Sermon Tone Analysis

You know it takes guts to be an organ donor.

What do you call a duck that gets straight A’s?

A wise quacker.

Last week Jesus turning water into wine.

Jesus was the new wine… a new phase over the old one… a story that does a very similar

As we come into this story in the Gospel.

people have this idea of how God deals with human kind and salvation and everythign else and Jesus comes in and messes everything up

He was pretty disruptive if you are thinking about it… we need to realize there are things that Jesus is going to challenge and want to change in our lives

Religious people hold on to these ideas and when they get challenged we have to be able to open up… and some of you are thinking about hte church and you are disrupted by things that you see… and there are people all over that are deconstructing their faith and what we will see is mostly christianity isnt about the things that people are leaving the church for, it is about JESUS and he is challenging them… the temple has become corrupt… and he doesnt want you to be distracted or leave the church over any of that small stuff… and Jesus si trying to make it all about him

This story of Jesus in the temple comes at Easter… its during the passover..blood of the lamb on the lentil and doorposts… during the passover jerusalem would have been a ruckus.,,,

from 40K - 250K The town would have been really full… six times the people show up.... people everywhere… and what Jesus is about to do, he doesnt in the busiest of times… picture NYE in times square… every eyeball is on the temple and hes about to do some crazy stuff...

He does this crazy scandalous thing and it is very symbolic… we dont always think the way they think.... their whole world is built on symbols and the meaning of those symbols.... so all of this is going on and they are looking at the temple...

Selling oxen and sheep… why.... you wouldn’t travel with them so they are trying to be practical… so what happens is the selling of those things start to distract people… goes into the money changers… he interrupts the financial game… and we make Christianity all about the spiritual… but Jesus is about to make a point about money and there are a hundred applications....

Richard Bauckham “Jesus demonstration in the temple was an attack on the whole of the financial arrangements for the sacrificial system, and thus an enormous threat to the religious authorities.”

Jesus is messing with the peace of people… and it makes us question what we are doing with our work lives and our money, and the question is your money a kingdom thing or not?

Jesus says dont setup business ideas that have ethical problems… we will talk about tithing… dont hide it away… lets give to move the mission...

And Jesus is challenging what people are doing with their money… dont just horde it… give so we can move the mission forward and we have to be generous… and here is Jesus saying you have to be someone who puts their money where their mouth is as it comes to faith.

WHy does he drive them out?

THe other angle is it is just a distraction in general.

The temple was supposed to be a place of worship a place of mission and what do you have going on all the animals… people trying to sell it like a marketplace...

“Instead of solemn dignity and the murmur of prayer there is bellowing of cattle and sheep, instead of brokenness, focus.

There is noisy commerce, distraction.”

DA Carson

SO here is what we take out of this,, what are the distractions in your life that you need to kick out.... what is distracting you… it may feel like good stuff.... and here jesus is driving them out of the temple..... and you cant even hear his voice anymore… you have all of these distractions in your life… the thing Satan is going to use the most not coming in like a demon.... but the reality is he would much rather just get you distracted… he doesnt need to crawl around in the dark and be weird… you can see through that clearly… what he would rather you do is just waste your time...

The world is out there waiting for us, lets get out there and get to it… one of the purposes of facebook will show that there is no excuse for prayerlessness

“What drives me in my life is i always feel like I am missing out.”

David Foster Wallace

You egver feel like that… FOMO… so we just see what everyone else is doing with their life… thats a heart thing…

“I am constantly looking but I don’t know what I am looking for.

I am endlessly distracted so I have no television.”

For some of us its an app or two… we need to drive out of our live because of distraction.

We need to enjoy creation.

Augustine said the key to salvation is Know God and know thy self

WE judge people based on narratives we create in our minds because it is a distraction from ourselves… there may be oeople in your life that need to be cut out… and there are tiems when Jesus walks away from groups of people for his own good…

Hebrews 12 talks about keeping our eyes on Jesus

Third application is about politicis… in Marks version.... he tells us this has become a den of robbers… actually revolutionaries… all you do is come and complain about politics and the romans… and everything in our world has become political.

Christianity is the only faith that remains most promonent in the parts of the world it wasmt born in… buddhism… asia… islam… middle east.... so many of them stay in the context they started in.. except Christianity moving to asia… every time it gets power it dies… lets make it gets in teh seats of power… make sure our politicians are christian… it dies… because it flourishes in the margin… becasue when its easy we dont really know him.... and here Jesus is doing this temple action as a judgment on israel that has become obsessed with the wrong thing… you are looking for a horizontal solution when the answer is vertical…thats why I say there isnt a politician that is going to save me… its only Jesus...

There are so many things that can happen that doesnt have to be a political statement… but we think in such binary terms....

People leave based on what you’re preaching… the Bible has to critique it all… we have to think in more nuanced terms… JEsus says be careful not to trade out teh importance of the spiritual life for a political conversation… and some of you are more excited about arguing politics than arguing your savior… the church cared more about the politics than the mission… we cant do that...

Making a whip of cords… he didnt go pick indys up.... he sat and made it.... and he starts whipping people and throwing tables over..we ahve to realize Jesus is angry sometimes.... and we cant have this version where God is never angry… of course he is angry against sin… and Jesus isnt messing around with idolatry.

He isnt just hoping someone figures it out for him… he drives it out with a whip… do you deal with your sin in that way… think of the images in teh sermon on the mount… pluck out your eyeball… cut off your hand… .look

out this image of Jesus… he is the opposite of safe here… are you willing to let him do that in your life…do you think the disciples would have died as early as they did if they hadnt met Jesus… no… they would have lioved a long life… and this is really an unsafe God we are talking about

Lucy about Aslan… is he safe… no but he is good.... are you willing to follow a God that is unsafe but Good… this is a big reason people leave the church and deconstruct… JEsus doesnt fit in to my ideas.... EISEGESIS you cant just fit him into what you want… that was their problem

Jim elliott got killed when he was 28 “He is no fool who gives up wahate cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

Meaning he is willing ti give it up for what he cannot lose… eternity...

Are we willing to not have our souls catered to by God… but allow him to disrupt what we want him to disrupt

“The too safe God has no power to get us unstuck.

His arm is too short.

He doesn’t forgive and defeat sin as much as accommodate it.

The way to keep our hearts burning is to live where he lives.

The holy wild, the place beyond the borderland, where God is God, not safe but good.

I reckon the idol of the nice God, the safe God, has done more damage to biblical faith, more damage to people coming to faith, than the caricature of the tyrant God ever did.

The cosmic Lackey, an errand boy we call on to make our golf games pleasant.

To help us escape reality for a little while, then dismiss him.

Worship him?

Revere him?

Die for him?

Never.”

Mark Buchanan

What we see in Jesus is he is undomesticated… and we have to follow him… and angry is bad but not a righteous anger against sin

Righteous anger gets us to move sometime… people dying and going to hell lets do something about that...

Zeal for your house… truth on fire… is that your life… or are you bored… There is a zeal that needs to move our lives...

Thats the word for resurrection… what do you mean.... hes doing this so quick.... and john probably moved this story up behind the canna story.... you used to have the wine… now its me… you used to have the temple… now you have me… Im replacing all of it… are you going to follow me… or that old way… i am the better way...

Jesus is saying, there are two temples in this city now, and there isnt enough room for both of us… so which one do you want to live your life by

They believed the scripture… what the scruptures said would happen