Opening illustration: “Could they not carry their own garbage this far?” I grumbled to Jay as I picked up empty bottles from the beach and tossed them into the trash bin less than 20 feet away. “Did leaving the beach a mess for others make them feel better about themselves? I sure hope these people are tourists. I don’t want to think that any locals would treat our beach with such disrespect.”
The very next day I came across a prayer I had written years earlier about judging others. My own words reminded me of how wrong I was to take pride in cleaning up other people’s messes. The truth is, I have plenty of my own that I simply ignore—especially in the spiritual sense.
I am quick to claim that the reason I can’t get my life in order is because others keep messing it up. And I am quick to conclude that the “garbage” stinking up my surroundings belongs to someone other than me. But neither is true. Nothing outside of me can condemn or contaminate me—only what’s inside (Matt. 15:19-20). The real garbage is the attitude that causes me to turn up my nose at a tiny whiff of someone else’s sin while ignoring the stench of my own.
Introduction: In today’s text, Jesus is talking to the Pharisees, a group of the religious elite in Israel. They taught that obeying the law was the most important thing, so they emphasized external behavior. Jesus called attention to the condition of the heart and essentially said, “It doesn’t matter if you do everything right. If your heart is bad, you are still defiled.”
What heart is distant from God?
1. Mouth: What goes in or comes out? (vs. 10-11)
When Jesus says “hear and understand”, He wants to make sure that we are paying close and careful attention. This will be VERY important. So let us heed His words! Let us be careful this morning to hear and to understand that “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”
Now when Jesus says this, is He saying something new? Is He saying something that wasn’t true in the Old Testament, but is true now? In other words, is this actually an announcement that the food laws of the Old Testament are now done away with? (Now that would be something “new”!) And most commentators and translations (cf. Mark 7:19) say “yes” – this is something new. May be not! “Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” I believe Jesus is saying something here that has been equally true at every stage of history ever since the fall of man. So, then what about those Old Testament food laws?
Now the holiness of God does not consist in His abstaining from certain foods! The holiness of God is not an outward or external kind of thing. The holiness of God is who God is! So, when the people of Israel abstained from “unclean” foods, it was a constant reminder of their calling to be separate from the wickedness and idolatry of the Gentile nations and to be conformed to the moral purity and holiness of God. So in the New Testament, When the distinction between (“clean”) Jews and (“unclean”) Gentiles was abolished, so also was the distinction between clean unclean foods (Acts 10). When God’s law was written on our hearts through the Holy Spirit who indwells us, there was no longer any need for these outward reminders. When Jesus brought us the true “cleanness” to which the distinction between clean and unclean foods had always pointed, then there was no longer any need for the old pointers, and so they passed away (Col. 2:16-17). The food laws of the Old Testament were an external and outward sign that God had chosen Israel to be holy from the inside out – set apart from the “unclean” Gentiles, and set apart unto God.
So … an Israelite becomes ritually unclean because he has to pick up an animal carcass and carry it out of the camp. No big deal! He is not yet truly defiled in God’s sight. He has not yet failed to be holy as God is holy. But if he refuses to live the rest of the day as one who is ritually unclean, and if he refuses to wash his clothes, now his uncleanness becomes far more serious. Now his uncleanness has become a true defilement of the heart because he has mocked the very heart of the food laws. He is rejecting not just the food laws themselves, but also his calling to be holy from the inside out, even as God is holy. So, when Jesus says, “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person”, He is not denying that certain foods could make you ritually unclean. Instead, He is simply pointing out what has always been the case. He is interpreting the true heart of the law. It was never the foods themselves that truly defiled a person in God’s sight, but rather it was always the heart that brought about true defilement.* Now do you think that we would not have needed this instruction? Jesus says to us: Hear and understand.
2. Un-Rooted in Christ (vs. 12-14)
The disciples are truly concerned. All their lives they have respected and admired the Pharisees. The Pharisees are the teachers, and the guardians, and the practitioners of the law. If anyone is righteous, the Pharisees are righteous. And so it bothers the disciples to see the Pharisees offended by what Jesus has said. And if this bothered the disciples, then you can imagine why the Pharisees would have been so offended! The Pharisees are offended because their reputation for righteousness depends mainly on the fact that they are so very careful to avoid touching or eating unclean foods. So when Jesus says that “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person”, He is stripping them of their supposed righteousness. He is robbing the Pharisees of their most important claim to fame. Is it possible that the Pharisees could live in absolute perfect obedience to the food laws of the Old Testament, avoiding anything and everything that is unclean, and yet they themselves could still be unclean in God’s sight? The disciples are confused. Certainly, this could not have been what Jesus intended! “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?”
Now in the Old Testament, those who were truly righteous were those who had been planted by God. But now Jesus says that the Pharisees are a plant that the Father has not planted – therefore, their “righteousness” is no righteousness at all! Therefore, they can avoid unclean foods all they want, and yet they themselves are still unclean! And since the Pharisees are unclean, then they are destined to be rooted up and destroyed in the coming judgment. But Jesus is not finished …
Jesus knows how easy it is to be impressed with the righteousness of the Pharisees. Jesus knows how easy it is for us to be impressed with the righteousness of the Pharisees. And so He comes right out and tells His disciples to “let them alone.” In other words, don’t concern yourself with what offends the Pharisees. Don’t be impressed with their righteousness. They may think of themselves as guides to the blind and lights to those who are in darkness (cf. Rom. 2:19), but they are actually just as blind as the people who follow them. I know this runs counter to what you have always thought of the Pharisees, but the Pharisees are not to be trusted. Their version of righteousness is counterfeit, and it leads to destruction. This should be a warning to us! But the disciples still don’t understand. (For that matter, do we really understand?) How can the Pharisees be so unclean, when they have paid such careful attention to God’s law?
3. Heart: Ungodly fruit (vs. 15-20)
Jesus’ point here is very simple – and yet we’re constantly missing it! What goes into the mouth never ends up in the heart because after it passes through the stomach, it is simply expelled into the toilet (literally, the “latrine”). In and of itself, food cannot truly defile a person because it never touches the heart. That’s always been true! But what comes out of the mouth proceeds FROM the heart, and this defiles a person. Now if we’re not careful, we’ll still miss the true significance of what Jesus is saying. Even here, the point is not our words, but our heart! The point here is not that our words defile us. The point is that the words came from our heart, and so the source and fountain of all our defilement is our own hearts. The real sewage is not in the toilet, but rather right “here” in our own hearts. The real source of our defilement and uncleanness is never without, but always within – it is not outside of us, but inside of us! But we forget this, and so we focus on the things that are outside of us, as though they were the cause and the source of our defilement.
“OUT OF the heart COME evil thoughts, murder [the 6th commandment], adultery, sexual immorality [the 7th commandment], theft [the 8th commandment], false witness [the 9th commandment], slander.” These are what defile a person. But once again, Jesus’ point is not simply that a person is defiled only when these things show up in his life. Jesus’ point is that before these things ever became visible in a person’s life, they were already there in his heart. The real source of our defilement and uncleanness is never without, but always within – it is not outside of us, but inside of us! What is the cause and the source of all our defilement? It is our own heart. Calvin writes: “It is therefore a general statement, that pollution does not come from without into a man, but that the fountain is concealed within him.”
The Pharisees were far too optimistic about themselves (cf. Bruner, Hagner, Morris). They assumed that their own hearts were basically clean, and so they only needed to keep themselves from outside “impurities.” But they were wrong! They could keep themselves from outside “impurities” all they wanted, but the true evil was all the time present within them!
Illustration: We think that the problem is the billboard or the “Christian” romance novel. We must guard against impurity from without. But the problem is not the billboard or the book. The billboard and the book are not unclean in themselves. It is not what goes through our eye gate that defiles us, but rather that which was already in our hearts. If I could paraphrase Calvin: “An unholy heart pollutes the billboard and the book by making them the ministers, or tools, of sinful desires.”
We think that the problem is the internet. We must guard against impurity from without. But the problem is not the internet. The internet is not unclean. The social networking site is not unclean. The website does not pollute our heart; rather our heart pollutes the website whenever it makes that website the minister, or the tool, of the flesh (addiction/idolatry; unwholesome dialogue; unwholesome “friends”; etc.).
We think that the problem is the alcohol. We must guard against impurity from without. But the problem is not the alcohol. Alcohol is not unclean. It does not pollute our heart; rather we can say that our heart pollutes the alcohol whenever it makes alcohol the minister or tool of the flesh (drunkenness and debauchery; desiring to fit in with an unwholesome crowd; desiring to flaunt our “freedom” in Christ).
We could go on and on, but let’s just listen now to the Apostle Paul: – “To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled” (Titus 1:15).
To the pure, all things are pure! And of course, the pure are those who do not use things as the ministers and tools of the flesh! The real source of our defilement and uncleanness is never without, but always within – it is not outside of us, but inside of us! What is the cause and the source of all our defilement? It is our own heart. Therefore …
Let us be sober and wise in the use of our “freedoms.” There are many Christians who should cancel their Facebook accounts – not because Facebook is “unclean”, but because they know how prone their own hearts are to make Facebook a tool of the flesh. There are many Christians who should abstain from alcohol – not because alcohol is unclean, but because they know how prone their own hearts are to use alcohol as the tool of sinful desires. Our hearts can use many different things as tools and expressions of our sinful nature (T.V., music, internet, alcohol, clothes, food, etc.).
The second lesson here is that we must remember that our true battle is not against what is outside, but what is inside. Obviously, the key to being sober and wise in the use of our freedoms is to remember that the true source of all our defilement is not outside of us, but inside us – it is our own heart. There is a sense in which I know I need to qualify the next statement, but I’m not going to because I just want it to be as simple and straightforward as possible. We must stop waging war against the bad things “out there”, and start waging war against the bad things “in here” (the thoughts and desires in our hearts). We must not think that we are righteous because we have avoided the impurities “out there.” Jesus would strip us of any such “righteousness” by revealing the impurities in our own hearts.
J.C. Ryle give us two very important exhortations. He says first of all: “The right heart is a heart sprinkled with the blood of Christ, and renewed by the Holy Ghost, and purified by faith. Never let us rest till we find within the witness of the Spirit, that God has created in us a clean heart, and made all things new (Psalm 51:10; 2 Cor. 5:17).”
Has your heart been sprinkled with the blood of Christ, and renewed by the Holy Ghost, and purified by faith? Do you have the witness of the Holy Spirit that God has created in you a clean heart, and made all things new? If we will truly see our desperate need for this, then we can have it! – Through faith (trust) in Jesus Christ! But then Ryle says this: “Let it be a settled resolution with us to ‘keep our hearts with all diligence,’ all the days of our lives (Prov. 4:23). Even after renewal they are weak. Even after putting on the new man they are deceitful. Let us never forget that our chief danger is from within. The world and the devil combined, cannot do us so much harm as our own hearts will, if we do not watch and pray. Happy is he who remembers daily the words of Solomon, ‘He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool’ (Prov. 28:26).”
So, let us cry out to God for strength. Let us pray much more often and with much more fervency: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (6:13). Let us remember that the battle is not against the things that are “out there”, but against the things that are “in here.” In this way, we’ll truly be able to “fight the good fight of the faith” and “take hold of the eternal life to which [we] were called and about which [we have] made the good confession” (1 Timothy 6:12).
Application: Most of us are farsighted about sin—we see the sins of others but not our own.
