Notes for Lent 3
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Sermon Staging Area
STOP SINNING 3 of 6
Sermons and diapers both need to be changed frequently—and usually for the same reason.
Stop trying to stop sinning ... / Life as if God is really enough—because he is.
Motif
> HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS/ANYONE CAN HONK; IF YOU LOVE JESUS, TITHE!
> Neither honking nor tithing is what God wants if you love Jesus: JOHN 14:15.
> What comes first—love or obedience? If we loved God completely, we would naturally do what God commands.
> No one has a sin problem—what we have is a love problem.
> When I sin, it's because I love the world around me more than I love the God whose presence is within me. [MATT. 22: Two great commands are not Don't sin against God/Don't sin against your neighbor ... “Love the Lord”/“Love your neighbor.” Why? Central problem in human soul is not a sin problem—it's a love problem.]
> SIN BY ANGER, LASH OUT: Begins with not loving/LUST: Not loving spouse, person/STRESSED: Not loving God, not loving myself as someone formed in God's image.
> Where there is total love for God beyond me, for the people around me, and for the person God created me to be ... there is no space left for sin.
> Lost sight of the love: What is a Christian like? Against certain things? Keeps certain rules? Rules aren't necessarily bad—but a Christian is someone who's absolutely in love with God as he has been revealed in Jesus.
> You can be here every Sunday, keep all of the outward rules that good Christian people are supposed to keep—and still be living in depths of sin. The essence of sin is failing to love God completely.
--> To do this, I have to be honest about what I really love.
--> This is one of those things it's tough to be honest about—like your weight. How many people are really, completely honest about their weight? “Don't measure weight—measure fat content”—which sounds like a good idea to me, it's a lower number. Problem: Pinch or pool. Get out of shower/jump three times/start stopwatch/whenever everything stops jiggling, that's your fat content/I'm down to three ... days.] There are some things it's difficult to be honest about!
--> I'd like to think, “Oh, yeah, I love God”—but every time I sin, ... there's some spot in my soul where I don't love God completely.
Dilemma
> How do I move from keeping rules to loving God?
Text
> John 2:13–22
> It's Passover! Spring! When people who worship God of Israel remember how God delivered Hebrews from Egypt.
--> Everyone who's able goes to Jerusalem; population swells from 50,000 to 180,000. And not only Jews! Gentiles—God-fearers—who worshiped Israel's God would come to Jerusalem. There was an area for them; they couldn't go past the courtyard; ... ask a Jewish person to offer sacrifice for them, remain in the outer court to pray.
--> It's a profitable time: Most people didn't bring animals with them; instead, they bought them when they arrived in Jerusalem—these animals had to be pre-approved by the priests.
--> What's more, only “shekel” weights could be used in temple. Roman coins didn't come in shekels, plus had the image of Caesar.
--> Moneychangers converted Roman coins into Tyrian coinage, pure silver shekels with no image of Caesar.
--> This is a huge money-making operations for thousands of people!
--> Everyone that's here is keeping the commands.
> Might have expected Jesus to say, “Wow! I am so impressed! All these people, keeping the rules I made all the way back in Moses' day!”
> That's not what Jesus does.
> Makes whip/lashes oxen and sheep/threw coin-boxes to the ground/threw out sellers of doves/“Stop turning the house of my Father into a house of merchandise!” [Imagine if this happened here after offering!] [Jesus is annoying, inconvenient.]
> Leaders: “What sign do you show?”=“Why are you doing this? We're keeping the rules!”
> Good question: Why, if all these people are keeping the rules, does Jesus become so angry? Bad day?
--> Nothing to do with Bingo!
> To understand why Jesus did what he did, we've got to understand where he was when he did it.
--> Court of Israel, Women, Gentiles/sign between/expectations of Messiah: Charge into the temple area and throw out all the Gentiles/Where do you suppose the market had been set up?/Jesus, rather than throwing out the Gentiles, throws out those who had turned the place for Gentiles to pray into a market, spattered with the dung of pigeons, sheep, oxen.
--> They were keeping God's rules—coming to worship at Passover—but they weren't living in love.
--> What's more, Jesus makes a shocking statement ... refers to “Court of Gentiles” as the House of his Father/for religious leaders, “House of God” didn't begin until after you reached the Court of Israel [Gentiles, women were excluded from God's house]/”Father's house? House of God doesn't reach this far.”/”Fullness of God's love and grace doesn't reach that far!”--maybe as far as the sign, but certainly no farther.
--> Even more shocking statement: “Tear down the temple, and I'll rebuild it in three days.”
--> “46 years?”: King Herod began renovations on this temple 24 years before Jesus was even born; vast and beautiful! By this time ... 46 years
--> “His body”: Wherever Jesus is present in love, there is the house of God.
> What truth do we experience in this text? Keeping the rules isn't what God wants; what God wants is love—love of God beyond us, people around us, the person God has made us.
RESOLUTION
> So, how do I do this? How do I move from keeping rules to loving God, people, myself?
> LOVE JESUS / LOOK FOR JESUS: (1) LOVE JESUS: Not fuzzy feeling in tummy/not love ... indigestion/Adore Jesus, “Whatever you want to do with me, do it”/passion for pleasing Jesus/more precious to you than any dream/Does your mind wander toward Jesus?/You can never defeat sin until you love Jesus./(2) LOOK FOR JESUS: [When sit at restaurant, at work: “Hmph, can't believe ...”/Every person ... “Jesus desperately desires to live within that person.”/Tough to despise them then.
> Problem with religious leaders in Jesus' day: Couldn't imagine that God wanted anything to do with anyone but people like them, didn't think God's house could reach beyond.
--> As a result, they were keeping rules—but God was not impressed, because ... didn't truly love God, others, selves.
APPLICATION
> Consider honestly the sins that you're struggling with. Each one begins because we don't believe God is enough, continues because—somewhere—there's a failure to love. Who am I not loving with God's love?
> May need to ask God, “Where? What?”: Charles Steinmetz/electrical engineer for GE in early 1900s/retired/everyone baffled by problem in machines/X/$10,000/itemized: Making one X: $1.00/Knowing where to put it: $9,999.