The Passover of the Jews was
near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found
people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their
tables. Making a whip of
cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the
cattle. He also poured out the coins of
the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here!
Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His
disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume
me.”
The Jews then said to him, “What
sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three
days I will raise it up.” The Jews
then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and
will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body.
After he was raised from
the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the
scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
When he was in Jerusalem during
the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs
that he was doing. But
Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people
and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew
what was in everyone. John 2:13 - 25 (NRSV)
A
side
issue related to the text this morning begs our attention:
·
How can an angry
Jesus, whipping the money-changers, be the loving Lord we know?
At
least one author has stated it this way:
Spineless love is hardly love. God
himself explains why He acted this way in the Jerusalem temple...
Discipline your children while there is hope; Proverbs
19:18a (NRSV)
The reason Jesus chased the people and animals from
the temple was to teach the people what is right. In the same way a child must be taught what
is right, God knows how to teach His children.
And, we must never forget that Jesus was God in flesh!
This is a valuable word to parents. If chastening His children is good enough for the heavenly Father, chastening
your own children appropriately is an important part of disciplining! (Now that I’ve become an enemy of every child
in the church, we can continue!)
John records this story depicting the great cosmic
struggle between faith and unbelief. He began with the wedding at Cana, the
miracle of water changed to wine. With
the change there arose in his disciple’s hearts, a flood of belief. John then immediately thrusts us into the
pungent cesspool of Jerusalem’s decomposing religious structure. We are forced to look upon the face of
unbelief in its most hideous manifestation, religious insincerity – hypocrisy.
What is so alarming about these pictures is that John
is not just reporting the news of the first century A.D. He is like an artist, painting timeless
portraits of humanity apart from God. He
paints our souls in 13 verses.
In just a few paragraphs he teaches us the kind of faith that invites
the judgment of God.
I wish to point out for us this morning FAITH
which INVITES THE JUDGMENT OF GOD.
The first kind of faith that invites the judgment of
God is...
Financial Faith
Everyone understands the bottom line of finances. A wealthy old man was very enthusiastic about
his lovely young bride but sometimes wondered whether she might have just
married him for his money. So he asked
her: If
I lost all my money, would you still love me?
She immediately answered; Of
course I would still love you. Don't be silly. I do love you dearly; I would miss you, but I still love you!
After the wedding at Cana, Jesus and his disciples
traveled to Jerusalem to worship at the Temple.
What they saw was the ancient equivalent of carpetbaggers, trying to turn a quick profit at the expense of the
poor who had come to worship.
How did they do it?
The Temple tax was
important. Roman coins had Caesar’s
image on it, and a coin with an image of the Emperor’s face was forbidden in
the Temple. So Roman coins had to be
exchanged for Jewish script. The money
exchange was big business – and therefore subject to abuse.
Let me illustrate.
Suppose our Finance Committee decided we would no longer accept anything
but crisp, new $50 bills in the offering plate, and posted the ushers at the
front door to inspect the $50 bills you bring to make sure the bills you bring
are appropriately unwrinkled or spotted.
Of course they never would be good enough, but – not-to-worry; the
committee chair would have a supply of nice, new crisp $50’s. The price is $100 each! (We could probably skip passing the plate)!
At the temple in Jerusalem, THAT was precisely what
was happening! The money changers were
making a “killing” so-to-speak. They
were raking-in huge profits in the name of religion, and driving the poor into
the ground. Jesus performed an exorcism, driving out those who were
defiling the temple with their greed and dishonest practices.
Now, the whole problem with what was going on was not
really the moneychangers – that was an important function. They just shouldn’t have been charging
exorbitant exchange rates.
It is no wonder the disciples remembered David’s words
when they saw their usually serene Master whipping the moneychangers, and
overturning tables.
It is zeal
for your house that has consumed me; the insults of those who insult
you have fallen on me. Psalms
69:9 (NRSV)
God hates faith rooted in finances. And someday the preachers of prosperity and financial religion will answer to God at
the great judgment throne. You cannot
buy God! Financial faith invites the
judgment of God, and so does...
Institutional Faith
The Jews then
said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” John 2:18 (NRSVA)
The
religious rulers were a hard-working lot.
The problem was they’d given themselves to the institution of the
Temple, and not the Lord of the Temple.
They missed the family of God in favor of the building of God.
We
can also make this mistake. We invite
the judgment of God when we place more importance on what He has given
us (buildings, money, things), than on who He has given us, and what
He wants us to do!
One writer put it thus: Christianity
is institutional in a good sense
when its institutions are prophetically alive and instantly alert to God’s
presence. Christianity is institutional
in the bad sense when it
simply absorbs its culture, becomes an entrenched establishment, and perpetuates
itself.
The religious leaders believed in the stability of
their system and its main symbol – the Temple. It was a massive, impressive
structure. The Temple had been under
construction for 46 years. It wasn’t yet
done – and wouldn’t be for another 40 years.
The Jews were the established religious group. They had the power. They had the Temple. They had influence in Rome and Jerusalem. This was the controlling party. The problem with that kind of thinking is – having
a majority means nothing if you’re wrong!
In Denominational life there are plenty of “religious
professionals” who set the directions and standards for what churches must
do. There are groups and committees for
everything.
The problem of institutional faith is lack of clear
focus. When you trust in institutions,
everything you think, say and do will be slanted in the direction of
maintaining and expanding the institution.
You miss the mark here because, in any endeavor the institution is
supposed to serve the mission, not exist at the expense of the mission.
Institutions aren’t bad – as long as they serve the mission. When the institutions become the mission, we then have institutional faith – and
it invites the judgment of God!
Sometimes we church people place more importance on
the institutions of the church, (buildings, programs, & other sacred cows),
than people. When this happens, the
institutions become central, and the mission suffers.
This, beloved, is the stuff of which church fights are
made. Institutional faith sprouts in
dark places – and it always smells like smoke, right out of the pit of
Hell. Those with institutional faith
usually have little or nothing to do with winning people to Jesus Christ. They revel in the things that divide people;
their favorite phrase is, we’ve never done it that way before!
Institutional faith, along with financial faith,
invites the judgment of God! And so
does…
Sensational Faith
When he was in Jerusalem
during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the
signs that he was doing. But Jesus on
his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and
needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in
everyone.
John 2:23-25 (NRSVA)
We note that many people saw the authoritative
teaching of Jesus, and His miracles, and they believed in Him. The word means that they were willing to
commit to what they had seen. To believe
means to exercise faith towards. They believed in Him because they had seen
wondrous, sensational things.
But, we also must see that Jesus didn't respond in
like manner to them. The text says He would not entrust himself to them. Strangely, the word believe in verse 23 and entrust
in verse 24 are the same word in Greek.
In short, Jesus was saying, you may believe in me, but I've got my
doubts about you!
The question is WHY?
Why would Jesus fail to believe in them? We have always heard that Jesus accepts
anyone who comes to Him. That is true,
but here we learn that there are CONDITIONS under which we must come. You cannot come with a faulty faith.
Jesus looked at the crowds who were following and
understood the multiplicity of self-serving motives with which they
followed. It says that He knew ALL people. Another translation says He knew people to
their core (human nature). In short,
Jesus understands our weaknesses.
Now, for you and me that's good news! Jesus had said follow me to people like
Peter and James and John – men He knew to be weak. And if He loved them in all their weakness
and sinfulness, it means He'll love you and me too!
But, some of those following in the crowd were not
just weak in their ability to follow Jesus; they were selfish in their motive
for following:
·
Some of them were
just plain greedy. They were hoping these miracles would
continue, and they'd have a kind of golden goose at their
disposal to make them rich.
·
Others were zealots,
extreme Zionist patriots who were looking for a national Messiah who would lead
them to clobber Rome and bring in a golden age of Jewish ease.
·
Others were just
fascinated or curious, wanting to cover all the bases in case they'd
missed something. They were willing to
follow, as long as the good times kept
a-rollin'.
But Jesus knew that when the shadow of the cross came
into focus, they would all find an exit.
Fickle faith will fizzle when they want to nail your hands to
crossbeams!
The reason many people today are members of churches
and movements with no more than faulty faith, is because they never entrusted themselves to the
saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ.
They got their name on a church roll, but they will miss heaven by 18
inches, the distance between your head and heart!
Financial faith, Institutional faith, Sensational
faith; all of these miss the mark of Authentic Saving Faith. Faith
in Christ is more than mere intellectual assent. It believes with the heart, with the will –
with adoration and with action.
At the national mint a party of visitors was told by a
workman in the smelting works that if you first dipped your hand in water, a
ladle of molten metal might be poured over the palm of the hand without burning
it.
A husband and wife were part of this party of
visitors. The workman said to the husband,
Perhaps you would like to try it. The husband gave him a look that firmly said,
No thanks, I'll take your word for it.
The workman turned to the wife, Perhaps
you would like to try it. She
replied, Certainly. She plunged her hand into the water and
calmly held it out while the metal was poured over it. She was unharmed, because the man working
with the metal knew what he was talking about.
We might ask, which
of the two really believed the workman?
The husband believed at one level – but he wasn't
willing to put his belief to the acid test.
The wife, on the other hand, was willing to take the kind of risk that
faith in Christ demands. Her belief
became behavior.
It doesn't take much to have a faulty faith. You only need hold back a little. Give yourself 1%, or 99% to Christ - it's all
the same.....you will be LOST, because HE
won’t accept less than 100% of you.
Totally entrust yourself to the seat of his grace, and
you'll never wind up on the floor of fall-away apostasy.
