Sin Comes from Within

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Sermon by Josh Rice from Mark 7:1-23.

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Mark chapter 7 and the Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around him when they had come from Jerusalem and had seen that some of his disciples were eating their bread with defiled hands that is unwashed for the
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Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands thus observing the traditions of the elders and when they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash themselves and there are many other things which they have received in order to observe such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots and the
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Pharisees and the scribes asked him why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat their bread with defiled hands and he said to them rightly did
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Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites as it is written this people honors me with their lips but their heart is far away from me but in vain do they worship me teaching as doctrines the commands of men leaving the commandment of God you hold to the tradition tradition of men and he was also saying to them you are good at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition for Moses said honor your father and your mother and he who speaks evil of father or mother is to be put to death but you say if a man says to his father or his mother whatever you might benefit from me is
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Corbin that is to say given to God you no longer leave him to do anything for his father or his mother thus invalidating the
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Word of God by your tradition which you have handed down and you do many things such as that and after he called the crowd to him again he began saying to them listen to me all of you and understand there is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man and if anyone has ears to hear let him hear and when he had left the crowd and entered the house his disciples were asking him about the parable and he said to them are you lacking understanding in this way as well do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him because it does not go into his heart but into his stomach and goes to the sewer thus he declared all foods clean and he was saying that which proceeds out of the man that is what defiles the man for from within out of the heart of men precede the evil thoughts sexual immoralities thefts murders adulteries coveting wickedness deceit sensuality envy slander pride and foolishness all these evil things proceed from within and defile the man let's pray or Jesus cutting cutting words or that they cut in our present age as sharply as they did at the time of this story
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Lord I pray that we would have eyes to see and hearts to discern what is evil inside of us and Lord we will have every tendency to blame what is on the outside to blame everything except our wicked hearts in the ways that we stray away from you in the ways that we indeed turn your law upside down Lord deliver us from that give us repentance and Lord help us to understand this morning as we delve into this text and look at it help us to see its beauty help us to see its application help us to see its practicality and Lord we will give all glory to you knowing that you through your
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Holy Spirit illuminate us to see the teachings of Holy Scripture it's in your name
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I pray these things amen you may be seated we live in a in a confusing time and I'm about to say some things that I think might make a little bit of discomfort happen so we live in an age where we're not sure if the food we're eating is poison or if it's actually food there's dyes there's organic versus factory farming there's you hear it all the time the food is chemicals it's enriched with unnatural stuff we have vitamins there's genetically modified organisms do we even need to pasteurize stuff what do we do what do we do and then we have endless debates and arguments about feasts should we even celebrate
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Christmas is that pagan did the pagans co -opt Easter ooh what about Halloween is it sinful to celebrate
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Halloween and to go trick -or -treating should we be observing what the Jews did with Passover and the many feasts do we even need to honor our parents today it's fashionable to hate boomers the boomers have spent everything they've left us nothing the
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Millennials they actually ruined everything because they're snowflakes who won't work and the zoomers they don't even know how to work what are we doing is it okay for us to just forget our parents because really we have professional facilities so that we don't have to deal with the work of handling our aging parents just send them to a nursing home that'll be great in modern technology wonderful in it amazing and in the middle of all of this all of this confusion which is all the outside pushing in we have a subtle but pervasive idea and it's twofold one they're contradictory one is that we're more advanced than anyone who's ever lived and so we're not as racist and everyone who lived before us is antiquated and backwards but at the same time no one else has ever dealt with the struggles we're dealing with we stand alone in human history as we see societies falling and culture shaken no one has ever dealt with this before no empires ever fallen no one's ever dealt with wicked tyrants no one has ever failed to heed the voice of democracy like we're seeing today and we're rattled and from the book of wisdom
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Solomon writes all things are wearisome man is not able to speak of it the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor is the ear filled with hearing that which has been that which has been is that which will be and that which has been done is that which will be done so there is nothing new under the
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Sun is there anything of which one might say see this it's new already it has been for ages which were before us there is no remembrance of earlier things and also of the later things which shall still be there will be none for them there will be no remembrance among those who will come later still often
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Ecclesiastes is quite discouraging but I think it gives us a a bracing dose of reality that there is nothing new under the
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Sun and when Solomon writes of under the Sun he is talking about the kingdom of the earth that everything that's under the heavens that it all just recapitulates over and over again we do not stand in a unique time we stand in a time in which there's nothing new under the
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Sun where we don't remember what came before us and guess what 150 years from now they won't remember what we did right now it will be forgotten and the
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Pharisees and us today I think what we do is when we read a story when we read a example like Mark 7 what we instantly do is say see look at those horrible
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Pharisees how could you be that way and I think the finger gets pointed back at us this morning and I want to start by hurting us pretty badly and then
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I want to end by binding it us up and encouraging and healing us so first we have to look at astounding hardness of heart that's where we start our text in verses 1 through 5 so I want you to look at that and there's been a theme of hardness going on last week when we left
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Jesus had talked about in the in the stormy sea when he walked on the water that the disciples were hardened in their heart because they did not discern what they had just seen with the breaking of the loaves they didn't understand what
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Jesus was teaching through his shepherding and so now on to the scene to teach the disciples even more comes the shepherds of the day see
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Jesus is putting himself in contrast with the shepherds that are the Pharisees from Jerusalem because we're going to see in this chapter is that the the religious cohort the cabal from Jerusalem is going to come once again they came before in Mark chapter 3 when they said that Jesus was doing all these miracles because he was a son of Satan and here they're gonna try a different tact and it's not gonna go very well for them it's not gonna go very well at all because what the
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Pharisees show is an astounding hardness of heart get this their observation is they come down and they've heard these stories they've heard of the casting out of demons they've heard of a multitude you know this right the multitude of people fed with a couple of loaves of bread and some fish and people are buzzing right people are talking about the healings and the the miracles that are going on in the teaching like they've never heard before and they come in and they're worried about whether the disciples are washing their hands or not even in that time that is petty really petty right really petty but what's happened is the
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Pharisees are blind and they don't see what's happening and this story the text tells us is a parable we have a parable here and so as with all parables what we have to understand is that there is a meaning hidden inside of the obvious story and I think it came to my attention in preaching the parable of the soils a couple of weeks ago or a few weeks ago that I think oftentimes we don't understand the parables and we look down our nose and we're like how did you miss this it's obvious sin obviously comes from inside that's the parable no no no that's not what the parable there is a hidden meaning in here and the hidden meaning is about the kingdom of God right it's about how you access the holy of holies that's what's going on so what
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I want to point you to is the covenant that's being unveiled through the appointed time of the evil of these men who are going to come and they're going to try to hold up their traditions while they are put in contrast to the
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Shepherd of Jesus the Shepherd Jesus feeds his people the Shepherd Jesus heals his flock the
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Shepherd Jesus takes care of him he will not lose a single one out of his hand except that one who was appointed to perdition the
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Shepherd Jesus has a heart for his sheep and he loves them and he's with them but the Shepherd of Jerusalem remember the people are scattered like sheep without a shepherd and we see why as the
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Pharisees come down and they hear of these healings and they hear the ministry of Jesus and all they can think about is how he's breaking their father's traditions and so Jesus he does what we would do right he sneaks off and he complains to his disciples about the big bad
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Pharisees right no no that's not what he does because what the Lord is going to show us is he's going to show us how we deal with wolves and how you deal with false shepherds and how you deal with people in sin and we don't like this in America we don't we are descended from English and I think one of our things is that we like to be very nice to each other we like to be nice and then we like to construct our win off the scenes and that's not what
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Jesus does but I don't want you to miss in this that what the does what the Pharisees do here is extremely evil and this will offend our sensibilities as Americans because here's what the
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Pharisees do they're coming in and they say why are you defiling yourself by eating without washing your hands this is not ceremonial cleansing as prescribed by the law of Moses this is nowhere you are not gonna have to wash your hands ritually before you eat a meal the ritual cleansing was about temple worship not eating meals and really what's behind this is a subtle thing is that the
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Pharisees believe that you can catch sin like a germ all right and what they were doing is the reason that you had to wash your hands and the cups and the pots and all that stuff is because when you were walking in the marketplace you might have accidentally touched a
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Gentile and if you have done that then you are unclean and so you must wash your hands because you might have caught a sin from the
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Gentile from one of those dogs right and so you would wash your hands because you might have inadvertently defiled yourself or maybe you laid hands on an unclean food by accident and you can't make yourself defiled by touching that and so the religious cartel when they hear of what
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Jesus is doing they come to play a well -honored game of gotcha that's what they're doing gotcha see what you did they tried it with the
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Sabbath before it did not work out very well for them and now they're gonna try it with something else and it's gonna work out even worse for them much worse because the
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Lord really just I mean he just destroys them in this passage it's it's really a total decimation and a takedown so sin is something you catch from the outside it would be unclean and they've forgotten see in their zeal to follow the traditions of men they've forgotten what the very promises were to Abraham and of what the king was going to be and make no mistake the
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Pharisees know that Jesus is the king they just don't like it they know they know what Jesus quotes to them they understand the prophets they understand the
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Psalms they've spent their whole life studying it but they're blind and they're hardened and they're not hardened the way the disciples are we're often hardened as his people where we don't discern the teaching but we're not in open rebellion we just don't get it the
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Pharisees are in rebellion they know it and they're hardened just like Pharaoh because they hate Jesus and they hate his ministry and ultimately they hate the coming covenant that's going to take down their power because the sin that's defiling them from the inside is everything that Jesus lists at the end of this reading but it's also their malice and their desire to murder to protect their own power they are murderers and they are malicious gossips they are destructive they are a corrosive force and they've forgotten something they've forgotten the very word and they've suppressed it
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Psalm 22 27 listen to this compare this against the idea of accidentally touching a
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Gentile and having to ritually purify yourself here's what Psalm 22 27 said all the ends of the earth will remember and turn to Yahweh and all the families of the nations will worship before you what salvation for the
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Jews only not even according to their own writings no the kingdom of God was always about the whole earth
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God will not be confined to a small nation in the Middle East God wants it all
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God has claimed it all and this goes even further back than the Psalms it goes back to the very beginning this this covenant with Abraham that is one of the greater pictures that we have of the grace of God he said to Abraham I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you
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I will curse and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed all people of God come from Abraham we are descendants of him by blood or by faith and by faith is the whole nation of the earth every nation that turns to Yahweh is the people of God and the people of God we do not have to cleanse ourself from accidentally touching them so the source of the observation it's not the law it's a tradition and traditions will be zealously followed and enforced it's not good enough see what happens and we're gonna get into the next section which is about legalism but what happens it was traditions as traditions become law and in fact they become more important than law so what they do here's the idea the tradition is there to protect us from breaking the law right to break the law would be to enter in the temple and be unclean but instead of doing that we're just gonna move the fences a little bit further back so we don't accidentally break the law here with our uncleanliness we're gonna wash our hands all the time that's what the tradition does it's not good enough to just be ceremonially clean before temple worship it has to be before every meal look
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God see how much more righteous we are you told us to clean before you come in the temple we're cleaning all the time see how holy
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I am and it's very noteworthy that this is an external thing that everybody can see right
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I'm gonna clean myself look how holy I am and then look at what's going on remember don't lose the context last week she scattered without a shepherd this week what are these
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Pharisees doing they are heaping heavy burdens on the people heavy burdens and they're not doing one thing to help not one thing
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Jesus healing Jesus teaching Jesus feeding and the Pharisees are accusing right they don't care about helping the people they care about stocking up the shepherds hut right who cares about the sheep when we live in the the nice shepherds house that's got all the finest stuff in it keep bringing the tithes and offering sheep and we'll keep heeping the legalism on you so that's the tradition and we see that they come and they have their accusation and it's it's hidden there you you guys can't be of God you're not even doing what our father said and this is what
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Jesus does he exposes the hypocrisy of legalism look at what he says he immediately quotes
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Isaiah this people honors me with their lips but their heart is far away from me in vain do they worship me vanity is important here this is all about vanity both vanity for themselves but also taking the
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Lord's name in vain they are breaking at least two or three Commandments while they're doing this they leave the commandment of God to follow the commandments of men they teach as doctrine the commands of men we cannot do that we cannot make the traditions and preferences into doctrine doctrine is given by Scripture opinions of man can be good but they're not doctrine and there are not things for us to bind people's conscience to look at the look at the boldness of the
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Lord it's amazing to me it always amazes me our conception of Jesus and we miss pieces like this and look
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I think we can fall out of balance talking all the time about Jesus turning over the tables and angry Jesus and all that sort of thing but what we can't miss is that when in the presence of sin what
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Jesus did was he did the most kind thing possible which was to cut with a surgical knife and go right to the heart of the issue and the heart of the issue is that these
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Pharisees are hypocrites he applies the scripture of Isaiah to these men rightly did
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Isaiah prophesy of you what an amazing thing that is does it make them happy no no no it does not make them happy it makes them very angry what we have to understand is that legalism is not the love of God's law see what the doing was they were showing everyone on the outside how they are students of God's law how they know
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God's law better than all the unwashed masses at the same time they were demonstrating with their actions all the time that they had no love of God's law they didn't think
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God's law was enough to maintain their position and to show their holiness enough they wanted to be a little bit more external than that legalism is not the love of God's law it's rebellion it's rebellion and when we say that legalism is the way that we have to make
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Christ happy with us then we have a false gospel that's what the book of Galatians is about but even when we don't mix it with the gospel it is lawlessness legalism is placing burdens on people that they should not have to lift it's rebellion it is concerned always with the appearance of piety the appearance of height and this is the worst thing about legalism is what it really does is it masks unrighteousness that's what it does it's a cloak it's a holy pious skin suit to cover up the death and decaying of the sin that it's hiding underneath it leaves the law of God for a more showy form of religion and friends we are infested with it today we're infested with it in the church in America I fear that it is in our walls also is that we're always more concerned with what people see and what people hear than what's really there and what's really there has to be a heart that loves
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God's law do you understand this you cannot be a Christian and not love God's law it's the very essence of the new covenant right the new covenant was that God would give us a heart of flesh that was a heart of stone so that we would know him so that no one would have to teach us that doesn't mean you don't have to learn from somebody preaching what it means is that you don't have to be taught the hard lesson from nature you're gonna be taught by revelation
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God has placed a heart in you that desires to love his law and natural man does not have that natural man suppresses
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God's law legalism always is about the external it's never about the internal it's about hiding the internal and we have many movements in Christianity that are about that it's ultimately though it's about vanity vanity you know what vanity is when you picture vanity
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I think of the woman spending five hours a morning putting makeup on for the day why it's almost always to appeal to the eyes of those outside and hide the emptiness and the darkness that's underneath vanity is always about what's perceived and what's seen and never about the substance of the matter if you venture on to social media you would see a constant parade of what we call virtue signaling virtue signaling is where we take the right opinion of a subject so that we get accolades from people while doing nothing to progress that principle or that that view what we do is we just jump on board while not lifting a finger that's what the
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Pharisees do the Pharisees have created a car that looks like holiness this is the religion that pleases
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Yahweh doing everything that we did doing everything our fathers always passed down but inside that car is rottenness the outside of the car looks impressive and everybody outside that sees the
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Pharisees drive by go oh man I wish I understood God's Word the way these men do they could recite it they memorized it they could teach it they could go into the endless genealogies they could tell you everything about how this word was passed down they could go through every language they could give you the lesson in Aramaic in Hebrew they knew it all they could translate it into Greek right and they could wow you with their intellect and all the while their hearts are rotten because all of that intellectual pursuit and all of that flash on the outside was all there intended and purposeful to hide their murderous malicious hearts because they cared nothing for the people nothing the people were means to an end for them but with Jesus the people are the end do you understand the reason
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Jesus came was to seek and save what was lost that's the people the reason
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Jesus came was not to make everyone think how good he looked he wouldn't talk like this if that's what he wanted and good preaching and good proclamation of God's Word hurts us and it makes us feel uncomfortable and it brushes us back but it also should be marked by character it should be marked by truth it should not be marked by what's on the outside it should be marked by what's on the inside and that's why we're given how do we look at these leaders were to look at what they're doing in their personal life that's what it's all about what's in the personal life is what counts because that's the real person that's what's really going on behind the social media posts behind the clothes behind all of the external trappings is what's going on at home what does a man think when he's alone what is his interaction with the internet when he's alone how does he speak when he thinks no one hears what's he like and I think we have a good window into what these
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Pharisees are and then we have an object lesson because Jesus doesn't just call them names right he doesn't just call them names he actually points out an exact area where they are lawless because the law is always clear is it not does anyone misunderstand the
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Ten Commandments when you read them very clear very clear okay we try to twist them in our unrighteousness but they're clear don't murder people don't commit adultery don't have other gods before Yahweh right those things are simple but when we try to suppress them we start to call evil good and good evil and so here we go here we go the vanity of the
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Pharisees has also taken God's name in vain because what they've done is they've cloaked in godliness what
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God never said and that is what it means to take God's name in vain it's to ascribe
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God's power to things that God has not ordained or blessed a man who says he's a man of God and preaches wickedness is taking
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God's name in vain he's also lying right but he's taking God's name in vain and so Jesus points the example and this is the
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Corbin and this should hit pretty close to home for us he tells them you know this law this is the law honor your father and mother do you guys know what it means to honor your father and mother yeah we know what that means don't we don't disobey them when they get older we take care of them it all flips around right our parents take care of us when we're dependent and when we're young and they disciple us and they help us and then whenever they're old because end of life because of the curse of sin the end of life gets ugly many times people lose their mind they lose their body control things get ugly and it's not fun it's not fun at all and what what happens is the
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Pharisees had a way to please the people and the way they pleased the people was a double whammy hey guess what you can get out of that ugliness of taking care of your aging parents because that's not fun at all you can't go do fun stuff when you got mom at home who might wander out and get killed in the middle of the night because she won't stay in the house right that's not fun at all so what we're gonna do is we're gonna say you don't have to do that and guess what you can be super godly while not doing that because you can give all the money that would have been used to take care of your parents give it to the temple it's a one -time offering amazing win -win -win -win -win right the
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Pharisees get rich the people don't have to take care of their parents their parents who cares about them they don't know what's going on anyway their minds probably slipped and they're sitting destitute out in the street right but you get to feel super deeper holy and what you've done is you have expressly broken
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God's law the only person not happy in this scenario is the parents who have been dishonored but who cares about them they're old anyway right but who really is unhappy is
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God he's very unhappy and the penalty for dishonoring your father and mother do you realize this we've lost it the older child who cursed their father and mother they were put to death to break
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God's law is death we know this and we soften it the wages of sin is death sin is not an ethereal concept sin is law -breaking we know that that it's it's lawlessness and so the offering here is that Corbyn was a way to wrap religious activity around lawlessness and sin and to say look you can feel holy and feel like you're a friend of the church and dishonor your father and your mother and Jesus lays them on the line with this and then he gives this punching punching send -off you do many things such as that when
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Jesus looked over the crowd when we read last week and he saw that they were like sheep scattered without a shepherd and his his stomach hurt right that's what it means his stomach hurt and he looked on the people and he felt compassion he felt sympathy he wanted to help them the reason he felt that is because this is the type of shepherds that were leading these sheep they were telling them to break
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God's law and what happens nationally when you break God's law your nation is ruined
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God is patient God is long -suffering he doesn't grind us to dust the second we sin but at the same time he will by no means clear iniquity and that's why
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John the Baptist comes on the scene he says the axe is laid to the root of the tree you are a pit of vipers and then
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Jesus comes after him and the reason that he comes is to throw off this fake religion and to fulfill all the promises of God to the nations of the world the way it was going in Israel it was never going to go to the nations of the world because the
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Israelites thought they had to clean their hands if they even touch somebody that was a nation of the world how is the message of God going to spread in those conditions it's
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God going to allow that no he is not and so like he did time after time the sins of the people are judged and they have a dividing line that has come because Jesus come and the dividing line is him are you going to follow him or are you going to follow these shepherds and the dividing line of Jesus is the dividing line of grace and the shepherds of their day offer only obedience to the traditions of man that are deaf you do many things such as that how do we do that today we see all kinds of examples today of this kind of lawless shepherd let's call it out right we have the so -called supremacy of the
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Roman Catholic Church the vicar of Christ the mediator of sins to the people and many are fooled right scripture tells us there is one mediator between God and man
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Jesus Christ we know that Jesus because of Hebrews it tells us that he is the great high priest who makes intercession he's the only one who makes intercession because this covenant is built on better promises there's no lineage from the
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Pope to Peter one Antichrist to another why are we afraid to say it our forefathers weren't but we would throw them out of the church for saying it because again nobody's ever lived through what we lived through right we have legalism in the fundamentalist
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Baptist Church did you touch alcohol this week I think I saw you in the liquor store you're out these are heavy burdens they are meant to show you know what
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I can show people that I'd ever drink I can show people that right it's always on the outside we have the legalism that we've gone through the last seven or eight years about woke churches all wokeness is is just legalism it's elevating things that are not
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God's law to being God's law and then dividing lines on that we have the grift of shepherds that place burdens on congregations while not lifting a finger to help them there is division that's brought into what should be unified because of divisions that are based on traditions and preferences that are elevated to law we cannot elevate our traditions and our preferences to law to do so is lawlessness to do so is to discern the body by what we eat drink and celebrate instead of obedience to Christ and so now we move into the real point of the parable and that's why
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I've called this sermon the sin from within and the real point of the parable is Jesus explaining this interaction the disciples don't understand they don't see what's going on because understand the disciples the disciples are partially hardened right they don't discern they didn't understand the loaves last week and they don't understand what just happened with the
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Pharisees this week because they are ensnared in the traditions they are Jews and they have been brought up their entire life to think this is how you worship
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God this is how we do it if we don't do this then we're not the people of God and that's why we have the book of Hebrews and that's why we have the book of Romans and the book of Galatians that are teaching us over and over again there is no way back you cannot go back
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Jesus changed everything he changed absolutely everything see in this text he says listen to me all of you and understand there is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him but the things which proceed out of man are what defile the man sin is not a communicable disease sure bad morals enjoys bad company they do but people don't catch the sin from the people around them this is a fallacy you know what you're not a product of who you follow you follow who you follow because you're a sinner people are not corrupted by the people around them they seek the people around them to be corrupted sin comes from inside Mark does not leave us any room
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I'm so thankful for his pin this week because he makes it so clear and he's so blunt he's so direct the kind of food you eat does not matter spiritually it has no no interact doesn't matter at all you should not judge people based on the matter of food explicitly from Mark I'm so glad he said it this way and I think
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I think Paul would later bring it even further and he would go to this dream would you eat meat offered to idols oh man it seems like that's pretty rough right and Paul says it's fine just don't flaunt it right don't mess with someone's conscience but sin is not a communicable disease we don't catch it we have plenty of ourself
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Jeremiah said the heart is deceitfully wicked who can understand it who can understand it well
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I'll tell you who understands it Jesus understands it and the Holy Spirit understands it the
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Holy Spirit indwells us and he understands more than anyone our heart and he abides with us because judicially we are cleaned by the blood of Christ and yet we can grieve the
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Holy Spirit by clasping and by clinging on to the sin that ensnared us before we were set free why would the slave want to go back to the chains and yet we want to do it all the time because the heart is wicked and then what we do from making bad to worse is when we sin we look around and we try to find blame the devil made me do it the devil made me do it but even more today and I see it all the time the government made me do it the government our government's wicked and they made me do it how can you even know how do you even know what's true now look it's bad to be ruled by liars it's a judgment of God right
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God is judging the wickedness of our people so why we have the government that we have that's why the bills that get passed at the state level are getting passed and then we move further because the government is kind of an amorphous blob isn't it like what is the government is so big like what are we even talking about you know who knows but then we go further
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Big Pharma did it I listened to a podcast this week the the guy on Tucker Carlson said
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I think Big Pharma is the biggest demon in the world you know maybe maybe but Big Pharma doesn't make you sin
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Big Agri did it they didn't make you sin either it's the microplastics that's why
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I act like a girl the microplastics guys look
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I'm not I'm not sitting here and denying effects of evil when the people worship the golden calf
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God God through through his his federal head
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Moses ground up that idol and made them all drink it we're gonna drink a lot of the cultural rebellion that we have and we have a lot of bad stuff going on we do okay but temptation from the outside is not sin this is a little preach doctrine in our day with the confusion of same -sex attraction and celibate homosexuality and a bunch of mumbo -jumbo that our forefathers would have laughed in our face and not know what we were talking about when we said things like that they would have said things like homosexual same -sex attraction stop stop that that's sin and we go how is that sin and we write books is it sin yeah it's sin it's unnatural okay temptation from the outside is not sin but temptation from the inside is the inner workings of our sinfulness let me read two texts here that illustrate the point
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Hebrews 4 14 through 16 this is some of my favorite text in the whole scripture listen to this therefore since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens
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Jesus the Son of God let us take hold of our confession hold the confession we know what the confession is don't we church
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Christ is Lord we have no hope outside of him for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses but one who has been tempted in all things like we are yet without sin therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in the time of need you do not draw near to the kingdom of God by washing your hands you do not draw near to the kingdom of God by ceremony of purifying yourself before you go into the temple that system is over the way you draw near the way you draw near to the throne of grace is that you hold fast to the confession do you see that it's not from the outside in it's from the inside out
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James helps us very much this text is used all the time and it should be it's the anatomy of sin James 1 13 through 15 let no one say when he is tempted
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I am being tempted by God for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself does not tempt anyone but each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust then when lust has conceived it gives birth to sin and when sin is fully matured it brings forth death see the world you see touch and eat does not make you sin your heart makes you sin your rebellion against God makes you sin and then your rebellion of God just like when
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I was a confronted with my sin I lied and we doubled down right what we do is in our more sophisticated adult lives we don't say thinking like when we have cookie crumbs all over her face we don't say no
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I wasn't in the cookie jar no we don't do that we're much more crafty than that because what we do is see see
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I didn't sin all I did was gossip by saying pray for him right you see what we do and I know this hits hard right what we do is we like to cloak our sin in pious language it's what we like to do we like to make our malicious gossip a prayer request we like to defend ourselves against attack by saying
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I'm so grieved for you brother I'm so grieved and who's gonna attack us when we do this
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I'm gonna tell you who will attack you Jesus Christ he's not he's not won over by that see the world of the past and this is the point of the parable let's get here the point of the parable
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Pharisees wash your hands you're defiled no you break the law because of Corbin and the disciples going what's this about and he says do you not understand it's what's on the outside doesn't do anything to you it goes in the sewer where it came from right it's all the circle of life right you eat the bread the bread goes in the sewer who cares if it's leavened or not do you know that I can even feel like should we take leavened bread at Communion here's the answer in the
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New Covenant who cares who cares it all goes back to the same place because we do not enter the temple on the basis of our ritual cleanliness there is not one thing we can add to our cleanliness this morning not one thing we are either fully cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ or we're fully iniquity ground transgression dirt buried into us because there is no way that we can dig deep enough to get ceremonially pure but do you know what
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Jesus does when we hold fast to that confession he completely cleanses us there's no need you're not gonna defile your food by ritually cleansing you don't have to worry about catching a sin disease from someone else it's not who sinned your mother or your father no in the
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New Covenant in the kingdom of God we have a great high priest who understands everything that we go through to a greater extent do you understand that then
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Jesus saw temptation from the outside he didn't ever give in to the temptation so that temptation would build and build and build and get to its highest level possible and yet he did not sin he understands what it's like men to walk around and see an immodest woman he understands he understands the urges that come and he never sinned he understands women when you hear negative things that are oh so juicy to the ear that we want to hear and we want to pass on he understood that he heard all of it and he never sinned he understands the temptation to take the conflict run it underground and blow things up he never sinned look what he did with the
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Pharisees he goes right at them for the benefit of his disciples and then he doesn't get impatient with his disciples what we're gonna see in chapter 8 is he's gonna teach the same lesson patiently again with another miracle of multiplication of food because Jesus does not tire as the teacher he's the greatest teacher that ever lived and you will get the message if you're in his kingdom and he will take the hardness off your heart he promised to do it and he surely will what an amazing
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God we serve don't miss it don't miss it the world that the Pharisees were living in and the disciples were so ensnared by is over because the surpassing power of the sacrifice the sacrifice it wasn't about bulls and goats the power of the sacrifice changed that world and it turned it upside down and the prestige and the perfection and the lineage of the great high priest he makes perfect intercession for us what can we add the author of Hebrews says we can't not only can we not add anything you cannot go back you cannot go back that's what
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Jesus is teaching his disciples you cannot cling to this idea
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I'm not your earthly king of Israel I'm the king of the world I'm not saving the
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Jews I'm saving everybody you're not coming into the presence of the Holy One based on your labor and going through the ceremonial cleansing you're not coming into holiness with God with your abstinence from pork and crawling things and all of the things that are made unclean in the liturgical law you're coming into the presence of God based on only only the sympathy of this great high priest who offered the once -for -all sacrifice and who lives to intercede for his people can you get a better intercessor than that can you get a better attorney than the one who is the judge jury lawbringer and the one who made the penalty himself he did it see before all of this you had to be really worried about the outside you did if you've read
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Exodus and Leviticus not only the outside of the man not only the priest and his garments which were detailed down to the finest detail but also the tabernacle itself if you've read the end of Exodus it's hard sledding right it's where yearly Bible plan readings go to die because at the end of Exodus what happens is
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God lays out in excruciating detail what every part of the temple was to look like and its dimensions and the reason why is because God is holy and it took a sacrifice from the man from the lineage of Melchizedek to make a way this man was not like a
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Levitical priest he had no lineage he was eternal there's no beginning and no end that's the kind of priest it takes to enter into the
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Holy of Holies see only the great high priest after making sacrifice for himself could enter in to intercede for the people but Jesus did not have to make a sacrifice for himself he entered into the high places forever on the basis of his perfect righteous standing and the book of Hebrews is so important for us in understanding what's happening in Mark this ceremonial law this covenant it's coming apart and the disciples don't quite get it yet but the teaching will continue until they all get it and even in Acts they still don't quite get it right do we have to be circumcised no can we eat pork yes you see
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Mark writes so clearly here Mark writes so clearly because it was so fuzzy to them it was because if you were told your whole life you can't eat these things and be right with God Mark has to tell us very clearly he says all food has been declared clean look friends you don't have to eat it but that even means
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Lay's potato chips it's of no spiritual significance none choose at your own discretion and for your own reasons but I do truly
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I truly see sorry Brian here we go I see it in in the reform camp
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I see more posting about what we're doing on the outside than I do about the great high priest we are worried about working out we are worried about testosterone we are worried about all the food right we're worried about the chemicals in the water and pesticides and frog hormones that are making us homosexuals and all this kind of stuff we see this all over the place and we and what happens is it's gotten boring to us to talk about the basis by which we are purified it's not about the outside it's not about the outside and I told you
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I would mind you up I'm gonna cut you one more time first all right here we go what flows from an inner dirty cup when inside of the cup is dirt you guys understand this right you could have the most polished goblet of all time it looks beautiful you're like man
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I would love to drink from that beautiful golden goblet but if an inside of it there's like a little speck of poo -poo you gonna drink from that no no one is no one cares how pretty the outside of the cup is when the inside is feces and and the reason why is this and this is what we do we can't see the heart we're walking around and we're not seeing people's hearts what we see is the outside okay and sometimes for a certain amount of time the outside can look really good and it can hide for a time the poop on the inside the nastiness that we would never touch if we actually saw it but we don't see it but here's the thing and here's the here's the deal
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I know going through the men when we were going through first Timothy you see a thing that he gives a warning he's like look their works are evident except sometimes they're not evident but time will reveal and time will always reveal if the inside is nasty it can look good the
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Pharisees look good but what's gonna happen they're gonna murder their Lord right the inside is nasty and when the inside is nasty what are you gonna get let's look and here's the marker for us what you're gonna get is evil thoughts sexual immorality has there ever been a cult that's not marked by sexual immorality of the leaders it's always strict legalism and dress codes for the sexual bonanza for me that's the way it works right because you can't hide it forever the rotten heart is always going to act out theft stealing from the people that's what
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Corbin was murders that's coming adulteries if you break part of the law you're gonna break it all covening do you see what he's doing with the
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Ten Commandments there he's running through him wickedness deceit sensuality ember in envy slander pride foolishness when we see these coming out at the church what that shows is that we have dirty insides of the cup no matter how pretty the outside looks no matter how pious the outside sounds when we see this kind of stuff coming out the hearts rotten here's the good news friends what we do
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I think we preach too often like the Puritans and we make you all afraid and we think I mean I'm not even saved right how do
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I even know well Hebrews tells us you hold fast to the confession can anything take you away from the confession for God's people the answer is an emphatic no and here's the thing guys we love his
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Calvinist total depravity and I believe in total depravity no one is seeking God not one and yet when
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God finds you did you know your heart is not totally depraved anymore did you know Christian did you know did you know your heart is not deceitfully wicked above all things anymore it's not it's in a conflict it's not fully wicked it's been redeemed and it's working itself out the other way see when we're born in sin what's happening is it goes from bad to worse as we sit in our sin and we get better at hiding our sin we get worse and worse but in Christ what happens is he gives us a new heart this new heart has new desires and those new desires grow over time so what happens with the sanctification of the
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Christian is they're gonna go from good to better that doesn't mean sinless perfection but that means by God's grace as 70 years old
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Lord willing that I will be more holy and sanctified than I am today and that the inside of the cup will be cleaner and cleaner until glory when it's perfectly clean
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God desires the hearts of men not the appearance of men the hearts of men we remember from 1st
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Samuel right why was David chosen to be the king he even chides his servant Samuel he says men look on the outside but God looks on the inside God looks to the heart of man see you were depraved you did hate
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God you did spend your time thinking about malice and wickedness and all the things in this list but not today not today such were some of you such were some of you but you have been washed you have been redeemed and so today
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Christian what we're marked by is not these fruits of wickedness we are marked by the fruits of the Spirit and the outside of the cup is going to start reflecting purity not because of fake piety but because it's really who we are that's why we have to look at the outside but you individually you're the only one that can look at the inside and you should look at the inside and be much more concerned with your inside than you are with your outside if you're trying to control the inside with your outside you are a hypocrite and your worship is in vain this morning do you understand when you sing songs to Christ with a heart that's far from him that's vanity that's vanity we can't do that it's crucial for us to understand that we cannot add or subtract from the law when we do so division is coming division is coming we have to look into the word and not their traditions of men every church has their traditions we have to go by what scripture says and we have the guardrails of confession but we look at what scripture says and we break against it at the end of the day this is what
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I want to leave us with we have to unite in truth and we have to quiet down about externals quiet down we have to show patience and understanding through our various preferences and tendencies every family has different cultures every family right as many families are in here we have different cultures and you might come into our you know the rice
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Christmas thing and you might think well what are they doing they're eating Mexican food that's crazy sorry angel
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Tex -Mex even the horror right I don't know why we do that we've had the real thing you know but people come in and and what happens is when we elevate our preferences and traditions and we try to bring our stuff from the house into this place and it forces on other people that is not a mark of strength that's a mark of weakness and when we can give way to others preferences and traditions learn from them and love each other and keep the main thing the main thing reform people this is what we must do keep the main thing the main thing that is not not a mark of weakness or opening the door to everyone that's a mark of maturity did you know a huge mark of maturity is being able to disagree with someone continue to disagree with them and not hate them not be threatened by them oh my feelings that's all the bad things about Millennials that we talked about right snowflakes we have to learn how to disagree with each other
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Jesus shows us the model right here get to the point get to the point see we have to be stalwarts and bulldogs on the essentials of the faith
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I want us to be bulldogs about that I want us to accept nothing less than what
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Hebrews has told us what the Brit what scripture teaches us we cannot compromise on that they are the guardrails of orthodoxy but we have to be patient and charitable on other doctrines we really do and we have to be get this get this and this is my last word we have to be largely silent about traditions feasts and foods those are for individual households okay those are not to bring in and to elevate and to bind others consciences and if we do that then
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I pray to God that he would give us grace and compassion with one another and that we would grow that we would be the family of God that we reflect that family family squabble if you ever been to our house you know
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Cooper and I are gonna fight it's fine we love each other it's fun sometimes right there's gonna be squabbles here at the end of the day though at the end of the day we trust in Christ and we hold that confession and if we do that friends bear with me here if we do that he is going to clean the inside of the cup he's promised to do it he is changing us from the inside out he's doing it every day sometimes it's imperceptible but five years from now you'll probably see that work it's happening trust him trust him and trust the process let's pray
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Lord thank you for your word thank you for the simplicity that Mark gives us or that that he cuts through this difficult thing for the disciples but it's also difficult for us there's nothing new under the
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Sun Lord we like to elevate the exterior because at our core Lord we think that salvation is too simple we think that your grace is an offense it couldn't be that easy could it that you require nothing from us but to hold to that confession that you've given us the faith to do in the first place
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Lord it is that simple and in our unbelief Lord we stray and I pray that you would help us to come back because you are the great
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Shepherd you are the great high priest you are the master teacher Lord you are the one that we are to emulate that we are to look at that we are to copy or that comes down to how you dealt with conflict to how you dealt with your family your friends the temple
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Lord may we learn from you may we do what you have taught and Lord from that I pray that there would be growth in your people that there would be peace but more than that Lord that there would be an aggression to do what you've called us to do
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Lord that we would not be fake followers of the law that we would not be virtue signalers hearers only
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Lord but that we would buy your power and by your grace be doers of the law or that the inside would match the outside Lord I pray that you would protect your church from hypocrisy it is such a bad thing for the witness
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Lord it defiles the gospel when we say it and we're hypocrites Lord I pray that you would deliver us from that that we would repent where we have sinned