Sermon Sandwich
Mark 7:1-23
Sermon Notes
Intro - The Heart
What is the biblical “heart?”
Heart - kardia - one’s inner self, inside inclination, disposition, determination. The heart is the center of a human being.
Schemata - Spirit, Soul and Body
The Gospel is the Good News of the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Romans 5:3-5 -
3Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because (Why??) God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Unclean/Defiled - Pharisees/outside in; Jesus/inside out.
A changed heart then begins to change outward behavior.
Mark 6:20-23 —
20 And he said, “What comes out of a man is what defiles a man. 21For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man.”
The Heart - Dirt of the Past covers over Dreams of the Future.
Dirt - the hurts, pain and trauma from the past.
“The more we get what we now call ‘ourselves’ out of the way and let
Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. ... In that sense our real selves are all waiting for us in Him. The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surroundings and natural desires. In fact what I so proudly call ‘Myself’ becomes merely the meeting place for trains of events which I never started and which I cannot stop. What I call ‘My wishes’ become merely the desires thrown up by my physical organism or pumped into me by other men’s thoughts or even suggested to me by devils. ... Propaganda will be the real origin of what I regard as my own personal political ideas. I am not, in my natural state, nearly so much a person as I like to believe: most of what I call ‘me’ can very easily be explained. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.” (Mere Christianity, “The New Men,” by CS Lewis, 1952)
Dreams - the hopes and dreams of the future.
Those hopes and dreams of the future have been placed in our hearts by our Heavenly Father.
Unshockable Love, John Burke, Austin, Tx.
Ephesians 2:8-10 -
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, less any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Workmanship - poiema - creation, what is made, a poetic work, poem, artwork - a masterpiece.