The Gospel of John – Part Three
Fired from The Ministry
Good ideas are not all they are cracked up to be. When I was in my mid-twenties, I served on staff at a large church in Paducah, Kentucky. One of my responsibilities was to do the children’s sermon. When we were planning for Lent, I noticed that on Palm Sunday, Richard Smith, our senior pastor, would be preaching on Jesus overturning the tables in the Temple court. This gave me an awesome idea for children’s sermon. I decided to recreate the scene.
To do this, I went to every toy store and department store in town. I bought as many packages of toy money as a I could find. In all, I had about a thousand fake coins. I set up a card table at the front of the sanctuary and carefully stacked the coins. When it was time for the children’s sermon, I asked the kids to sit off to the side of the table, as I began telling them the story of how Jesus overthrew the tables in the Temple. I asked them to imagine what would happen if Jesus showed up and did something like that in our church. What if Jesus showed up and crashed our party? As I said that, I grabbed the card table and threw it over, sending all of the coins rolling in every direction.
The children who were there loved the sermon, and many never forgot it. Unfortunately, the senior pastor hated it and I nearly lost my job over it.
The point is that even a small re-enactment of the event is enough to cause real panic and pushback.
Head – The Helpful Information
John is the only one of the four Gospels to record this story twice. Why? It seems that John wants to show us the ending first, and then show us how the story got there. The first half of the Gospel of John is made up seven miraculous signs that reveal something about the nature of God, and which teach us something about Jesus. Tucked-in, throughout these stories, are some radical things Jesus says about himself and his relationship to the Father.
Each of these signs and sayings place the people in the stories and the reader the position of having to make a decision about Jesus. In other words, they force us to respond to him. Each story raises the tension over who Jesus is, causing some of the audience to respond with new or deeper faith, while others respond with hostility and resistance to Christ.
All of this comes to a fatal final confrontation between Jesus and powers of this world, as he faces the forces of sin and evil at the cross. The lynch pin that sets all of this in motion is Jesus’ confrontation with the religious and military leaders at the Israel’s most holy site, the Temple.
John places this last scene of conflict at the beginning of his Gospel as a way of showing us how each miracle and saying of Jesus is going to eventually lead each of us to a point of final decision, where we are either going to surrender to him as Lord and God, or to reject him, and join with those who hate and scorn our Christ.
Heart – The Personal Connection
This final confrontation raises the question, what would happen if Jesus were to make a his claim as rightful King over all humanity? What would happen if he just came out and showed us who he is? The answer is, we would kill him.
Jesus confrontation at the Temple doesn’t cause this desire in them. It reveals the hatred that is already there. The cross shows us the poison of sin that has contaminated the human heart. Jesus draws it to the surface.
I love cooking with cast iron pans. The problem is, cast iron can be quite hot without you knowing it. A hot pan does not look different from a cool pan. Usually, if I am unsure of a pot’s temperature, I will throw a few drops of water or oil on the pan to see how hot it is. If the water evaporates immediately or the oil crackles, I know the pan is hot. The oil and water are more like a thermometer than a thermostat, in that they reveal the heat, they don’t create it.
Two Buddhist monks belonged to an order that forbade its members from having contact with people of the opposite sex, less they abandon their vow of celibacy. As these two monks travelled to a nearby village, they came to a flooded part of the road and saw there a lady who could not complete her journey, because crossing the flooded road would ruin her fine dress. One of the monks offered to carry her across and she gladly accepted. When the monk was far past the deep water, he set the lady down safely, at which time the lady and monks parted ways. The other monk was indignant at his brother, but said noting.
Many hours later, the indignant monk said, “I can’t believe you carried that lady across the water. You know that we are not to have contact with women. I can’t believe you would do such a thing.” Speaking calmly, his brother replied, “Brother, I set her down hours ago. You, on the other hand, are still carrying her around in your mind.”
Last year, when the lottery jackpot reached nearly a billion dollars, my father bought our family a ticket. In case you are wondering, we didn’t win. That evening, we talked about what we would do with the money, which seemed like a fun fantasy. Secretly, I wondered if winning that much money would ruin our lives.
In fact, many people who do win the lottery end up far worse off than if they did not win. It’s not that money changes people. It does not. Money reveals what is already there. It is a like magnifying glass, exaggerating the character traits that are already present.
Whenever I am preparing a couple for marriage, I insist that they go through four or five sessions of pre-marital counseling. The importance of pre-marital counseling is to make sure that the couple truly understands their partner’s thinking on money, sex, children, household responsibilities, and a host of other issues. Some couples are naive about these things and don’t really know what their future spouse wants from life.
I have heard couples say they don’t need to have these conversations because they can practically read each other’s minds. I tell them they cannot and that I can prove it. It takes only one game of Pictionary with some other people to realize that you can’t read your partner’s mind. And, if you could, you probably would not want to.
In fact, imagine if your most private thoughts could be read and broadcast to everyone you knew. But Jesus knows every contour of the human heart. In fact, the One who does know the secrets of the human heart, reveals the nature of the human heart, by confronting the powers of this world in the Temple and by confronting forces of sin and death on the cross.
Jeremiah 17:9-10 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick; who can understand it.”
In Mark 7:21-23, Jesus says, “ From within a person, from the heart of an individual, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within a person.”
Galatians 5:16-17 says, “Walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh struggles agains the Spirit, and the Spirit agains the flesh; and these things are contrary to one another.”
Romans 3:11-12 says, “There is none who understands; there is none who seek after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good, no, not one.”
Ephesians 4:17-18 says, “This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of their ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.””
But, he not only reveals the depths of our sin, he reveals the depth of our need for salvation:
We read in Romans 7:
7 Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is sinful? Of course not! In fact, it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, “You must not covet.”[c] 8 But sin used this command to arouse all kinds of covetous desires within me! If there were no law, sin would not have that power. 9 At one time I lived without understanding the law. But when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life, 10 and I died. So I discovered that the law’s commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death instead. 11 Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me; it used the commands to kill me. 12 But still, the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good.
13 But how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause my death? Of course not! Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation to death. So we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God’s good commands for its own evil purposes.
Struggling with Sin
14 So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. 15 I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. 16 But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. 17 So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
18 And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[d] I want to do what is right, but I can’t. 19 I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. 20 But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
21 I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. 22 I love God’s law with all my heart. 23 But there is another power[e] within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. 24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? 25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Hands – The Practical Application – Hope for Sinful People
To Flee from the Wrath To Come
From Romans 10 we read:
And that message is the very message about faith that we preach: 9 If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. 11 As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.”[e] 12 Jew and Gentile[f] are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord, who gives generously to all who call on him. 13 For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”[g]
14 But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? 15 And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!