Today's sermon is a continuation of last week, a brief recap.
Last week we looked at why we go to God with reverence and awe, and we put it in the perspective
of some of the pictures that are coming through on the James Webb telescope, the galaxies
and the nebula and the constellations and just the vastness and beauty and order of
the known universe.
And then we think about who we are and we remember that God made all of that and cares
about us still.
And so when we put all of that into thought and we think about who God is, the creator,
the Lord, the sustainer of all, and yet He still loved you enough to send His Son to
live, die, raise again and continue His ministry on your behalf, how do you respond?
Because it starts with the why.
One, there's a God that loves you.
Two, who are you to Him and who is He to you?
And then three, how do you respond?
You respond with awe and reverence.
You don't respond with bringing Him right down so low that He becomes nothing more than
the buddy sitting next to you on the bus.
He is still God.
He is your friend.
He is your brother.
He is your father.
He is also God.
And so we are mindful and we remember that when we come into His presence in worship.
And I touch that that's also at home as well as corporately.
When you enter into worship, you remember that relationship, that why.
Today we pick up looking at a little bit more of the what.
Because if we're going to consider the why, then we also need to consider the what or
the how.
Because it's one thing to kind of get it intellectually or to understand it theologically,
but then also someone's going to ask, well, how do you respond?
What does awe and reverence look like?
What should it be or what should it not be?
Can we lean into some areas and away from others?
Fair enough?
Now as I've studied for this, what is becoming very, very clear is that this is not just
a topic that one can scratch and leave alone.
There's so much richness and depth and beauty to be found in the reverence, the awe, the
glory, the presence of God written in the Bible that we will probably continue this
for a little bit.
I get a little excited when I just keep finding verse after verse and passage after passage
speaking about how much God loves us and how we are to respond to Him.
We're not going to stop after today.
But today we are going to look at where I believe we should start most things when it
comes to the how question, and that's the finest example that heaven ever gave us, Jesus
Christ.
So before we get into that, let's have a word of prayer one more time.
Loving Father, I want to thank you that we can open up the Bible.
I want to thank you that your inspired word has been kept through the ages so it was not
only for the people at that time, but it's for us, your people in this time.
So I pray that we would enter into this study humbly seeking for the Holy Spirit's guidance
so that we can learn of you and we can apply it to our lives.
In Jesus name, amen.
You might notice that today's sermon title is reverence with healing and shouting.
I have an alternate sermon title, but to understand it, you have to know what a mic drop is.
Do you know what a mic drop is?
For those who don't know, a mic drop is usually a reference to a debate or a verbal battle,
a back and forth between one or two, not one, but two or three or more parties where the
person that gives the final word solves the matter in such a way that they can drop the
mic, turn, and the issue is settled.
It's done.
A mic drop moment is when you say the final word and it ends that moment and you can just
leave.
It's the climax.
It's the exclamation mark.
It is, oh, it's done.
The debate doesn't continue.
My alternate title would have been this, of money changers and mic drops, because I believe
what we're looking at here in today's passage from Matthew in chapter 21, like other passages
that we read in Jesus' life, you see a debate unfold with Jesus encountering Christ and
He has the final word and then He walks away.
I think there's quite a bit to learn in the final words and the walking away.
To set it up, you're going to follow with me.
Today's going to be a little bit more of a study.
Obviously I'm going to be pacing a little bit less, but today we're going to look at
the second time that Jesus cleanses the temple.
We know that it's the second because in the Gospel of John, earlier in the Gospel, we
read an account of the first.
Early on in Jesus' ministry, He comes into the temple in Jerusalem to worship and He
finds it profaned.
There's selling, it's raucous, it's loud, there's corruption going on, not only by the
money changers but by the priests extorting the people.
Some of the poor that were come looking to offer their sin offerings or their thank offerings
or their praise gifts to God were extorted out of their money, money that they probably
really didn't have a lot of, so that a prophet could be turned and then some of that could
be skimmed off and given to the priests.
It was completely corrupt and it profaned the temple of God.
Well Jesus, we might have heard this, He fashions a cord, He holds the cord.
Pastor White tells us that He never strikes anyone with the cord but just holding it and
the look in His eye and the glory flashing through humanity was enough for those corrupt,
sinful evil people to find their place and to flee before glory.
Well time passes, we come to the end of Jesus' ministry, the next time that He comes to the
temple at this time of the Jewish calendar and He was I'm sure hoping that things would
have remained cleaned up.
But that's not what greeted Him.
Let's pick up our account, Matthew 21 beginning with verse 12, we'll go 12 and 13.
And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple and
He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.
He said to them, it is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer but you make it
a den of robbers.
The practice had come back, the profanations had continued, the corruption had carried
on, the poor were taken advantage of and trampled upon and the wealthy were just made wealthier.
Can we be in agreement that that kind of behavior should not take place in God's house of worship?
We should not trample on the poor.
We should not just fill the pockets of the wealthy with more and more wealth.
Side note, there was a viral video, this was not a part of my notes, it just came to mind.
A viral video from this past week of a pastor in a church, semi-local, I think it was in
this area of the country, was doing his sermon and it was being live streamed and in the
midst of his sermon, you all of a sudden see him kind of tense up, he gets his hands clear,
he lays down on the ground because he was robbed at gunpoint in the middle of his church
service and they stole from the man and from several people in the audience.
I mean, I don't think that should happen.
I think we should discourage that.
It's really a shame that in some or many or increasing areas of our country, that type
of crime seems to just carry into what used to be respected places like a church.
Well, he gets up and he talks about how, I have to remember the number.
I want, don't, this is not the exact number, I am certain of it.
But it was something to the tune of a million dollars worth of jewelry was stolen from that
congregation and he himself accounted for about four or five hundred thousand dollars
of it, of jewelry that they thieved from him.
Now, people can spend their money on what they want to spend their money on, but I am
not certain that we should have five hundred thousand dollars worth of jewelry on the minister
that then could be stolen from.
I'm not certain that's probably where the minister should be spending that level of
dollars.
That's my opinion.
But that was the case going on here.
We know that the Pharisees enriched themselves off of the congregants.
We know that the money changers wouldn't accept the normal coins, they had the temple coins.
And in weighing out the exchange rate from one to the other, they had unfair and unbalanced
scales, and it always worked in their favor.
They were made very wealthy off of it.
When Jesus entered into the temple, when people came to worship God expecting to enter into
his presence and to hear him speak to them and to hear the priests read from the word
of God, the scrolls laid out before them, but you've got the bleeding of sheep and
the mooing of cattle and the squawking of birds going on right there, how raucous, how
smelly, how disrespectful and irreverent was that location.
You could not have entered into that seeking some level of peace and assurance and presence
of the Almighty with all of that going on behind you and around you.
You couldn't have.
So it was right and it was just that Jesus entered into that scene and in honor of God
and his holiness drove out the corruption, drove out the thieving, drove out the incessant
and obnoxious noise.
That was good for him to do.
Observing the same defiling practices which he had once previously driven out being continued,
Jesus again and with holy fervor drives out the offenders, turns over the tables those
tools of greed and profanity.
Our first lesson for today is that earnest desire to honor God and give him due reverence
is not only appropriate but expected.
Ernest desire to honor God and give him due reverence is not only appropriate but expected.
God repeatedly throughout the Word of God and we are going to look into some of these
other examples, he has an expectation of how you enter into his presence.
It's there and to earnestly desire it and if you walk into a place where my goodness
it seems a little off the rails and that's what Jesus walks into, to desire better is
appropriate.
It is.
And that's where we start because again we're looking at Jesus as our example and I really
hope that today as sons and daughters of God we can all be in agreement that Jesus is our
example.
Can we agree to that today?
Can we agree that not the person to your left or your right is your example in reverence
to God?
Can we agree to that?
Okay.
Can we agree that as we continue the study in awe and reverence of God we will learn
from the Bible and Jesus example?
Okay.
You'll understand what I mean.
So our first point and this is appropriate, earnest desire to honor God and give him due
reverence is not only appropriate but expected.
God expects you to enter into his preference different than you would walk into a Walmart.
I think that's fair.
So then what happens after Jesus cleanses the temple?
Does he just shoo people out and leave it barren?
Does he chase out all of the money changers and then say well if you were also engaged
with them you can't stay behind?
What does Jesus do next?
And that's our verse for today, our scripture reading for today.
A powerful line, the blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he healed them.
When Jesus chased out all of the obnoxious corruption and the sin and the greed that
was taking place that opened up the ability for God's house of worship to be used for
its intended purpose.
Sometimes you got to get rid of the filth in order to allow the intended purpose to
take place.
The house of God that is where his people come to worship, notice I didn't say the square
footage that comprises the Ringgold SDA Church.
Notice I didn't say the temple in Jerusalem.
Where God's people congregate to worship is where the church is.
That can take place in a field.
That can take place camping.
Our church has done that.
That can take place in our backyard.
That can take place in a house.
You can open up your home and have people come.
That can be a house of worship.
The house of worship that is where God's people come to worship is a place for healing.
First and foremost, Matthew records that once all of the wickedness is cleaned out, healing
is the next thing recorded.
The blind and the lame come into the temple to see Jesus and to be healed.
Are we allowing God's house of worship to be a place of healing, my friends?
A parallel to this, and this is going to be another account where we see healing being
used to demonstrate something of Jesus.
Luke chapter 7 beginning with verse 18, I'll just read it for you.
John, the Baptist is imprisoned, but he hears about the wonderful things that Jesus is doing.
And he might be wondering, I was expecting the Savior to do X, but Jesus is doing Y and
I'm in prison.
What's going on?
I find it difficult to fault the man for having those questions.
So the disciples of John reported the good things of Jesus to John and John calling two
of his disciples to him, sent them to Jesus saying, are you the one who is to come or
shall we look for another?
And when the men had come to Jesus, they said, John the Baptist has sent us to you saying,
are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another?
But what does Jesus do?
Does he wax eloquently?
Does he exegete deeply from Isaiah?
Does he give a long and elaborate and eloquent sermon like he did on the mount?
Luke records that in that hour, he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil
spirits and on many who were blind, he bestowed sight.
And he answered them, go and tell John what you have seen and heard.
The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear.
The dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them and blessed is the one
who is not offended by me.
God's house of worship is a place for healing.
Bringing people into the presence of Jesus is for healing.
Do we allow that to take place here?
Is this church a place of healing?
Because when God's people are engaged in ministry to the sick, that is people who are sick with
their health and people who are sick with sin, when God's people are engaged in ministry
to the poor, that is the poor financially and that is the poor in spirit, when God's
people are engaged in ministry to the hungry, that is those who can't have their own sandwich
at home or those who are hungering after righteousness sake, when God's people are engaged in ministry,
etc., are we engaged in ministry for those who are single parents?
Are we engaged in ministry to those who have come out of a broken relationship?
Are we engaged in ministry to the depressed?
Are we engaged in ministry to those who feel like they don't have a place in this world?
Are we engaged in ministry to those who feel slandered and attacked and harmed wherever
they go?
Because when God's people are engaged in ministry to that grouping of people, in other words,
everyone sitting around you and anyone who walks through that door, when we are engaged
in that type of ministry, we are taking up the very work that Jesus used to identify
himself as Savior.
We are working alongside of Jesus and we are pointing people to him.
We are saying, I don't have to give you the perfect Bible study on the beast and the horns
and the crowns and the tines, but God can use me to be a healing balm for you and your
life.
Does that happen here?
When people walk through that door, are they experiencing the reverence of God by entering
into a place of healing?
Or are we just too ready to chase people out?
Or are we too ready to ask someone to take care of themselves before they cross our threshold?
Do we ask people to clean up something before they sit beside us in the pew?
Can we hold our nose and hold, more importantly, our tongue for just a little longer so in
reverence someone can come here, see Jesus and be healed?
Is that what we find here in this house of worship?
We reverence God.
We reverence God when we make his house a place where all people can find healing in
Jesus.
That's Christ's example right there.
We reverence God when we make his place of worship, his house, wherever that might be,
a place where all people can find healing in Jesus.
Let's continue.
In verse 15, we see that when the chief priests and the scribes, and Ellen White gives us
a little bit of detail, the chief priests and the scribes ran out from, when they saw
Jesus chase out the money changers because they were so in league with them, the priests
and scribes ran out with them.
But their pride got the better of them and so they came back to see what was going on.
Well, we can't run before Jesus.
We tell him what to do, not the other way around.
So when they came back to the temple and the scene that greeted them was this.
They saw the wonderful things that Jesus did, the healing and the speaking and the glory
of God being poured out through the body of Jesus to a sick people in need.
When they saw those wonderful things and the children crying out in the temple, Hosanna
to the son of David, they were indignant.
Now, we're going to talk about the priests and the scribes in a moment, but I want to
talk about the children.
In Jesus' presence, in Jesus' presence, the young ones with a loud voice were shouting
praise to God.
Do we think that if it occurred in Jesus' presence and it was allowed that he would
have thought it irreverent?
No.
If it happened in Jesus' presence and it was going on and that was the sound that rang
through the halls of the temple and Jesus was right there with it, I can almost imagine
him joining in.
Certainly we can find reverence in what those children were doing that day.
Through the example of the children, we see joyous expressions of praise and adoration
that are reverent.
Jesus allowed it.
It must be.
So in the children, we see this.
The children crying out in the temple, Hosanna to the son of David.
Most of us don't think of crying out or shouting as reverent.
Most of us do not.
Most of us hesitate to even go, amen.
Some other churches, if you have visited some other churches, they're a little less reserved
and they're amens.
Right?
I've been to a few.
Some of it's awesome.
Some of it's really neat.
I love it.
Too many of God's people believe that reverence means, I will defile the place of worship
if I so much as utter a sound above the quietest whisper.
Some people have that mentality.
When I walk through the doors, all sound must come to the lowest decibel.
Otherwise I'm defiling this airspace.
What do we see the children doing that Jesus approves of?
Loud cries of praise and joy and expressions of gratitude to God on high.
Shouts.
And don't mistake this.
This is not just a conversational volume.
These are shouts of joy.
These are not raucous, but not a whisper.
Do we know what I mean?
Okay.
Some might also think that reverence is this.
Reverence can only be displayed with an externally somber expression and I must speak and act
as if being a Christian is a hard and heavy burden that I must bear.
Have we ever been around people that had that attitude or that look or that tone or that
demeanor about them?
There are times when it's appropriate when your sin brings about a sobriety in your life,
a somberness.
Sometimes that's appropriate.
The Bible is also replete with examples of joyous and joyful and almost boisterous expressions
of how grateful you are to a God who loves you infinitely.
Let's look at some simple examples.
Psalm.
If you're going to talk about praise, you got to talk about the Psalms, right?
Psalms 149.
Praise the Lord.
Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of the godly.
I highlighted that word new song because it seems to me as I observe that we often shy
away from new believing that new equals irreverent or that new equals defiling or that a change
equals something like that.
We read it right from the psalmist's pen.
Sing to the Lord a new song.
I would like to challenge us as much as I appreciate our hymns and I do.
I like the songs that are contained in our hymnals.
I would like us, I would like to challenge us to not look at the hymnal as if it's canonical.
Do you know what I mean by that?
Something that is canon means that that's the only collection that's permitted, allowed
and acceptable.
That's a really contemporary collection of songs if you're not aware.
That collection that we have in that book given the time span of singing praises to
God is a very contemporary collection of songs and some well-intended Christians make that
to be the canon of song and you cannot branch out outside of it or take those songs and
use it in any other melody.
I would like to challenge our approach to that.
That we take the psalmist at his word and we understand that we can sing to the Lord
a new song at times.
We can sing to the Lord a song that in full intent will praise and honor him even if it's
not found inside of this wonderful binding.
I like the hymns.
I'm not bound by the hymns.
Does that make sense?
And the one does not equal irreverence.
Let's continue in Psalm 149.
Let Israel be glad in his maker.
Let the children of Zion rejoice in their king.
Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre.
Adventists tend to shy away from dancing and there's a lot of dancing we should shy away
from.
The Bible is very clear that dancing in and of itself is not irreverent.
Where the dancing is used or how the dancing is displayed is where you start to wonder.
There is a principle that comes out of the Supreme Court when they've had to look
at various profanity laws and some of those profanity laws dealt with obscene adult content
in the internet age in video form.
Do we know what I mean?
When the justices were looking at it and they were asked how do you define that kind of
material one of them I believe wisely said I can't put a word-to-word definition but
I know it when I see it.
I believe God has built it into us to not always perfectly put into words what something
is but we kind of know it when we see it.
We kind of see some things and go I don't know about that one.
I'm not sure I like how it takes the mind into these areas.
I'm not sure I like what it does in terms of our emotions.
Are they uplifting or do they pour us into vice?
And then we can kind of tell when we get around it.
But that doesn't mean that we cast a blanket across all things that are contained in the
Bible as appropriate forms of worship.
And we can extend that into Psalm 150 praise the Lord praise God in his sanctuary praise
him in his mighty heavens praise him for his mighty deeds praise him according to his excellent
greatness praise him with the trumpet praise him with lute and harp with tambourine and
dance praise him with strings and pipe praise him with sounding cymbals praise him with
loud clashing cymbals.
When was the last time we had a loud clashing cymbal in our church?
When was the last time that we had the trumpet and the harp and the tambourine and strings
in the church?
Have you ever been to a place that has kind of like a little mini orchestra that they
use for their praise and their songs?
Some of it's gorgeous, beautiful, really uplifting.
I mean it the voices mix with it and the hearts just glow and they radiate with praise.
I love it.
I think we should incorporate it.
I think it's wonderful.
So again when we are looking for the how we turn to the examples of Jesus and we look
at what the Bible has to say.
So it is appropriate and reverent to let your praises be known even if it's a shout.
It's appropriate and reverent to follow after this example that Jesus clearly permitted.
But we need to look at the other side of this.
We're coming up on our mic drop moment if you will.
We see how the Pharisees, the priests and the scribes reacted when they saw the signs
the healings and the helpings and the praise and the what was their reaction?
Indignance.
And they went to Jesus and they said to him in verse 16, do you hear what these children
are saying?
Do you see what's going on?
How dare they do that?
That is unbelievable to me.
The depths of hypocrisy that these men dared utter aloud.
They had just been chased out because of their corruption and their wickedness and their
stepping on the people there to worship God.
And then they come back and they see shouts of praise to God and the sick being healed
and the lame made to walk and they say how awful.
How terrible is this healing and this singing to God that is going on in the mighty wonderful
temple that we grace with our presence?
What levels of hypocrisy.
They dared to think that they had a right to criticize the reverence of those in the
temple.
These self-professed protectors of those sacred halls thought that they had the right to decide
and define what was reverence and what was not.
So soon after being chased out of the temple because of their gross irreverence, they return
only to believe themselves properly suited to pass judgment on the children and others
and by extension also on Jesus.
Jesus said to them, yes, have you never read out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies,
you have prepared praise.
From the priests and the scribes and Jesus response, we can learn three smaller points.
One preference does not equal reverence.
These priests and their scribes had their personal preference for what they thought
should go on in the temple, except that they had perverted it.
They had misconstrued it.
They had misunderstood it and then they themselves were irreverent.
Their preference, they interpreted to be reverence.
I would like to challenge us that as we prayerfully consider what reverence is that we go back
to the two things that we look at for our examples, Jesus and scripture and prayerfully
consider whether or not our preferences are getting in the way of what the word of God
says and our preferences we interpret to be reverence.
Because again, it's not the person sitting beside you and it's not you yourself.
It is Jesus and the word of God.
That's where we get our understanding of reverence.
Second, we should be slow to judge others' actions as irreverent.
Because we don't know whether or not their heart is in the right place and they're figuring
out the rest of it.
I can't read your heart.
I praise God I can't read your heart.
I doubt many people here would like the person sitting next to them or me up here the ability
to read your heart.
I don't want you reading mine.
I will leave that to God.
I think we could all say amen to that.
We should be slow to judge others' actions as irreverent and we should leave that between
them and God.
Be mindful of it.
You might find yourself in an unfortunately hypocritical situation.
Leave it to God.
And then third, we learn from Jesus' response.
He redirected them not to their preference but to where?
The Bible.
Scripture.
The inspired word of God through his prophets and his authors.
That's where you should go to find out about reverence and awe and your relationship to
God on high.
God redirects them to the word of God and then though he had the right, he did not drive
out those irreverent priests again.
Do we see that?
Because it says, and leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and he lodged there.
The one man who had the right to define and determine reverence in that place, he had
the right to drive out those irreverent priests and scribes.
He had the right, some might even say he had the duty or the responsibility or the weight
of the matter to step forward and again let glory flash through humanity and drive out
those irreverent hypocrites.
But does he do that?
He redirects them to the word of God and then Jesus leaves.
I wonder how many of us take that approach.
I wonder how many of us pause enough to consider, am I jumping too quickly to define something
for someone else?
I wonder if some of us are getting our preferences mixed up with how God would like it.
I wonder if some of us, though we may be right, choose to take and follow after Jesus' example.
Let's study the word of God and then maybe I'll excuse myself.
And I will pray for these people.
And I will pray for, fill in the blank, I will pray for me.
I will pray for me.
Lord, let me be reverent in your house even if I might think someone else is not.
I'm going to leave them to you.
Let me be reverent in your house.
Let me be reverent when I come before you.
If other people are irreverent, I'm going to let you handle that.
I think we would be better off if we let God handle many more of those things.
I believe so.
The mic drop moment is redirecting to the Bible and letting God handle it.
When you end with, let God handle it, you can let go of the mic and follow after him.
You can let go of the mic and step away from the debate and be faithful to his calling
in your life.
And you help people just say, you don't look to me.
Don't even look to you.
Look to Christ.
Look to scripture.
And then set down the mic.
And then just do what you just helped someone else come to realize.
Set down the mic for a moment.
And you enter into God's preference with reverence and awe.
Help people see Jesus.
Let this place, do all that you can to let this church, wherever it meets, be a place
for healing for all who enter into the presence of Jesus.
Don't shy away from a joyous expression of gratitude to a God who loves you infinitely.
Don't shy away from it.
And three, follow Jesus' example.
Point back to scripture and let God handle it.
I think that would be well for us to do as we enter into reverence with healing and shouting.
Let us pray.
Loving Father, we thank you so much for this Sabbath day.
We thank you that it is a time where we can, in a unique and special way, different than
the other days, come before your throne with our praise and our worship and our thanksgiving.
Not because we have picked the time, but because you have set it aside for our benefit and
you desire to be in our midst.
You desire to abide with us.
Lord, we thank you for that.
We thank you for your grace and we thank you for your mercy.
We thank you for remembering that we are dust and dealing with us appropriately.
So I pray, Lord, as we go from here, that you work on our hearts, inspire us that wherever
we are and whenever we come into your presence, that it would be in a manner that you would
have us do, would have us carry out.
We thank you for hearing our prayers, for we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.