Mark 11:15
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Good evening everybody. Tonight we are indeed looking at Mark chapter 11 verse 15. It's on the front of your bulletin as usual and also found in your Bibles. Go figure. It's always interesting, at least to me, to consider, and I imagine some of you have all have done the same thing, is to consider what would Christ's response be if he were to walk into our church and see what we do Sundays and Wednesday evenings and things like that?
What would his response be? I think if you were to walk in here tonight, he'd be kind of confused why these seats don't get filled up. But besides that, yeah, what would he think? What would he be thinking of what we're doing here? Would he be pleased with what we do? Would he have any harsh rebukes for us? Would he point out what we've maybe misapplied or misunderstood about what he demands and commands from his church? And then what would our response be to that? Would we push back?
Would we, I hope we wouldn't, but would we receive it with humility, repent, and then do differently? Our verse tonight gives us a little glimpse into Jesus' response to his heart towards the temple, temple worship that was happening in Jerusalem in his day. And so tonight that's what we're going to look into this verse and the surrounding to see his response there. And then how does that then apply to us as we consider our context of church in our day and age.
So, Mark chapter 11, verse 15, it reads, And they came to Jerusalem, they being the disciples and Jesus, came to Jerusalem, and he, Jesus, entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple. And he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. So what I want us to consider tonight, kind of the main idea, the thing that's been ruminating in my mind throughout the week as I've thought on this, our main idea is Jesus is the true and lasting temple, and he deserves our true and humble worship.
Jesus is the true and lasting temple, and he deserves our true and humble worship. So right away, this verse is probably familiar. This is kind of the quintessential verse that we go to when we want to consider Jesus' righteous anger, right? This is the verse that comes to mind. This is when Jesus got angry. That's pretty obvious, just in this verse alone. This passage, the goal of this passage, I think, this evening and what I want to do tonight is to understand the why.
Why is Jesus so upset and acting the way that he does? And then for us to consider ourselves in light of these reasons, examine whether we may be rebuked in a similar fashion. And so in that, we have our main idea. And I'm going to just give us the context because I think it's helpful. We'll do that briefly. And then I just have three questions that have just been coming to my mind throughout the week that I want us to consider. And then we'll move forward into how we might answer those questions.
So again, just the context. You'll see in your Bibles, likely right above it, well, first off in chapter 11, this is the triumphal entry, which we're all familiar with. Jesus comes into Jerusalem, finds the colt, he's riding on a donkey, everyone's praising him, shouting his name, palm branches. That's the story that we're familiar with. And then he's in Jerusalem, right above our section, there's Jesus cursing the fig tree. Then you have Jesus cleansing the temple, which includes our verse and his rebuke, which we read this morning that he said, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations, but you have made a den of robbers.
Chief priests are upset at this and seeking a way to destroy him. And then right after that chunk, we have a follow-up on the fig tree. So if we look at the fig tree, the temple, and then back to the fig tree. The fig tree itself, Jesus sees the fig tree, it's got leaves on it, he's hungry, he goes up to the tree thinking there's going to be fruit, no fruit, curses the tree. Then we have our scene where he comes in the temple, he's turning things over, rebuking those in the temple in their worship, and then he follows up with the tree, and Peter seeing the tree that he just cursed, it's withered to its roots.
So he's cursing the tree, and he's also rebuking the temple, right? The fig tree and the temple are talking about the same thing. Jesus sees what Jerusalem has turned into. All of the activities of the temple have missed the purpose of the temple, right? The temple, as we've heard this morning too, is where the Jewish people come to commune with God. That's where sacrifices are given. that's where praise and worship are given. Jesus sees all that's going on and obviously doesn't like it. That's why he's driving it out, calling it a den of robbers. The fig tree event is kind of parabolic of the temple and his rebuke on the temple. A fig tree and leaf is expected to bear fruit and does not. So the temple, with all that is happening inside those walls, is expected to be a place of worship and prayer, is void of life, and instead of being used to bring life,
it is robbing others, not only of money, but also worship of God. And as the fig tree is cursed and withered to its roots, so the temple will crumble as Christ has come to be the true temple, as Sam pointed us to this morning. Christ is the true temple, who fulfills the law through his death and cross and death on the cross and resurrection. Jesus in this section is a week away from the cross. He's seeing the temple and he's recognizing the Jewish leaders and all of those people who are milling around, selling animals, exchanging money. They've missed the point. They've missed that this, what they're involved in is supposed to point them to Christ and he hates it and he comes in and turns things over, right? That's the scene that we're entering into. That fig tree is a great image of that. The people are distracted away from what they're supposed
to be doing. They are misapplying the sacraments, the things that Jesus has established. They've turned it into a den of robbers. So I want us to consider, like I said, we've got three questions that I want us to consider that we will tie into this section here and then consider our spot in this story. First question, are we distracted away from true and humble worship?
Are we distracted away from true and humble worship? Looking in this scene, we recognize the temple. The temple leaders have obviously missed the intent of the temple. There's a distraction away from what is supposed to be happening there. They're concerned with buying and selling instead of right worship to their God. They've taken what God has established and distorted it and defiled it. Again, as the fig tree, there's appearance of life, appearance of fruit, right?
All of this thing's happening, but no life. Spiritually, it's empty. All the commotion and exchanges taking place, they had the appearance of religious piety and devotion, but it was all a facade. They had missed Christ. They had missed the Messiah who is to come, and Christ is trying to point that out. So, my question, how are we distracted away from true and humble worship? Brandon mentioned this morning, we have an enemy who wants to distract us away from what it is we are supposed to be doing on a Sunday morning together as a church.
He wants us to be focused, take our eyes off of the who that we are here to worship, and be more concerned with the what. What are we doing? How are we doing it? The temple was intended to be a place of worship, of prayer, of sacrifice, to be made right with God, right? To have that relationship. These elements of worship had been twisted and abused. It was leading people's hearts away from God rather than toward Him. So what about the elements of our worship? Are you distracted by what we're doing and away from who it is for?
I do trust one of the things that we loved when we first came to Third Avenue, That the elders have endeavored to structure our gatherings in a way that points us to Christ and to safeguard the gospel. I think that was clear to my wife and I, at least, when we first came here. There's a desire to safeguard that, the purity of that, right? Which I love. We need to be intentional about what we do and why we do it. Otherwise, we can go off course quickly.
We can be distracted. We can be buying and selling, so to speak, instead of worshiping. So are you here because you love the music that we sing, the music and the singing, or do you love the one that we are singing to? Are you here because you love the preaching, or do you love the one that is being preached about? Are you here because it is convenient? Or are you willing to be inconvenienced for the cause of the one who gave himself for us?
Are we enamored and devoted to the things of Christianity? Or are we enamored by the one who redeems all of it? As much as we can structure and execute a church service or a gathering of some sort as a church with the intent to honor Christ and to share the gospel, we need to safeguard our hearts as well. So my encouragement, the thing I've been struck with this week is that we need to be praying.
I need to be praying to ask Christ to cleanse my heart in the same way that he cleansed the temple. Driving out the distractions. Not only can we be distracted with the things that we do here, but we bring in all sorts of distractions, don't we? We need to pray and ask the Lord to drive that out, that we may not miss him in the way that the Jewish people in the temple, in that they missed it. They were doing good things, maybe, but missing the heart of what it was that they're supposed to be doing.
Second question. Are we inviting in and welcoming the outsider? so in verse 17 which read again we read this morning um following our verse jesus rebukes those in the temple saying my house shall be called a den or sorry my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations for all the nations jesus here is quoting isaiah 56 where isaiah speaks of welcoming foreigners and bringing in the outcast and we touched on this this morning again that jesus is calling all people to himself that's jesus came to to bring all to himself, not just Jews, but Jewish, all the nations, right, as he's saying here.
This part of the temple that Jesus is coming into and cleansing is called the court of the Gentiles. This is kind of the outer portion of the temple, and this was the one section where the Gentiles could come and offer their worship to the Lord, and this is where all of this commotion was happening, sort of a farmer's market, so to speak, of buying and selling, exchanging money. Some of that was maybe necessary. They had to exchange money for those coming in from other, to the temple currency and things like that. But all of this was happening where this is the one spot where the Gentiles could worship.
And they had turned it into this chaotic buying and selling, exchanging hands. All of this was being done to really, in light of who was, in spite of who was supposed to be worshiping there. And this certainly shows a lack of, at the very least, a lack of genuine concern and intentionality towards the Gentiles, which obviously led to Jesus confronting this issue. Rather than maintaining a house of prayer for all the nations, the temple had been made into a den of robbers, as he says right after that, robbing others of space to worship.
Another principle to pull out of here that I want us to consider, are we inviting and welcoming the outsider? I love, again, we did it tonight, again, as we do every week. We pray for our church's growth and unity and diversity, and we pray for unbelievers who visit here as well. It's a great reminder. What it does, it's a great reminder to us that we should be striving towards. It's a reminder of what we should be striving towards and a recognition that we need God to intervene in order to see that fulfilled.
We rely on him, which is why we pray, right? And I see so many wonderful displays from those members of this church who do have a genuine love in pursuit of those who are different and those who yet know Christ. And to the unbeliever who might be here tonight, we pray for you every week, which is a joy. We maybe not do it specifically, but we are praying for you every week. We want you to know Jesus.
We want you to know the true and living God, to be united to him and to know his forgiveness. But we're not there yet, are we? We're not perfect in that. These differences that we speak, you know, we have kind of the obvious ones, so to speak, of culture, gender, socioeconomic, age, language. Those are differences that we see. Are we welcoming to all of these people, right? These are questions we need to continue to ask. Do we care to be? Do we give space for people to come in and grow along with us, to ask questions, to serve and to love?
Are we threatened or disengaged from those who have a different background than us, maybe just do things differently? Are we uncomfortable with those whose struggles we can't relate to? Are the old in the faith able to relate to the young in the faith? Are the Christian words and the language that we use with each other, are those drawing people in or creating barriers of inferiority and pride? Are we willing to spend time with others to ask questions?
That discipleship that we talk about, are we willing to do that? Are we inviting in those who be outsiders, so to speak, someone that is different than me? How would Christ respond if he saw how we treat the outsider? And the third question that I have for us tonight. How do we distort the church practices to serve ourselves rather than God? How might we distort what we do, the things that we think are good even, to serve ourselves rather than God?
Much of what was being done in the temple at that time, the buying, the selling, there was some financial gain there to be had, right? A little higher tax, overcharging here. It's part of the rebuke. We know the religious leaders of that day, right, would lord their position over the Jewish people. So whether financial or otherwise, the motives and intentions of those in charge could scarcely be considered pure. thus leading again to Jesus' actions that we have in our passage they'd taken what God had established and created a way for them to gain financially and to gain in their own authority and Jesus despised it now there's certainly those in this day and age that abuse and misuse the name of Christ and his word for all kinds of evil and all kinds of financial exploits, which I don't think we need to spend time speaking of that in
this room. I think those are pretty clear to see, right, when we see that, when we see that wickedness in this culture. But as I consider this idea, this question, in my own heart, it was drawn to that which might be a little more subtle for us to see. Even, I was just thinking of, even as Greg had just finished preaching through this last series on church membership and church discipline, elder-led congregationalism, right? These are all intended to be the means of God's grace given to us. These are good things, right? Greg pointed scripture out and why we practice these things here, why we hold to them.
But none of these on their own amount to anything apart from how they lead us and point us to Christ. That's their intent. Those categories that we have, and those are just a few, right, that are fresh on our minds. Those categories exist, and we practice those because we believe them to be biblical and good. But we need to practice those with a sense of humility and worship. All of these should promote true and humble worship of our Savior. It should never be a source of pride or self-reliance.
These things can have the appearance of spiritual life, but apart from Christ and our reliance on Him, they will rob people of bearing fruit rather than produce it. They can become a source of division rather than uniting us as they're intended to do. The gain that we are tempted to pursue is perhaps not often financial, but rather a social or influential or status gain, so to speak. In this culture that we live in, this culture of branding and self-promotion, I wonder, are we attempting to promote Christ and his church, or are we using Christ and the church to promote ourselves? Brandon called us to consider that this morning even. Are we yearning for position ourselves, or are we excited for when others around us are are serving the Lord? Are we honoring and glorifying God when others have success, or are we
harboring resentment? Are we seeking to gain from this gathering we call church, or are we seeking to serve? I know it's a battle in my own heart, and these questions, again, were the ones that It came to my mind as I was thinking on this passage. I trust it is likely for some of you. As we come to a close, this quote, J.C. Ryle and his thoughts on Mark, he's speaking here of the lesson the fig tree conveys, which again ties into the temple, right?
The fig tree and the temple in this section are very much related. And I loved how he stated this, and I'll read it for you here. He says, Let us always remember that baptism and church membership and reception of the Lord's Supper and the diligent use of the outward forms of Christianity are not sufficient to save our souls. They are leaves, nothing but leaves.
and without fruit will add to our condemnation. So these questions that we've pondered, a lot of rhetorical questions tonight, right? Want us to think, this is where my mind's been this week as I've reflected on this passage, but where do we find the answer to these questions? Verse 20, Jesus, after he cleanses the temple, is walking with the disciples the next morning, and Peter sees the cursed fig tree and says, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered.
Again, an image, the temple will no longer exist, right? The temple will wither and be destroyed just as that fig tree. The first thing that Jesus says in response is, have faith in God. The reality is that we cannot worship rightly and truly love others apart from faith in Christ. We will fail. We will answer those questions in the negative. We will have mixed motives as we try to live out this Christian life.
We will be complacent and self-reliant. We will be prideful. i know it in my own heart i i assume for the rest of you that those those things will come in right so what what do we do with that we're not going to do it perfectly we're not going to live it up that's the point right that's why we need the gospel that's why christ came to fulfill the law that we couldn't fulfill on our own when we when we fail christ forgives we need christ the true temple the true and lasting temple he is the one who died on our behalf and rose from the dead and established himself as the fulfillment of the law in the temple and he stands ready to forgive those who put their faith in him again those from every nation anyone sitting in this room and outside of these walls he's given us his word he's given us the church the means of
grace to point us to him and to keep us in him. Let's pray. Lord, we are grateful that you, you indeed have come, that you have established your throne, that you came and died and rose again on our behalf. Lord, you are the true and lasting temple. You have come to tabernacle among us.
You are the fulfillment of all of the Old Testament sacrifice, the once and for all sacrifice. Lord, that if we put our faith and our hope and trust in you, that you promise to forgive and to bring us into a right relationship with you, Lord. I thank you that you've done that on our behalf. I pray that you would search our hearts, help us to search our hearts, Lord, by your spirit, cleanse our hearts that we might not be distracted away from you, that we wouldn't be distracted towards the lesser things. All the means in this life that are designed, that you've given us to point us to you, God, may those not be the ends in themselves, but just a means for us to lift our eyes to you and to glorify you with our life. We thank you, Lord. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.