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A follower of Jesus

inside out

Matt 15: Religion is Outside In, Christianity is Inside Out (pt3 of 3)

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21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” 23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” 25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. 26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” 27 “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

Just compare the attitude of the Pharisees with this Canaanite woman. She was making such a racquet that the disciples want to send her away. I fully understand this. Our house is very loud and sometimes I want to say, kids, go to your room and play the silent game. Please, give me a moment of peace and quiet.

The Canaanite woman is desperate because her daughter is demon-possessed. She must have caused quite a scene. At first, Jesus ignored her. But she probably cried out louder and louder. Help me! My daughter is sick! Lord, Son of David, have mercy! She knows Jesus is the promised Messiah. She knows that Jesus alone can heal. She didn’t care how she looked. She didn’t mind the stares from the crowds. Because she was desperate.

Not only was she desperate but she was also humble. The first thing out of Jesus’ mouth was “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” and this woman is not a Jew. She’s a Gentile from Canaan. So basically, Jesus is saying, sorry, but I didn’t come for you. I came for the Pharisees, the teachers of the law, the scribes, the nation of Israel, don’t you know. And ironically, the very people who know the OT Scripture backward and forward and who are so religious, they fail to recognize that all of their reading and praying was a pointer to the Messiah. And the Messiah now stands right before their eyes and they don’t recognize him. Their fine with their religion. They are fine looking pious and holier than thou even though their hearts are far from God, even though they have dead hearts. They are fine fixing the outside when the real problem is the inside.

Of course we know that Jesus came to save the world, but he did start with Israel and when Israel fully rejected him as their Messiah, due to that rejection, the gospel spread to the rest of the nations through the ministry of Apostle Paul.

If it wasn’t bad enough that Jesus said, sorry, I didn’t come to save you right now, you’re going to have to wait, Jesus in v26 calls her a dog. Jesus is saying this as the woman is throwing herself at his feet. The contrast between the Jewish religious leaders and this woman is startling. Look at her humility. She is not offended. Without skipping a beat, she responds in v27, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

Amazing humility. She is called a dog by Jesus and she says, yeah, you’re right. I am a dog, but even dogs get to eat crumbs that fall from the master’s table. Give me a crumb. I don’t deserve anything. I don’t deserve to be treated any better. I am a dog. You are my master. Have mercy. I have nowhere else to turn.

Compare this Canaanite woman with the Pharisees. The Pharisees would never have tolerated this kind of insult. You can’t humiliate a religious person because they’re not humble. Jesus is saying, your religoin is all wrong. You need to start over. But this is offensive. They hav ebeen working hard at religions their entire lives. They are not humble so ‘t have ears to hear. Their view of themselves is too high. If you think you are way up here and you have to be treated as such, a respectable person, a person to admire, a person who has a lot to offer, if this is your self-identity, you will never allow yourself to be humiliated because the fall is too great. And thus, you will never experience salvation.

It’s so offensive to be called a dog if you think you are so worthy of honor. To admit, yes, I am a dog, I am a sinner, there is nothing good in me, I need to start over, this is repentance. Proud sinners hate to repent. We hate to be humiliated because we are not humble. But to fall on our knees before Jesus is the first step of having a saving encounter with Jesus.

Not only that, she came to Jesus, she flung herself before Jesus, she knew Jesus was her only hope. This is faith. And you can bet that Jesus was waiting at the edge of his seat to hear her response because as soon as he hears it, he launches into praise. Woman, you have great faith! And the daughter was healed. Faith is putting your entire life in the hands of Jesus. Lord, I will live for you. I entrust my life to you. I will follow you all the days of my life. Repentance and faith. This is how you and I can be saved.

Jesus came to save the sick. He came to forgive sinners. To be called a sinner is the most offensive thing for proud people like us. It’s the last thing we want to hear. Give me a tradition. Teach me an insight that I can apply. Help me to exercise my effort to be righteous through my discipline. Let me stay in control. Let me optimize my surroundings so that the good in me can flourish. This is what proud, religious people want to do. The last thing we want to do is to admit that we are hopeless sinners. We can lose hope in everything else, but hope in oneself is the last thing that often dies in us. Our hope in ourselves, our pride will kick and scream and claw its way to survive.

Do you believe that you are hopeless? Only desperate and humble people will repent and place their faith in Christ and be born again.

In this chapter, we studied a spiritually dead religious Jew and we just read about a born again Gentile. Now I want to end with some encouragement for believers. Let’s look at the disciples to see an example of a growing Christian. 2 things we notice. One, they ask. And two, they change. I mentioned this point last week. The disciples are different from the crowds because they care enough to bring their questions to Jesus. The crowds listen and leave, but the disciples stick around and ask.

15 Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.” 16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them.

The disciples heard what Jesus said about the Pharisees and so they ask him, explain the parable please. They want to know. This is a sign of life. They care enough about their spiritual lives to ask. Jesus calls them dull. But they are undeterred. They keep asking. This is an evidence of grace. Sometimes, it doesn’t seem like we are changing. You might look back on this year and you may conclude, man, I was dull. But did you keep asking, did you keep struggling, did you bring your questions to Jesus, do you ask others to pray for you? This is what growing Christians do. They ask because spiritual life matters to them.

Second, growing Christians change. We just studied the feeding of the 5000 and now we have the feeding of the 4000. This is only a headcount of the men so they fed 10000-15000 beforehand and now another 8000-12000. That’s easily over 20,000 people back to back. And there’s only 12 of them. Imagine the hard work. It’s tiring to pour out your life for needy people. But I am encouraged, in the midst of their exhausting service to others, there is a small internal change.

32 Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.” 33 His disciples answered, “Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?” 34 “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked. “Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.” 35 He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. 36 Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. 37 They all ate and were satisfied…

Compare this feeding of 4000 with the feeding of the 5000 in the previous chapter. What do you notice? v33 is somewhat discouraging. They still think, where on earth are we going to get enough food to feed this many people? Because we’re in the middle of nowhere. Hello? Did they forget what Jesus did to feed 5000 by multiplying 5 loaves and 2 fish? The disciples are still dull. They are not perfect. They have a long way to go. But there is encouragement in this chapter.

What do you see? It’s easy to miss. They don’t say to Jesus the second time around, send the crowds away. That’s an encouragement. Be encouraged. They are slightly more compassionate today than they were a few days earlier. They learned something.

The key is–they stuck with Jesus. They stayed near Jesus. You might not be able to see dramatic growth in your life this past year, but I can guarantee that if you stay close to Jesus, if you abide with him consistently, there will be fruit. You will change. Fruit grows slowly, gradually. But if the seed is alive, fruit will be born. Religion is outside in. Christianity is inside out. Focus on your relationship with Jesus. Focus on your heart. Focus on the inside. If the inside changes, outside change will come naturally. I pray that we can all bear fruit for God’s glory in 2013.

Matt 15: Religion is Outside In, Christianity is Inside Out (pt2 of 3)

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What about the ordinances? There are 2 ordinances or traditions that Christ himself ordained for us to observe. One is the Lord’s Supper and the other is baptism. Catholics observe the Lord’s Supper every Sunday and many Protestants look at that and say, that’s just a meaningless ritual. So why bother observing it? Attending church on Sundays can become a ritual at times when our hearts are far from God, but does that mean we should stop coming to worship service? Of course not. There are things we decide to do consistently even if there is a danger of it becoming a ritual at times. There are things we obey even when we don’t feel like it because God commands it. Keeping the Sabbath holy and observing the Lord’s Supper fall into this category.

For example, if we said, as a church, we will only show compassion when we felt compassionate, we might never do anything. If we wait in our prayer closet to be zapped with a compassionate heart, we might never step out of our rooms. But if we say, I am going to commit to exercising some compassion this week, it’s likely that our actions will cause us to become more compassionate as we witness firsthand the brokenness in this world. We obey even when we don’t feel like obeying or when our hearts are not in it. And because we decided to obey first, what happens? Our heart often changes after the fact because of our actions.

So the Lord’s Supper, this is an important enough tradition that Jesus commands us to do it in remembrance of what he did for us on the cross. How often, in what ways, these are up for debate, but regardless, we have to obey it.

Second, there is the tradition or ordinance of baptism. As Baptists, we not only think getting baptized is important, but we believe when you are baptized and how you are baptized are also important. When should one get baptized? You should get baptized when you are old enough to know what you are doing and you make a conscious decision to repent of your sin and place your faith in Christ. We don’t believe in paedo baptism, or infant baptism. We don’t believe you are born a Christian. We don’t believe you are always a Christian because your parents took you to church from a young age. There is a point when you decide to follow Christ. In addition, we think the how one gets baptized, or the mode of baptism is important. We don’t do sprinkle baptisms here. We do full body immersions because we feel like this mode of baptism best represents the spiritual death of our old selves and being raised with Christ in the newness of life.

Outside of these 2 ordinances, the rest of the traditions are fluid and flexible and so we have to apply a higher principle. The things we do at our church that might be unique to us because of our background and our experiences and different from those attending FBC here in the morning or the church down the street, how do we evaluate if these are helpful or harmful? I think we can ask a couple of simple questions. Just like the ceremonial laws was a shadow pointing to the reality of Christ, the traditions and rules and practices here at the Hill, do they help each of us draw closer to Christ? Or, if certain traditions like we talked about last Sunday help us to serve our neighbors better and allow us to be more compassionate, if we can say yes to either of those questions, then I believe the tradition is worth keeping, but we can reassess every few months or every year because what works this year for this particular group of people may no longer work next year when a different group of people walks through the doors.

Here’s the dark side of tradition. Tradition can sometimes cloud, or worse, distort what God actually intended for His people. Back to v4 – God’s commandment is clear–honor your father and mother. How did the Pharisees introduce their own tradition and distort the intention of God’s command? v5-6–

5 But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ 6 he is not to ‘honor his father’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

It’s unclear from these verses alone what Jesus meant. But Mark 7:9-13 sheds some light. Same account from a different gospel writer. Mark elaborates a bit more and uses the term, Corban. Corban was a label which priests could place on the temple treasury so that this money was hands off. It was sacred and therefore off limits for secular purposes–city building projects, for example.

And the Pharisees took this idea of Corban and used it for their personal finances and said, my money, it’s Corban. It’s off limits. Jesus knew their hearts and he was making the connection that these Pharisees hoarded money for themselves while their elderly parents who needed financial assistance were uncared for. It’s unloving. How on earth could they honor their father and mother and not help them financially when they had the means to help? If they were poor and they couldn’t help their parents financially, that’s another story. But they had money and they hoarded it. Yet with this kind of heart, they had the nerve to criticize Jesus’ disciples for not washing their hands before eating.

Do you see the picture? This is dead religion at its worst. What was the purpose of the traditions established by the Pharisees? Was it to draw closer to God? Was it to better serve their neighbors? It’s unfortunate that they made rules and invented traditions ultimately for selfish reasons. In this case, to get themselves off the hook of responsibility to care for parents in financial need.

Jesus must have been slightly miffed, a bit riled up at this point because he begins preaching. If Jesus spontaneously busts out into a sermon, you know something is up.

10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11 What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean.’” 12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?” 13 He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14 Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”

Jesus continues to preach in v17–

17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.’”

Jesus explains his main beef with religion. Religion is an “Outside In” approach. Wash your hands before eating. Fast twice a week. Pray at the temple. Buffet your body. Be disciplined. And through these external practices, you honor God.

Christianity is “Inside Out.” Change the heart of a man, change the inside first, and his outsides, his behavior, his speech, his lifestyle will also change. Outside in vs. inside out. This is really important to understand.

Religion says, you are basically a good person. You are clean. What makes you unclean is the dirt and filth out there. Christianity says, it’s not the filth out there that makes you unclean, but it’s the filth that resides within and emanates from your own heart that makes you unclean.

If the problem was external, then it’s within our power to fix it. In college, I thought I could regulate change. The world was a sinful place. And I had to be pure. So I got rid of my TV, I hardly watched movies. No video games. There was no smartphones back then and internet wasn’t big yet, which is hard to believe. I’m dating myself a bit. In college, many of my peers and I for the first time learned what email was. If I applied the same mindset today, I would have canceled my home internet connection, given away my computer and deactivated my facebook account. No blogs. No social media. No music or video streaming.

We do have to monitor our consumption of these things, but I failed to see that the problem ran much deeper than my environment. If the problem is surface level, then fixing the environment is sufficient. Or I just need to move and live in a developing country where I do not have to face these temptations. Is that the solution? Change circumstances and you are cured of everything? I don’t think so.

If you have a dirty house, you can clean it up. It might be hard work, like cleaning behind the refrigerator or under the coach, but it’s physically possible and within your means to do it. If you have a problem with your physical heart, again, you can call up my brother, who is a cardiologist and he can do surgery and insert some tubes and clean out the gunk. Physical problem, physical solution. But if the problem is not our physical heart, but it’s deeper, it’s our spiritual heart, it’s the core of our very being, then the problem is far beyond our reach.

And there’s the rub. Religion cannot solve our deepest issues and so no matter how hard we try, religious people, even religious leaders are still left with spiritually dead hearts.

19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

Jesus deals with our hearts. He cleanses our spiritual hearts first. He gives us a new heart. And because we have new hearts, the outside begins to change. Inside out change. It begins with being born again. What does that look like? We see an example of a born again Gentile in v21-28. The story of the Canaanite woman.

1 Corinthians 6:1-11 – Repentance (pt3 of 3)

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What then is repentance? One thing that repentance is not. Repentance is NOT feeling bad. You are living in a way that is contrary to the will of God, you know what you are doing is not right, but you feel bad. That’s not enough. That’s not repentance. That is just someone who is interested in Christianity.

Repentance is NOT simply cleaning up our external behavior. There are many religious people who have nice polished exteriors. They never drink, they never smoke, they never swear, they are generous with their money, they are the first to serve, they are always on time. But the Spirit of God is not living in them. This highlights the fact that religious, moral living cannot save us. In fact, one of the greatest obstacles to genuine salvation is religion. Many people just settle for religion because it’s easier than truly following Jesus.

Related to that, repentance is not the same thing as what we commonly think of as fruit. We often think that fruit is some visible change in a person. According to this definition, fruit is a sign of repentance or an evidence of salvation. Fruit gives us assurance of salvation. This is true in some cases. Fruit of visible change is one way that we can have assurance of our salvation. Which means, if you made a decision long ago and there is zero change, you have to wonder, did I ever repent? Am I really saved?

At the same time, you cannot just make a formula and say, fruit = repentance, or fruit = salvation. Because fruit in the Bible are things that flow from the inside out. It’s not outside in. It’s inside out. Things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control–these are the fruit of the Spirit. And if you have such fruit, if you have this kind of spiritual activity and transformation on the inside, then the outward actions will follow.

Consider the recipients of this letter. Paul wrote to believers in the church of Corinth. Believers. In chapter 1, Paul makes it clear that these guys were born again. Their testimonies were confirmed. There was genuine repentance and fruit of changed lives in the beginning. But you look at those same believers now and there is no trace of repentance, no evidence of God’s presence and activity in their lives.

So Paul in v11 is reminding these believers of their status as believers.

11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Those sins listed in the earlier verses defined you before you were saved. But no more. You are no longer slaves to sin. You have been freed. Living under these sins was something of the past. That is what some of you WERE. Past tense. Now, things are different. You are living under the guidance of the Spirit to bear fruit for God’s glory.

I can understand how Catholics would take a passage like this and conclude that it is possible to lose one’s salvation. They acknowledge that most sins are venial sins, or sins of a less serious nature. We all sin and even if you commit one of these less serious, venial sins and die, you will still inherit the kingdom of God. However, Catholics also believe certain mortal sins like murder or sex before marriage, if you commit one of these mortal sins and you don’t repent and you die, then you can lose your salvation. After all, it says, if you are sexually immoral, you won’t inherit the kingdom of God.

Protestants, we don’t believe that you can lose your salvation because once you are saved, you are always saved. But we would say that if there is a persistent pattern of unrepentant sin, then no matter how genuine you think your salvation was, no matter how much you cried, no matter how sincere you were at the time, no matter how clear your articulation of the gospel is at present, if sin is present for a long time and there is a lack of repentance, then based on Scripture, we would conclude, perhaps, that person never really was saved to begin with.

The key is–when sin is pointed out, is there repentance? It doesn’t have to be immediate, but eventually, does the person in sin repent? Because if the Holy Spirit is dwelling in that person, then he or she will be convicted of their sins sooner or later. They may resist, they might deny the sin, they might disobey, but eventually, if the gospel seed was planted and it was a living seed, fruit will be born. But before we talk about fruit as being synonymous with visible change, we have to talk about the fruit of repentance.

Repentance is really important. When I am interviewing prospective members of this church, I always ask for their testimony. Because I feel this might be the only time in their lives that they have an opportunity to check their salvation. And always, I am looking to see if there is some sign of repentance. Repentance is critical. Why? Because there is no salvation apart from repentance. Period. If you give me a gospel message and there is no mention of sin and our need to repent, then that’s not a gospel message. Repentance is a prerequisite for salvation.

Repentance is an uncomfortable topic so people want to gloss over it and jump to talking about faith in Christ and the grace that we have in Christ and following Jesus. Those are positive sounding. But repentance is so negative. Repentance is too important to gloss over. I know I am not God and I can’t guarantee anyone’s salvation, nor can I question anyone’s salvation. Yet, I feel it is the responsibility of the church to do our best to discern, does this person understand that they are a sinner in need of a Savior before they are ready to claim Jesus as their Lord.

A discussion about repentance and sin is never easy because many times, it is not so black and white. I was black before Christ and look at how white I am now in Christ. No, there are many shades of gray even after conversion.

Take for example two Christians who were alcoholics before they met Christ. While drinking is not a sin, drunkenness is clearly a sin. The first Christian repents of their drunkenness and overnight, he is transformed by the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit. The second Christian, on the other hand, repents, but every time he sees someone drinking a beer or sipping a glass of red wine over a nice meal, he struggles.

Who is better off? Who is more spiritual? The first one is a story of victory. If she were a member of this church, I would be like, get that person ready to share her testimony next Sunday so that everyone will be amazed at how powerful Christ is in breaking the bondage of sin. The second person is not so clear. But he struggles with his addiction each and every day. He relies on God for help every moment. He leans on his brothers at church for prayer and accountability. He confesses when he stumbles. He repents often, but there is no change. He falls. But there is a growing humility and dependence on God.

Who is better off? It’s not so easy to tell. It’s not just a matter of being victorious over our sins, although it would be great if God overcame all of our sins and transformed us into mini-Apostle Pauls overnight.

Repentance over our core sins is like running a marathon. You got to keep at it. One foot in front of the other. It’s not a sprint. This type of repentance is an invitation for God under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to do a deeper, inner work of transformation in our hearts over the long haul. Some core sins we will be repenting and struggling over until the day we die.

How did Jesus lead people to repentance during his ministry?

The Samaritan woman in John 4 is one example. When Jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman and she was converted, Jesus commanded her to leave her life of sin. The Samaritan woman had been married several times and after a few failed attempts, she gave up entirely on marriage and was just living with her boyfriend. So to the woman, Jesus expected her to do something about that situation right away. Break it off or marry the guy, but don’t just remain as you are. Does that mean that she was transformed and never longed for a guy? Does that mean on Valentines Day that she never felt lonely? Perhaps, it’s possible. But maybe not. The inside out transformation of our hearts often takes longer. Because it requires the deeper work of the Spirit.

Zacchaeus is another example. He was a tax collector in Luke 19 who had gotten rich by cheating people out of their money. But when he was converted, he gave away his wealth and repaid those whom he had wronged? Does that mean that he never struggled with greed from that point on? Perhaps, but I bet there were days, like Black Friday, when he wished he had a little extra spending cash. There were immediate external actions, or signs of genuine repentance–give away the wealth, stop cheating people, these are things that he could change right away. But there is also letting the Spirit do the inner work of transformation in terms of his thoughts and attitudes and motives.

What’s the principle? There are some immediate changes that we can and should make when confronted with our sin, but there is also the deeper work that the Spirit has to do to transform us from the inside out.

How do we apply this? Some of us are very disciplined. We have a great deal of self-control. We can wake up at 5am and run several miles. You are just wired this way. If you are in this category, then a sin like adultery is unthinkable. You would never even put yourself in a situation to fall into a sin like that.

And because we don’t do the big, blatant stuff, we think we are such saintly people. For those in this category, I caution you against spiritual pride and blindness. Pay attention to the other sins in this list. Like greed. Wanting more and more. Wanting to buy more stuff. Never being content. Or slander. You might have great self-control when it comes to time management and waking up in the morning, but you have zero control over your tongue. Whenever you get together with your friends, negative words of criticism about someone just spew forth. According to these verses, greed and slander are just as serious as adultery.

Sin is serious. God is a Holy God. He hates sin, all of it. He can’t tolerate sin. While God hates sin, He loves sinners. That is the gospel in a nutshell. Even though we were sinful through and through, God made a way for sinners like us to inherit the kingdom of God, to be saved, through Jesus coming and dying on a cross to pay the penalty of sins. This is the gospel. It is the greatest news that sinners could ever hear.

How can you and I be saved? Repentance and faith. You have to repent. There has to be repentance. There is no salvation without repentance. Not just feeling bad, but living out Hebrews 12:4.

Heb 12
4 In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

Whatever sin the Holy Spirit is bringing to your attention heart right now, commit to struggle against that sin this coming week, to the point of shedding your blood. With intensity. With intentionality. With constant prayer. Confess your sin with a fellow brother and sister and let’s struggle together as a body of Christ.