Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Good morning, church.
[00:00:06] What a joy to be together today, man. What? Like, that's one of those songs, like, we all know that one, right? But man, that's a good song. Do you ever, like, do you ever have those songs in worship where, like, you know them so well that when we get up and we start singing them, you're just kind of going through it and then you have that moment halfway through the song where you think about what you're singing for a second and you go, oh, wow, like, that's really good. Like, that's one of the. Man, what a good song. Thank you, creative team, for that, for leading us in that. We are continuing our time in Matthew today. If you want to turn in your bibles over to Matthew 15, if you're visiting with us today, or if you don't own a copy of the Bible, if you don't have it with you, we have physical copies of the Bible around the room just looking at the chairs in front of you. We really believe in the importance of access to God's word here at Emmanuel. So if you don't own one, please take one or talk to one of the pastors, we'll get you a nicer one than one of the pew bibles. We just. Man, it's just good. We're going to put the words on the screen, but there is just something about cracking open God's word and looking at it that is powerful. It's good for your soul. As you guys turn over to Matthew 15, those of you guys who know Kim and I know my family know that we have a lot of wild and loud kids. That's kind of a thing. It's just what it is. If you hang out at our house, there's a lot of chaos going on. There's someone in this room who's doing premarital counseling at our house later tonight. And I just gotta warn you, man, it's nuts. It's nuts.
[00:01:35] You probably don't come back for the second one. I'm just kidding.
[00:01:38] It is. It's just the reality. One of the ways this chaos comes out is when my kids decide to inform me about a fight that happened in our house. And those of you who are parents, especially if you're parents of more than one kid, you're gonna know what I'm talking about. In fact, this may be a little triggering for you, so I wanna pre apologize for that. But it usually goes something like this. One of my children walks up to me and they say, and it's usually, there's tears, like, streaked down the face. You know, there's puppy dog eyes. Like, the lip is quivering. Like they're barely getting the words, like, over this bubbling up sob. And he usually goes to them like this. Daddy, Moses punched me in the nose.
[00:02:15] And by the way, I said, moses, insert any one of my four children and insert any violent act that would surprise you. And it's accurate. Still, the story's still spot on, right? And so at this point, like, it's not that strange. It's not that. But, like, it's, you know, it's kind of like, okay, this is standard fare for our home, but then they come in for that comfort hug. You know, they come and they grab you, and the damn breaks, and they start sobbing. And instantly, like, they've got me. I'm like, oh, this. This horrific injustice. Who would dare punch my child in the nose, right? And so I call the other child to account. Moses, get in here. Hey, your brother says you punched him in the nose. At this point, you know, I'm the righteous judge here to defend my innocent child, but what always happens next? And I say always, guys. I mean, like, 99.9% of the time, what happens next is, yeah, I punched him.
[00:03:07] Why? Well, he was strangling the cat, and I told him not to, and then he threw the cat at me, and then he started whipping me with his stuffed snake. So I punched him, and all of a sudden, you know, and I look down, hey, bud, is that true? Well, yeah.
[00:03:26] Why were you strangling the cat? The cat didn't want to sit in my lap.
[00:03:32] And instantly, in, like, 10 seconds, this child goes from victim to menace. Right? And that's just how it is. It's just this is. This is constant. And again, guys, like, if you have kids or if you just hung out in my house, you're like, yeah, I've seen this before.
[00:03:46] And the reason I bring this up, guys, is not just to embarrass my kids in front of you guys or to try and get sympathy, although you can pray for me. The reason I bring this up is because today we're going to talk about the reality of the human heart, and we're going to look at some of Jesus teaching about describing the human heart and our text today. Jesus, he plainly speaks this truth. And it's this truth that I think every human being, like, we know this on a DNA level. I think this is core to the human experience. And yet pretty much all of us do our absolute best to avoid considering or discussing this truth. And this is the truth that the human heart is desperately broken.
[00:04:34] Human heart is desperately broken. We are full of evils and defilements, and we are in need of redemption. Now, don't mishear me when I say this, right? Like, this isn't the case of the pastor showing up to beat you guys up about how terrible you are and make you feel guilty this morning. The reality is that we all know that humanity as a whole and individual human beings, right? Like, we can do amazing things. Things. Human beings can do amazing things. We cure diseases, we study stars, we make music, we adopt children. There is beauty and there is good within humanity, but it doesn't erase the fact that in every single human heart. Like, there's the potential for Stalin just as much as there is for Gandhi, right? Like, that exists inside of us. In our text today, Jesus speaks plainly that the truth. The truth of the human heart, and here in that guy's like, your heart and my heart is full of evil. And I think it is the very contrast. It's the reality that we realize the human potential for good next to the present persistent presence of our evils. And it makes it just all the more terrible.
[00:05:50] Something about knowing what human potential, where it could go and seeing where it does go, that just makes it rough.
[00:05:59] Today, we're going to be reminded of the truth, that the human heart is irrevocably broken. We're in desperate need of outside help that we cannot give ourselves.
[00:06:10] One of the reasons I think this text is so important for us, our church right now, is that we are in an election cycle. And I don't know if you guys pay attention to these, but it seems like each time we do one, they get a little more rowdy. It just seems like it amps up, and it seems like there are continual narratives to stir up and stoke up our fear around the potentials of human evil. Look at all the terrible things that could happen in our culture, in our city, in our country, in our world. And what's the solution? Well, obviously, it's voting for this correct person, right?
[00:06:43] Like, that's the narrative that gets fed to us, and that's gonna be what pumps through all our radios and social media ads and news stories for the next two or three months, right? Like, that's the unfortunate reality we live in. And yet what we're gonna see in the words of Jesus today is that we actually can't help ourselves, that there is no amount of religious practice, there is no amount of scale balancing. There is no amount of ritual purification. And for us today, there is no amount of correct votes or correct administrations or societal and law changes that will fix what is broken in the human heart and in the human experience.
[00:07:22] Extra human intervention.
[00:07:27] We need intervention from something better than us.
[00:07:31] We need grace.
[00:07:32] We need redemption. Beloved. So pray with me. We're gonna jump into this text. Jesus, thank you so much for this morning. Thank you for the gift of church family. Lord, thank you for the gift of your word. God, I pray for each and every one of us today. I pray that you would just give us soft and open hearts today. Lord, we carry so many distractions. There's so many things buzzing around our lives right now and buzzing in and out of our minds and hearts right now. It would be so easy to move past this simple gospel declaration today. Lord God, I pray that you would slow each of us down regardless of our circumstances this morning. Give us a presence of heart and a presence of mind for everyone in this room today. Lord, I pray that you would encourage and challenge and teach us today. Give our hearts what we need. Let us leave here today having met with you. We love you, Jesus. Pray these things in your name. Amen. Okay, Matthew 15. If you guys were here last week, then you'll remember we're actually jumping into the middle of a story. So we kind of took this one scene and broke it into two chunks. So Matthew 15, one through nine sets up the scene. It's how the story starts. And essentially we're midway through Jesus's ministry. He's been traveling around this region of Galilee or on the sea of Galilee doing all these miracles and teaching and healing, and his ministry is building up more and more notoriety. And chapter 14 kind of outlines this interesting tension where as Jesus displays more supernatural authority, right, as his miracles get bigger and as he begins to heal more and more people, this is where you have famous texts like Jesus walking on the water and Jesus feeding the 5000 and Jesus healing the sick. As Jesus is displaying his supernatural divine authority, more and more earthly authorities more and more are challenging and rejecting him. And so in the same chapter, in chapter 14, you see Jesus own family reject him. You see his hometown reject him. You see local religious leaders reject him. And the beginning of chapter 15, verses one through nine, it brings this tension to a head. When some religious leaders from Jerusalem, the seat of the jewish religion, the seat of theology and spiritual authority, they show up to put Jesus on blast. And what they challenge him on is his adherence to jewish traditions. They come up and they say, hey, you don't do the traditions. You're not teaching your followers through the traditions. How? And essentially what's built into this accusation is, how can you be a rabbi worth following if you can't even figure out the traditions right? And this particular thing they center in on is this tradition around ritual purity, about washing your hands before you eat, and what that speaks about your ceremonial or ritual purity. And Jesus challenged them by basically saying, hey, dude, traditions are man made, and they don't really matter. It's basically his response. He gives this pretty genius but kind of complex answer where he essentially shows that a lot of the jewish traditions, they were building up, that they had been building them up to help them live holy lives. But a lot of these traditions have become so complex that by following the traditions, they're actually breaking the direct and plain teaching of scripture. And so Jesus just says, hey, look, I'm just not worried about the traditions because some of your traditions cause people to break the commands of scripture. So how is that even beneficial? And so he just kind of challenges them here on what the role of tradition is within our religious experience.
[00:11:12] I mean, it's pretty powerful. But what you'll notice in the first section is Jesus doesn't actually answer their direct accusation.
[00:11:21] They say this piece where they go, why are you doing that? Because the implication is, if you're not washing your hands for your meals and your followers aren't washing your hands for they ate meals, well, then all of you guys are impure and defiled and unclean. And so how can you be religious and spiritual leaders? And Jesus, at the beginning of his response, just ignores that. He just challenges the very concept of their challenge. Right? I don't care that you're challenging me with human traditions. We're going to step in at verse ten. And in verse ten, he's actually going to directly answer the challenge. So read with me. Matthew 15. Starting in verse ten, we read this summoning the crowd. He told them, listen and understand.
[00:11:59] It's not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth this defiles a person. Then the disciples came up and told him, do you know the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said? He replied, every plant that my heavenly Father didn't plant will be uprooted. Leave them alone. They're blind guides. And if the blind guide the blind, both fall into a pit. Woof.
[00:12:25] I love this. So Jesus finally answers their question about their question, their accusation about purity. But he answers it over their heads to the crowds that are around them. I love that bit. The scene here, these guys have shown up from Jerusalem. They've confronted Jesus publicly, probably while he's already out teaching and healing, as the end of chapter 14 describes. So there's this crowd around to witness this accusation, witness this confrontation. And what we see here is that Jesus really isn't super concerned with actually answering these guys, right? He shuts them down. He challenges their authority. He challenges the very premise of their question. He doesn't do much about their actual accusation. And so when he addresses the accusation, what it seems is that he's much more concerned with the crowd listening, being led astray by their bad teaching. And so instead of responding to these pharisees and scribes, he speaks over their head to the crowd who was already there and says, okay, you heard these dum dums. Let me tell you the real thing.
[00:13:32] And what he says here, man, he makes this imperative. He makes it a declaration. Listen, understand? Like Jesus is saying, hey, this is actually very important. He doesn't want these folk to get this one wrong in his telling of the same scene. I think it's interesting, Mark, when he tells the same story, he actually pauses here to, like, reiterate the point Jesus is making. This is important.
[00:14:00] Don't miss this teaching about defilement. Mark actually gives us a little extra bit and says, you need to know this teaching is so big that through this, Jesus was saying, you don't have to follow kosher law in your meal preparation anymore. Right? Like this is a big and fundamental shift. Why is there so much emphasis here? Because this is so fundamental to the theological understanding of God's people. At this point in time, Jesus is making a massive shift in how they understood their relationship to God. And it's easy for us to miss this because pretty much we're all 2000 years removed from this and pretty much all of us are gentile believers, right? And so we don't have a lot of this cultural backdrop here. But this idea of cleanliness and uncleanliness is so core to jewish religious identity and theological experience at this point in their history. Jesus is making a radical challenge here. He's saying that in this new covenant in his kingdom community, that is the church who we are today, that there is a new standard, that the old purity laws and the old purity rituals, they're no longer helpful and so they're no longer going to be used.
[00:15:14] That's intense. To put it in the language of Hebrews ten, he's saying, these are shadows.
[00:15:21] But the substance, that is what Jesus wants his followers to engage. Purity is not defined by the things we touch or the things we eat. No. There is something internal to the human being that defines purity. In other words, this purity isn't connected to some physicality. Whether you did or didn't touch something that could be by accident. No, this is a moral truth. It is an ethical truth. It is abstract and spiritual. It's about what's in you that comes out of you, not what you eat or touch. Now hold that thought, because there's actually a little bit of a rabbit trail that Jesus takes in his rebuke of these religious leaders that I think we actually need to follow. So hold on to that. Jesus has given this radical teaching. There's something new. Purity isn't about what you eat or touch. It's about what's in you that comes out. Take that, put it in your back pocket, and we'll come back to it. Because look, in verse twelve, the disciples, they see Jesus basically ignoring these important men from Jerusalem, right? And he's undercutting them to speak to the crowd. And so they draw Jesus's attention to it. Hey, hey, hey, Jesus, do you realize how much you just offended these guys?
[00:16:30] Which I think is a humorous way to look at it. Because here's the thing. Of course Jesus knew that this was offensive, right? But what his followers are really drawing attention to is who Jesus just offended.
[00:16:44] These are spiritual leaders from Jerusalem. These men have clout. These men have authority. And if Jesus movement is going to gain any sort of traction, the disciples are reasoning that it will need major support from Jerusalem. And Jesus here, he is calling out and embarrassing and offending the very guys who could do this for them. We have to remember this whole section of Matthew is about what is and isn't real spiritual authority. Jesus has already shown through his word and through his power that he is spiritual authority. And he's not relying on anyone on earth, whether they're in Galilee or Jerusalem, to prop up his ministry. Right? Like, he doesn't need these guys to reject him or accept him because this would have been really disconcerting for the folk in Jesus orbit. He wasn't fitting easily into the expectations of what a messiah or a spiritual leader would be. It would be incredibly shocking to see him so publicly rebuking and dismissing these people who should have been on his team. And so they're concerned that he's going too far. They're concerned that he's damaging his ministry's ability to grow. And to this, Jesus responds, I think, with the most cold mic drop, burn moment of most of the New Testament. He's just like them. You're worried about them. I don't worry about them. Don't worry about them. God will deal with them, which is really intense, right? Like, he's this thing where he just goes, eh, if God didn't plan it, it will get uprooted. That's a really intense statement, guys. By the way, I think there is encouragement for here as much as there is a really harsh caution and rebuke. And so I want us to sit in this for a second. Like, on the one hand, Jesus is affirming the truth that God will have his right.
[00:18:39] It's so easy in our day to see folk who abuse religious and spiritual authority and use it to hurt people and hinder folk in their actions actual life and their spiritual life. And it's really easy to see that stuff. We read news stories about ministry leaders or pastors who do horrific things and put God's name on it. And it's easy to see that stuff and feel kind of helpless, right? Why the heck do people keep following that guy? How do people keep giving money to that prosperity preacher? Like, it's so easy to see that and feel helpless and frustrated. But Jesus reminds us here that false teachers who seed speak in the name of Jesus but are really building their own kingdom.
[00:19:19] They're doing an evil thing. And even though it should make you angry to see folk defame Christ and hurt people who are seeking the kingdom, there is comfort in the reminder that God is not blind, that he sees what is done in his name, and that all that he has not planted will be uprooted. It's Jesus's shorthand for saying judgment is real, and they will be held accountable for claiming the name of Christ and using it to not further the kingdom, to further their own kingdom. They'll be uprooted. Their authority will not last. They will give an account.
[00:19:56] I know in a space like this, there are people in this room who have been hurt by bad spiritual leadership or have seen loved ones led astray by bad or false teachers.
[00:20:09] There's genuine comfort here, guys, that your God sees that all is not lost.
[00:20:17] There's also a stark warning here, right?
[00:20:20] Because you also have to stop and go, am I the blind guide? Am I the one he's talking about? Do you speak with the authority of God and yet really just speak the wisdom of man? And really quick, like, before you write that off of, like, I don't lead a cult, so, no, like, before you write off what I'm saying here, guys, it's really easy to do this.
[00:20:44] It's really easy as a Christian to speak with the authority of God, but speak the words of man. I mean, think about, for those of you in the room who are parents, think about your parenting and the authority you exert in that relationship.
[00:21:00] Think about those of you who are married. Think about your marriage.
[00:21:04] Think about your participation in small groups or discipleship groups to hold another to the standard of our expectations, our traditions, our preference, rather than the gospel standard of Christ.
[00:21:18] That's what Christ is talking about here. So Jesus, he does have the same caution for us as he does for these religious leaders, because here's the truth, guys, and it's a hard truth, but an important one. All of us have spiritual authority somewhere.
[00:21:33] If you are in this room, if you are a follower of Christ, you bear spiritual authority in some circle, in some relationship, in your marriage, in your home, in your parenting, with your coworkers, with your siblings, with your friends. Every single one of us, we have a circle of authority. We have folk who hear us.
[00:21:56] And that is a burden to take seriously. Because think, I mean, like seriously. I want to invite you, like, think about right now, your circle of influence.
[00:22:05] Beloved, are you giving folk the gospel or do you give folk human wisdom? Right. Because I'm here to tell you, I know you know this, but it's good to be brought back to this and reminded of this sometimes, especially in some of those close relationships, family, close friends, people you've known a long time. I'm here to tell you, they need gospel.
[00:22:28] They need it. They need Christ. They need the gospel right now, today, just as much as you need the gospel. The gospel of Jesus is cold water to a dry mouth on a hot day for the human soul.
[00:22:43] You need it daily.
[00:22:45] That's your own story, is it not? You need refreshment in Christ. You need to be drawn back to the power, the truth, the gospel on a daily basis.
[00:22:55] So you should freely give it in every context you can by God's grace. We have a church here at Emmanuel where I believe faithfully. The gospel is preached every time the pulpits opened up. And that's not trying to puff me up. Like, we have an amazing team of pastors in this church who, when this pulpit gets used, the gospel is proclaimed. And I love that, guys. It's a gift. Not every church family experiences that. But the thing you have to understand, guys, is this pulpit ministry is not sufficient for anyone's discipleship. Period.
[00:23:25] Period.
[00:23:27] You need more gospel than you can get in 41 minutes. If I stay to my clock, right?
[00:23:34] You just need it more than that. You need the gospel daily. And you beloved, hear this. You, beloved of Jesus, are the Holy Spirit's person to proclaim that gospel to someone in your life. You are.
[00:23:49] You've been called to that. You've been anointed to that. You have authority to do that.
[00:23:54] Grandparents in the room. You have authority to proclaim the gospel to your grandchildren in a way that no one else in their life can.
[00:24:02] You know that parents in the room. You have authority to proclaim the gospel to your kids in a way no one else in their life can.
[00:24:11] Spouses, friends, co workers. You have a unique place in someone's life, and you were the Holy Spirit's person to proclaim Jesus to them. So don't give them something lesser, and don't give them cheap, cheap human wisdom.
[00:24:30] You've got Christ, so give him freely.
[00:24:36] Give him freely. Like, think about those relationships. Do your coworkers hear the gospel from you? Do your roommates hear the gospel from you? Do your grandkids hear the gospel from you? At your work, at your hobby, where you volunteer, where you coach, where you go to the gym? You are a missionary. And the people of your life, they need the real gospel of Jesus. What we don't need more of in 2024 in the United States is more blind guides who can spout off instagram, feel good, pop psychology, borderline new age garbage about how if you set the right boundary and believe in your dreams, you can manifest fulfillment. Today.
[00:25:15] There's enough of that, and it doesn't do anyone any good.
[00:25:20] The world has enough of the blind leading the blind. You, beloved, have been set free by Christ. Your eyes have been opened to the spiritual reality of this world. So share Christ.
[00:25:33] Share him.
[00:25:35] This is what you need, and it's what every person you will encounter in the coming week needs. Share him. But let's let. I'm getting too deep into it, because let's let Christ continue to actually preach to us this morning. Let's read on. In verse 15 then Peter said, explain this parable to us.
[00:25:53] Do you still lack understanding? He being Jesus, asked, don't you realize that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach isn't eliminated? But what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart. And this defiles a person. From the heart comes evil thoughts and murders and adulteries and sexual immoralities and thefts and false testimonies and slander. These are the things that defile a person. But eating with unwashed hands, that does not defile a person.
[00:26:23] So the scene of the text here kind of moves on, like Peter's request for further explanation. You're supposed to kind of read that as the scene kind of skipping forward like this is now Jesus and the twelve, likely at the end of the day when they've gotten away and have some privacy. And Peter asked Jesus to explain what he meant by this. This word parable in this context, it just refers to the fact that Jesus kind of gave a pithy saying here, right? His comment about uncleanliness was obviously summarizing a larger and pretty dramatic point. So Peter says, hey, will you take us deeper into the meaning of this? And by the way, Jesus response here shouldn't be read as like, annoyance or exasperation. It's another way of showing this teaching is really important to Christ. Like, think of this the same way that he kind of get that exclamation to the crowd of like, listen, pay attention. Like, he's really emphasizing this. He wants his disciples to understand that what he's about to say to them is a foundational teaching of kingdom life. This is basic and they need to know it and understand it. And what he says is impurity doesn't come from the outside in. It comes from the inside out saying, this is foundational to your faith. By the way, he illustrates this point beautifully. But I don't know about you guys, I am just like far too immature to not giggle when Jesus makes a poop joke to his disciples.
[00:27:51] And I feel like because it's the Bible, you're expected to just move past it. But come on, come on. It's like, how can food make you unclean? You eat it and poop it out. And that's just like, that's Jesus, guys. He chose to say that and, you know, makes me giggle. So there we are. But this, this actually really is an important point. The Jews believe that impurity, that ritual spiritual impurity, was essentially communicable. Like the way we think of germs, right? Like a dead body was unclean. So if you touch it, you got some of its uncleanliness on you and now you are unclean. Jesus is saying that something new happening, this old way of interacting with the world is insufficient for kingdom life. I think there's probably a joke in there somewhere about bacon being sign of God's love for us, but I couldn't quite work it out. And I'm like, we don't have enough time. So, no, impurity doesn't come from what you touch or eat. It doesn't have to, because it's already in you. You're made unclean, says Jesus, by what comes out of you, what you say, what you think, how you act. These Christ tells us these reveal your heart. And by the way, I don't know if you caught this, but if you look at what Jesus lists here, the sort of impurities that pour out of human hearts, he lists them in the order that they appear in the ten Commandments.
[00:29:22] I don't know if he caught that. It's subtle, right? But I think he's making this really important point for us here. What he's saying is this, you don't need any outside help to be unclean.
[00:29:34] You don't need anything to help you get there. We've got that covered quite nicely on our own.
[00:29:41] Each and every one of us has the heart of a lawbreaker.
[00:29:46] And I think if we're willing to be honest, right, like in those moments where we actually have real honest self reflection, I just don't think many of us would actually argue that point, right.
[00:29:59] On a deep heart level, we suspect that most people have as much evil in their hearts as we do. Right? And I know that's how I live, and I suspect you do, too.
[00:30:13] It's shameful. It's shameful, right? But it's so deep in the human heart, we know it. We know it when we read the news. We know it when a friend betrays us. We know when we tell a white lie for nothing beyond convenience, right? We know this is true. Paul sums it up perfectly in Romans three. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, each and every one of us. And as I said earlier, I think the potentiality for humanity to actually do beautiful and good things like it, almost makes our brokenness worse.
[00:30:51] Like you think about how humanity could be different if only we just weren't us.
[00:30:59] But we can't. We're stuck in the same book. In Romans, Paul says this in self description. He says this about his relationship to the commands of scripture. He says, for we know the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold as a slave under sin. For I do not understand what I'm doing because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate. Now, if I do what I do not want to do, I agree the law is good. And so now I'm no longer the one doing it. But it's sin living in me, for I know that nothing good lives in me that is in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good. Like, that's with me, but there's no ability for me to actually do it. I do not do the good I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. Now, if I do what I do not want to do, I'm no longer the one who does it, but it is the sin that lives within me. So I discovered this law at work. When I want to do what is good, evil is present right there with me for my inner self. I delight in God's law, but I see a different law of sorts, and parts of my body waging war against this law of my mind and taking me a prisoner to the law of sin. What wretched man I am, who will rescue me from this body of death.
[00:32:14] I'm sorry this is painful for me to make this analogy, but I think it's helpful, even though I know a lot of us are dealing with this in a real and personal level. But this reminds me of cancer in, like, a weird way. Right? Like, on a basic level, cancer happens because our cells are designed to self replicate. Yeah, like, they've got. Each cell in your body has a relatively short lifespan, but it's designed to use its DNA package to replicate itself.
[00:32:41] And those blueprints, like, they make a new one before it's done. But after so many generations of copying, sometimes the blueprint gets messed up in a specific gene here or there breaks, and all of a sudden, the new cell isn't right. And once that DNA in that cell is broken, it can't help but makes the next one just as broken, and the next one just as broken, and the next one just as broken, and it just can't fix itself, right? It keeps replicating and replicating, but it's now broken to the very core.
[00:33:11] And those of you in the room who have survived cancer, you know there's only one solution once you get there, like, once, that's where you're at. The solution is you kill it.
[00:33:22] You either cut it out or you poison it, because there's no way for the broken cell to fix what is broken. It's helpless and hopeless.
[00:33:31] When you think about it that way, like, Paul's conclusion isn't all that weird.
[00:33:36] What wretched man am I who will save me from this body of death?
[00:33:43] I mean, isn't that the right reaction?
[00:33:45] We're stuck in this place where our defilement comes not from somewhere out in the world, but from within our own hearts.
[00:33:54] How the heck do you fix it if you're the problem, right? And notice that, by the way, in our text, Jesus doesn't elaborate beyond this revelation. He drops this bomb. Your heart is rotten with lawbreaking. And that's it. That's the teaching. He moves on. Like, the next verse just goes to a different narrative.
[00:34:15] So what can you do? Like, no wonder handwashing is so enticing, right? I mean, when left in the helpless state that we are in, who wouldn't grasp at something, some action, some ritual, some practice to try and fix what is broken? But Jesus, guys, is as clear as he is blunt on this point. There is no religious practice that can purify your sinful heart.
[00:34:44] And this is as true for us as it was for them. We may not have a tradition of ritual handwashing, but let's be honest. We have all sorts of rituals that we do to try and make up for what is broken in our hearts. Your church attendance, your good theology, your Bible study classes, your community service, your hand raising in worship. On their own, these practices do nothing to draw you closer to a pure heart.
[00:35:16] On their own, they are hollow. On their own, they are shadows without substance. They are insufficient to the immense need of your broken and sinful heart. Who will rescue us from this body of death?
[00:35:30] Well, beloved, if you don't know where we're going with this, there is good news.
[00:35:37] The good news of the gospel comes in exactly when we need it, because Jesus is the one who rescues us. And I know, like, even as you're sitting here, like so many of us, as church people are like, yeah, I know that. But guys, like, don't miss this truth today.
[00:35:50] Your heart is irrevocably broken. You need outside help. You cannot do it on your own. I don't care how holy you are. I don't care how responsible you are. I don't care how disciplined you are. I don't care. You can't do it.
[00:36:04] Once it's broken that deep in your core, you can't fix it on your own, you're stuck.
[00:36:12] But Jesus offers you outside help and his love and his grace. Guys, he gives us the help we need, his perfect life. It shows that his heart isn't actually broken, that he's not tainted by the same curse of sin that destroys and takes you and I. No, his heart is actually pure and actually holy. And his righteousness is able to defeat and supersede our sinfulness. Because, remember, the Jews believed that uncleanliness was communicable, right? You touched something unclean, and now you're unclean.
[00:36:48] But jesus flips this on his head through his gospel work on our behalf. One of my favorite stories in all of the Bible is in Mark, chapter one. When Jesus heals the.
[00:36:58] The leper is the epitome of uncleanliness. Forced to live outside the community, forced to wear bells on their clothing and shout unclean as they walk through city streets so people could know to avoid them.
[00:37:13] Lepers lived in complete isolation with their uncleanliness all over their lives, with no hope, with no physical contact, with no touch, not even with their family. And the leopard comes to Jesus and says, if you are willing, you can heal me.
[00:37:28] And here's what's amazing about that story. We know that Christ's divine authority for healing is wrapped up in his divinity. And there is no restriction on how Christ does his work.
[00:37:38] He speaks the word and people resurrect one town over. Right?
[00:37:43] Christ has no limits on how he works, ministering. But in that moment to that man, his response to that leper, if you're willing, you can make me clean. He says, yes, I am willing. And he reaches out and touches the man.
[00:37:56] And in that moment, according to the jewish understanding of the world, Christ just became death.
[00:38:02] He just became unclean. He just touched impurity and uncleanliness. He couldn't worship. He couldn't lead. He couldn't even pray for a season.
[00:38:11] And yet what actually happens, Christ's holiness, Christ's righteousness, it's what's communicable. It's what transfers. And that man is made clean and healed, drawn into the creation, the life that God actually has for him.
[00:38:28] Beloved, the blood of Jesus does the same to you and your sinful heart.
[00:38:34] If you were in this room and you were a Christian, this is your testimony. Yes.
[00:38:40] That you were dead in your sins, and Jesus stepped in for you and for me. And his righteousness was sufficient. Amen.
[00:38:49] This is our story. For in Christ, his work on the cross is enough. He actually steps in and he fixes what is broken in your heart and my heart. And by the way, if you're here today and you don't yet know Christ like, please consider his invitation to you. Please consider his invitation to you can be clean.
[00:39:08] You can be forgiven. You need not be owned by the weight of your sin. You can be free. You can be the beloved of God.
[00:39:17] But know, church, that this message isn't just for the non believers in this room.
[00:39:24] Because each and every one of us, we all need this gospel, and we need it every day.
[00:39:30] Brothers, you don't, you don't move past the gospel brothers and sisters, remember your testimony. Think back and remember what it was like to be far from Christ, to be owned by the uncleanliness of your heart. And at some point, at some point, it could have been when you were little. It could have been like ten days ago, I don't know. But at some point, Christ opened your eyes, and you had eyes to see just how sinful your heart was and just how holy God is. And you saw that chasm in between your sinfulness and the holiness of God, and you saw that you couldn't cross it, that you couldn't get there. And then, praise be to God, you looked to the cross of Christ, and he. He made a way for you. He bridged the gap between your sinfulness and the holiness of God. And all of a sudden, you weren't just forgiven. You were in communion with the God of the universe. Amen.
[00:40:26] But here's the deal.
[00:40:28] You'd never get past that.
[00:40:31] That's not, like, just how you started your journey. That's every day of your journey with Christ. Some of you in the room are like, right now, you're like, oh, you're channeling some gospel centered life. I remember this discipleship book we went through at some point. And. Yeah, for sure. In fact, I'd like to put the cross chart from that book up on the screen so we can look at it for a second. This is helpful.
[00:40:52] The plain reality, guys, is this.
[00:40:55] As you continue to live your life in Christ, you can see on this chart, right? You see at that beginning, you see your awareness of God's holiness, your awareness of your sinfulness, and you see how the cross bridged that gap for you. And that's the moment when you went from death to life and you actually became a Christian. Right?
[00:41:11] But what happens is you continue to live your life in Christ. As you continue to grow in intimacy with him and your knowledge of the word, you have these moments where you go, oh, wow, God is actually more holy than I realized he was.
[00:41:22] God is actually way better than I thought it was. God is actually way more holy than I ever realized he was. And then somehow, as you continue to live your life in Christ, you realize I'm actually worse than I thought I was. Like, I knew I had sin in this area, but the longer I'm with Christ, I see I have uncleanliness here and I have unforgiveness here, and I have this broken anger here. And you realize I'm worse than I thought I was. And all of a sudden, you're sitting there in your faith going, the gap between God and me is bigger than I ever realized it was.
[00:41:52] And if the gospel is just your entryway into kingdom life, then in that moment you'll look to the cross and go, wait a minute, this doesn't bridge the gap anymore.
[00:42:01] And you'll try and bridge the gap with something else.
[00:42:03] You'll either downplay God's holiness, you'll pretend he doesn't care about the sin. You'll start hiding and covering. You'll pretend that you're better than you are, showing up to church with a fake smile on your face. You'll stop telling the truth and being confessional in your prayer time and in community. You'll do anything and everything you can to keep that gap as small as you can so that your understanding of the cross can still bridge it. But here's the beautiful thing, beloved. All that work is unnecessary.
[00:42:29] All you need to do is come back to the gospel.
[00:42:32] Because the gospel that was true for you on the day you met Jesus is true for you today. Beloved, it's true for you today. Christ's work is still sufficient to save you.
[00:42:44] His grace is still enough for you today as it was the day you met him. And every time you come back to the cross and go, Jesus, I know I've come back to you a million times. And I know I've confessed the same sin to you a million times. His response a million times is, child, I love you. You're forgiveness. His cross is sufficient. His work is sufficient. Beloved, you can always bridge the gap between your heart and the holiness of God. Always.
[00:43:13] We never get past this truth. Your heart is broken and you need help.
[00:43:18] You cannot do it on your own. You can't.
[00:43:22] Some of you in this room have been following Christ since before I was born. And you are holy.
[00:43:27] And your lives show it. They do. They show the hard fought sanctification of following Christ for a lifetime. It is beautiful. It is a testimony. But you need to know something. You're still insufficient to fix your own heart.
[00:43:42] You still need outside intervention today as much as you did the day you met Jesus.
[00:43:48] And the cross is still available to you. It is still available to you. There's a hymn, Chris, if you want to come back up, there's a hymn we sing every now and then here, called before the throne of God above. It's one of my favorites. We sing it relatively often. And I think the truth is really just perfect for us today.
[00:44:06] Our hearts are so broken and sinful that when we stand before a holy and righteous God what are we possibly to do?
[00:44:14] You think about the throne room in Isaiah six. When Isaiah stands before God, he just kind of goes, oh, shoot, I'm going to die. I shouldn't be here.
[00:44:23] When you think about your own heart, what could you possibly say before the throne of God to justify your rebellion and your sin? We would all fall on our knees and say, woe is me, I am unclean. I am going to die.
[00:44:37] Except for one thing.
[00:44:39] Because of Christ, because of Jesus, because of his accomplished work, we actually get to approach that throne with confidence.
[00:44:49] I love that hymn because it says, before the throne of God above, I have a strong and perfect plea.
[00:44:58] I know exactly what I'm going to say before the throne of God above. This is a great high priest whose name is love, who lives and pleads for me. That tells us, because of Christ, no tongue can bid me against.
[00:45:12] No one can send you away from the throne of God because Jesus himself has bridged the gap.
[00:45:19] Beloved, the gospel is as true today as it was the day you met Jesus. You need it today.
[00:45:27] So we're going to take a few minutes and I want to encourage you church, take a few minutes in prayer and response and reflection, as we always do.
[00:45:36] Find some space to be with Christ. If you can do that in your chair, that's awesome. If you want to get on your knees, that's awesome.
[00:45:42] If you want to grab one of the pastors, we're spread around the room. We would love to chat with you, but I want to encourage you right now, whatever way your heart needs to turn the back to the peace.
[00:45:54] Look afresh at Jesus this morning. Find your rest, your life, your freedom.
[00:46:00] Visit as a family.
[00:46:03] Let's take pray, continue our response.
