Evaluating Jesus

034 Evaluating Jesus – part 1

Mark 7:1-23 (1-13)

April 19, 2026

You know we are in a segment

Where everyone is trying to figure out exactly who Jesus is.

At the moment the verdict is all over the place.

Mark 6:14-16 “And King Herod heard of it, for His name had become well known; and people were saying, “John the Baptist has risen from the dead, and that is why these miraculous powers are at work in Him.” But others were saying, “He is Elijah.” And others were saying, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” But when Herod heard of it, he kept saying, “John, whom I beheaded, has risen!”

One thing that is not in doubt

Is the power and ability of Jesus.

As we SAW THIS MORNING, that is obvious.

This guy has power.

·        He heals the sick.

·        He cleanses lepers.

·        He casts out demons.

·        He calms storms.

·        He raises the dead.

He has yet to be confronted with a problem He couldn’t’ solve,

Expect perhaps the unbelief of His own hometown.

AND YET PEOPLE STILL CAN’T SEEM TO TELL WHO HE IS.

It seems that the crowd is just content to use His power without knowing.

But THE FOCUS OF MARK is on figuring out who He is.

·        Herod thinks He’s John the Baptist.

·        The crowds think He’s some other resurrected prophet, perhaps even Elijah.

·        The disciples were beginning to feel like equals.

Identifying Jesus is something that the people have failed to do.

TONIGHT,

The religious authorities are called in to give their expert analysis.

Now, this is not the first time in Mark’s gospel

That religious authorities have been consulted.

We heard scribes and Pharisees chime in back in chapter 2 when Jesus ate with the tax collectors and sinners.

Mark 2:16-17 “When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that He was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to His disciples, “Why is He eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?” And hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

The Pharisees confronted Him again when Jesus’ disciples were picking heads of grain and eating on the Sabbath.

Mark 2:24-28 “The Pharisees were saying to Him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” And He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry; how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who were with him?” Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. “So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

And that time Jesus pushed them over the edge.

Mark 3:5-6 “After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against Him, as to how they might destroy Him.”

These were the local Pharisees from Capernaum

And they had had their fill of Jesus.

They had no answer for Him.

And because Jesus has been humiliating them at every turn

They began to reach out to the higher authority spiritual leaders from Jerusalem.

And we already saw this happen once as well.

Mark 3:22 “The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.”

So we’ve seen a good amount of animosity and confrontation

Already occur in Mark’s gospel between Jesus and the religious elite.

BUT THEY ARE NOT FINISHED.

In out text tonight they call in the big guns again.

Again, we get scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem

Who have come with the intent on evaluating Jesus

And revealing who He is to the people.

Their goal will NOT be to evaluate His power or ability. That is undeniable.

Their goal will be to evaluate His PIETY.

They want to see how devout, religious, holy, and pure He is.

To that end, let me just go ahead and settle the issue for you.

Jesus was the most pious man who ever lived.

Hebrews 5:7 “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.”

We pray “in Jesus’ name” or through Him to be heard.

But He was heard simply because He was worthy.

He was a holy man, the holiest man, the only holy man.

So to answer the question of His piety, He was holy.

But that is NOT what they are here to evaluate.

They are here to evaluate Him

Based upon their definition of piety.

They want to examine His adherence to their traditions.

And incidentally, I would remind you that Jesus hated that.

He hated the results of their tradition and binding ordinances on people.

Jesus saw the whole system as unfairly burdensome.

Matthew 23:4 “They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger.”

He saw the effect of it on the people for sure.

Matthew 9:36 “Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.”

He continually offered escape from this awful legalistic brand of religion.

Matthew 11:28-29 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Jesus was holy, but He would not play the game of traditions and rules.

If the Pharisees were going to be able to nail Him,

This would be where it would have to be done.

SO THAT’S THE GOAL.

·        They are here to examine Him.

·        They are here to expose Him.

·        They are here to execute Him.

They’re going to end up regretting that they came at all.

But here we have in Mark’s gospel another incident

In which people fail to see who Jesus really is.

And, as we see tonight, it is a problem that goes all the way to the top.

Even the religious leaders of the day can’t discern who He is.

5 points

#1 THE EVALUATION

Mark 6:1-4

Mark begins by saying:

“The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around Him when they had come from Jerusalem…”

We’ve got official members of the Sanhedrin,

Making the 90-mile journey up from Jerusalem all the way to Capernaum

To come and examine Jesus.

When they get here,

They just stay close around Him and watch His every move.

·        They’re going to listen to His speech.

·        They’re going to evaluate His prayers.

·        They’re going to see how He behaves.

·        They are looking for a crack in His armor.

And when they finally find something, they pounce on it.

(2) “and had seen that some of His disciples were eating their bread with impure hands, that is, unwashed.”

This is what they noticed.

Not all of them, but some were eating without first washing their hands.

Mark goes on to give you a further understanding of the issue.

(3-4) “(For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders; and when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots.)”

What you learn there is that this is A BIG DEAL to them.

Your momma taught you to wash your hands before you eat

Just out of basic sanitation.

But it was more than that to the Jews.

It was to protect them from defilement.

A devout Jew

·        Would wash his hands before he ate

·        In between every course of the meal.

·        If he traveled out in public, he would totally cleanse himself.

·        If he had a pot he would cleanse it really well too.

In part it was a recognition of the vileness of the world around him,

But it was also a form of spiritual protection for them.

John MacArthur wrote this:

“The Pharisees and scribes took their traditions very seriously, including hand-washing. Some rabbis suggested that a demon named Shibtah sat on people’s hands while they were sleeping. If the demon was not removed by ceremonial washing before eating, he would be transferred to the mouth and could enter the body. Other rabbis turned hand-washing into a salvation issue. As the Jerusalem Talmud asserts, “Whoever is firmly implanted in the land of Israel, who speaks the holy language, who eats his food in purity [as required by hand-washing rituals], and recites the Shema morning and evening, is assured of life in the world to come” (Shabbat 1:3)”

(MacArthur, John [The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Mark 1-8; Moody Publishers, Chicago, IL, 2015] pg. 343)

It was a big deal.

Now, the Law never commanded such a thing.

·        There were plenty of commands for the priest regarding ceremonial washings,

·        There were commands about washing to become clean,

·        But nothing about washing hands before eating.

This was purely a religious addition to the stipulations of God.

This was something man had added and tradition had adopted.

And now it was a tradition that

Held equal authority to the word of God

In the mind of the Pharisees.

Perhaps it would be like if someone today took the old saying,

“Cleanliness is next to godliness”

And then evaluated your salvation by that.

They asked: “When was the last time you bathed?”

You said, “Last night”

They said, “He who does not bathe in the morning is not fit for the kingdom of God.”

Then excommunicated you as a dirty heathen who is not close to God.

Well, that’s sort of the absurdity that is going on here.

But that’s exactly how they’re going to try to condemn Jesus.

The Evaluation

#2 THE CHALLENGE

Mark 7:5

Here comes the formal confrontation.

(5) “The Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?”

You can rest assured that this was NOT a courtesy question.

This was public.

This was meant to expose and humiliate.

This was meant to point out that

There is no way He could be a man of God

If He permits such Godless behavior from His followers.

I can’t help but wonder if the disciple over in the corner licking his fingers immediately looked up at Jesus to see if he was in trouble or not.

This was a public confrontation and an awkward scene.

They have come from Jerusalem

To close the case on this rogue miracle worker.

And now, everyone is watching and listening.

How will Jesus explain this one?

#3 THE RESPONSE

Mark 7:6-13

I hope you caught that.

JESUS OFFERED NO DEFENSE.

He didn’t have to, what they were doing was not a violation of the Law.

But some might suppose that

Jesus should have been a little more polite here.

After all, it’s not a sin to wash your hands.

·        Wouldn’t this fall under that category of Romans 14 where Paul talks about

              those who honor one day above another and some abstain from certain foods?

·        Wouldn’t this be like Paul saying, “I’ll never eat meat again if it offends my

              brother”?

·        Why didn’t Jesus just tell His disciples to go wash their hands and avoid the

              confrontation?

Because this issue had nothing to do with clean hands. 

IT HAD EVERYTHING TO DO WITH SALVATION.

There are some issues that are NOT politeness issues.

There are some issues that are NOT courtesy issues.

Some issues are issues that speak directly

To the accuracy of the gospel and salvation

And there can be no compromise struck.

Just quickly, think about the book of Galatians for a moment.

Galatians 2:11-14 “But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, “If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

Again, some might think Paul was a little “over the top” there.

No, this was a gospel issue.

Peter, through his actions,

·        Made it look as though there was value in Jewish tradition and ordinances.

·        Made it look as though having Jesus still didn’t make you an equal with those who also had the Law.

And Paul took great offense.

Peter had to be corrected and the gospel had to be preserved.

That is what we are up against here

With Jesus and this issue of hand-washing.

There are massive issues in play here.

Issues like:

·        The source of Christian authority.

·        The origin of sin.

·        The means of defilement.

·        And ultimately how sin is removed.

It may look like the Pharisees are just nitpicking, but that is not so.

They are corrupting the gospel to make men believe

That they can be right with God

So long as they keep their hands clean when they eat.

That is a lie and Jesus won’t have it.

They started the battle, He is about to finish it.

And in His response, Jesus will actually give two new titles to these Scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem.

1) YOU ARE HYPOCRITES IN WORSHIP (6-7)

(6-7) “And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me. ‘But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’”

No sooner do they finish their challenge to Jesus

Than does Jesus look at them and say, “Isaiah got it right about you!”

You are “hypocrites”.

·        It is the word for a stage actor in Jesus’ day.

·        They are phonies and frauds.

Isaiah pegged them like this:

“This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me.”

Today we might say, “They talk the talk, but they don’t walk the walk”.

They act like the love God, but they don’t.

I want us to think about that statement a little bit more tonight.

To honor God with our lips, but for our heart to be far away.

Obviously we are dealing with

An External Reality vs An Internal Reality.

What comes out of the mouth is an external expression.

What goes on in the heart is the internal reality.

GOD IS CONCERNED WITH BOTH.

We do NOT say that God has no concern about what you say.

·        The Psalms (for example) are filled with admonitions to sing to God,

·        To give thanks to God,

·        To bring Him the fruit of your lips.

Clearly words matter.

Clearly what we say matters.

We certainly do NOT say that God has no concern about the heart.

1 Samuel 16:7 “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Jeremiah 17:10 “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Clearly what is in the heart matters.

We even know that

There is a definite connection between the words and the heart.

Jesus said:

Matthew 15:18 “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.”

When Paul spoke of salvation he said:

Romans 10:10 “for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

So there is a definite correlation between the heart and the mouth.

The mouth is intended to be a revealer of the heart.

But that is what makes this statement such a paradox.

For Jesus looks at the Pharisees and says that

In their case their words do not match their heart.

This is mysterious.

Matthew 12:34 “You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.”

We have here men who are seemingly defying a natural law.

They are speaking, but it does not match their heart.

But Jesus gives us the explanation of such behavior.

That is HYPOCRISY.

A person whose speech does not match their heart is a hypocrite.

·        They are an actor.

·        They are pretending.

·        They are putting on a show.

They are purposely forcing their lips

To give a false indication of their heart.

That was what Isaiah was forced to confess about himself when he stood in God’s presence in the temple.

Isaiah 6:5 “Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

Isaiah said that he was a man of lying lips!

·        His charade worked well

·        Until he stepped into the presence of someone who could see his heart.

·        Then he was in grave danger.

BU

T THAT’S HOW HYPOCRITES SURVIVE.

They live in a world and among people who cannot see their heart.

We come to church,

·        We hang around each other.

·        We hear each other’s words,

·        But we don’t see each other’s heart.

Now, we assume

We know each other’s heart because we hear each other’s words.

·        We assume that there is love for God here.

·        We assume that there is gratitude to God here.

·        We assume that there is genuine worship of God going on here.

·        After all, I hear the person next to me singing, “Praise the Lord!”

But God, who knows the heart, sees both.

And on this day these men walked into the presence of God.

It is nothing short of an affirmation of Jesus’ deity

That He could so easily see the hearts of these men.

They labeled Him as a man with unclean hands,

He exposed them as men with unclean hearts.

“This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me.”

SO WHAT IS THAT?

IS IT LIKE BEING DISTRACTED?

You know, where you’re singing songs, or praying, or reading the bible,

But your mind is somewhere else.

That is certainly an expression of it, though we would hardly label a person a hypocrite just because they were momentarily distracted.

What Jesus refers to here is much more serious.

What Jesus refers to here is an INTENTIONAL PHONINESS.

He is NOT referring to a person

Who accidentally let their mind wander while praying.

He is referring to a person who has no love for God,

But who insists on faking it to impress others.

AND WHAT IS MORE, it is a person who is actively engaged in distorting true religion into something else that makes him look even better.

Do you see what Jesus says in the next verse?

(7) “‘But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’”

Notice here that they are not just phony participants, they are teachers.

“Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.”

These are people who malign and distort and twist the truth of God

In order to create a reality where they look better.

This is why they came up with so many additional requirements.

·        It was things that made them look good.

·        It was things that drew honor to them.

It had nothing to do with pleasing God,

And everything to do with obtaining glory.

BUT GOD SEES RIGHT THROUGH IT.

Jesus said, “But in vain do they worship Me”.

God is clear that He delights in people who worship in spirit and in truth.

He wants your mind and your heart.

These people actually gave neither.

And we could go all back through the Old Testament if we wanted and listen to all of those prophets talk about their useless sacrifices and their useless songs and how God hates their prayers and hates their assemblies.

HYPOCRISY DOESN’T FOOL GOD

They were hypocrites in worship.

But not only are they hypocrites in worship

2) YOU ARE EXPERTS IN HERESY (8-13)

Let’s start here

By just recognizing the point Jesus makes over and over and over.

Let me point out some words to you.

We’ll start in verse 7 with the word “Teaching”

·        And we notice that they teach “the precepts of men”

Then we go to verse 8 and we see the word “Neglecting”

·        And recognize that they neglect “the commandment of God”

“Neglecting” is the word (a-FEE-a-me)

It is a word actually used for divorce

As in to send a spouse away or to abandon a spouse.

It is also translated as “forgiveness” as when God removes our sins from us.

Jesus said that is what these men do to God’s commandments.

They abandon them, they send them away.

Then we see the word “hold”

·        And notice that they “hold to the tradition of men”

In verse 9 we see the words “setting aside”

·        And notice that they do that to “the commandment of God”

“setting aside” is the word (a-the-TAY-o)

It means “to do away with; or disregard”

Sometimes it is translated as “refuse”

Like back in the story of Herod

When he would not “refuse” the girls request because of his oath.

And then we see the word “keep”

·        Which references their “tradition”

DO YOU SEE THE MAIN POINT?

Regarding God’s commandments.

You neglect and set aside.

Regarding the traditions of men.

You teach, hold to, and keep them.

These hypocrites claim to love God,

But they hate His word and supplant it with their own.

They do away with God’s words but hold fast to man’s traditions.

In fact, Jesus says they are “experts” at it.

·        They are really good at what they do.

·        They are slick.

·        They are great debaters.

And this is what Jesus has in mind when He calls them hypocrites.

They parade around as these experts on the word of God

·        But in reality they don’t love God’s word at all.

·        What they love are their distortions and traditions which they have placed in

                 front of God’s word.

And unfortunately we’ve probably all seen that sort of thing happen

In church at some time or another.

When men are more concerned about some tradition

Than they are what God actually says.

That is the hypocrisy which Jesus confronts here.

And then He gives AN EXAMPLE of it.

(10) “For Moses said…”

First Jesus told them that Isaiah was right about them.

Then He tells them that Moses condemned them.

(10-12) “For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, is to be put to death’; but you say, ‘If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given to God),’ you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother;”

You are familiar with those commands I would imagine.

The first is actually one of the Ten Commandments.

But it is clearly spelled out in God’s Law

That we are called to give honor to our parents.

God put a high value on parents in the eyes of their children.

·        They were to honor them.

·        They were to speak well of them.

·        And Jesus points out that this honor included financial help if it was necessary.

But this was an instance in which the Pharisees had set aside God’s command and instead instituted their own tradition instead.

“but you say, ‘If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given to God),’ you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother;”

“Corban” was a Hebrew word that meant “devoted to God”.

In one sense it was a Hebrew loop hole.

Several of you have been to Africa and have observed that

Africans and Americans think very differently about money.

In the African culture it is very socialistic, it is tribal.

·        If you have something that I need and you aren’t using it, then I am well within

                 my right to take it.

·        It is very difficult to save anything in Africa because your surplus is claimed very

                 quickly by friends and family.

So what an African will do is maintain a constant building project. 

·        When he gets extra funds he’ll immediately tie it up in some sort of building

                 project

·        Because that’s the only way he gets to keep it.

That is a mindset in a tribal culture.

Well the Hebrew culture wasn’t all that different.

If you had something extra that you wanted to keep

You didn’t necessarily have to tie it up in a building project,

But you could declare it as “Corban”.

You could designate that money as devoted to God’s use.

Now, it remained under your control,

But it was a loophole that allowed you to hang on to your money.

And this was a system endorsed and devised by the religious leaders,

No doubt so they could hang on to their money.

Jesus exposed the ugliness of it.

·        You have here people whose parents are in need.

·        They need food or drink or shelter,

·        But you actually teach men that they should not give money they have devoted to God to help their parents.

WHAT A FARCE!

It would be like

·        A man walking through a grain field on the Sabbath and you telling him he can’t pick the heads of grain.

·        A man with a withered hand sitting in the synagogue and you telling him he can’t be healed on the Sabbath.

This is nonsense!

But it was an example of their hypocrisy.

They actually disobeyed God’s Law to help their parents

And claimed the reason was their intense devotion to God.

Oddly enough, we have seen such things even in the church today.

Take titheing for example.

·        Titheing is not a New Testament command.

·        It was really more like an Old Testament income tax.

·        The New Testament simply commands sacrificial and generous giving.

·        The New Testament commands cheerful giving.

·        There are times when you ought to give more than 10%, there may be times

               when you can’t.

There may be times when the money you would normally have given to the church needs to be given to feed your poor mother.

What would Jesus say in such an instance?

FEED YOUR MOTHER!

And some church board says, “No, you’ve got to tithe!”

Kind of missing the point don’t you think!

Well that is what’s happening here.

They do not let these people obey God,

Instead they force them to obey tradition.

And Jesus says:

(13) “thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.”

These men came up to expose Jesus for having unclean hands

And He exposed them for having unclean hearts.

Now there’s much more to this story to gain the point,

BUT PERHAPS TONIGHT

We can just point out another reason why people fail to recognize Jesus.

1.    Herod couldn’t see Him because of fear.

2.    The disciples couldn’t see Him because of pride.

3.    The Pharisees couldn’t see Him because of hypocrisy.

They didn’t know what trUE holiness was.

It only stands to reason that Jesus was a mystery to them.

The encouragement is obvious – BE REAL.