Bridge Church Vancouver

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.'"

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.'"
NIV

An Intentional Message
What's in Your Heart?

Everyone wants to be 'right' with God, and know with confidence that they are well with their maker. That they are accepted and acceptable to God, that they are 'Okay'.

we build forms & structures around our lives to help us know we are 'right' with God. Those are the morals and values we live with.
when someone says 'well that may be right for you, but not for me' means they have built a different their life on a different set of morals and values, but the fact that they are saying that means they have some themselves.

What we do matters,

we live upside down in our world
"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.'"

We would naturally think that bringing things into our lives from the world would be detrimental to our life...
smoking, plastic bottles, there seems to always be another study that says - milk, read meat, caffeine, diet drinks, are harmful to our lives
this is not what Jesus is talking about...

the Pharasees get a bad rap from most preachers for being hard headed, arrogant, hyprocritical religious manipulators who put pressure on peoples lives.
Some may have been
but one thing I realized this week as I studied this passage was these were men who also wanted the Jewish people to remember who they were. These religious teachers were battling a cultural slide of pluralism that Hellenism introduced to their community. They wanted the Israelite people to honor a holy God, to be set a part from the rest of the world as a holy people.
the difficulty comes in trying to connect their faith with their lives, the lives of their people who they want to lead to be a holy people.
the same is true for us, it is a challenge to live in todays world, as a holy person.
When non-Christian, unbelieving people dont see our lives as being all that different from their own, is that a problem to you?

for the 1st c Jewish culture, the elders of the religion had established a lot of rules and regulations that were not specifically based on scripture but intended to help people live and remain aware of the need to live a pure and holy life. they washed their hands - ceremonally - was not a matter of hygene, but a matter of ongoing purity in thier lives. They would ceremonally wash 'clean' cups, pots and vessels to empahsis that all aspects of their lives were to be pure and clean before God.
They established these and many other practices as a way to remind them of the need to be a holy and pious people. the problem became - as it still does with us today - that they forgot or would loose sight of the meaning and significance of the practices while the regulation remained. People would do the practices, rabbis would teach the necessity of the practice, but lost sight of the reason for them.

We can do that today - we establish practices, rules, and even attitudes about things we do and things we dont do to be a good follower of Jesus,
it is entirely possible to have a quiet time, spend a few minutes reading a passage from the Bible - and leave getting nothing out of it - it had little to no impact on my life.
we may go to church faithfully, but just because it is a thing I do, but not really get much out of it.
as a good Christian, I may not go to certain kinds of movies, or particular kinds of establishments...
some refrain from drinking alchohol, or smoking, or pot

another twist to this argument - particularly in todays Christian circles is the use of freedoms - "I am free in Christ so I do what I want..."
I am free to drink socially whatever I want
I am free to smoke pot
I am free to watch whatever I want
I am free to not go to church
we use freedom in Christ as a way to cover up self indulgence and loose sight of what that freedom truely is, how I received it and why, the submission I have in that freedom.

but just because we think we do all the right things does not make us right before God

We are in a relationship with him
He is interested in our hearts more than our actions
He knows that the actions reflect the person, but he can see the directions of our heart
we can't just say "well in my heart I meant to do what was right, God knows my heart" yes - but he also knows the directions and attitude of your heart - you cant hide that from him
He knows exactly how mixed our motives are
He knows our hidden agendas that only you see
He knows what is going on inside of there, so we better be careful when we say "God knows my heart" and when our actions and our heart are not the same, he sees the mix of our motives.

for a while Capital One credit card company had a commercial of a princess who kisses a frog so she can get a prince, but ends up going through a weasle, a turkey, a monkey and finally a fat satyre says but your just one kiss away as she walks away in digust... they he asks "what's in your wallet"

we try all we can to be good, right accepted by God, but it never seems enough, there is alway just one more thing we should do and eventually we just give up, its too much, a game not worth playing when in reality we are focused on the wrong thing...
instead of asking are we doing the right things, we should be asking "what's in my heart?"

Prov 27:19
As water reflects a face,
so a man's heart reflects the man.

What is in our heart matters more

Jesus said:
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.'"

evil thoughts -
dialogismos (dee-al-og-is-mos'); discussion, i.e. (internal) consideration (by implication, purpose), or (external) debate:
kakos (kak-os'); apparently a primary word; worthless , i.e. (subjectively) depraved, or (objectively) injurious:
KJV - bad, evil, harm, ill, noisome, wicked.

the ongoing - noisy chatter of our minds - where our minds develop all kinds of fantasies and where you always end up on top
the dialog that goes on inside our minds that no one else hears -
"If I could just get them out of the way"...

Sexual Immorality
porneia (por-ni'-ah); harlotry (including adultery and incest); figuratively, idolatry:
KJV - fornication.
using sex at someone else expense to satisfy your own desires; porn, prostitution, casual, social sex,

theft
taking something that is not yours - you did not buy, earn or was given to you but you end up with
anything from stealing a car to stealing a ride by hoping on a bus without buying a ticket

murder
slay - actively
Jesus said of murder;
Matt 5:22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.

adultery
engaging in a sexual relationship with someone you are not married too
Jesus said: Matt 5:27 "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

greed - covetousness
wanting what someone else has
thinking that I deserve what they have
i do not celebrate their good fortune - that should have been me, or I deserve it too

malice - wickedness - depravity
plot harm to others, intend to do something to someone else for their demise.
plan a meeting when you know a co-worker will be at a Dr's appointment just so they wont be there
set someone up for a fall, knowingly put them in a situation they can not win, but you do

deceit
dolos (dol'-os); dello; meant to decoy; a trick (bait), i.e. (figuratively) wile:
KJV - craft, deceit, guile, subtilty.
manipulate situations to look like one thing when you do another.
like a child that is about to get a piece of candy from the bowl, but just as the mother turns around the child the reach to a point in front of the mother and asks "can I have a piece of candy" and the mother says "because you asked, yes you can"
trying to do something behind someones back

Lewdness - sensuality - carousing -
crude language, jokes, actions - often in a sexual nature
making what is intended to be a good thing appear dirty
many movies have dirty, casual sexual overtones that are intended to be funny
much of the pop music today is lewd -
we engage in lewdness when we also laugh or find acceptable what is really crude

envy
ophthalmos (of-thal-mos'); the eye (literally or figuratively); by implication, vision; figuratively, envy (from the jealous side-glance):
I see something and I want it, I am jealous for it,
Ive got to have that iphone like that other person at work
i've got to go on this vacation like they did
I've got to have that bigger, badder, better thing...
we envy looks, images, someone elses popularity, we see what they get and I want it

slander
I am going to purposefully say something to make someone else look bad
the word means an evil attempt to blaspheme someone else
wives slander their husbands when they are talking to their friends and put their husbands in bad light, or make them look mean
husband slander their wives when they complain to their friend about their wife and make her sound bad
children slander their parents
we can slander co-workers, bosses, neighbours by using our words to hurt someone else in the eyes of someone else

Arrogance - Pride
huperephania (hoop-er-ay-fan-ee'-ah); haughtiness:
KJV - pride.
thinking you are above someone else, you know more, are a better person, Christian, better worker, student
attitude of superiority

folly
aphrosune (af-ros-oo'-nay); senselessness, egotism; (morally) recklessness:
KJV - folly, foolishly (-ness).
not really concerned if my actions have implications on someone else

Jesus said all of these are the things that are in a persons heart and they do come out
this is what makes us 'unclean' before God,
these are what give us our real trouble,
we may be able to manage our actions much of the time,
I may do certain things that make me appear to be holy, right, together, okay before God,
but i am only fooling myself.

i need to be changed, transformed
I need a heart transplant new attitudes

Eph 4:22-24
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
NIV

Jesus wants to change our hearts so that the actions that come out of our lives have integrity.

that what is going on on the inside is consistent with what is coming out in our actions.

Is Jesus changing your actions or your heart?