Filtering the Dirt or Fixing the Source
And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” Mark 7:20–23 ESV Read More
It’s in our nature when we see dirty water coming out of the tap at our house, to think that we should buy a filter to make it clean. Eventually, everyone in town would be running to Walmart to get a Britta pitcher or calling the Culligan man and thousands of dollars would be spent to clean up the water in every individual house. The cheaper and more effective solution, of course, would be to pitch in all of that money and fix the whole city water filter system. For some reason that seems like a greater obstacle, harder to do, harder to get people to buy into.
When we turn our religion into rules instead of a transformative relationship with God, we do the same thing with these words of Jesus. When Jesus or Paul give us a good clean list of bad things, we can resolve to not do them. Evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness are all obviously bad, and we can do what we can to avoid them, but that’s not the point. Focusing on a list of bad things to avoid is like putting water filters on every faucet in my house. Eventually, they are all going to get full of crud and my plumbing will explode!
Jesus says that all of these come out of a man’s heart. When these things come out of your heart, they make you unclean. Jesus’ solution is to make the source clean. The Holy Spirit does internal work on us to change our hearts as we follow Christ. Understanding God’s work in ourselves makes a huge change in how we deal with pride, slander, sensuality, etc.
Just like treating the water, I might ask, “Where are these impurities coming from?” Do I lean toward pride because I’m hiding some shame that I need to turn over to Jesus? Am I coveting because I’m forming my identity based on the car I drive or the job I have? “Not coveting” isn’t going to get me far if I don’t replace that false need with righteous gratitude.
Joel 2:13 says to tear your hearts open and return to the Lord. Our hearts are more desperate for change when we have all of that muck flowing out of them. Jesus gives us a heart of flesh, and not stone so that we can hear the Holy Spirit guide us in all truth. That’s how we clean up what comes out of us. That stuff was never the point anyway. What’s inside and overflows is what Jesus wants to work with.
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