CMLC 2024-03-03 Sermon

Well, howdy. Now, I was told this morning that apparently not everybody's going to greet me with howdy in return.

I don't know. So I guess there are some people who didn't go to Texas A&M out there. Wait, let's see.

So for all the rice owls out there, I want to make sure I give a good greeting to you. So I think it goes,

who are you? Who, who, who, who, who? I really want to, wait, isn't that the song for the rice owl? No, that's not. Oh, okay, I might bet.

And apparently there are some long horns out there, so let me make sure I greet you in your language by, alright, alright, alright.

Because everybody knows that Matthew McConaughey is your mascot, right? Absolutely. I think that's how it goes.

Now, I wanted to be able to talk with you a little bit about the idea of what it is to purify the temple today, okay?

And in trying to get across this is that there are a lot of different places that I enjoy going to spend some time.

There are a lot of different things that I enjoy about Houston, alright?

Now, one of them is obviously you got to spend at least one day going to the rodeo, right? Alright?

And by the way, I'll be going to Hank Williams Jr. tomorrow evening. I know, right? It's going to be awesome.

Apparently my friends are too cool to go with me, but whatever. I know, they're going to go on Tuesday, but eh, so, that's only yesterday.

But with it is I also like to go over to Renfest and, you know, I dress up in some good, you know, like, yeah, like some Renaissance Festival garb,

maybe even go on Celtic Day and I get to wear a kilt. I know, you wear that normally in American public and they look at you a little strange.

But at Renaissance Festival, it's totally fine. And the third thing that I like to try to do each year is to spend at least one day at Comic Palooza, alright?

You have got to enjoy the nerd side of life, okay?

Like all the comic book characters and different fantasy novels and everything, and you can go.

And not only can you buy some books you'd never get somewhere else, but sometimes you can even meet some of these favorite actors and actresses that are there, okay?

And even, turns out even the voice actors and actresses are really, really famous.

It's like you'll never see their face. You always hear their voice.

But for me, I'm like, I don't really need to get their photo. I don't need an autograph. I don't think that's important until I find out that Green Arrow was going there.

And I'm like, no, I need to get a picture with Steven Amell.

Now the thing is that for me is because I genuinely like the character.

But there I am and I'm standing in a horde of people. They have like eight different shifts of different types of photos.

And I swear 90% of the people there were women talking about as abs, okay?

And that was the thing, oh my word, there were women fainting in line. They were fainting in line. Somebody swooned. I swear.

I almost had to catch her, okay? And we're over there and we're just kind of going along.

This is for all of those who are trying to get in to see Steven and everything.

And I'm just kind of standing there. I'm like, oh, I think this would be really, really neat.

And I get up there and the two ladies in front of me were just like walking away.

Oh my gosh, he helped me. He touched my hand. And I'm just like, oh, okay.

So I'm like, well, hello, Mr. Amell. How are you doing? Of course I would greet him like that, right?

And it's like, hey, thanks for all that you do. Thanks for taking a photo. And so we took a photo.

And we're done. And I go out to grab my photo. And of course, out of hundreds of people getting photos,

who's is the only one that didn't come out right? Yes. Apparently, yeah, apparently I broke the camera.

Not Steven Amell. There's no way he broke the camera. But with it though, is then you come back in and it's like, oh, you know,

and he sees me, he's like, okay, good, y'all found him. And I'm like, wait, you remembered me?

He's like, well, yeah, how can I not remember the green Power Ranger? And then I'm all like, Steven Amell remembered me.

I know, I had a little fanboy moment for a moment there. So, but with it is, is realizing how difficult it was to get into that place.

That everybody was trying to squeeze in. Okay. But I want to compare that to a different place.

A few years back, I went with my sister and her family to the Holy Land. Okay. And we were in Jerusalem.

And so we got a chance to tour around and see different places. Well, it turned out a friend of mine was living in Jerusalem.

And my sister's like, of course you have a friend who lives in Jerusalem. Like, I have friends, who knew.

And with that is that I go over there and I see him somewhere around nine-ish, 10 p.m. Okay.

And he's showing me all the like little known places, right? The spots that you don't normally get to see. And he takes me to the spot outside of the Temple Wall.

And they had had all this dirt that was like layered there for centuries. And they'd been spending the last few decades trying to excavate it and get down to the bottom until they finally got to this rocky platform that was right there.

And he walks me over and he says, the crew who just unearthed this, they think that this is where Pilate was speaking to the crowds and asking them whether they wanted Jesus or Barabbas.

I'm just like, what? They had just unearthed what they think could have been that location. I walked up and I touched it.

I actually had my hands on it and I'm just like realizing history that was right there. And I looked around. There were no gates. There was no fence. There was no guard.

This place that could have been vitally important and all you do is just walk up and you're just touching it.

And that's oftentimes that some place that may be very important and we don't realize and we take it for granted. And we don't get quite what it means.

And that's what I want you to have in mind as we're thinking about the Temple. As we're thinking of all these different places, different spots that are in the Temple.

See, not everybody could go to every single spot or every single place. It's sort of like whenever you go to the McDonald's playground and you see some 80 year old person trying to crawl through the pipes.

And you're like, dude, I don't know how you're ever getting out of there. There are just some spots that some people go to and others do not.

And the thing is that you had a spot for the priests to do their sacrifices. And then you had a place for all the Jewish men and for the Jewish women.

And just sort of like our brewery tours is apparently they don't hang out with each other. But with it then is you have this giant outer court.

And that was where all of the Gentiles were able to go. Because if you were a foreigner, if you were somebody who was not Jewish, you weren't allowed in the inner spots.

So then if you're not allowed inside, how are you going to come to know God?

If you're not allowed inside, how are you going to learn who God is and understand why he was at his temple?

There has to be a place to teach other people about who God is for them to know him better.

But here's the interesting part about that. That outer court was no longer just an open space for people to go and to learn about God.

It was now a market bazaar. There were just people selling things all over the place. It was busy. It was crowded. It was not a spot for worship.

Now, I want to make sure that I clarify something. Whenever we come to this part in Scripture, I'm going to give...

This is the... I'm adding extra details, so I'm going to get in the weeds just a little bit here.

So try not... I don't mean to try to lose you too much here, but some misconceptions that were on there.

Sometimes people would say that the coin changers, the money changers that were there, that they were taking advantage of people.

But you've got to understand what was happening. People came to the temple from all over, and they might have coins from all over the place.

And it's not quite the same as like Drachma and Pesos and Pounds, but kind of similar. And the difficulty was that if they came with a coin,

that coin may not be the right kind that was acceptable. Why? Because the temple priests only accepted silver coins.

And the only coins that had a high percentage of silver was from tire. So the Tyrian Shekel.

It was so important that Herod took that mint and brought it over to Jerusalem.

So if you wanted to give your tax to the temple, you had to trade it in for something else.

They were actually helping people out there. Or the other part of this. What about all the animals that were in there?

Well, that was also actually important as well. The reason being is because you're not going to drag your animals all the way to Jerusalem

for the sacrifice. You're going to go and you're going to pay for it.

I mean, it's hard enough for us to try to take our dogs out for a walk. Imagine trying to let your goat come in from a whole other city.

It is not going to work. And that's the thing about this is that this was an important thing to be doing.

But where were they doing it? See, the thing is that this didn't bother the Jewish community at all.

See, they could go in to the Jewish sections and they were fine. They could worship.

But the place that was only there, the only spot for the Gentiles. And it was crowded with everything else in the world.

And there is Jesus pushing them out.

There's a part in here where it describes a den of robbers. It wasn't because people were actually robbing each other.

Rather, it comes from Jeremiah where they're talking about the idea that there are people who are so far from God.

And yet when they come to the temple, they're not convicted at all. So it's almost like a den where the criminals are able to gather.

Is that this place was where anybody and everybody were going, not just because they wanted to know God,

but because there was no need to be convicted or changed inside. And that's the thing with this, is that Jesus is telling people,

we need a place that everyone can come to know God. We had something come up this last week.

Our staff and the pastor over at the Vietnamese church that meets over in the fellowship hall,

we were working out where in the world they were going to be able to worship. Because as you may know,

as they worshiped on the fellowship hall, but what's in the fellowship hall right now? Chili.

And you may not know this, but chili is not actually a sacrament of the church. Maybe it should be.

That and a good double-bock. But, right? With it though, is to be able to pause and to say,

okay, but what can we do? And so it turns out the room that was next to it is completely open.

They're able to worship there. But what would happen if we were just saying,

oh, you know what? You're just out of luck. Or what if we were saying,

you know what? Just come and worship with us. They don't speak English.

How many ways in which we could just completely ignore what is needed?

But isn't that also oftentimes what we do in our lives with other people?

Is that we're so focused on whether or not something has matched what we were wanting,

instead of making sure that we've made a place for everyone else to know who God is.

And you see, that's the thing about this authority mentioned.

By whose authority? What authority do you have to say and do this?

Notice that the people that are asking this are not saying, why do we need to leave?

They weren't asking what was going on. They weren't asking,

is there something about this that we were causing problem?

They weren't concerned about what was right or wrong. All they wanted to know is,

why do I have to listen to you?

And isn't that also where we find ourselves as well?

Whenever we hear something that is difficult to hear,

wouldn't we rather just say, well, I have to do it because I was told to,

instead of slowing down and saying, maybe I was supposed to learn something from this?

Because it's easier just to say, well, somebody made me do it.

And in your heart to say, yeah, but I was still in the right.

Rather than saying, maybe there was something I was not aware of.

I was driving to a boxing class the other day.

For those of you who are getting ready to laugh, yes, I do go to boxing class.

It's only been a month. But hey, I'm getting there. I'm getting there.

Rocky Balboa, here I come.

Hopefully Rocky IV and not Rocky V.

But with it though is on the way, there was an intersection.

And all the cars were stopped. And I see some guy in the intersection,

and he's waving people along. And I'm like, oh, great.

Somebody got into a fender bender, and now we're stuck.

And I can see the fire truck coming along.

And I'm like, no, no, no, no. If I can just get through the intersection

before the fire truck gets there and blocks everything up, I'm like,

a little bit closer, fire truck coming, a little bit closer, fire truck coming.

And then two cars away, the fire truck blocks off the traffic.

I'm like, oh, no. And I'm in the far left lane.

I have to wiggle my way over to the far right lane.

I'm not very good at wiggling. But finally, I'm like, okay, fine, whatever.

The cops are in the way. The fire truck's in the way.

I'm like, I'm going to do this. And as I'm driving, I look over,

and there's a motorcyclist sprawled out on the ground.

And I have absolutely no idea if that person's okay.

And the whole time, I'm just telling myself in my head, fine, I have to follow along

because of what they're telling me to do. And the whole time, I wasn't asking the question,

is everybody okay?

And there I am yelling out to God, God, I'm still upset.

And I know I shouldn't be upset. Would you please bless that person?

And this is the only way that I can seem to do it because in my heart,

I'm still frustrated that I was inconvenienced.

Unfortunately, God can still hear the impatient prayer of a guy rushing to his boxing class.

Because that's the thing about who God is.

Is that God is looking more to purify the temple on the inside of us,

not the temple that's on the outside.

And that's what we end up getting when we hear God's law and His commands.

Is that a lot of times we can end up just looking for a way to justify ourselves

and tell ourselves on the inside, you know what?

That's just their problem. They're just making a fuss out of nothing.

Instead of pausing long enough to look inside and say,

why was my heart that bitter and hard?

And that's where I want us to be closing for today.

Is to ask you, where is our priority?

Do we prioritize the things that we find to be fun and frivolous over finding things that help us to grow?

Are we prioritizing the things that make our lives easy over finding the ways in which we can serve other people?

Are we putting the idea of what we find strong in life to be more important than asking what's true in life?

So for my question to you today is that as Jesus is purifying the temple,

what does He have to do in your life to make room for others?

What is it inside of you that when He gave up His own life, the true temple for you,

that He is coming to reach inside of you and say, what is happening in your heart today?

May we take this day and go forth and ask, how is God purifying our temple today?

Thanks be to God.