Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Intro
TV lawyers are great.
Not because how realistic they are - because the whole courtroom thing is very different from what is portrayed on TV.
They’re great because they tie the string of truth to shadows.
Or they are such overblown caricatures of lawyers that we can’t help but laugh.
Maybe Dan Fielding from Night Court.
Of the good ones, I think my favorite is Ben Matlock.
His famous approach was to let the opposing lawyers play out their line while he seemed to corner the truth and reveal it in the end with a few insightful questions.
TV lawyers are entertaining.
But in Jesus’ day, religious lawyers were no joke!
Pray
Set against the crowds seeking Jesus for healing, some Pharisees and teachers of religious law (or scribes, or religious lawyers) came to Jesus not to hear or be healed but to criticize.
They criticized based on their standard of righteousness, not God’s.
Instead of seeing God’s standards as complete in themselves and useful for the purpose God intended, they established a standard of their own.
Many of these man-made laws were established to put a hedge around God’s law.
“If I don’t cross this outer line, I can’t have crossed the inner one.”
Is that the right approach?
Let’s see how Jesus responds.
The Lawyers
Mark first give’s background.
Likely Gentile audience who didn’t know Jewish custom.
And then comes the accusation.
This wasn’t an idol question.
Matters of religious law were taken seriously.
There were religious courts and had real authority.
And courts need lawyers!
The laws of God or of man?
v. 5 the Pharisees lead with an acknowledgement that they speak of traditions and man’s edicts.
They speak in pride, but don’t, apparently grasp their error.
They set their standard above God’s and bring accusations as though breaking traditions is the same as breaking God’s law.
How does Jesus respond?
Honor in spirit or in flesh?
He begins with scripture!
There are many places Jesus could have drawn from in the scripture that exposes the hypocrisy of worship and sacrifice without a humble and sincere heart.
Or
Even when being obedient in action to what the Lord has called, If we are not worshiping and honoring Him in our hearts, our obedience is at best wearisome.
But when it’s paired with delighting in sin or a dismissive attitude towards God, we are trespassing of God’s mercy and goodness.
Jesus calls the Pharisees to task for such a trespass.
Jesus was meek.
And humble.
But He was also unavoidable!
Jesus leveled His own accusation against the Pharisees as He quoted Isaiah.
But then He turns the encounter into a court room right in the moment.
He backs up His charge with evedince.
Jesus has a Matlock moment with the Pharisees.
He is not dismissing the law of God, but condemning it’s misuse and misapplication.
The scribes and Pharisees sought to apply this approach of following God’s law not only to themselves, but to others.
THEY sought to be the authority, not servants of God’s authority and God’s laws.
So Jesus turned from the legal showdown to the laymen.
The Laymen
God’s word is not just an intellectual exercise.
Though He needed to set the Pharisees straight, refute their accusation, and bring the appropriate charge against them, it didn’t stop there.
The False teaching had consequences.
Jesus made sure to correct only only those spreading the false teaching, but those who had been taught it.
Spiritual purity matters!
He shifts the focus back to their spiritual relationship with God and others.
Physical bodies are not what God is concerned about.
But the state of our souls, and the fruit of our lives.
We have a body, so do animals.
Our body is not our life.
That breath of life was much more than lungs and heartbeats.
It was the living soul God gave man, and that makes us different that all the rest of creation.
That we live this spiritual life in these bodies of flesh is a mystery.
But that’s what God intended, and I have nothing other than to trust God.
The Lesson
When they were alone again, the disciples sought to understand more…
Understand the Word.
The Bible is not, as it’s purpose, a text book.
It is the revelation of God’s character and His heart for people.
It is a road map to seeing His Glory.
But we can’t attain to that purpose if we do not take studying it seriously.
That means reading what it says.
Listening carefully to what it does NOT say.
It means always seeking the heart and intention of what is written.
It means learning the context of the culture and the relation of scripture to other parts of scripture.
As Jesus sought to bring the laymen back to scripture, He reminded them of the scriptural.
As for them, that is our first stop.
Conform to the Word.
But if we stop at understanding, we are no better than the people of Israel when Isaiah was prophesying against them.
Scripture wasn’t commanding ritual cleaning as the Pharisees were applying it.
It is concerned with a pure and clean heart.
Later in Isaiah, he prophecies about the coming messiah who will exemplify these characteristics.
This was Jesus who was that example for us to follow.
As He conforms to the word (that is the expressed characteristic of God) so we should try and to the same.
Apply the Word.
Jesus applied the Word.
That truth understood and conformed to must be applied in our action and interactions.
“… , but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”
Jesus reminded the laymen there that they WERE required to be clean.
But clean in their relationships.
Clean in their thoughts and actions.
Clean in their worship towards God.
Clean in their integrity.
Whatever come out of our lives can either glorify God, or deceive others about Him.
There is no other choice.
And having cleaned your hands just just the right way doesn’t to that.
Nor does knowing all the right Christiany words and using them just right.
Nor does dressing or acting proper, only to think vile thoughts in your mind.
God calls us to be holy as He is holy.
We can’t do that on our own.
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