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Smyrna Church of Christ
Is It Nothing to You? Sin Defiles
Matthew 15:1-20 · Preached by James Rogers · August 9, 2026
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At a Glance
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Scripture
Matthew 15:1-20
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Speaker
James Rogers
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Theme
Sin doesn't just tempt us. It defiles the heart, the mind, and the conscience.
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It's Not What Goes In, It's What Comes Out |
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The scribes and Pharisees confronted Jesus because His disciples ate without the ceremonial handwashing of "the tradition of the elders." Their religion was outward, not inward. |
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Jesus quoted Isaiah on them: "This people draw near to Me with their mouth and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me." |
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"Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man." What comes out of the mouth comes out of the heart. |
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Murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: Jesus named them all as things that proceed out of the heart, not off unwashed hands. |
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Ask Yourself
Is there a place in your life where you're keeping the outward rules but your heart isn't really in it? What is one honest thing you could bring before God this week instead of just the correct thing?
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Isaiah described the nation's condition as "wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not been closed or bound up or soothed with ointment." |
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God's answer in Isaiah 1:16-17 is a set of active verbs: "Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Put away the evil of your doings. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good." |
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David's prayer in Psalm 51:7, likely written after his sin with Bathsheba: "Purge me, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." |
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James 1:27 ties pure religion to two things: caring for orphans and widows in their trouble, and keeping oneself "unspotted from the world." |
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1 John 1:7: walking in the light means the blood of Jesus Christ "keeps on cleansing me from all unrighteousness." |
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Ask Yourself
Is there a sore in your life you have stopped tending to, something you have gotten used to carrying untreated? What would it look like to actually ask God this week to wash that one thing clean?
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Romans 1:28: because people "did not like to retain God in knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting." |
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"When our thinking is wrong, our actions will always be wrong. We'll never rise above the way we think." |
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1 Corinthians 11:30 warns that many in the Corinthian church, people who came and ate the Lord's Supper, were "weak and sick" and some had died spiritually. |
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Titus 1:15: to the defiled and unbelieving, "nothing is pure... even their mind and conscience are defiled." |
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Ask Yourself
What have you been letting your mind dwell on lately that isn't shaping you toward God? What's one thought pattern you could hand over to Him this week instead of feeding it?
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Sin Sears the Conscience |
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1 Timothy 4:1-2 warns that in latter times some will depart from the faith, "having their own conscience seared with a hot iron," like a brand on a cow. |
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The illustration: the first time you miss what you know you ought to be doing, it hurts. Say "be quiet" to that feeling enough times, and eventually you don't feel it at all. |
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"Have you done something so long that it no longer bothers you? But when you started it, you knew it was wrong and it bothered you." |
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Hebrews 3:12-13: "exhort one another daily... lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." |
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Ask Yourself
Is there something your conscience used to bother you about that doesn't anymore? What would it take to let that feeling come back, and to actually listen to it this time?
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Key Quotes
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James Rogers, on Matthew 15
“Jesus said sin defiles because it defiles the heart.”
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James Rogers, on sin and the mind
“When our thinking is wrong, our actions will always be wrong. We'll never rise above the way we think.”
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James Rogers, on obedience
“It's easy to make excuses for not doing what we know we ought to do.”
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James Rogers, on the conscience
“Have you done something so long that it no longer bothers you?”
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Smyrna Church of Christ · Matthew 15:1-20 · August 9, 2026
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