WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.000 So for a brief time this morning, we're going to be looking at the last 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:07.500 passory read in the Bible there from Mark chapter 7. So if you have a Bible with you 00:00:07.500 --> 00:00:12.300 and you want to follow along, that was on page 842, but we'll also have some of the 00:00:12.300 --> 00:00:17.600 verses up on the screens. I want to just begin this morning by asking us just to think about 00:00:17.600 --> 00:00:23.879 a question. I wonder how much time in your week, if you add it up, you spend thinking 00:00:23.879 --> 00:00:29.100 or worrying about what other people think about you. I read a study recently online 00:00:29.100 --> 00:00:33.439 that shows that the average human being spends an alarming amount of our week worrying and 00:00:33.439 --> 00:00:39.320 obsessing over how we're received by other people. We spend our time fretting and just 00:00:39.320 --> 00:00:44.840 the opinions of others just know at us. Maybe some people worry about what clothes they're 00:00:44.840 --> 00:00:47.939 going to wear in the morning, what people will think of them. Maybe at work we worry 00:00:47.939 --> 00:00:52.060 about our boss or our colleagues and what they think of our performance. Or maybe you 00:00:52.060 --> 00:00:57.240 worry at church that what other people think about you as a Christian. Well this morning 00:00:57.240 --> 00:01:02.960 these verses we read in Mark chapter 7, we see Jesus engaging and interacting with this 00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:07.599 group of people called the Pharisees. Now the Pharisees were obsessed with their religious 00:01:07.599 --> 00:01:11.760 image that they presented to the people around them. They were obsessed with the way that 00:01:11.760 --> 00:01:16.280 other people saw them. And I want to kind of break this chapter down and look at under 00:01:16.280 --> 00:01:20.680 two brief points this morning. First of all, I want to think about the way that we are 00:01:20.680 --> 00:01:28.040 seen by others and then secondly the way we are seen by God. So first of all, the way 00:01:28.040 --> 00:01:32.800 we are seen by others. When you read the Bible and when you read the New Testament you see 00:01:32.800 --> 00:01:39.240 something that Jesus does time and time again as he exposes the motives and the desires of 00:01:39.240 --> 00:01:43.719 the human heart. And when he's engaging with these Pharisees what often happens is you 00:01:43.719 --> 00:01:48.600 see the same heart motive pop up time and time again. And I think if we read for context 00:01:48.599 --> 00:01:52.479 that's pretty helpful. Matthew 23 verse 5, he says about these Pharisees, everything 00:01:52.479 --> 00:01:57.399 they do is done for people to see. They love the place of honor at the banquets, the most 00:01:57.399 --> 00:02:02.359 important seats in the synagogues. They love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces 00:02:02.359 --> 00:02:07.919 and to be called rabbi by others. We see the same thing in chapter 6. He says these are 00:02:07.919 --> 00:02:12.680 people who practice their righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. They love 00:02:12.680 --> 00:02:18.359 to pray standing in the synagogues and street corners to be seen by others. And then last 00:02:18.360 --> 00:02:23.120 one Luke chapter 18 and verse 9, there's some people who are confident in their own 00:02:23.120 --> 00:02:26.400 righteousness, they're looking down on everyone else. Jesus tells this parable, two men go 00:02:26.400 --> 00:02:31.480 up to a temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stands 00:02:31.480 --> 00:02:36.760 by himself and prays, God I thank you that I am not like other people, robbers, evildoers, 00:02:36.760 --> 00:02:42.960 adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all 00:02:42.960 --> 00:02:50.320 I get. In other words, look how great I am. Look how morally and spiritually together 00:02:50.320 --> 00:02:56.159 I've got my life. So the desire that Jesus is exposing in these chapters time and time 00:02:56.159 --> 00:03:01.400 again is that everyone else will see how great you are. 00:03:01.400 --> 00:03:06.800 So as we come to this engagement in Mark 7 with Jesus and the Pharisees, it's helpful 00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:11.040 to have that context in mind. Let's read the first few verses again. These Pharisees have 00:03:11.039 --> 00:03:14.519 gathered to him with some of the scribes who've come from Jerusalem. They see that some of 00:03:14.519 --> 00:03:19.079 his disciples are eating with hands that aren't washed, that were defiled. And the Pharisees 00:03:19.079 --> 00:03:22.639 and the scribes ask him, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the 00:03:22.639 --> 00:03:29.799 elders, but they eat with unwashed hands? So what exactly is going on here in this passage? 00:03:29.799 --> 00:03:34.599 What exactly is the problem? Why are the Pharisees making such a big deal about Jesus' disciples 00:03:34.599 --> 00:03:38.560 not washing their hands? It makes me think of my childhood growing up would be out playing 00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:42.120 in the garden, we get called in for dinner, we sit on the table and one of my brothers 00:03:42.120 --> 00:03:46.159 would inevitably yell, ma'am, Calendon, wash his hands. Let's know what's going on here 00:03:46.159 --> 00:03:51.800 in Mark 7. This is not about hygiene. The Pharisees are not concerned that Jesus' disciples 00:03:51.800 --> 00:03:59.400 are going to get germs. This is about ritual purity. For the Jews, the concept of being 00:03:59.400 --> 00:04:06.599 clean, ritually clean, was extremely important because God is so holy and so righteous and 00:04:06.599 --> 00:04:13.479 so perfect and so opposed to anything tainted by sin and by evil that for us to come into 00:04:13.479 --> 00:04:17.759 His presence, we have to be clean. And in the Old Testament, there was various ways 00:04:17.759 --> 00:04:23.600 they did that through the sacrifices and through the priesthood and so on and so forth. But 00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:27.360 by the time Jesus is coming, by the time He's interacting with these Pharisees here, all 00:04:27.360 --> 00:04:33.199 of this extra tradition had evolved around the Old Testament. The Pharisees had pages 00:04:33.199 --> 00:04:36.920 and pages of lists of rules and regulations of things you could do or you couldn't do 00:04:36.920 --> 00:04:42.439 things you should wash before you eat. We have in this passage an example in verse 4. 00:04:42.439 --> 00:04:45.560 There are many other traditions that the Observer of Jesus says, such as the washing 00:04:45.560 --> 00:04:51.759 of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches. And it all seems a little bit OCD. 00:04:51.759 --> 00:04:56.199 But the point is that the Pharisees want to be clean and they see Jesus' disciples here, 00:04:56.199 --> 00:05:02.039 they're just eating with unwashed hands and it's not their tradition. And I wonder what 00:05:02.040 --> 00:05:07.879 you think of when you hear the word tradition. Maybe you think of candles and incense and 00:05:07.879 --> 00:05:12.640 saints and all that kind of stuff. Or maybe you think of someone who's so stubbornly set 00:05:12.640 --> 00:05:18.320 in their ways that they refuse to change because we've always done it this way. But it's important 00:05:18.320 --> 00:05:22.840 I think for us to recognize first of all that tradition is not necessarily a bad thing. 00:05:22.840 --> 00:05:25.920 Tradition itself can actually be good. Even here at St. Columbus, we have a whole host 00:05:25.920 --> 00:05:30.800 of traditions. We tend to stand up to sing. We sing our hymns, accompany to music. We 00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:35.079 sing our psalms, a capella. We generally have two services on a Sunday and they tend to 00:05:35.079 --> 00:05:38.800 be at the same time. 00:05:38.800 --> 00:05:44.120 Tradition itself is fine. The problem is that tradition can be twisted and elevated to the 00:05:44.120 --> 00:05:49.360 point that it actually undermines what the Bible says. And religious tradition especially 00:05:49.360 --> 00:05:55.160 can be so full of rules and burdens and regulations that it becomes a real problem. This is how 00:05:55.160 --> 00:06:01.320 Jesus responds in verse 6. He says to them, Well did Isaiah prophesy, you hypocrites, 00:06:01.320 --> 00:06:06.439 as it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. 00:06:06.439 --> 00:06:12.640 In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men. So Jesus really doesn't 00:06:12.640 --> 00:06:17.280 hold back here in Mark 7. He really says it as it is. He calls them out for what they 00:06:17.280 --> 00:06:22.440 are. He calls them hypocrites. These are guys in their time who were looked up to as their 00:06:22.439 --> 00:06:27.439 religious greats, the conservatives of their day, the guys who are morally and spiritually 00:06:27.439 --> 00:06:33.360 excellent. But Jesus sees through their outward appearance. He sees that they are so focused 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:38.839 on the approval and the recognition and the affirmation of other people that in reality 00:06:38.839 --> 00:06:45.279 their hearts are a million miles away from God. Their worship is empty. They're distant. 00:06:45.279 --> 00:06:52.199 They're going through the motions of religion, but they lack that personal relationship with 00:06:52.199 --> 00:06:59.000 God. And he goes on to continue to expose another flaw in the Pharisees' hearts. He 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:02.959 says, You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men. You have a fine 00:07:02.959 --> 00:07:07.639 way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition. For Moses 00:07:07.639 --> 00:07:11.879 said honor your father and your mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely 00:07:11.879 --> 00:07:16.639 die. But you say, if a man tells his father or mother whatever you've gained from me as 00:07:16.639 --> 00:07:20.919 Corban that is given to God, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or 00:07:20.920 --> 00:07:25.759 mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you've handed down and 00:07:25.759 --> 00:07:30.800 many such things you do. So what's this whole Corban thing about? It maybe sounds like somewhere 00:07:30.800 --> 00:07:36.040 you'd go on holiday. This is the only place in the Bible the word appears. But Corban 00:07:36.040 --> 00:07:41.240 is really, it is an oath that the Pharisees allowed people to take that meant that anything 00:07:41.240 --> 00:07:46.319 that you give is given to God and can only be used for that explicit purpose. But you 00:07:46.319 --> 00:07:49.360 see the fifth commandment to honor your father or mother is something that the people of 00:07:49.360 --> 00:07:56.920 God were meant to take really seriously. And in those days in particular there's no state 00:07:56.920 --> 00:08:01.600 care for the elderly, there's no pension system. So what would happen is you'd be expected 00:08:01.600 --> 00:08:07.480 to bear the financial responsibility for your parents who raised you and cared for you. 00:08:07.480 --> 00:08:12.000 But the way people, somebody's got around this was with this Corban oath. They would 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:18.879 say this money is set aside for God so it's not going to your parents. And the Pharisees 00:08:18.879 --> 00:08:23.959 were really exploiting their tradition to undermine the whole point of the fifth commandment 00:08:23.959 --> 00:08:29.719 and the love and the compassion and the mercy which is supposed to underlie it. So what 00:08:29.719 --> 00:08:33.720 does all of this mean? What's Jesus really getting at here? Well, he's saying the Pharisees 00:08:33.720 --> 00:08:39.600 and their tradition is all show and no substance. He's saying that they have mastered an external 00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:46.360 facade, an appearance that other people see but that God sees through. There are people 00:08:46.360 --> 00:08:50.879 who honor God with their lips but in reality their heart is far from Him. 00:08:50.879 --> 00:08:56.800 You see, the gospel of Jesus Christ is so radically different. It's not about rules 00:08:56.800 --> 00:09:01.639 and regulations. It's not about how well you follow a tradition or how well you perform 00:09:01.639 --> 00:09:06.879 morally or spiritually. John Calvin, the French theologian from the time of the Reformation, 00:09:06.879 --> 00:09:11.240 he put it really well. If you've got a bulletin you'll find a reflection on the inside and 00:09:11.240 --> 00:09:16.560 he says this, it's in there. The gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue but of life. 00:09:16.560 --> 00:09:21.560 It cannot be grasped by reason and memory only but is fully understood only when it 00:09:21.560 --> 00:09:28.759 possesses the whole soul and penetrates to the inner recesses of our hearts. 00:09:28.759 --> 00:09:33.320 So the Pharisees were guys who had tremendous amounts of Bible knowledge. They had lots 00:09:33.320 --> 00:09:38.639 of knowledge up in their heads. They'd memorized a good chunk of the Scriptures, most of them. 00:09:38.639 --> 00:09:44.559 They put on a great show of public piety but it had not grasped their hearts. It had 00:09:44.559 --> 00:09:50.000 not penetrated to the inner recesses of their being. And I think as we reflect on this chapter 00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:54.399 together and we think about the Pharisees, so often I think they can be a mirror into 00:09:54.399 --> 00:09:58.799 our own hearts this morning. Maybe we need to ask ourselves, where is our heart when 00:09:58.799 --> 00:10:05.319 we worship God? Is it distant? Are we simply going through the motions and turning up to 00:10:05.320 --> 00:10:10.360 the church every Sunday and singing the songs and listening to God's word? Do we then clock 00:10:10.360 --> 00:10:16.120 off afterwards and our hearts go back to being a million miles away? Are we maybe a bit like 00:10:16.120 --> 00:10:19.480 the Pharisees in the sense that we get so absorbed with what other people think about 00:10:19.480 --> 00:10:25.480 us that that's more important than what God sees? Are we someone who worships God with 00:10:25.480 --> 00:10:32.000 our lips while our heart is far from Him? I think it's rare in the Christian life that 00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:38.080 we find ourselves a million miles away from God all of a sudden. It's often a slow process. 00:10:38.080 --> 00:10:42.360 But it's dangerous. A distant heart gradually over time can harden and harden and harden 00:10:42.360 --> 00:10:48.759 and we can become almost immune to the call to repent and come back to Jesus. Just as 00:10:48.759 --> 00:10:54.600 an example, I've been driving my car on Denver for a few years now and last year I began 00:10:54.600 --> 00:10:58.960 to get one of those, you know, the orange lights that come on in your dashboard indicating 00:10:58.960 --> 00:11:02.800 that there was a problem. What I did was the natural response. I ignored it and hoped it 00:11:02.800 --> 00:11:07.160 would go away because my MOT was in two months. I was driving around with this orange light. 00:11:07.160 --> 00:11:10.000 Every time I started the engine, this orange light, I felt a twinge of guilt thinking I 00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:15.720 should really go and get that sorted. But it was fine. The car seemed to be no problems. 00:11:15.720 --> 00:11:20.320 Then a couple of months later, just before it was due for my MOT, I started the engine 00:11:20.320 --> 00:11:24.600 one day and all this black smoke started coming out of the hood and this horrible burning 00:11:24.600 --> 00:11:30.320 smell. I was thinking, okay, that's really not good. So I took it into the garage and 00:11:30.320 --> 00:11:33.879 what would have initially been quite a cheap and a simple, easy fix ended up being quite 00:11:33.879 --> 00:11:38.639 an insidious and dangerous leak in my coolant system. And it certainly taught me a lesson 00:11:38.639 --> 00:11:42.080 of looking after my car. But more importantly, I think, and it's an imperfect illustration, 00:11:42.080 --> 00:11:46.600 but perhaps a reminder that we can so easily just choose to ignore that spiritual warning 00:11:46.600 --> 00:11:51.879 light in our lives. We can be so aware that, you know, we know we're far from God. We know 00:11:51.879 --> 00:11:56.720 our hearts are distant, but we think, well, maybe we'll sort ourselves out later. We go 00:11:56.720 --> 00:12:01.159 around acting as if everything's totally fine. Maybe we put on a show for the people around 00:12:01.159 --> 00:12:08.919 us at church, but in reality, our hearts are far from God. But having said that, that's 00:12:08.919 --> 00:12:12.080 not to say that we're a hypocrite simply because we're struggling. Struggling is a natural 00:12:12.080 --> 00:12:17.080 part of the Christian life. Kevin DeYoung put it like this. He said that the hypocrite 00:12:17.080 --> 00:12:22.080 is not the Christian who struggles against sin, fights against temptation and keeps doing 00:12:22.080 --> 00:12:27.480 what is right even on our worst days. The hypocrite is the Christian who uses the veneer 00:12:27.480 --> 00:12:35.200 of public virtue to cover the rot of private vice. He's the man living a double life. 00:12:35.200 --> 00:12:40.240 She's the woman fooling her friends because she has church clothes. The student who proudly 00:12:40.240 --> 00:12:44.960 answers the questions in the student group and then proudly rumps through immorality 00:12:44.960 --> 00:12:49.320 throughout the rest of the week. He says, the sin of hypocrisy is not that we're more 00:12:49.320 --> 00:12:54.840 messed up than we seem. That's true for all of us. The sin is in using the appearance 00:12:54.840 --> 00:13:00.200 of goodness to cloak the deeds of evil. The sin is in thinking that who others think you 00:13:00.200 --> 00:13:07.759 are matters a great deal more than whom God knows you to be. 00:13:07.759 --> 00:13:11.160 So that leads us to think on to our second point. We've looked to what Mark 7 teaches 00:13:11.160 --> 00:13:14.560 us about the way that other people see us. And I think second, it's helpful to think 00:13:14.559 --> 00:13:19.719 about the way that God sees us. You see, these Pharisees demonstrate to us so clear that 00:13:19.719 --> 00:13:24.799 it's possible to have mastered the outward appearance, the power that everyone else can 00:13:24.799 --> 00:13:32.279 see but still be an absolute mess on the inside. In Matthew 23, Jesus went on to say to the 00:13:32.279 --> 00:13:37.639 Pharisees, you are like whitewashed tombs. Outwardly, you appear beautiful, but within 00:13:37.639 --> 00:13:42.599 you are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanliness. So also, you appear outwardly 00:13:42.600 --> 00:13:47.399 righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. 00:13:47.399 --> 00:13:52.480 I think the point time and time again that Jesus is making, that you can maybe fool the 00:13:52.480 --> 00:13:59.519 people around you, but you can never fool God. God sees through our outward appearance. 00:13:59.519 --> 00:14:06.560 So as we go on to read in Mark 7 and from verse 14, it's so clear that it's not about 00:14:06.560 --> 00:14:10.840 the external stuff. That's not what determines whether or not we are clean before God, whether 00:14:10.840 --> 00:14:16.360 or not our hearts are in the right with God. The things we do or say are performance. He 00:14:16.360 --> 00:14:22.000 says, verse 14, He called the people to Him again and said to them, hear me all of you 00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:26.720 and understand. There is nothing outside a person that by going into Him can defile 00:14:26.720 --> 00:14:31.840 Him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile. And when He entered the house 00:14:31.840 --> 00:14:37.000 and left the people, His disciples asked Him about this parable, and He said to them, 00:14:37.000 --> 00:14:41.879 are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from 00:14:41.879 --> 00:14:47.399 outside cannot defile since it enters the heart, not the heart, but the stomach and 00:14:47.399 --> 00:14:51.120 is expelled? And as He declared, all foods clean. 00:14:51.120 --> 00:14:57.320 So I'm the key point here. Jesus is not saying you can just eat whatever you like. The key 00:14:57.320 --> 00:15:03.440 point really is that you cannot make yourself right with God by following a set of rules 00:15:03.440 --> 00:15:09.080 or traditions. In complete contrast with the Pharisees, Jesus is saying that what really 00:15:09.080 --> 00:15:15.440 matters is what we are like on the inside. As human beings, we make judgments based 00:15:15.440 --> 00:15:22.320 on what we see, what we can observe, what people are like. But God sees our hearts exactly 00:15:22.320 --> 00:15:29.240 for what they are. For example, when God chooses David as king in the Old Testament in 1 Samuel, 00:15:29.240 --> 00:15:34.720 it says, there the Lord sees not as human beings see. Human beings look at the outward 00:15:34.720 --> 00:15:39.759 appearance, but God looks at the heart. 00:15:39.759 --> 00:15:45.399 Sam 1-3-9 describes God as a God who knows us, who sees us through and through. He knows 00:15:45.399 --> 00:15:51.080 when we sit and when we rise. He knows our thoughts from afar. He discerns my going out 00:15:51.080 --> 00:15:56.560 and my lying down. He is familiar with all our ways. Before a word is on our tongue, God 00:15:56.559 --> 00:16:03.039 knows it completely. So again, the point is whatever image of ourselves we might try and 00:16:03.039 --> 00:16:09.359 present to others, God sees through. He sees all of our thoughts. He sees all of our desires 00:16:09.359 --> 00:16:14.719 and our impulses and our heart cravings and our longings. He sees every angry or hateful 00:16:14.719 --> 00:16:20.759 outburst. He sees every time our hearts swell with pride or they burn with jealousy. 00:16:20.759 --> 00:16:26.559 Now look at the way he describes the human heart here in verse 21. Again, he does not 00:16:26.559 --> 00:16:32.559 hold back, for from within, out of the hearts of human beings come evil thoughts, sexual 00:16:32.559 --> 00:16:42.840 immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, 00:16:42.840 --> 00:16:51.840 pride and foolishness. All of these evil things come from within and defile a person. You 00:16:51.840 --> 00:16:57.280 see, the human heart is capable of astonishing evil. Maybe today we're sitting here and we 00:16:57.280 --> 00:17:02.000 don't feel particularly evil. We don't feel like we're genocidal. We don't feel like we 00:17:02.000 --> 00:17:07.759 do anything particularly horrific. I've recently been reading a book called Man is Wolf to 00:17:07.759 --> 00:17:13.839 Man and it's a story of the Russian Gulags and it's just, it's absolutely mind bending 00:17:13.839 --> 00:17:20.319 the things that human beings are capable of doing to one another. Sigmund Freud, a man 00:17:20.319 --> 00:17:26.640 maybe not famous for his great theology, but he once said, the phrase man is wolf to man. 00:17:26.640 --> 00:17:31.920 Who in the face of all his experience of life and of human history will have the courage 00:17:31.920 --> 00:17:40.600 to dispute that ascitation? The human heart is capable of incredible evil. But also in 00:17:40.600 --> 00:17:45.600 our own experience, in our lives today, I doubt we have any war criminals or people who've 00:17:45.600 --> 00:17:51.640 been involved in the Gulag system here in St. C's, but we all have darkness in our hearts. 00:17:51.640 --> 00:17:57.039 Jesus said that anyone who's hated another person is a murderer. Anyone who's gazed 00:17:57.039 --> 00:18:03.359 a second too long lustfully at another person is an adulterer. We know we all have our own 00:18:03.359 --> 00:18:07.680 struggles with pride or with anger or with jealousy or the specific sins that trouble 00:18:07.680 --> 00:18:15.000 our hearts. The question then is when we approach something like Mark 7 and we read this diagnosis 00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:21.440 of the human condition, how can we possibly come to God and say we are clean? How can 00:18:21.440 --> 00:18:27.759 we possibly come to God and be right with him? How can I come to a God who is so holy 00:18:27.759 --> 00:18:38.480 and so perfect and so righteous, who cannot tolerate any sin and call him father? This 00:18:38.480 --> 00:18:43.200 is the problem that Mark 7 sets up for us. And the natural response is the response of 00:18:43.200 --> 00:18:47.480 the Pharisees, right? It's legalism. It's something that we have to earn, something 00:18:47.480 --> 00:18:57.000 that we have to somehow obtain. We have to do stuff. We have to perform. A legalistic 00:18:57.000 --> 00:19:02.000 heart focuses in on our performance and what we do or what we fail to do. A legalistic 00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:09.559 heart is quick to focus on the shortcomings and the failings of others. The gospel message 00:19:09.559 --> 00:19:15.559 that Jesus presents to us is that we can never make ourselves clean. We can never do enough 00:19:15.559 --> 00:19:23.480 to bridge that gap between our sinful hearts and a holy and righteous God. If Mark 7 makes 00:19:23.480 --> 00:19:27.639 one thing clear, if there's one point to take away from these verses, it's that our hearts 00:19:27.639 --> 00:19:34.119 desperately need change. The answer can never be that we just have to try harder. We just 00:19:34.119 --> 00:19:42.079 have to roll our sleeves up and somehow make ourselves better. That's moralism. The answer 00:19:42.079 --> 00:19:48.919 is found in the cross, in what Jesus would go on to experience. Through the cross, the 00:19:48.919 --> 00:19:55.599 Bible tells us we can be given a new heart, a changed heart, a clean heart. So we read 00:19:55.599 --> 00:20:00.319 some of these examples from this list, the lust, the pride, the envy, the hate, the 00:20:00.319 --> 00:20:07.519 sensuality, the bitterness, all of these things that go through our hearts. Through Christ 00:20:07.519 --> 00:20:11.720 and what He's done on the cross are washed away. So when God sees us, He doesn't see 00:20:11.720 --> 00:20:20.880 these things. He sees the perfect, innocent righteousness of Christ. So we come before 00:20:20.880 --> 00:20:25.519 God today as His children, as those who are clean, as those who don't need to do anything 00:20:25.519 --> 00:20:31.839 to earn that. Look at what God promises His people in Ezekiel 36. He says, I will sprinkle 00:20:31.839 --> 00:20:36.559 clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities 00:20:36.559 --> 00:20:42.200 and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put in you. 00:20:42.200 --> 00:20:48.000 I will move from your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And do you see the key 00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:56.799 thing with the verbs here in this passage? Look who's performing the action. It's God. 00:20:56.799 --> 00:21:02.359 He will cleanse you. He will give you a clean heart. It's almost unbelievable for us, but 00:21:02.359 --> 00:21:10.000 God takes us as we are, as broken and flawed and sinful people. He takes us as we are. 00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.679 There's no prerequisite. There's no level or moral standard that we somehow first have 00:21:14.679 --> 00:21:20.599 to reach. You'll probably know the famous quote from Tim Keller. He says that God sees 00:21:20.599 --> 00:21:28.479 us as we are. He accepts us as we are. He even loves us as we are. But by His grace, 00:21:28.480 --> 00:21:36.880 He does not leave us as we are. He changes us. He gives us a new heart. I think one of 00:21:36.880 --> 00:21:40.240 the problems we have as Christians sometimes though is not that we don't know this. We 00:21:40.240 --> 00:21:46.519 know this stuff. But we have this kind of like spiritual amnesia. We sometimes tend to forget 00:21:46.519 --> 00:21:52.960 who we are in Christ. We somehow withdraw into ourselves and tell ourselves that we're a 00:21:52.960 --> 00:21:59.120 failure or that we're not living up to a standard. 00:21:59.120 --> 00:22:03.160 Sinclair Ferguson said that failure to deal with the presence of sin can often be traced 00:22:03.160 --> 00:22:09.600 back to this kind of spiritual amnesia, to forgetting our new, true, real identity. As 00:22:09.600 --> 00:22:14.840 a believer, I am someone who's been delivered from the dominion of sin and darkness and 00:22:14.840 --> 00:22:20.079 who therefore is free and motivated to fight against the remnants of sin in my heart. You 00:22:20.079 --> 00:22:25.480 must know, rest, and think through and act upon your new identity if you're a believer 00:22:25.480 --> 00:22:32.480 you are in Christ. So we need to remember who we are. We need to remember what God has 00:22:32.480 --> 00:22:38.359 done in our hearts and in our lives. I think as we've been thinking about in Mark 7 about 00:22:38.359 --> 00:22:43.079 the kind of inward, outward, and appearances, I think integrity is one of the greatest qualities 00:22:43.079 --> 00:22:50.639 we can show as a Christian. We want to be people whose insides and outsides match, people 00:22:50.639 --> 00:22:55.759 who are consistent in what we say and what we do in public and behind closed doors. You 00:22:55.759 --> 00:23:00.599 see, I think in our witness to our world and to our city and to the people around us, I 00:23:00.599 --> 00:23:06.679 think nothing is more damaging or off-putting than a hypocrite. To see someone who says one 00:23:06.679 --> 00:23:12.059 thing but in reality lives in a totally different way. That's always going to be a huge challenge 00:23:12.059 --> 00:23:18.679 to us as Christians. We recognize it is a lifelong struggle and a battle. The Christian 00:23:18.679 --> 00:23:24.639 life involves a continual call to repent and to come back to Christ and to confess how 00:23:24.639 --> 00:23:31.000 much we need Him. So we have to remember who we are. Jonathan Edwards said that a Christian 00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:37.399 who is stuck wallowing in sin is like a butterfly crawling miserably along a branch as if it's 00:23:37.400 --> 00:23:43.120 still a caterpillar. You see, a butterfly has gone through an incredible transformation. 00:23:43.120 --> 00:23:47.720 It's a new creature. So for it to come out if it's cocoon and to continue to live and 00:23:47.720 --> 00:23:56.720 act as if it's still a caterpillar is absurd. And in much the same way as Christians, we 00:23:56.720 --> 00:24:01.360 can completely forget the fact that we're new creatures. We're drawn back to the same 00:24:01.359 --> 00:24:08.719 old life. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, 17, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. 00:24:08.719 --> 00:24:15.639 The old has passed away, behold, the new has come. Today, if you're a believer in Jesus 00:24:15.639 --> 00:24:23.959 Christ, you are a child of God. You have a new heart. He equips you to live a new life. 00:24:23.959 --> 00:24:29.759 And we need to remind ourselves what God sees when He looks at us. What God sees is the 00:24:29.759 --> 00:24:37.480 perfect spotless innocence of Christ in place of our unrighteousness and failings and faults. 00:24:37.480 --> 00:24:41.319 So we want to pray that He will give us a heart and a desire to obey Him and love Him 00:24:41.319 --> 00:24:49.119 and live for Him. So we ask ourselves as we close this morning, how is your heart? When 00:24:49.119 --> 00:24:55.799 you worship God with God's people, where are you? Are you distant? Are you far away? Maybe 00:24:55.799 --> 00:25:00.399 the big question that drives you and motivates you in life is what will they think? What 00:25:00.399 --> 00:25:06.399 will the people around me think? Jesus reminds us in Mark 7, the most important question 00:25:06.399 --> 00:25:12.839 we have to grapple with is when God looks at you, what does He see? If your trust is 00:25:12.839 --> 00:25:18.559 in Christ this morning, He sees a heart that's shaped by grace, grace that's free and undeserved 00:25:18.559 --> 00:25:24.279 and unmerited. We pray and trust that He'll enable our hearts to turn to Him, to trust 00:25:24.279 --> 00:25:29.279 in Him and to rest in Him and you this morning. Let's pray together. 00:25:29.279 --> 00:25:38.559 Oh, Lord God and loving Father, we just want to thank you and praise you for all that you've 00:25:38.559 --> 00:25:44.000 done for us through Jesus Christ. We thank you that you are a God who changes hearts. 00:25:44.000 --> 00:25:48.559 You take hearts of stone and you give us hearts of flesh. Lord, we thank you for the way that 00:25:48.559 --> 00:25:53.200 you have dealt with our darkness. We thank you for the way that you have taken all of 00:25:53.200 --> 00:25:58.240 our sin and all of our inconsistency and all of our failings and you have paid the penalty 00:25:58.240 --> 00:26:03.720 in full. Father, we pray that you would help us this morning to trust again in the work 00:26:03.720 --> 00:26:11.000 of Jesus Christ. Lord, to be reminded of how amazing you are, for a wonderful Savior you 00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:16.279 have been. Father, we pray that you would equip our hearts to love you more, to love 00:26:16.279 --> 00:26:21.640 each other more and Father, in all we do this week, to do all we do to your glory, we pray 00:26:21.640 --> 00:26:23.720 this in Jesus' name. Amen.