THE RULE OF GOD CHANGES HEARTS, NOT JUST BEHAVIOR
Matthew 15: 1-20
INTRODUCTION
The first year that Jane and I were married we couldn’t afford our own
car and so we borrowed my parents old car. One cold December morning I
went out to leave for work and the car wouldn’t start. I was able to get
a ride to work that day and when I got home I set out to discover why
the car wouldn’t start. My procedure was simple. I didn’t know anything
about cars and so I called my friends and described what happened and
asked them what they thought the trouble was. After several calls I concluded
that the car needed a new starter. So, I borrowed some tools from a neighbor,
crawled under the car and took off the starter. I then took it to an auto
supply store and traded it in for a rebuilt starter that cost about $70.00.
I went home, put it on and then climbed in the car to start it. The same
thing happened as had happened that morning. The car didn’t start. Needless
to say, I was frustrated. I can’t remember whom I called but I did call
someone and they suggested that I check the battery cables and make sure
the poles and clamps were clean. I cleaned the poles and cables with some
steel wool, turned the key and the car fired right up. I learned a very
valuable lesson that day. You can’t fix something unless you correctly
identify the problem. An accurate diagnosis is absolutely necessary for
successful treatment. You can do many things to a car, pour a lot of money
into it and never fix the trouble because you never correctly identified
the source of the difficulty. The same is true for human beings. You can
spend much time, money and energy trying to fix yourself or someone else
and never succeed simply because you have misdiagnosed the problem.
Human beings have lots of problems. The evidence that there is something
wrong within the human race is overwhelming both as we see it expressed
globally and as we experience it personally. We also live in a world that
teems with explanations of our trouble and with solutions for it. Many
of the solutions are religious, others are medical or chemical, others
mystical, and others are physical. Osama bin Laden has a solution to the
human condition. His solution is to destroy western civilization and to
forcibly establish his brand of Islamic religion on the entire world.
The folks that run the psychiatric clinic next to my office have a number
of solutions for the problems associated with being human. The people
over at "Earth Song" bookstore have explanations of the human
problem and proposed solutions. Especially here in the U.S. we are inundated
with descriptions of our problem and answers to them.
In Matthew 15, a group of religious teachers confront Jesus with their
solution to the human condition and condemn him for not embracing their
answer. Jesus reacts violently to their proposed response to the human
problem. He is so strong in his response because their solution ignores
him and the work God is doing in and through him. While this passage is
dealing with a specific erroneous answer to the human problem, what Jesus
does here can help us to evaluate the innumerable false solutions that
we encounter. I am convinced that we all desperately need to hear what
Jesus is saying here. We all have ideas about what is the source of the
trouble in our lives and we all have ideas about how to fix these troubles.
Jesus wants you to apply the only true solution to your real problem,
not a false solution to an imaginary problem.
MAIN POINT
God is violently opposed to every human solution that ignores Christ
because…
I. Human solutions will make you a hypocrite and dishonor God (vv.
1-9)
A delegation of religious leaders, Pharisees and teachers of the law,
has come from Jerusalem for the express purpose of evaluating Jesus. Word
has reached the center of power within the Jewish religious system in
Jerusalem about the miracle-working rabbi named Jesus. These men are like
government inspectors. They are there to find problems; they are not there
to encourage Jesus in his work. It doesn’t take them long to spot a problem.
The first time they see Jesus’ disciples eat a meal they know that Jesus
is a false teacher. They immediately come to Jesus and want to know why
his disciples don’t obey the rules that the religious leaders have established
for being a good Jew. They observed that the disciples ate their meal
without first pouring water over their hands. They are not concerned about
hygiene but about being accepted by God. If you’ll look down at v. 11
you’ll see the reason they are so uptight about the disciples not washing
their hands. They believe that to not wash your hands before eating makes
you unclean, unfit for fellowship with God or with his people.
How did they come to this conclusion? In the book of Leviticus there
are chapters full of instructions about various ways that people can be
made unclean. Eating certain animals will make you unclean. Touching the
carcasses of certain animals will make you unclean. Certain kinds of skin
diseases will make you unclean. Bodily emissions of all kinds will make
you unclean. Being touched by people who are unclean will make you unclean.
However, there is no command in the OT that requires a ritual hand washing
before you can eat. The religious leaders of Israel made up this regulation
just to be safe. There were so many ways to become unclean and then there
was this huge hassle you had to go through in order to become clean again.
So they made the rule that if you simply washed your hands before meals
you could be sure that you were clean and wouldn’t have to go through
all the hassle of cleansing required in God’s law. Let me emphasize. The
religious teachers taught that if you didn’t wash your hands before eating
you were automatically unclean. There was no way you could be sure you
had not come in contact with an unclean person and so when you ate your
food, you made it unclean and then the food went into you and made you
unclean. They are accusing Jesus of promoting wickedness in Israel. The
fact that his disciples ignore this tradition proves that he is a false
teacher.
Look at how Jesus reacts to their accusation. First, he doesn’t deny
that his disciples are breaking their traditions. However, he turns the
table on them. He asks them why they break God’s laws for the sake of
their tradition? Then he gives them an example of how they do this. He
quotes the fifth commandment, "Honor your father and mother"
and another statement from the book of Leviticus that says, "Anyone
who speaks evil of his mother or father shall be put to death." In
other words, not honoring your parents will condemn you to death. That’s
how strongly God feels about children honoring their parents. The question
that arises is what does it mean to honor your parents? Does it include
providing for your parents in their old age? The religious leaders would
say, "Yes you should provide for your parents unless you’ve
promised to give the things that your parents could be helped by to God."
For example, let’s say your parents have a cow that they get milk from
every day and it dies. You own two milk cows that not only provide for
your family but enable you to sell milk every day for added income. When
your dad stops by and tells you about his cow dying you can say, "Dad,
you know I’d like to help you out but I’ve promised to give our second
cow to God, to the temple and you know we need our other cow for our family
so I can’t help you out. I wish I could but I can’t break my vow."
Making a vow like that to God doesn’t mean you have to give the cow immediately.
You can keep using it for a long time before you give it to God. In addition,
who eventually gets the cow? The religious teachers eventually get the
cow.
Why would the religious teachers break God’s clear command to honor parents
by giving people a way to avoid caring for their parents? The simple answer
is greed. The rules that the religious leaders make never confront what’s
really wrong with people, greedy hearts. Instead they make it possible
for people to act religious and feel they are safe as far as God is concerned
while actually breaking God’s laws. The leaders and the people love money,
not God and so they make up rules to protect money, not parents. The traditions
of the elders merely serve as cover for people to fulfill the desires
of their hearts while at the same time appearing righteous. Jesus quotes
from the prophet Isaiah and says they are the living example of what Isaiah
was talking about 500 years prior to this event. The problem with people
is that we love to maintain the image of respectability and goodness but
our hearts have no interest in God or God’s ways. We love many things
but we don’t love God. We want others to think we love the good, that
we love God and so we make up rules that we can keep without ever confronting
what’s really wrong with us, our hearts. God’s commands confront us at
the level of what we love while the rules of men only give us cover so
we can pursue what we really love. Look in vv. 8-9. Your pious language
and professions of wanting God may deceive people, but God is not deceived.
When we follow the rules of men under the guise of following God, our
pretended worship is completely useless and empty.
Jesus isn’t saying that your behavior doesn’t matter. He is saying that
behavior is hypocrisy if it is not motivated by a heart that is in love
with God and delights in obedience to God’s commands. Pious, religious
behavior is often a cover-up for evil. Religious language and behavior
are often used by us not to get God, but to get what we really love, the
approval of people. Eugene Peterson in his book "Under the Unpredictable
Plant" says this, "Deception is nowhere more common than in
religion…. The commonest forms of devil-inspired worship do not take place
furtively at black masses with decapitated cats but flourish under the
bright lights of acclaim and glory, in a swirl of organ music."
There isn’t a person in this room that should not be trembling at these
words from Jesus. We are religious people. The question we each must face
is, am I honoring God from a heart that loves God above all or am I using
religion as cover so I can appear to others righteous and still get what
I really want? Am I obeying God’s word or am I following the rules of
men and disobeying the law of God?
God is violently opposed to every human solution that ignores Christ
because
- Human solutions will make you a hypocrite and dishonor God
- And because…
II. Human solutions always misunderstand and misrepresent God’s word
(vv. 10-12)
Jesus turns away from talking to the religious inspectors and urges the
crowd to come closer. Then in a loud voice he says to the crowd while
the religious regulators glare at him. "Listen and understand. 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’". This statement by
Jesus sends the religious committee from Jerusalem into a fit of rage.
They are furious and absolutely convinced that Jesus is the worst of all
possible human beings. He is deliberately contradicting what is clearly
taught in the OT law. There are dozens of places where Moses clearly says
that what you put into your mouth will make you unclean. Jesus cannot
possibly be from God if he is going to say such scandalous things. Notice
that the disciples ask Jesus if he is aware of how offensive he is being
to these religious authorities. There is more than a little hesitancy
in their questioning. These men from Jerusalem are not just local, backwoods
preachers. These men are from the center of Jewish religious teaching
and power. The disciples have been taught their entire life that the teachers
in Jerusalem are the defenders of the true faith. How can they be so upset
with Jesus if Jesus is God’s Messiah? Something is out of whack.
There are probably not many sitting in this room that feel the weight
of what Jesus says in v. 11. There really are dozens of passages in the
OT that say that eating or touching unclean objects will make you unclean.
Jesus appears to be contradicting the OT. What Jesus is doing here is
showing that he is God and that he is the fulfiller and the fulfillment
of everything written in the OT. Jesus is claiming what he said earlier
in Matthew 5:17, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the OT.
I did not come to abolish it but to fulfill it." The religious leaders
of Jesus’ day were wrong in their diagnosis of the human problem and their
proposed solution because they ignored Christ in their reading of the
OT. Jesus, at another time said to the religious leaders in Jerusalem,
"You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them
you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about
me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life…. If you believed Moses
you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe
what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?" Christ is
the key to understanding the Bible. There isn’t a verse in here that doesn’t
in some way reveal something about who he is or what he does for his people.
The OT laws and regulations were never intended to give people a way
to make themselves acceptable to God. They were given to display God’s
absolute, uncompromising holiness, man’s absolute impotence to obey God
and Christ’s sufficiency as a Savior for sinners. This is not simply a
book about how to be a better person or have a better marriage or raise
better kids or be mentally healthy. This book isn’t for the purpose of
telling you how to "win friends and influence people". It is
a book about one thing, God’s work in and through Christ to save a people
for himself. If you do not read the Bible with that firmly in mind, you
will read it wrong.
God is violently opposed to every human solution that ignores Christ
because
- Human solutions will make you a hypocrite and dishonor God
- Human solutions always misunderstand and misrepresent God’s word
- And because…
III. Human solutions will take you to hell (vv. 12-14)
Jesus’ response to the disciple’s question is abrupt and firm. "Leave
them", he commands. In other words, ignore them and what they say.
Have nothing to do with them. Don’t waste your breath talking with them.
Then he gives two reasons as to why they should have nothing to do with
these men or their teachings. First he says that his heavenly Father has
not planted them and so they are going to be rooted up. He is clearly
referring to the parable he taught in Matthew 13: 24-30. The Pharisees
and teachers of the law are among the weeds that Satan has planted in
God’s world. When all the wheat is ripe, then God is going to send his
angels into the world to gather the wheat into God’s barn and burn the
weeds up in unquenchable fire. You should ignore these people because
they do not belong to God but are destined for hell. Therefore what they
teach has its origins in hell. Satan is the leader of those whom God has
not planted and so to follow them is to align yourself with Satan.
The second reason he says to ignore them is that they are blind guides.
They do consider themselves teachers of God and many other people believe
them to be so as well. However, they are willfully blind to the truth
that is blazing right in front of their face in the Scriptures and in
the person of Jesus. The people that follow them are blind as well. Again,
they are willfully blind. They don’t want to see. They prefer their explanations
of reality to God’s explanations of reality. When blind people follow
blind people only one thing can happen, disaster. These blind teachers
are going to lead their blind followers into the pit of hell. So if you
want to escape their disaster, then you must ignore these blind teachers
and follow those teachers that God has planted. Who are they? Those who
have discovered that Jesus is a treasure chest of holy joy and who give
themselves to showing off his greatness by their lives and their words;
these are the men and women whom God has planted. These are the guides
who see and who the seeing follow.
These verses are so un-American. The people who know God and follow Christ
and escape hell do so because God planted them. There isn’t anyone going
to heaven because of his or her own innate intelligence or goodness. Those
who see Christ as a great Savior, do so by the grace of God. They are
the only ones who are going to escape hell. All who disagree with them
are followers of Satan and are destined for hell. This is the plain language
of Jesus.
God is violently opposed to every human solution that ignores Christ
because
- Human solutions will make you a hypocrite
- Human solutions always misunderstand and misrepresent God’s word
- Human solutions will take you to hell
- And because…
IV. Human solutions will never cure you (vv. 15-20)
Peter asks Jesus to explain the parable. He and the other disciples are
still wrestling with Jesus’ wholesale rejection of the religious teacher’s
understanding of the OT. "Explain to us how it is that eating unclean
food, doesn’t make you unclean? What are you talking about?" Jesus
for his part expresses surprise that these men, who have been with him
so long, still do not get it. Jesus’ rebuke shows once again that the
disciples were not chosen because of some natural goodness on their part.
God didn’t look over the world and say, "Now here are some good people.
They are not like those hypocritical Pharisees. I’ll choose them to be
my Son’s followers." They are disciples because Jesus chose them.
They are as morally and spiritually bankrupt as the religious teachers
except for the fact that God has had mercy upon them.
Jesus in his answer goes to the heart of the human problem, which is
the heart. The reason that the religious teachers are wrong in their prescription
for spiritual health is because they have not correctly diagnosed the
disease. Those who propose a solution to the human dilemma that does not
keep Christ at the center do so because they do not think human beings
are in that bad of shape. Most people think that all we need is some correct
thinking or correct behaving or correct religious ritual and then we’ll
be fine. This is because most people do not think of themselves or of
others as truly evil. But Jesus makes quite clear in these verses that
humans do evil because the human heart is evil.
We don’t do evil because we were mistreated as children or have bad genes
or bad parents. The rage that burns in your heart is not there because
of what someone else did to you. It is there because someone kept you
from getting what you want. It is there because you don’t believe Christ
is a greater treasure than getting what you want. You’re sadness that
is preventing you from loving your spouse is not caused by an abusive
father. You are sad because you’re not getting what you want or because
the love of God in Christ isn’t good enough for you. We do evil because
we love to do evil. Our biggest problem is that we love evil and God hates
evil. Because God is perfectly just he cannot permit evil to exist in
his world and so he intends to destroy all who do evil. Unless you understand
that your biggest problem is your sin and God’s hatred of you because
of your sin, you will never figure out what life is about. You are going
to be a blind person, following one blind teacher after another into destruction.
You can fix a lot of things in your life. You can live a life that will
win the approval of the majority of people in the world and yet you will
still be a blind person following blind teachers into a pit.
The other night I was shutting the lights off and locking the doors,
preparing to go to bed. I had sent all the kids upstairs when I walked
through the kitchen and found one of my teenagers getting a drink of water.
I immediately jumped on her for not going to bed as I told her to and
accused her of belligerent disrespect. My heart was angry and my tone
was harsh. As I stomped up the stairs a part of me was grumbling about
disrespectful children while another part was looking at me in astonishment.
Why had I reacted to my daughter getting a drink of water with such hostility?
I began thinking about all the stresses in my life and was about to explain
my behavior as the result of stress. But the Lord brought me up short,
reminding me of this passage and others like it. My heart is actively
seeking, demanding satisfaction, happiness in this life. I deserve to
be treated with respect by my children and to be obeyed immediately. I
need that respect more than I need God. If I am not treated as I want
then I have a right to be angry and to make people pay for what they do
to me. My problem isn’t my stressful circumstances or how my parents raised
me. My problem is my heart is evil. I yelled at my daughter because I
love to make people pay for not doing what I want.
The evil that is in you will not be cured by the performance of religious
duties. It will not go away by going to the psychologist. Taking prescription
drugs or getting in shape will not heal your evil heart. You won’t destroy
sexual immorality by having women wear burkas. You won’t overcome murder
by eliminating violence from TV and movies. You won’t halt domestic violence
by anger management classes. You won’t eliminate divorce by getting every
couple into marital counseling. You won’t halt theft by making sure everyone
gets paid the same amount of money. You aren’t going to get people to
worship God by telling them to sing louder or raise their hands in the
air more. You aren’t going to stop slander and gossip by enrolling people
in classes to learn how to communicate better. We don’t need reformation.
We need a Redeemer. We don’t need rehabilitation. We need salvation. We
don’t need a counselor. We need a Savior. That is Jesus’ point.
God is violently opposed to every human solution that ignores Christ
because
- Human solutions will make you a hypocrite
- Human solutions always misunderstand and misrepresent God’s word
- Human solutions will take you to hell
- Human solutions will never cure you
- And because…
V. Only Christ cures your fatal disease.
What are you going to do with this Jesus? He puts himself squarely in
your path. He challenges every human explanation of reality and claims
to be the only one who understands the human condition and God’s solution
to it. He does not hesitate to call those whom the world considers pious,
hypocrites. He commands his followers to pay no attention to anyone who
disagrees with him. He treats the OT as if he wrote it and is the only
one who understands it. He has the audacity to say who belongs to God
and who belongs to Satan. He accepts no excuses for evil behavior. He
puts full responsibility into the lap of each individual. He acts in this
way not because he is some sort of egomaniac or because he is cruel but
because he knows that you will try every other solution to your problems
before you will submit to him as the only solution. He didn’t come to
just make you a better version of yourself. He didn’t come to make you
feel good about yourself. He came to make you feel good about him. He
came to perform heart surgery on you.
In his life, death, resurrection and ascension Jesus works to not only
pardon your sin but to give you a heart that no longer loves evil and
hates God but loves God and hates evil. Jesus didn’t come into the world
so that you can sin safely. He came to save you from sin, out of sin.
He puts himself forward as the only solution to your only true problem.
He aims to be the center of your life. He didn’t come to give you a new
list of rules; he came to give you himself. His goal is to make you a
God entranced lover of people.
God is violently opposed to every human solution that ignores Christ
because
- Human solutions will make you a hypocrite
- Human solutions always misunderstand and misrepresent God’s word
- Human solutions will take you to hell
- Human solutions will never cure you
- Only Christ cures your fatal disease.
I want to close this morning by telling you a little bit about Jane’s
sister, Vicki. I called her and got her permission to tell you about the
work of God in her life. Vicki is a couple of years older than Jane and
I. During most of the 26 years I have known her, she did not live anything
close to a Christian life. She expressed no interest in Christ. Most of
our conversations took place at family gatherings and were superficial
at best. She has described herself during those years as an angry, bitter
person. Her life was a series of one relational disaster after another.
About 5 years ago we were at a family gathering and she began to ask us
questions about Christ. She got a Bible and began reading it and other
books that we recommended. One Christmas we were able to thoroughly go
through the gospel with her and she professed faith in Christ. The next
several times we saw each other she was excited about Jesus and all the
changes taking place in her life. We kept encouraging her to get involved
in a church but she didn’t make that connection at that time. Then she
got involved in a relationship with another guy and her interest in Christ
dramatically fell off. It was awkward when we saw each other and Jane
and I didn’t know what to do except pray. About 2 years ago she broke
off the relationship with that guy and became very involved in an excellent
church. The changes in her lifestyle and her attitude were remarkable.
It would take an hour to tell you all the lives that are different today
because of Vicki’s love for Christ and for others because of Christ. I
want to read you a part of what she wrote in her Christmas card this year
to show a heart that Christ has changed. "At this Christmas time
I want you to know that God has blessed me with a wonderful family and
I am thankful for all of you. He put me in an important place in my family
and I have failed miserably at being a good example. I am so sorry for
all my unkind behavior and language I inflicted on you. No matter what
circumstance I was in, I had no right to be unkind to anyone especially
my family. With the grace of God, I will spend the rest of my life here
being the example God created me to be. I can’t thank you enough for not
giving up on me and for praying for me."
Vicki is a different person today not because someone gave her a list
of rules to follow but because she found a Savior to love. Vicki has faced
the reality of the evil that is in her and has fled to Christ as the only
one who can deliver her from herself. She didn’t just do that one time
but each day she goes to Christ afresh to find the resources to live for
him each day. She pursues him as the only treasure worth having.
© Copyright
2001 John Swanson.
You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material
in any format provided that:
(1) you credit the author,
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If you would like to post this material to the web, or if your intended
use is other than outlined above, please contact River Hills Community
Church, 2843 West Court Street, Janesville, WI 53545. (608) 758-0943.
mail@riverhillsonline.org
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