We are all creatures of habit. We do many things over and over again.
• There is nothing wrong with that. There will surely be routines in life.
• But the danger comes when we get so accustomed to them, that we no longer understand the reason why we are doing them.
• If fact, we may have lost its meaning and purpose and not realizing it.
This is what traditions can do to us.
We are going to look at the mistakes of the Pharisees today and learn two things:
1. Don’t be too caught up by the outward, it’s the heart that counts.
2. Don’t be too caught up by what man thinks; it’s what God thinks that counts.
Mark 7:6-8
6 He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
"`These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
7 They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’
8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."
Jesus can be very direct and blunt if He needs to: “You hypocrites.”
Matt 15:12 “Then the disciples came to him and asked, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”
The first mistake – they were more concerned with outward things than the things that really count.
• They have the right words but the wrong attitudes (heart).
• Everything outward is right, but inwardly the mind and heart are wrong.
• Jesus says that is hypocrisy - look as if you are doing something religious and godly, but inside you are so.
Remember: The heart of Christianity is the heart. Question your heart in everything you do.
Did you do it out of love? Was it truthful and honest? Did you do it for your own glory?
• It does not really matter if your hands are clean, but it does matter a lot whether your heart is clean.
• You can pray standing up or you can pray sitting down and still never really pray.
• You can wash your hands a thousand times and still have sin in your heart.
• You can sing every song in the hymnal and still not know God.
• It’s not the outward form of the tradition that matters; it’s what lies in our hearts that counts.
What Jesus is saying go something like this:
• “You are using wonderful words, spiritual words, but you don’t really mean them.”
• “Your heart is far from me.”
• “You talk about love, but you don’t love. You talk about forgiveness, but you don’t forgive. You talk about acceptance, but you don’t accept.”
That is what tradition does to us sometimes, when you focus too much on the forms.
• It externalizes religion, makes it outward instead of inward.
• As long as we are fulfilling the prescribed outward form, we think we are acceptable before God.
It’s like “doing Christianity but without the heart.”
• This particular form of Christianity, which Isaiah mentions here – right words and wrong attitudes – can very well be our problem too.
• There is this danger of thinking that because we do things in certain right forms, right methods, using right words, etc. we are thus pleasing to God.
That’s why Jesus’ conclusion is: “They worship me in vain…” – no true worship is taking place.
• Because they were actually exalting tradition and not God.
First, worship must be genuine. It must come from the heart.
• It must be something you do inside of you which is deep and real.
• It cannot be superficial, it cannot be shallow.
• It cannot be something done with the mind but not with the heart.
Anything less is hypocrisy.
Second, worship is therefore personal.
We can participate in a service together corporately, but worship is only what is going on inside of you.
• It is "in spirit" - your spirit. It is your attitude toward the greatness and glory of God, your response to His goodness and His truth, which is worship.
• It has nothing to do with what your body is doing at the moment, whether it is bowing, or closing your eyes, or saying certain words, or whatever.
God is looking for those who will worship him in spirit and in truth
• Worship therefore is something that goes on in the human heart.
• Not in a particular place, Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well.
• All the external forms are there to help you worship God with your heart.
• They are there to help direct our focus to the One we are worshipping.
If our attention is being drawn to the forms (or traditions), then we’ve missed it!
• Just like these Pharisees, man-made traditions become their main focus, God is no longer in the picture.
• All these rites and traditions have actually lost their meaning, and their intended purpose.
The heart of Christianity is the heart.
• Jesus is more concerned with their heart condition than their hand condition.
• God is more concerned with who we are on the inside than the outward ceremonies we observe.
• Prophet Samuel had to remind Jesse, David’s father - man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.
Whatever you do, question your heart. Scrutinize it, examine it, and test it. Be a person of integrity.
Be authentic. Be real – to God and to man.
Let’s look at the second mistake:
Mark 7:7-8
7 They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’
8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."
Don’t be too caught up by what man thinks; it’s what God thinks that counts.
That’s the danger of traditions. Over time, the words of man become the norm, the truth.
• Man begins to let go of the commands of God, and hold onto the teachings of men.
• It is not simply being on par, on equal footing or importance.
• In fact, the teachings of man take precedence over the Word of God.
We hold on to what man says or thinks - like astrology, feng shui, superstitions and myths. We tend to believe and obey these, more than the Word of God. It starts off somewhere, at a point of time. Given enough publicity and time, a superstition can become a truth when enough people believe it.
• And over time, it will be taken as the truth without questioning, even if people do not understand why and how it is so.
• People are afraid of bad numbers – 4 or 13, afraid of bad days, Friday 13th, bad month 7th month, afraid of symbol of dragons (Revelation depicts a beast with this term)…
There is a great difference – the word of man BINDS you, but the truth of God set us FREE.
John 8:31-32 31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
8 “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.”
We are confronted with such a choice everyday.
• We either choose to believe what God says, or we are going to believe what people say.
• What we believe about God is reflected in our choices.
Jesus shows how the Pharisees live up to the external code while ignoring the spiritual meaning of the law.
• So in verses 6-7a Jesus says that obedience has no merit if it is not from the heart.
• In 7b-13, he says that obedience has no merit if it is to a man-made rule.
Now, Jesus is not condemning all traditions of men –
• He is not saying washing hands is wrong; He is talking about what they are NOT DOING RIGHT – not truly worshipping God with their heart, not loving and caring for their parents – and instead using man-made rules to cover up the truth.
• The heart preparation is what counts, not the external action.
• The thrust of Jesus’ argument here is this: "If you Pharisees are violating one of the Ten Commandments, how can you judge my disciples for breaking a man-made rule?"
Jesus says, “And you do many things like that.”
• They hide behind the façade of spirituality – and find excuses for not doing right.
Don’t be too caught up by what man thinks; it’s what God thinks that counts.
Let me close with this - Mark 7:14-23
14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a man can make him `unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him `unclean.’"
17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18 "Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him `unclean’? 19 For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.")
20 He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him `unclean.’ 21 For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and make a man `unclean.’"
Don’t be too worried about the external – how the world thinks about you, how people see you…
• Nothing external can make you unclean.
Be very concerned about the internal – it makes you unclean.
• It doesn’t matter if the cup is gold, silver or glass… what matter is that it is clean and you can use it.
The heart of Christianity is the heart. Jesus is after a transformation of the inner man.
• He cares more about who we are inside than who we appear to be on the outside.
• He cares more about our inner man than our outward appearance.
• He cares more about our heart condition than the observance of religious tradition.
Do what He says – obey the Scriptures.
• Never mind what people think. Be concern about what God thinks.
Don’t repeat the mistakes of the Pharisees:
1. Don’t be too caught up by the outward, it’s the heart that counts. FOCUS ON YOUR HEART
2. Don’t be too caught up by what man thinks; it’s what God thinks that counts. FOCUS ON GOD
