My House will be
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We are coming to the end of the season of Lent with two weeks until Easter. Two weeks until we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus, and the promises that holds for us.
My message this morning comes from that season of Jesus’s ministry, just days away from being crucified.
Matthew 21:12–17 (CSB)
12 Jesus went into the temple and threw out all those buying and selling. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves.
13 He said to them, “It is written, my house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of thieves!”
14 The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.
15 When the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonders that he did and the children shouting in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant
16 and said to him, “Do you hear what these children are saying?” Jesus replied, “Yes, have you never read: You have prepared praise from the mouths of infants and nursing babies?”
17 Then he left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.
Jer 7:9-11
9 “ ‘Do you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known?
10 Then do you come and stand before me in this house that bears my name and say, “We are rescued, so we can continue doing all these detestable acts”?
11 Has this house, which bears my name, become a den of robbers in your view? Yes, I too have seen it. This is the Lord’s declaration.
He is in Jerusalem. And not too long from now, he will be crucified.
Jesus and his disciples have just entered the city, Jesus with the honor of a king - from his own people. They have thrown their overcoats and palm branches onto the ground for him to walk on. They celebrated him. It was a beautiful expression of worship.
Things are going to get worse.
And he knows it.
His friend will betray him.
People are going to fall away - some people are going to run away.
his closest friends will deny knowing him. And he knows it.
And he makes this stop.
At the temple.
A place he wouldn’t really be welcome - because he has been stirring everything up already. And he sees something that he cannot tolerate. There is something going on there that causes him to respond.
Later in this passage it says that Jesus saw someone and had compassion on them, in this moment, I believe that Jesus saw what was happening in the temple and had rage for them.
The people of Jerusalem, had made it a place of commerce. They had make a business out of trading for their sacrifice.
But its one thing, to do it out here in the moment, its another thing.
A place of Prayer
A place of healing
A place of praise.
A place of prayer.
13 Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises.
14 Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church, and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.
15 The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up; if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.
17 Elijah was a human being as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the land.
18 Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land produced its fruit.
19 My brothers and sisters, if any among you strays from the truth, and someone turns him back,
20 let that person know that whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.
A place of healing
The example given by Jesus is that healing is supposed to take place here.
He looked upon the people and had compassion. This is who Jesus is, a God of compassion.
The bible says when a person is sick they should go to the church.
Too often this becomes a place of injury. This is where the hurt happens. Some of you may be here because you were hurt somewhere else. The unfortunate thing is - hurt people, without healing - hurt people.
This should be the place for that.
We have been working through common ailments. Sicknesses and sins that we bring with us from out there.
Where the love of Jesus and the love of one another should allow for healing deep within ourselves.
and this should be a place of praise.
For the choir director: on the Gittith. A psalm of David.
1 Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is your name throughout the earth! You have covered the heavens with your majesty.
2 From the mouths of infants and nursing babies, you have established a stronghold on account of your adversaries in order to silence the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I observe your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place,
4 what is a human being that you remember him, a son of man that you look after him?
5 You made him little less than God and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet:
7 all the sheep and oxen, as well as the animals in the wild,
8 the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea that pass through the currents of the seas.
9 Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is your name throughout the earth!
Children :
I struggle.
With children.
Because they can be too much.
But here.
Here I am convicted.
Because - Jesus says that they bring perfected praise. And the joy that beams from them, should be the joy that we all express.
Our old bones don’t move that quick any more, but the joy that is there.
Kids say the darndest things - kids share truth unexpededly. The pharases struggled with this, because their heart wasn’t in the right place.
This is why we start our services with worship.
This is why we do 5th sunday worship services.
Because this is a place where we come together to do this. We praise Jesus.
It should not be - the place that we come to get right with God so that we can leave and go back to sin.
Jesus says this - by quoting from Jeremiah.
Jer 7:10
10 Then do you come and stand before me in this house that bears my name and say, “We are rescued, so we can continue doing all these detestable acts”?
1 May God be gracious to us and bless us; may he make his face shine upon us Selah
2 so that your way may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.
3 Let the peoples praise you, God; let all the peoples praise you.