March 19, 2006 Third Sunday in the Season of Lent
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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...
Chasten thy son while there is hope,
and let not thy soul spare for his crying.
Proverbs 19:18 (KJV)
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!
A side issue off the side issue would be a word to parents. If chastening with the rod is good enough for the heavenly Father – don’t be mistaken – chastening your own children appropriately is an important part of disciplining! (Now that I’ve made an enemy of every child in the church, we can continue!)
And now, let us get to the main thrust of the text.
John uses a literary device which is common in today’s TV Dramas -- In Medus Res (in the middle of things). Just as a mystery will sometimes open with the most exciting scene, and then switch back to the beginning, John shows us the most dramatic confrontation between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders. John depicts 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 came in his disciples 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 form – 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 kinds of faith that invite the judgment of God. He shows us where judgment begins!
I wish to point out for us this morning THREE KINDS OF FAITH THAT INVITE 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 love you. I would miss you, but I still love you!
As chapter 2 opens, Jesus had attended a wedding, and worked the first miracle of His earthly ministry (changing the water into wine). After a few days’ vacation, Jesus and his disciples travel to Jerusalem to worship at the Temple.
What Jesus 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. A coin with the Roman emperor’s face was forbidden in the Temple. Roman coins had to be exchanged for Jewish script. The money exchange was big business – and therefore subject to abuse.
Suppose our Stewardship Committee met and decided we would no longer accept anything but crisp, new $50 bills in the offering plate. Then they decided the Committee members would stand at the front door to inspect the $50 bills you bring. You would have to bring your IRS 1040 form showing your income (so we could check to see if you’re really tithing), and the bills that 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)! However, 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. The real problem was what was NOT happening.
The Temple’s outer court was the place of the Gentiles. The purpose for this place was so that people of other nations might have a place to respond in worship to God. Gentiles weren’t allowed in the inner courts – only this peripheral attachment to the Temple. It was there the money-changers and animal sellers were fleecing their brother Jews. It was all done in plain sight of the Gentiles, and Jesus’ righteous indignation went off the meter when He saw it. The wrong focus of animals and clinking coins cost the Temple its evangelism posture.
Beloved, there is precious little true sharing of Christ that goes on in a church when all that is happening is posturing for control over the bucks. TV ministries that spend half the air-time begging have very little credibility with viewers who are unbelievers. They tell some really heart-wrenching stories about people converted because of their shows – but I wonder how much of it is paid programming.
It is no wonder the disciples remembered David’s words when they saw their usually serene Master whipping the moneychangers, and overturning tables.
For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up;
and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me. Psalms 69:9 (KJV)
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 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. This upstart little son of a carpenter from Nazareth began to brag he could re-build it in three days. What did he know?
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!
The problem, extended, is one of 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 with this, because in any endeavor the institution is supposed to serve the mission.
Years ago Admiral Peary was working his way with his party to the North Pole. It seemed like it was taking an extraordinarily long time. They had fixed their position by the stars, so their direction was sure. Stopping along the way, they rechecked the position and found they were actually farther from the North Pole than when they’d started. They had been walking on a tremendous ice flow, which was moving South faster than they were walking North.
Sometimes we are just like this, working ourselves to exhaustion, attempting to earn God’s smile, and we get farther from it than when we started out! The problem is quite often that we have given ourselves to making a program work, or relying on an institution to supply our every need – instead of relying on Christ!
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.
Now, the 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, invite the judgment of God!
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 in 2:23 (believe), and entrust in 2:24, are the same word in the 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. 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 men. Another translation says He knew men to their core (human nature). In short, Jesus understands our weaknesses. For 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 me too!
But, some of those following in the crowd were not just weak in their being able to follow Jesus;
• 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 if the shadow of the cross came into focus, they would all find an exit. Fickle faith won’t cut it when they want to nail your hands to crossbeams!
A preacher was trying to get across this concept of faith shortfall one Sunday. It was storming outside, and a gust of wind blew open the front door. The head trustee rushed to close the door, and came back to his seat. Just as he was about to sit down a clap of thunder, and a bright flash of lightning caused him to jump, and more of him missed the seat than connected. He ended up sprawled out all over the floor.
When the people settled down, and the trustee regained his dignity, the pastor explained that the reason the trustee had fallen-out of the seat was that he wasn’t far enough in to begin with. And 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 Saving Faith. Faith in Christ is more than mere intellectual assent. It believes with the heart, with the will – with adoration and with action.
Years ago a party of visitors at the national mint were 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.
