This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions. We're in day five of our
look at John chapter two, verses 17 to 25. Yesterday, we began our look at
Jesus' cleansing of the temple.

As we begin today, before we dive into verse 17, let me ask you a question. Our
understanding of God's lessons for us in this passage hinge upon this one
question. Where is the temple of God today?

Sometimes people read this about my father's house and they think the church
building. We need to treat the church building well. It needs to be a place
where we worship.

It needs to be a place that we have good stewardship towards and treat with
holiness. But the temple is not the church building. The New Testament tells us
very clearly that the temple of today is you, it's us.

That's the temple. So when the Bible says Jesus came and he cleansed the temple,
we should not have the reaction of thinking, wow, Jesus really got after those
religious leaders back then, good for Jesus. The real application is, what about
me?

What about my life? Jesus drove them out. Jesus showed a divine refusal to put
up with inward impurities.

He wouldn't put up with it. I remember years ago, Shondel and I were sleeping,
my wife and I were sleeping, and we heard some scratching up in the attic. She
thought it might be a mouse or a rat.

I didn't want to deal with that. So I thought maybe it was a bird up on the roof.
Well, it finally ended up she was right.

I had to go up and set some traps and we captured the mouse, the rat, I don't
remember which it was. And when we found that there was one there, Shondel said,
set some more traps because there might be more. She is saying, I have an
absolute abhorrence to little rodent kinds of things being in my house.

And I have an absolute refusal to live alongside of those kinds of things in my
house. I'm not going to say they're cute, that they have cute little tails, they
don't eat much, or it's fine to have them there. I won't put up with it.

And Jesus Christ, he drove them out. He looks at my life and he looks at your
life and he sees maybe a rat's nest, maybe up in the attic where no one else can
see it in your life. He hears the scratching and he has an absolute abhorrence
to those things in my life, in your life.

Just like Shondel knew about rats, that they could do hidden things, destructive
things. They could even eat through the wiring of the house and destroy the
power that went to the household. God knows that those hidden things in my life,
in your life, those things that we allow to creep in over the years, he knows
what they can do.

Now, God deals with us in patience. Make no mistake about that. He is patient
with our sins.

But in the end, he will not put up with sin. Do not mistake his patience for
acceptance. And so when I pick up John chapter two and I read about Jesus going
into a temple and driving out the sellers of animals and money changers, the
real question is, what does he need to drive out of my life?

And how can I cooperate with him doing that? How can I invite him in? Why not do
that right now?

Invite him in. Look to Jesus in your heart and say, Jesus Christ, there are some
things that I've let creep in. There's some things that I'm struggling with.

No one else may know about them, but I know about them. I know they shouldn't be
in my life. Maybe it's the way you handle certain relationships.

Maybe it has to do with anger. Maybe it has to do with lust or maybe self-pity.
It might be something with financial sins or just not serving Christ in some way
that you know he's called you to serve.

Take it to him right now and say, Jesus Christ, you know it's there, I know it's
there. Instead of hiding from it, I come to you right now. And I admit that I
don't have the strength that I'd like to have to let go of it on my own.

I come to you, Son of God, in power as your temple, and I ask you, Jesus, come
into my life and drive out those things that make me unclean before you. I
recognize your forgiveness. I walk in your forgiveness.

And I also recognize your power and anticipate your power. I pray these things
in Jesus' name, amen. As you prayed that prayer, I want to remind you that we
tend to make excuses in our lives that keep the power of that prayer from
happening in our lives.

You see it in this passage. There are two reactions that come immediately to the
cleansing of the temple, in verses 17 and 18. In verse 17 and 18, the Bible
says, his disciples remembered what is written, zeal for your house will consume
me.

The positive reaction. But then in verse 18, the Jews demanded of him, what
miraculous sign can you do to prove your authority to do all this? Two very
different reactions to this cleansing of the temple.

And it's very similar to the reactions that we have today. His disciples
remembered this is a fulfillment of prophecy, and yet the religious leaders who
should have known better, they say, what right do you have to do this? You see,
the disciples saw the heart of Jesus, but the Pharisees challenged the authority
of Jesus.

And I want to be like the disciples. I want to see the heart of Jesus, the zeal
of Jesus. When God comes into my life and he challenges me about my sins, it's
my prayer that I, it's my prayer that you can see the heart of Jesus.

And his heart is, Jesus's heart is, I want what is best for you. I want you to
become all that I've created you to be. I can see what this sin is doing in your
life.

I can see how it's keeping you from serving in the way that you want to serve,
from being the kind of person that God wants you to be. I can see that. And I
want to clean it out of your life so that your life can be holy what I want it
to be.

That's why he does it. He does it in love. I want to see the heart of Jesus.

Now, sometimes all of us are like the Pharisees. We challenge the authority of
Jesus. Instead of feeling the sting of guilt, we ask for his credentials.

Instead of asking Jesus if Jesus is right, we ask what gives you the right? What
sign? He was fulfilling Malachi 3 verses one through three, a prophecy here.

It was a sign in the fact that he cleared out the temple. They weren't looking
for the morality of what he'd done. They challenged his right to do it.

And we often do that. When God tries to cleanse the temple of our lives, that's
so much like us. God uses different vehicles to bring the message that he wants
to cleanse the temple.

It might be a sermon that someone preaches. It might be something we hear on the
radio. It might be something we hear on a podcast.

We know it's a message from God, but we challenge the messenger. What authority
did you have to say that to me in a sermon? How could you say that in a podcast?

You've probably sinned more than I ever have. Now, the question is, is it God's
message? And if God needs to cleanse the temple of your life, you can get all
caught up in rights and authorities, or you can listen.

You can get mad at the best thing that God wants to do in your life, or you can
listen. In the ways that the Pharisees and the disciples reacted to Jesus's
cleansing of the temple, there are two questions that growing Christians are
asking themselves. Question number one is, why do I resist?

Why do I resist God when he seeks to cleanse the temple of my life? He's
offering me abundant life, and yet I hold him at arm's length. Why do I resist?

Remember that God wants what is best in your life. And the second question is,
how can I develop a zeal for God's temple today? I'm God's temple.

How can I develop a zeal for God's cleansing my life? And we could talk about
prayer and fellowship with other believers, or time in God's word, but there is
a foundation, and that is, whose house is it? Jesus's zeal, his real deal zeal,
focused on the fact that this temple was built not by Herod, but it was his
father's house.

And here is the foundation. The more I become convinced of the fact that I am
owned, locked, stock, and barreled by Jesus Christ, the more zeal I develop for
this temple that I can be before him. I am not my own.

I am bought with a price. Therefore, I glorify God with my body. Jesus cleanses
temples.

He wants to clean out the temple of my life, of your life. But in the next
verses, we see some ways that we can find excuses, reasons why, well, maybe it's
not yet time for him to cleanse the temple of my life. Two things to watch out
for.

First, watch out for getting caught up in the externals. And second, watch out
for getting caught up in people's opinions. Getting caught up in externals, you
see that in verses 19 to 22.

Jesus answered them who'd asked, how do you have the right to do this? Destroy
this temple, and he was pointing at himself now. And I will raise it again in
three days.

The Jews replied, it's taken 46 years to build this temple. You're going to raise
it in three days? But the temple he had spoken of was his body.

And after it was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said.
Now, the historical note here is the 46 years of the temple being built dates
this occurrence. We know that Herod began the temple building in 19 BC.

He had 46 years to that, and you come to 27 AD. We know that Jesus was born a
few years before zero. We don't quite have the time right at zero.

And so that's the time that this happened. The more important thing here is that
they couldn't see the heart of what Jesus was saying, because they were caught
up in the external circumstances around them. They were looking at the temple
that was in front of them instead of looking at the temple of God and Jesus
Christ.

And I can do that too, you can do that too. If I make that change, we ask
ourselves, how is it going to work out? How's this person going to feel?

Oh, that's not going to work, that could never work. How come that other Christian
isn't making this change? We look at all the externals, and it keeps us from
doing what we know God wants us to do.

What we know would bring us joy. It's not going to be easy, but it will bring you
joy. And then there's a second excuse to watch out for a danger when it comes to
the changes that God wants to work in my life, in your life.

We learned it from the words of Jesus in verses 23 to 25. Now, while he was in
Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many people saw the miraculous signs that he
was doing, and they believed in his name. But Jesus, listen to this, would not
entrust himself to them, for he knew all men.

He did not need man's testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man.
Because Jesus understood people, he would not entrust himself to people. Now, he
trusted people, he trusted his disciples to spread the good news to the entire
world.

But he didn't entrust himself to people. He didn't rely on people. Here's what
entrust means.

He didn't rely on people to meet the core needs in his life that only God can
meet. If you entrust yourself to people, you'll always be either disappointed or
misled. Because there are needs in your life that only God can meet.

Needs for affirmation, needs for love, needs for salvation, needs for life,
needs for truth and joy. You entrust yourself to God. That's where you find the
strength to change.

Entrust yourself to people that'll always in the end lead you away from change.
Because people tend to be like people, and we just sort of all be the same.
Entrust yourself to God, and in the end, you're led towards change because you
become more and more like him.

So as we pray today, a brief prayer at the end of this study, would you just
reaffirm what you prayed to God earlier? God, here I am. Cleanse the temple of
my life.

Keep me from excuses. Cleanse the temple of my life. Help me to recognize your
heart, Jesus.

Cleanse the temple of my life. I pray this in your name. Amen.

Well, next week, we're going to be looking together at John chapter three,
including one of Jesus's most famous meetings and the most famous verse in the
Bible.