In our text we have what might seem to be a completely fruitless
interchange. A group of Temple officials comes to Jesus with a question.
Instead of getting an answer Jesus replies with His own question, 'You
answer my question before I'll answer your question.' They don't answer
Jesus question so Jesus doesn't give a reply to their question. End of
story. So why bother even including it, Mark? And yet, there really is
something going on and something for us to learn as we work through the
text. Jesus is not playing tit for tat. He is doing something much more
profound, something that He still does. This text gives us an opportunity to
understand the ways of Christ as He still deals with our lives. Lord
willing, we will all be encouraged by what we see. Now, on to our text.
We have here a delegation from the ruling authorities of the Church of the
day. And their coming is good and right, as is their question. It is proper
for the teachers of the Church to take pains to protect the people of God
when it comes to the teaching that they are receiving. How often do the
epistles deal with the problem of some false teaching attacking the people
of God? That these chief priests, and others, come to examine Jesus'
authority to teach is proper. And yet, all of this, which from one
perspective is good and proper, is actually evil because the motive of their
hearts is so wrong, as we shall see. It was because of the hardness of the
hearts of the leadership of the Church of the day that God chose to work
outside the institution of the Church, through John the Baptist and then
through Jesus and His apostles.
Though at first blush it may seem that Jesus was being evasive and ornery
with His reply, that’s not what was going on. For one thing, it was actually
quite common to debate by replying to a question with a question. We find an
example of that back in chapter ten.
And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, "Is it lawful for a
man to divorce his wife?" He answered them, "What did Moses command you?"
Mark 10:2-3
So, Jesus wasn't trying to be difficult here. Beyond that, there was a
method to His madness. Jesus was presenting these men with a test. And here
again we see the amazing wisdom of Jesus in action. Jesus poses a question
about John the Baptist and to make it real clear He makes it multiple
choice.
Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me. Mark 11:30
The question forces Jesus' interrogators to stop and to consider. But notice
how they ponder the question. 'Well, if we choose answer 'A' there will be
these problems, but if we choose answer 'B' there will be other problems.'
What's going on? These men are not looking for the truth of the matter.
Rather, they are weighing the political implications of their choice. They
are gauging their answer in terms of the fallout. They tried to put Jesus in
a similar situation when they asked Him about paying taxes to Caesar. 'Do we
pay, yes or no?' They thought they had Him. 'If He chooses 'yes' then we'll
discredit Him before the people. And if He chooses 'No' will have Him before
the governor as another revolutionary.' But Jesus didn't think in terms of
political fallout. He lived in terms of the truth.
Back in our text the delegation is trapped by its commitment to the pursuit
of political astuteness instead of the pursuit of God's truth, and so they
didn't give an answer. But right then, something very important happened.
Their hearts were exposed. And this is the point of Jesus’ question. This
was His goal. Jesus’ reply to them was not a matter of His being evasive.
The goal of His question was to reveal hearts. And it did. The wickedness of
the hearts of these men was revealed to all who were there, to the people
watching, to Jesus and His apostles and most importantly to the men who
posed the original question. And because of that Jesus refused to answer
them. He rejected them and their question even though they were the proper
ruling authority in the Church.
There are times when Jesus surprises us. He will seem evasive or even quite
abrupt. But even in these situations it isn't because He is being harsh or
nasty. Jesus was quite rough with Nicodemus. Read John 3 aloud with feeling
and you can hear the sharpness in Jesus' voice. And yet, Nicodemus was not
rejected. And neither did he reject Jesus. Jesus was rough with Him to press
home the point that Nicodemus needed to hear. And when we get to the end of
John's Gospel whom do we find? It was Nicodemus who, with Joseph of
Arimethea, buries Jesus body. When you get to the age to come you will see
Nicodemus there. He passed the test. His heart was open to Christ. But what
a difference with the men of our text. Their hearts have also been exposed.
Shouldn't they have noticed that their problem with Jesus’ question was the
evil within their own hearts? It was not a hard question. But their
commitments to power instead of to truth blinded them. But even in His
abruptness, Jesus is offering these men another chance. He does them a favor
by revealing their hearts. It gives even them one more opportunity to repent
of a hard heart that no longer values God's truth. It gives them one more
opportunity to come clean with God. But as far as we know, they do not. And
so, it isn't so much that Jesus rejects them. They have disqualified
themselves. What good would it have been for Jesus to answer their question,
to talk about His divinely authorized mission as the Messiah of God? These
men would never have listened. They already proved that. And so, Jesus
refuses to answer them. He leaves them in their self-imposed darkness. And
unless the Spirit of God interposed, that is exactly how they died and how
they exist even now, in self-imposed darkness. Now, you can see what is
going on in the text. Jesus revealed hearts.
Now, we have to find out how this relates to us. The first step is to see
that this activity of revealing hearts is not unique to our text. The text
that we have before us is simply another instance of a critical theme that
we find throughout the Scriptures. Christ is so very concerned about the
state of the heart. What goes on in there determines everything else. So, we
often see Him acting in ways that will reveal men’s hearts. Listen to other
Scriptures that relate to this.
And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you
these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you
to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or
not. Deuteronomy 8:2
And so in the matter of the envoys of the princes of Babylon, who had been
sent to [Hezekiah] to inquire about the sign that had been done in the land,
God left him to himself, in order to test him and to know all that was in
his heart. 2 Chronicles 32:31
The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold,
and the Lord tests hearts. Proverbs 17:3
The theme is evident. But merely seeing that this theme is in Scripture is
not nearly enough. I want you to see that Jesus still tests hearts. I want
you to see that He tests your heart. And I want you to see that that is a
good thing. He does not test your heart in the hope that you will fail. His
desire for you is to flourish just as His desire for those men in our text
was that they too might flourish. Let’s pursue this.
In the first part of the book of the Revelation Jesus speaks to the church
at Laodicea. Listen to part of what He said.
Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens
the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. Rev.
3:19-20
Jesus knocks. ‘Your life is closed to Me. Your heart is withheld from Me.
Open the door so that we might again enjoy close fellowship together.’ Jesus
speaks these words in the context of His call to repentance. Hearts in
Laodicea were revealed after they heard this message of Christ through John.
Some did repent – or at least I hope some did! This revealed that their
hearts were still tender to Christ. But any who refused to repent also had
their hearts revealed. Jesus still tests hearts.
Sometimes the tests of the heart can be quite dramatic. Remember David's sin
with Bathsheba. Nathan, the prophet, tells him that little story about the
ewe lamb that was killed. Nathan responds to David's anger by pointedly
telling him, ‘It’s you, David! You are the man!’ Now, we all just assume
that the next step will have to be that David repents. But it didn’t have to
be. He could have gotten rid of Nathan just like he got rid of Uriah. But
that’s not what happened. David's heart was revealed. He did repent.
Tests of the heart, however, do not need to be anything nearly so dramatic.
In fact, simply looking at how you encounter everyday living can reveal much
about your heart. We each have a certain tone to our lives. Call it an
aroma. If you were there with Jesus, walking with Him as He traveled the
countryside, teaching the people, dealing with the Twelve, confronting and
being confronted by the authorities, you would have sensed the tone, the
aroma of His life. It would have been so attractive, so compelling. It was
the scent of His heart. And if you were there with Jesus, how, in the course
of daily life, would this aroma evidence itself? You would have seen the
full range of responses to life. You would have seen Jesus rejoicing in the
wisdom of the Father in revealing the truths of the Gospel to the nobodies
[Matthew 11]. You would have seen Him enraged at the hardness of the hearts
of some, even when they were confronted with the crushing needs of helpless
people [Mark 3]. You would have seen Him weep over unrepentant sinners [Luke
19]. You would have seen Him wrestle with the demanding will of the Father
and yet resolve to submit, 'Not My will but Yours be done.' [Mark 14] And
then you would have seen Him even forgive His own murderers. [Luke 23] There
was a certain compelling aroma about Jesus, revealing the commitments of His
heart, attracting people to Him. That is why the Gospels tell us, 'The
people heard Him gladly.' [Mark 12.37]
Let me tell you about two women whom I know and the aroma of their lives.
The one is a saintly Christian lady. She's somewhere around 90 years old.
And when you have an opportunity to chat with her you can enjoy the pleasant
aroma of her life. She has heart problems and can easily run out of breath
just walking up the stairs. The doctors want to do some surgical something
or another. But she is quite clear. She is ready to go to be with her Lord.
Until then she will continue to do what she can to minister to others. I
think that she still helps to lead a Bible study at a local nursing home.
Then there is another older woman whom I know. I'm going to guess that she
is in her 70's or maybe 80's. And there is an aroma to her life as well.
Actually, it is more like an odor, the odor of death and you smell it when
you chat with her. There is no joy, no sense of hope, no enjoyment of life.
There is complaining and merely enduring this day, while dreading the next.
The hearts of these two women are being revealed by their daily encounters
with life. There is an aroma that lingers around each of them. I do not know
this but my guess is that the aroma surrounding the men who came to Jesus
was also something like the stench of death. There is an aroma that lingers
around you as well as you deal with normal, daily living. The different ways
that you respond to life produce that aroma and reveal your heart.
There are times when the Spirit wants you to notice that aroma. So, He pulls
you up short and says, 'Stop a minute. Look back over your shoulder.
Consider your life that you are leading. What’s the aroma that you are
leaving in your wake? What's going on in your heart? What are the
commitments that are rooted there?' This doesn't require something stunning
to happen. Sometimes it can happen with a simple question. 'John's baptism,
was it from heaven or from men?'
Of course, there are times when the Spirit will use more than just a
question. There are those times when the Spirit gives us a little bump.
After worship today, we are going to be joining together for our monthly
luncheon. And unless you’ve brought your own, you’re going to use one of
those disposable cups we have downstairs for whatever you’re going to have
to drink. I can imagine situation where one of us has gotten something to
drink and as he returns to his seat, his hand - yes the one carrying the
cup - is suddenly bumped by one of the others of us who is getting up from
his chair to get more dessert. Out comes … what? Will someone be burned by
hot coffee spilling out of the cup? Will someone instead have her new blouse
stained with grape juice? Or will it be some harmless water? Since the cups
are opaque we won’t be able to tell until whatever is in the cup spills out.
That’s a good picture of what happens when the Spirit gives you a little
bump. Something happens that jars life just a bit. Whatever is in your heart
will come spilling out. Now, remember, this is a good thing. It is an
opportunity to have your heart revealed. And it may well be that what comes
out won’t be scalding coffee or staining juice but something that leaves a
sweet aroma in its wake. Maybe you will find that you are become something
like that 90-year-old saint I mentioned. As she deals with a body that doesn
’t quite work right, she blesses others with a pleasant aroma. That would be
encouraging, wouldn’t it? The bumps of life that the Spirit sends are meant
to be an encouragement to you.
Some of you have the hardest time thinking in this way. You emphasize the
fact that you are a sinner to such an extent that you forget that you are
also a saint. When we looked at Psalm 18 in Sunday School some of you had a
hard time when we read,
The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness;
according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me.
For I have kept the ways of the Lord,
and have not wickedly departed from my God. Psalm 18:20-21
How could David write such a thing? Yet, he did and it’s Scripture. Having
the Spirit reveal your heart either with an apt question or even a bump can
be so encouraging, especially as you see the progress He has made in your
life. Your heart is being changed. The evil that once resided in your heart
is being changed into good. The events of daily life are revealing that to
you. Rejoice and praise the Lord for that.
Now, there will be those times when the Spirit bumps us so that we can see
some area of our hearts that needs to be dealt with. But even this is not
bad. The goal is still good. The motive of Christ is our benefit. So, even
in these cases we can rejoice. Jesus is still at work changing our hearts,
using little bumps that remind us of the need for repentance and faith.
Let me quickly interject here this thought. This theme has a special
application when it comes to the care and training of our children. From
time to time you parents need to be asking yourselves, ‘What is the aroma of
the lives of my children?’ If you are a wise parent as you sense the aroma
of their hearts you will be able to encourage the good attitudes of the
heart that are being displayed and to confront the evil ones.
In our text we see Jesus revealing something of His ways. He tests hearts.
He still tests hearts. As you proceed from day to day, sometimes getting
bumped, sometimes being confronted by simple questions bear in mind what is
happening. Put these things into the larger context. Jesus is testing your
heart. He wants you to see what is in there. And remember that His goal is
for your good.
