A Messiah's House
Text: Matt. 21:12-17
Introduction
1. Illustration: Most of you know, but some may not, that when Tina and I bought our house a few years ago, it was the first house we had ever owned. To us it is a very special place that we are proud of it. If anyone were to try and break it to or harm our house we would be very upset, and might even be driven to violence.
2. That gives us an idea of how Jesus must have felt when he walked into the Temple that day and found His Father's house being disgraced.
3. The house of God should be...
a. House of Prayer
b. House of Miracles
c. House of Praise
4. Read Matt. 21:12-17
Proposition: God's house should be respected and used properly.
Transition: First, God's house should be a...
I. House of Prayer (12-13).
A. House of Prayer
1. The last week before Jesus' crucifixion starts out with a bang, both figuratively and literally.
First, he rides into Jerusalem with great commotion, so much so, that the city literally shook like an earthquake was happening.
Now we see him come into the Temple, and let's just say, he stirs things up!
2. Matthew tells us, "Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out all the people buying and selling animals for sacrifice. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves."
a. The Passover was approaching and Jews from all over the world were required to come to Jerusalem.
b. Old Testament law required visitors to the feast to purchase their sacrifices in Jerusalem, hence sellers of doves and other sacrificial animals were necessary.
c. Because visitors would come with foreign currencies—even most Galilean towns had their own coinage—moneychangers had also become necessary (Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary – New Testament).
d. Jesus cleansed the temple twice; the first time appears in John 2 and took place at the beginning of his public ministry.
e. This second cleansing is a picture of judgment of the unrepentant Jews.
f. Business transactions in the temple were necessary because of the sacrificial offerings and the temple tax.
g. The godlessness in the temple was not so much that money was changing hands or that things were being sold, but it was because the priests were using their high position as a means to get rich, often at the expense of the poor (Horton, 445).
h. According to the Jewish-Christian historian Alfred Edersheim, a person would often have to pay as much as ten times what an animal normally cost.
i. As if that extortion were not enough, those who needed to have foreign currency exchanged or who had to have their money converted into the exact amount for an offering were charged a twenty-five percent fee (MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Matthew 16-23).
3. As you might imagine, seeing all of this filled Jesus with righteous anger. He told them, "The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves!”
a. As He often did, Jesus vindicated what He was doing by appealing to the Old Testament, here quoting from Isaiah 56:7, "My house shall be called a house of prayer."
b. Following the full Isaiah text, Mark's quotation includes the phrase "for all the nations" (Mark 11:17).
c. Matthew omits those words probably because he was writing primarily to Jews. But the major point in both accounts is that Jesus' cleansing of the Temple was consistent with the Word of God.
d. The Temple was to be a place of worship, a place where God's people could draw close to Him in worship, sacrifice, and offerings and could seek His will and blessing.
e. It was not meant to be a combination marketplace, stockyard, and bank, where hucksters and charlatans carried on their greedy enterprises under the guise of Serving and worshiping the Lord (MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Matthew 16-23).
f. The problem was not that the noise was interfering with worship but the fact that the sacredness of the temple was being ignored by the way business was being conducted.
g. The phrase "den of thieves" is not where robbery takes place but where the thieves live (Horton, 445).
h. They were taking the place where God resides and making it a place where criminals reside.
i. This was not why the Temple was built, and Jesus anger was justified.
B. Prayer
1. Illustration: "The prayer power has never been tried to its full capacity. If we want to see mighty wonders of divine power and grace wrought in the place of weakness, failure and disappointment, let us answer God's standing challenge, "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not!'" (J. Hudson Taylor)
2. The Church is built upon prayer.
a. 1 Kings 9:3 (NLT)
The LORD said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your petition. I have set this Temple apart to be holy—this place you have built where my name will be honored forever. I will always watch over it, for it is dear to my heart.
b. Without prayer we are no more than a social club.
c. Prayer will grow the church.
d. Prayer will empower the church.
e. Prayer will encourage the church.
f. When we pray God hears us!
3. The Church needs to be devoted to prayer
a. Acts 2:42 (NLT)
All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.
b. Everything we do needs to be bathed in prayer.
c. We should pray before we get here.
d. Prayer should be the first thing we do when we get here.
e. Prayer should be what we do as long as we are here.
f. Prayer should be what we do before we leave.
4. The Church will be shaken through prayer.
a. Acts 4:24, 31 (NLT)
When they heard the report, all the believers lifted their voices together in prayer to God...After this prayer, the meeting place shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached the word of God with boldness.
b. Prayer will shake us up.
c. Prayer will wake us up.
d. Prayer will take us up.
e. It will make us hungry for God.
f. It will make us hungry for His Word.
g. It will make us hungry for more of the Holy Spirit.
h. It will give us a burden for the lost.
i. God increase our hunger for prayer!
Transition: God's house should also be a...
II. House of Miracles (14-15).
A. He Healed Them
1. After making the point of what the Temple was not intended for, Jesus now illustrates by his actions what should take place there.
2. Matthew tells us that, "The blind and the lame came to him in the Temple, and he healed them."
a. Just moments before, Jesus was filled with righteous zeal; now he overflows with compassion.
b. He did not turn the needy away or delay healing them. There among the overturned tables, he met their needs (Horton, 445).
c. The diseased and the crippled, most of whom were necessarily beggars, continually gathered at the Temple, hoping at the least for the gift of a few denarii and at the most for a miracle of healing.
d. They were despised and ignored by most of their countrymen, in great part because they were considered to be suffering as the direct result of sins either they or their parents had committed.
e. The selfish leaders of the Temple had little compassion for them (MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Matthew 16-23).
f. Even hereditary priests who were blind or lame were not permitted in the sanctuary; this rule was extended in time to exclude all the blind and lame (Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary – New Testament).
3. Even young children could recognize the power and authority of Jesus. As Jesus was healing and ministering to needs of people, "The leading priests and the teachers of religious law saw these wonderful miracles and heard even the children in the Temple shouting, “Praise God for the Son of David.”
a. Children is literally "boys" and probably refers to the many young teenaged boys who had passed their bar mitzvahs and had come to Jerusalem to celebrate their first Passover as a man, just as Jesus Himself had done many years earlier(MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Matthew 16-23).
b. These religious leaders were probably a part of the Sanhedrin.
c. They were angry because not only had Jesus allowed himself to be praised, but he had also healed the blind and lame right there in the temple.
d. They saw both of these things as inappropriate. They were also shocked to hear the people refer to him as the "Son of David" and other phrase used in the OT only to refer to God.
e. They saw Jesus only as a teacher, and any self-respecting teacher would have corrected his disciples for using such terminology (Horton, 445).
f. However, these young boys and those who came to Jesus for healing understood what these highly educated religious leaders did not.
g. The Temple was a place to come closer to God and not a place to feed our selfish appetites for money and power.
B. Divine Healing
1. Illustration: In the book, The Empowered Communicator, Calvin Miller says that "most people we come in contact with are silently thinking: I am loneliness waiting for a friend, I am weeping in want of laughter, I am a sigh in search of consolation, I am a wound in search of healing. The Church is God’s salve for their healing. We are 'the balm of Gilead.' God’s Spirit uses to bring healing and wholeness to humankind–-to give them life to the full."
2. God wants to use us to heal people's bodies.
a. Mark 16:17-18 (NLT)
17 These miraculous signs will accompany those who believe: They will cast out demons in my name, and they will speak in new languages.
18 They will be able to handle snakes with safety, and if they drink anything poisonous, it won’t hurt them. They will be able to place their hands on the sick, and they will be healed.”
b. He has given us the power to pray for people to healed.
c. He has given us the power over sickness.
d. He has given us the power over disease.
3. God wants to use us to heal people's spirit's.
a. Isaiah 61:1-2 (NLT)
1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed.
2 He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the LORD’s favor has come...
b. He wants us to reach out to those in need.
c. He wants us bind up their wounds.
d. He wants us give them the Good News.
e. He wants us to give them comfort.
f. He wants us to give them hope.
Transition: God's house should also be a...
III. House of Praise (16-17).
A. To Give You Praise
1. As is usually the case with self-righteous, self-important people, these religious leaders didn't appreciate that someone besides themselves was getting all of the attention.
2. Matthew says, "But the leaders were indignant. They asked Jesus, “Do you hear what these children are saying?”
a. These religious leaders tried to get Jesus to admit that he had put the children up to it and put the responsibility upon himself.
b. They didn't call the temple guards because they knew that Jesus was more popular with the crowds then themselves (Horton, 447).
c. But instead of joining in the worship of the Messiah, the Temple leaders became indignant.
d. The term behind indignant carries the idea of fury and wrath.
e. To those men, Jesus' healing of the blind and lame, though incontestably amazing, was repugnant.
f. The Pharisees had charged Jesus with casting out demons by the power of "Beelzebul the ruler of the demons."
g. The chief priests and the scribes now perhaps thought the same thing about His healing.
h. Not only did He oppose them as the rulers of the Temple, but in their eyes He actually worked against God by arbitrarily healing those they thought were being divinely punished for their sins.
i. Like the Pharisees, the chief priests and the scribes felt so self-righteously superior to the common man, especially to the afflicted and poor who were thought to deserve their fate, that witnessing no amount of suffering could elicit compassion in them.
j. And they were so adamant in their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah that no amount of evidence could elicit belief in them.
k. Instead of recognizing their authority, Jesus condemned their self-righteousness. Instead of praising their holiness, He condemned their hypocrisy.
l. Instead of acknowledging their religious works as pleasing to God, He condemned them as offensive to God and worthless (MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Matthew 16-23).
3. Jesus responded to them by saying, “Yes,” Jesus replied. “Haven’t you ever read the Scriptures? For they say, ‘You have taught children and infants to give you praise.’”
a. Letting His accusers know that He was not oblivious to what was going on, Jesus first replied simply Yes.
b. He was fully aware of what was being said, and He was fully aware of its meaning and significance.
c. As He did on numerous occasions, Jesus nettled the Jewish leaders by quoting the Old Testament against them, the accepted experts in Scripture.
d. Jesus was quoting from Psalm 8:2, and the Hebrew word for infants refers to children under three years, the age at which Jewish children were normally weaned.
e. As already noted, the children who hailed Jesus in the Temple were far past the age for weaning.
f. Jesus' point was that if even tiny infants would be prepared by the Lord to give praise to Himself, how much more could older children be expected to praise Him? (MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Matthew 16-23).
B. Worship
1. Illustration: Ralph Mahoney said, "Whenever His people gather and worship Him, God promises He will make His presence known in their midst. On the other hand, where God's people consistently neglect true spiritual worship, His manifest presence is rarely experienced."
2. We are commanded to worship.
a. Psalm 29:2 (NLT)
Honor the LORD for the glory of his name. Worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness.
b. We are to worship him because we are the created and he is the creator.
c. We are to worship him because we are finite and he is infinite.
d. We are to worship him because he is holy and we are sinful.
e. We are to worship him because he is God and we are not!
3. We are to worship him joyfully.
a. Psalm 100:2 (NLT)
Worship the LORD with gladness. Come before him, singing with joy.
b. Worship should not be boring and hum drum.
c. Worship should be exciting and uplifting.
d. Worship should be inspiring and refreshing.
e. Worship should make us long for more of God.
4. Worship is practice for heaven.
a. Revelation 7:11 (NLT)
And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living beings. And they fell before the throne with their faces to the ground and worshiped God.
b. Worship is eternal.
c. Worship is universal.
d. Worship is necessary.
Transition: Our purpose is to worship God and lead us into his presence.
Conclusion
1. The house of God should be...
a. House of Prayer
b. House of Miracles
c. House of Praise
2. What about your house?
3. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NLT)
19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself,
20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.
4. Is your house a house of prayer? Is it a house of miracles? Is it a house of praise?
