The Father’s House

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Good morning, church family.

My name is Stevie.

I'm part of the North Berkeley Community Group.

This morning I'll be reading the scripture lesson.

It's from the Gospel of John, chapter 2, verses 15 to 23.

John 2:15–23

When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves,

and others sitting at tables exchanging money.

So he made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle.

He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.

To those who sold doves he said,

Get these out of here.

Stop turning my father's house into a market.

His disciples remembered that it is written,

Zeal for your house will consume me.

The Jews then responded to him,

What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?

Jesus answered them,

Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.

They replied,

It has taken 46 years to build this temple,

and you're going to raise it in three days?

But the temple he had spoken of was his body.

After he was raised from the dead,

his disciples recalled what he had said.

Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover festival,

many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name.

But Jesus would not entrust himself to them,

for he knew all people.

He did not need any testimony about mankind,

for he knew what was in each person.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, O Christ.

Good morning, Christ Church.

And again, Happy New Year.

New Year, new you, right?

How many of you made New Year's resolutions this year?

How many of you, your resolutions included the word Omicron?

So many disappointing disruptions right now, right?

But thankfully, this appears to be mild.

We think it's going to peak in the next week or so,

and hopefully pass over pretty quickly.

And I'm grateful to have such a highly vaccinated and boosted church.

We were 98% vaccinated back in May.

If you're new with us, that's just maybe helpful information to have.

And our plan during this season is what it's been the whole time,

which is just to keep calm and carry on.

Remember when the NBA shut down and the pandemic became real.

You guys remember the NBA shutting down?

Well, I think the NBA is going to lead us out of the pandemic as well.

The Omicron wave seems to have peaked in the league already.

And if the NBA can find a way to keep playing,

then surely the people of God can find a way to keep doing what we do.

Because I believe what we're doing is infinitely more important

than what the NBA is doing.

And with that, I want to say go Warriors.

And actually, I think Steph Curry would agree with what I just said,

which is really cool.

Maybe your New Year's resolution did not include the word Omicron,

but what kind of change are we typically hoping for with these resolutions?

Many of us want to exercise more, lose weight, get organized,

learn a new skill or hobby, kick a bad habit,

spend less, save more, invest more time in our family and our friends,

maybe travel more, read more books.

What's interesting to me is that 50% of Americans set New Year's resolutions,

but you know what happens a year later?

88% of those resolutions fail.

That's 156 million failed resolutions.

Maybe you're here today and you resolve to lose five pounds.

Nine days in, you've only got 10 pounds left to go, right?

Change is hard.

And if it were easy, everybody would do it.

We need support for whatever change we want to see in our lives.

So if one of your desires is to grow closer to God in 2022,

I want to say that you won't do that on your own.

That you need a church, this church or any other church,

you need to form the habit of Sunday worship every week,

get involved in a midweek community group,

maybe come to our Christianity Explored,

which starts this Wednesday night.

But if you want to see change in your life,

research has shown us you can't do that strictly on your own.

You need a strong community that's built for change.

And here in the church, we have the means of God's grace.

We have the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

We have 2,000 years of enablement for deep and lasting change.

You want to know what my New Year's resolution is for your life?

It is to lead you into a deeper relationship with Christ and His church

through community and for the city.

As Andrew mentioned, that's our mission.

That's our New Year's resolution for you in 2022.

It's the reason we preach the Gospels every year from Christmas to Easter.

It's the reason we create discussion questions for our community groups.

The reason we create a daily Bible reading plan through the Gospel of John.

All of these are meant to help you have an encounter with Jesus Christ.

Because there's no more powerful agent of change in the whole world

than to have a relationship and a relationship that's getting deeper and deeper with Jesus.

If He rose from the dead, whatever change you want to see happen in your life is no problem for Him.

But He wants to do it in the context of His community.

And right now, everything's telling us to lean away from community.

And I'm inviting you to lean in to community.

Unless you're sick.

Stay home.

Stay home.

We're in the Gospel of John.

We focused for a few weeks on John 1 leading up to Christmas.

And we started the New Year in John 2 last Sunday where Jesus changes the water to wine,

changes shame to joy.

Today we're looking at Jesus who cleanses and redefines the temple.

And I think God's word for us today is that zealous Jesus makes bold claims

about God, His body, and our hearts.

Zealous Jesus makes bold claims about God, His body, and our hearts.

I want to start with this, that zealous Jesus makes bold claims about God.

Listen to verse 13.

When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem,

and in the temple courts He found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves,

and others sitting at tables exchanging money.

Some historical context, if you don't know the Bible very well,

you can't be a Jew without the Torah and the temple.

And in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible,

we learn about Israel's exodus from Egypt, the night of the Passover,

the sacrificial lambs, the blood on the doorposts, the mercy of God,

the angel of death passing over to save God's people.

And that yearly, there's a yearly celebration of that Torah event

in the temple on Mount Zion.

And Jesus, being a faithful Jew, He walks, you know,

that five-day journey from Galilee to Jerusalem three to four times every year

to celebrate the biblical feasts.

And He gets to Passover, this one particular year at the beginning of His ministry,

and tiny Jerusalem is full of people.

Probably about two million-plus people are packed.

It's just crowded wall to wall.

And what does Jesus do to start His ministry at Israel's ground zero

amid massive crowds of pilgrims?

We read in verse 15, this is what He decided to do.

He made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple courts,

both sheep and cattle.

He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.

Probably not the best way to win friends and influence people.

Is this the Jesus that we introduce to our young kids?

Maybe you had a picture of Jesus in your room or in your Bible as a child,

and it was this idealized figure in a meadow with a lot of flowers,

and He's holding a lamb, and little boys and girls are reaching out to Jesus.

It's probably a sentimentalized, anemic, passive figure.

We teach our kids about gentle Jesus, meek and mild,

healing Jesus, forgiving Jesus, feeding Jesus, teaching Jesus.

But what about whipping Jesus, who's driving the animals?

What about table-turning Jesus, who's scattering the coins?

We love the Jesus of John 2, who turns water into wine and brings the joy of the feast.

But we're not so sure that we like this Jesus.

The rest of John 2, that makes a whip of judgment.

Now, the cords of this whip were the rushes that you would put under animals,

and they were not strong at all.

They wouldn't have hurt the animals.

It's just a little whip woven together out of straw.

Jesus is not physically overpowering these animals,

but what He is doing is spiritually overpowering the people with His zeal for God

and His moral outrage.

Now, imagine what would happen if you did this.

You waited till the biggest day in your office or your department.

It's an open house.

There's a year-end party, and you bust open the doors,

and you start turning desks upside down and throwing papers all over the place.

And you say, with a really loud voice, you say,

this whole place is a disgrace.

It's corrupt from top to bottom.

You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

This entire system is finished.

What do we do with this Jesus?

Well, you basically have two options.

You can go the Thomas Jefferson route,

and you can basically just cut this part and any other part

out of your Bible that you don't like.

Or you can get comfortable with a Jesus that makes you uncomfortable.

And I think that's why stories like this are in the Gospels.

Listen to verse 16.

To those who sold doves, He said,

Get these out of here.

Stop turning my Father's house into a market.

His disciples remember that it is written,

Zeal for your house will consume me.

Zeal.

Zeal.

What is zeal?

Zeal is energy.

It's enthusiasm.

It's passion and fire.

It's intensity, fervency, and vigor.

The antonym of zeal is apathy and indifference.

What this tells us is that the real Jesus of the Gospels

is going to do things and say things over and over

that rub you the wrong way and make you say,

who do you think you are?

Which is what they ask Him here.

Jesus comes in and He says,

This is not your market.

This is my Father's house.

Who has the audacity to call God my Father?

Not our Father, but my Father.

Jesus is making a claim to a special,

unique relationship with God as the eternal Son of God.

And what is He so zealous for?

What is consuming Him and burning in Him and eating Him up?

It's not so much the evils of the world.

It's the fact that the people of God have lost their purity.

This is to be the house of my Father,

but you turn it into a market.

This is to be the place of worship,

but what you filled it with is a bunch of noise

and mess and distraction and business

and banking and money and deals.

Now, don't get me wrong.

Banking and business need to be done.

Money needs to be changed.

The animals here need to be purchased

so they can be sacrificed.

All of this is legitimate and essential.

But the issue here is location, location, location.

Jesus says, I want you to prepare for worship

and I want you to do it in a different way,

at a different time, in a different place.

Why?

Because God deserves respect.

And Jesus has come to restore honor to God.

What's the first thing He teaches us to pray

in the Lord's Prayer?

First line.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

And He puts that at the top line of the prayer

because it's His highest concern.

It was precisely Jesus' passion for God's worship

that led to Jesus' passion and death at human hands.

That's why they arrested Him and put Him on trial.

Jesus was so on fire for the majesty, the power,

the holiness of God that He would get badly burned.

And that's what Jesus' cross tells us.

It tells us that if you have zeal for God and for His house,

it's gonna hurt you too.

So what does this mean for us, Christchurch,

as we start a new year?

I just wanna ask some questions.

How closely do we resemble Jesus' zeal

about worshiping and honoring God?

And would people recognize in us

Jesus' consuming passion for the quality,

authenticity, and purity of our relationships with God

and our worship given to God?

I want you to think about this text from the prophet Malachi.

This is Malachi chapter three, verse one.

You've probably heard this if you've ever heard

Handel's Messiah.

It says this,

Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking

will come to His temple,

but who can endure the day of His coming?

Who can stand when He appears?

For He will be like a refiner's fire

and a launderer's soap.

He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.

He will purify the Levites and refine them

like gold and silver.

And then the Lord will have people

who will bring offerings in righteousness.

If Jesus were to put us in our worship

through His refiner's fire,

what slag, what dross would be removed

so that what remains is pure gold?

If Jesus were to cleanse us in our worship

with His launderer's soap,

soaking and beading and scrubbing and rinsing,

what dirt, what stains would be removed

so that what remains is pure fabric?

If Jesus were to put together a whip

to drive out the animals of distraction in our lives

and to overturn the tables of lesser priorities

in our lives that keep us from morning prayer

and daily scripture and showing up prepared

and on time week after week to Sunday worship,

what would those distractions and lesser priorities be?

Malachi 3 says,

then the Lord will have people

who will bring offerings in righteousness.

John 2 says that whatever is in our lives

that needs to be burned up in the refiner's fire,

whatever needs to be washed away by the launderer's soap,

whatever is impure,

whatever is unrighteous,

whatever is insignificant and unimportant

and not worthy of God,

Jesus says to that thing that He's pointing at

in my life and in your life,

get rid of it.

Get it out of here.

Get rid of everything that's keeping you

away from my Father's house

and get rid of everything that's not appropriate

and fitting to bring into my Father's house.

You guys with me?

You guys with me?

Okay.

The mask, I can't tell.

The house of my Father is not a transactional market

among equals.

The house of my Father is the place

where the almighty, majestic, holy God

wants little people like us to come

and be at home with Him

in personal, intimate relationships.

The Father's house is a place

where we enter into a familial covenant bond

with Him by His Son and by His Spirit.

It's the place where by the Spirit

we come to share in the relationship

that the Son has with His Father.

Wow.

What a high privilege.

And yet what a high responsibility

for the people of God.

You see, in John 2,

we encounter the Lord of the wine

and the Lord of the whip.

Both.

We can't separate them.

We have to have both together.

In the sermon on the wine,

we expect in a healthy church

to find Jesus meeting the personal needs

of ordinary people

and quietly entering into their private crises

and gently but powerfully

moving individuals and families

from shame to joy.

That's the turning of the water into wine.

But the sermon on the whip

tells us to expect a Jesus

who will come and judge the public worship

of the people of God

and to raise up a people

who are zealously passionate

for the purity of the people of God.

So that's zealous Jesus.

Add that to all of your other Jesuses.

Zealous Jesus wants to make bold claims here

about God,

but also about his body.

He wants to make bold claims about his body.

It's a minor miracle that Jesus

is not arrested on the spot.

It's shocking that people put up

with this behavior,

this protest from this lone agitator,

this unknown prophet from Galilee,

but they do have questions.

And in verse 18, they say,

what sign can you show us

to prove your authority to do all this?

Now, Thomas Jefferson,

he did actually remove this part

from verse 17 and following

from his Bible

because he didn't much like

a divine authoritative Christ.

Because listen to Jesus' answer.

How does he answer the question?

He says in verse 19,

destroy this temple

and I will raise it again

in three days.

That's a cataclysmic claim.

We modern people miss it

because we don't really know

what temples are,

but ancient people knew

that the temple was the place

where heaven and earth,

where the eternal

and the temporal,

where the supernatural

and the natural

intersect and meet together.

It's a cosmic crossroads

crossroads,

where the divine resides

and where the divine presence

is mediated

and where the gap

between us

and the divine

is bridged.

If you go to Mount Zion today

in Jerusalem,

you'll see that it's,

you'll see why it's one of the

wonders of the ancient world.

It's a building project.

Some of us went a few years back.

It's a building project

that lasted 46 years

and it's just a remarkable

architectural achievement.

Massive retaining walls,

1,500 feet long,

150 feet high

and some of these,

some of the blocks

are 40 feet wide,

500 tons apiece.

And it's this platform

that creates 37 acres,

basically 25 American football fields

on the top of this platform.

And when you get up

on the top of this gigantic plaza,

there are these large staircases

that go up even higher

into the court of the Gentiles

and then the court

of the Israelites.

And then you come

to where the Passover lambs

were placed

on the altar of sacrifice

and then you look beyond that

to the temple itself

covered in gold,

towering another 150 feet high

where only one priest

can enter one time a day

and where only the high priest

can go into the very innermost part,

the Holy of Holies,

one time a year.

What's up with all this?

What does all this mean?

Why go to all the trouble?

Well, the temple tells us

that the ultimate transcendent mystery,

the mystery behind all mysteries

in this world,

that gap between that mysterious power

and us has been bridged

and that all that's wrong with us

can be made right here

by the priests

and the sacrificial lambs

and all the prayers

and the price that's being paid

in this place.

The temple is the place

where you find the one thing

in the whole world

that you can't explain,

the one thing that explains

everything else.

And what does Jesus claim

about this place?

He says, I'm it.

I am the temple.

I'm the ultimate reality

that you seek.

Now, if you go back

just a minute

to the Old Testament,

to 2 Chronicles 7,

King Solomon

builds this amazing temple

and he dedicates it.

He prays this prayer

and we're told

when he prays,

fire came down from heaven

and the glory of the Lord

filled the temple

to a degree

that the priests

couldn't serve anymore.

The people,

it says,

they fell down

with their faces

on the ground

and they worshiped

and they cried out,

the Lord is good.

His love endures forever.

That's what the scriptures

call the Shekinah glory of God.

And that same glory,

that divine presence of God

had come down

at Mount Sinai

a long time before.

It's basically an earthquake,

a hurricane,

and a volcano

all in one

and Moses had the audacity

to say,

Lord, show me

the fullness of your glory.

And what did God say to Moses?

He said,

Moses, no way.

You would die.

You can't handle my glory.

And here,

the glory of God

comes down to the temple

and it sweeps people

off of their feet

and it casts them down

on the ground

and here,

Jesus at the Passover says,

that's me.

My body,

my physical person

houses the Shekinah glory

of God.

And the question for us

is have we adequately

understood Jesus' claim?

Colossians 2 verse 9

Colossians 2:9

says,

for in Christ

all the fullness

of the deity

lives in bodily form.

And we've been looking

over and over

at John 1 14

where it says,

the word became flesh

and tabernacled

or templed among us

and we have seen

his glory,

it says.

Now that's a huge claim

in and of itself,

but Jesus goes

one step further here

and he says,

take this temple

and destroy it

and I will raise it up

again in three days.

This destroyed

yet rebuilt temple

is simple code

from Jesus

about his crucified

yet resurrected body.

And what he's saying

is that every other temple

you go to the priest,

you bring the sacrifice,

you pay the price,

but in this new temple,

I am the priest,

I am the sacrificial lamb

and I pay the full price.

Here is where

the atoning work of God,

the mercy of God,

the forgiveness of God

happens right here

in me.

Jesus is saying,

I'm the God

on the other side

of the gap

and I've come over

on your side

and when I die

on the cross,

I'm gonna put a bridge

that's gonna bridge

the infinite gap

between you and God.

For I am the temple

that all humanity

has been looking for.

I've come to fulfill

the highest ideals

of all the temples

of this world

and render them

obsolete.

Has anybody else

made such a claim?

Any other religion

made such a claim?

Jesus,

on this Passover,

claims to be

the temple,

the house of the Father,

but three Passovers

from now,

in the spring of 30 AD,

on the night

before his crucifixion,

Jesus gives his disciples

a new Passover.

At that time

when liberation

and freedom

and rescue from slavery

are being celebrated,

Jesus breaks bread

and he pours out wine

and he says,

my body

and my blood

are the new Passover

sacrifice for you.

And friends,

the crucified yet risen

Jesus comes among us

every time we gather

in this place

and he does the same thing.

He says,

the temple of my body

was destroyed on the cross

to free you from your sins.

The temple of my body

was raised up

on the third day

to liberate you

from death.

You cannot bridge

the gap

without me.

You cannot

be the priest.

You cannot pay

the sacrifice.

You cannot

give

what it takes.

You can't do it

without me,

so come

put your trust

in me.

Seek the continuing

presence of God

in me.

Make your home

here with me

in my Father's house

and that's what

we're going to do

in just a moment

as we come

to Jesus

at his table.

But I want to say

one final thing

because Jesus,

zealous Jesus,

makes a bold claim

here about God.

He makes a really

bold claim here

about his body.

But he goes

one step further

and he says,

he makes a bold

claim about us,

about our hearts.

Jesus came

at a time,

Passover,

and to a place,

the temple,

that was so central

in the life

of Israel

that what

he did there

had to reverberate

through all

of Israel,

through the whole

nation because

the temple

is the beating

heart of Judaism.

It's not just

another church

on the street

corner.

The temple

is the center

of worship

and music,

of politics

and society,

the center

of national

celebration

and mourning.

And here this

unknown prophet

from Galilee

comes and he

shockingly turns

everything upside

down and he

makes quite a

stir.

In fact,

he impresses

quite a number

of people.

In today's terms,

we would say

that Jesus had

many followers

on Twitter

and Instagram

and TikTok.

Somebody would

have made a

popular YouTube

channel and

started a podcast

and he'd

have had lots

of likes

and shares

and views

and Jesus

goes viral

in this moment

and he becomes

an influencer.

An influencer

is, quote,

someone who has

large followings

of enthusiastic,

engaged people

who pay close

attention to

their views.

Now,

what does Jesus

think about all

these new

enthusiastic followers?

How does he

relate to them?

How does Jesus

leverage his

mega-influencer

status?

Verse 23,

now while he

was in Jerusalem

at the Passover

festival,

many people saw

the signs he was

performing and

believed in his

name, but Jesus

would not entrust

himself to them

for he knew

all people.

He did not need

human testimony

about them for

he knew what

was in them.

Jesus knows

the difference

between believers

and believers.

Jesus makes

a key distinction

between two

different types

of belief,

which seems

to be the

difference between

belief that is

shallow and

belief that is

deep.

Belief that is

temporary and

belief that is

ongoing.

Belief that is

circumstantial and

belief that is

authentic.

And the question

here is, will

the belief of

these so-called

believers stick?

Will it abide?

Jesus is constantly

begging this

question.

His first and

greatest parable is

the parable of the

sower, the seed, and

the soils, where

three soils received

the seed of God, but

they failed to bear

fruit.

And only one of

those four soils,

who got the divine

seed, took root and

bore fruit.

And in that parable

that interprets all

the rest of the

parables, Jesus is

saying, look, there's

a belief that's

shallow and

temporary and

circumstantial, and

there's a belief that

is deep and

ongoing and

authentic.

And Jesus is

deeply concerned

here about

untrustworthy types

of believing.

This belief is

based upon things

that are seen, not

upon the Holy

Spirit who is

unseen.

Jesus is

looking for a

faith that he can

believe in.

Right?

He doesn't believe in

their belief in him.

Why?

Because like it

says in 1 Samuel 16

7, the Lord does

not look at the

things human beings

look at.

People look at the

outward appearance,

but the Lord looks at

the heart.

So how can you know

that you're a

believer with the

kind of belief that

Jesus believes in?

Well, say you

invite a friend over

to your apartment or

to your house, and

they walk in and

they say, hey, you

know what, let's move

this couch from here

to there, and let's

put that table here,

let's put that right

over there.

And you say to

yourself, hey, what

sort of authority do

you think you have?

I'm the owner and

you're the guest.

But you see, that's

the point of John 2.

Jesus comes in and

he starts moving all

the furniture around.

And he's telling

people what to do as

if he owns the place

because he does.

And Jesus, we're told,

he knows the difference

between someone who

sees him merely as a

guest of their life or

as the actual owner of

their life.

Between somebody who

renders to him marginal

authority and somebody

who surrenders to him

absolute authority.

Somebody who says,

Jesus, come on in and

sit here as my guest.

Or Jesus, why don't you

come on in and move my

couch and rearrange my

life in whatever way you

see fit.

That's the Jesus we have

in John chapter 2.

John 2 · chapter mention

And that's why over and

over the scriptures tell

us to examine ourselves.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians

13, 5, examine yourselves

to see whether you are

actually living in the

faith.

Examine yourselves to see

whether you are actually

living in the faith.

And that's probably not a

bad way for us to start a

new year, 2022.

Do we have the kind of

belief that Jesus believes

in?

That's the question for us

today.

In the name of the Father,

the Son, and the Holy

Spirit.

Amen.