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would invite you to turn to the
book of Deuteronomy Deuteronomy chapter 10 We'll be reading from verse 12 through
verse 22. This is the word of the living
and the true God. Now Israel What does the Lord
your God require from you? But to fear the Lord your God,
to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your
God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the
Lord's commandments and His good statutes which I am commanding
you today for your good. Behold, to the Lord your God
belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that
is in it. Yet on your fathers did the Lord
set His affection to love them, and He chose their descendants
after them, even you above all peoples, as it is this day. So circumcise your heart, and
stiffen your neck no longer. For the Lord your God is the
God of gods and the Lord of lords, the Great, the Mighty, and the
Awesome God, who does not show partiality nor take a bribe. He executes justice for the orphan
and the widow, and shows his love for the alien by giving
him food and clothing. So show your love for the alien,
for you are aliens in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the
Lord your God, you shall serve him and cling to him. and you
shall swear by His name. He is your praise, and He is
your God, who has done great and awesome things for you, which
your eyes have seen. Your fathers went down to Egypt
seventy persons in all, and now the Lord your God has made you
as numerous as the stars of heaven." And now we turn to the New Testament,
to Mark chapter 7. looking once more at chapter
7 verses 1 through 13. The Pharisees and some of the scribes
gathered around him when they had come from Jerusalem and had
seen that some of his disciples were eating their bread with
impure hands, that is, unwashed. For the Pharisees and all the
Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing
the traditions of the elders. And when they come from the marketplace,
they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves, and there are many
other things which they have received in order to observe,
such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots. The
Pharisees and the scribes asked him, Why do your disciples not
walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their
bread with impure hands? And he said to them, Rightly
did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites. As it is written, This people
honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from
me. But in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the precepts of men. Neglecting the commandment
of God, you hold to the tradition of men. He was also saying to
them, You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God
in order to keep your tradition. For Moses said, Honor your father
and your mother, and he who speaks evil of father or mother is to
be put to death. But you say, if a man says to
his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is
korban, that is to say, given to God, you no longer permit
him to do anything for his father or his mother, thus invalidating
the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down. And
you do many things such as that. Let's pray and ask God's blessing.
Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for Christ, our
Lord. And we pray that the word of Christ would dwell in us richly
as we hear your word expounded. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, this morning we return
one last time to the passage that has tremendous importance
for the life of the church. We have seen how our Savior rejected
the traditions of men because of their detrimental effect upon
the Word of God. People must choose whom they
will follow, the Word of Man or the Word of God. Too often,
people choose the Word of Man in the place of the Word of God. They end up nullifying and invalidating
God's word all for the sake of their own traditions. In our
first treatment of this text, we saw how this impacts everyday
Christian living. In matters like honoring your
father and mother, traditions of men do much damage to the
clear commandments of God. In our second consideration,
last week, we focused on worship and how God truly desires to
be worshipped in spirit and in truth according to the clear
prescriptions of His word. Although it may seem like we
have covered all of the bases that could be covered, I want
to take one more look at this passage and at the bigger picture
at the overarching themes that undergird this passage. So let's begin this morning with
the heart of the matter. Then we're going to look at why
human tradition is so offensive and finish with some practical
applications. Although this is not always appreciated
by conservative Presbyterians, this passage is not really meant
to be a new set of rules governing Christian living and public worship. The mistake is easily made. From this passage and from its
parallel in Matthew 15, theologians move to what is called the regulative
principle of worship. And the regulative principle
of worship teaches basically that God himself defines proper
worship and that we know what is appropriate in worship by
the prescriptions of God's word. And if you know me at all, you
know that I support and believe the regulative principle of worship.
Well, the regulative principle is indeed found in such passages,
and so this move itself is not inherently illegitimate. I'm
not questioning the connection between this passage and the
regulative principle. It's the next step in the progression
that I find more questionable. This is moving from a simple
affirmation of the regulative principle to a careful examination
of specifics and particulars in a typical worship service.
Everything ends up under the theological microscope and then
is examined in painstaking detail. The merits of practices like
responsive readings are debated. Opinions are reached either in
support of or against the specific practice in view. And after one
micro-controversy is solved, They move on to the next slide
under the microscope. Perhaps this time it would be
the propriety of collecting tithes and offerings during the worship
service. The same examination can be done
on various hymns that appear to be borderline to the more
scrupulous. It can even be a particular setting
of a psalm, whether that's a good setting or not. and on and on
it goes. What has happened is a transformation
of a very important passage of scripture into a litmus test
of orthodoxy. A brand new set of rules to be
enforced. Now I'm suggesting that this
passage before us this morning is definitely not intended or
designed to be such a litmus test, to provide a new set of
rules. I am not advocating reformed
Pharisaism. But what then is it all about?
What is at the heart of this passage? I believe it is really
the question of preeminence. What is most important? What is the chief priority? Who or what matters most? Let me put a finer point on it.
Are you God-centered in your thinking? Is the Lord Himself
at the very core and center of your life? Do you have a vibrant,
living, growing relationship with the Triune God of Heaven? Is God your focus and your chief
delight? Or instead, are you really focused
mainly and mostly on human beings, upon yourself, upon those around
you? Is man your great interest and
your chief commitment, or is God your great interest and chief
commitment? Or to put it still another way,
do you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength,
and mind? Is your relationship to God paramount
in importance? Are you committed to Him, completely
committed to Him? Many people in this world are
man-centered in their thoughts and in their priorities. Now
sometimes this means that they will focus on another human being
as preeminent. They worship the ground those
people walk on. But more often, I suspect, it
really boils down to self-interest. A self-centeredness prevails
in everything they say and do and think. They are committed
to their own ease, their own comfort, to their own happiness,
to their own success. Their bottom line commitment
is to protect and promote themselves as number one. If God has a place in their lives
at all, it is on the margins of their lives. Oh, they think
about him when it is strictly necessary, perhaps during a time
of crisis. or even as they enter the church
building for that occasional Sunday morning service. Oh, he's
important in a sense, but he is certainly not central to them.
Now, you can diagnose this very easily. Just talk to someone. And begin asking them questions.
Get them talking. Get them flowing. And then just
sit back and listen. to what they say. Listen to how
many times they reference themselves, their activities, their achievements,
even their frustrations and their sorrows, as opposed to how many
times they reference God, the Lord, Jesus. Just keep a mental
tally As they're talking, as they're just kind of letting
their hearts flow out, what are you hearing? Is it mostly mainly
talk about self? Or is it mostly mainly talk about
God? And by this, by their fruit,
you will know them. You will know what's important
in their lives. You'll see pretty clearly Who
is at the center of their existence? And honestly, for a lot of people,
it's themselves. A friend of mine who is one of
my mentors gave me some advice. He said, you know, just ask a
few questions of people and get them talking because everyone
likes to talk about themselves and sadly it's very effective
because he was right most people like to talk about themselves
because they believe they are most important they live for
themselves. They're self-focused, they're
self-obsessed. Because sitting on the throne
of their life are they themselves. But what undergirds Jesus' whole
approach in this passage is a true commitment of the heart to Christ
as Lord. where Christ is at the center,
not self. And from that heart commitment
to Christ as Lord flows all the priorities and commitments of
life. It informs how they will spend
their time, their energy, and their money even. Life is defined
for a believer from the great cornerstone of God and of His
Word. From this wholehearted commitment
to God also flows true and proper worship. Because he knows and
loves God, this man wants to render what is truly pleasing
in God's sight. This person would never ever
think of introducing something into God's worship which wasn't
previously prescribed by God Himself in the Word. But rather
he seeks God's worship to be consistent with the truth of
God's Word. He wants to offer the worship
that God Himself seeks. Now this is not something particularly
new. Let me just read again a few
of these verses from Deuteronomy 10. Now Israel, what does the Lord
God require from you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in
all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with
all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the Lord's
commandments and His good statutes, which I am commanding you today
for your good?" See, that's what Jesus is after. that you would
love the Lord your God, that you would serve Him with all
your inmost being, that you would cling to Him, that you would
give Him your heart, your soul, your very life, offering up yourself to God promptly
and sincerely, and saying, God, You have saved me and I give
myself to You. Because you are my God, and I
love you for all you have done for me." And so the choice is
really very clear. Do you love and serve yourself
preeminently? Or do you love and serve God
above all things? Who's your real Lord? Is it you? Yourself? Or is it Jesus Christ who is
your Lord? Well, for many centuries there
has been a movement to seek to blend human tradition with God's
Word. And it ends up producing a hybrid
approach. You might say the best of God's
ideas and the best of man's opinions mixed and mingled Very rarely in this world do
we find anything that is naked human tradition, that is purely
and solely human invention. It most often is packaged in
combination with some of God's ways. So you add some human tradition,
you add some divine prescription, You mix it all up, and you end
up with a potent combo that promises to make everyone happy. But the
inclusion of human tradition, even in low doses, is very offensive. It is offensive to God, and it
likewise will offend godly men and godly women. So why is human
tradition so deeply offensive? For what reason does God take
offense at human tradition? Well, the first reason that human
tradition is so offensive is that it elevates man to a central
position. It elevates man to a legislative
role and it authorizes him to begin making up rules and regulations. Whenever human tradition is involved,
man becomes a legislator. His power is no longer ministerial
and declarative, but it becomes magisterial and legislative. He thinks that he is on a par
with God. And he supposes that he can do
what previously only God has done, make the rules. He becomes his own lawmaker. Once man is put into a policy-making
role, he immediately begins to introduce worldly corruptions. He can't help himself, for that
is his true nature. He is of this world, and He conveys
a mindset of this world. His mind is darkened by sin,
and that darkness is reflected in everything He invents or introduces. When it's taken to its logical
conclusions, man-made worship involves things, in fact the
very things, that God says He hates. You know, things like
child sacrifice in the name of divine worship. Human beings are simply incapable
of coming up with things which are truly high and truly holy. He cannot invent practices that
actually reflect the righteousness of God. At best, human ideas
are mere imitations of the holy. And at worst, they become the
opposite of what is holy and good. Corrupt and wicked, displeasing
in God's sight. That's where human tradition
eventually ends. The third reason why human tradition
is so offensive to God is that it inevitably nullifies the Word
of God. Or at least it seeks to nullify
the Word of God. Human tradition and religion
always forces the choice, whom will you obey? Whose word will
you honor? Human inventions require worshippers
to choose man's word over God's word. It is the dethroning of
Jesus Christ, as Arthur Perkins used to say. Now the traditions of the elders
in Jesus' own day were very powerful. They were viewed as binding.
Those traditions took no prisoners. They demanded complete and total
compliance. And if you had the audacity to
disregard the traditions of the elders, you would be interrogated
as to why you didn't obey what everyone else obeyed. Jesus and his disciples were
minding their own business when they were accosted by the Pharisees
and the scribes. Why didn't his followers keep
to the traditions of men, they asked? Why did his followers
eat bread with unwashed hands, they asked? Again, this has nothing
to do with hygiene. Why don't you comply with our
rules? That's what the Pharisees were
asking. That's what the scribes were demanding. You are not good
team players. Why not? Answer! Answer! And so they upbraided and scolded
Jesus and his disciples. Human tradition, when it is allowed
to gain the upper hand inevitably enslaves human beings to human
ideologies. It lifts up ideas, ideas like
environmentalism, socialism, racism, wokeness, transgenderism,
the cult of abortion, You name it, and it will enforce compliance
to the ruling agenda of the culture. Those who yield to the reign
of human tradition will find themselves enslaved to the current
agenda. Now, oftentimes Christians say,
well, there's a lot of stuff going on in the culture which
we won't accept. and we're not going to celebrate
those things but if you're enslaved to human
tradition you will be forced to bow the knee sooner or later it's a cruel master human tradition
and it says we're in charge here we make the rules here you will
comply and if you don't willingly offer us your devotion, we will
exact it from you. In many ways, human tradition
is not that different from Sauron in the Lord of the Rings. He
enslaves and controls his people through fear and intimidation
and threats of violence. And that's what human tradition
does to people. At the same time that human tradition
enslaves its victims, it also cancels out any true freedom
of conscience. You may no longer think for yourself
or speak for yourself. Someone else will do all the
thinking for you. And you will be then supplied
with talking points. And those talking points will
let you know what is acceptable and what is unacceptable to your
overlords. And just like that, all true
liberty of conscience is gone. So this is not something which
is harmless. Cute or even funny. Purely optional. No. When you're a slave of human
tradition, you may not think for yourself
anymore. You may not make your own decisions.
You may not say what you think or want to say. Compliance is
demanded of human tradition. Let me close this morning with
five practical applications of this passage, and these applications
have specifically to do with the church. Now I could give
you some applications which have to do with your family life or
your own personal life of faith, but I'm focusing here on the
church. And I think through these applications
to the church, maybe you can jump to some personal applications
in your own life, your own personal life, in your family life. But
these are church-oriented applications. And the first application has
to do with the so-called church calendar. The church calendar
is popular in all sorts of churches, from the Roman Catholics and
the Anglicans Lutherans to Baptists, non-denominational charismatic
churches, you name it. Almost every branch of the visible
church is A-OK with the church calendar. Just being honest here. It's widespread and it's unquestioned
in the broader Christian community. It's really only in Reformed
circles that you find any pushback against the ecclesiastical calendar. And that's not even universal
among Reformed Christians. The church calendar institutes
holy days for ecclesiastical celebrations. Some of those holy
days are based on the broader culture. Things like Mother's
Day, Father's Day, Grandparents Day, the Fourth of July, Veterans
Day, and even Groundhog's Day. Nobody that I know claims that
these special days are commanded in scripture or even that they
appear anywhere in scripture. They're just done in the broader
culture, so why not import them into the life of the church?
Other ecclesiastical holidays have historically arisen from
within the church. Days such as Christmas, Good
Friday, Easter, Pentecost, Ascension Day. And then there are a bevy
of special days for specific saints. And these are instituted
and most often celebrated by Roman Catholics and Anglicans. Now all of these special days,
all of these holy days, no matter which category they inhabit,
they are all mere human inventions. They are nowhere commanded by
God in Scripture. I had a dear friend, a minister,
and he and I had a difference of opinion on this topic. And
I said to him, well then please show me where in Scripture these
things are commanded that we should celebrate these days.
And so he went back to his Bible And he worked and worked, studied
and studied, and he finally came back to me in some frustration
and said, that's an illegitimate question. He couldn't find anything. I'm
still waiting. Show me where these things are
commanded in scripture and I will be the first in line to celebrate
them. But if there is no biblical prescription,
then we must conclude that the celebration of the church calendar
is really just an exercise in human tradition. It is not obedience
to the Word of God. Again, if God commands these
days in His Word, if we have biblical warrants then we have
to be the first to obey those commands and honor these days.
And yet nowhere has God required or commanded their celebration.
And so we conclude it's all mere human tradition. Now there is
a holy day which is commanded by God in His Word. It's today,
the weekly Sabbath. Six days you shall labor and
do all your work. The seventh is the Sabbath of
the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work.
You are to rest from your work. You are to engage in worship.
It is the holy day. God has sanctified it and made
it holy. And so the weekly Sabbath is
prescribed by God and His Word. But show me where these other
days Show me where Veterans Day is
commanded by God's Word. All of these things which are
pushed forward and celebrated by so many different churches
have no biblical backing. And so that's one application. A second application is something
that I dealt with last week, so I'll just mention it briefly
again today. This is the seeker-sensitive
movement coming out of the church growth movement. According to
the seeker-sensitive movement, let the unbeliever tell us what
he wants to see in worship, and then the church will scurry to
supply whatever the seeker demands. Again, this is human tradition,
it is not the word of God. God has not commanded us to turn
over the reins of public worship to unbelievers. We are not to
go to unbelievers and ask them how they would like to be entertained
for that hour on Sunday morning. But rather we are to look to
the word of God, not the word of men, especially not the word
of unbelieving men. This too is tradition. And again, it's widespread. Go
to many churches in our country and you'll find some version
of Seeker Sensitive. It lives on. And especially in
the megachurch movement. It's basically how they order
things. But it's all human tradition.
Another strain of human tradition that has made deep inroads in
the evangelical world is the corporate model. According to
this approach, we should really look to the business world and
business principles in order to learn what the church ought
to be and to do, how it ought to be organized, how it ought
to be run. Find a successful business. and
imitate them. Now this approach ends up casting
ethics to the side and it looks to bolster the bottom line at
all costs. That's how corporations work.
Instead of having a pastor, you end up with a CEO. Instead of
elders, you have members of the board of directors. This approach looks to the traditions
of the business community for its guiding and governing principles. You know, I've known quite a
few businessmen throughout my tenure as a pastor here and elsewhere,
and one thing which I have heard from businessmen over and over
and over again is that business models change about every six
months or so. Some guy comes up with a brand
new idea. He writes a book. He sells millions
of copies. They plug it in and it's going
great. But then it doesn't go great.
And then some new expert shows up six months later with a whole
new approach. So they say, let's junk that
and let's put this new approach in place instead. And it just
cycles and cycles and cycles and cycles. Is that really where we want
to look for our governing and guiding principles as a church?
To the shifting sands of business models. The corporate model is
pure human tradition. The church is not a business. God does not send us to Fortune
500 companies to gain insight into ministry. It tells us to
look into His Word. Another closely connected branch
of human tradition has to do with the advertising model, which
is based on the entertainment industry. I will never forget
years ago when a very large and influential Baptist church in
Texas actually hired the Disney Corporation in order to advise
them on how to make their church more engaging and entertaining
to visitors. Disney? Maybe we should look to Taylor
Swift. She's making a lot of money these days. Taylor Swift
has like conquered the entire Western world. And she has just
raked in money. She has marketed herself in such
a way that the world is rolling around at her feet. Should we
really look to Taylor Swift to guide us in how to be a faithful
church? And so the advertising model
based on the entertainment industry is just as bankrupt as the corporate
model. And then finally, there is the
success paradigm. If you think about it, this may
be even more pervading than anything else I've talked about. The success
paradigm is a branch of human tradition that says success is
ultimate, and it's success as defined by this world. That ends up being primarily
viewed in terms of attendance figures, revenue streams, and
worldly acclaim. So if you've got thousands of
people attending, if your budget is flush with money, and the
world is recognizing you, you have attained success. So if Time Magazine lists you
among the great influencers of the day, You have achieved what
you were after. And after all, who really cares
about faithfulness or fidelity to God and His Word? If we're
successful, if enough men are praising us, we have won the
prize. Now you might be saying to yourself,
Pastor, you've just burned everything to the ground. And you wouldn't
be far off. What is your alternative, Pastor?
You've torched everything. What do you propose in its place? Well, it's very simple. Hearts devoted to Christ who
are obedient to His Word, who seek His Word and what it would
say for their own personal lives, for their own family lives, and
yes, for the life of the church. Let the Word of God guide us
and govern us. God has given us all these commands
for our good, he says. Not for our harm, not for our
frustration. He says, I've given these things
to you for your good, and if you would take them and obey
them, I will bless you and you will be happy. It will be good
for you. And that's all I'm saying. Let
us live our lives individually, as families, and as a congregation,
according to the Word of God. Let us do what God commands us. All of what He commands, and
only what He commands. And let us keep human tradition
pushed out. so that it doesn't sneak in and
seek to enslave us and to steal our freedom from us. True liberty
is to live life under the Word of God from a heart that loves
Christ and desires purely and fully to obey what he has said. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you
that your Word gives us freedom and that you have given us your
Word for our own good and for your glory. Give us humble hearts
that would seek to honor and obey your Word and to fulfill
what you have called us to as your people. We ask it, Lord,
in Jesus' name. Amen.
Heart Religion
Series Gospel of Mark
| Sermon ID | 712400195966 |
| Duration | 44:28 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Mark 7:1-13 |
| Language | English |
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