When Jesus was on earth, He came across situations which annoyed Him. It grieved Him that there were people who were preventing ordinary people from knowing the truth. He knew He came to the earth to lay down His life to take sin, break the power of sin in an individual, and to make you clean on the inside. He came to this earth for a people, for you.
Someone sitting here needs to hear that. There’s a change that God wants to do on the inside of you. What galled Jesus when He met certain people was that they were preventing the truth coming to people. Those people who prevented others dreamt up rules and regulations for themselves. We deal with the living God, and He is the one who wants to reach an individual on this inside.
We’re going to look at an episode in Jesus’ life when He met people like this.
Isaiah 29:1-6
(Ariel – Jerusalem). When God steps in, it’s in an instant. And an amazing empire or religious structure is gone in an instant.
Isaiah 29:7-12
There was a whole morass of religious observance, rules and regulations, which the people couldn’t come to. It was as though they were told to read a sealed letter. Or else they had been told they were not learned and therefore couldn’t understand the text.
Isaiah 29:13-23
It’s iniquitous when a whole network of rules and regulations prevent ordinary people from knowing God. It’s as if there are traditions or ways of looking at things which make an ordinary person think they can’t attain – that only the selected few can be like that, only those with the inner knowledge, the higher way. God wants to make Himself known to each of us as the one who cleans up on the inside. It isn’t what happens on the outside. It’s not religious observance, nor being seen to do the right thing. God is concerned for you to be clean and open on the inside, adoring God as the one who changed you on the inside.
Mark 7:1-4
You might think it wasn’t a bad thing for the disciples to wash their hands. But here we’re talking about what the Pharisees did with the rules they created. They put themselves in the place of God. They had so many rules and regulations that people became bound up with their religion, not with God. They were supposed to be the religious leaders of the people, but they became the recipients of the people’s attention. People had to do what the Pharisees told them to do. It wasn’t a matter of the Pharisees having their own relationship with God.
Jesus points out that it’s not the rules and regulations which are important. What’s important is that Jesus Christ, who is God, wants to deal with the inside of an individual. It’s not the outside. If the inside is right, the outside will automatically be right. God is to do with the inside of a person.
It’s easy for someone to do the right things on the outside, to sing the right songs. But on the inside, where are we at? When Jesus spoke to the people and to the disciples, He was saying a revolutionary thing. The Pharisees were like gods. They knew the rules. It didn’t matter what God said. What mattered was how they interpreted the law. But woe betide anybody who has their own direct link with life.
It’s a wonderful thing that you’re here this morning, because Jesus Christ by His Holy Spirit wants to speak to you about the inside of you. He doesn’t come to condemn you. If you were honest, you’d admit you needed to sort out your inside. You’re tired of it. There’s something in you which, given the right circumstances means you go wrong. You’re not blaming the circumstances. But you know this thing is there and you want it to end.
It was a voyage of discovery for the disciples to walk with Jesus. Gradually it dawned on them that what He was saying was contrary to the religious framework of the time. From time to time they became jumpy, because they could see the reactions He was provoking.
Jesus didn’t worry, because He was all to do with individual people becoming clean on the inside to have their own relationship with God.
Why should one have a relationship with God? Without God it’s as though you dream about having a meal, but wake up hungry. Without God there is no hope in this world, and there is also a vacuum inside – something missing. God wants to become everything to you. Not just a small part, but everything to you in the inside.
Mark 7:5-6
A situation where the people had been led by the religious leaders to such an extent that they knew what to say on the outside, but their heart was far from God.
There are ten commandments in the Old Testament – the commandments of God. These people had replaced the commandments with the commandments of men. What they said was important, not what God said.
Mark 7:7-12
God commanded people to honour their father and mother, to have respect. How should one treat one’s relations? It’s coming up to Christmas. Am I going to demonstrate the love of God to my relations? Do I allow mother or father to become top priority above God? Of course not. But the command of God was to honour them. People were to provide for their parents if they were in distress in their old age. But the Pharisees said there was no need to worry. If you said the money was for God, you didn’t have to worry about the commandment. Anything committed to God was taken out of the worldly situation. Great! So there was a system they had devised which knocked out what God said. Incredible! Honour your father and mother.
Some people say all their money is God’s and they don’t have to give money to a church. Same sort of thing.
This got to Jesus, because the Pharisees had denied the people the opportunity of God coming to them on the inside and changing them. You may say the Pharisees were doing their best. No doubt some of them were sincere. But there was a shaft of light before them. There’s a way of living which changes you on the inside. Jesus changes you on the inside so that your way of living is totally opposite from the way you began on this earth.
Mark 7:13
This word should be paramount in your life. We need to get to know it inside out. By His Holy Spirit, God will speak to us through this word. This is the word on which we stand. We don’t want to make this word of none effect. It’s all about our relationship with a God of love who has given you this word as a life manual. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. There is life in this world.
God wants to become your heavenly father, to change you on the inside, to turn you around from being someone who always regrets the situation on the inside – you don’t tell anyone about it, but you know there are habits of thinking and habits of life ... If anyone is using this church as a cover for their sin, God will find things out and deal with it. God is faithful, and it’s the goodness of God which leads a man to repentance. Even this morning He is pointing things out here, saying it is important for you to be right with God on the inside.
Mark 7:14-16
The Pharisees were all to do with the outside, with following rules to satisfy them. But Jesus was saying it wasn’t the external aspect that mattered. You needed to think what was inside you, in your heart. Jesus was all to do with cleaning up what was already inside a person.
Mark 7:17-23
That’s a heavy list. But for those to whom God is speaking, it’s a list you recognise and identify with. Why is He bringing this to your attention this morning? Because when Jesus comes, when His voice speaks to you, there’s a complete difference.
John 15:1-5
Jesus is the word. He’s the word of life. He is truth. He is love. He is holy. And unlike the Pharisaical system, unlike religious observance unfounded in God, unlike the heavy burdens which man puts on you, Jesus comes to you on the inside. And on the inside, He comes to clean you up. He comes to give you His life. He comes because He knows what’s inside you. He was tempted with every sin, every bad thought, but He didn’t yield. He was sinless. And that was why when He hung on the cross, He took all your sin into Himself. He took it out of you into Him. How did He do that? He became acquainted with sin because of God’s love. He took into Himself your sin. That means you would then be able to live a life clean. That is being set free. Not the way the Pharisees said, “Devote this thing to God and you are free of the commandment.” True freedom is when Jesus comes inside, cleans you up and changes you by His Holy Spirit so you recognise what is in you and recognise that you need to be rid of it.
In God’s goodness and love, He says you need to be clean on the inside. When Jesus spoke to the Pharisees, the disciples were looking on and asked what He meant. And as they walked with Him subsequently they could see Him deal with the problems of one individual after another. He fed the five thousand, but they could see it was the individual. In fact it was you, here this morning as an individual. On the inside change can take place.
God won’t force Himself into your life. It’s not His way. But you’re hearing these words this morning for the simple reason that God loves you and wants to change you on the inside.
Sunday, 7 December 2008
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