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We're going to jump right into the text. So if you guys have your Bibles, I want to ask you to open up to John chapter 2 as we continue our journey through the book of John, the gospel according to John, as we'd say. Alright, John chapter 2, verse 12. I'm just going to read it and then we're going to talk about it. Here we go. After this, he went down to Capernaum. Now, this is Jesus, and this is, and it's after this, this is after the wedding at Cana, which Harley talked about last week, where Jesus turned water to wine. Okay? So after this, he went down to Capernaum together with his mother, Mary, and his brothers. These are his half-brothers. Jesus had some brothers, I don't know if you realize that. And his disciples. And they stayed there only a few days. The Jewish Passover was near, so Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple complex, he found people selling oxen, sheep, doves, and he also found the money changers sitting there. After making a whip out of cords, he drove everyone out of the temple with their sheep and their oxen. He also poured out the money changers' coins and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling doves, Get these things out of here, and stop turning my house, my father's house, into a market place. And his disciples remembered that it is written, Zeal for your house will consume me. So the Jews replied to him, What sign of authority will you show us for doing these things? Jesus answered, Destroy this sanctuary, and I will raise it up in three days. Therefore the Jews said, This sanctuary took forty-six years to build, and you will raise it up in three days? But he was speaking about the sanctuary of his body. So when he was raised up from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the statement Jesus had made. While he was in Jerusalem at the Passover festival, many trusted in his name when they saw the signs he was doing. Jesus, however, would not entrust himself to them, since he knew them all, and because he did not need anyone to testify about man, for he himself knew what was in man. Let's pray. God, I just pray that you would help us as we unpack your word together this morning, that you would help us to see what you want us to see, to hear what you want us to hear, and then God give us the courage and the strength to obey what you want us to apply. And we just pray this in your powerful name, Jesus. Amen. Alright. So, this passage of Scripture, this is one of those passages that if we weren't working through a book of the Bible, we may never teach. Because this is not exactly a glamorous picture of Jesus. In fact, it's a little bit off base or off centered from what we typically talk about when we talk about Jesus. But this is a true story from the Word of God, and it's a story that John records for a specific reason. Now remember, John is trying to help us understand that Jesus is God's Son and that He is the Messiah and that He is God. And he wants us to believe that. He wants his readers to believe what he's written. And so he gives us this story. Now, any of you in this room ever showed up at your house after a long day and your house was dirty and it just like kind of sent you to the moon? Anybody had that moment? Am I the only one who had that has that issue? Okay. I struggle. I I confess, I grew up in a perfectionistic home where my mom, who I love her dearly, she kept our house very, very clean, like to the tune of vacuuming three or four times a day, um, probably a little bit overkill. But I love the fact that I grew up in a very orderly home, very organized home. And so, you know, when you have uh children and and when you and your real life happens and you show up, like it's not always clean, and it's not always orderly. And and so some days days, if I'm just real honest, I'll walk through the door, and my wife's amazing at keeping her house clean. She's amazing at organizing and keeping things, but it just happens. I mean, life happens, right? And I walk in and there's this weird part of me that just kind of like amps, and I and I have to fight my flesh in that moment. And there's been times when I've fought it better than others. There's times when I didn't fight it very well, and I was just like, All right, everybody, let's go, we're gonna clean this up, I'm right, everybody in here, you know, and I'm just like trying to get everything, put every back, you know, and and I've and I was how many times I've said, you know, like when you get something out, you put it up before you move to the next thing. Any parents know what have ever had to say that? All right? I I can I can't tell you how many times I've said that exact statement. Bottom line is that I've come into our house and I've seen it dirty and it's and it's just like kind of sent me off, and and and I felt some of that tension, some of that anxiety. Well, I want you to know that that Jesus comes into his father's house and he experiences a little of this, but his anger and his uh his, you might say his response is not the same kind of unrighteous response mine is, okay? He has a righteous response. This isn't Jesus sinning. This is Jesus doing what is completely appropriate and in line with God's character, okay? So he's not sinning when he shows up on the scene here and does what he does in the temple. But it is a stark picture, it is a stark contrast, like I said, to a lot of the other pictures we have of Jesus. And it's a good picture, it's a healthy picture, it's a helpful picture if we're gonna have a holistic view of Jesus and not just be lopsided to think he's only good and kind and gracious and loving. Because he is those things, but he's also very much so holy and righteous, and he's he's a judge and he and he sees sin and he sees those things. And so we're gonna talk about that more in a minute. But before we really get to the temple, just to give us a little bit of the context, make sure we're understanding what we're reading here. We said in verse 12, it's a transition statement where Jesus is gonna go down to Capernaum and he's gonna hang out with his mother and his brothers. We don't really know what he did there. We don't even know why exactly he's going there. We just are told that he went down there. Now I've got a feeling that because Jesus knew after this wedding in Cana, and from this point forward, that his life is gonna change drastically. Like the intensity of his mission is increasing. Uh he's been baptized now, he's had his kind of official entry into ministry, and so life is gonna get tougher and tougher and tougher, and time with family is gonna get less and less and less. And so he kind of almost has this little sort of little gathering with his mom and his brothers, and I think he's probably just there saying, Hey, love you guys. Uh here's what's gonna happen. I'm getting ready to start going towards Jerusalem, and then we do ministry. I'm not gonna see you so much, and it's almost kind of a little bit of closure to that chapter. And then he goes on to Jerusalem because it's time for the Passover. Now, if you know the other gospel accounts, which we call the synoptics, the other three, uh, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, what you will notice is that when Jesus calls his disciples, it says he calls them like by the seashore. So, like James and John, uh Peter and Andrew, they're called by the seashore. Well, if you read, we talked about these guys actually meeting Jesus in another scenario, is it that it's contradicting the storyline? No, actually, I think what John is recording is that he records some of the initial interaction and some of the initial following, but then after this time in Capernaum, Jesus is walking along the seashore, and I think this is where he actually calls these guys away from fishing and away from, thank you, sir, away from um from his uh work that he's doing, that their work they're doing, and calls them actually to follow him in the next step of the ministry and the mission. And so it's actually uh how we can reconcile the story of the synoptics with John is that as Jesus is walking along the shore, he calls these guys and says, Come follow me. Now they already knew him, they already knew that he was the Messiah, or they they they thought he was the Messiah, they declared that he was the Messiah. They were still learning what that meant, but they followed Jesus and they followed him specifically into Jerusalem. So it's the time of the Passover. Now, I'm not going to get into the history of the Passover. Most of you in this room, if you've been around church, you know the story of the Passover from the Old Testament, when the people of God were instructed by God to paint uh uh blood over their doorposts whenever the the the death angel came through. This was again during the plagues, the last plague, uh before the people of Israel were released from captivity in Egypt. And so here they are still celebrating the Passover. It was a time when families would come to Jerusalem, and they said there's an estimate where literally the city of Jerusalem could swell up to three million people. Like that's the high end. Uh, but that's crazy to think about three million people because Jerusalem's not that big, okay? But it but they're swarming this place, and that's men, women, and children, and then all their animals that they've brought with them, uh, specifically for sacrifice. So it was a crazy scene when Jesus shows up there. But this was normative that every year the people would do this, and when they'd show up, they were supposed to make uh sacrifices in the temple, uh sin offerings, guilt offerings, um, this day of atonement kind of thing going on, where there would be there they there were all these different sacrifices that would happen around the temple throughout the year, and this is a very important time for the people of Israel as they celebrated the passing over of the death angel, is also a time when they were instructed very specifically to go through their homes and through their stuff and to clean out all the leaven. Okay? Now, this is interesting in light of what we're about to see with Jesus, is that in their homes they were to go through and clean out the leaven. Now, leaven to us, like yeast, doesn't really mean a lot, but to them, they were told that that is a symbol of sin, and they're to go through their houses and literally purge themselves of any leaven. So when you have the Passover meal, when they had the bread, it was unleavened bread, right? It wasn't, it was like a cracker, which is why when we do communion, we have crackers because it's more representative of that, even though at Christmas Eve we have Hawaiian loaf, and and so we're just not being old school in that. We're just like we're celebrating. We we're we're free. We're free from the unleavened. We can have Hawaiian loaf, okay? And so, but but here's the deal: regardless, it's bread, and we celebrate the symbolism of it more than we think about that. But for them, they thought there's no leaven because it's we're trying to clean out all the sin. Right? We're trying to clean out all of the signs of sin in this leaven. Well, Jesus goes into his father's house, the temple, and he sees sin everywhere. And so while these people are all purging out the leaven, Jesus is going to purge and clean out his house because he sees issues that are there. Well, what does he see when he gets there? Huh. He sees a lot. He sees a big, fat, offensive mess. In fact, just a few things to insight there. So, whenever the people showed up, already said they brought animals with them, but in the temple, when Jesus sees what's happening, he notices the racketeering and the extortion. What I mean? Well, there's these money changers that are there because every Israelite male, every Jewish male had to pay a temple tax each year. And it was it was pretty uh intense in that imagine how much money for that many people had to be paid, and it could not be paid in Greek or Roman coins. It had to be paid in the temple coin, which meant they had to go to these money changers and they had to get a temple coin from them. So they had to give them money, they got the temple coin, and then they could go and pay the tax. Well, what had happened apparently is that these money changers were now charging an exorbitant amount of money to get the temple coin, and they were making a ton off of this because they knew the people had to have it. Now, the the practice was not bad, right? The practice of having to change it out was not bad. The problem was is they were adding all this extra on top of it to make money off these people who they knew had to get this temple coin. And that was called extortion, straight up, okay? And that's what they were doing, and Jesus saw this and he was agitated about it. It's like um how I feel when I go to uh a UT game and I know I can buy a hot dog at night for 99 cents at Costco and then I have to go pay $6.50 at UT at the stadium, right? Or I can go buy a hamburger at Whataburger for three bucks, but then when I go to Six Flags, I gotta pay 18 bucks for a hamburger, right? Now, that's I'm sorry, it's an exaggeration, but you know what I'm talking about. Basically, that's what's happening here is that they're paying all this excess that they shouldn't be paying. And you've been there and you've been angry about it too, right? Um, so this is going on in God's temple, God's house. But not only that, but when people showed up, they had to do these sacrifices and they would have their animals, and the animals that they would bring were supposed to be unblemished. They were supposed to be perfect sacrifices. And if they were going to do particular offerings, like offerings like a sin offering with a pigeon, they had to have a certain unblemished pigeon that was completely white and didn't have any issues, or they had to bring like a lamb that was completely unblemished and was it was perfect. And what they would do is they'd show up to these guys that were there in the temple, if they brought their own, and the the temple uh salespeople would say, Oh, wait, no, your lamb's not good enough. You need you need to you need to give us that lamb, and we'll give you a better one, but you need to buy it from us. And so what they would do is they would take the lamb from the some the person who had brought this lamb, they would get they would sell them another one, and then they put the lamb in the flock, and then they'd sell it to some other joker later on. And so literally it's a racket, and they are just killing it and making a lot of money in, again, in God's temple. Bottom line is you can see there's a real issue here. Jesus sees through all that, and more than he's offended by just these practices, he's offended because he sees their hearts. We know that at the end of this passage it says he sees what's in their hearts, and he knows that they have completely lost sight of why they're there, completely lost sight of the motivation that God gave them to come to the temple to celebrate the Passover, to make these sin offerings to begin with. And money is ruling in the hearts of these people versus a true desire to worship the God of heaven and earth. So, Jesus, what does he do? He goes off. He goes off, and rightfully so. And so he makes a cord, he makes a whip out of three cords, and it says that he puts together this whip, and then he just starts going to town and he drives out these animals, he drives out the oxen and the and the other uh livestock that are there, and he's dumping over money changers' tables, and he's he's letting birds go, right? He's saying, get these things out of God's house. He doesn't kill anybody, he doesn't hurt anybody, but he makes it very clear you need to get out of here. This is inappropriate, this is offensive, this is ungodly, and you need to get out of my father's house. In fact, he says, You've turned it into a shopping mall. You've turned a place of worship into a shopping mall. What are you guys doing? Now, one thing just to note here is that John's account of this story of him going into the temple of cleansing is at the beginning of his gospel. The other accounts in the synoptics, which I mentioned earlier, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, is at the end. We believe that Jesus actually cleaned the temple twice. That he did at the beginning of his ministry and he did the end of his ministry. There's some differences in both accounts because um he quotes a different passage of scripture in the other account. Uh he doesn't use a cord of whips in the other account. He says, This is my house, it's to be called a house of prayer for the nations in the other account. This one is the beginning of his ministry, and he's gonna come back right before he goes to the cross and he's gonna clean it out again. Which means what? That this time must not have worked. They didn't get the point. They came right back in, they started doing it again. But we do know that Jesus was meant business. He was very serious. You know, there's a passage in Ephesians 4, and I've thought a lot about it, but in Ephesians 4, um, it you you may or may not know this passage where it talks about anger, and he talks about don't let sin go down on your anger, right? And so that's a good passage for those of us in the room that are married. Don't don't go to bed angry at the other person, work it out, figure it out. Uh, because it takes root, it says that the enemy will get a foothold. Um, I have definitely gone to bed angry before, and it did not it did not go well. All right? It was not helpful for my relationship, it creates some problem. But in that same passage, he says this not only don't let the sun go down your anger, he says, in your anger, do not sin. You know what that tells me? That tells me that there's a way to be angry and not sin. It tells me that you can actually get angry but not actually sin. Well, what does that mean? Well, for me as a human being, it's very hard for me to ever be angry and not sin because my motives are not pure. But I believe what it's pointing to is the fact that you can be angry when you see things that are offensive to God. You can be frustrated when you look at the world and you see people who are marginalized, and when you see people who are being hurt and wounded, when you see injustice in the world, you know what? There should be an anger in us that rises up, a godly anger. When we see people doing things that are offensive to God, it should cause anger in us, right? But we have to ask God to help us to be angry in the right ways. And Jesus was angry in the right way. It was a righteous, holy anger. The way I think about it even with my kids is when my kids sin, when my kids disobey, it's easy for me to just feel offended by their sin. And I'm angry because they've made my life harder. That's not righteous anger, okay? Righteous anger is when I see them and I see the idiotic of their sin, and I'm angry at the fact that sin is reigning in their lives, and that they are getting ripped off because they are believing a lie. I should be angry about that, and I should be angry about the enemy who is deceiving them. Okay. That's not really the primary point of the message this morning, but I do think it's important to realize that there is a right place for sin. For angry, for being angry. Okay? There's a right place for sin? Yeah. Hopefully not. Yeah. You guys know what I mean. So, the response. When Jesus goes in, he drives him out, jumps all these things over, he kind of goes a little bit crazy. And I don't mean that in a bad way, but like people are going, who is this guy? Like, this is insane. Who comes in here and just starts knocking over stuff and running? I mean, you gotta imagine this was kind of a wild deal, and there's a lot of bodies in this place. They were confused. Well, the disciples, they get some clarity in this moment. Remember, they've already started to understand that he's the Messiah, and what are they thinking? Well, it tells us exactly what they're thinking because in verse 12 of the passage, I'm sorry, not verse 12, in verse 17, it says, And his disciples remembered that it is written, Zeal for your house will consume me. Where's that coming from? It's coming straight out of the Psalms. Did you know that if you read the Old Testament, you will see all kinds of prophecies about Jesus that Jesus fulfills? And one of them comes straight out of Psalm 69 here. He says the same thing in Malachi chapter 3, verse 1 through 7. It says the same thing in Isaiah 56, that zeal for his house will consume him. It's talking about Jesus when he comes. I mean, Isaiah, that's written, you know, four to five hundred years before Jesus shows up on the scene, already proclaiming that this Messiah is going to come and he's gonna have zeal for his father's house. Jesus is showing zeal for his father's house. So he is fulfilling prophecy, and the disciples go, He's doing it. This is him. The zeal for his house. Now, we also know that they didn't get all the story, and we'll talk about that in a second, but they at least saw that and started to understand. But the Jewish leaders, they didn't get it. They didn't see it that way. In fact, they said, What sign of authority will you show us for doing these things? Why are you doing this? Why do you think you can do this? Who do you think you are? And Jesus says, Destroy this sanctuary, and I will raise it up in three days. Now they're super puzzled. Right? Because what they're thinking in the moment, and we know it by their response, is they're thinking, Oh, you mean tear down this bus this building, this physical building, and then you're gonna rebuild it? And they're like, Are you really insane? Like, it took 46 years to build this thing. You're gonna tear it down, we're gonna be rebuild it in three days? Yeah, right. But when Jesus is talking to them, we have the benefit of hindsight and being able to look back and we can see the whole story. We know what he was saying is what? Tear down this temple and I will rebuild it in three days. He's not saying this physical building, he's saying his body, and I will rebuild it in three days. And we know that because why? Because look what it says. He was speaking about the sanctuary of his body, verse 21. So when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the statement that Jesus had made. Isn't that cool? So the disciples they didn't understand either fully at that moment, but when he was resurrected from the grave, they realized, oh, that's what he was talking about. He wasn't talking about the physical temple, the building, he was talking about his body. And I have to make one more observation before we talk a little bit about the takeaways from this passage, because if that's not unsettling enough to see Jesus come into the temple and actually throw a little bit of a righteous holy fit, we see on the back end of this that Jesus says something that's very concerning. And I'll tell you why it's concerning is because Jesus sees through the hearts of people and he knows what's really there. And he knows if we really believe and trust him or if we're just giving him lip service. What do you mean? What do I mean? Well, verse 23 this is a positive. He says, While he was in Jerusalem at the Passover festival, many trusted in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. Great. There were people who actually believed that he was the Son of God. They believed that he was the Messiah. But then verse 24 says this Jesus, however, would not entrust himself to them, since he knew them all. And because he did not need anyone to testify about man, for he himself knew what was in man. You hear what he's saying? Something very interesting here. What he's saying in that moment is that he knew that the hearts of these guys, they weren't pure. And I know that that's no surprise because I know my own heart is still in a work in progress. But literally that Jesus didn't entrust himself to them because he knew that they really weren't for him. They were for themselves. And he didn't entrust himself to them, he didn't give himself over to them because he knew that what they were trying to do is not to lay down their life or follow him or put their trust and their hope in him, but actually get him to do what they wanted him to do. To be the Messiah who was going to come in and set up this rule and reign that they had already determined. Now, just fast forward ahead to our day and think about this for just a second. There are people who make declarations with their mouth, but their hearts do not believe. They make declarations with their mouth that Jesus is God's Son, that He is the Savior, but their hearts are not truly converted. Now, the reason I'm saying this is unsettling is because you can't always tell. You can't always tell. But God knows. So my job is not to create doubt unnecessarily in the hearts of people about their salvation, but my heart is to say to you, if we are God's children, if we are truly God's children, if we are truly saved, if we are truly rescued, redeemed, however, whatever words you want to put on it, it's not just that we have put our trust in God, but that he has entrusted his Holy Spirit to us. And there's fruit of that salvation. And I think about this just in a practical way that when we look at people's lives around us, when we observe Christians, people who are just saying Jesus is God's Son, people are just saying Jesus died on the cross, but there's no fruit of repentance, there's no fruit of salvation, you've got to ask the question, are they truly saved? Or are they just looking for fire insurance? Looking for a social connection? Do you see the seriousness of this? I think it's good just for us periodically to say, not so much, God, I doubt my salvation, but I recognize that it's not just me putting my trust in you, but it's what you've entrusted to me. It's that you've entrusted your Holy Spirit to me as a deposit of the salvation I've received. And therefore my life is changing increasingly because of the work you've put in my place. Specifically the cross. And specifically the resurrection. So, that being said, let's talk about some takeaways from this passage this morning. I'm just gonna give you three. There's a lot more here, but I'm gonna give you three. And I think these are really important for us to remember. Um, first one is this Jesus is not indifferent towards sin, and we shouldn't be either. Jesus is not indifferent towards sin. I said this already this morning, that we need to have a holistic view of Jesus. Can we be honest? We would much rather have the picture of Jesus, of him laying down his life for us on the cross, of him just being the kind, gentle Jesus who just simply loves people who are hurting and loves people who are in need. But when it comes to him being a righteous judge, we'd prefer not to have that picture in our minds. Would you agree? I mean, I think about this. Um I love it when I read the stories about Jesus engaging the broken and the hurting and the marginalized. I love those stories. You know what I wrestle with? I wrestle when I see Jesus being what I would consider to be mean. Like when he calls the Pharisees whitewashed tombs full of dead men's bones. When he calls them sons of the devil. When I get the picture in Revelation of Jesus coming back on the white horse, we've talked about that a lot, and he's this warrior, right? That's the picture that we don't typically talk a lot about. When you have the sword coming out of his mouth, flames in his eyes, tattoo on his thigh, yes, Jesus has a tattoo. And he's on a horse. Like, listen, we don't think about that, Jesus, a lot. In fact, we just kind of like the Jesus who's the gentle Jesus. The Jesus who makes us feel better, the Jesus who's who makes us feel more comfortable. But Jesus is not indifferent to our sin. He is not complacent towards our sin. We are. Many times we are complacent towards our sin. Many times we are indifferent to our sin. You know, I think these people in the temple, when he shows up on the scene, they just thought this was the norm. They'd just gotten into their routines, their habits, their structures, and they were just thinking, we're just doing our thing. And Jesus shows up and he says, This is not okay. This is not okay. You cannot turn God's house into a mall. You cannot turn this into a place where people can racketeer and extort people, and it's it and it's not offensive. It's very offensive. God's holiness is serious. Jesus is not indifferent towards sin. I know people like to use this statement. Jesus loves us right where we are. Absolutely true. That's great. He loves us right where we are. But he also loves us enough to lead us out of sin, to lead us to repentance, to lead us to freedom. And that means that we cannot take sin lightly. Now, again, because I've had a head start on this passage this week, I've had some personal soul searching to do. And the question I've had to ask myself is are there sins in my life that I'm comfortable with? Are there things in my life that are offensive to God that I'm just kind of okay with? And the short answer, I have to be honest, the indictment was very clear, yes. There are places in my heart where I am not prayerful. I am prayerless, I am self-reliant. There are places in my heart where I still don't believe fully that God's in charge. You ask the question, how do I know? Because I live as if I'm in charge. And I live as if I'm in control. And I'm guessing that if you are really honest with yourself, there are places in your life where you've gotten comfortable with sin. There's places in your life where you have been just manipulating the truth just enough to make yourself look better. There's places where underhandedly you have tweaked the scene, you've done things, you've you've messed with life in such a way that it's not truthful. It's dishonest. I mean, do you see what's going on here in this scene? Jesus doesn't just see these issues of these money sellers, these money changers and and these sellers of livestock. He sees how money and materialism has taken a higher priority than God's holiness. Does that happen in our lives? You better believe it does. Especially in all the most affluent countries on the planet, that we can so easily get lost in our materialism and our stuff, and we get more focused on that and worshiping our stuff over God. That's why we so much of the time come to God's church family or church gatherings like this, and our prayers are like, God, please provide for me, please help me, which are totally fine prayers. But so much of the time our prayers are consumed with asking God to bless our lives and to bless us and to provide for us. Very little of our prayers are, God, use me in the ways that you see fit for your glory, for your kingdom. I mean, if we're honest, God protect me from harm, protect me, protect me, provide for me, provide for me. Our hearts get really wayward, and we forget that God has so much more for us, and he wants to bless our lives, yes, but he wants to use our lives for his glory, for his kingdom. Jesus is not indifferent towards our sin, and we shouldn't be either. A lot more can be said there. I love the pictures where Jesus is loving the tax collectors, the sinners, the adulterers, those who are prostitutes, you name it, like Jesus is near them. He goes to them. But you know what Jesus says when he's there with them? He says, Stop sinning, go and sin no more. He doesn't say, I love you, okay, you can keep doing what you want to do. He says, I love you, go and sin no more. And he says the same to us today. We need to be very careful that we understand God's approach to sin because Jesus had to give his very life for it. Sin is serious. And I know culturally we are not very okay with talking about the seriousness of sin. But it's not preaching the gospel faithfully to only talk about God's forgiveness. And it's not gonna help us appreciate God's grace unless we understand the seriousness of the sin which we've committed offense to God. Now I'm gonna come back to that in a minute. But the next thing that's a takeaway for us this morning is that bodies, not buildings, are where God meets with his people. Bodies, not buildings, are where God meets with his people. So Jesus makes this point by saying, This sanctuary, you're gonna tear it down, and I'm gonna rebuild it in three days. I'm gonna raise it up in three days. And he says he was talking specifically about his body in verse 21. Now, in 1 Corinthians, some of you guys were here when we went through the book of 1 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians chapter 3, and then in chapter 6, Paul writes something very important to us. Here's what it says in verse 19 of chapter 6 of 1 Corinthians. He says, Don't you know that your body is a what? Sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God. You are not your own. You were bought at a price, therefore glorify God in your body. Now, the people of Israel, the Jewish people of the time when Jesus was there in the temple, they really saw the temple as the place where they met with God. That's where the Holy of Holies was, that's where they would go for these annual uh times of offering and of sin offering and celebration of the Passover. That's where they would go there. And they they really saw God's temple as a place where God was housed. Now, I don't know about you guys, but when I was growing up, uh I grew up in church, and people were very, very, very serious about the building that I grew up in. Uh I can't tell you how many times I got in trouble for running in church. Okay? A lot. I forgot how many times. In fact, I would just I start running like, uh, you know, I'm in trouble now. So when I was growing up, we were, it was the sanctuary was a holy place. Anybody grew up that way? It was a holy place. You didn't you didn't chew gum in there, you didn't you didn't run in there, you didn't, you didn't raise your voice in there, because it was a holy, sacred place. Now, let me explain. Understand this. It's not that we shouldn't have a sense of reverence when we come together as God's people. But buildings are not where God lives and resides. Okay? Buildings are not where we find God's presence. Buildings are places we gather together as people, and God meets with us here, but we as individuals, if you are a child of God, the Holy Spirit resides in you. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Now, this is beautiful for a couple of reasons. One, because that means you don't have to wait for each Sunday to come so you can meet with God. Because everywhere you go, you can meet with God. Everywhere you are, your neighborhood, your workplace, your kid's soccer game, you can meet with the living God because He is there. You don't have to wait until you come into this room on Sunday to say, okay, God, I'm here. I hope you're here. Like we pray some things sometimes, like, God, please be here today. Did you know that when we come in this room, he's here? I mean, God's everywhere, by the way. I think what we mean a lot of times, just to be honest, is we mean, God, would you show us yourself? Would you reveal your presence to it? You manifest yourself. Because he's here. In fact, he's here in the lives of his believers. He's entrusted in the tabernacle, the the the the um the temple of the body, okay? He is there. He is with us. So bodies, not buildings, are where God meets with his people. That's beautiful, isn't it? It's awesome. Because we don't have to wait for an annual sacrifice journey. We can meet with him anywhere. And even by the way, in the Old Testament, the psalmist writes this God's not contained in buildings. He's not contained in buildings built by human hands. Doesn't mean we don't set apart places for us to gather. I mean, this land that God's blessed us with is a tool, it's a resource, it's a place where we can come, we can gather. But this is not sacred in and of itself. Right? Just by, it is not, this is not, this is, you get you guys get the point. That we are God's people who are filled with God's Spirit. We are the temple of God. But also Jesus and God, they are the temple. You say, well, what do you mean by that? Well, Jesus said, again, referring to his body, you tear down this temple, but I want you to look in Revelation for just a second. Revelation chapter 21, you don't have to turn there. I think it's on the screen above me. Revelation chapter 21 and verse 22 says this. This is John, the same John who wrote the book of John, now recording in Revelation, a vision that he got from God in heaven. And he says, I did not see a sanctuary in it in heaven. Why? Because the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its sanctuary. God's presence is in heaven, and so therefore we don't need a building or a space to go to. His presence envelops everyone who's there. He is the sanctuary. The city does not catch this. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it because God's glory illuminates it. And its lamp is the lamb. Who's the lamb? Jesus. Jesus is the light of heaven. Isn't that awesome? Think about that. One day we're gonna get to heaven. We're gonna get to heaven, and we won't need light because Jesus will just light the place up. He's the light of the world, he's the light of heaven, and his glory is so bright that we won't need light. We don't need a sun, we don't need a moon, we have Jesus. And we won't need a building because we will be in his presence. We will be meeting with him continuously 24-7. Communing with our God. That's awesome. So we can be confident, even now, that his presence is with us. If you are a child of God, his presence is with you. In fact, if you're a child of God, his presence is in you. You are not God, but God is in you. By the power of his Holy Spirit. I don't think we live like temples of God. I mean, Paul's point is if we're a temple, we shouldn't engage in sexual immorality. But there's a lot of other implications, right? If we're a temple of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is in us, not only should we not engage in sexual immorality, but we shouldn't want to sin at all to offend the very presence of God in us. And not only that, but we should be listening to that power of the Holy Spirit, that voice of the Holy Spirit, who brings conviction, who brings encouragement, who brings truth into our lives everywhere we go for God's glory. Okay, final takeaway. More can be said on all these points, but final one. The greatest sign that Jesus is God and Messiah was his resurrection. These people wanted a sign. They wanted to know, Jesus, are you the Messiah? Or what authority do you have to be coming into this temple and turning over tables and driving people out, driving the animals out? Like, who gives you this authority? What show us a sign? And Jesus talks about what? His resurrection. Because he knew that for many of them, they would never get it until he was resurrected. And I would just say this this morning, at a very practical level. If you are wrestling with is Jesus God? Is he God's son? Is this Christianity thing legit? Does this thing hold water? I mean, can we actually believe that the words on the pages of this Bible are true? I would simply call your attention to the resurrection of Jesus. And say, if that isn't true in Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 15, which we preached not so long ago, if that's not true, if Jesus wasn't resurrected from the grave, if he didn't raise up that temple on the third day, then you can totally ignore the whole rest of everything that was said in this word and everything else Jesus said, right? Because from the very beginning of Jesus' ministry, he's already saying, I'm going to die and I'm going to rise again. What's interesting too is that he does say to them, You tear down this temple. I hope you guys know this, but just a side note to this they weren't in charge of when Jesus died. And they weren't the ones who were responsible ultimately for killing Jesus. I know that sounds weird. Jesus says it later in John that he laid down his life. Do you know that Jesus was in the driver's seat? That the father was in the driver's seat? He was never out of control. He knew where this was going, he knew what was happening, he knew the plan. And he laid down his life for his sheep. And he took it back up too. Because he has all authority. That's Jesus that we worship. That's the Jesus that we serve. That's the Jesus that's in this temple cleansing it out. You want to know the authority that he had? He had the authority over life and death. He had the authority as God to go into a temple and cleanse it out. And he has the authority of God, because he is God, to come into our lives and to clean out the sin in our hearts. He has the authority to come into our lives and to tell us where there are things that we've gotten comfortable with that need to change. So I think it's very important for us to remember that because Jesus came out of the grave, both he died and he came out of the grave, that we're not enslaved to sin and its power any longer. And this is why we don't have to fear here, I'm coming in and cleansing out our temple. These bodies of the Holy Spirit that He's given us. You know what? We can actually come before God with anticipation that He has the power to help us walk in freedom from sin. And the truth be known, and I'm not your Holy Spirit, every one of us in this room have areas of our lives where we need God to come and to display the resurrection power to raise us from death to life. Sin where we have let get a foothold in our lives that needs to be transformed by the grace and the goodness and the power of God. Every single one of us in here have issues that we need God's Holy Spirit to help us resolve today. And so I want to close out our time by talking about this idea of cleansing our temple. I've already told you a little bit of my own journey this week, trying to reflect on my own sin, praying what the psalmist prayed when he said, Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts. That's a dangerous but powerful prayer, isn't it? And we don't know how to do this. I mean, I'll be honest, we don't do it really well. I mean, some of you in this room, maybe you're ahead of us on this, and maybe this is more normative, but I would say most Christians that I talk to, we don't know how to sit and be still and say, God, would you show me the error of my ways? Because we're a little uncomfortable about what he might point out. I think this is one of the reasons why we love the noise of life, because when we get still and quiet, the Holy Spirit starts talking to us and we get uncomfortable. We start feeling conviction. Have you noticed that at the end of our services we've tried to create space over the last six months or so where we just sit and listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit? You know why? Because we need to. More than you need to hear what I have to say, more than you need to hear the teaching about the details of this book, which are very important. You need to hear the Holy Spirit putting his finger on specific issues in your heart where you're not walking in obedience to God. And you need to be affirmed as his child, that he loves you and he loves you enough, even in your mess, to forgive you and to help you walk in freedom. And so this morning, what we want to do on the back end of our service is we want to take some time to confess and repent. Is that okay? Does it make you a little bit nervous? It makes me a little nervous. But to confess and to repent, to confess is just to agree with God with what he already knows to be true about us. It's to agree, God, yes, my life is offensive. Yes, God, I have been bending the truth. God, yes, I have been getting angry at my children and then saying it's because of their behavior that I'm angry and justifying myself. I have been frustrated at my spouse, but it's really their laziness, their issue that's my that's the problem, not mine. Every single one of us in this room, we have areas of sin where we have justified, we have rationalized. And listen, today is a day. Where you can get free. Today's a day, and every day is, where we can practice coming to God and saying, search me, God, know my heart, try me, know my thoughts, and lead me in your ways. And find real freedom. And let me reiterate the point I made earlier. You may not think sin's a big deal, but it's a huge deal. It's a huge deal. That's why Jesus had to give up his very life. It's highly offensive. So we cannot just play with sin and act like it's no big thing. In fact, no child of God can live in sin willfully and not feel any sense of conviction. He can't. Maybe for a season, but if you're still and you're quiet, you're listening to the Holy Spirit, he's going to point out the areas of our lives that need to change and need to align with his agenda and his will for us. So I want to start us out this morning by corporately confessing. Corporately confessing. And I just would say to you guys this morning from the stage, as just one representative of our elder board, that I confess on behalf of Point Community Church that we at times have been less prayerful than we should be. If Jesus' words the second time he cleansed out the temple was that my house should be called a house of prayer, I feel like that there's not many, there's no, there's that there's a lot of ways that Point Community Church doesn't look like a house of prayer. In fact, sometimes we wait till after we've already made a mess and then we say, God, please come clean it up. I want to get better. I want to be more dependent. I want to be more humble. I want to be more reliant on the Holy Spirit. And I just want to confess on behalf of the church that there have been moments we haven't prayed enough. We've thought with our heads and kind of come up with our own wisdom. And I just confess that because I sense that God's Spirit was putting his finger on that this week, that we need to grow as a praying church. We pray. We pray as elders, we pray as staff, we pray a lot, but we many times can still operate in our flesh. And we need God's help. I want to also just confess that there's some times where even from this platform, we have some arrogance and some pride and we look down on other churches. There's times where we are condescending towards other churches. And I just want to confess and ask God, please help us not to be that way. That's offensive to God. These are our brothers and sisters in Christ. We try to be a church that says we believe in one church. We try to be a church that says we believe that we're all God's children if we're trusting in the personal work of Jesus. But there are times where condescension is in our tone. And I just want to ask God to help us with that. Now, I I know there's other things, but those are just two things that were quickly on my heart. I think a third thing, just confessing publicly, not to you guys, but to God, and inviting you to consider this as well. Just, I think that there are a lot of needs around us that we turn a blind eye to. There are a lot of needs with people who are hurting around us that we don't know what to do, and so we just don't care for those needs. And again, I'm talking about myself here, okay? And on behalf of our body, I feel like that we can really grow in and really caring and showing compassion towards those who are hurting in our city. And so I would just ask God to help us with that, and I just confess that that's an area of struggle for us. I could go on. My list is actually pretty long, but those are some of the things that were on the top of my list for us corporately. And I've asked even one of our elders this morning and invite the other elders that if there's things that God brings up during this time of response that we would be willing to confess and repent publicly of those things that God is putting his finger on. But here's what I want to ask us to do. I'm gonna ask the team to come up, the worship team to come up, and they're gonna lead us in some songs. And what I want you to do this morning is I want you to consider that picture of Jesus going in and cleansing out the temple. Cleansing out the temple and ask the question if Jesus showed up at my house, if Jesus showed up at the doorstep of my house, what would he find in my heart that he would need to deal with? What areas of sin would he need to address? Because here's the thing. If you're a child of God, if you've put your trust in Jesus Christ, you're forgiven. Okay? But God wants us to walk in the light. And he wants us to walk as people who are living for his glory, for his name. And so, what are areas of your heart? What are areas of your life where you know it's not right, it's not good? And it's not just between you and God that there's always a problem, because our sin has implications for the people around us. And I think there's weeks that we show up and we want to worship God, and we're not acknowledging the fact that on the way to church we totally were offensive to our spouse. We treated them like trash. Or maybe to our kids, or maybe just during that week, or maybe there's somebody else in the congregation that we have wronged. And the Bible says, in fact, Jesus' words, where if you're at the altar praying and there's something wrong between you and a brother, you need to go to them before you keep going. Maybe one of the reasons why you don't sense God's Spirit working at times is because you're trying to worship God all the while ignoring the fact you've got offense here. You have wronged a brother, you've wronged a sister, you need to seek forgiveness. I don't know, but I want to pray that we would listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit this morning and ask him to come in and to do the cleansing work that needs to happen in our hearts. Can we do that? Is that okay? I mean, it's not, it's not fun, but it's good. It's not fun to acknowledge that we've grown complacent and stale and stagnant in our walk with Jesus, but it's good. It's not fun to acknowledge that we have areas of our life that are still rough. But he is gracious, he's good as he meets us there. Okay? And we can invite him in with confidence that he loves us and he's gonna help us. So, God, I just pray right now over this time. I pray that as we sing, as we reflect, as we think about what you're doing, God help us to be honest with ourselves. God, help us not to try to justify or rationalize our sin. God, help us to just admit where we have blown it. To confess, to repent. To repent is just to basically realign our hearts and our thoughts with your heart and your thoughts, God. That our behavior would follow a realignment with your will and your way. So, God, help us this morning. Help us to confess, help us to agree with you. God, for some of us, we've walked in the door and we act like either one, we've got it all together. I don't think that's most of it, but we we we hide, we we we kind of try to make up for sin, but we just confess we need you to put your finger on the areas of our lives where we have idolatry, where we have pride, where we have arrogance, um, where if you showed up at our doorstep, you might have to make a whip and drive those things out because we have let those things fester. We have gotten too comfortable with sin. Help us, God, please help us. We just invite your Holy Spirit to move among us. We know you're here. We know that we your children are your temple of your Holy Spirit. So just we pray your Holy Spirit would move in this place and lead us. We love you. And we're so, so, so grateful that you love us. Pray in your name. Amen.