Beyond the Fence: The Danger of Religious Ritualism

• Religious Hypocrisy vs. True Relationship 00:03:20 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor introduces the theme that one can be religious and near Jesus yet still be far from Him, setting up the confrontation in Mark 7.
• External Traditions vs. Internal Heart 00:05:36 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor discusses how equating religion with Christianity leads to distraction from what truly matters, using the 'Bible Belt' context to illustrate the prevalence of this issue.
• The Danger of Self-Righteousness 00:09:39 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor highlights how religious elites (Pharisees) add laws to God's commands, creating a facade of righteousness that masks internal corruption.
• Cultural Analogies for Religious Externalism 00:06:32 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor uses examples from popular culture (Hunchback of Notre Dame, Narnia, Brothers Karamazov) to illustrate the conflict between external appearance and internal reality.
• The Origin of Hand-Washing Traditions 00:13:58 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor explains that the hand-washing tradition was a rabbinical 'fence' around God's law, originally intended for priests, not the general populace, illustrating how traditions can supersede scripture.
• Tradition vs. Commandment 00:15:02 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor explains how religious elites added 'fences' around God's law, turning worship into a matter of external compliance rather than relationship with God.
• Hypocrisy and Self-Righteousness 00:18:34 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor describes how Pharisees used strict rules to feel superior to others, comparing them to whitewashed tombs that appear clean outside but are rotting inside.
• Modern Applications of Legalism 00:21:17 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor lists modern examples of human-added rules regarding food, dress, music, Sabbath, and technology, arguing that these 'fences' are not biblical and should be confronted.
• Corban and Family Obligations 00:25:10 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor explains the concept of Corban, where religious traditions were used to avoid caring for parents, thereby voiding God's command to honor them.
• Internal vs. External Defilement 00:29:20 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor concludes that Jesus declared all foods clean and that sin originates from the heart (evil thoughts, immorality, etc.), not from external actions like eating with unwashed hands.
• Source of Sin 00:31:52 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor asserts that sin originates from within the individual's heart, not from external temptations or influences, citing Mark 7 and James 1.
• External Rules vs. Internal Heart 00:32:52 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor argues that external 'do's and don'ts' do not gain favor with God or make one a Christian; instead, the condition of the heart is what matters.
• Transformation through Christ 00:36:59 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor explains that true change comes from planting one's life in Jesus, resulting in a new creation and the fruit of the Spirit, rather than trying to fix behavior by removing 'oranges' or cutting the tree.
• Tradition vs. Relationship with Jesus 00:40:25 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor distinguishes between external religious traditions and a heart in love with Jesus, noting that while traditions aren't automatically sinful, they are dangerous if they replace a genuine relationship with Christ.

• Sermon Illustration 00:06:32 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor references the story of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, specifically Judge Claude Frollo, to illustrate religious externalism where a person appears righteous externally but is corrupt internally.
• Sermon Illustration 00:07:27 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor cites C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, specifically the character Shift the ape who uses a lion skin to deceive others, to show how religion can be twisted for personal power and advancement.
• Sermon Illustration 00:08:33 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor references Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, specifically the 'Grand Inquisitor' scene, to illustrate a corrupted church that arrests Jesus for teaching against its own established laws and traditions.
• Sermon Illustration 00:15:55 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor uses the analogy of a 'fence' around the Grand Canyon to explain how religious leaders create additional rules ('fences') around God's law to prevent people from getting close to sin, which ultimately becomes a burden.
• Sermon Illustration 00:16:13 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor uses the analogy of the Grand Canyon to explain how religious leaders add 'fences' (rules) around God's law to prevent people from getting too close to sin, ultimately creating a system of self-righteousness rather than true spirituality.
• Sermon Illustration 00:18:57 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor compares the Pharisees to a whitewashed tomb, which looks clean and beautiful on the outside but contains rotting bones inside, illustrating their hypocritical nature.
• Sermon Illustration 00:19:39 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor uses the analogy of a drunk man who is so 'loaded' with his own drunkenness that he doesn't realize how far he is from home, comparing this to the Pharisees who were so drunk on self-righteousness that they didn't realize how far they were from God.
• Sermon Illustration 00:27:16 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor uses the analogy of estate planning to explain the concept of Corban, where a person commits assets to God to avoid using them to care for their parents, effectively locking family members out of support.
• Sermon Illustration 00:34:33 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor uses an analogy of an orange tree: trying to staple an apple (love/generosity) to an orange tree (sinful nature) results in rot, and cutting the tree off in the middle still produces oranges. True change requires getting to the root and planting a new tree in Christ.

• Pastoral Charge 00:04:07 ▶️ 📄
  > Pray for Jesus to remove barriers to hearing God's word.
• Pastoral Charge 00:04:15 ▶️ 📄
  > Engage in silent prayer to hear God speak.
• Pastoral Charge 00:36:16 ▶️ 📄
  > The congregation is called to repent of their sins and accept forgiveness.
• Pastoral Charge 00:36:59 ▶️ 📄
  > The congregation is urged to place their life and focus entirely in Jesus.

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:00:00] My name is Tom Wiggs and I'm the pastor here at Eastside and I want to say that I'm so glad you clicked on this video.
[00:00:08] We have prayed that it would be a blessing and a help to you as you grow spiritually. I also want to remind you that part of our heart here at Eastside is that you would be growing in connection
[00:00:22] with a local gathering of believers. Don't let this video be a replacement for a local church.
[00:00:30] If you're in the Mooresville area, you would be so welcome to come worship with us.
[00:00:36] And now here's the message.

[00:00:41] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:00:41] We are continuing in our Mark series, See Jesus.
[00:00:46] So before we go any further, though, let me pray as we come to hear from God.
[00:00:52] Not from Tom, not from any one of our ideas, but we desire to hear from God.
[00:00:59] So let me pray for his help this morning.
[00:01:01] God I am grateful that we can gather together and I am so incredibly grateful that you have revealed yourself through scripture but even more you revealed yourself in your son Jesus Lord I pray this morning as we come to your word as we read about Jesus as we see his life as we
[00:01:27] see his teaching. We see truth. Lord, I pray that you would transform us. That you would convict our hearts of sin. You would encourage us of the hope of transforming righteousness. That you would draw us closer to you. And Lord, help us to see Jesus. And I pray this in his name. Amen.
[00:01:51] We've gone through this See Jesus series. We're seven chapters now into Mark. We're almost halfway. Mark is 16 chapters, so we're right about this halfway mark, and we're going to take a break right here at the halfway point. We'll do our series, summer series, Who Am I? Then we'll come
[00:02:08] back and finish the second half of the gospel of Mark at the end of the year. So, as we've walked through the book of Mark, I've really, I've challenged us that so many times, whether we're
[00:02:20] new believers, whether we're longtime Christians, you've come to church your entire life perhaps, or whether you're just walking into our service this morning, that so many of us walk in with preconceived ideas about Jesus. And often those preconceived ideas are not
[00:02:49] who Jesus truly is. And so as we've walked through Mark, I've said this over and over again, our desire is not to repeat those ideas. My desire is not that we would know what some
[00:03:04] popular bestseller or what somebody always said to us about Jesus. I truly want us to see Jesus as he has revealed himself to us. And this morning, we are really going to be challenged.
[00:03:20] Some of us are going to be confronted. Some of us are going to be encouraged because Mark 7 is very blunt. In fact, in some ways, it's similar to what we did last week. In Mark chapter 6,
[00:03:35] if you remember the message from last week, it showed us that you can be very religious. In fact, you can be in very close proximity. You can be near Jesus and still be incredibly far away.
[00:03:49] And in Mark 7, we're going to see this once again.
[00:03:53] So I want us to actually take a moment and I want you to pray.
[00:03:59] Every Sunday, I open the service in prayer.
[00:04:01] I pray for us.
[00:04:02] I pray for this opportunity to hear from God's word.
[00:04:05] But I actually want you to take a moment.
[00:04:07] I want you to pray that Jesus would remove any barriers, that he would help you to hear clearly from God's word.
[00:04:15] So I'm going to shut up and I'm going to give you a moment and would you pray that God would speak and that you would hear? Lord, I pray that you would help me to hear, and I pray that our church would be transformed as we see you. Mark 7 is going to show
[00:04:49] us that it's very easy to be religious and miss out on what truly matters. We live in the South.
[00:05:05] The great, great region of our country called South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, just this whole region of the South, and it's well-loved, it's famous, it's infamous, and another name for it is called the Bible Belt.
[00:05:27] Why is that?
[00:05:29] Because there's churches everywhere, which is an immense blessing, and it's also a challenge.
[00:05:36] because sometimes we equate southerness with Christianity and sometimes we equate religion with a relationship with Jesus Christ. Church, I want us to see that we can get so caught up in routines and we get distracted from what truly matters and that often comes at the expense of
[00:06:06] first our own walk with God, but then also it has deep impact on the people around us, including the ones that we love the most. And we're going to see it here in Mark 7.
[00:06:19] But this isn't new. Jesus confronts this in Mark 7, and then we also see it all around us. In fact, I would suggest that you can think of examples in your own mind, but let me just give you a few
[00:06:32] from popular culture. So, have you ever heard of the story of the Hunchback of Notre Dame?
[00:06:38] Disney redid it, right? It's actually an older story. But what is that? It's religious externalism, as I've got to look up the guy's name, Judge Claude Frollo. He's the main antagonist in the story, but he is incredibly clean and righteous on the outside. But if you know the
[00:07:02] story internally. He's at war with his own sexual desires. He's at war with his own sinful pride and self-righteousness. And the whole story is the conflict between the one who looks ugly and yet truly has a heart of gold, and then the one who looks good and yet is corrupt on the inside.
[00:07:27] or C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia. If you've ever read the Narnia series, the last book, The Last Battle, the very beginning, it's kind of a weird start to the book, but there's this ape
[00:07:39] that talks. If you've never read the books, they have talking animals and there's this ape called Shift and he can talk and he found this lion skin. And so, he gets a friend who's not
[00:07:50] very bright, but he dresses this donkey up in the lion skin and pretends that this donkey in a lion skin is really Aslan, the god of the Narnia trilogy, the one with all the power.
[00:08:06] But Shift uses this supposed god to get more power, to put laws and regulations on all the other animals so that he can get what he wants. He uses religion and he twists it for his own
[00:08:26] advancement. But then, I mean, I actually, as I was looking for this, I found so many examples.
[00:08:33] I just chose three, but The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. It's a classic. Many of you might not have read it. In fact, I haven't even read the whole thing. But in there, there's a scene
[00:08:44] called the Grand Inquisitor. It's in the past, it's in Spain, and the church has become so corrupted. They're very religious, but Jesus, the story is told, comes back to the Spanish church and he begins teaching, much like in the Bible, but the Spanish church arrests Jesus and tries
[00:09:07] to kick him out because he's teaching against what the church teaches. Don't say anything, don't raise your hand, don't shout it out. But do you know anyone that is incredibly religious and incredibly self-righteous where God's laws and their laws don't always line up?
[00:09:39] In Mark chapter 7, Jesus confronts the Pharisees because the Pharisees are good at this.
[00:09:45] God has given a law and yet they came in and they said, we need to do more. So what is true relationship with God? We're going to be confronted with it in Mark 7 as we truly see Jesus. But some
[00:10:02] of us come in and we think relationship with God looks like this or it looks like that. I must do, I must not do. So is relationship with Jesus bound up in external symbols of religion?
[00:10:17] Is relationship with Jesus all about the do's and the don'ts?
[00:10:23] Do Christians all have to look the same?
[00:10:26] Can we do anything that we want?
[00:10:31] What's going to keep you out of heaven?
[00:10:37] As I said a little bit ago, oftentimes we walk into church with these preconceived ideas.
[00:10:42] So already I've set this up so you know that we're going to get challenged from scripture this morning.
[00:10:47] So you're probably going to answer this question differently.
[00:10:49] But if I had come up to you earlier today and said, what would keep you out of heaven?
[00:10:55] And you said something like, oh, sin keeps me out of heaven or not believing in Jesus.
[00:11:00] But if we began to push deeper and we began to ask questions about what truly matters, I would propose that for every single one of us, there's a tendency to carry with us laws and commands that we think gain us righteousness with God, make us more religious,
[00:11:22] make Jesus love me more, get me a better standing spiritually that have nothing to do with actually who Jesus is or what he says. And so this morning, I said it earlier, let me remind you, I really do
[00:11:36] desire that some of us are confronted. And then I desire on the other side that some of us walk out encouraged because the weight that we've been carrying, the weight that someone else has laid
[00:11:48] on top of you is not the weight that you need to carry. And then some of us, we need to get rid of our self-righteous pride. We need to stop acting like the Pharisees and begin looking more like
[00:12:06] Jesus. So, what happens when Jesus rips off the facade, the camouflage of do's and don'ts?
[00:12:19] Isn't that what so much of religion and what many people's version of Christianity is?
[00:12:25] It's a list of do's and don'ts. In fact, if you want to grow spiritually, let me give you a list that you have to keep. I can tell you everything that God cares about the most. And as long as you
[00:12:36] keep this list, then you'll be okay. Isn't that what religion is? Mark 7, Jesus rips that off and he confronts the religious hypocrites and he shows us truly himself. So, let's look at it.
[00:12:55] Mark chapter 7, we just read through the entire passage, but let's walk through it once again. Mark 7, verse number 1, the Pharisees were gathered to him with some of the scribes. So, the Pharisees and scribes, these are the religious elites. They had it all figured out and they're
[00:13:09] the ones that set the guidance, made the rules, set the standards for all the other little people, right? So the scribes gathered to him with some of the, the Pharisees gathered to him with some
[00:13:23] of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem. They saw that some of Jesus' disciples ate with hands that were defiled. That is, they hadn't washed them. And then I love this parenthesis in verse number three. It shows us that Mark is not writing to Jews. If you remember all the way back, it's
[00:13:40] been months ago, but we started by saying the gospel of Mark was not written to the Jewish people. It was most likely written to Romans in Rome, possibly believers, possibly seekers, and it was written to show who Jesus is. That's why we want to see Jesus. And so in verse three
[00:13:58] here in Mark 7, he gives us a little parenthesis. Any Jewish reader would know exactly what Mark was talking about, but he has to give a little pause and say, why are we talking about washing
[00:14:08] hands? That doesn't matter to a lot of people. So, he gives them a parenthetical. Verse 3, he says, for the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the traditions of the elders. When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat
[00:14:27] unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels, dining couches. Now, in 2026, we all desire cleanliness. In fact, I hope that you wash your hands with some frequency and that you're a clean
[00:14:43] person. And I hope you like clean your house and clean your pots. If I'm going to come eat at your house, I hope you clean your stuff. If you don't, I might not want to come eat at your house.
[00:14:54] So, we appreciate this, but that's not actually, they're not talking about cleanliness for food.
[00:15:02] As we go back into the Old Testament, we find those passages where it's in Exodus 30, Exodus 40.
[00:15:09] God had actually given this spiritual cleansing ritual to the priests and the prophets. And before they would come in and worship God as priests in their function, in their role, in their job as priests, God had said, you must cleanse yourself in a certain way. And except for in times of like
[00:15:32] bodily discharge, these laws were not laid on the entire nation of Israel. But what happened?
[00:15:41] These scribes, these Pharisees, these religious elites had decided that what was good for them, what commands had God put on top of them, should really be put on top of everyone else also.
[00:15:55] And if you go back and read the rabbi's writings, these rabbinical writings actually describe it as putting fences around the law of God. They say, okay, we know that God said, don't do this, but I don't really want to get even close to that. So I'm going to back up and I'm going to
[00:16:13] put a fence over here. So it's almost like, it's almost like a cliff. So if you go to the Grand Canyon, you go and look out and it's this expanse and it's deep. And so if you go and
[00:16:25] if you just decided, hey, this is not a big deal. I'm going to go jump off the edge of the Grand Canyon, not with like a bungee cord or like a parachute or one of those wing suits, but you
[00:16:35] just decide, I'm just, I'm young. I'm indestructible. I bounce pretty good. And so you go and you jump off the edge. You're not going to bounce. And so what do you do? You go to the Grand Canyon and
[00:16:48] they have these barriers. Makes sense, right? So the Pharisees said, okay, God said, don't do this.
[00:16:56] let's back up and let's put a fence. And then they're like, well, I don't really want to get close to that either. So let's back up and put a fence here. And over time, you can read about it
[00:17:08] in the Old Testament and Jesus confronts it strongly. But over time, they began adding fences and fences and fences to God's word, to the place where it was no longer about knowing and loving God. It was all about what you do or you don't do. So here we go.
[00:17:31] That was just a little break. Verse five, the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders? So they know this isn't God's command. They don't say, why don't they obey God? Why don't they keep God's laws? They say,
[00:17:49] why are they keeping all the traditions? Why don't they walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands? And Jesus said to them, well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written. This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
[00:18:11] In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. These traditions had gotten to the place where they supposedly showed the closeness of your relationship with God, and yet they had nothing to do with God. In fact, they were one man putting commands on another man
[00:18:28] so that they could somehow feel more spiritual.
[00:18:33] And the Pharisees were good at this.
[00:18:34] In fact, they laid as many laws as they could on top of others and it made them feel better because I can keep them, but oh, look at that guy.
[00:18:42] He can't keep that.
[00:18:44] I'm obviously better than he is.
[00:18:46] And then Jesus looks back at them and says, you are hypocrites.
[00:18:53] In another passage, he compares them to a whitewashed tomb.
[00:18:57] On the outside, there's a fresh paint, fresh coat of white paint.
[00:19:01] And on the inside, rotting bones.
[00:19:08] Jesus here doesn't use that example.
[00:19:10] But in Mark 7, he actually goes back and quotes from the Old Testament, which the Pharisees knew well.
[00:19:14] They'd memorized all of the Old Testament.
[00:19:17] So he goes back to the prophet Isaiah and he chooses a specific passage, which is very interesting.
[00:19:22] If you were to go back and read Jesus' quote in its context from Isaiah, you would actually see that Isaiah 29 is a judgment oracle against Jerusalem and against Israel. God, through the prophet Isaiah, talks to his people and says, you have gotten so far from
[00:19:39] me, but you don't even realize it. He actually says in Isaiah 29, it's almost like you're a drunk man and you're so loaded, you're so hammered, you're so wasted on your own drunkenness that you don't
[00:19:53] even realize how far from God you are. Can you imagine the face of those scribes and Pharisees?
[00:20:01] They walked up and they're like, hey, hey, why don't your disciples wash their hands and keep the traditions like everybody else? And Jesus looks at them and says, you're so loaded drunk, you don't realize how far from God you are. Church, I'm afraid that God's word knows us better
[00:20:27] than we realize, because there's a lot of people in the world. There's a lot of people in the South, and I would suggest there could even be people in this room that are so loaded with the do's
[00:20:46] and the don'ts that you think you're close to God, when in reality, you're full of self-righteous religion, and Jesus has nothing to do with you. How do we do this, though? Let me just give you
[00:21:09] a few examples. I mean, we could do so many more. But guys, can we put up that next slide?
[00:21:17] Things like, these would be some modern examples. And again, this is not exhaustive. And we do it singleness and marriage. And there's great strengths and there's some challenges with both.
[00:21:50] Some people say that you cannot eat certain foods. And if you do that, it makes you more spiritual.
[00:21:56] and God says that everything is a gift, but gluttony and addiction is sin. Some people say that you have to dress a certain way. And if you don't wear certain things, then you're obviously not walking with God. Scripture says modesty is biblical, but that's interesting. It doesn't go
[00:22:23] far beyond that. Some people argue about musical styles and they believe that for a person or a church, that if you don't listen to a specific music style, either in church or even as you're
[00:22:36] driving back and forth to work, that you obviously are a horrible person. And scripture says that we should value good music. We should sing songs that give praise to God. And yet there's some room there. There's political associations and we should be good citizens. There's strict rules
[00:22:57] for Sabbath observance or Sunday. If you don't go to church, if you do this, if you don't go three times a week or if you, what does the Bible say? Jesus says that Sabbath should be a day of
[00:23:13] rest and worship. Scripture never gives beyond that. Some people get really upset about Bible translations. And there are incredibly good translations, and I will say there are poor, faulty, and even heretical Bible translations. And yet, there's room there. And we can keep going.
[00:23:37] Some people say technology is sinful. Some people say no movie theaters, no dancing, no facial hair. I mean, the list can go on and on and on and on. The funny thing is, when you actually come to God's word, all of those things begin to fall apart.
[00:24:02] Dancing is in scripture. Facial hair is in scripture. Talks about marriage. All of these laws that I'm sure many of you are familiar with, these fences that we would add to God's law, we find in scripture and the fences are getting confronted and the people that place them are
[00:24:26] being called hypocrites. So in Mark chapter 7, Jesus continues on. He said, sorry, verse 8, you leave the commandment of God and hold true the traditions of men. And he said to them, you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your own
[00:24:52] tradition. For Moses said, honor your father and your mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. It's a pretty stark verse on Mother's Day. You hate your mother.
[00:25:10] Verse 11, but you say, if a man tells his father or his mother, whatever you would have gained from me is korban. Again, a parenthetical. He needs to explain it for his audience. This korban
[00:25:23] is given to God. Then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down and many such things
[00:25:34] you do. So let me back up and give us a little bit of context. Jesus is walking with his disciples.
[00:25:41] They walk through a field. Somebody picks an ear of corn or picks an apple and they take a bite and the scribes and Pharisees see his disciples do this. And they come up and they're like, Jesus,
[00:25:51] Jesus, don't you realize how wicked your disciples are? He just took a bite of an apple without washing his hands? Why don't they follow the traditions of the elders? Don't they know this is what they're supposed to do? Jesus looks back at him and he says, Isaiah prophesied exactly what
[00:26:10] you're doing and you're a hypocrite. You're drunk on your own self-righteousness. You think you're close to God when you're really far from him and you're oppressing others with your rules.
[00:26:21] He says, you even do it with your own family. He said, okay, do you remember back in the Old Testament that God, like the creator God, the one who made all of life, the one who designed the way
[00:26:33] life should work, he said you should honor and love and care for your father and mother. And that's one of the most basic commandments. In fact, it's part of the 10 commandments. Just very baseline, love and honor and care for your parents. But you've come up with this way to get out of
[00:26:52] even caring for your parents. The ones you should care for the most, the ones that bore you, the ones that brought you into this world and raised you up, and you should have this natural human
[00:27:03] love for them. But you came up with a way around it. And they come up with, it's called Corban, but it was this spiritual thing. It's kind of like setting something into a will to give to
[00:27:16] someone later. So, I'm committing this to God, but I'm allowed to use it while I'm alive.
[00:27:23] but it means I also can't give it to mom and dad. It's kind of like estate planning that locks other people out of it so that you can be comfortable and not have to care for someone
[00:27:35] close to you. And Jesus says, don't you see that your spiritualness, your religiosity is actually, you're finding ways to work around what God desires. You're actually finding ways to make your life more comfortable. You're actually finding ways to make you look good
[00:27:57] even while others suffer. Jesus says, I hate that. Church, I want them both sides. I want to confront us and I want to comfort us. Church, if there have been people, if there have been teachers,
[00:28:17] if there have been anything that has put commands on your life that are not from scripture and you've been carrying this weight, I want you to see in Mark 7 that Jesus destroys them. But church,
[00:28:31] I know because I know me I know my own propensity to do this and I know others that it's so easy to be on the other side as well to take something that may or may not be a good idea maybe it's a
[00:28:48] good idea to put a fence next to the Grand Canyon but instead to take my fence and put it on someone else's life and make that the standard of goodness to make that the standard of righteousness to make
[00:29:01] that the standard of how close they are to God or if they're going to get into heaven and if they wear this or sing this or drink that or and that's not what Jesus said. Verse 14, Mark chapter 7
[00:29:20] verse 14, he called the people to him again and said to them, hear me all of you and understand Jesus' desire in all of this is not to simply destroy people. He desires for us to hear and
[00:29:33] learn and understand. Hear me, all of you, and understand, verse 15, there is nothing outside of a person that by going into him can defile him. But the things that come out of a person are what
[00:29:45] defile him. And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about this parable. They were confused. Wait, Jesus, what were you just talking about? And he said to them, then you are also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person
[00:30:03] from outside cannot defile him since it enters into, enters not his heart, but his stomach and is expelled. And then again, another little parenthetical, which we're not going to spend time on, but is interesting. Thus he declared, Jesus declared all foods clean. He keeps going, verse
[00:30:20] 20. And Jesus said, what comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man comes evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within
[00:30:48] and they defile a person. Church, let's be really clear about something. Your sin comes from inside of you. No one's making you do it. Satan made me do it. My brother made me do it. My parents made
[00:31:11] me do it. My boss made me do it. You don't know the buttons they pushed. Church, in Mark chapter seven, Jesus says there's nothing outside of you that will defile you. That billboard, that porn
[00:31:27] site, that conversation with somebody, I don't care what it is. There can be temptations, but sin comes from within. James chapter 1 says the same thing. It says that temptation comes and then it's how we respond to it. And when it grows, then it begins to destroy. Church, let me be clear.
[00:31:52] Sin does not come from outside of you. Sin comes from your own heart. So the Pharisees, they put these fences, they put these rules, they put these laws trying to keep themselves as far away, but in reality, they're pushing themselves deeper into sin in other ways. Their self-righteousness,
[00:32:09] their pride, their condemnation of others is actually equally sinful in God's sight.
[00:32:17] So Jesus looks at them, he calls the crowd together, and he says, I need you to understand something. That sin does not come in from outside of you. He uses the illustration of food. He said,
[00:32:27] when you eat food, it doesn't go to your heart. That's significant. It doesn't go to your heart.
[00:32:31] it goes into your stomach and then it comes out the other end. Jesus had a sense of humor. He says, what comes out of your heart is what matters. So guys, that next slide. Jesus says that defilement,
[00:32:44] sin, wickedness is so far more serious than a list of external do's and don'ts.
[00:32:52] What you do or don't do is not what gains you favor with God, is not what makes you a Christian, is not what gets you into heaven. It's not about that. It's actually far deeper.
[00:33:03] And he points to our hearts. This next slide is going to be a diagram. I hope you can see it.
[00:33:12] Hope you can see all of it, that there's a lot going on here. I use this often in counseling.
[00:33:19] It's going to grow the exact same thing back. But no, no, no, no, no, no. I want something different. So I know if I take something off, I need to replace it with something, right? So
[00:34:33] I go up to the tree and I grab that orange of anger, that orange of covetousness and greed, and I pull it off and I'm like, I got a great idea. I'm going to take an apple. I'm going to
[00:34:45] take it up there. I'm going to staple it to my tree. It's the apple of love. It's the apple of generosity. It's the apple of caring for others. It's going to help things. I know this is really
[00:34:59] stupid. Play along with me. What happens if you staple an apple to an orange tree? It's going to rot. It's going to fall off. And what's going to come back? Oranges. I know this is not super
[00:35:20] complicated. What happens if you cut the tree off in the middle? Man, you know what? I finally figured out that oranges grow from orange trees. So I'm just going to take an ax, get my chainsaw.
[00:35:34] I'm just going to cut that tree off right in the middle. Give it enough time. What grows back?
[00:35:46] Orange tree. If you want something different, you got to get all the way down into the root and you've got to totally change that tree. So there in the diagram, you see that it comes down
[00:36:05] to me and we don't have time to really just go through all of this. Let's jump to the other side.
[00:36:10] Let's say we rip that whole tree out and we're going to start with a new life.
[00:36:16] Jesus, as he came and as he began teaching the kingdom of God, he said, repent of your sins and be forgiven. And he said that we would be transformed. In fact, the Bible literally uses
[00:36:27] the phrase, we would be made new, a completely new creation. There's nothing left from what was old. It's all brand new. So Christian, church, visitor, men, women, everybody listening to me, pulling that orange off of your tree is not going to do anything. But when you plant your life
[00:36:59] in Christ. He wants your heart. That's what he desires. He says it here in Mark 7. He says it's the heart that matters. So when you plant your life in Jesus, when God is at the focus, it's not
[00:37:20] that God is one of your priorities. It is. God is everything. And a new tree begins to grow.
[00:37:29] what fruits come from this tree? The Bible talks about the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, and the list goes on. And so instead of ripping off oranges and stapling on apples or
[00:37:47] trying to find a banana to fit on there, and instead of trying to do and don't and put fences, Jesus instead calls us to see that the heart is what matters. Church, the Bible Belt, and the
[00:38:04] South. Really, we could expand it into the whole world. And every human life is very tempting. It's much simpler to say, give me a list of do's and don'ts. I can achieve that, or I can work hard
[00:38:22] at achieving that. And if I'm good enough, I might even add a few to make me look better than the guy next to me. It's a little more nebulous. It's less cut and dried. It's less clear when Jesus
[00:38:39] says, I want your heart. But do you see how much more powerful your heart is? What you love flows out of you. When it's about your heart, when it's about your love, when your passion is focused on
[00:38:58] Christ, then everything else in life is going to fit around that. And no longer is it a list of do's and don'ts, but rather it's a relationship with a transforming, loving Savior. It's no longer
[00:39:09] looking down on others and taking my fences that have nothing to do with God's word. I just feel like it's a good idea and it makes me feel good about myself. And so you should believe the same
[00:39:19] thing I believe and you should look like I look because obviously I have it all figured out and I'm right. And we take all of that and we lay it on top of someone else and we literally begin to
[00:39:33] work our way around God's commands to make me better. And in Mark 7, we're confronted.
[00:39:48] Men, there's one last slide. Church, as we finish, can we put that last slide up there?
[00:39:54] As we finish, I want us to walk away realizing, both being confronted and encouraged, I want us to understand that Jesus here in Mark 7, can I show you Jesus? So many times we walk into church
[00:40:11] and we have this preconceived idea about God.
[00:40:13] I have to look a certain way.
[00:40:14] I have to do a certain thing.
[00:40:15] I have to show up to church for God to love me.
[00:40:17] And yet Mark 7, Jesus shows us it's all about our hearts.
[00:40:25] Church, this doesn't mean that God doesn't care what we do.
[00:40:29] It actually means God cares deeply about what we do.
[00:40:31] So much so that he's confronting these Pharisees about how they even live with their own families, about how they arrange their finances.
[00:40:43] But church, do you realize there's a big difference between external, religious, legalistic, rule-keeping, and a heart that's in love with Jesus. There's a difference between traditions, which Southern Christianity has a lot of traditions, don't we? There's a big difference between keeping the traditions of men and knowing and loving
[00:41:13] Jesus. Traditions are not automatically sinful. They might be helpful. They might also be incredibly dangerous. The question is, where's your heart? Let's pray together.