Discover the unexpected sides of Jesus, navigating the juxtaposition of His roles as a compassionate provider and a zealous reformer. Our latest episode juxtaposes the joyous miracle at Cana with the intensity of the temple cleansing, inviting listeners to a deeper understanding of the complexities of Christ's character. As we reflect on these powerful narratives from the Gospel of John, we see His unwavering commitment to both joy and righteousness, challenging us to explore the breadth of His influence on our lives.
Tune in for an insightful discussion where we unravel the historical dynamics of the temple during Jesus' time. The presence of merchants and money changers sparks a debate on their impact on the poor and Gentiles in their pursuit of the divine. With scholarly perspectives adding depth to our conversation, we discover the essence of Jesus' message about His Father's house. The episode draws a unique parallel to a lobster fisherman's care for his catch, illustrating the meticulous removal of distractions to maintain the sacredness of worship.
Finally, we grapple with the complexity of embracing Jesus' authority when He disrupts our lives, much like the upheaval in the temple courts. Trusting in His role as the ultimate temple and sacrifice isn't always easy, but it's rooted in transformative love and hope. Join us as we unpack this journey of faith, encouraging listeners to open their hearts to the Lord of grace and righteousness, allowing His profound influence to shape our paths.
Discover the unexpected sides of Jesus, navigating the juxtaposition of His roles as a compassionate provider and a zealous reformer. Our latest episode juxtaposes the joyous miracle at Cana with the intensity of the temple cleansing, inviting listeners to a deeper understanding of the complexities of Christ's character. As we reflect on these powerful narratives from the Gospel of John, we see His unwavering commitment to both joy and righteousness, challenging us to explore the breadth of His influence on our lives.
Tune in for an insightful discussion where we unravel the historical dynamics of the temple during Jesus' time. The presence of merchants and money changers sparks a debate on their impact on the poor and Gentiles in their pursuit of the divine. With scholarly perspectives adding depth to our conversation, we discover the essence of Jesus' message about His Father's house. The episode draws a unique parallel to a lobster fisherman's care for his catch, illustrating the meticulous removal of distractions to maintain the sacredness of worship.
Finally, we grapple with the complexity of embracing Jesus' authority when He disrupts our lives, much like the upheaval in the temple courts. Trusting in His role as the ultimate temple and sacrifice isn't always easy, but it's rooted in transformative love and hope. Join us as we unpack this journey of faith, encouraging listeners to open their hearts to the Lord of grace and righteousness, allowing His profound influence to shape our paths.
Good morning guys. How's everybody doing this morning? Good, we're coming in hot today, okay For the mic, not like anything else. This is the case. You were worried. I don't know. I'm Houston, one of the pastors here. It's good to see you guys.
Speaker 1:We are continuing in our series in John. We're calling Come and See, just a reminder. This series. We thought Jesus one of the most significant, one of the most influential people in history Hard to argue that, hard to argue against that. So we thought everyone's got ideas about who Jesus is, what he was about. But we thought let's turn to Jesus himself, let's see what he did and let's see what he said. And so we're going through John, a book that's made for this purpose, and learning about Jesus. And last week I love these two weeks next to each other Last week, ben talked to us about the previous section in John where Jesus is at a wedding and he turns water into wine, and it's a great, great passage, a lot of really fun things in that passage.
Speaker 1:And our passage today you heard, sam Rita is pretty different. It's pretty different. In fact, I think like one of the reasons why we picked these two passages for this series is because we think that this shows together such a picture of Jesus that you don't get anywhere else in the Bible. Okay, these two passages could not be more different. And yet John, unlike any other gospel writer, put some right next to each other. And Tim Keller, pastor that I love, pastor in New York for a long time, he preached two sermons on these and it's what really inspired me. I wanted to talk about this and he points out that if you compared these two passages again, you could not get more different.
Speaker 1:In last week's passage, jesus is approached and he's asked for something and he gives exactly that. And in this case, someone asks for something from God and he gives exactly that. It's this nice, neat answered prayer. But in this case, Jesus comes in and he does something that nobody asked for. And in the last week, jesus is at a party. People are celebrating and there's this problem of the party ending too quickly and Jesus steps in and he says I will help and he prolongs it. And it's this wonderful picture that Jesus is the Lord of the Feast, lord of the Wine, like he wants to bring about the flourishing and the good. But this week there's like something going on that he stops early, he cuts it out, and again, nobody's asking to do this, but he comes in and he says no, no more of this thing. That's not what this time is. Last week Jesus was Lord of the Wine, this week Jesus is Lord of the Whips. It's a wild, wild contrast between these two passages.
Speaker 1:What I think we see is we see a picture of Jesus that you're not going to get in many other places. Is he a picture of the Jesus who is wonderful and so good and he comes in and he answers prayers and he helps and he prolongs the enjoyment, he watches out for a family's honor, and also the Jesus who comes in, turns over tables, drives people out and sends animals on their way. And so what we're going to see today is that what we need so desperately as Christians non-Christians what we need is to have both pictures of Jesus. We need them together because together they come up with a beautiful, really good picture of our Lord. And here's a spoiler it's like a really good, complex picture of our God, who is much bigger than all of us. He's not this neat little character that you can fit into one of these two camps. He's bigger than all of these things. He's going to come in and blow the doors off for us today. So that's what we're going to do Jesus, come in and blow the doors off for us and we're going to see that he is the zealot of the temple, the Lord of the Second only isglity, our zealot of the Lord. We come before you recognizing that you are a big, big God, and we are very small people and I just pray that, as we open your word and consider what you've got for us today, that you would just give us open ears and eyes and hearts for your word. God, I just pray that you would speak today. Anything that's not from you, you just leave the side and then we could all walk out of here challenged, encouraged and with a deeper love for you. Lord, we pray all this in Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1:Okay, so first let's look at verses 13 and 14 and let's consider why Jesus cleansed the temple. So it says the Passover of the Jews was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and the temple. He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting there. Okay, so we see Jesus is in Jerusalem because of the Passover Passover, really important holiday, probably the most important holiday for the Jewish people, and so people would come from all over the Mediterranean, all over the world, to come to the temple to celebrate, and that's why Jesus is there. It sort of says he and his family came down to celebrate.
Speaker 1:And we find is that people are selling oxen, sheep and doves changing money, and that sounds weird, but but here's what we should think about. One of the things that you do in Passover a lot of important parts one of the things you do in Passover is you offer sacrifices to God and those sacrifices would be like ox, sheep, doves, and so think about if you are coming from, say, egypt and you're going to Jerusalem, coming back home or coming to the temple, if you need to come, bring a sacrifice, it's much easier to bring money and buy one of the temple than it is to haul an ox 500 miles. Right, this makes sense to us and it says there are money changers there. Again, this makes sense because the Jewish people, they were expected to pay a temple tax, like like your part, chipping in your part for this thing, and so when they come from all over, you have all kinds of currencies, all kinds of denominations and they have exchangers. People are going to exchange the money for something, for the right denomination, the right currency to use, and so what we should see from all of this, first of all, is it this makes a lot of sense. It makes sense that this would happen, and, and really it's a convenience for people in a lot of ways. And so what is interesting, then, is why Jesus comes in and has a really strong reaction and clears them all out. So let's see, why does he do that? Look at verses 15 through 17. There you go, you got it right. No, this is weird. This is strange. It's not really clear why Jesus did this right. So men much smarter than me have taken upon themselves to figure out exactly what's going on here.
Speaker 1:Many scholars have many different perspectives on what's going on, and they read these first century reports about stories of people in the temple and they get these ideas, and some have suggested okay, the merchants and the money changers, they charge outrageous prices, right, and so they're coming in. They're kind of gouging the poor by making them buy these sacrifices, and apparently there are stories of you know, someone comes in and they've got their own lamb it's a fine lamb and they're told that one will not do, there's no good. But here I've got a lamb, I'll trade you. I'll trade you lambs, and you know what you give me, you know five bucks just to cover my end of the bargain and we're good. And it's like, if you don't know any better, okay, that's not bad. You know, I had a bad lamb, now I've got a good lamb. But then that guy he takes the one you just gave him and the next person he does the same thing. I got a lamb, oh, yours is no good, I'll trade you a five bucks. So he's just making money. It's just a scam, right?
Speaker 1:So some people have said that, and maybe that's true, maybe that's what's going on. Or some have said that you know, the place where the merchants set up was the outer court, and for a Gentile, for a non-Jews person, this is like the only place that they can really enter into, the temple, and so the merchants and the money changers are kind of pushing out the Gentiles and making less space for them to come to God. And again, that's a good thought, it's a good idea. That might be true, it's probably true, but I don't think that we need that to understand what's happening in this passage. I think we're overcomplicating something simple, because you see what Jesus says in verse 16. He says very simply do not make my father's house a house of trade. And we read that and we put moral weight on it and we have to figure out what exactly Jesus is condemning. Right, and I think what we tend to see just as an aside, that people who read this they tend to. They tend to take the thing that they're very concerned about and make it what Jesus is concerned about here. And so if you're concerned about greed or the rich taking advantage of the poor, that first one's going to really appeal to you, right? Or if you're really concerned about racism, then that second one's going to really appeal to you. And again, I don't know. Those are probably true, but I think it's really interesting that John didn't explain. Do you know what I'm saying? John didn't say why it was so bad that they were there. The only thing he tells us is that Jesus had a problem because they were making his father's house a house of trade. And it shows us what Jesus was concerned about is that the temple was being used for something it was not meant to be used for. Do you see what I'm saying? He's upset that the temple is being turned into a market, not because markets are bad, but because the temple is not a market. The temple has a very important purpose and it's important for Jesus that the purpose of the temple remain untouched. Okay, even good things like making money or convenience or trade or whatever you want to say, those things shouldn't get in the way of what the temple was made to do, and the temple was made to be a meeting place of God and men. And so, again, when Jesus throws over the tables, he drives out the animals, he is restoring it to its function. He's removing the thing that is inhibiting the temple's function. It's like this On my YouTube feed, on my YouTube short feed, I get videos of this guy who is a Boston lobster fisherman I don't know why, but I do, and I watch them because they're fascinating and the video always starts with him and he's pulled a lobster out of his catch and it's a female and it's a breeding lobster.
Speaker 1:He sees the eggs on there and he always says you can't keep the breeders because they're trying to keep the population going, and so he always takes the tail and it should have a notch, because the notch is like the cue, in case they don't have eggs, the cue for another fisherman to throw it back. So he notches the tail, gives them a fish and he throws them back in and it's like I don't know why, but it's fascinating, so good. But sometimes when he goes to give the lobster a fish, the lobster can't grab it because its claw is caked with barnacles. Okay, now here's what I've learned in the past 24 hours in researching barnacles. I have a phobia of barnacles. That is not on irrational, but they gross me out. So you know, the barnacles can get on this lobster's claw and lock it up so it can't close. And then if the lobster can't use its claws, it's going to starve. Inevitably it will starve and die and they'll turn into a husk on the ocean floor and house for barnacles. And so what he'll do is he'll take his pliers and he'll break off these barnacles and the lobster can move his claw again, give him the fish thrown back in.
Speaker 1:And if you watch this and you just think about these videos, you tend to think, okay, barnacles must be these terrible, awful, evil things and if you're like me, they gross you out. But that's fine. But they're not necessarily. It's like whales. Whales have barnacles. Whales can have thousands of barnacles at a time and it doesn't bother them. In fact, they found out that if a barnacle does bother a whale, he can crush it, get rid of it immediately. So that means that he doesn't care about the thousand ones on him.
Speaker 1:And so, like, what I'm saying is, if we come to this perspective that barnacles must be inherently evil, must be inherently bad, we're wrong because they're not. The problem is when they inhibit the function of something like a claw and they get in the way. You see what I'm getting at here. It's like the same way everyone's tired of barnacles too. The same way, like that's what Jesus is doing. When he comes into the temple, he sees something happening here. That is fine, it's good, but this is not the place for it and it is inhibiting the good thing that is supposed to happen here.
Speaker 1:The temple is for people to come and meet God, okay. For people to make sacrifices, to thank God for the things that he's done, to ask for forgiveness. In other words, the temple is a sacred place, and do you remember what sacred or what holy means? It means set apart for a purpose, and that purpose is not business. And so the business? How do you be cleared out.
Speaker 1:So, okay, we've seen why Jesus cleared the temple. Why should we care? Why should a room full of people, 21st century Madison, wisconsin? Why should we care about that? Now, here's why we should care, because it shows us what Jesus is about, one of the things that Jesus is about. And Jesus is zealous about clearing things out of the way of people coming to God, in vice versa.
Speaker 1:Okay, we don't have the temple today, but the scripture says that we, as the church, are the temple, and it means that we well, it means a lot of things, but it means that we can come to God anytime because of what Jesus has done right, and so we don't have to travel across the world to some physical place to meet God. Even God's with us. Holy spirit is in us, so that means we can come into the presence of God like anytime, anywhere. That's wonderful, but something to think about is that if Jesus is so adamant about clearing the temple, if he was so adamant about clearing this physical space 2000 years ago, knowing it was going to be destroyed in a handful of years, how much more seriously is he going to take cleaning the temple when it's us and it's going to last forever. You see what I'm saying here. Like he cares so much about the focus and the purpose of the meeting place of God that he was willing to do this big scene, maybe even twice some number of times. How much more so does he care about us as the meeting place of God and taking his whip and driving out the things that shouldn't be there.
Speaker 1:So this is the part where, like, we get uncomfortable. Right, this is the awkward part, and let's stop for a second, because a lot of us we start to feel feelings around this. We don't maybe like that picture of Jesus and we have a hard time reconciling Jesus from last week, this Jesus of the party, lord of the wine, with Jesus this week, the zealot of the temple and Lord of the whips. But here's the deal like we all just tend to gravitate towards one or the other and you can tell a lot about a person by which they gravitate towards. People are going to naturally love either the Lord of the wine or the Lord of the whips, and that seems for some of you that's like wild to think about. But it's true Some people have a lot easier time dealing with one of these pictures than the other. But that's not the Jesus we have. The Jesus we have is both of those things.
Speaker 1:Right, and we have to see that Jesus is both of these things. Because he is both of these things, something, a dumb sentence. Here's what I mean. Like, if we like the idea of Jesus being Lord of the wine, let's think about this. Let's think about if Jesus has said that he wants us to have life to the fullest. Right, and some of us we say, yeah, I like that, I like that Jesus. But think about it. If Jesus wants you to have life to the fullest, but there are things in your life that are destroying you, destroying the people around you, like, does he really care about you if he's not driving those out? Right, and let's think about the opposite. You know, if you're okay with the Lord of the Whips, you're okay with Jesus showing up in glory and thunder and driving people out.
Speaker 1:Think about it. What does Jesus expect to be left over in the temple? Do you think that he was just like? I want this cleared out. Nothing there, silence, perfect. No, jesus wants people to fill the space. He wants people in there singing, praying, praising God, saying about the great things that he's done. You see what I'm saying. He wants to clear it out for purpose. It's great to see like we need both of these. We need Jesus to be both the master of the feasts and the zealot of the temple. We need him to be both Lord of the Whips and Lord of the Wine. We need him to be a big, complex God, bigger than us, and I love this line you've heard I'm sure you've heard this before from the Chronicles of Narnia.
Speaker 1:You know the kids that first come in and they're learning about the world. Mr Beaver is telling them about Aslan and they find out Aslan's a lion and Susan says oh, I thought he was a man. Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion. Mr Beaver says so good. Mr Beaver says safe. Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't safe, but he's good and friends, that's what our Lord Jesus is. That's who he is. He's not safe, he's dangerous. He's going to come in, he'll turn tables, he'll drive things out.
Speaker 1:You read the book of Revelation. He goes to town, right. He's going to come into our lives and he's going to disrupt the things that are in our lives. He's going to disrupt our lives and that's good. And that's good, because he's not the kind of God who just comes in and adjusts himself to our space, right, he's the kind of God who comes in, settles down and the space is blown out. We need to adjust to him. We need to see that this is the good way, this is the way it has to be. It has to be. We have to let him do that in our lives, and that means all kinds of things.
Speaker 1:But I just want to pull out a few thoughts, a few random examples that are definitely not from my personal life right now. Okay, I think the first thing we need to consider is what are the clearly messed up things in our lives that Jesus is trying to drive out? And I think this is probably not something you have to think too hard about. Okay, and I say that not because it's not important. It's deadly important, it's so important.
Speaker 1:I think you probably don't have to think too hard about it, because I think most of us know, we know these things in our lives that are big and bad and in the way of God, and I think about, like, when Jesus came in and cleared the temple, no one asked him hey, what are you doing? Or why are you doing this? It's like obvious to them, like they know. They just ask him who are you to do this? And so I, you know, we should think about this. What are the messed up things in your life, the things that you're doing that you shouldn't? Are you looking at things you shouldn't? Are you saying things that you shouldn't? Are you doing things that you shouldn't? You know, whatever it is, are you not doing things that you should?
Speaker 1:You see what I'm getting at? Like we have to seriously evaluate these things, because if we take this picture of Jesus seriously and he comes in, he clears out the temple, he clears these things out of our lives, and so if you know what that is, ask him to get to work on that, and if you don't know what it is, ask him Because he knows, he's aware. And the same thing we should see and I think this is really key for a lot of us is that there are also things in our life that are good but are crowding up the space. So again, we think about the marketplace where people are selling animals to be sacrificed. This is assuming this is not some scam. This is a good service that they're providing, this is good for people, but it's in the wrong place and that makes it bad. Do you see what I'm saying?
Speaker 1:Like so many things in our life, this is how it is right. So many good things in our life that are good, but then we let them be in a place that they shouldn't be. They take up too much time, they block us from God in some way, and then it's bad. And so, again, I don't know what that is for you. I think for me, as Kinsey will tell you, I uninstalled YouTube off of my phone this week. I clue that I don't think it's bad. I just talked about it earlier. Maybe one day I'll install it again, I don't know. But I just found for me personally, like it's really easy for these times when I should and want to be coming into the presence of God, to like pull up my phone, open the app and watch a video, or 100 videos, right. So again, it's not a bad thing.
Speaker 1:Like this is what we do as people. We take these good things and we put them in the wrong places and then they become Ben. So if you have thoughts, if you have questions about that, if you think you have an idea of what it is, but you want to talk something about it, reach out to me. Ben Tim, whoever Like, let's talk about it. Let's process these things together. Sometimes we're not going to see it for ourselves. We need the other to help us see it.
Speaker 1:So we've seen why Jesus cleans the temple. We've seen that he wants to do the same for us, and why should? We should let him. But I want to end with this last thought of why we should trust Jesus with this task, and for the Christian, this might seem like an obvious answer. Well, he's God. He said to do it, so do it, and that's true. That's true. But Jesus tells us something in this passage that I think changes it for us, because, if we're honest, even though we know that, it doesn't change the fact that we don't let him right. And so what does Jesus say about this?
Speaker 1:When the people they come in and they ask Jesus, who are you to do this? Do you see what he says? Let's read verses 18 to 22. The Jews said to him what sign do you show us for doing these things? And Jesus answered them destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. And so the Jews said it has taken 46 years to build this temple and you will raise it up in three days. But he was speaking about the temple of his body and when, therefore, he was raised from the dead, the disciples remembered that he had said this and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. So there are two parts here we should see.
Speaker 1:Again, the Jewish people ask what sign do you show us? And Jesus says the weirdest thing. He says destroy this temple and I will raise it in three days. As always weird, let's unpack it. Jesus says are they, I'm sorry, the first one? They say what sign do you show us? And so what they're asking about is authority. Right, again, I said earlier, they're not asking Jesus, why are you doing this? They're not asking why is this wrong? Whatever they know, they're saying who are you to do this? And they ask for a sign. And so what they're saying is like first century, who has the authority to do something like this? Only someone sent from God, only a prophet or someone sent on a special mission.
Speaker 1:So the idea is, if this guy, jesus, really is someone who can come in and do this, then he's got to have proof, he's got to have credentials, you might say and his credentials are a miracle. So they say Jesus, what are your credentials? What are you going to do to prove it to us? You going to heal a blind man? Walk on water, turn water into wine? And it says destroy this temple and I'll raise it in three days. That's not a very good miracle, jesus, because buildings anyone can build a building, right, it's weird. It's weird. It makes great sense.
Speaker 1:But we know, because John impacts the forest, that what Jesus is saying doesn't do much good for us right now, jesus. But let's impact what that means, because when we think about it, we say, okay, sure, we're all well and good, we've heard the gospel, we know Jesus died, we know he rose from the dead. He proved it to them. But there's something else really significant going on here, something that I think is really important for us to catch. What we have to see is that what Jesus is saying is not that his body is a temple, his body is the temple. Okay, here's what I mean.
Speaker 1:We've all heard those people who are like super into fitness and exercise and they say the things like my body is a temple, you know, and just like shut up, dude, that's not what Jesus is doing here? Okay, he's not just saying destroy my body and I'll raise it in three days. He is making the direct connection that he himself, his body, is the temple. Okay, and so what that means is that Jesus in bodies is all the things that the temple is supposed to be, so that Jesus is the place where we meet God. Jesus is the place where we spend time with God and, very significantly, jesus is the ultimate temple sacrifice to God. He was the fullest, clearest example of all those things, and so we've said this before but if you want to meet God, you meet Jesus. If you want to know what God's about, you see what Jesus is about. You want to spend time with God, spend time with Jesus, and so do you need to offer a sacrifice to God? Jesus is God. That's covered there. Jesus is our perfect and ultimate sacrifice. So you know, he's the ultimate temple because he's the clearest example of what the temple is supposed to be.
Speaker 1:The biblical authors they say that the temple is like a shadow, pointing to the thing. Jesus is the thing. So we see that makes him authorized and qualified to dictate what goes on in the temple. It's his place as the Lord. You know he's the ultimate authority. So, christian, if we want Jesus to come into our lives, if we want to meet him, if we want to be with God and meet with God, we have to see that he has ultimate authority over that meeting place. He rightfully decides what should and shouldn't be there, right? But again, like we know that we know I would bet all of us here would say definitively yep, god has a right to decide what's in my life or not. But how many of us actually believe that or live it out? Not me, that's hard. But here's the deal.
Speaker 1:I think when we consider that last piece, the part where Jesus is the ultimate temple sacrifice, I think it changes something for us. I think it changes how we think about what he's doing, because it sucks to have someone like telling you what to do right. We all know this. Kids, adults we all know that it sucks to have someone else in control of our lives. It sucks to have someone come in and clear things out, whether you wanted them to or not. Kids, we hate it when our parents come in our rooms and clean and move things right. We all hate that, you know. It sucks to have your life thrown upside down and everything shaken loose. But when we consider who's doing it, I think it changes things for us, because the person coming in and tossing the tables is not a God who sits far off just condemning and scoffing. He's the God who came near, he's the God who entered in, he approached us first and you guys, we can't forget the price that he paid in order to do this right.
Speaker 1:We've heard the gospel, we know the story that Jesus came. They lived the perfect life, they died in our place, rose from the grave. But let's think about that. Let's think about it because we had to see that Jesus coming into our lives, turning things over. Knocking these tables is his hard-earned right because of what he did.
Speaker 1:Okay, and we know we can trust him to do it. We know that he's trustworthy to do this in our lives. It's going to hurt, it's going to be scary, it's going to suck at times, but we know it's clear that there is nothing that he won't do for us. Right? Paul says this in Romans 8. He says if God did not spare his own son, is he going to hold anything back from us? No, absolutely not.
Speaker 1:So we've seen Jesus cleanse the temple. We've seen why he cleans the temple. We've seen that he wants to do the same thing in our lives and we've seen that we should trust him. And it's because he's the ultimate temple, the ultimate presence of God, the ultimate sacrifice. It means we can trust him to do good for us.
Speaker 1:And so, as a last thought, I just I hope that none of us walk away from here with a heavy burden of guilt and shame. It's right to feel some. It's right to feel some guilt and shame, but here's the deal. I hope that we see that what this is is good news. Okay, it's good news that we have a God who cleanses the temple, because it means that we don't have a God who stays far away, but one who comes near. And we don't have a God who sits back and condemns from a distance, but a God who gets into the muck and mire of our lives to pull things apart. And again, most importantly, we have a God who is willing to do these things at great personal expense, and so I think I believe that means that he is trustworthy, and that's why I think we should entrust ourselves to Jesus, who is Lord of the Wine and also Lord of the Whips. We'll spray.