Jesus’ House
TCF Sermon
April 1, 2007
Mark 11:7-11 (NIV) 7 When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. 8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. 9 Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, "Hosanna!" "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" 10 "Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!" "Hosanna in the highest!" 11 Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.
Here we see the King of Kings, Jesus, for the first time really accepting the praise of His subjects, though there’s much evidence that few really understood what was happening that day. We see Him being warmly received by the crowd. But this was just the start of the most significant week in human history. Though Jesus was worshipped this day, the week didn’t end there – it was just the beginning.
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Interruption – have actors walk through the auditorium, selling stuff, and taking a “shortcut” through the auditorium, right in front of the stage.
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Now, how many of you, assuming you didn’t figure out this was staged to make a point, how many of you would think if something like this really happened this morning, that is was incredibly inappropriate at best? Maybe rude? How about sacrilegious? Well, apparently, you’re in good company, because Jesus had a similar reaction in His first recorded public act after the Palm Sunday reception He got along the road.
In verse 14, we get a hint of what’s to come following Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The first place Jesus went was to the temple.
The place He called His Father’s house when He was 12 years old (Luke 2:49). Verse 11 of Mark 11 says He looked around at everything. What do you think He saw – why is it important that He looked around at everything? We find out why it’s important what He observed, because of what’s recorded when Jesus came back to the temple the next day, and what happened then.
Apparently, what Jesus saw when He looked around provoked Him to anger. Jesus cleared out the temple twice. John chapter 2 records a similar episode:
John 2:13-17 (NIV) 13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!" 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me."
Because of when it takes place and the details present, most scholars believe this was a separate incident. So we see that twice Jesus cleared out the temple, for the same basic reasons. Now, Jesus didn’t get angry often, and His anger is nothing like our anger. His anger is always a righteous anger. His anger isn’t the selfish anger we have when we get cut off in traffic, or when somebody wrongs us or insults us or hurts us in some way. The only other time it’s recorded that Jesus was angry is in:
Mark 3:5(NIV) 5 He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored
So, it seems Jesus was angry at stubborn hearts, hearts that refused to believe, or hearts that refused to listen, and He was angry when those stubborn hearts interfered in some way with the true worship of a Holy God. It’s important for us to examine, because Jesus got angry so seldom, we need to understand what prompted His anger.
So let’s look at what happened the next day, the first day following Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem in what we call Holy Week.
Mark 11:15-17 (NIV) 15 On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, 16 and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. 17 And as he taught them, he said, "Is it not written: "’My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ’a den of robbers.’"
Why was the first thing Jesus did in public that week this angry outburst at the temple? Why was this so important that Jesus made such a public scene, and also did so while He was angry? Why would He make a scene like this, when there was so much to say and do prior to going to His destiny, going to the cross and to His death on Good Friday?
Let’s take some time this morning to look at Jesus’ house, because, after all, Jesus laid public claim to it when He was 12 and called it “my father’s house,” and He laid claim to it on this day, when He said, “My house.”
Why was it important that day, and why is it still important to us today, some 2000 years later? I believe it’s significant that Jesus’ said specifically “My house.” Why? He owns it. He’s in charge. He makes the rules, and decides what’s appropriate and inappropriate in His house.
This is a story we don’t often associate with Holy Week, but I believe it’s significant that this took place at the beginning of that historic week. Jesus didn’t do anything by accident. It’s no accident that Jesus cleared out the temple at the beginning of His ministry, as recorded in John, and then again at the end of His ministry, the first day of the last week of His life before the crucifixion.
As the first official act of this week, Jesus was asserting His right, His authority, His Lordship, over the temple. Think about this for a moment. In John 2:15, Jesus cast out the moneychangers and merchants with a whip:
John 2:15 (NIV) 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.
But this time, less than a week before His death on the cross, Jesus did it with a look, with a look of anger, yes, but apparently without any other physical means.
One commentary noted that this might have been a fulfillment of Proverbs 20:8:
Proverbs 20:8 (NASB77) 8 A king who sits on the throne of justice Disperses all evil with his eyes.
Now, it’s clear that the religious leaders weren’t happy about this – they weren’t happy at His seeming authority in the temple that they saw themselves as the leaders of.
Mark 11:18 (NASB77) 18 And the chief priests and the scribes heard this, and began seeking how to destroy Him; for they were afraid of Him, for all the multitude was astonished at His teaching.
Now let’s notice some other things about this scene. Jesus did not specifically condemn the buying and selling that was taking place. He might have, because some scholars think that the moneychangers likely took advantage of those who traveled from far away to worship at the temple. Many Biblical historians think that the prices they charged for the sacrificial animals they sold, were probably like profiteering. That is, they sold them at exorbitant markups, because again, those who had traveled a long way could get the needed sacrificial animals no other way. They had a captive market, and they took advantage of it.
It’s why movie theater food, and airport food, and stadium food is so expensive. At its extreme, it’s what we call price gouging today. You have a hurricane in Louisiana and gasoline is scarce, but you have gas, so you charge $5 a gallon to sell it. And people buy it, because you’re the only one who has it, and you make a huge profit. That was probably happening here, too, but it’s not what Jesus condemned specifically, though He saw their hearts, and it may have been part of why He was angry.
However, it’s also true that the moneychangers and sellers were in some sense quite necessary.
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Jewish people from other parts of the empire or even from different towns in Galilee would have local currencies that needed to be converted to some standard for use in the temple. Further, one was not to bring sacrifices from long distances but to follow the more convenient prescription of Moses’ law: buy the sacrifices in Jerusalem. Bible Background Commentary
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So, these merchants were necessary to the whole sacrificial system. But, here the issue is not whether or not moneychanging and selling were appropriate. The issue was where it took place. It took place in the outer courts of the temple – a place that was to be set apart for the worship of God. Now this was the place that the Gentiles were supposed to be able to worship. So in a very real way, devoting such a significant portion of this space to merchandising was also a very poor witness by Israel to the surrounding world.
Remember these things as we make a more personal application in a few minutes here.
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Lawful things, ill timed and ill placed, may become sinful things. That which was decent enough in another place, and not only lawful, but laudable, on another day, defiles the sanctuary, and profanes the sabbath. This buying and selling, and changing money, though secular employments, yet had the pretence of being for spiritual purposes. Matthew Henry
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We begin to understand Jesus’ anger here a little bit better when we look at the scriptures He quoted. First, He quotes Isaiah 56:7. We’ll also look at verse 6:
Isaiah 56:6-7 (NIV) 6 And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD to serve him, to love the name of the LORD, and to worship him, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant-- 7 these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations."
Then, in Isaiah’s day, the temple was God’s house – and as Jesus quoted, it wasn’t just for the Jews, it was also for the Gentiles, for “all nations.” Today, God’s house is no longer a church building or a temple. That doesn’t mean a place of worship is not special in any sense. But it’s not the only place God meets us. It’s not where He lives anymore. That’s why we don’t routinely call this room we’re in a sanctuary. Sometimes we do out of habit, and that’s OK – we don’t want to be legalists here. But we’re intentional to try to call it the auditorium, because the sanctuary was the place God was visibly present in the Old Testament. It was the place of the Shekinah glory - the visible presence of God. This room can be that, but it’s not the only place God might manifest His presence.
That’s because now, we, you and I, we are the temple of God. We, as followers of Christ, are the dwelling place God has chosen. He first dwelt in the Old Testament tabernacle. Then, when Jesus came, He set up a tabernacle among us.
John 1:14 (NIV) 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
And now, after His ascension into heaven, and the coming of the Holy Spirit, His tabernacle is in us, in our hearts. Let’s remember this truth, even as we consider other aspects of this passage. Making a way for Him to tabernacle in us is one of the things that Jesus set in motion at the end of Holy Week with His resurrection, which we’ll celebrate together next Sunday.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NIV) 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
Of course, that awful price is the death of Jesus, the crux of human history, which we’ll mark together this Friday night. So, when we begin to understand these truths, how they tie things together, and see what Jesus was saying, and look more closely at the scripture He quoted, it opens up a whole new way of looking at this passage.
At least it does for me. Maybe you’ve thought of this before. But I’ve always considered this passage only on its natural meaning, which is certainly important and true as well. Jesus was stating important truths about our places of worship, and our churches, not necessarily the buildings, though that may apply too. There are things that are inappropriate in church. There are things that are inappropriate in connection with a worship service, whether that service is in a church building or not.
But let’s look at the second passage of scripture Jesus referenced to dig even deeper into this.
The second passage Jesus quoted was from Jeremiah 7:11. We’ll read vv 8-11:
Jeremiah 7:8-11 (NIV) 8 But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless. 9 "’Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, "We are safe"--safe to do all these detestable things? 11 Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD.
There’s a lot here, so let’s hit some highlights. This is called by scholars The Temple Sermon, because it’s about the temple and the people’s attitude toward the worship there, and it’s given by the prophet Jeremiah in the gate of the temple. God sends Jeremiah to the temple to confront the false belief that God will let no harm come to the temple, and by extension, to the people of Judah. They were putting confidence in the building rather than in the One who lives there.
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Jeremiah rebukes the people for their false and worthless religion, their idolatry, and the shameless behavior of the people and their leaders. The themes of this section are false religion, idolatry and hypocrisy. Jeremiah was almost put to death for this sermon (see Jeremiah chapter 26) The people followed a worship ritual but maintained a sinful lifestyle. It was religion without personal commitment to God. Life Application Bible
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This is where this passage can get personal, if we’re looking for it. It’s easy for us to look at Jesus cleansing the temple and think: “Gee, I’d never sell things in a worship service. Gee, I’d never defile God’s house in any way.” “I’d never bring idol worship into the temple, false religion, hypocrisy.”
But remember, now, as followers of Christ, you are the temple. I am the temple. We are temples of the Holy Spirit, the very dwelling place of the King of Kings.
I want you to remember a couple of things we noted earlier – but now, to think of these things in light of this way of looking at it – that is, that we are the temples of the Holy Spirit. One of the things we noted was that Jesus made a point to call the temple “My House.” He owns it. He’s in charge. He makes the rules, and decides what’s appropriate and inappropriate in His house.
That was true of the temple the day He cleared it – the day after what we celebrate as Palm Sunday. It’s true today – but it’s even more true of us. We’re His house. He owns this house, because He paid with it for His life, and we, as followers of Jesus, accepted that gift of salvation. He’s in charge. He makes the rules, and He decides what’s appropriate in His house.
We also noted that Jesus, in clearing the temple, was asserting His right, His authority, over the temple. I think He does that today, too, with us. He doesn’t do it in anger, as He did that day, but I think it’s important for us to remember that the defiling of His temple, disregarding the holiness of the temple, the set-apart-ness, if you will, did in fact make Him angry. He absorbed all that righteous anger on the cross later that week.
And the way He asserts His authority over these temples of the Holy Spirit, you and me, today, is when He disciplines us, when He allows circumstances into our lives that mold us and shape us into His image.
Hebrews 12:10 says: God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.
He still has authority over His temple. We belong to Him. He has a right to make us into His image, and to do what it takes to accomplish that. By accepting Jesus as Lord of our lives, we’ve accepted and granted that He has that right, too. So, to practically apply this to us, what are we doing to turn His house, Jesus’ House, this temple of the Holy Spirit, into a house of prayer for all nations?
It makes me think of the old Keith Green song recorded by many different artists:
Make my life a prayer to You
I want to do what You want me to
No empty words, no white lies
No token prayers, no compromise
The flip side is what are we doing to turn His house, Jesus’ house, into a den of thieves? Let’s look again briefly at the passages of scripture Jesus quoted.
Isaiah 56:6-7 (NIV) 6 And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD to serve him, to love the name of the LORD, and to worship him, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant-- 7 these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations."
So, how are we binding ourselves to the Lord? The Hebrew here means to unite, to remain, to cleave, to join. It’s another way of saying fully devoted, fully committed. These are the people God gives joy to in His house of prayer. We’ve just heard many good reports of how God really met people in their hour, or hours, of prayer. Then, we can look again at that passage from Jeremiah. We read it earlier in the NIV, let me read it now in the New Living.
Jeremiah 7:8-11 (NLT) 8 “ ‘Do you think that because the Temple is here you will never suffer? Don’t fool yourselves! 9 Do you really think you can steal, murder, commit adultery, lie, and worship Baal and all those other new gods of yours, 10 and then come here and stand before me in my Temple and chant, “We are safe!”—only to go right back to all those evils again? 11 Do you think this Temple, which honors my name, is a den of thieves? I see all the evil going on there, says the LORD.
Remember, now, we’re not only looking at this as the Old Testament temple, where sacrifices took place, where God dwelt. We’re remembering the New Testament understanding, the new covenant, which allows us to be temples of the Holy Spirit. In that light, let’s look again at this passage which Jesus quoted when He cleared the temple, the day after Palm Sunday. Let’s answer the rhetorical question Jeremiah asked in verse 8.
He asked, “Do you think that because the temple is here you will never suffer?”
What had happened is that the people of the tribe of Judah had begun to treat the temple like a good luck charm. They’d seen God deliver His people against incredible odds because of the temple’s presence in their midst, but they forget why God dwelt there in that way!
He dwelt there because He loved them, and the people were following Him. But by the time Jeremiah preached this message, they were instead stealing, murdering, lying, committing adultery, and worshipping idols.
God’s saying here, how can you expect the temple to protect you, when you’re dishonoring My house by sinning like this? You’re dishonoring my name. You’re dishonoring this holy place. You want the protection of a holy place without any evidence of my holiness in your life. Then the key question:
11 Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you?
What’s a den? It’s a safe place. It’s a refuge.
den n. 1. The shelter or retreat of a wild animal; a lair.
2. A cave or hollow used as a refuge or hiding place.
So, Jeremiah was saying that, in their sin, they were robbers. What’s robbery? Taking another person’s property without the person’s consent. In essence, Jeremiah was preaching that in their use of the temple as a sort of good luck charm to try to protect themselves, they were turning it into a den of robbers – trying to make it a safe place for those who take someone else’s property without consent. Jeremiah, and Jesus in quoting Jeremiah, was pointing out the absurdity of it all.
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If they knew any thing either of the temple of the Lord or of the Lord of the temple, they must think that to plead that, either in excuse of their sin against God, or in arrest of God’s judgment against them, was the most ridiculous unreasonable thing that could be. God is a holy God; but this plea made Him the patron of sin, of the worst of sins, which even the light of nature condemns, Matthew Henry
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This attitude of the people was what we might call “in your face.” But, it’s kind of scary when you consider it, because it’s like saying “in your face” to God. Here’s a people in sin, yet claiming the rights of followers of God in His holy temple.
I really believe that we can take this passage of Jesus’ clearing the temple in two ways:
1. as an admonition to treat the things of God, worship services, and even to some degree even in a New Testament understanding, the church itself, as things we respect, free from commercialism, free from marketing the gospel. That’s another sermon altogether, but it’s clearly part of what Jesus was saying to us in clearing the temple of the moneychangers and merchants. The gospel’s not for sale, and to do this in any way is to defile His church.
2. we can also take this passage as a call to personal holiness, remembering that today, as followers of Christ, we are the temples of the Holy Spirit. Reading Jeremiah’s sermon here reminded me of a letter the apostle Paul wrote, addressing in some ways the same issue.
Paul wrote to the Romans:
Romans 6:1-4 (NIV) 1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Just as the people of Judah thought the grace of God in living in their midst somehow exempted them from being concerned about holiness, somehow protected them from the consequences of sin, Paul recognized that the grace of the New Covenant could be seen by some as a license to sin, when that grace was meant not just to save us, but to change us.
So he wrote this to the Romans with the same level of shock and surprise that the people could think that way. Those who continue in sin because grace has increased, try in some way to make God the protector and even the minister of sin. Has this become a den of robbers? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
They’re similar questions, both answered the same way. By no means! May it never be! Don’t fool yourselves! I have been watching, declares the Lord.
At the temple, God saw not only their “holy” worship, but their unholy behavior.
External worship practices are empty without a devoted heart. Baker Commentary on the Bible
"Holiness does not consist in mystic speculations, enthusiastic fervours, or uncommanded austerities; it consists in thinking as God thinks, and willing as God wills." John Brown, Nineteenth-century Scottish theologian
So, as we begin this week we call Holy Week, let’s ask ourselves what part of our lives isn’t so holy this week. What other idols or gods, little “g” – are present in our lives – things that take a higher priority in our lives than the King of Kings?
We don’t have to worship golden calves to be idol worshippers. God often allows the ungodly to amass great wealth--to their destruction. But if you are a Christ-follower, and if you put the pursuit of riches or the pursuit of anything else before your relationship to Jesus, God may take away those things until you turn to Him.
Some years ago Donald Grey Barnhouse was counseling a young woman on the sidewalk in front of a church following an evening service. She said she was a Christian and that she wanted to follow Christ. But she wanted to be famous too. She wanted to pursue a stage career in New York. "After I have made it in the theater, I’ll follow Christ completely," she said. Barnhouse took a key out of his pocket and scratched a mark on a postal box standing on the corner. "That is what God will let you do," he said. "God will let you scratch the surface of success. He will let you get close enough to the top to know what it is, but He will never let you have it, because He will never let one of His children have anything rather than Himself."
Years later he met the girl again, and she confessed that this had indeed been her life story. She had dabbled in the stage. Once her picture had been in a national magazine. But she had never quite made it. She told Barnhouse, "I can’t tell you how many times in my discouragement I have closed my eyes and seen you scratching on that postal box with your key. God let me scratch the edges, but He gave me nothing in place of Himself." J.M. Boice, Christ’s Call To Discipleship
If we’re temples of the Holy Spirit, a dwelling place for God just as the temple that Jesus cleared out the day after that first Palm Sunday, then we’re set apart for His use and His glory, and for no other purpose. If it’s true that we’re the temple, then we’re to be holy, and we cannot live in any sin, we cannot have any idols that take His place. Because we’re bought with a price, and this body we dwell in, is not our house, it’s His house. He owns it, we just live here.
The song Refiner’s Fire kept coming back to me as I studied this passage, and as the Lord made this section of scripture a personal call to holiness. So as we close, let’s sing this together – respond as God would lead you.
Refiner’s Fire
Purify my heart
Let me be as gold and precious silver
Purify my heart
Let me be as gold, pure gold
Refiner’s fire
My heart’s one desire
Is to be holy
Set apart for You Lord
I choose to be holy
Set apart for You my Master
Ready to do Your will
