Josh Carpp, Lockheart Ministries
I think a lot of people would say what defines who you are is what you say and the actions that you take. For example, the person who stole some drink from a convenience store would be at least partially defined as a thief. However, this person may also be a very kind and compassionate person. So, because of his actions and how he treats people with his words we could reasonably say that this person can be defined, at this particular point in time, as a compassionate and kind thief. We come to this conclusion because of this person’s actions and words.
Jesus takes this line of reasoning a step further and deeper. In Matthew 15:10-20 Jesus says, “… Are you still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander…”
Jesus takes the idea of our words and actions defining us to a deeper level. He says that these thoughts and actions come from one place, our hearts! Jesus says that these attributes and actions that come out of a person come from the heart and can defile that person. These two points are key to grasping everything that Jesus is communicating here.
Our hearts are where all this sin and goodness will come from. Thus, it really is the root cause of many if not all of the problems with humanity and people today. It is with this understanding that we see, that if we can solve this issue with our hearts, then we can address the root cause of the sin in our lives because all of our sin comes from our dead or sick hearts.
I came to the above conclusion in my study of this passage from Matthew, but had so many questions that came from this conclusion: Can we solve this issue on our own? Can I change my own heart? Can you change your heart own heart? How can I change my heart if I am not sure exactly what the heart refers to?
All of these questions logically flow out of this small little section of Matthew ,and God’s word has the answers as it always does. Ezekiel 11:19 says, “…I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them heart of flesh…” God has a plan to change our hearts.
Furthermore in Ezekiel 37:1-14 God shows us through a vision to Ezekiel that our hearts are dead: “The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones, and he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold they were very dry…. Then he said to me, ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off….”
Can the dead bones help themselves? Can the heart of stone from Ezekiel 11:19 do anything to change its rocky and jagged appearance? No. We cannot change our hearts on our own we need help from God and his words. We need God to take our hearts that are dead and stony and give us a heart of flesh. “Jesus did not come into the world to make bad men good. He came into the world to make dead men live!” (Leonard Ravenhill).
Jesus, says that whatever comes out of the heart “defiles a person”. A synonym for defile is the word spoil. So, think about a fruit that has spoiled, and has become rotten. The fruit is now in a state of being spoiled, it is no longer good to eat. This spoiled state now defines the fruit. Before it was spoiled, the fruit would have tasted good and would have been nourishing for the body. However, now the fruit is spoiled, defiled and is now defined by, its inability to nourish, and even its ability to make us sick. Just as the fruit is defined by its state of being spoiled or good, so do our hearts define us.
To clarify, this does not mean that out of a defiled heart there can be no good that comes out of it. Defiled hearts can still take good actions but there will still be evil proceeding from your heart as well. Going back to the spoiled fruit analogy, we can explore this concept further.
Again, think of the fruit as the heart, only one part of the fruit has to be spoiled to make the whole fruit go bad. Many food factories have been completely shut down due to contamination of one batch of food and only some parts of these batches were very slightly contaminated (i.e. Blue Bell shut down). This is same with our hearts. Only one part of the heart that is defiled, only one selfish desire proceeding form our heart is all it takes to defile our hearts.
This means that one selfish action is all it takes to completely defile our hearts. Have you ever done something selfish and against what God has shown us to be good? Have you ever been jealous, looked at pornography, lied, cheated, stolen, hated another, broken government laws in disobedience, not honored your parents’ authority, etc.
Paul says in Romans 3:23, “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. In fact, thru this statement Paul shows us that all of our hearts are defiled, all of our hearts have some form of evil residing in them as a consequence of the fall of man in genesis at the beginning. Even some of the bible’s most highly regarded people were not immune to having a defiled heart: David lusted after a women and murdered a man, Moses foolishly disobeyed God and struck the rock instead of speaking to it and killed an Egyptian, Solomon who was given a great gift by the Lord threw it all away while immorally pursing women, Abraham thought that he would play God and tried to fulfill God’s promise himself, by committing adultery rather trusting in the Lord, Paul persecuted and killed many Christians, and Peter lied three times in denial of Christ. There is no one who has ever lived or will live, except for Jesus, who has not had a defiled heart.
Furthermore, Romans 3: 11-12 says, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;” No one of us is righteous at the heart level except for Christ, who, in his rich mercy, chose to come down to earth so that he might change our defiled hearts.