with Him and not about following a list of rules and traditions. You have to get in His Word not just so that you can learn it, but so that you can follow it and learn more about God. You have to ask the Holy Spirit to lead you and guide you in order to produce good fruit to go along with your speech.
This morning, I hate to say it, but there are some here who have convinced others with their words that they are Christians, but their heart is far from God. That’s not just a guess on my part. Even Jesus said that many would stand before Him on judgment day and say, “Lord, Lord” and they would have done many great things for Him, but He will say, “Away from me – I knew you not.” I hope that is not you this morning, but if it is, there is hope for us in the death of Jesus Christ. Because of His sacrifice, we don’t have to follow a list of rules. We don’t have to even add more rules. We instead need to seek His Kingdom and His righteousness. We need to develop a relationship with Him. And, when we grow to love Him in a relational way, we will automatically please Him by our actions and produce good fruit.
This morning, I want to close with the Word of God and ask the Holy Spirit to convict through it. Hebrews says that it is sharper than any double-edged sword, so I am going to let it convict this morning. I want to read just that one section Jesus quoted out of Isaiah from the Message. If you think it pertains to you and you feel the Spirit tugging at your heart, you need to do some repenting this morning. Where’s your heart? Find out as I read.
Jesus answered, "Isaiah was right about frauds like you, hit the bull’s-eye in fact:
These people make a big show of saying the right thing,
but their heart isn’t in it.
They act like they are worshiping me,
but they don’t mean it.
They just use me as a cover
for teaching whatever suits their fancy,
Ditching God’s command
and taking up the latest fads."
Is that you this morning? It’s time to trade in that clunker Pharisee religion for the Ferrari Christian one. Let’s pray – our altars are open as Carrie comes to play.
