“The Way I Like It” – MARK 7:1-13

God has given people, the jewel of His creation, beautiful minds that are beyond the ability of science to explain. With our minds we can reason through information presented and form opinions and make decisions. Some information comes directly from God in the form of commandments and guidance, while other information is far less consequential.

Still we make choices of life and death and choices of personal preference.

I like blue, but I do not know why. Stranger still, I do not buy blue cars or pull for college teams with the wrong color of blue on their uniforms (I’ll give you all a second to figure that one out). These quirks of mine have no bearing on my eternal destiny. The spiritual and religious choices I make absolutely do.

One of our great challenges is to be able to distinguish between the two.

Amid all of the men and women who flocked to Jesus for healing, some came with different motives (7:1). The Pharisees (cue the Darth Vader music) were always up to no good when it came to Jesus. They were in a struggle to maintain things just the way they liked it. Jesus was trying to ransom people from sin and change the destiny of souls. Jesus is healing and the Pharisees almost do not seem to even notice. But just let some of His disciples fail to follow the tradition of the Pharisees (7:5) and neglect “proper” hand-washing before meals and they pounce. As Jesus told Satan, man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. The Pharisees just wanted to be able to add a few words that they liked.

Drawing from passages in the books of “Imaginations” and “2^nd Opinions” the Pharisees condemned the disciples (7:3).

Jesus confronted them with Scripture (7:6) while they only had man-made traditions to offer. This is not merely about personal preference, these matters hinder worship. Not because they wanted to ceremonially wash their hands, but because they elevated their personal preferences to the status of Scripture and condemned men by those traditions (7:7). Further, they distorted Scripture to suit themselves (7:9-13).

I, for one, am just glad that people have grown beyond the “yeast of the Pharisees” and no longer “set aside” the word of God for their own traditions.

OK, sarcasm works sometimes and sometimes it does not.

We have the same problem as the Pharisees because we have the same human tendencies. In our wonderful minds is found a barely noticeable “filter” that keeps us from clearly seeing when we, ourselves, are guilty of elevating our wants above God’s word. This sort of legalism is found on the “right”, on the “left” and in the “middle”. When Jesus pointed out what they were doing, I am willing to believe at least some of the Pharisees had never realized this.

Make no mistake, Jesus condemns this way of elevating our preferences.

Make no mistake, this way renders our worship vain.

When we get back into the Word and see where we are erring, we had better be willing to take corrective action. Sadly, most of the Pharisees were not. In fact, their reaction was to increase their attacks on Jesus. Willful continuation of exalting our wants and desires above God’s word is sin.

Make no mistake … it’s impact is far more lasting than shades of blue.