Recently, I preached through Luke 19:41-48 at Karis.  There we see Christ’s sorrow over the city of Jerusalem and his anger in the temple.  There, in the house of God, Christ exercises discipline upon His people, kicking opportunistic people out of the building, flipping over their tables used for exchanging currency and selling animals for sacrifice, and blocking others from entering and trying to do the same (Mark 11:15-16).  Christ looks at the worship of his people and is greatly angered.  Instead of the temple being a place of prayer, it’s a house of sin.  So Christ does something about it.  Although our Lord is dealing with national Israel here, and through his cleansing he is foreshadowing her future judgment, his actions give us a picture of how we should view the church and what we should do about her disobedience.

What here gets Jesus so worked up?  Why does he flip the tables?  I think the reasons here instruct us as to the great importance of church discipline.

Why Discipline?
First, of all, the good of our community requires it. Christ’s grief and fury is chiefly directed toward God’s people, the nation of Israel, and not toward the world, the Gentiles.  Jesus isn’t looking at those outside the temple and getting angry.  He’s not looking at Rome and weeping.  His people who were called to be holy are anything but, and He’s furious.  They were not looking like God’s chosen people.  It’s necessary at times, when the church looks like the world outside, that we get hacked off and throw some tables around.  That’s because it hinders our relationship with the world and with our God.

Second, therefore, our mission necessitates it. There are two interesting things about Luke 19:45-58.  First, most scholars think that the tables Jesus throws were located in the area of the temple called the Court of Gentiles, the place where people outside the covenant community were allowed to come and worship.  Second, the quotation from Isaiah 56:7 found in verse 46, which reads, “My house shall be a house of prayer,” finds its original context in a passage speaking of the incorporation of Gentiles in the people of God.  In fact, the end of Isaiah 56:7 reads, “For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”  Why, then, is Christ so angry?  The hypocritical worship of Israel was hindering the nations from coming to worship.  Friends, as we look at the church today, we should have the same concern.  In what ways do our sins repel people far from Christ?  Our mission necessitates that we clean out the household of God.

Third, God’s glory is at stake. John records, in chapter two, another instance where Christ cleanses the temple.  The disciples remember, verse 17 says, that Psalm 69:9 said, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”  They see that passage pointing forward to Christ’s furious action there.  What is Christ’s main concern?  It’s the glory of God.  The temple, intended as a place of worship to his Father, is a joke, and Jesus isn’t laughing.  Church, if we look at ourselves and see rebellion toward God instead of glorification of God, we have to do something about it.  It screams to the world that God is not glorious and that his gospel is not powerful.

So sin in the community hinders mission and worship.  But let me add another thought about community.  It is for our good to be missionaries and worshippers.  Only through being holy can we truly be happy.  What we desperately long for is a family, a group of people who will encourage us to live in light of God’s grace in the gospel, correcting us when we stray from His good purposes for our lives.  In other words, we need people who will, with grieving anger, dump out and flip over our idols out of love.  For our next post: love and discipline.

As we worshiped together at the Upper Crust this week, several thoughts came to me that led me to immense gratitude for God’s providence in our young, “portable” church. What do I mean by portable? Simply that we don’t have an official church building that we can call our own. So, some Sundays, like this past one, we worship at other locations together. But why should we be grateful for this? Isn’t it just a big hassle? We had to load everything up in the trailer and do a whole bunch of extra setup work. Everyone had to get up even earlier. In fact, wouldn’t our setup work be so much easier if we had our own building where we could just leave everything in place for the next week? Well, yes. These “annoyances” would be avoided in our own location. But the reality that hit me on Sunday was just how minor those annoyances are in comparison to the blessings.

Without our own building, we are reminded every week - and particularly on weeks such as this past one - that the church actually has very little to do with the building. This is hard to remember in our culture, where we use the word church almost exclusively to describe a building or location where we go to do things like worship or have Bible study. But the church is actually the people of God. The Greek word translated church - ekklesia - literally means “the called ones.” A building is not a church. Jesus promised us that “where two or three gather in my name, there I am among them” (Matthew 18:20). Nowhere in the New Testament do you see Jesus or the Apostles talking about the church as a lifeless building or place. In fact, Jesus speaks strongly against it. In John 4, he explains to a woman that the Father is not seeking worshipers who worship merely at a specific place, but worshipers who worship “in spirit and truth.” So, the primary blessing for us is that we are constantly reminded that the church is the living, breathing body Christ - God’s people. This people worships God wherever they gather. It was beautiful to come together in a completely different place with a totally different feel this week, and hear the voices of his people ring out strong and clear. Indeed, it is not the building that ushers us into God’s presence. Rather it is the blood of Christ that makes a way to God’s throne. And the Spirit is among us to bring us there.

There are many other blessings in the portable church we can thank God for. We are constantly propelled out into the community, because we don’t have a place to which we can retreat. Likewise we are propelled into one another’s homes throughout the week, allowing us to practice hospitality toward one another. We can easily miss out on these blessings if we have a prescribed and safe place to go for everything we do. Additionally, we are stretched as a people to corporately take ownership in our Sunday gatherings, because it does take so much service and sacrifice to pull them off. This guards us from letting only the handful of laborers make Sundays happen. Instead, we have a weekly opportunity to serve one another and to contribute to the mission by sacrificiing our time and getting down in the trenches to do humble, sometimes thankless work: plugging in cords, setting up a book table, etc. I’m amazed at how many people give to make our Sundays happen week in and week out. This is a prime avenue for God’s sanctifying work as he transforms us into humble, sacrificial servants like Jesus. Plus, we just get to spend more time together on Sundays, connecting and building relationships while we serve!

Lastly, we also have an opportunity to bless the place (and thank God for it!) that we do call home, the Missouri Theatre Center for the Arts. As I participated in the True/False Film Festival this weekend, I saw 90% of the films in the Missouri Theatre. I was reminded consistently by overheard conversations that this venue is a beautiful, unique place in our city. It’s the premier place to gather and enjoy the arts together. So many people around me had not yet seen it in its restored elegance. They marveled at it. I paused numerous times to think, “Wow…we get to meet here and praise God like 50 Sundays out the year. That’s amazing.” So we should thank God for the place he has given us to meet, even as we remember that the place is secondary. He has been exceedingly generous to us. And, moreveover, that generosity has come to us through the MO Theatre staff, such as David White, Tyler Richardson and John Gilbreth. These folks have given much of their time and energy to making this work for us. We have a great opportunity to bless them and the whole Theatre by our own generosity and sacrifice to make sure we take good care of what we’ve been given, as well as by seeking to frequently bless and thank the people by whom God has given it to us.

So, yes, Karis. As strange as it may sound, let’s thank God that we don’t have our own building. And let’s sieze the opportunity of being a portable church.

Blogger Timmy Brister recently spoke into the crazy situation happening among Baptists in Missouri. Read his thoughts about “cultural liberalism” here.

Check out this hilarious article in Rolling Stone magazine, “Jesus Made Me Puke: Matt Taibbi Undercover with the Christian Right.”  First, it is amazing to me, as one who identifies himself as an evangelical in the traditional sense of the word, that this stuff really happens.  Second, it hacks me off that everyone gets thrown into one basket with this madness seen in John Hagee’s church.  This will freak you out and make you laugh hard.  Warning: some raw content found within.

I had a fabulous time at Together for the Gospel this year.  But, as I’ve already stated, I thought, as much as I love him and his ministry, that Mark Dever went too far, almost making any kind of civic involvement or cultural engagement a waste of time.  This helpful article in Christianity Today by Colin Hansen expresses what I was thinking.  People like Wright go too far one way, while, at least I think, Dever goes too far the other.  Again, I think Keller is balanced and right on.

Ray Ortlund gives a barrage of super quotes each week at his “Christ is Deeper Still” blog.  This quote says a great deal about what’s going on in the Christian culture in Missouri:

“My translator told me, ‘Brother Yun, these people don’t want to know the truth. That’s why they’re not calling you or wanting to meet you. In China, Christians are persecuted with beatings and imprisonment. In the West, Christians are persecuted by the words of other Christians.’ This new kind of spiritual persecution was no easier than physical persecution in China, just different. I cried out in prayer, asking the Lord for strength. I forgave the people behind this attack from the bottom of my heart, and we continued our trip.”

The Heavenly Man: The Remarkable True Story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun, pages 308-309.

This article by Tim Bayly is one of the best I’ve read about why we need to reach men and how we can do it.

Yesterday at Resurgence was fabulous.  First, Mark Driscoll spoke about “Putting the Pastor In His Place.”  This was a fantastic biblical-theological look at the call to preaching in the context of the local church.  I challenge all to go on the Resurgence site and listen to the message.  If pastors over all Missouri heard this call, there would be massive revival.  And, if you hear it and still think Driscoll is “emergent,” well…. I suspect you’ll still think he is, because that’s what you want to think is true.  The fact that young evangelicals all across America are throwing their hat in with him makes you very nervous.  But this is what you have been praying for– men who would preach with boldness and clarity.  Driscoll points out the clear calling to preach from the Bible in an era where people are thinking “conversations” are what is needed.  He also challenges people who embrace preaching to think about how to shepherd and discipline those people.  In other words, preaching must be linked to the church.

Second, C.J. Mahaney spoke about loving the church as a pastor.  He preached out of 1 Corinthians 1, showing how we should see the calling of God upon the lives of our people (past), the grace of God upon their lives (present), and the faithfulness of God in their lives (future).  This message powerfully moved me.  The primary challenge was this: if Paul saw this in the church of Corinth, with its plethora of problems, how can we not see these things in ours?  Do we default to seeing God’s grace upon the lives of those around us, or do we mainly see the areas of correction needed?

Third, John Piper spoke about “Why I Trust the Bible.”  It will be a bit hard to do a recap here, and, believe it or not, the timezone change and a sleepless previous night made me pretty tired.  But it was super stuff.  Listen with me, as I do so again, to the Resurgence podcast.

I’m sitting here with about 5 minutes until the morning session starts.  This auditorium of Mars Hill probably holds 1000-1500.  I would say 90% of the people are 35 and younger.  This is good news for the American church.

Tim Keller and CBN are a bit of an odd match, but they recently did a spot on him, his ministry, and his new book.  Check it out here.

I’ve said that the video campuses were going to lead to church “franchises”.  While many in America are revolting against franchises and fast-food chains, the church is trying to parrot that model.  Here you go!