The Heart of the Problem is the Problem of the Heart

[0:00] The following message was given at a Sunday celebration at Trinity Grace Church in Athens.! For more information about Trinity Grace, please visit us at TrinityGraceAthens.com.

[0:12] ! Revolta plays a small town mechanic named George Malley.

[0:34] And in the opening scene, George is perplexed as he tries to figure out how in the world his vegetable garden keeps getting raided by a rabbit. He comes across the remains of what once was a flourishing head of lettuce, now wilted and shredded by this renegade rabbit.

[0:51] And while holding that desecrated vegetable, he looks up at his old hound dog Attila sitting on the porch and he scolds her. He says, Attila! And you call yourself security. And he continues to wander around the perimeter of the garden trying to figure out how the rabbit keeps getting in.

[1:09] Moments later, a friend pulls up and we learn from their conversation that this has been an ongoing saga. The friend repeats what is apparently his go-to hypothesis. I'm telling you, man, he's digging under the fence.

[1:22] And Travolta's character quickly responds, there's no way! I dug those fences down a foot and a half. Well, it's obvious from the tightly meshed chicken wire and the height of the fence that George has done everything in his power to ensure that that rabbit could not go over, through, or under the fence.

[1:44] So he's completely befuddled. All of his efforts seem to be thwarted. Well, later in the film, George wakes up in the middle of the night with an epiphany.

[1:55] He goes down to his garden, which now looks like a high-security prison, and he opens the front gate. Then he goes and sits on his front porch to observe. Sure enough, the renegade rabbit enters the picture.

[2:09] But to George's astonishment, the rabbit does not come from outside the garden through the front gate. Rather, the rabbit scampers joyfully from inside the garden and out the front gate.

[2:25] He had been trapped inside the garden all along. The rabbit was finally free from scavenging within the confines of George's ever-growing fences. He had completely misdiagnosed the situation.

[2:41] So his remedy was, in this case, comically counterproductive. But we live in a world in which the stakes are much higher than a head of lettuce, right?

[2:52] We live in a world with pandemics and neglected children, job loss, depression, racism, drug addiction, marital tension, poverty, and violence.

[3:07] Well, it doesn't take long for us to look around to come to a conclusion that things aren't right. We have not just a problem, but many problems. And to make matters more complex, we have many, many, many diagnoses of these problems, right?

[3:22] Competing diagnoses about what the problems are and how they can be fixed. Well, if we were to take a poll and we were to ask people, what is the problem? What would we hear?

[3:35] If only we had more education. Ignorance is the issue. Knowledge is power. If we only had economic development. Poverty is the issue.

[3:45] Wealth is power. If only we had medical services. Sickness is the issue. Health is power. If only we got rid of patriarchy. If only we did away with repressive sexual categorizations.

[3:58] If only we focused more on self-esteem. If only we had a right-leaning president. If only we had more jobs. If only we homeschooled. Private schooled. Public schooled. Charter schooled. Year-round schooled.

[4:09] School of hard knocks. Then we'd be on our way, right? But if the mic got passed to you right now, how would you answer the question, what is the problem?

[4:21] You see, knowing the problem makes all the difference. And a right diagnosis can lead to a right solution. But a wrong diagnosis can be devastating.

[4:33] So what can we do on a Sunday morning like this? How could we possibly make any headway on anything when both the problems and the supposed solutions just seem infinite?

[4:45] Well, brothers and sisters, we are not going to spend our time this morning speaking about the latest issues. Instead, the God of the universe is inviting us to lean in and hear what he has already spoken.

[5:02] So in our text this morning, Jesus delivers a shocking yet vital report about our greatest problem. And this is the foundational issue that underlies all other problems. So let's read our text with humble anticipation and desire for real help.

[5:18] Mark 7, verses 14 through 23. And he called the people to him again. And he said to them, Hear me, all of you, and understand.

[5:30] 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 defile him.

[5:44] And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, Then are you also without understanding?

[5:56] Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him? Since it enters not his heart, but his stomach and is expelled?

[6:08] Thus he declared all foods clean. And he said, What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, Out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, Sexual immorality, Theft, Murder, Adultery, Coveting, Wickedness, Deceit, Sensuality, Envy, Slander, Pride, Foolishness.

[6:39] All these things come from within, And they defile a person. Well, in this passage, Jesus teaches us that our greatest problem does not come from outside influences.

[6:54] All remedies that attempt to fix external threats are in vain because they're not addressing the ultimate problem. Our greatest problem comes from within. The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart.

[7:08] I believe that the main point of the message for us today is to turn to Jesus, Who alone has the power to cleanse our corrupted hearts.

[7:20] Turn to Jesus, Who alone has the power to cleanse our corrupted hearts. This teaching right here radically reorients us to see our deepest problem and our greatest hope. Understanding this text will awaken us to our desperate need for Christ.

[7:34] It will give us clarity in the midst of competing voices. It will correct our misplaced hopes of deliverance and anchor our joy in the one who is able to bring true transformation from the inside out.

[7:48] Now, as we pick up the story of Jesus being enmeshed in this verbal battle with the religious leaders, I think it's appropriate to think of our passage in terms of Jesus being the great physician.

[7:58] In the medical world, great care is given to properly diagnosing a patient. And in our text, Jesus is correcting a misdiagnosis given by the religious leaders.

[8:10] So we'll pay careful attention to how this story unfolds with these two points. Jesus gives, verses 14 to 15, a different diagnosis. And Jesus gives a critical consultation.

[8:23] So let's look, a different diagnosis. If you were here last week, you'll recall that Jesus was in a showdown with the Pharisees and the scribes, right? They found that Jesus and his disciples ate with unclean hands.

[8:38] That is, they didn't observe the ceremonial washing that was prescribed in those traditions that we talked about. So the religious leaders called them out in that verse 5. You can look down at it. It says, And as Walt said last week, this was not a question of hygiene, but of holiness.

[8:59] The question was really, what makes us acceptable before God? Well, the religious leaders were leaning on the traditions. Man-made rules that went beyond the law of God.

[9:12] And Jesus, he does not buy it, does he? He just strikes back at them, calling them hypocrites. They're elevating tradition above the law, and they are indulging in what Walt called loophole-ism.

[9:25] If you remember that? Ignoring the spirit of the law and simply keeping up the external show. Well, this observance of the tradition would be like telling your fighting kids in the back seat to stop touching each other.

[9:37] And the one kid reaches over one millimeter away from the other kid's face and says, I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you. Parents, you're familiar with this, right? Well, God is about as impressed with the religious leaders' traditions as the parent is with that kid in the back seat's obedience.

[9:55] This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. So here we are in verse 14, and the conflict is continuing. Springboarding from this interaction with the religious leaders, Jesus has more to say.

[10:11] It says, verse 14, And he called the people to him again. So apparently round one was insufficient for Jesus. Jesus wants to continue down this line of thought, and he wants everyone to hear it.

[10:25] He rallies the crowd again, and he says to them, Hear me, all of you, and understand. Why? He wants the crowd to hear and understand. He wants us this morning to hear and to understand.

[10:39] Jesus wants to impart something that is both urgent and important. So this previous interaction raised a deeper question about moral defilement.

[10:52] What does and does not make a person unclean before God? Well, Jesus knows that this question before us is a matter of life and death.

[11:03] And that diagnosis, it makes all the difference. People cannot be made clean spiritually the way the Pharisees are teaching. There must be a different diagnosis or there will be death.

[11:15] And so Jesus is going to give us a radically different diagnosis than the religious leaders. So verse 15, he says this, This new diagnosis is basically the complete opposite of the Pharisees, right?

[11:43] The problem is not outside of you, it's within you. The unclean things are not out there. The unclean things actually come from within. This is what defiles us. And though Jesus is still dealing with defilement, he's taking the argument beyond the traditions teaching about washing hands.

[11:59] In verses 1 through 13, he was challenging these man-made traditions, right? They've been elevated to the status of God's law. Well, now he's talking about eating food that is considered unclean.

[12:14] And he's saying, this is not what defiles a person. What? Although it doesn't sound like a big deal to us, this comment would have been wildly controversial to those listeners.

[12:27] Not only is he challenging the traditions like Walt talked about last week, now it appears that he's challenging the food laws outlined by God himself. Jesus' diagnosis would have been avoided.

[12:38] Jesus' diagnosis would have just sounded scandalous to these Jews. Their entire lives revolved around avoiding defilement and being cleansed from defilement.

[12:50] Uncleanness would have included avoiding any forms of bodily fluids, women after childbirth, corpses, creeping things, idols, and even certain classes of people like Samaritans, Gentiles, lepers.

[13:07] So ritual washings were a means of cleansing and protecting observant Jews, what they thought, from defilements. Beyond this, the food laws that Jesus is talking about now, observed by Jews, gave them a sense of separation and distinction from other peoples.

[13:21] The food laws restricted not only what the Jews ate, but who they ate with. But now Jesus says that even the ingestion of these foods are not the issue in defilement.

[13:35] There's nothing outside of a person that can cause defilement. Jesus is saying it's not the problem. The problem is internal. Well, this is a provocative diagnosis. Jesus, I'd say you probably could have looked out at that crowd at that moment and saw nothing but wide eyes and drop jaws.

[13:52] Right? I can imagine some of those disciples probably pulling out their phones and texting each other at that moment being like, what just happened? Did you just hear what I just heard? And the other one's texting back, yeah, what was that?

[14:04] I don't know, but we should ask about it. You ask him. No, you ask him. I just imagine that happening at that moment, right? Their whole lives essentially wrapped up in that question.

[14:17] Jesus gave a different diagnosis, and the disciples want a follow-up consultation. Now, before we move to verse 17, you may have noticed that there is no verse 16 in your Bibles, typically.

[14:32] That's not a printing error. If you have an ESV, you'll see a footnote about this verse. It's not in the oldest manuscripts, so most scholars believe it should be omitted. But some manuscripts record the words, if anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.

[14:49] So even though this may not be holy scripture, I think it would still be wise to heed the call to listen in to the explanation that Jesus gives about his provocative diagnosis. So in verse 17, there is a change of scene, and the disciples are now with Jesus in a house, and they ask him about what he had said earlier.

[15:09] And though Jesus had given a clear diagnosis at that moment, they were eager to have a private consultation to unpack the problem and its implications. So now we go to the disciples, into the house to hear Jesus give this critical consultation.

[15:24] Point two, critical consultation with Jesus. Verse 18 begins this way, 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 since it enters not his heart, but his stomach and is expelled?

[15:44] Thus he declared all foods clean. So Jesus begins to elaborate on what he said back in verse 15, and he's distinguishing what actually does and does not defile a person now.

[15:56] So he repeats that core diagnosis. What goes into a person from outside cannot defile him. Okay, Jesus, we get that part. But why? That's what we want to know.

[16:06] Why? Well, he continues here with the reason. Look down at it. It says, Well, because it does not go into his heart, but his stomach and is expelled.

[16:19] He draws a contrast between the stomach and the heart here. So what's the significance of this contrast that he's making? The argument is that food doesn't defile the person because it goes into the stomach instead of the heart.

[16:35] Food is a physical substance. It can be ingested. It passes through the stomach and exits literally in this verse into the latrine. It's purely physical, a purely physical act, and it carries no moral weight.

[16:49] Food does not have a moral property, if you think about it. We don't think in terms of a faithful Big Mac, right? Or like a jealous jug of milk. Or like a greedy slice of pizza.

[17:02] Those aren't the qualities that we assign to food because it's morally neutral, and the consumption of food has no bearing on our position before God. So there's a parenthetical note in verse 19 that Jesus declared all foods clean.

[17:17] So green light on bacon. Amen? We can go to Navarro's after this, right? We can get busy. That sounds great. I'm joking now, but this would have been really jarring for Jesus' audience.

[17:30] I mean, he's challenging the very things that make them distinctive from other people. They're laws and regulations. But Jesus does not relent at this point. Food is morally neutral.

[17:41] No consumption could bring corruption, and no avoidance could bring righteousness. It is physically eaten, digested, expelled. Simply put, the whole dietary system of Israel, in this sentence, was worthless in terms of producing righteousness.

[17:58] However, the heart is different than the stomach. Here, Jesus is not referring to that blood-pumping organ, and usually we think of the heart as being like the seed of the emotions, right?

[18:12] But in the Bible, the heart is the center of human motivation, and deliberation, and intention. It's the command center of the will, and it animates the whole person.

[18:25] So Jesus goes on to say in verse 20, what comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man come evil, thoughts.

[18:38] So Jesus is saying the stomach is the physical food processor. Food is morally neutral, and nothing that enters or does not enter makes a person righteous. Things coming from the outside do not defile a person.

[18:50] So if defilement does not come from outside, where does it come from? What is the source of defilement? It comes from within. It radiates outward from the human heart.

[19:02] Well, Jesus is reorienting their entire worldview with his analysis. With this fresh diagnosis, to sum it up succinctly, he's basically saying, all foods are clean, all hearts are unclean.

[19:17] Well, he's got to substantiate that diagnosis, doesn't he? So that's what he goes on to do. He looks for some evidence. What are you talking about, Jesus?

[19:28] Verse 21, for from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.

[19:44] What do we do with a list like this? I'll be honest, the first time that I read it through, this is a confession, I tried to justify myself at each one of those words.

[19:57] It's like, oh, I haven't done that one. Good. I haven't done that one. At least not that much. Or at least not as much as so-and-so. Try to think of someone that's worse than me. Isn't that our impulse when we see stuff like that?

[20:10] That we either tend to ignore the list, or we try to isolate on the list the sins that we haven't committed so that we can compare ourselves favorably to someone else. This is what we do.

[20:23] But we must not look away from this list, because in this picture of the heart, we appear. It begins with evil thoughts, which is really a big umbrella category, and everything else falls underneath that heading.

[20:36] In the list, there's six different plural nouns and then six singular nouns. And the plural ones refer to these evil acts, and then the singular ones refer to evil attitudes.

[20:50] The choice of plural nouns probably highlights just the volume of evil things that we do on a regular basis, where there's murders, there's adulteries, and it happens in the heart.

[21:01] It starts there. And the attitudes represent categories that are consistently present. So this is not an exhaustive list, but it is an exemplary list.

[21:13] It's meant to be a montage of the kinds of evil that originate in the heart. There are several other lists that we could look at that really fill out the whole spectrum of sin, so if you don't find yours here, don't worry, there's a lot more along the spectrum.

[21:27] And it's all there. It's all in the heart. But the point is simply to highlight the truth that the origin of moral impurity that separates us from God is within the heart. I had the opportunity several years ago to Yellowstone National Park.

[21:44] Anybody ever been to Yellowstone before? Some of you have. Incredible. One of the most visited tourist attractions is the geyser Old Faithful. And every hour or so, this boiling hot water just explodes out of a hole 150 feet plus into the air.

[21:59] It's amazing. I was like, why does it do that? That's crazy. It doesn't do that in my backyard. It does it in my basement periodically. But why does it do that?

[22:10] Well, I learned that what happens is water seeps down into the ground, and it makes contact with these ultra-hot rocks sitting on top of magma, lava. This superheats the water, builds up pressure, and then it shoots up out of the earth like steam escaping the lid of a kettle.

[22:28] The Bible actually describes the heart as the wellspring of life. That's a vivid picture, and it shows the heart as the heat source that flows to our actions.

[22:43] Jesus teaches us in Luke 6, 45, that the good person, out of the good treasure of his heart, produces good. And the evil person, out of his evil treasure, produces evil. For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks.

[22:59] The heart overflows into behavior. This is what Jesus is teaching here in Mark. The list of evil actions and attitudes explodes into being from the heart.

[23:14] Our culture speaks, or maybe even more poignantly, shouts a very different diagnosis, doesn't it? Culture says that our biggest problem is that we are not following our hearts.

[23:31] Therefore, the remedy is to follow your heart, to be true to yourself. The biggest travesty, we are told, is to deny your heart.

[23:43] The most courageous people, you'll see exalted in media, you'll see this all the time, they're the ones who followed their hearts at all costs. So the problem is outside in this way.

[23:59] It's bad parents that are holding you back. Toxic work environments. Oppressive cultural expectations. You name it.

[24:10] The problem is outside, and the solution is just to look deeper into your heart. This is not a trending cultural viewpoint.

[24:22] This is the recurring ancient anthem that has been sung by creation since the garden. That quest for autonomy, for that godlike independence, can be seen in Genesis 3.

[24:37] The serpent sows the poisonous seed of suspicion, and Eve doubts that the God who created everything, well, maybe he might actually not be very good at being God.

[24:50] Maybe the creation would be better off calling the shots without the creator. And here you have it, in Genesis 3, 6, I think we have it for you. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took its fruit and ate.

[25:12] And she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. She saw with her eyes the tree and interpreted it as good for food.

[25:25] It was a delight to her eyes. It was to be desired. In short, the story we see here is the story of shaking off God's authority and chasing the desires of the heart.

[25:39] It is the tragic story that set the trajectory for the rest of humanity. It's the story of hearts that are far from God. It's the story of our hearts.

[25:52] The prophet Jeremiah accurately captures the biblical understanding of the heart when he said, the heart is deceitful above all things, and it's desperately sick.

[26:03] Who can understand it? And at the core of the deception is a corrosive belief that life can be lived apart from God.

[26:16] This is the heart of the problem of the human heart. This is it. Where the Pharisees go off the track in all of this is that it's their faulty estimation that people are righteous because they comply with the traditions of men and they are unrighteous because they don't wash or because they eat certain foods.

[26:36] Their faulty view of righteousness comes from a faulty view of human sinfulness. Sin is not what we do. Sin is what we are. Contrary to the Pharisees' understanding of sin, Charles Spurgeon described our relationship to sin this way.

[26:51] Sin is not something outside that comes to us and afflicts us like robbers, breaking into our house at night, but it is a tenant of the soul, dwelling within us as in its own house.

[27:08] So Jesus is challenging the diagnosis of the Pharisees because believing their take on the problem will literally only lead to death, not just here, but for eternity, separation from God. The consultation with Jesus reveals that there is nothing that can defile a person externally.

[27:23] The problem is within, in the heart. So what is the intended effect of this different diagnosis and this critical consultation that Jesus is bringing us? Jesus wants us to understand that sin is what cuts people off from God.

[27:40] The heart of the problem is the corrupt heart within us. And understanding this is both urgent and important. Only when you understand exactly what defiles a person in the sight of God can you understand your need for cleansing from God.

[27:58] The Pharisees and the scribes didn't understand defilement. They thought that it was not washing their hands. They thought it was their hand washing that made them righteous and acceptable before God.

[28:10] They believed that they were acceptable based on this act right here. They had a flawed view of sin and they had a flawed view of their hearts. They thought that they were righteous because they washed their hands a certain way but all their efforts to make themselves clean through the law would only go down the drain.

[28:28] They had clean hands but their hearts were far from God. So if righteousness does not come from rituals and rules then how can we be made clean?

[28:40] If the problem really is a corrupt heart within us then how can any of us be made right? Where do we go? Where does Mark direct us?

[28:53] Let me remind us of the first verse of this book that we've been in. Seven chapters deep. The very first verse chapter one and verse one says this.

[29:07] The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God. The gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ the Anointed One the Messiah the Son of God.

[29:26] Jesus has the power to both cleanse and to bring life. So when Mark makes his editorial comment in verse 19 about the food and he says thus he declared all foods clean.

[29:39] There's a lot more going on here than making a plug for pork. Okay? We can be really thankful for a hallelujah ham. That's good news but there is something much more significant going on here.

[29:52] Mark is pointing to Jesus' authority to overturn the law. This comment really highlights Jesus' authority as God. I mean no one had authority to declare this except the lawgiver himself.

[30:09] That's exactly who he is. He created the universe by the word of his power. He gave the Sabbath.

[30:20] He cast out demons. He commanded a storm to cease exercising control over nature. He healed lepers. He forgave sin.

[30:30] Who alone but God can do that? He raised the dead. He has all authority in heaven and on earth. So the laws cannot cleanse a corrupt heart.

[30:41] The law points to the need for a rescuer and he has come. To all those who recognize their need for a savior, Jesus offers the great exchange.

[30:54] He will take your corrupt heart and give you his clean heart. all of your sin for all of his righteousness so that all of your life you can live in thankful freedom for the one who washed you white as snow.

[31:10] That is good news. So there's so many ways that these truths about the heart could be applied but I just want to offer two thoughts for application.

[31:24] One for parents and then one for all of us. If we believe that Jesus is teaching what he's teaching about the heart if we believe in this it should affect the way that we parent.

[31:38] The heart leads to behavior. It's the wellspring of life. So as parents we're not looking for behavior modification we're looking for heart transformation.

[31:51] How are those two things different? Well I'm really indebted to Ted Tripp's book Shepherding a Child's Heart. I recommend it and he helped me see the difference between these two things and I'm personally wanting to be a better dad at spotting the difference between these two things as I raise my kids and I hope this helps you.

[32:09] Behavior modification seeks to get external conformity just like the Pharisees. They're looking for rules and procedures. An example of this might be trying to pray as a family around the dinner table.

[32:22] You ask the kids to be quiet and to not eat during the prayer. Pretty simple straightforward but they're bouncing off the walls making sounds and they're sneaking bites during the prayer.

[32:35] This is completely hypothetical by the way this never happens at my house but I just want to make sure you know that. Behavior modification aims for simple conformity in that moment.

[32:46] So the parent could be really frustrated and say you need to be quiet I said be quiet just be quiet. what? No maybe maybe you pull the plug on dessert or something like that.

[32:56] You have some kind of consequence. But well the motive of the parent in that moment could be that the kid's obedience is slowing down the prayer process and slowing down the food process and it's really ultimately a matter of inefficiency at that point.

[33:17] Inconvenience for the parent or maybe you got some guests over and the parent's embarrassed by the kid's behavior.

[33:29] So the motive to correct the change the child in that moment could be the parent desperately wanting to save face and at least for like a split second look like a competent parent in the eyes of others.

[33:41] No one can relate to this right? But in both of those efforts to correct behavior the child's heart is never addressed. The goal is to discipline them for their good and for them to grow in their love for God.

[34:00] So correction that aims at the heart might look like something maybe more like this. Maybe it's explaining to the kid that prayer is talking to God who made everything and gave us all these good things.

[34:12] So we want to just take a moment to say thank you out of respect to God for how kind he is. You could ask the kid if they like to be thanked whenever they do a good job.

[34:22] Who doesn't like that, you know? Well maybe we could relate it back to thanking God for all the good that he's done for us.

[34:34] That would be redirecting their hearts to see why we're doing this. Changing the motives. So you see looking at the heart is really helpful because it challenges us to focus our attention on the right problems.

[34:46] And it's I'm going to be honest with you it's sometimes very painful to do this because it reveals our own motives of parents in the process. For instance in the scenario I just mentioned we're pushed to ask am I parenting to avoid embarrassment or to discipline them for their good?

[35:05] So there's so many applications to parenting we could explore for different ages and seasons but hopefully this will serve as one example of how focusing on the heart can really transform the way we even approach parenting.

[35:19] And by God's grace we can grow in this together. Amen? One last application I believe this text does I think it I think it frees us from a posture of defensive fear.

[35:35] what I mean is that many of us in this room have come from backgrounds where being a Christian is largely defined by what we are against.

[35:48] We're against evolution. We're against abortion. We're against the new sexual ethic. We're against profanity. We're against you fill in the blank. We can take on a mentality of fortifying the barracks and thinking primarily in terms of defense.

[36:08] Now there's certainly a time for defense. I'm not saying don't defend but what I think we should ask ourselves is Christianity all about defense all the time?

[36:20] Or maybe another way to ask this maybe a little more personally is when you think about the people in your life who are not Christians do you view them primarily as threats or opportunities?

[36:32] Do you interact with them primarily with fear that they might corrupt you or with prayerful anticipation that God can transform them too?

[36:45] So our text highlights something that could reorient the way we approach the relationships God has placed in our lives. The laws of clean and unclean they establish fences and Pharisees set themselves up as security guards of those fences follow the rules wash your hands keep lepers and sinners out but Jesus is not characterized by defensive fear on the contrary he's portrayed going to unspeakable places to the most despicable people with proactive life giving love he's constantly tearing down fences of false piety because as David Garland rightly points out one need not protect holiness with offense of rules on the contrary God's holiness bursts all bounds it does not suffer contamination but transforms everything that it touches Jesus displays this posture when he touches the leper it's touched by a woman with the flow of blood and touches a corpse he is not made unclean but instead cleanses and restores to life have we built walls to keep the pure in and the impure out listen to the words of Roy Pearson punctuate the call to our church it is a fact too long neglected that the church has in common with the chimney sweep that it cannot do its job in comfortable surroundings or with clean hands in this sense cleanliness is not next to godliness dirt is dirt pain sorrow prejudice injustice and treachery these are the things that emanate out of the hearts of the people we're going to interact with and they're the very things that come from our hearts too that god in his mercy has rescued us from so may we be a people who follow in the footsteps of our savior with proactive life-giving love for our hearts belong to the one who alone has the power to cleanse us and give us his perfect righteousness oh that's good news for us this morning church our hearts belong to a wonderful savior and he's changing us by his grace let's go to him in prayer and thank him lord you are so kind you're so merciful you come to rescue us when we have no out there's no way we can make ourselves righteous there's nothing from outside that can defile us righteousness does not come from within but it alone comes from you who have the power to cleanse so lord we give you the praise the glory the honor this morning we ask you to help us to live in this good that you have accomplished let us be a people that desperately cling to you not out of fear but out of gratitude and thankfulness for what you've done through

[39:57] Jesus Christ it's in his name we pray amen you've been listening to a message at a Sunday celebration at Trinity Grace Church in Athens for more information about Trinity Grace please visit us at thank you for thanks to you to you to to you you!

[40:24] !