(00:41):
W ell, good morning church. I hope you have had a great, great week this week and also I just hope you've been able to get outside, uh, in the last 24 hours. It seems like the last two weeks have been cold and gloomy and finally the Lord has given us a couple of days. Hey, before I jump into the message this morning, can you just tell the worship teams all over this building how thankful we are for them? Uh, man, it has been a sweet, sweet season, uh, here at Burnt Hickory. If you've been here in January and now into February, you know, it has been a great month and I can't wait to see where God is going to continue to take us. Look, if you got a copy of scripture this morning, I just want you to go back with me to John chapter two today, John chapter two today, and we're gonna pick up really in the back half of where we left off last week in this series that we are just walking through the gospel of John, where John's main point,

(01:43):
all right, at the end of the day, his main point is to do nothing more than to show us Jesus, to show us exactly who Jesus is, not for just knowledge sake, but so that we can see him as God. We can submit our lives to him and that he can deliver us. I love John's gospel because what we've said over these last couple weeks is he spends all of this time proven the deity of Jesus, proven that Jesus is God, and proving that he is the word made flesh. Everything points to Jesus. In fact, in chapter one we said that Jesus was called the Word. He was called the Lamb of God, the Creator, the Light, the One and Only, the Messiah, the King of Israel, the Stairway, and the Son of man. Chapter one was incredible because it set the tone and described Jesus in these incredible words.

(02:46):
But not only did he just describe who Jesus was, Jesus steps into the scene and calls the first of his disciples. And he shows us that he is so much more than just a good teacher or a moral leader, that he's God. Last week in chapter two, as we started it, it was Jesus, his mother Mary, and these five disciples that were with him. And he was walking into Cana and they begin to step into this marriage that was about to happen, this wedding that was in place. And we see in chapter two where we said last week, the very beginning we see Jesus actually step in with power and actually show us the descriptions of what Chapter one gave us. And he starts to live this out. Jesus' first miracle in chapter two of John showed us that he not only just steps into the scene as a religious leader, he steps in as a miracle worker.

(03:44):
And that's exactly who he is to our lives. And it showed us Jesus last week through the context of that He is the one that steps in when nothing else can work, when nothing else can help. All he asks of us is to offer the little that we have to give to him to answer his call, to stand in the light of being obedient to him when it doesn't make sense. We said last week that Jesus adds his extra to our extraordinary to make it extraordinary. He not only wants to give us life, he wants to give us abundant life. And we said that our role in all of this is to simply just do what Jesus tells us to do. Why? Because he's God. He's the creator, he's the Savior of the world. Well, today we're just gonna continue to allow John to help us walk with Jesus, to show us Jesus.

(04:40):
And today we're gonna jump into our text today in John chapter two, starting in verse 13. And all we're gonna do today is we're gonna read it together. We're gonna see Jesus probably through a light that most of us have just kind of skipped over real quickly. And Jesus is gonna show us some lessons today that I've just entitled Lessons from Flipping Tables today. All right? Now lemme give you this before we jump into the text today. This is one of two passages of scripture really where Jesus just says, enough is enough. Where he actually shows us his passion and actually shows us this divine holy anger. You know, compassion and love are the two things that stand out the most when we think about Jesus. But today, Jesus is about to get hot. Why? Because people were not worshiping rightly. Alright, here we go.

(05:33):
We're gonna jump in verse 13 of John chapter two. And I'm gonna just gonna kind of set the scene a little bit. It's 'cause context means everything here. Alright, here it is, John two verse 13. It says this, when it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now pause there because anytime, and those of you that have gone to Israel with us, uh, you, you, you know this, anytime you, you see a person going to Jerusalem, what are they doing? They're always going up. They're always going up. They're going up physically and they're going up spiritually. Why? Because the Sea of Galilee and Nazareth all obviously the Dead Sea and all of the Cana, the areas around it were actually below Jerusalem and altitude. So no matter which way you went out of Jerusalem, you're walking down, going into Jerusalem, you're coming up.

(06:22):
And it's also just this incredible symbol that I'm coming into the presence of the Lord. And that's exactly what Jesus is doing. Jesus the Bible just told us in verse 13 that what is he doing? He's going to Jerusalem. He's going to the temple. Now, lemme point this out. This is actually Jesus's first ministry visit to Jerusalem. The Book of John shows all three Passovers that Jesus shows up at. But this one is the first one in what I would just kind of call a ministry context. Now obviously if you know the Bible, it is not the first time he's been to Jerusalem and it's not the first time he's been to the temple. In fact, you'll see, we first hear of Jesus at the temple in Luke chapter two, verse 22. When his parents, when he was seven weeks old, Mary and Joseph brought him to the temple to do what?

(07:15):
To present him before the Lord as the force born. That was the practice of the day. We also see Jesus a second time back at the temple. He, he went between this when he was 12 years old. One of my favorite stories in scripture, right when he was 12 years old. Luke two, verse 41 says this, it says that every year Jesus's parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. When he was 12 years old, they went up to the festival. What? According to the custom, the Jesus's parents did what they did every year other than the years that they were in Egypt. What did they do? They went to the temple at the Passover. So Jesus' parents took Jesus and his siblings and they went to the temple to offer their sacrifice before the Lord. 'cause that's what was expected of them.

(08:04):
And if this particular one, when they were 12, Jesus was at the temple. And somehow, some way his parents actually forget about him for a minute and they leave him at the temple. Amen. Can I get a good amen from all those church kids that were ever left at the church, right? It's what happens in Jesus's life. So Jesus has probably been to the Passover week, and I wanna build this up. He's probably been there some 20 or 30 times. 'cause that's exactly what he did. That's how their Jewish family lived. So Jesus heads to the Passover. Now let me remind you, the hugeness of Passover, most of our aren't Jews, so we kind of skip over this. The Passover is this festival. It's this time, it's this day that God set up after he delivered the people from Egypt, his people with the Passover lamb.

(08:53):
In Exodus chapter 12, the end of the plagues, when God was delivering his children out of bondage and out of slavery, the last way that God delivered them was he said, Hey, if you want to be delivered, if you'll paint over your doorposts, the lamb, the blood of the lamb, that is the sacrifice for your family, I will pass over the firstborn from your family. It was the last plague, right? Well, they do this. God delivers them from Egypt. And on the backside of this, God says, Hey, every year, pause at this moment. And remember when I delivered you. Remember when I was the one that gave you the way to be delivered? Well listen to this, for 1500 years at this moment that Jesus is in about to walk into this temple, they had been celebrating this week as a symbol of their deliverance.

(09:49):
I love it. And Jesus now goes to the Passover. Do you see how this is working out? It's incredible, isn't it? And so do a lot of other Jews. Now, when I was growing up, when I thought about the Passover, I always thought about like two or three families in the courtyard of the temple celebrating this thing. But that's not anywhere close to what the Passover would've been in Jerusalem. Lemme see if I can just paint a mental picture for you. The best way we can tell Jerusalem, the first century city of Jerusalem had about 200,000 people. Now let me just nerd out for a minute, okay? 'cause this is incredible. Had about 200,000 people in it. Now, that's a big city in ancient times. But at the Passover time, the city would swell to about 2 million people, alright? 2 million people. So think like 10 times, right?

(10:34):
The where it was normally. Why? Because God had told them the central point of worship in this week that every Jew that lived within 15 miles of the temple was expected to be there. And every Jew, no matter where you lived in the world, at one point in your life, you were expected to be here. And the central point of the Passover was the temple complex. Now, when I say temple, think of a large, large area. In fact, I got a little picture here since graphics went so great a couple weeks ago, all right? This is what the first century temple during Jesus' time would've looked like. The middle was the holy of holies, where only on the day of atonement, the high priest could go right outside of that was where the sacrifices were made daily by the priests. Only priests could go right outside of that, working from the inside out was the Jewish court that the Jewish males that were pure, that came in pure could go right outside of that was the Jewish lady court.

(11:33):
Don't get on me, it's just how they did it. I don't know. All right? Right outside of that, hey, put that back up there. Right outside of that, all right, that worked. Uh, right outside of that was what you would just kind of call the courts of the Gentiles. That's those two huge blocks. That's where you and me could go, all right? Unless you're Jewish, if you're, you could go farther if you're Jewish. All right? You were like bonus. Alright? We couldn't as gentiles, anybody could go into these Jewish courts. Now to give you some perspective, those two Jewish courts, if you slam 'em together, are about 36 acres in size. Alright? So Matt, I don't, I know surveyor, I don't know what 36 acres is. To give you a little context, if you put all of the land that our parking lots have, plus the little neighborhood that we own beside us, we own about 35 acres.

(12:22):
Alright? That's how large those two blocks are. If you go to Jerusalem, you'll see this. So that's where this is happening in the temple complex. Now, there's 2 million people in Jerusalem. They're slamming into this complex every day. At any given moment, there would be between 10 and 20,000 people in these courts. Okay? So don't think like, oh look, there's three families in the court. No, this is huge. Things like, like the arena, like the Hawks Arena, state farm arena. Downtown is about 12,000 people. All right? That's how many people were here. Now get back to the verses and read it through this context. Watch what happens. Verse 13, it says, when it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Verse 14, in the temple courts, he found people selling cattle and sheep and doves and others sitting at tables exchanging money.

(13:20):
Now, let me give a little disclaimer here. Before all the phone calls and all the texts and all the messages come in this week, this has nothing to do with a coffee shop in the lobby, has nothing to do with selling books, and over here has nothing to do with the student cafe or the Coke machine in the back. If you send that to me, I will trash it. And we're not friends, all right? That is not, that is not what it's talking about, okay? It's not, you have taken it outta context. If that's where you're at, you're wrong. All right? There it is. No, no, no. This is a scene. It's a scene and a context here that is all about worship. It's not only just all about worship, it's all about these evil religious leaders that have put into practice some gnarly principles that are actually keeping people from worship.

(14:07):
All right? All those things that we offer, they help you worship. Amen. This is keeping people from worship and it's actually pricing worship out of the normal family's ability to bring their offerings, to bring their stuff before the Lord. Therefore, their family could not connect to God. That's the problem here, alright? That's the problem. You see, every Jew that participated at the Passover, whether it was every year or once of life, they would come into Jerusalem in the first destination that they needed to go to was the temple. Why? Because they had to pay what was called in this time their temple tax. Now, what if we did that? What if we put somebody at the deal going, Nope, nope, gimme 20 right before you come into here. That's actually what they did. They had to pay their temple tax. But not just pay their temple tax.

(14:57):
They had to pay it in the local temple currency. All right? Now, now we don't really think of that as a big deal, but it was a huge deal. And here's why. You see the high priest through his little priests cronies had come up with a system and history proves this had come up with a system to where they wouldn't just exchange money for convenience, they would exchange money and extort people out of 10 to 20% on an exchange rate. It's what they were doing and it was God's money. So when people came in to exchange their money, if you gave them your money, you lost 20% of what was yours. They were ripping people off. And also check this out. If you came in and, and you and you and you needed to sacrifice your animal, which everybody had to bring with them, let's say you came from a long way off, you wouldn't want to kind of like drag the lamb with you for two weeks and it's looking all scrawny when you got there.

(15:51):
So you would just come in and this happened for years and years and buy your spotless lamb right there on the scene so that you could present it to be sacrificed. The problem with that is that these same crooked people controlled the sale of all the animals. So now you were exchanging your money and losing 20%, and now you had to exchange your money to buy the lamb that they charged an exorbitant amount of money. Think like a $9 hotdog at a football game, right? At the, at the temple. You're coming in and now you're losing it both ways and you can't worship, you can't afford that. On top of that, these same cronies were the ones that gave the 'yeses' and the 'nos' when you brought your little lamb to be sacrificed, to tell you if it was pure and spotless enough. Let me walk you through what happened

(16:41):
most of the time. Josephus tells us, he said that very rarely would they allow a lamb to come in that was approved as spotless. So what would they do? They would buy your spotted lamb, they would charge you double for a spotless lamb, and the next day they would sell your lamb to somebody else. All right? Great business plan, horrible worship plan, right? That's why Jesus is so angry. In fact, that's why in Matthew 21, at the second time this happens, Jesus gets so mad at these guys and he says, look, you have turned my father's house into a den of thiefs and robbers. So the religious leaders at the most holy moment of the year of when God connects to his people the most had set up a system that had completely missed and completely perverted the point of the Passover. And that was that sin could be forgiven.

(17:36):
Are you feeling the weight now of why? What's about to happen in the text? And listen, and Jesus is hot. He's hot. Why? 'cause he's the lamb of God. Now keep reading and then I'll pause in a minute and give you a couple things to write down. But what Jesus does next is probably what, not what you would expect if you haven't read this story. Watch this in John chapter two, verse 15. So here's what happens. So Jesus bowed down on his knees and prayed for these people. No, that's not what happens. Watch, watch, watch, watch. Probably could've, but he didn't watch. So Jesus made a whip out of cords and he drove all of them from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. Man, I love this. One of my favorite stories, right?

(18:28):
Verse 16, to those who sold doves, he said, get outta here. Stop turning my father's house into a market. The disiples cremember that it was written, the zeal of your house will consume me. That was, that was David talking about the temple and Psalms, you can go read it this week. So what hapcpens? Jesus, he enters into this court, right? With some, 10 to 20,000 people into that probably the bottom, if you're looking back at that picture from a minute ago, the bottom right hand side, Jesus enters into this court. He evidently begins to scoop down or or kind of stoop down and pick up the pieces of leather that these people would've had their animals tied to all this stuff to keep 'em from running away. He starts weaving together this little bitty whip. And there would've been a lot of these little pieces of leather around wine because don't think like 12 or 13 animals here or there around the court, Josephus, the ancient historian, tells us that every year at the Passover, 250 plus thousand lambs were slain.

(19:28):
That's how many of this is happening. That's how grand of a scale. So Jesus begins to pick up some little cords, some little leather pieces. He that that would've been tied up to the lambs and sheep that've been propped up around the walls that were all in a place that was designed to be the connection point of people to God. This whole temple complex was the connection point of a holy God being in the life of man, to facilitate worship a man. This was where the presence of God on earth is. And now it has turned from a place of worship to a place of advancement and wealth from some evil people. That's why Jesus is so mad. In fact, write this first point down, I thought about this week, first life lesson from the flipping tables right here. It is nothing enrages Jesus more than irreverence and hypocritical worship of God.

(20:18):
That puts me at the center. Isn't this what got Jesus so mad? It took God off the throne. It took the advancement of God and God's glory in God's name off the throne, and it put these evil Gods system on the throne. God wants to be worshiped. Why? Because he is the one to be praised and he should be the center of our life. He should be the only thing in our life that we are pressing into with this kind of zeal. And when we flippantly listen to this, when we flippantly approach God and when we really have no desire to approach God and all we really wanna do is enrich ourselves, whether that's socially, relationally, money, whatever we are really and truly taking God off the throne, and I'm putting my advancement as my God. That's what angered him. That's what these people were doing.

(21:13):
And I might add, that's a huge struggle in American Christianity today. I mean, think about it. These guys, these vendors, right? They were so close in proximity to the presence of God. They were in the court right by the Holy of Holies, but they couldn't have been any farther in true worship to God than they were. Man, how do we know? 'cause it was all about them. How do we know? It was all about their advancement? It was all about their riches. It wasn't about the worship of God. In fact, they were driving walls in between people to be able to worship God. Listen to what Eugene Patterson says. I love this quote. He says, this worship is the strategy by which we interrupt our preoccupation with ourselves and we attend to the presence of God. Man, that's exactly the opposite of what these guys were doing.

(22:06):
They were pointing to themself, they were pointing to their advancement and not God's advancement. Lemme lemme just ask you a question this morning. I know the context is different, but let me just ask you this morning, is Jesus the center of your worship or are you the center of your worship? Is Jesus the one that everything in your life is pointing in a direction to, or is your advancement or your needs or your stuff or your, your your. Lemme say it like this. When you come before Jesus and worship, is it, is it more about you or is it more about him?

(22:40):
Jesus looked at these guys and said, it's all about you. And it frustrates me. So nothing enrages Jesus more than irreverence and and putting ourselves at the center of worship. But here's the second thing that stood out for me from this text. Jesus, here it is. Number two, write it down. Jesus gets extremely frustrated when anything becomes between him and his people. He gets extremely frustrated and listen, he has every right to, so don't get on Jesus. Be like, Hey, you should have controlled your temper a little bit. No, Jesus has every right to be angry. And if Jesus wasn't angry right here, I would question his authority and I would question his character because he is the one to be praised. Why? 'cause Jesus' sole reason for coming to this earth was to do what? Was to forgive sin and to connect a holy God to a sinful man.

(23:30):
And what are these people doing? They were driving a wall into worship and driving a wall where people could not connect with God. And Jesus gets so frustrated when anything comes between him and them. Why wouldn't he be mad here walking through these courts? He sees the roadblock, he sees the hindrance. And at this point, these people want nothing to do with God. And in fact, they're keeping people from connecting to God. And he's the connector. I mean, look back to the verse. Watch what happens right here. Jesus wrecks the place. Verse 15, it says this. So he made a whip out of cords and he drove all from the temple courts, both the sheep and the cattle. He scattered the coins of the money changers and he overturned their tables. Man, just get the scene in your mind, man. I love the little picture of Jesus holding the lamb with the locks, just petting them, but man, I love this one, right?

(24:24):
Maybe this should be your next like scene in your office, right? Jesus, with a whip going, I'll flip them tables, right? This is incredible. What does Jesus do? He flips over the tables and he drops people outta the courts. Now, normally, I don't point out places where there's like little bit of a room here for like, for a little bit of mystery, but this is an actually really cool mystery in scripture because this phrase driving them all out, we really don't know what that means. We really don't. It can mean two different things. It means one of them we just don't know. All right? It's kind of on my bucket list of what to ask Jesus one day. It either means he drove the vendors and their animals out of the courts, which would've been a huge deal, right? I mean, 250,000 lambs, there's a whole lot of sales going on that would've been huge.

(25:12):
Or it literally means he drove every person and animal out of the courts, which would be somewhere between 10 and 20,000 people. Now, which one is it? I don't know. Pick one. All right. Jesus is cool with it. All right? We don't really know which one it is. All right? But can you think about the scene just for a minute? Can you think about Jesus for a minute? Right here, literally driving thousands of people out of the place. We don't hear of anybody getting hurt. We don't hear of anything happening. All we hear about is Jesus crushing the evil system that is not pointing to God. Now, let me ask you this. Then, after looking at that though, what is it that Jesus needs to run out of your life? You see, isn't that the main point? What is it that Jesus needs to flip over in your life?

(25:56):
I know the context is different, but what is it in your life that is coming between you and a holy God? Is it some kind of sinful behavior that maybe is public and maybe is private, that is driving a hindrance between you and God? May maybe for you it's some kind of pride or self-centeredness that is hindering you from truly following him. Maybe for you, it's some fear or anxiety, right? That is preventing you from fully trusting God. Maybe for you it's some kind of distraction, a worldly distraction. That's not necessarily a sin, but it's become a God thing. It should be a good thing, but it's become a God thing and it's driving a wedge between you and God. Maybe for you it's just some lack of commitment or lack of discipline that you need him to flip over in your life. Maybe for you it's some kind of unforgiveness that you have just never been in your heart allowed to kinda leave to him.

(26:47):
What is it that Jesus needs to step into you and flip over in your life? In fact, Jesus does some table flipping, but we should too. We have a part in this. In fact, Hebrews 12, one says, therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us do what? Let us throw off everything that hinders in the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance. The race thought that was a going for the weekend, right? The race that is marked out before us doing what? Fixing our eyes on who? Jesus, the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith. Why fix our eyes on Jesus? Because Jesus is the connection point. It's the whole reason he's angry. And Jesus is the one that flips tables. And Jesus is the one that actually is angered when anything comes in front of him.

(27:42):
But what will Jesus do? Will Jesus take his toys and go home? No, no, no. Jesus will actually fight from you. In fact, write this thing. Write this down. Number three, we don't think about this a lot, but Jesus, Jesus is not a soft savior. I wanted to put sissy there, but I don't think you can use that word anymore, right? Jesus is not a, he's not a soft savior. He'll fight. He'll fight for his glory, your holiness and your worship. Do you know that literally Jesus will fight for these things? Why? Because he's willing to stand. He's willing to stand against injustice. He's willing to stand against the sinfulness of man. He's willing to stand against the system. He's willing to stand for what is right for His glory, for your holiness and your worship. No matter what it costs Jesus, which it did cost him his life.

(28:31):
He'll stand for these things. And I know what you're thinking. I know what you're thinking. Matt, that's not very loving of Jesus. Oh no. It is loving of Jesus to stand for these things because he's looking at eternity and he's looking at the things in our life that is driving a wedge between him. So what did he do? He stood. Jesus stood with wisdom and with power and conviction. And in fact, look again what he said in verse 16, he says, those who sold doves to those he souls doves. He says, get these out of here and stop turning my father's house into a market. Now, notice who's whose house he talks about right here. He says, my father's house. Now, he didn't look at them and go their father's house. 'cause these guys weren't believers. They may have claimed to be believers, but they didn't know Jesus.

(29:15):
We're seeing their actions right here. They didn't know God. They weren't submitting their hearts to God. They were just people that were enriching themself. And Jesus right here begins to upset the institution. In fact, keep reading with me. Watch this in verse 18. Here's what he says. He says, the Jews. Now, if you're reading John on your own, which I encourage you to, anytime John talks about the Jews, he's not talking about all Jews. He's talking about the religious leaders, right? That's kind of his, his nickname for him. He says, the Jews then responded to Jesus saying, what sign can you show us to prove that you have the authority to do all this? Hey, kudos to them to go, Hey, are you the Messiah? And he is like, oh, I'm the Messiah. You're not gonna believe me. I am the Messiah though. But watch what Jesus says right here, verse 19.

(29:56):
Jesus answered them, destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days. Then they replied, it has taken us 46 years to build this temple, and you're gonna raise it in three days. And then I love what John says, but the temple Jesus had spoken of was his body. First time in the book of John, he talks about the resurrection is right here. Now look, there's so much here. This is a whole message in this one little section right here, but I want you to write something down that kind of brings it into our context for a minute. Number four, Jesus not only cleanses the temple, but he replaces the temple, and now he has made us the temple. You say, Matt, you got all that from right here? Yeah, I did. Why? Because think about this. Jesus not only is at the temple, which is the place and the host of God's presence, but who was Jesus when he came to this earth?

(30:52):
He was Emmanuel. He was what? He was God with us. For 1500 years, the temple had hosted the presence of God till Jesus Emmanuel was born. He became the presence of God on earth. He not only became the presence of God on earth, he walked out the presence of God on earth to the point of crucifixion, to the point of resurrection. And then he remember what happened in the Book of Acts. Not only was he the presence of God, he sent the Holy Spirit to do what? To make us the presence of God. Remember first Corinthians six, verse 19. It says, do you not know that your bodies or temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own. You were bought with a prize, therefore, honor God with your bodies. Now, catch this man.

(31:38):
This is so incredible. The temple, Jesus, right? The presence of God. 'cause that's what temple stands for, is standing at the temple, right? That's where he is standing right here. When he is doing this work to do what? To make us the temple, all of it right here. Now, we don't think about it very much, but he's already proclaiming his death. He's already proclaiming that we are going to be the presence of God, and the only sign that any of us need is the ultimate sign. Write this down. Number five, Jesus' resurrection is the ultimate sign that he is the one that deserves our full belief and our full devotion. It's exactly what Jesus is saying right here. Last week, he called us a water pot, right? This week, we are the temple of God, and the only sign that I need to give my life and my devotion of him is the fact that he not only lived, but he rose from the grave.

(32:31):
Now, look at these religious leaders. They're looking at him going, give us a sign. Give us a sign. He's looking at him going, Hey, I'm about to give you a bunch of signs. If you read John in the gospels, they're always asking for a sign, but he's always doing signs. They wanted a sign in the air. But Jesus is saying, your heart is too hard to believe it. You're not going to trust us, trust it. But John looks back at this moment and goes, that's the sign we need. He's the resurrection in life, and he's the lamb that takes away the sins of the world. Man, what a connection that he's making right here. The temple is standing at the temple making us the temple. But look, John goes, Hey, listen, we, we even struggle with this. We even had a hard time believing this.

(33:17):
Look at verse 22, and we're gonna land in this plane. Watch this. He says, after he was raised from the dead, his disciples were called what he had said, and then circle, underline that. Then they believed the scriptures and the words that Jesus had spoken. Have you ever paid attention to that? That was the resurrection. Jesus steps onto the scene, demands the right worship of God, and he goes, you wanna know how I can do this? Because I am the resurrection and the life, and I am the one that is connecting a holy God with sinful man, and I am the lamb and anything Jesus says that stands between me and stands between you worshiping, I hate, I despise. And Jesus says, I am still fighting and I am still available, and I am still making changes, and I am still offering my life, and I am possibly even flipping tables in your life.

(34:24):
Why? 'cause Jesus deserves, and Jesus wants our worship, and Jesus wants our unselfish devotion, and Jesus wants all the praise, and he wants to make us His because he is the lamb who yes, loves us where we are, but he loves us way too much to leave us there. Do. Do you realize that it's merciful? When Jesus steps into your life and rebukes you? Do you realize that's the mercy of God? Do you realize it's merciful? When Jesus flips the tables over in our life, you say, man, how is that merciful? It's merciful because he didn't leave us to our own devices or vices. He didn't leave us to our own self. He steps into the scene and he says, no, my god's too, too much. I am worthy of praise and you want me flipping tables in your life pointing to the holy God.

(35:24):
Let me ask you something this morning. What would it look like for Jesus to step into your worship moment? Would he be pleased or would he just quite simply say, we got some work to do? What would it look like if Jesus in the flesh stood in the middle of this room as you were offering up your praise to God? Would he look at you and go, man, that's one of mine. Or would he go, we got some work to do? What would it look like if tomorrow at your board meeting, Jesus sat around the table and looked at you? Would there be a flipping of that board table already look at you and go, we're gonna do this together, man. What does God need to work in your heart this week? From what part of your worship does he need to step into your heart with?

(36:19):
Or maybe just maybe today is today that you're finally connecting it and saying, I can't worship without having Jesus. Do you need to trust him today? Do you need to give him your life today? Maybe today you're finally starting to see Jesus for who He is as a, as a God who pursues us and who wants us to walk after him. You know, I love this so much, man. We read about his love and compassion all the time, but what are we seeing here? We're seeing a God that steps into our life that says anything that comes between me and you, I hate.