It is not that I did choose thee,
Lord, for Lord, that could not be. Yuba-Sutter Grace Church
would like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Rick
Warda. We currently meet at the Yuba
County Library, located at 303 2nd Street in downtown Marysville,
California, on the corner of 2nd and C Street. Weekly services
are held on Sunday at 11 a.m. at the library. For more information,
visit our website at ysgracechurch.com. Now here's our pastor, Rick Warda. The title of our message today
is, Matters of the Heart. Our scripture is Matthew 15,
verses 1 through 20. In verse 2 it reads, The scribes
and Pharisees came to Jesus and asked him, Why do your disciples
transgress the tradition of the elders? For they wash not their
hands when they eat bread. There were mostly two kinds of
people who came to Christ, those who had great needs and those
who were blind to their need. These men were of the latter
group. When they came, they came to deny, to accuse, and to fight. People were coming to Jesus in
droves. These religious leaders were
losing the respect and praise of men because the people were
going to Christ. They envied Him, so they tried
to discredit Him by finding fault with Him. They wanted to condemn
Him publicly. They tried to discredit him as
a teacher. They wanted to show their superior
religious knowledge. These men were nothing but religious
pretenders. All they did, they did to be
seen of men. Their religion was only external,
and it was full of error. They accusingly asked Jesus why
his disciples did not wash their hands when they ate. This was
a tradition they had received from their teachers over several
generations whom they called their fathers. But Jesus was
fully aware of their hypocrisy and their motives, so he turned
the tables on them. He answered them with a question
of his own. They came to accuse his disciples
publicly that they might discredit Christ. Therefore he exposed
them publicly. They came to declare their superior
doctrine in order that they might regain the esteem of men. But
Jesus publicly showed that their doctrine was false in order that
he might save men. Their doctrine was false and
they sought man's praise at the expense of men's souls. But Jesus
is the truth who sought the glory of God in the salvation of men. Jesus answered their question
with a question. Why do you transgress the commandment
of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, Honor
your father and mother, and he that curseth father or mother
let him die the death. But you say, Whosoever shall
say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou
mightest be profited by me, and honor not his father or his mother
shall be free. Thus have you made the commandment
of God of none effect by your tradition. Jesus does at least
two things here. First, he denounces their traditions
in general by citing a specific case. Man's traditions are not
a matter of indifference. They are not innocent additions
that support the truth. They are pernicious, evil attempts
to set aside the truth of God for a lie with the secret aim
of exalting men. Second, Jesus shows that they
were motivated entirely out of self-promotion and covetousness
in opposition to the truth and honor of God. The scribes and
Pharisees had a tradition that excused men from their duties
to their parents. They told men that a gift to
the temple was more important than caring for their needy parents.
Of course, these religious pretenders were motivated by covetous greed.
They themselves benefited from whatever was given in the temple
or synagogue. They had a conflict of interest.
Because they benefited from the gifts to the temple, they were
unable to impartially dictate the rules for giving. Their giving
tradition set aside God's command to care for their parents. They
taught for doctrines the commandments of men. God's command to honor
father and mother shows His compassion for the needy and shows His wise
design for us. As parents grow older and have
needs, it is God's purpose that their adult children care for
them. This is a God-given responsibility. Our parents provided and cared
for us and guided us when we were children. They took care
of us when we were needy. They even put up with us when
we were disobedient. But God's motivations go higher.
We are to do all that we do as unto the Lord. Children, obey
your parents in the Lord, Ephesians 6.1. Whatsoever you do, do all
to the glory of God, 1 Corinthians 10.31. To do all that we do to
the glory of God requires faith. Labor, giving, patience in the
face of opposition all demand an eye to God's sovereign rule
and care over us in all things to His glory. We must commit
our entire lives into His care. 1 Peter 5, 7 says, casting all
your care upon Him for He careth for you. Love must move us to
give our time and labor throughout our lives to glorify God in His
purpose. Yet there is no love where there
is no faith. Now, traditions of men are not
a matter of indifference. They are positively wrong. They
are not only not helpful, but they actually oppose the truth.
Wherever there is a tradition of man, taught as a rule of life,
it will displace the truth of God. 1 Timothy 4 gives two examples. Verse 1 says, Now the Spirit
speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart
from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines
of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared
with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain
from meats which God has created to be received with thanksgiving
of them which believe and know the truth. God says that there
will be a time when religious pretenders will forbid men to
marry under the false pretense that marriage makes you unholy
or keeps you from serving God. The motivations for this are
at least two-fold. First, it makes men celibate
so that they will support the greater religious organization
in their hierarchy of rank in which some men hold a higher
office than others. Men wickedly love to have preeminence
among men. They will do anything to gain
it and hold on to it. Second, this tradition gives
men an outward lifestyle by which they can distinguish themselves
as more holy among men. But God designed marriage. He
declared it to be holy, Hebrews 13, 4. Forbidding marriage is
therefore positively evil. It sets aside God's purpose that
a man give himself in love to his wife as a reflection of Christ's
love in giving himself for the church. The second example in
1 Timothy 4 is abstaining from certain kinds of food, such as
meat. Again, this takes from men a
God-given gift, and with it the thanksgiving they ought to give
God for His kind provision. Men are motivated to abstain
from what God has given so that they might make outward religious
distinctions. But all of man's traditions exalt
the work of man as a way for men to be acceptable to God and
to have religious advantage over others. All such things are therefore
evil. One of the worst traditions that
is common in churches today is giving men things to do to be
saved. If you want to be saved, come
forward in church. Raise your hand. Ask Jesus into
your heart. All such things are not only
unbiblical, but are positively evil. Why? Because they displace
the one thing God tells sinners to do, believe Christ, and they
put in its place something man can do. The Gospel commands us
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. What does coming forward
in church or raising a hand or asking Jesus into my heart have
to do with faith in Christ? These things get men looking
at what they must do and taking confidence in what they have
done. The entire experience becomes the focus. Salvation is thought
to be a step that I take, or a decision that I make, something
that I do, or a recipe that I follow to get God to save me. But we
must look to Christ alone. We must come to Him alone. We must believe Him alone. Salvation is a heart matter.
God's word concerning Christ and what He has done must be
our only ground of faith. All such traditions are strongly
condemned as evil in Scripture. After Jesus exposed the error
of traditions in general, and exposed the motives of the scribes
and Pharisees in making up traditions, he plainly condemned them before
all. In verses 8-9 he said, You hypocrites,
well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh
unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me. but in vain they do worship me,
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." The Pharisees accused
Jesus' disciples because they did not wash their hands. They
claimed washing made men acceptable or holy before God. Jesus now
addresses their original accusing question, and he also makes a
point of further exposing their hypocrisy. He shows their doctrine
to be false. He shows their motives to be
evil. He tells his disciples to have nothing to do with them.
And in all of this, he reveals to us our own condition before
God. Our Lord establishes a most fundamental
truth here. God must be honored in the heart. It is not outward external actions
that God judges. It is our thoughts and motives. Even our words come from our
heart. What we are in the core of our
being determines who we really are. The world puts all of the
emphasis on appearance. We feel comfortable when others
approve of us and accept us, and we fear their frowns if we
lose their approval. But all of this is entirely external. What's on the inside is what
counts. What we truly are before God
is not what men see, not even what we see. The scribes and
Pharisees claimed that washing hands and other things made them
acceptable to God. Jesus says no. He tells the crowd,
hear and understand, not that which goeth into the mouth defileth
a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth defileth a man. It's not what you eat or drink,
it's what you say that defiles you. This immediately shows the
hypocrisy of dietary restrictions. The disciples knew that Jesus
greatly offended the scribes and Pharisees by what he said.
But Jesus told them, Every plant which my heavenly Father hath
not planted shall be rooted up. These men claimed to be of God.
All who teach and preach a false gospel are like them. But only
those whom God plants are of God. All who are not of God will
be uprooted. They will be uprooted by the
world and its enticements, or they will be uprooted by afflictions
and temptations, or they will be uprooted by believing heresies,
but mostly they will be uprooted by their offense at the preaching
of the gospel. All who teach and preach a gospel
that adds something to who Christ is and what He has done, or a
gospel that takes away something from who Christ is and what He
has done, is a false gospel. To deny the person and work of
Jesus Christ, or add to the person and work of Jesus Christ, is
fatal to our souls and to the souls of men. Jesus warned his
disciples. He said, let them alone. Have
nothing to do with them. Don't listen to them. Don't argue
with them. Don't try to convert them. Don't
pray for them. God will remove them. God commands
us to love our enemies and those who despitefully use us, but
He does not command us to pray for those who oppose the gospel
of Christ, to the destruction of men's souls. In Psalm 139,
verses 21-22, David said, Do not I hate them, O Lord, that
hate thee? And am not I grieved with those
that rise up against thee? I hate them with a perfect hatred. I count them mine enemies. And
the apostle John said, There is a sin unto death. I do not
say that he shall pray for it. Leave them alone, Jesus said.
What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? You are the
temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell
in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they
shall be my people. Wherefore, come out from among
them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean
thing, and I will receive you." 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verse
16 through 17. We are to leave any group who
teaches or preaches anything but the truth of the gospel of
Jesus Christ. Peter then asked the Lord to
explain what he meant when he said, Not that which goeth into
a man defiles a man, but that which comes out of the mouth,
this defiles a man. Now it is on this point we must
pay close attention. Here, Jesus takes occasion to
teach us what we are. It's easy to see the hypocrisy
of others. It's painful to see our own.
When God's Word searches me out, what is my condition before God?
Our Lord speaks to His disciples here. He wants us to know that
evil comes from within man. If God were to reveal what's
in my heart, what would He say? What would He say about you?
Psalm 14 verses 2-3 says, The Lord looked down from heaven
upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand
and seek God. They are all gone aside. They
are all together become filthy. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. He would say therefore that the
best I do is full of sin. Isaiah 64 verse 6 says, We are
all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as
filthy rags. There is not one thing about
me that God can accept. My best is full of sin. Do you know that your natural
heart is corrupt? Even as we say this, it offends
us, doesn't it? We don't want to admit that the
bright light of God's law exposes our best works as evil. The carnal
mind is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law
of God, neither indeed can be, Romans 8, 7. What I am in myself
is all bad in God's eyes. That's the truth of scripture.
We might spend our days trying to improve, trying to live right,
trying to find acceptance with God, but at the end of it all,
God's word says, We know that what thing soever the law saith,
it saith to them which are under the law, that every mouth may
be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. Romans 3.19 What God requires,
I have failed to give. This is my condition and your
condition by nature, and we can do nothing to improve it. God's
word says, by the deeds of the law, that is, my own personal
obedience to God's law, there shall no flesh be justified in
his sight. Romans 3.20 What is my condition
by nature? I have an evil heart. What can
I do about it? God's law is holy. He requires
continual, whole heart, soul, mind, and body obedience. But
my heart, by nature, is full of sin. No amount of personal
effort or reform will make a difference. Sure, we can make ourselves more
pleasing to men, but we can never make ourselves pleasing to God. Our heart is the problem. Evil
comes from within. In the 19th century, an English
novelist named Joseph Conrad wrote, The belief in a supernatural
source of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of
every wickedness. Is there no hope then? If the
heart I was born with is all bad, if I am guilty before God
and my best obedience cannot make me acceptable to God, what
am I to do? As the Philippian jailer cried
out, sirs, what must I do to be saved? If Matthew 15, 19 teaches
us anything, it teaches us to take no confidence in our flesh,
what we are by nature. Jesus told Nicodemus, that which
is born of the flesh is flesh. It can rise no higher. Our heart
cannot be improved. We need a new heart. Now, realizing
what we are before God and that we can do nothing about it makes
the gospel good news indeed. Evil comes from the core of what
we are. We sin because we are sinners
in heart. God requires continuous whole
heart, soul, mind and strength obedience. Inward purity is required
where only inward corruption lurks. And to complicate our
problem, God cannot clear the guilty. Even if we could somehow
change ourselves inwardly and outwardly, from ungodly to godly,
from unrighteous to righteous, from evil to holy, or from bad
to good, we could not erase our past sins. Now the gospel is
God's wisdom that both meets His requirements and saves us
from our plight. The gospel starts with the ruin
of man's own righteousness. There is none righteous, no not
one. There is none that doeth good, no not one. Romans 3.10. It is from here, in this context,
in all the guilt and ruin of my soul and in light of God's
holy law and justice, that the gospel reveals another righteousness,
the righteousness of God. Man's righteousness is his own
personal obedience to what God requires. Deuteronomy 6.25 says,
It shall be our righteousness if we observe to do all these
commandments before the Lord our God. That is man's righteousness. The Jews were given God's law.
In it, God required obedience. On condition of continuous, perfect
obedience from the heart, those who kept God's law were allowed
to live. But none ever did, and none ever
can. Gospel righteousness, in contrast,
is the righteousness of God. It is called the righteousness
of God because God requires it, and because God provides it. and because it consists of the
obedience, not of man, not my personal obedience to God's requirements,
but the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Therefore, it is called the righteousness of God. The only righteousness
that God can accept is His own righteousness. God's righteousness
is the only righteousness there is. I will make mention of Thy
righteousness, even Thine only." Psalm 71, 16. God's righteousness
is the obedience of Christ in life and His obedience in suffering
and death in the place and on the behalf of His people. Philippians
2 verse 6-8 As by Adam's sin all men were made sinners, so
by Christ's righteousness all who are in Christ are made righteous. Romans 5.19 says, As by one man's
disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous. God's righteousness is unearnable. It is a gift. In Romans 5.17
it says, They which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness
shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Jesus describes every
man's condition by nature in Matthew 15, 19. Out of the heart
of man proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications,
thefts, false witness, and blasphemies. Yet, wonder of wonders, the righteousness
of God is a gift that God gives to these who are ungodly and
unrighteous in themselves. In His wisdom and in His grace,
God has found a way to declare the ungodly to be righteous. How can He do that? God has made
Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, who knew no righteousness,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians
5.21 How can God justify sinners? First, God provided a soul and
body for His Holy Son. In that perfect soul and holy
body, the Lord Jesus Christ kept every commandment of God from
His heart. He loved God's will. He only
did God's will. He fulfilled God's will. Then,
after perfectly obeying God's law, God put the sins of His
people on His Son. He made Him to be sin for us. He who did no sin and who knew
no sin was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. With those sins, under God's
law, the Lord Jesus Christ offered Himself to God in His holy nature. This was itself the highest obedience
that could have been given. The Holy Son of God, who perfectly
obeyed all of God's law in a real human nature and soul, willingly
took the sins of his people out of love to his father and love
for his people and he endured the very wrath of God against
their sins in his own body and soul. Luke 22 44 says, being
in an agony his sweat became drops of blood falling down to
the earth. Though he obeyed in all things,
he endured suffering and anguish as a transgressor. Yet in his
sufferings he desired nothing more than to honor God for his
righteous treatment of him, because by this treatment he saved his
people from their sins. Psalm 119 verse 143 says, Trouble
and anguish have taken hold on me, yet thy commandments are
my delights. And Job 13,15 says, Though he
slay me, yet will I trust him. These are speaking of Christ.
Though God forsook him, he never denied God. Now, in Christ we
see true honoring of God's holy law and justice. And we see the
infinite display of God's love and grace to sinners, that one
so high and so holy would be required and so willing to take
the place of those who were so foul and so lowly. Throughout
their generations, the Jews misunderstood God's righteousness. They were
ignorant of the righteousness of His law. It demands nothing
less than perfect conformity to the holiness of God Himself.
But their most fatal mistake was that they were ignorant of
the righteousness that God provided in Christ. And this is the Gospel
to which we must be obedient. God looks to His Son for all
of the obedience He requires of His people. God received this
obedience from Christ in His life and death. The obedience
Christ rendered was to take to Himself the sins of those He
would save and endure the full outpouring of God's justice. He did all of this as the substitute
for His people in their place. He lived and obeyed and suffered
and died to take away their sins and to give them His own obedience. Christ is all God considers for
His people. Though our hearts by nature are
the very spring and source of evil, yet God grants to us life
from spiritual death to believe the Lord Jesus Christ, because
Christ obeyed in all things for His people. But how do I know
that Christ's righteousness is mine? Romans 10.10 says, With
the heart man believeth unto righteousness. All for whom Christ
died are given his righteousness, but they only know and receive
it in believing God's word concerning Christ. We are plagued in our
heart. Our heart is a cesspool of evil. We are dying. God comes to us
in the gospel. He tells us what Christ did,
taking the sin and curse for his people. We are commanded
to look to Christ. and God gives us life in that
command. He is the Son of God, the Son
of Man, the Lord from Heaven. He is the only Mediator who was
made sin for His people. We are told to come to Him and
call upon Him with confidence and dependence, and all who look
to Him live. Jesus is the Son of God, He is
God Himself, and He is the Son of Man. He took the nature of
His people, and He took their plight and their place before
God to do God's will by saving them from their sins. In their
nature, He fulfilled God's law to God's glory. Now God says
to all men everywhere, repent and believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Change your mind. Trust your traditions and your
works no more. Don't think for a moment about
what you can do to fulfill God's requirements. Think only of Christ. God accepts His obedience alone. By Him alone am I raised from
spiritual death to life. He is the Word of God. He satisfied
God and cleansed all of His people from all their sins by the offering
of Himself. He is God's High Priest. He must
command my salvation, and He has triumphed and has dominion
over all my enemies of sin, myself, death, the devil, and the world.
He must deliver me. He is God's King. Therefore,
I call upon Him and come to God by Him alone. How do I know I
believe Christ? because God's Word tells me that
the Lord Jesus Christ by His doing and dying and rising and
interceding is enough to save me to the uttermost and keep
me and present me holy and blameless before the presence of His glory
with exceeding joy. In my conscience, this truth
is the whole truth about the way things are between me and
God. And so I go to Him, asking Him to do what He has said. You've just heard a sermon by
our pastor Rick Warda. You may contact us by email or
by phone or download a copy of this sermon by visiting our website
at YSGraceChurch.com