In 2010, the deep water horizon off the Gulf had a tragic, tragic accident.
5,000 feet down below that oil platform, there was a breakage.
And this well, the Macondo wellhead, it burst.
And so over the next 87 days, 3.19 million barrels of oil flowed into the Gulf.
That's 130 million gallons of oil flowed into the Gulf.
It was the largest accidental oil spill in human history.
And as a result of what that well was spewing forth, it polluted the Gulf.
It had devastating effects.
Recovery is still happening.
This morning, Jesus is going to tell us about a different well.
It's not in the Gulf.
It's inside of you.
It's the well of your heart.
And up from that well is spewing forth things that pollute, that what Jesus says defile, that corrupt.
Things like murder and adultery, sexual immorality, theft, bearing false witness, slander.
They all come out of your heart.
Now, if we were to ask someone on the street, why do people do evil things, I'm guessing we get a couple different answers.
Maybe we'd hear something like this.
Well, it's the way you're raised.
The education you received or the home you were raised in or the economic advantages or disadvantages you had
or the ability to voice where you were or not.
So it's environmental.
That would be one option we would hear.
The other one would be, well, it's genetic.
It's physiological.
Maybe they're genetically predisposed to this or that.
Well, depending on how you answer that question will determine a lot of things.
Here's what's riding on the answer.
Here's what's riding on the street.
Now, are there environmental influences that shape us?
Yes.
Are there genetic influences?
Of course.
But are these the cause of the corruption that we see in our own hearts, our own lives?
What if the primary source of human evil is neither environmental or physiological, but it's spiritual?
It has to do with our relationship with the living God.
If that's the case, we're not going to find the ultimate solution in social sciences.
We're not going to find the ultimate solution in the halls of medicine.
If you would open up your Bibles to Matthew chapter 15, I'm going to read through verses 1 through 20, and it's like this.
If we saw Jesus on the street, if we saw Jesus on the street, and we asked Jesus, Jesus, what corrupts a human being?
What defiles a person?
He would say something like this.
Would you read with me in Matthew 15?
Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said,
Why do you disciples break the tradition of the elders, that they do not wash their hands when they eat?
Jesus answered them,
And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?
For God commanded, honor your father and your mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.
But you say, if anyone tells his father or his mother what you would have gained from me is given to God, he need not honor his father.
So for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God.
You hypocrites!
Well did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said,
This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
And he called the people to himself and said to them,
Hear and understand, it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person,
but what comes out of the mouth.
But this defiles a person.
Then the disciples came and said to him,
Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?
Jesus answered,
Every plant that the heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up.
Let them alone, their blind guides, and if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.
But Peter said to him,
Explain the parable to us.
And Jesus said,
Are you also still without understanding?
Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled?
But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart.
And this defiles a person.
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
These are what defile a person.
But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.
Jesus doesn't use the word pollution.
He doesn't use the word corrupt.
He uses the word defile.
To make common.
To kind of separate from that what's holy.
Jesus says what defiles a person is not external to you.
It's internal to you.
You're not defiled from the outside in.
You're defiled from the inside out.
Your greatest problem is not outside of you.
Your greatest problem is within you.
When Jesus talks about the heart, he's not talking about that fist-sized muscle that is pumping blood throughout your body right now.
He means the core of who you are.
Your essential being.
Your inner person.
Where you think, feel, and make decisions.
In the Hebrew mind, the heart was the center place of a person.
It's where they thought, felt, made decisions.
And so what Jesus is saying here in this passage is that your biggest problem is not your DNA.
It's not the family you were raised in.
It's not the neighborhood you live in.
It's not the opportunities you have or don't have.
The biggest problem you've got is your heart.
And what that means is we're responsible for what happens in our hearts.
We are responsible for our thoughts, our feelings, our words, and our actions because they all flow out of the heart.
Guard your heart above all else.
For from it flow the wellspring of life.
Proverbs 4.
So here's how we're going to move forward this morning.
We're going to walk through this account and we're going to see three encounters.
Between Jesus.
Verse 1 is between Jesus and a delegation from Jerusalem.
And then Jesus and the people.
And the third is Jesus and his disciples.
And all throughout it, Jesus is dealing with this issue of what defiles a person.
What makes them unclean?
Is it washing your hands?
Is it the food you eat?
Jesus says no.
It's from within.
After we walk through those accounts, I'm going to bring this to a point and then we're going to apply it to our lives.
So let's begin in chapter 15 verses 1 through 9.
Jesus.
An encounter between Jesus and a delegation from Jerusalem.
Now you've got to notice.
Now you've got to notice in 51, the Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem.
Up until this point, the Pharisees and scribes that Jesus has been dealing with have been local boys.
City cops.
County sheriff.
And now, the folks down in Jerusalem have gotten word about Jesus.
Now if you look at Matthew 14, 1.
Remember Herod last week, we learned God word of Jesus fame.
And he flipped out.
He thought it was John the Baptist.
Come back from the grave.
And here, we have the religious establishment that's in Jerusalem.
They get wind of Jesus.
What he's teaching.
And they're wondering if he's subverting them.
And so the way to think about these guys is they're not the local law enforcement.
These would be like the feds coming in.
Coming in from the capital to check things out.
The Pharisaical Bureau of Investigation.
Now in 15.2, they approached Jesus with a question.
Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?
They show up and they watch Jesus' disciples eat food without washing their hands.
Now you may be wondering, what is this tradition of the elders they're talking about?
Well, they're not talking about the Bible itself.
They're talking about a tradition that had been built around the Bible, the Old Testament,
to help explain the Old Testament.
It was an oral tradition.
Have you ever seen pictures of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. when it was being refurbished?
It had scaffolding built all around it so workers can work on the outside of the Capitol.
The only reason why you knew it was a Capitol, you saw the dome on the rotunda.
You said, something's in there.
The tradition of the elders was like scaffolding that the religious leaders had built around the Old Testament to help people understand it.
If there was confusion over what a particular passage meant or how it applied.
And so the intent was a good intent to help God's people understand God's word.
But here's what happened.
The scaffolding became permanent and authoritative.
So instead of appealing to the command, people would appeal to the scaffolding.
It's kind of like this.
It's instead of the halls, the acts of kind of our government happening in the Capitol,
it's like let's bring them out to the scaffolding.
Come live out on the scaffolding, everyone.
And so what was taking place was this tradition of the elders,
what was meant to explain the Old Testament,
started taking on authority on par with God's Scripture.
You get a sense of this in 15.2 when they say,
Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?
That word break is the word transgress.
They had raised it to such a degree that it's like,
Oh, naughty, naughty on you for breaking, transgressing the tradition of the elders.
And then in the second part of verse 2, they point to something.
Your disciples, they're transgressing the tradition of the elders for,
you see that at the end of verse 2, middle of verse 2,
for they do not wash their hands when they eat.
There's no command in the Old Testament
that requires all Jews to wash their hands before every meal.
There's no command.
There were Old Testament commands that required priests to wash their hands
before eating something that had been offered as a sacrifice.
What appears to have happened is that certain Jews took the specific command to priests
and they generalized the command to all of God's people.
So when the Jerusalem delegation sees Jesus' disciples not washing their hands before they eat,
whip, whip, whip, whip, whip, weep, we got a problem.
Now before you start thinking, man, those Pharisees back in the first century,
they made mountains out of molehills, I'll tell you what.
No playing cards, no dancing, no alcoholic consumption.
If you don't homeschool your children, something's wrong with you.
This kind of thinking exists today.
We can make things that are not God's Word on the same level as God's Word.
Now remember, behind all this kind of hand-washing thinking
is a deep and pervasive concern for ritual purity.
Being clean.
If a Jew touched something that wasn't clean, that Jew became unclean
and they would not be allowed to participate in the religious life of their family and friends.
Do you remember back in Matthew 9, there's a woman who has this 12-year-old issue of blood?
And no one would touch her because she was unclean, according to Leviticus.
If anyone touched her, they would become unclean.
What's amazing is she once touches Jesus and Jesus doesn't become unclean, she becomes clean.
That's what Jesus does.
So what's going on here is this.
This delegation comes up, they're looking for anything,
they see Jesus' disciples not washing their hands,
and they say, hey, you know, you're breaking the transgression,
you're transgressing the tradition of the elders.
They're essentially saying,
you disciples, you're unclean.
And this guy teaching you,
he's transgressing the tradition of the elders too.
He's not teaching what he should be teaching.
So there's the charge of subversion.
It's implied.
Now to Jesus' counter charge.
You're going to see Jesus do something here that may seem a little tough.
Up until this point, Jesus has kind of swapped some,
traded some words with the Pharisees.
We're going to see him bringing up a notch right now.
And he's going to bring it up a notch
because what's at stake is the right understanding of God's word
and rightly understanding the human condition.
That's why he's going to respond the way he does.
And we see his response starting in verse 3.
Jesus answered them and said,
and why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?
That word break is the same word that the Pharisees had used
up in verse 2.
Jesus is saying, let me just use that word transgress rightly.
You, why are you transgressing the commandment of God
for the sake of your traditions?
Jesus doesn't answer their question.
We're going to see him do this a number of times going forward.
But he turns it around on them.
And then he points to his proof.
His support.
He says,
in verse 4,
for God commanded,
honor your father and your mother,
and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.
Those are both taken from Exodus chapter 120, verse 12.
That's the fifth commandment in the Ten Commandments.
And the second one where he says,
whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.
That's taken from Exodus 21, 17.
And what they go to show is that this is God's word,
and it's serious when you transgress it.
If you revile your mom and your dad,
that's a capital offense.
And why he's doing that is because the Pharisees were making a capital offense.
And so if you notice,
in verse 5,
5,
Jesus sets up the command of God,
and then he says,
but you say.
This is what God's word says.
Honor your father and your mother.
But here's what you're saying.
You are saying,
if anyone tells his father or his mother,
what you would have gained from me is given to God,
he need not honor his father or his mother.
Here's what's going on.
It's a technical term called korban.
And what it was,
it's a kind of vow.
And the vow that was being made is like this.
An adult child would say,
well,
I have vowed to God to give half my wealth.
And then if there was a need that came up for his parents,
the Pharisees were saying,
don't break your vow to God.
Don't honor your mother or your father.
Follow through on your vow to God.
God, give that money.
Do you know where the money would go?
To the temple treasury.
Do you know who was in charge of the temple treasury?
The Pharisees.
Do you see what Jesus is putting his finger into?
He's hitting a wasp nest.
And so Jesus is saying,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
You guys are breaking a command.
By you saying,
in your tradition of the elders,
your tradition,
if you're saying you can break,
you don't have to honor your mother and your father
to keep your vow,
you're missing it.
And then Jesus goes on to say
that they're not only missing it,
they're invalidating the word of God,
God's commandments.
They're making it void.
It's a serious charge.
Jesus is very protective of God's word.
Remember, he came not to abolish it,
but to fulfill it.
He holds it up.
And when people challenge it,
he challenges them.
And so he concludes,
in order to keep a value,
invalidate God's command,
and then he accuses them
of being hypocrites.
Think about it.
God incarnate
is saying these men
are hypocrites.
You hypocrites.
Well did Isaiah prophesy of you.
And then he quotes Isaiah 29, 13,
which in its context
is spoken to Jews
who are in Jerusalem
who are just paying lip service
to God's commandments.
They were saying one thing,
but their hearts were somewhere else.
They were more devoted to human traditions
than obeying God's commands.
That's what's going on
with the Pharisees here.
They're so focused on the externals.
They're so focused on their scaffolding
just to make sure
you keep the scaffolding right.
Just make sure you're doing
the right things in the right way
and everything's just going to be fine.
Even if it invalidates God's commands.
It's Jesus' point.
And what Jesus,
by quoting Isaiah 29,
he's saying,
they have made their worship of God
vain,
hollow,
meaningless,
empty.
They're putting the man-made traditions
on the same par
with God's all-authoritative words
and so he says,
you're hypocrites.
My disciples aren't doing anything wrong.
You are.
So here we have our feisty Savior.
Our feisty Messiah.
And we're caught in between
the Pharisees and Jesus.
The Pharisees are saying,
keep the tradition of the elders.
Focus on externals.
Make sure your hands are washed.
Eat the right foods.
Don't be subversive.
Jesus is saying,
keep the commandment of God.
Don't build scaffolding
that is going to challenge
the authority of God's word.
He accuses the Pharisees
of being hypocrites.
They've invalidated God's commands
for their tradition.
So the question,
who's right?
Well, we know that Jesus
was a descendant of David.
He's born of the Virgin Mary.
He was tempted by Satan.
Didn't give in.
He preached the Sermon on the Mount.
He healed all sorts of people.
He did amazing things.
He spoke with authority.
He is God in the flesh.
He is Emmanuel.
And so Jesus is right.
He is the all-authoritative one.
Who is this guy?
Who is this guy
that when the Jerusalem delegation
comes up,
he just turns the tables on them?
He turns the tables on them
and calls them hypocrites.
Who is this guy?
Only God in the flesh
does that kind of stuff.
The second encounter
is between Jesus and the crowds.
And we see that
in verses 10 and 11.
And he called the people to him
and said to them,
hear and understand,
it's not what goes into the mouth
that defiles a person,
but what comes out of the mouth.
This defiles a person.
And in verse 15,
Peter's going to say,
explain to us the parable.
This is what he's talking about.
This kind of going into the mouth
and going out of the mouth business.
That's the parable
that Peter is referencing about.
And if you remember
from when we were in Matthew 13,
a parable is like vertical blinds.
It reveals the truth
of the kingdom to some
and hides the truth
of the kingdom to others.
And so when Jesus calls the crowds,
the people to him,
he speaks this parable to them.
And the focus is on the mouth.
But it's about what defiles a person.
And so it has to do with food.
More importantly, pure food,
clean food, or unclean food.
So the disciples are being charged
with transgressing
the hand washing regulations.
And so if they have dirty hands,
they put it on clean food,
they make the food dirty.
And if it goes into your mouth,
it makes you all the more dirty.
Here Jesus is focusing on
the eating of something unclean.
And what he is saying here
is such a seismic shift
for a devout Jew.
It was phenomenal
what Jesus is saying here.
If they had ears to hear.
Even the disciples who heard this
didn't quite get it.
It would take them decades
to figure this thing out
with the help of God.
Remember that this is a parable
and the kingdom meaning
would have been hidden
to many who heard.
And so Jesus speaks this parable out.
It's not what goes inside of you
through your mouth that defiles you.
It's what comes out of your mouth.
That's what defiles you.
So the contrast is between
coming in and going out.
What comes into the mouth
versus what comes out of the mouth.
It's all about defilement.
Becoming unclean in God's sight.
And what Jesus is saying here,
it's not what goes into your mouth
that defiles you in God's sight.
In Mark chapter 7,
Mark says at this point,
parenthetically,
and therefore he declared
all foods clean.
So when Jesus says here,
it's not what comes into your mouth
that defiles you.
He's saying,
go have a ham sandwich.
It doesn't defile you.
He says,
hear and understand.
Speaking to crowds,
it's a parable.
Whatever he's talking about
is a new kingdom reality.
It's a new dietary regulation
for those in the kingdom.
And what it is,
is there are no dietary regulations
for those in the kingdom.
Because they don't make you unclean.
We're not told how the crowd responds,
but we are told
how the disciples respond.
So let me draw your attention to that
in verses 12 through 20.
This is the third encounter of this passage.
Jesus with his disciples.
Then the disciples came and said to him,
do you know that the Pharisees
were offended when they heard this saying?
And he answered,
and then Peter in verse 15 says,
explain to us the parable.
And so when his disciples
come to him
and ask for an explanation,
they actually ask for two explanations.
What about the Pharisees
and what about this parable?
And so Jesus picks up the issue
about the Pharisees first.
Did you not know
that you just offended the Pharisees?
Now that word offend
that you see in verse 12,
you know that the Pharisees
were offended when they heard this saying?
Probably talking about
his quoting of Isaiah 29.
That word offended,
if you look back to Matthew chapter 13
and look at verse 57,
remember that Jesus went to Nazareth
and he spoke with authority
and his hometown peeps,
do you remember what they did?
They were offended by him.
It's the same word.
What Jesus said was scandalous to them.
Jesus is being scandalous
to the Pharisees
for what he's saying.
He's speaking with authority.
He is correcting them.
He's exposing
what they're doing is wrong.
And they're upset about it.
And so the disciples say,
hey, did you know
you just offended them?
And Jesus responds
in verses 13 by 14
by saying,
you know what?
They're not planted
by my heavenly Father.
They're not from God.
In fact,
they're going to be uprooted.
And the last time
we read something like that
in Matthew 13,
it was uprooted
and thrown into the fire.
So what Jesus is saying there
is they're not from God.
And then he says
in verse 14,
they're blind guides.
The Pharisees love to be thought
of being teachers
of the people,
of leading people
into what the Old Testament
truly says.
And ironically,
they weren't.
Their emphasis
on their traditions
kept them from getting
the true meaning
of God's Word.
And so Jesus calls them
blind guides,
false teachers.
And they will lead
other blind folks
into a pit.
You know what?
Pits aren't good destinations,
generally speaking.
They're dangerous places.
They're deadly places.
Unless it's a barbecue pit.
Well, that is a deadly place.
Jesus sums up by saying,
let them alone.
Don't have anything
to do with them.
Don't go after their ways.
Don't let them guide you.
They're not going to lead you
into life.
They're going to lead you
into a pit.
So up until this point,
Jesus has called the Pharisees
from Jerusalem hypocrites.
He said that Isaiah 29,
13,
they fulfill it.
They're just paying
lip service to God.
They are elevating
the traditions of man
on the same level
the commandments of God.
He calls them
not planted by God.
They're going to be uprooted.
He tells them
that they're blind,
saying that they're blind guides.
Jesus says,
have nothing to do with them.
They don't have
the words you need.
And then he turns
to the parable
in verses 15 through 20.
In 15,
Peter says,
explain the parable to us.
And in verse 16,
Jesus kind of says,
no kind of about it,
do you not understand?
Jesus is surprised.
You guys don't get this?
You don't understand
what I'm saying?
And so instead of just
kind of like kicking them
out of where they were
and throwing his hands up,
I give up on you guys.
He spells it out for them.
I'm so encouraged by this
because I'm slow
to understand
what Jesus says.
And so to be able to say,
Jesus,
would you just explain this to me?
He's a risen king
and he loves
to make clear his word.
And so what he says
is what defiles a person
doesn't come
from the outside in,
but what defiles a person
comes from the inside out.
And what he's going to say
is we all have
a resident evil.
In verse 17,
he explains the first part
of the parable,
what comes into the mouth.
He says this,
do you not see
that whatever goes
into the mouth
passes into the stomach
and is expelled?
His focus is on
the pragmatics of food
running its course
through the human body.
You eat it
and then you digest it
and then you expel it.
Literally,
that means it goes
into the latrine.
Jesus is removing
any sort of
spiritualizing of food.
Eat it,
digest it,
and it ends up
in the latrine, guys.
It's just food.
And again,
Mark says here
that he declares
all foods clean
at this point.
Food doesn't make you
dirty in God's sight.
He's saying
to his disciples,
you no longer
need to be concerned
about what you eat.
You need to be concerned
about something else.
And that something else
shows up in verse 18.
If we're not
to be concerned
about what we eat
or if we're not
going to be concerned
about washing
our hands rightly,
what are we going
to be concerned about?
Jesus says,
be concerned
about your heart.
Be concerned
about that thing
in you,
that central
inner being
where you worship
from.
That's what you need
to be concerned about.
What comes out
of the mouth
proceeds from the heart,
Jesus says.
And this
defiles a person.
This is what makes
someone unclean
in God's sight.
It's like Jesus
is saying this.
Don't get me wrong.
Defilement is real,
but food isn't
the cause
of real defilement.
Nor is your washing
or not washing
your hands
the real cause
of defilement.
The real cause
of your defilement
is in you,
your heart.
And then he
elaborates on it.
It's what comes
out of the heart
is what corrupts us.
Look at verse 9.
Verse 19,
excuse me.
What proceeds
from the heart?
Evil thoughts.
Now, that might be
a little tough
for us as Americans
because when we
think about thinking,
you think with your head
and you feel
with your heart,
right?
Well, what Jewish
thinking would do,
they just kind of
squish it all together.
You think and you feel
in the same place,
your heart.
And so it's not unusual
for Jesus to say,
evil thoughts
come from your heart.
And those evil thoughts
result in things
like murders.
In the Greek,
it's plural.
And what that does
is it makes it
real concrete.
Where do murders
come from?
One's heart.
Taking a life.
Adulteries.
Taking another person's
spouse.
Where does that come from?
From the evil thoughts
of your heart.
Where do sexual
immoralities come from?
It's just kind of
a vague term
for sexual sin.
A broad term.
It comes from your heart.
Where do thefts,
it's getting plural.
All these are plural.
Where do they come from?
They come from your heart.
False witnesses
denying or distorting
the truth.
Where does it come from?
It comes from within you.
It's not environmental.
It's not genetic.
It's from your heart.
Where do slanders come from?
Speaking falsely
of someone else.
They come from within you.
You can't pass the buck
on someone else.
They're from inside.
God's going to hold you
accountable for that.
Jesus is saying
all these come from
out of your heart.
Now this isn't like
an exhausted list.
There's a whole bunch more
we can talk about.
The point is that
Jesus is making here
is that defilement
doesn't come from
the outside in.
It comes from the inside out.
From where we worship.
People don't murder people
because they haven't
washed their hands
or they've eaten pork.
People murder because
there's evil thoughts
in their hearts.
So Jesus is lovingly
explaining to His disciples
and us
that there's a resident evil
within us.
In the words of Jeremiah 17.9
it says,
The heart is deceitful
above all things
and desperately sick.
Who can understand it?
Jesus gets it.
John 2.24
Jesus knows the heart of man.
He sees the depth
of our defilement.
And you know what's amazing?
He loves us still.
It's the very reason He came.
He didn't come for the
sort of dirty.
He came for those
who were really defiled.
For the murderers
and the adulterers
and the immoral
and those who slander
and bear false witness.
Those are the ones
He came for.
So Jesus concludes
in verse 20,
These are what defile
a person
but to eat
with unwashed hands?
That does not defile anybody.
If you were to ask Jesus,
Jesus,
what makes someone
corrupt in God's eyes?
You know what Jesus would say?
Their heart.
The evil that comes
from their heart.
And that is the point
of this passage.
That's the unique contribution
of this passage
to our understanding
of God's mind.
He wants us to know
that our problem,
biggest problem,
isn't outside of us.
it's inside of us.
And so let's look
to apply this.
Jesus,
the first way
to apply it is this.
And it's on a lighter note.
Since what comes
into your mouth
is not what defiles you,
eat whatever you want.
Enjoy Doritos.
Have a Cuban.
Enjoy it.
It doesn't defile you.
It might shorten
your life a little bit,
but it doesn't defile you.
You might put on some pounds,
but it doesn't defile you.
So Jesus isn't saying
throw out wisdom.
But on a more serious note,
here's what we see
Jesus doing here.
He is authoritatively
making a statement
about the human condition.
He is saying
this is your real problem.
Don't buy the externals
of the Pharisees.
Let that behavioralism go.
No.
Pay attention to your heart.
Because what controls your heart
controls your life.
And so what Jesus does,
and I just want to expand
on this a little bit,
he helps us see
how wicked our hearts are.
We've got a radical evil
inside of us.
It goes down deep.
We have a pervasive evil
inside of us.
It's what the theologians
call total depravity.
We're not as bad
as we can possibly be,
but sin affects
everything that we are.
It pervades all of our life.
It's a controlling evil.
If you point to James 4
and you ask,
why are there fights
and quarrels among you?
James says,
is it not because of
the evil passions
that war within you?
It can be a controlling evil.
It's a polluting evil.
It's destructive.
It's disunifying.
It's divisive.
It's a deceptive evil.
The heart is deceptive
above all things.
It's a universal evil.
The heart problem
is not just limited
to the young or the old.
It goes across racial lines.
It goes across upbringings.
It doesn't matter
how much money you've got.
It doesn't matter
which neighborhood you live in.
Kind of how you spend
your time during the day.
Everybody's got a heart problem.
It's a universal evil.
And it's a capital evil.
God is not indifferent
about the resident evil
in our hearts.
He's deeply offended by it
because our hearts
were created to worship Him,
not disobey Him,
not mock Him,
not idolize other things
in His place.
John Calvin called the human heart
an idol factory,
just producing one idol
after the next.
Jesus prevents us
from minimizing
or justifying
the real problem we have.
We can't point to others.
We can't point to our DNA.
We've got to own
the problem inside of us.
It's evil and it's ours.
And it's against God.
And He rightfully condemns it.
But on that day
when you stand before the throne,
you will be held accountable
for every evil deed
and every evil thought.
Now,
if we just wrap things up right here,
you guys would be like,
well, that was a bummer.
I can eat pork now,
but you know what?
I'm really bummed out.
God,
I've got good news for you.
The good news is that
God's grace goes deeper
than your deepest evil.
A radical problem requires
a radical solution
and the cross of Jesus Christ
is that radical problem
that goes down deep
where sin is
and radically changes it.
God, by His Spirit,
comes to indwell you
and not only changes
your affections,
He gives you a new desire
to worship Him
and obey Him.
The good news is that
God's grace
is a pervasive grace.
When a sinner repents
and trusts in Jesus,
God claims all of that sinner
by the blood of Jesus.
Every square inch
of your life, Christian,
is claimed
by the blood of Jesus.
His grace will pervade
every area of your life
in order to make you
more like Him.
the good news is
that God's grace
is a pervasive grace.
The good news is that
God's grace
is an overpowering grace.
God's grace is more powerful
than sin in you.
God's grace breaks
the power of sin in you.
God's grace is an overpowering grace.
That's the good news.
Here's another good news.
God's grace is a sanctifying grace.
It cleans up what sin pollutes.
It transforms.
It redeems.
It makes murderers
into life givers.
It makes adulterers
into those who keep their vows.
It makes thieves
generous givers.
It makes liars truth tellers.
That's the good news
of God's grace.
God's grace is a universal problem
God's grace is that
God's grace is that the deceptiveness
of sin,
it is put,
it's exposed
by God's word.
It's seen
for what it is.
God grabs
onto slippery sins
and puts them to death
by His Spirit.
Romans 8.13.
The good news is that
God's grace
is freely offered
to all people.
The resident evil
in each of us
is a universal problem
of all mankind
and God offers
a universal solution.
God's power
to radically change
a human heart
is offered
to all people
everywhere
in the gospel.
God says
in 1 Timothy 2
He wants all people
to be saved.
God does not want
His image bearers
worshiping things
that are not Him
and so the gospel
goes out
to change hearts.
God's grace
is greater
than your evil heart,
anyone's evil heart.
And finally,
the good news
is that God
graciously offers
pardon
to those
with capital crimes.
It's true
that our evil
sinful hearts
rightly condemn us
but the one
speaking these words
do you know
what He's going to do?
He's going to say it.
I'm going to give my life
as a ransom for many.
He's going to go
to the cross
and He's going to
offer Himself
as a pardon
for your capital
crimes.
He's going to be
a ransom
for you.
He substituted
Himself
in your place.
He died on the cross
so that you can be
forgiven.
The good news
is that God's grace
offers
a great salvation.
brothers and sisters
this morning
we had to look
at something
heavy and hard
and that's inside
of you
in each of you
but it's not
bad news
because it points
to Jesus
and our need
for Him
and what only
He can do
and that is
to change
our hearts
and when He
changes our hearts
He changes
changes our lives.
Would you bow
with me?
God in heaven
I pray that
You would make us
people who pay
attention to
our hearts
and cry out
to You
to change
our hearts
and in so doing
change the way
we live our lives.
God I pray
for the parents
in the room.
I pray that parents
God would love
their children
beyond making
them behave right
to calling
them to repentance
to showing
them their
hearts are wicked
in need of a Savior.
God would You
make us parents
who gospelize
our children.
God I do pray
as well for this
church that we
would be a people
who don't focus
on externals
for external sake
but God we pay
attention
to the change
the gospel brings
to individual hearts.
Help us to proclaim
that faithfully
in Jesus name
Amen.