Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Emmanuel Fellowship Church.
[00:00:09] I love when we get to be reminded of our IMB partnership. If you don't know this bit. Imb, the International Mission Board. That is the official international mission sending agency of our denomination, Southern Baptist Convention. And the reason we include them in our missional prayers, you know, we don't send a direct check to the Longs, who are part of the Yokohama team in Japan, a team of, I think it's six or eight missionaries, but we pay into the Cooperative Program. It's one of the coolest things about our affiliation with our brother and sister Baptist churches is that we all put money into a common pool called the Cooperative Program, and that goes to fully fund missionaries, church planners and seminaries. So the IMB is one of the largest missionary forces on the planet. And they're one of the only missionary forces that don't come home to fundraise ever, because they're fully funded by what happens through CP Giving, which is a big part of, like, that's. That's you guys, tithes and offerings. Really, really cool thing. And I love that we got, you know, they assign. Because they don't come home to fundraise, they assign the missionaries different churches that are like their home church, they're supposed to go visit. And we gotta assign the Longs, and they actually, like, are from St. Louis. So when they come home to visit family, we get to see them, which is cool. Anyway, welcome. Glad you guys are here. We're continuing our series today called Jesus Versus Religion. I'm so excited for this overall series. I think there's really something significant here for us, guys. You know, religion, religious practice, religious structures has a really important role within the life of faith. It's really important, but it's also not perfect. Anything done by humans will eventually drift toward the flesh. Like, that's how we are. That's the unfortunate reality of our sin.
[00:02:03] So our religion is no different. It's not exempt from that. Right? Like religious structures, religious traditions, religious practices can and do become corrupted by human sinfulness. And so we need the help of the Holy Spirit to, to critique and reform our religious practices from time to time, to draw them back to biblical and gospel fidelity. As the gospel itself, the gospel message that Christ proclaimed to us never changes. It has been protected and confirmed and shared generation to generation of faith from Christ until now. It never changes. But the traditions, the practices, the methods have to change, have to change. They have to change as culture shifts, but they also have to be changed from time to time when they just get rotten because of Our sinfulness and the way it infects those things. As we look in on Jesus own challenge to the Temple worship of first century Judaism, I think we're going to see how his critiques of the religious practice of his day speak really clearly to challenges in our own religious practice today. Mainly what we're going to see today is that Temple Judaism, 1st century Judaism practiced in the Temple in Jerusalem, had become so enamored with and entangled with the practical pursuits of their culture that they were creating barriers to connection with God for the common person. Rather than ushering folk toward God, the purpose of religion, right, they were creating artificial restrictions, artificial difficulties that God himself did not require of folk. And as the scene plays out in our text, we're going to see that Jesus concern. It's really with making space for people to come to God. That's Jesus's concern in our text. The Temple, the tool meant to draw people to God, was blocking people from connecting with God. And it's doing this at the same time that Jesus is inviting people to come to him, to come to him for love, for healing, for connection. Guys, this critique is as sharp today as it was 2,000 years ago. Beloved, Jesus invites us to come to him with the trust of children. It means expecting care and love from their parents.
[00:04:34] And so, beloved, this is our main point today. Jesus invites you.
[00:04:39] Jesus invites you. You today are invited to come to Christ for the real needs of your heart. Jesus invites you to Himself. And even as I say this, I know many of us are immediately either skeptical or apathetic to that kind of claim. I mean, we live in the age of deconstruction and exvangelical podcasts, right? In my experience, most of the folk in this very vocal movement have deep church hurts that are often really valid. They've heard the gospel invitation, but they've had it marred by bullying or abusive leadership by hypocritical Christians who expect legalistic perfection but live their own lives in the flesh. They've been gossiped about or betrayed or even abandoned when they question certain beliefs or practices. The church, the religious structures of our day, are not considered a safe, inviting place by many people in our culture. In fact, I know that in this space right now, in our church family, many of you have experienced deep hurt in the church, deep hurt from those who claim to be Christ, who claim to be brothers and sisters. Many of you right now are wrestling with your own beliefs, your own experiences of faith and doubt.
[00:06:07] So where the heck is the invitation in that, right?
[00:06:11] How is Christ Actually inviting himself unto you. If the places where we meet with Christ are so often so uninviting.
[00:06:22] Well, let's look at our text and see what God might have for us. Now. We're going to be in Matthew 21 today. If you want to go ahead and turn there. If you don't have a Bible with you this morning, we have house Bibles around the room. We really believe in the importance of access to physical copies of God's word. So by the way, if you're here today, you don't own a Bible, take one or talk to the pastors. We'll give you a nicer one. We're going to be in Matthew 21 as you turn there. Let's remember the setup for our text. Jesus has just had his triumphal entry, right, that famous Palm Sunday text. The long journey to Jerusalem culminated in this really beautiful, wonderful scene where Jesus rides through the gates into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey, surrounded by his followers and they're shouting praises, Hosanna in the highest Son of David. Jesus is at the height of his earthly authority in this moment. He's been traveling, preaching, discipling, healing, working miracles and caring for God's people for at least three years at this point. And he has a large following of people who believe in their hearts Jesus is their long awaited Messiah. Right. Like they're, they're ready for this. Now. We've talked a lot about this, but these folks, these crowds don't understand what Jesus intends to do with that Messiahship. Like they don't have good eyes on that part, but they do believe that he is it. He is their Messiah. And so regardless of how wrong they've got it, in this moment we see this culmination of Jesus faithful ministry where the crowds gather around Jesus and they actually praise him as their king. He's entered into Jerusalem, the city of God, but he's entered in as the son of David, the king, the Messiah, God himself. In spite of what Rome and the temple leaders may believe, Jerusalem belongs to Jesus and he is entering into his city to render judgment on it. The text tells us that, that as this swirled through the whole city, it kind of drives Jerusalem into a bit of a frenzy. There's energy around this. People want to see this prophet. They want to see what he's all about, this teacher, this maybe Messiah. They want to see what he will do. They all expect God's Messiah to unite the divided religious leadership and to draw together the people and to overthrow Rome, to gather an army and perhaps this Prophet Jesus is exactly the person who's arrived to do just that.
[00:09:04] But then you get to our text for today, so pray with me. We're going to jump into this, Jesus. We. We need you this morning.
[00:09:12] We need you to be our disciple, Lord. We need you to cut through the muck and the mire of our hearts. We need you to cut through the barriers this world has put between us and you, the barriers we ourselves erect around our own hearts to keep you away, to keep from facing what's broken and what's wrong in us. Jesus, we need you today to lovingly bring the scalpel of your word to our hearts.
[00:09:39] To challenge us, convict us, encourage us afresh.
[00:09:45] Draw us to you, Lord, especially those of us who know you. And yet our heart has grown cold and callous.
[00:09:53] Greet us with fresh fire today, Lord.
[00:09:56] We need you. So we pray these things in your name, Jesus. Amen.
[00:10:02] Matthew 21. Starting in verse 12, we read this.
[00:10:07] Jesus went into the temple and threw out all those buying and selling. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. And he said to them, it is written, my house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of thieves.
[00:10:26] I don't know about you guys, first off, that's a little intense. That's starting off strong here. I don't know about you guys, but I've actually heard this text referenced more and more and more in our culture in the last few years. It seems like this is a little bit of the Jesus story that has actually begun to strike at some hearts and some people's attention in our societies. Something about Jesus outburst, his rebuke has sparked folks imaginations on all facets of our culture, on both sides of the political and social aisle. And honestly, I think there's probably something there. There's probably something to that, right? Like Jesus is speaking here about some corrupted earthly authority. And so there's probably something going on there that's appropriate. But I actually, I really, if, if that is the case for you, if you've noticed the same thing. Oh, yeah, I've heard a little more about this. I want to encourage you, like, let's, let's do our best to engage this text on its own terms. Let's, let's hit reset. I do think it's going to speak pretty boldly to our day and our context, but let's let it guide us there, right? Instead of letting our culture be an interpretive lens. So King Jesus has entered into Jerusalem and he approaches the Temple. Now it's worth noting that Matthew, Mark and Luke, they all talk about these couple days in between when Jesus enters Jerusalem and before the actual Passion narrative happens. And it's all about this time in the week of Passover leading up to the Passion and Jesus's interactions in the Temple, his confrontations with the religious leaders. But what's interesting is that none of the Gospel writers are terribly concerned with presenting the story chronologically. They're more concerned with hitting the major gospel themes. And so if you look at this same chunk of text in all four gospels, but even in the three Synoptic Gospels, you're going to see they just leave out a lot of details or shuffle some of the stories around in a way that just kind of makes you raise your eyebrows for a minute. And so what we get here, the way Matthew reads, is that Jesus enters into the city and just immediately marches into the temple. And that could have been how it went down. Honestly though, it could have been the next day. You can look at it in Mark and Luke and kind of compare it. But here's the thing, I only say that so that it doesn't become a distraction for you in your personal Bible reading. It's not necessary for understanding the story. What's important to know is that Jesus is in Jerusalem. He's here for Passover week. And over these couple days, he's going to have some real big confrontations with the big time religious folk of his day. So what's important here is that Jesus approaches the temple and enters into what is known as the court of the Gentiles. Now, just in case you don't have the 1st century Jerusalem landscape vividly on immediate recall, I brought a picture to help us imagine the scene. So this on the screen, you see this is what's called Herod's Temple. It's a big guy. In Jesus day, Jerusalem was home to what's called by many the second Temple. And so to give us a little bit of the history here to kind of bring it together, the original Jerusalem temple was built together by King David and King Solomon. It was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was beautiful, it was magnificent, it was intense, you can read all about it. But it was destroyed by the Babylonians when they ransacked Jerusalem in 586 B.C. it was burned down to the ground. Not a thing was left. And so some 70 years later, the exiles from Israel returned under the leadership of Zerubbabel and Ezra and Nehemiah. And slowly they rebuilt the temple but the second temple they built was honestly really just not good, especially in comparison to Solomon's Temple. The scripture actually says that when they dedicated the second temple, there were some old people there who remembered Solomon's Temple from their childhood and they wept instead of celebrating because the second temple just wasn't very good. Well, that all changed in the decades leading up to Jesus birth. Herod the Great, the same one who talked to the wise men in the birth narrative. Herod the Great spent a good 40 years renovating and glorifying the whole temple complex. By the time of Jesus ministry, even though it was still technically the second temple because they never tore it down, it was basically an entirely new space. It was called often Herod's Temple because of how fundamentally different it was. This is the temple that stood until 70 A.D. when Rome burned it to the ground. Again, Herod's Temple. It may not have had the wealth, the opulence, the sculpture, the art, the precious stones of Solomon's Temple, but whatever it lacked, it made up for with sheer size, scope and grandeur. It's hard to tell from this picture, but the primary structure, the temple itself, the holy place, that white part in the middle there, that was about 15 stories tall.
[00:15:37] This is a massive complex. It's really stinking big.
[00:15:45] Now to kind of put even a little bit better scale for us, I have a second slide here to show you where this complex sits, if you want to go to the next one for me, because it was built into what's called the Temple Mount. And so there was a massive, massive work of earth moving and leveling to build a giant flat structure where there was a round hill. This thing is huge. It took insane amounts of work to create this thing. That massive outer section, big, huge spread out part, is called the Court of the Gentiles. This is as close as Gentile believers could get to the temple. And it was big because God had always said that his people were to be a light to the nations. The intent of the temple in Jerusalem was always the Gentiles all over the globe would come and worship the one true God. You can see in this picture how folk would have to cross that huge bridge or come up those stairs and that massive ramp to enter into this outer court. This is the scene that Jesus is stepping into a massive complex and it was a place that was supposed to be serene and beautiful.
[00:17:11] And yet in our text, Jesus enters into this place with a vengeance. Right. The nerd in me says, like it's a real Obi Wan kind of vibes. Like, you'll never find him more wretched hive of scum and villainy, right?
[00:17:24] But it was actually more than this.
[00:17:27] You see, you don't just come to the temple to visit. It's not a tourist attraction. You come to the temple to worship. And in Judaism, this meant two things. It meant you offered up sacrifices and you offered up tithes and gifts. But this is not as simple as it sounds. Because if you were traveling from a different region or even a different country, you couldn't necessarily just pack up your best spotless you and bring it with you, right? If your travel was going to take two, three, six months, that just didn't work. And so folk would instead bring extra money and buy sacrifices in and around Jerusalem. In fact, this was so common that there was a geographic circle placed around Jerusalem, and 99% of the livestock within that circle was all dedicated just to to selling for temple worship. But there's actually a layer that makes it even more complex. Because Levitical law also made allowances for poor people to be able to worship. They couldn't afford to buy sheep or oxen, so they could instead purchase pigeons or doves. So folk around the city raised and kept whole flocks of birds for the poor to buy for their sacrifices. You need to know something, guys. This was an absolutely necessary practice.
[00:18:47] This was put in place to serve people's practical needs to be able to come to the temple and connect with God. It allowed folk to worship in the temple who otherwise would not have been able to. But like all things run by sinful humans, it became increasingly worldly. It went from being a kind service to visiting worshipers to being a full fledged industry. And if you ever bought a soda at a gas station and then later at a movie theater, you know exactly what I'm talking about, right? Like, things began to get premium temple worship prices.
[00:19:27] But it goes even a layer beyond this. You see Roman money. Remember, Israel is a conquered subject of Rome. Roman money contained inscriptions of blasphemous nature, whether it was Caesars or gods or phrases of pagan worship, that most of their coinage was considered too worldly to be used in the temple. So the temple began to only accept coinage, gold coinage from Tyre, which was not only both free of any blasphemous images, but also famous for its purity because of trade out of the city. So you could not offer up praise offerings and tithes unless you had Judean coppers or Tyrian gold pieces. And so money changers set up shop because they could run the scales and they could get you set up with the right money to offer up your tithes. But once again, what was a necessary and kind service becomes an industry and soon it's infected with corruption. Soon these services were offered for higher and higher premiums. And all of a sudden you've got someone who's traveled for two, three, six months to come and worship at the temple. And by the time they get up in line to do it, all they can afford to do by the time they've gone through the money changers and the sellers is to offer up a dove.
[00:20:50] But they came here with money to offer an ox, right? And you're going, that sounds weird, but that's a real thing that affected people's real experience of worship. And so hearing about this, you make me like, oh, this is what Jesus is getting at here. He shows up to the temple and he sees these business folk taking advantage of religious pilgrims, so he blows up and kicks them all out. Yeah, and listen, Jesus, frustration at the corruption that takes advantage of people is definitely a part of this. And we do well to consider that. Right? Business ventures easily turn toward the flesh. And any and all of us who have had just jobs understand that it's a burden to work in this world with a kingdom of God ethic, to maintain kingdom of God honesty and purity and holiness while working in a broken and sinful world. So we do well to take that part of the text seriously.
[00:21:50] But there's actually more going on here, something more core to Jesus's person in his ministry. See, this wasn't just any week that Jesus comes to the temple. This is Passover week.
[00:22:04] Passover was the most popular of the pilgrimage festivals in Judaism. Judaism has a lot of festivals and some of them require you to travel to Jerusalem to fully participate in them. And Passover was the largest, most participated in of those pilgrimage festivals. So depending on who you ask, Jerusalem's population during Jesus's lifetime was like 30 to 35,000. That's a lot of people for an ancient city. But during Passover week, you added about 150,000 additional people to the region.
[00:22:38] So the city is packed shoulder to shoulder. That massive amount of people surge into the city over a couple weeks time. And so the need for the money changing and the animal sales skyrockets. It goes up incredibly during Passover week. There are so many people, there's so much need, there's people stacked on people. And so the temple officials during Passover week would move all the sellers into the large court of gentiles. And they did that Guys, at the end of the day, for efficiency, right, there's lots of stinking pilgrims coming into the city, and most of them are Jewish by birth because they're there for Passover. Lots of offerings, lots of sacrifices. So the court of gentiles would essentially be turned into a bazaar, by the way. A bazaar the size of like, three football fields, but a big old, huge open market to take care of these needs.
[00:23:41] This, beloved, is where Jesus indignation comes from. It's this decision.
[00:23:49] This is the only space, the only space in the whole temple complex where gentile believers could come and pray and worship. Imagine traveling for weeks on weeks and showing up to worship and trying to calm your heart, trying to slow down and ground yourself and connect with God in the middle of a flea market surrounded by live animals.
[00:24:16] This is why Jesus gets so angry.
[00:24:20] And notice how his anger comes out. He doesn't talk to the manager. He doesn't ask where the temple officials are. He doesn't go somewhere and write down a complaint. No, no, no. He's the king. He's God. This is his temple. And so he starts flipping tables, knocking them over. Tables covered in loose coins and scales, just knocking them over and letting them spill everywhere. Baskets and boxes and cages full of birds, and he's slapping them to the side. Feathers are going everywhere. Things are squawking. Goats are running amok. People are grabbing gold coins off the floor. And the whole time, Jesus is just angry, red in the face, mad.
[00:25:01] Which is weird. We don't like to think of Jesus as mad. Like to think of Jesus as kind of like halfway between a hippie and a teddy bear, right? But here he's angry. He's frustrated. This is his temple. This is not how it should be. And in his anger, he is lashing out physically.
[00:25:19] John says that he actually made a whip and was, like, beating on people while he's flipping over these tables.
[00:25:27] That's nuts.
[00:25:29] That is not how we tend to think of Christ.
[00:25:34] Yes, he's angry about the injustice of mistreating pilgrims and ripping them off. But more than that, he's angry about a place of open invitational prayer and worship being turned into a marketplace for the sake of financial convenience.
[00:25:51] This is an example of the religious leaders choosing the merchants and the convenience of Jewish pilgrims over and above the entire worship experience of gentiles. And Jesus says, that is wrong.
[00:26:05] That won't fly. That is blasphemy in my temple. The whole point of God's temple is for all peoples to come to him. There's open Invitation. But the religious practice of the temple leaders is creating an unnecessary and unkind barrier for folk who are genuinely seeking God. And so Jesus will have none of this. Here. Jesus judges the temple worship. He finds it lacking, and so he acts on that immediately. Read on with me. Verse 14.
[00:26:43] The blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he healed them. When the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonders that he did, and the children shouting in the temple hosanna to the Son of David, they were indignant and said to him, do you hear what these children are saying? Jesus replied, yes. Have you never read? You prepared praise from the mouths of infants and nursing babies. Then he left them and went out of the city to Bethany and spent the night there.
[00:27:09] Immediately we see the effects of Jesus's action on the temple courts. The text tells us that the blind and the lame come to Jesus in the court of the Gentiles. And we've mentioned this before, but in Jesus's day, certain illnesses and disabilities were considered to be direct curses or punishments from God. And there is a strong tradition amongst many Jewish leaders of barring folk with blindness and certain kinds of lameness from entering into the Temple at all. Now, they could go to the synagogue, but they, they could not go to the Temple courts. This, by the way, was not a biblical command. This was part of an expanding, like the hedge law system of the Pharisaical religious leaders of, of taking a real biblical command and expanding it out beyond what the Bible said. No, no, you're blind. Well, that's a punishment from God. So you are unholy. You're not allowed in the temple. The Bible doesn't say that. But they were treated that way in Jerusalem. Jesus commotion with the money changers has so upset the balance of the Temple that these people who were kept out begin boldly approaching Jesus in the Temple court for healing. And Jesus invites them in. They experience this as God inviting them in. And so they come in with their real and present needs and they have them met. Come on, church. It's a beautiful scene. Jesus has scattered away the commerce and he's filled the court of the Gentiles with ministry. It's beautiful.
[00:28:47] It's capped off by this image of these children shouting praises to Jesus.
[00:28:52] Jesus has always had time for children. He always allows them around them during his ministry. And in this moment, when the Temple leaders show up and they're mad about what Jesus is doing, and all the adults around know better than to keep talking about how Jesus is the Messiah, when the Temple bosses are around kids, as they often do, have no clue when they're supposed to be quiet and not say things. And so they just keep on singing the same praises they were singing when Jesus rode into the city. Hosanna. Hosanna on the highest. The son of David. Jesus is the son of David. Jesus is the Messiah. He is worthy of this praise.
[00:29:30] And when the temple leaders come out to this chaotic scene, the busiest week of the entire year, and find a backwoods, troublemaking rabbi has shown up and messed up their entire system of how they organize gifts and offerings, and now he's sitting here healing folk who shouldn't have even been let in. And to top it all off, there are kids running around calling him Messiah, and he's not doing anything about it. Like, they are angry as well now, right? And so we get this contrast where the religious leaders get angry, but look at the difference.
[00:30:01] Jesus is angry that people were unnecessarily barred from connection with God. These leaders are angry because their nice, orderly Passover has been messed up. And so they decide to gripe about kids and decorum and who Jesus is. Do you hear what they're saying?
[00:30:17] You can imagine the indignation of these men. Aren't you going to stop them?
[00:30:24] Absolutely love Jesus's response here. Because they look at him and say, don't you hear what they're doing? And they're all. They're all riled up. But Jesus is also riled up right now, right?
[00:30:35] And so, yes, like, listen, yes, Jesus is gentle and lowly, but he's gentle and lowly when he's loving and serving sinners right here. He's righteously indignant. He's angry, and his response is sharp. Yeah, I hear him. I hear him. And then he calls these men out publicly. Look, man, God has set up my praises to come through the mouths of children. And the accusation here is this. If Jesus truly is the Messiah, it is these men, the temple leaders, the priests, who should be singing his praises rather than grilling him over disruptions in the temple. And so Jesus drops the bomb. Yep, I hear him. Someone needs to praise the Messiah. And no one else is. So God sent kids.
[00:31:23] And this is an absolute mic drop because Jesus says this and leaves.
[00:31:30] It's such a. Such a tough scene. He's going to spend the next three days showing up and teaching and publicly debating here in the temple. But for now, his opening salvo was enough. He's made his presence known. He's made his judgment known. He's claimed the real authority in the temple and no one stood up to it, which is really where all this text comes together. What we see in this is that Jesus is just entirely unimpressed by this temple.
[00:32:04] Unimpressed by it. Yeah, it's big. Yeah, it's beautiful. But at the end of the day, a temple is just a big building.
[00:32:13] It's not sacred. The only thing that is sacred is God himself. The only thing that is worth pursuing in that sacredness is our connection with him. The temple was a tool for people to connect with God, nothing more. And now King Jesus has arrived to judge the efficacy of this tool and he has found it lacking. Right.
[00:32:34] It's not just failing to connect people to God. It's actively erecting barriers to people connecting with God. It's keeping people from God. It has prioritized commerce, wealth, convenience, in other words, the flesh above the actual kingdom of God. And this is why just a few days later, when Jesus's disciples are so impressed by the sheer size and beauty of the temple, Jesus downplays it. Because he's not impressed by this building. In fact, he's about to replace it. Because Jesus himself is the better temple. The temple was created to connect people to God and it was failing. And Jesus came to earth to connect us to God. And beloved, he succeeds.
[00:33:21] Jesus invites you in. He removes the barriers and makes room for you to find him.
[00:33:29] Jesus coming. Work on the cross will completely dismantle the need for the temple. His work on the cross will destroy the wedge driven between us and our Creator. His work on the cross will allow us to live in intimate relationship with him.
[00:33:46] When religion fails, when it's not doing what it's supposed to do, it turns toward the world. It stops folk connecting to God and it becomes itself a barrier. But Jesus showed up and showed us how he dismantles this kind of fleshly, worldly religion.
[00:34:06] He invites all to come to him, to find the real need of their hearts. And don't mishear this church. Like this isn't saying that Jesus is somehow a universalist, right? Like many folk in our day swing this pendulum and they say, oh, all religion isn't helpful. It's. It's all destructive, it's all harmful. And so really like God is just love. And so anyone who's seeking him, like God's just cool with it as long as you're in genuine in your heart and you're chasing after him, like he's good with that. But guys, the scripture doesn't affirm this.
[00:34:39] The New Testament tells us first and foremost, that some religious practice is pure and faultless. It's good. But Jesus himself affirms that there are in fact necessary barriers toward connecting with God, namely, the curse of sin.
[00:34:55] It keeps anyone and everyone from connecting with God. It's not true that anybody and everybody can connect with God however they want.
[00:35:06] Rather, Jesus himself is the true temple. He is the true and only way that we connect with God. And praise be to the Lord that He invites all of us to do just that.
[00:35:20] That he says, look, there's only one way to get there. It's me. So come connect with God. The invitation is open.
[00:35:27] We can come to Jesus with the real need of our hearts. And he responds by meeting that need, healing what's connecting us to the Father. He will carry us into his perfect heaven. And guys, it has to be Him.
[00:35:45] There is no other way. There's no other path.
[00:35:51] Has to be Him.
[00:35:53] But beloved, he invites you. He invites you. He says there's only one way to get there. But it's available to you. You can have it if you want it. You, beloved, you, right here, right now.
[00:36:09] Christ's invitation is for you to come to him, to connect with him, to find life, to find the needs of your heart met. You can come to Christ afresh. No matter who you are, no matter what you have done, no matter who has harmed you, no matter how you find yourself, no matter what the state of your soul is today, if you have been following Jesus for years, or if you've never said yes to him, if you followed him years ago, but you've drifted away because of your own fleshly desires, or because of hurt and harm, or because of shame, no matter what you've experienced, no matter what your story is, whether you are spiritually thriving right now or starving at the end of your rope, Jesus invites you in right now, today.
[00:37:00] Isaiah envisioned the ministry of Jesus as a market.
[00:37:04] A market really similar to the one that Jesus just broke up in the temple courts.
[00:37:10] But in this market, the one that Isaiah sees in his vision, all the goods, instead of there being corrupt money changers and sellers. In Isaiah's vision, all the goods are just free, just a free store. It says this in Isaiah 55.
[00:37:25] Come everyone who is thirsty, come to the water. You without silver, come buy, eat. Come buy wine and milk without silver, without cost.
[00:37:35] Why do you spend silver on what is not food? Why do you waste your wages on what will not satisfy you? Listen carefully to me and eat what is good and you will enjoy the choicest foods. Pay attention. Come with me. Listen so that you will live. Because I will make a permanent covenant with you on the basis of the faithful kindness of David, since I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and a commander of the peoples. So you will summon a nation you do not know. Nations who don't know you will run to you. For the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, has glorified you. So seek the Lord while he may be found. Call to him while he is near to you. Let the wicked one abandon his way and the sinful one run from his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord so that he may have compassion on him and to our God, because He freely gives.
[00:38:24] You see, beloved, all of us in our very DNA, long to connect with our Creator.
[00:38:34] Sometimes life gets busy and you're stressed and you don't have any money and you're working a million hours and things are hard and you distract yourself from that. But I'm here to tell you, at the core of your person, you were built to connect with God.
[00:38:49] There's always something in you that longs for intimacy with your Creator, for a life that matters, a life that is fulfilled, a life that weathers the difficulties and storms of life. A life that has weight and grounding.
[00:39:03] That longing that all of us know, that all of us have experienced, is that deep part of your soul calling back to the garden, saying, we never should have ate the apple.
[00:39:14] It was so much better before.
[00:39:17] I want that again. I want to walk with you in the garden. I want to know what it is to be with you with no shame.
[00:39:26] Something in us calls out for that, longs for that it is. It is unavoidably in our depths. Because you were made for this.
[00:39:36] We all know that too.
[00:39:38] There's no getting away from it.
[00:39:41] But sin and the curse, they just make it impossible.
[00:39:46] They erect the ultimate barrier between us and our design. They keep us from God.
[00:39:52] Because Jesus does not put barriers between you and your design. He tears them down.
[00:39:58] He invites you to come and find the life that you were made for. So, beloved, why not come to him today?
[00:40:05] Why not come back to Him?
[00:40:07] No matter who you are, no matter what your spiritual life looks like right now, you're invited to come to Jesus for life.
[00:40:16] He Himself is inviting you to him.
[00:40:20] If you're in this place and you've never trusted God as your Savior is, this isn't a fluffy feel good thing.
[00:40:27] You can't do whatever you want in life and trust that Jesus is a hippie who doesn't care.
[00:40:33] Sin is real.
[00:40:35] God's justice is real.
[00:40:38] But Jesus invites you to come to him with the real meat of your heart, with the real weight of your sin, to come to him in humility and repentance. And he will cover you.
[00:40:50] He will take it on for you. He will take your sin, he will take your wrath. And he'll make a way for you to live fulfilled and connected to God that is available to you right now. There is no barrier between you and Christ.
[00:41:04] And say yes to Him. You can seek to Him.
[00:41:07] If you. If you seek him, he will be found. If you want him, you will have Him. And you don't need anything magical.
[00:41:15] I mean, yeah, you can come and grab one of our pastors after church or anyone in this room and we can talk to you and we can pray with you. But beloved, if you want Christ and you tell him that right now, right now, while I'm talking, you will have Him. He will not withhold Himself from you. You can come to him in repentance and find life.
[00:41:37] But for those of us who are in this room, and you've already trusted Jesus, you must know he still invites you in.
[00:41:44] You can trust him more and you can trust him afresh today.
[00:41:49] If you've been hurt or wounded by man made religion, by the fleshliness of spiritual leaders, by those who claim Christ and yet live out of their flesh, know that Jesus invites you today to return to him and to find real religion, to find real healing and real restoration. He will connect you to God.
[00:42:13] Does not matter what's been done to you or told to you. Christ Himself offers you life. If you've wandered far from Christ because you've been chasing the things of this world, whether it's through just your own desire to gratify the flesh or through being beaten up and too exhausted to seek him out, you must know Christ invites you to Himself today. Come back to Him.
[00:42:37] Come back to Him.
[00:42:38] He will make a way for you to be restored, to connect to your Creator. And listen, if you're in this place today and you're like, this is awesome, I am joyfully seeking out the invitation of Jesus. You can join him today. Also beloved, you can join him in the work. You can join him in the work of invitation. You can help tear down the barriers between people and their Creator.
[00:43:03] And I'll tell you exactly how you do this. You do this by praying for those in your life who need Jesus. You see, some people are kept from Christ because they're making bad decisions. They're chasing after their flesh. They're chasing after their sins. Some people have barriers between them and Christ because they've been wounded or hurt and people have misrepresented Jesus and religion has been poisoned to them. Some people are far from Christ today because they're so deep in their own shame and their own self hatred from the decisions they make and the sins they feel trapped in that they put up the barriers themselves and say, christ could never want me. I could never come to him. Today, beloved, you can join Christ in flipping over those tables and tearing down those money changers and saying, no, no, the invitation is for you today.
[00:43:54] Doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter what your story is, doesn't matter how much shame you feel. Beloved, you can come to Christ. You can join with Jesus in that work of clearing out the temple courts.
[00:44:08] You do that by praying for those who you love, who need Jesus. But you also do that by spending time with them, by inviting them.
[00:44:17] Guys, the scripture envisions heaven, or at least the beginning of heaven, as a wedding feast, a wedding banquet. And there's several images throughout Jesus teaching and throughout the rest of the New Testament that talk about this wedding feast of the Lamb, this great banquet of the day of the Lord. And if anything out of that vision sticks with you, let it be this. Guys, there are plenty of seats available.
[00:44:41] There are plenty. There is enough gospel to go around.
[00:44:46] There is enough of Christ for everyone you love, everyone you're concerned for, those neighbors, those grandkids, those children, those friends, those siblings, those parents. There is enough Christ to go around for all of them.
[00:45:02] And if you are finding joy and life and freedom and the invitation of Jesus for you to come and find satisfaction in him, then I urge you, brothers and sisters, join Christ in the work of tearing down the barriers and inviting more to come to the feast.
[00:45:18] Those people who you love and you're praying for, don't stop at praying for them.
[00:45:23] Consider them. Consider what barriers keep them from Christ and invite them.
[00:45:30] And I mean that in a literal sense, right? Like, hey, you want come church me this Sunday? But I mean that in a much more practical sense as well. What are the barriers between them and Christ? Become a student of that person you love. Consider those barriers. Pray against them specifically. Speak against them specifically.
[00:45:46] Tell them your shame keeps you from Christ. But that doesn't need to be the case.
[00:45:53] Your decisions are keeping you from Christ. That doesn't need to be the case.
[00:45:57] Join in Jesus with Jesus in inviting them, because there is plenty of Christ to go around.
[00:46:05] As if you want to Come back up, band people. I'm not sure where they are.
[00:46:09] I'm gonna land this out.
[00:46:13] Jesus's invitation is open to everyone to come to Him.
[00:46:18] So for those of you who are in Christ, the question is this. Who are you going to bring with you?
[00:46:26] Who is your plus one to this engagement?
[00:46:31] Who is the one more that you're going to seek to see that chair filled?
[00:46:37] Who are you praying for? Who are you inviting? Who are you sharing the gospel with? Because it matters, beloved, it matters.
[00:46:46] Religion is important and is often very good. But at the end of the day, it is only a tool that points us to what is truly good, to what our hearts truly need. Jesus himself, our true temple, our true connection, the real need of our hearts. Beloved, he is inviting you to himself, so let's take him up on that.
[00:47:07] I'd invite you guys to take a few minutes to find a posture of prayer and connection, however you want to do that. If you can sit in your chair and do that, that's awesome. If you want to get on your knees, if you want to come up front to the altar, if you want to grab one of our pastors and have us pray with you, whatever that looks like, I want to invite you to find a posture that you can connect with Christ for a moment. And consider this.
[00:47:29] Consider his invitation to you. What does it look like for you to say yes to Jesus today?
[00:47:35] What does it look like for you to join him in the work of flipping tables and broadening invitations, hear what he might say to you, and then we'll continue on.
