Weekly Sermon Overview

Transcription

1 Weekly Sermon Overview Message Date: August 3, 2014 Message Title: Purity/Holiness

2 OVERVIEW You hear people say today, "Our family goes to such-and-such a religion, and it's a tradition with us." Tradition will damn your soul to Hell if that's all you've got. - John MacArthur Last week s teaching of Jesus focused on greed. Jesus pointed out a very, very difficult line to follow for us today in Luke 12:21 - do not store up things for yourself while failing to be rich towards God. The question last week was to what extent? To what extent do I store up things for myself? Shouldn t I protect my family? Shouldn t I prepare for retirement? At least I should save some for the car or home repairs that will eventually come. So we find ourselves walking that fine line between storing up just for ourselves here, but not investing our lives in the Kingdom of God. And I believe that line is different for each of us... the parable of the talents is not about three individuals who each had the same amount. This week s teaching is on purity. And similarly, Jesus poses a question, this time with more vehemence, towards the Pharisees. Matthew 15:3 Jesus replied, And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? Jesus in this passage is much more direct than Jesus in the Luke 12 passage. In Luke 12 Jesus gives a general proclamation this is how it will be for whoever In Matthew 15, he is speaking directly to this group of Pharisees And why do you (y all, if he were from the south). Why is Jesus so angry and direct? Well, the whole tradition of elders thing began with the codification of Jewish law, or the Talmud. The Talmud declared that God gave the oral law to Moses, and then Moses passed it on to great men in the synagogue, and then these men were to do three things with it 1. Properly apply God s law 2. Raise up disciples so that the subsequent generations would have others to apply God s law 3. (and this is the key) To protect the law to remain pure

3 Now, because so many peoples hearts were bad (admission: our hearts now no different) and they couldn t obey spontaneously from their hearts, they began creating a system of external laws and ordinances to make people do it. And they d create more and more laws, and more and more laws, until eventually there were so many laws and regulations, that the entire system was far too complicated for a normal person to comprehend (see: US Tax Code). After the Jews were brought into exile in 586 BC, they believed this occurred as a result of their disobedience towards God, and the only way to reinstate the favor of God was to follow more stringently to the traditions of their forefathers. Then comes Ezra. Ezra fathers a people who become known as the Scribes. And writing down the oral law became their sole purpose. But it just kept building up. Then every rabbi would comment on it. And each of their students. And so it kept piling up and becoming more complex. And this is the problem. The line between the traditions of the elders (oral law) and the commands of God (written law) became completely and utterly blurred. Then (briefly) Jewish rabbis compiled all of it into the Mishnah (~200 AD), but then the Gemara was created to explain the Mishnah, and then the Talmud was created the explain the Mishnah and the Gemara. Now the Babylonian Talmud is considered the best, and it s at least twenty volumes in Hebrew. Good luck. (the creation of the Midrash - commentaries on the Bible - came later) So this dialogue between the Pharisees and Jesus is a few hundred years before all of that clarity. And what the Pharisees are bringing to Jesus is a tradition that was passed down from generation to generation, based off of a purity principle to not become defiled. There s a lot more context of what transpires, but effectively, Jesus ignores their complaint. And why (v3) is an admission of guilt, but more significantly, a declaration of the insignificance of those traditions. Similarly to last week, Jesus isn t attacking all traditions. Traditions keep us reminded of good things. Traditions can be powerful and good and Biblical. Jesus is attacking traditions that get in the way of the commands of God. The tradition he brings to their attention is that to obey the Honor your father and mother, you were to provide financial security and provision in their old age. But what the tradition had created was a loophole where you could declare your finances

4 and possessions as a gift to God (Corban in the Mark text) and therefore not have to give it to your parents, but be able to keep it for yourself. They had taken a good practice -- devoting things to God -- and used it to avoid supporting their family simply to satiate their own lifestyle (possibly a great connection to Greed from last week). Imagine how hard it would have been to hear this from Jesus? Especially if you were a Pharisee. And not just a Pharisee. But a Pharisee from Jerusalem. And you had been taught in the best schools. And your father before you. And his before him. And now you ve got this dude who s exposing the futility behind this system of religion you ve devoted your entire life to. Your entire family (which was a huge deal) is grafted into this system. And I bet there s a few more traditions Jesus could also identify Here s the rub: What traditions do we hold/propagate that stand in the way of the gospel? What traditions do we, specifically as pastors of God s people, hold and teach and spread and encourage that may be standing in the way of the gospel? Ham illustration: My favorite story about such mindless acceptance of behavior involves a young bride who was having her mother-in-law over for dinner for the first time. She was baking a ham and before putting it in the oven, she cut off the two ends. Her mother-in-law asked her why she was doing that, to which she replied that's what her mother had always done that. Intrigued, the bride called her grandmother, who said "Well, when your mother was young, we didn't have much money for fancy pans, so I had to use the same old small pan for everything. A ham didn't quite fit in it, so I always had to cut it down to fit my pan before I could put it in the oven." A very reasonable explanation, but one that fit only her circumstances. Now, I don t think we need to assault all of the traditions of our culture. It would be easy to point the finger in their direction. Football on Sundays. Getting out of control on Friday/Saturday night. Unnatural aesthetic expectations for women. Even a unique way of preparing a meal But what traditions are we propagating within the community of Christ followers that get in the way of the commands of God? What traditions are you emphasizing so heavily and thereby nullifying the commands of God? The problem with the traditions of the elders in the 1st century, is that they were developed under the system of Old Covenant. Jesus enters the world and rewrites the system. We attempt to live similarly under traditions of our parents, or the

5 church we were raised in, all the while forgetting that Jesus Christ came not to abolish the law, but to accomplish its purpose. (Matthew 5:17) We don t need external systems; Jesus gives us a new heart. REFLECTION QUESTION 1. Do you find yourself following the rules without actually paying attention to what is going on in your heart? Do you feel like the things you do are out of duty/obligation or out of a genuine desire to honor God s commandments? 2. What do you crave? If you look deep inside your heart, what do you have an appetite for? The things of Christ or the things of the world? Pray through whatever realization you have. NEXT STEP RESOURCES (Check out these resources for additional reading on this topic.) 1. Who Is This Man: The Unpredictable Impact of the Inescapable Jesus by John Ortberg 2. The Jesus I Never Knew by Phillip Yancey