The Priest Visits the Father's House | Mark 11:15-19 | Pastor Daniel Batarseh (Gospel of Mark)

Mark eleven fifteen. And they came to Jerusalem, and he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple. And he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons, and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, is it not written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of robbers.

And the chief priests and the scribes heard it, and they were seeking a way to destroy him for they feared him because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. And when evening came, they went out of the city. Lord, help us. Nourish us, Revive us. Restore us.

Do what you need to do in us that you may be pleased with those whom you have purchased. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Like the cursing of the fig tree, what you and I just read here, the actions of the lord Jesus Christ may be startling, may be shocking. What is commonly known as the cleansing of the temple may be something uncomfortable for the unfamiliar reader.

This outburst that we just quickly glanced at seems to be out of character for Christ. And even the student of the gospels, the one who knows the truths of this book, may find difficulty trying to reconcile this Christ with the same Christ who famously declared, learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart. This seems to be a challenge for those who have a concept of who Christ is and what he does with conflict and with sinners and even with compromise. But prayerfully, this message that will be expounded before us today will provide enough clarity to silence any claim of contradiction or even contention with what we see here with the Lord in his temple on this morning of Passover week two thousand years ago. And prayerfully, also, by the end of this message, I hope that you and I will be reinforced in our belief of just how absolutely vital it is to read and study and be acquainted with the Old Testament.

If we are to mine the New Testament successfully, if we are to uncover greater revelations, unearth deeper truths, it's going to demand a commitment and a conviction that I must know as much of the Bible as possible. I must travel through terrain that I've might have been intimidated by or see no value in, for he will surely reward those who hunger and thirst for greater light. I'm not gonna make this a lengthy introduction because we have limited time today, and we must break bread together as we always do in the beginning of every month. But I will say that this is a meaty message, and it will require you to have greater focus and me to have a greater willingness to visit many Old Testament passages if we want to have a greater reward with this text. And so let's cut this short and get straight into it.

The spiritual meal that has been prepared for us will be divided into four portions. And if you're a note taker, hopefully, this will help right at the outset of the message. This text will be divided in four ways. The first thing that you and I are going to consider is the typology of the cleansing. What's the theme of what's happening here?

Does this fulfill a shadow of the past? Does this showcase some kind of fulfillment of a previous revelation or hint of what's to come? The typology of the cleansing. And then from there, we're gonna look at the target of the cleansing. What is it that Jesus cleansed the house of God from exactly?

And then from there, we're going to consider the teaching of the cleansing. We just read that Jesus taught them after he demonstrated this righteous indignation. He said some things about why he did what he did, the teaching of the cleansing. Lastly, the threat of the cleansing. The threat that it posed on those who were opposers of Christ.

Let's come back again to verse fifteen and sixteen as we consider the typology of the cleansing. The deeper significance of this dramatic scene can only happen if you and I acknowledge something, a very simple fact that some don't hold to, and it is this. This is Jesus' second time of cleansing the temple in Jerusalem. The first time was at the beginning of his ministry, and it was recorded exclusively by John. John is the only one who writes to us about what Jesus did at the beginning of his public ministry.

It's found in John chapter two. And what we see here in Mark chapter 11 is Jesus cleansing the temple yet again, but at the end of his ministry, the final week of his earthly life. And with Mark, you have Matthew and Luke who also give us the same event. And why that is important is because you have some who who try to harmonize these two cleansings and say that they are one and the same. And not only is that a desperate reach, in my opinion, to try to reconcile this, it's also a robbery of the richness of this cleansing, this two part cleansing, if you will, that Christ performs.

When you and I see the purgings, the purifications that Jesus does as a pair, it is a powerful declaration, listen very carefully, to Christ fulfilling his priestly role. And the only way that can even be considered is if you and I have a familiar grasp on a book of the Bible that is rarely referenced, read, and unfortunately neglected by so many. Can you guess what book I'm talking about in the old testament? Leviticus. Leviticus.

Here's what I mean. In Leviticus chapter 14, you have God providing instructions for the people and the priest on how to go about two types of cleansings concerning infectious diseases. So in the first part of Leviticus 14, you have laws and instructions and regulations dealing with a person, an individual who suffers from leprosy. Now the second part is interesting. The second part deals with the cleansing, not of a person, but of a place, namely the home of an individual.

And the word that is used there is also leprosy. Leprosy infects the walls or the furnishings, the interior of a house, there's also protocol of how the owner of the house in partnership with the priest is to go about investigating and determining the verdict of the condition of that house. The word there that's used in Leviticus 14 concerning the home is also leprosy. Now that may seem strange. What?

Houses can be infected with this contagion? Not necessarily so. The Hebrew word for leprosy is much broader, and it can include mold or mildew or some kind of decay that even affects materials. And what may seem to be irrelevant to us as Christians, at best to us, some historical document that we can refer back to is in fact a sign pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ in one of his offices in some measure. Don't take my word for it.

Take the Bible in your hands and go to Leviticus 14 with me. And let's look together at verse 33 as we consider the introduction to the instructions for this nation Israel about what they were to do when something happened to their home in this way. Leviticus 14 verses 33 to 35. The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, when you come into the land of Canaan, which I give you for a possession, and I put a case of leprous disease in a house in the land of your possession, then he who owns the house shall come tell the priest, there seems to be to be some case of disease in my house. Here's the first instruction that the Lord gives.

It was the owner of the home who was to call for an investigation about the suspecting condition of his abode. On a practical level, this, protected owners of the home from having other people pry into their home and try to determine what's going on in it. And so the one who was to initiate this process was in fact the owner of the home, who had a concern that this would affect his family, this would affect himself. This would affect visitors to his home, and so he was to initiate this undertaking. But notice again at the part here in verse 35, he who owns the house shall come and tell the priest.

So he was not to determine the condition himself, he was not to evaluate the symptoms and make a case in his own subjective reasoning. He was to call the priest to come into the house. Now what's interesting is when you go to John chapter two, you don't have to turn there. When Jesus at the first cleansing enters into the temple, he makes this comment, he makes this statement to remind his audience of who really owns the vicinities. Who is the true possessor and the owner of the deed of this place of worship.

This is what Jesus says in John two sixteen. And he told those who sold the pigeons, take these things away. Do not make my father's house. My father's house a house of trade. It's clear, isn't it?

Jesus declares that the temple is his father's house. It's not just a holy sanctuary, it's a home. It's the earthly abode of the almighty God. And he makes this known in the context of him identifying and doing what? Cleansing.

Cleansing the spiritual corruption that spread in the temple in the early days of his ministry. And just like in Leviticus fourteen thirty five, we see God the father calling for the purifying procedure to take place by doing what? Summoning his son. Summoning his son who is what? Also a priest.

To enter into the father's house and to evaluate and examine the condition of that home. And you and I know this about Jesus, and he declared himself confidently in John chapter five that he does not do anything unless he first sees the father doing it. In other words, he took every marching order of every day, every moment of the day, every second of the day by God's orchestration, by the father's leading. And so even when Jesus initially in John two goes into the temple, that was something that was instigated by the father. So the father with his house calls the son who is the priest into it to investigate it, which brings us to the next part of Leviticus 14.

Look at verse 36. Leviticus fourteen thirty six. Then the priest shall command that they empty the house before the priest goes to examine the disease, lest all that is in the house be declared unclean. And afterward, the priest shall go in to see the house, and he shall examine the disease. And if the disease is in the walls of the house with greenish or reddish spots, and if it appears to be deeper than the surface, then the priest shall go out of the house to the door of the house and shut up the house seven days.

Here's the emphasis in this next set of instructions. You see it more than once. The priest is to come and he is to examine. He's not to be quick to make a determined decision of what's to take place in this house. He's not to make a verdict.

It's repeated twice here to emphasize the importance of careful investigation. And this is a decision that the priest would have to make after looking carefully, scanning, surveying, seeing if this is something deeper than just surface level issues. Ring a bell. Do you remember not too long ago in Mark chapter 11 verse 11 when Jesus, after his triumphal entry, comes into what? The temple in Mark eleven eleven.

And when he came into the temple, we are told that he looked at everything. Why was he looking? To investigate. What is the condition of this place? Is this place operating the way it was designed to operate?

And what's amazing is that Jesus does the same in the first time he visits the temple in John chapter two. Let me read this to you. In John two fourteen, this is when Jesus comes the first time. In the temple, he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting there. One of the definitions of the Greek word for found denotes after searching or to find a thing sought.

So when Jesus found the activity in the temple and the way it was, it wasn't Jesus accidentally stumbling upon it. It was Jesus knowing that there was something wrong here. Jesus being led by the father, entering into it and finding something that he was intentionally looking for. So Jesus, like the priest in Leviticus, was careful to search for any legitimate concerns, any signs of corruption that may be deeper than the surface. And he was not to be quick as the priest was instructed in Leviticus 14, but to be just, to be cautious, to be careful.

But there's more. We read in Leviticus 14 that the priest was to come in, but not just come in, he was to remove the objects and the interior furnishings and then wait for seven days. And after the seven days also we read that he because we don't have time to read the rest. He was to actually remove the stones from inside of the house and scrape off the plaster on the walls, empty it completely, and then to pause yet again, and to revisit the house to determine if that was enough to cleanse it. And if not, if you see a resurfacing of the disease, then there must be another approach to make.

So let's read this again. You're still in Leviticus 14. Right? Maybe. Yes.

Leviticus 14. Look at verse 43. If the disease breaks out again in the house, after he has taken out the stones and scraped the house and and plastered it, then the priest shall go and look. If the disease has spread in the house, it is a persistent leprous disease in the house. It is unclean.

So remember, the priest before this went in the first time. He sees signs, he sees problems, he sees flags, so he empties the house, he removes the stones, he scrapes off the plaster, he puts a new stones, fresh plaster, he was to leave again, and then he was to make a second visit. And the second visit was to see if what happened the first time worked, if it's sufficed, if it's satisfied. And if he was to come and this disease resurfaces again, revisits again, then there's a different and more defined diagnosis. This is a persistent disease, and it requires a different approach to solve it.

Do you wanna know what the approach was? Do you know what the priest what to do would have to do in order to deal with this? Look at verse 45 of Leviticus 14. And he shall break down the house, its stones and timber and all the plaster of the house, and he shall carry them out of the city to an unclean place. Do you see the parallel?

Is it is it clear? Christ in John two enters into the temple. He removes all the corruption from within. And there is a pause, there is a reprieve, and he revisits the house of God a second time. And when he revisits it, as we're about to discover, he sees that the disease resurfaced.

And just like in Leviticus 14, it was deemed a persistent spiritual disease and would require a different solution now. Do you remember what Jesus said in Matthew 24 verse one and two? Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple, but he answered them, you see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will be not left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. Jesus, in Mark 11, fulfills the role of a priest when he cleanses the temple.

And why do I bring that up to you? Yes. To show how Jesus is a greater priest, but to also show you just how much the Bible is a masterpiece. I I did that move. I couldn't stop thinking about it all week.

I had to keep my mouth shut unless I preach the sermon before Sunday to so many people. I was so fascinated. This this book humbles me. Does it not humble you? The more you read it, the more you study, the more you preach it, the more comfortable you get with certain doctrines, The Lord is never short in showing you and revealing to you, you can't exhaust my word.

You cannot exhaust it. The moment you think that you reach the bottom of the well, you realize there's a 100 feet to go. And And then when you get there after ten years, you realize there's 200 feet to go. You cannot wring this thing dry. It is a supernatural book.

It's a glorious book. Yes. You can even benefit from Leviticus chapter 14. This is God's book. This is supernatural.

I have to get that out of my system. I've been holding it all week. How can you be bored with the Bible? Impossible. Absolutely impossible.

It's life. It vibrates. It speaks. It connects. It shows.

It shines. Not just to stuff your head, but to bring you to your knees. You realize this book is not from earth. Yes. God moved by the Holy Spirit upon men and spoke and wrote this word, yes, but it came from heaven.

And it's at your disposal. Don't let it be like a vacuum in your house only collecting the the dust on your nightstand. Don't let it do that. Open it. Let it speak to you.

Talk to it with other people. See struggle with it. Yes. Struggle with it. Wrestle with it.

God, what are you saying here? And that's an exciting life to live. So we come to now the target of the cleansing. We looked at the prophetic significance the prophetic significance of what took place here on this day. But the student of the Old Testament may still see Jesus' actions here to be unexpected and unsettling mainly because of another text in the Hebrew scriptures that seem to conflict with the Lord's decision here, his actions here.

Deuteronomy records a helpful regulation for those who live the great distance away from the land. And as we know, three times a year, right, the the the Jewish people were instructed of mandatory immediate physical attendance to the temple, three particular feasts, and in great part, the requirement to come to the house of God to worship in those feasts was to bring sacrifices. And those sacrifices generally were animals, Some large animals, some smaller animals. Bulls, oxen, goats, sheep, pigeons. Also, amounts of grain and even wine.

And so the Lord gives a law in Deuteronomy, and this law was to relieve the worshipers of the difficulty of transporting these animals specifically from great long ways from the the house of God. And this is what he gave. This is what he provided for the people then. Turn with me to Deuteronomy 14. I gave you a heads up.

We're gonna be in the Old Testament a lot today. In Deuteronomy 14 verse 24, I'm reading Deuteronomy in my personal readings, and this chapter came to me early in the week, and it was just perfect. It was a reminder for what we're studying and learning today. Look at Deuteronomy fourteen twenty four. And if the way is too long for you pause.

He's speaking to the people who would be placed in different parts of the promised land. And there was one central place of worship, so here is for those who are far from the temple. And if the way is too long for you so that you're not able to carry the tide, when the Lord your God blesses you because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money. And bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the Lord your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire. Oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves, and you shall eat it there before the Lord your God and rejoice you and your household.

This passage is rarely quoted when people teach on the Lord cleansing the temple. Most people read this section of scripture in the New Testament, Mark 11 and other parts of the people turning the house of God into a business, and that is the point. But the activity here in itself is not wrong. Well, you just read it. Right?

If you were from a far place, you could bring money, go to the place of worship, and instead of hauling the beast, you can just buy one right there and then and sacrifice. And so how if you're reading this, if you're going through the scriptures and you come to this and it's in the back of your mind, now you're in the New Testament, you see Jesus cleansing the temple of people who were selling animals. How does this make sense? Didn't God sanction this? Didn't he permit this?

Didn't he allow for travelers and pilgrims and gentile converts to do this? What is the Lord getting at from here? And here's the point. It's very simple. According to this text, according to what you read in Mark 11, Jesus here is correcting what many people do with God's graces.

What was meant to offer relief and assistance to worshipers was eventually abused for personal gain. What started out as assistance to worship God, assistance to worship God. Okay. If you're coming from far, here's some help. Here's some help for you to worship more effectively and with less burden.

What became assistance to worship turned into worship assisting the greed of men. And the hint to the essence of this crime is found in back in Mark 11 verse 17, But you have made it a den of robbers. You're thieves. You're crooks. And it's most likely what Jesus is getting at the heart of the matter is that there's extortion here.

There's unfair exchange rates that was being implemented here. And what you had is these pilgrims who came from so far, and you had also these other gentile converts with Roman currency who came and had no choice. Had no choice but to submit to the strategized inflation of these wicked men. There is no other option. So they upped the price.

They made ridiculous prices there for people to give in and then they stuffed their pockets. That's what Jesus is cleansing here. You had these merchants who took advantage of the genuine need of worshipers in order to satisfy their own bank book. And the fact that Jesus cleansed the temple twice, twice, twice, that he had to do this again reveals that humanity faces the ever present temptation to exploit the name of God, the house of God, and the people of God for personal profit. It was true then.

It's true today. It is a dangerous game to play to leverage the house of God or the people of God, and to treat it as a lucrative business or as a pool of social and political opportunities. You know what you do when you play that game with God's house then and today? You risk God doing something to you or the leadership that tolerates it or eventually shutting down the whole ministry that hosts such activity. Jesus doesn't display much righteous indignation in the gospels.

But when he does, it reveals what really touches his nerves, and this is one of them. Taking the house of God and doing something with it that was not intended to do to satisfy your ambitions, your selfish pursuits. And Jesus here does something in Mark 11 verse 16. Mark alone adds this detail no other synoptic gospel does. Look at verse 16.

This is something that's unique to our study of this book. And he being Jesus, and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. That's not in Luke. It's not in John. It's not in Matthew.

In Mark's gospel, it's highlighted that what Jesus also did after he flipped tables and the coins rang through the plaza and the animals were running out of their places. Jesus also found people walking through and he stopped them. You can't walk through here like that. Go back to where you came from. What's happening here?

Evidently, the temple also became something else. It became a detour for commuters. It became a place for carriers of vessels and goods to travel by. Why? Because if you look up just how big the temple was after Herod renovated, it was massive.

You can fit multiple football fields in it. And for people they realize, well, to go around the temple makes our journey much longer and so they would use the courtyards to cut corners. And they would use the house of God as just a convenient place for transportation to make their journey a little shorter. And Jesus saw this. He saw these individuals desecrating the sacredness of his house, treating it as just as a shortcut through their GPS and he even stopped that.

You realize what this place is. You realize where we are. You realize that this is a place for worship not a place for convenience. How does this happen? How do you have these people taking advantage of others?

How do you have other people around who are taking advantage of the house of God for all their own? I mean, it it went from selling beasts at a upscale price and the corruption trickling down to people who were just walking by the house of God like it was a front lawn instead of walking around on the sidewalk. I'll tell you how it happens. This all began with a gracious law that aimed to relieve worshipers in their pursuit of honoring the king. And like many truths about God's grace, man is not slow to apply them to justify irreverence and justify carelessness and justify selfish ambition even through spiritual means.

Can I tell you what God's grace really should do when somebody really tastes it? One's enjoyment of the grace of Jesus Christ provokes greater reverence, not less of it. And a person who is not stimulated to greater awe and fear of God, even when you drink from the cup of salvation and grace and mercy, is questionable. And I learned something about Jesus here, our Jesus, my Jesus, your Jesus, gentle Jesus, loving Jesus, praying for babies Jesus, healing the sick Jesus, visiting those who need visits Jesus, that Jesus. You know when I learned something about Jesus here?

Precious shepherd, the lamb of God, the bridegroom. Irreverence irritates him. Irreverence irritates Jesus. And John explained it this way with Jesus's first visit to the temple. In John two verse 17, his disciples remember that it was written, zeal for your house will consume me.

When they saw Jesus doing this in John chapter two, a scripture came to mind from Psalms. Zeal for your house will consume me. Do you wanna be like Jesus? I wanna be like Jesus in every way, not in some ways. Zeal for his house.

You know, you have different extremes here. You have some who have no zeal for the house of God. And then you have those who have zeal in the context of the house of God, but for the wrong things. I call them legalists. They're very zealous for things that don't matter.

Have you met people like that? Nitpicking and this and that about every single thing. And they justify it with the zeal for righteousness, the zeal for God's zeal for holiness. No, it's misguided passion. And so you have extremes with anything.

Right? With any emotion, with any conviction, you have two sided extremes. But my concern at this point, I touched on the legal list a little bit, but my concern is for those who don't have zeal for God's house. Where is that? Where is that?

You know, something happened to the world a few years ago. You remember what happened. Right? The whole world shut down. And I remember having a conversation with a pastor at the peak of churches not being able to meet and all the craziness.

And he said something to me that stuck with me to this day. Still rings in my mind from time to time. It it it caused me to stop in my tracks. I remember I was walking in front of the house when we were talking. He said, brother, churches aren't meeting.

Christians aren't gathering. He said, I wonder what Christians would have done two hundred years ago if this mandate went out. He said, I I I I think Christians, maybe I'm wrong, would have gathered in their hundreds and cried out to God. Lord, we can't meet here. Lord, there's something happening.

They're they're restricting our ability to come and worship you and hear you and give to you. Lord, do something. He's like, brother, I don't know about your end of the world, but on my end of the I'm not seeing that. Zeal for the house of God to protect the honor of it, to preserve the joy of it, to stay on track of the intent of it. Zeal for your house consumes me.

I can tell you if that zeal is in you or not by this one simple evaluation of our own hearts. Is Sunday just another day to us? For the Christian who goes to a bible believing church, not a perfect church, a bible believing, bible preaching, bible submitting church, Sunday should be the most exciting day of the week. Shouldn't it? Shouldn't it?

We get to go to the house of God. We get to go to the place of worship. We get to go where God said he would meet us and speak to us and honor us and where gifts of the spirit would manifest before us and through us. God's house. Zeal for your house, this is Jesus, consumes me.

That zeal for positive rejoicing thanksgiving, gratitude, and also a defensive zeal, a protective zeal. When the enemy or the flesh tries to corrupt it, it does something to your soul. That's Jesus. I love Jesus. Let's go to the teaching of the cleansing.

And he was teaching them, verse 17, in saying to them, is it not written my house shall be called the house of prayer for all the nations? But you have made it a den of robbers. Jesus, in his teaching, quotes two Old Testament passages and puts them together. He quotes one, the first part from Isaiah, and the second from Jeremiah seven. We won't focus on the latter part for the sake of time.

It's pretty straightforward. You've turned my house into a den of robbers. You've turned the house of God into a gathering place for criminals. You've turned the house of God into a place where criminals can feel comfortable in corrupting and manipulating and taking advantage of the people of God, the name of God, the house of God. That's pretty straightforward.

But let's look at the first part. My house. Let me remind you of the intent, the design, the plan, the purpose of my gathering place shall be called, of all things, house of prayer. And let me give you that quote. Turn with me to Isaiah 56 in verse seven.

Here's where Jesus is getting this from. Isaiah 56 verse seven. These I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. God's intent for his house is that it would be an inviting place for all peoples of all nations for the purpose of corporately participating in honest heartfelt prayer in an atmosphere of reverence.

Just just peel through what was just quoted and and and look for God's heart in Isaiah fifty six seven. What does it say about God's heart that his longings for when his people gathered, they would pray? Well, prayer is a vertical expression. Prayer is us contacting God and that's what God wants from us. The goal of our gatherings is to meet with God.

That's the goal. We meet together, yes, but we meet together for that purpose, to meet with God. Because that's what prayer is. Prayer is the door in which we enter into the room of fellowship with with him. And so you know what God designed his house to be like?

You know what should be filling this atmosphere every time we do gather? Oh, God longs to hear pleas for forgiveness. God longs to see our honest laments for our brokenness. God longs to hear our needs and our cries whether they're small or great. God longs to hear the shouts of thanksgiving.

God longs to see the rejoicing response to his word declared. God longs to hear us. He he wants to fellowship with us. He wants us to gather with that aim. We're here to meet with him because he said, my house shall be called a house of prayer.

What's another word of prayer? What is prayer really? Communion. Communion with God. And this is what God wants and God must be the goal and as the owner of his temple, then and now, our relation to the house of God is very simple.

Very simple. Very very easy actually to honor his wishes. Honor his wishes. None of us, no matter how gifted a ministry is, or ministers, elders, none of us have the right to make the house of God something other than what God made it to be. And the reward of honoring his wishes is found in this very verse.

Did you see it? Look back at Isaiah's 56 verse seven. He said, my house shall be called the house of prayer, but look what the Lord would do when it would be a house of prayer. Verse seven, these things I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. That's the reward for honoring his wishes.

When you come to the house of God with the intent and the heart posture and the design of what I had in mind for it, your reward will be joy. I will make them rejoice. A joy greater than a place that entertains, a joy greater than a place that puts on things to, again, maybe help this person in in in their in that area of of business or politics or social, whatever the case may be. There's a joy greater than you taking advantage of the place of God for personal profit or gain. They can only come when we honor it the way he wants it to be honored.

For my house shall be called the house of prayer. And when you do that, you'll be joyful. You'll be joyful. Let's come because of our time here to the threat of the cleansing. Verse 18 of Mark 11.

And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him for they feared him because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. And when evening came, they went out of the city. The chief priests weren't there. The chief priests and the scribes heard it. So news came quickly to the leaders of this time.

Jesus of Nazareth wiped the place clean today. And we're told here that they were seeking a way to destroy him, and here's the reason, for they feared him. This is not a god honoring fear. This is not an awe and a reverence that Jesus deserves. This is a fear of what Christ would do to them.

Because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. They were fearful that the popularity was going to Christ. They were fearful that now the allegiance of the people that once esteemed these religious figures as the authority of the faith are now shifting towards this Jesus. And that's what they were afraid of. We have to do something now.

In a way, Jesus by doing this really sealed his faith. No more time to waste, no more games to play. If he was audacious enough to come to the temple during Passover week and put this on, what else does he have in mind? We must deal with him. And they feared him.

And I wanna make this case that there are some who do not believe in Christ, give themselves to Christ, surrender to Christ because of fear. Fear like these scribes and like these elders that if Jesus is to do what he is to do as Lord, he would displace some things in your life. You know what these guys were worried about? Our position, our power is now at risk. If he cleansed the temple, what do you what about us?

We gotta do something. And I'll tell you, there are people like that who will not come to Christ because they're afraid that if Christ enters into their life, he's gonna rearrange everything. Let me tell you confidently, he will. He will. He's Lord.

He has to. He must. If he loves you, he will. I've talked to enough young people at various youth meetings that are honest stuff after a a a sermon on giving your life to Christ, surrendering to Christ, being consecrated to Christ. Thinking they have their whole life ahead of them, thinking that in their strength and their vigor.

All these plans and all these ideas, I don't want Jesus to mess it up. I don't want Jesus to lead me somewhere I don't wanna go. I don't want Jesus to give me an occupation that I don't wanna do. I don't want Jesus to make me marry somebody that I don't wanna marry. They're afraid of his lordship.

Can I tell you whatever fear you have in your resistance of surrender Christ is a lie? It's a lie from Satan. It's a lie of the flesh because he is good. You've been lord of your life long enough to realize that you are a terrible master. You've been subject to other lords in your life to realize that they do not satisfy.

You served money for years. Right? Are you happy? Scripture says he who has money, loves money, wants more of it. You've been jumping from woman to woman for how long now?

K. So why is there a vacuum in your soul still? From man to man, relationship to relationship. You've done so many things to your body. You hope that if you posted that, you would get this amount of likes and that'll make you good and feel satisfied.

Only for what? Another week? And there you are in that week because your latest post was less likes than the former one. Here you are depressed for days. Christ deserves to rearrange everything.

Christ deserves to lord over your life because he knows what you need. And in his great love, he's not like pharaoh that makes things more burdensome. He is a god who comes to take from you and then give you what you were designed to have. Intimacy with him. Peace, joy in the Holy Spirit.

Righteousness enabled by his powerful mercies running through your veins as you walk in the spirit. If you're a person in here who's afraid to make Jesus Lord, I beckon you. That's a lie. Come to him and express your fears. And even if you express your fears concerning him, he's gracious enough to heal you of that.

He is. Take it from a room filled with people who love to serve Jesus. And I'll tell you this as a person who has served Jesus, the longer you serve him, the sweeter he grows. Today, we're coming to this table because we realize that he is not someone to be feared in the wrong way, but someone that longs to embrace us and forgive us and wash us and restore us and redeem us. If you're not a Christian in this place, we kindly ask that you observe what Christians are about to do.

Jesus gave his church two ordinances, just two. The first one is believer's baptism where you, with your conscious decision, decide to get in a body of water after confessing and repenting of your sin, to be identified with him by being buried in that water, signifying you being buried with Christ and then coming out of that water signifying new life in Christ. And then what the Bible prescribes as a pattern is after you have done that, you then partake in a continual ordinance, which is the Lord's table, where you take the element of the bread and the element of the cup, and you approach the table, and you rehearse that you have been forgiven and you have been saved upon the performance of Christ, not your own. And if you have not confessed Christ, believed in Christ, given your life to Christ, then this is not for you respectfully because this is for those who are his. And believer, you're coming to this table also remembering, yes, the body and the blood, but also the oneness of the body of Christ today.

That like this one loaf, we are one. We are connected. We are inseparable by the spirit. And if in practice that is not true, if in practice there's divide, there's tension, there's something that's not there, then you would honor Christ more and leaving your gift at the altar and and reconciling with the brother and saying, I can in good conscience say we are one body when you and I have an issue. And so that's what this is for.

It's it's for the church and it's a sanctifying thing that reminds us, one, you're saved by grace. You're you're saved by grace. Yeah. Okay. You had a bad week.

Thank God for grace. You're forgiven by faith. And two, am I right with my brother and sister? Am I right with them? If not, no one's here to judge.

No one has the right to judge. But I'll pause on this, and I will do something that's gonna honor Christ more and find that brother and sister and have an honest conversation. Let's prepare our hearts to take together. Lord, we just pause now and meditate on this holy moment. Lord, if you long for reverence, we give it to you.

Thank you, Lord, that reverence is not in competition with joy. For you said, I will make them rejoice in my house of prayer. Lord, we sit and we thank you for the word that you've provided us. And now we prepare, Lord, to do what you commanded your church to do. That as often as we eat and drink, we would remember what you've done for us.

And so, Lord, as we sing these songs to reflect and as we even pause to examine our own hearts, we pray, Lord, that your Holy Spirit would minister to us. We love you, and we are honored to be invited to this table. The privilege, Lord, is ours. And to have this fellowship means that you've accepted us and that we belong to you forever. And so, Lord, in this moment, let sins be repented of.

Let discouragement disappear. Let even if needed relationships be restored, just be glorified. And, Lord, if your house shall be called the house of prayer, then hear our prayers. Hear our prayers. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. As the praise team comes up, invite you to stand. We're gonna sing about the very truth that you heard me explain briefly. And just I encourage you, please, just engage with the Lord. Engage with the Lord.

Just let this be a precious time between you and him to remember that two thousand years ago, he did something that would save you forever. Amen? Would you join me as we stand? Thank you.