The Problem of Being - The Essential Human Problem [Sermon]

Annapolis, Maryland, USA

July 2019

1. Difference from others

Dietary laws– unclean for hours.

Mark 7:15, 19

15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”

19 For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

Galatians 5:16-17

16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.

2. Fellowship with God

Gestationary laws – unclean for months.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 – pray continually

3. The Problem of Being

Integumentary laws - unclean for years.

Leviticus 13:45-46 “Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ 46 As long as they have the disease, they remain unclean. They must live alone; they must live outside the camp.

Genesis 37:34 Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days.

Ezekiel 24:17 Groan quietly; do not mourn for the dead. Keep your turban fastened and your sandals on your feet; do not cover your mustache and beard or eat the customary food of mourners.”

Micah 3:7 The seers will be ashamed and the diviners disgraced. They will all cover their faces because there is no answer from God.”

Man's power to think lifts him above the beasts of the field. … Yet at the same time it is strangely clouded to spiritual realities; for despite his genius in so many realms, man betrays a most remarkable denseness when it comes to the things of God. …. His mind, incisive in so many ways, is warped and twisted when it comes to eternal and spiritual issues. The damage wrought by sin runs deep into the very roots of the thinking processes of man. His imaginations are often filthy; his memories often betray him; his deductions are often false; and his conclusions are often wrong. - John Phillips, Exploring Romans

Matthew 8:1-4

When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him.

2 A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

3 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy.

Hebrews 13:11-12 The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. 12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash