[0:00] All right, as Dave mentioned, we are in Mark chapter 7 this morning. Mark chapter 7, so you might want to turn to your Bibles to Mark chapter 7.
[0:12] A couple things that I just want to update you on as far as announcements go. Just as in your bulletins there's a membership class. We've kind of reduced the membership class to a one-day event, and it is an event.
[0:30] It's exciting. You might even want to be there if you are a member. That's how great it's going to be. All right, I'm setting that bar high. Okay, but we're going to have lunch. We're going to have a time.
[0:40] We're going to go over what are some of the blessings of being a member here at Squamish Baptist Church, but more importantly, just coming under God's Word in what He says about the issue of what it is to belong to one another.
[0:54] What a great understanding that is, right? When we think about the church, the idea that we belong to one another in Christ. So see Stephanie or give your name at the office if you want to attend.
[1:07] She's actually going to give you a brochure ahead of time. It's a little booklet, and it kind of goes over some of the things we're going to discuss. I would love for you to read them ahead of time so we can have that discussion when we can come together.
[1:20] Another thing to continue to remind you, and guys, these are great opportunities to serve the kingdom. We have a family conference coming up first weekend of May.
[1:32] Chris is kind of driving the horse on that with Lisa by his side. We are going to be bringing up Chris Hambleton. He's going to be coming up from California. And it's going to be an all-day, three-day type of weekend.
[1:45] Guys, we're really blessed to have that. Some of the other churches in BC are looking to join us. So even when, and I'll get to this in a second, we were at a conference this past week. A couple of the pastors asked, couldn't they come?
[1:56] Can they be here just to have that blessing of being here during that time? Get an opportunity to meet you, but they get to be learning from Chris Hambleton. But there's another meeting that's coming up, and Steph's going to be having the announcements out next week.
[2:10] It's on March 23rd. We churches have to get together, The Rock and Church of 99, to do a sports ministries outreach. And as Glenn has put it so succinctly, if we don't help, it doesn't happen.
[2:27] So this is such a great, wonderful opportunity that we get to reach into the families that live in Squamish. There's going to be various types of sports camps. We need people to help with administration, cooking.
[2:41] There's going to be a whole slew of events. So we're going to have a date, which I think is the 23rd. We're going to have the location of the meeting. I'd love to invite every single one of you to that, just to see what gift that you have that you can offer for this great and wonderful opportunity to spread the name of Jesus in our city.
[3:02] Do we need that here in Squamish? Yes or no? Do we need that here in Squamish? Yes or no? There we go. So I'm really looking forward to this. I'm actually just looking forward to spending time with them.
[3:18] March 25th, I've been corrected, as usual, from the 23rd to the 25th. But that's why we have a brochure going out by Stephanie, which will correct us all. But I just wanted to give you guys a quick update this week, in case you didn't know, there was a conference.
[3:35] And it's a conference put out by the church that I went to seminary at in California. And I was blessed to have four of the men here join me.
[3:46] Chris Mitchell, Sabian, Josh DeMarco, and Brent Smith all join me with a little voyage down to California. I would encourage you to ask each and every one of those guys what takeaways they had at the conference.
[4:04] It's a pretty intense conference. It was over 5,000 men from all over the world. They do translation into Russian, Spanish, of course, and a whole whack of other languages.
[4:17] They got to hear some of the greatest preachers of our day just speaking. I think it was four sermons a day. Pretty intense.
[4:27] But because it's America, they fed us well. So we've added a few pounds. I think I can safely say Sabian met every single pastor there. There was nobody he didn't say hi to and ask anything about.
[4:42] So he'll give you probably the most detailed report on what on there. Yeah, it was a great time. They have a book. They bring pretty much every major Christian publisher that's there.
[4:58] So every book. So the guys, I actually had to bring an extra suitcase so the guys could put their clothes in. And so with their carry-on, they filled with books. So we've got books we're going to continue to man our library with.
[5:12] So I would encourage you to take advantage. Of that, got to see Daniel Henderson as one of our missionaries. He was there. Daniel had me at a meeting with his boss.
[5:24] I'm going to tell you, man, Daniel's got it going on. He's now involved. And if you don't know, Daniel works with this ministry called Publication Christiane, which is Christian publishing.
[5:40] And the heart is to reach French-speaking pastors all over the world. One of the things that French-speaking pastors have lacked is resources. There's not a lot of really good Christian books to help pastors published in French.
[5:55] So Daniel said, well, why don't we just start a company and start publishing them? Well, what's interesting, there's a lot of French countries that don't always have friendly governments. So he's got a whole team that build blogs, and they're able to get these blogs published in the country.
[6:15] So people read these blogs, communicate with Daniel, and then they work to get to put together a whole package. And then they try to hold these conferences, and they give massive amounts of books away.
[6:30] Daniel pretty much coordinates with every single major Christian publisher on the planet. That is no small thing. He knows everybody in that world, and it's exciting to see.
[6:46] And if you know Daniel, he's kind of a fun guy. You know, he'll be bored, so he'll rent a rental car in Tijuana and drive it up from Mexico just to have the excitement of seeing if he gets shot, right?
[6:59] He's just kind of an odd duck in that way. But the project that he's working on is to go into Madagascar. They actually have over 30,000 books ready to go that they're going to distribute.
[7:14] But what they do is they go up and set up the ministry, and he's working. The head guy who drives them, I'm going to call him his boss, Daniel would describe him as the guy he wants to be like.
[7:25] But they go into a country, and they set up a publishing ministry right there in that country, and they get a church behind them.
[7:36] Then they bring in interns. So they teach them, like even the physical part of how to build their churches or the rooms that they're renting. They set up booths where people can do on-the-fly translation.
[7:49] So they'll find some people that are fluent in English and the native language. They just do podcasts. They read the books into their language. Some do the live translation and get those published out.
[8:02] It's quite a remarkable undertaking. And yeah, I was excited. I hope you're excited about that. But I'll tell you, one of the things, and you guys actually got a word out, so I went to visit the missions office at Grace Church, and it's a pretty big deal.
[8:20] They got missionaries all over the world. And a big thank you went from them to you guys for not only the trip to the Philippines, but the book that we were able to publish.
[8:31] In fact, there was several Filipinos on staff that specifically came, just gave me a hug, thanked us for caring for their home country.
[8:47] And not everyone there, and it touched down, a young lady came to speak to me. She's actually Canadian, but she was born in Laos, which is a communist country.
[8:59] And there's zero Christian resources there. And she was just asking me, can you pray for my country that we can get people in there like we've been able to in Vietnam?
[9:14] There's ministries in Cambodia, Thailand, Philippines, that are able to get resources in their hands. And now they're praying specifically for Laos. So I was just touched by her fervency, and I would say desperation for her home country.
[9:34] So that was kind of a moving afternoon, just working with some of the people and seeing what was going on. But God is at work. Amen? So yeah, let's just pray.
[9:46] Dear Holy Heavenly Father, sometimes it's easy to live in our land and take things for granted.
[10:02] Father, I pray that we treasure every resource that we have, every blessing that you have given us, every freedom that you bestow upon us.
[10:12] Father, there's people in this world who are denied Bibles. They're denied your word. Because even these foreign governments know that there is power in your word.
[10:29] And the best way to control their people is to keep them from knowing you, Lord Jesus. Father, we pray for countries like Laos and countries that struggle just to get good, solid churches where they can faithfully hear God's word preached each and every Sunday.
[10:57] We give you praise just even in this city alone. We have a handful of churches that are free and are faithful in declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[11:09] And for that we say, thank you, Lord. Let us not overlook those things. But at the same time, let us lift up those who do not have these blessings.
[11:20] We think of Daniel just being so passionate and creating relationships and raising money, which takes literally millions of dollars to get publishing companies started in other nations, which can reach just entire regions with the gospel, just to give helpful resources to pastors so they can have commentaries and books on prayer and other books that can encourage them in their walk and books that help us with our families and how to be better fathers and mothers and parents.
[11:57] Father, you have blessed us with much, and we pray these same blessings for the rest of this world.
[12:08] We do know there will time, the great day of the Lord, where you will make all things right and every tribe and tongue will clearly call out the name of Jesus.
[12:19] But until that time, we pray for your power.
[12:30] We pray for your wisdom, even here, us here in Squamish, that we can participate in some way in this worldwide act of evangelism that is going out with the good news.
[12:44] So, Father, thank you for the blessings of the conference. I thank you for the men who were there and their desire to not only to be better used here at this church, but to be better husbands and leaders in their homes, to be better lovers of their wives and better caretakers of their children.
[13:07] We ask these things in your most gracious and glorious name. Amen. So, I was confronted with a video several weeks ago, and it's what kind of laid on my heart to preach a sermon.
[13:27] So, just in case you're wondering, we're going to be getting back to the life of Christ next Sunday, but we're still in the gospel, more specifically the gospel of Mark chapter 7.
[13:40] And the video, which kind of drove this, I'll get to it in a second, but it brought up the question of what does it take to be good?
[13:55] To live in this day and age, in our culture, in our society, what does it take to be good? Perhaps you've thought about it, perhaps you haven't given much thought about it, but maybe you've thought about it to the point that you have written down, these are five things that I can do to be good, maybe ten.
[14:18] Again, it's interesting that Jesus Christ himself was no stranger to this question.
[14:31] If you've been a Christian for any length of time, or attended a church for any length of time, you're probably familiar with the story of the rich young ruler. Remember, he came to Jesus and he said, Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?
[14:49] It demonstrates. I've got to tell you, I'm feeling weak.
[15:22] We just listened to a sermon preached by John MacArthur, who at 87 just had five stints in his heart. Broke his wrist, hit his head, and he preached for an hour and a half.
[15:33] Go figure. I can't even go five minutes today. So he asked the question, Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?
[15:45] It's a question people have been asking for thousands of years. That word good is predominantly used in two different ways.
[16:02] One, we use it to define something that is excellent, agreeable. This is a good wine. This is a good car that I drive.
[16:13] We use it, but it has no moral word to it. In the States, we learn when you eat at a restaurant, you get a good portion of food.
[16:28] But there's another way that we can use the word good. It means benevolent. It means benevolent. Profitable. Useful.
[16:40] Something that has a certain quality that makes a difference. So when the rich young ruler approaches Jesus, and he said, what good deed, he's asking him, what benevolent, what profitable, what useful, what quality of work can I do to have this thing called eternal life?
[17:08] He's not asking, what thing of beauty can I create, perhaps a painting or a song, but he's asking for something much deeper.
[17:23] What is something that I can do that is essentially life-changing to earn this view? So this viral video that I want to talk to you about is essentially it's a girl.
[17:35] She's probably around late 20s, early 30s. I kind of get mixed up when people are around my age, just how old they are. So she's just kind of lamenting.
[17:47] She's just got her little camera, and she's talking about all the reasons why she is good. She's talking about all the nice things she has done in this world. But what was interesting, she doesn't talk about what it means to honour her parents or how giving or compassionate she is.
[18:05] She actually roots her goodness in the social constructs that she agrees with. She's proud to tell you that she supports the Black Lives Matter movement.
[18:18] She's proud to tell you that she supports the children's right to decide whether they're a boy or a girl at the age of three. She's just got these ideas that she's just talking about that makes her good.
[18:34] And one of the things that makes her good is she's actually ashamed of being white. And a curious thing she says at the very end of the video, just before she wraps up why I'm good, she says, oh yeah, I've had an abortion too.
[18:54] Listen, I've known women who've had abortions, both non-Christians and Christians. The Christians was usually when they were young in their faith or before they came to Christ.
[19:07] Not a single one of them would ever say it was a good thing. None of them would ever say that what they did, they were earning some kind of goodness.
[19:22] In fact, most have felt pain, they live with regret, and shame. As a pastor, I've had to walk through with some of them what it is to be entirely and totally forgiven by Jesus Christ because he offers that forgiveness.
[19:35] But to think that somehow that we now label murder, taking the life of an innocent child as good, something that makes us good, where are we?
[20:01] As a society that would think such a thing. then she lets us know why at the very end, which explains her position.
[20:15] She simply says, it's because everyone is good. Everyone is good. You see, if everyone is truly good, then anything they think, everything they do must be good, right?
[20:31] Because if we're good, anything that must come out of me must be good, must be profitable, must be useful. So it tells us that this attitude is what propels her thinking.
[20:54] Now, before you think that only exists in the world, it also exists in the church. We hear it often when people are confronted with sin. Well, I had a good intentions.
[21:07] You don't know my heart. Right? We all think that we have this ability to diagnose our own motivations. However, the trouble is, and Dave, with his experience counseling, counseling, can tell you time and time and time and time and time again, that we are absolutely incapable of diagnosing our own heart's condition.
[21:41] In fact, Jeremiah 17, 9 makes it plain as day. The heart is a deceitful above all things and desperately sick.
[21:52] Who can understand it? In fact, that is a further evidence of why we need each other. Amen? Why we need this church.
[22:03] We need Christ followers in our life to help us diagnose our conditions in life. It is not just Dave Nannerian counseling or myself that you might come to for some sort of counsel.
[22:17] We need to be a part of each other's life so we can teach truth. to one another. So what's interesting about today's text, it deals with this issue.
[22:34] We are going to look at a group of men who followed Jesus wherever he went. They saw everything that Jesus did. They heard everything that Jesus preached.
[22:45] Who confronted him and questioned him sometimes to understand, sometimes to kind of stand him up. but was interesting, at no point did they ever ask, what must I do to be good?
[23:05] Not because they had the right answer, but because they had self-diagnosed their hearts that they were indeed good.
[23:16] and anything they said, anything they wrote, must be good and in fact, must be of God. They believed that they were the ultimate example, not only before men, but before God.
[23:38] God. So let's take a look at the text. So if you've been with us through our Life of Christ series, we were about a year before we left off.
[23:51] We were about a year away, or a year before. It's just after Jesus has ended the Galilean ministry. He's fed the final 6,000, which we all know were about 20,000 people.
[24:04] And at that last feeding, people were coming and they wanted to lift Jesus up and make him their king. Right? They wanted this to go down and Jesus escape from them.
[24:17] They recognize that Jesus has a huge following of people. These people are excited about the works of Jesus, the miracles. They're excited about Jesus teaching. In fact, it says over and over in scripture, they marvel at what he taught.
[24:33] And these leaders, these Pharisees, aren't happy about it. So let's take a look at verse one. Now, when the Pharisees gathered to him, being Jesus, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem.
[24:48] So these are kind of the more, Pharisees existed all over Israel, but these are the guys that are kind of ranking a little bit higher up in the order. They've come down from Jerusalem.
[25:01] And scribes, as we know, are men who were the specialists in the law. These men studied the commentaries, they studied and interpreted the law that had been handed down to them over centuries, passing on interpretations and application through generation to generation.
[25:23] Now, the Pharisee were kind of the teachers, the rabbis, so some scribes were Pharisees, but not all scribes. You with me on that? Some scribes just knew, they kind of studied, they didn't speak, but some of them were Pharisees.
[25:41] And some of the men who were Pharisees, but not scribes, who were still experts in the law, were there. So we know they had traveled probably about a hundred miles, which would have taken several days to confront Jesus.
[25:59] The Gospel of Mark records for us, that the religious rulers had been keeping an eye on Jesus from the very beginning of his ministry. If you remember, John the Baptist was in the wilderness, they wanted to know what the big deal was, and then when Jesus became a big deal, their attention went from John the Baptist to Jesus Christ.
[26:21] Verse two, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is unwashed.
[26:32] And as we get to verse three, this is Mark describing for the Roman audience, because they were the main recipients of the Gospel of Mark. These are different traditions to Romans, so he kind of fills them in, and it helps us understand what's going on.
[26:47] so it says, for the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.
[27:01] And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches. You see, the observation is not because they don't wash their hands because their hands are dirty for hygienic reasons.
[27:19] The reason has to do with religious reasons. In fact, their whole life has been about avoiding what would defile them for fear of making themselves unholy before God.
[27:36] In fact, they had devised a whole system about how to abstain from these things that could render one impure. they had rules about eating, rules about sitting, rules about shopping, even rules about writing and reading.
[27:53] In case you didn't know, in the books of Daniel and Ezra, written in Hebrew, but there's these parts that are written in Aramaic. So if you are looking at the parchment and you happen to have your finger touch the Aramaic part, guess what?
[28:10] You're unclean. Crazy, right? Even the spelling of another language that was in their holy text, they considered unclean.
[28:21] You cannot have sat on a chair or a bed that a woman who had been menstruating had touched, otherwise you'd be unclean. In fact, if you went into the home of such a woman, you could be considered unclean.
[28:36] In fact, there was such an incredible amount of rules that the laws were so complicated and impossible that you needed scribes to tell you about them.
[28:48] And these laws were not given to them by God, but were called, as we see in Mark, the tradition of the elders. That we look to the elders to tell us what God would want.
[29:05] So just to give you an example, if you went out into the market and you got dirty and your hands touched something, you would have to take the measurement of three eggshells of pure water, and you'd put it on your hands so that the water could reach your wrists.
[29:26] And then, of course, you'd have to wash your hands of the defiled water that you just used. You get that? You got the first coat you get rid of, then you had to wash yourself of that other defiled water.
[29:40] That was stage one. Then there was this other type of bath that you had to use, but the bath had to be filled by natural source. It couldn't have been defiled by someone's hands on a bucket to put the water in.
[29:52] So you had to set up a cistern of a place to go wash yourself in these type of baths. In fact, 25% of the Mishnah, that is what we call the Jewish commentary on all the laws, it was kind of codified after this time, so before they just had the traditions, but 25% of their writings had to do with being defiled and having to keep clean.
[30:24] So this was a very big deal to the Jewish people. And of course, they had different levels of unclean.
[30:35] If you went to the marketplace, chances are, guess what? You must have brushed up on a Gentile, right? So you had to go and you had to clean yourself. And if you weren't sure, you had level one, level two, and for them this was serious stuff.
[30:52] So when they saw Jesus' disciples eating with these hands that are undefiled, this was horrible. And what they were meaning to do was they wanted to point out to the crowd how Jesus isn't keeping with their laws.
[31:13] So let's look at verse 5. And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands.
[31:29] This is almost akin to accusing someone of murder. You with me on that? This is not a small thing that they're talking about. This is something that undergirds their whole religion.
[31:43] In fact, one rabbi is quoted as saying, whoever eats bread without previously washing their hands is as though he had intercourse with a harlot.
[31:56] That's how extreme they were in their thinking. Now this question that they're asking Jesus is not meant to be an honest question, but it's meant to be used to discredit Jesus and ultimately his disciples.
[32:13] This is not a nice, polite conversation that you might have over tea or a diet coke with someone, but this is a direct attack that they are levying against Jesus.
[32:28] This is their attempted coup de gras to wipe out his ministry, which we all know fails to the point that they have to physically kill him, which, praise God, didn't kill his ministry, right?
[32:48] But they're threatened by Jesus. The fact is when we are threatened by people, maybe they're smarter, better looking, or whatever esteem, something, whatever we esteem greater than them, we start to think, well, I have more money than them, I'm smarter than them, I have a better education, I drive a nicer car, my kids are better looking, right?
[33:12] We all start, we all go to this point where we try to justify things in our own heads. So by these Pharisees calling Jesus out on the defilement of laws, they're essentially saying that Jesus does not stand for Judaism, he is truly not a Jew.
[33:35] This whole clean thing is everything to them. Now, before we even get to Jesus' brilliant response, you need to know that these laws are not in our Old Testament.
[33:51] Moses never spoke these laws. No prophet in the Old Testament ever spoke these laws. These were laws that these men created when they asked themselves, how can I be good before God?
[34:11] God? How can I be better? How can I be better? In fact, the law stated that the only person who was called to be ritually clean before God was actually the priest who entered the holiest of holiest one time a year.
[34:36] better. That's it. That was the only guy who was kept to that standard. But they said, well, how can we make ourselves good, der, before God? Let's take on those traditions.
[34:48] Let's take on those rules. Let's add them to ourselves so we can be good or even better before God. now, before we look at why this type of thinking is bankrupt, let's take a look how Jesus responds, verse 6.
[35:10] And Jesus said to them, well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites? He's not mincing words here as it is written. This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
[35:25] In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.
[35:41] Now, when Jesus states, as it was written, what Jesus is doing here is quoting Isaiah 29, 13 from the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which we knew as the Septuagint.
[35:56] Now, Jesus also draws a distinction between what man says versus what God says. When you read in your text, it says, it is written, that means it was said by God.
[36:11] When you read, you have heard it said, that's code, that that was said by man. man. You see, this is the thing.
[36:27] What the Pharisees were doing was not trying to make themselves better than you. They were truly sincere in wanting to be good.
[36:40] They understood the holiness of God, amen? They truly did. They recognized that it was only the priest who could go into the temple, the holiest holies, holiest of holies.
[36:55] And they said, how can I be a better follower of Yahweh? I'm going to be like him. I'm going to create these extra laws to be good. It had nothing to do with showing up the rest of the people.
[37:09] It had to do with them sincerely wanting to be good. So when you ask them their question, they would say, our hearts are in the right place.
[37:22] I'm just being authentic. Anybody hear those two statements? So they wanted to be good because they did not want the destruction that happened under the Assyrians and the Babylonians to ever happen again.
[37:42] Israel lost everything. They lost their land, they lost their temple, their people were scattered in fact, we still don't know where ten of the tribes are. So they're not wrongly motivated in wanting to do things.
[37:58] Even in coming against Jesus, they're not wrongly motivated. They mean well. But sadly, their wellness leads to destruction.
[38:18] Now Jesus gets really fired up. Look at verse 9. And he said to them, you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition.
[38:30] For Moses said, honor your father and your mother and whoever reviles mother and father must surely die. rise. But you say, if a man tells his father or his mother, whatever you would have gained from me is Corbin, that is given to God, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you've handed down.
[39:01] Let me explain what these two verses, three verses mean. We know there's a command, right? One of the Ten Commandments says, honor your mother and father.
[39:12] What these people would do is they would have money that they were supposed to do to take care of their mother and father as they aged in life.
[39:23] Many of you are doing the exact same today. But what they would say is there was this Jewish thing saying, well, instead of this money that I could use to take care of my mom and dad, I'm going to give it to the temple.
[39:39] Doesn't that sound like a really nice holy Christian Jewish thing to do, right? So what they would do is say, well, instead of giving it to you mom and dad, I gave it to the temple.
[39:50] Isn't that good? But what they were doing is they were usurping the commandment of God because God said, take care of your mother and father. Honor them.
[40:01] them. Let me ask you, who here has devised a rule in your life that you think is truly Christian, truly right before God, but in the heart of it actually contradicts holy scripture?
[40:22] Thank you, Murray. We all have. That's that discussion that goes on in our head. We make excuses for choosing our way over God's way.
[40:39] You guys have had that, right? You've seen those little cartoons with the angel on one side and the devil on the other and they're kind of having that. Most of us, it's really just two devils going at it, right?
[40:50] But that's really what we're debating. We're trying to come up with something that's going to make us feel better about ourselves and our relationship with God, but at the same time we're ignoring the clear commandments of God.
[41:12] So essentially they had devised three ways to be good. The first way to be good, which is the most devastating form, is the belief if that we follow a sort of preset rules and regulations that you and I can be justified before God.
[41:35] I would hope that if you've been at this church for any length of time, you know that is absolute heresy, right? You know that you cannot justify yourself before God.
[41:46] No, there is no such thing as good enough works to cover for your sin. In fact, the only thing that can cover for your sin was the blood of Jesus Christ.
[41:57] That's it. Fact is, if we trust any other righteousness than that of Jesus Christ, we are caught in the snare of death and destruction.
[42:13] God So that was the first type of good that they would follow. The other type of good was what I call loop holism.
[42:25] Right? There must be a loop that I can go through to abandon the laws. And this is what the Pharisees were really good at doing. Corbin is an example of that.
[42:39] Have I told you guys about Bathurst Street in downtown Toronto? It's a high Jewish district. For several blocks, it's all Jews, mostly Hesedic Jews.
[42:51] You know, they wear the hats and they have the curls come down. You know what I'm talking about? They're very conservative. They want to obey the law. But there's these lines that go across the streets.
[43:01] And it's actually fishing lines. And I'm not talking one or two. We're talking hundreds of lines that just go everywhere. And what it does is it extends from one house to the other.
[43:14] So on a Sabbath, you're not supposed to leave your home. But I can cross the street and go to see my friend on the Sabbath because that fishing line is joining our homes. You with me on this?
[43:25] Another thing that they were only able to do is you're only supposed to travel a Sabbath day's journey. And I told you guys what it is and I can't remember.
[43:37] But we know that Lazarus who Jesus raised was just a little bit more than a Sabbath day journey outside of Jerusalem. So I think it's like a couple of miles.
[43:47] But what they would do is they would hire a kid to go out ahead of time and put some food out there. So while you're walking to whoever's spot, you would have this food and you'd eat it and that counted as your own home.
[44:01] Oh, because the food is there. You can't bring the food like it was a picnic, but if the food was there, that was your food, it was considered I can go further. Do you understand those kind of rules, right? You're finding the loophole in the rules.
[44:13] And honestly, if I shared some of them with you, you'd laugh. They're crazy. But they still follow these rules to today. And the funny thing is, do we really believe we can fool God?
[44:28] That's what it is. At the heart of it, is that we can somehow come up with our own rule that will somehow fool God. You know, the guy who created the universe, all these things, all of us, right?
[44:44] Designed it all out of nothing. I'm going to put that fishing line across the street. Man, I'm good. I think the fishing line had to do with a baby stroller, because you can't push and do work on the Sabbath.
[44:57] I think that was the right thinking. So that's the second form of being good. good. Now the third form of being good, and before we write these men off as, and being too harsh towards them, is the area with we struggle with as well.
[45:21] It's when we elevate the traditions of men over the law of God. Like the Pharisees did with the cleaning, we begin to think out or write on our own laws that somehow excuse us and others from being unacceptable in the eyes of God.
[45:47] And this way to be good stems from the idea that we are at the core of our being good. So if you and I can identify things we consider bad and avoid them, we will be good.
[46:02] You get that? You identify certain things that are bad, certain things are good. If I do the good things, I'm good, and avoid these things. Where I grew up, I grew up in a different age, right?
[46:15] And you guys know some of these things. Smoking. If you smoked, there was no way you could be a Christian. Right?
[46:26] If a woman wore red lipstick, no way she could be a Christian. Christian. And of course, my wife to this day, I do not allow red lipstick in the house. Just kidding. Right? But we had these.
[46:36] You weren't allowed to play cards. And I used to think it was a joke until we got together with friends from our sister church and we'd go to play cards and we're not allowed to play cards. What do you mean you can play cards? Well, there's a card. Look at that guy.
[46:47] He's got an axe in the head, you know, like the jack of diamond or whatever, right? Like, whoa, you know? Now, some of these sound silly to us, but some of you had other traditions that your family followed.
[47:01] Perhaps you weren't allowed to play video games. Perhaps you weren't allowed to hang out with your friends on a Sunday. They all seem really holy and kosher.
[47:15] But in fact, they didn't make you more good because you were separating yourself from what you deemed badly. In fact, it caused greater problems.
[47:31] And let me show you why. What is easier for me to not go to a movie or have a drink or actually love my neighbor?
[47:48] What's easier to do? It's easier to avoid the drink or the movie, right? What's easier? Avoid smoking or be honest about the pride in my heart.
[48:09] You see, we all do those things today, guys. No matter what, I'm just sharing you the stupid little ones that I grew up with in northern Ontario that probably vary differently from where some of you guys grew up.
[48:22] In fact, at our church, we really weren't even to associate with Baptists. Did you know that? Man, I've really changed, right? Baptists weren't trustworthy.
[48:37] But it is. It is easy to take the road of legalism. We make up our own rules and we avoid the true things that Jesus Christ has indeed called us to.
[48:54] Notice that statement in the text. It says, Jesus was about to declare all things clean. Jesus touched lepers, those who were deformed.
[49:07] He touched women who were menstruating. He touched men who were possessed by demons. He walked in graveyards and in fact touched dead people.
[49:22] He ate with tax collectors and he ate with prostitutes. Could you think of anybody who'd be more unclean than Jesus?
[49:34] Jesus? But Jesus ignored their legalism. And the fact of the matter is, if you're holding to your legalism, he will ignore it as well.
[49:49] Your legalism is not what makes you holy and acceptable before God. You see, one area where we Christians get cut up in is developing our own traditions for traditions' sake.
[50:05] We don't want to change. We don't want to move. This is the way the Baptists always do it. This is the way the Baptists will always do it. You see, tradition is the living faith of the dead.
[50:23] Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. In fact, there's this blue crab. in order to live and groan, it must leave its shell to go to the new shell.
[50:39] But when it does, it is vulnerable. But if it doesn't leave its shell, it ends up becoming rigid and strong and eventually dies.
[50:55] You see, change itself brings new promises for God to show himself in new ways for God to show his faithfulness. Perhaps this morning when I told you there was an opportunity for you to serve in the sports ministry that Squamish would be offering, you thought I could never do such a thing.
[51:19] I'm not really good at that. Maybe it's time to step out in faith. Maybe it's time we need to truly reach out to our neighbors to share the gospel, the good news, with those who do not know the good news.
[51:44] Verse 14, and Jesus called the people to him again and said to them, hear me all of you and understand. There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defiles him.
[52:03] When he had entered the house and left the people, the disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him?
[52:16] since it enters not his heart, but his stomach and is expelled. So when you go out and you try reaching someone that does not know Christ or doing an experience or being a part of a ministry that you're not used to, it can't hurt you.
[52:37] It can only help you. And it's not so easy to overcome because, you know, Peter is there and he heard it. Do you know what Peter struggled with?
[52:49] If you read the book of Acts, it clearly tells us what Peter struggled with. Peter struggled that people other than Jews could be saved. Do you know that? When you notice, when it describes the time of Pentecost, when they were speaking in tongues, that was the first deliverance, and then they sent Peter to the Samaritans who had the same experience.
[53:11] Then when the Greeks were, the Holy Spirit was pouring on them, he sends Peter to the Greeks, and finally to the Romans. And I believe part of that reason was so Peter could finally get through his head that Gentiles are a part of the covenant people as well.
[53:38] Verse 20, and he said, what comes out of a person is what defiles him. And from within, out of the heart of man, comes evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.
[53:55] All these things come from within, and they defile a person. Luke 6.43 says it in a different way.
[54:05] For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorn brushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.
[54:21] The good person, out of the good treasure of his heart, produces good. The evil person, out of his evil treasure, produces evil. For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks.
[54:34] speaks. So the question that I have for today, for you today, is have you created your own system that makes you look good?
[54:48] That makes you feel good? That perhaps even makes you look good to others? Perhaps you're holding on to rules.
[55:02] rules that have caused you to remove your eyes from Jesus and place them on yourself. Do you seek good so God can call you good?
[55:17] Do you seek good so you can create your own loopholes? Do you seek good by just simply avoiding the bad?
[55:27] God? So what makes us good? Anybody who's in every man a warrior can answer this question to you right away.
[55:40] You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. God, this is the great and first commandment.
[55:52] And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. My question to you this morning is, are you here because going to church is a good thing?
[56:07] Or are you here to worship the true and living God? God. Because if you are here because this is simply a good thing, I'd say probably stay home and get an extra hour of rest.
[56:25] Because it's not going to make any difference on the scale of good and bad. But if you are here to simply to know the love and power of Jesus Christ and you want to worship here, then you will never ever complain about here an extra minute through a bad song or even through a horribly preached sermon.
[56:54] Because you will ultimately know that you are here because you love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
[57:05] And this is where he calls you to be, to love your neighbor as yourself. Let's pray. Father, I just pray that this sermon hasn't been too cloudy or unclear.
[57:25] Father, I think sometimes we can look at the Pharisees and see them as enemies when truly they're just simply lost. We can watch this video of this girl and almost get a feeling of hatred towards her because she stands for everything that we stands against everything we stand for.
[57:48] But she's lost. We can look at our neighbors and seeing them living a life that is absolutely contrary to you. But as we know, a part of loving you is loving them.
[58:02] It doesn't mean accepting what they do. But it begins with loving them and asking ourselves, how can we serve them to demonstrate how much Jesus means to me?
[58:19] Father, right now, just in Christianity at large, there's a lot of talk about fighting the government and trying to come up with political means to take back this world for you.
[58:33] When even when you had the chance, when they were willing to crown your king, you king, you took off. That wasn't the way. The way was to declare the gospel.
[58:49] To live a life that declares that the gospel means something. The actions that we do must mean something. They must communicate something.
[59:01] And I pray that it demonstrates that we do indeed love you. So Father, just even as we think about some of these opportunities for ministry, whether it be a sports ministry or any other ministry that we can partake here in Squamish, as Dave so wonderfully reminded us, let us first start praying for these things.
[59:28] Let's start praying that, Lord, you would cleanse our heart and prepare us for such a work. That we would prepare to do works that we never thought we could ever do.
[59:41] To come before these kids who do not know you, but exemplify Christ by serving and helping them and help organize and being a part of this mission.
[59:52] There's so much to do, oh Father. And I confess sometimes my instincts are to fight government stuff.
[60:04] I want to make my voice heard. I want to declare my rights as a Canadian citizen, which are fine and good, but ultimately I want to live as a citizen of heaven.
[60:21] And I pray that this will be all for each and every one of us. That we won't do the Corbin thing. Do something else that sounds really good and holy, yet avoid what you have clearly commanded.
[60:37] So let us use this day to set aside a day of worship. To spend time with our family and kids and our friends and enjoy the fellowship.
[60:51] That we cannot enjoy outside of this gathering of believers. Father, may you deepen our friendships. May you open our hearts to one another.
[61:04] May we share with one another the works that you have indeed done in our lives that testify to your greatness. We ask these things in your most holy, gracious, and ever powerful name.
[61:20] Amen.