The temple was intended to be the center of worship and teaching for the Israelites, but corruption had taken over. The religious leaders were not honoring God, but instead were taking advantage of the poor, not practicing hospitality, and pocketing money for themselves. So Jesus, in righteous anger, drove the dishonest businessmen out. We learn from Jesus how to have a godly, righteous anger.
Now some of you will be very surprised to hear that Jesus got angry because you wrongly perceive that Christianity just means that you be nice. Christianity is not that we just be nice. We are to love people, we're also to be truthful. And if you love God, you're going to hate sin. If you love people, you're going to hate injustice. The fact that we do love means we must hate. The fact that we have joy requires that we also will be angry. Now, some of us have short wicks and foul tempers and we are far too quick to anger. But that doesn't mean that anger is in and of itself a bad thing. Anger's an emotion. It's a response to something that is valid or invalid. How about you? Do you ever get angry? If some of you say, "I never get angry," then you're probably in sin. You probably don't feel the heart of God because the Bible says that God gets angry. Now, the Bible does say that God is, "slow to anger." He has a long wick, it takes a lot to get him angry, but he will get there. If we continue in sin and harming of people and injustice and evil, it does make God angry. And here we see Jesus gets angry. Some of you get angry all the time. You get angry for reasons that are not just. And you would wrongly appeal to Jesus, say, "Well, Jesus got angry, I get angry." Yeah, but you don't get angry for the same reasons Jesus did. Jesus got angry here because the glory of God the Father was being damaged and harmed and the people were being taken advantage of.
The religious leaders have got a real dilemma because if they say, "No, John did not work for the Lord," the crowd would assault them. This would turn into a riot scene. And if they said, "Yes, he worked for the Lord," then Jesus would say, "John said that I was God. He said to turn from sin and trust in me, so why don't you obey him?" Jesus has got them on the horns of a dilemma. They're either going to get killed or become Christians. He's really got them in the clench up against the cage. So what do they do? Well, sadly, they do what religious people often do: they walk away. They don't say, "I'm wrong." They don't say, "I'm sorry." They walk away. Now, religious people can say they're wrong and they can say they're sorry. And sometimes guys in the Bible, like another man named Saul, who's a good friend of Luke and he became Paul the Apostle and wrote much of the New Testament along with Luke, sometimes it does happen where religious people say, "I'm wrong. I'm sorry." But they don't. Instead they walked away. … At Mars Hill Church, we believe that Jesus is Lord. That's a simple way of saying he's the highest authority. There's no one equal to Jesus, there's no one above Jesus. He is in highest authority. When he says something, we believe it. When he commands something, by the grace of God, we seek to obey it. And if someone or something should disagree with him, they are wrong and they need to repent and agree with him and not just walk away, but change their mind and say, "I'm wrong, I'm sorry." And friends, it's not that we're right, it's that he's right. Because the truth is, we're all wrong. None of us begins submitting to Jesus. We all have sin and folly. We all think we're right when we're wrong. And we all have to say, "I'm wrong and I'm sorry. Jesus, you're right."Why we don't need to go to the temple in Jerusalem anymore, after the jump:
We don't need to go to the temple because all of those requirements of the law have been fulfilled. It's not that they were unimportant, it's that they're now fulfilled. Just like all my graduation requirements. It's not that they were unimportant, but they're fulfilled. Once I fulfilled them, I move on, I'm done, I'm free, I don't need to go back, I don't need to play by those rules, I don't need to live that way. … So here's what we're not gonna do: We're not gonna go to Jerusalem. We're not gonna go rebuild the temple. We're not gonna go get some priests. We're not gonna go slaughter some animals, which is what they were doing. Why? Because Jesus is greater. I'll explain it to you in this way. Jesus is greater. First of all, Jesus is a greater temple. The temple was a foreshadowing of Jesus. It was the place between heaven and earth, where God and man would connect. Jesus is the greater temple. He is God become a man. So the presence of God is in Jesus. The reconciliation with God is in Jesus. The holy place of meeting and worship between heaven and earth is Jesus. That's why Paul says there's one mediator between man and God: the man Christ Jesus. We don't go to a place; we go to a person. The place was just requirements that were held until Jesus came and fulfilled the law and now we don't need the temple. The temple had the Holy of Holies; Jesus is the Holy of Holies. The temple was the presence of God; Jesus is the presence of God. The temple was where we would go to meet with God; Jesus is where we go to meet with God. The temple is what got us close to God; Jesus is who gets us close to God. The temple is where you'd go to sacrifice and shed blood and have your sin atoned for it; Jesus is where we go now to have our sin atoned for and blood shed and our lives transformed. And the temple was the center of faith and life and worship and God's people would all come to that place. And today we don't need to go to that place because we go to Jesus. He's the greater temple. The center of our faith is not a place; it's a person. We don't believe in a Holy Land; we believe in a holy man, the God Man, Jesus Christ.
