Jesus is Awesome…but the Church is nothing like Him!Jesus is Awesome – Part 3Message #1294Pastor Keith StewartSeptember 19-20, 2015 Only 3% of 16-29 year-olds who are outsiders have positive feelings toward evangelicals. 23% of young non-Christians said "Christianity is changed from what it used to be and no longer looks like Jesus." An almost equal number of young Christians (22%) said the same. – The Barna Research Group 1. PROPHETS FOR PROFIT

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“When I camouflage my ‘greeds’ to look like ‘needs,’ that’s a shortage of character.”- Kirk Franklin, contemporary gospel artist quoted in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Creflo Dollar 2. JESUS CLEANS HOUSE Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.” The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them.” Matthew 21.12-14 ! Jesus felt like you do ! A closer look at Jesus passion

• His fiery anger over fleecing the flock “As for the high priest Annas…he was a great hoarder up of money...”- Titus Flavius Josephus, 1st Century Jewish Historian “Woe to the house of Annas! Woe to their serpent's hiss! They are High Priests; their sons are keepers of the treasury; their sons-in-law are guardians of the Temple; and their servants beat the people with staves.”– The Talmud

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Doves were the only sacrificial animal the poor could afford. They also related specifically to purification rites for women (Lev. 12:6) and lepers (Lev. 14:22).

Caesar divi f “…the money changers were street level representatives of a corrupt temple banking system.”- William Herzog, former dean and professor at Colgate Rochester Divinity School “When the revolutionaries took over the Temple at the start of the war [in 66AD], one of the first acts was to burn the records of debts.”– N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God I saw no temple in the city, for its Temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.Revelation 21.22 • His gentle compassion in healing the hurting Amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan and widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place. Jeremiah 7.5-6 God is not primarily interested in beautiful worship, He is interested in pure worship - and the two are very different from one another.

3. GOD’S PLAN TO SAVE THE WORLD

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