Apprenticing Under the Master January 29, 2006
Mark 7:1-7 (Matthew 15:1-20)
Inside Out
How do you judge your spiritual health?
When I was Pastor of Parkdale Neighbourhood Church, we had a woman that was always questioning here relationship with God. She struggled with mental illness, and with not just a few behavioral difficulties. There were times when she would be racked with guilt and doubt about her faith. She also had the spiritual gift of tongues, so when she was lying in her bed at night attacked by doubt, she would speak in tongues just to make sure that the Spirit was still there and had not left her.
How do you test your spiritual health? How do you Judge others’ spiritual health?
In Jesus day the Pharisees and Scribes test theirs and others spiritual health by how closely they followed the ritual law of Moses, as well as the traditions that were handed down that were supposed to help you follow the law.
They had traveled all the way out into the Sea of Galilee to put this new teacher to the test. When the renewal was in full swing out at the Airport Christian fellowship, there were often the “back wall judges” that would show up. These were usually pastors who had heard about the renewal and had come to see what they were doing wrong.
The Pharisees and Scribes had come for the same reason. They stood at the back of the crowd with their arms crossed and waited until this Jesus did something wrong. They only had to wait until lunch.
The Jews had a practice of ritually washing their hands before they ate. It only took a palmful of water, but it was to be sure that they would not be ritually defiled by anything as they ate. It wasn’t from the Bible, but it had become the common ritual practice amongst religious Jews. The disciples didn’t do it!
So they confront Jesus “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”
Jesus seems to be bit fed up with their attacks and he attacks back. He accuses them of two problems.
2 problems
1) Ritual over Relationship
The hand washing that the Pharisees were concerned about had nothing to do with disease. It was about being ceremonially clean. The Old Testament Law described many different ways that a person could become ceremonially unclean – touching a dead body, giving birth, having mould in your house… If any of these things happened to you, you were barred from temple worship until you had been declared “clean” once again There were rituals and time periods for becoming “clean” once you had become “unclean.”
The leaders of the people had added rituals to the ones written down to help people avoid ritual defilement. After many generations of practice, these traditions were seen to be as much God’s law as the things that Moses wrote down. The ritual washing of hands before the meal was one of these traditions
We do that by seeing cultural things like Sunday School, Sunday worship at 11 am (or so), the shape of our service as coming straight from God’s word.
Jesus doesn’t explain the disciples actions, he attacks the Pharisees’ hypocrisy. He says, “Isaiah was prophesying about you when he said
“these people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far away
Their worship is a farce,
For they replace God’s commands with
their own human teachings”
The Pharisees were more concerned with looking pious than being pious.
They were more concerned about being right than being righteous.
Jesus doesn’t mind that they hold to their traditions, but they do so while ignoring the important parts of the religion.
He says to them in Matthew 23:23-24,
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
Do we do this?
We are not much into ritual as a church. When it comes to high church and low church, you can’t get much lower than us! But there may still be some rituals that we base or faith on instead of a heart that is close to God.
Do we say, “I go to church, I read my bible, I raise my hands in worship, I get into the songs, I must be a good Christian!” when there are bigger issues in our life that we are letting go? Do we judge others for not following our rituals rather than praying that their heart would be right with God?
Are you keeping up with God, or merely “keeping up appearances?
The Pharisees other problem is that they held
2) Rules over Righteousness
The Pharisees used their rules and traditions to suit their own needs.
There was a tradition that if you had some money or property, you could declare it as a gift to God to be given in the future. You could hold on to it, but it could not be given to anyone else or spent on his or her behalf. It was like the ultimate tax shelter. People would have parents who needed their help, and they would have the ability to help them, but they would say, “sorry Ma, I’d love to help you, but all my savings are designated as a gift to God!”
It’s a great tradition - you get to look really religious and keep your money!
Jesus says “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! Moses said, “Honour your father and mother!”
They pretended to honour God and didn’t honour their parents! They were more concerned with obeying the rules than they were with true righteousness. Paul say to us in Ephesians 5:10 “find out what pleases the Lord.”
Do we do this?
Do we use tradition or theology to negate the commands of God?
Not caring for the poor because it doesn’t fit your theology or economic model.
Prosperity Gospel – not biblical, but one preacher copying another. – Jim Bakker
Do we avoid caring for our family by becoming over involved in church functions? We come off looking very spiritual, and our family suffers.
Do we try to push the edge and use the rules to get as far as we can without breaking the rules? It shouldn’t be about getting as much as you can without breaking the rules, it should be about pleasing God. I had one young guy say to me, “It doesn’t say anything about not smoking dope in the Bible. It doesn’t, but it is still not honouring to God.
Do we rationalize our sin, so that it doesn’t seem so wrong?
So, if we cannot judge out spiritual health by our outward following of rituals, or our obedience to the rules, how do we judge our faith?
Solution – “Heart Religion”
The solution to these two problems is what the puritans used to call “heart religion:” - a faith that doesn’t just obey a list of rules, but a faith that has a heart that seeks God and his way out of love.
In the mindset of the people Jesus was talking to, the heart was not just the center of the emotions, it was also the center of the will and the thought processes. To love God with your whole heart was to love him with your entire inner being.
Back to the issue of washing hands – the Pharisees were always worried about being defiled by something unclean touching them or entering through their mouth. Jesus says, “you can’t be defiled by what goes into you, you are defiled by what comes out of you.”
This was a radical shift in belief! That the stuff you do is worse than the stuff that is done to you. This is a hard word, because it might actually be easier to control what goes into your mouth than what comes out. It might be easier to stop eating pork than it is to stop judging our brothers and sisters!
How do we stop from being defiled from the inside out? How can we obey God and not be hypocrites like the Pharisees?
Change your heart.
In Matthew 12, Jesus says this,
33"Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. … For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. Good people bring good things out of the good stored up in them, and evil people bring evil things out of the evil stored up in them.
If we see that evil things are coming from the overflow of our heart, we don’t need to concentrate as much on the overflow as we do the heart.
To change metaphors, we don’t have to concentrate as much on cleaning what comes out of the tap as much as we do purifying the well.
The good news is that we do not have to do it all ourselves.
Ezekiel prophesies about what God is going to do through his Holy Spirit
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” (Ezekiel 36)
When we trust in Jesus, God gives us a heart transplant, he takes out the heart that tries to weasel out of doing what is right while still looking “right” and he replaces it with a heart that wants to do what is right. You’ve heard of obeying the letter of the law verses the spirit of the law? God gives us the Spirit of the law and he works within our heart to help us want to do God’s will and to convict our hearts when we do not.
Our role is to believe in Jesus, ask forgiveness and learn to walk in the Spirit that he gives us.
You might say “I’ve given my life to Jesus and there is still guck coming out of the tap. There is still bad fruit on the tree. What’s up with that?
God gives us a new heart, gives us his Spirit, but we need to partner with him in the renewing work. As I’ve said in my series on spiritual disciplines; we need to “till the soil of the soul” so that the Spirit can grow good fruit.
As opposed to the list of nasty things that Jesus says comes out of our evil hearts, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Galatians 5:22-23
Change your mind.
One of the main ways we till the soil of the soul and partner with what the Spirit has done with our heart is through changing our mind.
Romans 12:2
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be ale to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
Pick up the guide on the spiritual discipline of study
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, what ever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me – put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. - Philippians 4:8-9
God doesn’t just want you obedience, or a few religious rituals added to you life, he wants all of you, heart, soul, mind and strength. True faith is obedience and worship driven by a heart of love. True faith comes from the inside out.
