If you haven’t been with us, we’ve been in a sermon series called The Ministry of Jesus. And in this series, we’ve been saying that our goal is to walk through every engagement that Jesus has, every interaction, every conversation that Jesus is a part of, so that we can find ourselves not as the hero of the story, but as the people on the receiving end of his teachings, his instructions, his healings and warnings. And today, I’m super excited because we’re actually going to pick up from last week’s sermon. If you weren’t here last week, we looked at a passage about a fig tree. You guys remember that story? All right. With that fig tree, we learned that it was leafy. It was expected to have fruit. It had the appearance of fruit. But upon closer inspection by Jesus, the tree, though leafy, unfortunately, bore no fruit. So today, to pick up from last week, the passage we’re going to look at is basically, again, Jesus coming to a place that had the guise of fruit that had the semblance of fruit. But upon visitation, it was revealed like the fig tree to have no fruit as well.
The comparison between the stories I believe are striking. So if you stick with me, you will learn more about what I’m referring to. So here’s the plan. If you’re new, if you’re visiting, we usually teach through the scriptures line by line, and then towards the end, we conclude with a relevant application for our lives. So that said, we’re going to pick up in Mark 11:15. If you have a Bible, no worries. The passage will be up on the screen. Mark 11:15. Here’s what the Bible says. On reaching Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts. I need to stop here for a moment just to give some background, just to give some context. If you’re familiar with the Book of Mark, then you know that this narrative is soon coming to an end. Because Mark, the author, has been showing us that Jesus has been fixated on getting to Jerusalem. He’s been determined to get to the cross. In the Book of Luke, it says that he was resolute, so he was determined. And now, as we can see in this verse, it takes up by saying that Jesus, in all his grit and all his determination, he has finally reached Jerusalem.
Jesus is finally at the apex of his life and ministry. And so when he reaches Jerusalem, one of the first things that he does from what we could tell is that he enters the temple courts. Now, the temple, for those who might not know, was massive and beautiful. Here’s a picture. I’m not sure how well you can see this, but the temple we’re looking at has been refurbished by this time on a grand scale by King Herod. And if you were to walk into the temple back in the first century, you would notice, apart from how grandiose it was, the temple was made up of four distinct parts. The first part was the Court of the Gentiles, and that Court of the Gentiles was basically the place that only Gentiles can go and basically no non Jews could go. So the Court of the Gentiles, that’s the first thing you would get to. And then you would get to the Court of Women. And then the Court of Women is where, of course, Jewish women could go. And then you would get to the Court of Israel. And basically, that’s only where the Jewish men could go.
And then you would get to the Holy of Holies, where only the high priests could go once a year. And this was the basic makeup of the temple. You have the Court of the Gentiles, the Court of Women, the Court of Israel, and the Holy of Holies. Now, in this passage, we learn that Jesus only went to the first court, the Court of the Gentiles, the temple courts. Now, one of the things that you would have noticed, or one of the things he would have noticed by by coming into the temple courts, is that it was extremely crowded in this time of year. Every year, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from all over the ancient Middle East, flocked to the temple in Jerusalem. Why? To participate in Passover. Now, any abiding pilgrim would have known that if you were going to participate in Passover, you were going to need two things in accordance to the Jewish law. One, you needed an animal that was fit for sacrifice. You needed an animal without spot or blemish, first thing. Second thing is that if you were going to enter this temple, you needed to pay the temple tax.
So you needed the animal and you needed the temple tax. But the interesting thing about this temple tax is that it needed to be exchanged. So the people coming in all over, the currency that they brought in, it needed to be exchanged to the temple currency. So they would travel from all over, right? Hundreds of miles away. To come and participate in the Passover. But the likelihood of them being able to bring an animal fit for sacrifice and being able to bring the right currency would prove to be really difficult. You guys follow me? Yes. So in an effort to make worship more convenient and more accessible for those traveling in the temple, they were going to need Well, in order to make it accessible for them, you had the merchants set up, and then you had the money changers in the outer courts. And what they would do, they would sell the animals, they would make exchanges for the right currency. So what they were doing was a good deed. One commentator said that those who were selling in the temple, they performed a useful and even necessary function. Those in the temple at the very beginning had the heart of preparing the pilgrims for worship.
But unfortunately, upon closer inspection, those in the temple became like the fig tree, if you They were, leafy, had the appearance of fruit, were expected to be fruitful, but ended up bearing no fruit. Meaning they had the appearance of righteousness. But deep down, they were actually wicked. Here’s what I mean. The priests and the whole team pretty much discovered, since they had the pilgrims reliant on their services, what they could do to make a huge profit is instead of charging fair prices for these sacrifices, they can start charging unfair prices. And they could do all that without any pushback because they had people reliant on them. They could do all that without any pushback, all in the name of religion. And so once they started to do that, and it was time for the pilgrims to buy their animals, the price of the animals ended up being 10 times the normal price. If you were poor, thank God, you didn’t have to buy the normal lamb, ram, goat, according to Leviticus 12. You can actually buy a cheaper animal like a dove or pigeon. But the issue is, If you were poor, even if you were poor and you bought those things at the temple, some estimate the market was still 16 times the normal price.
And just to double down, as I said before, all pilgrims, whether you’re poor or not, had to exchange their local currency into the temple currency. But again, there was a 25 % price gouge. On top of all of that, one commentator said, If anyone someone tried to avoid the price gouging by bringing their own animal, the priests would just find something wrong with the animal. They would take that animal, they would take it as a trade-in and then sell them one from the temple. And when they would sell that animal, it would be like 30 times the normal cost. So they would take the rejected animal to a pen and later sell it for what? A perfect animal. This is what Jesus walked into. And to the temple courts. When the passage says he entered the temple courts, Jesus walked into something that was filled with perversion, extortion, fraud, injustice, hypocrisy. And so in response to all of this racketeering, if you will, Jesus famously did something that might be shocking to some. Here’s what the rest of verse 15 says, Jesus began driving out those who were buying and selling there.
He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. Now, before we move forward here, let it be said, evidence shows that this is not the first time he did this. In the ministry of Jesus, there were actually two cleansings. One early in his public ministry and then one later at the end of his ministry, which was recorded in all of the synoptic Gospels, Mark, Matthew, Luke. And you would think after the first cleansing, they would get it, right? But as we can see, they don’t get it. Jesus has to drive them out again. The Greek word for drive out is ekbalo. Can you guys say that? Ekbalo. That means to cast out. Ekbalo is the same word for expelling demons. In our society, we would think of this word as kicking someone out, basically. So this word implies violence. It implies force. And so when Jesus saw all the manipulators that day, it’s almost like he couldn’t help but turn into a security guard or whatever. He forcibly kicked everyone out. I would imagine this scene being extremely chaotic. Think about it. The historian Josephus tells us during one week of Passover alone, there were 255,000 lambs that were bought, sold and sacrificed in the temple.
So in this scene, imagine it. You have thousands of people. Obviously, they’re coming from all over the pilgrims. You have thousands of lambs about to be sacrificed, and they’re going, baaa baaa. It’s chaos, right? There’s like animals all over the place. You got the accepted animals, you got the rejected animals, you got goat droppings all over the place. And Jesus just drove them all out. He overturned the tables, the benches, the stools where the money changers were sitting. There’s probably coins, money scattered all over the place. Every crook, every exploiter of the poor, every priest that oversaw this operation in this moment fell under Jesus’s authority and fell under his judgment. Jesus had the power. He had the strength, the stamina, the dominance to cause all this commotion, and no one can stop him. This passage teaches us a lot of things, but one of the things it teaches us is that our Lord has some power. I mean, we talk about a lot of miracles, but this is probably one of the most impressive miracles. This is not the gentle, passive, reserved Mr. Rogers type Jesus that some of us might have grown up hearing about.
You got one man among thousands disrupting an entire operation. John 2, the first cleansing. It says, zeal for his house consumed him. Right? We’re going to look more at his zeal, verse 16. Jesus would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. So on top of all the activity that was happening in the courts that day, he would not allow anyone to carry merchandise. In the first century, it was common knowledge that the temple courtyard provided a quick path between the Eastern part of the city of Jerusalem and the Mountain of Olives. Many people who were on business in the city would just take this shortcut into the temple. You save time, probably save some money. It was just very convenient for them. But as we could see, when King Jesus showed up on the scene, not only did he see it necessary to shut all the activity down in the temple courts, but he also saw it necessary to stop all the foot traffic as well. Jesus stopped everyone in their tracks. And when he did that, he ended up doing something that apparently everyone needed at that time. He also taught them.
Verse 17, Here’s what he said, Is it not written, My house, we be called a house of prayer for all nations? ‘ Now, this teaching is right out of Isaiah 56:7. And Jesus was teaching this passage in Isaiah to say, When you walk into the temple, when you walk into this space, this space is not owned by you, but it’s owned by God. When you are entering, you’re entering at his invitation, you’re entering into his house. Imagine if you were, you invited someone for dinner. And they walk through the front door and say, wow, those are some ugly curtains he got there. And that painting, terrible decision. It wouldn’t take long for you as the owner to feel insulted by their indifference. And what Jesus is saying here on a much larger scale is that when the people entered his house, they insult him with their indifference. How? Well, his house was hoped to be a house of prayer for all nations, meaning the temple was supposed to be a quiet place, a meditative place, a place to go contemplate God, contemplate his Majesty, contemplate his glory. In fact, in 2 Chronicles 7, we learned that when the first temple was built, the glory of God filled it.
You guys remember that story? Basically, God promised his people that he would meet them in his temple. The temple was supposed to be the house where he alone was to be worshiped. And yet what Jesus found when he entered the temple was a trafficking scheme. They were spitting in the face of God. The temple had ceased to be about the Lord. And to add to the insult, if you were a Gentile, the only place you could approach God was in the temple course. We just talked about that, right? But again, with all the noise, the animals, the sellers, the buyers, how could anyone worship and pray? How could any Gentile meditate on the things of God? You got the loud noise, you got the stench from the livestock and the jingling of coins. No one could honestly connect with God. Those wrapped up in this this deceitful operation had effectively closed the doors of the temple to the Gentiles. We know for those who have read the Bible, God’s plan from the very beginning was clear. God’s plan has always been for Israel to draw all nations to himself by reaching them. By being a blessing to them, being a blessing to the nations.
But in this passage, the nations could hardly get in the building. And so Jesus’s striking conclusion was this, that house that was supposed to function as a place of prayer for all nations ended up functioning as a den of robbers. Jesus said to those in authority, You have made it a den of robbers. This passage comes from Jeremiah 7:11. Basically, Jeremiah, he’s rebuking the temple leaders for their abuses. Sounds pretty familiar, right? They were oppressing the needy while at the same time they were going through their religious emotions. God saw right through their pretense. And what he did, he promised to deal with those thieves in his sanctified house. What Jesus is doing here is using this Old Testament verse and applying it to what he saw when he was in the temple that day. What Jesus saw was a den of robbers. The phrase den of robbers can be interpreted two ways. First, a den of robbers could refer to a cave where robbers hid themselves away from those who were searching for them. Second, a den of robbers could refer to a place where robbers hid waiting for their unsuspecting victims to pass by.
Here’s the point. Jesus described the people in the temple as robbers because like robbers, the high priests and his followers had hidden themselves away in the temple, seeking to hide their wickedness under a cloak of holiness. Like thieves, these men were waiting for those who don’t know any better to enter the temple so they could take their money. Under the guise of services and resources, they exploited these pilgrims’ devotion. All the while, the priests were becoming rich. A Jewish historian and culture expert says that at this time in history, ministry, the priests were netting the equivalent of $300,000 a year in money exchange alone. And so while the priests had an opportunity to bring people into God’s presence, they instead decided to burden the people and be a huge stumbling block to the Gentiles. What Jesus was exposing here was hearts that prayed on sincere worshippers. The people that occupied that temple bore no fruit. The temple had become a den of robbers, a hideout for greedy frauds. And so when Jesus pointed that out in front of everyone, the religious leaders, of course, were not happy about it. Verse 18, The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.
Before we get into how this story can apply to our lives. This probably goes without saying, but to Jesus, the pretense, the hypocrisy, the greed, all of that was a real cunning source of evil. And again, this is one of the many reasons why Jesus immediately drove those people out of his temple. Jesus didn’t suggest. He didn’t wish. He didn’t make a plea for these people to be driven out. All Jesus did was drive them out, and they were driven out. And you know, Jesus’s ability to drive all these people out makes me wonder, if Jesus were to speak to you like he spoke to those people, what would he say needs to be driven out of you today? I ask this question because there are some of us, like the people in this story, that have become too comfortable sitting here week after week, occupying space in God’s house, while at the same time allowing evil to be a safe place in your heart. If Jesus were here in the flesh, I’m confident he would want what’s lurking on the inside of us to be driven out of us. The things about ourselves that makes us feel bad about ourselves shouldn’t be coddled.
They shouldn’t be excused. They shouldn’t be ignored any longer. We need to let Jesus call out of us today. And so that means for some of us, it’s time to answer the call because you know what Jesus has been trying to drive out of you. Like that masturbation and pornography you don’t want to deal with. That gossiping, that bitterness, that people-pleasing, that phone addiction, that work addiction, that school addiction, that political addiction, that gluttony, that laziness, that racism, that hypocrisy, that arrogance, all of that. Jesus is saying, those things need to be driven out, and they need to be driven out right now. If you have come here this morning thinking that someone else needs to change, and you don’t need to change, you’ve missed the point. You’ve missed the point. The point is, and this goes for everyone in this room, the main point I want you to understand is, the in the temple, just because you’re in the church amongst God’s people, does not mean you have your act together. Like me, you are broken, and you are in need of help. And like the people in this story, Whatever evil is lurking on the inside of you needs to come out of you.
Now, as I’m saying all of this, there’s some of you here who are probably admitting in your heart that there is some sin you need to overcome. And that’s good. One of the first steps to overcoming a problem is admitting that there is a problem. But I will say to overcome sin, we need to partner with God. We need access to a power that is far beyond us. We need an ally in the fight to come alongside us and fight with us. The power I’m referring to if you’re a disciple of Jesus, is the spirit of Jesus. We access this power via the practices of Jesus. The practices of Jesus are counter habits to address our sinful nature. Every time you practice a habit of Jesus, your spirit gets a little stronger and your flesh gets a little weaker. That said, I want to highlight one practice that I think is especially important as pertaining to overcome our sin. The practice I want to share about just briefly is confession. Confession is perhaps one of the most neglected practices in the way of Jesus. Jesus’s brother, James, commanded us in James 5 to confess our sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.
The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. There’s so many things we can take from this verse, but what I’m seeing is that this verse is telling us that confession is an invitation to be healed. It’s a practice, though may seem uncomfortable, is actually life-giving for our souls. And from my experience, I have found this to be true. Out of all the times I’ve confessed over the years, I would have never expected confessing to the people I confess to. The people I’ve confessed to didn’t always share the same hobbies as me, or we didn’t always have the same interests or even the same personality. But it’s in those friendships where I found an unbreakable bond that I wouldn’t trade for anything. I shared this story before, but since I think it fits, I’m going to share it again. One of the friendships I thought about as I was thinking about the practice of confession was my friendship with Derek. Derek is this guy right here with the black shirt in the middle. This is a picture of my baptism. By the way. And Derek has been there from the very beginning. Derek was one of the guys that helped me to become a Christian in college.
Right off the back, we started spending time together. We laughed together, we would pray together, study the Bible together, share our faith together, and we just dreamed about what we wanted to see God do in our ministries. We basically lived life in community together. I think this laid the groundwork for a moment that I believe solidified our friendship. There was one day in particular where I crashed hard in sin, and I needed someone to talk to. I figured it wouldn’t be hard to share because we were roommates at the time. But after thinking about my sin some more, I seriously considered keeping my sin a secret. Why? Because I was ashamed. Maybe some of you could relate to that. The guilt started to weigh on me, and that’s just what sin does. The guilt started to weigh on me. So I decided, okay, I’ll just knock on his door and tell him really what’s been happening and what’s on my heart. Without any hesitation, Derek stopped what he was doing and gave me his undivided attention. We ended up talking and praying for over an hour, and it was a healing experience for me. It was that moment where I knew our friendship would not be the same.
Since that day, even when separated by cities, we’ve been the best of friends. To this day, when one of us picks up the phone and call, it almost feels like we’ve gone back in time and we’re roommates again on that struggling apartment off 125th Street in Miami. It was like four guys in one bathroom. That That was fun. But I wouldn’t trade it for the world. It was a moment of healing for me. And the reason I bring this up, and you notice because you’ve experienced this, There’s a raw power and genuine freedom when you name your sin in the presence of loving community. When you name your sin out loud to the people that you know and trust, it has the power to break chains. Confession. This practice, like many other practices, is consequential to our transformation in Christ. It is so hard to be dull in our faith when we are actively involved in helping one another through the practice of confession. The key to the way of Jesus is finding ways of living and reliance on spirit’s presence. We feed our spirits and starve our flesh with practices laid down by Jesus.
And as we do this, we not only grow in our willpower muscles, but more importantly, we open our minds and bodies to a power that is far beyond us, which is God’s spirit. One way we could all lean into the practice of confession is by coming to our prayer night that’s actually happening this Thursday at the building. January 11th, at 7:30 PM, we’re going to have a prayer night. It’s a time for anyone who would like to experience healing, who would like to talk, and more importantly, pray about what’s in our hearts. I want to encourage to come on out. January 11th, 7:30 PM. Plug, finish. As I come for a close, and as we prepare for Communion. And as we remember Jesus’s death and resurrection, I want us to think about this. If we had a way to count up all the pain, all the addiction, all the dysfunction, all the brokenness, all the guilt, all the shame in this room, we all would probably feel sick. And yet at the very same time, the good news about Jesus is that he doesn’t see us as too far gone. He doesn’t see us as too broken.
He doesn’t see us as too sinful for him to lean into our lives and drive out of us what’s killing us. This story in the Book of Mark reminds us that if Jesus can drive all those people out of the temple, he certainly can free us from any bondage we are under today. If only we decide to partner up with him through the practice of confession. My prayer is that all of us, you’re here or you’re online. My prayer is that all of us would leave completely different than when we came in. My prayer is that we all would experience the power of confession. I encourage you to take some steps today. Let’s pray for communion. Heavenly Father, thank you for showing us that there is hope. Thank you for showing us that we can experience healing. God, I pray that if there’s anything in our hearts that we need to address, things that we need to confront, I pray that we will have the zeal that Jesus had in the temple that day. I pray that we would have the zeal to recognize sin and to deal with it. God, I pray that you give us the strength, you give us the faith to live the way that you call us to live.
But we know we need you in the process. We cannot do this on our own. So God, I pray that you give us your direction, you give us your guidance, you help us to be the people that you’ve called us to be. I love you so much. It’s in Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.