John Gunter: Hi, friends. This is John Guenther at the Eagle Community Church of Christ. Thanks for listening to our podcast. This week, we are talking about Mark chapter 7 where Jesus again encounters some Pharisees. We have some questions about his disciples and how they wash their hands.
Isn't that interesting? Anyway, we hope you enjoy this lesson. We hope it helps you, some way in your life and as we always say, come and see us. Glad that you're here with us. Before we get started, I want to thank again Scott for preaching, last week and, Ryan for taking over our class.
I know both did a great job. I got to got to hear Scott preach, so I can confirm that. And I I have heard that Ryan did an excellent job, and I knew he would. So thank you to both of those guys. Very appreciative of them.
Sometimes we get things mixed up, don't we? If you read from the gospel of Luke, actually, it is cup, bread, cup. We just, we got one more cup to go in just a minute. So I know it can get awkward at times, but you handled it perfectly. And again, not about the order, it's about what we're remembering.
Right? Death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I hope you've all had a great Thanksgiving, I hope you got your fill of dressing and not turkey, turkey is not that great but ham, you know. Katie's Nana makes the best garlic sauce to go with things. I love it.
Makes your breath smell terrible, but it is so good. But always a great time to be around family, and so thank you to those guys for handling it so I could be gone. But today, we continue our study of the Gospel of Mark. And this is an interesting interesting section of Mark, and you'll see why in just a second, because we start in in Mark 7 verse 1. So, now when the Pharisees gathered to him with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is unwashed.
For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders. Now that go too far. There we go. And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.
And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?' And he said to them, well did Isaiah prophecy of you hypocrites, as it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men. Do we have any traditions, church? I, as I prepared for this, I thought, how many, examples?
I love giving examples of things as I go through scripture. How many examples can I give? And the longer I thought about it, the more I thought I'll be shooting myself in the head if I name one of them. Because the thing about traditions is we hold them very dearly, don't we? We may even understand intellectually that that this is not in scripture or not this way or not certainly as as deeply held as we hold it, but we really hold it dearly.
So if John was to mention my tradition that I really like today, then I'm not happy with John. Right? But Jesus is confronted again by people who are upset about what his disciples are doing. And again, you get the commentary from Mark, again explaining in a way that you see Mark's audience doesn't really know. Right?
Mark is explaining for them, alright, what they did was, or what they expected was, them to ritually wash their hands. And what you can see here, in the way that Jesus responds, is that these people held that ritual washing as a way that defiled them, not just not physically, but spiritually. That I'm going to hold this up and he says, this is just a tradition of the elders. You're not going to find this in scripture anywhere. Right?
This is just, okay, you need this is a purity law, it's what it is. We're gonna make a law kind of some people call them hedge laws. We're gonna make it a law around the law to protect the law. Right? And what we've done is we've created this thing so we can protect the law and then we're gonna hold you to that standard.
But what Jesus says is, okay, you are hypocrites. As it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Sometimes we get real wound up about things that don't really matter when we have hearts that are far from God. Don't we, church? We do.
Sometimes, we we include everything we can think of as salvation issues, which is what they were doing, when that's not the case. And it's hard for us to admit sometimes we just want to be mad about that thing or whatever. But Jesus calls them out. He says, you are hypocrites because you're upset about this thing that's not even a commandment from God, yet your hearts are far from me. It's easy to point out that thing and say, well, you're not doing this.
It it's almost a quasi beam in the eye thing. Right? You got a whole beam sticking out of your forehead, and you're trying to pick out the little speck in somebody else's eye. Right? You're not washing your hands.
That's easy to pick out. Right? What about all the work that you need to do internally? Right? And and we can do that.
And again, I'm not I'm gonna let you have the examples to yourself, in your mind about what that looks like. What what I the the one thing I came up with, I I had to come up with something that was not church related. Is that okay? So here's my nuance. This isn't gonna happen.
We don't want it to happen. Don't kill me. Okay? So, so so now they're set up, Scott. Now they now they know it's coming.
Right? So, originally, again, this, our pledge of allegiance in the United States did you know originally it did not have under God in it? Yeah. Not until about the fifties that when it was, when it came to be passed by congress, did under God get put in there? Actually, the the guy who wrote it or wanted it in there said it came from, Lincoln's speech.
I think it's a Gettysburg address. But he wanted in there, but it's also about the cold war that we're fighting against atheists, and so we wanna make sure we're established as under God. And so that's how under God came to be. We just got out of well, I guess we're still in a political season. It feels like we're in political season all the time.
Any of you see some attack ads? Yeah? I I at least told the class. I don't remember if I've said it in the sermon. If I did, forgive me, please.
But Logan came to me one night and he was upset, he was visibly upset. He said, Dad, I need to talk to you. And he was upset, he said, I just heard on an ad that if Ted Cruz wins, Texas is going to be in bad shape. And then he said, you could tell, he felt we are physically going to be harmed, you know, something. He said, But I saw in the corner, it was paid for by Colin Allred.
And so I got to talk to my son about attack ads and see through the lens of a a young boy saying, oh my goodness, what is going to happen? Because, you know, we kind of respond in fear. And we attack and we will play out and we know some of those attack ads just aren't true. Right? Then there's a response.
No. That's not true. All the things. Let's go back to the pledge of allegiance. Alright.
Let's think politically about that. If one political party decided today, you know what? I like the original Pledge of Allegiance a little better, you know, it was we had that first, let's take out under God. What would the attack ad look like? Oh.
It would be a salvation issue. Right? We would say, they would say, we wouldn't do that. But, yeah, I know my audience here. You guys are great people.
You wouldn't say this. But on the ad, it would say, they don't like god. Right? They don't fear god or something. Right?
It would be a salvation issue that we would raise to a level, again, of whether you are in or out. We would make all the excuses. Well, why wouldn't you want that in there, right? I think that's a good thing to have in there, right? We feel like we are a nation under God, right?
But it's easy to get excited, say, if that did happen, to get excited about that, the signpost that we feel like we're a nation under God and still be people whose hearts are far from him. Right? Because we are attracted sometimes to the signpost, to the thing that makes us feel good. Like, I like to feel like my nation is a nation under God when we know, even maybe about ourselves, that I am not submitting to his will. And that's the way I see this, is that all of a sudden Jesus is confronted with this made up law, that this should be the case.
Can you can hear the same argument, right, from the the Pharisees and the people who wanted this. Right? Well, what would be wrong with washing? Why wouldn't you wanna wash? Right?
Some of you over Thanksgiving told your kids, wash your hands. Right? Get clean. Now that wasn't a salvation issue, hopefully. That was about them going before you in the buffet.
You didn't want let me go ahead and get mine. That wasn't a salvation issue, but, you know, why wouldn't you want you can hear the same kind of arguments. Right? But all of a sudden, we have raised it to the level of salvation. Well, again, being people not actually following God ourselves.
We we are clinging to that, the outward sign. The one example I'll give you from church that I think we do a lot, or have done, we love to gather and count. Right? When I grew up in my church, a faithful brother or sister, as I've said before, was somebody who was sitting in the seats on Sunday. Right?
And my church, you better be there Sunday evening and Wednesday too. Right? How many of you grew in that church? Yeah. Yeah.
So that was how we counted faithfulness. Well, that is a faithfulness. That's part of faithfulness. Right? But does that rise the level of they are actually faithful people?
But maybe. But that can just be a signpost in our minds that I'm just glad you're sitting in the pew, but actually, have you had a life that's changed? Are you walking any closer to God today than you were yesterday just because you were sitting here? I hope so. But sometimes, we cling to those signposts, those things that make us feel better about ourselves, and that's what Jesus is is dealing with here.
He gives an example. He go he goes a little bit different. He says, and he said to them, you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition. And so, he actually gives them an example of of what they're doing in a different way. Now, what he's been confronted with, there was no law about.
What he's about to say, there actually is a law, but they're using it. They're using the law to kind of cancel out some things they they they want. And so, we'll we'll talk about that as we go. He said, for Moses said, honor your father and mother. You know that?
Anybody had to tell your kids that this morning? Yeah. I am I am mom and dad. I I told Logan he needed to hear me preach this morning. He said, I've done that before.
It's boring. So honor your father and mother. I'll get over it. I I promise. And whoever reviles father and mother must surely die.
So this is a capital offense. Right? You need to honor your father and mother. This is this is important. But you say, if a man tells his father or his mother, whatever you would have gained for me is korban, that is given to God, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother.
And so what they would do is they might set aside something and call it korban. This is korban. This is given to God. Now, they may not actually ever actually give it or give it away, but they have said, this is for God. Okay?
And the thing is okay. Well, that is a vow. Alright? And so that's what they would say. This is a vow to God.
And so if we're labeling the priorities in our life, is, the priority number 1, God or parents? God. K? So what they would say is, well, you made that vow about this asset that you you could have helped your parents with, but you already made the vow. So obviously, a vow to God is more important than parents.
Well, you can hear all the reasons around that, right? We can we make the same reasoning maybe. But what Jesus says is, alright, well, if you do that, if you allow that to happen, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down, and many such things that you do. So, you have used this. This is a tradition that they've made up to set this thing aside for God.
They've used that and then called it a vow. Do you see how they're trying to get around that? Instead of actually doing the hard work or doing the work of, I need to support my parents. I need to honor my father and mother and make sure they're taken care of. That may be a little farther from our minds because of the society we live in where we have assistances and things like that.
They did not, right? And so the absence of that gift might mean they're not eating very well. Right? That they're living a life, a very hard life. And so all of a sudden, they have said they made up this thing in their minds of 2 different things in Scripture, vow to God, honor your father and mother.
Well, God's first. Don't need to honor my father and mother. Hope you've never experienced that. That's what that's what Jesus looks in the face here. But notice as he continues, he said, He called the people to him again and said to them, 'Hear me all of you and understand, there is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.
So he is very clear. Again, this is not talking about cleanliness, you know, that, you know, viruses don't defile, you know, something like that. But he's talking about salvation. That's what they're saying. Right?
That because you haven't ritually washed your hands, whatever that looked like, that you are somehow defiling yourself against God. He said, Listen here. There is nothing going in or anything like that that is defiling you, but it's the things that come out of a person, and you'll see this in a minute, that are what defile him. He says, when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him more about the parable. And he said to them, then are you also without understanding?
I think Jesus had a little attitude at this point. Right? You don't get it? Right? That's what he's saying.
Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from the outside cannot defile him since it enters not his heart, but his stomach and is expelled? The word there, I like it. He says goes into the sewer. So keep that with you today. Thus, he declared all foods clean.
And he said, what comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness, all these evil things come from within, and they defile a person. That's where we look in the mirror, isn't it? Because they were focused on the outward sign, the signpost, the thing they'd like to grab onto and say, What about that? And Jesus says, what about this?
All of that stuff that's coming from within you, out of your heart, this evil is coming. You ever known somebody to get upset about something, you know, and and claim it's biblical, but the way they're acting is not. Yeah. Back to our political season. That happens all the time.
I've I've lost friends because of it. I need to say this about this politician. Well, the way you're saying it is very unchristian. How do you make those things work? Right?
Because from within, this evil is coming, these things that that should not be be coming from within you. Right? And that's, unfortunately, I think, the way we operate a lot of time. That we are completely okay walking around in life as long as we feel like we have ourselves put together that we can fool you. Again, we've talked about compartmentalization, right?
On Sunday I walk through the door and I've got a smile on my face, hopefully not a longhorn type in like Robert, but I have got a smile on my face and looks like me and my wife are happy because we did not just yell at each other in the car. Right? Kids are in line because I didn't threaten them with death or absence of screens. Right? And as long as I feel like I've come in and I've got you guys fooled, I feel okay.
And I think that's how we exist sometimes. We are so concerned with the outward appearance, the outward washing of the cup, that we've given no attention at all to the inside. We're okay with the coming and the listening, but doing the hard work of being changed by God. This morning we, in class, we went over Jesus' prayer, in the garden where he prays, I hope this cup passes from me. God, if you will, will this cup pass from me?
But he ends the prayer with not my will, but yours. That is an example of I'm willing to do the hard work. I am here for the hard work. And so, we look around and we ask ourselves, are you willing to do the hard work? Because you know who you are.
You're not fooling you. Right? Sometimes we are we mentioned in class our own worst enemy about that because we get in our own brain. I know what I've done. Well, clean it.
Let God clean it. Submit yourself to Him. Don't be a hypocrite. We we understand that sometimes we're preaching one thing, and we're not living perfectly, and we feel hypocritical. Well, guess what?
God forgives. God saves. God cleanses. Because our God is not a God just ready to wipe you off the face of the map. He is a God of grace and mercy, ready to forgive and show his love to you.
So, you need to be willing to turn yourself over to him. It's not all about the external and what I can get by. It's about really caring and loving and wanting to draw close to him, to be changed from the inside. Again, you clean the inside, what do you think the outside looks like? Looks a whole lot different, doesn't it?
And guess what? You live a life not worried about people understanding what the inside looks like, right? Because that's what we do. Because if we live a life just trying to hide things, we live a life of fear, afraid that you're going to find out who I really am. If they only knew.
But why would we submit to a life like that? Why would we be okay and just kind of accept a life like that? Because God offers us a way out if we do the work, if we submit to His will. And so that's what I'm gonna ask you this morning, will you submit to His will? If you have walked away from God, if you are just okay with the outside of the dish, would you walk back to Him?
If you haven't begun that walk, understand that God is a God of grace and mercy, and every one of us in here needs it. So if you walked in here this morning, you think, man, I don't have my life together like these people. First of all, you're wrong. Come talk to us. Be happy to share our struggles with you, but know that God is a God of grace and mercy, and he will walk with you through all of those bumps, bruises, turns in the road, all the times you walk away from him.
He is there because he is our god. So don't wait until you have it perfect because that day will come. Come to him now knowing that you need a savior because we all do. Would you come as we stand and as we sing?