Real Life Selkirk
**July 5** Self-Justification (Matthew 15:1-20)

  • Sermon

    Key Passage

    Matthew 15:1–20 NIV
    Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!” Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: “ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’” Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.” Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?” He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.” “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

    Introduction

    A number of years ago, I was coaching basketball in quite a few areas.
    I coached my daughter’s teams.
    Elementary aged girls running plays, learning skills, having fun.
    I learned something about girls basketball at that age. They really just want to please you as a coach.
    I remember the first team I coached. We did dribbling drills, layup drills, shooting drills, defensive drills.
    also we spent quite a bit of time learning our offense.
    We got to our first game and they ran their offense and it opened up around 5-6 shots that they didn’t take.
    They were so proud of running the offense that they didn’t know to put up a shot when it was open.
    That was so much fun.
    We went to practice the next week and then I showed them that when they were open, they had to shoot the ball.
    That group of girls did pretty well!
    A few years later, I coached the boys 8th grade basketball team in Newport.
    Totally different story.
    Did you know 8th grade boys all think they are Kobe?
    8th Grade boys stink.
    The ones that didn’t stink of BO stunk of so much cologne that they used to cover the stink, I would have preferred BO.
    There is an easy solution here. Take a shower. But the layer of BO followed by a layer of body spray, that is followed by another layer of BO. It was a stink lasagna.
    I’ll let you think about that phrase for a while.
    It wasn’t always fun, but it was memorable!
    I remember a number of conversations with kids on that team as well as parents on that team
    One parent came and said, “My son is one of the best players on the team, but you never play him.”
    I’ll let you know that my coaching philosophy wasn’t to sit my best players and hope to win more games.
    I had to explain that their son was short, couldn’t shoot, couldn’t dribble, couldn’t defend, and didn’t know the offense or the defensive sets. But other than that, he is making good progress.
    I would have actual arguments with players that would run the wrong play, then tell me they were running the right play.
    I would say, “If you were running the right play, you would have been standing over there where there are no defenders. Instead, you ran into the guy dribbling the basketball and he turned it over to the other team and they got a layup.”
    “No coach, the guy dribbling was in the wrong place.”
    Or we had guys saying, “Well, last year, we ran it this way and it worked way better.”
    Well this year we are running it a different way and it isn’t working because you are going to the wrong places on the court.
    This wasn’t every player and it wasn’t every parent. But there were moments of both.
    I want to walk this out for a moment:
    Who was the coach? Me.
    Who directed the plays? Me.
    If someone did something wrong, it was my place to bring attention to the problem and show them how to make the change so that they could be more successful. As a result the team would be more successful. Then we would win games.
    What would happen if a kid said, “I know how to play better than my coach. I’m going to do what I want.”?
    That kid would be a headache on the team.
    If I coached that kid by saying, “You are running the play wrong” and he said, “No I’m not.”
    If he doesn’t think he was doing anything wrong, will he change? No.
    It is an arrogance on his side and a significant lack or respect toward me.
    Now I had a solution for kids that showed a lack of respect and it usually involved telling everyone to get on the line and run.
    My point here is that a kid who doesn’t acknowledge that he is doing something wrong is not going to change. Or if he does, it will be with a really bad attitude.
    Does this sound like parenting middle schoolers a little bit?
    It does to me as well.
    We can see this played out in a lot of places of life.
    Other Studies
    Driving
    93% of American drivers rated themselves as “better-than-average” in driving skill
    88% rated themselves as above average in “driving safety”
    Another study says, “65% of Americans believe they are more intelligent than the average person.”
    Overwhelming majorities of employees see themselves as more valuable or skilled than their peers.
    There was one study from the University of Nebraska (sorry Donovan) in which 94% of professors rated themselves as above-average instructors at their university.
    The point I am trying to make here is that as human beings, we often have blind spots when it comes to accurate assessment of ourselves.
    My 8th graders had blind spots
    Other drivers have blind spots (not you of course)
    Employees have blind spots
    Even the University of Nebraska has blind spots
    We may chuckle about these statistics, but they can play out to significant problems in life
    These can lead to unsafe driving
    Losing basketball games
    Losing a job
    Destruction in marriage
    Even significant spiritual consequences.
    We will be talking about a doctrine called “Justification”. This may sound like big churchy words, and to some people it is.
    But how we deal with this teaching literally defines our approach to God.
    Question to address today:
    “Who is doing the justifying in my life?”
    At a base level, I will give you the outline to the sermon so you know where we are going.
    Some sermons I like to spring the point of the sermon on you unexpectedly like a surprise party.
    Some sermons, we need to know where we are going so we can listen to the Scriptures and assess our hearts along the way.
    Today, it is one of these sermons.
    In Genesis 1, we see and believe that God created everything we know to exist in six days.
    On the sixth day, God created mankind in his own image. Male and female he created us.
    AND IT WAS VERY GOOD.
    We were created holy, and we were created to exist in a perfect relationship with the one in whom we were created in the image of.
    We are image bearers of God and were created to be in perfect relationship with Him.
    However, sin entered the world.
    Satan tempted Adam and Eve in the garden and they chose poorly.
    This made all that God had created as holy to now be separate from holy.
    The word for being separate from holy is unholy.
    Humanity was created for something that we separated ourselves from attaining.
    Do you ever wonder why every human being asks the same questions, “Why am I here?” “What is the meaning of life?”
    Existential questions that have echoed across humanity for the span of our existence from the fall.
    It is because we have been separated from the specific answers to those questions.
    Why am I here? Because God created me to be in His presence
    What is my purpose in life? To live with Him and bring glory to Him through my life.
    Sin separates us from our purpose and sin separates us from our meaning as human beings.
    As a result, God made a way for human beings to draw near to Him in relationship.
    This is the Gospel
    Jesus became man...Returning one day for His church
    This was done in the love of a God that saw our separation and hopelessness and made a way, the only way to be restored. Not by our own merit, but by His merit and holiness being imputed or by being given to us and credited to us.
    Here is the thing: we have to recognize that we are sinners in order to pursue a savior.
    If we don’t know we are sick, we’ll never go to the doctor
    If we don’t know we are sinners, we will never look to Jesus to save us.
    Here is what justification is.
    Justification is us recognizing that we are sinners
    Acknowledging our sin. Naming our sin. Seeing that our sin separates us from a holy God who loves us and gave His son for us.
    That recognition leads us to a vulnerable and humble place before God where we stand on the precipice of a chasm that we cannot cross. A chasm that our sin has created.
    With a contrite heart, we call out to Jesus like Peter did last week when he fell in the water, “Lord, save me!”
    It is a knowledge that I cannot save myself from my own sin and I need Jesus.
    Jesus then puts our sin at the cross and gives us His righteousness.
    We can now approach the throne of the holy God with confidence, what we were created for, because we are holy through Jesus, not through our own actions.
    We approach God as if we had no sin, because Jesus became sin for us and paid that penalty at the cross.
    He said it is finished. And we drop to our knees in humble gratitude for His love and sacrifice.
    This is justification.
    We are justified through Jesus to God the Father.
    It is God’s changing us from the inside out
    Our passage today reveals another approach to justification
    An approach that seeks to change us from the outside in.
    It is a prideful and sinful approach to God in which we as human beings choose to justify ourselves.
    It is seen in our passage today by a group of people called the Pharisees.
    Matthew 15:1–2 NIV
    Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”
    I find this very interesting. In chapter 13, we see Jesus tangling with the Pharisees, which leads him to begin teaching in parables.
    But now a new group of Pharisees show up. These are the big dogs. They are from Jerusalem. Jerusalem is where the temple is located.
    Now I want you to know that the Pharisees didn’t travel up the Jericho road for 90 miles by foot to simply criticize Jesus’ disciples for not washing their hands.
    To understand this, we can see that they are clear that the disciples are breaking the tradition of the elders by not washing their hands.
    I want to explore this for a moment, but not spend too much time here.
    Last week, we talked a little bit about having a quiet time with God.
    I believe because of a number of Scriptures that we are called to spend time in silence and solitude in devotion and communication with God.
    That is the principle here.
    But let’s say that I had said, “I hold that the best time for quiet time is between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m.
    The sun is just coming up, the birds are chirping. There is still a cool temperature in the air.
    This is the time that God will meet with Real Life Selkirk.
    So this week, I ask you, “who spent an hour with God between 5:00 and 6:00 in silence and solitude every day last week”
    Let’s just say that 5 of you raise your hands.
    Then I say to the rest of you, “Sinners!!!”
    This is a simplified idea of what is happening here.
    There is God’s law, and then there were the rules that they created as a fence around God’s law and they held people to the same standard of the law by holding them to the rules about the law, not just the law.
    What is pre-supposed in this text by the Pharisees?
    Washing hands before you eat is one thing that makes you holy.
    Do you see the outside-in approach to holiness?
    Again, i want to ask the question, “Who is doing the justifying in my life?”
    If the Pharisees were to answer that question, how would they respond?
    I’m following the law and accusing others of not following the law. My interpretation of the law justifies me and makes me holy.
    Do you see how this plays out?
    If you compare, you self-justify
    The Pharisees were using comparison as the standard for holiness
    It’s like the people who think they are above average drivers. Why do they think that? Because of comparison.
    Church becomes a place where comparison is so easy!
    You are around a bunch of people who are walking out a life of discipleship.
    They are following Jesus
    They are being changed by Jesus
    They are on mission with Jesus and being fishers of men
    As their lives are changed by Jesus, we see that and say, “They are more holy than me”
    Or, “Look at them, I’m not as sinful as they are.”
    Did you know that there is not one person in this room that is more holy than anyone else?
    Holy means set apart and pure.
    If you are pure, then there is nothing more pure than pure.
    Holiness is what Jesus gives us through His work at the cross.
    But when we buy into the idea that we are justified as holy by God through being better than other people, we self-justify.
    Here is the thing about self-justification. You can never repent.
    Just like the kids that I coached in basketball. If they don’t see the problem, then they’ll never make the change.
    If they feel like they are one of the best players on the team (comparison), why would they feel the need to improve?
    Comparison makes us feel good, but is truly the opposite of God’s justification through Jesus Christ.
    Matthew 15:3–6 NIV
    Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.
    Jesus points out another point of self-justification by these people.
    He points to a way that they side-step their responsibility to honor their father and mother.
    I believe it is in Luke that this side-step was called Cor-ban.
    I could go into a bunch of detail about this, but it doesn’t really have a parallel to our culture.
    They were commanded in the 10 Commandments to honor their father and mother.
    In that culture, parents would often live in the same home as their adult children.
    Children had the responsibility to provide and care for their aging parents.
    However, this would cost resources and sometimes those old-timers would be demanding.
    So what the people would do is take parts of their homes and resources and say, “We are devoting this to God.”
    That means that the only use for these things would be for God.
    Not for their parents.
    Of course the items mentioned would remain in the home for the child to use for themselves, but they would deprive their parents of its use.
    That is the best as I understand it.
    What they were doing was looking at the law of God, then making rules to circumvent the commands of God.
    They would break God’s law while claiming to honor God’s law.
    We see things like this in our culture.
    When Jesus says to give to Caesar what is Caesar, and to give to God, what is God’s.
    I have met with a number of people who lie about their income to pay less taxes. They make all sorts of Spiritual sounding excuses, but at the end of the day, we all know what is happening here.
    They are breaking God’s law while claiming to honor God’s law.
    There is a small rabbit trail that I want to address here:
    I want you to know that the Pharisees were doing this exact thing with numerous laws.
    Do you wonder why Jesus brings up this issue with parents?
    Who was he talking to? Children or adults? He was talking to adults.
    Did you see that the command to honor your father and mother doesn’t end when a person is 18 years old and legally able to vote?
    Do you also see that this command does not have qualifiers about, “Honor your father and mother, but only if they are honorable”
    I also want you to see that this command does not even have a qualifier for if you father and mother are alive.
    Did you know you could dishonor your parents after they are gone?
    I want you to think about this from an outside-in perspective vs. an inside out perspective.
    If you have trouble with this honoring your parents perspective and you are giving all of the reasons, the hurts, and the excuses of how you can be a devoted follower of Jesus and be justified in dishonoring your parents, you are self-justifying.
    The inside-out perspective is the recognition that Jesus has given us a new and clean heart.
    It isn’t about if your parents are honorable. It is about if you are honorable. The heart Jesus grows within you is an honorable heart.
    Do you know what kind of words come out of an honorable heart? Honorable words.
    If you compare, you self-justify
    If you make excuses, you self-justify
    Jesus revealed this about the heart of the Pharisees.
    Now the third point of this interaction about justification
    Matthew 15:7–9 NIV
    You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: “ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’”
    Jesus gives what will become a more common righteous condemnation to the Pharisees by calling them hypocrites.
    The greek word for hypocrite is...well… hypocrites
    The word means an actor or a pretender
    The understanding would be a play actor who wore a mask to play a part.
    Jesus is saying that the Pharisees are putting on a mask to look one way, but behind the mask is a different person altogether.
    The mask looks holy, but behind the mask is an unholy person.
    Jesus points to this heart being seen in the history of the Jewish people.
    Their lips are a mask, but their hearts reveal a distant person.
    Their worship is a mask. It’s not real. They teach human rules, not the heart of God.
    If you compare, you self-justify
    If you make excuses, you self-justify
    If you wear a mask, you self-justify
    I want to address this delicately. I understand that there are some in this room who are Pharisee-like people who live by the book and look righteous, but inside their hearts are rotten.
    God, through your Holy Spirit bring a deep conviction to this heart and break up the soil so they can pursue you!
    However, there are others in this room who wear a mask for a much different reason.
    Fear, hurt, brokenness.
    You put on the mask like everything is ok, because if you don’t people will judge, condemn, reject, or even revile you.
    You wear the mask not just because of fear, but because of history. It has happened to you before. In the church. In ways that you will never recover, never fully trust and never fully heal from.
    I’m not advocating for you to stand up here with a microphone and open up a monologue of all of your sin.
    But there is a massively important part of being the body of Christ in which we share the reality of our lives in vulnerability with others. This is a Biblical principle called confession. It isn’t meant to be between people to a priest like the Catholics do.
    It is meant to be brother to brother in the body of Christ, bearing one another’s burdens.
    The other side of the coin is that we must be people of such grace that when people confess their hearts, they can do so without condemnation, or without our solutions.
    Do you know what they need. They need mature believers to point them to Jesus. Point them to His word. To stand in the gap on their behalf in prayer.
    They don’t need your advice, your fixing, your solutions, your well-wishes.
    You aren’t God. Don’t pretend to be.
    Be the paramedic that says, I see your brokenness, let’s go to Jesus together.
    This is where the language of “Real Life” comes in. We aren’t living with religious masks. We are living real life.
    All of us were unholy. Now we are holy because of the justifying work of Jesus Christ at the cross. Not our good behavior.
    We have no standing to judge or condemn. Or we too would be judged and condemned.
    Matthew 15:10–14 NIV
    Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.” Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?” He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”
    Jesus calls the crowd and begins to speak the truth about justification to them.
    He says this is not a process that can happen from the outside-in
    It is a process that happens from the inside-out.
    The food you eat doesn’t make you unholy or holy
    But the words of your mouth show that you are holy or unholy.
    Your words reveal your heart.
    The disciples said, “Jesus, I think those big time Jerusalem Pharisees were offended by what you said. They went home angry.”
    He then says, “God didn’t plant that kind of plant.”
    They are not children of God.
    Think about this. These people were the most religious people in that culture.
    And Jesus isn’t simply saying they are misguided a little bit.
    He is fully saying, “They are not a part of the Kingdom of Heaven. They are not God’s plants.”
    There is a judgment day and on that day, Jesus will pull them up and every part of what they do and they will be punished.
    I want you to see this. He calls them blind guides.
    Should Jesus have said, “Hey guys, let’s go get coffee and see if we can get on the same page.”?
    No. Jesus saw that they did not see any wrong in their lives.
    If you compare, you self-justify
    If you make excuses, you self-justify
    If you wear a mask, you self-justify
    If you don’t see sin in your life, you self-justify
    This is the thing about justification that we need to see.
    It is our recognition of our sin that drives us to the cross. But all to often, we lose that recognition and replace it with rules and religion and stop seeing sin as an issue in our lives.
    Sin is sin. If we are a follower of Jesus, the sin is still an affront to the holy nature of God.
    Paul says in Romans:
    Romans 6:1–4 NIV
    What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
    Paul talks about that “inside-out” nature.
    We have died to our old ways of living. We are a new creation, a new life in Jesus.
    This new life follows Jesus.
    We were saved from a life of sin, we should never justify going back to it in our lives.
    In the next chapter (Romans 7), Paul goes on to say, “That which I hate to do, I do, that which I want to do, I don’t do.
    Who will save me from this nature of sin?
    Then he says, “Jesus has saved me. Jesus has justified me.”
    I’m going to give you the Jared Horton translation of what I understand Paul to be saying here.
    I know I am a new creation in Jesus, but I still struggle with sin. But I hate it. I want to do away with it. I was saved from this, I must seek after Jesus and allow Him to continue to change me into what He wants from me.
    Matthew 15:15–20 NIV
    Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.” “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”
    I don’t have a quippy point to add to my list for this verse. But we have used this verse back when we were navigating the Sermon on the Mount.
    Jesus had said, “You have heard it say, do not murder. But I tell you anyone who hates his brother has committed murder in his heart.
    This is the same point he was making in that sermon.
    Murder Slide from previous sermon

    Conclusion

    I want to conclude with a parable from Jesus.
    Luke 18:9–14 NIV
    To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
    Do you see the word Jesus uses here? That man went home justified.
    Because it was His heart. He didn’t justify himself.
    As we close, Jesus leaves us with a truth that cuts through every layer of religious behavior: someone is doing the justifying in your life. Either you are—through comparison, excuses, masks, or blindness—or Jesus is, through confession, surrender, and grace.
    So let me ask you gently but directly: Where are you still justifying yourself? Not in theory. Not in general. In the real places where your heart lives.
    For some of us, it’s in our marriage:
    “I wouldn’t have reacted that way if they hadn’t pushed my buttons.”
    “I’m not harsh, I’m just direct.”
    “I don’t need to apologize—they should know what they did.”
    For some, it’s in parenting:
    “I’m not angry, I’m just stressed.”
    “My kids need to toughen up.”
    “I wouldn’t yell if they listened the first time.”
    For others, it’s in sexual sin:
    “It’s not hurting anyone.”
    “At least it’s not as bad as what other people do.”
    “God understands my needs.”
    For some, it’s in unforgiveness:
    “I’m not bitter—I’m just protecting myself.”
    “They don’t deserve forgiveness.”
    “I’ve moved on,” while your heart still burns.
    For some, it’s in money:
    “I’m not greedy—I’m responsible.”
    “I’ll be generous when things settle down.”
    “I don’t need to tithe; I give in other ways.”
    For some, it’s in church life:
    “I don’t need community; I’m fine on my own.”
    “I don’t need to serve—other people have more time.”
    “I’m not gossiping—I’m just sharing concerns.”
    And for many, it’s in the hidden places:
    “It’s not a big deal.”
    “I can stop whenever I want.”
    “At least I’m better than I used to be.”
    These are the quiet, subtle ways we say to God, “I’m fine. I’m not the problem. I don’t need to change.” And when we justify ourselves, we close the door to the very grace that could heal us.
    But the tax collector in Jesus’ parable shows us the better way. He didn’t defend himself. He didn’t explain himself. He didn’t compare himself. He simply said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” And Jesus said that man went home justified.
    So here is your one application for this week:

    Bring one honest confession to Jesus.

    Name one place where you’ve been self‑justifying. One place where you’ve been defending instead of repenting. One place where you’ve been explaining instead of surrendering.
    And pray the simple prayer: “Lord, have mercy on me. Change me from the inside out.”
    That’s where justification begins. That’s where transformation begins. That’s where Jesus meets you—not when you prove yourself, but when you stop trying.

      • Matthew 15:1–20NIV2011

      • Matthew 15:1–2NIV2011

      • Matthew 15:3–6NIV2011

      • Matthew 15:7–9NIV2011

      • Matthew 15:10–14NIV2011

      • Romans 6:1–4NIV2011

      • Matthew 15:15–20NIV2011

      • Luke 18:9–14NIV2011

Real Life Selkirk
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