Guard Your Heart
Text: Mark 7: 1-23
Proposition: Greater than religious traditions, flowery words or outward appearances is what is in your heart and its passion for the Christ of Scripture.
Introduction: One of the primary tasks of every father and every mother is to teach their children the importance of knowing value. The value of time; the value of truth; the value of generosity. It’s like the young Mom who came into the kitchen and found her two young sons arguing over two pieces of cake because one slice was slightly larger. Seeing a teachable moment she told them that if Jesus were here He’d give the larger slice to his brother. The younger son looked at his Mom and then said to his older brother, “You be Jesus”. I like the quote from Martin Luther King Junior where he said, “The first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws.” The Scriptures are the primary way we uncover and learn God’s moral laws. The key to understanding Scripture is knowing how use your heart more than your head in drawing close to God. So this morning we are going to look at a story of how the disciples ran into a lesson on the importance of your heart in seeking after God. Have a look at Mark 7:1-23. I. All That Glitters… Isn’t Worth Much. Glitter is really popular with kids and with people who love doing crafts. But it doesn’t stop there, glitter is also really popular with men especially on their vehicles. You know, that metal flake finish on a car, I think metal flake is just a masculine word for glitter. So the thing about glitter is that it sparkles, it catches your attention and make things look expensive. The legalism of the Pharisees was like spiritual glitter, flashy on the outside. These Pharisees and Scribes have come from Jerusalem to where Jesus is, near Gennesaret on the Sea of Galilee. That’s nearly a 100 mile trip so sincerity and passion can be part of the sparkle in glitter. The Pharisees mission was to check up on Jesus, to try to get Him to sparkle like them. Look at what happens, the Pharisees come to where Jesus is and watch as some of the disciples take a lunch break. Verse 2 says, “Now when they saw some of His disciples eat bread with defiled, that is, with unwashed hands, they found fault.” It goes on to say that there was this wide spread tradition that hands needed to be washed before eating, much like we might have a tradition of praying before we eat. The thing is the hand washing was just that, a tradition, an elaborate process of pouring water from the tips of the fingers to the wrists and then pouring it again from the wrists to the finger tips. It wasn’t about hygiene, it was an act of tradition that they thought demonstrated spiritual cleanliness. The more elaborate the process the cleaner you were spiritually. You could wash cups, pitchers even tables with this elaborate process. The disciples were on a lunch break and didn’t bother with this ritual and that sets in motion this whole confrontation. “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?” The question essentially asks, ‘How can you be spiritually clean if you don’t do the right things?’ It was an outside in approach, a belief that says the works I do on the outside make up for what I don’t want to do on the inside, in my heart and mind. Does that mean it is wrong for us to pray before we eat? Not at all unless the reason you pray is either a meaningless ritual or is done so others can see how holy you are. If that’s the case then prayer becomes like glitter, sparkly in appearance but really not worth much. Look at how Jesus responds to spiritual glitter.
II. Don’t be a Glitter Magnet…Guard Your Heart! There’s a verse in Proverbs 4:23 that I think Jesus was very familiar with. In the NIV it sounds like this, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” What that refers to is the way our hearts are really prone to sin, in fact one of the greatest prophets, Jeremiah once wrote (Jer. 17:9), “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; Who can know it?” So listen to what Jesus says to the Pharisees about their hearts. “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.” He points out that what they do in elevating traditions as a way to be righteous is corrupt. He refers to the practice of Corban, a tradition that said they could devote time or wealth or property to God and not have to care for their parents. The essence behind these false practices was that they were done in vain, meaning with vanity or self as the end purpose and the result was in vain or useless. That’s when Jesus turns to the crowd and cautions them not to buy into the vanity of the Pharisees. “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 that defile a man.” It was a slam against the ‘eating bread with defiled hands’ accusation. At the same time it was a caution to them to guard their hearts, to be aware of the way our hearts are so prone to sin. We need to guard our hearts because we do not naturally think the way that God thinks or see things from His point of view. That becomes quickly clear when the disciples meet with Jesus just after this address to the crowd and they ask what the parable meant. The thing is, it wasn’t a parable, it’s not what goes into you that defiles you, it’s what comes out. The disciples don’t see what Jesus sees, they don’t think the way that Jesus thinks and for the most part neither do we. Look at verses 21 to 22, “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.” When you look at this list you begin to see what Jeremiah meant, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; Who can know it?” So guard your heart, watch what influences it, watch out for the glitter of vanity.
The word for ‘heart’ appears in the Bible more than 700 times, it refers to God’s heart, our heart. Even today we use the word in songs like, ‘purify my heart’, create in me a clean heart, I’m going back to the heart of worship’. So how can we guard our hearts that what flows out of them is right and pure? Let me suggest just a few ways:
- Purify it. Invite God to come see your heart, to show you what areas of infection there are. Read through the Psalms and listen David as he does this very thing again and again such that God eventually calls David, ‘a man after My own heart.’
- Prove it. Let Scripture do what only it can by the power of the Holy Spirit. Remember Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
- Pour it out. Speak to God, let prayer be the place where your head stops and your heart begins. Praise Him in prayer, petition Him in prayer, persevere in prayer. Take the advice of Psalm 62:8, “Trust in Him at all times, you people;
Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. Selah” - Prompt it. Use your self discipline, self control, humble your heart in His Word. Psalm 37:4, 5 says, “Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light,
And your justice as the noonday.” Your heart is where sin has a well spring, prompt it past those swamps. Oh Church, guard your heart.