Passion Week: Cleansing Temple

I'm 49 years old, and one thing that...

one thing I keep learning over and over and over again it seems is that Jesus Christ calls us to a radical commitment and a radical way of life he will not let us sit comfortably with the way things are always always challenging us to give more to be more committed to follow him more closely to quit being spectators and to become participants

if we as teachers and we as preachers in the church teach the message of Jesus Christ the way it should be taught people will be uncomfortable and will at times even be angry we challenge people to look more closely at how they live and how the church that they are part of lives. There was a story I was reading a couple of weeks ago, I read a book by a gentleman named Paul Henry. And he told the story of a preacher named Jonathan Boucher who was a preacher in the late 1700s. And when Jonathan Boucher preached, he preached with two pistols in the pulpit because he preached so hard to his people come so angry that he became fearful for his own life, so he preached with two pistols in the pulpit. Now, I didn't much like the idea of the preacher having pistols to shoot his congregation. But what I appreciated was he didn't hold back. He did not let his people live life in the margins. He said, you've got to live the way Jesus Christ has He called us to live, and that is a radical way of living.

And if we look at the life of Jesus Christ over and over again, He calls us to radical living and upsets our normal traditions and practices and programs to be what He wants us to be. It was my feeble attempt last week, those of you who are here, in turning over a few tables, imitating Jesus in the temple, to remind us just how radical Jesus Christ was and to bring back sort of the shockiness of that moment when he walked into the temple. And this morning, before we're done, I don't have any pistols, but I'm going to ask us to think about the implications of the story we looked at last week, the implications of the story of Jesus cleansing the temple. Let's read the story one more time. Matthew 21.

Verses 12 to 17. Matthew 21, 12 to 17.

Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He said to them,

read from the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise. Ordained praise. And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany where he spent the night. Let's pray.

I'm not sure what to pray, Jesus.

Help me to have the words to clearly explain some of the implications of this teaching, this event.

Give us hearts and minds that are willing to be challenged, that are willing to change where they need to change. Give us a willingness to be all that you want us to be, not only individually, but as your people. May we at Greer First Baptist Church be a community of faith that does not live in the traditions of the past that keep us from reaching others, but a community of faith that is willing to change where it needs to change in order to be all that you have called us to be and in order to accomplish the mission that you have entrusted to us.

By your Spirit, may we be that kind of people. In Christ's name, amen. The temple in Jerusalem was such a power structure. It's hard for us to understand today how strong an institution the temple was. But it was the center of Judaism.

It was a center that was a political center. It was sort of the White House, the Congress, and the Supreme Court wrapped up into one institution. The high priest, the chief executive, was part of the temple power structure. The teachers of the law, the legislative arm, was part of the temple structure. The Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court of Judaism, was part of the temple structure.

It was a powerful, powerful, powerful center. It was also the center of economic life in the church. In Jesus' day, estimates are that 7,200 people were priests, ordinary priests in the temple. And 9,600 Levites served in the temple. and then there were many others who worked in the temple.

Now, all those people didn't work at one time at the temple. There weren't 7,200 ordinary priests and 9,600 Levites. They worked on a rotational system. So for a period of time, certain Levites and priests would be there, then another team would rotate in. But thousands of people were employed in the temple.

If you were not employed at the temple, you most probably had a family member who was, of Jerusalem. Your livelihood depended on a thriving temple in all likelihood. And this starts to tell us some of the reason that the temple leadership had such a stranglehold on the people. Jerusalem was a company town, folks. Don't we know what a company town is?

You know you've got the big employer in town, J.P. Stevens. Greer was at one time a company town. And if you wronged the boss, it was bad for your family. In Jerusalem, the company was the temple. It was also a social center. It was like church here. It's where you saw people. You met people. You were caught up with people. And it was also the religious center. It was where you went to worship. And it was into this power center that Jesus Christ comes and starts turning over tables.

We can't understand how radical this was in our day and time. It is very difficult for us. But he was going at an institution that had become so institutionalized it had lost its whole sense of purpose and mission for which God had called it. And Jesus was trying to redirect the institution. he was rejecting much of what they were doing and trying to reorient them in the right way during the pilgrimage feast the temple was the center of the feast there were three annual pilgrimage feasts a pilgrimage feast means that if you were able to if you were a male Jew 20 or older if you could you were going and your family was going to Jerusalem to worship at the temple this happened three times a year Passover, Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles spring, Pentecost a little later in the spring, the Feast of Tabernacles was in the fall.

Jerusalem, Joachim Yeremias has estimated based on his study that at the time of Jesus, Jerusalem normally had about 30,000 people in the city population. But when the pilgrimage feast occurred, the population would swell as people came from all over to, according to Yeremias, about 180,000 people. Josephus who was a first century writer he said that the population swelled to nearly a million people Yeremias believes that's overstated but you can still see even if it was about 180,000 it was a huge influx of people a big economic boom for merchants a big economic boom for the temple because when people came to the pilgrimage feast they came and they offered sacrifices in the temple and we know what were they doing in the temple they were selling cattle and doves and sheep for sacrifice, which was not a bad thing probably when it originally started. It's hard if you're traveling to carry cows and lambs and doves, right? So probably the practice of selling these sacrificial animals in the beginning probably had a good intent.

It was a practice to allow people to offer a sacrifice without having to carry the sacrifice for many miles of travel. But the practice got perverted because what happened? Well, somebody said, well, the temple can make a little money off this. And the merchants can make a little money, so why don't we jack the prices up? So what was originally a well-intentioned practice, probably, became perverted as time went on.

And people were taken advantage of when they came to the temple. People had to pay a temple tax. 20-year-old had to pay a half-shekel temple tax, about a half a day's wage. Probably not a bad thing to ask people to support the temple, but what the temple leader said was, we won't take the temple tax in your Roman coins. And they probably had a well-intentioned purpose in the beginning. They didn't like taking coins with images of Caesar or pagan images, so they said you've got to exchange it into temple tax.

Probably a well-intentioned practice initially. no paganism in the temple. But then they said, hey, let's charge a fee to exchange the money. We can make a little money. So a practice that began with good intentions gets perverted into something it should not have been.

And suddenly this institution that is to praise God, worship God, to serve God, and to serve humanity suddenly becomes a self-sustaining, self-centered, self-perpetuating institution, self than about the God it serves or the people who are dying outside the temple and sick. And Jesus Christ walks in and says, I'll have none of it. I'll have none of it. We will tear down everything before we let this institution ordained by God be like this. And they killed him for this folks.

They killed him for this. He was attacking right at the center of the problem and the problem was the institution originally ordained by God that had become perverted. Now here are my seven lessons for life that established churches must learn.

Seven lessons for life that established churches must learn. And lest I be too indirect, seven lessons for life that Greer First Baptist Church must learn. Lesson number one. Our traditional programs and practices easily become perverted by our pride and self-centeredness.

practices in the temple that probably had originally a good intention became perverted to just be a self-sustaining self-centered, self-perpetuating system and it's easy for established churches to allow programs and to allow practices that began with good intentions to become perverted so that all they do our self-interest, our self-centeredness, and cause us to forget why we are really here in the first place. There's a guy named William Eason who has written a book called Dancing with Dinosaurs. He wrote the book in 1993. And who he's talking to in this book are established traditional churches, the dinosaurs. and in this book Dancing with Dinosaurs he begins to talk about from a very biblical perspective what established traditional churches need to do if they're going to be the church that Jesus Christ has called them to be he says in part bureaucracies and traditional practices are the major causes of decline of most denominations in North America and he goes on to say that traditional churches that thrive in the 21st century will initiate radical changes before the year 2001

and he finally says fringe people fringe people are the people who will do anything for Jesus in a biblical way but they're willing to lay it all on the altar for Jesus fringe people know that one of the most important challenges is to free congregations from the chains of tradition. Now let me pause and give a slight warning here. Esam is not proposing that we cast aside traditions that help us perpetuate and do what God has called us to do. He's not suggesting that we not observe the Lord's Supper, a very important tradition that we are to observe as a church until Christ returns. We need to look at our human instituted traditions and ask the question, are these traditions, traditions that just allow us to look inwardly, focus on ourselves, prop up ourselves, and prevent us from seeing beyond to what our real mission is, to carry the gospel to the world, to help those in need?

and Esam says unless we're willing to lay aside those traditions that impede that and just remain self-centered institutions the church is never going to be what God wants it to be second lesson for life because we are self-centered and wish to preserve our human traditions we can easily focus inwardly and lose sight of our true mission in the world We need to be fringe people. I like that term that Esam uses because it makes me know that typically if I'm really, he's pressing to say, if I'm really living the way Jesus wants, people are going to look at me the way people looked at Jesus when he went in and turned over the tables in the temple. They're going to think that guy is a little crazy. That guy is a little off the deep end. What is he doing?

Doesn't he know who we are? Doesn't he know what we have become? Doesn't he know how important we are? And Jesus says, I don't need you. I don't need that.

I want people who want to serve me, not themselves. I want people who have a holy discontent with the self-centeredness of so many congregations. And that's a real problem for established, traditional churches. Esam says this in part, Fringe people support those ministries and congregations willing to focus outward and allow those that insist on focusing inward to die with dignity. You know what Rick Warren says, don't you, in Purpose Driven Life?

I think it was Purpose Driven Life. Is that right? Somebody? Well, he wrote Purpose Driven Life too. life. I'm not, that's what I'm trying to, I can't remember if he said it in the church or the life.

What he said was, Rick Warren says, don't try to turn traditional established churches to be what they ought to be. He says it's too difficult. This is his advice. Y'all know who Rick Warren is, don't you? Pastor Saddleback Church, huge church, written purpose-driven church, purpose-driven life.

He says, don't try to change established traditional churches. You leave too much blood on the floor, it's not worth it just go start another church that's his advice now i'm not sure necessarily his advice is right but he's pointing to a problem we get so inwardly turned and so focused on ourselves that we're not willing to change we're not willing to move in a direction that god wants us to do and he says and esam comes to this point says as fringe people we need to quit quit trying Those who will not be what God wants them to be, let them die with dignity. And let's start giving our money, our effort, our time, and our energy to those who want to be what Jesus Christ wants them to be.

My hope is First Baptist will be what God wants it to be.

But I'm going to tell you folks, and I say this with sadness in my heart, I've been a member of this church with the exception of a very few years when my family helped start Northwood Baptist Church, and a few years when I was in school, I've been a member of this church basically all of my life. This church does not like change.

Wilson Nelson said this morning the most difficult two years of his ministry, his entire ministry have been in the past two. As he has attempted to introduce some changes that we were first Baptist. Needed changes.

Our leaders need to focus the congregation on the world rather than themselves. Meaning, focus them on reaching the world rather than focused on themselves. I think Wilson is trying to do that. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.

Keep at it, brother! Because we're not there yet. In fact, we're a long, long, in my judgment, a long way from being where God wants us to be.

Third lesson for life.

We must intentionally and effectively open our doors to those on the margins of society.

you know what was so astonishing the temple this grand institution with so much wealth and money and you got people who are blind and lame and sick and starving who can't support themselves right at its door

and the implication is that the temple leadership was just having nothing to do on the margins of society. They didn't fit in with the privileged elite of the temple.

Is it not true? Is it not true? Is it not true that we as a church do not intentionally reach out to those on the margins of society and welcome them into our doors?

I'm not saying that there's any one individual in this class here, but as an institution, hasn't our practices and our traditions become such that we are not inviting to those who are on the margins of society? And we're not doing much to make sure that those who are on the margins feel welcomed. In fact, we're not doing a whole lot to help them. I'm going to talk about that in just a moment. We need to begin to say, how can we be more intentional about helping those on the margins?

And I'm going to tell you folks, if you don't want to help the people who are poor, sick, and disadvantaged, you just need to get out of church.

Because Jesus' ministry, I have come to proclaim good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind. When he was in the temple, cleansing the temple, who does he invite into the center of the temple to worship with him? He invites in the blind and the sick, the lame, and he heals them. And I think he was sending us a signal. if you're going to be part of my people you need to be an open door for those kind of people maybe we need to offer more services that will help the poor and the disadvantaged how about financial counseling classes for people to help those who are having economic difficulty how about Christ centered alcoholics anonymous or Christ centered narcotics anonymous at Greer First Baptist Church well they smoke cigarettes when they come to those meetings Yeah, somebody trying to get off crack cocaine may smoke a cigarette.

And some of them are dirty, and some of them are not doing well. Some of them have real rough backgrounds. But if we're going to be an open door, we need to offer those kinds of services. How about divorce recovery groups? How about English as a second language for people who come into our community and are trying to make ends meet but can't communicate?

How about ministries that target Hispanics? How about more after-school tutoring programs for poor children? How about more services offered at non-traditional times for families that can meet then?

Would those sorts of services not begin to make us a more inviting congregation for people who are hurting or sick or disadvantaged? It's something to think about. Fourth lesson for life. We must redirect our budgets and our efforts in order to proclaim Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord the sick and the disadvantaged. So we must intentionally and effectively open our doors to the people on the margins of society, which means that our time and our money and our effort has to go toward that cause.

Let's put our money where our mouth is. We say we want to evangelize the world. We say we want to make disciples. We say we want to help the poor, the sick, and disadvantaged. Could you prove it by our budget?

Could you prove it by our budget?

Now let me say, we've got some in this class who are, God help you, on the finance committee. You have my prayers and my condolences.

You are in a situation where you are having to deal with years of traditional practices and programs in budget planning. and I don't have any illusions that even though your heart may want to do exactly what Christ wants you to do I don't have any illusions it will be hard to go from where we are to where we ought to be in one year but maybe we can begin to take some baby steps and make incremental progress year in, year out I have not done it this year I've done it in past years I've tried to analyze how much do we spend on the poor, the disadvantaged and the sick and how much do we spend on spreading the gospel When you get to the bottom line, the percentages of our total budget are very low, in my judgment. Very low. Ron Sider has written a book called Good News and Good Works. He's deceased now, and he says this.

55,000 people die each day without having heard of Jesus Christ. 55,000 people die every day without hearing about Jesus Christ. 100,000 people die each day of starvation and malnutrition of those 100,000. About 30,000 are children. 1.2 billion people go to bed every night.

Absolute poverty, meaning they live on less than $1 a day. 1.2 billion people in the world, approximately.

Sider goes on in his book to say this. U.S. Evangelicals, we're part of that group, folks, have roughly $800 billion in after-taxes income.

programs. And only one-fourth as much, a mere two billion on missions, which he would mean spreading the gospel and helping the poor and the disadvantaged. So we spend four times as much on weight reduction programs as we do on missions, as U.S. evangelicals. He goes on to say Christians make up only one-third, 33% of the world's total income each year. Tragically, we spend 97% of this vast wealth on ourselves.

1% goes to secular charities. 2% goes to Christian work. But even the tiny 2% we give to Christian causes is largely spent on ourselves. That is, in our own congregation and in our home countries.

We are self-centered, self-perpetuating. We're interested in our self-interest. We need to spend it here. Why do we want to give money to missions?

we need to spend some on us. Why do we want to help the poor? We need to spend some on us. We don't need any more on us, folks. We got plenty.

We need to figure out how to get more of it outside to help those in need.

Wilson had a great quote in his sermon this morning. You need to go hear his sermon. If you didn't go to the first service, go to the second.

Wilson said in his sermon, he was quoting somebody else, fishers of men, but keepers of the aquarium.

What a great quote.

How much of our church budget is being spent on ourselves versus being spent to share the gospel with believers? How much of our church budget is spent to help the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged?

I don't think we will like the answers.

Those of you who are in positions of responsibility to affect the budget, I submit you may have to be a little bit of a squeaky wheel. You may have to turn over a table in a finance committee meeting.

but I would suggest and again we can't go from A to Z in one year I think we can begin to make some meaningful changes in the right direction but it's going to take leadership that's willing to do it and it's going to take people sitting in the pews who will support it

and who are not more interested better instruments, better stuff for ourselves when there's a world dying, going to hell without Jesus.

We must become communities of prayer depending on the power of God to accomplish through us the mission he has given us. The problem with the temple structure was they had become independent. They thought they were in control of their own destiny because it was a wealthy institution. It had all these resources. And it had lost sight of the reality that the only way God's work will ultimately be accomplished is through dependent prayer.

If Greer First Baptist is going to be what God wants it to be, it's not going to be because we are so intelligent or so smart or so wealthy, though we should use all of our intellect and resources to do what God has called us to do but at root we're going to be what God wants us to be because we got on our knees and on our faces before him and said forgive us Lord for we have sinned but now by the power of your spirit you help us walk in the direction we should walk and help us to be what we should be.

And until we are back on our faces before him we don't need any more I'm not a deacon currently I haven't been for a while we don't need many more deacons meeting arguing about what time the services will be, what kind of music we will have. We need deacons meetings where the deacons are on their knees before the Lord, asking on behalf of this church that we be forgiven for having squandered what the Lord has so graciously provided to us rather than using it in ways that he would wish us to use it.

But until, this is my, this is David Rogers. age a second, in my opinion, until this church humbles itself, did you hear that word? Humbles itself before the Lord. We will not be what he wants us to be. Until we are willing to no longer be the first Baptist church, but we're willing for Jesus to be the last Baptist church, we're not going to see meaningful progress.

lesson number six just two more we must learn how to praise the lord with childlike exuberance and humility

do you remember the children in the temple when no one else was praising jesus they were shouting hosanna hosanna hosanna to the son of david hosanna hosanna hosanna to the son of david and the leadership is outraged number one they weren't the worship leaders Number two, that's not the way it's done at the temple. Number three, they're a little rowdy. Won't you tell them to shut up, Jesus? And Jesus says, from the mouths of infants and children, God has ordained praise. So often we are called to be like children, people.

We're to be humble like children. And children are exuberant when they do things. I was at the beach with family, a lot of little children running around. quietly. When they're happy, they laugh loudly. They will shout. They will clap. And I think what Jesus is wanting to say to us, if we really have deep joy in our heart for the Lord, and if we really love the Lord, it is going to get expressed in an exuberant, childlike, simple sort of way.

Unconcerned about the tradition or the formality or the dignity of the moment but more concerned about Jesus Christ and him getting the praise. I'm not talking about hanging off the rafters but I'm talking about letting go a little bit to be what God wants us to be. For established churches traditional churches as Greer First has been we're sort of like an emotionally starved child that has forgotten how to express love. And we need to begin relearning that. How do we express joy to our Lord?

How do we express our love of Him? I was taught growing up, you did that by total silence. Sit on your hands, never say a word. to you, that may have been the way some of us were raised, I'm going to submit to you it is absolutely unbiblical.

Clap your hands. Shout to the Lord. Sing a new song. Let all the instruments break out. And even a little dancing is okay. I'm not saying we don't ever need moments when there's complete silence. We do.

but if that's all we have we're like that love starved child who has forgotten how to express genuine love and joy last point and I'll quit preaching we must again make Jesus the focus and center of our churches and our lives you know that's what Jesus was doing when he cleansed the temple he was wanting them to know that the center of worship is not the temple Worship is not the sanctuary of Greer First Baptist Church. The center of worship is not the Vatican in Rome. The center of worship is not the Southern Baptist Vatican in Nashville. The center of worship is Jesus Christ. And until He is the center and focus, not only of our worship, but everything we do, we will not be what he has called us to be.

How many deacons meetings, deacons, have you gone to where the emphasis was in this meeting, men, you know, the ladies can be there under our current policies.

In this meeting, men, we're going to honor Jesus Christ. and our only focus here is not what any one of us prefers for ourselves it's what we know would please Jesus Christ so why don't we just commit as we begin this meeting right now that Jesus Christ is going to be right here at the center and we're going to do whatever we know he would want us to do setting aside our own prejudices and our own self-interest how many finance committee meetings begin and end with that Jesus is the center and focus we're going The way he wants us to spend it. How many other committee meetings? How many Sunday school classes begin? We're going to honor Jesus.

I close with this thought. It's a sobering thought. I think it's a real truth though.

If Greer First Baptist Church is not going to be a congregation that from the pastor

from the deacons to every committee, if we are not a church who will center and focus on Jesus Christ and order our lives, our spending, our time and our effort in a way that honors him, if we will not do that, Jesus will find another place and another people who will. and the children began to shout Hosanna, Hosanna Hosanna to the son of David the Lord is going to get his praise I pray it will be us may it be us

let's pray

help us Lord

Lord, help us, help us, help us, help us, help us, help us to be what you want us to be.

Words are inadequate to capture everything, Lord. But I pray by your spirit that the words that have been spoken will turn us over.