"Worship that deserves a whip"

This has been automatically generated, and therefore may contain some unintended inaccuracies.

John two starting at verse 13. When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts, he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.

To those who sold doves, he said, Get these out of here! Stop running my father's house turning my father's house into a market! His disciples remembered that it is written, Zeal for your house will consume me. The Jews then responded to him, What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this? Jesus answered them, destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.

They replied, it has taken forty six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days. But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name.

But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind for he knew what was in each person. Let me pray for us. Heavenly father, we pray, please, that you would teach us now as we look at Jesus driving people from the temple. Father, please, would you help us, that this passage would examine us and teach us and that it would lead us to Jesus.

Work in us now, we pray, by your spirit. Amen. A little girl said to her mom one day, mom, when I grow up, I'm gonna have my own zoo. Oh, that sounds lovely, her mom said. What animals will you have?

So I'll have all my favorites. We'll have hamsters, and we'll have rabbits and giraffes and zebras and lions and bears. We'll have them all. Sounds great, said the mom. Do you know what else?

Said the girl. I'm not gonna put any of them in cages. They'll all be in one field, and they'll all be friends, and they'll all get on really well. Her mom paused. I'm not sure that's gonna work very well, is it?

After all, lions... Well, the lions might eat the rabbits and the hamsters, and the bears might attack some of the other animals. They don't naturally get along. Well, the little girl said, well, that's alright. We'll just tell them not to.

But, sweetheart, mums... Her mom said, you can't just tell a lion not to eat meat. That's what lions do. It's their nature. Not in my zoo, said the little girl.

In my zoo, all the animals will be friends. No one will eat anyone else. Everyone will get along. Well, that's lovely and that's sweet and we know that that can only happen in someone's imagination. A real zoo, you can't have all the animals thrown together like that.

The only way it works would be if you changed a lion to be something other than a lion. There's a very common view of religions which is a bit similar and it's a view that I've heard several times on the estate as we've gone round and done door to door. I didn't hear anyone say it last night at the Halloween outreach, but you can imagine they might have done. And maybe there are some people who are more prone to this way of thinking than others, maybe more so if you're from Hindu background and there was a Hindu lady I spoke to recently who said when it comes to religions, when it comes to all the gods of the different religions, we believe in them all, all of them, and I said to her, does that include Jesus? And she said, oh yes, Jesus as well, he's in there too, But actually, there are quite few, even people who would call themselves Muslims or even some who would call themselves Christians, who seem to have a similar kind of way of thinking.

They may not have quite expressed it in exactly that way, but a kind of... It doesn't really matter what you believe. All the gods, all the religions, they all just get lumped together. They can all be in the same field together, and they'll all be happy together, and you can believe in them all and accept them all. Doesn't really matter.

But you can only do that if you change... Well, it... Particularly, if you change who Jesus is. You've got to make him someone who is placid, who's who's... Who never confronts anyone, never says that people have got things wrong.

When the reality is actually in the bible, the bible confronts and the Bible is prepared to say, that is wrong, that is right, and actually, when it comes to other religions, we know from elsewhere in the Bible that it does say that there is only one God. You just got to go to the 10 commandments. First commandment is that you shall have no other gods before me, before thee God. Second commandment, that you won't make any images and bow down to them. The bible is very clear, there is one religion, one right way and Jesus wasn't comfortable either.

And what we find in the passage that we've just read is that not only would Jesus have been uncomfortable for people of other religions, Jesus was very uncomfortable for people who said that they worshiped the God of the Bible because the people he is driving out from the temple were not people who worshiped other gods. They are people who claim to worship the God of the Bible, and he was driving them out and saying that they'd got it wrong. You see, for Jesus just to be thrown in with all the other religions, you'd have to change him when actually he's very uncomfortable and in our passage, he even carries a whip. So, we're going to ask first question, first point that we're going to have from the passage is worship that deserves a whip. Worship that deserves a whip.

Here in the passage, we have Jesus, as I say, chasing people from the temple area, people and animals, and people have struggled with this passage because it is Jesus violently getting people out of the temple. Now, people rightly point out there is no account here of Jesus actually hitting anyone. That's true, he doesn't, and he doesn't hit any animals, but nevertheless, don't take away from it the force that there is here. Jesus is so unhappy with these people, he's driving them out. Why?

Now, we ought just to mention before we explain why, the timing of this event. You see, this happens very early in John's gospel, but if you know the other gospels, you know that the other, accounts of Jesus' life put this event much later on. In fact, they put it after Jesus has risen into Jerusalem, the other accounts put it in the last year of his life, last year, last week of his life before the cross, but John here puts it early on, and it's worth just saying because some of you might have been thinking, how does that fit? Well, you've got two options that scholars say, and you could go with either. I don't think it I don't think it actually matters which one you go with.

You've got two options. One is Jesus did this once, and in the other accounts, it's put later on, which may well have been when when it happened, and John has chosen to put it earlier, And you might then want to ask, okay, why has he? Why has he included it earlier? He seems maybe to have put it together with other events. So you could...

The answer could be there was only one event, and John has just put it earlier. Fine. You can guess what the other option is, that there are two events, that Jesus did this same thing twice, once early on, once late on. And it doesn't really matter which way you go on that, I don't think. You can choose.

But the important thing is that we see that he did it and that he drove people out. Now, like we say, we need to answer why. Why is he doing this? Well, it says, verse 14, he enters the temple courts and he finds in there people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and you've got people at the money changing tables. Why are they there?

Well, the temple was the center of worship. It was the center of everything for Jews, and they had to go up to Jerusalem several times a year, and when they went, they would bring sacrifices, sometimes for their sins, they would bring sacrifices, animals that would be killed for them, to take what they deserved, to take their sins. But, of course, if you're travelling a long way, if you're travelling from abroad, you don't necessarily want to bring a sheep with you on the journey. You can't just put it in the back of the car and take it with you because you don't have a car. So, what they would do is they would bring money and they would come to Jerusalem and they would buy animals in Jerusalem and there was quite a big trade of selling animals in Jerusalem, but of course, if you've come from further afield, you might be bringing the wrong kind of money, the wrong currency, so you might need to change your money first, which is why you've got the tables for money changing and this trade and this money changing is quite a big business in Jerusalem and beforehand, used to happen outside the temple, it would happen somewhere else, but at this stage, they found, well, maybe it was easier, more convenient if they're actually in the temple courts.

These are the temple courts outside the main building, the temple courts where you could go in to begin with, and they brought these tables, these stalls for changing money and buying animals into the temple courts, and Jesus entering the temple courts is infuriated by this. What does he say? He says to them, verse 16, to those who sold doves, he said, get these out of here. Stop turning my father's house into a marketplace. What's disturbing him, notice, is not that maybe there are underhand practices going on.

That's what some people have said, that maybe these traders and the exchanging of money, maybe there were underhand practices, maybe it was a bad exchange rate, maybe there were other dodgy practices going on, saying, oh, no. You can't bring your own animal. You have to buy one of ours. You know? Or your animal wouldn't be wouldn't be good enough.

Ours are the better one. One, all that kind of thing. But yet Jesus doesn't pick up on that, does he? He's not saying the problem is the way you're doing this. The problem is you're turning, he says, my father's house into a market, into Kingston Market.

I've not been in since the fire happened there, but I think it's sort of back up and running pretty quickly. Do you know what it's like in Kingston Market where you've got those stalls and there's busyness and bustle and noise. There's a lot of noise there, isn't there? You've got the guy who's... I don't know whether he's still there, who shouts the price of his vegetables out for everyone to hear so that you can...

I mean, you can't understand what he's saying, but you could go and get your vegetables from here, and and you've got all that noise, all that bustle. And what this is saying is that's what this had become. These courtyards had become that kind of place, noisy, with all the animals as well there as well, you know, going on. It's that kind of place. And in the other gospels, Jesus says this should be a house of prayer.

This should be a place where people can come and pray to God, but how could you pray if you've got the guy shouting out the price of his animals and people changing money and all that all that going on? You just can't do it. And so Jesus takes a whip and he drives people out. This is not honoring to God, he's saying. This is my father's house.

Get out, he says. Now we need to examine our own hearts in the light of this as well. As those who claim to worship God, is it possible that our worship could be worship that deserves a whip? That Jesus, if he were to come to you or me, might drive us out. Worship that deserves a whip is, we see, worship that has lost the personal relationship with God.

It's lost that personal relationship. I think that's what this is saying, isn't it? That these people in the temple, it wasn't anymore about God, it was all about their trade and the trade had come in and therefore you couldn't go in and just pray to God, and that I think is key for us too. You see, whether we see whether our Christianity is genuine or not does actually hang a lot on, is it about personal relationship with God? And a place to look for that in Your and My Life is, what's our prayer life like?

What's your prayer life like? Have you got a prayer life? Do you have time when you, on your own, pray to God as your heavenly father? When you pour out your heart to him, when you tell him the things that are worrying you, the things that concern you, your joys as well that you give thanks to him, do you have time when you pray to God on your own or has it all been pushed out by other things? Other things can, can't they?

We're so busy. We we live in a culture which prides... We pride ourselves on being busy. If you can say at the end of the day, oh, I haven't sat down. I haven't...

You know, I just... I've been busy all day. That somehow feels more virtuous, doesn't it? So the idea that you might take time just to yourself to pray feels like that's a luxury, feels like it's a bit of a waste of time really. Other things creep in.

Maybe work creeps in, just takes over. We can let it. Sometimes we say, oh, it's the pressures from outside. It's what I'm being forced to do work wise, but sometimes actually it's our choice. Actually, we choose to do it, and we let that come in and take over, and so we don't have time to pray.

And, of course, family and children, and if you've got newborn babies, they they do... They are demanding. I mean, as you well know, but does that mean there's no time for just talking to God, talking to your heavenly father, opening up your heart to him? There's a quote which I found challenging. It's a quote from a guy called Robert Murray McShane.

There he is. Well, there's the quote. I've adapted it slightly, but he says, what someone is on their knees before God, that they are and nothing more. And I find that quote helpful and very challenging. What a person is on their knees before God that they are and nothing more.

Now if you let that challenge you and examine you, I wonder whether there are some here who would say, well, if if that's right, then I'm nothing because actually I don't have times when I'm on my knees. You don't have to be on your knees, but I'm not praying to God. Let that examine you. Can I encourage you? Have time with God and if that means saying...

It's not about length. It's not like saying... It's not a competition of length of saying it's got to be, you know, two hours every day or two hours in a week or... That's not the point. Jesus warned us about, you know, it becoming mechanical, it becoming hypocritical, that it's just about the externals.

No. No. It's about you having time with God and maybe that's five minutes. The important thing is you have that time, and if you're able to plan, plan that time into your diary. Often, don't pray because we don't plan to pray, but sometimes for moms or dads, if you've got little babies, it's gotta be snatched.

Every now and then, maybe you help each other. I can't remember who it was who would say... It was a long time ago, a mom who would, she'd put her apron... It was a long time ago. She put her apron over her head to have a little bit of quiet time with God to pray and if the kids saw, you know, dad thought that the apron was, it's praying time, it's just a few minutes, maybe that was the only way that she could get time on her own with the Lord was just to put the apron over her head, what do you do, maybe you need to buy an apron, Maybe you don't, but just to grab moments where you can pray to God.

It is so important that this is about personal relationship with God and if we don't have that, maybe we've filled it with other things, maybe we've even filled our time just with church things, church ministry. We've got to be careful as leaders as well. Are we filling all our time with activities, things we've got to organize, things we've got to get to and actually, we're not giving the time that we should to pray. Worship that deserves a whip. Second point, you'll be pleased to know there are only two.

Second point, come to the real temple. Come to the real temple. Now at this point, the Jews, presumably the Jewish temple authorities, challenged Jesus. Verse 18, the Jews then responded to him, what sign can you show to us to prove your authority to do all this? It's an interesting response, they don't just kick him out, they say, what's your authority?

And maybe we want to ask that too, okay, Jesus, who are you? Who are you to challenge me? Who are you to challenge, what I do and to say that what I'm doing is right or wrong? Who are you? And Jesus gives a cryptic answer.

We're kind of getting used to Jesus giving cryptic answers. He did it last week. There are points where you go, what are you talking about? And again here, this is cryptic, isn't it? Verse 19, He says, destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days and so they respond, verse 20, it has taken forty six years to build this temple, and you're gonna raise it in three days?

But the temple he was spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said, then they believed the scriptures and the words that Jesus had spoken. Okay, so Jesus is saying something incredibly profound here. He is saying that his body is the temple. Now we need to pause on that and just think what does he mean by that?

You might have heard some people, maybe you've heard people say, maybe you've heard celebrities say, you know, my body is my temple. I don't think Jesus meant it in the way they do. They probably mean, well, don't know what they mean, actually. When people say that, they they possibly mean, oh, my my my body is sacred, and therefore, I don't smoke, I don't drink, and I do exercise. I think is that, you know, that's...

I don't think Jesus was saying that. In fact, no one in his day would have said this because when Jesus says this, he's got in mind the temple. So when Jesus is saying that his body is the temple, what does he mean by that? He is saying, his body, he fulfills everything about the temple, everything about it. Now I heard someone, or read someone give this description, I thought it was very helpful, so I'm going to pass it on to you and the more I've thought about it, the more I think, yeah, think there's something in there, I think this is really helpful, So I pass it on to you to think about as well.

Jesus says that he is the temple. He fulfills everything about the temple. Now if you were to think about the temple, imagine you were to go for a journey to Jerusalem, and you've got to go back through time as well and go to the temple, what would you find as you went into the temple? What was the features of the temple? Let me just pick out some of them for you.

You'd go through those courtyards and you'd get to the main building, and outside the main building, you would find there was an enormous basin of water for the priests to wash, an enormous basin of water and there was also, outside the main building, an altar where animals would be sacrificed and if you were able to go into the building, you would find in the building on one side there's a table with bread on it and on the other side, there's a candlestick shining out light. And then in front of you, there is a curtain and behind that is what's called the holy of holies, which represents God's presence amongst his people and in there, there is the ark of the covenant, a box on which there are two angels and it was said that God would meet his people there between the angels. That's kind of some of the features of the temple. Jesus says, I fulfilled the temple. I am the temple here, and as you go through John's gospel, Jesus then takes bits from the temple and says, that's me.

I fulfill that. So, for instance, chapter four, he meets someone and he says to them, you should ask me for living water. Living water, like outside the temple, you've got that big basin of water. He said, yeah. Come to me, and I can give you living water.

Oh, it's not just water. This is living water, which will totally satisfy you, and if you drink it, will will well up to eternal life. Do see? He's not just saying, oh, yeah. I'm a bit like the temple.

He's saying, I fulfill it. I do what it points to. I can give you living water. He also then says, later on in John chapter six, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, like the bread in the temple there, but he's saying, yeah, like that, but much better, the bread of life.

He also says, chapter eight, I am the light of the world, candlestick in the temple, which just shone light in the temple, just in that room, but Jesus is saying, I shine light throughout the whole world. I am the light of the world. Do you see, Jesus is saying, all these bits of the temple, I fulfill them all. What about the sacrifices at the altar? Does Jesus fulfill that?

Yeah, of course. We might have gone there immediately and thought, well, yeah, the cross. That's right. John the Baptist has already said Jesus is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Far better than those animals sacrificed on the altar at the temple.

Jesus is the sacrifice. What about the holy of holies? And where do you get that? Well, interesting. Someone pointed out that when Jesus rose from the dead, the tomb...

People went to the tomb and saw that there was no body there. Mary Magdalene looks in the tomb and sees two angels there where Jesus' body had lay, one at the head, one at the foot. And this person points out, what you've got there is something that looks very like the holy of holies. Jesus' body had lain there. Jesus, the light of the world, Jesus, the one who was God and was with God, was there, his dead body in that tomb, but when Mary Magdalene looks in, there's nobody there.

And she turns and she meets the risen Lord Jesus. What's that saying? If that is sort of sanctuary like, holy of holies like, the the the tomb, what's that saying? It's saying, well, you don't need to go to the tomb to meet with God because Jesus' body isn't there anymore. How do you meet with God?

How can you go into the presence of God? You come to the risen Lord Jesus, and that's what Jesus points to in our passage. Did you notice? They say, what sign can you give that you do these things? Jesus said, destroy this temple, I'll be the sacrifice, destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days.

He points to the resurrection. He says that's the sign. That's what will show you that I have authority to say all these things about the temple, to drive people out because I am the temple. I'm the real temple. I am the way that you can meet with God when I've risen from the dead, and that means you and I, we don't need to go to the temple in Jerusalem anymore.

Why would we need to go there? We don't need to go to the temple in Jerusalem because the temple has come, Jesus has come, and therefore, the way that we can meet with God is through the risen Lord Jesus, and any can come to him. Oh, this shows that Christianity is exclusive and inclusive. Do you see that? It's exclusive because Jesus is the temple.

He is the only way to God. It's true. Other religions do not bring you to God because Jesus and Jesus alone is the fulfillment of the temple, the light of the world, the sacrifice, the resurrection. He alone is the one who can bring us to God because He is God. It's exclusive, but he's also inclusive, any can come to him.

At the end of the passage, you get this thing that John described where he says, yeah, people believed in Jesus at this point, but Jesus didn't trust them. That's what it says, verse 23, many people saw the signs he was believing and believed in his name, but Jesus would not entrust himself to them. He's kind of saying, yeah, you kind of believe, but you don't really. You kind of get it, but you don't. And what we'll find as we go on into the next chapters is we find examples of just this, so actually chapter three ends, for he knew what was in each person, he knows what's inside, literally, he knows what's in a man.

Chapter three, now there was a man. In other words, chapter three is an example of this. Nicodemus, who is very religious, super religious, a super Jew, knew all the rituals, all the all the laws and was fastidious about all of it, and yet Jesus is saying, exclusive, you're not in, you need to come to Jesus, inclusive, he can come in, and we find out in the end he does come into Jesus, puts his trust in Jesus. That's Nicodemus, super religious. Chapter four, we're gonna find a Samaritan woman who is the exact opposite.

She is an outcast, ethnically an outcast, morally an outcast, religiously an outcast, and Jesus says to her, you're wrong too, but you can come to me, and she does. Do you see those polar opposites? We'll see them over the coming weeks. Jesus is exclusive and inclusive. He's the only way that anyone can come to him.

Nicodemus could. The woman could. You and I can as well. Come to the real temple. Come to Jesus.

He's the only way, but he is the way, and we can come in. Come to God and come into that personal relationship with him. If you've not yet done that, if you've not come in, come to Jesus. You don't need to go to Jerusalem. You don't even need to go to the empty tomb because Jesus is with us now by his spirit.

You can come to him and through him, come to God. Let me pray for us. Heavenly father, we praise you for Jesus that he is, that he doesn't put up with false worship. Father, he is a huge challenge to us and I pray, please, that you would help us to examine our hearts before you. And father, if we are not in that personal relationship with you, I pray, please, there would be people today who would start now and who would make that priority of coming to you day by day in prayer.

And, father, we pray that if there are those who've not yet turned to you at all, that today there would be people here who would come to Jesus, who is the temple, the fulfillment of the temple, and who is the way, the truth, and the life, and that people would come to him and know the presence of God in Jesus. By your spirit, work among us now, we pray, that people would put their trust in him. Amen.