Flipping Tables in the Temple || Victory Church [Book of John #7]

Hey, guys. Hey, today, we are talking about one of the most famous Jesus stories out there. This is one of those that even people who aren't Christians know this story because it's just so dramatic. What Jesus does is so vividly contrasted, different from the other things that he seems to do, and it just seems to resonate with us. And so I'd say it like this, that if you have ever been frustrated with the state of organized religion, if you have ever been hurt by church people, look at the person next to you, do it. If you have ever wondered how does God feel about the church, this lost the plot. This one's for you, all right? Because today is the day that Jesus' public ministry just kind of like comes roaring on the scene in a dramatic way as Jesus gets angry, all right? So today, we're gonna meet angry Jesus. This is a Jesus that a lot of us haven't met before, and we find him in one of his most controversial moments. And if you are new with us today, we are in week eight of our year-long journey through the book of John. And so far, if I can say it like this, Jesus has been in the suburbs, all right? Jesus has been in Buford. He's been over in Smyrna, hanging out in Duluth,

maybe down at East Point a little bit. We've seen him at Jordan River, up in Capernaum in a fishing village. Last week, we saw him in Cana and around Galilee turning water into wine. But today, at the end of John 2, Jesus grabs his disciples and they head downtown, all right? They go to the big city, they go to Jerusalem. And we catch up here in verse 13 of John 2. When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, that's the setting, Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And in the temple courts, he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of courts and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And to those who sold doves, he said, get these out of here. Stop turning my father's house into a market. And his disciples remembered that it is written, zeal for your house will consume me. And then the Jews responded to him, what sign? Y'all remember this, remember? John doesn't call anything a miracle. He calls them signs because signs point to a greater reality, signs point beyond themselves. So they say, what sign, Jesus, can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?

And Jesus answered them, destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days. And they replied, it has taken 46 years to build this temple and you're gonna raise it in three days? But the temple he had spoken of was his body. And after he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. And then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. Woo, all right, there's a lot there to unpack, okay? So there's a whole lot of culture laid on top of this story that for most of us, as we view it 2,000 years later in the United States, we view it with different eyes than the original people heard this. And so let me just kind of paint the scene. Jesus had just left Cana in the north to go to Jerusalem in the south. John connects these stories on purpose because Jesus just left stone water jars in Cana to come to a stone temple in Jerusalem. He's connecting these stories theologically. And so about the temple, here's the deal. Most of us don't know much about the temple. And so it was actually said that Jerusalem wasn't a city. Jerusalem was a temple with a city wrapped around it because that's how important the city was. We think of church buildings. The temple was not a church building. We think of buildings like this. The temple was not that.

This is someplace we come in to meet with God. The temple was where God dwelled on earth, physically, like all of life, all of thought, all activity revolved around the temple. You woke up thinking about the temple. You went to sleep thinking about the temple. All of life, everything, all the arrows pointed in towards the temple. And in 1 Kings 6, we're not gonna go there. You can read it later. But this is where King Solomon originally constructed what's called Solomon's Temple. So God didn't let King David build the temple because he was a man of war. And so Solomon, David's son, was given the task of constructing the temple. And so God gave all the instructions and gold and silver and artwork and the priests. It was amazing when they were done constructing it. God's Spirit filled the temple. Little by note, they constructed the temple on Mount Moriah where Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac. I mean, that's where they did the sacrifices was where God sent the ram and the thicket. I mean, it's all there together. And here's the problem though. Solomon's son, Rehoboam, rebelled against God. God splits the kingdom in two. The Babylonians come in 586 BC. They destroy the temple.

They rob it, they steal it, they take everything. Later, a guy named Zerubbabel begins to rebuild the temple, but they don't have the manpower. They don't have the resources. It's a shadow of its former glory. Fast forward 500 years later in 20 BC, Herod the Great begins to rebuild the temple there in Jerusalem. Now, Herod the Great is a misnomer because Herod the Great was an awful person. Herod the Great was not great. Herod the Great was the guy who killed all the babies after Jesus was born. Herod the Great was placed as King of Judea by Octavian in Rome, the Caesar in Rome. He was placed there to rule over the people. And he was called great because he built great buildings. That's pretty much it. Like, it was actually the joke of the day was it was safer to be King Herod's pig than his son because he was kosher, so he wouldn't kill a pig, but he did kill his wife, his wife's mom, and three of his sons. This is a terrible guy, terrible guy, but he built great buildings. And so from 20 BC to 64 AD, when Jesus shows up to flip the tables, the temple's still under construction. I don't know if you've ever had that picture in your mind. Like, when Jesus is flipping tables,

there's still people working on the temple, all right? So the math is somewhere around this. A total of 18,000 men worked full-time for 84 years to build the temple. They had never seen anything like it before. In fact, we catch this little byline in a different story, Mark 13. As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, look, teacher, what massive stones, what magnificent buildings. They had never seen anything. Herod plated everything with gold. It was, I mean, mind-blowing. It was one of the wonders of the world. So let me give you a quick tour of the temple because this is gonna be the setting that John 2 takes place in, okay? So we have this picture of what's called the Temple Mount, okay? So Solomon's temple was somewhere closer to the footprint of that building in the middle, but what King Herod did, he built up the entire thing to create these walls right there. And that's actually still the same footprint today. If you go over to Jerusalem, you would see some sort of similar footprint right here. And so this is what's called the Temple Mount. So small details, like the small steps at the bottom,

which that's probably not exactly what it looked like. Just give it some grace. But that's called the Southern Steps, which is very likely where Peter preached on the day of Pentecost. 3,000 get saved right there on those Southern Steps. Mount of Olives over to the right. And so here, that outer area inside the walls, inside the walls, but the outer area around that center building was called the Courtyard of the Gentiles. So this is where people who didn't know God or people who were curious about God, people who weren't Jews, which is most of us, you could actually come into the temple grounds to worship, to talk about God, to come in and have conversations and be close to God. And then that building in the middle right there, you see the arches right there? That's where women could go, all right? So the Jewish women could go there. That was called the Courtyard of the Women. But then right inside that, we have this other picture. Now, this is, do we have that? This is AI, okay, so give us some grace. But to the best of historical knowledge, this is pretty close, all right? Notice everything's shiny, because it's gold. It's literally gold. So this is where the men could come.

And you see that thing in the middle, the fire right there? That's the altar. And so the story's something like this, is that the men would come in and they would place their hand on the head of a sheep for their sins or for the sins of their family to then be basically imparted into that sheep. That sheep took on the sins of their family. And then the, I was about to say the pastor, the priest would take the sheep, go there with me, slit its throat, they would capture the blood in a bowl, go up to the altar, and as they threw the blood against the side of the altar, they would say, this is Johnson's blood. This is Summer's blood. This is Jeremiah's blood. This is Isaac. This is my family's blood. Why? Because that thing bled and died on my behalf. Are you connecting some dots this morning? Okay, this is what we call ultimate prophetic foreshadowing, all right? So this is where the men could come in. The priest can kind of go beyond that line and even into the first room of what's called the sanctuary or the holy place inside the temple right there. And then once a year, the high priest could go inside the final room,

which was called the Holy of Holies, where he would make, on the Day of Atonement, he would make atonement for the sins of the entire nation. All right, so that's kind of the big picture of the temple. And so if you rewind back and pull back out, Jesus walks into the temple, but not into this area. He walks into what's called the courtyard of the Gentiles, that area around that building, and he starts flipping tables, okay? So here's what we have to be honest about. Jesus flipping tables is not the picture most people have of Jesus, all right? All right, what picture is in your mind of Jesus? Like, when you think about it, just get that picture. Some of you even have a picture. of Jesus in your house, all right? Probably this is the picture of Jesus in your house, where he's like. Right, he's got long, flowing hair, right? He's been working out a little bit, got a little tan. Some of you have the picture of Jesus of like white robe, purple sash, holding the sheep, you know, doing this guy. Some of you have Jesus like on a hillside, sitting on a rock, teaching children, right? He's doing that one. Maybe you grew up Catholic, you've got Sacred Heart Jesus, where he does this guy, he's throwing up deuces and pointing at his fiery heart.

Here's my promise, though. Nobody's auntie has a picture of fiery-eyed, flipping tables, angry Jesus with a whip in his hand, people running, screaming, animals, like running out of the way, hanging in their dining room, just eating chicken, just looking at him. Think about this, guys. Most of us don't know that Jesus. But if I'm gonna be honest today, we need to know that Jesus. That's the message, ultimately. We need to know that Jesus. Because Jesus is loving, but he is not passive. Come on, he is gentle, but he is not weak. Yes, he may be the lamb, but he's also the roaring lion of Judah. And here's the deal, in John so far, and really nowhere else in the book of John, do we see Jesus like we see him right here? Which begs the question, what provoked this response? Like, why is Jesus so angry that day? And if I can phrase it like this, why was Jesus so angry on that day, and what does it have to do with us this day? All right, let's walk it through, just for a minute, okay? Here's the first big idea. Jesus was so angry because the temple had become corrupted. Jesus was so angry because the temple had become corrupted. Okay, big thought is they had lost the plot.

They forgot what this whole thing is about. So let's go back real quick, verse 13. When it was almost time for the Passover, all right? Remember, this is Passover. This is the deliverance from slavery moment in Jewish history. Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts, again, the courtyard of the Gentiles, he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. And so he made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And to those who sold doves, he said, get these out of here. Stop turning my father's house into a market. All right, a little bit more history. I'm gonna stack it here. This is Passover, so it's estimated, the history books actually tell us somewhere around 300,000 to 500,000 people made the pilgrimage from around the known world into Jerusalem for Passover. In essence, the population of the city just doubled, if not more. They estimate that at any given moment during Passover, 300,000 people would be in the temple mount. That picture you just saw, 300,000 people.

It's the equivalent of basically Jesus going to like Times Square on New Year's Eve. Like it's chaos. Historian Josephus, he actually recounts that 256,000 lambs were sacrificed on the day of Pentecost. 256,000, that's a lot of sacrifice. That's a lot of blood. That's a lot of covering of sin. That's a lot of death for sin. And here's the thought, here's the background. Here's what's spinning, okay? It was unrealistic for all those hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to bring their own animal. All right, it's just unrealistic. You're coming a long way. You can't bring a sheep that whole way, right? So what are you gonna do? You're gonna buy a sheep in Jerusalem, okay? And so the context is the sale of the animals used to happen outside the temple. In fact, we have just one more picture I'm gonna show you here of the temple, all right? So the sale of the temple used to happen in the green area. Actually, if we actually rewind back further, it used to happen in the Mount of Olives across the Kidron Valley over here on the far right. And then they moved it into this green area. Actually, I just watched a video this week. It's fascinating. They've excavated all this.

On the bottom left where you see those stairs, a little bit beyond that, they've actually uncovered the animal stalls where they had the animals tied up for sale. It's there. Like, you can go and visit it in times where the world's not on fire and there's no war. Like, you can go over there, okay? And so I want you to catch the creep. Catch the creep of what's happening. It used to be that the animals were for sale way over there. And then the animals were for sale right outside the doors. And then somewhere around 30 AD, the high priest Caiphas approved for the sale of the animals to come inside the temple. Used to be way over there. Then it's knocking at the door. And then they move it right inside to the courtyard of the Gentiles. And very specifically, this area on the front, that colonnade, you see that? All the columns right at the bottom of the picture? That was called the Royal Stoa. So basically what it was, right when you came inside the temple, it's a Costco. I'm not kidding. It was chaos. 300,000 people, animals everywhere. And so here's the question.

What made Jesus so angry that day? This is, let's just break the story down, okay? Here's the first thing, okay? Corrupt leaders were exploiting the people. That's what made Jesus so angry. Corrupt leaders are exploiting the people. So Luke 20, Jesus tells the people, he says, hey guys, be careful about the religious leaders and the teachers of the law because they love money and they love power. Be careful. So here's the setting again. Think about this. You can't bring an animal that whole way so you have to come to the temple and you have to buy an animal. Here's the problem. If you did bring your own animal, say you live local and you brought your own animal, that animal had to be unblemished. It had to be perfect because remember, this represents the sinless life of Jesus. It's all prophecy. So it has to be unblemished. Now here's the question. Who determines whether or not it's unblemished? Who gets the final say? Well, they had temple inspectors who were all employed by the temple. And so they would walk up to your animal

that you brought in. Maybe you raised it and you brought it in. And they would say, no, no, you can't use that one. They're like, what are you talking about? This is the best one I have. This is unblemished. No, no, no, no, no, it's not. Well, they're like, what am I supposed to do? Well, you can actually buy a lamb from one of our pre-approved vendors and our pre-approved livestock. In fact, if you open up a temple credit card today, we have a fantastic APR for you, right? You can actually enter into our temple program. Buy 11, get the 12th one free. You know what I mean? Like that. And what happened was the leaders were over the whole thing and they're getting kickbacks. So the whole thing was a racket. Can I say it like this? The problem was they had monetized repentance. And Jesus is flipping tables because they turned worship into a side hustle. So Jesus is angry about the corruption of the leaders. Here's the other thing Jesus is angry about. He's angry about the corruption of worship, about the disrespect of the worship. So think about this, all right? The temple courts, that whole area

is supposed to be filled with worship and prayer and conversations about God with the smell of incense in the air, okay? Now think about this. Now, because they brought the animals in, you don't smell the incense. You ever been on a farm? All right? You walk in and you smell that. You don't hear worship. You hear sheep baaing. You hear pigeons, moo, moo, moo. You hear moo, like that's what you hear. You hear this guy over here yelling about his sale on lambs. That is actually documented. They were selling souvenirs in the temple, right? Little toys for your kids. They knew because the temple was so big, it had such a big footprint, that instead of going around the temple, people just started walking through the temple as a shortcut. And Jesus is offended because this place of worship, this place is supposed to be a house of prayer. Now it's a Costco. It's a big Sam's Club. It's a Walmart. It's no longer a house of prayer. It's just a place of disrespect.

Everybody's just having a good day. Everybody's laughing, talking, buying animals, selling the stuff, changing money. Here's the third reason Jesus was so angry. Ultimately because they were hindering outsiders from faith. Think about this. They treated the Gentiles area as less sacred than their area. And so the whole system was set up for the insiders to keep the outsiders out. Keep the insiders in and keep the outsiders out. And they made people feel like they didn't belong anymore in the house of God. So listen, that's what did make Jesus angry. And that's what I believe still makes Jesus angry. Let's talk about it. What makes Jesus still angry? Let's look at it again. Corrupt leaders exploiting the people. All right, we've all read these stories. Just take a swipe or two on social media and you'll find another one of pastors who are in love with money. Come on, can we go there? Is it too early to go there? Because I'm already there. Are y'all there? Can y'all? Okay, all right. Maybe some of y'all used to attend a church.

And thank God this is not one of those because I see it. But listen, some of y'all attended a church where the church could never hire people, could barely keep the lights on because the pastor was taking everything. Maybe I've met so many pastors who have no vision and ultimately have no calling, but they stay in the pulpit for their own provision. They stay in the pulpit for a paycheck, right? Or maybe there was power abuse and there was this very subtle message like you have to go to our church or else you're missing God. You have to have our covering or else you're in danger. You have to have our baptism or else you're lost, right? And what is, it's a power move to try and consolidate power and keep you from leaving so that they'll have power and reputation and pride and the ego feeling. Or maybe there was sexual abuse inside a church that you came from. Or maybe you've just seen it and it stained the whole thing. And what happens is this, pastors can enter into this entitlement thing, and here's what it sounds like, all right? I'm wondering, how do you know that, Johnson? I'm a pastor, okay? Here's what. It sounds like, I work hard, so therefore I should be able to.

And this was some of the best advice that I got from a pastor 20 years ago, a little bit over 20 years ago, when I first stepped into full-time ministry. He took me out, he's a long-term seasoned pastor down in downtown Norcross at a restaurant, and he said, Johnson, here's the deal. Here's what you have to know. The church's money is not your money. It's God's money. You get a paycheck, take a paycheck. Thank God for it. Don't touch what's God's, because God takes that seriously. And he said, by the way, the people aren't your people either. They're God's people. And so if you can remember that the money is God's money and the people are God's people, you'll make it in ministry. That's the gift that he gave me early on. But I see it everywhere, and I've had to fight it in my own soul. It is, and anybody who's in leadership, ultimately you understand this, but especially in the house of God, these are very holy things that we're dealing with. And if we're not careful, Jesus will come in and start flipping the tables, which we're sitting on,

throw us out and replace us with somebody else. I believe he has no problem doing that, because Jesus has a problem. He gets angry about corrupt leaders. The other thing is he gets angry about corrupt worship, right, the disrespect of worship. So think about this. Nobody plans to corrupt worship, but we see it everywhere, right? And I'd say it like this. There is a gravity inside church world that pulls us away from encounter towards efficiency, away from encounter towards efficiency. You ever been to the church that their service is 59 and a half minutes on the dot? That's on purpose. Man, they planned that. They got their service flow all the way down. And I would be lying if we don't have some of the same conversations here. Listen, this is the reality. Well, you're like, why are you planning a service? Because we have 13,000 people across 15 services at four campuses. And unless you want somebody sitting on your lap in about an hour, we better figure this thing out. But if we're not careful, listen, if we're not careful, we can take a family dinner and we turn it into fast food. And we end up grieving the Holy Spirit. And these are the same conversations

I have with Jesus all the time. I'm like, Jesus, I don't wanna grieve the Holy Spirit. How do we do this? Lead us, guide us. God, help us to do this thing, because I don't wanna corrupt worship. But here's the deal, guys. Let me just, here's for this moment. It's not just the leaders who have to be careful about corrupting worship. We do too, as the people. You know, here's one of the things that we're especially doing in today's world. We're bringing our politics into the house of God, and we're corrupting the house of God with our own personal preferences instead of worship. And we wanna hear Republican sermons, or we wanna hear Democrat sermons. And then we're like, why aren't you talking about the Epstein list? Because I don't care. I don't care. That has nothing to do with my life. I still love Jesus. I'm still living for Jesus. We're still talking about Jesus. Jesus is still on the throne, and he'll take care of all that mess. I don't gotta deal with any of that. Why am I gonna give that a second thought?

Why would I give that an ounce of energy from God's platform? And listen, we're exalting people's names. I had somebody, if you're listening, I'm glad you're listening. Somebody wrote me an email a few weeks ago, and they said, if you just really knew who President Trump was, you wouldn't talk like that. And I just said, hey, very gently and kindly, as your pastor, or maybe your former pastor at this point, I would encourage you to go back and read your email and count how many times you said President Trump versus how many times you said Jesus Christ. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. I'm not here to make a political statement. I'm here to just say, our focus is on the King of glory, guys. And everything else takes a backseat to that. This whole thing's about Jesus. But it's not just our politics. We bring our sin into this place. Listen, and when then we act like everything's normal. Right? That's what they were doing in the early temple.

That's what we still do today. I was sitting down, God help me, I was watching a, this is the type of stuff you do when your kids get older. I was watching a Netflix dating show with Jeremiah. All right? And just to spend time with my young adult son. And there's these two girls on there, and they're talking about their dating life and everything. And the girl says, hey, I met so-and-so at the young adult group at our church, which by the way, it wasn't at Victory. Thank God. And then kind of the rest of that segment is her telling her friend about how you should just take it slow before you have sex with your boyfriend. And I'm just sitting there like, how dare we? How dare we? You're gonna go on national television and say you're a Christian? And then just sit there and talk about what Jesus bled for as if you're boasting about it? And we have a little sexting on Saturday, and then just hope that we get enough forgiveness on Sunday to cover it? And we come. and we lift our hands on Sunday and then we steal on Monday from work.

And we drink of the sin of this world and then we walk in here like everything's fine. It's not fine. It's not fine. Jesus says it himself, Matthew 15, eight. He says, the people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me. And guys, there's a problem when we're really loud with our lips but our hearts are really quiet about the things of God. In fact, one of the most haunting quotes was from this man who said this, Christians don't speak their lies, they sing them. And what happens is we hit a song like we did in worship a few minutes ago and we said, Jesus, I love you. And we don't. Be careful. Be careful because you will be held accountable for every single idle word that you say. And listen, let me separate it. Some of you are like, I'm so in love with Jesus right now. Awesome, sing the song. Some of you, listen, you say, I don't feel it anymore but I want to love Jesus. That doesn't make you a hypocrite. Sometimes you just have to say, praise the Lord, oh my soul, we're gonna do it anyways. Okay, listen, I'm not calling you, what I'm saying is like,

if you don't feel like singing, sing anyways, all right? But if you're saying, Jesus, I love you and you don't and you have no intention of it, just keep your mouth shut. Keep your mouth shut because you will be held accountable for those words. And here's our problem, guys. For too many of it's lip service but we have no problem joining the culture who criticizes the church at large. And here's the problem. I'll be the first to say, the church has a problem. Capital C Church has a problem. You want to know what the problem is? Us. Because we're the church. The church is not the building, church is the people. Jesus is not what's wrong with the church, we're what's wrong with the church. I'm sorry, this church was perfect before you got here. This sermon was perfect before I got up here on this platform and I messed it up with my own words. As soon as people, human flesh touches it, the whole thing gets corrupted. But what I'm saying is we just got to be careful, guys. We love the critical spirit that loves to criticize everybody else and we ignore what's happening in our own hearts. And the problem with us is we treated holy things as though they were common. And we've disrespected the presence of God

by walking in or doing whatever we want to do out there and walking in and we're like, there's no problem. And there's no repentance inside of our heart. I'm not saying you're perfect. But what I'm saying is we've got to have some humility in how we do this thing. We got to approach this thing with fear and trembling. Talking about the holy God. And so Jesus still gets angry about disrespect and worship. And ultimately, I think Jesus really gets angry about this, is hindering the outsiders from faith. And Jesus was so angry on this day because people were hindering those who wanted to come to know God. And there is a problem with a church that has great gatherings, but forsakes the community around them. There is a problem with a church that has great gatherings. We have great gatherings, but forsakes the first-timer among them. Can I ask you a question? Are you friendly towards people you don't know in this church? Yes. Yes. Yes. That's a few of us, awesome. Now here, let me make it real. Now this is gonna be really obvious. It wasn't last night when I preached this, okay? It's gonna be really obvious today. I'm not, by the way, I'm not talking about you today.

I'm really talking about you next week. So take what I'm doing today and apply it next week, okay? Here's a question of an evaluative tool of whether or not you love people here inside this church. Do you only need two seats, but you claim three? Because there's people sitting in overflow right now because you needed some extra space to spread your elbows. That's why I didn't say today. I said next week, all right? I'm not looking, by the way, I can see all of you right now, but what I'm saying is somebody wanted to come in to this room and they couldn't because we need some little bit extra. That's not loving your neighbor, that's loving yourself. That's an insider thing, not welcoming the outsider. Here's a really good question. Do you have your seat? Now I've never heard this, but I've heard of this. In this church, I've heard of this happening where somebody walks up and says, hey, you're sitting in my seat. Now here's the deal. I've instructed the staff that if they ever hear somebody say that's my seat, to take you to your seat, okay? That we have reserved for you by the cross in the parking lot, to the very back of the parking lot. But I've been here 15 years. I know, I will embroider your name on that seat. We'll start a whole brand new seating section out there. We'll save us some seats in here, by the way.

And we're gonna get you right back there with your own reserved seat. We'll even let you pull out your phone and you watch it on live stream. It'll be awesome, all right? Put a speaker out there for you. Listen, we should be the last people reserving our seats. Let me just tell you, on Easter, it's coming up right around the corner, you should be the first one to give up your seat to somebody who doesn't know Jesus. That should be the posture of our heart. Because Jesus, what we see is he gets the most angry that when people keep other people from coming to him. Think about that, when they didn't let the children come to him, when the religious leaders would load the heaps of religion on people's shoulders and not help them carry it. Here in the temple, when they're keeping the outsiders out, Jesus gets fire in his eyes. Jesus gets fiery about that. That's what makes Jesus angry. And he sits down and he does something, in our minds, not very Christ-like. He just watches it and he makes a whip. Okay, so what's happening here? Jesus is talking about the corruption inside the temple. Here's the second thing. What he decided was the temple had to be cleansed. So Jesus walks into a temple that had become corrupted,

so he makes a whip to cleanse it. Now, to be clear, I just watched the, somebody sent it to me, I watched the Chosen episode of this, if y'all ever seen that. Jesus does not have a bullwhip like a lion tamer's whip. Reframe this in your mind. It actually says a whip of cords, which is actually like this long to get an animal to move. Jesus, okay, stop. Jesus doesn't have a chair in one hand, he's like, da, da, da, right? He's like murdering people, sending them to the hospital. That is not what's happening. Jesus is taking like an animal, like to get an animal moving. He's just clearing everything out, all right? Some of you are like, why is, I don't think that's right, Jesus. You know what I'm saying? So Jesus is not like harming people, but he is driving them out. Now, here's the deal. It wasn't a lion tamer's whip, but it was still a whip. It's still a whip. And I know some of us may struggle with that mental picture because maybe some of us were taught that to be angry is to be in sin, but it's not. Ephesians 4 says this, in your anger, do not sin. So Jesus had what's called righteous anger.

Righteous anger. Have you ever seen something that makes you angry? Have you ever seen an innocent person being taken advantage of, sex trafficking, child soldiers in the DRC, something like that, and you just slam your hand down on the table. You say, that's not right. That's what's happening. That's what this is. It's not Jesus just being angry and just hurting people. No, it's Jesus looking at what this thing was meant to be, and it triggers something inside him, and he gets fired up. He gets fire in his eyes. He starts flipping the tables. He starts driving people out to try and restore the purity of what this was meant to be. And when he does it, the disciples think of Psalm 69.9. Zeal for your house has consumed me. Zeal for the house of God. What was Jesus zealous about? Zealous means fiery, passionate. What was Jesus passionate about? He was passionate for God's arm. He was passionate for the purity of worship. In fact, just recently, I was reading Numbers. There's this wild story in the book of Numbers where God is warning the Israelites, hey, don't marry the foreign women

because they're gonna bring in their idols, and they're gonna bring in the idolatry that's gonna take your heart away from God. And basically, as God is talking to the people, this dude strolls in with this girl, goes into his tent, and Phinehas, one of the priests, takes a spear, goes in and runs it through both of them. Wild moment. Numbers 25. Numbers 25. And God says this. Phinehas, son of Eleazar, has turned my anger away from the Israelites by being as zealous among them as I was. Listen, here's a disclaimer. I'm not telling you to kill anybody. Hear the words that are coming out of my mouth. Okay, that's not the point of this moment. What I am saying is that we have a zealous God, and he is looking for people who are as zealous for what he's zealous for. He's looking for people who are fiery for what he's fiery for. And what is God zealous for? He's zealous for you. He's zealous for your purity. He's zealous for his glory. He's zealous for his kingdom come. And I know some of you right now,

you're like, bro, turn it down. No, bro, turn it up. Because our problem is we're not zealous for the things of God anymore. We're zealous for everything else. But when it comes to Jesus, we're like, oh, just go to the nine o'clock furthest, get that out of the way for the week. And we're not on fire for the things of God anymore. And if we're really honest, we're really honest, we love the things of this world more than we love God. And John talks about that later in 1 John. He says, do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in them. For everything in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life comes. not from the Father, but from the world. And the world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. And here's what's happening, guys. I believe that Jesus wants you to get angry about what's happening in your heart. Come on, guys. I believe he's looking for people who wouldn't just point an accusing finger at the sin of the world or the sin in the church, but would first point the finger at their own chest. I am tired, I am sick and tired. I believe Jesus is sick and tired

of the church that would point their fingers, oh, look at the trans people, oh, look at the homosexuals out there, when we've got our own crap that we're not dealing with. And we're hypocrites walking around holier than thou. And God's looking for people who say, God, it starts with me, search me. Flip over the tables in my heart, God, because I want to be passionate about what you're passionate about. And God is passionate about my love, my affection, my purity. He's passionate about his glory back in the church, that this should be a place that people who don't know Jesus can come in and feel the blanket of God's love and the blanket of the love of God's people and say, hey, you can actually take my seat here. Take my seat first, I'll go sit in overflow. I don't want you to have to sit over there. I want you to come in here and experience it firsthand. He's looking for people who say, Jesus, cleanse this temple. Start here, God, start here. Why, because Jesus saw the temple was corrupted, so he cleansed it, and ultimately, finally, this, number three, he realized the temple had to be reconstructed. So Jesus walks into a temple that had been corrupted. He cleanses it, and here's what they say. In verse 18, the Jews responded to him,

what sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this? And Jesus answered them, destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days. By the way, that's foreshadowing. And they replied, it's taken 46 years to build this temple, and you're gonna raise it in three days? But the temple he had spoken of was his body. And remember, guys, it took them 84 years to build this temple. And so they hear Jesus say, I'm gonna bring it back in three days. And they're like, one, that's impossible. Two, what sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this? I want you to notice what's not said. They don't say, Jesus just flipped over the tables. He drove everybody out. He drove out the money chain. He did all of that. Notice, nobody says, Jesus, you shouldn't do that. They all knew it had to be done. They all knew that the leaders were corrupt. They all knew that it's pollution and worship. They all knew that they were keeping the Gentiles out. Just nobody did anything about it. So Jesus, who are you to come in here and do this? And they're saying, Jesus, what authority do you have over the temple? And Jesus looks at them and says,

what authority do I have over the temple? I am the temple. I am the temple. I'm the place where God touches earth. You want a sign? Kill me, and I'll be back in three days. You want a sign? Just wait till Sunday. Take me out on Friday. I'll see you in a few minutes. You want a sign? I think one of the most boss things Jesus says, Matthew 12, six, he says, I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. He's talking about himself. Their whole life, their whole world revolved around the temple. Jesus strolls in and says, I'm greater than that. I'm bigger than that, and you don't even realize it. And what Jesus does is what we see him do all throughout the book of John. Remember, we saw this last week. He comes in, and he refills, and he replaces the old bankrupt system. He says, hey, that thing's broken beyond all repair, so God has sent something better to refill it, fulfill it, and replace it, and he's talking about himself. Because the temple was the place where God dwelt on earth. It was the place you went to meet with God,

to worship God, to talk with God. And the good news is this. When they killed Christ on the cross, put him in the grave, the third day, the stone rolled away, a few days later, he ascends into heaven. Fast forward a few weeks. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes down, and now everything has changed. The apostle Paul says it like this in 1 Corinthians 6. He says, do you not know that now your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you receive from God? You're not your own. You were bought at a price. Therefore, guys, listen, honor God with your bodies. No longer does God live in a house built by human hands. He lives in you. He lives in you. Listen, guys, good news. You don't have to get on a plane and raise money and fly over to Jerusalem and wait for a war to end and wait in line and try and get a glimpse of the temple. Can I get close to the Holy of Holies? You don't have to do that anymore because right now the temple's here. The temple's in you. God lives within you. Thank God for the history of all that stuff. I love it, I love it, I love it.

But here's the thought, guys. Jews have wept over the destruction of the temple since 70 AD, just a few years after Jesus ascended into heaven, 70 AD. Rome comes in and destroys the temple, okay? And it's still destroyed today. You can still go today and see the stones that they push over. They're laying on the ground by the temple. Later on, Muslims conquered the temple around 600. They built the Dome of the Rock right there over the Holy of Holies in 691 A.D. It's their sign of mockery and lordship, like we're better than the Jews. And the Jews can't any longer go to the Temple Mount. They're not allowed. Therefore, the closest place they can get is on the left of that map that we looked at over there on the western wall called the Wailing Wall. Why do all the Jews go to the Wailing Wall? Because there's nothing special about the Wailing Wall. It's just the closest they can get to where the Holy of Holies used to be. Listen, they're still trying to get close to where God dwells. They're still trying to scratch and go, can I just get a centimeter closer? Trying to dig into the wall. Can I just get over there a little bit closer? I want you to notice, Christians don't weep for this.

Yes, it's a tragedy that the Muslims control. It's a mockery, all that stuff. But listen, I don't weep for the state of the temple because that's not my temple. Because Jesus has now set up shop in here. You don't have to go over there to visit the temple. The temple's right here. The temple of God is now in us. That means the place where we go to meet with God is right here. That means the place we go to talk with God is right here. That means the place we go to worship God is right here. The place where God lives on earth is right here. It's carried within you 24-7. If you were born again, you are a walking, talking, mobile temple. And Jesus lives within you. That means that Jesus is no longer interested in cleansing a physical stone building. He is most interested in cleansing you. And here is my guest in sobriety. When you were first born again, you were zealous for the things of God. Can you remember that? You were fiery. People were like, dude, calm down. But maybe, slowly, over time, the money changers have moved in and set up shop in your soul. Maybe the corruption of worship

that you drove out long ago has come back in and set up shop in your soul. There's a slow drift. And I just wanna ask you this question. If the newly saved you way back then saw the today you, what would they say? Have your convictions become dulled to the point that sin is no longer being cut out? Because today is the day that the temple gets cleansed. I'm gonna invite you, if you're able, why don't you stand up to your feet. We're gonna have a moment with the Lord just right here. Here's our question in this moment. What in my world needs to be flipped over and driven out? What in my temple, what in my heart, I'm not talking about everybody else, I'm talking about me, needs to be flipped over and driven out in Jesus' name? And now the question is this, who has the authority to do that? Jesus alone. Jesus, because you belong to him. You belong to him. He has authority over your temple. He has authority over your life. And here's how I'd say it, guys. If you have already identified what that thing is that has moved inside the temple and it needs to be driven out, I'm just gonna invite you to start moving

outside your seat and come down, okay? We're gonna pack this altar over the next few minutes, okay? And go ahead and start moving down. Here's what we're saying. Jesus, flip over the tables in my heart. Jesus, make a whip and drive out whatever doesn't belong in here. Here's what we're saying. God, if it steals my zeal, it's gotta go. Listen, stop believing the lie. Here's the lie that you believe as you get older. Well, yeah, I was passionate back then, but it's because I was young. I had a lot more energy. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, that's your heart. That's your heart God calloused. That's your heart that fell in love with social media and time stealers. It needs to get driven out. That's your heart that maybe fell in love with sexual morality. It's pulled you away from love of Christ. Maybe your heart started to love money. You're like, how did I get here? I'd always said I'd never be that. And then you pick up your head and you are that. God, drive it out, drive it out, drive it out. I wanna be pure with food again. I wanna be pure with alcohol again.

I wanna be pure with drugs again. I wanna be, I don't wanna have a religious spirit. Listen guys, some of us have a critical spirit and we're so busy pointing at everybody else. I just need to allow the Lord to remind us for a second. A critical spirit is not a gift of the spirit. That is a curse on your life that you've allowed in. It's just hypercritical. And just say, God, flip over that table today, drive it out. Some of us are stuck in traditions of man. Won't you do it like this? Won't you? I just got to do this and I got to do it just right and then maybe God will love me. I'm praying today God will flip that table over. And I just feel like the question of the Lord is this, listen, there's still a few of us who need to move. It's not about getting all the way up here, it's just having movement, is this. Do you want to feel again? Because that's what sin does, sin numbs us. Do you want to feel again? Do you want to mean it when you say, Jesus, I love you again. And so right now, God, I pray that you would baptize this moment with the spirit of the Lord. And right now, Father, we give you permission. In fact, just in your own words, just say this, Jesus, I give you permission to come into this temple and drive out what doesn't belong.

If it's corrupted, if it loves other things besides you, drive it out. You have authority over this temple to cleanse it and to purify me from all unrighteousness. You are God, but you're also my God. You're the king and you're also my king. So I bow my life to you. I am yours, you are mine. Forgive me in this moment, I receive it. But right now, cleanse me, drive out the darkness. I give you permission, purify this temple. Jesus name. Right here, we're just gonna linger in this moment. We're gonna allow the Lord to just to do work here for about three or four minutes, okay? Team, won't you come up? And I just, I'm gonna invite you guys. Some of us, we're gonna sing a song we sang earlier about Jesus, I love you. Allow the Lord to start making that real back inside your life and just whatever it is, give God access to come in and drive it out, come on. Thanks for being a part of Victory Church on the Pando app. We hope this content was a blessing to you. But we want you to know that you're not done yet because we want to hear from you. So send us a letter and tell us things like what God is doing in your life, how we can pray for you, or even content that you would like to see us create in the future.

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