Breaking Down the Temple Walls: Inclusive Worship and the God of the Bible | Matthew 21:12-17

The following resource is brought to you by Real Life Community Church in Richmond, Kentucky.

We hope you're both challenged and encouraged by this message.

We're going to read Matthew 21 and then we're going to hit the gas pedal and we're going to knock this thing out.

So we are in Matthew 21 this morning and we are starting in verse 12.

Matthew 21, verse 12, says this and Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple and he overturned the tables of the money changers, in the seats of those who sold pigeons.

Matthew 21:12

He said to them it is written my house shall be called a house of prayer.

Would you make it a den of robbers?

And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple and healed them.

But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did and the children crying out in the temple, hosanna to the son of David, they were indignant and they said to him Do you hear what these are saying?

And Jesus said to them yes, have you never read out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies?

You have prepared praise and leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and launch there you may be seated.

And so this morning, if you're wondering who I am, my name is Ben Burnett.

I am Chi Alpha campus pastor at EKU, uh, affiliate with the assembly as a God, we're actually considered us missionaries, and so if you ever wonder, hey, what is my giving go to?

It goes to missionaries like me, um, and my wife, whose primary responsibility is to reach people for the gospel of Jesus.

Um, I could say a whole lot more about that.

Here's what I'll say about that.

We love college students, and if you are a college student and you're going, hey, I want to be a part of something awesome.

Chi Alpha is the place for you, so, come out.

We meet on Tuesdays, six or seven, 30, seven, 30, at Wallace 333.

There we go.

I'll get that right here in just a second.

Um, anyways, we do appreciate, though, all that you do for us, um, as we work at EKU.

Thank you for your generous giving, um, and for your prayers.

If you didn't pray for us, money's cool, but if you don't pray for us, we get nowhere, um.

And so, please, please, please.

If you have a prayer list, put us on there, because we, um can't thank you enough for the prayers that you give us.

And so, anyway, um, back to what we are talking about today.

So, this passage today, when you read this passage, I remember, when I read this as a kid.

This was one of those passages that I was like, cool, right, jesus has a whip and he's.

This isn't in Matthew, but he talks about it in other, it's in all the gospels.

And you would read this passage in the gospels and you'd be like, wow, that's awesome.

I didn't know Jesus, one of those people right, I didn't know that he got all like angry and drove people out of the temple.

But I find that the more I read that today, I still have this wow moment in me.

When I read this passage, when I look at at Jesus enters the temple and drives out all who sell and buy, I get this moment where it's still just kind of brings me to wonder where I go.

Wow, I didn't know that Jesus was was like that.

You know, always hear about Jesus who is loving, always hear about God is love, and so we should accept people just as they are.

But the funny thing about it is Jesus doesn't accept this moment.

And the craziest thing about that is when you look at this.

Jesus doesn't accept a moment where people are in the temple buying things for worship.

Now you may be going.

What are you talking about, pastor Ben?

Well, let's kind of break this passage down and let's look at it a little bit further.

One of the reasons I love this passage is because, even after 20 years of being saved, this passage still draws me to wonder.

It confronts me at my gut level, my preconceived notions of who Jesus is.

When I read this in the gospels, I see Jesus loving patients, and I also see his judgment and his justice.

This passage remind me that, though God is both loving and just, I need to worship him for who he is, not just who I think he is.

And so last week, if you were here, that's what we talked about a little bit.

We talked about this Jesus who comes in to the triumphal entry, and people think that he is one way and yet he is another.

As we break down this passage today, what I hope that you'll think back on is I hope you'll think back on some of the conceptions about Jesus last week so that you can see who the true Jesus is this week.

I hope that as we look at this passage and again as we break it down, that you'll remember the question, pastor Chris, that's last week.

The question was are we going to believe in the God of the Bible or would we rather have the Jesus that we would make him out to be?

And so my hope for you today, as we look through this passage, my hope is that you'll take a good, hard look at who Jesus really is and that you'll believe in the God of the Bible for yourself, not in the God who you would have him to be.

And so this is a big deal, right, this is, I say, all that stuff.

And you go, wow, can we even do that?

I don't know.

So we're going to pray and we're going to ask for help.

Ready, let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we come in Jesus' name and we love you, lord, we're so thankful for your grace.

And so, god, we come and we pray that this day, as we dive into your word, that we would see you for who you really are, that we would see you as a just and an awesome God, and that we would choose you above our own preconceived notions.

And so, father, help us today.

Help us to dive into your word and see you for who you are.

Help me to rightly divide the word of truth in Jesus' name, amen.

And so, as we go back into this passage, in verse 12, we see and Jesus entered the temple.

When I see just those words, regardless of everything else that happens, do you realize kind of the implication of that passage, that little sentence?

Jesus entered the temple.

You see Jesus, what we find in scriptures, that Jesus is God in the flesh.

He is the Son of God, come to save the world.

He is God eternal and he is in this perfect unity with God, the Father.

It's got the Son, which is Jesus, god, the Holy Spirit, and so when Jesus walks into the temple, he is walking into a place that was designed around him and his worship and being thankful to him.

And if you think about it, everything done in the temple points to Jesus.

You have these people who bring these animals and they sacrifice these animals to cover their sin.

And Jesus is on the road to go die for the sins of the world, to cover our sins for good.

We see people who bring things so that they can give them into the temple service, so that they can give them to God as a thank offering, so that they can show off who God is, because they're so thankful for what he's done.

And Jesus is about to do the greatest thing in the known world.

What you see is even the, the tables that he's flipping over these money changers.

The reason why they're changing money is because every male over the age of 20 was required in Exodus to give a half shekel.

It was this coin and the whole intent was that was designed to help the temple service take place, and so if there was anything they had to buy, if there's anything they had to make, whatever the case may be, they use that shekel to help the temple service happen.

And so even those money changers, that shekel, that half shekel actually, that was given for each person, was given the book of Exodus says as a ransom for your life, given for its home, for sin.

And so even this thing that Jesus, as he's flipping over these tables of the money changers, even that is reflective of who Jesus is.

So when Jesus walks into the temple, he's walking into a place that was designed totally around him.

Whether they realized it or not, jesus is going into a place and you would think that he would be proud, right?

You would think that Jesus would walk into this temple and he would see these people who are, they're doing the things that God told them to do, quote, unquote you think that Jesus would walk into the temple and he would go.

These people are here to sacrifice for me and that makes me happy, but he doesn't.

When you look at Jesus as he walks into the temple, verse 12 says that as he entered the temple, he drives out all who sell and buy.

It says and Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.

He said to them it is written my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers.

Do you realize that Jesus walks into the temple and sees this thing that is so far off the mark that he would stop worship to himself because of its offense?

I was listening to this podcast this week by Francis Chan and, if you ever get a chance, I love Francis Chan because Francis Francis Chan understands things that are sacred and that's what he was talking about this week as I was listening.

He was talking about how we maybe don't understand sacred like God would have us understand sacred when we think about, for instance, the, the story that Pastor Chris mentioned about Jehovah Jireh.

This, this place where God provides a sacrifice, a substitutionary sacrifice for Isaac.

He says take off your sandals, because you are standing on holy ground.

Even the sandals, even the shoes that I wear, are an offense to God in that moment, because they carry with them everything that I've ever stepped in, everything that I've ever gone through.

They bear the dust of just sinful world.

And so when he gets there, god says take off your sandals.

The dirt that you're standing on is sacred.

In the Old Testament you see the Holy of Holies and you see how you couldn't go in there unless you were a high priest who had gone through all of these purification rituals.

And then you can only go in once a year.

And you can only go in if you're chosen.

And if you go in improperly, guess what?

You die.

The presence of God, the holiness of God, kills you when we look at something that's sacred.

There's a story about this guy who he's transporting the Ark of the Covenant.

It's this box that inside of it carried the Ten Commandments and some other things.

On top of it sat the mercy seat of God, this place where people would go and they would meet with God face to face.

This man is transporting it on a cart and the ox stumbles and the cart begins to fall and this man reaches out his hand to stop the Ark from falling.

And when he does, he is killed for touching the Ark.

It is sacred.

Jesus walks into this temple and he looks around and he sees all of these things that are going on and, because his heart is overcome with zeal for the house of the Lord, for the sacredness of this place, he stops worship.

That was intended for him, and then he says something that we will go into in just a moment.

I'm trying to get ahead of myself here.

I'm trying to speed up, but I've got to slow it back down.

Have you ever been in that place?

Have you ever been in a place where you maybe don't recognize the sacredness of the things that you do?

Have you ever, for instance, come to church and you got up that morning and you're like I don't want to go to church, but my wife makes me go.

I'm so mad at her.

Then you get up and you're on your way and it just seems like it doesn't matter what you do.

You're running late.

Sorry, my life y'all.

We're here early this morning, by the way.

That's beside the point, but it seems like everything that you do just makes you late.

And so you get in that like thing where you're in the car and it's like icy, you know what I mean.

Like you're driving and she's sitting over there and you're just like I told you to get up earlier and she's like but I had to do my hair and it was so pretty and I was trying to make it so pretty for you and you're sitting over and you're like I'm so mad.

Y'all laughing because you know what I'm talking about.

I got you, bro.

Have you ever been in the place?

And I'm just going to step on toes.

I'm sorry, it's just what God called me to this morning, so I shouldn't even apologize for it.

You've ever been in the place where it's like we take up offering and you're like man, I got to go on this vacation next week and it's I'm not going to give.

Because what happens if I go on vacation?

And then we get there and we have a good time and then the kids spend all my money and then we got to have gas to get home?

And what if we don't have any like money for gas?

I'm going to be one of those people.

It's like standing by Walmart like hey, could you just give me $5 for gas money, so I'm not going to give in the offering plate this week.

Have you ever been in that place where you just forget that the things of God are sacred?

That's what happened here.

The priests of God himself are in the temple and they have made the outer court.

The outer court was called the court of the Gentiles.

They have made the court of the Gentiles this place where you can buy all the things that you need for temple service.

When you go into this outer court and it was like 35 acres, I mean it's huge.

But if you look back at, like Josephus, for instance, he was a historian.

When they do the math, they think there was probably around a million people in Jerusalem at the time of this sacrifice.

So it takes 35 acres of animals for people who are coming from a long distance away.

It takes that much room to sell them the things that they need for worship.

Why isn't God pleased with that?

Number one, I would say that he's not pleased with that because their aim is not right.

So if you're taking notes, number one, you need to fix your aim.

You need to remember who God is, that this God is so much holier than you are and than I am.

You need to remember that this place that you come to is, though it is just a building, and Jesus dwells in our hearts.

The things that we do are intended to draw us to him, and so when we take communion in a minute, it's not just a little cracker and some juice that doesn't taste very good.

Maybe you like still crackers, I don't know, I'm just kidding.

But it's not just something where we take communion and we go.

You know we're just going to have a little snack in the middle of service.

No, this is representative of the body and the blood of Jesus.

When you're sitting there and you're thinking about church, we need to fix our eyes on the fact that God is the one who we do everything for, and so we've got a couple of passages.

I just want to hit real quick.

One of them is 2 Corinthians, chapter 9.

2 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

It's actually the verse that talks about being a cheerful giver.

If you look at 2 Corinthians 9, yes, there we go.

If you look at 2 Corinthians 9, 6 through 15, it says the point is this whoever we try that again, the point is this whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

Keep going.

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a.

What A cheerful giver.

We talked about that.

Keep going, and God is able to make all grace abound to you so that, having all sufficiency and all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.

Keep going as it is written.

He has distributed freely, he's given to the poor.

Keep going, and his righteousness endures forever.

Keep going.

He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.

Now you're like Pastor Ben.

Why are you reading this?

Keep going.

God is enriched in every way.

To be generous in every way, which, through us, will what Produce?

Thanksgiving to God.

Keep going, for the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God.

Keep going.

By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from you, confession of the gospel of Christ and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others.

If you keep reading this, what you see is it starts with you should be a generous giver and you should give out of the joy of giving.

But then, if you read down through that passage, what it says is that you give because of God.

You give because people, we want this to overflow in thankfulness to God.

That God is the point, that God is the one who we should see.

That God is the whole idea behind giving.

We don't give because people just need money.

Yeah, church needs money.

We know we like lights and music and pastors.

You know we got to pay for pastors and whatever.

But, man, if you just give because of that, you missed it.

We give because we're thankful to God and he's giving us everything.

We have Everything.

If you look at 1 Corinthians, 10, 31, it says so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

The whole idea behind that passage is that we don't do things that offend believers, even though I think I'm right.

No, whatever we do, we do all to the glory of God.

Believe, we could all do a little more in regard to giving up our advantage that's what that passage says to sacrifice of ourselves so that others would glorify the God we serve.

And so we come back to this passage.

Jesus overturns these tables, and one of the reasons why overturns these tables is because they are taking away from the place where Gentiles come to worship.

If you know anything about Jewish religious things, that temple was sacred, and if you were not Jewish, you could not enter.

You could go, however, to the outer court, the court of the Gentiles, if you were unclean, and there's 613 laws.

I won't read every one of those to you for time's sake, but if you were unclean and you'd broken some of those laws, you couldn't go into the middle of the temple, but you could go to the court of the Gentiles If you were a person.

We'll read a little bit more about some of the things about that later, but what you need to know is these people were shutting down the worship of people who needed God, and that was not okay with him, and so Jesus says this thing.

He says it is written my house Should we call it a house of prayer?

But you make it a den of robbers.

Isaiah 56, 1-8 tells us just a little bit more about that first phrase.

What you see is Jesus is quoting two separate passages in Scripture.

It is written, and so he's going to start by saying my house shall be called a house of prayer.

Isaiah 56, 1-8.

Do we have that one up there, guys?

Help a fella out.

Hey, there we go, it says.

Thus says the Lord Keep justice and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come and my righteousness be revealed.

Blessed is the man who does this and the Son of man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it, and keeps his hand from doing evil.

Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say the Lord will surely separate me from his people.

And let not the eunuchs say Behold, I'm a dry tree.

For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters.

I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profan it, holds fast my covenant.

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 should be called a house of prayer for all peoples.

The sin that these not only religious leaders, but also the people who were buying the sin that they were committing was they were stopping the worship of God for all people.

It's interesting that the court that they're blocking is the court of the Gentiles, and in the moment they are very much being occupied by Gentile nation, a nation that they hated.

It makes sense that if someone conquered Kentucky, the good old Kentucky boy in me says I wouldn't like those people either.

It would be my obligation to fight back and blah, blah, blah, blah.

You know, breadneck, and I'm gonna.

You know what I'm talking about.

It makes sense that the Jews wouldn't like the Romans, and so it makes sense that they would fill the court of the Gentiles with animals.

It makes sense that they would turn this thing into a marketplace because they don't want them to worship.

God says in Isaiah 56, my house shall be a house of prayer for who?

All nations?

Anybody ever sit there and see somebody who you just go?

I don't like that person.

You think about inviting them to church, but you're just like I don't think I'm going to, because they just aggravate me to death.

Y'all laugh because you know it's true.

I'll admit there's been times in my own life where I've talked to people and you're like you know, like in back of your mind, like I should, pastor Ben, I should talk to him about Jesus.

Yet this person has done me so wrong that all you want is judgment and vindication.

And you know I'm talking about that thing, right?

You just want them to hurt because they have hurt you.

That's not how God is.

Thanks be to God that he's not that way, because we talk all the time about the fact that we deserved every bit of the punishment that Jesus got.

So Jesus says it is written my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a what A den of robbers.

I have Jeremiah chapter seven up there as well.

That's where that part of it comes from.

Jeremiah chapter seven, verse two, says stand in the gate of the Lord's house and proclaim there this word and say here the word of the Lord, all you, men of Judah, who enter these gates to worship the Lord.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel amend your ways and your deeds and I will let you dwell in this place.

Do not trust in these deceptive words.

This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.

Or.

If you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, you do not oppress the sojourner or the fatherless or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers, forever.

Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail.

Will you steal murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to bail and go after other gods that you have not known?

Then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say we are delivered, only to go on doing all these abominations.

Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?

Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord.

You're like Pastor Ben.

That's a lot of scripture, it is Every bit of it is important, and here's why it is important, because that court of the Gentiles, that place where they had filled with animals.

That place was the place where justice could be done and people could find their way back to the Lord.

What was happening that Jesus stopped?

The people were taking the court of the Gentiles, the one place for the foreigner, the unclean, and they were making it in a place of convenience.

Number one we talked about you should fix your aim on God.

But number two sometimes we need to fix our heart as well.

We should care about the one who is not a believer, the one who is not like us, the one who God loves, the one who God wants to come to him.

We should spend and be spent for the gospel of Jesus.

And so, as we read this passage, we see that Jesus, the Son of God, turns over the tables to drive out those who buy and sell, to clear out this place, to let people come back into the temple, people who need God more, quote unquote than these Pharisees who would sell in this place.

And what do we see when that happens?

Verse 14, the blind and the lame came to him where In the temple and he healed them.

But when the chief priest in the scribe saw the wonderful things that he did and the children crying out in the temple, hosanna to the son of David.

They were indignant.

What do we see?

We see that if you'll remove the obstacles, people will find their way to the temple.

If you'll remove the obstacles, people will find God.

We always talk about evangelism and how we need to evangelize.

Guess what, if you'll remove the obstacles in the life of the unbeliever, oftentimes enough they'll find God on their own.

It may not be quite as hard as we make it out to be, and so what we see is these children cry Hosanna to the son of David, the son of David being one of these things where, basically, they would have known and I could have a whole scripture passage, but we're going to skip that one for time sake the son of David, this moniker for the son of God, the one who is the Messiah.

All of these religious leaders would have known what they're shouting and these religious leaders were indignant.

I'd just like to stop for a moment and say how does Jesus respond?

He responds with more scripture.

Jesus says well.

So the religious leaders say do you hear what these are saying?

And Jesus said to them yes, have you never read out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies?

You have prepared Praise.

He quotes Psalm eight and saw made.

I won't read it for time sake, but I will say this If you go back and read Psalm eight, everything in saw made is about God and his Messiah.

When Jesus responds, he doesn't respond with oh I'm sorry, I shouldn't let them talk about the Messiah.

Oh I'm sorry, my religion stepped on your toes.

I'll hush now.

Jesus doesn't respond with oh well, let me be quiet and let me quiet.

These kids know what Jesus does.

As he responds by saying I am the Son of God, he quotes a song that these religious leaders would have had memorized, because they had to memorize all of the Old Testament.

He points them back to the one that they should have been looking at all along.

He fixes their aim so they can fix their heart.

Can I give you a couple takeaways as we close?

A couple takeaways.

Number one God wants you to worship him the right way and with the right attitude.

Number two God desires all to be safe and to come to the knowledge of the truth, and so if there's somebody out there that you're like they aggravate me to death, you should still tell them about Jesus.

The Bible says that if we do not love our brother, who we can see, then we do not love God.

Who we can't see, give you another one.

God does not care how great or how right you think you are.

The religious leaders of the day thought they were so right and so great.

You know who God knows is right and great himself, and he's the one that all of our lives should be around.

Last thing, god will take your sin and your faults, but he also wants your affections and your desires and the designs for your life.

In other words, god is your copilot, he is the pilot and the one who invented the plane and the one who made the air that the plane flies through, on and on and on.

Man Jesus is on the road to the cross and he rides in on a donkey, showing his preeminence, showing that he is the king of kings of the Lord of lords, and when people look at him they don't realize who he is, they don't realize that he is the Messiah come to save the world, to make a way where there was no way To reconcile enemies of God to God in a way that blew the minds of all the religious people of the day.

So let's go back to the original question.

The question from last week.

Is that the God that you serve?

Is that the one that, in your heart of hearts, you would say, yes, I want the God of the Bible, I want the one who doesn't care how right I am, because he's right.

I want the one who wants me to worship him the way he wants to be worshiped, not the way that I'm willing to do so.

Is that the God that you would serve, or are you serving a God that you have made into that image that you think he should be?

The buddy Jesus, the, the temporpedic Jesus, all the ones we talked about last week?

Normally, we would have an altar call and I would say you know, come to this side if you want prayer, come to this side if you want to be left alone.

Here's what I want to tell you today.

Today is one of those days where we look full in the face of God as to who he is a God who is just a God who would stop temple worship because they have missed the mark.

I want to offer you that God and I want you to look full at who God is, that he is one who would stop temple worship to fix this thing so that people could come to him who need him.

The Bible says that he doesn't care about sacrifices.

His offering, the one that he likes, is a broken and contrite heart, one that knows that he is everything and we are nothing.

I want to offer you that God today, and so, if you're sitting there and you're going, man, I want that Jesus.

You can have him.

If you're sitting there and you're going, I know that Jesus, but I don't know that I've served him in that way.

That's okay too.

Here's what I'll tell you.

Today is the day of repentance.

The Bible says that if you don't believe that, you can repent and believe the good news of Jesus, that he died on that cross, that he's going to in this story, that he died, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures, and what that means is that when he was raised, he beat death, hell and the grave.

He beat it so that you could be reconciled to a God that you were once enemies with.

If you want that God, the Bible says that if you'll call upon his name, you will be saved.

The Bible says that if you'll believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead and you'll confess with your mouth that he is Lord, that you will be saved, and you don't need a preacher like me to pray some prayer with you.

You can have that right now, and so we're just going to take a couple minutes and you do.

If you need somebody to pray with you, I will say I'll be right over here and some of our elders will be right over here, but whatever the case may be, don't leave out of here the same way that you came in.

God is worthy of everything that you have, and you have a chance to respond to him this morning, amen.

Thank you for listening.

If you'd like to know more about how you can have a relationship with Jesus Christ, or if you have questions about our church, you can email us at info at myrealchurchorg.

Real Life Community Church is located at 335 Glyndon Avenue in Richmond, kentucky.

We invite you to join us for worship Sunday at 10.45 am or Wednesday at 7 pm.

Visit us online at myrealchurchorg.