True Righteousness

[0:00] In 2010, the deep water horizon off the Gulf had a tragic, tragic accident. 5,000 feet down below that oil platform, there was a breakage.

[0:17] And this well, the Macondo wellhead, it burst. And so over the next 87 days, 3.19 million barrels of oil flowed into the Gulf.

[0:36] That's 130 million gallons of oil flowed into the Gulf. It was the largest accidental oil spill in human history.

[0:48] And as a result of what that well was spewing forth, it polluted the Gulf. It had devastating effects.

[1:00] Recovery is still happening. This morning, Jesus is going to tell us about a different well. It's not in the Gulf. It's inside of you.

[1:12] It's the well of your heart. And up from that well is spewing forth things that pollute, that what Jesus says defile, that corrupt.

[1:25] Things like murder and adultery, sexual immorality, theft, bearing false witness, slander. They all come out of your heart.

[1:36] Now, if we were to ask someone on the street, why do people do evil things, I'm guessing we get a couple different answers. Maybe we'd hear something like this.

[1:47] Well, it's the way you're raised. The education you received or the home you were raised in or the economic advantages or disadvantages you had or the ability to voice where you were or not.

[2:03] So it's environmental. That would be one option we would hear. The other one would be, well, it's genetic. It's physiological. Maybe they're genetically predisposed to this or that.

[2:27] Well, depending on how you answer that question will determine a lot of things. Here's what's riding on the answer.

[2:38] Here's what's riding on the street.

[3:09] Now, are there environmental influences that shape us? Yes. Are there genetic influences? Of course. But are these the cause of the corruption that we see in our own hearts, our own lives?

[3:26] What if the primary source of human evil is neither environmental or physiological, but it's spiritual? It has to do with our relationship with the living God.

[3:39] If that's the case, we're not going to find the ultimate solution in social sciences. We're not going to find the ultimate solution in the halls of medicine. If you would open up your Bibles to Matthew chapter 15, I'm going to read through verses 1 through 20, and it's like this.

[3:59] If we saw Jesus on the street, if we saw Jesus on the street, and we asked Jesus, Jesus, what corrupts a human being? What defiles a person? He would say something like this.

[4:11] Would you read with me in Matthew 15? Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, Why do you disciples break the tradition of the elders, that they do not wash their hands when they eat?

[4:28] Jesus answered them, And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, honor your father and your mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. But you say, if anyone tells his father or his mother what you would have gained from me is given to God, he need not honor his father.

[4:47] So for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

[4:59] In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. And he called the people to himself and said to them, Hear and understand, it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth.

[5:17] But this defiles a person. Then the disciples came and said to him, Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?

[5:28] Jesus answered, Every plant that the heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone, their blind guides, and if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.

[5:40] But Peter said to him, Explain the parable to us. And Jesus said, Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled?

[5:52] But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart. And this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

[6:08] These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone. Jesus doesn't use the word pollution.

[6:22] He doesn't use the word corrupt. He uses the word defile. To make common. To kind of separate from that what's holy. Jesus says what defiles a person is not external to you.

[6:42] It's internal to you. You're not defiled from the outside in. You're defiled from the inside out. Your greatest problem is not outside of you.

[6:53] Your greatest problem is within you. When Jesus talks about the heart, he's not talking about that fist-sized muscle that is pumping blood throughout your body right now.

[7:11] He means the core of who you are. Your essential being. Your inner person. Where you think, feel, and make decisions. In the Hebrew mind, the heart was the center place of a person.

[7:26] It's where they thought, felt, made decisions. And so what Jesus is saying here in this passage is that your biggest problem is not your DNA. It's not the family you were raised in.

[7:38] It's not the neighborhood you live in. It's not the opportunities you have or don't have. The biggest problem you've got is your heart. And what that means is we're responsible for what happens in our hearts.

[7:58] We are responsible for our thoughts, our feelings, our words, and our actions because they all flow out of the heart.

[8:09] Guard your heart above all else. For from it flow the wellspring of life. Proverbs 4. So here's how we're going to move forward this morning.

[8:20] We're going to walk through this account and we're going to see three encounters. Between Jesus. Verse 1 is between Jesus and a delegation from Jerusalem. And then Jesus and the people.

[8:32] And the third is Jesus and his disciples. And all throughout it, Jesus is dealing with this issue of what defiles a person. What makes them unclean? Is it washing your hands?

[8:43] Is it the food you eat? Jesus says no. It's from within. It's from within. After we walk through those accounts, I'm going to bring this to a point and then we're going to apply it to our lives.

[8:55] So let's begin in chapter 15 verses 1 through 9. Jesus. An encounter between Jesus and a delegation from Jerusalem.

[9:08] Now you've got to notice. Now you've got to notice in 51, the Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem. Up until this point, the Pharisees and scribes that Jesus has been dealing with have been local boys.

[9:24] City cops. County sheriff. And now, the folks down in Jerusalem have gotten word about Jesus.

[9:35] Now if you look at Matthew 14, 1. Remember Herod last week, we learned God word of Jesus fame. And he flipped out. He thought it was John the Baptist.

[9:46] Come back from the grave. And here, we have the religious establishment that's in Jerusalem. They get wind of Jesus. What he's teaching.

[9:57] And they're wondering if he's subverting them. And so the way to think about these guys is they're not the local law enforcement.

[10:09] These would be like the feds coming in. Coming in from the capital to check things out. The Pharisaical Bureau of Investigation.

[10:22] Now in 15.2, they approached Jesus with a question. Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They show up and they watch Jesus' disciples eat food without washing their hands.

[10:39] Now you may be wondering, what is this tradition of the elders they're talking about? Well, they're not talking about the Bible itself. They're talking about a tradition that had been built around the Bible, the Old Testament, to help explain the Old Testament.

[10:56] It was an oral tradition. Have you ever seen pictures of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. when it was being refurbished?

[11:07] It had scaffolding built all around it so workers can work on the outside of the Capitol. The only reason why you knew it was a Capitol, you saw the dome on the rotunda. You said, something's in there. The tradition of the elders was like scaffolding that the religious leaders had built around the Old Testament to help people understand it.

[11:28] If there was confusion over what a particular passage meant or how it applied. And so the intent was a good intent to help God's people understand God's word. But here's what happened.

[11:40] The scaffolding became permanent and authoritative. So instead of appealing to the command, people would appeal to the scaffolding. It's kind of like this.

[11:52] It's instead of the halls, the acts of kind of our government happening in the Capitol, it's like let's bring them out to the scaffolding. Come live out on the scaffolding, everyone.

[12:07] And so what was taking place was this tradition of the elders, what was meant to explain the Old Testament, started taking on authority on par with God's Scripture.

[12:19] You get a sense of this in 15.2 when they say, Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? That word break is the word transgress.

[12:32] They had raised it to such a degree that it's like, Oh, naughty, naughty on you for breaking, transgressing the tradition of the elders. And then in the second part of verse 2, they point to something.

[12:47] Your disciples, they're transgressing the tradition of the elders for, you see that at the end of verse 2, middle of verse 2, for they do not wash their hands when they eat. There's no command in the Old Testament that requires all Jews to wash their hands before every meal.

[13:05] There's no command. There were Old Testament commands that required priests to wash their hands before eating something that had been offered as a sacrifice. What appears to have happened is that certain Jews took the specific command to priests and they generalized the command to all of God's people.

[13:26] So when the Jerusalem delegation sees Jesus' disciples not washing their hands before they eat, whip, whip, whip, whip, whip, weep, we got a problem.

[13:42] Now before you start thinking, man, those Pharisees back in the first century, they made mountains out of molehills, I'll tell you what.

[13:55] No playing cards, no dancing, no alcoholic consumption. If you don't homeschool your children, something's wrong with you.

[14:08] This kind of thinking exists today. We can make things that are not God's Word on the same level as God's Word.

[14:18] Now remember, behind all this kind of hand-washing thinking is a deep and pervasive concern for ritual purity.

[14:32] Being clean. If a Jew touched something that wasn't clean, that Jew became unclean and they would not be allowed to participate in the religious life of their family and friends. Do you remember back in Matthew 9, there's a woman who has this 12-year-old issue of blood?

[14:52] And no one would touch her because she was unclean, according to Leviticus. If anyone touched her, they would become unclean. What's amazing is she once touches Jesus and Jesus doesn't become unclean, she becomes clean.

[15:11] That's what Jesus does. So what's going on here is this. This delegation comes up, they're looking for anything, they see Jesus' disciples not washing their hands, and they say, hey, you know, you're breaking the transgression, you're transgressing the tradition of the elders.

[15:30] They're essentially saying, you disciples, you're unclean. And this guy teaching you, he's transgressing the tradition of the elders too.

[15:41] He's not teaching what he should be teaching. So there's the charge of subversion. It's implied. Now to Jesus' counter charge.

[15:55] You're going to see Jesus do something here that may seem a little tough. Up until this point, Jesus has kind of swapped some, traded some words with the Pharisees. We're going to see him bringing up a notch right now.

[16:09] And he's going to bring it up a notch because what's at stake is the right understanding of God's word and rightly understanding the human condition. That's why he's going to respond the way he does.

[16:21] And we see his response starting in verse 3. Jesus answered them and said, and why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? That word break is the same word that the Pharisees had used up in verse 2.

[16:36] Jesus is saying, let me just use that word transgress rightly. You, why are you transgressing the commandment of God for the sake of your traditions?

[16:49] Jesus doesn't answer their question. We're going to see him do this a number of times going forward. But he turns it around on them. And then he points to his proof. His support.

[17:03] He says, in verse 4, for God commanded, honor your father and your mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.

[17:14] Those are both taken from Exodus chapter 120, verse 12. That's the fifth commandment in the Ten Commandments. And the second one where he says, whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.

[17:25] That's taken from Exodus 21, 17. And what they go to show is that this is God's word, and it's serious when you transgress it. If you revile your mom and your dad, that's a capital offense.

[17:39] And why he's doing that is because the Pharisees were making a capital offense. And so if you notice, in verse 5, 5, Jesus sets up the command of God, and then he says, but you say.

[17:59] This is what God's word says. Honor your father and your mother. But here's what you're saying. You are saying, if anyone tells his father or his mother, what you would have gained from me is given to God, he need not honor his father or his mother.

[18:15] Here's what's going on. It's a technical term called korban. And what it was, it's a kind of vow. And the vow that was being made is like this. An adult child would say, well, I have vowed to God to give half my wealth.

[18:33] And then if there was a need that came up for his parents, the Pharisees were saying, don't break your vow to God. Don't honor your mother or your father. Follow through on your vow to God.

[18:45] God, give that money. Do you know where the money would go? To the temple treasury. Do you know who was in charge of the temple treasury? The Pharisees.

[18:56] Do you see what Jesus is putting his finger into? He's hitting a wasp nest. And so Jesus is saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[19:09] You guys are breaking a command. By you saying, in your tradition of the elders, your tradition, if you're saying you can break, you don't have to honor your mother and your father to keep your vow, you're missing it.

[19:29] And then Jesus goes on to say that they're not only missing it, they're invalidating the word of God, God's commandments. They're making it void.

[19:42] It's a serious charge. Jesus is very protective of God's word. Remember, he came not to abolish it, but to fulfill it. He holds it up.

[19:53] And when people challenge it, he challenges them. And so he concludes, in order to keep a value, invalidate God's command, and then he accuses them of being hypocrites.

[20:11] Think about it. God incarnate is saying these men are hypocrites. You hypocrites.

[20:24] Well did Isaiah prophesy of you. And then he quotes Isaiah 29, 13, which in its context is spoken to Jews who are in Jerusalem who are just paying lip service to God's commandments.

[20:40] They were saying one thing, but their hearts were somewhere else. They were more devoted to human traditions than obeying God's commands. That's what's going on with the Pharisees here.

[20:51] They're so focused on the externals. They're so focused on their scaffolding just to make sure you keep the scaffolding right. Just make sure you're doing the right things in the right way and everything's just going to be fine.

[21:04] Even if it invalidates God's commands. It's Jesus' point. And what Jesus, by quoting Isaiah 29, he's saying, they have made their worship of God vain, hollow, meaningless, empty.

[21:23] They're putting the man-made traditions on the same par with God's all-authoritative words and so he says, you're hypocrites.

[21:36] My disciples aren't doing anything wrong. You are. So here we have our feisty Savior.

[21:49] Our feisty Messiah. And we're caught in between the Pharisees and Jesus. The Pharisees are saying, keep the tradition of the elders.

[22:00] Focus on externals. Make sure your hands are washed. Eat the right foods. Don't be subversive. Jesus is saying, keep the commandment of God.

[22:13] Don't build scaffolding that is going to challenge the authority of God's word. He accuses the Pharisees of being hypocrites. They've invalidated God's commands for their tradition.

[22:25] So the question, who's right? Well, we know that Jesus was a descendant of David. He's born of the Virgin Mary. He was tempted by Satan. Didn't give in.

[22:36] He preached the Sermon on the Mount. He healed all sorts of people. He did amazing things. He spoke with authority. He is God in the flesh. He is Emmanuel. And so Jesus is right. He is the all-authoritative one.

[22:51] Who is this guy? Who is this guy that when the Jerusalem delegation comes up, he just turns the tables on them? He turns the tables on them and calls them hypocrites.

[23:04] Who is this guy? Only God in the flesh does that kind of stuff. The second encounter is between Jesus and the crowds. And we see that in verses 10 and 11.

[23:19] And he called the people to him and said to them, hear and understand, it's not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth. This defiles a person.

[23:29] And in verse 15, Peter's going to say, explain to us the parable. This is what he's talking about. This kind of going into the mouth and going out of the mouth business. That's the parable that Peter is referencing about.

[23:42] And if you remember from when we were in Matthew 13, a parable is like vertical blinds. It reveals the truth of the kingdom to some and hides the truth of the kingdom to others. And so when Jesus calls the crowds, the people to him, he speaks this parable to them.

[23:57] And the focus is on the mouth. But it's about what defiles a person. And so it has to do with food.

[24:09] More importantly, pure food, clean food, or unclean food. So the disciples are being charged with transgressing the hand washing regulations. And so if they have dirty hands, they put it on clean food, they make the food dirty.

[24:23] And if it goes into your mouth, it makes you all the more dirty. Here Jesus is focusing on the eating of something unclean.

[24:36] And what he is saying here is such a seismic shift for a devout Jew. It was phenomenal what Jesus is saying here. If they had ears to hear.

[24:48] Even the disciples who heard this didn't quite get it. It would take them decades to figure this thing out with the help of God. Remember that this is a parable and the kingdom meaning would have been hidden to many who heard.

[25:03] And so Jesus speaks this parable out. It's not what goes inside of you through your mouth that defiles you. It's what comes out of your mouth. That's what defiles you. So the contrast is between coming in and going out.

[25:17] What comes into the mouth versus what comes out of the mouth. It's all about defilement. Becoming unclean in God's sight.

[25:29] And what Jesus is saying here, it's not what goes into your mouth that defiles you in God's sight. In Mark chapter 7, Mark says at this point, parenthetically, and therefore he declared all foods clean.

[25:44] So when Jesus says here, it's not what comes into your mouth that defiles you. He's saying, go have a ham sandwich. It doesn't defile you.

[25:55] He says, hear and understand. Speaking to crowds, it's a parable. Whatever he's talking about is a new kingdom reality.

[26:08] It's a new dietary regulation for those in the kingdom. And what it is, is there are no dietary regulations for those in the kingdom. Because they don't make you unclean.

[26:20] We're not told how the crowd responds, but we are told how the disciples respond. So let me draw your attention to that in verses 12 through 20.

[26:35] This is the third encounter of this passage. Jesus with his disciples. Then the disciples came and said to him, do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?

[26:46] And he answered, and then Peter in verse 15 says, explain to us the parable. And so when his disciples come to him and ask for an explanation, they actually ask for two explanations.

[26:58] What about the Pharisees and what about this parable? And so Jesus picks up the issue about the Pharisees first. Did you not know that you just offended the Pharisees?

[27:09] Now that word offend that you see in verse 12, you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying? Probably talking about his quoting of Isaiah 29.

[27:24] That word offended, if you look back to Matthew chapter 13 and look at verse 57, remember that Jesus went to Nazareth and he spoke with authority and his hometown peeps, do you remember what they did?

[27:40] They were offended by him. It's the same word. What Jesus said was scandalous to them. Jesus is being scandalous to the Pharisees for what he's saying.

[27:53] He's speaking with authority. He is correcting them. He's exposing what they're doing is wrong. And they're upset about it. And so the disciples say, hey, did you know you just offended them?

[28:04] And Jesus responds in verses 13 by 14 by saying, you know what? They're not planted by my heavenly Father. They're not from God. In fact, they're going to be uprooted.

[28:16] And the last time we read something like that in Matthew 13, it was uprooted and thrown into the fire. So what Jesus is saying there is they're not from God. And then he says in verse 14, they're blind guides.

[28:31] The Pharisees love to be thought of being teachers of the people, of leading people into what the Old Testament truly says. And ironically, they weren't. Their emphasis on their traditions kept them from getting the true meaning of God's Word.

[28:50] And so Jesus calls them blind guides, false teachers. And they will lead other blind folks into a pit. You know what? Pits aren't good destinations, generally speaking.

[29:03] They're dangerous places. They're deadly places. Unless it's a barbecue pit. Well, that is a deadly place. Jesus sums up by saying, let them alone.

[29:18] Don't have anything to do with them. Don't go after their ways. Don't let them guide you. They're not going to lead you into life. They're going to lead you into a pit. So up until this point, Jesus has called the Pharisees from Jerusalem hypocrites.

[29:33] He said that Isaiah 29, 13, they fulfill it. They're just paying lip service to God. They are elevating the traditions of man on the same level the commandments of God.

[29:45] He calls them not planted by God. They're going to be uprooted. He tells them that they're blind, saying that they're blind guides. Jesus says, have nothing to do with them. They don't have the words you need.

[29:59] And then he turns to the parable in verses 15 through 20. In 15, Peter says, explain the parable to us.

[30:10] And in verse 16, Jesus kind of says, no kind of about it, do you not understand? Jesus is surprised. You guys don't get this? You don't understand what I'm saying?

[30:23] And so instead of just kind of like kicking them out of where they were and throwing his hands up, I give up on you guys. He spells it out for them. I'm so encouraged by this because I'm slow to understand what Jesus says.

[30:37] And so to be able to say, Jesus, would you just explain this to me? He's a risen king and he loves to make clear his word. And so what he says is what defiles a person doesn't come from the outside in, but what defiles a person comes from the inside out.

[30:56] And what he's going to say is we all have a resident evil. In verse 17, he explains the first part of the parable, what comes into the mouth. He says this, do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled?

[31:16] His focus is on the pragmatics of food running its course through the human body. You eat it and then you digest it and then you expel it. Literally, that means it goes into the latrine.

[31:30] Jesus is removing any sort of spiritualizing of food. Eat it, digest it, and it ends up in the latrine, guys. It's just food.

[31:43] And again, Mark says here that he declares all foods clean at this point. Food doesn't make you dirty in God's sight. He's saying to his disciples, you no longer need to be concerned about what you eat.

[32:05] You need to be concerned about something else. And that something else shows up in verse 18. If we're not to be concerned about what we eat or if we're not going to be concerned about washing our hands rightly, what are we going to be concerned about?

[32:26] Jesus says, be concerned about your heart. Be concerned about that thing in you, that central inner being where you worship from.

[32:38] That's what you need to be concerned about. What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, Jesus says. And this defiles a person.

[32:48] This is what makes someone unclean in God's sight. It's like Jesus is saying this. Don't get me wrong. Defilement is real, but food isn't the cause of real defilement.

[33:00] Nor is your washing or not washing your hands the real cause of defilement. The real cause of your defilement is in you, your heart. And then he elaborates on it.

[33:13] It's what comes out of the heart is what corrupts us. Look at verse 9. Verse 19, excuse me. What proceeds from the heart?

[33:24] Evil thoughts. Now, that might be a little tough for us as Americans because when we think about thinking, you think with your head and you feel with your heart, right? Well, what Jewish thinking would do, they just kind of squish it all together.

[33:37] You think and you feel in the same place, your heart. And so it's not unusual for Jesus to say, evil thoughts come from your heart. And those evil thoughts result in things like murders.

[33:52] In the Greek, it's plural. And what that does is it makes it real concrete. Where do murders come from? One's heart.

[34:04] Taking a life. Adulteries. Taking another person's spouse. Where does that come from? From the evil thoughts of your heart. Where do sexual immoralities come from? It's just kind of a vague term for sexual sin.

[34:17] A broad term. It comes from your heart. Where do thefts, it's getting plural. All these are plural. Where do they come from? They come from your heart. False witnesses denying or distorting the truth.

[34:29] Where does it come from? It comes from within you. It's not environmental. It's not genetic. It's from your heart. Where do slanders come from? Speaking falsely of someone else.

[34:40] They come from within you. You can't pass the buck on someone else. They're from inside. God's going to hold you accountable for that. Jesus is saying all these come from out of your heart.

[34:52] Now this isn't like an exhausted list. There's a whole bunch more we can talk about. The point is that Jesus is making here is that defilement doesn't come from the outside in.

[35:05] It comes from the inside out. From where we worship. People don't murder people because they haven't washed their hands or they've eaten pork.

[35:18] People murder because there's evil thoughts in their hearts. So Jesus is lovingly explaining to His disciples and us that there's a resident evil within us.

[35:31] In the words of Jeremiah 17.9 it says, The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? Jesus gets it.

[35:45] John 2.24 Jesus knows the heart of man. He sees the depth of our defilement. And you know what's amazing?

[35:57] He loves us still. It's the very reason He came. He didn't come for the sort of dirty. He came for those who were really defiled.

[36:10] For the murderers and the adulterers and the immoral and those who slander and bear false witness. Those are the ones He came for. So Jesus concludes in verse 20, These are what defile a person but to eat with unwashed hands?

[36:27] That does not defile anybody. If you were to ask Jesus, Jesus, what makes someone corrupt in God's eyes? You know what Jesus would say? Their heart.

[36:39] The evil that comes from their heart. And that is the point of this passage. That's the unique contribution of this passage to our understanding of God's mind.

[36:50] He wants us to know that our problem, biggest problem, isn't outside of us. it's inside of us. And so let's look to apply this.

[37:05] Jesus, the first way to apply it is this. And it's on a lighter note. Since what comes into your mouth is not what defiles you, eat whatever you want. Enjoy Doritos.

[37:18] Have a Cuban. Enjoy it. It doesn't defile you. It might shorten your life a little bit, but it doesn't defile you. You might put on some pounds, but it doesn't defile you.

[37:30] So Jesus isn't saying throw out wisdom. But on a more serious note, here's what we see Jesus doing here. He is authoritatively making a statement about the human condition.

[37:48] He is saying this is your real problem. Don't buy the externals of the Pharisees. Let that behavioralism go. No.

[38:01] Pay attention to your heart. Because what controls your heart controls your life. And so what Jesus does, and I just want to expand on this a little bit, he helps us see how wicked our hearts are.

[38:16] We've got a radical evil inside of us. It goes down deep. We have a pervasive evil inside of us. It's what the theologians call total depravity.

[38:28] We're not as bad as we can possibly be, but sin affects everything that we are. It pervades all of our life. It's a controlling evil.

[38:39] If you point to James 4 and you ask, why are there fights and quarrels among you? James says, is it not because of the evil passions that war within you? It can be a controlling evil.

[38:52] It's a polluting evil. It's destructive. It's disunifying. It's divisive. It's a deceptive evil. The heart is deceptive above all things.

[39:03] It's a universal evil. The heart problem is not just limited to the young or the old. It goes across racial lines.

[39:15] It goes across upbringings. It doesn't matter how much money you've got. It doesn't matter which neighborhood you live in. Kind of how you spend your time during the day. Everybody's got a heart problem.

[39:30] It's a universal evil. And it's a capital evil. God is not indifferent about the resident evil in our hearts. He's deeply offended by it because our hearts were created to worship Him, not disobey Him, not mock Him, not idolize other things in His place.

[39:54] John Calvin called the human heart an idol factory, just producing one idol after the next. Jesus prevents us from minimizing or justifying the real problem we have.

[40:10] We can't point to others. We can't point to our DNA. We've got to own the problem inside of us. It's evil and it's ours. And it's against God.

[40:22] And He rightfully condemns it. But on that day when you stand before the throne, you will be held accountable for every evil deed and every evil thought.

[40:36] Now, if we just wrap things up right here, you guys would be like, well, that was a bummer. I can eat pork now, but you know what? I'm really bummed out.

[40:47] I'm really bummed out. God, I've got good news for you. The good news is that God's grace goes deeper than your deepest evil.

[41:00] A radical problem requires a radical solution and the cross of Jesus Christ is that radical problem that goes down deep where sin is and radically changes it. God, by His Spirit, comes to indwell you and not only changes your affections, He gives you a new desire to worship Him and obey Him.

[41:21] The good news is that God's grace is a pervasive grace. When a sinner repents and trusts in Jesus, God claims all of that sinner by the blood of Jesus. Every square inch of your life, Christian, is claimed by the blood of Jesus.

[41:35] His grace will pervade every area of your life in order to make you more like Him. the good news is that God's grace is a pervasive grace. The good news is that God's grace is an overpowering grace.

[41:55] God's grace is more powerful than sin in you. God's grace breaks the power of sin in you. God's grace is an overpowering grace.

[42:10] That's the good news. Here's another good news. God's grace is a sanctifying grace. It cleans up what sin pollutes. It transforms. It redeems.

[42:21] It makes murderers into life givers. It makes adulterers into those who keep their vows. It makes thieves generous givers. It makes liars truth tellers.

[42:35] That's the good news of God's grace. God's grace is a universal problem God's grace is that God's grace is that the deceptiveness of sin, it is put, it's exposed by God's word.

[42:49] It's seen for what it is. God grabs onto slippery sins and puts them to death by His Spirit. Romans 8.13. The good news is that God's grace is freely offered to all people.

[43:02] The resident evil in each of us is a universal problem of all mankind and God offers a universal solution. God's power to radically change a human heart is offered to all people everywhere in the gospel.

[43:18] God says in 1 Timothy 2 He wants all people to be saved. God does not want His image bearers worshiping things that are not Him and so the gospel goes out to change hearts.

[43:30] God's grace is greater than your evil heart, anyone's evil heart. And finally, the good news is that God graciously offers pardon to those with capital crimes.

[43:47] It's true that our evil sinful hearts rightly condemn us but the one speaking these words do you know what He's going to do? He's going to say it.

[43:59] I'm going to give my life as a ransom for many. He's going to go to the cross and He's going to offer Himself as a pardon for your capital crimes.

[44:11] He's going to be a ransom for you. He substituted Himself in your place. He died on the cross so that you can be forgiven. The good news is that God's grace offers a great salvation.

[44:27] brothers and sisters this morning we had to look at something heavy and hard and that's inside of you in each of you but it's not bad news because it points to Jesus and our need for Him and what only He can do and that is to change our hearts and when He changes our hearts He changes changes our lives.

[44:56] Would you bow with me? God in heaven I pray that You would make us people who pay attention to our hearts and cry out to You to change our hearts and in so doing change the way we live our lives.

[45:13] God I pray for the parents in the room. I pray that parents God would love their children beyond making them behave right to calling them to repentance to showing them their hearts are wicked in need of a Savior.

[45:28] God would You make us parents who gospelize our children. God I do pray as well for this church that we would be a people who don't focus on externals for external sake but God we pay attention to the change the gospel brings to individual hearts.

[45:48] Help us to proclaim that faithfully in Jesus name Amen.