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The Cleansed Heart and the Holy Life (Matthew 23:25-26) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to reform thinking. So have you ever walked into one
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  of those incredibly high end exclusive restaurants?
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  Oh, absolutely. You know the type.
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  The lighting is just Immaculate and the tables are set with that
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  brilliant white linen right? And the servers are moving
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  around with this quiet precision.
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  The plating of the food looks like a work of fine art.
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  It looks like absolute perfection.
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  You sit there and you just feel lucky to be in the room.
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  Yeah, totally. But imagine if you push through
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  the swinging doors into the kitchen and it was just a
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  complete biohazard. Oh man, like the refrigerators
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  are broken and the staff is ignoring basic sanitation.
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  Yes. There's black mold growing
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  behind the stoves and the ingredients are actively
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  rotting. And the patrons out in the
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  dining room are eating the food, completely ignorant of the
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  disease festering behind the scenes.
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  Right, the exterior presentation is a total illusion masking act
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  of decay. That is a terrifying thought
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  when you are the one consuming the meal.
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  It really is, and today we are taking a deep dive into a
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  diagnostic landscape that uses a very similar concept.
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  But instead of physical health, we are looking at the human
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  soul. Yes, our mission today is to
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  unpack 2 incredibly intense, hard hitting theological
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  commentaries on a single biblical passage.
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  And that passage is Matthew 23, verses 25 and 26.
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  We are looking at the terrifying reality of the Hypocrites Cup.
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  Which is such a vivid image is this deliberate projection of
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  righteousness and moral fidelity on the outside.
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  While actively, persistently rotting on the inside.
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  And we are talking about something that affects every
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  single person listening to this, right?
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  Now, Oh, without a doubt. I mean, have you ever found
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  yourself curating a version of your life for others to see,
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  shaping a public face that does not match your private reality?
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  That is the big question these texts are forcing us to
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  confront. What are you hiding behind your
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  public face? Because the texts highlight a
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  very uncomfortable truth. Human beings are absolute
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  masters at managing optics. We really are.
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  We labor over the outside of the cup.
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  We desperately want the dining room to look spotless.
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  But the Lord is not fooled by a polished exterior.
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  He walks right into the kitchen. He always does, and to really
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  grasp the weight of what Jesus is saying in this passage, we
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  need to understand the historical setting.
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  Right, the physical context is huge here.
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  It is so. The setting is Jerusalem.
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  It is Passion Week. This is the absolute climax of
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  Jesus's earthly ministry. Occurring just near days before
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  the cross. Yes, and the tension in the city
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  is palpable. Hundreds of thousands of
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  pilgrims have flooded into Jerusalem for the Passover.
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  The Roman Garrison is on high alert for riots.
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  You know, just watching everyone.
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  And right in the middle of this, Jesus is standing in the temple
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  precincts, surrounded by hostile factions.
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  He is issuing his final public denunciation of the religious
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  elite. He is speaking directly to the
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  Scribes and the Pharisees. And I think modern readers often
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  bring a massive misconception to the text right here.
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  Oh for sure, we hear the word Pharisee and we immediately
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  picture like cartoon villains in black hats.
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  Right. We think of them as secular,
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  cynical people who just hated God.
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  But that is entirely historically inaccurate, isn't
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  it? Completely.
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  The Pharisees were the moral majority.
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  They were the conservative, law abiding citizens of their day.
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  I read somewhere that if they lived in your neighborhood
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  today, you would want them as your neighbors.
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  Oh, you absolutely would. Their lawns would be mowed.
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  Their kids would be polite. They.
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  Would be the first to volunteer for the neighborhood watch.
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  Precisely. They were not irreligious people
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  scoffing at God. They were the people who tithed
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  meticulously on every dollar they earned.
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  They prayed publicly and frequently.
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  They memorize massive portions of the Hebrew Scriptures.
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  But they possess this consuming obsession with ritual purity.
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  Our texts detail their devotion to extra biblical traditions.
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  Traditions which were later codified by Jewish scholars in
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  the Mishnah, right? Yes, specifically within a
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  massive tractate known as kilim. Let us talk about that tractate
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  because understanding what is in that document is the key to
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  understanding the point Jesus is making.
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  It really is. This tractate was was all about
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  the exhaustive ceremonial washing of vessels.
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  Like bronze cups, wooden bowls, clay plates.
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  The rules were astonishingly detailed.
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  The tractate Calum breaks down how a vessel can become unclean
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  and how it must be washed to restore its purity.
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  They spent their lives obsessively scrubbing the
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  exteriors of their culinary implements.
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  They debated whether a flat plate could become unclean in
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  the same way as a deep bowl. Oh wow.
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  Yeah, they argued over whether the outside of a cup could
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  become unclean while the inside remain pure, or vice versa.
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  It was this microscopic, agonizing level of legalism.
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  All designed to ensure no technical violation of their man
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  made traditions ever occurred. This brings up an obvious
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  question about the mechanics of their thinking, though.
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  OK, what is that? Was this obsession with washing
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  cups based on a fear of physical disease?
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  Like, was it a strict modern health code violation?
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  Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah.
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  Were they just ancient germaphobes trying to avoid
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  getting food poisoning? Not at all.
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  It had absolutely nothing to do with physical hygiene or
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  avoiding germs. Because the scientific concept
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  of bacteria did not even exist for them yet.
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  Right, this was entirely about Levitical superiority and
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  ceremonial standing before God. OK, so how did they think it
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  worked? They operated on a contagion
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  theory of sin. They believed that if a physical
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  vessel was ceremonially unclean. Like if it had been touched by a
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  gentile maybe? Yes, or had come into contact
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  with something dead that ceremonial uncleanness would
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  transfer to the food inside the vessel.
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  And then when a Jewish person consumed that food, the
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  uncleanness would transfer into the person.
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  Precisely defiling them before God, so.
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  The Clean Cup was essentially a force field.
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  That is a great way to put it. It was a visible sign of
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  religious scrupulosity, maintaining a perimeter of
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  absolute strictness around their lives.
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  They believed that technical external violations defiled man,
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  and this is where Jesus uses their own obsessive practices to
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  deliver a lethal blow. He takes the very thing they
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  pride themselves on, their pristine washed cups, and turns
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  it into a mirror. He points out that they are
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  scrubbing physical pots with microscopic attention to detail.
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  While their metaphysical souls are overflowing with sin.
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  He exposes this massive system of works righteousness that
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  localized religion entirely on the epidermis.
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  The. Irony is just staggering.
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  They're standing there in the temple, smelling of clean water
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  and fresh linen. Totally confident and they're
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  standing before God because they followed the rules of the
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  Mishnah. And Jesus looks at them and
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  essentially says your dining room looks great but your
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  kitchen is a biohazard. Yeah, that cuts right to the
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  heart of it. So knowing that the Pharisees
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  were obsessed with the outside of literal cups leads us to look
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  at what Jesus actually saw when he looked inside their
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  figurative cups. Let us breakdown this specific
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  syntax and vocabulary of his indictment in verse 25.
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  He says they are full of greed and self indulgence.
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  The Greek text here is incredibly revealing and it
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  shows the severity of the diagnosis.
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  OK, let's look at those words. The word translated as greed is
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  harpogies. What does that specific word
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  imply in the 1st century context?
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  Well, how do you usually define greed today?
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  When I hear the word greed, I usually think of a corporate
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  executive wanting a bigger bonus.
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  Right. Or someone cutting in line at
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  the buffet to get the last slice of cake.
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  Yeah, we think of it as a passive desire for more, just
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  wanting stuff. But harp because is anything but
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  passive. It literally means plunder,
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  violent robbery, extortion. Wait, really?
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  Violent robbery. Yes, when you study the Greco
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  Roman antiquity usage of this term, you find it frequently
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  applied to rapacious tyrants who seize property by force.
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  Or like marauding armies sacking a city.
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  Absolutely. Or wild beasts violently tearing
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  at their prey. It denotes A vicious, aggressive
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  taking of what belongs to someone else.
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  Wow, so Jesus is looking at the most polite, refined, polished
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  religious leaders in Israel. Men who would not dare eat from
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  an unwashed plate. And he is saying that beneath
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  their pristine robes, their souls are acting like violently
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  rabid wolves. That is an incredibly aggressive
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  accusation. But how does a polite, tithing
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  religious leader actually commit extortion in real life?
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  We see the mechanics of this throughout the gospels.
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  Jesus accuses them in other passages of devouring widows
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  houses. So they would use their
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  religious authority and legal loopholes to foreclose on the
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  vulnerable. Yes, enriching themselves while
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  masking their theft behind long public prayers.
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  Oh man, that is dark. They also use a tradition called
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  Corban where they would declare their money dedicated to God.
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  Completely bypassing their biblical obligation to
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  financially support their aging parents.
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  Precisely, they were using religion as a weapon for
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  personal enrichment. They were plundering the weak to
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  satisfy their lust for wealth, all while maintaining an aura of
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  perfect respectability. They weaponize the rules to
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  steal from the vulnerable. That makes the hypocrisy so much
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  worse. It really does does.
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  And then we hit the second term Jesus uses to describe the
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  inside of their cup. Self indulgence or in some
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  translations, excess. The Greek word is a craziest.
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  What is the mechanism behind this word?
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  A craziest denotes absolute incontinence.
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  It is a total lack of self-control where a man's will
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  is completely subjugated to his base passions.
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  So it means you're entirely at the mercy of your appetites.
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  Yes. When anger flares up, you have
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  no ability to stop it. When lust arises, it completely
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  takes over the steering wheel of your mind.
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  I need to process that for a second, because it seems
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  entirely contradictory to the historical record.
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  Well, the Pharisees were famous for their rigid discipline.
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  They fasted twice a week. They tied down to the mint and
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  cumin and their spice racks. They memorized massive books of
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  law. That is true.
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  That requires immense willpower. How can Jesus accuse the most
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  disciplined men in Society of having absolutely 0
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  self-control? This is the core of the
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  psychological dissonance the text is exposing.
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  OK, unpack that for me. It highlights the vast
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  difference between external behavioral modification and
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  internal spiritual governance. So changing your habits versus
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  changing your heart. Exactly.
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  The commentaries explain that the Pharisees could control
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  their exterior with agonizing legalism.
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  They could force their bodies to fast.
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  They could force their hands to give money.
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  But their inner lust, their hidden hatreds, their secret
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  desires ran completely wild. They lacked any internal
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  governance from the Holy Spirit. They could stop themselves from
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  murdering someone in the street, but their minds were a chaotic
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  storm of hatred and bitterness. The discipline was just a
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  theatrical performance then. They were putting a very tight
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  lid on a boiling pot, but the water inside was still boiling
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  violently. That is the perfect way to
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  visualize it. Notice the specific phrasing
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  Jesus uses. He says they are full of
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  extortion and lack of control. The Greek concept here implies
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  occupied territory, doesn't it? It does.
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  This is not a minor blemish. This is not a small stain on an
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  otherwise clean shirt. The inside is utterly saturated.
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  The unregenerate heart is completely overrun and governed
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  by these sinful desires. Which means this ancient
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  diagnosis of the human heart is not confined to the 1st century
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  temple precincts. Not at all.
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  We have to look at how this exact dynamic plays out in our
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  modern era, in our own lives. The source material points out
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  that our current age is completely obsessed with optics
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  and the curation of external images.
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  We live in a culture defined by image management, and the
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  church, unfortunately, is not immune to it.
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  In fact, adding a religious veneer to this image management
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  makes it far more dangerous. Because it gives the hypocrisy a
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  divine stamp of approval. The texts cite a jarring,
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  frankly terrifying statistic to illustrate this modern reality.
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  Yes, the anonymous surveys. Right.
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  These surveys reveal that while over 70% of professing Christian
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  men project an image of moral fidelity and spiritual
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  leadership in their local congregations.
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  Nearly 60% of those same men are privately entangled in the
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  habitual consumption of pornography.
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  That statistic is the modern equivalent of the whited
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  sepulchre. It is the hypocrites cut playing
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  out in real time. Outwardly, these men are holding
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  doors, leading prayers, participating in small groups.
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  They are presenting themselves as safe, solid figures in the
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  community. But inwardly, the mind of the
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  affections are given over to a craziest.
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  That total lack of self-control and complete subjugation to base
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  passions. We just talked.
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  About the outside of the cup is washed, the inside is full of
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  plunder. It is the exact same diagnosis
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  Jesus gave the Pharisees. Let us apply this cup metaphor
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  to specific modern relationships as outlined in the text, because
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  this dynamic touches absolutely everything.
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  Think about church leaders, for example, the.
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  Text describes individuals handling sacred things while
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  becoming spiritually hollow. You can have a pastor who spends
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  his week preparing A structurally flawless sermon.
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  He defends sound doctrine. He.
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  Counsels A grieving family. He visits the hospital.
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  But right behind the pulpit, in the quietness of his own mind,
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  he is privately nourishing massive pride.
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  Or vanity. Or a craving for the applause of
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  his congregation. And the danger here is that a
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  ministry with a dirty inside will eventually poison the cup
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  from which the entire congregation drinks.
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  The exterior looks highly successful by all worldly
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  metrics. Though oh sure, the church
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  attendance is growing, the building fund is met, the
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  programs are running smoothly. But the internal reality of the
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  leadership is rotting, driven by ambition rather than love for
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  Christ. And this filters down directly
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  into the home. The sources talk extensively
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  about parents. You can have parents enforcing
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  strict behavioral compliance in their children.
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  They demand that the kids sit still during the service, say
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  the right words, get the right grades.
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  And look perfectly respectable to the neighbors.
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  They put an immense amount of pressure on the outside of the
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  children's cups. But they entirely fail to
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  shepherd their hearts. Because managing a child's
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  external behavior through rules and threats is much easier than
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  doing the exhausting work of engaging with their soul.
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  Pressuring a child into compliance creates the illusion
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  of a successful family. The parents get the credit for
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  having well behaved kids, but the kids are growing up with
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  deep seated resentment. And a totally hollow
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  understanding of grace. And then there are spouses.
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  This one hits close to home for so many people.
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  You can maintain public civility.
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  You sit next to each other in the Pew on Sunday morning.
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  You smile for the family photo. On vacation, you host dinner
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  parties. But privately, behind closed
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  doors, there is an intense harboring of bitterness,
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  selfishness and vast emotional distance.
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  It makes me think of the way we use social media filters today.
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  Yes, that is a great analogy. You take a photo and the
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  lighting is bad, the room behind you is a mess and you look
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  exhausted. But you apply a filter.
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  You crop out The Dirty laundry on the floor.
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  You adjust the contrast. And suddenly you project an
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  identity that looks flawless to the public.
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  It is moral branding. You curate an image while the
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  private reality decays. The world constantly tells you
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  to control perception. The prevailing wisdom is to fake
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  it until you make. It Christ tells you to clean the
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  inside. The world says appear
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  compelling, look successful, manage your brand.
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  Christ says repent and be holy. Those are two entirely opposite
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  trajectories. So if the external image is a
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  lie and the internal reality is chaotic, full of extortion and
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  completely lacking self-control. How does the inside actually get
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  clean? Right, this brings us to the
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  command Jesus issues in verse 26.
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  He says first clean the inside of the cup.
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  We need to look very closely at the grammar here.
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  Because the specific words Jesus chooses leave no room for
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  negotiation or human maneuvering.
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  The Greek word used for clean is catharison.
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  This is an aorist active imperative.
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  OK, you threw out a grammatical term there.
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  Aorist, active, imperative. I did, yes.
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  For those of us who do not read 1st century Greek syntax over
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  breakfast, how does that tense change the meaning of what Jesus
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  is saying? It matters massively.
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  It is the difference between saying try to eat a little
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  healthier over the next few months and drop the weapon right
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  now. Oh wow, so it is immediate.
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  Yes, an aorist act of imperative signifies a sharp, urgent and
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  definitive command. It is not a casual suggestion
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  for gradual therapeutic self improvement.
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  It is a demand for a fundamental, immediate
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  purification. And the word prachin which is
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  translated as first means first in absolute order of time and
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  priority. Jesus is completely reversing
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  the Pharisaic paradigm here. World's religious system,
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  including the Pharisees system, says clean the outside so God
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  will accept the inside. Put on a suit, Stop using bad
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  language, Give some money to charity, Volunteer at the soup
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  kitchen. And then God will look at your
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  scrubbed exterior and decide to accept you.
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  God will grade you on a curve based on your outward
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  performance. That is the default operating
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  system of the human heart. But Jesus shatters that
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  entirely. He establishes the unalterable
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  sequence of true holiness. Source before expression, root
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  before fruit. The inside must be washed first.
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  If the heart is not changed, the external behavior is completely
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  meaningless before a holy God. Here's where this gets
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  incredibly difficult, and honestly, where it creates a
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  massive theological tension in the text.
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  What do you mean? Well, think about it.
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  If the inside of my cup is full of ravenous wolves, as we
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  discussed with the word harp adjusts.
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  If it is occupied territory, character surprised by a total
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  lack of control. A craziest.
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  How can a person possibly clean their own heart?
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  Is the text not demanding the absolute impassable?
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  If I am dead in my trespasses, how do I pick up the sponge to
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  wash myself? This raises a critical question,
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  and it is the very point where the commentaries draw a Direct
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  Line to the doctrine of total depravity.
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  They reference Chapter 6 of the Westminster Confession of Faith.
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  Which articulates that the unregenerate heart is a cauldron
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  of wickedness. It is wholly defiled in all its
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  parts and faculties. So the brutal truth is that we
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  cannot clean ourselves. We cannot.
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  The command first clean the inside exposes A catastrophic
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  human inability. It proves that spiritually dead
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  sinners cannot naturally wash themselves.
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  The law diagnosis the illness, and the law demands absolute
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  perfection, but the law possesses no ability to grant
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  you the power to obey it. The command is meant to slay the
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  pride of the listener. It is meant to show the
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  Pharisees and us that our human effort, our willpower, our
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  religious is completely useless against the internal stain of
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  sin because humanity. Refuses to accept that we cannot
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  fix the inside on our own. Society constantly invents false
• 19:04
  external methods to try and solve the human condition we
• 19:07
  hate feeling. Helpless.
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  So we try to find workarounds. We build new systems and the
• 19:11
  sources detail. Several false solutions that
• 19:13
  modern culture and various church movements offer to fix
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  us, they argue these are. Really just new sophisticated
• 19:19
  ways of polishing the outside of the cup we see this playing.
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  Out across multiple ideological and theological friends today,
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  humans are. Incredibly creative at inventing
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  new ways to avoid dealing with the depravity of the heart, I
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  should note real quick. For you listening, the source
• 19:33
  material takes direct aim at some highly charged cultural and
• 19:37
  political frameworks. Right now, Yes, specifically.
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  Mentioning critical race theory and certain branches of liberal
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  theology, right? Our goal?
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  Today is not to jump into a political debate or take a side
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  on those specific societal frameworks.
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  We are just here. To impartially unpack the
• 19:53
  argument the authors making about human nature and how it
• 19:56
  intersects with these modern ideas.
• 19:58
  Understood. According to the sources,
• 20:00
  secular philosophies like CRT and liberal theology insist that
• 20:05
  humanity's deepest problems are primarily systemic,
• 20:08
  environmental and societal. The prevailing.
• 20:10
  Argument is that human beings are essentially good, or at
• 20:13
  least neutral, and that they are corrupted by unequal power
• 20:17
  structures and oppressive environments.
• 20:19
  Therefore the. Solution is to dismantle and fix
• 20:22
  the external structures. The belief is.
• 20:24
  That if you perfect the society, you will perfect the person.
• 20:27
  But the author of the. Commentary counters this by
• 20:30
  arguing that the fundamental problem is not external politics
• 20:34
  or societal structures, the fundamental.
• 20:36
  Problem is the depraved human heart the text cites.
• 20:40
  Jesus's words in Matthew 15, noting that out of the heart
• 20:44
  come evil thoughts, murder, theft, false witness and
• 20:48
  slander. The argument.
• 20:49
  The source. Makes is that you cannot fix the
• 20:51
  human condition purely with external adjustments.
• 20:55
  You can change the. Laws.
• 20:56
  You can redistribute wealth, you can alter the environment.
• 20:59
  But if you ignore. The need for internal
• 21:01
  regeneration, the fundamental human disease remains untouched,
• 21:05
  and this reliance. On external fixes is not just a
• 21:07
  secular or political issue. The source to point out how it
• 21:10
  permeates church movements as well.
• 21:12
  Look at the. Pragmatic or seeker sensitive
• 21:14
  movement that became so dominant in recent decades right in that
• 21:18
  model. The focus shifts heavily to the
• 21:20
  outside of the cup, the church service.
• 21:21
  Is designed around lighting, branding, marketing, and
• 21:24
  offering behavioral life hacks, it becomes entirely.
• 21:27
  About manufacturing a consumer experience that makes people
• 21:30
  feel welcome and comfortable, the sources argue.
• 21:33
  This creates attendees who might improve their habits.
• 21:36
  Maybe they learn better time management or communication
• 21:38
  skills for their marriage, but it.
• 21:40
  Completely sidesteps the demand for radical internal
• 21:43
  regeneration. It is a therapeutic model rather
• 21:47
  than a salvific. 1 The sources. Then move on to address
• 21:50
  sacramentalism, they specifically.
• 21:52
  Reject the Roman Catholic view that external water baptism
• 21:56
  intrinsically cleanses the soul, the theological.
• 21:59
  Concept known as ex opera operato.
• 22:01
  Breaking that down. Ex.
• 22:03
  Opera operato essentially means that the ritual itself does the
• 22:06
  work simply by the. ACT being performed regardless
• 22:09
  of the internal state of the person receiving it, correct?
• 22:12
  The sources argue strongly from a believer's baptism
• 22:15
  perspective, stating that the. External washing of water is
• 22:18
  just an outward sign of an inward reality that has already
• 22:21
  been sovereignly accomplished by God to trust that the physical.
• 22:24
  Water applied to the body actually cleanses the internal
• 22:27
  extortion and lust of the soul is, according to the text,
• 22:31
  trusting the ritual over the Redeemer.
• 22:34
  It is placing your. Faith in the physical washing of
• 22:36
  a cup, which is the exact error of the Pharisees.
• 22:39
  And finally. The text addresses what it calls
• 22:42
  charismania. This is the.
• 22:44
  Intense pursuit of external hyper emotional signs, physical
• 22:49
  manifestations or ecstatic utterances.
• 22:52
  The argument. Here is that seeking these
• 22:54
  theatrical displays as a way to prove your spiritual vitality to
• 22:57
  others is just another form of external performance.
• 23:00
  It is a loud. Visible way of proving you are
• 23:03
  clean, the sources advocate. Instead, for the quiet,
• 23:06
  difficult internal mortification of sin through the ordinary
• 23:10
  means of grace, like reading the.
• 23:12
  Word, prayer and regular fellowship.
• 23:14
  All of these examples. Whether they are societal,
• 23:16
  political or ecclesiastical, illustrate the persistent human
• 23:20
  desire to bypass the heart we desperately.
• 23:23
  Want a checklist? We want a ritual we can perform?
• 23:25
  We want an emotional. High we can achieve, or a
• 23:27
  structural reform we can vote for, because those things are
• 23:30
  manageable. We can measure them.
• 23:31
  We can. Take credit for them.
• 23:33
  A dead heart, however. Cannot be managed.
• 23:35
  It requires a supernatural miracle.
• 23:37
  So if all. Human attempts to scrub the
• 23:39
  outside fail completely, and we totally lack the ability to
• 23:43
  scrub the inside ourselves. We are left totally ruined under
• 23:46
  the law. We are sitting in a.
• 23:47
  House with a cracked foundation, rotting walls and termites in
• 23:51
  the beams. Then we do not.
• 23:53
  Have the tools, the skills or the money to fix it.
• 23:56
  We are bankrupt. We need a substitute.
• 23:59
  And that brings us to the core hope of the text, the Christ
• 24:03
  connection, because the passage. Presses far beyond a moral
• 24:06
  diagnosis of our failure, it drives us to the absolute
• 24:10
  necessity of a savior Jesus is not just giving us a.
• 24:12
  Moral lecture he is revealing himself as the true and better
• 24:16
  fulfiller of the law. Let us look into the.
• 24:18
  Perfect cup. Jesus is the only.
• 24:20
  Man in all of human history who It was perfectly clean on the
• 24:23
  inside and the outside there is 0.
• 24:25
  Disjunction in him between his hidden life and his public
• 24:28
  conduct he possessed. No internal harpages, There's no
• 24:31
  violent. Extortion, no greed, no selfish
• 24:34
  ambition in him, only perfect self giving love for the Father
• 24:38
  and for his sheep, and he possessed.
• 24:39
  Noah craziest There was no lack. Of control, no subjugation to
• 24:43
  base passions, only flawless spirit LED obedience to the
• 24:48
  Father's will, even to the point of extreme suffering.
• 24:51
  He is the spotless. But his perfection.
• 24:54
  Alone, while beautiful to look at, does not clean our cups.
• 24:58
  The Judicial. Guilt of our hypocrisy has to be
• 25:00
  dealt with. The extortion and the lust
• 25:02
  hiding in our hearts demand justice from a holy God, and
• 25:05
  this is where the. Cross becomes the focal point of
• 25:08
  the entire discussion at the cross.
• 25:10
  The Immaculate, perfectly clean Son of God took our filthy,
• 25:14
  rotting cup in the garden of. Gethsemane, he prayed.
• 25:18
  Let this cup pass from me. He was looking at the.
• 25:21
  Cup of God's wrath, a cup filled with the judgement our hypocrisy
• 25:25
  deserved. And he drank.
• 25:27
  It down to the dregs he absorbed the righteous punishment for our
• 25:31
  hidden sins so that we might. Drink the cup of his salvation.
• 25:35
  That is staggering. He takes the cup full.
• 25:37
  Of Dead Man's Bones drinks the wrath it brings, and hands us a
• 25:40
  cup overflowing with grace. The great exchange and this
• 25:44
  fulfills. The ancient promises of the New
• 25:46
  Covenant. The sources connect.
• 25:47
  Christ's work directly to Ezekiel chapter 36 verses 25 and
• 25:51
  26, where God promises. I will sprinkle clean water on
• 25:54
  you and you shall be clean. I will give you a new.
• 25:57
  Heart and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will
• 26:00
  remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart
• 26:03
  of flesh, the Old Covenant. System of washing literal clay
• 26:07
  pots completely failed to change the human heart.
• 26:10
  It just created better actors. But the new.
• 26:13
  Covenant promises a supernatural, unilateral work of
• 26:17
  the Holy Spirit. God does the.
• 26:19
  Washing God replaces the dead, Stony heart with a living,
• 26:25
  beating heart. This.
• 26:26
  Is the sequence of grace that changes the entire paradigm of
• 26:30
  religion? Yes.
• 26:31
  Because when Jesus says first clean the inside, he does not
• 26:35
  mean make yourself pure so Christ will accept you.
• 26:38
  That is the legalistic. Trap that keeps people in
• 26:40
  bondage. It means coming to.
• 26:41
  Christ absolutely dirty. It means bringing.
• 26:44
  Your unwashed, moldy, termite infested, hypocritical cup to
• 26:47
  him acknowledging your total bankruptcy receiving his.
• 26:50
  Imputed righteousness and letting him do the washing
• 26:53
  through the Holy Spirit. You do not clean.
• 26:54
  Yourself to come to Christ. You come to Christ to be
• 26:57
  cleaned. Justification comes.
• 26:58
  First he closed the guilty center in his perfect
• 27:01
  righteousness, declaring them legally just and from that.
• 27:04
  Accepted secure standing, the lifelong work of inward renewal.
• 27:08
  Sanctification begins. So let us.
• 27:11
  Bring all these massive theological truths back down to
• 27:14
  the ground, back to your daily life.
• 27:16
  As you listen to this, we have covered a.
• 27:17
  Vast amount of territory today, starting with the Pharisees.
• 27:20
  Obsessively washing their bronze and clay pots in the noisy,
• 27:24
  crowded temple precincts during Passion Week, we moved into the.
• 27:27
  Violent, terrifying Greek realities of the human heart,
• 27:31
  the rapacious greed and total lack of self-control hiding
• 27:35
  beneath polite religious smiles and manicured lawns.
• 27:39
  We looked at the. Absolute failure of modern
• 27:41
  external fixes, whether that is curating an Instagram aesthetic,
• 27:45
  trusting in church lighting and smoke machines, or relying on
• 27:48
  mechanical rituals to save us. And finally, we.
• 27:51
  Arrived at the sole solution, the inward regenerating grace of
• 27:54
  Jesus Christ, the perfect cup who drunk our damnation.
• 27:57
  The call to action. From these texts is urgent.
• 28:00
  You have to stop polishing the outside for your peers, for your
• 28:02
  spouse, or for your social media feeds.
• 28:04
  The omniscient Lord. Already sees the inside, he
• 28:06
  knows exactly what is in the kitchen trying to hide your.
• 28:09
  Internal decay from him is not just exhausting, it is entirely
• 28:14
  futile. We spend so much.
• 28:16
  Energy fearing the public exposure of our dirty cups.
• 28:19
  We are terrified. That someone will look behind
• 28:21
  the drywall and see the mold We think that if.
• 28:24
  People really knew the thoughts we battle, the greed we harbor,
• 28:27
  the bitterness we hold onto. We would be cast out and
• 28:30
  rejected. But consider.
• 28:32
  This thought as we close out today, what if the most.
• 28:35
  Attractive, compelling community to the outside world is not a
• 28:39
  group of shiny, perfectly clean cups sitting proudly on a shelf,
• 28:43
  we constantly think. We have to project perfection to
• 28:45
  be a good witness, but what if the.
• 28:47
  True church is actually meant to be a hospital of shattered dirty
• 28:50
  cups openly asking the Lord for washing.
• 28:53
  What if exposing? Your dirt, your need, your
• 28:56
  absolute bankruptcy is the actual prerequisite for true
• 29:00
  human connection. Community where the.
• 29:02
  Masks are permanently off where the illusion of the pristine
• 29:05
  exterior is abandoned and the reality of grace is put on full
• 29:08
  display. Because perfect people.
• 29:09
  Do not need a savior and pretending to be perfect just
• 29:13
  pushes away the people who know they are broken.
• 29:15
  Imagine the absolute. Relief of throwing away the
• 29:17
  polishing rag entirely. No more hiding.
• 29:20
  No more pretending the house has a solid foundation when you know
• 29:23
  it does not. You just hand the.
• 29:25
  Mess over to the only one who can actually rebuild it from the
• 29:28
  inside out. That is the.
• 29:29
  Beautiful, liberating truth of the gospel, it really is.
• 29:33
  Thanks for joining us. On this deep dive, keep
• 29:35
  examining the inside and we will see you next time on reformed
• 29:38
  thinking.