Only Jesus Can Change the Heart, Part I

Mark 7.1-8

Turn in your Bible with me to the gospel of Mark. Chapter seven is where we'll begin this morning as we continue to move forward in the gospel of Mark. This morning’s text is the beginning of chapter seven reading the first eight verses. Mark writes this. Now, when the Pharisees gathered to him with some of the scribes who had come to Jerusalem or from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with his, with hands that were defiled. That is unwashed. Well, the fairest seas and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly holding to the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.

And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, why do your disciples and not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands? And he said to them, well, did Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites? As it is written, 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? You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.

This text begins and identifies a group that we've already stumbled through in Mark's gospel. And it's a group that's continuing to grow before him big out of their genuine hatred for Jesus and his ministry. Mark picks up here in chapter seven. He says, now when the Pharisees gathered together to him, so they're approaching Jesus and they come to him with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem. They are approaching Jesus. And we don't want a mistake in this in any way. They are approaching Jesus because they hate Jesus and they hate Jesus so much so because of his teaching, they are now going to gather and already have begun to gather and to build a coalition to kill him. To remind us of that the scribes and Pharisees, hatred of Jesus. Hold your spot there in chapter seven turn back to chapter two and then chapter two of course, Jesus, his popularity has grown even greater in chapter seven.

Back to chapter two when this discussion ensued, it says in verse 15 that as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples who there were many who followed him and the scribes of the Pharisees when they saw he was eating with sinners and tax collectors said to his disciples, why does he eat the tax collectors and centers? There is a growing frustration that's going to birth anger and hatred. That's what's being built there. And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but the sinners. Move forward with me to chapter three verse 15 this will needless, no doubt as to the motive of the scribes and the Pharisees.

Verse one says, and again, he entered the synagogue and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on Sabbath so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered and come here, and he said to them, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill? But they were silent. They were silent, of course, were the Pharisees and the scribes. And he looked around them with anger, grieved at the hardness of their heart and said to the man, stretch out your hand. He stretched it out and his hand was restored. It grew—a true miracle.

As a result of the miracle, which they just witnessed, verse six tells us that the Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him, they want to kill him.

And so that's very important to know as we get to chapter seven because this section and what will come about in next week's message is really directed. Specifically Jesus dies in dealing with the scribes and Pharisees in their hatred and in the issue of what we would call legalism. Okay. But kind of before we kind of dive into what the text says and what it means to be a legalist, as Jesus is dealing with the Pharisees in this regard, to kind of help us as a church, I want to take us a step back because if you use the term legalism in any Christian setting, that might speak to different things differently and in different groups. And so I want to get a kind of a definition and perhaps delve into your own personal church experience. So, you know, we can, we can find perhaps any legalistic hint that's in our own lives. And I have never met someone who didn't think they were legalistic. They weren't legalist, but there's always a bit of legalism about all of us. It’s a brokenness of who we are.

So to give us some examples. I kind of want to just think about how we would currently see it. And then of course, look at what Jesus deals with, with the scribes in the Pharisee. The intention of legalism is to buying a person's conscience. And what happens when they bind the person person's conscience? It builds them in a type of self righteousness and hypocrisy and, and it will build pride.

There's different ways that churches have done this throughout our life.

And I would probably submit to you that in America, this begun to take place in a stronger way. In the 1920s in the era of prohibition, there was a certain type of piety FISM or separatists doctrine that ensued that coupled with the political structure of America where certain Protestant churches say baptism a Baptist and, and Penacostal in assemblies of God begin to pick up on this. And in the 1920s, there was this preaching that went forward about alcohol.

But perhaps even before we kinda just mentioned a couple things about that, you may have grown up in certain church settings where perhaps women weren't allowed to have lipstick or women weren't allowed to wear pants or in my lifetime, in the 70s, a thing that was big is that a guy couldn't wear hair on, on his, that reached over his ear. I just wished hair was still alive on my head to have that opportunity. But they're there, you know, I'm just throwing out a couple of them. A few of them perhaps in the church setting that you grew up in, you know, you may have been tied in and they would tie these things to, you couldn't be in the choir or perhaps you couldn't even be a member. They would be a set of a series of things that the churches thought they were upholding a type of righteousness. But if we were to be honest, and I, I want to mention this, not to create any awkwardness.

But I kind of want to deal with this fairly, so I'm going to do the best I can to STEM the emotion out of it because I think this has affected perhaps many of us in our own personal Christian experience, particularly those who would be post 40.

Here's a day this pietyism and this separatism that began to ensue begin to, to be involved in what we would call say, the T total camp. You can't drink wine. You can't drink any form of alcohol, you can't drink beer and that people derive a sense of righteousness from that.

Based upon they were, they were teetotallers. Here's one of the things that I found interesting about the Bible's use of alcohol, there are 40 areas that it uses it in a negative sense. There are 62 areas that use it in a neutral sense and listen to this, there are 145 times it's used as a positive sense.

Now again, I'm not trying to create an awkwardness for anybody. I'm just trying to get you to wrestle with things. Neither am I advocating that you need to drink alcohol.

But my point being is a lot of the churches that perhaps we were familiar with and you grew up with formed this set, quote unquote standard of righteousness. And people derive their sense of personal righteousness in that they did not experience it. They did not touch a drink of scotch, though they themselves may gossip about their wives within the church and, and, and rake and humiliate people. But they were righteous because this is how they, they lived out their lives. They did not touch alcohol. And, and again, not to create the awkwardness, but I think that's probably the closest one for us that would touch home a little differently. Legalism destroys. It begins to set a view of righteousness that moves past what God has actually said in the Bible.

This is what was happening with Jesus, with the scribes and Pharisees and specifically what built their hatred toward him. Because it's almost as if daily, it's coming up and he's coming against the tradition of men, which the Jews had built through to add on to the old Testament law. When you come to chapter seven, the essence of what's being asked here is how is one a person made clean? The scribes in the pharisees indict Jesus and they're going after the disciples, his followers, and he States it as such and this in verse two look at this and they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, okay. Meaning defiled. It wasn't just they were dirty. There were viewed centers that is unwashed for the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly. Holding to the tradition of the elders. Notice that phrase tradition of the elders and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.

What had taken place here along the time that the Jews went into captivity was an oral law. Okay. We'd get added to what was described in biblical texts of the old Testament and this took place along the lines of Babylonian captivity of about five 36 BC and these things move forward all the way to 70 AD so that you had a a book called the Talmud which collected the Mishnah and the Gamara for added rules and regulations to what's prescribed in the old Testament itself. And then the Gomorrah would be a rabbinical interpretation of the rules that they added. Now you can imagine how daunting all of this was. When you consider in the old Testament there are, there are like 613 uses of regulative laws. 248 of those are positive in 365 of those are negative on top of that. And what would be the second temple era of five 36, a BC before Christ a 70 80, they, they had added all of this and are in dieting Jesus. And they are indicting because they hate him and they want him dead and they are attacking his disciples, not based on biblical truth, not based on the old Testament law, but things that were described in the mission. They were taking a ceremonial ritual cleansing and they were applying it in all of the things that they had added to the ordinary people.

Well, who approached the synagogue? Now the Bible does of course give us law about ritual cleanliness, but it was only tied to the priestly ceremonial washing of the Holy place and sacrifices. It was never tied to ordinary people who attended the synagogue. It was only tied to the priest. So you began to back this question up because what they're really inciting is how is a person made clean and they are using the question with texts, which are outside of what the Bible describes. But the Bible only describes about washing here, pertain to the priest himself when he of course was an acting sacrifices. We'll get to that in just a second.

Never catch this. Never in the new Testament does Jesus even remotely criticize the old Testament law. Paul himself would say that the law is righteous. It is Holy. It is good. Jesus not only never criticized it. Jesus completely lived the old Testament law and he loved the old Testament law. Of course, Jesus, thankfully on our behalf live the old Testament law and he loved the old Testament mall. Therefore, he could be the perfect sacrifice that was necessary on our behalf. You begin to go back into this just so we don't miss this, that Jesus is not attacking the Bible. He is attacking the tradition and those things that have been written in the Talmud, the Mishnah, and even the authors of the Gomorrah of the various rabbis that had had criticized this. You look at this in verse eight in the Pharisee or verse five, and the Pharisees and the scribes ask him, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders?

What's he referring to? He's referring to the Talmud, this tradition of men. Now you'll see this in other places in the new Testament. What comes to mind to me is like the sermon on the Mount when Jesus will, will preach to the masses in Matthew chapter five through chapter seven. And he'll go like this. You have heard it said, he was referring to things that were coming up in, in the Talmud. And then he says, but I say unto you, he was correcting them. And of course in that, that great crowd of witnesses, he was revealing to all those people, to the, to the lowest of lows. Peasants, if you will, to the highest of highs. People with, with multiple degrees is that you are all centers. You are all centers before righteous talent.

Jesus here appeals to them. And what the attack, I don't want you to miss this. What the attack here is this. And in the Mishnah who thought the Jews thought that the Hells the fires of hell were fueled by Gentile flesh. So when you see them right here as they are indicting them, that they are defiled, your disciples are filled with sin. They do not eat unless they wash their hands properly. Verse three, and when they come from the marketplace, when they went to the marketplace, the Jews, they had mixed mingled with what would be Gentiles and a Gentile of course, as anybody who is outside of the Jewish faith and, and they come back and they're to observe such washing is that is that they're cups in their house needed to be washed and their pots needed to be washed and their copper vessels needed to be washed. And even the couches that they died, I knew they needed to be clean. And God all the long never once made any even ritual cleansing for these things. For ordinary people in their legalism, they add bone, the conscience of those around them. They had set through the binding of their conscience toward the tradition of men, people full of hypocrites, people who would worship God with their lips but with their hearts. They were far from them because they were dripping in their own personal self righteous.

That's really what the Pharisees and the scribes are really doing here. They don't really care about the disciples. Rather they'd rather see them damned. They are making this appeal: Jesus why do your followers do this? Because they're filled with hatred and they want Jesus killed.

Here's the, here's the thing about this. This salvation that they thought they would obtain was recognized through a type of ethnic separation. You see when they mingled with Gentiles they were considered to be contaminating themselves with sinners. That's why Jesus or Mark uses the word defile. It isn't that they gush got dirty, it's that they are defiled. They are now filled with sin and of course any times one was to go to the marketplace to to inter mingle what would be described as the world. They had to come back and do this full religious cleansing that built them in a form of self righteousness and all along was robbing Yahweh of his glory.

They had built a type of salvation that obviously that you and I could recognize that was, it wasn't real. It wasn't genuine. It was simply works-based. The Pharisees worship their laws and not the true law giver. The true log giver is ya'll way the great I am. Jesus himself, we know, identifies himself as y'all way the great I am. They had, they had missed the boat and all of the ceremonial ritual cleansing for them was even just a signpost and a tight, it was a symbol of what would take place to the greater reality of the true water, the true sacrifice and the true priests that would come because friends, that's exactly who Jesus is. You and I need a need a priest. We need a mediator between God and man because the law can't save you and I what? The law is Holy and righteous in good. It's when I read the law that I see my need and that my need is desperate and that I'm a sinner in need of someone to save someone to save me.

I need a sacrifice. I need a payment for my sin. I need blood shed on my behalf to ran some me. How is one maintain the law never saved anybody. The law revealed sin and the law was to reveal their need. And here's what's important, not only about today, but even then. Only Jesus can change hearts. Only Jesus can change hearts because he's not an ordinary man. He's the God. When you think about what took place for the priest in a, in a a, a ceremonial ritual cleansing those things pointed Jesus, the high priest was to go in alone and he was to clean himself with, with, with a type of water. It was to signify a type of cleansing. Here's the, here's the beauty of your priest. High priest in my high priest, Jesus doesn't need to clean himself. He already is purely holy.

Then after cleaning himself and offering prayers of forgiveness for himself and for the sins of the people, he would then take the sacrifice that was brought in. If it was a turtle dove, if it was a a lamb, if it was a goat, if it was a bull, whatever the sacrifice pertained to, he would then slay that lamb that that, that, that animal sacrifice would be laid before as a sacrifice. Jesus himself would become the sacrifice for your sin and my sin and it's the reason why you didn't come in today with an animal sacrifice. Jesus gave his body the blood then would be taken from that animal sacrifice and then it would be sprinkled about on the mercy seat, therefore crying out to Galloway and to God. I'm a sinner in need and I am trusting in what you've prescribed, the ritual cleansing of the temple, the ritual cleansing of water took place by the high priest. We're only symbols.

They were only signpost. They were only types. The point is to the true water. The point is to the true priests. The point is to the true sacrifice because Jesus alone is the only one that can make you clean. Jesus alone is the only one that can cleanse you from your sin. Jesus is the true sacrifice. He died so that you could be made free. He died and resurrected so that you could be forgiven of yourself, and that certainly is our prayer this morning. As a church, if you don't know Jesus, don't try to come to God with your own self. Righteousness, come to God through Jesus. He is the only mediator between God and man. Let's pray.