This is the manuscript of the fifth sermon in the series "Responding to the Living Word".
When Jesus came to the Jerusalem temple, he was moved by excitement for the house of the Lord and in anger He drove out the exploiters of God’s people using a cord he had made with his own hands. We want to be careful that we don’t become guilty of committing the same sin that caused His anger, so we want to know what made our Lord so angry?
A link for an audio recording of the sermon is at the end of the manuscript.
You can watch a video recording of the entire service on the Christ Church YouTube Channel https://youtu.be/hTpU_XaTBCQ
Scripture Reading:
John 2:13-22 NIV When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 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 cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
Introduction
Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.
Lent is the 40 days (not including Sundays) from Ash Wednesday to the Saturday before Easter. Lent is often described as a time of preparation and an opportunity to go deeper with God. This means that it’s a time for personal reflection that prepares people’s hearts and minds for Good Friday and Easter, Resurrection Day.
The three main things people focus on during Lent are prayer, fasting (abstaining from something to reduce distractions and focus more on God) and giving, or charity.
Prayer during Lent focuses on our need for God’s forgiveness. It’s also about repenting (turning away from our sins) and receiving God’s mercy and love.
Fasting, or giving something up, is a very common practice during Lent. The idea is that giving up something that’s a regular part of life, like eating dessert or social media, can be a reminder of Jesus’ sacrifice for us. That time can also be replaced with more time connecting with God.
Giving money or doing something good for others is a way to respond to God’s grace, generosity and love. For example, some people spend time volunteering or donate money they would normally use to buy something, like their morning coffee.
It’s important to note that doing these things can never make us earn or deserve Jesus’ sacrifice or a relationship with God. People are flawed and will never be good enough for a perfect God. Only Jesus has the power to rescue us from ourselves.
Jesus sacrificed Himself on Good Friday to bear the punishment for all our wrongdoings and offer us forgiveness. He was raised from the dead on Easter Sunday to give us an opportunity to have a relationship with God for eternity.
Spending time during Lent praying, fasting and giving can make Jesus’ sacrifice on Good Friday and His resurrection on Easter even more meaningful.
Now I want to get back to the series that I started three weeks ago “Responding to the Living Word”. In this series of sermons, I have said that Jesus is God, He is the giver of abundant life, and that we are helpless without the help of the Holy Spirit which we receive when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior and we are saved.
Today I want to talk about a sensitive issue, Jesus’ anger.
Text:
John 2:15-16 NIV 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. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!”
The question that is often asked is if anger is a sin? After all, don’t the Scriptures admonish us to be “slow to anger”
James 1:19-21 NIV My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
The writer of Ecclesiastes warns us.
Ecclesiastes 7:9 NIV Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.
The Apostle Paul suggests that we can be angry, but with a caveat.
Ephesians 4:26-27 NIV “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.
Anger in itself is not an inappropriate emotion.
Jerome, an early church father, said, “The greatest anger of all is when God is no longer angry with us when we sin.”
We can be grateful for that as it says in.
Psalms 145:8 NIV The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.
The Bible also says.
Numbers 14:18 NIV ‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’
And
Nehemiah 9:16-18 NIV “But they, our ancestors, became arrogant and stiff-necked, and they did not obey your commands. They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them, even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your god, who brought you up out of Egypt,’ or when they committed awful blasphemies.
God does get angry and anger is one evidence of a healthy personality. But anger must be a disciplined emotion, harnessed and carefully directed against evil wherever it is found.
Aristotle, was no Christian but what he said about anger is insightful. He observed that it is easy to become angry, but to be angry with the right person to the right degree at the right time for the right purpose in the right way—that is not easy.
Let’s reflect on the Scripture that Jean read this morning and on our text. Let’s look at
John 2:13-16 NIV When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 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 cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!”
When Jesus came to the Jerusalem temple, he was moved by excitement for the house of the Lord and in anger He drove out the exploiters of God’s people using a cord he had made with his own hands.
We want to be careful that we don’t become guilty of committing the same sin that caused His anger so we figure out what made our Lord so angry?
I. Jesus was angry with those who were content for evil things to remain as they were.
The people Jesus drove from the temple were a part of the religious establishment, the scribes and the Pharisees. They should have known better. But they had fallen first into compromise and then into eager cooperation with the exploitation of the pilgrim worshipers who came by the thousands each day to the temple. Jesus was angry with the people who were content for evil things to continue.
Let me explain; Two groups felt his wrath that day: the money changers and the priests who were the sacrifice inspectors. They had turned the house of the Lord into “a tourist trap,” “a hideout for thieves,” a merchandise mart, a house for barter and trade.
The money changers were actually at the temple to perform a useful function: to change the coins of the provinces that bore the graven image of an animal or man into coins suitable to pay the taxes to support the temple worship. The money changers had the pilgrims at their mercy. A man’s temple tax amounted to two day’s wages. The money changers would charge another day’s wages just for the changing of the money, a 50 percent profit. That would be like charging an exorbitant fee for exchanging Canadian dollars for U. S. dollars.
The priests who were required to inspect the sacrifices to make sure that they were perfect and had no defects, also took advantage of the worshipers. People would bring their own turtledoves or lambs for the sacrifice. But if the offerings did not pass the careful examination as to their suitability for sacrifice, the owners had to buy a costly replacement from the temple stock. In our study of Leviticus we have talked a lot about the no defect requirement of all sacrifices in order for them to be accepted by God and that the priests were responsible for making sure that the sacrifice was perfect. The solution was for the Levites. who worked with the priests, to raise animals the people could buy for their sacrifice offerings. The problem was that the animals kept in the temple corral were not examined with the same care. In the trading back and forth, the priests were making fat profits from their dishonest double standard of inspection.
Jesus’ anger was directed at these temple thieves, for they not only exploited the people but were also content to allow things to stay as they were. This corruption of worship did not trouble them. Injustice was rampant. The money changers treated sacred things and feelings with contempt in their rush to line their money pouches with unfair gain.
The lesson for us today is that when God’s people see injustice flourish and indecent gain made from the things of God yet do not speak out, then watchout for the anger of God. His wrath is kindled against those who are willing to look the other way.
II. Jesus was also angry with those who would not pray when they came to God’s house.
The three other gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, and Luke place the cleansing of the temple at the last of Jesus’ ministry rather than at the first as John does.
Matthew’s account is Matthew 21:12-17, in Mark it is at 11:15-19, and in Luke it is at 19:45-48.
It is not clear whether there were two cleansings of the temple or one cleansing placed by the gospel writers in different chronological order. It is entirely possible that there were two. A temple cleansing is not a once- and-for-all job. Like the need for revival in the church, it must happen again and again. It is even likely that before the day was over, the people were back in business. If so, it is not unlikely that Jesus met them again at the close of his ministry with the same anger and hurt in his heart.
Each one of the Gospel writers records that Jesus’ anger was in part a reaction to their callous willingness to turn the “house of prayer” into a “den of robbers”.
Luke 19:46 NIV “It is written,” he said to them, “ ‘My house will be a house of prayer’; but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”
Anyone who comes often to the house of worship needs to be careful not to handle sacred moments with disdain, indifference, or preoccupation with stuff other than prayer and worship.
III. Jesus was angry with those who tied all their religion to a building and to religious rituals.
It is not buildings or rituals that finally bring us to God. They may help; but they can often intrude.
Jesus had come to offer his body as the temple of God.
John 2:19-21 NIV Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of was his body.
That’s why He would say to the woman at the well,
John 4:21-24 NIV “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
In Jesus, a new day has dawned, the kingdom of God has arrived, and the people of God are to be watching and open to what is about to happen all around them.
A building must never be a substitute for the worship of God. It is only the wrapping that surrounds us as we worship the God who is above all buildings made with hands. We also have tradition and rituals which in themselves are good and good reminders but we sometimes let our rituals substitute themselves for God. Anytime a person relies on baptism or church membership for security in God, he or she has worshiped at the wrong altar.
Conclusion
God chastens us not because he doesn’t love us but precisely because he does love us. He is unwilling to leave us to counterfeit worship or second-rate religion. Of all the things we have to be thankful to God for, don’t forget to thank him that he cares enough to become angry with us.
Hebrews 12:4-11 NIV In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.” Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Sermon Audio
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