Jesus Confronts Legalism Pt. 2

[0:00] Let's jump into God's Word this morning. We're going to go ahead and open up our Bibles to the 7th chapter of Mark. We've been in there for, I think, since the beginning of the year, at least in the book of Mark.

[0:13] And we are going to continue on. Mark chapter 7. Mark chapter 6, there was lots of miracles going on, Jesus walking on water.

[0:25] There was the feeding the 5,000. And now Jesus is confronted here with some leaders, some church leaders, or some leaders of Israel, who are criticizing him for something that him and his disciples are not doing.

[0:45] Not something they are doing, but something they're not doing that they think that they should. And we're going to see Jesus' response here. This is part two. We talked about this last week.

[0:56] I'm going to read again in verse... We'll start... Actually, let's go ahead and... We'll just read from the beginning.

[1:07] Chapter 7, verse 1. Then the Pharisees and some of the scribes came together to him, having come from Jerusalem. Now, when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with undefiled, that is, with unwashed hands, they found fault.

[1:20] For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.

[1:32] And there are many other things which they have received and hold, like the washing of cups and pitchers and copper vessels and couches. Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?

[1:47] They're not saying, Jesus, why aren't you obeying the law of Moses or the scriptures? They're saying, why don't you follow our traditions that we made up, by the way? He answered and 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.

[2:07] And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, the washing of pitchers and cups and many other such things you do.

[2:19] And he said to them, All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother, and he who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.

[2:32] But you say, If a man says to his father or mother, Whatever profit you might have received from me is korban, that is a gift to God. Then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, making the word of God of no effect through your tradition, which you have handed down.

[2:50] And many such things you do. And then when he had called the multitude to himself, he said to them, Hear me, everyone, and understand.

[3:02] There is nothing that enters a man from the outside which can defile him, but those things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. And when he entered a house away from the crowd, his disciples asked him concerning the parable, and he said to them, Are you thus without understanding also?

[3:20] Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from the outside cannot defile him? Because it does not enter his heart, but his stomach is eliminated, thus purifying all foods.

[3:32] And he said, What comes out of a man that defiles a man? For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.

[3:49] All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man. We focused last week on the first section of this passage.

[4:01] Today we're going to continue on, really back up here in verse 9. He's saying, Hey, you guys come up with these commandments.

[4:12] They're commandments of men, not from God. And your commandments that are from men end up making God's commandment null and void.

[4:25] And he gives an example. So we, verse 9, he says to them, All too well you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your tradition. Verse 10, For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother, and he who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.

[4:44] He quotes two passages, or two scriptures, verses from the Old Testament law, from the law of Moses. When he says, For Moses said, he's talking about the scriptures that Moses wrote down.

[4:59] He says to them, All too well you reject the commandments of God. And that's kind of a funny phrase. I don't know that we would say things like that today.

[5:10] But this is really a sarcastic way of speaking. Oh, you guys are doing so well. You reject the commandment of God for your own traditions.

[5:24] What a great job you're doing. You're so holy and you're so pious. You're doing all too well. Dripping sarcasm.

[5:35] And then he mentions two scriptures. One, Honor your father and your mother. And many of us, who've studied the Bible for a while, are familiar with where that comes from.

[5:46] It comes from the Ten Commandments. Does anybody know which number it is? I didn't write it down, so I don't know. Is it six? Somewhere in there. Actually, some people number the commandments a little bit differently.

[6:01] But it's one of the Ten Commandments. Honor your father and your mother. And then he mentions another one. He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.

[6:14] Now, this is a scripture from the book of Deuteronomy. This is one of the five books of Moses. And this was a passage in a chapter. Chapter.

[6:26] Actually, this is, did I say Deuteronomy? This is from Exodus. Exodus chapter 21. Which is not too, this comes, I think the Ten Commandments is actually in chapter 20 of Exodus.

[6:39] And so this comes just right after. But this passage, or this section of Exodus, is all about, like a criminal code.

[6:50] How to deal with criminals. Violent criminals. Murderous criminals. Kidnappers. People who would commit heinous types of crimes. And in it, there's this passage about someone, a man, who curses his father and mother and that he should be put to death.

[7:09] Now, when we read this from Jesus, there's no context. So I think it would be helpful for us to look at the context of what's being talked about here. one, he's not talking about small children, children at home.

[7:26] Does it seem that the Bible teaches that if children talk back to their parents, curse them, or rebellious towards their parents, that they should be executed?

[7:39] Is that in the Bible? It doesn't, that just seems odd, right? In fact, the Bible does speak of a type of punishment that children in a parent's house should be subject to.

[7:50] And what is that? The rod. Yeah, that's right. We call that today a spanking. And so in Proverbs 29, 15, it says this, In several places, especially in Proverbs, it talks about using the rod or spanking to punish a child for any kind of rebellion.

[8:18] But this passage in Exodus chapter 21 isn't talking about young children still in their parents' homes. It's talking about adult children. In Exodus chapter 21, and you can go ahead and turn there, we'll spend a few minutes in there.

[8:37] We'll kind of bounce around here, but this portion of Exodus teaches in the law of Moses that if a person is assaulted, if there's a fight, if there's an assault, violence against another man, it says this in Exodus 21, 18, if men contend with each other and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist and he does not die but is confined to his bed, if he rises again and walks about outside with his staff, then he who struck him shall be acquitted.

[9:15] He shall only pay for the loss of his time and shall provide for him to be thoroughly healed. So there's a principle here. If you get into a fight and you hurt somebody, as long as they recover, they don't ultimately die, then there's no death penalty involved here.

[9:37] You are just responsible for really a restitution, restoring financially their time and their getting back into good health. But in verse 12, it says this, he who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death.

[9:57] If you strike someone and they die, it's life for life. This goes all the way back to the time of Noah right after the flood. And God told Noah, he says, I'm instituting something new.

[10:11] It wasn't this way before. In fact, when Cain killed Abel, God said, I don't want you to do anything. I'm going to take care of it. But now, since the time of Noah, God said to Noah, if any man takes another man's blood, if one man sheds another man's blood, by man, his blood shall be shed.

[10:29] He instituted this concept of human government in which human governors need to rule in such a way as to make criminals, especially murderers and those who would commit heinous crimes, to be afraid to do those crimes by having punishments that would make them fearful to do such things.

[10:50] And that is part of the law of Moses. But notice here in verse 15 of Exodus, the rule changes a bit when it comes to parents. In verse 15 of Exodus 21, it says this, and he who strikes his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.

[11:08] Now, this is different, right? You strike another man, he dies, you should be put to death, but if he doesn't, if he recovers, then you just owe some financial restitution to restore him back to health.

[11:23] But when it comes to your own parents, the rules change. There's an expectation that there's a higher standard for how you would treat your parents.

[11:36] Because of the gravity of abusing, even those, even the person or people, those, your father and mother who gave you life, if you would abuse them.

[11:50] It's not to strike itself because if you abuse someone else, it's a little bit different. But if you were to abuse your own parents, that was worthy of death under the Old Testament code.

[12:02] And so, in light of that, we read verse 17, which is that which Jesus was referring to. And it says this, and he who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.

[12:19] Not just physical abuse, but any kind of abuse of cursing your parents. under the Old Testament code, it was considered the death penalty.

[12:34] Because that relationship between child and parent, that honor that is required is of such importance. And you know, the honor that children need to have towards their parents, is that primarily for the sake of the parents?

[12:51] We might think so, right? We want to make sure that parents don't have to deal with rotten kids, right? Makes parents' lives easier when their kids aren't rotten.

[13:02] That's true. But I think this command from God and the severity of the punishment that comes with it under the Old Testament code is because of the detrimental effect of a child, whether young, especially when they're old, of not honoring their parents, that it will cause a person to utterly self-destruct when they neglect to honor and give deference and love and care to their parents.

[13:36] Children that don't learn this at a young age will ultimately self-destruct later on in life if they don't finally learn to honor and care for their parents.

[13:50] So Jesus gives a specific example and back to Mark chapter 7 and verse 11. But you say, he's talking to the Pharisees and the scribes, if a man says to his father or mother, whatever profit you might have received from me is korban, and he says in parentheses, that is a gift to God, that's what korban means, then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother.

[14:18] This word korban means a gift to God or devotion to God. And so the idea here is that there was this tradition that came down from the elders that said, hey, if you say that my money, my wealth, the things that I've saved up, if you devote it to God through this special declaration, then, I mean, we ought to devote things to God.

[14:49] Isn't it, isn't it a wonderful thing to devote some of our wealth to the Lord? Isn't that a wonderful thing to do? And so you can use that as an excuse on why you shouldn't help their parents in their older age.

[15:04] You know, today's world, we have things like social security or social insecurity as Roy mentioned it. It's becoming more insecure. We have pensions and we have annuities and all kinds of ways in which as you get older and are less able to work, you can take care of yourself and have the means to take care of yourself.

[15:28] But throughout most of the history of the world, as you got older, you know, you didn't have those kinds of resources. Most people, in a way, didn't have the resources to continue to care for themselves.

[15:40] And so they looked to their children to help care for them as they got older. Of course, we still see that and have that as a need today. Maybe not to the same degree.

[15:51] People are able to live independently longer, I think. But there is still that need. But we see here with this whole Korban thing, this devotion to God, God.

[16:03] It wasn't just a neglect of parents and kind of saying, well, I'm just going to be selfish and keep my money to myself and not use my money, my savings to help my parents.

[16:16] No, instead, I'm going to do this in a pious way. I'm going to do this in a way in which it looks like I'm actually really devoted to God.

[16:27] that was the tradition that was passed on. And because of this tradition, he says, then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother.

[16:42] And that word, you know, no longer let him do anything, really, this is a duty that he's talking about. You no longer require him and this should be what the scribes and Pharisees, they should be upholding the law of Moses.

[16:55] And they do when it's convenient, but in these cases and in certain other cases, they don't. Verse 13, making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down and many such things you do.

[17:13] He says, this isn't the only example. This is just one of many. And your traditions, he says, have made the word of God of no effect.

[17:24] that just means it's been nullified. It's been handed down from the elders.

[17:35] Why would they hand this down? Why would, is there a benefit to these, to these, to these Pharisees and scribes into handing, handing this down?

[17:47] I came up with three possibilities. One, hey, if we as leaders pass this down as a tradition to others, then that will give us leeway to do the same thing ourselves.

[18:02] We can neglect our obligation to our aging parents. And then people will think us righteous too because we're just following the traditions.

[18:13] second possibility, it's possible that this devotion, this gift, this monetary gift, this money that was devoted to God, well, where might that money ultimately go?

[18:28] Well, it might go into their hands, right? They're devoting it to God, to the leaders of Israel. They might ultimately get some of that benefit.

[18:39] And then the third possibility is to curry favor with the people. And we see this today with politicians, right?

[18:50] You give the people what they want, give them the ability to do immoral things, and they'll vote for you. Right? That's what we have in a democracy.

[19:02] You legalize the entire sexual revolution. You take away responsibility. You have no fault divorce. Do whatever you want. There are no consequences.

[19:14] And hey, you can get a lot of votes for those kinds of things. Get a lot of political power. Before we go on to this next section, I want to just have a few general comments on this topic of legalism.

[19:30] And that's what this was. And we talked about that last week, that they were creating laws that they didn't have any business creating. You have God's law and you have man's law.

[19:41] And there's no reason to create. God's law is good enough, isn't it? But many people think, well, we need to create our own laws to make people even more holy, to make them even more righteous if we just create our own laws.

[19:58] There are generally, when we're talking about legalism, and legalism is a derogatory term, almost always. Does anybody want to be called a legalist? Hey, I'm a legalist.

[20:08] No, nobody wants to be called that. It's something derogatory. But I found that it's used in two types of ways, and when we're talking about legalism, it's good to know the difference because sometimes somebody might call you a legalist or you might say, hey, you know what, you're being legalistic.

[20:22] And they say, well, but I'm not doing this thing. And a lot of time they're talking about the one when you may be referencing the other. So the first type of legalism is when we add our own laws, our own regulations, to God's word.

[20:38] We add our own. That's what's happening here. They created their own law. You have to wash your hands and cups and everything before you eat. That wasn't in the law of Moses.

[20:49] That wasn't commanded. That was just something new that they created. But the second type of legalism is where we put on people and we tell them that, well, in order to be saved, in order to have eternal life, in order to be a child of God, you have to keep the law.

[21:14] You have to do all these good things. And that is against the gospel of the grace of God. The gospel of the grace of God says, that all you have to do to have eternal life, all you have to do to be a child of God, all you have to do to have all of your sins forgiven, and to be declared completely righteous, is to put your faith and trust in Him.

[21:42] And that's it. But there are many out there who will say, well, that's one of the things that you have to do, but you have to do all these other things too.

[21:52] You have to add all of these works of righteousness and then God will accept you. And that's legalism. That is a type of legalism.

[22:05] And so, I think it's important to distinguish between those two things. Because somebody might say to you, well, in order to be saved, you have to do such and such.

[22:16] And they might be referencing something that the Bible actually says we ought to do. something good, something true. And you might say, well, that's legalism.

[22:27] And they might say, well, no, it's not because the Bible says we ought to do those things. They're not making up something new. They're not making a commandment of men, but they are applying an Old Testament principle to New Testament Christians, we might say, or Christians under grace.

[22:46] legalism. There's also a third type of legalism that I think is completely illegitimate. But this is the type of legalism that we find out in the culture, in the world, and even within Christian circles.

[23:02] This is actually, I think, the legalism that is defined in most dictionaries. If you look up a dictionary, and I looked this up, legalism in the dictionary, it says this, a strict or literal or excessive conformity to the law or to a religious or moral code.

[23:23] Strict, literal, or excessive adherence, conformity, to the law, to doing what's right.

[23:37] And so this is the definition the world uses. So when it comes to the law, let's look at a few of the commandments. You shall not murder.

[23:48] Well, legalism is when you're being too strict with that. I mean, or maybe too excessive, or maybe too literal when it comes to you shall not murder.

[23:59] We don't want to be too excessive. I mean, there's always exceptions, right, that we should take when it comes to you shall not murder, or you shall not steal.

[24:11] we don't want to be too excessive with that. You shall not commit adultery. We don't want to be too literal when it comes to you shall not commit adultery.

[24:26] Is that the right kind of legalism? Is that an appropriate definition of legalism? It's not. It makes me think in our culture we have liberals and conservatives.

[24:40] What I found is legalism is when a conservative tells a liberal that they're wrong about something. And so people think, well, if you tell other people what they should and shouldn't do, if you impose your morality, your view of morality on others, that's legalism.

[25:04] And you shouldn't do that. In fact, they'll say, the Bible even tells you you shouldn't do that. Haven't you read that scripture in the Bible that says you shall not judge? Right?

[25:19] I've noticed though that usually this is very one-sided. They're very happy to judge and condemn the conservatives that they accuse of judgmentalism.

[25:32] really, this is just a tactic. This is a way for people to bully you, to bully us, to bully the righteous, to bully the conservatives, to bully those who are promoting what is good and right, to bully them into silence.

[25:50] Be quiet. Shut up. Don't say that. You're not allowed to say those things. You're not allowed to promote those standards. Christians. And we shouldn't give in to that type of bullying.

[26:07] The other thing that we need to consider though is not just other ways that people are being legalistic but to look inwardly. Right?

[26:17] Whenever we read the scriptures, Jesus is talking to the Pharisees and the scribes and those are the bad guys. Pharisees and so we can think to ourselves, that's right, those yucky Pharisees, those nasty Pharisees are such horrible people and not consider, well are there ways in which maybe I can be legalistic?

[26:46] And so we contend, this has been a problem throughout most of church history. since the beginning of the church, people tend to towards creating extra rules, extra requirements for people.

[27:03] There are churches where, that I've been to where, well, you have to be, it's important to go to Sunday morning service but you actually have to, every time the church doors are open you have to be there.

[27:20] And, you know, that's our rule that you have to do that. The other thing I want to look at is the authority of scripture.

[27:43] Notice here that Jesus is not giving the Pharisees and the scribes carte blanche to just come up with their own thing.

[27:56] Even though he says in other places that they have authority. In fact, he says in one place, these Pharisees, they sit in Moses' seat and because of that you ought to listen to them.

[28:10] But don't do, but do as they say but not what they do. In Moses' seat, their obligation, their requirement, their duty was not to come up with new things but to actually uphold the law of Moses.

[28:28] This was Moses' seat. Their obligation was to uphold the scripture because that is where the authority lies. And for the last 2,000 years, we've had this battle of where is the authority of God vested.

[28:47] Is it in men or is it in the scriptures? This is where the Protestant Reformation came in. The Catholic Church, for many years and even to this day, teaches that authority comes not just in scripture, even though that is one place, but also is vested in the church, the leaders of the church.

[29:16] And so God may reveal certain things to the leaders of the church outside of scripture and those things are required. There's this concept called the Catholic Magisterium, which is the teachings of the church, things that are or can be outside of the Bible.

[29:39] and the Catholic Church teaches explicitly that those teachings are authoritative. And so many times, so many times, this happens, those teachings will actually undermine the actual scriptures.

[29:58] They'll undermine them. I've even seen in some Protestant churches, and I think over time we see this separation from the Catholic Church into the Protestant Church.

[30:09] And so we see some Protestant churches coming up with their own confessions of faith. And we'll write down what we believe the Bible teaches, and then we'll put this out for people to be their confession of faith.

[30:27] faith. And so there are many Protestant confessions, the Lutherans have their own confession, and the Presbyterians have their own confession, and the Baptists have their own confession.

[30:40] Lots of detail in there. And there actually can be lots of great teaching material in those confessions. But I have seen and been so disappointed with so many Christians who look to those confessions as their rule of faith.

[30:55] faith. And it just isn't. There could be mistakes in there, and there definitely are. You know how I know with a certainty? It's because there are dozens of confessions that Protestants have produced, and they all contradict each other in some way or other.

[31:12] They do. They all contradict each other. Let's look to the authority of the scriptures, not to other things. Other tools, whether it be sermons or books or Bible study material, Bible commentaries, those are all great teaching materials.

[31:35] And the Bible itself, Paul says that God has set some teachers in the church. Having teachers is good, whether it be somebody standing in front of you or somebody who writes a book and provides some teaching material.

[31:47] But ultimately, that is not where authority lies. Not in books, not in commentaries, but in the scripture itself. In the next few verses, Mark chapter 7, verse 14, it says that after Jesus was finished addressing the Pharisees, he called the multitude to himself.

[32:10] I can imagine these leaders kind of came in and he addressed them and he says, all right guys, everybody come around, I have something to tell you. Hear me everyone and understand, there is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him, but the things which come out of him, these are the things that defile a man.

[32:30] He's talking about the washing of the hands. It's not that the dirt from your hands that's going to go inside of you that's going to defile you, it's actually what comes out of you. He'll explain this a little bit further.

[32:43] If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. Notice we talked about this before when Jesus tells parables. Hey, if you want to know the truth, listen up.

[32:55] If you're not interested in the truth, fine, that's fine. When he had entered a house away from the crowd, his disciples, notice how he just said that one thing. He didn't explain himself.

[33:07] If anyone, he says whatever goes inside of a man or comes from the outside doesn't defile him, but the things which go out of him, that's what defile a man. And so when they're in private, when he had entered a house away from the crowd, his disciples asked him concerning the parable.

[33:24] This is the same thing. Notice he calls it a parable. This doesn't sound like a parable. It was just a single sentence. But the Bible here calls it a parable. It was meant to be somewhat ambiguous.

[33:38] Only those who really wanted to understand would understand it. So he said to them, are you thus without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him?

[33:50] Because it does not enter his heart, but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods. Now Jesus was actually upheld the law of Moses.

[34:04] And so there were certain things. Now this word defilement, let's talk about that for a second. It's not a word that we necessarily use frequently, but it's the same word for uncleanness.

[34:16] This is a ceremonial thing that's typically talked about. When you break the law of Moses, when you touch a dead body, when you eat pork or some other unclean animal, you would become ceremonially unclean.

[34:31] And so that's where this word defilement comes from. But Jesus is saying, hey listen, defilement really, the most important kind of defilement doesn't come from external things.

[34:46] It comes from internal things. When you eat food, you know, that might be unclean because of your unwashed hands, it's just going in and coming out.

[34:59] It doesn't actually make you dirty. It doesn't actually defile you. some people might, some people have thought that Jesus here was actually saying, well, we don't have to worry about any of the law of Moses anymore.

[35:14] That's actually not true. There are many places where Jesus upheld the law of Moses to the Jews. Now we know that later on, under the gospel of the grace of God, the law of Moses is done away with.

[35:30] So we as Christians today are not required to follow many of these ritual things, food laws and other things that were required by the Jews. But under Jesus' ministry here, these things were still required.

[35:43] Jesus said, do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. Not one jot or tittle of this law shall pass away until all is fulfilled.

[35:54] And then he says this, whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men to do so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of God.

[36:05] It was important to Jesus that the Jews kept the law of Moses. But even under the law, even in the Old Testament, there was a difference made between the ceremonies and the heart.

[36:23] And the prophets spoke to this often. Hosea 6.6 says this. This is what Hosea said. In Isaiah chapter 1, verse 13, the prophet Isaiah says this to Israel, bring no more futile sacrifices, incense.

[36:54] It's an abomination to me. Incense was a part of the law of Moses. The new moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies, which all things were part of the law of Moses. I cannot endure both iniquity and the sacred meeting.

[37:09] If you're going to mix all of your sinfulness, all of your evil with these things, I don't want any of it. Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hates. They are a trouble to me.

[37:19] I am weary of bearing them. It says, wash yourselves, make yourselves clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil.

[37:30] Learn to do good. Seek justice. Rebuke the oppressor. Defend the fatherless. Plead for the widow. Really, it was the moral defilement of the heart that really mattered to God.

[37:45] The Jews, they were given rituals to do which were important, but they were important because they pointed to something else. those things didn't make them clean in and of themselves.

[38:01] Though, as we see today, the same was back then, is that people put so much emphasis on the rituals and neglect the more important things like justice and mercy and defending the fatherless.

[38:17] He said this in verse 20, What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts and adulteries, fornications.

[38:31] He lists all these sins. All these evil things come from within and they defile a man. Notice where the defilement comes from. From your hands.

[38:44] Is that where the sin lies in your hands? There's a quote by Spurgeon about sin. He says, some people think of sin like you're getting splashed by mud.

[38:57] Right? You're on a sidewalk and some car goes through and it splashes mud and you get dirty. By some kind of external thing, getting splashed by mud.

[39:09] That's not the source of sin. Sin comes out of our hearts. our motivations, our intentions.

[39:21] And we are defiled not by things from the outside, we defile ourselves by the decisions that we make, by the thoughts that we think and dwell on, by the motivations and intentions of our heart.

[39:37] God's heart. He mentions first evil thoughts and I think that's a great place to begin with a list of sins because that seems where most sins begin, right?

[39:49] Is with our thinking. A thought that we dwell on. A temptation that we consider longer than we should.

[40:00] we won't get into all the details of all these sins. We're familiar with almost all of them as we look at the list, aren't we?

[40:15] I think of just, just looking at the first few, adultery and fornication. I think of the amount of pain and suffering that just those things, sexual morality, have brought in the world.

[40:29] I can't imagine that there's a person here, there's a single person here who has not been drastically and even traumatically impacted by sexual morality. By a broken marriage, a broken home, pornography.

[40:48] sin causes pain and suffering and it comes from our own hearts. And so this is the problem.

[41:03] It's not ceremonies, it's not rituals, it's not things coming in on the outside of us. It's our own hearts. There's a guy in England a hundred or so years ago named G.K.

[41:15] Chesterton. Actually written a lot of books. You might have read some. There's a newspaper that was asking for input for people to write in, what's wrong with the world?

[41:27] Everybody knows there's something wrong with the world. So the newspaper, I want opinions. What's wrong with the world today? And it said, and I'm not sure if this is actually true, but it's been told over and over.

[41:44] But Chesterton simply wrote a letter in. It was a short letter. He says, Dear sirs, I am. That was it. Isn't that true?

[41:58] The problem isn't the mud. The problem isn't the things, the external things. The problem is what comes out of our hearts.

[42:13] God gave a solution, right? That even though the problem came from our hearts, what we need is we need a change of heart.

[42:23] We need our hearts changed. We don't need our hands cleaned. We need our hearts cleaned. And even though we ought to change our own hearts, shouldn't we?

[42:35] Isn't that the right thing to do? We need to change our own hearts. But God found that we were weak and unable or unwilling. Some unwilling, some more willing, but finding over and over and over again, seemingly unable to change our own hearts.

[42:58] And so he did something. He gave us a gift. He gave us the gift of himself.

[43:09] And he said, I'm willing, through the death of my son, to give you a gift. The forgiveness of sins. To take away your sin.

[43:20] To make it no longer a problem. Because your sin is causing a separation between me and you. And that is the problem.

[43:33] Is that you need me. And so God said, if you'll just trust in me, then I'll save you. I'll give you eternal life. And I will live with you.

[43:47] And I'll live in you. I'll make my home in you. In your body and even in your heart.

[44:04] In 2 Corinthians 6, it says this, verse 16, for you are the temple of the living God. God. As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk among them and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

[44:24] That's a quote from the Old Testament from Exodus in which God said, I'm going to live among them. I'm going to live in a temple made with hands right now. And now God's changed that.

[44:37] He lives in us. And I'll finish with this verse. Ephesians chapter 3, verse 14.

[44:49] Paul's praying for the Ephesian people. He's saying, for this reason, I bow my knee to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant to you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might in your inner man.

[45:05] What's that? In your heart. that you might be strengthened in your heart that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

[45:18] How are we strengthened? Because Christ is living there. That you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and the length and the depth and the height to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

[45:35] God. And that's how our hearts change. By being filled with him. And we can take advantage of that and we have an opportunity each and every day to take advantage of Christ in us the hope of glory.

[45:53] And we need to open up this book like Roy said and read it and know what God has done in us. Know the fullness of what he has accomplished for us and the fullness of his living in us.

[46:08] And as we discover those things as we grow in those things we will be changed. Not from the outside in which so many people try to do but from the inside out.

[46:20] We can be transformed in our very hearts to be like him. Amen. There's a song we'll end with this.

[46:33] Does anybody know this song Change My Heart O God? It comes from Psalm 51 which is the psalm of David when he sinned. Change my heart O God make it ever true. Does anybody know that song?

[46:44] Change my heart O God may I be like you. We'll just sing that refrain one time. Change my heart O God You know that song?

[46:55] Make it ever true. Change my heart O God May I be like you.

[47:08] Amen. There's more to that song. Maybe we'll add it to our song list someday. But what a great theme right? Change my heart O God I want to be like you.

[47:20] And we can be through his work in us. Amen. Father as we leave today this is our prayer to you. change our hearts each and every day because we need you to be more like you.

[47:34] You gave us everything that we need and we ask that you would help us work in us that we would take advantage of that every single today. Today, tomorrow, the next day on and on into eternity.

[47:46] In Jesus name Amen.