CLEANSING THE "HOUSE" FOR TRUE WORSHIP | JOHN 2:13-16 | SUNDAY, MARCH

Introduction and Greetings

Good morning to all online and in-person | New friends visiting for the first/second time

The Month March

The beginning of spring | Return of Daylight Saving Time | Season of preparing seeds for planting | Dead-looking fields will come alive with beauty splendor and

Finally, the celebration of Palm Sunday & Good Friday

MARVELOUS GRACE

-Julia H. Johnston, 1910 wrote the famous hymn “Marvelous Grace”

The Chorus says: Grace, grace, God’s grace,

Grace that will pardon and cleanse within; Grace, grace, God’s grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin.

JESUS CLEANSING THE “TEMPLE”

In the gospel reading today, John tells us about the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry. The official launching of a ministry unlike nothing the people of those days have ever seeing. A ministry mark with sign and works manifesting the glory of God revealed in Jesus.

Cana Wedding- First, Jesus attends a wedding and transformed six stone jars of water - representing Judaism (the old way) and its ritual purification into the best wine. OUT OF THE OLD ARISES THE NEW THAT SURPASSES, THE OLD

In this first sign Jesus deliver the couple from shame and disappointment.

Secondly, we also see Jesus turning things around and putting things in proper order for the glory of God.

IN THE “TEMPLE”

Jesus went up to Jerusalem during the Passover- commemorating the deliverance of the Jewish from slavery. This reminded Israelites of God’s grace in delivering them from the bondage in Egypt.

What He found in the temple was displeasing to Him.

People had change the character of the temple from a house of God | MY FATHER’S HOUSE - in Jesus’ word into a shopping mall where people making a living .

Worshipers had to change money from the currency in circulation in the society to temple money first for a fee.

and use the temple money to buy animals for sacrifice, at inflated price.

These extortion tactics were completely contrary to the purpose of the temple.

JESUS OVERTURNED TABLES

Jesus did not put up with how things were in the temple . The present of Christ Jesus will overturned things that are wrong: corruption, injustice , sin in our lives.

Light and darkness can not dwell together.

“He drove everyone out of the temple with their sheep and oxen. He also poured out the money changers’ coins and overturned the tables.

GET THESE THINGS OUT!

He told those who were selling doves, “Get these things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!”

Jesus demanded to STOP their current practice. The Holiness of God demands holiness in Worship. God must be worship in spirit and in truth- In conduct and manner worthy of God.

Jesus instructed the people selling, the money changers and the priests in change who permitted this marketplace to STOP. The people who prefer COMMERCE OVER COMMUNION WITH GOD TO STOP.

FINAL POINT

What does this means to us today? The Apostle Paul in writing to the early Christians in Corinth to address variety of issues such as: unity and division, sexual immorality, divorce and remarriage, and spiritual gifts. Use the “temple” idea to describe the new temple not build with human hands.

He says:

1 Corinthian 3:16

“Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you?”

I will say: DON’T WE OURSELVES KNOW THAT WE ARE GOD’S TEMPLE? THE SPIRIT OF GOD LIVES IN US. LET US STOP OUR CORRUPT AND SINFUL PRACTICES.

LET US STOP OUR SPIRITUAL DESECRATION AND FALSE RELIGION

LET US TURN TO THE LORD FOR GRACE THAT CAN CLEANSE FROM WITHIN