Christ Rules From Within

Christ Rules! Gospel of Mark Series (Part 14)

A Sermon By Jim Hammond from Mark 7:1-23

OUTLINE

Focus: Where holiness is viewed as an achievable moral excellence, man-made rules and definitions are elaborately applied. Jesus dismissed every such man made effort by identifying a fatal flaw. Evil comes from inside and makes a man unclean. Where an internal engine overhaul is required, a car wash won’t do.

I. Holiness Is Required

II. But Holiness is not Achieved it is Received

A. The Fatal Flaw—The Negative TRUTH :

Evil within makes ACHIEVEMENT of holiness impossible (Mark 7:20-23)

B. The Satisfying Solution—The Positive TRUTH:

Good things come from the good RECEIVED and stored up in your heart. (Matthew 12:35)

III. How to Receive Holiness

Concluding Blessing (Benediction): Hebrews 10:10, 14

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MANUSCRIPT

Back when I was a Youth Minister in the 80s, I went to a youth ministers conference. In it the results of a survey was listed off. It was a comparison of the discipline problems in the 1940s as compared to the 1980s. In the 40s the primary discipline problems in school were :

talking;

chewing gum;

making noise;

running in the halls;

getting out of turn in line;

wearing improper clothes;

not putting paper in wastebaskets!

As compared with the 80s the problems were

drug abuse;

alcohol abuse;

pregnancy;

suicide;

rape;

robbery;

and assault.

Perhaps in the latter 90s the problems have intensified to the dangers of assault with deadly weapons,

Violent mass murders

What an incredible shift in behavior patterns in only forty years. Chewing Gum, verses Machine Guns. What is happening? Is the problem our society? Is the problem what the Young people are taking IN. Or is the problem internal, and the restraining influences are being lifted, so there is more room for internal evil to express itself externally.

A simple answer is that Jesus is the Answer. Kids need Jesus. Jesus Rules from Within, and has changed whole societies. This morning as we take a look at holiness, we will focus on hope. We will focus on answers, solutions, something that works. But it doesn’t work the way most people thinks it works. Perhaps young people need to know this more than ever before because they are sick and tired of the old approach to holiness, the external list of rules that seem irrelevant to finding meaning in life.

Today we will focus on deeper more satisfying solutions. Not band aids. Today we will be addressing our hearts. Not the politics, not the schools, not the societies evils that we must call people to avoid. We have to address the heart more than the behaviors. It does us no good to identify all the bad fruit in one’s life and attempt by pressure to snip off the bad fruit one by one. Until the root changes the bad fruit will keep coming.

I. Holiness Is Required

(Hebrews 12:14 NIV) "Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord."

Let’s start with God’s outlook. It is eternal. Living life for the here and now is a dead end. But living life God’s way is an open ended highway.

Gina, my wife, is the neatest person I know, in more ways than one. Literally, Gina loves a neat and tidy house, and she loves a neat and tidy car. This is a good thing, except that my desk drives her batty, and my car drive her batty. But she lets me keep these cluttered corners of my life. This last week she had enough of the dirt and grime build up in the family van, the car she drives, that she decided to hire Aaron Crownoble to “detail” our car. That is he gave it a deep cleaning, inside and out. He did a fine job. It looks brand new except for some of the dings in it. Gina is very pleased. I want you to imagine something odd. Imagine how senseless it would be to put the kind of hours of work into “detailing” a abandoned car at a junk yard. Imagine spending hours cleaning the inside and outside when there’s no engine under the hood! It would have been wasted energy, and completely senseless, had we had Aaron put all his energy into cleaning a car if the car didn’t run.

This brings me to today’s passage of scripture and focus. Would you read the focus with me before we open to Mark 7.

Focus: Where holiness is viewed as an achievable moral excellence, man made rules and definitions are elaborately applied. Jesus dismissed every such man made effort by identifying a fatal flaw. Evil comes from inside and makes a man unclean. Where an internal engine overhaul is required, a car wash won’t do.

· Christ Must Rule From Within

We are going to find out in Mark 7 that although the Pharisees and Jesus both agree that Holiness is required, they are polar opposites as to how this holiness is attained. The Pharisees have an outside in approach, and Jesus has an inside out approach.

(Mark 7:1-23 NIV) "The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and {2} saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were "unclean," that is, unwashed.

Jesus just came from the marketplace where he was healing people. When Jesus touches unclean people, they become clean, not the reverse, as the Pharisees assume.

{3} (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. {4} When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.) {5} So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with 'unclean' hands?" {6} He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. {7} They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.' {8} You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men." {9} And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! {10} For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' {11} But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), {12} then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. {13} Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."

{14} Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. {15} Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean.'" {16} {17} After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. {18} "Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'? {19} For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.") {20} He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' {21} For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, {22} greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. {23} All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.'""

· Holiness is Internal Wholeness

Wholeness is Experienced when Christ Rules From Within

From Within

What's inside us comes out in our work relationships. A certain downtown businessman became fond of the little boy who shined his shoes every day. He did such a good job that one day the businessman asked him, "Son, how come you are so conscientious about your work?" The boy felt complimented. He looked up to the man, and said, "Mister, I'm a Christian and I try to shine every pair of shoes as if Jesus Christ were wearing them."

The businessman saw something genuine in the shoeshine boy. Soon after that he began reading his Bible. When he decided to be a Christian himself, he credited his decision to the little boy who shined every pair of shoes "as if Jesus Christ were wearing them." That's a blessing.

Again, what's inside us comes out in our social and moral behavior. Here is the other extreme: a boy was raised by a mother who showed him no affection, no love, no discipline. He was a "loner" in school. The girls teased him and the boys beat him up. He joined the marines but only found abuse there and, eventually, was dishonorably discharged. He married and tried to have a family, but his wife hated him. He lost all sense of self-worth. Maybe you've guessed his name. One day, November 22, 1963, he went out into the garage, took a rifle, drove into Dallas, and put two holes in the head of our former President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Yes, his name was Lee Harvey Oswald.

One who lacks self-esteem and has a poor self-image is likely to be negative, anti-social and often deplorably immoral. [i]

Wholeness is the holiness of God that fills us and makes us complete, so that there is no need for, or room for sin

Wholeness is being so satisfied with God, you don’t want to settle for anything less. You don’t want to sin.

Wholeness is the reorientation of the heart

II. But Holiness is not Achieved it is Received

A. The Fatal Flaw—The Negative TRUTH :

Evil within makes ACHIEVEMENT of holiness impossible (Mark 7:20-23)

(Mark 7:20-23 NIV) "He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' {21} For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, {22} greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. {23} All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.'""

B. The Satisfying Solution—The Positive TRUTH:

Good things come from the good RECEIVED and stored up in your heart. (Matthew 12:35)

(Matthew 12:35 NIV) "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him."

Holy behavior comes from the holiness of God that is stored in your heart.

A Cork on a bottle under the Niagra will not be filled. Remove the sin, the pride, then come to receive and be filled. If you think you can achieve acceptability, the cork still covers your bottle.

The greatest responsibility we have as a Christian is to position ourselves to fully receive all the New Covenant realities and express them. That is also the most meaningful experience you can have. It is bigger than self.

Man made approaches create a fence of rules keeping people out

The deeper Internal answer is more satisfying because it doesn’t put up arbitrary fences. It expresses God’s openness to us, not how closed he is.

It is very dangerous to set up nonbiblical standards for others to follow.

You’ve probably heard of churches that do this:

Don’t Dance

Don’t play cards

Don’t go to movies

Don’t drink Coffee

Don’t drink any alcoholic beverage

Boys, don’t wear long hair,

Girls Don’t wear short hair

Don’t wear make up

Don’t wear pants

Don’t wear jewelry

Christ Rules From Within

He invites everyone to put himself in under the fountain of mercy and grace that fills us to wholeness and satisfaction.

III. How to Receive Holiness

Come to the Source of Holiness. There is only one fountainhead. It doesn’t come from the nature of man, but from the nature of God. It flows from Him to bring the wholeness of His being into our being.

Ungodliness is not always from what outward things we have done, but from the unwholeness of our lives. God’s holiness fills us with all the fullness of him that crowds out the things that may be the ruin of our lives.

The acknowledgement of need does not signal weakness, but rather dependence. Dependence is the position of our greatest strength.

Please hold an imaginary bottle up this morning. Pull the cork off. Get rid of the pride that says I’m as good as the other guy. Get rid of the pride that says, I’m all right. God will have to accept me. Admit your fatal error. Your heart left to itself is willful and corrupt. No measure of effort on your part will clean it up enough to match the standard of holiness that is God’s standard. You need an overhaul not a car wash.

Now turn that imaginary bottle upside down and dump out the crud of self interest. Name it off before the Lord.

Now hold that empty bottle upright again. Extend your arm out as if to reach it under the power of the Niagara falls of God’s grace.

GRACE,

God’s

Righteousness

Christ’s

Expense

Ask Him to fill you with Himself. Ask Christ to Rule your life. Turn over the reigns on the issues of your sin. Tell him you are willing to let him have charge. That’s called repentance. Turn from your sin. It is not your friend. You dumped it out remember. You don’t want to go back to it. Ask Christ to rule from within you. Ask him to replace your wrong desires with godly desires. Ask him to give you the power to carry out those new godly desires. This is the engine overhaul. He is giving you a new power. You can please him, not by achieving it on your own, but by depending on His engine, His power, by the power of The Holy Spirit, Christ’s Spirit in you.

As Jesus said to the sinful woman he accepted, and he said this with the look of love and acceptance that empowered her to respond. Go and sin no more.

Benediction:

(Hebrews 10:10 NIV) "And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." (You have been made Holy—SALVATION—made acceptable. THIS IS OUR POSITION)

(Hebrews 10:14 NIV) "because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy."

(You are being made Holy—SALVATION—made acceptable. THIS IS OUR PRACTICE)

[i] Charles R. Leary, Mission Ready!, C.S.S. Publishing Company, 1990.