Sermon Summary
In my recent sermon, I addressed the critical issue of sin and the church’s responsibility to confront it head-on. I emphasized that while churches often aim to be welcoming and non-offensive, we cannot skirt around the reality of sin, which remains humanity’s most significant problem. Jesus Christ offers the only solution to this problem, and as a church, we must be bold in discussing it.
I cautioned against the church becoming a mere self-help center, focusing solely on improving personal lives without addressing the deeper spiritual need for redemption from sin. I reminded us that Jesus was not offended by sinners but was frustrated by those who neglected prayer and worship. Our focus must be on spiritual growth and maturity, helping each other confront and overcome sin.
I reflected on the story from John 6, where Jesus, after delivering a challenging message, saw many followers leave. This illustrates that Jesus was not afraid to “clean house” and prioritize truth over popularity. I encouraged our church to be a place of prayer, as Jesus indicated that His house should be a House of Prayer. I urged everyone to participate in our prayer gatherings, emphasizing the importance of corporate and individual prayer in the life of the church.
I also shared insights from Isaiah 55, highlighting that God’s ways and thoughts are higher than ours. We were reminded to trust in God’s sovereignty and to cease striving in our own strength, allowing God to work in and through us.
As we approach Easter, I introduced a new series called “Road to Redemption,” examining events between the triumphal entry and the crucifixion of Jesus. I noted that a significant portion of the Gospels is dedicated to the last week of Jesus’ life, and I expressed a desire to delve deeper into this critical period.
I discussed the concept of the church as a messy, imperfect community where God is not frustrated by our brokenness but desires our worship and prayer. I challenged the notion of targeting specific demographics to create an ideal church image, emphasizing that Jesus would likely disapprove of such an approach.
I highlighted the importance of children’s praise in the church, referencing Jesus’ appreciation for the children’s worship in the temple. I stressed the need for balance in guiding children’s behavior without stifling their enthusiasm for worship.
Finally, I concluded with a call to action, inviting the congregation to align with God’s will through prayer and worship, and to be open to whatever changes God might prompt within our individual lives and our church community.
Key Takeaways:
– The church must courageously address sin and not shy away from its reality. While it is essential to be welcoming, we cannot compromise the truth of the Gospel for the sake of comfort or popularity. The message of redemption through Jesus Christ is central to our faith and must be proclaimed with clarity and conviction. [01:33:31]
– Prayer is the lifeblood of the church, and without it, we risk engaging in mere religious activity devoid of power. As a church, we must prioritize prayer, both corporately and individually, recognizing it as the means by which we engage with God, seek His guidance, and intercede for the world around us. [01:36:10]
– Worship is not just a part of our gatherings; it is a transformative experience that aligns our hearts with God’s heart. Through worship, we encounter God’s presence, which breaks down strongholds and builds up the necessary qualities in our lives to reflect Christ to others. [01:39:15]
– The church should be a place where the broken and marginalized feel welcomed and can find healing. Jesus’ ministry was marked by compassion towards those society often rejected. We must emulate His example by creating a community that embraces all, regardless of their struggles or background. [01:24:22]
– Children’s worship is a vital expression of faith within the church. Jesus affirmed the praises of children, and we should foster an environment where their voices are heard and their spiritual growth is nurtured. Their genuine worship can teach us much about the heart of God. [01:28:23]
Transcript
So, Easter’s a little bit down the road, and so I wanted to start a series called “Road to Redemption.” Um, but it’s kind of funny, I was starting to study some stuff out, and um, I… I caught a mistake that I’ve made over the years. It’s kind of not a bad mistake, but a tendency that I do that I’ve never noticed in my 18 plus years of pastoring here. And so, uh, I did some… in the gospels, 35% of the gospels, I counted all the chapters, and I did all the math, but 35% of the gospels deal with the last week of Jesus’s life, right? So two-thirds of the Gospel deals with three years, and then a third of it, a little over a third of it, deals with this last week, from the triumphal entry on.
And um, I noticed that in the past, I’ll… I’ll do… I don’t get into a lot of that last week because you have the triumphal entry, and then you have a whole week’s worth of stuff, and then you have the cross. And what I noticed is I do… I save myself for… do a triumphal entry sermon the week before Easter, and then Easter, I do my resurrection sermon. But there’s all this stuff in between that I’m like, “Oh, I’ve never preached on that. Oh, I’ve never preached on… How is it that I missed this stuff?” So I wanted to start… um, we’re not celebrating triumphal entry today, but I want to start at that point, and I want to look at some of these things that happened in between the triumphal entry and the cross.
Um, the triumphal entry, by the way, is a prophecy fulfilled by Jesus. We all know how he rode a donkey, and people were singing “Hosanna, Hosanna,” and laying down their cloaks and palm leaves and celebrating how the King’s coming into the city. Um, and that is a passage from Zechariah, talking about how, uh, um, this something, this would happen. In Zechariah 9:9, by the way, Zechariah, and the second half of Daniel, is like the Jews’ version of Revelations, right? And so, you know how people are kind of drawn to Revelations, and they want to study it, they want to know it because it’s so mysterious and apocalyptic and all the symbolism? Well, that’s Zechariah and the second half of Daniel. So what I’m trying to say is the people knew what was going on. This was not… they knew what was going on.
Anyway, here’s what it says, “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war horses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth. As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit. Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.”
So here comes Jesus, riding the donkey into Jerusalem, and people are crying out, “The king is coming, the Messiah is coming,” and people know this passage, and they are excited. And what are they excited about? They’re excited about a king that’s going to bring peace to the world, right? They’re excited that they are going to get twice as much, they’re going to get more blessing, and they’re going to become wealthier than other places. They’re excited because the captives and the prisoners are going to be set free, and the oppression that’s happened in their country is going to come to an end. And they are celebrating in excitement. They were kind of missing the point, of course. You know, it’s obvious, we can… it’s easy to say through hindsight, um, but they kind of missed the point.
In fact, another reason that everyone’s so excited is just a few days earlier than when Jesus came into the… the temple, and Mike talked about it last week, about Lazarus. Jesus rose this guy Lazarus from the dead, just… just… he lived just outside of Jerusalem. People were talking to him, the Pharisees were sending people over to his house, knock knock knock knock, “Hey, how are you still alive? What did you see? Did you have any dreams?” You know what I’m saying? If you knew someone that was dead for four days and they came back alive, you’d be over at their house, knock knock knock knock, um, “Tell me your story. I want to know what you saw,” and her… right? And so people are amazed. In fact, it says, you know, it said here in that verse, “I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit.” Now people are like, “He just rose someone from the dead.” They are excited.
But here’s what’s so amazing, and this is what I want to kind of look at as we start going through this, is this is Sunday morning, and they are as happy and excited as possible. By Friday afternoon, they’re yelling, “Crucify him.” What happened within this week that you could have such incredible, incredible roller coaster of emotions going on within the people? So that’s what we’re going to start looking at, is what… what took place within this week that transitioned from this celebratory, everyone’s talking about it, to “Man, we can’t get rid of this guy fast enough.”
And so, this is Passover. So before we get all the… what’s going on, but let’s… this is Passover week. Passover is considered one of the… the major three feasts of the year: Passover, Pentecost, and Trumpets are the three feasts, um, that are the biggest feast and the biggest celebration. It is a week-long vacation. These are people that work six days a week, they take one day off, and now they have eight days of no work, right? This is like, “I am going on vacation.” In fact, that’s what a lot of people do, is they go to… they travel to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover.
So Israel, at the time of… Jerusalem, at the time of Jesus, has a population of about 25,000 people. We kind of think, “Oh, that’s not that many folk,” right? We, because of our infrastructure and the way we can do water and electricity and the way we can move food and stuff, 25,000 person in town is not a big deal. Back then, 25,000 person in town, substantial, because it takes a lot of resources to make that thing click and go. But Passover happens, and they go from 25,000 to between 150 and 250,000 people, right? So there is a massive amount of folks that come to celebrate Passover in Israel. In fact, if you were to do it today, um, good luck, because you’re reserving rooms and hotels a couple of years out, because still today, masses amounts of people converge on that city for Passover.
Um, and not everyone’s from the Jewish community. A lot, some people from the Greek community, Greeks cities that are Jews, but they’re living in Greece, or they’re living in Rome, they’re living down in Africa. People from all around the world, they’re traveling to Israel to be able to do the feast and to be able to perform in their sacrifices that they want to do, to be able to, you know, for confessing their sins and everything. So they come, and you come from, you know, a city like Corinthians, from a city like Corinth, and you have Corinth money, you have Greek money. And so now you need to go to the money changer. You’ve traveled out of country, possibly, and when you go, you have your US dollar. Some countries you can still use US dollars, but a lot of countries you go and you change your money, no big deal. So they had money changers doing that.
And you also are traveling, some people are hundreds of miles, some people thousands of miles. So you want to come and bring an offering to the Lord. Well, it’s hard to bring a sheep a thousand miles, right? You know, just the logistics of putting that thing in a cage or on a rope and trying to bring it with you. So they come, and they buy when they get there. They buy sheep, and it’s a service that the people in Jerusalem would have, is they would have a bunch of sheep available, um, or they would have doves available. The Old Testament says if you’re poor, if you can’t afford to have a sheep to purchase a sheep, um, you can use a dove to do your sacrifices. And so they have all these services going on to be able to accommodate up to 250,000 people, up to 10 times the normal city amount of folks. You can imagine how packed it is, right?
So when Jesus is coming in to Jerusalem, and everyone’s saying, “The Messiah is coming, the king is coming,” there are people that are there that have never heard of Jesus because they’re from far off places. They’re coming up from Africa, and they have no clue. They haven’t heard anything about Jesus. So it’s all new, and everyone’s in awe and wonder of what’s going on.
And so, um, you have a lot of people there, and then you have the… the priests. People, you don’t… I’ve said this before, but most people don’t listen to what I say. Um, there are 24 divisions of priests. If you look in the Old Testament, they’ll give you the divisions and who and what. 20… so what… when you’re a priest, you don’t serve 52 weeks out of the year. The priests actually have a pretty good job, right? Because they serve two one-week stints. So you serve for one week, and they had the dates out in the Old Testament, we’ll tell you the dates that you serve for one week if you’re in whatever, uh, um, priest, uh, um, group you’re in. And then you six months later, you’ll serve in another week. And then when it comes to Passover, um, trumpets, and Pentecost, all the priests are serving.
So now it’s the first day of Pentecost of Passover, all the priests are there, all 24 divisions are there. So you have every priest, you have all these people, the temple is hopping. It’s hopping. And here comes Jesus, he enters the city, and um, doing all sorts of… you know, he’s… you know, he’s… shows up. The priests, by the way, you got your priests that are doing the sacrifice stuff, you know, that’s what we kind of think of. But there’s priests that are playing music, and there’s priests that are teaching and doing seminars
And it’s got the face of this Pagan Emperor on it, and it is against the rules for Israel to be able to honor that. And so, that Pagan gold, that Pagan silver, bronze, whatever that coin’s made out of, is not welcome in the temple. So they have money changers. It’s a legit service they’re offering, but those money changers are taking advantage of people. They are sticking it to them, right?
Remember how I said if you want to go to Israel for Passover, you better start planning now for like a couple years down the road? Do you know how much they jack the prices up of all the hotel rooms, right? Every—you know how—the demand goes up, the prices go up, right? Here, same thing. They’re selling doves at a ridiculous price. Someone sitting back going, “Yeah, you know, look at how many people there are. I’m going to make a lot of money.”
And Jesus sees the business side that’s going on, and it pushed the wrong buttons. By the way, do you know the boldness it takes to do this? Everyone’s in celebration mode. “I’m gonna ruin it for you.” You know how much boldness that takes? I—I—I went to a football game, and I—Isaac was with me—took him to the Oregon Duck football game, and we’re in line, and we’re going, and there’s a guy on a loudspeaker preaching Jesus. And you’re like, “The boldness it takes to stand in front of all these crowd of folks that have—they—they’re here to celebrate football and not Jesus right now.” It takes a lot of boldness.
Jesus was bold. You know how bold it is for Jesus to raise Lazarus from the dead? “Hey, open up the tombs right now.” There’s another time where Jesus—they were doing a funeral procession with a boy, and Jesus rose the boy from the dead. They are taking this boy to the tomb. I don’t know how—I’ve been to funerals like you have, right?—and the boldness it would take to walk in front of the funeral and say, “Hey everyone, stop. Let’s pray for him first,” right? The boldness that Jesus has, uh, to do the things he does, to stand up in front of the Pharisees and to call them a bunch of liars. You know what that’s like? These guys are not just the religious leaders; they’re the political leaders. That’s like you going before the US Senate and just calling out the US senators. “You guys are a bunch of…” Right? The boldness of Jesus is incredible.
That for him to go in and flip over and release the doves and to—and to do all this stuff. And so, I guess what I’m seeing is there—there are things that can happen in God’s house that God doesn’t like. And so, what was—what is it—what—what is it that God wants? Because Jesus gives us clues of what he wants things to look like. And so, that’s what I want to talk about for us this morning. Instead of focusing on what we shouldn’t be doing, let’s focus on what we should be doing.
The first thing that Jesus said is—um, actually, let me ask you this, by the way. If Jesus walked in our church today—by the way, I believe the Spirit of God’s in the place here, so we’re not saying that he’s not—but if Jesus was physically to walk in the church, in our church today, would he be happy with what he sees? Some of you would be like, “Oh yes, he would,” and some of you would be like, “No, not a chance. He’d be ticked off, and he’d be flipping our chairs all over the place.” And then some of you would be like, “That’s a mixed bag. He’d like some of this stuff we’re doing, and there’s some of this stuff he wouldn’t.” I don’t have the answer, right? I’m just—I’m just—you know, we’re all in different places on that, and that’s okay.
But here’s some of the things that Jesus does like. First thing he says is he wants the church—he wants the temple to be a House of Prayer. In fact, that’s what he said in this passage, that “my house will be called a House of Prayer.” I’ve been doing church a long time, and church is a place where a lot of busy work can get done. There’s a lot of things that a church can do—really good things, right? We—we were—Donna was telling you—know, doing announcements—say, “Hey, we need helpers to help with our—our Sunday night meals program that we—you know, get up to 150 people from our community that we feed.” That’s a good thing.
We need volunteers for the warming shelter. We’ve—we’ve activated because of Tuesday. We might have to activate—do the warming shelter Tuesday night. We need volunteers to be able to stay and—and—um, make sure that things are manned—to be able—and womaned—to be able to do what we need to do to get people out of the cold, right? Those are good things. We have women’s shelters in back—in back. We have kids’ programs. We do holiday bazaars. We do carnivals. We do VBS Outreach. We do a lot of good things. I’m not putting down any of that.
But here’s what Jesus said: “My house will be a House of Prayer.” If we aren’t praying, we’re missing it. Can I tell you—and I—I—we put emphasis on prayer here, but I do—there’s a lot of churches that do a lot of busy things, but if you’re not praying, you’re missing it. By the way, our lives—whether you’re working, whether you’re retired, whether you’re a parent, grandparent, single—we find tons of ways to fill up all of our time. If we’re not praying, we’re missing it. And it’s easy. It is easy for you, and it is easy for me. Just because I’m a pastor doesn’t mean that I have—have more time available to pray than you do. It’s a discipline that we all need to do. It’s—it’s a discipline that we all need to prioritize.
Um, we can’t try to do the work of God without prayer. The work of Salvation, the work of healing and restoring relationships, the work of seeing people set free from the bondages and addictions, the way we think and the way we act—we can’t try to do this work without prayer. We—we—we have to be able to pray.
And Jesus comes into the temple, and I’m wondering if he’s looking around and seeing people everywhere—first day of Passover, the priests still have energy, they haven’t gone throughout the—they’re not worn out yet, right? Their clothes are probably still looking good, right? There’s—they—there—there’s a lot of energy, and people are starting to show up. And I’m wondering if he’s looking around, is like, “Why—why am I not seeing anyone praying?”
Do I have pictures of the temple, by the way? Did I—I got you some pictures here, right, Wayne? So here’s our Temple. This is 35 acres in size, the whole thing. The wall is—um, it’s built—the—did you know the foundation stones underneath this are some of the biggest in the world? There’s one on the West Side—the west side is the only one they’ve excavated down—there’s one stone on—on the west side that is 45 ft long, 11 1/2 ft wide—high—and 12 ft wide. One stone, square, rectangular, and then they moved it and placed it there, butted it up against another stone, and you can’t slide a piece of paper in between the two. It’s amazing technology of what they—we have no clue how they did it.
Anyways, this is bigger than it looks. It’s 35 acres. Um, you have—uh, the—the main temple’s there in the middle, and then you have the outer—the outer part on top of the walls here, right? By the way, this is one-sixth of the size of the walled-in area of Jerusalem. There’s housing outside of the walls of Jerusalem, but this is one-sixth of Jerusalem. It is very massive.
Um, so the outer part of the—just the open courtyard, that’s called the—the next picture will even say it—it’s the—it’s the court of Gentiles, meaning the Gentiles can come into this part of the temple, the outside. This is—this is the—the Temple Mount right now that we can go up—you can go up on—in Jerusalem—uh, that you have the court of the Gentiles. But then you have the inner part, where the temple—where the temple itself is. You got the temple building, where the Ark of the Covenant’s stored, and—um, you have—you come in from the East there, which is closest to us, and you have the women’s—the first part—I’m sorry, they were sexist, just going to say it, right?—you had the women’s court, where this is as far as the women could go, right?
And then you had the temple building, that inner part there. There’s actually a court in there; they called that the men’s court. It’s the men’s club. I’m not saying I agree with it, but that’s how they had it. I don’t know where Jesus was at when he’s flipping over tables. I don’t know if it’s in the Gentile part. I don’t know if—if it’s inside the temple, other—the inner temple part. I—we don’t know. We don’t know how far this was all going. But Jesus was saying, “We need this to be a place of prayer, not business, not commerce. This is not a social club.”
Church, by the way, I want you to be friends with everyone here, but it’s not a social club. We need to be a people about God’s work, and that starts with prayer. Um, I think prayer is one of the—the most important things that we can do. It’s the weapon that God’s given the church, and we cannot try to act as a church by setting our weapon aside. A police officer does not leave his gun at home, right? A soldier does not take the ammo clip out, you know, and just—to look good for it. It just doesn’t happen. The church cannot go forth without prayer.
Um, if we do—um, the—the devil is going to win the battle. So, um, the second thing that—that Jesus sees—second thing going—that he likes to see in his church is healing and the welcoming of brokenness. Here’s the next verse in Matthew 21: “Healing and welcoming of the brokenness—uh, the blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed him.” Right? So he just started flipping over all these tables. He started yelling, you know, that “this is a den of robbers; this needs to be a House of Prayer instead.” And now the blind and the lame came to him, and he healed him.
Here’s what’s significant about that: you probably don’t know this. The blind and the lame aren’t allowed in the temple because they’re defected; they are impure. Math—uh, 2 Samuel 5:8, “That is why people now say, ‘The lame and the blind are not allowed in the temple.'” And I guarantee you the Pharisees followed this. When Peter healed that—uh, a man lame—where was that guy at in Acts chapter 4, 3, 4? Where was he at? He’s sitting at the gate, at the entrance. You know what that—you know what it’s like? That person that’s sitting on the corner with their sign saying, “I—I—you know, you know, looking for food, need some money, need some help,” right? They’re—they’re sitting—they’re sitting on that—on that corner outside.
Well, that’s where the BL—the blind and those that need healing. And so, I don’t know this. I don’t know how it worked—um, by the way, Leviticus 21 also says that if you were born in a Priestly family, you’re a Levite, but you’re born lame or blind, you can’t serve in the temple. You’re not allowed in the temple, even if you’re a Levite priest. That’s in Leviticus 21:18. So, I don’t know how they got there. I don’t know if Jesus told his disciples, “Hey, you know, you know those guys out there on the street corner? Bring them in here.” And so they brought him in, and he heals them, right in front of them, right in front of them.
God loves those that are brokenhearted. God loves that—um, Psalms 34:18, “The Lord is near the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Um, that’s the—that’s—he loves—you hear that? He loves the broken and is close to those who are in need. Luke 4:18, this is a prophecy about—talking about Jesus. The Spirit of the Lord—Jesus, old—quoting an Old Testament proph—uh, Old Testament prophetic verse—Jesus saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he’s anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set—and set—to set at liberty those who are oppressed.”
Yet the church there wouldn’t let them in the temple. They wouldn’t let him in because “we got to make sure everything looks good.” By the way, church, we got to be very careful on this one. We like to look good, and we don’t always like to have difficult people around because difficult people can make it messy. No, that’s—that’s exactly—that’s exactly who’s supposed to be in church. We’re all supposed to be in church. I’m not trying to tell any of you to go home, but we’re all supposed to be in church. But it’s amazing how upset the religious leaders—can you imagine? They are upset because Jesus healed a blind person. Can you—how could you even get upset over that? I’d be sitting back, patting Jesus on the back, saying, “You’re welcome here anytime,” right? But that’s not what was going on with these guys.
Um, the third thing that—oh, yes, yeah. John chapter n—the whole chapter’s based on that—where the guy, they come and test Jesus, and they say, “Who sinned? Here’s this blind man. Who sinned? He was born this way. Did he sin, or was it his parents that sinned?” And they were—they were legitly—someone had to do something wrong because he was born with this defect. And Jesus is like, “No, no, no, no, no. You guys got it all wrong.” Yeah, but—so they had that thinking, exactly right, that if there’s something wrong with you, either you did something wrong or your parents did something wrong, and so you shouldn’t be here.
Um, and that’s not quite the mindset that we want to have as a church. Thank you for that, Lo. You’re very right. Um, third thing is that Jesus likes to see in the church is children praising God. He loves seeing children praising God. Matthew—he—he’s healing the blind, and now here’s—he says, “Here’s what the Pharisees say: ‘Do you hear what these children are saying?’ they asked him.” Jesus, “Yes, haven’t you read, ‘From the lips of children and infants, you, Lord, have called forth your praise’?”
So, triumphal entry happened, people are singing “Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna,” and “Glory to God in the highest.” And now Jesus is in the temple, and you know what? Some of the kids are still jumping around, saying “Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna.” The king is—y—the kids are—the kids are still doing what the kids are supposed to be doing. And now Jesus—and now Jesus starts healing blind people, and the kids—the kids are praising Jesus and singing this song, and the Pharisees are ticked. “How dare you? Can’t you hear what these kids are saying?”
Have you ever been in a church where the kids are supposed to be seen and not heard? Yeah, yeah, uh-huh. I’ve actually had people over the years suggest maybe the kids are a little too loud, right? And I struggle with that, but I’m like, “You know, kids are supposed to be loud.” But I also agree that kids are supposed to be able to learn how to act properly in—in—in environments. But I—I want to be very careful on not crushing the kids but also—but be able to teach them and direct them properly. There’s a—there is a—there is a fine balance there. We don’t—yeah, we don’t need to—you know, where kids are running around screaming, you know, it can get too much. But at the same time, we don’t want to crush them and that energy, but we do need to guide them.
And—but Jesus loves the house to be a place of worship, and when he walked into the temple, the only ones that seem to be singing any praise were kids, and the leadership wanted to stop that. You know, church is messy. Church is messy. By the way, we said it during announcements, we’re having spring cleaning Saturday, just throwing that out there. Church is messy. We are imperfect. We struggle in our relationships. We all are selfish and trying to—uh, trying to win battles that are going on within us. And—um, here’s the thing: God’s not frustrated that you’re not perfect. He’s not frustrated that you’re not—that you’re broken.
You know who he is frust—FR—at with? That people that aren’t praying and worshiping—that—that—that pushes his buttons. Not—he hung out with sinners. He was not offended by people making poor choices. He was offended by people that weren’t worshiping and praying. And we have to be a church that never lets go of the things that we’re called to be.
Did you—I’ve talked to a lot of church leaders. I’ve read books, and you know, churches target—there’s certain groups in demographics churches target intentionally. I mean, I’m serious. Guy—I know pastors that get the US Census reports for their community, and they look it over, and they see the target groups, and they’re like, “Okay, now how can we reach these target groups?” You know what target groups churches are aiming at? Like, between the 25 and 50, families, you know, where they’re—you know, you know, actively having a—you know, a good career, jobs, right? They
People, Matthew 28 says, “Go into all the world and make disciples.” We can get so wrapped up in gathering people that the amount of people we have makes us a better place, and not help people grow in their faith and grow in spiritual maturity and deal with their sin issues. And that’s not who we’re called to be.
John 6, Jesus gave the people… wanted to make Jesus King by force. That’s what it said, John 6, they wanted to make him King by force, and there was a big group of them. And so, Jesus gives a really hard sermon, and by the time we get through John 6, you know what it said? Most of them all left and didn’t follow him again. And Jesus turned to his disciples and goes, “Are you guys leaving?” They’re like, “We have nowhere else to go.” And Jesus gives them all a hug, saying, “I love you guys.” It didn’t quite work like that, but I mean, that’s in a way, that’s what he’s saying.
Jesus wasn’t afraid to clean house. I don’t know what that looks like here, CU. I actually like our church. Yes, there are things that, you know, we need to continue to get better at, and prayer… Can I tell you? We need to keep praying together, individually. When we have a prayer on Tuesdays at mornings at 11, when we have prayer, please come if you can. It’s a fight against your flesh, I get it, but please come. When we have special prayer and worship nights, please come, because those are the things that Jesus said, “This is what my church needs to look like.” Amen? Amen.
Let me pray, and then I want to… we’ll give opportunity for prayer for folks. But Lord, I give you permission to come into your church and to knock over anything that needs to get knocked over because this is not our church, this is your church. And so, Lord, if there’s things that you need to break, stop, that need to change, we actually give you permission. Help us to see those things that we need to, whether it’s in our individual life or our church corporate life, that we need to change so that we can be a place that, and a people that you’re calling us to be.
Lord, Church isn’t just to be a busy place doing good things. We’re not called to be busy people doing good things. We’re called to take up the sword of prayer and the power of your word and use it to break the strongholds of the enemy. We’re called to pray against the forces of darkness in the Heavenly Realms. We’re called to shake up our community, not just be a good presence or a good place, but to be a warring army.
So help us, Lord, to take up our sword, take up our shield, to be who you’re calling us to be. Some of us are privates, some of us are new enlistees, some of us have been doing this a while. Lord, it doesn’t make a difference where we’re at. You aren’t angry at the privates, and you’re not angry at the sergeants. You’re not angry at anyone. You’re just calling us all to be who you’re calling us to be. Help us to be that person, to be that church that you desire.
We ask in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.