This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to Day 3 of our look together through Mark chapter 7 in
Daily Tribe Time Devotions. We're looking at verses 14 to 23 today. We've been
talking the last couple days about the danger of what you might call man-made
religion.

How can I see when I'm caught up in a religion of my own making? Well, Jesus
talks about it. A couple days ago we looked at him saying, "It's when my words
and my heart don't match.

" That's when you know you're making up your spiritual life on your own. "It's
when my traditions replace God's directions. " That's when you know it's your
religion and not a relationship with God.

And now Jesus is going to talk in these verses about a third principle, about
personal purity. He's going to talk to us about the fact that it's easy to fool
yourself when it comes to this issue of purity. It's easy to try to cover up an
impurity in my heart, big problems in my heart, with religious rituals and
religious regulations and religious activities.

We do it all the time. Here's what Jesus said about this in verses 14 to 19.
Again, Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and
understand this.

Nothing outside a man can make him unclean by going into him. Rather, it is what
comes out of a man that makes him unclean. " After he'd left the crowd and
entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable.

"Are you so dull? " he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from
the outside can make him unclean?

For it doesn't go into his heart, but into his stomach and then out of his body.
In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean. " Now let me repeat that last
phrase from the Bible.

"Jesus declared all foods clean. " Now that may sound simple to us, but to those
who first read the New Testament, this is one of the most life-changing, radical
passages in the entire pages. They've grown up as good Jewish followers of God,
and they've been taught that there were certain foods that you could eat that
were not to be eaten because they would make you spiritually unclean before God.

This isn't just about hygiene. It's about being spiritually unclean, because
you'd be breaking God's command by eating that food. But here is Jesus totally
changing the entire Old Testament, actually fulfilling and not changing it, and
that he declares all foods clean.

Jesus came to fulfill everything, and because of that, everything changed. And
the laws and practices, some of them in the Old Testament, focused on the outer
practice with the intention of it talking about the inner practice of our
hearts, the purity of our hearts. But Jesus is saying here, the container that's
cleaned on the outside, it doesn't matter if it's dirty on the inside.

Jesus says the inside is what is important, and in saying that, he's talking to
us about a third way that any of us can know we are in deep spiritual danger.
And here's how you know. When your activity is used to cover up your impurity,
you use activity to cover up impurity.

And I've seen people, as a pastor for 30 plus years now, I've seen people do it
many, many times. I've seen myself do it. We feel like, okay, there's a sin in
my life I need to take care of.

But instead of dealing with God on that sin, maybe it's gossip, maybe it's
bitterness, whatever it is, instead of dealing with God on that, we just do more
religious things. We do more good things. We try to cover up this need to deal
with God about an issue of purity in our lives by doing more good things for
others.

It never works. There are many ministries that are motivated not by love, but by
guilt. Let's just be honest.

And when that is happening, Jesus is saying that's not a spiritually good thing.
That is a spiritually deeply dangerous thing. In fact, there are three important
principles here about purity, as Jesus talks through this parable.

Principle number one is this. You aren't made unclean from your outer
circumstances, from the food that you eat or the washing that you do. That's not
what makes you unclean.

Now again, he's not talking about physical uncleanness here. He's talking about
spiritual uncleanness. When you hear clean and unclean in this passage, he's
talking about spiritually.

There are some foods that are obviously physically more healthy than others, but
that has nothing to do with your spirit. There's a sense today in our society
that the eating of certain foods, the drinking of certain kinds of things, or
maybe fasting, doing certain things with foods, can make your soul cleaner. And
Jesus says that's absolutely a lie.

There is no way you can make your soul cleaner by drinking cleaner water. That
goes into your stomach. It's what goes into your heart that makes your soul
cleaner.

But we fool ourselves. And we think, well, if I eat this or I go on this diet or
I do this with my physical life, it's going to obviously impact my spiritual
soul. Jesus says it does not.

In fact, the book of Colossians says it even more clearly. It says there is no
way that these outer things like washing the hands or eating the foods can have
anything to do with what God does in your spirit. They're entirely separate from
each other.

You aren't made unclean from your outer circumstances. That's the principle
number one here. The second principle is you are made unclean by what comes out
of you, out of your heart.

Listen to what Jesus said about that in verses 20 to 23. He went on, "What comes
out of a man is what makes him unclean. For from within, out of men's hearts,
come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice,
deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly.

All these evils come from inside and make a man unclean. " The first thing I
notice, and probably you too, is this devastatingly clear list of the evils
within us that make us unclean. I don't think there's one of us hearing this who
can't see ourselves somewhere in this list, whether it's immorality or murder or
malice or greed or slander or arrogance.

Who doesn't deal with pride or folly, foolishness? These are the evils that are
in our heart, and the source of them all is our foolish pride that I feel I can
run my life rather than trusting God for my life. All these evils come from
inside, and that's what makes me spiritually unclean.

And because the evils come from my heart, it's my heart that has to be changed.
That leads to the third principle. The third principle is we're cleansed from
the inside out, not the outside in.

Inside out, not outside in. I'm the one who determines how I'm going to act in a
certain situation. My circumstances aren't determining how I'm going to act.

The breakfast that I had this morning isn't determining how I'm going to act.
I'm going to determine. I'm going to choose based on my heart.

Now God can give us, through the gift of his Spirit, he can give us a heart that
will react and love whatever the outer circumstances, no matter where you are.
But that's a gift of God, and that comes from him changing my heart. From the
inside out, I'm changed.

Somebody on the research team asked a question about this. If we're defiled,
they asked, from what comes from our hearts, why do we so often hear the advice
just follow your heart? That's an excellent question.

The advice to just follow your heart is terrible advice. The book of Proverbs
says there's a way that seems right to us that ends in death. And what comes out
of our hearts sometimes is greed.

What comes out of our hearts sometimes is arrogance. You don't just follow your
heart. You ask Jesus Christ to change your heart, to give you a new heart.

And then you follow him. That's what makes all the difference in our daily
lives. Whenever in my life activity is used to cover impurity, it is a sign of
the fact that I'm spiritually in danger.

I'm making my own religion rather than following Jesus Christ as an exercise, as
a journey of faith in my life. Actually, these last three days, we've been
talking about how do you love God? Do you love God just with your words, or do
you love him with your heart?

Do you love God by keeping traditions, or do you love God by following his
directions? Do you love God by offering him just your activity from time to
time, or do you love God by offering to him a life, a heart of purity? Right
now, for just a few minutes, as we've talked these last few days about serving
him and loving him, I'd like to talk to him together.

And as we pray, would you begin with the prayer? It's my prayer too. I'm joining
you in it.

God, cleanse my heart. Lord, as I read this list, hear this list of what makes
us unclean, I cannot help but see that I am a man of unclean lips and an unclean
heart. I'm a woman of unclean lips and unclean heart, as Isaiah prayed.

I see that there is sin in my life, and I know that that brings problems and
struggles and difficulties into my days. God, I want to blame my circumstances,
but I can't. I don't have perfect circumstances, but I do have a perfect God.

God, I know that no matter what the circumstances, you can give me a heart at
peace, you can give me a heart of love, you can give me a heart of joy. You've
promised that. Help me to look to you to do what no one else can do, to change
my heart.

God, cleanse my heart. But even as I pray that, I also want to thank you. I want
to thank you, Jesus, that you have forgiven my uncleanness of heart.

You are my only hope. Thank you that you have given me by what you did for me on
the cross, a clean heart. So instead of me trying to clean myself up, help me to
trust you for a clean heart.

Strengthen me to have attitudes, to make decisions, to see life based on this
gift of a clean heart that you've given me. And based on that gift, I pray that
you would give me, give me Jesus Christ the privilege to live a life of purity
for you. I pray this, I ask this, in your name, amen.

We'll see you tomorrow for Drive Time Devotions, we're going to be looking at
Jesus' fascinating conversation with a woman in verses 24 to 30.