the gospel of john: jesus revealed… ·...

Intellectual materials are the property of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved.

Transcript September 6/7, 2014

The Gospel of John: Jesus Revealed Matt Hessel | John 2:1-25

If you are a guest I want to say welcome to you! We are glad you are here. I am one of the pastors and about a few weeks ago my wife gave birth to our third child. He is a little boy. A lot of you have told Kelly and me that you were praying for us and you have been asking about him and how Kelly is doing. I just want to say thank you and we very much appreciate that. We’ve felt love and support from our church family. Now whenever you have pictures of your kids or grandkids, you’ve got them on your phone, right? And you show them to people whenever you see them. That is great that you have this little screen to show pictures on. Well I have this enormous screen so we have a picture here of my son. There he is. He is a good looking kid, right? I am cool if we just leave that there all during the sermon. But he is doing well, his name is Sutton, and I am excited to introduce you to him eventually. Hey, we want to be a church that is about multiplication. That is what the church is called to do. One of the ways in which a church multiplies is through church planting. So September 7, in Chicago, Renewal Church of Chicago is launching its very first service in about two hours. Derrick Puckett is the lead pastor there. A lot of you know who Derrick is. He spent some time here and then he spent some time in Memphis. He was called to plant a church in Chicago. He is from Gary, Indiana and he’s got a heart for that city. We want to send Derrick, we are supporting him in about every way you can support a church planter. So as a church today I want to lift up Derrick and I want to lift up Renewal Church. If you are online and you are watching from Chicago and you don’t have a local church, Renewal Church in Chicago, Derrick Puckett the lead pastor, is a gospel centered church. It is about making Jesus famous and they want to renew Chicago. So as a church, before we get into the message today, let’s life Renewal up. Father, I want to thank You so much for the church. The church is Your bride. The church is Your creation. If the church was a manmade institution, it would have failed a long time ago. But God You have given us the church. You have said this is the way people will come to the gospel, this is the way my glory will be manifested until my Son comes back. Lord, we want to lift up Renewal Church in Chicago. I pray that You would bless that church, that Your presence is there, that fruit comes from that church, and that You help renew Chicago by using that church. Father I pray that You would protect Derrick, that You continue to gift him and continue to fill him with Your Spirit and that he boldly proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ and that many people come to know Jesus and many disciples are encouraged and edified and matured there. Father I pray that You give Derrick a long ministry run, that he is at that church for many, many years, and that after he is gone, long after he is done at Renewal, that church is still going. It is still multiplying. It is still bearing fruit for Your glory and Your honor. We thank You for the churches. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

The Gospel of John: Jesus Revealed September 6/7, 2014

Intellectual materials are the property of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 2

Go ahead and open your Bibles to John 2. So we are in our series, going through the Gospel of John, which is all about God becoming man. John states his purpose for this gospel in John 20:21. He says, “These things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, that He is the Son of God.” He is not saying, “I am going to write this and I hope you don’t miss this.” He is not giving us creative license to come up with our own purpose for his gospel. No, he is saying, “Here it is, bottom line, I don’t want you to miss this. Jesus is God.” That is the theme. That is the purpose. That is the intent of the gospel, so that we might believe that Jesus is who He says He is. We may believe in Him and have eternal life through His name. Now one of the nicknames that was given to the apostle John throughout history is the evangelist. So, with that in mind, is this just an evangelistic book? No, not at all, “Well, I thought the purpose was so I would believe, and if I already do believe, why should I be studying the Gospel of John?” That is a fair question. Let me try to answer it. You haven’t conquered the Gospel of John if you believe Jesus to be the Son of God. But if you let the Gospel of John conquer you, then your belief will only increase. You, yourself, start to look more and more like Jesus, who John is revealing to us. That is what the Bible calls sanctification. For Christians, that is the goal. The goal for us is to look more and more like Jesus and the only way that happens is by following Him. How can you follow someone if you don’t know what they say, if you don’t know what they did, or what they are like? That is why we are spending 30 plus weeks in the Gospel of John, because there is so much. There is so much to gain here, whether you are not a Christian yet, or you have been a Christ follower for most of your life, the Gospel of John will hit you. There is something to keep in mind while we are reading this. This is a narrative, John’s story. He is telling us about the life, resurrection, and ministry of Jesus. Most of the time, when we read scripture, we are looking for the application, right? Okay, how does this apply to my life? That is great. We should be looking for the application. But when we are reading narrative like the Gospel of John, we need to always have this question in the back of our minds. What does this passage tell me about Jesus? Now there is going to be plenty of application in John, plenty of it. But maybe the greatest implication for us is when we see the answer to that question. What does this passage tell me about Jesus? Who is He? What is He like? Now I may be way off here but I think a lot of times, I am talking to Christians here, we know about Jesus on a surface level, but when it comes to who He is, what He is like, sometimes we get stuck. Who is Jesus? “Well, He is the Son of God.” Yeah but, who is He? “Well He is my Lord and Savior.” Right, but who is He? At the core? What is He like? Sometimes we struggle to answer that, “Well, He is a wise and moral teacher. He cared about people. He loved people. He did some miracles. He died on the cross for my sin.” Is it fair to say that sometimes that is the extent of our answer? I know, for me, that has been the extent before. Now all of that is true about Jesus, of course all of that is true, but none of it gives me a better understanding of who He is. What is He like? We are called to follow Jesus, not just believe in Him, but to follow Him. If you are not a Christian then my prayer is that, at some point in the series, God may even do this today, that you would turn and follow Jesus. And if you are a Christ follower, then our chief aim, our goal, is to glorify God and follow Jesus. Here is the thing. You won’t follow someone you don’t know. You won’t. If I told you right now. If I said, “Hey I met this new guy. He is a great young leader. He is smart. He cares about people. He has done some really cool things,” and that is all I told you about him. Then I said,



“You should follow him wherever he goes. You should do what he does, you should be about what he is about, and you should model him. You should sacrifice like he sacrificed.” If that is all I told you, what is your action going to be? It is either going to be, “Matt you are crazy,” or extreme skepticism, or, at the very best, you are going to have some questions, “Who is he? What is he like? Is he humble or is he arrogant? Is he wise or is he foolish? Is he bold or is he a coward? Is he strong or is he weak? Is he funny? Does he have a personality? Who is he? What is he like?” Maybe if growth in Christ seems to be stuck, maybe if discipleship has seemed to flat-‐line, maybe it is because you don’t know who Jesus is and what He is like. Now if discipleship has flat-‐lined, if our growth in Christ has seemed to have stalled, usually the first diagnosis is some sort of un-‐repented sin. Sin can certainly be a deterrent to growth, not to grace, but to growth. But maybe it is just because you don’t know who Jesus is, or you have forgotten. The understanding of who someone is, that is the foundation of any relationship. That is true of all your relationships. It certainly is true of our relationship with Christ. That is what is so great in the Gospel of John, reading narrative, because it reveals to us who Jesus is. Jesus can be known. So whenever we are reading the Gospel of John, when we are studying this, always be asking yourself, “What does this tell me about who Jesus is,” because you are only going to follow someone you know. So in chapter 1 John is really kind of setting the table for what is going on. In chapter 2 he is going to start rolling on his pursuit to prove to us that Jesus is God. He wastes no time. So look in verse 1. “On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to that wedding with His disciples.” Alright, a Jewish wedding in the First Century, this was much different than our weddings. There wasn’t just a ceremony, then everybody went to a reception, then everybody went home. No. It was much more than that. A Jewish wedding was kind of like an open house that would last one to two weeks. One to two weeks of a non-‐stop party. See I knew I liked the Bible. Yeah it is awesome. This would have also been the highlight of the couple’s life. For most people, the vast majority of the Jews in this time, this was the pinnacle of their lives. It would never get better than this. They would never be treated better than they were during this wedding celebration. They would have literally been treated like royalty. People would have paraded them around the town, carrying them on their shoulders. They would have gotten whatever they asked for. They would even sometimes wear crowns. This was a big deal. Weddings were no joke. This was the biggest social event for a person in an extremely social culture. That is the scene that Jesus came to. Look at verse 3, “When the wine ran out,” okay that is a problem. Not like that, relax. Saturday night laughed at that too. Here is what it is about, okay? Here is what it means for the wine to run out. This was actually a bad thing. So at a wedding the bridegroom was responsible to provide enough food and wine for all their guests for the entire wedding. So that meant one to two week’s worth of food and wine for all of your guests and you did not run out of wine. You just didn’t do that. If you ran out of wine, that was a huge social embarrassment. It was shameful. That was a no-‐no. On top of that, not only was it shameful and an embarrassment, if you ran out of wine at your wedding you could actually be sued. So I come to your wedding and you run out of wine, I could sue you. That means there is major drama that has entered into this wedding. Major drama at a wedding, who would have heard of such a thing? “When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, ‘They have



no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.’” Woman, whoa, what does this have to do with me? Excuse me. Moms, be honest, what is your reaction when you hear that? Jesus, right now get over here. I am 32 years old. If I said, “Woman, what’s this got to do with me?” to my mom I am still getting slapped. It is still happening. That is pretty disrespectful, right? What is going on Jesus? That is a little disrespectful. It is actually not. The Greek word for woman there is actually very respectful and gentle. Mary only appears twice in the Gospel of John, right here and then at the crucifixion. Jesus at the crucifixion uses the exact same Greek word and says, “Woman,” and it is a very tender and gentle moment when Jesus is turning Mary over to the apostle John for him to take care of her. That is the same word He is using right here. It is not disrespectful, it is respectful. What He is doing is He is gently rebuking her. Well, why is He rebuking her? All she said was, “The wine ran out.” Jesus, what is going on here? Well up until this point in His life, Jesus would have done anything that His mother asked Him to do. He would have obeyed her, followed her, and followed her direction. In fact He was probably her primary provider. The Bible never talks about Joseph’s death – Mary’s husband and Jesus’ earthly father. The Bible never mentions his death but church history tells us that he was most likely dead at this point. As Mary’s oldest son, Jesus was now her primary provider because in that culture women had to have a man providing for them. If their husband was gone, then it would be their oldest son. If their oldest son was gone or they didn’t have any sons, they were in bad luck. That is the culture they were in. So Jesus is now her primary provider. Mary would have been used to leaning into Jesus. She would have been used to asking Him for things. She would have been directing Him. Okay, great, but still why the rebuke? The reason He is rebuking her is that at this point, starting right now, Jesus will no longer be directed by His mother, but by His determined hours, “My hour has not yet come.” What is His hour? His crucifixion. That is what is directing Him now, not someone or something else, but the plan of redemption that God the Father laid out in front of Him, the plan of redemption that He would accomplish for us is finally going to be completed at His death and resurrection. That is His hour. That is what is directing Him. He can’t let anyone or anything else direct Him, not even His own mother. And Peter tries to do this too with Jesus in Matthew 16. He tries to direct Jesus. What does Jesus do? He is a lot harsher with Peter. He actually calls Peter Satan. As it is translated in the Greek it means Satan. There is no confusion about it. It is not good. But here Jesus actually is very gently with Mary. His own mother, but He is still going to rebuke her. “Mother I can’t even be directed by you now, but only by my determined hour.” Throughout the Gospel of John we are going to see Jesus repeatedly responding to God’s direction, to the Lord’s call and now to the pressures of man. There is always going to be a struggle to respond to the pressures of man in this world and not the call and direction of the Lord because what if it costs me something? I am feeling the pressure from my job. I am feeling the pressure from family members and friends. I am feeling the pressure from the world because the world seems to think that Christians are crazy, that they are just a bunch of right-‐winged Ned Flanders who need a crutch because they can’t deal with the reality of life. You might be thinking, “If I respond to God’s direction, if I respond to the Lord’s call, then it might cost me something. It might cost me money, or career advancement, or it might cost me status. It might cost



me some relationships.” The answer to all that is yes. Yes, it is going to cost you something. It might cost you how people view you in their lives, which by the way you have no control over anyway. It might cost you that. But right now elsewhere in the world, it is costing Christians their heads. Following Christ right now is costing people their lives. If you want to follow Jesus, it is going to cost you something. Count the costs, count them. But no matter what it will cost you personally to follow Jesus, that cost will never, never outweigh the reward, not even close. And we see that throughout the Bible, in fact it is promised throughout Scripture. Here is just one. Jesus says in Matthew 19:29, he says, “Anyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or brother or children or lands for my namesake will receive a hundredfold and inherit eternal life.” So anyone that has lost career family possessions friends for me. You will be paid back more than you can imagine. The cost doesn’t even come close to the reward. Don’t be distracted by the pressure of this world and the pressure of man because Jesus is specifically saying to you, “Come follow me. Come follow me. Please trust me. Follow me.” Jesus repeatedly was presented with the temptation to respond to the pressure of this world and He never did. He responded to the direction of the Lord. So here is the question I want to ask you. Am I directing Jesus or is Jesus directing me? Jesus we do this. Jesus we do that. Even if those are good, and unselfish, and just, generous things. Even if those are good things, am I really just saying, “My will be done and Jesus will you take care of this for me?” How did Mary respond to this gentle rebuke? Look at verse 5. “His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever He tells you.’” Her response is faith. Mary says, “Jesus, I know who You are. I know who You are so whatever You say, whatever You do, I am in. I am all in.” Mary right here goes from the director to the directed. I think that is the hardest part for us a lot of the times, isn’t it? It is really cool being the director. That is security. That is control. I know what I am doing. It is really hard to go to the directed. That takes faith. That is where the response of faith comes in. Which do you want to be, director or directed? You can’t be both. So let’s keep going in verse 6, “Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them, ‘Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.’ So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and he did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.’ This, the first of His signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested His glory. And His disciples believed in Him.” So every fraternity on campus now wants Jesus at their parties, right? That was an awkward laugh. So what does this tell us about Jesus? Well number one He is generous, obviously. He just gave about 180 gallons of good wine to this couple. That would have been an extremely generous gift. Number two He is humble. He just transformed water to wine and doesn’t draw any attention to Himself. Only the disciples and the servants knew what He did. Rest assured if I just turned water into wine, I would make sure all of you knew I did that. In fact I would probably give you some cheese to go with it. But Jesus doesn’t do any of that. It takes humility right?



Three, it shows His deity. He just transformed physical elements. He just did something that is impossible by the laws of nature. The only way to defy the natural law is to be the creator of the natural law. Only the Creator can change creation. That is not all that is here. Don’t sell this story short as just some cheap party trick, water to wine, okay cool. That is the first sign but really what is the significance? For the first sign why not heal some sick kids? Why not feel people who are dead broke because the Romans have done everything but wipe them out? Why not for the first sign do something that is tangibly good instead of making sure some people at a party have enough to drink? Jesus this sounds like a miss to me. Maybe Jesus you could show me a sign. You know things at the office aren’t good right now. How about showing me a sign by firing my boss? If you are sitting next to your boss, don’t respond. How about my neighbor’s dog at 3:00 in the morning that won’t stop barking? How about You send some lightning? Boom, “Thus saith the Lord.” That would be a sign right? But seriously Jesus, give me a sign, a real one. If You can give me a job, You can heal my friend’s kid that has cancer. You can make peace out of the mess that is in the world right now. I believe but water to wine, it is just not doing it for me Jesus. This had nothing to do with what Jesus can do physically. This was all about what Jesus will do spiritually. Every sign that John writes about in his gospel, every single one of them, has a spiritual implication underlining the whole thing that John wants us to see. Water to wine was about what Jesus will do spiritually, how He will transform us spiritually. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. The old has gone and the new has come.” Water to wine was to show us transformation. Jesus turns water into wine just like He turns sinners into saints. That is the point. That is what John wants us to see. It is all about transformation. Forget the physical elements. This was all part of the plan of redemption. The only way to reconcile simple man with the righteous God is to transform him completely. But water can’t turn itself into wine. We need the Creator to turn ourselves into a new creation. That is what John wants us to see. That is why it is the first sign, and maybe the most important one. If we see this, if we see transformation, it all starts there and there is still more to it. There is still more to this sign. In the Jewish culture wine represented joy. In fact you could have used wine as a euphemism for joy. Back to what Mary said, “Jesus, they have no wine.” We could read it like this, “Jesus, they have no joy. Come on there is going to be shame and embarrassment and disappointment. They have no joy.” There is joy in this world right? If we can agree on that we can find joy in this world, right? It exists. There is joy in a satisfying job. There is joy in it. There is joy in a great vacation. There is joy in good friendships. There is joy in Sunday night football. There is joy in this world. It exists. But at some point the wine of this world, it is going to run out. It will run out. Maybe you are there right now. The joy is gone. Maybe you’ve been there and back and now you are gone again. The joy has come in and now it is gone again. Maybe you are not there yet but eventually the wine of this world will run out. Eventually a life without Christ is a life without wine. It is a life with no joy. It is a universal statement. “Jesus, they have no joy.” And how does Jesus respond? He fills it to the brim with more than enough of the good wine. And the master of the feast said, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine.” We understand that right? I don’t need to draw a picture of why people would serve the



cheap wine after everyone had drunk the good wine. I don’t need to draw a picture of that. “But you have kept the good wine until now.” Not the boxed wine, but the good wine. What is John saying? He is saying, “For Christians, the best comes last. The best comes last.” When someone is transformed by Jesus, when the wine of the world runs out, Jesus fills that person with a better, more satisfying, never ending joy. Everyone needs to know the joy of knowing Jesus. And if you already do know Jesus, you can never know Him well enough. Your cup will always have room for more. The more intimately you know Jesus, the better the wine tastes. Do you really want the boxed wine from Meijer or do you want the wine that has aged for decades and they won’t list the price on the menu because it is too expensive. Which one do you want? The great news is that it is already paid for. You can have it if you want it. How good does something taste when it is free, especially when you realize you can’t afford it? “But you have kept the good wine until now.” The joy in Jesus gets better with age, not the age of your years, but the age of your possession. There are joys in life that I am tasting right now that I had no idea existed ten years ago, no clue. And there are some of you right now who are tasting joys in Christ that I have no idea what they taste like. I can’t wait to but I have no clue. Keep pursuing Jesus not with the intention of trying to grab hold and earn salvation but with the intention of grabbing hold of more joy. Increased joy is a product of increased discipleship. Be a disciple that chases after the joy in Jesus and you will always be satisfied, always. We are going to switch gears here now. In chapter 1 John the Baptist calls Jesus the Lamb of God. He says, “You are the Lamb of God” and that is a title we see for Jesus throughout Scripture. We see characteristics, lamb-‐like characteristics in chapter 1: joy, generosity, humility, gentleness. Those are lamb-‐like characteristics we see at the wedding, but that makes the second half of chapter 2 a little confusing because Jesus, He is not going to look very lamb-‐like here. Verse 13, “The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple, He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-‐changers sitting there.” Alright, now here is the context. The Passover was the center of the Jewish calendar. This was the biggest festival of the year that celebrated God delivering Israel out of Egypt, out of slavery – the Exodus. This is a big deal. So Passover was the center of the calendar. Jerusalem was the center, religiously and politically, of Israel and the temple was the center of Jerusalem. So on Passover week, in Jerusalem, in the temple, that was the place to be. People would come from all over the world to worship the Lord in the temple. So needless to say, it got pretty crowded. We are talking like Apple Store when a new iPhone is released crowded. If somebody doesn’t get out of the way, stop bumping into me, if I don’t get my new iPhone soon, that type of crowded. So people would come from all over the world to worship the Lord in the temple. They would come from so far that most people didn’t bring animals to sacrifice in the temple. That was just too far to travel with animals. So vendors would setup shop in the temple to sell sacrificial animals. Hey, we want to buy this animal right here on the spot. Because people had foreign currencies and to be acceptable in the temple they had to be changed into Jewish currency, well, money vendors would setup shop too so they could exchange money right there in the temple. This could have started off with good intentions, it could have. Maybe they wanted to provide animals for people who didn’t have them. Maybe they wanted to exchange money for people right there on the spot. Even if that was the intention it quickly went south. It became a scam. The money changers were



known for charging ridiculous exchange rates. It was extortion. And the vendors were known for jacking up the prices on animals because they could. Supply and demand was heavily in their favor and they took advantage of it. If we read Jewish history we find that the priests were often in on it. So the temple had basically turned into a shady farmer’s market, not a place to worship God. That is what He sees when He enters the temple. Verse 15, “And making a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen. And He poured out the coins of the money-‐changers and overturned their tables. And He told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.’ His disciples remembered what was written,” this is Psalm 69, “’Zeal for your house will consume me.’” So what is this all about? Jesus goes into the temple, makes a whip, turns into Indiana Jones and just goes off. That doesn’t really seem lamb-‐like to me. Lamb of God, I don’t see it there. I thought Jesus was supposed to be gentle, and meek, and loving. Like godliness is gentleness, right? I don’t remember seeing it written in Galatians that the fruit of the spirit is love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and (make a whip) self-‐control. That is not written there. Jesus is meek, and gentle and loving; Sermon on the Mount, right? But now He is in the temple flipping tables. He is kicking people out. He has a whip. As awesome as that sounds, it doesn’t sound like the lamb. How do we reconcile this? Well we don’t have to reconcile it because Jesus is as God-‐like here in the temple as He was in the Sermon on the Mount, as He was when He fed the 5,000. And He is as God-‐like in the temple as He was when He hung on the cross. Here is how we reconcile it. Here is the problem and why we might struggle with it. The gentle, meek, mild-‐mannered Jesus, those characteristics are far too often the only characteristics of Jesus that we focus on. So we start to follow a Jesus who doesn’t resemble a Jesus the New Testament reveals. We are tempted to turn Jesus into this fairy-‐tale, blonde haired, blue eyed Jesus who is a weak, mild-‐mannered guy who only exists as my personal vending machine. Here is the thing and I want to say this carefully. If the Jesus I worship and the Jesus I follow isn’t who Jesus really is, then all I am doing is worshiping an idol that I have named Jesus. To worship and follow Jesus means we worship and follow Jesus for whom He really is not our own desire or concept of who we think He is or who we want Him to be. How do we know who Jesus really is? How do we know? Right here, He can be known. Yes, Jesus is gentle and mild. We see that throughout the gospels. But in different places we also see He got mad with righteous anger. He was bold. He didn’t care about what people thought about Him. All He cared about is what God the Father thought about Him. He wasn’t afraid of a little confrontation that honored the Lord. Not to demean someone or not to boost His own ego. Not confrontation for confrontation sake, but if it honored the Lord. He was passionate! Be passionate like Jesus is. Maybe you haven’t noticed but I am kind of a passionate guy. When I get excited or passionate about something I get fired up so passages like this really get me excited because there is no way that Jesus wasn’t passionate here. He’s got a whip in the temple. Was He like [whispering], “Hey get out. Go ahead and exit to the left. Come back next time.” No, He raises His voice right here. There is no way He didn’t raise His voice when He called the Pharisees “white washed tombs and vipers,” because He was passionate.



But passion doesn’t only reveal itself in the form of an elevated voice. Jesus also showed His passion in silent self-‐sacrifice and humility. That is why the crucifixion is called the passion of the Christ. Remember the same hand that held the whip is the same hand that took the nail on the cross. Yes, Jesus is the Lion and the Lamb but in the temple we see that He is also the Lion of Judah. He is the Lion and the Lamb. Okay, alright, so why is He so upset? Why the need for the lion? Well, number one, He is upset with the corruption in the temple. The temple was a place to come and worship God and people were being taken advantage of in God’s house. And guess who was leading the charge? The religious leaders. They boldly proclaimed the holiness of God but failed to practice that same holiness themselves. So studying that this week, guess what question I had to ask myself? Do I boldly proclaim the holiness of God and then fail to practice that same holiness myself? As much as it hurts to admit it, actually it is frustrating that there are times I fail at this. Did I really just slip here? Did I lose my cool? Did I fall into that again? I just preached. Gosh, sometimes I fail at practicing the holiness I proclaim. I praise God for the Lion and the Lamb, because the Lion draws me back. When you need to be drawn back, which voice is easier to hear, the Lamb or the Lion? If Jesus is only a lion then all we get is whips and flipping tables. And a lion is not very self-‐sacrificing is it? On the other hand we are commanded throughout Scripture to “fear the Lord,” fear the Lord, “The beginning of knowledge is fear of the Lord.” Jesus Himself says, “Fear the Lord.” But how do you fear the Lamb? Olaf from Frozen is more frightening than a lamb. Jesus has to be both. He’s got to be both. We, ourselves, we want to be both. We want to be lions, we want to be lambs. I’ve got a two year old daughter. With her, I am a lamb. I am gentle, I’m easy. She is really snuggling right now so whenever she says, “Daddy, can we snuggle?” the answer is always, “Yes.” But if somebody tries to mess with her, if somebody tries to hurt her, you better believe the lion is going to come out in me. If somebody does try to hurt her, if somebody does try to mess with her and I am only a lamb, what are you going to say about me? You are going to say, “Matt, you are a terrible father. Step up and be a lion.” And if I am only a lion with her, what are you going to say about me? “Matt, you are a terrible father. You are abusive. Relax, be a lamb with her.” We’ve got to be a lion and a lamb in the right spots. Jesus is both. He is both in the right spots. The lion represents the boldness and the truth of Christ. The lamb represents the grace and the love of Christ. We have to have both in the right spots because all truth and no love, that is brutality. All love and no truth and that is hypocrisy. Christians I am asking you this. Which one are you? Which one? It is easy to be a lion, really it is. Everybody can be bold. All you need is a simple pep talk and an energy drink. That is all you need. But if all you are is a lion you will probably just drive the people away and never draw them back. There is such a thing as righteous anger but if anger is constant and it is out of balance it can turn into out of control rage. At the same time it is easy to be just a lamb. It is easy to just throw our hands up and say, “Hey grace and love to everything, grace and love.” But grace and love to everything is not gracious and it is not loving. Love without truth has no substance. It is actually harmful. For whatever reason there is this temptation to think that passivity equals piety. The Scripture never paints that picture. You’ve got to be both the lion and the lamb and that is the hard part. What I found out more often than not, sometimes the hard way, is that the only way to be the lion and the lamb is by the grace of God. That is why Jesus says, “Come follow me and I will show you,” because we can’t do it on our own.



The second reason is He is upset is with the irreverence. Forget the corruption of the money changers and the vendors. Forget that. Even if they weren’t corrupt they were still an irreverent distraction. Remember the temple is a place to come and worship God. So think of what this would have been like. This place would have been packed with people. The temple would have been packed. That is okay. That part is okay. Now throw into that tables everywhere, the sound of clinging coins, animals all over the place (God knows what it smelled like), and you hear people arguing over price. I don’t know about you but nothing helps me focus on the Lord during a time of prayer and worship if I have an ox step on me and I hear some dude yell out, “Two for one, two for one.” I’m ready to go at that point. The temple was a place to worship God and they turned it into a chaotic marketplace. Jesus isn’t having it. He is not. He just started flipping tables. He starts driving the distractions out. That is why it is so important for us to remember that He is a lion and a lamb because if our understanding of the Lord, if our knowledge of who He is, if that is lost, then an irreverent spirit can settle into our lives. And irreverence towards God will always restrict worship of God. Always. Irreverence is like hitting the mute button on your phone. You wouldn’t be irreverent to a lion, would you? I don’t think so. You are going to have a respectful fear of that lion. And when Jesus is the Lion that we are to reverently fear, how sweet is it that we also understand that He is the meek and gentle Lamb that we can run to without fear. Then we are ready to worship Jesus because we know who He is. Just like you won’t follow someone you don’t know, you won’t worship someone you don’t know. You won’t. What does this mean for us? The temple doesn’t exist anymore. By the way, Jesus said that would happen. It was destroyed in 70 A.D. by the Romans. The only thing left now is the western wall, aka the wailing wall. So if you see pictures of Jerusalem and you see people praying in front of a wall and reading Scripture, that is the western wall. That is all that is left of the temple. Since the temple was the place to worship God and that doesn’t exist anymore, well I guess we don’t have to worry about money changers and vendors and we don’t have to worry about flipping tables and we don’t have to worry about Jesus cracking a whip, right? Wrong. The first thought is to think the church is the new temple. Yeah, we are going to worship here but the church building is not the new temple. 1 Corinthians 3:16 says, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” Paul goes on to say, “For God’s temple is holy.” You are the temple. So there is no physical temple anymore. But because of Jesus, if you follow Jesus, if you know Jesus, God’s Spirit dwells in you. You are the temple. The temple is not the church building, it is the church body. So of course we are going to be reverent in here, of course. But reverence in here starts with reverence in here [in the heart]. You may not like the style or worship in the church. That is okay. That is completely okay. But if you know those leaders are reverent in their hearts, if they are about God’s glory and His honor, then style is a mute point. God cares about reverence, His glory, and His honor. Style is a secondary issue at that point. So let me ask you something. If you are a Christian, God’s Spirit dwells in you and you are the temple, what tables in your heart need to be flipped? Is there a distraction to worship in you? When you are here on a weekend worshipping are you worshipping at home by reading your Bible alone during the



week? Are you thinking about Him or the next deal you are going to close? Are you focusing on the Lord or the game? Are you praising Him or the thought of your next vacation? I’ve done this. There have been times I’ve been here on a Sunday morning worshipping the Lord singing a song word for word. And when the song is over I have no idea what I just sang, no idea. I don’t even know how the words came out of my mouth because I was thinking about work, or playing golf, or swimming with my kids. All good things, all good things, but they became irreverent tables because I allowed my focus to go to them and not Jesus. So if you are a Christian, allow Jesus to come in and ask Him to flip some tables. Because for a Christian the whip in the temple actually is an act of grace because it draws our focus back to Jesus and it drowns out the distractions. It drowns them out. Let’s wrap this up. Verse 18, “So the Jews said to Him, ‘What sign do you show us for doing these things?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘It has taken forty-‐six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But He was speaking about the temple of His body. When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.” Here is what happened. Jesus just claimed to be God because only God can raise the dead. Underline the first part of 22 in your Bibles. “When therefore He was,” keyword was, “raised from the dead,” that is a definitive statement. Remember John is writing this after the resurrection. He is saying this after this actually happened. Jesus physically rose from the dead. I saw Him. Paul said in 1 Corinthians that over 500 people saw Jesus in the flesh after the resurrection. Only God can raise Himself from the dead and if His resurrection isn’t proof enough, Jesus is calling the shot right here. It is one thing to raise yourself from the dead. It is another thing to say it is going to happen. He is saying, “Without question, without confusion, I don’t want you to miss this, I am God. I am God.” And how did the disciples respond? “They believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken to them.” Of course they believed in Jesus but John doesn’t say that right here. What does he say they believed in? They believed in the Word, they believed in Scripture. This is just my opinion but I believe that was very intentional. I think that was meant for everyone in history who would never see Jesus in the flesh after the resurrection. That is all of us. Meaning we can have the exact same response as the disciples who saw Jesus in the flesh after the resurrection. Their response was to believe in the Scripture. The Scripture says, “He is God. He is the only thing worthy of our worship. He is the Lion and the Lamb. He is the source of eternal joy. He did die for you specifically. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what you have done, I don’t care where you have been. He loves you.” That is the same Word the disciples believed. They saw Jesus in the flesh, in the flesh. And that same Word also says, “Come follow Me.” All that in mind, come follow Me because the reward is far greater than the cost. So the ball is in our court. Come and see, come and think, come and hang out because John is really just getting warmed up. We are going to enter a time into worship to respond to the Lord, first through communion. This is maybe the most reverent thing we can do in worship to the Lord. It is just a time where we can be quiet before Him. We get to focus on the fact that He is the Son of God, that He is the Messiah, that He is Christ, that He did die and walk out of a grave so that we could do the same thing one day because without Jesus we can’t. Without Jesus we have no hope. But there is hope and the only hope is in Christ.



So take some time in communion and reflect on that. Then after that, after the service is over, we can respond by giving of our tithes and offerings. That is just another way to say, “Hey I surrender. I surrender. Jesus, You are bigger than anything including my finances. I am going to bless You like You’ve blessed me.” The servers are going to come. Take time to worship in communion and then John is going to lead us in some songs. Let me pray for us. Father You are great. You say that You cannot and You will not dwell in tents and tabernacles and temples. An earthly house can’t contain your glory. So I don’t know how we can. I have no clue but I am going to put my faith in that promise that Your Spirit dwell in us. I know that He does. You have shown me. But Father strengthen our faith. Let us believe that your Son really is the Son of God, that He did die for us so that we could be with You. He did resurrect. He is the only person to follow. Father give us the faith to do that. Encourage us, edify us, build us up, bring us to You. There are people here right now and Father they don’t know You. Open their hearts and let the Word ring true. Father for believers in here I pray that we are just built up by Your Word, by Your Spirit. Let us be a temple that is reverent to You. That we praise You in reverent worship and that we give You glory and You honor and that You fill us with joy. How good are You that You would say, “You come to me and worship me and I will fill you with joy?” I don’t know how that works but it’s true Father, thank You. God you are good. You are Creator and we are Your creation and we love You. Thank You for grace. Thank You for letting us know You in Your Word. It is in Jesus’ name. Amen.

the gospel of john: jesus revealed… ·...

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