Sermon by Pastor Brent Kompelien
October 9, 2022
INTRO (SLIDE 1)
Good morning! We are continuing in our series in the Gospel of John called “Full of Grace and Truth” and this morning we are jumping back into a series of events in John 2-4 in which Jesus opens his public ministry by asserting that he is inaugurating a new age, that he is fulfilling the Old Testament, and that all the promises of God find their “yes” in him.
In our passage today, we’re going to see Jesus make an earth-shattering statement that redefines how we relate to God, and it is the first sign by which Jesus reveals that what matters most is the condition of your heart.
ILLUST — This last Wednesday, I was at a lunch with some other pastors from Hastings. After our food was served, one of the pastors invited our server to join us as we prayed for the meal. This woman said, “Sure!” So one of the guys prayed, and she went back to work.
Toward the end of our lunch, our server came back and said, “Can I ask you all a religious question?” Of course! She went on to explain that her parents were pressuring her to baptize her infant daughter in the Catholic Church just to be safe, and she didn’t want to, but she wasn’t sure why. She said it didn’t seem right.
One of the older pastors gently looked at her and explained that Christianity is not a transaction, it is not a set of rituals to “cover your bases”; it is a relationship where God cares most about the condition of your heart. He laid out the gospel and each one of us around the table gave some encouragement to this young woman to seek the Lord wholeheartedly and trust in Jesus by faith.
It was like a light-bulb went on. No one had ever told her that Christianity isn’t about rituals and rules. I could see the anxious fear melt away in her heart.
Friends, we need to understand something critical this morning: Our sinful flesh will always tend toward making our relationship with God transactional. We are prone to relate to God as though we can bargain with him, exchanging certain good behaviors or right attitudes or the sacrifice of our resources to get something from God. When we find ourselves burdened by guilt or ashamed of our shortcomings, we try to make up for them by making sure we cover our bases.
But this isn’t just a problem for “religious” people. It is an infection in the secular world.
Our deepest need for meaning, purpose, connection, justification, and hope haven’t diminished with the secularization of our culture. They have just been redirected to what author David Zahl calls “replacement religions” of career, politics, family, achievement, romance, or a thousand other things. Zahl writes, “The new replacement religions go by different names but function more or less the same, maintaining all the demands and rituals, but with none of the mercy!”
In other words, you can find just as many legalists in the secular world as you can within organized religion! Our sinful bent is always toward outward demonstrations of piety that become increasingly merciless and only breed a culture of self-justification and fear. Zahl says that this will result in a culture that crucifies rather than forgives. If that doesn’t define our age, I don’t know what does!
Friends, I’m here this morning to invite you to a different reality. In the gospel of Jesus Christ, you can lay down the burden of a transactional relationship with God, or whatever other replacement for God that has enslaved you, and you can find freedom in the truth that nearness to God is available through the gift of Jesus Christ himself.
Open with me to John 2:13-25.
PROP — In this passage, Jesus is going to challenge the transactional system of the temple in Jerusalem, and assert that he himself is now the new temple, the meeting place between God and man.
Let’s read. READ John 2:13-25.
ORG SENT — We are going to look at how Jesus cleanses the temple (vv. 13-17), and then how the Jewish leaders demand a sign (vv. 18-25).
MAIN 1 — Jesus Cleanses The Temple (vv. 13-17). (SLIDE 2a)
The Jewish Passover was approaching, which is an annual commemoration of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt when the angel of the Lord “passed over” the houses of God’s people who had the lambs’ blood on the doorposts during the final plague of the firstborn.
People from all over the Roman world would travel to Jerusalem for this event, and they would make sacrifices at the Temple and exchange their foreign currencies to pay the annual Temple tax.
It was common for cattle, sheep, and doves to be sold on site since it was difficult for people to travelled a long way to bring along their own animals.
These vendors had originally been set up across a valley to the east of the Temple on the Mount of Olives, but by Jesus’ day they had moved right into the Temple courts.
So, instead of a festival like Passover being commemorated with reverence and the quiet murmur of heartfelt prayer, the Temple was filled with the bleating of sheep, the mooing of cows, and the “cha-ching” of cash registers.
In the midst of the chaos and crowds, Jesus steps in to call out the hypocrisy. Just look at what he says. READ v. 16. (SLIDE 2b)
We need to understand rightly what Jesus is doing here. He is not telling the people to violate God’s law. He is not contradicting the Old Testament. Rather, he is upset that the Temple, the meeting place between God and his people, has been turned into a marketplace or an exchange of religious goods and services.
In other words, the Jewish people had grown to view their worship and their communion with God as a transaction. They had allowed the ritual and the rules to take over their focus, and they had grown callous and indifferent to the deeper purpose of drawing near to God.
APPLY — Let me ask you: In what ways has the church today turned its focus toward a transactional relationship with God? (SLIDE 2c)
I’ll offer two answers to that question; two ditches that the church can fall into. There are others, but here are two common problems in the church today:
(SLIDE 2d) Legalism — behavior modification based on fear.
(SLIDE 2e) Legalism says, “If you do this, then God won’t be mad at you.”
There is a subtle threat in this statement. The threat is that God is waiting to be mad at you, so don’t screw up. God is like an angry parent.
It is a fear-based exchange that will destroy your soul.
(SLIDE 2f) Prosperity Gospel — behavior modification based on greed.
(SLIDE 2g) The Prosperity Gospel says, “If you do this, then God will reward you.”
There is a subtle selfishness in this statement. Good deeds in the Prosperity Gospel are usually viewed as serving God, but the motivation is to receive something back from God like a vending machine.
It is a greed-based exchange that will also destroy your soul.
KEY — Whenever we relate to God like an angry parent or like a vending machine, the only way for us to cope is to become fake. You can’t be honest with yourself or with others about your failures. You can’t open up about your doubts. You can’t admit that you don’t know what you’re doing. Without the freedom that only comes from the gospel of grace, you will put on a mask.
But friends! Jesus is inviting you to a different way!
ILLUST — The great preacher Charles Spurgeon once said, “Appear to be what thou art, tear off thy masks. The church was never meant to be a masquerade.”
This is what Jesus means when he says to the people in the Temple, “Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” He says to the people: Don’t make your relationship with God a transaction, an exchange, a mere manipulation of behavior to make him happy. Your communion with the Lord, your experience of his presence, your worship through your gifts and skills and resources and desires CAN BE SO MUCH RICHER that a mere exchange.
And this is where Jesus responds to the Jewish leaders’ demand for a sign with the most radical claim about how we can relate to God in a fundamentally different way.
MAIN 2 — Demand For A Sign (vv. 18-25). (SLIDE 3a)
Look at the question that is posed to Jesus and the ensuing conversation. READ vv. 18-20.
It was likely that the people questioning Jesus here are the temple authorities, the priests who administered the temple rituals.
It is interesting that their biggest concern is whether Jesus has the authority to clear out the temple. (SLIDE 3b) They don’t show any concern or evaluation of whether what Jesus did was right, they felt that their own authority was under assault. They wanted a sign, something visible to prove that Jesus had authority.
IMPORTANT — Here we see the same theme we’ve already observed in the Gospel of John, and it will continue throughout the book. Whenever people come to Jesus with their questions, expectations, or demands, Jesus always transcends their limited human understanding to declare something bigger and greater.
Here the leaders want a sign that would satisfy them, which is actually a demand that risks putting themselves in a position of telling God what to do. Never good! If they only had eyes to see it, they would realize that Jesus’ cleansing of the temple was already a prophetic sign!
And Jesus answers them with a seemingly odd and impossible claim in verse 19: (SLIDE 3c) “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
Wait, hold on a second! This temple took 46 years to build! It was started by Herod the Great before Jesus was even born! How could he rebuild it?
ILLUST — Let me tell you why these people were so shocked by Jesus’ statement here. I had the privilege of going on study tour of Israel more than 10 years ago. Archaeologists have uncovered the original temple foundation stones from the 1st century. Here is a picture of the Temple. (SLIDE 4)
Now zoom in on the original 1st century blocks at the bottom. (SLIDE 5) These blocks are 30 feet long and 5 feet wide! Each one of those blocks weighs more than a 747! It took four decades of work by hundreds of laborers to move these stones into place! You can see why people thought Jesus was crazy!
(SLIDE 6a) But why does Jesus even make such a claim? Why focus so much on the temple?
(SLIDE 6b) The temple is the place where God dwells with his people. It is the place where sin is dealt with. It is the place where the people hear from God.
You see, ever since the Garden of Eden where humanity had been banished from God’s presence because of sin, the only way to approach the Holy and Almighty God was through the temple rituals and system of sacrifices.
But even though this system was set up to bring people back into communion with God, it had turned into a transactional reality. The heart was gone. The sense of nearness to God’s presence had evaporated because the temple courts had become a marketplace to exchange religious goods and services.
And so, this is why Jesus’ claim is so radical: (SLIDE 6c) He is saying that HE HIMSELF is the new temple, the meeting place between God and man, the one who makes the ultimate and perfect sacrifice for sin, who is the Word made flesh, dwelling among us, full of grace and truth!
Jesus is saying that everything the temple stood for, everything it symbolized, and everything it pointed to was HIMSELF! And the Apostle John tells us in verse 21-22 that Jesus’ resurrection proves this fact!
APPLY
Friends, we need to stop here. There is a profound shift happening in this passage that shatters our attempts at a transactional relationship with God.
In the gospel, Jesus has stepped in to give you the greatest gift: He has given you himself. He has brought the presence of God near, he has paid for all your sin, he has ensured you victory over sin and death, and he welcomes you into his family to be a beloved child of God.
You see, through Jesus we come face-to-face with God himself. And because the work is achieved by Jesus, not by our own efforts or rituals or deals we make with God, we are welcomed into God’s presence purely by his grace!
Jesus clearing out the temple was a symbolic act that pointed to the freedom we have in the gospel! We don’t have to live under the oppressive demands of legalism. We don’t have to make sure we cover our bases with certain rituals or certain expectations. We don’t have to prove anything to anyone with pious words or a perfect image.
ASK: In the gospel, who is near to God? It is not the one who keeps up appearances or impresses others with self-righteousness.
Just listen to how the prophet Isaiah said it, (SLIDE 7) “Build up, build up, prepare the road! Remove the obstacles out of the way of my people.” For this is what the high and exalted One says — he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Isaiah 57:14-15).
Friends, in the gift of Jesus Christ, the presence of the Holy One has come! And because we are saved by grace through faith, the gift of God’s presence is available to the anyone who is contrite and lowly in spirit. God will draw near to all who repent and humble themselves.
It is not a transaction…it is hands open in a posture of surrender, ready to receive the gift of God’s grace. And God promises to draw near to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.
(SLIDE 8, blank) If you have walked down the road of a transactional relationship with God, I want to invite you to lay down your burden, and through the reviving work of the Holy Spirit, I invite you to receive freedom from the shackles of trying to be good enough for God, or trying to live up to expectations, or trying to make everyone think you’re ok.
As the Lord said through Isaiah: “Remove the obstacles out of the way!” Get rid of the things that stand in the way of true faith and trust in the Lord, of true closeness to God, of real communion with Him.
I’ll say it again: What matters most is the condition of your heart. What Jesus desires is not an outward show, but an inward devotion that springs from a contrite heart that has been revived by God’s own presence.