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Mariners Church Weekend Messages
March 1 - Tables Overturned: The King with Righteous Anger - Eric Geiger
00:34:26
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Welcome to Mariners Church Weekend Message Podcast, inspiring people to follow Jesus and fearlessly change the world. Discover your purpose and get connected by visiting MarinersChurch.org or click the link in the show notes.
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Amen. So good to see you today. If we haven't met, my name's Eric. I'm the senior pastor here. We are walking through the major events in this week leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus and then the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. And the event that we just read is the event that happened on Monday when Jesus walked into the temple, created a ruckus and cleansed the temple of money changers. And that was on Monday. On Sunday, which is the events that we looked at last week was known as the triumphal entry, which when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. So Sunday was very different from Monday. Sunday, he humbly arrives into Jerusalem, letting people know by riding a donkey that he was fulfilling an Old Testament prophecy, but also showing himself to be a very different kind of king. Not one who rides a horse ready to do battle, but one who rides a donkey humbly coming to save people. Then on Sunday night, according to the passage we just read, he went and inspected the temple. And then on Monday, he goes into the temple and overthrows tables. And in the temple, which is the center of the. It's the hub of the religious and cultural life in Jerusalem. This set the religious leaders on a fast track to have him killed. And he will be killed on the Friday. So Sunday, he humbly arrives on a donkey. Monday, with anger, he overthrows tables in the temple. Sunday, you see a humble picture of Jesus. Monday you see an angry Jesus, which some people wrestle with. Some are like, I like Sunday Jesus better than Monday Jesus, the humble, gentle king. And then he's still king on Monday, he's showing his kingship, his authority by overthrowing the table, showing his authority over the temple. But some people wrestle with the passage that we just read. What kind of God is this that you Christians believe? Because us Christians believe that Jesus is God the Son and he's angry. What kind of God gets angry? Maybe you've asked the question. Maybe you don't like the text that we read, because this is giving us a picture of angry Jesus. What kind of God is this that gets angry? The answer is a God who is a loving and gracious father is the kind of God that gets angry. I know this because I have daughters. I didn't know I could love my daughters as much as I love them until I had them. It opened up A new part of me that I didn't even know. I love them so much. And because I love them so much, I'm angered at anything that can destroy them. I'm angered at materialism. Materialism threatens to enter into my life, into our home, and the life of my daughters. And it gives the false promise that if you have something, you will have real life. If you have a possession, you will have a greater identity. And I am angered at materialism because materialism can ruin who they are. I'm angered at false religion which would tell my daughters that for God to love you, you have to live a certain way to get his attention. You earn your way to God. I hate false religion. I'm angered at false religion because if my daughters would believe that, that would cause them to think that they've done enough good things to get to God, which would turn them into arrogant and prideful and judgmental of other people that would corrode who they are. So I'm angered at anything that would harm them. And so what kind of God gets angry? The God who is loving and gracious. He's angered at anything that can destroy you because he loves you. So I don't want you to look at the passage that we just read and step back from it because you're wrestling with, who is this God that gets angry? It's really good that he's angered because it shows you how fiercely he loves you. In fact, people have sometimes wrongly thought that anger is the opposite of love. But no, anger is often an expression of love. Indifference is the opposite of love. If I was indifferent towards what would hurt my daughters, I would not be loving them well. So don't wrestle with Jesus being angry in this passage. Embrace it as his fierce love for you. On the other hand, there's other people who love the passage that we just read for the wrong reasons. They love it because, oh, good, angry Jesus. That means my anger must be good. Some people read the passage of Jesus being angry and use Jesus's anger to justify their own anger. And before you declare your own anger to be righteous, just like Jesus was righteous, and because he called people out, I'm gonna call people out. Because Jesus roughed up the temple, I'm gonna rough people up. Before you come, read your own anger into the text. It's probably wise to slow down and audit your anger, comparing your anger to Jesus's anger. Let me give you a real quick checklist to see if your anger is righteous. Here's a righteous anger checklist. Jesus's anger Was rare. In fact, we do see Jesus get angry in the Gospels, but it's rare. There's times he's angry at the religious leaders. Cause he. He was frustrated with them for causing people to care about the outside of their life and not their heart. He was angry when people stopped children from entering his presence. And he's angered here in the temple. But when you read the Gospels, you don't see this long list of Jesus being angry. This was a rare occasion where he expressed his anger this way. And so if you're always angry, it's likely not righteous anger. And then Jesus anger was reflective. In the passage that we read, Jesus went and inspected the temple on Sunday night before he walks into the temple on Monday. So this wasn't just an outburst of rage, that he had to let it out to make himself feel better. No, this was very thoughtful, reflective, intentional anger. As he inspected the temple, walks in and then expresses his anger. And then his anger was redemptive. All of his anger was directed to rescue people, to defend the Gentiles, which I'll get to in a moment. We know that Jesus, as he walks into the temple and overthrows the tables, he understands that he's going to be put on a fast track to be crucified, which will happen just several days later. And when he goes to be crucified, he's doing so by. To rescue people to himself from every. Every tribe, tongue and nation. So I don't want you to fear this passage. Jesus being angry is actually good for you. Nor do I want you to use this passage to justify your own anger. Instead, I want you to allow. This passage is a very important text that we're studying together this weekend, because it's in this week that changed the world and changed your world. I want you to allow the text, the scripture, to speak to you as it was intended by God. And so you would want to ask the question, as we study this text, why was Jesus so angered? And you saw that he walked into the temple and he overthrew tables where money changers were. Jesus was not angered that there was money changers. He was angered at where the money changers were set up. In fact, let me explain. The temple, according to the book of Exodus, which is the second book in the Bible, had a tax or a gift that you were required if you went there to worship. And so if you came from another nation, you would need to be able to change money so that you could give. You also were asked to buy a sacrifice that you could sacrifice to God. If you came from another nation, you would need some money changing so that you could purchase the sacrifice. So it wasn't wrong that they were exchanging money. It was where they were exchanging money. They were exchanging money in the court of the Gentiles. The court of the Gentiles was an outer section of the temple. And it was the only place in the entire world that a non Jewish person could go and worship Yahweh. If you were Jewish, you could be in the outer court of the Jews. If you were a priest, you could be in the holy place. But if you were a Gentile, this is the only place that you could go. So if you had immigrated to Israel and you had said, I'm going to live under the covenant commands of God, I'm going to be in a divine relationship with God, and you wanted to worship the one true God, Yahweh, the only place you could do it was in the court of the Gentiles. If you had immigrated to Israel and you wanted to worship him, that's where it was. If you were from another nation and you heard of this one true God, Yahweh, and by his grace you were brought into a relationship with him and you wanted to worship this one true God, the only place in the world you could do it was the court of the Gentiles. And here's what happened and why Jesus was so angered is tables were set up and the only place you could worship. And money changing was happening, corroding, corrupting the place where Gentiles would gather to experience God and worship him. And Jesus was so angered. Now Jewish people in Jesus day would have loved it if Jesus had cleansed the temple of the Gentiles. But Jesus was there to cleanse the temple for the Gentiles so that they could worship him. And so Jesus taught this as he overthrew the tables. We read this verse, verse 17. He was teaching them. Is it not written, my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations? The court of the Gentiles. This is supposed to be where they worship God, but you have made it a den of thieves. Now this is one sentence with so much weight. If you read the scripture, you may just read over it. I want to show you the significance of this one sentence that Jesus gives us. He says, my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. Notice I have that underlined and also have a den of thieves underlined. Those are two Old Testament passages that Jesus puts together in this one statement. As he teaches, as He's Filled with anger in the temple. And I want to take you on a journey for a couple of moments if you really want to see what this week means and what this day means. I, I want to show you the passages in the Old Testament that Jesus was quoting from. It will help you. It will give you a deeper understanding. Do you want to go there? All right. I mean, you're here, you might as well make the most of it. So Jesus is teaching in the temple of Herod. He's going to quote from prophets in the Old Testament who prophesied when there was the temple of Solomon. Solomon was the son of David and a major temple was built in Jerusalem. That temple was. When Jesus arrived 400 plus years later, that temple had been destroyed. God had destroyed the temple. When he dragged away the southern kingdom of Israel into Babylonian captivity, that temple was destroyed. So Solomon's temple is not there. When Jesus is in the temple, that's Herod's temple, But Solomon's Temple 400 years earlier is the passages that Jesus quoted from. Are you tracking with me so far? So here's the passages Jesus quoted from. He quoted from two Old Testament prophets, Jeremiah and Isaiah. If you're new to studying the Bible, let me explain. The Bible is the Old Testament, which is before Jesus. Then Jesus comes, and then there's the New Testament. The prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah are in the Old Testament. So if you have a Bible, you open it up, you see Matthew. It's the first Bible, first book of the Bible in the New Testament. That way forward is the New Testament, that way backward, which is 2/3 of the Bible, is the Old Testament. And the prophets in the Old Testament, they prophesied about the Messiah who would come. Us Christians believe that's Jesus. And they also would prophesy to the people in their day. So Jeremiah and Isaiah were prophets in the day when there was a Solomon's temple. And here it was Jeremiah's prophecy. Jeremiah led and ministered and prophesied among people in Israel who thought everything was cool between them and God because they had a temple. But it wasn't because they didn't really worship God. They worshiped a lot of little g gods, idols in their day. And they also oppressed people in their culture. They took advantage of the vulnerable. And so God, through the prophet Jeremiah, scolds them, rebukes them, says this in verse 11 of Jeremiah 7 has this house, referring to the temple which bears my name, become. Now notice the underline. This is what Jesus quoted from a den of robbers, in your view? Yes. I too have seen it. This is the Lord's declaration. Here's what God was telling people 400 years before Jesus. You think you have the temple, but you are robbing from God because you're taking advantage of other people and you're stealing worship from the one true God. So when Jesus shows up, overthrows tables, and he says, hey, this is a den of robbers, everybody would have known. Oh man, he's quoting from way back in the day. He's saying we're the same, that we're oppressing people, that we're stealing worship from the one true God. So he quoted from Jeremiah. He also quoted from Isaiah. Isaiah was a prophet during the same time. And Isaiah said this about the temple. And notice as we read, you will see that God wanted people from all different tribes and nations to be able to worship him in the temple. Verse 6 of Isaiah 56. As for the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord and minister to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord and to become his servants. All who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it, and who hold firmly to my covenant, I will bring them to my holy mountain and let them rejoice in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will acceptable on my altar. This is the part Jesus quoted for My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. Here is clearly what Jesus is teaching as he overthrows the table on Monday when he's angered. This is supposed to be the place where people from every tribe, tongue and nation can meet with God. Clearly Jesus cares for people from every single people group we know because on Friday, just several days from this moment in, he's going to be crucified on a cross to rescue people from every single tribe, tongue and nation. Now let me give you one more deeper cut. If you, if you can go there with me. Can you go there with me? I can't. I can't even tell if you're listening. I need to know if you can go. All right, here we go. Scholars marvel over this. I'm going to put what Jesus quoted on one side of the screen and Isaiah's passage where he quoted from on the other. Now notice on the right side of the screen there are two actions that people would do when they got to the temple. They would pray and offer sacrifices. When Jesus quotes from Isaiah, he leaves one of the actions out. Do you see? On the left side is Jesus's quote of the right side, Isaiah. He leaves one of the actions out. Isaiah said that people would offer sacrifices and pray When Jesus quotes from Isaiah, he leaves. Which one of those does he leave off? He leaves us. He leaves the sacrifices off. So scholars are like, oh, this is amazing. Why does Jesus, when he quotes from Isaiah, not mention the sacrifices? Because he's the sacrifice. Because he's the sacrifice. In just a few days, he's going to be the one who's the sacrifice. Jesus is introducing himself as the temple. I'm the place where the sacrifice is made. I'm the place where people from every tribe, tongue and nation are reconciled to God. In fact, Jesus did this earlier in the Gospels as well. If you are new to reading the Bible, I totally see how this can happen. You can read in the second chapter of John, one of the Gospels, and you can see Jesus confronting the temple. And you can think that that's the same event that you read about in Mark, chapter 11. But it's actually two very different events. All scholars agree because in John chapter two, this is really early in Jesus's ministry. Jesus confronts the temple early. Like he's always struggled with what's going on in the temple. Jesus walks into the temple and he says, this is wrong. This is supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations. And he overthrows tables and he drives people out, just like he will do in the final week of his life. But he does it early in his ministry. And the religious leaders, they knew he was right. They knew he was right. This is supposed to be the place, the court of the Gentiles, where everyone can come and worship God. They knew he was right, but they asked him, who do you think you are that you can come into the temple and do this? By what authority do you do this? And Jesus answered them. John, chapter 2, verse 19. Jesus answered, Destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days. Therefore, the Jews said, the temple took 46 years to build and you're going to raise it up in three days. But he was speaking about the temple of his body. So when he was raised from the dead, the disciples remembered that he had said this. And they believed the scripture and the statement Jesus had made. Jesus. Jesus was introducing himself as, I'm the temple. I'm the place where the sacrifice is made. I'm the place where people are brought to God. He not only declared himself to be the temple, Jesus actually lived as the temple. When he would walk through Israel, he would pronounce forgiveness over people. And in the Jewish thought, the only place that you could be forgiven was the temple. So Jesus was saying, I'm the temple. I'M the temple. He was introducing himself as the temple. This is amazing. I'm the place where people are reconciled to God. I'm the place where there is forgiveness. And then we know that Jesus was indeed crucified. And on the third day. Destroy this temple. I'll raise it again. On the third day, he was resurrected from the dead. So here we are, 2,000 years later, and we can ask, what is this mean for us? We're studying these events of this week that changed the world. What does it mean for us? Where is the temple now? Because Solomon's temple was destroyed. Then Jesus comes and introduces himself as the temple. And the temple that he overthrew the tables in, that's Herod's temple. It was destroyed. So where's the temple now? Where is the temple now? The scripture answers this question. The Apostle Paul writes to Christians. This is written to Christians in First Corinthians, chapter 6, verse 19. Don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God. This is staggering. This is astonishing. The scripture says that if you were a Christian, if you have believed in Jesus, that you are where God lives, that you are the temple that the spirit of the living God has moved into your life, that there's not a physical temple that you go and meet with God in, that no, you're the temple. I want to be sure you understand this. I mean, this is amazing. I'm so glad that we gather together and we worship and we study the scripture. The scripture commands us to do this, to gather and to worship him together. But I want to be sure that you don't misunderstand. We are not gathering in the temple. God does not live in this building. It's not as if he turned on the lights this morning and was sure the air conditioner was set to what it should be and welcomed us. And then he's going to wave to us when we leave and say, hope I'll see you next week. Thanks for coming to the temple where I live. God does not live here in this facility. If you are a Christian, he has moved in. He lives within you. You are his temple. This is so important for you to understand because this is good news. You are where he lives. In the last eight weeks, we have seen in all of our services and in all of our congregations, more than a thousand people stand and confess faith in Jesus and receive his forgiveness, which is amazing and beautiful. Which means that some of you are new to understanding who Jesus is. I want to Be sure you get what happened to you when you believed in Jesus. As Christians, we believe in what's called the Trinity, that we have one God. But he's God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit. God the Father created you. He loves you deeply. He fashioned you together while you were in your mother's womb. He set his image on you. You are an image bearer of God, and He loves you deeply. God the Father. Because he loves you so much. Because every single one of us wandered away from Him. God the Father sent God the Son, Jesus to this earth for us to live perfectly on our behalf. To place Himself on a cross to remove our sin and our shame. And the moment that you believed in Jesus, you place your faith in him. That exact moment God the Spirit was sent, sent into your life. God the Spirit lives within you. According to the scripture, you've been sealed by the Spirit. He doesn't come and go. He's with you forever. You are where the Spirit of God lives. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit. This should change everything about how you view yourself and everything about how you view the Christian life and how you view the world. You are where God lives. You're a temple of the Spirit. You're the temple, and this is what it means for you. This is what the week that changed the world now means for you. God within you comforts you and changes you. So God is within you. Not all of you, but you who have believed in Jesus, you who become His. The moment you did, he moved in. And God within you comforts you and changes you. He comforts you. Some of you are going through a trial right now. You are not in the trial alone. The God of all comfort lives within you. Some of you are in the midst of making challenging decisions. You are not making those decisions alone. The God of all peace and the God of all wisdom lives within you. He's there to comfort you. You are not alone. You will never be alone. It's impossible for you to be alone. Because the same God who rode into Jerusalem on a Sunday humbly and gently on the back of a donkey, that same God moved into your life. He is with you to encourage you, to comfort you. The God who is within you comforts you. And the God who is within you, he changes you. Yes, he's the God who rode gently and humbly into Jerusalem on a donkey. But he's also the God who on Monday walked into a temple and changed things. That God has moved into your life. He doesn't just move in. He has to redecorate you. He's not content to only move in. My oldest daughter Eden is a senior. She's 18. And when she was 16, when she was a sophomore, she got her license and we figured out what car she was going to drive. She wanted to drive my Jeep, which I'd had the Jeep for over a decade. But Eden was like, I love the Jeep. And so in my mind we're going to kind of share the Jeep. She's going to drive it to school, but I'm still going to take it to go mountain biking and stand up paddle boarding. But when Eden started to drive the Jeep, she was not content to only move in. She had to change the Jeep. She changed the Jeep the very first time I got in it after she'd been driving it. It was different. Like there was. She had a blanket in the back with her Bible where she would go to the beach. And I thought that was cool, but it smelled different. The Jeep smelled different. It smelled better, to be honest. And so I, I asked her, I said, hey, did you put air fresheners in the Jeep? It smells better. She said, no, dad, I just smell better. Oh, okay, okay. But that's not the biggest change she made. The biggest change she made is that she got a whole bunch. I didn't even know this was a deal, but I really. It's a deal. A whole bunch of rubber duckies, like different colored rubber duckies and I know. And put em on the dashboard of the Jeep, which, ah, man, it just felt different when I got in. You know, I used to do the Jeep wave. I'm not doing the Jeep wave with a bunch of rubber duckies on the front dashboard. So she changed it. It wasn't enough for her to move in, she had to change it. Eden is a lot like the Holy Spirit. He's not only gonna move in, he's gonna change you. He's gonna redecorate you. He's not content to only live within. He's gonna change who you are. What does this week have to do with you? What does this day of Jesus overthrowing the temple tables have to do with you? Well, you're now the temple. You're the temple and he's committed to changing you. Which means he's going to overthrow tables in your life. You're the temple. Jesus evaluated the temple and he overthrew tables. Jesus evaluated the temple from the outside. The spirit of Jesus is now within you. He's going to overthrow tables. He's angered at what can ruin you because he loves You. So he's willing to overthrow tables. Let me give you common tables that need to be overthrown in our lives. There's the table of approval where you set up a table and your whole life is enslaved to what other people think of you. You just constantly wonder what she thinks, what he thinks, what they are saying. And this table of Approval enslaves you. In fact, you'll only love God or serve people if they approve. You think if you have this table set up, I so desperately need their approval because he loves you. He wants to overthrow this table and remind you that you don't need someone else's approval. You already have his. You have his because he has made you his own through his death. For you on the cross, he wants to overthrow that table. For some, you have the table of control. Oh, I've. I've sat at this table a lot of times. It's where we can think. I want to control every possible variable in my life. I don't want any uncertainty. I don't want any lack of clarity. I want to control everything. He wants to overthrow that table because when you became a Christian, you. You. You relinquish control. He wants to control. He wants to overthrow that table for your good. He's angered at that table because when you're in control, you are acting as if this is your life. But when you became his, you gave up control. It's no longer your life. This is his life. And life is actually much better and filled with much more joy when you are surrendering control to him. Some of you have the table of comfort. You so badly want your life to be comfortable. Every decision is made to maximize comfort. Every career move is to maximize comfort. You want to push discomfort out of your life. You don't like uncomfortable conversations or uncomfortable moments or uncomfortable seasons in your life or uncomfortable relationships. You just want discomfort out of your life. Some of you are thinking, what's wrong with that? You will not grow without discomfort. You will not. And because he loves you, he wants to overthrow this table because he also wants to be your comfort. He wants to be your comfort. The place that when challenges hit, he's the place you run, he's the place you go. He wants to be your comfort. So he wants to overthrow that table. For some of you, it's the table of bitterness. You are dining at the table of bitterness. I've spent lots of time at the table of bitterness. And we can deceive ourselves. I have. And we tell ourselves I'm rehearsing what he did. What she said, how they betrayed. I'm rehearsing it to protect myself. I'm reminding myself of this so that I learn to not be this vulnerable next time, to not trust next time. I'm rehearsing this to protect myself. But you're not really protecting yourself. You are poisoning yourself with bitterness. You know it. And it's a table that is cluttering your temple that's stopping you from enjoying the presence of God in your life and stopping you from being the presence of God in other people's lives. It's a table that is dominating your temple right now. And you know the answer is to forgive. But it's so hard to forgive. In fact, for some it's impossible to forgive. Some of you have been hurt so deeply, abused, abandoned, betrayed, that to forgive sounds so trite. It's impossible to forgive. And all the techniques don't work. The techniques that modern man tells us to do. Get a sheet of paper and write I forgive so. And so I forgive so. It doesn't work. Every time I write that person's name, I get angry when I see the person's name. It doesn't work. The only way that that table gets destroyed in my life and your life is if our hearts are overwhelmed with how Jesus has forgiven us. The only way that I can forgive is if my heart is melted with how God has forgiven me of everything because of his grace and his mercy. That's the only way that I'm enabled or equipped to be able to forgive. Especially for some of you in the pain that you've gone through, the only way this table gets crushed in your life is if you're overwhelmed with how God has forgiven you. And then there is the table of busyness. Oh, this is really a prevalent table. When we read the passage today, we saw that the court of the Gentiles was so busy, so cluttered, so much movement, so much activity, things happening all the time. You are the temple. And some of you, your temple is so busy, it's so cluttered, your mind is racing. In fact, I know this and my heart breaks for you in this. I try so, I try so hard for this to be a place every week where you can come and just rest and receive from God and His grace. But for some of you, it's so hard for you to even focus for a 30 minute message. Your mind is all over. You're checking this on your phone. You're just nonstop. For some. And I say this with love, guys, listen, our services are not that long. They're an hour and seven minutes. But for some of you, you can't. You can't even do that. You can't even do that. You just always on the go, always making stuff happen instead of just resting, resting in his grace and enjoying who he is. The table of busyness is destroying your temple. And because he loves you, he's angered at what destroys you. A very humble and bold prayer today for you would be jesus, overthrow the tables. Some of you are scared to pray that because you aren't convinced that he's good. You think that if he overthrows tables, it's going to be for your bad. It's only for your good. It's only for your good. So as we worship, can we enjoy his presence? And maybe you'll ask him to overthrow a table just real quick. I want you to raise your hand for each table that. I'm joking. I'm not gonna have you do that instead. Instead, I want you, as we worship, to just surrender to Him. Fresh God, overthrow the tables that are in the way. I want to be a faithful temple because I know I'm where you live. Let's stand and let's worship him together. All right. Extend your hands, please, and let me pray a prayer of blessing over you as we go. Jesus, I pray you'd bless your sons and daughters this week, that you would remind them that you were gentle and approachable and that you love them. Cause your face to shine on them. I pray they will experience your mercy and your joy this new week. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Go in peace. Have a great week.
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Thanks for tuning in to the Mariners Weekend Message Podcast to support the ministry of Mariners Church. You can click the link in the show notes or download the Mariners App at your favorite app store. If you've been navigating God's wisdom with us through this year's annual read and would like to hear personal reflections from pastors in your community, check out the Gospel Every Day podcast. Imagine feeding your heart, mind and soul with the kind of practical wisdom that will change your life. If you haven't picked up the annual read yet yet, visit marinerschurch.org or download the Mariners app for more information on where to find it.