I invite you to turn this morning to Matthew chapter 15. We're working through this gospel, and today we come to Matthew chapter 15, found on page 975 in the Bibles that are in front of you. We will read together verses 1 through 20. Matthew chapter 15: we'll hear the word of the Lord, beginning at verse 1.
"Then the Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat. He answered them, And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, "Honor your father and your mother," and "whoever reviles father or mother must surely die." But you say, "If anyone tells his father or his mother, what you would have gained from me is given to god he need not honor his father." So for the sake of your tradition, you've made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said, "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching his doctrines the commandments of men.
And he called the people to him and said to them, hear and understand. It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a person.
Then the disciples came and said to him, do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying? He answered, every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides, and if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit
But Peter said to him, explain the parable to us And he said, are you still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual morality theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone
And there will end the reading of God's word.
Well, we've been uh studying in Matthew's gospel many different reactions to Jesus, haven't we? It's been fascinating to look at the different responses to Jesus. And today we see one of these responses. In chapter 14, though, you'll remember what the purpose of Matthew was. Matthew had really helped us to unveil for us the identity of Jesus as the Son of God. Remember they confessed that last time: "Truly, you are the Son of God." But to make that clear, this has not come without many challenges to Jesus himself, and today we have one of the great challenges to Jesus. We now have Matthew showing us one of the greatest oppositions that Jesus faced in his in his earthly ministry. And we could say, what are the many oppositions that he faced? We could go through a whole list of them, but this is very interesting. This is very interesting because here we see a direct assault on the message that Jesus was bringing. And what this is today, what we have before us, is the religion of the scribes and the Pharisees. That's front and center here: the religion of the scribes and the Pharisees.
And I want to say up front, as we study this, as we see this open for us it really is capturing for us the best kind of religion the human heart can produce, devoid of true religion. It stands in opposition to a ministry for needy people. It stands in opposition to a ministry of people who need to be delivered from sin. And we're going to unpack that and look at that today.
What we've witnessed in Matthew is really Matthew taking all the themes of the Sermon on the Mount and showing us how throughout Matthew's gospel these themes play out in the ministry itself. Well, today we come to one of the great issues in the Sermon on the Mount, of what Jesus was condemning right at the beginning in the Sermon on the Mount. Remember what he said: "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you're not going to make it. You will not enter the kingdom. You are not going to go to heaven." It was a strong statement. And what Jesus was clearly reacting to was an external righteousness only. an external. righteousness an external religion only i want to highlight that word external that stands opposed to the kind of thing that Jesus was addressing, merely outwardly conforming to the tradition and thinking that somehow that gains God's favor if we just do everything right according to whose standard.
And Jesus said so plainly, "Your righteousness has to exceed that to enter the kingdom. If that's the best that's being offered in Israel, nobody's going to make it."
So this is a really interesting passage because it's really exposing that great truth from the Sermon on the Mount. Here's the heart of it: Jesus now has a direct confrontation with the Pharisees over their tradition and how they had, and let me just pause and say, tradition can be good. Tradition can be right. We shouldn't see tradition as that word is an evil. Paul even said later, "Keep the traditions handed to you." There are biblical traditions that we keep. But notice here, what Jesus is reacting to is that their man-made tradition had been elevated over the law of God itself, so that the law became completely dishonored among them. And what it created in Israel was this phony, hypocritical thing. That's what we're looking at today. And it became a burdensome religion that actually drew away hearts from God.
Now, remember, Reverend Camming was saying to me years ago, saying, "You know, the Pharisees were the conservatives. How does it make you feel? Aren't you conservative?" Well, we need to unpack that a little bit, don't we? The Pharisees were the conservatives. I would only add that the rigid, hardline conservatives are just the liberals in the making. So let's unpack this and look at this a little bit.
Today, Jesus now goes after all this. Jesus goes after the religion of Israel to address the matter of the heart so that now listen from the heart, this is the intention. This is the whole intention of the passage today: from the heart, true religion might come. True religion might come. And that's exactly what Matthew 15 is all about. That's the goal of this today.
In verse one you'll notice, "Then the scribes and the Pharisees who were from Jerusalem so it's interesting came to Jesus from Jerusalem." And said, why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders i figured this out i kind of calculated it was about 80 miles for all the way up to the top of the Sea of Galilee. So here they have traveled a great distance from Jerusalem. These this would have been the top Pharisees this would have been the great Pharisees who would come And the scribes to deal with this problem And the problem was that Jesus had become a serious threat to them. Jesus had become a serious threat to them.
Why had Jesus become a threat? Well, if you look at his ministry, he's out healing people. He's helping people. He's forgiving sins. Of course, to them, that's blasphemy. He's raised the dead, though. already And if you ask the question, "Why is Jesus such a threat to the Pharisees and to the head pastors in Israel?" I think it's clear: it was all about control. It was all about power. He threatened the hold that they had on the people. He threatened the hold that they had on the people through the tradition. He was setting people free for by forgiving their sins and setting people free from their tradition. His aim was to do that. His aim was to free people, and he was after a religion from the heart.
They were receiving reports all over about Jesus transgressing their laws. So this is really a fascinating section. Notice what they scribes and the pharisees do they come together and they say, "It's time to deal with this. Things are escalating." Of course, it's going to move to his own death.
In verse two they come asking him this really important question i suppose in light of their tradition to catch him in a trap: "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread?" Or, eat "You, as their leader, you as the great leader in Israel, these people are leading your own disciples to break the tradition of the elders."
Now, they were always looking for something. This is how you know somebody's heart's not right: when they're always looking to find something in the ministry to discredit it. It's a telltale sign. When they're always just looking to pick something apart so they don't have to embrace it, and not think about it, and not deal with what's being said.
What in the world was the tradition of the elders? I think that's the first important question here. And where did this come from? I don't see how you can sort of avoid this to get to the heart of the meaning of this text.
Well, it's important to do a little history here, and you have to remember what happened: that after the Babylonian captivity, there was a rigorous return to obeying the law of God. They had great reforms that took place in the days of of Nehemiah, say. And the Pharisees favorite verse the Pharisees of all the verses of the pharisees they had one favorite verse. Their favorite verse came out of the book of Ezra, chapter 7, and this was the verse: "For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do it and to teach statues and ordinances in Israel." Well, they said, "That's right. The only way we're not going to face curse and captivity again is to do the law of God."
Well, in their previous generations disregard of the law of God, that took them right into captivity. That very thing scared them to death. So there was a great return. There was a great interest in Israel and the law of God. They sat around and they memorized the law of god 613 commandments. They argued and they debated about the law of God, the meaning of the law of God. They spent all their time doing this.
So what happened was was this: single great concern. i I think You'll understand the concern: You'll get the concern. "We never want to be in this mess again. We never want to get here again. So we have to think carefully about conservative principles."
You know this: anytime you have very progressive, liberal, compromised ideas, things that are flatly against the law of God, awful ideologies, awful things that happen, idolatry and all these things, libertine stuff, what you call antinomian stuff, anytime there's such blatant disregard for morality in a time and in a place, and you can see this in general in culture, when a period of reform comes, what is the tendency? Well, I think it's pretty clear: it's to overreact, isn't it? "What are we trying to achieve? Well, we at all costs have to prevent what got us in this mess to begin with."
You could look at any church split in history. You could look at anything that's ever happened, and you can come right here.
So what they did was they began to make additional laws, and probably with good intention, to put in check with the hopes that these new laws that would go around the law of God would prevent this thing from ever happening again, right? I think you can make a case. You can see this in some ways just in our own country. Have you noticed how we're bouncing from extreme to extreme? Isn't it bizarre? "What will the period of correction look like from really antinomian, lawless stuff that we've seen? What might we become?"
It's different for Christianity, of course. Our goals and aims are different, aren't they? It says those people promoting wickedness, and those people promoting all these ideologies, need something, don't they? They need to be saved. They need to be saved.
But what happens is you create hostility in the overreaction that seeks to subdue people without any concept of mercy. It's about control. It's about control. It's about power. It's about subduing. It's about submission.
Well, meet the Pharisees. This is how they were created. This is where they came from. They were experts now in interpreting the law, with the scribes and the Sadducees, the key leaders in Israel. So they studied the law. They argued about the law. They created a whole fence around the law to protect the law through interpretation, and this huge, massive body of literature developed called the tradition of the elders. They put it into writing, and by the year 200 AD, it was called the Mishnah. One of the great rabbis finally put it all down in writing, and it was called the Mishnah. So that even as the Talmud and commentaries came in the Talmud from this: you had statements like this, "Words of the scribes are more lovely than the words of the law. Attend to the words of the scribes more than the words of the law," end of quote.
It include laws like "You can't brush up and touch a Gentile. That's an impediment to worship."
One of the treatises had to do with hand-washing: how much water to use and how much rinsings, and it was ritual rinsing. In our particular section, that's the issue that comes to head here. That's what they're talking about. That's what they've been debating. It is ritual hand-washing.
The Mishnah had 30 chapters on washing of pots and vessels and a chapter on washing of hands. This wasn't about germs. The reason was purely ceremonial as they looked at the Old Testament ceremonial laws. They were concerned about defilement. They were concerned about the Jews coming into contact with Gentiles. And isn't it interesting that the scene following this is a Syrophoenician woman who he actually cleanses? They said, "Hey, all of this compromises our status as the people of God, separate from all this, and we are becoming defiled with the Gentiles. So we have to maintain that separate status."
There were laws for hand washings for the priests, and there were certainly in the old covenant laws for meals of hand washings. But all of a sudden now, those laws became applied for everyone and every day for every meal.
So here it is, with all that background: What do you think I did in my study last week, right? "They don't wash their hands when they eat bread. Why not?" Isn't extending the law of God like that, isn't adding a little bit, listen, it's good, it's a good intention, isn't it adding a little bit to the law of God going to keep us from these errors that got us into this mess to begin with?
The problem was it became so rooted in their practice they all began to think: "This is the only way anyone can draw near to God."
Now, we've been good at this in the history of the church. john I use this example but i think it fits. John mcneill the great Scottish preacher and evangelist, was the pastor of 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia in the 1920s. And he used to imagine a conversation that might have taken place between the man who was born blind, right, whose story is told in John 9, and the other man, who was a blind man who was healed by Jesus, whose story is told in Mark 8.
The difference between the two stories is that in John 9, Jesus healed the man by spitting on the ground. He spits on the ground, and he makes mud, and he heals the man by anointing his eyes with the mud, and this didn't happen in the other case. So McNeil says, "I'm trying to imagine these two getting together and discussing this. The man who had been healed without the spit would have told his story, and the man who had been healed with the spit would tell his story. He would say, the one, but you left out the part about Jesus spitting in the dust and making clay and placing the clay upon your eyes. I don't know anything about that, the first says. The man from John would answer, well, it has to be that way, because that's the way that Jesus gives sight. You must have left that part out. He spit on the ground. He made clay. He put it on your eyes. He sent you to wash in the pool of Siloam. Oh, no, he didn't The man from Mark says, He didn't do that with me. He just spoke, and I received my sight. The first man digs in his heels: That isn't right. That's not right. Jesus only heals with clay. If you haven't had that experience, I'm starting to doubt that you really see.
Thus originated in the early church two denominations: the Mudites and the Anti-Mudites.
I don't know any faithful shepherd, any faithful pastor who has not had this concern throughout history, because it's all over the Bible. The traditions of the fathers can easily become elevated over the law of God, of without which people think they're really not worshiping God properly. And so what you begin to see is a rigidity, a misery in them, an inflexibility, grumpiness, an uneasiness with freedom. It's like as they're in a straitjacket.
Now, notice what I didn't say: I did not say freedom from the law of God. Jesus was not giving freedom from the law of God. Which is why everyone gets it wrong when they typically belt out, "That's legalistic." It was freedom from the tradition, They're a man-made tradition. even when some of it may have had good intentions. It had bad results. The law of God always has a good intention for us. Man-made ideas wreck that. And that goes on both sides of the aisle, liberal or conservative. We can easily create our own laws as conservatives or as liberals and make the worship of God into something that it's not.
Now, I think it goes without saying, this is kind of an important passage. We have to be really careful with this, don't we? Some people are such rule followers and then you've got people who just aren't. Didn't COVID expose that? They just think that externally keeping all the regulations and all the rules creates this external approach to God that he really loves. And they live with that. Things well beyond the law of God, by which people begin to think, "That's the only right way. That's the only way God will accept us."
And what if we bypass, beloved, our hearts?
Jesus responds in verse 3: "He answered them, And why do you break? This is not nice stuff. This is Jesus throwing it down: "Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?" "Hypocrites," he says further down.
Jesus didn't hesitate to strongly rebuke this because he sees what's behind it. You've done two things: you've made the Ten Commandments You've made the Ten Commandments second place now to your imposed tradition. And you've created a system of your own justification before God in doing this. "I see right through it, as if just doing this externally, keeping the tradition just right, pleases God."
The disciples still were not getting this. The disciples were still really confused about this. They just couldn't seem to grasp what Jesus is after here. And it's at this point that Jesus goes after the Pharisees even more aggressively.
What jesus well notice what he does: basically, he says, "You ought to talk. You transgress the commandments of God." "Notice that: why do your disciples break the tradition you transgress the commandments of god And Jesus now opens up their hypocrisy before all."
"For God commanded notice this, verse 4 honor your father and your mother and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die But you say, if anyone tells his father or his mother, "What you would have gained from me is given to God," he need not honor his father So for the sake of your tradition you've made void the word of God, hypocrites!"
You hypocrites. So he he essentially just grabbed one of their glaring hypocrisies that nobody would have ever thought about, one that we would have never really thought about. And it was the fifth commandment. And he says, "Listen, that you Pharisees have found out a way of getting out of helping your father and your mother in old age and in time of need. You found out a way. If mother or father was sick, in old age or had a great need, there was a little phrase that they could say. They could claim Doran, meaning, or Corban, meaning gift, offering. So if somebody in the family, if their father or mother needed help, they would just say, listen, listen, no, that money is consecrated to God. It's going in the offering? You think it went in the offering? That money is set apart to God. They would justify breaking the commandment of God by adding that little word there, Korban, so that they could disregard their parents in need.
"You've made," he says, "the commandment of God of no effect because of your tradition."
How often do we do this? How often do we do this?
I was reading a book this past week, and the section was called, this is where I kind of got the title, Clean Up on Isle Sanctimonious." He was addressing what people who have wealth and people who, what they have in wealth, when it becomes idolatry. He says, "What people do in our society is so, and even in Christianity, so common. They accumulate enough money needed to sustain their own creaturely comforts, convenience, and peace, and then immediately view anyone over their determined line of what that is as violating their standard and therefore are in excess and idolatrous and whatever they might be. So they've determined the line for themselves. In other words, we find our own attainable lifestyle and determine that it's frugal. We've never had this problem. And then judge those who spend above the line we've determined as idolatrous or wasteful. We've determined the line that is in excess for them. But never could our frugality be an idol, right? Sanctimonious, prideful, self-imposed standards. And we've never asked, where's our heart in the frugality we've determined that is acceptable?
Jesus gives two main charges here. Notice he exposes that people who live like this often think that their aligned standards of morality that they've imposed are what please God. He applies it strongly. He takes Isaiah 29, 13. "Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying, these people draw near to me with their mouth, honor me with their lips, but their heart notice that, their heart is far from me. You drew close to God with your own standard, and then imposed it on everyone else and expected everyone else to hold it, and then you judged them for not holding to your standard. But how ironic: you're able to set aside the law of God. There is nothing that drove you in your religion to come to God for mercy yourself. You see? You created something. You created a system of righteousness. And you pridefully beat people with that. Do you think any of this cares? Any of this kind of religion cares about the broken and the lost?
Huge problem. And guess what? Cleanup on Isle Sanctimonious" starts where? Right here, right here. It's me.
"In vain they worship me, teaching as commandments the doctrines of men."
So Jesus makes it a teaching moment. In verse 10, he calls the multitudes: "Hear and understand. Let me explain something to you. We've got to talk about this. It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth this defiles a man."
Jesus is having them think about one really important thing: where does true defilement come? I think it's a play on Psalm 24. That's why I had to sing it. It's always wonderful to sing the Psalms and see the connection. "Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? Who may come into the presence of the holy God in worship? Who may come? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false."
They misunderstood the verse. That had nothing to do with removing dirt from the hands. It had everything to do with a righteousness that exceeds this stuff. A blameless life in worship that flows from that which has a renewed heart.
Remember when David was caught? I'm not saying perfection. Listen to what I'm saying. Remember when David was caught in sin? That's why I read Psalm 32. He did some really bad things. Remember what he said? He hid it. Then he confessed it. He said, "Surely I've sinned." But then he said something that gets so overlooked in that song: "Surely, you desire truth in the inward parts. You desire truth there, not externally."
We read, after Jesus said this, his disciples come up to him: "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended? I mean, it's kind of a chuckle. Are you kidding? That's the L-O-L. How many times do you think people get offended by things pastors say, right? They did all the time to Jesus. It's almost the unpardonable sin today to say something that might offend somebody, right? you know, they're offended by what You just said. You just told them, the leaders in Israel, the pastors, they're lawbreakers. They're furious at you.
He said, "Leave them alone. They're going to get pulled up by the roots. They are plants the Father has not planted. What a statement. Didn't we just study the parable of the wheat and the tares? An enemy has done this. An enemy has done this. He's planted bad plants and seeds among the good. They claim to be of God, but I want you to notice what they're doing. All they're doing is about control and power, imposing the doctrines and commandments of men on the sheep. They're blind looters of the blind. Let them go. They're both going to fall into the ditch.
I can't imagine the weight of that, hearing that among the disciples that day. I mean, these are the shepherds in Israel, right? And Jesus is standing there, and he's saying all the grand religious leaders are leading these people right into hell. But I tell you what, we're going to go save."
Peter answers, "Explain this parable to us. We're not getting it. We're not getting this."
Jesus says, "Are you still without understanding? This is a big point in the Gospel of Matthew. It's kind of the heart of what the Sermon on the Mount was addressing. Do you not understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? But these things which proceed out of the mouth come from where? The heart. That's what's defiling people.
"Out of the heart proceeds, listen to this list, evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands, that is not what's defiling anyone."
Remember what the Lord said to Cain? "Sin is at the door, crouching like a little lion, trying to get out." That was from the inside out. That was not from the outside in. "You should master it, but you can't, can you? Sin is coming out of us left and right. It's coming out of the heart."
That's why all this stuff happens.
And here's the point, beloved: a ceremonial religion will never cleanse the human heart. If that's what's coming out, the question is, "How can the heart be cleansed?" And you see, this is what Jesus was willing to do for us. He came to die for us. He came to forgive us. And he came to wash us. The washing of regeneration, giving us new hearts. This is what baptism signifies: the washing away of all of our sins by the blood of Christ. Inwardly.
Look at the rest of the chapter. Where does Jesus go after this? We're going to look at it next week. A Gentile dog comes up to him. Who gets cleansed? She does. And then he goes out to the multitudes again to make this clear. It's almost verbatim of the the feeding we studied last time. He feeds 4 000 and almost verbatim the words: his compassion wells up for people because they're lost and they're alienated with God and they're broken and they're great sinners and they need saving.
The question is, have we been given a new heart? Nicodemus was shocked: "You need to be born from above, Nicodemus. You need to have that heart washed. You need to be regenerated."
See, then we can talk about worship, can't we? When the heart is regenerated, when we're washed from all of our sins by the precious blood of Christ and coming to him and believing in him, guess what begins to come out of our hearts? That which is true. I'm not saying we're without sin. What I'm saying is is that which is true. that which is a righteousness that exceeds this. That which is honest. That which confesses sins. That which is not playing the hypocrite. That which is not trying to live a dual life. We come and confess, "I am a mess. I am a sinner. And I need grace. I need cleansing. I need the kind of true religion that actually goes and loves my parents and their need."
See, you just studied the problem of whose heart? Pastor Gordon's and yours. This is the best religion you'll ever give God apart from his regenerating grace. You need Christ. You need forgiveness. You need to be justified, to be washed, you need to be cleansed.
What kind of people does that gospel, powerful gospel, create? The people of humility, people who, with Christ's likeness, begin to look at all these other sinners with compassion. Look around. Look inside.
What kind of worship does God accept? A bruised reed and a smoking flax. He'll never despise someone who comes to Him like That Needy. that leads to true worship when you see that that deliverance is one that saves us and gives us washed lives and hearts.
May we worship him, beloved, with a true heart in spirit and in truth. Didn't Jesus say that's what he's looking for? In spirit and in truth. You understand that? No more hiding. No more of this phony game stuff. Confess your sins. Receive the washing you need. Worship the Lord out of a deep love for Him for this gift. He died. He rose to cleanse you from all of your sins. What a Savior he is. What a God he is.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, thank you for such a gift and for showing us a little mirror into our own lives and hearts of what's coming out and what we need. Thank you for your gospel that delivers us. And thank you for tearing this stuff down in our lives and in the church because you love truth in the inward parts. May what is presented on the outside be true of us on the end. As we confess our sins and receive the forgiveness of sins in Christ, may we trust that you love us and that you count all of your people who come to worship you as a pleasing sacrifice in your sight as a people prepared by the Lord who love the Lord and begin to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength and their neighbors their selves. Thank you for your gospel. In Jesus' name, Amen.