John 2: Lord of the Wine & Lord of the Whips

heart drawn to the beauty of who he is (the serpent made sin look beautiful to us)

he had no beauty to attract us to him or appearance that we should desire him (is 53)

he became everything ugly and vile about our sin so we could be clothed in his righteousness, he was rejected and despised so we could be accepted

Personal relationship involving communing with him and cultivating an ever deepening relationship with him . 

• spiritual disciplines (anything we do that co-labors with the spirit to produce spiritual fruit in us.  dont measure spiritual health by these disciplines but rather think of them as resources for spiritual health so you can grow your spiritual muscles)
  • prayer
  • fasting,
  • meditation, think, reflect, engaging with what the sacrifice means. 
    • working out salvation with fear and trembling. 
    • thinking out the implications of the gospel. 
    • How should i live (respond) in light of this? 
    • co-laboring with the spirit of truth, to drive the truths of the gospel deep into heart.   
    • constantly vitalizing heart by deliberately remembering his costly sacrifice. 
    • Ephraim/Israel was divorced by you because they failed to remember your works.
    • take time to consider the grace that has been given to me that i couldn’t have earned or achieved, that came at the cost of the life of another, until i am joyfully motivated to give grace to others.  no one gives grace better than the person who is deeply convinced of his need for it.  he didn’t lie down his life for deserving friends, but for rebels, fools, and idolators like me.
    • think about if you gave your wife some flowers or jewelry and then told her, i did this because I felt obligated to so you wouldn’t get mad at me, how would she react. 
  • bible study
  • slowing down against the pull of productivity
  • obstaining from screens (does the content stir or dimenish my affections for jesus)
  • setting mind on things in heaven not on earth

• Devotional (that kind of life of devotion in our pursuit of the Lord leads to a yearning to want to serve Him)
  • our devotional life should really be the catalyst for a life of devotion. 
  • I have my devotional time with the Lord in the morning so that I can be devoted all day long, that that sets the tone. 
  • I’m having a devotional because I’m truly devoted to God,
    • I’m devoted to His work,
    • I’m devoted to His will,
    • I’m devoted to seeing sin minimized in my own life.
    • I’m devoted to walking in a way that honors Him.
    • I’m devoted to my church family,
    • I’m devoted to pursuing godliness in every single aspect of my life.
  • You know, Arcan Hughes, he said, the reason why I start off with the Word of God, the reason why I start off with that truth coming inside of me, is because I know I’m going to be lied to the rest of the day.  the Bible for me became my ultimate source of sanity, and I knew that I could approach God’s Word, I could put my guard down, because God was going to tell me the truth. That then becomes your oasis, right? The word of God becomes the way that you disengage from the craziness of culture, or at least get energized to know that you can look outright and see rightly what’s actually happening in culture. 
    • 8Your spirit makes the truth of your word real to us in heart and experience. 
    • The Truth sets us free.   
    • We can only be freed from the Gordian Knots that are tied up in us by sin and believing lies, through the conquering Son, the Word of God, the sword of truth.
    • Your spirit is an intelligent spirit that works through truth, so give me the strength to reflect upon the truths of your word and help me to think out the implications of those truths and work them deep into my heart and mind until they uproot the lies that cause me so much fear, worry, and anxiety and so that my joy, peace, rest, and security that I have in you will increase, and so that it will drive out my paralyzing fear, and crippling anxiety of speaking and praying in front of others. 
• Prayer (drawing near to him, conversing with him, laying our requests at his feet, listening to his voice, responding with joy)
• Studying his word, which is the clearest and ultimate revelation of who he is.
• Allowing the spirit to guide and transform our lives
• Tasting, savouring, experiencing him
• Seeing him more clearly
• Knowing him more intimately
• following him more fully
•  

 

wanting to do what is pleasing in his sight just like you aim to please your spouse (2 cor 5:9)

relationship bride/bridegroom/wedding

(When I fall deeply in love, I want to please them, and I don’t wait for them to ask me to do something.  I eagerly research and learn everything about her that makes her happy and then do it for her no matter if it costs me money or if it is a great inconvenience.) 

 

 Christianity is a status and a union, like being adopted or being married, not a reward we get on the basis of our achievement.  We are either married or we are not- we are either a Christian or we are not.  Marriage is based on both Law and love.   When we put saving faith in Christ, our faith “unites our soul to Christ, just as a bride is united with her bridegroom”.  A husband who marries a wife, assumes her debts, and the wife in turn, now shares in his wealth, so our sin and death fall on him, and his righteousness and glory are given to us.  By the wedding ring of faith, the soul that trusts Christ, is free from all sins, secure against death and hell, and given eternal righteousness, life, and salvation.   The legal and vital connect and strengthen each other.  The more we are assured of our legal acceptance, the freer our hearts are from fear and shame, and the more we are drawn to you in joyful love, and the more we experience your love shed abroad on our hearts by your spirit.  

 

Sin is more than breaking a set of rules, it is the breaking of relationship that results in breaking your rules.  Only when you are in your rightful place in my heart that I desire, to live in a way that pleases you.  Otherwise I insert myself in your place, write my own laws and give myself to doing what pleases me.  Sin is like treason because it attempts to overthrow you, to whom I owe everything.  When I sin, I don’t just break your rules, I trample on your heart.

 

the indispensable role of a vibrant devotional and prayer life for the believer to help us in how we communicate and represent the Lord.

You know a big part of it too is just not forgetting what it is that changes lives, which is a renewed heart. New loves, as Augustine put it, right? He said that we had to sin is ultimately a form of disordered love, and what we need is our hearts to be rearranged for the glory of God.  And I bring that up to say is because they think about Psalm 51, where David starts out realizing he’s a sinner, then he moves into a place of repentance, then he moves into a place of joy, then his joy becomes an overflowing joy that he shares with others, right? Let your name be known in Zion, as one of the translator puts it, and so I think about it is in our nature to share about the things that we love. You go to a favorite new restaurant, the first thing you do is call somebody, you gotta go here, their tacos are amazing, right?  You watch a new movie, you read a new book, oh, you’re gonna wanna share it, because it’s how God designed you. And so if we’re aiming for the heart from the heart, it moves away from intellectual pride into an act of devotion in which you’re overflowing with joy. 

 

that kind of life of devotion in our pursuit of the Lord leads to a yearning to want to serve Him.  And you talk about how every morning you get up, you go to your sliding fast door in your bedroom and you salute and say, reporting for duty, right? It’s that connection. 

 

we’re just devoted because he’s devoted, right? He’s not part of my life. He is my life as Colossians says, I’m not just putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m engulfed by Jesus Christ. I want to eat, drink, sleep, Jesus Christ.  That’s what I want. I want, uh, the outflow to be the overflow. I want, if you were to cut off my hand, I would bleed Jesus. That’s what I want. So the idea of that is to know him better today than I did yesterday, right?  It’s not a race. There’s no competition. I just want to know the one who set me free. He legitimately put my feet on solid ground. I have no idea why I’ll never understand why he did it for his own name, his own fame, his own glory, but it’ll be for my good.  So it is a delight to draw near to him

 

our devotional life should really be the catalyst for a life of devotion. So in other words, I have my devotional time with the Lord in the morning so that I can be devoted all day long, that that sets the tone.  I’m having a devotional because I’m truly devoted to God, I’m devoted to His work, I’m devoted to His will, I’m devoted to seeing sin minimized in my own life. I’m devoted to walking in a way that honors Him. I’m devoted to my church family, I’m devoted to pursuing godliness in every single aspect of my life. You know, Arcan Hughes, he said, the reason why I start off with the Word of God, the reason why I start off with that truth coming inside of me, is because I know I’m going to be lied to the rest of the day.  the Bible for me became my ultimate source of sanity, and I knew that I could approach God’s Word, I could put my guard down, because God was going to tell me the truth. That then becomes your oasis, right? The word of God becomes the way that you disengage from the craziness of culture, or at least get energized to know that you can look outright and see rightly what’s actually happening in culture. 

 

And, you know, coming face to face with God every day, uh, being what I call recalibrated is so essential. You know, I, I’ve got, I’ve got this atomic watch that links with the atomic, we have iPhones. They do the same thing. This is way better. Sure. And so, you know, but every day there’s a recalibration that happens around midnight. It relinks. And even if it gets off a fraction of a second during the day, day after day, if that’s not recalibrated, it’s going to be minutes behind or ahead or whatever. And so that recalibration is so important to bring us face to face with the Lord. 

After this, he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days. When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men 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 area, 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.  How dare you turn my father’s house into a market. His disciples remembered that it was written, Zeal for your house has eaten me up. Then the Jews demanded of him, What miraculous 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. The Jews replied, It has taken 46 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 to the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. And then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his name.  But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. He did not need man’s testimony about man, for he knew it was in a man. And this is God’s word. you

 

The goal of this series of sermons, which is going to last quite a while, is to look at the life of Jesus.  We’re building a biography, as it were, a biography of the single most important and influential figure in human history. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. So there’s really nothing that would be more important for anyone.  If you want to live intelligently in the world, you need to know about someone like this. And we’re looking at the events of his life, and last week we looked at the first part of John chapter 2, which was the first miracle Jesus did in his public ministry.

 

And he was at a wedding feast, and the bride and groom ran out of wine, and Mary came and asked him to help, and he filled water jars filled with delicious wine, and he kept the party going. And now here in this particular passage, we have Jesus Christ  cleansing the temple. Notice verse 12, it says, and after this, and you know what? I think in some ways that’s the most important couple of words in that whole chapter if you want to understand the meanings of these profound events.  Because over the years I’ve studied these things many times and it’s only in the last couple of weeks that I realized that John has put these two things together. The wedding and the temple, the changing of water into wine and the cleansing of the temple, he puts them together.  Actually no other gospel writer does and it raises a lot of interesting questions about chronology which we won’t get into now. But the point is he puts them together, he says after this, he sticks them together because on the surface they look utterly different.  They are incredibly different. I was thinking about it and laughing about it because on the one hand at the wedding feast you have Jesus as the greatest party maker in history. And in the temple you have Jesus as the greatest party pooper in history.

 

And the wedding feast you have Jesus acting quietly, hidden, privately, almost nobody knows about it. Here you have him public and dramatic. There he’s adding, bringing into your life. Here he’s subtracting, throwing it out.  There he was requested, he was asked in. Here he goes, where no one has asked him to go. He intrudes, he intervenes. There he brings joy and laughter. Here he brings weeping and gnashing of teeth. There he comforts.  Here he disturbs. Incredible. They seem utterly different. But I think the secret and the key and actually something that’s helped me a great deal, John is saying that they only look different on the surface.  Underneath of the same. In fact the very same things are happening. In both he’s showing us who he is. In both he’s showing us what he does. In both he’s showing us what he brings. And let me get down to practical brass tacks right away and I’ll get back to it at the end.

 

There is nothing more practical than this because it is a simple fact of Christian experience that if Jesus Christ comes into your life, he will on the one hand sometimes fill your table with a feast and other times he will turn your table over and spill everything on the ground. It is a simple fact of human experience, of Christian experience that when Jesus comes into your life, sometimes he talks like that, sometimes he does things, he answers your prayers, he brings you joy, he comes through at the last minute, he does exactly what you want, he fills your table and other times he throws everything on the ground, he messes everything up and he doesn’t tell you why.  And many, many, many people have been for a very long time, many Christians I know have really been just taken out of the game by this. They just, they’ve lost it. They’ve been overthrown themselves by it.  And they say, this is crazy. There is no coherence to Jesus. There’s no coherence between these two Jesuses. It’s sort of like, it’s like Dr. Savior and Mr. Lord. You know, it’s, there’s no coherence.  It’s schizophrenic. And John is trying to say, no, no, no. These are both Jesus. In fact, somebody just got it, right? In fact, what John is saying is, these are not two different things that he does, turning over the tables and filling the tables.

 

These are not two different things he does. They are two different ways of doing the same thing. If you can see Jesus filling your table and turning over your table as not two different things, but two different ways of doing the same things, your life will have coherence.  It’ll make all the difference in the world. And only when you read these two things together, back to back, in close proximity do you really see it. Let’s do it. First of all, as I said, first of all, both of these things show us the authority of who he is.

 

Then they show us the purpose of what he does. And then they show us the glory of what he brings. They both show us the same thing. Only in this case, where he’s hurting, where he’s stinging, where he’s alarming, where he’s disrupting, he’s doing the very same thing.  Now look, first, first of all, they both show us the authority of who he is. Now, admittedly, in the wedding feast, the authority issue is a little bit muted. But don’t forget, Mary comes to Jesus and says, we have a problem, we have no wine, and what does he say?  He says, it is not my hour. In other words, he gives a cryptic kind of strange response. He does not give her an immediate response. Basically, he says, essentially, I’m not on a leash. I’m not a tame god.  you cannot tell me what to do. And Mary responds appropriately, Mary responds and does not get all bent out of shape, but rather she says to the servants, do whatever he says. Now you know the authority issue is muted, you know why?  Because when you read the story of the wedding feast at Cana because he comes through and does what we want him to do and he does what we expect him to do and he answers the prayer exactly the way we want, we overlook the fact that even in the midst of that he let us know about his authority.  Even in the midst, he says, wait a minute, he gives us a strange cryptic confusing answer but but Mary remembers the angels, oh that we remembered the angels and Mary says, do whatever he says. But now in the temple, this authority issue is much more clear.

 

In fact, his authority is actually even more clear if you read carefully. One of the things that’s so interesting about verse 15, it says it says he made a whip out of cords Now what the Greek experts will tell you is the word chords should be translated rushes.  A rush was a reed, a rushes was a plant out of which you make baskets or you made papyrus. And you also have to see that since Jesus saw, it says look in verse 13 and 14, he saw the changers and he saw the sellers, so he, he got mad.  And we’ll talk about that in a second. But he got mad and he quickly put a bunch of rushes together. And you know what this means? This means nobody in the world could have been hurt by this whip. When you think about a whip, you’re thinking of a leather or a rubber kind of thing that really can sting and flick damage, this is the wimpiest possible whip.  If anybody, if anybody worries about the idea of Jesus, you know, hurting people and raising welts and blood, he couldn’t. And you know what that means? The cause was so much less than the effect. Here are, here are hundreds of people maybe running away, screaming.  He says he drew them all out. Why? What do you account for it? He wasn’t hurting anybody. It was almost a miracle. It was a manifestation of his glory. It was his looks. It was his being. It was his presence.  It wasn’t the whip. Nobody got hurt with that whip. And what we have to ask ourselves is how do we account for it? And the answer is because people knew instinctively when he showed up that he had the right to do this.

 

They all ran out. And if you want confirmation of what I’m saying, you realize, look at verse 18, when they, after it’s all over, they come to him and they say, give us evidence, give us an explanation for the authority that we felt.  See, that’s what they’re saying. They’re saying, you’re just a carpenter’s son. What right do you have to do this? Where do you get the authority from? And the answer, of course, well we’ll see in a second, but the point is they had felt the authority. and he just said, I have the right to do this in a sense. And they felt that instinctively. Now they’re looking for an explanation. But Jesus shows up with this incredible sense of authority that they instinctively respond to.

 

Everybody does. And he comes in and he says, I have a right to do this. This is my place. And he casts them out. Now, what does this teach us? This is very practical. And it’s also really not very pleasant.  When I’m a teacher and therefore when I study a passage, and I’m considering how I’m going to preach it to you on a Sunday, I get all these various ideas and points out. Then I have to decide what the right order is.  And I know as a teacher, the best way for me to go about it would be not to have told you about how he whipped people and threw them out. But rather, shouldn’t my first point be why he did it? Don’t you want to know why he got so upset?  Don’t you want to know what the big deal was? Don’t you want to know why it was that he was throwing everybody out? Of course you do. And actually you would have a lot less trouble with his anger. He’s essentially, he seems to, he almost seems like he blew up.  This disturbing behavior, this angry behavior. Most of us would say I would have a lot less trouble with this, you know, I never thought of Jesus like this. But if you just tell me why he was so upset, then it would be easy for me to understand.  And I’m not doing it in that order. I will not do it in that order. And here’s why. That’s not the order in which these people got it. He cast them out before he told them why. He let them feel his authority.  He told them I have a right to throw you out without telling them why. And if you’re a Christian, or if you become a Christian, the same thing will happen to you. He will overturn your tables before he gives you an explanation.

 

That is just the way it goes. Afterwards you can come and say, now why did you do that? But as it happens, he doesn’t have an explanation. That is because he says, I am doing this, though I have reasons, and I’ll tell you reasons, eventually I’ll give you reasons.  But the primary thing for you to know is I have the right to do it. This is my place. Now, is this disturbing? Think with me for a minute. This is exactly what happens to Job. Job, you know, God comes in in a sense, or God allows Job’s whole life to be thrown over.  Everything sort of falls apart in his life, and he spends a great deal of time complaining and says to God, why? Why? Tell me why you’re overturning my tables. If you could tell me why, then maybe I could handle it.  But when God shows up, even though we know as the readers of the book of Job, we know why. We know some of the reasons why. But when God shows up, he never gives them a reason why. Instead he says to Job, Job, surely the lightning consults with you before it decides where to strike, the way it does with me.  And at the end of that, God says, where to strike? that diatribe, Job falls to the ground and says, I see. See what? If you read the book of Job, you say, all God did was come and say, because I am God, I have the right to do this, and you don’t.

 

And Job falls down and he says, I see. Well, now you say what goes on. I’d say what goes on. It is critical for us to obey God just because of who he is. Before he tells us reasons, of course he has reasons. But it is so absolutely critical to us spiritually, to obey God because of who he is. Look at the Garden of Eden. Go back. Adam and Eve were told, you can do anything in the whole world. You know, Adam and Eve didn’t have 10 commandments.  They didn’t have 100 regulations. They had one. One commandment, don’t eat the tree. And they didn’t know why. And the serpent comes and says, why. And they said, we don’t know why. And the serpent says, well, if you don’t know why, why do you have to obey?  And they reached, Adam and Eve reached out and picked it out. They saw it was good to eat. Well, and they fell. Why? What happened? What was so bad about the tree? Over the years, you know, there have been theologians who said, well, maybe the tree was poisonous, or maybe the tree had some kind of chemistry in it so that when they ate it, then certain things happened to them, you know, metaphysically and so on.  No, no, no. The whole point was, God gave them one command, and there was no reason for it other than the most important reason of all. And that is, I would like you to obey me simply because of who I am and who you are. Because if you only obey me because you know the reason, you’re not obeying me at all. In fact, you’re using me. Now, if you think, well, that’s kind of strange. Let me put it to you this way. What if you fell in love with somebody?

 

Well, let’s just imagine also, and some of this, for some of you this is true, some of you it’s not, let’s also imagine that you have a lot of money. You’ve got a trust fund, or you’ve made a lot of money and so on, and this person falls in love with you.  And just several weeks before the wedding, you come up to them and you say, guess what, a terrible thing happened. There was a stock market correction. You know, we used to have crashes. Now we have corrections.  There was a stock market correction. You know, crash, negative, correction, positive, but we still lose all of our money. And you say to your friend, you say to your spouse, I mean, your spouse to be, your fiance, you say, guess what, I lost all of my money. It’s just terrible. I really need your comfort tonight. And what if that person looks at you and says, gee, maybe we ought to call off the wedding. I don’t know. And what if you come to realize, and what if you find out that the truth is, this person doesn’t find you very attractive now that you’re poor.  You would be utterly outraged. You would be deeply violated. You would say that this is about as low, this is about as great, as low and as deep a blow to my head. humanity as possible. You didn’t love me.  You only love what I brought to you. You didn’t love me for me. You didn’t love me for myself. You love the money, not me. You were just using me. Now listen, if God, because he’s God, the creator of the universe, says, I’m bringing something into your life and I want you to accept it just because of who I am.

 

And you say, if I could see it’s practical, if I could see the reason, if I could see it helps me to my goals and I could accept it, but if I don’t, no. What are you saying to him? It’s not you, it’s the goals.  And don’t you think he has the right, even a greater right to be outraged by the blow you have made to his divinity? I mean, you feel the blow to your humanity. He feels the blow to his divinity. In fact, he also feels the blow, in a sense, to his humanity because you know our humanity is a reflection of his divinity.  He is a person. If there’s one thing the Bible shows us, God has feelings. Why? Because our feelings are just the image of His. And God’s used and God has been trampled upon. If God comes into your life and says, I’m bringing things into your life just because, I want you to submit just because of who I am, because I have the right to do it, because I’m your creator, because I’m your redeemer.  It is extremely important to see that maybe the biggest reason for what’s going on is no reason but that. Maybe there is no other reason but that. And yet it’s the most important reason of all, to learn to love Him for who He is.

 

You want it. Don’t you want it? Aren’t you outraged when someone isn’t doing it for you? Then how dare you treat Him in a way that you wouldn’t put up with yourself? You know what I think happened when God showed up and said to Job, Job, I’m not going to give you any reasons.  I’m just going to show you who I am. And I think this is what happens when you sense the authority before you. And when you sense, as these people did when Jesus showed up, I don’t know why He’s doing this, but I know He’s got the right to do it and they ran.  And why anybody feels that way when you actually get to meet the real God? I’ll tell you, it goes something like this. I think Job bowed down and said, wait a minute. If he is so infinite and great that I can be mad at him for failing to rectify the world, then he must be so infinite and great as to have good reasons to be doing what he’s doing that are beyond my comprehension. I can’t have it both ways. Did you listen to that? You can’t have it both ways. If God is so infinite and great that you’re mad at him for not rectifying your situation, then he must be infinite and great enough to have wisdom to which your, you know, wisdom that is not answerable to yours.  You can’t have it both ways. If he’s really so great that you can be mad at him for not making the world straight, then he must be great enough for him to be beyond your comprehension. comprehension.

 

And so I think Job must bow down and said, you know what, if I could totally understand him, he wouldn’t be worth totally obeying. Mary understood that. Jesus comes and says all kinds of strange things, all sorts of non sequiturs, all sorts of confusing things, all sorts of harsh things.  And she says, let’s do whatever he says. And when Jesus is overturning your tables, the first lesson is, I have the right to do it. And you’re, don’t you see, if he has the ability to fill your table, he has to have the right to overturn it.  If he, how can he be the Lord of the wine if he’s not Lord of the whips? Okay. So first of all, they both show us his authority. They both do. Secondly, they both show us not just the authority of who he is, but the authority of the Lord.

 

you but the purpose of what he does. You remember what his purpose in life is from the wedding. The reason that he makes this cryptic statement, after we spent time looking at it last week, we realized that Mary comes and says they are out of wine, and Jesus immediately says, it’s not my time to die.  And everybody goes, huh? Until we begin to realize that the wine reminds him of his death. The wine reminds us that he, is going to have to die if he’s ever going to be married to us. That he is going, in order to provide wine for the wedding feast in which we fall into his arms, he’s going to have to die to save us from our sins.  So the wine reminds him of his death. Now he walks into this place, and he blows up. Again, something sets him off. He sees something, and it reminds him of something, I guess, because he just really kind of goes ballistic here.

 

I’m not saying he’s out of control, but he’s mad. Well, what is it he looks at? Well, you see the changers and the sellers. Well, what are the money changers and the sellers? What he sees is the animals for sacrifice.  Aha. What is setting Jesus off? You know, over the years, I was, one commentary said, it’s astonishing how people over the years have tried to find something wrong with what the money changers and what the sellers were doing.  Some people have said, well, you know, probably the money changers had coins, and the coins would have had pictures of Caesar on them, or pictures of idols, and maybe Jesus, they’re trying to find some reason why what they were doing was wrong.

 

Oh no, here’s what went on. Here’s what went on. Because the Jews, you know, now lived all over the world, when Jews wanted to come to worship, one thing the Jews knew was you cannot approach God without a sacrifice. You cannot go into God without a sacrifice. But of course, if you’re traveling from Spain, you can’t bring a lamb with you. with you. So what they would do is they would come to, when the Jews would come from all over the world, they’d come to the temple, they A, had foreign currency that needed to be changed, and then B, they had to buy an animal.  And then they could offer it up. Well, what Jesus found, and we know this especially from the Gospel of Mark, was that he called this a market. By the way, the Greek word he uses there is an emporium.  You have turned the sanctuary into an emporium. And it means right around the altar, there was, there was you had canal street basically. You know, you had people buying and selling and haggling and you had the animals and you had all this sort of thing.  And they would come on in and they would pay their money and they take the animal, they turn two steps, give it to the priest, the priest of course. There’s nothing more you can do. And all of that, you know, cacophony and all of that, that confusion and all of that noise and all of that clamor, all they could do is turn around, slay the animal, everybody bows, I did my duty and out he went.

 

Here’s what Jesus is saying. Jesus says, and we know this from other Gospels, He said, my house should be a house of prayer. And you have turned it into a market. When you lay down an animal, you should be thinking. You should be seeing what the sacrifice means. When you lay down an animal and you see it slain, you should be saying, this should be me. Why isn’t it me? You should be saying, if justice was to be done, I should be slain. I don’t love God with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind. I don’t love my neighbor as myself. Why isn’t this me? This is slain and now I’m spared.

 

You see, the sacrificial system, though very mysterious, was like the gospel.  Because the sacrificial system on the one hand was very humbling. It said to you, you know what? You can’t just go into God. You just can’t go into God. There has to be punishment. There has to be judgment.  But on the other hand, it was also joyous. Because it said, but there is a way for you to be provided for. There’s a way for you to be spared. It was all very mysterious, but it was humbling. It was joyful.  And were they doing that? No. And Jesus says, oh my word, they don’t see what it means. They don’t see what it means. They could be ready for me. They should be ready for me. They’re not. They don’t know what the sacrifice means. They don’t feel a need for a Savior. They don’t see… They don’t have any idea. Because they’re not praying. It’s a market. It’s mechanical, you see. They’re not even engaged. They’re not even reflecting. They’re not even thinking. Get these things out of here. There was no problem with them being outside. The real problem is they’d squeezed out real communion with God, real reflection on the meaning of the substitutionary sacrifice. When Jesus sees the wine and goes kind of crazy, because he reminds him of his death, now he sees the animals to be sacrificed. And again, he’s emotionally internalized. turmoil because Jesus Christ had one thing and only one thing on his mind. He was here to die for us. It was never, it was always before him.

 

 

You know, the one book that Kathy and I read about two or three times every year is the novel Lord of the Rings, the trilogy. And there’s a little, there’s a little hero, a remarkable Christ figure because he has a burden.  And the burden is that he has to take, he has to go right into the heart of the realm of the evil Lord and take his ring of power and throw it into the mountain of fire and destroy it. But in order to go toward that evil and go toward that terrible doom, he feels it in front of him all the time.  Just at one point the narrative says, just like a man, if you close your eyes you can always tell which direction the sun is because you feel it beating on you. He felt his doom beating upon him. It became a wheel of fire.  When he even closed his eyes he saw it, the ring. the doom. Now this is Jesus. Jesus is always thinking about his death and he’s always thinking about us and he’s always got it on his heart. He’s, you know the place in John 17 where he says for their sakes, he says to his father for their sake, I sanctify myself.

 

You know what that means? To sanctify means to totally devote yourself to something. It means I have excluded everything else. I am living for them. Everything about me, all of my powers, all of my privilege, everything is completely dedicated and devoted to living for them. And therefore he wants to die for us. He’s going to die for us. But look, you say, but then why was he so different here? Ultimately it’s the same thing. He is so concerned that we don’t understand the meaning of his death.  Sometimes he shows us what he’s doing for us by adding other times in order to wake us up to show us the importance of his sacrifice. He has to throw the tables over. But you know what? This is a secret to the Christian life.  This is a secret to the Christian life. Listen, there’s lots of regulations, lots of regulations in the Christian life. There’s lots of things the Bible says about, well if somebody hurts you, forgive them and it tells you about how to forgive.  And if you feel guilty then ask God for forgiveness and it tells you all about this. But there’s another sense in which there’s not 10,000 regulations, there’s only one. Just as Jesus only had one thing in front of him, we only have to have one thing in front of us. And what’s that one thing? That one thing is the fact that he died for you. The one thing that’s always on his mind should always be on our mind. Do you realize, look, are you having trouble forgiving somebody right now?  You know what Jesus is saying in this passage to you? He is saying, reflect on the meaning of my sacrifice. Stop being mechanical. You may say you believe that I died for you. Get all these other things out and reflect, engage, think. Make it a living thing for you. And you know what? If you’re having trouble forgiving somebody, it’s only because of what Jesus is saying here is you’re not thinking about what my sacrifice means. Because if you think about Him dying for you, it’ll humble you down until forgiveness is no problem.

 

On the other hand, what if you’ve failed in some way and you’re hating yourself and you’re filled with self -loathing? And maybe you’re saying maybe I should go to counseling. Well, maybe you should go to counseling.  That might be very, very helpful. But I’ll tell you the foundational thing is that you’re being mechanical as opposed to organic. You’re being mechanical in your understanding of His sacrifice instead of really engaging and thinking and looking at it and realizing what it means. Because if you’re hating yourself and you think He died for me, it’ll lift you up until you have no problem. Wherever your problems are, no matter what, you can look for the regulations, but there’s actually only one thing.  It’s the same thing that was always on Jesus’ mind, always. you He says, realize what this is, realize what my sacrifice means.Have it on your mind all the time and you will always be brought down when you needed, lifted up when you needed, you’ll always be prepared.

 

Okay, now lastly, both situations show us his authority and both situations show us his purpose and that is to die for us and to bring us to see the value and the beauty and the glory of that death. But see, last of all, last of all, it also shows us the incredible glory of what he offers.  You know what he offers? Last time I said it was wine. At the wedding feast it was wine. We said that to become a Christian does not just mean you sign a bunch of codes of conduct, you subscribe to a bunch of codes of beliefs, rather it’s a feast. The Bible uses sensory language to talk to us. It says it’s like drinking wine, it’s like, and we kind of left it at that, but if you want to know how that’s possible, here it is. When they come to him and they say, what authority have you got to cleanse the temple?  What authority have you got to act like the temple belongs to you? You act like you own it. What right have you got to act like you own it and what does he do? He looks at them and of course he says it in code.  John has to explain. He says, tear this temple down in three days, destroy it and I will raise it up in three days. And John says what he was talking about was his body and here’s the point. They were saying, how can you act as if you own it?  And he said, own it. I am it. Own it. Own the temple. I am the temple. I am the temple. And what he is saying? He is saying I am the climax. I am the final temple. I am the climax of the history of the sanctuary in the very beginning.  the Garden of Eden was a sanctuary. You know what a sanctuary is? A place where you walk with the holy. A place where the holy is in fellowship with you.  Sanctum means holy. A sanctuary is a place where the holy is in fellowship with you.  And the Garden of God, the Garden of Eden, we walk together. God and us, we had His glory all around us. But when Adam and Eve, when we decided to, instead of love God, to use God, when we decided, we’ll obey as long as, we’ll serve you as long as it fits us.

 

In other words, when we decided to serve ourselves, when we started to use God, God did to us exactly what we would do to that person who says, I don’t think I’m interested in you, now that you’ve lost all your money, God expelled them.  And He expelled them from the sanctuary. And you know what He put in front? A flaming sword. The cherubim, a flaming sword. You can’t come back in now to the sanctuary and we were so lost. Even the Woodstock song knows about it.  Remember when the Woodstock song says, we’re stardust, we’re golden, we’re trying to get back into the garden. There’s an emptiness. We sense a loss. And God created a sanctuary in the Old Testament, first a tabernacle, then a temple.  And there was a huge veil before the Holy Place. And you know what was on that veil? Palm trees and grass like a garden of Eden and cherubim. And behind the veil was the Holy. Behind the veil was the Shalom.  Behind the veil was the Shekinah Glory. Behind the veil was God’s presence. But nobody could go back except the High Priest. And he could only go back once a year if he went in with a substitute, if he went in with a sacrifice that went under the sword.  No way back in to God. No way back into the sanctuary unless you go under the sword. And you know when the temple was destroyed, when the Babylonians came and overran Israel and the temple was destroyed and they were carved off into exile, Ezekiel made a terrific prediction and prophecy.  And what he said was, someday there will be a final temple. Someday there will be a temple so great, he says, the prophet said, that the glory of the Lord will fill the whole temple. That everybody in it will experience the glory of God.  And when the Israelites came back from the exile and they rebuilt the temple, you can read about this in Ezra 3, Ezra chapter 3. When the old timers saw the new temple, the ones who still remember the Solomonic temple, the Solomon’s temple, they wept.  Not because it was small or even though it was, but because this couldn’t be the final temple that Ezekiel talked about. Where is the final temple? Where is the place where you walk in and it’s not just that the glory of God is back there, but the glory of God is all around.

 

How can we finally get back into the garden? Where is the final temple? Excuse me. Where is it? And Jesus said, shows up and says, I am He. I am the ultimate sacrifice and therefore I’m the ultimate temple.  I went under the knife. I go under the sword. And the Mark chapter 14 verse 53 says the moment Jesus died the veil in the temple was ripped. Why? Because now the way is open. In spite of the fact that we used God and He expelled us, He found a way to bring us back.

 

And Jesus says, I am He. Now you know what that means? This is the reason for the wine. This means that being a Christian is not just now subscribing to a code of conduct. This says that if you become a Christian, the same raw presence of God that used to kill things on contact, the Shekinah glory, when it came down on a mountain, anyone touched the mountain, they were dead. The Shekinah glory of God which used to kill living things on contact is now an explosive life giving force that floods into us. We are partakers of His glory through Christ. It is an absolutely astounding claim. And that’s the reason why if you’re a Christian, you’re here for wine, not just rules and duty. You’re here for a relationship, not just a regulation. That’s what Jesus is saying. He says, get these things out of here. You’re all caught up in regulations and you’re missing the relationship. You’re going through the motions and you’re missing the relationship. There should be glory in your life. You should experience my presence. All of this is available to you.

 

 

Now let me apply this to conclude. Christian leaders, those of you who are the most busy in the church, do you know what Jesus is saying? Jesus is saying it is possible to be so busy with your religiosity to turn your life in a sense into a market and miss the most important thing, which is prayer, which is fellowship with Him.  Let me just pull the screw here on you. Let me just tell you. He did not die and make this sacrifice in order for you to run programs and to fill your schedule filled with all sorts of busy activities. You could do that without the sacrifice. The one thing you can’t do without a sacrifice is pray and experiences His presence. What’s your prayer life like? Are you connecting with Him? Do you sense His presence in your life? If you say, well, it’s been months, but I’ve been very, very busy. What is He saying? He says, get it out of here. Get it out. Throw it away. You’re missing the whole point of the sacrifice. I don’t care how busy you are.

 

Are you experiencing the presence of God? What do you think I did all this for so that you could know the glory of God, that you can feel His presence, that you can actually come in, you can have this love shuttle brought on your heart?  Is that happening to you? Or are you just saying your prayers? Are you all mechanical? Simplify your life. Make sure that you’re meeting with Him. Throw everything else out. That’s the Christian leaders.  People who are seeking, you’re saying, well, I’m trying to find out something about Christianity. Look it. The real difference between the first and the second, the wedding and the temple is in the wedding, Jesus is only a guest in the house.

 

But at the temple, he’s the host. Now, if you simply ask Jesus Christ occasionally for help, that’s one thing. But if you ask him into your life to live there and to dwell, here’s how you know that you have.  He has the right to subtract things. He has the right to throw things around. He has the right to cast things out. Is he doing that? Some of you don’t even have an epistemology that allows him to do it.  Some of you say, well, I will come to Christianity as long as I feel that it’s meeting my needs. And you know, you read the Bible and you say, well, I believe this and this, but I can’t believe this, and I can’t believe this.  This is too primitive. We’re modern people. I don’t believe this. In other words, Jesus could never contradict you. You immediately filter out anything that he would say that would really be hurtful, that would really be hard, that would really be difficult.  You immediately just roll it out. You couldn’t even have a God if you wanted one. Oh, you can get as an errand boy, or you can get as a secretary. If you invite him into your life and you say, take it over, live here.  Don’t just be a guest, a consultant, but live here. Then he has the right to rearrange the furniture. Listen, don’t be creatures of your time.

 

 

Last week when you looked at Jesus Christ, the wedding, you said, how exciting.  That’s what I want. A lover of my soul, someone who takes all of his power, no matter how small my problems, and meets my need, and he loves me, and he’s ravished with me, and he covers my deformity.  Even if I’m ugly, he finds me beautiful. He got all excited. Now this week, now what? Are you excited? Jesus says, if I’m in charge, if I live with you, I have the authority. I have the authority to ask things of you without telling you the reason why.  Are you saying, boy, I don’t want a God like that. I’m kind of, that’s kind of demanding. Don’t you see, you know, in traditional cultures where people believe that you’re salvation through self -denial, they can understand the temple Jesus, not the wedding Jesus.  And you live in an individualistic feel good me culture, and you can understand the wedding, and you can’t understand the temple. Let Jesus be who he is. Don’t push him through the salad shredder of your cultural grid.

 

Do you want, do you want a real God, or you just want a projection of your own heart? Let him be who he is. He is the Lord of wine and the Lord of the whips. He’s the Lord of wine because he’s the Lord of the whips. He has to be. How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? These are both Jesus. He overturns your table and he. fills your table for the same reason. Because He loves you. Because He loves you.

 

Let’s pray. Now Father, I’ve asked that when we put these two sermons together we might get a picture of your son. And we ask that we would finally come to grips with the real Jesus. Those of us from backgrounds that can believe in a holy God but not a gracious God.  And those of us who have the kind of understanding that we can believe in a gracious God but not a holy God. I pray that you cut through. We have religious people and secular people in this room who are the victims of their culture.  They can’t see the real Jesus. I pray that He would break through. Now we pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.