WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.700 Good morning once again. My name's Kevin, one of the pastors here, and it's a joy to be 00:00:06.700 --> 00:00:12.359 worshiping together. Even though we're not gathered together in person, it is still good 00:00:12.359 --> 00:00:17.460 to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth. And it's a pleasure to be preaching this morning. 00:00:18.339 --> 00:00:24.060 Now, like many of you, the end of every year, I spend some time reflecting on the past year, 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:28.400 what happened, celebrating the good things, mourning some of the difficult things, 00:00:29.039 --> 00:00:34.600 reorienting my priorities and setting goals that, let's be honest, I probably won't accomplish. 00:00:35.500 --> 00:00:39.359 I don't know why I keep doing it. It feels a little bit better to call them goals instead of resolutions, 00:00:39.820 --> 00:00:47.959 but all the same. There's been a lot to process in 2020. So much has happened, so much hasn't 00:00:47.959 --> 00:00:53.879 happened, both of which has been hard. And I think it's been a particularly difficult year to follow 00:00:53.880 --> 00:01:01.179 Jesus. Honestly, I can't imagine this year without Jesus by my side, but following him hasn't come 00:01:01.179 --> 00:01:07.879 easy either. I think that if somebody was looking for a reason to stop following Jesus over these 00:01:07.879 --> 00:01:13.480 past 10 months, they wouldn't have had to look very far. Of course, there's the pandemic, which has 00:01:13.480 --> 00:01:18.320 disrupted all of our rhythms, but that's not what I'm thinking about. That's not what I'm talking about 00:01:18.319 --> 00:01:23.419 this morning. I want to focus this morning on some of the scandals of the church from 2020, 00:01:24.119 --> 00:01:31.500 the moral corruption of some of its most prominent leaders. 2020 has been a brutal year in this regard 00:01:31.500 --> 00:01:38.839 for the church. Now, our text this morning is perhaps a strange Christmastide passage, but I actually 00:01:38.839 --> 00:01:45.959 think it's ideal for reflecting on 2020 and thinking about what the Lord has in store for us in this year 00:01:45.959 --> 00:01:52.099 ahead. And so this morning, I want to consider the incarnation of Jesus Christ through the lens of 00:01:52.099 --> 00:01:58.599 this scandalous scene in the Gospel of John and draw out three reasons for the incarnation, three reasons 00:01:58.599 --> 00:02:05.899 why the Word became flesh. We'll see that Jesus came to be the temple, he came to cleanse the temple, 00:02:06.399 --> 00:02:14.840 and he came to build a new temple. Let's pray together. Father, as we sit under your Word, we pray 00:02:14.840 --> 00:02:21.920 and we know, Lord, that it will not return empty. Pray that you would instruct us, that you would 00:02:21.920 --> 00:02:28.599 comfort the afflicted, that you would afflict the comfortable, and offer your glory. We pray these 00:02:28.599 --> 00:02:35.420 things in Jesus' holy name. Amen. So first, we're going to see that Jesus came to be the temple. 00:02:36.140 --> 00:02:42.000 The first verses of our passage set the scene for us in verses 13 and 14. We read, 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:47.840 the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and we find him in the temple. 00:02:48.759 --> 00:02:54.460 So right from the start, our passage assumes quite a bit about us. It assumes that we have 00:02:54.460 --> 00:03:02.099 a great deal of background knowledge about Jesus' Judaism. If we don't understand the importance of 00:03:02.099 --> 00:03:06.099 the things that are mentioned here, of the Passover and of Jerusalem and of the temple, 00:03:06.099 --> 00:03:11.900 I think we'll miss the point of this passage, and perhaps more importantly, we'll miss the scandal 00:03:11.900 --> 00:03:19.159 of the incarnation, the scandal of Jesus' claim to be the temple of God. So first, we need to wrap 00:03:19.159 --> 00:03:24.099 our minds around the Passover, what it means, why it's important. Well, it's an annual religious 00:03:24.099 --> 00:03:30.859 festival still celebrated by the Jews, where it commemorates their liberation from slavery in Egypt. 00:03:30.860 --> 00:03:37.420 Passover was the celebration of their redemption. It's kind of like Christian's Easter. We read about 00:03:37.420 --> 00:03:43.780 this in Exodus 12. God commanded the people, his people, to sacrifice a lamb and to put blood, 00:03:43.840 --> 00:03:48.720 the blood of the sacrificed lamb, on their doorposts. We read this in Exodus 12, 13. 00:03:49.520 --> 00:03:55.640 The blood on your doorpost shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, 00:03:55.639 --> 00:04:02.799 I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. 00:04:03.479 --> 00:04:08.539 So Passover celebrates God's gracious deliverance of his people. This is actually the founding event 00:04:08.539 --> 00:04:14.500 of the people of God. And the Passover is the reason why Jesus makes his way to Jerusalem. 00:04:15.319 --> 00:04:20.300 It's one of the pilgrimage festivals. The Jews would journey up to Jerusalem every year 00:04:20.300 --> 00:04:26.980 to worship, and they traveled to Jerusalem because Jerusalem was the gravitational center of the world. 00:04:27.420 --> 00:04:33.379 It's the holy city, the city of kings, the city of promise. It's the place where God dwells. 00:04:34.420 --> 00:04:40.360 And in reality, Jerusalem matters because that's where the temple is, and the temple matters because 00:04:40.360 --> 00:04:45.420 that's where God is. The temple is where heaven and earth meet. It's the place of God's presence. 00:04:45.420 --> 00:04:52.660 The temple is the place where God dwells and human beings can meet him. We see this in its purest form 00:04:52.660 --> 00:04:58.319 in the Garden of Eden, the first temple that we see in the Bible, where God and humans walked together. 00:04:59.100 --> 00:05:03.360 And then this theme of the temple is traced all the way through the Old Testament, even into the New, 00:05:03.420 --> 00:05:09.460 as we'll see. We see it in the tabernacle in the wilderness. We see it in the temple that Solomon built, 00:05:09.459 --> 00:05:16.599 and in the second temple that the exiles rebuilt when they returned to Jerusalem. The temple is holy 00:05:16.599 --> 00:05:22.620 ground. It's a kind of portal into the presence of God. And for Jews, their relationship with God 00:05:22.620 --> 00:05:29.359 revolved around the temple and the sacrifices offered there. Knowing all of this helps us to 00:05:29.359 --> 00:05:35.099 understand the scandal of our passage. And I'm not just talking about Jesus going into the temple and 00:05:35.100 --> 00:05:40.760 turning over tables. We'll look at that in a moment. But perhaps the most scandalous thing about this 00:05:40.760 --> 00:05:49.020 passage is how Jesus justifies this violent action. We see it in verses 18 to 21. So the Jews said to him, 00:05:49.680 --> 00:05:55.280 what sign do you show us for doing these things? For driving people out of the temple and overturning 00:05:55.280 --> 00:06:02.420 tables? And Jesus answered them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Now it's important 00:06:02.420 --> 00:06:06.439 to note that the Jews had no idea what Jesus was talking about. They took him literally. They 00:06:06.439 --> 00:06:11.740 misunderstood what he was saying. If they knew what he was actually saying, they probably would have 00:06:11.740 --> 00:06:18.360 tried to kill him on the spot. Jesus wasn't talking about the physical temple. He was talking about the 00:06:18.360 --> 00:06:24.040 temple of his body. That's what it says. He was speaking about the temple of his body. Verse 21, 00:06:24.819 --> 00:06:31.360 Jesus is predicting his crucifixion and his resurrection. So why is this so scandalous? 00:06:31.360 --> 00:06:37.720 Well, Jesus is saying essentially, my body replaces the brick and mortar. He's saying, 00:06:38.199 --> 00:06:44.759 I am the place where God is. If you want to meet God, it's not in the temple. It's through me, 00:06:45.160 --> 00:06:49.660 the true temple. If you want to be made right with God, it's not through these lambs that you're about 00:06:49.660 --> 00:06:57.939 to offer and sacrifice during Passover. It's through me, the true lamb of God. You see, the temple is 00:06:57.939 --> 00:07:03.839 holy ground. And I think it's difficult for us modern Westerners to grasp this, to fully appreciate 00:07:03.839 --> 00:07:10.980 what's going on, because I don't think we have quite the same tie to places and spaces. Perhaps 00:07:10.980 --> 00:07:17.779 the closest analogy might be our view of the Scriptures, the Holy Scriptures. Imagine someone 00:07:17.779 --> 00:07:24.220 busting into this church service, running down one of these aisles, and grabbing this Bible behind me, 00:07:24.220 --> 00:07:28.720 throwing it on the floor, and saying, you don't need to listen to that any longer. You need to 00:07:28.720 --> 00:07:34.440 listen to me, because I am the true mouthpiece of God. It'd be very disruptive, because this is an 00:07:34.440 --> 00:07:38.660 empty room, and it'd be very noisy. But imagine if that happened in a normal worship service. 00:07:39.140 --> 00:07:44.960 It would be scandalous. I think this is essentially what Jesus is doing. He busts into the temple. 00:07:45.720 --> 00:07:50.500 He says and does stuff that would have sounded absolutely crazy to everybody. And it would have been 00:07:50.500 --> 00:07:56.740 crazy if it didn't happen to be true. And so in this scene, we're witnessing a spiritual earthquake. 00:07:57.360 --> 00:08:03.160 The gravitational center of the world has moved, and it happens to be wherever Jesus is standing. 00:08:04.360 --> 00:08:10.680 So that's the first thing that we see in this passage. We see that Jesus came to be the temple 00:08:10.680 --> 00:08:17.019 of God, and that was a scandalous thing. And the second thing we see is that Jesus came to cleanse the 00:08:17.019 --> 00:08:24.539 temple. Verse 14, in the temple, he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the 00:08:24.539 --> 00:08:30.240 money changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple with the 00:08:30.240 --> 00:08:35.100 sheep and the oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers, and he overturned their tables. 00:08:35.779 --> 00:08:41.399 This is a wild scene. And what's most interesting to me about this scene, apart from the obvious, 00:08:41.399 --> 00:08:49.399 is that nobody else seemed to be bothered by what was going on in the temple. Everyone but Jesus 00:08:49.399 --> 00:08:54.720 seems totally fine with this setup, with this arrangement. So what's going on, and why does 00:08:54.720 --> 00:09:00.059 Jesus get so mad when nobody else seems to be batting an eye? Well, the issue isn't that people 00:09:00.059 --> 00:09:06.899 were buying and selling animals and exchanging money. You see, the animals were bought and sold in 00:09:06.899 --> 00:09:12.959 Jerusalem, and this was a service to the pilgrims who were traveling from far distances, so that they 00:09:12.959 --> 00:09:20.819 could actually offer sacrifices and worship the Lord. Imagine schlepping an ox or a lamb on a three-day 00:09:20.819 --> 00:09:25.919 journey through dangerous terrain, and imagine trying to do that without the animal getting injured 00:09:25.919 --> 00:09:31.539 and becoming defiled, not being able to actually offer it to the Lord after such a long journey. 00:09:31.539 --> 00:09:38.299 Likewise, the Jews, when they would travel up to the Passover, to the temple, they were required to 00:09:38.299 --> 00:09:43.839 pay a temple tax. The temple tax was for the maintenance of the temple and the ministry that 00:09:43.839 --> 00:09:48.819 happened there. And pilgrims were traveling from all over the Roman Empire, and they were traveling 00:09:48.819 --> 00:09:53.799 with Roman currency. The problem was the Roman currency wasn't welcome in the temple because the 00:09:53.799 --> 00:09:59.519 Jews hated the Romans. So they had to exchange their coins for coins that would be suitable for the 00:09:59.519 --> 00:10:05.539 temple tax, and they had to do that somewhere. So the businessmen in the temple were providing an 00:10:05.539 --> 00:10:12.799 essential service to the pilgrims. So why did Jesus get so mad about it? Well, the problem wasn't the 00:10:12.799 --> 00:10:19.519 buying and the selling per se. The problem had everything to do with where it happened. I'm paraphrasing 00:10:19.519 --> 00:10:26.340 verse 16 here. Jesus says, get this stuff out of here. How dare you make my father's house a market? 00:10:26.340 --> 00:10:32.800 The problem was that they were doing this stuff in the temple. And more specifically, they were doing 00:10:32.800 --> 00:10:38.920 this stuff in the court of the Gentiles, which was this large outer court that surrounded the temple. 00:10:39.680 --> 00:10:44.360 And this place was as far as non-Jews could go who went to the temple to worship the Lord. 00:10:45.100 --> 00:10:50.879 This court of the Gentiles was meant to be a quiet place of prayer for all nations, and it became the 00:10:50.879 --> 00:10:56.500 busiest farmer's market that you could imagine. The only place that non-Jews could go was filled with 00:10:56.500 --> 00:11:04.419 thousands of noisy pilgrims and noisy animals packed shoulder to shoulder. And trigger warning here with 00:11:04.419 --> 00:11:12.279 this crowd, none of them were wearing masks. It wasn't just inhospitable. This showed disregard and even 00:11:12.279 --> 00:11:19.179 disdain for the Gentiles who desired to worship God. So what was being done in the temple was 00:11:19.179 --> 00:11:26.679 essentially preventing true worship. And this absolutely scandalized Jesus. And so what we see 00:11:26.679 --> 00:11:32.519 is a side of Jesus not often talked about, a side we should talk more about, I think. This isn't sweet 00:11:32.519 --> 00:11:39.819 baby Jesus, meek and mild, whose soft skin is vulnerable to the violence of the world. No, we see 00:11:39.819 --> 00:11:45.419 Jesus, the zealous prophet with fire in his eyes, the closest he gets to physical violence. 00:11:45.419 --> 00:11:51.699 I don't know how else to say it, but in this scene, Jesus is pissed. And he puts together a whip, 00:11:51.799 --> 00:11:58.199 and he uses that whip to drive man and beast out of the temple. This is a side of Jesus. Jesus is the 00:11:58.199 --> 00:12:05.159 prophet that we would do well to pay more attention to. As I've been reflecting on this scene at the end 00:12:05.159 --> 00:12:12.319 of the year and what it means for us, I've thought a lot about the things that have happened in 2020. 00:12:12.320 --> 00:12:18.120 You know, we don't have people buying and selling things in the church, or I should say at least not 00:12:18.120 --> 00:12:24.720 in the same way, but we have had our fair share of scandals this past year. Horrible things that 00:12:24.720 --> 00:12:30.180 have happened in the church that are tragic obstacles that are preventing true worship of God. 00:12:31.140 --> 00:12:36.180 I think of Jean Vanier. Some of you have probably heard of him. He was a Roman Catholic priest, 00:12:36.320 --> 00:12:41.840 the founder of L'Arche, an amazing ministry. It's a network of communities around the globe for people 00:12:41.840 --> 00:12:49.620 with developmental disabilities and those who care for him. He died in mid-2019, and he would have 00:12:49.620 --> 00:12:54.700 been considered a living saint when he was alive. Most anyone who met Jean Vanier would say that he 00:12:54.700 --> 00:13:01.019 was the closest thing to a living saint that they had ever come across. In February 2020, just before 00:13:01.019 --> 00:13:08.340 the pandemic really exploded, L'Arche revealed that Vanier was actually living a deeply dark double life. 00:13:08.340 --> 00:13:13.440 He was sexually abusing women over a period of 35 years at the height of his ministry. 00:13:14.920 --> 00:13:19.060 And so with Vanier, we see a priest who devoted his life to caring for the most vulnerable, 00:13:20.080 --> 00:13:25.360 and yet he was a man who used his power to abuse vulnerable women for almost four decades. 00:13:26.860 --> 00:13:32.740 I think of Ravi Zacharias, perhaps this hits a bit closer to home. You've probably heard of him, 00:13:32.740 --> 00:13:38.899 a famous defender of the faith. He's had a massive impact for the kingdom in a lot of ways. I'd be 00:13:38.899 --> 00:13:44.360 willing to bet that those of you who are listening to this live stream from home have probably attended 00:13:44.360 --> 00:13:49.139 one of his events or listened to a podcast or read one of his books, or you know somebody who has. 00:13:50.600 --> 00:13:56.139 Few people have done more to defend the truths of Christianity. I think you can make the case. And yet, 00:13:56.139 --> 00:14:05.220 two days before Christmas, just a few days ago, RZIM, the ministry that he founded, confirmed the 00:14:05.220 --> 00:14:10.279 allegations of sexual misconduct, allegations that they denied for a long time, I should say, 00:14:10.600 --> 00:14:15.899 that these allegations were not only true, but the independent investigation that they had going on 00:14:15.899 --> 00:14:23.360 discovered still more. And so we see with Ravi, an apologist who defended his life to defending the 00:14:23.360 --> 00:14:29.879 faith, did terrible things, which called the truthfulness of that very faith into question. 00:14:31.080 --> 00:14:37.039 I think of Carl Lentz and the corrosive influence of celebrity culture. I think of Jerry Falwell Jr. 00:14:37.860 --> 00:14:41.720 and the corrupting desire for political power. And I could mention more. We could be here all morning 00:14:41.720 --> 00:14:49.680 talking about the scandals of 2020. And I'm naming leaders, but the problem is not just at the top. 00:14:49.679 --> 00:14:58.059 Just as in Jesus' day, so it is with us. All of the people are implicated. David French talks about 00:14:58.059 --> 00:15:05.179 this in a really powerful article called, The Church Needs Prophets, But It Wants Lawyers. He says this, 00:15:06.039 --> 00:15:10.919 and don't think for a moment that these failings are isolated to Zacharias alone or to people 00:15:10.919 --> 00:15:15.339 like Liberty University's Jerry Falwell Jr. or Hillsong's Carl Lentz. 00:15:15.340 --> 00:15:23.320 These powerful men were coddled and enabled by other powerful men and then automatically and 00:15:23.320 --> 00:15:30.460 reflexively defended by thousands upon thousands of angry and loyal Christian followers until the 00:15:30.460 --> 00:15:37.680 evidence of their malfeasance was open and irrefutable. You see, this spiritual rot is not 00:15:37.680 --> 00:15:43.700 isolated to our leaders. Behind every broken leader is a whole complex of enablers, board members, 00:15:43.700 --> 00:15:52.020 elders, elders, staff, parishioners, followers, people who in one way or another allow people 00:15:52.020 --> 00:15:58.540 to remain in power and continue to do damage. Carl Lentz isn't the problem. The whole church 00:15:58.540 --> 00:16:06.540 is sick. And 2020 revealed just how sick we are. Some 2,000 years ago, Jesus said, 00:16:06.720 --> 00:16:11.620 do not make my father's house a market. I wonder what he would say to the church today. 00:16:11.620 --> 00:16:20.200 Do not make my father's house a celebrity award show. Do not make my father's house a political 00:16:20.200 --> 00:16:29.279 rally. Do not make my father's house a haven for sexual predators. We desperately need Christ 00:16:29.279 --> 00:16:37.820 to cleanse us. And I think that's exactly what he's been doing this past year. Jesus is still zealous 00:16:37.820 --> 00:16:43.680 for his father's house. And he's been cleansing the temple of God once again. He's exposing sin, 00:16:44.500 --> 00:16:50.080 exposing corruption, creating opportunities for real repentance and reconciliation. 00:16:51.240 --> 00:16:56.560 The light is still shining in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 00:16:58.440 --> 00:17:04.100 So now I want to bring all of this together and talk about how Jesus didn't ultimately cleanse the 00:17:04.099 --> 00:17:11.359 temple to condemn it. But he cleansed the temple, and he came third and finally to build a new temple. 00:17:12.699 --> 00:17:18.879 We see that after Jesus drove everyone out with a whip, his disciples remembered a Bible verse. 00:17:19.179 --> 00:17:26.099 A passage from the Psalter came to mind, Psalm 69, 9, which reads, zeal for your house will consume me. 00:17:26.099 --> 00:17:33.959 Now, this verse has a double meaning. Of course, it refers to Jesus' intensity of emotion, his righteous 00:17:33.959 --> 00:17:39.500 anger, where his consuming zeal led him to cleanse the temple, to drive people out with a whip. But 00:17:39.500 --> 00:17:49.179 consumed can also mean to be devoured or to be destroyed. Quoting this Psalm foreshadows Jesus' death. 00:17:49.240 --> 00:17:51.879 If you keep reading the Psalm, it's really interesting. It says this, 00:17:51.880 --> 00:18:00.340 Zeal for your house will consume me. The reproaches of those who reproach you, Lord, have fallen on me. 00:18:01.540 --> 00:18:06.600 His actions here, cleansing the temple, would ultimately lead to his sacrificial and 00:18:06.600 --> 00:18:15.500 substitutionary death. The temple was destroyed, and in three days it was raised up. And Jesus was 00:18:15.500 --> 00:18:21.580 raised from the dead, not just to save sinners, but to build a new temple, the church. 00:18:22.660 --> 00:18:29.420 Listen to how Paul describes the church with this temple language in Ephesians 2. He says, 00:18:29.720 --> 00:18:34.860 those who were once far from God have now been brought near to God by the blood of Jesus, 00:18:34.940 --> 00:18:38.700 because Jesus is the true temple. And then he says in Ephesians 2, 19, 00:18:39.540 --> 00:18:45.540 then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members 00:18:45.539 --> 00:18:52.779 of the household of God. Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself 00:18:52.779 --> 00:19:00.220 being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is being joined together, grows into a holy temple in 00:19:00.220 --> 00:19:06.680 the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. 00:19:07.819 --> 00:19:13.500 Jesus is so committed to the temple, we see, that he gives his life to build a new one. 00:19:14.240 --> 00:19:21.900 And Jesus is not an absentee landlord. He will never leave us or forsake us. He died to purchase us, 00:19:21.900 --> 00:19:27.940 and he lives to restore us, his temple. This is what Jesus has been doing for 2,000 years, 00:19:28.620 --> 00:19:33.380 and this is what Jesus was doing in 2020, and this is what he'll continue to do in 2021. 00:19:33.380 --> 00:19:42.000 Jesus is zealously committed to his church. But his church, as 2020 shows us, is far from perfect. 00:19:42.120 --> 00:19:47.700 The church is a messy place. It's filled with recovering sinners, broken people being amended 00:19:47.700 --> 00:19:56.420 by Jesus Christ. It's a messy place, or at least it's supposed to be. The church is not a palace. 00:19:57.120 --> 00:20:02.120 It's not a palace, at least not yet. It's better described as a fixer-upper. 00:20:02.119 --> 00:20:08.119 A fixer-upper with a solid foundation. And there are still a lot of repairs to be done. 00:20:09.339 --> 00:20:14.739 And that means being surprised that the church is full of messed up and broken people makes about 00:20:14.739 --> 00:20:19.799 as much sense as being surprised that our house, our fixer-upper, has some ugly bathrooms, 00:20:20.439 --> 00:20:23.779 some holes in the walls, maybe even in the floor, and smells a bit like smoke. 00:20:24.699 --> 00:20:31.459 Smoke is hard stuff to get out of a house. Jesus is renovating us, but renovations are hard. 00:20:32.119 --> 00:20:40.219 2020 was a hard year, and there's no promise that 2021 will be any easier. But Jesus is continuing 00:20:40.219 --> 00:20:47.719 his renovation project. He's still doing work in us and on us. And the renovations are probably more 00:20:47.719 --> 00:20:55.000 painful, more drastic, and certainly more amazing than we ever dared imagine. And Jesus is committed 00:20:55.000 --> 00:21:01.960 to seeing us through. I want to end my sermon this morning with a passage from C.S. Lewis's Mere 00:21:01.960 --> 00:21:08.240 Christianity, where he describes this in a really beautiful way. Listen to what he writes. He says, 00:21:08.240 --> 00:21:16.359 Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, 00:21:16.460 --> 00:21:21.759 you can understand what he is doing. He's getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof 00:21:21.759 --> 00:21:29.420 and so on. You knew that those jobs needed doing, and so you are not surprised. But presently, 00:21:29.460 --> 00:21:35.019 he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. 00:21:35.019 --> 00:21:42.339 What on earth is he up to? Well, the explanation is that he is building quite a different house 00:21:42.339 --> 00:21:48.480 from the one you thought of. Throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, 00:21:49.180 --> 00:21:56.059 running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage, 00:21:56.059 --> 00:22:04.779 but he is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself. Let's pray. 00:22:07.659 --> 00:22:13.639 Father, we come before you broken for the brokenness of your church. 00:22:14.960 --> 00:22:22.139 But Lord, we are encouraged that you are zealous for your house. We know that you're restoring us 00:22:22.140 --> 00:22:29.180 because you plan to live in us. You do live in us by your spirit. I pray for our church, Lord, 00:22:29.240 --> 00:22:37.160 that you would build us up in this next year, that you would grow us up into the house that you desire 00:22:37.160 --> 00:22:45.240 us to be. Help us to trust you as you do so. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.