Sermons

FILTER BY:

← back to list

Mar 06, 2022

Life as a House of Worship

Life as a House of Worship

Passage: Mark 11:11-25

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Follow: Learning from Mark about Jesus’ Most Misunderstood Command

It is his fiercest, most demonstrative act. He has displayed exasperation before, but not like this. Not to this degree. It will disturb everyone who saw it happen. It will inflame those who will in turn conspire to have him killed. To condemn is in one sense to declare something presently unfit for its original purpose. In the case of a house it means giving it up for a tear-down. Jesus is doing that here, but to a house of worship–or of the kind of worship then present in that house, the temple. But what he tears down he also means to build up again–to have it undergo a remodel. As with the house of worship then, so, too, with our worship now. Our life is like a house of worship and Jesus has come to remodel it.

Readings & Scripture

PREPARATION:    Isaiah 2:2, 38:20

LEADER: It shall come to pass in the latter days
that the mountain of the house of the LORD
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,

ALL: The LORD will save me,
and we will play my music on stringed instruments
all the days of our lives,
at the house of the LORD.

CENTRAL TEXT: Mark 11:11-25
Mark 11:11 And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

Mark 11:12 On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. 13 And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. 14 And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.

Mark 11:15 And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 16 And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17 And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” 18 And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. 19 And when evening came they went out of the city.

Mark 11:20 As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. 21 And Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” 22 And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. 23 Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 25 And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH: The Apostle’s Creed
ALL: I believe in God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and buried.

He descended to the dead. The third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit. The holy catholic Church. The communion of saints.
The forgiveness of sins. The resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

BENEDICTION: Hebrews 10:19-23

LEADER: Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

ALL: Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

RELATED SCRIPTURES:

  • Genesis 12:3 / Galatians 3:8
  • Psalm 67
  • Psalm 87
  • Isaiah 56:7
  • Jeremiah 7:11; 8:13
  • Micah 4:11
  • Matthew 28:19
  • John 15:6
  • Acts 14:16
  • Acts 17:16-21
  • Romans 1:5; 16:26
  • Revelation 1:12-16
  • Revelation 7:9; 15:4

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Name somewhere you once cherished but has now become dilapidated, ruined–or perhaps desecrated in some way. What was that place for you? How did it come to be changed? What if any effect did that have on you?
  2. From what we see him do and say in his outburst in the temple, what do we learn from Jesus about what God most wants? What do we learn from Jesus about what God most rejects?
  3. What’s your first response(s) to hearing what sounds like such a sweeping promise of Jesus to receive anything–anything!--you ask for in prayer? What prayer of Jesus went unanswered as he might prefer? How did that “no” by God lead to a greater “yes”?
  4. Why might Jesus tie prayer of faith to forgiveness of another? Let’s get personal: who in your life (no names needed) might you need to aspire to forgiveness of? Tell the story about the difficulty of it.

Illustrations

InView Media Album 03.06.2022

QUOTES: 

  • When a church exists for comfort to the exclusion of challenge, for grace and not ever for judgment, she becomes a hideout for thieves rather than a house of God. - F.D. Bruner
  • [God] desires of us nothing more ardently than that we ask many and great things of him, and he is displeased if we do not confidently ask and entreat. - Martin Luther
  • Those who best know a man best know whether, when he did what they asked, he did it because they asked. I think those who best know God will best know whether He sent me to the barberʼs shop because the barber prayed. - C.S. Lewis
  • If two neighbors know that they may seriously disagree, but that either of them, given even a small change of circumstances, may desperately need the other, should they not keep between them a sort of pre-paid forgiveness? They ought to keep it ready to hand like a fire extinguisher. - Wendell Berry

BOOKS / DOCS

SERMONS