Inside Out or Outside In, Pt. 2
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Pastor Nick Gatzke talks about what it really takes to change––not just clean up. A lot of people think holiness is about tightening the rules, following more of them, or breaking fewer of them. But if that were true, the most discipled people would automatically be transformed. Find out it truly takes
Nothing can choke the heart and the soul of your walk with God more than legalism. Unbiblical rigidity not only distorts God’s word, but will ultimately distort the person as well. Consider the story of Hans the tailor. Because of his reputation, an influential entrepreneur visiting the city ordered a tailor-made suit cut by Hans. And when he came to pick up the suit, the customer found that one sleeve had twisted that way and the other sleeve had twisted this way. And one shoulder bulged out and the other caved in. And he pulled and he tugged and he struggled and he finally wrenched and contorted and managed to make his body fit into the suit jacket. And as he returned home on the bus, Another passenger noticed his odd appearance. He asked if Hans, the tailor, had made the suit. Receiving the affirmative reply, the man remarked, that’s amazing. I mean, I knew that Hans was a good tailor, but I had no idea he could make a suit fit so perfectly for someone who has such a deformed body.
You know, that’s what we’re tempted to do in the Christian life sometimes. When we get an idea that’s over and above the Bible about what the Christian faith should look like, then we push that, shove people into some kind of grotesque configuration until they fit wonderfully. It’s more than uncomfortable. It actually becomes death. It’s a wooden legalism that destroys the soul. And so Jesus takes on the legalists. with one of the more radical and transformative statements that he had said to this point in his ministry.
In verse 14 and 15, he calls the people to him again, and he said to them, “hear me, all of you, and understand. There’s nothing, nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” And with that statement, Jesus rocks the Jewish understanding of the law to its core. By implication, it says that he declares all foods to be clean, that he makes it possible for Gentiles to be clean, and he puts a dagger in the heart of the oral tradition of the Mishnah. The disciples are confused. In verse 17, they ask for clarification of the parable, but it wasn’t a parable. It was very straightforward in its explanation. So strong, they couldn’t understand it. And so Jesus takes it a step further and he explains a little bit more graphically the mechanics of what outside in cleanliness results in versus inside out cleanliness. And he says to them in verse 18, “do you not see that whatever goes into a person from the outside cannot defile him since it enters not his heart, but his stomach and is expelled.”
Thus he declared all foods clean. So what you drink or eat, whether or not you wash your hands or not, they can’t defile you before God. It can nourish you or not. It can make you sick or not. It can make you physically healthy or not. But in the end, it doesn’t enter your heart. It enters through your stomach goes through your GI tract, it’s expelled. Conversely, verse 20, “what comes out of a person is what defiles him. From within, out of the heart of man comes evil thoughts and sexual immorality and theft and murder and adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All of these things come from within and they defile a person.”
The word for heart refers to the seat of your emotion, the originator of your will, the place where your desire comes from. What makes you do unclean things, Jesus implies, is that you have unclean desires. Why? Why do you have unclean desires? Because you have an unclean heart. Why are we tempted with sexual immorality or adultery or sensuality, as he includes in the list? Because we have unclean desires regarding sex instead of godly desires for sex. Why do you steal and covet? Because in our heart, we want what we can’t have and we think we deserve it.
Why do we struggle with pride? Because in our heart, we think of ourselves more highly than we ought to and God more lowly than we ought to. You get the point. We can go. and trace a heart condition for every single sin that is listed here. And it leads us to an important implication about the doctrine of sin itself. You see, the main problem with our uncleanliness before God is not simply that we commit sins. The main problem with our uncleanliness before God is principally that we are infected with sin at the core of our being, the place the Bible calls our heart. Every aspect of what comes out of that heart is somehow touched by the depravity that is within us.
The inner life is the problem. And we see that all throughout the Bible. Jeremiah 17:9-10 helps us to understand the problem of the heart. “It says it’s deceitful above all things. Desperately sick, who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”
So there’s a heart condition that results into a particular fruit of deeds that comes and the Lord knows. Romans chapter three, 10 goes even further. “No one is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they become worthless. No one does good. Not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongue to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery. The way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
And Jesus comes and says, if the heart is the cause of the uncleanliness, then the heart is what needs to be addressed. And here’s the thing. Because all of us struggle with this in some way at some time. Have you ever wondered why you continue to again and again and again just to conform your behavior? and you always fall short. It’s because if you treat the symptoms, trying to clean up your behavior without treating the disease of the heart, then the symptoms just keep coming back. You’re gonna continue to fall into the same traps, the same sins, the same temptations that you’ve always fallen into. Paul talks about this in Romans 6 when he says, before you put your faith in Christ, you’re a slave to sin. And what do slaves do? Slaves do exactly what their masters make them do. And if sin is your master and you’re only trying to treat the symptoms, then you see where that leads. The root cause needs to be treated. If you’re ever gonna be truly clean before God, there needs to be a new heart. There needs to be regeneration. And that’s exactly what Jesus comes to give.
So that begs the question, how can we be cleaned from the inside out? You know, the core of the gospel, the good news of reconciliation to God, core of it is how we’re justified before God. How do we move from dirty to clean, from guilty? to declared innocent. When Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin, he died to pay the penalty, not just for your sins, but he died to pay the penalty for sin, big S, infectious disease.
He came to deal with the core itself. And that’s why it says in 2 Corinthians 5:21, for our sake, “He made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” There’s something amazing about the divine transaction that happens when Jesus imputes his righteousness to us and takes our sin upon himself. It’s akin… to one who sacrifices himself for others in the most life-giving of measures.
I don’t know if you’re aware, but in 2022, the United States recorded its one millionth organ transplant. That’s pretty amazing to think about. A milestone that has saved many, many lives. It’s unclear which one was the one millionth precisely. But we do know the very first successful organ transplant in the U.S. occurred in 1954 in Boston, Massachusetts at Brigham Women’s Hospital when the doctors transplanted a kidney from a 23-year-old Ronald Herrick into his identical twin brother named Richard who was suffering from kidney failure. The lead surgeon, Dr. Joseph Murray, received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his role in the procedure.
Up until the 1980s, the number of transplants, every year remained fairly low. However, success in the transplant organs other than kidneys, such as hearts and livers and pancreases, and the advent of anti-rejection medication led to a rise in the transplants. And since then, transplants have become far more common. In 2021, more than 41,000 transplants occurred in the United States. That’s the highest. number ever recorded in one year. Sadly, about 5,000 people die waiting for a transplant every year, and the study published in the Journal of American Society of Nephrology found that many donor kidneys in the U.S. go unnecessarily discarded, but organ donors and recipients hope that they share their stories, and as a result, this will inspire more people to sign up to donate and reduce the waiting lists. It’s striking to think about the need for a transplant, and it’s hard to overstate the significance of a transplant for one who is waiting and waiting and waiting.
God has been in the business of giving people new hearts for centuries. And he does it because if the heart is the problem, cause of uncleanliness, then the heart is what needs to be addressed. There is joy for patients who receive a new heart in a physical transplant, and yet that joy is bittersweet because it comes at the cost of a heart for someone’s life. person loses their life, that another person would gain a life. And that is exactly what Jesus does on the cross for you and for me. He provides a new heart. He makes a way for you to be clean before God. And so the question then, just very simply and practically, is how is your heart? You don’t know? What do the sins that you’re struggling with say about the condition of your heart? What do they reveal? I want to highlight just a couple of wonderful implications about this radical message of Jesus.
First, when we sin, let’s recognize the root heart issue and try not just to change behavior, but ask God to change your heart. When the heart changes, behavior will change.
God, I ask you to forgive me for my materialism. In my heart, I’m seeking to find fulfillment in things that I’m not intended to fulfill me. God, I’m sorry for my selfishness. In my heart, I think more highly of myself than I should. God, I’m sorry that I only function on my schedule and my time. In my heart, I continue to struggle with elevating my self-importance. God, forgive me for my lust and for objectifying members of the opposite sex. In my heart, I’m seeking pleasure outside of its intended boundaries. When the heart changes, the behaviors will follow.
Second, Some of us struggle with the notion that Christianity has all of these rules, and you don’t want to be in a religion of rules, but you want to focus on relationship. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that cliche. Christianity is not a religion of rules. It’s a religion of relationship. And in some ways, that expression can be the right sort of pushback against unbiblical legalism. And in other ways, it could potentially just be an excuse for sinful behavior.
But here’s the important part, and that is this. The Christian life and Christian actions and Christian behaviors are not birthed out of external conformity. The problem with the ones that you know who don’t follow Christ, or maybe even yourself, are not the problem. of simply following the rules or simply going to church or not saying certain things or not doing certain things or not consuming certain things. If you treat it that way, you will always fail and you will always be unfulfilled. The choices that we make to obey God or not come from within. If the heart is the cause of uncleanliness, then the heart is what needs to be addressed. And if you don’t desire to do the things of God, you read his word and you say, I don’t want to do that. Then the problem is not just that you will yourself to external conformity. The problem at that time is that you need to ask God for a new heart. And he’s so generous to give it.
Thirdly, Let me make a brief observation or comment about the nature of hypocrisy because you will hear and I hear with some regularity from non-Christian friends or Christian friends who have been hurt in some ways that they don’t like to go to church because the church is full of hypocrites. You ever hear that before? Let’s be clear. The church is definitely full of sinners, including me. People who need new hearts. People who, when they get new hearts, still struggle in their flesh. People who, by God’s power through the Holy Spirit, are in a process of transformation from the day of their conversion until the day of glory being transferred from one degree of glory to another. Now, if you are one, who thinks that you are more righteous than you are or wants to find your purity and righteousness merely in reference to all of the people around you.
If you believe that your legalistic actions is what makes you pure, then you will become a hypocrite if you’re not one already. Legalism always breeds hypocrisy, always. But if you trust in Jesus, and his righteousness is applied to you, and he regenerates your heart by the power of Holy Spirit, and you humbly cling to him, and you follow him as your king for your days, then not only will you not be a hypocrite, but you will find joy in growing obedience. If the heart is the cause of the uncleanliness, then the heart is what needs to be addressed.
And the picture of God’s people at the end of time is the picture of a people who are clean and pure before God, a purified bride who marries a perfect bridegroom. So as I close, just hear it with me. Revelation chapter 19, starting at verse six. “And I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying, hallelujah, for the Lord our God, the almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exalt and give him glory for the marriage of the lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready.
It was granted to her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure. For the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.” Where do those righteous deeds come from? They come from a new heart. Let’s pray. Father, there are some among us today who have been laboring and toiling through. external conformity to a pattern of life through good works, and they need a new heart. And so I pray today that you, as you so often do, would powerfully overcome in regeneration. There are many of us who have new hearts and still wrestle with the flesh that we have.
and our sins go before us, and we’re grateful for the forgiveness that Jesus offered, and we pray that you would continue to transform our hearts. We long for the day where this struggle for sin is no more. We rejoice in the purity that you and you alone give us by your Son to stand before you, and we long for that day. Until that day, we pray that you would keep us. In your mighty name, amen.
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This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy, but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.
