To Reach the Nations

Luke 19 in your Bibles, church. Thank you, Chris, for that introduction. What I want to do is I want to take us into God’s Word, and I want to make a connection between a couple of the things that Chris introduced us to. Namely, this thing that we’re studying called prayer. And then how God responds to that and why He responds to it in relation to spreading the gospel through our giving and our going to places like these Unengaged, Unreached People Groups. Church, I want you to know, we didn’t set out, planning the prayer series, necessarily to have connections with things like this. I’m always excited when God brings some things together and this morning is one of those times. Because what we’re going to do in worshiping the Lord through His Word is so in line with what we’re kicking off this morning. That’s the opportunity to mobilize laborers through our giving in this Global Missions Offering. In just a little bit, we’re going to share that time, as Chris said, together and launch into a month of giving so we can hear more stories like that. See more stories. Be a part of more stories for the glory of God.

I want you to look at Luke 19, at the two verses that I’m going to read, and then I want to unpack a little bit for us today. Luke 19:45, hear the word of the Lord.

“And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, ‘It is written, “My house shall be a house of prayer,” but you have made it a den of robbers.’” (Luke 19:45 –46 ESV)

Luke 19: 45–46 Helps Us See what the Temple Represents

I want us to answer three questions this morning out of these two short verses right here. This story that, in some respects, seems so out of character, at least for what most people think about when they think about the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a very important question that we have to answer. What is this temple? That’s the first one we’re going to tackle.

Then I want us to think about, this temple is supposed to be?” That has everything to do with why Jesus did what He did. Then I want us to think specifically about what grieves Jesus about this temple.

What is the temple?

Let’s start with the first question: What is the temple? This is an incredibly important question for us to answer when we come to a passage like this. In fact, church, let me just say to you, anytime we come in the scriptures to a text that deals with the temple, we’ve got to answer this question. “What was the temple?” and, “What is it for us today?” Because we’re not living in a day when, number one, that physical temple is in existence. Number two, we’re not living in a day where it was intended to be in existence with regard to what God wanted to do with that temple.

The New Testament is not silent when we ask the question, “What is this temple?” I want to call your attention, very quickly, to a couple of things in the New Testament that help us to understand how a people like us, living on this side of the cross, come to a passage like this and apply it to our lives. Make a connection from some physical structure that was in existence a couple of thousand years ago to our day and time in the 21st century.

Jesus is the temple.

Here’s the first response that the New Testament gives. It tells us that Jesus is the temple. This was God’s intent in giving that physical structure. Jesus is the temple. John 2, some of the religious leaders were trying to take Jesus out so they were trying to trap him. They said, “What sign are you going to give us that you’re who you say you are?” Jesus said, “Destroy this temple and I’ll rebuild it in three days.” They said, “That’s ridiculous, it’s been under construction for 46 years!” And it had been at that time in Herod’s remodeling project. “There’s no way you can do that.” Then John tells us that He was talking about the temple of His body. “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.” (Revelation 21:22 ESV)

This is where all of this is headed. When we come to this passage, we see a physical structure because it was in existence at that time. Jesus walked into a literal, real temple. It was the second temple that was built. The first one was built in the middle of the 10th century B.C., under Solomon’s leadership. Then the children of Israel were exiled, the Babylonians destroyed it, and some 400 years later, they came back into the land, they rebuilt the temple under Zerubbabel. Then shortly before the time of Christ, Herod, wanting to impress the Jews and also wanting to emphasize to the Romans the importance of Judea, he renovated that second temple and expanded it, and he wanted to make it bigger. This is the temple that Jesus would have walked into. It was a physical temple, but that is not what it was intended to prefigure. It was intended to prefigure Him. Jesus is the temple.

A believer is the temple.

The New Testament tells us something else. The New Testament tells us that a believer is the temple. I know that you know this. In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul said to know that you are the temple of God, your body is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? (1 Corinthians 3:16 ESV) And in chapter 6, he asks the rhetorical question, “Don’t you know that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit?” Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit …(1 Corinthians 6:19 ESV)

Those of us in this room in today that name the name of Christ, we’ve confessed Him as Savior and Lord. We are individuals that the Scripture, New Testament, says this is what that Old Testament temple, that physical temple, was prefiguring. You are the temple; a believer is the temple.

The church is the temple.

The Bible also says that we’re the temple, the church is the temple. Paul, in Ephesians 2, speaking to both Jews and Gentiles says, “In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:22 ESV)

The corporate body of believers is the temple of God. Does that mean there are three temples? No, it doesn’t. Think about our understanding of the presence of God living inside us. Jesus takes up residence in your life, He is the temple. The temple takes up residence in your life when you profess Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. The presence of God is put inside of you. Jesus the temple is put inside the believer, the believer becomes the temple. But guess what, you and I live in community together, no Lone Ranger Christians. None of us were saved in isolation. We were saved into family. We were saved into community. Look at those concentric circles that are there on your worship guide, they give us some representation of how we have these three responses to the temple. Jesus is the temple living inside of us as individual believers. We live in community together, we are the temple of God.

Why am I giving you all that? Because when we come to this text, we have to know what Jesus is saying to us today. Not just the historical lesson about what was going on there but how do we connect this to our lives so everything that we see in this, whatever it is we talk about, I want you to have that in your mind. I want you to have what this temple is for us today.

What is this temple supposed to be?

When we come to this passage, it is important for us to think about what this temple is supposed to be, as far as its nature. Take what this temple is, and let’s bring it into that question and come to this situation. Jesus walks into what appears to be a very chaotic situation in the temple that day. The text that I read just a moment ago shows that He brought a corrective to the chaotic situation. He spoke into that with regard to what this temple is supposed to be. Even before we look at the chaos that is going on, it’s really important for us to see what Jesus thought this temple was supposed to be. Now, remember who the temple is. Remember what the temple is. And I want to call your attention to what He says.

He entered the temple in verse 45, the physical structure, Herod’s temple or Zerubbabel’s temple, that second temple now being renovated and expanded, still under construction, probably, in this time right here. He goes into that temple, and in the midst of that chaos, notice what He says in verse 46, this is what He says to them. “It is written,” just a way for him to emphasize that this is what the Scripture says. Another way to say it is, “This is God’s definition.” This is what God intended this place to be. And look at what He says, “It is written My house shall be a house of prayer.” And church, we could just camp right there in that statement, and just ponder that for a moment. I want you to think about all of the possible descriptions that Jesus had at His disposal, that He could have used to describe the temple. To say this is what God intends the temple to be. Of all the ones He had at His disposal, this is the one that He chooses. In this moment, He reaches back into the Old Testament, and He says, “This is what God says about this place. This is end game. This is what it’s supposed to be. It is a house of prayer.” That’s Jesus’ corrective.

Now, don’t forget, what is the temple? Jesus is the temple living inside of you. You’re the temple, we’re the temple together in community. Bring that into this by way of application. Jesus says, “This was God’s end game. This is His goal. This is what He desires. This temple is to be a house of prayer.” That is a definitive statement about the nature of our lives. And so, the question on the table right now, even at this point right here early on, is, “Is this what people think about when they think about my life?” When somebody is talking about Jim Shaddix in a conversation, is this what comes to people’s mind? Probably not. Should it? Yes. Is this what defines the temple called Jim Shaddix?

Church, let’s bring it together, when people think of The Church at Brook Hills, what’s the first thing they think about? And remember, we’re not talking about a physical building. We’re not talking about this structure, this is not the temple. We’re the temple together in community. And Jesus would suggest right here that this is what defines you. And we would want, certainly among other things, for this to be – if not at the top of the list, close to the top of the list – when people think about our church, does this come to mind?: That is a praying church.

Beloved, think about it for a minute. Just picture, in one of those acts of disobedience, or one of those seasons of disobedience in your life, when you’re not walking with the Lord, maybe one of those times of self-reliance. One of those times that has been absent – there has been a famine in your life of intimate communion with God. Picture Jesus coming, picking up your life, dusting it off, cleaning it out, and saying, “This is supposed to be a house of prayer.” Think about Him reaching into our American culture, where there are so many churches that have sold their souls to worldliness and commercialism. And Jesus reaching in, by His grace, to that church and cleaning it out, and holding it up and saying, “This is supposed to be a house of prayer.” This is His statement. This is His description.

And I want to show you this more specifically. I want you to take a journey with me, okay? You’ve got your Bible open. I want you to hold your place here. We’re going to go on a road trip back into the Old Testament. I want to show you this passage of Scripture that Jesus quotes. He says, “It is written.” Let me show you where it is written. Isaiah 56. This is where Jesus draws His definitive description of what the temple is supposed to be. God, through Isaiah, is bringing a corrective into His day and time with regard to people’s misunderstanding about this temple. And there was so much misunderstanding, and there has been so much misunderstanding, and still is. And when we come to Isaiah 56, we find this description, actually, in verse 7. And Jesus actually states it twice in Isaiah 56:7. He says, “These I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” (Isaiah 56:7 ESV) He states it twice.

The place of prayer to God.

So when we think about Jesus’ corrective – just stay right there in Isaiah 56 for just a bit – when we think about Jesus’ corrective in Luke 19, we’ve got to come back over here. And we begin to see, the things that Jesus would have had in mind when He made this statement. The first one is that very thing that we’ve mentioned. What’s this temple supposed to be? Well, it’s supposed to be the place of prayer to God. The place of prayer to God. He defines it that way. God, through Isaiah, defined it that way. Jesus took that, applied it to His day and time. This is what the temple is supposed to be.

Now, I know this is going to mess some of you up, okay? So I want you to stay with me. But, believe it or not, I want you to hold your place here, and I want you to turn to another Old Testament passage. And then we’ll come back here. I’m making you work a little bit this morning. Because you see, I want to show you that this is not new information. I don’t know about you, but for me, when I come to Luke 19 I see Jesus walk into that place, and that chaotic situation, and make this statement, “This is a house of prayer.” That’s a little bit surprising, because it doesn’t seem to be what we think about most of the time when we think about the temple, right? Even when we come to Isaiah 56. This is the way God, through Isaiah, describes it.

What I want to show you is, I want to take you back to 1 King 8. I want to go back to the middle of the 10th Century B.C. for a second. And I want to show you the inauguration – so to speak – the ribbon-cutting of the original temple. Many of you know this passage of Scripture. 1 Kings 8 contains Solomon’s prayer of dedication. So Solomon, you know, he’s king. And his dad, David, had the dream of building the temple, but God said, “No, you’re not going to build it. Solomon is going to build it.” Now it’s built, and they are opening the doors on this thing. Okay? So this is the original temple. And Solomon is praying his prayer of dedication over this temple. And so, in his prayer, he’s praying, “God, this is what we need You to do. This is what we want to see happen in this place.” And after some introductory remarks, beginning in verse 22, we get on down to what he begins to ask for. And I want you to notice in verse 29, he’s praying that God’s eyes would be open night and day toward this place. “The place of which you have said, ‘My name shall be there,’ that you may,” watch this now, “listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place. And listen to the plea of your servant and of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place.” (1 Kings 8:29 –30 ESV)

And then he launches into all of these possible scenarios where this is going to happen. Verse 31, “If a man sins against his neighbor and is made to take an oath and comes and swears his oath before your altar in this house, then hear in heaven…” (1 Kings 8:31 –32 ESV) He says, when he cries out to you. Verse 33, “When your people Israel are defeated before the enemy because they have sinned against you, and if they turn again to you and acknowledge your name and pray and plead with you in this house, then hear in heaven…(1 Kings 8:33 –34 ESV)

Verse 35, “When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, if they pray toward this place and acknowledge your name and turn from their sin, when you afflict them, then hear in heaven…” (1 Kings 8:35 –36 ESV) Verse 37, “If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence or blight or mildew or locust or caterpillar, if their enemy besieges them in the land at their gates, whatever plague, whatever sickness there is, whatever prayer, whatever plea is made by any man or by all your people Israel, each knowing the affliction of his own heart and stretching out his hands toward this house, then hear in heaven…” (1 Kings 8:37 –39 ESV) Are you kind of picking up on a pattern here? Are you kind of picking up on what Solomon says is going to happen in this place and what they need God to do?

Verse 41, I love this paragraph. “Likewise, when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a far country for your name’s sake (for they shall hear of your great name and your mighty hand, and of your outstretched arm), when he comes and prays toward this house, hear in heaven your dwelling place…” (1 Kings 8:41 –43 ESV) Verse 44, “If your people go out to battle against their enemy, by whatever way you shall send them, and they pray to the Lord toward the city that you have chosen and the house that I have built for your name, then hear in heaven…” (1 Kings 8:44 –45 ESV)

Verse 46, “If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near, yet if they turn their heart in the land to which they have been carried captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors,” (1 Kings 8:46 –47 ESV) He’s anticipated that they’re going to be taken into exile.

And he says, when they even pray in the direction of this place and pray to You toward this land, verse 49, “Then hear in heaven your dwelling place their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause” (1 Kings 8:49 ESV) Verse 52, “Let your eyes be open to the plea of your servant and to the plea of your people Israel, giving ear to them whenever they call to you.” (1 Kings 8:52 ESV) And then it’s over. Prayer of dedication is over.

Is there anything missing in that, in your mind? I mean, I read that prayer of dedication, and I say, “Where’s all that sacrifice stuff? What about those animals and the bloody sacrifices that are made, and all that kind of stuff?” The word, “sacrifice” is never even mentioned, and the word, “altar” is mentioned one time. And it’s in reference to prayers being made at the altar. This is the dedication prayer of the temple.

Beloved, if there was any surprise when we come to Isaiah 56, and when we come to Luke 19, it’s not because God was not clear about what ought to define this temple. It’s almost like this, listen to me. Watch this, come in here real close. There’s no doubt that sacrifices were part of Israel’s worship. No doubt that it was part of what God was doing all the way from the beginning of the physical temple until it was destroyed in 70 A.D. The sacrificial system was a huge part of that. But it’s almost like both Solomon and Isaiah anticipated the day when Jesus Christ would bring fulfillment to that sacrificial system. He would fill that up and pay for our sins and the sins of the whole world. And the temple would continue in what God intended it to be in this nature, right here. Primarily defined as a place for prayer to God. And this is what Isaiah tell us here in Isaiah 56. This is what God says it is supposed to be.

Luke 19: 45–46 Tells Us that the Temple is a Connection to Communion with God

But also, not just a place for prayer to God, but a connection to communion with God. He’s very clear that he’s talking here about people being brought to the temple. And look at some of the things that he says in Isaiah 56:5. He says, “I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” (Isaiah 56:5 ESV) If that’s not adoption, I don’t know what is! “I want to bring these people that are not sons and daughters, and I want to give them a name better than sons and daughters.” Bringing them into the family! Bringing them into communion with God, He says.

Verse 7, “These I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar…” (Isaiah 56:7 ESV) What’s he describing? He’s saying, “I’ve got some folks, I’m going to bring them into relationship with me. I’m going to bring them into my worship. And they’re going to commune with me.” No doubt, when Jesus brought that corrective in Luke 19, He was envisioning this reality about this place of prayer. Now don’t forget what this temple is. For us, living on this side of the cross, it’s not a physical building. It’s the Lord Jesus Christ indwelling each of us as believers, and us living in community. And Jesus reached back into Isaiah 56, and He said, “You are a place, you are a connection for people to come into relationship with the Father.” Outsiders, outcasts like we started with when we said Psalm 146 a while ago. This is what we are in the eyes of our Lord.

And if I could just press pause right there for a moment, and say a word to those of you who may be here today without Christ. I want you to know this is the reason you’re here today, even if you didn’t realize it. This is the reason that you maybe woke up this morning and thought, “Man, maybe I ought to go to church today.” This is the reason that some believer in Jesus Christ invited you to come. Or maybe has been in Spiritual conversation. This is the reason that somehow, your life got intersected with a faith family like this. No accident. Not just by happenstance. It is because God intersects people’s lives out of His love and His grace and mercy. With his temple, he intersects people’s lives with His temples out there in the workday world, in order for them to be connecting points to communion with Him.

And so, I want you to know that you’re not here by accident today. And our prayer is that in that connecting point – whether it was with an individual Christian seated next to you, or is a member of the congregation, or it’s just by you showing up in this temple, not this building, but with these people today. God intends to connect you to Himself. And He’s made that possible through His son Jesus Christ. And our invitation to you is that you take Him up on that. And you repent of your sins, and you trust Christ, and Christ alone to save you. Because this was God’s desire in this temple thing.

The means for the mission of God.

So, connecting points with the communion of God. But there’s one more. And these are just kind of building. They’re really not separate, but Jesus would have had in mind what this temple is supposed to be as the means for the mission of God. Church, did you notice there are three words that Isaiah uses that Luke doesn’t include? Mark actually includes them in his Gospel account of this temple incident. But Luke doesn’t. They’re found at the end of verse 7. He’s mentioned, “house of prayer” twice, and then he says this, “for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” (Isaiah 56:7 ESV)

And then in verse 8, “The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares this, “I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.” (Isaiah 56:8 ESV) And you know what He’s talking about? Well, look back at verse 3, “Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say,” I’m not sure I belong here. (Isaiah 56:3 ESV) The eunuch, He mentions in verse 3, who would have been an outcast. Verse 4, He mentions the eunuch again. And then in verse 6, “And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord.” That’s what this text is about. That’s what He’s talking about. He’s talking about people who you wouldn’t think could come to God. Not the children of Israel. He’s going to gather them together, but He says, “This deal I’m doing is for other people as well. And I’m going to connect them to my temple.”

In Isaiah, Solomon had mentioned it in his prayer, this is what God intended for the temple. He intended, watch this church, to do such mighty works, to do such great things in the midst of His people, that the whole world would find out about it. And people from other nations would say, “Whoa! We want to get in on that” And they would come to Jerusalem to find out what’s going on. And they would go to the temple. And they would cry out to God. And guess what? If you and I are the temple, individually and corporately, that’s exactly what God intends for the temple. It’s what Jesus would have had in mind – that this is the means of the mission. This is how it happens. God works in our lives in incredible ways. Other-worldly ways that just blow people’s minds. And they look at your individual life and they say, “I don’t know what it is, but I got to get in on that!” Or they intersect with the church like this, and God’s doing such incredible things, and other-worldly stuff that just breaks all the rules. And people look and say, “I don’t know what it is that’s going on there, but I’ve got to find out.”

But don’t miss this church, watch this, remember what defines the temple. Remember what Solomon prayed for. Remember what Isaiah reiterated. Remember how Jesus described it. A place of prayer. How does this happen? It happens because we are people of prayer and a community of faith and prayer, and we’re asking God for the things that honor Him. We’re asking Him to intervene in our lives. We’re asking him to advance His glory and our lives, and in our church, and among the nations. We’re praying for that. And people know us, they know that that person sure prays a lot. That church prays a lot. And they’re asking….And guess what? God answers them! That’s what Solomon was asking for. “God, hear these prayers and respond from heaven, so that people would look and say, ‘Man, those Jews – they pray a lot over at that temple. And guess what? God moves in these incredible ways. We got to find out about this.’”

And He has the same desire for us, the temple, that He intended individually and corporately. That we would be a people that are known, not for our glory and not for our pride, but known as a people who pray and depend upon God and cry out to Him and ask Him for the stuff that brings honor. And the implication of all of this is that God honors that. He listens and He hears and He responds and He pours out His power and His glory, and people connect the dots. And they say, “She prays a lot to this God, and He seems to listen to her. And that guy, man, he’s always asking for God to do some stuff. And it’s kind of other-worldly stuff. It’s not really the stuff I would ask for, but God seems to listen to him.” And they see it. Church that is a temple. It is a place of prayer. And they see people who are known as a people of prayer – crying out to God, and pleading with Him and asking Him to respond for His glory. And God seems to answer them and listen to them and act on their prayers. And they say, “I’ve got to find out what that is about.”

All you’ve got to do is stop right there and think, just ponder a minute the tragedy then of going through our entire Christian lives with prayer being on the back-burner. If we are the temple, and this is what Jesus said the temple was supposed to be, how could that be? How could we let that opportunity get by us?

I asked our global disciple-making team to help me think through, a while back, the work that is still to be done – the work that we rejoice in when we give this offering. But also the reminders that are on these pictures, all of which are part of your partnerships. And the reminders of how much more there is to do and to reach. They gave me some stats that I think just personalize this for us. And I wanted to read a couple of them to you.

There are 24 million people in the country of Yemen. 24 million. You know how many believers there are there? 4,275. In the whole country of 24 million. Do you understand that we put more people than that in this room just about every Sunday for worship? We’ve got more people in this room in 3 services than there are Christians in a country of 24 million. In Tunisia, there are 10 million. They’ve got just a little over 1100 Christians. There are more people in this room right now than that. There are more people in just about all three of our worship services than the number of Christians in a country of 10 million. Bosnia has 3.7 million. There are 2200, that’s about how many we can put in this room right here. But 3.7 million. Turkmenistan, there are 5.1 million – just a little more, about a million more than we have in our state. The population of the state of Alabama, and there are about 1700 believers in the whole country.

The Church at Brook Hills, we have been challenged to give and to go and to pray. And God is using those acts of worship in incredible ways. But you might ask, “Why do we keep coming back to do this every year? Why do we keep talking about this? And giving? Why would we do three offerings on one day? And collect a global missions offering all year and do it every year?” It’s because there’s so, so much more. The task is so huge. And there’s so much right here in our going as well as our giving, but also – and we can’t leave it out – our praying.

What grieves Jesus about the temple?

Let me show you, real quick. And we will not take the time to really go back to where it is. But in Luke 19 – I want to just show you real quick what grieves Jesus about this temple, and about this situation that I was just describing, and the task that is so large. And yet, there’s still so much to be done. So many things to do. You see, when we come to Luke 19, and these 2 verses right here, we understand that Jesus was, He was upset. Alright? Use whatever word you want – He was angry, He was mad. And we don’t even have the detail here in Luke that Mark gives us in his Gospel. I mean, Mark tells us He was turning over tables. And in a previous time, Jesus cleansed the temple. John describes in John 2, of Him taking a cord and making a whip out of it. I mean, you could just picture, like these tables right here. This is that chaotic situation that Jesus walked into that day. But I want you to note in Luke 19, that this was more than a guy flying off the handle, who’s mad at the world. I want you to just look up before this passage in verses 45 –46, and look at the previous paragraph.

It begins in verse 41, “And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, (Luke 19:41 ESV) That’s what Jesus brings. John described it in that previous temple cleansing as, “Zeal for the Lord’s house.” We know He’s angry in righteous indignation here. But beloved, I don’t want us to miss that anger is born out of a broken heart for the temple – not to be what the temple was supposed to be. That’s why He says at the end of verse 44, “because you did not know at the time of your visitation.” You didn’t know the Messiah was going to come, you weren’t looking for Him. And how the Messiah was going to bring fulfillment to that sacrificial system. And how He was going to make this temple what it was supposed to be. You have missed it! And so, what we have here is not just somebody who was mad, we’ve got somebody whose heart is broken. And guess what? When the temple is not what the temple is supposed to be anytime, it grieves the heart of our Lord.

And so, I want to show you real quickly, I want to take you, I want you to look up here real quickly at this screen. And I want to show you a picture of a model of the temple, just to get this in perspective. It’s actually in a museum; this particular model is in a museum in Jerusalem. And, you know, when somebody entered the temple – and I know this is just really really light right here, and some of you are looking at the other side, and I’ll point over there – you came into the temple from the East, you come to Solomon’s porch right here. You know, but this is all the temple. And you see this big area around here? That surrounds the rest of the temple. You know, the Court of the Women, where only Jews could go, and this was as far as women could go. And then, the Nicaner Gate, of 15 curved steps that led up into the court of Israel, also known as the Court of Men. Before you get to the sanctuary, in which is the Holy of Holies. But this right here, this area out here, is where Jesus would have come. That’s still temple. You see it on this side over here. All this area, the largest square footage area, and this is where Jesus would have come. And this is where He saw something that grieved Him, and broke His heart. He knew what He was walking into.

And now, I want you to think about that. That largest area out there, interestingly, is known as the Court of the Gentiles. The Court of the Gentiles was the only place in the temple that foreigners could go. They couldn’t go any farther than that first gate right there, which is the beautiful gate – the Gate Beautiful. They weren’t allowed past that. And in this large area out here is where, whatever was going on, was going on. This is what Jesus walked into – into the Court of the Gentiles.

Now, with that picture in mind, I want us to think together about what it is that breaks His heart about what He saw in the the chaos that was going on. Because, you see, when you walked in there that day, the place was hustling and bustling, and there was movement, and it looked like a marketplace. And so, Jesus comes in there and when we see His actions, both here and in the Gospel of Mark – the other accounts – what we’re seeing are some reminders about what breaks the heart of our Lord. What grieves Him. Listen to me, church, when the temple is not what God intended the temple to be, that’s what we have to take away from this. So, let me ask you to think about some of those things, just reflecting on Luke 19 here. Let me tell you when the heart of Jesus is grieved – it’s when our Lord is being robbed of something that He is due. And you say, “Well, how do we know that’s what broke His heart?” Look at the end of verse 46. Jesus has brought the corrective and He says this is what the temple is supposed to be, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.” (Luke 19:46 ESV)

Now Jesus quotes again from the Old Testament, this time from Jeremiah 7:11 – we won’t take the time to go there. You can check it out another time. Let me just briefly tell you. God, through Jeremiah, speaks to the people of Israel. He tells Jeremiah, you go to the gate of the temple and you stand there and you declare this. He told him what to declare, “You guys need to quit saying, ‘The temple, the temple, the temple.’ As if to say, ‘We can go out and do anything we want with our lives as long as we show up at the temple. Because the temple cures everything and it will absolve us of any wrongdoing.'” You know what they were doing? They were oppressing foreigners, they were stealing, they were murdering. You name it, it’s on the list there in Jeremiah 7. Then they would show up at the temple, and they would say, “We’re at the temple, we made it to the temple.”

Luke 19: 45–46 Offers Insight into the Emphasis of the Temple

God said, “Stop being deceived by thinking you can make the temple something that it was never intended to be and it will give you a license to live your life the way that you want to live it.” In Jeremiah 7:11, God said through Jeremiah that you have turned this place into a den of robbers because you are robbing God of what this temple is supposed to be.

When God is robbed of His prayer for the sake of our profit.

So, what breaks the heart of Jesus? Number one, it breaks His heart when God is robbed of His prayer for the sake of profit. When God is robbed of His prayer for the sake of profit. I know many of you know what was going on in that Court of the Gentiles. There were sacrificial animals being sold and there were also, Mark tells us, people who were changing money because it was Passover time and pilgrims were coming. Foreigners were coming to that Court of the Gentiles, but you could only pay your Temple tax with a Jewish coin so they would do the money changing thing like you do when you go to a foreign country with the exchangers there. The problem was not even necessarily the fact that sacrificial animals were available or that money was being changed. The problem is how it was being done. The prices were being jacked up, people were paying exorbitant prices for animals that they had to buy there. The exchange rate – because this was a racket, this place was filled with this racket – it even connected all the way to the top because these money changers and concessionaires had been given permission to be there by the high priest. So some of the money was filtering up there, and this is what was going on. It was a profit. It was a worship-for-profit machine. So here’s the connection, be careful, because there are probably not too many of us in here that would see ourselves gaining from worship, but remember the temple and remember what Jesus said the temple was supposed to be. It was supposed to be a house of prayer. Jesus’ heart is broken when God is robbed of that thing of prayer in the place of profit.

Now, process this. How do most people see prayer? They see it as a means of getting stuff from God, right? This is why we pray. We go to God and we ask Him for stuff and He gives it to us. All of a sudden, prayer that was intended to be an expression of worship and an act of praise, is relegated to a means of profit. Even if you’re not asking for the world, or asking God to let you get the Power Ball numbers right, or making you rich through another job. Even if you’re not asking for that stuff, anytime we look at prayer as merely a means for us to get what we want from God, we have taken what was intended to be His praise and we have made it a means of profit for us.

When God is robbed of His communion for the sake of our convenience.

Secondly, Jesus is grieved when God is robbed of His communion for the sake of our convenience. When He is robbed of His communion, which is what we saw in Isaiah, for the sake of our convenience. There is something interesting in Mark’s Gospel that is not in Luke’s. It says that the buyers were cast out too. Jesus threw out the sellers and the buyers. That’s interesting. He threw out the people that were swindling people but He even threw out the people who were getting swindled. Why would He do that? Because the concession of the charlatans had become the convenience of the common people. They had come to the place to say, “We don’t need to raise our own animal, we really don’t need to give up one of our animals for that. They sell them over there. Yeah, we’ll pay a little bit more but we’ll just grab one on our way in over there.” It had become a religion of convenience.

Mark also says that Jesus wasn’t letting anybody go travel, bring things through the temple. You know why? That huge Court of the Gentiles had become a shortcut between the city and the Mount of Olives and to get to other places and there was plenty of room to travel. Jesus went in there and said, “No! That’s not what this is. This is not a convenient pathway to take your everyday life and move it on and doing the things that you need to do. This is a place of worship.” But it had become a place of convenience for the people. How often do our lengthy todo lists and our crowded calendars seem to push out time of uninterrupted, unhurried communion with the Father? How often does worship in a gathering like this become something that is just a convenient thing to fit in our daily schedule, unless there’s a better offer on the table. Thereby taking the loftiness of the worship of the Almighty God and reducing it to simply a matter of religious ritual based on our convenience?

When God is robbed of His mission for the sake of our materialism.

Third, and finally, it breaks the heart of Jesus, grieves Him when God is robbed of His mission for the sake of our materialism. It shouldn’t surprise us that we come back here because that Court of the Gentiles was a statement by God. It had the largest square footage – you saw it on the picture – the largest square footage of all the temple. It was paved with variegated marble of the highest quality. It was a place that God said, “I’m bringing the foreigners to this place, the castaways, those that are not part of my people Israel. I have a place for them.” That’s the place that had been transformed into a marketplace. A marketplace of materialism for both buyers and sellers. Jesus walked in there and He took them back to Isaiah 56 and said, “This is what this is supposed to be. I wanted to come in here today and see people from Rome and Egypt and Italy. I wanted to see people from Bosnia and Turkmenistan and Saudi Arabia. I wanted to see people from Northern India on their faces before God worshiping Him and crying out to Him. Instead you have made it a hub of materialism.”

Jesus would bring us back to this place, when we come to a time like this, of thinking about being a temple individually and corporately. Of being a people of prayer, but also to a time when we kick off this global offering, to be reminded that this is where His heart beats. It is so easy, isn’t it, in the Western Church, where we are laced with luxury and an abundance of technology and resources. You see, here’s the thing that some people miss. I want you to get this, and then we’re going to share together in this time of worship, because this is who we are and this is what we do and this is what honors God. Some have thought that Court of the Gentiles, this was going on so the Gentiles couldn’t get in there. That’s not true. That place is huge. There were plenty of places for them to get in. It just clouded the issue and made for more distractions and made it harder for people to get there.

You see, that’s the way it is with stuff, isn’t it? It’s not wrong for us to have a salary and own a home and have a car. It’s not wrong for us to have material things, that’s part of this life. But the warning in Scripture, is that they become so prevalent that they begin to cloud the issue of worship and the heartbeat of God. This morning, we come to a reminder in this offering of the heartbeat of God. And when we take an offering for missions like this, it is a reminder of that clouded issue between our materialism and stuff we want to hold onto, and what God desires for these temples to be.

What is the temple?

(Luke 19:45; cf. John 2:19-21; 1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19; Ephesians 2:19-21; Revelation 21:22)

• Jesus is the temple.
• A believer is the temple.
• The church is the temple.

What is this temple supposed to be?

(Luke 19:45-46; cf. 1 Kings 8:29-53; Isaiah 56:3-8)

• The place of prayer to God.
• The connection to communion with God.
• The means for the mission of God.

What grieves Jesus about this temple?

(Luke 19:45-46; cf. Jeremiah 7:8-11; Matthew 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-17; John 2:13-17)

• When God is robbed of His prayer for the sake of our profit.
• When God is robbed of His communion for the sake of our convenience.

When God is robbed of His mission for the sake of our materialism.