When Our “Right” Is Wrong

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

One day this week, I came home from the office and could tell that my wife was a little bit stressed out. Kids will do that to you. And I came home and noticed she was a little stressed out.

Here she is. You know this story. You were there.

And so I thought, she’s upstairs dealing with one of them. I don’t even know. And I thought, well, I’ll help out and I’ll make dinner.

I saw what she had laid out to cook. I’ll tell you, I enjoy cooking, but there are certain things that I never learned to do. Well, number one, things that I don’t want to eat, I never learned how to cook.

And lots of kid-friendly things. Like when I was taking care of the kids on my own, they ate lots of grown-up food. To give you an example, it was only in the last three months or so that I’ve learned how to make a grilled cheese.

I can make meringues. I can make roast. I can do all sorts of things, but I couldn’t make grilled cheese. Anyway, so we were going to have chicken sandwiches that night, and I came in and I thought, well, I’ll be helpful.

I’ll put the chicken patties on to cook. I know she likes to use the air fryer, and so I went to stick them in the air fryer. Thought I was being real helpful.

I think I even started the dishes that were in the sink. She doesn’t know. She was stressed out about the chicken patties.

And she came down a few minutes later and said, why are you fixing these like this? I said, like what? She said, do you not know how to cook these?

And I said, well, I thought I did, but the tone of your question makes me think maybe I don’t. And turns out I had not, I had not done something right with the air fryer. I had not put the chicken patties in the right, I don’t know, I won’t say, not order, but in the right positions.

That’s right. Okay, she doesn’t have a specific order for them, but I did not put them in the right positions. And I got a little bit defensive, just a little bit for a moment.

But I realized here that I had kind of a problem because I was absolutely, when I stuck them in there, I thought, this is how she does it. This is the time she puts it on. I was absolutely convinced that I was doing it right.

And I was very wrong. Men, have you ever been in that situation where you were absolutely convinced you were doing something right and it was very wrong? Ladies, you’ve probably been there too, but I’m not going to ask you about that.

I’ve been in lots of situations where I was absolutely convinced that I was doing something right and it was not right. I’ve gotten, well, we’ve taken long trips down gravel roads we didn’t need to be on because I was convinced I was right. We do that all the time.

We as humans do that all the time because we’re not infallible. We think we’re right, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing the things, or we’ve convinced ourselves we’re right when we are really wrong. And the situation with the chicken patties was trivial. It was easily fixed.

She came in and, I don’t know, waved her magic wand or something, and they were ready. But it’s more of a problem when it happens in bigger situations. And people will do this with moral issues and with theological issues.

they will be absolutely convinced they are right when they are dead wrong. And if you’ve never witnessed that, you’ve never tried to discuss these issues with somebody on the internet, right? There are people out there that are convinced they are absolutely right, and they’re dead wrong.

In the text that we’re going to look at tonight in the book of Mark, Jesus dealt with a group of people who thought they were absolutely right in what they were doing, but they were dead wrong. In this text, the Pharisees confronted Jesus over what was really a trivial issue and Jesus pointed out how wrong they were even though they were convinced that they were right. So tonight we’re going to look, starting in Mark 6.

And it’s kind of a long passage, but it’s a simple story, but a long passage. So we’re going to start in Mark 6. 53 and go through to 7.

23. Once you find that, if you’ll stand with me as we read together from God’s Word. If you don’t have your Bibles, it’ll be on the screen for you there.

Starting in Mark 6, verse 53. And I’m not even on the right page. Let’s get over to the next page.

It says, Jesus has come from this situation where He has calmed the storm again on the Sea of Galilee. And He had calmed the sea for them. He had actually been walking out along the sea.

They thought He was a ghost. Somebody made the point last week after my message, they probably treated Him calming the sea almost as an afterthought because they were still so shaken up overseeing what they thought was a ghost. And I thought that was a good point. So he’s come from doing that. And once again, as usually happens, when he goes across the sea, word gets there somehow before he does.

And everybody comes out of the woodwork wanting something from him. People have gathered all the sick they could. And they’ve met him.

They’re laying sick people all over the marketplace and begging just for the opportunity to touch him. And of course, everybody that did so was healed. So starting in chapter 7, verse 1, it says, Then the Pharisees and some of the scribes came together to him, having come from Jerusalem.

The Pharisees and scribes were upset about this fame that he had developed, and some of them had come from as far away as Jerusalem to confront him about this. They’re up by the Sea of Galilee. It says, Now when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled, that is, unwashed hands, they found fault.

For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other things which they have received and hold, like washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches.

When the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands? He answered and said to them, Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites? As it is written, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, the washing of pitchers and cups and many other such things you do. He said to them, all too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.

For Moses said, honor your father or your mother. And he who curses father or mother, let him be put to death. But you say, if a man says to his father or mother, whatever profit you might have received from me as Corban, that is a gift to God, then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, making the word of God of no effect through your tradition, which you have handed down and many such things you do.

When he had called all the multitude to himself, he said to them, Hear me, everyone, and understand. There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him, but the things which come out of him, those are the things which defile a man. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.

We’re in verse 17 now. When he had entered a house away from the crowd, his disciples asked him concerning the parable. So he said to them, Are you thus without understanding also?

Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him? Because it does not enter his heart, but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods. And he said, What comes out of a man, that defiles a man.

For from within, out of the heart of men, precede evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness, all these evil things come from within and defile a man. And you may be seated. So long text for tonight, but a simple story.

Jesus here points out at least three places that the Pharisees went wrong in the way that they were focused on their own ideas of what’s right as opposed to what God’s Word said. Now, a couple of things that we need to understand about what they’re talking about. The first few times I read passages like this, like the others that you see outlined in your handout, I was a little confused.

Why would the disciples not wash their hands before they ate? I mean, Ew, right? I’ve had stomach bugs and all kinds of stuff that enough times that when I get done shaking hands with it, even before the pandemic, I was kind of a germaphobe.

When I get done shaking hands with everybody on Sunday morning, I love you, but I go wash my hands. And we get everybody situated at the restaurant, and then I go wash my hands again. And I don’t touch anything but my food unless I go wash my hands again, because I will die a happy man if I never have a stomach bug again.

So it perplexed me why they would walk around with dirty hands and eat. But that’s not what they’re talking about. They’re talking about these ritualized washings.

Mark explains what all they were doing, these ritualized washings. He says in verse 4 of chapter 7, there are many other things which they have received and hold, like the washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches. They were going through these rituals to show how pure they were that they were in the marketplace with all the unclean people, with all the sinners.

They were there with the sinners in the marketplace. So they would come back to where they were and they would wash themselves pure of the sinners. And then they would wash their vessels again.

I’m presuming that they were clean when they were put away, but just on the off chance that they touched them after coming in contact with sinners. They’re washing those vessels again. They’re washing the tables.

They’re washing the couches that they sit on, lest it be defiled by contact or secondary or tertiary contact with sinners. They’re going through all of this stuff that the Scriptures never indicated. Yes, there are some rules in the Mosaic law in the Old Testament.

There are some rules about cleanliness and about washing, but they were going above and beyond, and it was a big show to show how holy and how righteous they were. And so they’re going through all of this, and meanwhile they are ignoring what God’s Word says. And so while they’re focused on the importance of their traditions and their rituals, and they have come from Jerusalem to gripe at Jesus about how He doesn’t do things the way they would do them, they are ignoring what God has said they should be doing.

And you know, that just doesn’t sit well with Jesus. And so in the text we see at least three things that he points out that they did wrong. The first of those was they let their traditions become an end to themselves.

They let their traditions become an end to themselves. What they had done with these traditions, these traditions, by the way, what they were doing, were not necessarily, not all of their traditions were necessarily evil or wrong. In some cases, I think, generations before this, the Pharisees might have started out with good intentions, that they just wanted to make sure they followed God’s law.

And so, you know, if the line of what is permissible is right here, then we’re going to set the line back here so that we don’t get anywhere near it. Now, that breeds legalism very easily, but their hearts might have been, some of them, their hearts might have been in the right place of saying, you know what, I don’t even want to get close to disobeying God. You know, I’m not going to get close to the edge of the canyon.

I’m going to stand way back here. You could see where some of their traditions might have had some merit. And traditions are not always a bad thing.

You know, we will sometimes put down as not the best word for it, but we’ll kind of look sideways at other churches about their traditions. We have our own. We have traditions here.

Christmas Eve service, not mandated in Scripture. I love it. I see Christy look.

I’m not saying we get rid of it. I’m just saying it’s not required in Scripture. That’s a human tradition.

And I think it’s a good tradition. Vacation Bible school. Christi’s workload is suddenly getting much lighter, right?

VBS is not commanded in Scripture. It’s a tradition, but it’s a good tradition. Some traditions are good.

And we have all sorts of traditions, even in a Baptist church. We have traditions. They’re not necessarily bad.

What becomes bad is when we forget the reason for those traditions and we make it all about the tradition itself. Speaking of Christmas Eve, if I were to bring my children up here and ask what their favorite family tradition is, well, I’m not going to because they’d probably say something else just to make me look like a liar, but usually when we ask that question, their favorite tradition is tamales on Christmas Eve. We’ve done that for years.

We had a big family dinner, all four of us, then five of us, then six of us, and now seven. We’ve had a big family dinner where we even get the good dishes out. Some of y’all have good dishes.

We get the good dishes out one time a year, and we have tamales, and I cook, and Charles, I don’t have to cook anything. She doesn’t have to cook anything. I take care of it, and she loves it.

It’s a great tradition. And the purpose of that tradition is celebrating the birth of Jesus. I know that doesn’t seem to have a lot to do with tamales, But we recognize it’s a special day, and it’s also about bringing the family together and creating memories.

Well, fast forward a few years, and we came here where we have a Christmas Eve service. And that’s great. We love it.

We love the Christmas Eve service here. But having service at 6 o’clock and then trying to go back home and have a big meal with the children, that’s not going to fly. That’s just not going to work.

Our kids need their sleep or they turn into little monsters, right? And they get it from me. So what if I had just said, Charlie, I don’t care how much it’s going to stress you out.

The tradition is Christmas Eve. We have tamales. We have this big dinner and we’re doing it by golly.

I don’t care how tired the kids are going to be tomorrow. This is the tradition. Now, if the tradition is for the purpose of family togetherness, I’ve just kind of shot that in the foot, haven’t I?

Remembering the purpose of the tradition, we have now moved to the 26th. Our family tradition is now that we do this as lunch on Boxing Day because we spend all day Christmas Day in Oklahoma City and we don’t want to see any more food. So the next day, nobody wants us, nobody needs anything.

This year, the 26th fell on Sunday. That’s fine. We just had a big lunch that afternoon because the purpose is the family togetherness.

And if I’d gotten all wrapped up in the time and the manner in which we did it, and I’d made that the main thing, I would have shot the tradition in the foot. Do you understand now? Does that help you see how traditions, if we forget the purpose of them and we make it all about the tradition, we kind of ruin the tradition.

And that’s what they had done. And so Jesus said in verse 6, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Outwardly, they professed to love God, but inwardly their hearts were cold and distant from Him.

And He said in verse 7, in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. You see, their worship, He says, was worthless. In vain, they worshiped me.

It was worthless. When they would come to the Lord and they would go to the temple and they would go praise Him and they would read Scripture and they would do all this, Jesus said, it is worthless. It is empty.

And it was because they weren’t teaching men to love God and obey Him. They were teaching men what they needed to do was live according to their rules and standards. If our focus is on our rules and our standards and what we think ought to be done, then our worship will be worthless.

Instead, our teaching must be about how for people to love God and obey Him. Teach them to love Him so that they worship Him genuinely, not with just empty behaviors. He says in verse 8, for laying aside the commandment of God, he talks about how they’ve taken God’s commandments, what God said, and they’ve just laid it aside.

This is what they did. They took God’s word. It’s not just that they put something else up alongside God’s word.

They took God’s word down off the mantle and tossed it aside in the corner and put their own rules up there in place. They took God’s truth. They took God’s law, God’s standards.

They laid all those things aside like they no longer mattered. And they made it all about their traditions. He said, laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, the washing of pitchers and cups and many other such things you do.

Their whole focus had become about these outward issues, like how to wash stuff. That was their whole religion at this point, was how to wash stuff. Rules that didn’t even come from God, they came from their own sensibilities.

That had become the most important thing to them. If their traditions had still been about showing a reverence for God, even though they went beyond the bounds of God’s Word, Jesus might have had a gentler response for them. But at this point, it was no longer even about having respect for the holiness of God.

It was just about the things that they originally did to show that respect. And now that’s how you demonstrated that you were worthy, was through the traditions. Tradition is not inherently wrong.

It’s not inherently bad, but even a good tradition becomes bad when that tradition itself becomes our focus. And when I talk about this, my mind immediately goes to legalism and the idea of setting up all these rules and you have to do this and and you have to dress a certain way and talk a certain way and and smell a certain way to come to our church and and I think a lot of us our minds go to that kind of legalistic framework it’s all about rules and stuff but there’s there’s a danger of this on the opposite extreme because it’s not just hyper fundamentalist legalism that we’re talking about here you’ve got progressive theology on the other side that goes to the other extreme, but they’re not opposite ends of the spectrum.

They’re opposite sides of the same coin where one church says you have to do this and you have to look like us and wear a tie and women wear dresses and you have to do all these things where God doesn’t love you. And another church over here says whatever your morality is, that’s what you go with because we can’t trust this anymore. Both of them have taken God’s word out of the center place and have put their own standards in place of it.

So I tell you that we can’t just avoid one side of this. We’ve got to stay away from the ditches on both sides. Any place, any way of thinking that says let’s take God’s word out of its proper place and let’s elevate our own standards and our own sensibilities becomes a danger.

It’s following in the footsteps of the Pharisees and putting our traditions in a place they don’t belong. So they let their traditions become an end unto themselves. Second of all, they ignored and they forgot the purpose of God’s law.

In verse 9, it says, He said to them, All too well you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your tradition. Because if they had a choice between following God’s word and following their traditions, they would find a reason to follow their own traditions. It’s not just that they had their traditions and they liked them.

Again, that wouldn’t be so bad. It’s that if they were forced to choose, And in many cases, they were forced to choose God’s word or your traditions. They were picking their traditions every time.

They were treating, like he already said, they laid aside the commandments of God. Here’s an example of what they did. He gives this example here in the text.

God’s people were commanded under the Old Testament to take care of their parents. In verse 10, he quotes Moses. He quotes the books of the law.

One of these is from the Ten Commandments. Moses said, honor your father and mother. There’s another Old Testament quotation that says, he who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.

That’s not tradition. That’s not just a good idea. That’s biblical. By the way, that let them be put to death was part of the Israelite ceremonial law.

I’m not advocating. I’m not telling you God’s word today still calls on us to execute our children. Otherwise, beware.

That was part of their civil law system. But the Old Testament does teach that children are supposed to honor their parents and supposed to, in this case specifically, are supposed to honor them by taking care of them. But in spite of those very clear commands from Scripture, things that God was very clear about, they looked at that and said, no, not going to do it.

Because they had this system called Corbin. They had this Corbin system. Now what that was, the nearest parallel I think we have in our society, is if you’ve ever gotten a card or a Christmas bonus or something that says a donation has been made in your name to the food bank or the Salvation Army or something.

That’s not a bad thing. But these guys found a loophole in the law. And they dedicated their money that they should have been, their riches that they should have been using to take care of their parents.

And they said this is earmarked for the temple. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing to give money to the temple. But they were doing it, number one, so others could see how much they gave and how godly they were.

But also, my understanding is that it was a situation where this is reserved for the temple, like in my will. I can still use it, but I can’t just give it to you because it belongs to the temple. I mean, the more I dig into trying to understand this, the shadier and shadier it sounds.

So when mom and dad are destitute on the street because they’re old and can’t work anymore, can’t take care of themselves. And they come to their son and say, can you help us out please? Oh, I’d love to.

But that money is earmarked for the temple because I’m so righteous. I’d love to help you out. But all this money I’ve got.

. . Do you see how that flies in the face of the intention of God’s law?

And they would twist Scriptures about giving to the temple in order to justify this. But really it was a way to hold on to their wealth during their lifetime and be able to tell people, tell their parents who raised them, the people that they owed nine months rent to the moment they were born, right? To be able to tell them, sorry, take it up with God.

I know I’ve got all this money, but I can’t give it to you. I wish I could, man. And Jesus said, okay, this is my paraphrase, but Jesus said, and you have the nerve to come at me with some garbage about how they wash their hands.

When you’re doing that, when you are using every loophole, every misinterpretation of scripture, you can come up with to ignore the very clear teaching of the Old Testament, you have the nerve to come at me with some nonsense about how they wash their hands. That’s the Jared paraphrase. Jesus didn’t say those exact words, but the attitude is certainly in there.

You can read it between the lines. That was an example of what they had done. They had forgotten that God’s word was there to teach them to take care of their parents, to do what was right.

And instead, they were using every loophole that they could twist out of Scripture to suit their own purposes until they got to the point where they were doing exactly the opposite of what God had said and pretending that they were obedient. People will do this today. Take one Scripture, take one verse out of context, and twist it and twist it until they can convince themselves of something that is completely opposite of the clear teaching of Scripture and pretend that they are still being obedient in doing it.

And that’s what Jesus is talking about when He says in verse 13 that they had made the Word of God of no effect through your tradition which you’ve handed down and many such things you do. The Corbin thing was just one example. He said there are many such things you do.

But they had essentially made the Word of God of no effect. That doesn’t mean that the Word of God was nullified. It doesn’t mean that it was no longer powerful.

They said, you’re treating it like it has no power and no authority. You are completely ignoring it. You’re completely twisting it out of all context because of your traditions.

God’s word, folks, should be used in context. We have to be very careful about context. I told you that Wednesday night.

It’s like the rules in real estate are location, location, location. When it comes to biblical interpretation, context, context, context. I’ve probably told you this story before, but I remember being probably seventh or eighth grade and reading my Bible in class one day.

I was finished with an assignment and they said we could read. Well, if they can read books, I can read the Bible. I don’t think we didn’t have some discussions about that.

But I read a verse in Ezekiel that talks about God raining fire on the aisles. And I became convinced that in the end times, God was going to destroy England first. became convinced of it, except that it has nothing to do with the context. That is not what Ezekiel was talking about.

People can do that with all sorts of verses. We should be reading in context to understand what did the person who wrote this under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit mean when they said this? What did their original audience understand it to mean?

And then once we understand that, then we can apply those principles to our life today. But we cannot divorce the text from its historical context without twisting it and using it as a staging point for disobedience. And so the example of the Pharisees to us then is to take God’s Word and study it in context and use that to be obedient to what He wants us to do, not twist it so that we can get our own way with it.

And then third of all tonight, He says, there’s nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him. He says that in verse 15. He’s talking here about their goodness and their ideas of cleanliness and uncleanliness.

And he illustrates here the third problem that they had, which was that they thought their good behavior was enough to make them right with God. They thought incorrectly that their good behavior was enough to make them right with God. And it wasn’t because they were so concerned about their vessels and their eating utensils and all these things that they were going to defile them.

And Jesus said there’s nothing that comes into a man from outside that defiles him. I thought about this verse when we were eating lunch today. Because I wanted a cookie.

And there was a cookie sitting on Jojo’s plate still that I didn’t think she was going to eat. But you know, I don’t know what Jojo has put in her mouth and has held in her hands. And I thought about this for a moment.

There’s nothing that enters into a man that defiles him. And I thought, okay, context. I’m still not eating that cookie because I don’t know where it’s been.

now jesus was not saying that there’s jesus was not saying that there’s no danger in eating dirty food and you can just eat whatever you want he’s talking about from a ceremonial standpoint of the old testament law he’s talking about our standing before god there’s there’s nothing that we’re eating that we’re taking in that is actually making us unholy before god the point jesus makes is that that comes from within. They thought they were undefiled. They thought they were right with God because they didn’t eat unclean food.

They didn’t eat off of unclean utensils. They didn’t eat with unwashed hands. So they thought we’re following the letter of the law and our traditions, and so we must be right with God.

But what we’ve seen over and over throughout Mark, especially his dealings with the Pharisees, is that somebody can be doing the right things outwardly and inwardly their hearts can be in rebellion against God. And that’s where they were. Jesus said the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile the man.

The source of defilement comes from within. There’s a very important principle to understand here. We are not disobedient because we disobey.

We disobey because we are disobedient. Because there is disobedience in our nature, it comes out and we disobey. The first time I realized this, it blew my mind.

But the Bible teaches not that we’re sinners because we sin. it teaches we sin because we are sinners. It teaches that we have this sinful nature that comes from within.

We are fallen. We’ve inherited it from Adam and we are fallen. And because of that, it’s like sinning is in our job description and we do it really, really well.

He says for from within, out of the heart. And again, unless they still think about food and maybe he means what comes out. If you’ve ever had to clean up after a sick child, your mind might go there to what comes out of a man defiles him that he makes it clear that’s not what he’s talking about because sometimes the pharisees and the disciples were a little slow to get it he explains what he’s talking about that he’s talking about spiritual things here he says for in verses 21 through 23 for from within out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts adulteries fornications murders thefts covetousness wickedness deceit lewdness and evil eye blasphemy pride foolishness all these evil things come from within and they defile man.

These things come from the heart because our heart is gripped by a sinful nature. See, the Pharisees were focused on their outward stuff and Jesus said that really doesn’t mean anything beyond what it reflects about what’s going on within yo