the Gospel of Mark: on the road with Jesus (23)

Mark 8:1-21

1. Wednesday night – ash Wednesday + all-church prayer
2. phil stombaugh schedule
3. cac membership class – 4/21

1. U2 sings a song called Vertigo. It’s about a guy in this awful nightclub. He’s supposed to be having a great time but he wants to leave. It’s really a song about the world we live in.

Bono - It’s that woozy, sick feeling of realizing that here we are, drinking, drugging, eating, polluting, robbing ourselves to death. And in the middle of the club there’s this girl. She has crimson nails. She has a cross around her neck and the character in (the song) stares at the cross just to steady himself. And he has a little epiphany. It’s a song about a disused soul in a well-used nightclub.

Lyrics -
I can’t stand the beat
I’m asking for the check
the girl with crimson nails
has Jesus round her neck
swinging to the music
swinging to the music
oh oh oh oh

I can feel your love teaching me how
your love is teaching me how
how to kneel…

The song points to Jesus. This night-clubber has been check-mated by Jesus. Jesus’ cross – the girl with crimson nails, has Jesus round her neck, swinging to the music. Jesus’ love is calling him to prayer – I can feel your love teaching me how, your love is teaching me how to kneel.

2. the gospels are full of Jesus stories similar to this one. Jesus meeting people in the ragged reality of their lives. Giving them hope; pointing them to something better.

3. like in today’s story of the feeding of the 4000. Jesus is not home. He’s ventured into Gentile territory. He’s on a mission to prove that he & his message are for everyone, Jews & Gentiles. This is a Jesus story about physical & spiritual hunger.

The feeding of the 4000
large crowd – remote place – 3 days – Jesus
1. we find a large crowd (1) in a remote place (4) that has spent 3 days (2) with Jesus (1). After 3 days they have nothing to eat.

2. Jesus says I have compassion for these people. Compassion is the Greek word for intestines. It came to mean feeling something very, very deep within you. Jesus’ compassion for these people was no shallow, superficial thing. His insides ached for them because they were in need of food.

Do we feel compassion for the hungry people of our world? our community? To do so is to be like Jesus.

3. Jesus performed a miracle & fed them, took care of their physical hunger.

4. but it was their spiritual hunger, their Jesus hunger, which led them into the wilderness in the 1st place. They wanted to be near to Jesus, to hear him, to see him & experience him. They were drawn in by his ‘enormous magnetism.”

5. I want to make a statement that I hope you will never forget: our real & deep hunger in life is for Jesus & Jesus alone. Here’s what I mean…

Genesis 1-2 = all of us were created for oneness with God; this is central to our spiritual DNA

Genesis 3 = oneness was spoiled by sin; Adam & Eve choosing their desires over God’s desire for them; jagged rip in the fabric of the universe

Genesis 4 following = primal hunger to be one with God buried under layers of & layers of sin, selfishness, disobedience, etc. Hunger becomes directed to money, sex, power, success, self-autonomy

Matthew Mark Luke John = God sends his son Jesus to stand in our place, die for our sin & rebellion & make a way back to oneness with him

Colossians 1:16,17 speaking of Jesus = for by him all things were created…all things were created by him & for him. He is before all things & in him all things hold together. We have been created by Christ & for Christ. Our true & only meaning in life is found in union with Jesus.

John 6:35 = I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. Jesus is the bread of life, the satisfaction of life.

6. this large crowd dropped what they were doing & followed Jesus into the wilderness for 3 days. He touched their spiritual DNA. They sensed a stirring in their souls. Their spiritual hunger transcended their physical hunger.

7. retreat: when do you ever retreat to be with Jesus? to a remote place? to sit at his feet? and let him fill your soul with his life? We are a vacation-oriented culture BUT not a retreat-oriented one. We take all kinds of vacations & spends all kinds of money doing so – that’s fine, that’s good. But shouldn’t we take some time & money during the year to follow Jesus into the wilderness for our soul’s sake?

8. space is important for pursuing Jesus. Whether it be the wilderness or a quiet corner of your home. It allows us time, silence & solitude to begin to dig down though the layers of self, distractions, pursuits to our deepest selves where we have been wired from eternity to commune with God.

9. identify your daily space. Plan a yearly retreat.

the 7 loaves for 4000+
1. 7 loaves & a few fish for 4000 men & whatever women & children who were there. That’s not much.

2. there’s a very important spiritual principle here: offer whatever you have to God & he will bless it. Think of the big 3 – time, talents & treasure. Your limited & fought-over time. Your God-given & humanly-developed talents. Your treasures of money, possessions & resources.

3. almost always they are like the 7 measly loaves & the few small fish in our story. How will they feed over 4000 people? They won’t. They can’t. UNLESS we turn them over to Jesus, the miracle working Jesus.

4. Wednesday & Thursday I was in Seattle at a district leadership meeting. The meeting was held in the Styren House. A couple from the Woodenville Alliance Church gave this house worth $1,000,000 to our district. Now it’s ours. It’s going to be used as a place of rest & renewal for our pastors.

5. Offer whatever you have to God & he will bless it. Instead of this house taking care of 2 people it may very well lead to the spiritual renewal of lots & lots of pastors. Which will lead to the renewal of people in their churches. Which will lead to lives being touched in numerous communities all over Washington & Oregon. Which will lead to…only God knows.

6. how can you offer to God your time? Your talents? Your treasures?

take – blessed – broken – shared
1. from v. 6 the Ancient Church created a 4-fold Eucharistic pattern – taken, blessed, broken & shared. This forms the core of the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. In liturgical churches the priest for the presiding minister takes the bread & wine; blesses them in prayer; breaks the bread to be distributed; and shares them with the people.

2. this 4-fold pattern is also to lie at the center of our lives in the Spirit:

We are taken by God. We are chosen. As Jesus says in John 15:16, you did not choose me but I chose you.

We are blessed by God. We all of us have been given gifts & graces, blessings & benefits.

We are shared by God. He uses us to bless others. Something of who we are is valuable & useful & meaningful to God & others in some way.

We are broken by God. This is the part we don’t like. Jesus was the most chosen, the most blessed, and the most shared one of us all – as well as the most broken. Like Christ we are to be broken in order that we can be shared.

3. taken, blessed, broken & shared. Not just bread to the 4000. Not just the bread & wine of communion. But the lives we live as we attempt to live them for Christ.

4. I long for us to be a new people for a new building. A new people in hot pursuit of Christ & his kingdom. A people taken, blessed, broken & shared. I wonder if its truly possible to be shared unless we have been broken?

5. what needs to be broken in your life? in our church? in order that Jesus can share us with each, our community & our world?

the Gospel of Mark: on the road with Jesus (22)

Mark 7:24-37

1. this week I’ve been reading a challenging, disturbing book – The Forgotten Ways: reactivating the missional church by Alan Hirsch from Australia. He writes things I’ve heard before but in a far more convincing manner.

2. church attendance: for instance, there is a growing body of research that clearly shows that church attendance in our country is in decline. Slowly but surely we are becoming a post-Christian culture.

3. Jesus vs. the church: there is also a growing body of research that shows that there is a mounting number of people who are drawn to Jesus but repulsed by his church. Dan Kimball has just written a book entitled They like Jesus but Not the Church.

4. outreach: there is also a growing body of research that shows that most churches, if they are growing, are growing by attracting people from other churches or people who are like them socially, economically, politically & ethnically. This means that there is a large segment of our population that is virtually beyond the reach of the church as it presently operates.

5. this book is a wake-up call, a slap in the face, a jolt of ragged reality. And it’s prepared me to listen to the Word of the Lord as found in our 2 Jesus stories for today from Mark’s gospel, 7:24-37.

the faith of the Syrophoenician woman 7:24-30
1. v.24 – Jesus went to the vicinity of Tyre. 7:31 – Jesus went through Sidon, down to the sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis.

2. this information is important. Jesus leaves Jewish territory & goes into Gentile territory. He’s no longer with his own people. He is in a foreign, pagan land, so-to-speak. No Jewish laws or history or temple or synagogue or offerings.

3. he has passed through national, racial, geographical & religious boundaries to get to these 2 stories.

4. v. 24 – for some reason he wants to hide. He finds a house. He wants to keep his where-a-bouts secret.

5. and then a woman hears about Jesus. The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. Mark makes the point that she is Greek, not Jewish, and born in Syria, not Israel.

6. she had heard about him (Jesus). The news about Jesus had spread. We don’t know what she knew but she knew he had power over evil spirits. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.

7. Jesus throws out a riddle to her – First let the children eat all they want for it is not right to take the children’s bread & toss it to their dogs.

8. unlike his disciples, unlike the Jewish people he has been dealing with, this woman gets his riddle, his veiled language. She quickly comes back to him Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s bread.

9. what does this all mean? The Jews of Jesus’ day referred to Gentiles as dogs. They wanted nothing to do with Gentiles. She is saying that she believes that even if Jesus is centering his ministry around the Jews, shouldn’t there be enough of his power left over for Gentiles like her & her daughter?

10. she wins the argument, so to speak & Jesus expels the demon from her daughter.

the healing of a deaf and mute man 7:31-37
1. Jesus leaves & moves down to Decapolis – Gentile territory. People bring a deaf & mute man to him & ask for his healing.

2. notice, Jesus takes the man aside, away from the crowd. He doesn’t want the attention of a big crowd around him.

3. Jesus heals him. He placed his fingers in the man’s ears. He spit & then touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven to his Father and commanded the man’s ears & mouth to open. Suddenly the man could both hear & speak.

4. Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. Why? I think he wanted to be known for more than just a miracle man. He true mission was to be our suffering Savior. The cross, crucifixion & resurrection were still to come. A healing, delivering Christ is only a partial Christ. He came primarily to seek & to save the lost.

5. he told the crowds to keep quiet. They did just the opposite. They kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement. Jesus had power over storms, waves, wind, wine, bread, fish, demons & illness BUT he couldn’t keep the people from talking – he will not violate our free will.

some points to ponder
1st Jesus crossed boundaries in these 2 stories – national, ethnic, geographical, religious.
1. Questions for our church & us as individuals:
§ when do we ever cross boundaries like Jesus?
§ do we set limits on the reach of the good news of the kingdom of God?
§ do we really believe that the power of God’s love encompasses all people?

2. our church can become a religious ghetto if its all that we know. Our small groups can become a holy huddle if those are the only people we associate with. We have developed such an extensive Christian sub-culture in this country that its possible to live a life that is virtually isolated from our secular culture – the very people Jesus loves, died for & calls us to reach in his name.

3. think of our Christian schools, colleges, radio stations, book stores, music, aerobics, cruises, New Testamints, conferences, seminars, magazines & the bad art & nick-knacks that jam the shelves of Christian book stores. Do these help us to cross boundaries?

4. Jesus crossed boundaries – are we? Becoming a new people for a new building must mean that part of our newness is crossing new boundaries into our community, city, marketplace & culture.

2nd Jesus’ life was marked by an enormous magnetism that transcended nationalities, borders & social classes – all kinds of people were attracted to him.
1. Questions for our church & us as individuals:
§ is there anything magnetic about our lives?
§ anything magnetic about our church?
§ our message? our lifestyle? our reputation?
…that would DRAW people to us like they were drawn to Jesus?

2. the Syrophoenician woman heard things about Jesus that drew her to him. The deaf & mute mans friends heard something about Jesus that drew them to him:
§ he was compassionate – cared about the hurting
§ he had power over the powers of darkness
§ he had power to heal
§ he was approachable

5. would this describe us? What’s the word out on the streets of Canby, Barlow, Aurora, Hubbard, Woodburn, Molalla & Wilsonville about our church? Churches in general?

6. we are almost the exact opposite of Jesus. When he walked the streets of Israel the religious/church people (scribes & Pharisees) despised him WHILE the drunks, prostitutes, tax collectors, adulterers, sick, demon possessed, needy, the poor & seekers were attracted to him. That’s not the case today.

7. evangelical Christianity is known to many in our culture today as a bunch of people who are – narrow, bigoted, judgmental, hypocritical, & angry. Can this be said of us?

8. Jesus had an enormous magnetism – do we? Becoming a new people for a new building must mean that part of our newness is becoming a Christ-people with an attractive magnetic pull.

9. what is that pull? The power of Christ to transform, heal & deliver. The power of Christ to show compassion, love & give. The power of Christ to penetrate the hard places in soft, winsome ways.

10. Portland Worklife Project: Bridging the Gap between Church & Work seminar

“A New People for a New Building”

Isaiah 43:18-19; Acts 20:28; 2 Corinthians 3:18

1. I want to talk about vision this morning. My New Oxford American Dictionary defines vision as – a mental image of what the future will or could be like. I want to share with you my mental image of what our church future will or could be like.

2. My vision for our church in 2007 is to become a new people for a new building.

3. what I want to do now is unpack for you what I mean by a new people for a new building. I want to begin by talking theology – the theological basis of a new people for a new building.

a theology of newness – Isaiah 43:18-19
1. these words were written to the people of Israel who had been exiled in Babylon for 70 years. They reveal God’s heart & ways.

2. forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. God does not want us to live in the past or be weighted down by the past.

3. see, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. God is a God of new things. Lamentations tells us that his mercies are new every morning. Revelation tells us that we can expect a new heaven & a new earth.

4. our God is a God of newness. God wants us to trust him to do a new thing in our church.

a theology of the Church (people) & Trinity – Acts 20:28
1. as a pastor I return to this verse over & over again. I think this is one of the most important verses in all of the Bible for understanding the church from God’s perspective.

2. ownership – the church of God. The church is God’s church NOT mine or yours.

3. sacrifice – which he (Jesus) bought with his own blood. This is the death, crucifixion of Jesus on the cross. Jesus died and shed his blood for the church.

4. delegation – of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Leadership of God’s church, purchased with the blood of his Son, is delegated to Christ-followers like me by the Holy Spirit.

5. what I want you to hear is that the church is the love of God’s life. Father Son & Holy Spirit are committed to its success & are wrapped up in its identity.

6. if the Triune God is all-out committed to the church, then to be followers of Christ is to be all-out committed to his church. Is the church the love of our lives?

a theology of transformation – 2 Corinthians 3:18
1. this word ‘transformed’ is a key word in the writings of Paul. The Greeks used it to describe the formation & growth of an embryo in a mother’s womb. Paul uses it to describe our inward formation into the likeness of Christ.

2. 2 Corinthians 3:18 – we are being transformed into his likeness.

3. the Holy Spirit is the one who transforms us into the likeness of Christ. Transformation is the finger of God unleashed in our lives via our James 4 life – submission to God, resistance to the devil, drawing near to God, confessing & repenting of our sin, humbling our selves.

4. I have a number of ‘duet’ CDs that I enjoy listening to – Emmylou Harris, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles & Tony Bennett. I’ve noticed a few things on all 4 CDs:

1st Emmylou, Frank, Ray & Tony lead the songs – their duet partners follow them

2nd their duet partners conform their singing style to Emmylou, Frank, Ray & Tony – not the other way around

3rd they accomplish together what they can’t accomplish alone – beautiful harmonies & parts

5. transformation into the likeness of Christ is like singing a duet. Christ leads & we follow him. We conform our lives to Christ’s – he doesn’t conform his life to ours. Christ enables us to do with him what’s impossible to do by ourselves – sing the beautiful harmonies & parts of the gospel story where we live, work, play & worship. This is transformation.

Summary
1. God is a God of newness; the church is the love of God’s life – Father Son Spirit; our goal is inward transformation into the likeness of Christ.

2. these theological truths form the foundation for a new people for a new building. We will become this new people by committing ourselves to 5 pursuits: Scripture, prayer, leadership, mission & a debt-free building.

Scripture: the pursuit of the Scriptures for life transformation & church renewal
1. the Word of God has been God’s primary means for life transformation & church renewal for the past 2000 years. Scripture has turned individual lives, families, churches, communities, and even countries upside down.

2. I have this prayer taped to the inside cover of my Bible – copied it out of the Book of Common Prayer:
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ.

3. hearing, reading, marking, learning & inwardly digesting the Scriptures is how we become a new people. Intentional exposure & humble submission to the Word of God.

4. 3 venues in which we can pursue the Scriptures for life change. Read your Bibles individually. Study them with a group. And hear the Scriptures preached on Sundays as the community of faith.

prayer: the pursuit of prayer for life change & church renewal.
1. prayer, like Scripture, is a non-negotiable. The 2 go hand-in-hand.

2. story 1 – Ray Pritchard, former pastor of Calvary Memorial Church in Oak Park, IL. Early in his time at Calvary Memorial the church was plunged into crisis over worship issues, theological issues & church direction. In the midst of this Pritchard spent a few days teaching at a mission station in Central America.

There in the jungle, far removed from the controversy at church, Pritchard had a powerful experience of the Holy Spirit. He pictured the church with a large black cloud hanging over it. The Spirit said to him that the cloud could only be lifted by prayer.
He came home & shared that with the church & people started praying. It was the turning point of his 16 years in Oak Park.

3. story 2 – David Graf of ADF, told us this story last fall during his site visit. In 1995 a small Alliance church of 50 in New Jersey received a new pastor. He began praying with his board every day. The only thing they prayed was for God to “do something” in their church.

When David Graf visited them in 1999 he found 15 separate prayer groups. 1 group of men & 1 group of women met every weekday morning at 6am to pray – some people drove 40 miles 1 way! God began to “do something.” People came to Christ. People were healed. Lives were changed. New churches were planted. This all started with prayer & was driven by prayer.

4. what would happen if our church made that kind of commitment to pursuing God in prayer? I’ll come back to prayer in a few minutes.

leadership: the pursuit of strengthening & expanding our leadership team
1. by leadership team I primarily mean the pastoral & ministry staff, elders & Governing Board members. A word about structure & people.

Structure
2. expectations. Our elders have just implemented a new document for the pastoral staff. This document addresses work & performance standards. They have clearly outlined what is expected of us. I believe this is going to make for a stronger & more effective pastoral staff.

3. bylaws. Our current bylaws need to be moth-balled. We are working on a revision that I hope to bring to you for approval this year. The revision will clearly define our leadership structure & free up leaders to be involved in the equipping of others for ministry.

People
4. as our current leadership team grows older we need to make an effort to identify & equip new & younger faces for leadership. New blood, new ideas, new perspectives minced together with wisdom & experience.

5. thinking of the New Testament, I would love to see a leadership team made up of Pauls, Timothys & Barnabas’. Pauls are experienced leaders (often older); Timothys are inexperienced leaders (often younger); and Barnabas’ are a combination of both. Leadership that transpires in a culture of coaching & mentoring.

6. I think we need to do a much better job of affirming & utilizing our women leaders.

7. stronger leadership will help us to become a new people for a new building.

missional: the pursuit of participating in what God is doing in our church, community & world
1. right now I’m in the midst of working my way through a 535 page book by Christopher Wright called The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative. Wright’s thesis can be summed up like this – instead of the Bible providing a basis for mission, the entire Bible is generated by & is all about God’s mission.

2. God’s mission is to restore all creation to himself. This means caring for people in their spiritual, physical, social & emotional needs. This means caring for God’s creation itself that according to Romans 8 will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God!

3. to be missional is to participate with God in what he is doing in calling, bringing & wooing people to himself. We participate with both our actions (feeding the hungry) and words (telling others about Christ).

4. God is a missional God. As we get in step with his mission we can be assured of his transforming work in our church.

5. the Spirit of God brings us to Christ for salvation. In doing so we are brought into the church, His Body. As His Body we are called to penetrate our community with his love, compassion, justice & joy. And beyond that, we are called to take his love, compassion, justice & joy to the whole world. That is what it means to be missional.

building: to pursue the construction of our new building without going into more debt
1. youth center. Can you picture the new building & how God wants us to use it? Can you “see” what’s going to happen? Kyle is going to come & help us “see” the youth area!

2. October 22 – the Canby Community Concert series has already reserved our facility for a concert! I see community people flowing into our building, welcomed by CAC people who give directions to the worship center & bathrooms. I see a full house of people, comfortably seated, impressed by the sound & lights system, excellent acoustics. I see musicians equally impressed by the sound & light system. I see people who have a positive experience in our facility who pass the word onto others. I see someone from the concert with a personal need 6 weeks later who stops by the church & asks for help.

3. the great hall. This is what Kim calls the foyer area. 2500 square feet of new space making the new & old buildings one. I see a coffee bar, smell the coffee & taste the coffee. I see tables & chairs set up. I see people on a Sunday morning sitting at these tables with a cup of hot coffee talking, sharing, laughing & praying with one another. I see old friends re-connecting & I see new friends being made. I see this area becoming the relational center of our church. I see this area acting like a safe place for new people, a middle ground between their home & the worship area or a classroom. I see this area as the most-used part of our facility. I see God touching people in the great hall.

4. as you will hear tonight at the Annual Vision Night meeting, even with $430,000 cash in hand for Rising from the Ashes, if we are going to reach of goal of building debt-free, we are going to need to raise that amount plus a huge chunk more in the next 8 months.

5. I believe this is possible. I believe we can do it. IF. IF what? If we pray like never before, give generously & give sacrificially.

6. if we pray like never before. I am calling the church – all of us – to come together twice a month to simply get on our knees before God and ask him for his miraculous provision of this money. The 2nd Saturday morning of the month @ 8am & the 4th Wednesday night of the month @ 7pm.

7. the 2nd Saturday has already passed us. The 4th Wednesday is February 28, at our Ash Wednesday service! God wants to make us a new people for a new building by transforming our lives as we come together in prayerful dependence upon him for his financial provision!

8. scripture – prayer – leadership – mission – debt-free building

the Gospel of Mark: on the road with Jesus (21): “Hands or Heart?”

Mark 7:1-23

kyle’s fine job last week + 1st Friday slots filled – dyc slots + new members + great commission fund & friesens in paris + phil stombaugh here 3/2-5

1. a friend once told me that I had a brain like Einstein's.
I thought--- "Wow what a nice compliment."
Then he said:
"Its been dead since 1956".

This morning my brain feels a litte dead after being sick for the last week. It hurts to think. But Sunday comes around every week & its sermon time!

2. in his little book Living the Cross Centered Life C.J. Mahaney identifies 3 temptations that move us away from the gospel. One of them is legalism – basing our relationship with God on our own performance.

3. I was raised in a Christianity defined by legalism – lots of rules & dos & don’ts. What was a Christian? Someone who didn’t smoke, drink alcohol, swear, go to movies, go to dances, play cards, wear make-up, attend the Catholic church or listen to the Beatles.

4. but it was okay for Christians to overeat (a lot), tell racist jokes, drink a couple of pots of coffee a day, talk behind people’s backs, criticize the preacher, avoid talking to people you didn’t like, and change churches if you got offended.

5. the focus was on external behavior defined by an insider, carefully drawn-up list. This list became the measurement for closeness to God.
6. I remember the delightful shock of discovering in college that C.S. Lewis, who was on everyone’s reading list & was the proven defender of the Christian faith, that C.S. Lewis smoked cigarettes, smoked a pipe, drank alcohol (and lots of it), and hung out in pubs with his friends! I began to question & rethink much of what I had been taught about my faith.

7:1-13: Hands
1. today’s Jesus story highlights the empty legalism that Jesus came to destroy. Jesus was a religious revolutionary. He colored outside the box. He disregarded the status quo. He unearthed the shallow spirituality of the so-called tradition of the elders (7:3).

2. Jesus & his disciples were eating a meal together. The Pharisees & some of the teachers of the law scrutinized their table manners. They nailed Jesus & his disciples for not washing their hands before eating. They were breaking the law according to the tradition of the elders.

3. the scribes & Pharisees had identified 613 laws in the Pentateuch (1st 5 books of OT). They chose 613 because that was how many separate letters were in the text containing the 10 commandments.

The 613 laws were divided into affirmative commands (do this) and negative commands (don’t do this). 248 commands were affirmative, 1 for every part of the human body as they understood it. 365 were negative, 1 for every day of the year.

This list was further divided into binding & nonbinding commands. How do you have a nonbinding command? Isn’t that an oxymoron? They spent their days debating this division & ranking the commands within each.

4. enter Jesus. He’s in trouble, again, for not following the rules: why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with unclean hands? (7:5). They set Jesus up, perfectly, for his response from Isaiah 29:13.

5. Jesus’ point? You are a bunch of hypocrites! You practice all this outward piety (keeping your manmade rules) but your hearts (your inward devotion) are far from me.

6. in their well-intentioned legalism to keep God’s laws, they actually were guilty of disregarding them:
§ 7:7 – let go
§ 7:9 – setting aside
§ 7:13 – nullify

7. case-in-point. Corban (7:9-13 cf. Numbers 30:1-2) – means a gift or offering given to God. Corban was cited to use 1 biblical teaching to nullify another. A son could dedicate to God his earnings that were to be used to support his parents. However the money didn’t have to be used for religious purposes. The son could do whatever he wanted with the money, and thus, circumvent the responsibility of children toward their parents. The tradition of the elders held to the letter of the law while ignoring its spirit.

8. empty legalism ruled Jesus’ day. Hands (7:1 – his disciples were eating food with hands that were unclean) took precedent over hearts (7:6 – their hearts are far from me).

7:14-23: Hearts
1. the Old Testament Law was given to set up outward markers separating the people of God from their neighbors. Jesus came not to abolish but to fulfill the law. For Jesus love for God & love for neighbor were to be the outward markers setting his followers off from their neighbors:
§ Matthew 22:34-40 – to love God and love our neighbor
§ John 13:34-35 – love one another

2. but what gets in the way of loving God, loving our neighbors? Unwashed hands? Improperly washed cups, pitchers & kettles? No, not at all. The problem is bigger & deeper.

3. calling the crowd to himself, Jesus makes his point. 7:14-15. Impurity comes from within us. Impurity resides in our hearts, not on our hands or in our stomachs. It’s not about our hands being clean or unclean. It’s not about food being kosher or un-kosher. It’s about our hearts being pure.

4. Jesus the revolutionary strikes again. The real challenge posed by Jesus and the gospel is the transformation of the human heart. We are called to be people who live from the inside out. The condition of our hearts determines the purity of our actions.

5. Jesus illustrates his point with a list of attitudes & actions. His list includes some of the 10 commandments but not all. It reads very much like Paul’s list of the deeds of the flesh in Galatians 5.

6. evil thoughts
sexual immorality – general word of all sexual immorality
theft
murder
adultery – specific word for sex outside of marriage
greed
malice -
deceit
lewdness – unbridled shameless living
envy -
slander
arrogance
folly – foolish, senseless
7. what strikes me about Jesus’ list is this – he anchors evil in our human hearts. Jesus will not let us blame society for our evil. He will not even let us blame the devil. We can’t blame the downfalls of our parents or an imperfect educational system or governmental oversights. We can’t blame our spouses or children or bosses or President Bush.

8. listen to Alexandar Solzhenitzyn, Russian novelist & historian, The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes nor between parties either — but right through the human heart.

9. a list of dos & don’ts can’t alter the human heart. Neither can laws or legislation or genetic engineering. Education fails. Money fails. Culture fails. All else fails but the gospel of Jesus Christ.

What do you do with your evil heart?
1. 7:24. in this passage Jesus never tells us what to do about our evil hearts. He teaches & runs. He hits the road again. And then he hides himself in someone’s house. He wanted to keep his presence secret.

2. Jesus creates this deep-seated tension for his followers & then leaves them to stew in it. No solution. Not even 5 simple points of application. As if he wanted them to live with the reality of what kind of evil lurked within each of them.

3. this week, ponder the monster that lives within you, your evil heart. And let God speak to you as you ponder.