Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Poisoned Fountain and the Pure Physician: Heart Depravity and Gospel Renewal (Matthew 15:18–19)

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The Poisoned Fountain and the Pure Physician: Heart Depravity and Gospel Renewal (Matthew 15:18–19) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to reform thinking. We are We are opening the file
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  today on a subject that makes a lot of people uncomfortable, but
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  it is arguably the most necessary conversation we could
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  have. It is good to be here and that
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  title Reform Thinking isn't just a label we slapped on for
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  branding, it is the specific theological lens we are using to
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  look at our source material. Today.
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  We are operating within the framework of the Protestant
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  Reformation and the Westminster Confession of Faith.
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  Yeah, and we have a substantial stack of sources.
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  Today. We are looking at theological
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  essays, sermon transcripts, and some historical commentaries,
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  and all of them focus on one specific, very heated moment in
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  the Gospel of Matthew. We are looking at Matthew
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  chapter 15 versus 18 and 19. Right.
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  And the mission for this deep dive is to move past the the
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  generic surface level idea of religion, because usually that
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  just boils down to the idea that you should just be a nice
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  person. We want to get to the radical
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  diagnosis Jesus gives regarding the human condition.
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  The sources we have really do not pull any punches.
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  They suggest that the problem with humanity isn't bad
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  behavior, and it isn't bad education either.
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  They suggest the engine itself is broken.
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  Irreparably so. Well, at least by human
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  standards. Let us set the scene before we
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  get into the heavy theology. The context here is a massive
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  confrontation. This is Matthew 15.
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  The text tells us that Pharisees and scribes came from Jerusalem
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  to Galilee to see Jesus. You really have to visualize the
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  geography to understand the tension there.
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  That is not a short trip in the 1st century, that is a multi day
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  trek over some very difficult terrain.
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  Yeah, these religious leaders did not travel that far just to
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  say hello and check in. They were on a mission.
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  This was an official delegation sent from headquarters to
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  investigate a troublemaker. And when they arrived, the
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  accusation they bring seems, well, seems incredibly minor to
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  modern year. They do not accuse the disciples
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  of theft. They do not accuse them of
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  violence. They ask, why do your disciples
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  break the tradition of the elders?
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  For they do not wash their hands when they eat.
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  It sounds trivial to us because we read it with modern eyes.
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  When you and I hear that someone needs to wash their hands, we
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  think of hygiene. We think of germs and bacteria
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  and stopping the spread of disease.
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  Right. Sounds like a health code
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  violation, like a restaurant failing an inspection.
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  But the sources are emphatic that this has absolutely nothing
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  to do with hygiene. Germ theory did not exist back
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  then. This was about ceremonial
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  status. It was about the tradition of
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  the elders. Help us understand that
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  worldview a bit better. What were they actually afraid
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  of? The Pharisaic worldview operated
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  on the premise that defilement is external.
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  They believe that impurity is something you catch from the
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  outside world, almost like a spiritual virus.
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  So if you walk through the marketplace, you might brush
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  against a gentile. Yes, or you might touch a piece
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  of fruit that hadn't been tithed properly.
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  You might handle a common vessel, and if you did that, you
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  contracted uncleanliness. It stuck to you.
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  Exactly. So the washing was not to remove
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  physical dirt. It was a ritual barrier.
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  You washed your hands to wash the world off of you.
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  It was a way of saying I am separate, I am safe, I am pure
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  because I have maintained my boundaries.
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  It is a defense mechanism. It is a way to feel in control
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  of your own holiness. It's a system of control.
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  If evil is outside of me, then I can control it by building walls
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  and washing my hands. It makes me the master of my own
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  righteousness. And Jesus refuses to play along
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  with that system. He does not apologize for his
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  disciples. He actually goes on the
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  offensive. He attacks the very premise of
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  their tradition. He accuses them of using these
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  elaborate man made rules to bypass God's law.
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  The sources bring up the Corbin loophole, which is a fascinating
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  example of how corrupt the system had become.
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  I was looking at that in the notes.
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  Break that down for us because it sounds like a modern tax
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  shelter. That is a great comparison.
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  It was a spiritual tax shelter. The Law of Moses said honor your
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  father and mother. Practically that included
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  providing for them financially in their old age.
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  But the Pharisees had developed a workaround.
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  A man could declare his assets Corbin.
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  Which means given to God. Dedicated to the temple, yes,
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  but the loophole was that he could defer the actual giving of
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  the gift until after his death. So he keeps the money.
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  He uses the money for his own business.
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  Oh wow, so he maintains full control of his wealth?
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  Yes, but because it is legally designated for God, eventually
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  when his aging parents ask for help, he can say, I am so sorry.
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  I would love to help you, but my bank account is Corbin.
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  My hands are tied by my piety. That is incredibly slippery.
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  It is using religion to avoid being righteous.
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  It is the absolute definition of hypocrisy and that sets up the
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  quote from Isaiah that Jesus throws at them.
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  It is this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is
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  far from me. That distinction right there,
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  lips versus heart, is the core tension of this entire
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  discussion today. It is the clash between external
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  religion and heart religion. External religion is about
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  performance. It is about rituals, optics and
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  loopholes. It is about how things look to
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  the observer. Heart religion is about the
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  internal reality before God. Which brings us to the first
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  major section of our breakdown today, the diagnosis.
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  Jesus pivots from the Pharisees to the crowd and he drops a
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  absolute bombshell in verse 18. He says, but what comes out of
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  the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a
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  person. This is total reversal of their
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  categories. The Pharisees are obsessed with
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  intake. What goes in?
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  Jesus insists the danger is the output.
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  What comes out? The sources use a really helpful
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  mechanical image here. They call the mouth a spillway
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  or a vent. Think of a reservoir or a dam.
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  If water is spilling over the spillway, it is only happening
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  because the reservoir is already full.
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  The spillway does not create the water, it just releases it.
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  Jesus is saying the mouth is the exit, not the entrance.
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  So when you say something hurtful, or you lie or you
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  gossip, the usual excuses. I did not mean that it just came
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  out. And Jesus would reply.
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  It came out because it was already inside.
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  Speech is a disclosure. It reveals the inventory of the
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  inner person. We really need to pause on this
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  word heart because in our current culture, when you hear
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  the word heart, you usually think about emotions.
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  We say things like follow your heart or my heart tells me this
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  is right. It is very sentimental.
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  It is the greeting card version of the word, but the biblical
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  definition, the Greek word cardia, is much more robust.
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  The sources are clear on this. In Hebrew and Greek thought, the
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  heart isn't just where you feel feelings, it is the control room
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  of the person. A governing center, Yes.
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  It includes the intellect, so your mind and reasoning.
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  It includes the volition, your will and your choices.
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  And yes, it includes the affections, your desires.
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  O When Jesus talks about the heart, he is talking about the
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  absolute core of your personality, the real you.
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  One of the essays we are looking at made a distinction that stood
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  out to me. It said the heart is not a
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  passive container. It is not a bucket that just
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  holds things. It is an active factory.
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  The human heart is a factory of idols.
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  That is a famous line from John Calvin.
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  But yes, in this text, the heart is productive.
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  It works it manufacturers. And what it manufacturers is the
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  problem? This is where we hit the heavy
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  theology. The sources argue that this
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  passage is a proof text for the doctrine of total depravity.
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  We have to define that carefully.
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  Total depravity is a term that gets misunderstood constantly by
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  people outside and sometimes inside the Reformed tradition.
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  It sounds like you are calling everyone a monster.
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  People here total depravity, and they think it means utter
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  depravity. They think it means every human
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  is as bad as they could possibly be at all times.
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  Which we know is not true. You probably have neighbors who
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  are not Christians who are lovely people.
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  They return your trash cans. They bake cookies.
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  They pay their taxes on time. The doctrine does not deny that
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  at all. What the Westminster Confession
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  means by total is that the corruption extends to the total
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  person. Every faculty is affected.
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  The mind is darkened. The will is enslaved to self.
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  Emotions are disordered. So it is extensive, not
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  necessarily intensive. It is spread everywhere, even if
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  it isn't fully unleashed everywhere in its worst forms.
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  That is correct. The phrase the confession uses
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  is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good.
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  Opposite to all good. That is a brutal assessment of
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  human nature. It is, and the sources back this
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  up with a Greek word study from verse 18.
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  The word for proceeds when Jesus says evil proceeds from the
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  heart is Ek puritai. Walk us through the grammar on
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  that. What does Ek Puritai tell us
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  that the English translation might gloss over?
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  The tense is present middle passive deponent.
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  The implication of that specific tense is a continuous habitual
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  flow. So it's not a one time event, it
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  is not a temporary glitch in the system.
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  It is not a stagnant pool that occasionally leaks a drop when
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  it rains. It's a bubbling spring it
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  constantly produces. That is a terrifying image when
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  you think about it, a bubbling spring of corruption inside your
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  own chest. It is the verdict of Scripture.
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  The heart is a source of pollution, and here is why that
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  matters socially. If the heart is the source, then
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  environmental changes cannot cure the human condition.
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  This is a huge point in our notes day.
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  We tend to think if we just had better education or better laws
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  or more economic opportunity, we would solve evil.
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  Those things are good. They are genuine blessings to
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  society. But the reformed view based on
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  this text is that the problem is bred in the bone.
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  You can change the environment. You could put a man back in the
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  Garden of Eden and he will still find a way to rebel because the
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  fountain of rebellion is inside him.
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  So if the diagnosis is internal corruption, we need to look at
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  the actual symptoms. Section two of our outline is
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  titled A Catalog of Rebellion. This is Matthew 15, verse 19.
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  Jesus gives us a specific list and significantly, look at the
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  very first thing he mentions. He does not start with murder.
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  He does not start with theft. He starts with evil.
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  Thoughts. Dialogismoy Ponoroy in the
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  Greek. Yes, the root.
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  This destroys the idea that sin is only a physical action.
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  You know how people think. They say why?
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  I've not killed anyone, I've not robbed a bank, so I'm a
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  generally good person. But Jesus looks at the mental
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  hard drive. The Greek word dialogismoy
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  implies internal calculation, reasoning, deliberation.
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  One force calls the mind a dark forge.
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  A dark forge, like a blacksmith shop where you're hammering out
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  a weapon in the shadows. You are planning the rebellion
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  before it ever happens physically.
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  This is the sin beneath the sin. Before a murder happens in the
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  street. There is hatred and
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  dehumanization in the heart before adultery happens in a
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  hotel room. There's lust and fantasy in the
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  mind. The heart cultivates the sin
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  long before the body ever commits it.
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  It reminds me of the old saying you are what you think when no
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  one is watching. That is the essence of it, and
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  Jesus is saying that the thought is the defilement, do not have
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  to act on it to be guilty. The production of the thought
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  proves the contamination of the source.
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  Let us run through the food of this.
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  The actual list Jesus gives it mirrors the second table of the
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  10 commandments. It does.
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  It covers our relationship with our neighbor.
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  First up on the list is murder. Again, we think, check, I've not
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  done that. But in the Sermon on the Mount,
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  Jesus connects murder directly to anger and insult.
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  Funoy here represents the heart's hostility toward God's
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  image in another person. So when you dehumanize someone
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  because of their politics or their background.
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  That is the seed of murder. You are killing their
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  reputation, killing their dignity in your mind.
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  Next on the list is adultery, more cheyai and sexual
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  immorality porni. Cornea is the broad term.
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  It is where we get the word pornography.
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  It covers all illicit sexual behavior.
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  One of our sources points out that Jesus is confronting the
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  sexual ethics of His day and certainly of ours.
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  He locates the standard of purity in the desire, not just
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  the physical act. That is tough because we live in
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  a culture that says desire is identity.
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  If I feel it, it must be who I am and therefore it must be
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  good. Jesus takes the exact opposite
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  view. He says just because as a desire
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  comes from your heart does not make it good, it actually makes
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  it suspect. The heart is a factory of
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  disordered loves. Then we have theft clopai.
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  Which is driven by covetousness. Why do we steal?
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  Or why do we cut corners on our taxes or steal time from our
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  employer by browsing the Internet on the clock?
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  Because we value possessions over righteousness or because we
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  believe God has not given us enough?
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  It is fundamentally a trust issue.
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  Then false witness pseudo martyr EI.
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  Attacking the truth to protect the self.
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  Spinning the narrative so you look better than you are.
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  And finally, slander, Blasphemia.
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  This one hits very close to home in our current culture.
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  Slander is injurious speech. Character assassination.
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  The source calls this the Tongue.
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  Weaponized, it reveals a heart that is willing to damage
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  another person just to elevate the self.
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  It is interesting because when we do these things, we usually
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  have a defense ready to go. The sources actually breakdown
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  these modern excuses we use to avoid facing this internal
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  diagnosis. Defense mechanisms.
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  We are absolute experts at shifting blame.
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  The first one mentioned in the material is the I slipped
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  defense. I did not mean it, it just
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  slipped out. We touched on this earlier, but
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  it bears repeating. Jesus completely destroys this
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  defense. Pressure reveals the contents,
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  it does not create them. If you squeeze a sponge, you
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  only get what was already soaked into it.
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  If you get cut off in traffic and a curse word flies out, the
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  traffic did not put the word in your mouth, it squeezed it out
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  of your heart. Then there is the systemic
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  defense. This is where the sources get
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  into some contemporary sociological debates.
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  We need to be nuanced here to reflect the sources accurately.
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  They argue against certain modern sociological frameworks.
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  Specifically, they look at interpretations of critical race
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  theory and similar ideologies that locate the primary source
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  of evil and systems or structures.
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  The idea that I am bad because the system is oppressive.
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  Or the idea that crime happened solely because of poverty.
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  We are just reporting what the sources argue here.
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  The reformed view presented is that while systems can
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  absolutely be corrupt and unjust, they are corrupt because
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  they are built by corrupt people.
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  It is a bottom up view of corruption versus a top down
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  view. So the system did not corrupt
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  the soul, the collective souls corrupted the system.
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  So you cannot fix the world just by scrubbing the systems or
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  changing the laws if the people populating those systems still
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  have hearts of stone. You need new people to make a
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  new system. And the third defense we see is
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  the therapeutic defense. It is my trauma, it is my
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  triggers. It is my upbringing.
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  This is delicate. The sources are very careful
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  here. They acknowledge that trauma is
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  intensely real. Upbringing matters.
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  Abuse shapes us in terrible ways.
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  They are not denying that reality.
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  But they do draw a line. They insist that while these
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  things influence us deeply, they do not absolve the heart of its
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  production of sin. You can be sinned against and
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  still sin in response. You can be a genuine victim and
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  still be a perpetrator of evil yourself.
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  That is a hard truth to swallow. It puts the responsibility
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  squarely on us. It does.
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  It strips away the victim card when it comes to our own moral
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  agency before God. It dignifies us actually, by
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  treating us as moral agents, not just helpless pawns of our past.
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  Looking at this diagnosis, is this a new idea that Jesus just
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  came up with on the spot, or is there a history here?
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  This moves us into Section 3, Biblical theology.
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  This is not a new concept. Jesus is the culmination of Old
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  Testament theology, not the inventor of a brand new
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  religion. The sources point straight to
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  Proverbs chapter 4, verse 23. Keep your heart with all
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  vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
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  The Old Testament sages knew the heart was The Fountainhead of
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  all human activity. In Jeremiah chapter 17 verse
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  nine, that is probably the most famous text on this.
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  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.
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  That is the classic text on human depravity.
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  The Hebrew word for sick there implies incurably sick terminal.
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  And Psalm 51, I love that the sources included this because it
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  is David's prayer after his affair with Bathsheba.
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  He does not just ask for a pardon for his actions.
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  He does not say, God forgive me for that one bad night.
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  He prays create in me a clean heart.
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  Oh God, He knew that his problem was not just that he slept with
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  the wrong woman, it was that his heart was broken and twisted.
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  He needed a transplant, not just a clean slate.
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  But this raises a huge historical question.
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  If the heart was always the problem, if Jeremiah knew it, if
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  David knew it, why did God give Israel all those ceremonies?
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  Why the hand washing and the food laws in the Old Testament
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  if they could not fix the heart? That is the key theological
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  question, the sources explained the pedagogical function of the
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  law. Pedagogical meaning it acted as
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  a teacher. Yes, the hand washing, the food
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  laws, the animal sacrifices. They were shadows.
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  They were physical object lessons.
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  They were meant to teach the people the categories of clean
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  and unclean. And like a massive visual aid
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  for the nation. They were a mirror to show the
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  people their filth. But a mirror can only show you
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  that your face is dirty. You cannot wash your face with a
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  mirror. That is a great analogy.
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  The law shows the dirt but cannot remove it.
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  That is the first use of the law in reformed theology to expose
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  sin and drive the Sinner to despair of their own self
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  righteousness. It was supposed to make them
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  look at the law and say I cannot keep this, I need help.
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  But instead the Pharisees used it to say look how clean I am.
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  They turn the mirror into a trophy.
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  They completely missed the point of the pedagogy.
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  But then comes the promise. Jesus stands at the threshold of
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  the new covenant here in Matthew 15.
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  This is where the sources get really animated.
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  The Old Testament did not just diagnose the disease, it
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  promised a cure. Ezekiel chapter 36, verses 25
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  through 27. Read that promise for us because
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  it changes everything. God says I will sprinker clean
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  water on you, and you shall be clean, and I will give you a new
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  heart and a new spirit I will put within you.
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  I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a
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  heart of flesh. That is the key distinction
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  right there. It is the whole bowl game.
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  The solution is not demanding a better heart.
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  That is what the law does. The solution is giving a new
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  heart. That is what the Gospel does.
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  Which brings us to Section 4, The remedy.
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  Because if the problem is internal, if it is a poison
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  spring, our usual human fixes just do not work.
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  We try moralism. We try trying harder.
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  We make New Year's resolutions to be better people.
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  But the source material uses a brilliant analogy.
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  If the fountain is poisoned, you cannot fix it by painting the
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  pump. Painting the pump.
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  I like that it makes the pump look nice on the outside, maybe
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  increases the property value, but the water still kills you
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  when you drink it. And this is the core critique of
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  what the sources call Pharisee Christianity or Seeker sensitive
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  pragmatism. Explain that critique.
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  What does that look like in a modern church setting?
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  It is when the Church focuses entirely on behavior
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  modification. The sermons are basically.
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  Here are 5 tips for a better marriage.
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  Here's how to manage your finances here.
• 18:56
  How to be a better leader at work.
• 18:58
  Very practical surface level advice.
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  Which is fine in its own place, but if that is the main diet of
• 19:03
  the church, it is just painting the pump.
• 19:06
  It focuses on the outside, the behavior, while ignoring the
• 19:09
  desperate need for spiritual regeneration.
• 19:12
  It produces whitewashed tombs, to use Jesus own phrase.
• 19:15
  Nice on the outside, completely dead on the inside.
• 19:18
  So what is the real cure? The outline calls it the Great
• 19:21
  Exchange. This is the theological concept
• 19:24
  of imputation. This is the absolute heart of
• 19:26
  the Christian message. How does that exchange work
• 19:29
  practically? First, you have to recognize
• 19:32
  that Jesus is the only one in human history with a pure heart.
• 19:36
  He's the only one whose fountain was not poisoned by the fall.
• 19:40
  He never had a single evil thought.
• 19:42
  He never coveted. He never slandered.
• 19:44
  So he is the perfect donor to keep the medical analogy going.
• 19:47
  On a cross, a transaction happens, a double imputation.
• 19:52
  Christ was treated by God as if he had our evil thoughts.
• 19:55
  He was treated as if He had our slanders, our lusts, our thefts.
• 19:58
  He took the legal penalty for our heart.
• 20:00
  Output. He took the toxicity of the
• 20:02
  stream upon himself. And in exchange, we are treated
• 20:05
  as if we had His perfect purity. That is justification, a legal
• 20:10
  declaration of righteousness based entirely on Christ's work,
• 20:14
  not our internal condition. That is a staggering concept.
• 20:17
  Legally, before God, the permanent record is swapped.
• 20:20
  Yes, but the Gospel does not stop at the legal declaration,
• 20:23
  because as you know, even as Christians we still feel those
• 20:26
  evil thoughts sometimes. We're not practically perfect
• 20:28
  yet. Right.
• 20:29
  Which brings us to regeneration, the actual giving of the new
• 20:32
  heart. And the sources heavily stress
• 20:34
  the concept of monarchism here. Monarchism.
• 20:37
  Break that theological term down for US.
• 20:39
  Mono meaning one, ergon meaning work one worker.
• 20:44
  Meaning God acts alone in this. In regeneration, yes.
• 20:48
  The argument from the reformed perspective is this.
• 20:51
  A corpse cannot decide to start breathing.
• 20:54
  A dead heart cannot decide to beat.
• 20:56
  You cannot will yourself into being born again any more than
• 20:59
  you will yourself to be born the first time.
• 21:01
  Physically, God must initiate the transplant.
• 21:04
  He takes out the stone. He puts in the flesh.
• 21:06
  And then comes sanctification. Which is the lifelong process
• 21:09
  that follows justification and regeneration.
• 21:11
  And the source makes a critical point here.
• 21:13
  Sanctification is not let go and let God, but it also is not pull
• 21:17
  yourself up by your bootstraps. It is somewhere in between.
• 21:20
  It is a daily partnership based on the new power we have been
• 21:23
  given. Because we have a new nature, we
• 21:26
  are now able to fight the old one.
• 21:28
  The analogy they use is that the stream changes over time because
• 21:31
  the spring has been changed. It might still have some mud in
• 21:34
  it, some residue from the old life, but the source is now pure
• 21:39
  water and it is slowly clearing out the pipes.
• 21:42
  So let us bring this into the 21st century, Section 5
• 21:45
  contemporary relevance. Because you and I do not worry
• 21:49
  about washing our hands before religious meals much anymore.
• 21:52
  We do not have Pharisees walking around in robes checking our
• 21:55
  hygiene, no. But the sources argue that
• 21:57
  Pharisees are not gone, they just change your clothes.
• 22:00
  We have modern Pharisees them all around.
• 22:01
  US image management. We live in the absolute age of
• 22:04
  the curated self. We obsess over the right brands,
• 22:07
  the right politics, the right social causes.
• 22:10
  We desperately want to appear righteous to our peers.
• 22:13
  It is virtue signalling. Look at me, I care about the
• 22:15
  right things. I posted the black square.
• 22:17
  I used the correct hashtag on my post.
• 22:19
  And the source asks A piercing question.
• 22:22
  Is that flow coming from a heart of genuine love for your
• 22:25
  neighbor, or is it a ritual washing to show everyone that
• 22:28
  you belong to the clean group? You can signal virtue all day
• 22:31
  long while your heart is full of bitter judgement and pride
• 22:34
  toward those who do not signal correctly.
• 22:36
  That is pure Phariseeism. And then there is digital mouth
• 22:39
  sin. The Internet.
• 22:41
  The ultimate unfiltered spillway for the human heart.
• 22:44
  The sources say the Internet is a megaphone for the heart.
• 22:47
  Think about it. Slander, keyboard wars, dunking
• 22:51
  on opponents for likes, The anonymity of the screen removes
• 22:55
  the social filter we normally have face to face, and what
• 22:58
  comes out when the filter is gone.
• 22:59
  Usually pure bile. The sources identify these
• 23:02
  modern behaviors. Doxing, cancelling, trolling.
• 23:05
  These are just modern digital versions of the defilement Jesus
• 23:07
  describes in Matthew 15. That hits hard because we
• 23:11
  usually blame the platform. We say Twitter is toxic or
• 23:14
  Facebook is ruining society. But the reformed view says no,
• 23:18
  the platform is just a neutral tool.
• 23:20
  If we are cruel online, it is not because the algorithm made
• 23:24
  us do it is because our hearts are cruel.
• 23:26
  The platform just removed the immediate consequences.
• 23:30
  It showed us who we really are when we think we cannot be
• 23:32
  punched in the face for what we say.
• 23:34
  The sources also issue a strong warning about externalism inside
• 23:38
  the church today. The temptation to measure
• 23:41
  spiritual health by Sunday attendance or how busy you are
• 23:45
  volunteering or emotional experiences during the music
• 23:49
  with a source is called Worship Vibes.
• 23:51
  I felt goosebumps during the bridge of the song, so I must be
• 23:54
  close to God. But the source warns us, you can
• 23:57
  have clean living. You could have no smoking, no
• 23:59
  drinking, no swearing, and still be spiritually dead.
• 24:02
  You can be the elder brother in the prodigal son story, doing
• 24:05
  everything right, staying home, obeying all the rules, but your
• 24:09
  heart is so hard and proud that you cannot even celebrate your
• 24:12
  own brother's return. You can be in the church every
• 24:15
  single Sunday and be completely lost.
• 24:17
  You can be a Pharisee sitting in the front Pew taking notes on
• 24:20
  the sermon. So what do we do with all of
• 24:22
  this? We cannot fix our own hearts,
• 24:25
  but we are not supposed to just be passive.
• 24:27
  Section 6 is practical application.
• 24:30
  How do we actually live this out on a daily basis?
• 24:33
  1st, we have to completely redefine repentance.
• 24:36
  It is not just saying sorry and moving on.
• 24:38
  It is tracing the fruit back to the root.
• 24:41
  Give me a practical example of that.
• 24:42
  How do I do that on a random Tuesday morning?
• 24:45
  OK, let's use a common parenting example.
• 24:47
  You lose your temper and you yell at your kids before school.
• 24:51
  The surface level repentance is Lord forgive me for yelling.
• 24:54
  I will try to be more patient tomorrow.
• 24:56
  That sounds pretty standard. I have prayed that exact prayer.
• 25:00
  But deep repentance asks diagnostic questions.
• 25:04
  Why did I yell? What was my heart worshipping in
• 25:06
  that specific moment that caused the anger?
• 25:09
  Maybe. I was worshipping control.
• 25:10
  Or comfort. I want peace and quiet.
• 25:13
  These kids are threatening my idol of comfort, so I will crush
• 25:16
  them with my wrath to get my idol back.
• 25:18
  Wow, that goes deep fast. It exposes the motive, not just
• 25:21
  the action. Or take lying.
• 25:24
  Why did I lie to my boss? Not just lying is bad, God
• 25:28
  forgive me. But what did I fear more than
• 25:30
  God in that moment? Did I fear losing face?
• 25:34
  Did I fear conflict? When you identify the idol,
• 25:37
  whether it is the fear of man or the love of comfort, you are
• 25:40
  finally dealing with the heart. And then there's the practice of
• 25:43
  mortification. Which sounds like a terrible
• 25:45
  death metal band, but it is actually an old Puritan term.
• 25:48
  It means putting to death. Active warfare against evil.
• 25:51
  Thoughts. The sources are very blunt here.
• 25:54
  Do not negotiate with terrorists and do not negotiate with your
• 25:57
  sin. When a lustful thought comes
• 26:00
  into your mind or resentful thought about a Co worker, do
• 26:03
  not play with it. We tend to let those thoughts
• 26:06
  linger. We think, well, it is harmless
• 26:08
  if I just think about it for a minute.
• 26:09
  But Jesus says the thought is the factory producing the
• 26:12
  defilement. You have to shut down the
• 26:14
  factory immediately. You have to starve that thought.
• 26:16
  You preach the gospel to it right then and there.
• 26:19
  You say to yourself, this does not belong here.
• 26:21
  I am a new creation in Christ. And we do this using the means
• 26:24
  of grace. We are not fighting with sheer
• 26:27
  willpower alone. We use scripture to wash our
• 26:30
  minds, we use prayer to depend on the Spirit, and the sources
• 26:34
  point out the Lord's Supper. They call the Lord's Supper the
• 26:36
  visible word. Yes, when you eat the bread and
• 26:40
  drink the cup, you are physically acting out your
• 26:42
  dependence on Christ. You are saying I need outside
• 26:46
  nutrition to live. You are preaching to your own
• 26:49
  heart that you need Christ's righteousness, not your own.
• 26:53
  We are not left to clean ourselves up, no.
• 26:55
  We go to the great physician who transplants hearts.
• 26:58
  That is our only hope. So as we wrap up this deep dive,
• 27:01
  let us summarize the path we have taken today.
• 27:03
  It has been a long heavy. Discussion.
• 27:05
  We started with the superficial conflict over hand washing, the
• 27:09
  human obsession with external purity and looking good to
• 27:11
  others. We moved to Jesus's radical
• 27:14
  diagnosis that the heart is a poison spring that naturally
• 27:17
  produces evil thoughts. We look at the evidence, the
• 27:20
  undeniable list of internal corruptions we all face.
• 27:23
  We saw the total failure of the law to fix that internal
• 27:26
  problem, and we found the only cure in the new covenant, a new
• 27:30
  heart given by God through the finished work of Christ.
• 27:33
  It is a heavy topic, is it not? Talk of total depravity,
• 27:36
  systemic corruption, sin. But strangely, when you get to
• 27:40
  the bottom of it, I find it incredibly liberating.
• 27:43
  It is liberating because as long as you think you can fix
• 27:47
  yourself, you are on a treadmill that never ever stops.
• 27:50
  You are always scrubbing your hands, always performing, always
• 27:53
  worrying if your resume is clean enough for God.
• 27:56
  And you are always failing quietly on the inside, right?
• 28:00
  But when you finally realize you cannot fix it, that the problem
• 28:03
  is way too deep for your own tools, you can finally stop
• 28:06
  pretending. You can rest.
• 28:08
  You can fall into the hands of the one who actually can fix it.
• 28:10
  Here is a final provocative thought for you to Mull over as
• 28:13
  you go about your week. The world tells you every single
• 28:16
  day that you are basically good and that bad society or bad
• 28:20
  system are what corrupt you. That is the movie script.
• 28:22
  That is every pop song on the radio.
• 28:24
  But Jesus tells you the uncomfortable truth.
• 28:26
  You are carrying the corruption inside you.
• 28:29
  You are the source. What?
• 28:30
  And this is the the changes of the universe.
• 28:32
  He loves you enough to kill the old you and raise a new you.
• 28:35
  He does not want to improve you, He wants to resurrect you.
• 28:38
  So stop scrubbing the outside of the cup.
• 28:41
  Stop worrying about the optics and the image management.
• 28:44
  And bring the inside to Christ. That is it for this deep dive
• 28:48
  into reformed thinking. We will see you next time.