Maximizing Your Temple Experience

John 2:13-25

Jesus physically assaults licensed merchants and totally kills that day’s worship vibe. They were after efficiency. Jesus knew the real purpose of the temple: holy worship. Jesus knew his real destination: death and resurrection. Jesus holds himself back from the people in order to walk the road as he knows it has to be walked.

We walk his road. He knows the destination. He knows when to overturn my obstacles by force… and when I need to walk through crucifixion to see resurrection.

Efficiencies of Worship

After much talk, we have decided to streamline the way we do worship here at Next Step Christian Church. For example, in worship songs, we are going to get straight to the point. Often there is a high point in worship, maybe a moment in a song that you can just feel the heavens open up and the Spirit is present and the angels are singing.

Last week it was “He is wonderful, He is wonderful…” So we are just going to go straight for that! All together: he is wonderful.

Oh man, the heart of worship.

And the sermons… really there is often one key takeaway. So let’s skip the whole Bible part of that and just get to the application, take away part.

In Zambia, we were teaching preaching class, and this was the number one mistake made: going straight to the application without explaining the Word or connecting to the peoples…

So, today, We walk his road, thy will be done. Amen.

That doesn’t work, does it? We know when it comes to worship it is as much about the process, the atmosphere the getting there as it is about any particular outcome or feeling or moment of worship.

In the sermon, in Bible study, it is encountering the Living Word of God and understanding, receiving, meditating, loving it and seeing it take root and have power in our lives.

In all these things, it is for God and God drives the process.

But when it comes to the rest of life, I have this consistent idea (maybe you do to). If God will just help put my plan into action, everything would be so nice. I have a plan for my life, for my kids, for my family, for my neighborhood, my work, my church. And if God can just clear the way, ease the path, smooth the process, iron out the wrinkles, it will be smooth sailing into His more preferable future… which by the way looks just like my preferable future.

Why doesn’t God like my way? Why doesn’t God like my plan? I want to get to the worship, to the glory, to the resurrection… why does it feel like I am going the wrong way? The wrong direction?

Jesus at the Temple

John 2:13-22

13 The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

John records three trips up to Jerusalem where the Synoptic gospels record only one. And they seem to put a temple cleansing at the end of Jesus’ ministry instead of the start. So either John or the other three are reorganizing events thematically instead of chronologically… or maybe Jesus made a habit of temple cleaning on his trips to Jerusalem. Either is very possible… I like the idea of this happening over and over, and maybe some see Jesus coming and start clearing out “He’s here, run!”

…because here is what goes down.

14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 15 And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. 16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

Jesus – stud man. Goes hulk style. (Those pigeons… you are making me angry, you won’t like me when I’m angry!) The power of it. Taking on the authority to clean house!

Efficiencies of worship: how to “please God” with the least possible effort. Very practical… if that was the point of worship. Get there as fast and easy as possible, please God with maximum efficiency. But… Jesus knows that is not what the temple worship is about. It is teaching the people about sacrifice, about the cost of sin, about the holiness of God and the sanctity of His space. The people’s “shortcut” went to the wrong place. They didn’t know the destination, so they couldn’t take a shortcut. It is God’s road, God’s worship, God’s will. And so Jesus corrects their worship, that God’s will would be done in God’s temple.

18 So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

So Jesus adds a layer on top of his teaching… and it is beautifully related. He uses this moment as an opportunity to tell them, in a prophetic way, what his destination is as Messiah: death and resurrection.

All these are written that you might know he is the Son of God.

And if someone predicts their own death. And predicts their resurrection in three days. And pulls it off. Then we just believe whatever they say.

But the next passage connects this idea of Jesus’ destination at the cross and Jesus’ cleansing of the temple by introducing this important theme in John. People who encounter Jesus, maybe especially those who place their faith in him because of miracles, they get all excited and start telling Jesus about how he needs to be Messiah. They want to make him King, they want him to take over… and they want him to do it their way right now!

John 2:23-25

23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. 24 But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

Jesus knew what was in their heart, even these people who are believing, who are responding to his signs. They believe, in a way, the beginnings of faith. But Jesus “on his part did not entrust himself to them…”

Because their way is not the way. Jesus entrusts himself to His Father, to do the will of His Father, and he just said where that was going to take him, it is a road that leads to glory, to resurrection… but death on a cross comes first.

Before the temple is rebuilt, the temple must be destroyed. And if this is early in Jesus ministry… it means he does all that he does knowing the pain and suffering to come, the shadow, the threat of the cross stretches back across all the moments before.

Layers of meaning

Historical – Jesus rocked out the temple. Angry jacked dude with a whip.

Religious – Jesus’ zeal for his Father’s house

Metaphorical – Jesus’ predicts his death and resurrection

Relational – Man thinks he knows best. God knows best.

This is a “Be Like Jesus” moment.

What is Your Destination?

Where is God driving my life? Why is he requiring me to walk the journey I am walking? I think of the merchants in the temple. Calm down, Jesus. Don’t you know there is an easier way? This is way simpler, way more convenient!

What is your destination?

But Jesus is the only one who knows the destination. And taking shortcuts when you don’t know the destination is incredibly dangerous.

If getting a pigeon to the altar is the point, then moneychangers and pigeons right in front of the temple makes all the sense in the world.

If teaching people about holiness and sacrifice, about sanctity and sanctuary is the point… then the holy atmosphere of the temple is more important than the ease of getting pigeons dead.

If Jesus being proclaimed Messiah is the point, then let the people of Jerusalem go nuts. If salvation for all mankind through death on a cross and resurrection from the tomb is the point, then Jesus has to hold himself back, walk a much harder road, until the time is right. And it is a road of suffering before glory, death before resurrection, despair before hope.

Where is God driving my life? Why is he requiring me to walk the journey I am walking?

The temple story, even just at the level of Jesus teaching how it should be holy and sacred… this building isn’t the equivalent of His temple. You are His temple. I am His temple. And most of all, we together are His temple.

If it feels like everything is getting harder, and maybe it feels God is letting everything get harder, or even making it harder. Jesus, can’t you see that my way would be easier? My way of worship, my way of living, my way of pleasing God???

Jesus, I want you to be Lord and Savior of my life… in particular, could you be Lord in this particular way that smooths out my path to victory, resurrection and glory?

And maybe Jesus is saying to you, you can’t be in charge of making shortcuts… because you are confused about the destination. I am shaping you to be something. To become something bigger, something holy, someone holy, sacred and set apart and beautiful. And it may require turmoil, whips and flying tables to get there. It may be a road that travels through crucifixion before resurrection and glory.

I had some really hard moments this week. Why do I have to walk through this? Why is this my path? I choose differently. I vote, I cry out to God to change my circumstances…

But He is the only one who knows where I am trying to go. And the detours I am asking for may not lead to His glory!

So lead me God, to your sanctuary. Build me, build us to be your sanctuary, your holy temple. Lead me through death to resurrection.

Read first verse of “Thy Will be Done”