I invite you to open the Bible and turn with me to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 7, verses 14 to 23. We are all going to hear Jesus say something here tonight. And what Jesus says, if you listen to it, will offend you. And what Jesus says, if you listen to it, could save your soul. And so I want to really encourage everybody to have the ears to hear what Jesus says here in Mark 7:14-23. And out of respect for God's word, I invite everyone to stand for the public reading of Scripture, and to give this your full and undivided attention as I begin reading in Mark 7:14 all the way to verse 23.
And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
That's the reading of God's Word. Please go ahead and have your seat. There is a handout there in your bulletin. If you want to pull that out and take some notes, I would greatly appreciate you taking some notes. And the first word we want to look at is the word “hear” there in verse 14. So, when we study the teaching of Jesus here in the Gospel of Mark, it seems like regularly, before Jesus even gets into what he's going to say, he wants to start by making sure you're going to listen to what he is going to say. Jesus wants you to hear him. And so, this here in verse 14, he has just had an interaction with the Pharisees and the scribes, the religious leaders of the Jews, and he has called them hypocrites, and they have come after his disciples for eating with defiled hands, which means they didn't wash their hands before they ate. So supposedly, their hands were unclean, defiled. And Jesus has called these religious leaders out that they're following traditions. They're not following the commandments of God.
Well, now he wants to get the whole crowd together again. And he wants everyone to hear, look at what he says in verse 14. “Hear me, all of you.” And he even puts this on there, “understand,” okay. I want to go back to this idea of being defiled, being unclean. And I want to say that your religious leaders are talking about this completely the wrong way. It's not what you do on the outside. It's not what comes from the outside that defiles someone. No, someone is defiled based on what comes from the inside. He wants everybody to hear that. “Hear me,” you're not you're not defiled based on what's outside of you. You're defiled based on what's inside of you.
Now go back to chapter 4, when we last had some teaching from Jesus like this, when he taught the very large crowd in Mark, chapter 4, and he began to teach them in parables. And if you see his teaching here in verse three, you'll notice that he began the exact same way with, “Listen,” exclamation point here, exclamation point. It is an imperative. It is a command. I'm about to say something, who's really going to hear it. And so, he says, “Listen”. And he gives this whole Parable of the Sower. And then you can see in verse 9, Mark 4:9, he says, “And he said, ‘He who has ears to hear, let him hear.’” And then he goes on, and he explains it to the disciples. And he says, what you guys can't understand, you guys don't get it. And then he explains that the whole parable is about people who hear the Word and how they respond when they hear the Word. And many people don't really hear it. Satan snatches it away before it gets to the soil of their soul. Other people, they hear it, but their response is superficial. It's just kind of a quick change on the outside, doesn't really take root in their soul. And then there are some people, the “good soil.” When they hear it, it bears fruit. It changes their life. It saves them. But who's really going to hear? And it ends in verse 23 here in Mark 4:23. He says it again. “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.”
So, this is a theme in the teaching of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark that, before we even get to what we're going to say, the first question of the day is, who's really even listening? Who even really has the ears to hear what Jesus says. And so, this phrase like “He who has the ears to hear, let him hear,” if you go back now to Mark 7, and you look, you'll notice, maybe in your Bible, depending on what English translation you have, some of you may have a verse 16. Some of you may not have a verse 16, because there's some debate about whether verse 16 is in the oldest and fullest manuscripts. But guess what verse 16 says? It says, “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” And so maybe an overzealous scribe put that verse in there because he wants everybody to listen to Jesus when he was copying it down later on. And maybe then Mark didn't originally put that here in this text. But this should be something that we're learning as we're going through Mark.
And if you're just joining us tonight, you need to know that when Jesus spoke, he raised a question before he even got to his point, who's really going to listen to me? Who's really going to hear me? In fact, Jesus, when he preached his most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, his conclusion was that a wise man built his house on what, everybody? The rock. And the foolish man, he built his house on the what? The sand. And the winds came and the storm blew and the rains came a tumbling down, and the house on the rock stood what? Firm. And the house on the sand went splat. And what was the difference between the two? What's the difference between you living a life that makes it and your life falling apart? He who hears the words and does them.
Who can really hear Jesus? This is the most important question going on on planet Earth right now, who is really listening to the words of eternal life coming out of the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ?
So, let's get this down for our Review: “Listen like your life depends on it.” Listen like your life depends on it, because your soul does depend on whether you listen to the words of Jesus or not. And so, the command is to hear before we even get into our topic of defilement, who's really listening? And just because you're at church here on a Saturday night, I don't want to assume that you're listening, because the longer I've been at church here in Huntington Beach, the more convinced I become that a lot of people, they're just being Christians. They're not listening to Jesus. And the American definition of Christian and what Jesus says are two different things.
Are you just following a religion? Are you just following a lifestyle of good moral choices? Are you just a political conservative person, or do you actually hang on the words of Jesus Christ? Do you tremble at the words of Jesus Christ? Do the words of Jesus Christ change the way you think every day? Have they transformed your life from the inside out? Because there are a lot of people saying, I'm with Jesus, but they ain't listening. Are you really hearing Jesus?
Go back with me to Deuteronomy 18, that God gave a prophecy to Moses in Deuteronomy, 18:15 that I want to make sure everybody at our church knows. And this is the second telling of the law in Deuteronomy. And this is Deuteronomy 18:15. This is a prophecy that God gives to Moses, that Moses writes down in the last book of the law. This is 1400 years before the time of the Lord Jesus Christ, coming to this earth. And he says, this is Yahweh, or the Lord your God Deuteronomy 18:15, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall” what everybody? “Listen”. So, here it is, 1400 years before Jesus, God is telling Moses, who writes the first five books of Scripture, someday, I'm going to send a prophet, Moses, and they should listen to him. In fact, look at what he goes on to say in verse 16. He says, “just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’” So that goes back to Exodus 19 and 20, when God spoke to his people from the mountain with thunder and lightning and fire. And do you remember what the people of Israel said? They said, Moses, you’ve got to talk to us. We can't handle God talking to us. This is terrifying. This is way too much. And so, God says yes, just like the people said, they can't handle hearing it from me. So, verse 17, “And the Lord said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.” Moses, I'm going to send them a prophet, they can't handle hearing it from me. So, I'm going to send them a prophet that they can listen to, and if they don't listen to the words that I give to my prophet to speak my words through his mouth, if they don't listen to… and we know who this prophet is. It's his Son, the Lord Jesus. If we don't listen to Jesus, what does he say? “I will require it of him.” There is a test at the end of your life, there is a judgment. It's a pass or fail test. Here's the difference between passing and failing, did you listen to Jesus or not? That's the difference.
And there's no way I could possibly communicate to you right now how convinced I have become that many people go to church, few actually hang on the words of Jesus. And I don't know which one you are. I don't know what the words are that you wake up sometimes thinking about what Jesus said, because it convicts you down to the core of your soul. I don't know what the words are that Jesus has said that every time you think of them, you're so encouraged, like, has Jesus really said things that have changed your life? Or are you just kind of moving in the direction of Jesus with everybody else? He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
Now go back with me to Mark 7 and look at what he gets into here. Because the key word of our text here in Mark 7:14-23 is this idea of what it means to be defiled, okay, and that goes back, if you go back earlier in Mark 7, we saw in verse 2 and in verse 5 that the reason the Pharisees were coming after him was because the disciples were not washing their hands before they ate. And this was a tradition. This was not a command of God. It was a tradition that had been passed down among the Jews, or passed down in this oral tradition from generation to generation, that you’ve got to wash your hands. In fact, you’ve got to wash your cups, your plates, your copper vessels, your dining cap. They had a whole system of washing to make sure that you were not defiled when you ate. Jesus, he's frustrated eating with these hypocrites, and he lets them know what he really thinks. Hey, those traditions that you're doing; they're actually trapping you. They're taking you away from God's commands. If you follow the religious traditions, you will end up not following God. That's what Jesus says. But that's not enough. Jesus now is bringing everybody around for round two.
I want to go back to this issue of how you get defiled, and I want to make it very clear to everybody who can hear me today, you don't get defiled by what's happening on the outside. You get defiled by what's happening on the inside. And so, he says it five times in our passage, and if you‘ve got the handout there, you want to circle all these different times he talks about what can defile a man. In verse 15, it's two different times. “It's not the things outside a person that go into him,” that defile him. So, circle that first one, it's not what comes from the outside to the inside. No, it's the things that come out of a person that are what? Defile him. So, we’ve got it's not the outside, it's the inside. That's verse 15, verse 18. Now he's explaining it to his disciples, and look at what he says in verse 18, hey, disciples, do you guys not even understand this? Jesus, he doesn't assume anybody understands it. He wants to clarify it with the crowd. He wants to clarify it with his disciples. And he says there in verse 18, “Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him.” So now, he's explaining that again, hey, if you're thinking there's something you do on the outside that can make you clean, that's not where you get defiled. It is from the outside. How about verse 20, “And he said, ‘What comes out of a person is what defiles him.’” So he said this to the crowd. Now he's reiterating it to the disciples. And then in verse 21 he says, it's from within. And then he starts to explain it there. And you can see in verse 23 he says, all these evil things come from within, and they defile a person. You are defiled because of what is inside you. That means you are made unclean by what's going on inside of you.
This is a revolutionary concept to these religious people of the Jews, because they're thinking, as long as I do all these things, then I'll be clean. And Jesus is saying, that's not how it works. You can do all the things you want on the outside. It's what's going on on the inside that shows you're defiled. He's flipping the script on their entire religious tradition. And he's wondering… go back to verse 18, when the disciples come and ask him more about it. He's wondering, are you also without understanding? See, it's a big question in the Gospel of Mark. Sometimes it seems like the disciples are really getting what Jesus is saying. Other times it seems like what Jesus is saying goes way over their heads.
Go back to chapter 6, verse 52 and remember how it said, “for they did not understand.” The disciples. He had to pass by them, walking on the lake to show them he was God, because when he miraculously multiplied the bread, the loaves of bread and the fish, they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were what everybody? Their hearts are hardened. They saw one of the amazing miracles, the Good Shepherd feeding the sheep of God, and they didn't even see who he was. So, he was so like convinced that he needed to walk on the sea and show them who he was as God, because they didn't even get it when he multiplied the bread and the fish.
Jump ahead to chapter 8. Chapter 8, verses 17 and 21, where he talks to them again here where they're just not getting it. And in Mark 8:17, And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “’Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?’ They said to him, ‘Twelve.’ ‘And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?’ And they said to him, ‘Seven.’ And he said to them, Do you not yet understand?’” What have I got to do to help you get it?
So, one of the things I would strongly encourage you, and maybe this is your first day at church. We're so glad that you're here, we want to welcome you. Some of you, you're sitting in these same seats every Saturday night, and you know who you are. I've been going to church my entire life and let me just tell you that long time attendance at church does not necessarily equal long time obedience to Jesus. Jesus assumes that nobody understands anything, because Jesus knows who we are better than anybody else. And so, if you have this assumptive nature about yourself, if you think I know what's going on with Jesus, or some of you might even think you know better than Jesus, I got my own way to do it well. Jesus says it like this. That sounds a little intense. Jesus says it like this. I don't quite know about that, but I’ve got my way to do what Jesus says. If you think you know better than Jesus, if you just assume that you know Jesus, can you hear him saying to you, do you really understand Jesus wants you to pay attention to what he's going to say. There's a reason Jesus always says, “Truly, truly, I say to you” because he's about to say something that will blow your mind and will be hard for you to believe. And he wants to frontload it that he's about to say something true, because he understands that the things he says are hard for us to understand. In fact, they're impossible for us to understand unless the Holy Spirit gives us understanding, unless God opens our eyes, unless God is gracious to us and gives us the ears to hear, unless God is working in you, you don't just naturally hear Jesus.
And so, he's even looking at his disciples, and he's saying, do you guys even understand what I'm about to say? Are you guys just making the outside of your lives look clean, and are you missing the whole real issue is that you are defiled based on your inside. Do you really hear me? And look at verses 21,22, and 23. We finally get to the real point. Now there is this fascinating point in verse 19, where he says that, hey, you guys, if you eat it on the outside, you just expel it, which is kind of a polite way in good company before we're going to eat later on, to talk about, you know, using the restroom as a kind of a way to say it. Right guys, you're missing the point. And Mark wants to put in there kind of a side parentheses here, not really what Jesus is saying, but Mark wants to say, see, all food is clean, and so I want to invite everybody to pull pork sandwiches after this service. All right? Seriously, that's what we're having for dinner, and it's free after this service, in celebration of the parentheses here in our text, okay, but that's not really the point. The point here is what he gets to in verses 21-23. And the point is for “from within out of the” circle it, underline it. Write down, “out of the heart,” from within, out of you, who you really are, your heart. The world is telling you, follow your heart, trust your heart, be true to your heart. Jesus, here says, “And he said, ‘What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.” If you follow your heart, that's the story of your life, right there? Like we don't do evil things because of our environment. We don't do evil things because of our upbringing. We don't do evil things because of what other people did to us. We do evil things because they come from our hearts.
See, there's this question, are you good or are you evil? Your natural inclination to that question is to say, well, I want to be one of the good guys. I'm good. But the actual answer that Jesus is saying here is, are you good or evil? What's the answer everybody? I'm evil. That's what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying something so counter cultural, so the opposite of our own intuition. Jesus is saying, no, the reason you're defiled, the reason you're unclean, the reason you're not right with God, is because of you. It's from your own heart. It's from within you. And then he says it again, verse 23 “All these evil things come from within, and that's what defiles a person.” You guys are worried about washing your hands? How about what's going on in your hearts?
And so, this is an offensive thing that Jesus says, that you are your own worst enemy, that you are your biggest problem. And so, are you going to be offended, or are you going to hear what Jesus is saying? Jesus is saying that everyone here was born with a very serious heart condition that is going to kill you.
Let's get that down for point number one: You want to “Agree with Jesus that you have a heart condition.” You want to agree with Jesus that you are living in a fallen world, that you are born in sin, and that the inclinations of the thoughts and intents of your heart are prone towards evil, and the reason you want inappropriate sexual things is that's what you want. The reason you get angry and hate other people is because that's what's on your heart. The reason you want other people's stuff, the reason you're envious of other people, the reason you're involved in comparison with other people is because that's what's on your heart. And so, it's not just a list of sins. It's a list of exhibits of evidence as to who you really are, that you are corrupt in your soul. So you can imagine if a doctor said, and maybe this has happened to some of you, that your child is born with a very serious heart condition, or if you were later on in your life and in the presence of a doctor after some tests and they said you have a very serious heart condition, well, you could be offended by that, or you could really listen to that, and it could save your life. And so, are you going to hear when Jesus says that the evil that defiles you comes from within you. It comes from the core of who you are in your heart.
So, what I want to do in that box right there, if you are taking notes, I want to do a little “Spiritual cardiology 101,” okay. I want to do some heart study. Okay, this is not supposed to be revelatory when Jesus says this. Now, it is revolutionary, because it's the opposite of what the religious leaders are teaching at the time of Jesus. Religion always tends towards what you can do, physical, tangible things to prove your own righteousness. Jesus' teaching always goes away from what you can do to exposing that you're not able to do it and you need God. And so, this idea of the issue has always been your heart, even though it's revolutionary at the time, it's not new revelation. This is what the Scripture has been teaching us consistently from the beginning all the way up to Jesus, saying this right now.
So, I want to just review some of the things we've learned in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms that would lead us to the conclusion of what Jesus is saying here, that the issue is my own heart. Go back to Genesis, chapter 6, verse 5, and let's just do a little survey through the Bible about the issue of your heart. And you can see, shortly after creation, then there's a fall into sin where Satan deceives Eve and Adam eats of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and we fall into sin. And through one man, sin enters all men. And shortly after that, just a few chapters after that, here in Genesis, chapter 6, verse 5, here's how God sees the world. Genesis 6, verse 5, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” That's how God saw the world. Look at how great their wickedness is. All they want to do in their hearts is evil. It's only evil, and it's continual evil. What a statement. That's how God saw human beings. What did God do in response to seeing that? He brought a flood on the world.
And so, God sees us for who we really are. Jesus sees us for who we really are. We are defiled in our hearts. now go to Deuteronomy again. The end of the Law of Moses, Go to Deuteronomy 10. Because Deuteronomy, if you know the theme of the book, it's “love God with all your” what everybody? Heart. That's the greatest commandment, often quoted from Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 4 to 9. But if you really pay attention and you really study the book of Deuteronomy, it talks about the heart throughout the whole book, and it says some key things, like in Deuteronomy, chapter 10, verse 16. It makes this interesting statement, perhaps hard for us to understand today, but it says in Deuteronomy, 10:16, “Circumcise therefore, the foreskin of your heart and be no longer” what does it say? Be no longer “stubborn,” set in your own ways. Now, circumcision was this symbol that God gave Abraham and his descendants for the males that they would be his covenant people, the nation of Israel. But see, look what it's saying in Deuteronomy, it's not enough to have something in your body or on the outside. You need something to happen in your heart. You can't just look like one of the people of God or have the body of one of the people of God. You need to have a heart of one of the people of God.
In fact, go to Deuteronomy 30. Go to the end of the book in this same idea that something just like you would be circumcised to show that you're one of God's people. Well, something needs to happen to your heart in that same way. And in Deuteronomy, chapter 30, verse 6, it talks about how the Lord, when he brings you into this land in this future day, that the Lord your God, this is Deuteronomy 30 verse 6, “And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may,” what do you want? Life. To live well, you need a new heart. Something has to happen in your heart. Your heart condition is going to kill you unless you search. Circumcise your heart, or unless God does it like, if something doesn't see all the way from the Law, it's saying, here's all these commands, and you can go try to keep these commands, but the real issue is what's going to happen in your heart.
Now go with me to the prophetic books. Go to Jeremiah 17:9. And some of you already knew we were going here before I ever said it. Some of you Bible nerds here tonight, you know who you are. Half an hour ago, you were like, take us to Jeremiah, 17. Do it, Pastor. Take us there. You know who you are. They're the ones laughing right now, Jeremiah. Everybody, look at Jeremiah chapter 17, because if you haven't heard this verse about your heart, I was blessed to learn this verse at a young age. I believe it was explained to me that my soul was a cesspool of wickednesses. That's how it was taught to me that in the evil that was inside of me was corrupt to the core. And here it says that your heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. This is Jeremiah 17:9. Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it?” Your heart is going to make you think you're a good person, while really you're defiled by your own evil. It's deceiving you.
It's very concerning to realize that my heart leads me to believe I'm a good person who can trust my own instincts and follow my own heart when really my heart is sick, it's twisted, and I can't even really know the truth about myself. But then it says in verse 10, “I the LORD search the heart, and I the LORD test the mind to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds.” You want to know how you're going to find out what's really going on in your heart. God can tell you. Jesus can tell you, God sees you not based on who you are on the outside. God sees you based on who you are on the inside. And if God says you're defiled, well he knows, because he's the one that's looking at your soul. He's the one who made you in his image. God is Spirit, and so he made you as a spiritual being. God made you to live forever. He put eternity in your heart. God made you who you really are, is inside of your body. Yes, he gave you a body, but who you really are, even when your body dies, who you really are will live forever. But what kind of life will it be? Is it a life where you're separated from God because your heart is defiled and evil and sinful, or does God do something in your heart?
So God's giving you the diagnosis, whether you are offended by it, whether you agree with it, this is the diagnosis of God that you have a heart condition that is going to kill you, and unless something happens in your heart, it doesn't matter how many good things you do on the outside. It doesn't matter how much church you go to. It doesn't matter how much Bible you know, you can wash your hands multiple times every single day for the rest of your life. If it doesn't happen in your heart, it doesn't happen at all. That's what God says. You’ve got a big problem. It's going to kill you, and he knows about it, and he tests you. Do you agree with God that your heart is sick, it's defiled, it's evil? That's what it's saying. Look back at that verse 9, “The heart is deceitful above all things.” Some of us here in the room tonight might have hearts that are lying to us while we're hearing this sermon, it's desperately sick. The implication here is you can't even fully understand what's really going on in your heart. You need revelation. You need perspective. You need to be taught about this. You wouldn't just come to this conclusion perhaps yourself. You need God to send His Holy Spirit to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment that is to come. Look at the picture it gives here. Look back at verse 5 here in Jeremiah 17, it says, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Cursed is the man who trusts in man.’” Whoa. Cursed is the man who follows his heart. There's a bumper sticker for you right there. Cursed is the man who makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. You trust in your own heart. That's not going to work. You follow your own heart. It's going to turn you away from God. “Oh, that man who follows his own heart, who trusts in his heart, he's like a shrub in the desert and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.” But verse 7, “Blessed is the man,” happy is the man “who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He's like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green. It's not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.
You can trust in your own heart. See, when they say, follow your own heart, they're not saying, here are your options, follow your heart or follow God. Which one do you want to do? Because if you follow your heart, you're going to be like a shrub in the desert. If you follow God, you're going to be like a tree that bears fruit. So which way do you want to go with your heart?
Now go to Ezekiel 36. This is the introduction of the new covenant here in this prophecy and Ezekiel 36, verse 26. This is a key part of Spiritual Cardiology 101, okay. Because you need a heart transplant. You need a heart surgery. We're explaining the diagnosis, but this is what it says in Ezekiel, 36:26 “And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” I just want to say what Todd was saying earlier here tonight, it is a miracle of the Almighty God that that man did not break down crying while he was sharing with us. I don't even know how many times I've talked to Todd, and he cried every single time. I'm pretty sure he came by just to practice on my brother Bill yesterday, and he was crying when he was talking to Bill, okay? And what did he call himself? Mr. Stone, heart of stone. Tough guy, firefighter guy, like saw many evil things, learned how to keep it all together. And something happened in this man when he repented of his sins, when he put his faith in Jesus. Now this guy's like water works. You just get him going and he it's awesome to see, it's like you can see that the man who had a heart of stone, something happened in there, something you can't see with your eyes, but the water is coming out of his eyes, in a way it was never flowing before.
I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. God is prophesying here in the new covenant that when people believe in his Son Jesus, he will put his spirit within them, and he will give them a new heart.
Let's go to the Psalms. Turn with me to Psalm 51. Let's go to the Psalms. So, we've looked at some of what it teaches in the Law about the heart, what the Prophets teach about the heart. Now we want to go to the Psalms. This is how Jesus referred to the Hebrew Bible, Law, Prophet. Psalm. Psalm 51 where after David sins, and David can see how his sin is against God, and David can see his evil before God. And David is confronted by God through his prophet Nathan. He's confronted about his sin. “You are the man,” you've sinned. And David here, he begs God for mercy. He asked God to forgive him, to wash him, to cleanse him, and he cries out in Psalm 51, verse 10, he says, “Create in me a clean heart, oh God. God, I need you to do something in my heart. I can't just try to be better. I can't just feel sorry enough, God, you have to create in me a clean heart. It's not enough to have my hands washed. I need a pure heart. I need a heart that's for you, not a heart that's for me. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence.” Don't take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, uphold me with a willing spirit. God, please don't send me away from you. Please don't give up on me. God, I need you to do something in my heart. Have you ever prayed a prayer like that? Have you ever come before God and said, this isn't my problem, this isn't my problem. They're not my problem. I am my problem. Please save me. Save me, wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of death? Have you ever completely turned yourself in? Have you ever admitted that all of your problems come back to you, that you are the common denominator in all your relationships? Have you really said God, the problem is who I am down to my core.
Go to Psalm 139, Psalm 139:9. David writes this psalm, any verses, 23 and 24 some of you might have these verses memorized. Psalm 139, verse 23 and 24 look at this prayer right here. “Search me, O God, know my heart.” And let's just make it very clear, God does know your heart. God already has tested the hearts of everybody coming in here, like we just see a bunch of people here tonight. We might see different kinds of folks here, but we just look at the outside. God sees people who have hearts where they are dead in sin, and then there are people here who have hearts that are alive in Christ. God sees everybody in this room. That way, God could tell us how many people have new hearts here, and how many people are still with that heart of stone, that heart of evil. God already knows. But here's the invitation God come and search me. It's not it's not like God needs an invitation to know who you are, but you now are opening up and saying, God, will you please show me who I really am? Search me, God and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.
So, Spiritual Cardiology is going to teach us that everybody here needs a heart transplant. So, question number one is, when did you get a new heart? Because if you didn't get a new heart, then you're still in your sins, then it's still evil, then it's still stone, and it's going to deceive you, and it's desperately sick, and you're not even going to be able to figure out your own self, but if God has given you a new heart, well now he can show you your evil, and he can lead you in his way and the Spirit that He puts within you. Can teach you how to obey his commands and be careful to follow his ways, and you can start living a new life when God has given you a new heart. So, first question is, when did God give you a new heart? Because maybe some people still need it here tonight.
And then the second question is, if God has given you a new heart, are you like, God, my whole heart is yours. Show me your ways. If there's any sin in my life, show it to me. I want, I want to be cleansed of all of it. I want to give you a pure heart, which means my whole heart. People are always like, well, no one can be perfect. Okay. Well, how about this? Is your whole heart being given to God? That's how the Bible talks about it. Are you offering God your whole heart, or is there some of it that you're holding on to something else? Show me, God. Show me if there's any grievous way, if there's anything that's not you in my heart. Reveal it to me. That would be the second question, where is the evil in me? Show it to me. I want you to lead me in your ways, everlasting ways. I want to turn from my sin. I want to obey you. So, first of all, do you even have a new heart? Second of all, are you asking God to search your heart, show you your sin, so you can walk in his ways and learn the new way to live? Okay?
Now go back with me to Mark 7, because this is so important, everybody. If you could go to Mark 7:21-23, and I just want to go through this list of sins with you, okay? Because he's saying this is how you can know that it's coming from within you and it's out of your own heart. This is how you could know that you're defiled. That's been the whole point of this. In the Jewish mindset, to be defiled, to be unclean, means you're not right with God, and you would actually be kind of cast out of their society, because if you're unclean, you can make other people unclean. And it's this whole thing. That's why they developed all these laws about it. And so being unclean, that's like, nobody wants to be unclean, but he's saying that everybody's unclean, and he's giving this list of evidence. Like, here's how you can know what's coming from within you. Here's how you can know what's in your heart. Look at these sins, these sins in your life. Let's just go through them real quick. It says evil thoughts is the first one. Has anybody here been thinking some evil thoughts? How about sexual morality? That would be anything sexual, even a look with lustful intent? Jesus says in Matthew 5, anything sexual outside of marriage between a husband and a wife that would fall into the category of pornea, sexual immorality. Theft, anybody stealing anything? Murder. And remember, what does Jesus say? You don't have to murder somebody, even if you just hate them in your heart, even if you just say to them, you fool. Fool, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit. Anybody lie to other people on a regular basis? Sensuality, anybody living a life that's all about how you feel in your body. Envy, slander. Have you ever told lies about other people to make them look bad? Pride. Do you have a higher view of yourself than you do of other people? Foolishness? You know what foolishness is? It's when you ignore what God says, and you think you have a better way.
Is that you? Is this a diagnosis of your heart now? And here's where we really make the mistake, because somebody in the room, they read this, and they're like, yeah, I should do something about my sexual morality. And then somebody else is in the room like, yeah, I've really been coveting that stuff. And then somebody else in the room is like, yeah, I did say something that wasn't true about that person, and I shouldn't have said that. And then here's what we do. This is the big mistake we make. At the end of a sermon like this, people think, well, I'm just going to go pray about being pure this week. I'll just go tell that person I'm sorry. You know, next time I see them, I'll be nice to them. You know, I'll spend this week, I'll spend less time on my phone and more time in my Bible. Maybe that'll help. It's like we go and we treat the symptoms, and we don't really get to the heart. We've all, at this point, I would imagine, at least, if you haven't seen these commercials, you can come tell me afterwards, but I would imagine you've seen a commercial for some kind of drug. And at some point, with all these happy people kind of walking through their lives, somebody starts reading the list of side effects. Am I speaking to anybody right now? Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, I'm out. You know what I mean? That's like this list right here. And people think, yeah, I see myself there. I felt bad when he read that word. I'm convicted about that sin. It's okay, I can go do better with that this week, which says your desperately sick, Dceitful heart. These are just the symptoms of the disease.
Point number two, let's get it down like this: “Don't just treat the symptoms of your sin.” Don't just treat the symptoms of your sin, please. I'm asking you don't leave here and try harder to do better, please. I'm asking you don't leave here and be like, God help me with whatever the sin was in that list. You need to leave here and say, God, please give me a new heart. Until you get a new heart, you will always have these symptoms in your life. You could try, and I've seen a lot of sincere religious people try very hard. It is impossible to save yourself from your sin. Can I get an amen from anybody on that? Let me just tell you, you will not stop that sexual immorality. You will not become someone who loves other people. You will not become someone who speaks the truth by you trying to be that person. See, you don't need to address the symptoms. You need to own up that the problem is actually me. It's not what I do, it's not what I think. No, what I think and what I do comes from who I actually am. I need to be made new or I will always be this way. When did you admit that to God? When did you hear what Jesus said that you can't wash your hands enough? You can't be good enough, you can't try hard enough. You can't read the Bible or pray enough You are defiled in your heart. It's within you. When did you hear that and say, I agree with you, Jesus. So please, Lord, will you save me from my heart? Will you give me a new heart? I know you died for my sin. I know you rose again to give me a new life. Jesus, please save me, not, Jesus, please help me to do better this week. That's missing the point of this. That's not really hearing Jesus. And I guarantee you that no matter what I say up here and how clear I try to make it, some people are going to leave this room tonight and go try hard here this week. Can you hear what he's saying? He's saying that every single one of us has the same problem. We were born defiled. We woke up defiled, and we will always be defiled until God gives us a new heart.
Go with me to Matthew 23, when he really exposed these Pharisees. And the more I'm studying the Scripture, the more I'm realizing we've made a caricature of the Pharisees in the church, the Pharisees are like the punching bag. They're like like the people we make jokes about. But the truth is, many church people are not far from being Pharisees themselves. In fact, Pharisees is just a name. Scribes is just a name for the religious people, the goody goods, the people who, oh, I'm not like those other people. If you think I'm not like those other people, you're like the Pharisees. That's what they thought. And so, when Jesus here goes off in this entire chapter on the Pharisees, “Woe to you Pharisees, you hypocrites,” he's not just talking to some people in some place at some time, far away from here. He's talking to everybody who tries to do it themselves, everybody who thinks they could be right in themselves. Everybody who lets their knowledge puff them up and lets their good works be seen by many. He's not just talking to those guys back then. He's talking to some of us here tonight. And he says in Matthew 23 verse 25, “Woe to you scribes, woe to you Pharisees.” Woe to you at the Saturday evening service, hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and the plate. Look at you washing your hands one more time, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You Blind Pharisee, first clean the inside. When are you going to get to the inside that the outside also may be clean? Look at Verse 27, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites,” you mask wearers, presenting such a religious front, acting so righteous in front of others. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you,” this is verse 27 “are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.” So, you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
The problem is not outside of you. The problem is within you. That's what Jesus. Hey, he called the crowd. Everybody gather around. It's not what come I hear what those guys were saying to me, and I just want to make sure everybody understands, it's not what comes from the outside that defiles you. It's who you are on the inside that defiles you. And you can try to put on a very good outside, but have you really taken who you are on the inside to God? And so, when did you get a new heart? That's question number one. And then to my brothers and sisters, like, are you holding something in your heart that is not consistent with the new life of Jesus Christ? I want to ask you to invite God to search you, to know you, to try you, if there's any grievous way in you, God, I can't just read my Bible more. I can't just pray more. I can't just fellowship more. I need you to get to the heart of the issue, please. When you realize you're in sin, don't just say I'm going to stop sexual morality, or I'm going to stop stealing, or I'm going to stop hating or slandering or envying. No, go to God and say, God, what's going on in my heart? I need you to really change me from the inside out. Let me pray for us right now.
Father, I come before you in the name of your Son, Jesus, and I want to lift up everybody in this room, and I want to pray that you would give us the ears to hear what Jesus said here tonight. I pray that you would make sure that we can see this. God, and I pray for those who would be offended by the words of Jesus, that they would see that Jesus doesn't care about how they would feel about this. He wants them to know the truth about themselves. Their heart will lie to them and deceive them and make them feel better, but Jesus is giving them the truth, the truth that can set them free. And so, Father, I want to thank you for when I was offended by what Jesus said here, because being offended by what Jesus said here was the best thing that ever happened to me in my life, because you gave me the ears to really hear Jesus, to really see that I was a wretched sinner, to see that I deserved to be separated with you because of what was in my heart. And that's when I cried out to you, because I knew you were the only one who could save a sinner like me. And so, I pray for those who need a new heart, you know who they are, God. I pray that they wouldn't leave here and treat the symptoms. I pray that they would cry out to you for a new heart here tonight, that they would ask you to save them, that they would ask you to put a new spirit within them, your spirit that they would pray, “Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Cast me not away from your presence. And God, I pray for those of us who have been given a new heart, I pray that we could see the utter futility of washing our hands and trying to do what is good when we need to walk by your spirit and your power in us, to obey your commands. And that you would search our hearts, that you would show us if there's any part of our heart that doesn't belong to you, and that we would also pray God, “Create in me a clean heart.” Show me who I am. Renew a right spirit within me, restore to me the joy I had when you saved me, that day when you gave me life in Jesus’ name. God, please, don't let this be a church where religious people look good on the outside, but let this be a place where people who are honest about what's going on inside. And let us bare our hearts to you now as we sing these songs. God, I pray that you will save people tonight. I pray that their heart will be forever transformed, that you would do your heart transplant here tonight, and for those of us who have a new heart, let us leave here saying, I'm so thankful I got to hear the words of Jesus telling me who I really am. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.