What Can Make Me Pure Within? (Matthew Sermon 71)

Introduction

The greatest gift that Almighty God can give you is Himself, that He would reveal Himself, that He would give Himself to you, He can give you no higher gift. And for myself, I could not enjoy heaven if I couldn’t have that. If I could just see the streets of gold, and if I could see the walls of the new Jerusalem, and if I could see the new heaven and new earth, but I were denied seeing the face of God, it would not be heaven to me. The greatest gift that Almighty God can give to you and me is Himself. The greatest gift that you and I can give to Him is our worship, that we would offer Him a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess His name, that our hearts would be moved with love and deep devotion to Him, and that moved out of that, we would give ourselves to Him. We can give no greater gift.

As I think about those two things, essential to both is a pure heart. If our hearts are filled with wickedness and defilement, we cannot receive the gift of Himself, we can’t. We will not treasure it, we will reject it, we have no interest in it. And from an impure heart, God can receive no worship. So if God will bless us with Himself, and if we will give to God a sacrifice of true genuine praise, there must be at the heart of that a pure heart, a heart made pure by the grace of God. In our text, we have some people trying to purify their hearts by their own efforts through tradition and legalism and through their own man-made religion. They are failing, and they are in great danger of being deceived into thinking that they are succeeding, that their worship is acceptable to God.

Some time ago, David penned these words, “Who may ascend the hill of the Lord and who may stand in His holy place?” Is that your desire? Would you like to ascend the hill of the Lord and stand in His holy place? Well, who may do that? It says he who has clean hands and a pure heart. Now, all week last week, I was concerned about clean hands. I had that little bottle of Purell with me that kills 99.99% of all germs. I was just washing all the time. I wasn’t doing it like the Scribes and Pharisees here. I wasn’t seeking to wash my hands for spiritual reasons, but I wanted my hands to be clean. Some of you are concerned about this norovirus. Wash your hands, okay? It’s very, very necessary. As the soap is breaking up the surface tension, and as stuff is getting uncovered, fungi and viruses and bacteria, it’s getting washed away, and it’s just wonderful. Clean hands. We can do that part, friends, but what about your heart? What can make me pure within? Now that’s the question, isn’t it? Frankly, Jesus said, “Make the inside of the cup and dish clean, then the outside will be clean too, because if your heart is pure, your hands will be pure too.” I want to know, what can purify my heart? I want to stand on the hill of God and see His face, I want to be in His presence forever and ever. He tells me I have to have a pure heart, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.” The implication is, “blessed are the pure in heart for they, and only they, will see God.” So I must have a pure heart. But how? In our text today it does not tell us how. Thanks be to God, there are other texts. This text tells us how not to try to purify our heart.

I. The Legalists’ Charge Against Jesus:  Ceremonial Defilement

The Scribes and Pharisees were professional legalists, who thought that they could earn their way back to God in reference to their sin by keeping the laws of God and their own extra laws that they had made up to help them keep the laws of God. They had built up traditions of the elders that they had passed on from generation and generation, and in this whole machinery of religion, they felt that they could be pure and acceptable to God and worship Him. Along with this whole way of living comes judgmentalism. It’s almost inevitable that you’re going to feel yourself superior to other people who are not doing what you’re doing, and you’re going to judge them if they don’t follow your patterns.

Part of it is, I think, just that human desire to dominate. The Scribe and Pharisees want to be in charge and say what’s what and walk through the marketplaces with flowing robes and long tassels and have people greet them and honor them and all of that. They wanted the whole thing. So they come at the Son of God, the pure and holy Son of God, with an accusation, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat.” And so they’re bringing this issue of legalism and the tradition of the elders. Jesus turns the whole thing right around, they make an attack on Him, He makes a far more significant attack on them. Why more significant? Because He’s the Son of God, He’s the judge of all the Earth, and He’s judging them. Very serious. He charges them with arrogance over the Word of God. “Why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said… But you say… ” You see?

II. Jesus’ First Charge Against the Legalists:  Arrogance Over God’s Word

They were overturning the command of God, “For God said, Honor your father and mother, and anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death. But you say, Whatever gift my parents might have otherwise received from me is a gift devoted to God.” Thus he is not to be helped by it. You don’t need to honor your father with it, “Thus you nullify the Word of God for the sake of your traditions.” But then he gets to the even more serious issue. What does God want from us? He wants worship, He wants us to honor Him, and so He gets to this matter of hypocrisy. “You hypocrites,” He said, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you. These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Oh, those words could haunt any true and righteous heart. You listen to that and you say, “Oh God, may it not be me.” And we feel that it might be, not that our souls would be condemned, that our faith in Christ is of no value, but we see that our hearts are prone to wander. We’re prone to go through the rituals and prone to come in here and act like we’re really okay with God; we’re really worshipping and singing and going through the motions, our lips are saying the right things, but our hearts are far from God, and we yearn to be delivered from that.

III. Jesus’ Deeper Charge:  Hypocrisy in Worship

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, not for a sham. We want the real thing, we want to be righteous, we want our worship to be right and so we are hungering and thirsting for a pure heart. That is the issue that’s in front of us in this text. What can make me pure within, so that my worship really would be acceptable to God, that I wouldn’t be worshipping in vain? “They worship Me in vain,” He said. I don’t want to waste my time in worship. I don’t want you coming here week after week to waste your time, and you will do so if your hearts are far from God. It doesn’t matter how many times you come, it’s actually worse, because you’re hardening your heart, you’re learning how to  give fake hypocritical worship. Don’t learn that skill. But rather that we would come and give to God a genuine heart of worship and praise. That’s the thrust of the text. But here it’s dealing with it negatively as I mentioned.

IV. True Worship Versus Traditionalism

There’s no real answers in the text, only what are not the answers. Legalism and traditionalism and hypocrisy, those are not the answers. What is the issue? The issue is heart religion. When I say heart religion, what am I talking about? The heart is the internal part of you, the part of you that thinks, the part of you that feels, the part of you that reasons, the part of you that decides, the part of you that yearns and has affections, that internal part of you, that is your heart. The Bible says the heart does all of those things. That’s what God wants, worship from the heart. The problem is that there is defilement in the heart, impurity. Our hearts are not pure naturally, and so we’re coming to the issue of defilement. The legalists said, sprinkle water on your fingers in a certain way, and then you’ll be ritually pure. Jesus says, “No, you won’t. You’re still defiled.” There’s an internal defilement. True defilement doesn’t come from outside in, true defilement comes from inside out. That’s what He’s getting at.

V. The True Defilement:  Sins of the Heart

Now, it’s interesting, in verse 10 and 11, Jesus called the crowd to Him and said, “Listen and understand, what goes into a man’s mouth does not make him unclean, but what comes out of his mouth, now that’s what makes him unclean.” This is a very significant moment in redemptive history, it really is. Mark highlights it, he underscores it. This is the moment in which Jesus declared all foods clean, very, very significant. It’s the reason that we can eat pork with a clear conscience. It’s the reason that Peter could be shown a sheet with all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and creeping things and snakes, and all kinds of stuff and be told, “Get up Peter, kill and eat,” [Acts10]. “Never, Lord,” he said, “I’ve never eaten anything impure and unclean.” And he was told, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” It’s a change. Does God have that right? Are we going to give Him that permission? It’s okay for God to make that change. The Old Covenant has gone, and the New Covenant is here, and this is part of it.

If you’ll look in Deuteronomy 14, there’ll be a list of all kinds of animals, I’ll read part of it, “Do not eat anything detestable. These are the animals you may eat… ” Are you ready now? “The ox, the sheep, the goat,  the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, mountain sheep, you may eat any animal that has a split hoof divided in two and that chews the cud.” Those are the rules, and the text continues with the birds you can eat and can’t eat, it goes through the fish that you can eat and can’t eat, all of that. That was the law, and it was given by God. But here Jesus, who is Lord of heaven and earth, decrees that all foods are clean, spiritually clean. It doesn’t mean you can’t do damage to your body if you eat certain things, whatever, that’s not it, but in terms of spirituality, you’re not at any disadvantage, whatever you eat.

It’s not what goes into a man that makes him defiled, it’s what comes out of a man that makes him defiled. That’s the issue. We’re already impure, we’re already defiled, and what comes out of us, that’s what defiles us. Jesus made this very plain to His disciples. The disciples came later to Jesus and said, “We have a problem here. Do you realize you have a problem? You have just made quite a statement.” The disciples came in verse 12 and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?” Offended would be an understatement. Jesus replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them, they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.” “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach, and then out of the body, but the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man unclean. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man unclean, but eating with unwashed hands does not make him unclean.”

Very clear, God is intensely concerned with what’s going on inside in our hearts, that’s what matters to Him. This is a consistent theme in the Scripture. You remember how God rejected Saul from being king? And He said, “I have sought for myself a man after my own heart, and he will be king instead of you.” And that man was David. David writes of his heart after God, again and again in the Psalms, it’s a major theme in the Book of Psalms. Psalm 9:1-2, “I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart. I will tell of all your wonders, I will be glad and rejoice in you, I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.” It’s heart worship.  Psalm 13:5 says, “But I trust in your unfailing love, my heart rejoices in your salvation.” Psalm 16:7, “I will praise the Lord who counsels me, even at night my heart instructs me.” There’s an internal heart instruction. God instructs the heart, the heart instructs the rest of the person. Psalm 17:3, “Though you probe my heart and examine me at night, though you test me, you will find nothing. I have resolved that my mouth will not sin.” It’s a determination from the heart not to sin. Psalm 19:14, “May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” Read my mind O Lord, read my heart, and may my heart be pleasing to you. May my mind be like an open book and may there be nothing defiled on those pages.” Heart religion. Psalm 27:8, “My heart says of you, Seek his face. Your face, Lord, I will seek. Hide not your face from me.” That’s a heart yearning after God. Or Psalm 1:39, “Search me, O God and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.” This is true worship then, it is a heart yearning after God, delighting in God inwardly, searching out God’s wisdom, keeping purity within one’s private thoughts and life, exposing one’s heart to the searching out of the holy God, seeking to make the heart and the hands clean, seeking God’s face from an internal drive. This is the heart religion of David, and this is what Christ means to work inside you and me. The kingdom of heaven comes first into human hearts, then it comes to the new heaven and new earth. So it’s in the hearts of believers, that’s where it comes. That’s what he means.

Jesus was even more concerned about this then was King David. As we’ve already mentioned, He spoke of the ultimate blessing for internal purity.  Matthew 5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” He said it isn’t enough just to refrain from adultery. On Judgment Day you’ll stand accountable if you even had a lustful thought in your heart. Jesus said it mattered what your heart was set upon, for wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be also. It means what you’re aspiring after. What do you think about? What are you driving for? Jesus said that’s a heart religion. How different is this from the professional religious actors that Jesus was rebuking here? Theirs was a sham. It was a show, it was hypocrisy, it wasn’t reality. They delighted in traditionalism and ceremonies and did them better than anyone.   They lusted after the praise of other people, they hated the Son of God, and they rejected the concept of a genuine heart relationship with God. We must have a pure heart in order to worship God rightly, but we have a problem. Scripture testifies very plainly of the nature of the human heart unaided by the grace of God. In the days of Noah, Genesis 6:5, “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.” That was Noah’s day. What about in the time of Jeremiah? Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it?”

I met a man in Haiti I will never forget, probably the rest of my life. The man with the red-knit hat, it was 95 degrees and he had a red-knit hat on. He also had an arm that was curved, like it was bent, and had an Ace bandage wrapped around it. It looked like it had been fractured and then set improperly.  I was concerned about that, I wanted to see what we could do for him. We were talking, but first and foremost, we wanted to share the gospel, so I began talking to him about his spiritual life. In the conversation I felt needed and led by the Lord to quote to him the Ten Commandments, to go through each of the Ten Commandments quickly. And he said, “I’ve kept all those.” I was surprised. He said, “I’ve never sinned.” I was even more surprised.  I’ve met many people who did not think they sinned enough to go to hell. I actually think most non-Christians are like that. They’ll acknowledge that they’ve sinned, but they just don’t think they’ve sinned enough to merit hell. This man didn’t even think he’d ever sinned. I was perplexed, so I said, “Well, you know that Jesus said, ‘It’s not enough just not to murder, if you’re even angry in your heart, you’re in danger of the fire of hell.'” “I’ve never been angry at anyone.” I was even more shocked. So I said, “Alright, we gotta ratchet it up on this guy.” I said, “If you’ve even looked at a woman lustfully, you’ve committed adultery in your heart.” “I’ve never done that.” This guy was in his 50s. So I went to the one that got the Apostle Paul, coveting[Romans chapter 7]. “Have you ever yearned for something that wasn’t yours and wish you had it?” “Never. Never done it.” I said, “Then Jesus can do nothing for you.”

It’s not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. That’s the nature of the deceit. It doesn’t know that it’s desperately sick. It thinks it’s okay or needs a little help. Well it doesn’t. It’s a heart of stone, there’s no life in it. It’s dead. You must have a heart transplant, and only God can do that. I asked the man if he thought I was a Haitian man. He said, “No.” I said, “What if I really believe that I’m Haitian?” He said, “You’re still not.” I said, “Do you think it would help me if I looked in the mirror?” He said, “Yes.” And I held up the Bible and I said, “Here’s your mirror. There is no one righteous, not even one. No one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become wicked, worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one. Look at yourself in the mirror.”

Isn’t it amazing how dark a heart can be before God works in them? Now, I don’t know what will happen to him. There was nothing more I could do. The heart is dark, it is wicked and it’s true still today. Not just in Noah’s day, not just in Jeremiah’s day, not just in the apostle Paul’s day. He said their hearts are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God, and even today.  Jesus said that true defilement are sins of the heart. Look what He says, “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart and these are what make a man unclean. For out of the heart come evil thoughts: Murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. That comes from the heart. And these are what make a man unclean, but eating with unwashed hands does not make him unclean.”

VI. The Only Remedy:  Salvation by Grace

That’s God’s assessment. What is the remedy? The only remedy there is, is salvation by grace. God, Christ, the Great Physician has given His grim diagnosis of our natural state apart from Him, of our hearts apart from the work of God’s grace. Our hearts are defiled and polluted. A river of vileness comes naturally from them. How can the heart be made clean? How can I purify my heart?  The answer as I mentioned, is not found in the text. It’s not religiosity, thinking that man-made forms of worship and service to God make one righteous before God. It’s not traditionalism, thinking that keeping man-made traditions in the pattern of the elders will make us pure before God. It is not legalism, thinking that obeying laws, even God’s laws, will make us righteous in God’s sight. It cannot be.

No, no, and no. Even God’s holy law cannot clean up a defiled heart. It just can expose it for what it really is. In John Bunyan’s classic, Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian is at Interpreter’s house, learning about the Christian life, and there’s these little dramas that are acted out that help him understand spiritual truth. In one, Interpreter showed him a very large living room full of dust because it had never been swept. Christian saw this for a while and then Interpreter called for a man to come sweep up the room. And as he began to sweep it up, clouds, choking clouds of dust were stirred up so bad that Christian began to choke on it and couldn’t breathe. Then Interpreter spoke to a young woman who stood nearby and said, “Bring here the water and sprinkle the room.” And when she did, after sprinkling the room with water, the room was quickly cleaned with pleasure.

Christian asked, “What is the meaning of this?” Interpreter answered, “The living room is the heart of a man that was never sanctified by the sweet grace of the gospel. The dust is original sin and inward corruptions that have defiled the whole man. The man that came and swept up the room at first is the law of God, but the woman that came and sprinkled the water is the gospel. Now just as you saw that as soon as the man began to sweep, the dust flew about the room so much that the room could never be cleaned and you began to choke because of it, this is to prove to you that the law, instead of cleansing the heart from sin by its power actually revives sin and makes it even stronger in the soul, even as it uncovers sin and forbids it. For the law has no power to kill sin, only to expose it and stir it up. Just as you saw the young woman sprinkle the room with water after which it was cleaned with pleasure, this is to show you that when the gospel comes with its sweet and precious influences into the heart, then I say, even as you saw the young woman sweep up the dust by sprinkling the floor with water, so is sin conquered and subdued and the soul made clean through faith, and as a result, fit for the King of Glory to inhabit.

The law cannot clean up the heart, even God’s holy law. There’s nothing wrong with the law, but there’s something wrong with the heart. All the law does is expose the wickedness. Only the grace of God in the gospel can clean up and purify the heart. So Jesus said, “Leave these blind guides.” Look at verse 12-14. Don’t you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this? He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them, they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” What glorious good news. Some day every plant that God has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. All false teachers, false apostles, cult leaders, false religious systems will someday be weeded out of this world, and in the new Heaven and new Earth, they will not be. They’ll be gone forever.

So leave these blind guides. If a blind leads the blind, both will fall into a pit. I was reading about a huge pit in Maui in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park in Maui. It’s a terrifying volcanic pit called The Devil’s Throat. It’s 165 feet deep and 150 feet across. What’s interesting about it, though, is that there’s no fence around it, and there’s about a 50-foot path right to the edge. So, they advise that you don’t go there at twilight or later, and that you don’t let your kids run ahead of you on the path while you walk along slowly behind them. They say that right around the edge there’s crumbly rock with fissures in it that you can easily trip on and all that. I’m thinking, I would put a fence up if I were the National Park Service, but there’s no fence there. Imagine a blind guide of a school of the blind going to listen to the wind blow in The Devil’s Throat. They’ll fall into the pit.

But the danger of these Scribes and Pharisees is greater than that. The pit they fall in can take your physical life and nothing more. These folks can lead you to hell, they’re blind guides. Traditionalism, legalism, hypocrisy. These kinds of things do not purify the heart, they are not the answer. The only answer then is the blood of Christ, the grace of God in Christ. Listen to Titus 3:3-7, “At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasure.” That’s an impure heart. “We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God, our Savior, appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done but because of His mercy….He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.” That’s how a defiled heart gets clean.

The pouring out of the Holy Spirit, the blood of Jesus applied, the righteousness of Christ given as a gift, imputed freely as a gift. That’s how a defiled heart is made pure.

VII. Application

What application do we take from this? Do you care whether your worship is acceptable to God or not? Does it matter? Does it matter whether you will spend eternity in the presence of worshippers giving praise and glory and honor to the eternal and Almighty God? Does that matter to you? I don’t know your heart condition, all of you. It may be that I’m speaking to some who have never been born again. You are not ready to face judgement, if that’s the case, you’re not ready. You must have the heart of stone removed and you must have a heart of flesh put in by God. You must have a defiled heart purified by the grace of God. But thanks be to God, it’s available right now.  Simply trust in Jesus, His blood shed on the cross is sufficient for you. Look to Him and trust in Him for the purification of your heart. The Scripture says, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.” Now to you who are saved, let me give you a word of assurance and comfort because I spoke a moment ago about our hearts being far from God, and we feel that. But let me say something to you, if you have been justified by faith, your heart is pure in God’s sight. Isn’t that wonderful?

After washing His disciples’ feet, or while washing his feet, Peter said, “Lord what are you doing?  Are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus said, “You don’t understand now, later you’ll understand.”  Jesus says, “Can I continue?” Peter said, “No Lord, You will never wash my feet into eternity.” Jesus said, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me.” Do you hear that? If He doesn’t clean your heart, you will not spend eternity with Him. Well, Peter’s not done yet. Peter’s kind of an arguer, have you noticed, back and forth? He said, “Then Lord, not just my feet, but my hands and my head as well.” The whole thing, right? But Jesus will not let Peter get the last word. He said, “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet, his whole body is clean. And you are clean because of the word I have spoken to you.” Oh, what an incredible word that is, that the Creator and Redeemer and Judge of all the Earth can look at you and call you clean.

For such is what you are, by hearing and believing the Word of God. Your heart is clean. It has been clean from the first moment you believed, and it will be clean on into eternity. But yet our hearts can still drift from God, can’t they? We can get distracted by the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth. We can get distracted by the pleasures of this world. We have more ways to distract our hearts than any generation that has ever lived. We are easily distracted from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. I would urge you to weed those distractions out of your life and get back to a pure devotion, so that you don’t walk in here feeling like a hypocrite, like you have lived far from God all week long and now you’re coming to worship Him with your lips while your heart is far from Him. Don’t be like that. Repent from those things that are distracting you from a pure devotion to Christ and give yourself to Him fully. Let Him work in you that weeding process, that purifying process, and next week when you come here on Sunday morning, don’t worship with your lips only, but worship with the heart that’s been made clean by the grace of Christ.

These are only preliminary, unedited outlines and may differ from Andy’s final message.

Three thousand years ago, King David made a profound statement of what God expects from those who will come to worship Him:

Psalm 24:3-4  Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place?  ⁴ He who has clean hands and a pure heart

Clean hands and an pure heart??  How can we get those?

It’s a lot easier to clean then hands than it is to purify the heart

Some surgeons set a timer and wash their hands for a full ten minutes as they begin their day, and five minutes after each patient.  A surgical website describes the process of correct handwashing for average people who aren’t going to be performing surgery:

Start with soap and running water at a comfortable temperature. (Antimicrobial soaps are unnecessary and they may help spawn bacteria resistant to antibiotics.) As soon as the soap hits your skin, islands of grease will begin to dissolve, exposing dormant viruses and living bacteria. E. coli and other intestinal transients will get caught up in the tide of soapy water during the first five seconds of the wash. Plain soap tears off the outer coating of flu viruses, rendering them inert. Hand-washing also flushes away yeast and other fungi, and the grapelike clusters of staph will soon slide away as well. Keep rubbing your soapy hands—in glee, if you like, at this microbial rout—for at least 15 seconds before rinsing. Admittedly, that is likely to seem like a long time. To be sure you don’t give up too soon, hygienists recommend washing for as long as it takes to sing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

If you do all this, you will wipe out as much as 95 percent of the organisms that were there before you picked up the soap

Of course, bacteria dwelling below the surface of the skin will re-emerge within some minutes from hair follicles, sweat glands, fingernails and folds of skin.  The battle for truly clean hands is never ending.

BUT what can mash away our sin?  What can make us pure within?  What can actually purify the wickedness from our hearts?  Washing hands can NEVER do this!

James 4:8  Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

BUT HOW?  Matthew 15 tells us how NOT to purify the heart… religious rituals, ceremonies, man-made rules and regulations may make your hands clean, but they do nothing to purify the heart.  In fact, the answer to this deep question is not even found in our text today… but scripture tells us plainly how the human heart can be made pure

I. The Legalists’ Charge Against Jesus: Ceremonial Defilement

A. The Pharisees and Scribes:  Professional Legalists

B. Their Highest Value:  Conformity to Legal Tradition

C. Their Accusation of Christ:  Ceremonial Defilement

II. Jesus’ First Charge Against the Legalists:  Arrogance Over God’s Word

A. A Serious Attack on the Word of God

B. Fundamental Issue:  Sufficiency and Clarity of Scripture

C. Christ Perfectly Upholds the Law:  Honor Your Father and Mother

III. Jesus’ Deeper Charge:  Hypocrisy in Worship

A. Isaiah’s Prophecy:  Exposing an Ancient Problem Still With Us Today

B. Hypocrisy:  Acting Righteous When You’re Not

C. Hypocrisy in Worship:  Acting Reverent When You’re Not

IV. True Worship Versus Traditionalism

A. What Is Traditionalism?

B. What Is True Worship?

V. The True Defilement:  Sins of the Heart

Matthew 15:10-11  Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand.  ¹¹ What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean.'”

A. Christ’s Clear Teaching:  True Defilement Comes from Within, Not from Outside

1. Very significant:  Declared all foods clean

a. The Jews had a whole list of foods they couldn’t eat

Leviticus 20:25  “‘You must therefore make a distinction between clean and unclean animals and between unclean and clean birds. Do not defile yourselves by any animal or bird or anything that moves along the ground– those which I have set apart as unclean for you.

b. So also most man-made religions have food regulations

c. But here, Jesus declared ALL FOODS clean

Mark 7:19  (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”)

d. The time for ceremonial food, clean and unclean was over

2. True issue:  we are ALREADY defiled by what comes OUT of our hearts

3. Jesus made this very plain to His disciples

Matthew 15:12-20  Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”  ¹³ He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.  ¹⁴ Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”  ¹⁵ Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.”  ¹⁶ “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them.  ¹⁷ “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body?  ¹⁸ But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’  ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.  ²⁰ These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.'”

B. God’s Central Concern:  The Human Heart

1. Prime example:  the search for a true king for Israel

2. Saul was NOT the man

1 Samuel 13:14  the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart

3. Neither were David’s older brothers

1 Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

4. David’s heart was FIXED on a genuine relationship with God

Psalm 9:1-2  I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders.  ² I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

Psalm 13:5  But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.

Psalm 16:7   I will praise the LORD, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.

Psalm 17:3  Though you probe my heart and examine me at night, though you test me, you will find nothing; I have resolved that my mouth will not sin.

Psalm 19:14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer. 

Psalm 24:3-4  Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place?  ⁴ He who has clean hands and a pure heart

Psalm 27:8  My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek.

Psalm 139:23-24  Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  ²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

A heart after God… delighting in God inwardly, searching out God’s wisdom, keeping purity within one’s private thoughts and life, exposing his heart to the searching out the holy God, seeking to make the heart AND the hands clean, seeking God’s face from an internal DRIVE… this is the HEART religion King David taught

5. Jesus was EVEN MORE this way than David

a. Jesus spoke the ultimate blessing for INTERNAL PURITY

Matthew 5:8  Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

b. He said it wasn’t enough just to refrain from adultery… judgment day will probe the motives of the HEART

Matthew 5:28  But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

c. Jesus said it mattered what your HEART was set upon

Matthew 6:21  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

6. How different is this from the PROFESSIONAL RELIGIOUS ACTORS that Jesus was rebuking here

a. They delighted in traditionalism and ceremonies

b. They lusted after the praise of other people

c. They HATED the Son of God

d. AND rejected the concept of a genuine heart relationship with God

C. God’s Assessment of the Natural Heart

1. In the time of Noah

Genesis 6:5  The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.

2. In the time of Jeremiah

^ESV Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

3. In the time of Paul

Ephesians 4:17-19  So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.  ¹⁸ They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.  ¹⁹ Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.

4. In our time

2 Timothy 3:1-5  But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.  ² People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,  ³ without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,  ⁴ treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God–  ⁵ having a form of godliness but denying its power.

D. The True Defilement:  Sins of the Heart

1. Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks

2. Jesus lists HEART sins… issues ALREADY LURKING in the heart

3. OUT OF the Heart COME a river of defilements

Vs. 17-20  “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body?  ¹⁸ But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’  ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.  ²⁰ These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.'”

4. The defiled human heart is the source of all the evils on this planet

5. That is what makes us filthy in God’s sight

VI. The Only Remedy:  Salvation by Grace

Illus.  in 1991.  During the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi army dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil from a loading dock in Kuwait into the Persian gulf.  They also dumped contents of several supertankers into the gulf.  Apparently their goal was to hinder a U.S. Marine amphibious landing.  The Gulf War oil spill is regarded as the worst oil spill in history.  It caused considerable damage to wildlife in the Persian Gulf. Estimates on the volume spilled range from 42 to 462 million gallons; the slick reached a maximum size of 100 by 40 miles and was 4 inches thick

It is still adversely affecting life all along the Persian Gulf shores.  The cleanup efforts continue, but it may take decades before the full effects have been removed

I have seen pictures of gooey, slick black birds suffocated by the crude oil… or unable to fly

Even more striking are the pictures of the cleanup efforts… white-suited experts with gas masks on, their legs fouled by mucking around for hours on the sludge-covered rocks of the shoreline, using high-pressured hot water hoses to hose off one shiny slick rock after another

A disgusting picture of the outward effects of human sin

The huge oil slick was easily visible from outer space… it made me wonder what our hearts look like spiritual from God

Furthermore… I’ve seen footage of an oil covered cormorant, a large sea bird, trying to clean itself off

It made me think of human efforts to CLEAN OURSELVES UP from the defilements of our own hearts

A. Central Question of Our Existence:  How Can I Purify My Heart?

1. Answer not found in our text… not directly, anyway

2. False answers are exposed and rebuked… the true answer is found elsewhere

B. False “Remedies” for Heart Defilement:  Religion, Tradition, Legalism

Religiosity:  thinking that man-made forms of worship and service to God make one righteous before God

Traditionalism:  thinking that keeping man-made traditions precisely in the pattern taught by ancestors is required in order to be righteous before God

Legalism:  thinking that obeying laws, rules and regulations will make you righteous before God

1. The Pharisees and Scribes tried to cover their true defilement with outward garments of religion, tradition, legalism

2. They wove elaborate garments of fake righteousness that fooled people but did not fool God

3. Man-made rules and regulations are an enticing counterfeit, and every religion in the world employs it

a. Buddhists who make costly pilgrimages to shrines in Tibet do so at great cost and feel very holy and righteous when they have achieved it

b. Hindus who do their daily puja, their little acts of religion at the shrines of their millions of gods feel good about themselves when they do it

c. Muslims who pray five times a day and keep the fast of Ramadan feel good about themselves… those who follow even stricter rules and regulations laid down by this mullah or that ayatollah feel far more righteous than the other Muslims who don’t

d. Medieval Catholics followed an elaborate system of penances and pilgrimages in order to wash away their guilty consciences

e. Jesus exposes them all as having NO BENEFIT for cleansing the defiled heart

C. Even God’s Holy Law Cannot Purify the Sinful Heart

1. In fact, even the holy and pure law of God had NO POWER WHATSOEVER to cleanse a defiled heart

John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress:  Christian at Interpreter’s house, being shown things that would help him understand the Christian life

Interpreter showed him a very large living room, full of dust because it had never been swept.  After Christian saw this for a while, Interpreter called for a man to come sweep the room;  as he began to sweep, the dust flew about so abundantly that Christian began to choke on it.  Then Interpreter spoke to a young woman that stood nearby and said “Bring here the water and sprinkle the room.  And when she did this, the room was easily swept clean with pleasure.

Christian asked, “What is the meaning of this?”

Interpreter answered:  “The living room is the heart of a man that was never sanctified by the sweet Grace of the gospel.  The dust is his original sin and inward corruptions that have defiled the whole man.  The man that came and swept up the room at first is the Law of God;  but the woman that brought the water and sprinkled it is the gospel.  Now just as you saw that, as soon as the man began to sweep, the dust flew about the room so much that the room could never be cleaned and you began to choke because of it, this is to prove to you that the Law, instead of cleansing the heart from sin by its power, actually revives sin and makes it even stronger in the soul, even as it uncovers sin and forbids it.  For the Law has no power to kill sin, only to expose it and stir it up.

Again, just as you saw the young woman sprinkle the room with water, after which it was cleaned with pleasure, this is to show you that, when the Gospel comes with its sweet and precious influences into the heart, then I say, even as you saw the young woman sweep up the dust by sprinkling the floor with water, so is sin conquered and subdued and the soul made clean through faith, and as a result fit for the King of Glory to inhabit.”

So… I agree with Bunyan… even the holy and pure law of God has no power to purify the defiled heart of a man, woman or child

Romans 3:20  Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

Romans 8:3  For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son

Galatians 3:10-11  All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”  ¹¹ Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.”

Galatians 3:21  For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.

D. Leaving the Blind Guides

Matthew 15:12-14  Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”  ¹³ He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.  ¹⁴ Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”

1. The disciples were afraid of the Pharisees’ and Scribes reactions

2. Jesus had deeply offended them (the Greek word is like scandalized)

3. Every system of religiosity, traditionalism and legalism has its intimidating leaders who scare you into a lifestyle of judgmentalism and fear

4. Jesus boldly broke with them and called them blind guides… the danger of the blind leading the blind is both will fall into a pit

Illus.  Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Maui, there is a terrifying volcanic pit crater called the Devil’s Throat.  It is 165 feet deep and 150 feet in diameter.  It is a short, level, 50 foot walk from the trail.  The website had some striking warnings:

§  If you have children do not under any conditions allow them to run or walk ahead of you. Always keep them right next to you. There is a 165 foot drop at the end of the trail.

§  Most of the trail is easy walking, but as you near Devil’s Throat the trail is a bit more broken and there are small fissures in the ground. Walk carefully through this area.

§  Under no conditions should you do this trail if it is dark, or if vision is obscured due to fog or other conditions.

§  Please note there is absolutely zero protection from falling into the pit crater and there is absolutely NO indication that the pit crater is ahead of you until you are within a few feet of it. Keep your eyes ahead of you on the path at all times until you see the pit crater. You can not survive the 165 foot fall into the crater.

Would you go for a nighttime walk to see this crater?

Imagine a blind guide leading a tour of blind people to hear the sounds of the wind in the crater.

I think it’s aptly named “The Devil’s Throat”… because that’s spiritually where false teachers like the Pharisees lead their unwitting disciples:

Matthew 23:15-16   “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.  ¹⁶ “Woe to you, blind guides!

5. Thankfully, Jesus also made a beautiful promise

Vs. 17  “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.

a. There will come a day when all false religions, all traditionalism, all legalism and everyone who has taught them will be pulled up by the roots

b. By the roots means they will never return again!!

c. The time for that is judgment day, when the blind guides, the false prophets, the false teachers, the mullahs and ayatollahs and imams and pagan priests cult leaders and

E. The Only True Remedy:  Salvation by Grace

Titus 3:3-7  At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.  ⁴ But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared,  ⁵ he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,  ⁶ whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior,  ⁷ so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

Hebrews 10:19-22  Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus,  ²⁰ by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body,  ²¹ and since we have a great priest over the house of God,  ²² let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

Acts 15:9 He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.

1. God’s grace alone has the power to cleanse and transform the defiled human heart

2. Christ’s blood alone can cover our sin… not the filthy robe of our efforts through religious rules and regulations

3. God’s power can purify even the most defiled heart

4. God’s power alone can transform the heart and heal it from evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony and slander

5. We do those things because we’re enslaved to them

6. God’s grace alone has the power to break that enslavement and make us new

VII. Application

A. Stop Trusting in Religion, Tradition, and Legalism

1. We are constantly tempted to think of ourselves as better or worse based on how we’re doing compared to a set of do’s and don’ts

2. If we’re doing well, we tend to become arrogant; if poorly we tend to become depressed

3. If we do well long enough, we can become judgmental of others

B. Understand Grace Completely

1. Grace is a mighty transforming power

2. It is a mighty cleanser

3. It is not a free ride to do as much evil as you want

4. It is a teacher… let it teach you how to say NO to ungodliness

Titus 2:11-14  For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.  ¹² It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age,  ¹³ while we wait for the blessed hope– the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,  ¹⁴ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

C. Resist the Temptation to Judge Others