Vain Worship
The Gospel of Mark • Sermon • Submitted
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Back when I was the youth pastor of Grace Church of Simi Valley I was asked to speak at the local high school from time to time. The high school was attached to the church, a private Christian school, although many - perhaps most - of the students were not Christians. So I was asked to preach at the chapel. I wanted to say something to startle them a bit, something to get their attention. So I opened my message by saying, “I hope no one here ends up like Steve Jobs.” There was a silence in the room. Steve Jobs - the founder of Apple, well-beloved billionaire and tech-hero, had died probably about a year previous. There was silence.
I went on to ask them: “Could you imagine pouring your life into something. Becoming rich - beyond your wildest imagination. Becoming well-loved and popular; an icon. Building a tech-empire, gaining incredible amounts of power, and then, as you lay dying, the crushing reality that you can take none of it with you, and worse, that nothing you did mattered at all in the next life, and even worse than that, that in fact, you had lived worthy of eternal condemnation, without the possibility forgiveness?
Could you imagine that? There are people in the world who are like this. Imagine living your whole life thinking God is pleased with you. But then you come to find out, you’ve actually set yourself up against him, and that he is your enemy?
You might be interested to know that this is happening all the time. There are people who are working hard at doing what they think is good. There are people who are diligent in doing what they think honors God. There are people who are busy with very spiritual activity. And these people are building an empire of dirt that will crumble into meaninglessness before God.
Add often, one of the fundamental problems these kinds of people have is a confusion of religion and redemption. They confuse human religion with redemption.
There are people who are very religious, but are not redeemed. And these are the people who are hardest to reach with the gospel because they don’t feel they need it.
Now, in our text this morning, Jesus encounters some people who are religious but not redeemed. And here’s where we’ll go this morning: 1) We’ll see: Describe the religious, 2) We’ll see Jesus denounce the religious, and 3) We’ll Describe the redeemed.
First, let’s Describe the religious.
Vs. 1 “Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem” Let’s start with the question: who are the Pharisees and scribes?
They’re often together because they’re overlapping groups. The name Pharisee comes from an old Hebrew word that meant, “separated.” They could be understood to be separatists. They were committed to the Old Testament and understood that God had called them to be holy and separate from sin, so they took it very seriously. They took it so seriously, that they often added laws to the biblical laws so as to ensure they wouldn’t defile themselves. God gave his law in Scripture, but the Pharisees added to it to try and make it easier to follow.
The Scribes are essentially Torah scholars. They were the ones who developed and transmitted the traditions of the Pharisees. They wrote them down and passed them on and they were seen as the authorities on the subject. The Pharisees and Scribes were revered and respected for their strict adherence to “holiness.”
It says that some of them came from Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the center of Jewish life and culture, and the most educated and influential Pharisees were located there. Jesus has been ministering in Galilee, and Jerusalem was about 90 miles south of Galilee. So they have to make a pretty long, arduous journey to see him.
They did this in 3:22 - and they accused Jesus of being possessed by demons. Now, it says verse 2: “they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.” Understand, Jesus is a Rabbi. He’s got his followers, his disciples. And what’s concerning them - what makes them make the 90 mile journey northward is that there’s a popular new Rabbi, has the attention of the masses, and is apparently healing the sick and raising the dead, and casting out demons - but he’s forgot one thing: to teach his disciples how to wash their hands.
Now this isn’t a hygiene thing. I mean, in our day, we actually understand someone traveling 90 miles to make sure you wash your hands. No, this was a religious thing. See that word “defiled.” That has religious connotations.
You see, the Old Testament did command some hand washing as a part of ritual purification. But, it was only before the offering of a sacrifice and it was only for priests offering sacrifices. What the scribes and Pharisees had done was something along these lines: “Well, if hand-washing is important for priests, shouldn’t it be important for all Jews?” And because the scribes and Pharisees were rather important, influential people, this became common practice.
Look at verse 3: “For the Pharisees and all the Jews” - not literally every last Jew, this simply means that this was the common practice. “Do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.”
It was a lot of meticulous hard work to be holy. They washed everything. They washed hands, they washed their bodies, they washed their cups and copper vessels - and couches! Now, as they’re doing all these things, they’re thinking, “This is what God wants from me.”
So they took something God had revealed, but they added to it all kinds of additional rules about washing. It wasn’t the word from God, it was the traditions of men. And whenever you add to the word of God, you inevitably subtract from your walk with God, because you get more focused on what God does not require (your added rules) than what God actually does require.
You say, “What’s it hurt to add a little rules? Maybe they’ll help me be more holy.” Listen - they won’t. They’ll deceive you. Your self-invented holiness will puff you up. And that’s exactly what had happened with the Pharisees. They were proud.
There are some people who are religious, but they actually do not know what God has said in his Scripture. So they follow human opinion, human reasoning, human tradition. And they do all these really good things, and they become, on the surface, really good people.
And that’s why in verse 5: “And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”
This is a thinly veiled accusation. They’re accusing Jesus is being a sloppy, careless, leader. A bad influence on those following him. They’re trying to discredit him.
Second: Jesus Denounces the Religious
Now Jesus’ response. He identifies several ways these Pharisees are not what they think they are. in verse 6: “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites,
# 1 Hypocritical. The first attack Jesus makes against this false religion is that it’s hypocritical. In fact, he calls these Pharisees hypocrites. The word hypocrite literally means “play-actor.” Often in the 1st century, an actor would wear a mask and pretend to be a person while on the stage. That person was literally a “hypocrite.” It referred to In other words, Jesus sees right through all their religious activity and says, “It’s an act. It’s a show. You’re not doing this for God, you’re doing this for people to see.”
I wonder if there are any “play-actors” here this morning. You’re play-acting the Christian. Because you’re not a Christian in private. You’re not a Christian in what you watch. You’re not actually devoted to God, his word, to prayer. But you do go to church.
The Scriptures are read in public, and you hear them as the readings of an old book, not the very words of God. The songs are song, and these truths don’t resonate within you, but you go along. The reason you’re at church, singing songs, doing these things - is not out of an overflowing love of God but rather a commitment to play the part of a spiritual person.
Jesus sees right through the Pharisees. Jesus sees right through us. Jesus is not impressed by our commitment, if it’s all a show.
# 2 External. Second, he says as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;” Notice there are two aspects mentioned here: lips - which are outward. They speak, they sing, they chant, they teach. And there’s the heart - the heart that thinks, the heart feels, the heart loves, the heart hopes, the heart rejoices.
Jesus is saying that the external stuff is there - the lips - but the heart isn’t. It’s like he’s saying you still wear the ring on your finger but you don’t actually love me.
The Pharisees had an unhealthy focus on the externals. They focused on washing their hands, cups, couches. They thought that they became unclean through what touched them. They did not realize that they are unclean from the very depths of their hearts.
This is something we’ve been seeing quite clearly the last few months, haven’t we? There have been prominent pastors, teachers, preachers that have been revealed to be living secret, double lives. They focused so much on their externals - how they dressed or how they spoke. But they did take the time to seriously face their own hearts.
Friends, it is part of the human condition that we hate looking at our own hearts. We hate what we find there. We are experts at ignoring or drowning out the cries of brokenness and guilt deep within. We cannot look for long. We excuse. We rationalize. We blame.
And then we focus on the outside. We’d rather not face the guilt and filth inside, so we do our best to pretty up the facade outside. The result is a double life.
It is too often exposed that Christians are living double lives. Are you?
Let me tell you, you have not fooled Jesus.
#3 Empty. “in vain do they worship me,” He’s saying all their worship is empty. All their religious activity is meaningless. That’s what “vain” means - it’s a dry desert, it’s a lifeless corpse, it’s worthless sham, it’s, it’s barren.
I wonder if there are any people here who work very hard to be good, and God sees your hard work and calls it “worthless”? For these kinds of people - your singing is empty, your giving is empty, your good works are empty.
In a participation trophy world, to even suggest that God might say that seems harsh. We’re used to applauding someone, so long as they give enough effort.
But in our text we’re going to meet people who put extraordinary effort toward their relationship with God, but it was all vain, worthless, empty, meaningless work, and did not please God. Instead, it only served to deceive them into thinking they had God as their Father, when, in fact, they had made him their enemy.
Some people think they can sin in the dark, and then show up to church in the day, and as long as their good deeds are outweighing their bad deeds God will be pleased with them.
Amos 5:21 “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
# 4 Prioritizing Man’s Word. “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” The fundamental problem with the Pharisees, according to Jesus, is that man’s commandments, man’s teachings, man’s traditions, man’s opinions weighed more heavily upon them than God’s!
There are traditions everywhere. There are opinions everywhere. You’re hearing constantly - even in the Christian world - do this, avoid that, try this, this is right. Measure everything against Scripture. What we learned in the Reformation was that just because something has been practice for hundreds of years doesn’t make it right. Sola Scriptura - Scripture alone.
There are a lot of new pressures these days to conform to new moralities. You can’t say that. You need to post this. If you don’t speak up, you’re the problem. Social pressures. And when these pressures come upon you, grab your Bible and say, “I am bound to no human opinion, but I am bound to this book.”
# 5 Selfishness. “And he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!” For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother;’ and ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ Jesus is quoting Moses, and you can find these things in Exodus 20:12 or Deuteronomy 5:16. This is what God, through Moses, said.
But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, ‘Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban’” (that is, given to God) then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
What’s going on here? Well, the law of God said that children needed to honor their parents. It is their responsibility. They should not revile them or refuse them. Included in this command is the idea of caring for them, especially in their old age.
But the Pharisees created this loophole that enabled them to get out of it. If they said their money was “Corban” - devoted to God - they accomplished two things: 1) they would have the appearance of being very holy. 2) They would be able to keep it - you didn’t actually give Corban things away - and 3) they would actually not be allowed to give it to their parents.
One of the ways you can identify these kinds of Pharisees is that they have a million excuses for not caring for the people God says they should be caring about.
In other words, the external holiness was actually a fraud. The Pharisees were selfish, vile, parent-abandoning, loveless, hypocritical charlatans. Their external veneer was a covering for the rotting, putrid, degenerate wickedness.
The redeemed. We can do this by reversing Jesus' statements about the religious.
He said the religious are hypocrites. Then what are the redeemed? They’re honest.
The mark of someone who is truly right with God is this: they’ve come to see the sin so deep inside and instead of trying to cover it up, they confess it to God. The presence of sin does not make you a hypocrite. Acting as if you are someone you are not, in order to impress, does.
Ephesians 4:25 says, “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.” Do you know when we are most tempted to disobey this question? Every time we are asked, “How are you?” We are tempted to be less than honest. A hypocrite lies in answer to that question. The redeemed are learning to be honest with God, with themselves, and with others.
One way I know our church is growing in our understanding of the gospel is that we are learning to confess our sin to one another.
Jesus said the religious were mostly focused on the externals. The redeemed? The heart.
The heart is the control center of your being. The heart thinks, feels, evaluates, judges, chooses. It loves, it desires, it longs, it aches. It lusts, it craves, it worships. In other words, what you do is a result of what’s in your heart. I remember when the lightbulb went on in my own Christian life when I realized that the Christian life is primarily about cultivating my heart - my desires, my longings, my affections, my loves - more than simply my actions.
God’s people are not merely concerned about doing their duty. They are called to serve gladly. They are not merely called to sing, but to sing with thanksgiving. They are not merely called to give, but to give cheerfully. They are not merely called to obey, but to glad obedience. In other words, God calls us to have hearts that are not only fully and completely devoted to him, but love being fully and completely devoted to him!
If you have the slightest degree of self-awareness you’ll realize that it’s often easy to do the right thing with the wrong heart attitude. We must not ignore the heart. Genuine worship has two legitimate attitudes: heart-felt delight in God or repentance for lack of heart-felt delight in God.
False religion prioritizes man’s word, the redeemed prioritize God’s Word. This was the cry of the Reformation, and it’s our cry today: Sola Scriptura - Scripture Alone. Scripture alone is our authority. It is true, totally without error, completely sufficient for life and godliness. Let everything be compared to God’s Word.
One of the marks of someone who is truly redeemed is an insatiable appetite for God’s Word. I remember years ago hearing about a woman who had been in a cult, she had been so deceived about the nature of salvation, and when she finally got out she discovered the gospel, and the immediate result of her conversion was ravenous hunger for the Word of God. She devoured it. She devoured tomes - hundreds of pages long - just to learn more about the Scripture. And what she said over and over again was, “I just want the truth, I want the truth. I’ll do anything to just find the truth.”
Religion is selfish - it uses its religion to get out of actually loving others. But when we’re redeemed, we don’t live for ourselves anymore, we live for Christ. And we follow him. And he leads us to gladly sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others.
Religion says, “I earn love through obedience.” So I work. I wash my hands. I commit to rituals. I perform. I don’t say bad words. I don’t watch bad movies. I smile a lot, I’m extra nice, and I work hard. And if I do that, God approves of me, God will love me.
Gospel says, “I am already loved, so I obey.” The gospel says that God loved me while I was in my sin. “While I was yet a sinner, Christ died for me.” Jesus suffered and died in my place. He paid the penalty for my sin. I am set free. Now, with God as my ever-loving Father, I long to please him.
Religion says, “There are two kinds of people. Good people, and bad people.” And when we’re religious, we typically feel that we’re one of the good guys. We follow the rules.
The gospel says, “There are two kinds of people. Bad people, and bad people who repent.” All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. None are righteous, no not one. All have turned aside. When God looks down at humanity, he doesn’t see blue jerseys and red jerseys. The blue ones are the good guys, the reds are bad. No, we’re all bad. We’re all wicked. The clean-cut, nice guys and the gutter-dwelling drug-addict. We’re all estranged from God and in need of grace. The only difference is who repents? Who will humble himself? Who will confess their sin? WHo will cry out for mercy?
Religion is all about what you do and what you don’t do. Do this, not that. These movies, not those. You have to talk like this. Your social media should look like this.
Gospel is all about what Jesus has done.
I wonder if any of you are very religious, but not yet redeemed. Can you be honest with yourself? Can you face your sin? If you, right now, are able to see how vile you are, that’s good news - because the gospel says that the vile people are the ones God saves. The ones who are bad, who know it, who confess it, who cry out for mercy. Jesus lived and died and rose and lives to save sinners, humble, repentant sinners - not those who think by their good religion they can save themselves.