Fairhaven Shorts 3-3-2024

The Hear Of The Church

And so I always thought it was so funny driving past all of these churches to get to Sunday service when probably none of them had more than 30 people. And they probably weren't that big when they split either. But congregations are prone to conflict that can become nuclear, right? And in many situations, not all, but many, there's narcissism, there's pride at play far more than any actual Christian reason. It's a classic joke among pastors, among long-time churchgoers, that the very worst fights in churches are over the color of the new sanctuary carpet, not like the doctrine of baptism or communion.

It's never the big stuff, right? And we all know that we're far more inclined to spend time litigating hymn choices or aesthetic preferences than whether or not we're making disciples of Jesus. Which one of those things do you think occupies more time and energy among us?

God's Righteous Passion

John writes, His disciples remembered that it is written, 'Passion for my Father's house consumes me.' Jesus, as he takes a whip to merchants and money changers and cows and doves and flips the tables, is fighting for holiness, fighting for justice, for the will of God, not like personal preference or power. He's fighting for what's right. People were turning a profit in the temple.

This is important context here. They met the needs. The reason their merchants were in there is they were selling the animals to the Jewish pilgrims that came from afar so they could make sacrifices. They sold the animals right there.

And they created this one-stop shop. You buy your animals, you sacrifice them. And that might make sense from a business perspective, but it was defiling God's house by making it a market.