When God Moves In

Have you ever gone somewhere that you had not been for a long time?  Every time I go back to the town where I was born it seems to have changed somehow.  The changes I see are not just small changes, but major ones.  Factories have shut down and stand vacant.  Restaurants and storefronts have changed hands and become something different.  Nothing stays the same.  While these changes seem significant and drastic to me, those who live there seldom notice.  Things change so gradually that they pay little attention.

            This is not only the case in the world around us, in our towns and community.  It happens in our spiritual lives.  We go to church each weak (ideally) and do the things we have always done, but after a time things just seem different.  We have become so accustomed to the things we are supposed to be doing “for God,” and so focused on those things that when we step back to look at the landscape within the church we notice that God is not even a part of the scenery, much less the focal point.  I can’t help but wonder if this is how Jesus felt that day when He walked into the temple.

            The people of Israel built the temple as a place for God to dwell among them.  For a time He did.  They saw the fire and smoke and new that God was there.  But over time things changed.  Worship became ritual, and eventually the manifest presence of God disappeared – and the people never noticed!  For hundreds of years things went on in the temple without the presence of God.  And then, after four hundred years, Jesus came onto the scene.  When He walked into the temple the presence of God was there once again.  But what He saw was not what had been intended when Solomon built that place for the people to worship Him.

            Since the last time God had inhabited the temple man had changed things.  When Herod rebuilt the temple he strayed from the plan God had given originally.  To carry political favor, he added a courtyard for the Gentiles.  They were allowed to go no further than this courtyard, and as far as they understood, could get no closer to God.  The high priest, Caiaphas, had established a market in the Gentiles’ courtyard to compete with those on the Mount of Olives.  Of course, the temple inspectors would turn down any sacrifice bought outside, and these ones were sold for up to 200 times more than those outside the temple.  This place that sold sacrifices for the people would be the equivalent of our local congregation opening a drive-thru baptism and communion service.  The Saducees required that the temple tac be paid with Tyrian coins which bore pagan images rather than Greek or Roman coins.  The money-changers charged a 15% interest rate to make the necessary exchange.  The income from all this would be the equivalent of 40 to 45 thousand dollars today, which would have been an unimaginable amount of money in those days. 

            Jesus walked into a temple that had been intended to bring God closer to man, but it had become a place that widened the gulf that separated man from their King.  When Jesus overturned the tables, and ran the money-changers off He was cleansing the temple of things that kept man from God.  On that day, God showed once again that His desire is for people to draw near to Him, and to live in His presence.  But too often, the priests and religious leaders of the time had forgotten this.  They used the temple of God for their own gain, and for selfish purposes.  That’s why Jesus said , But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces.  For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in (Matthew 23:13).  Men had used what God had given them to suppress one another, and restrict access to their creator.  But when God walked through the temple door on that day things changed.  What would happen if God walked through the door of the temple of our hearts today?  What changes might be necessary in this temple built without hands?  Consider with me what happens to the church when God moves in.

           

            When God walked into the temple embodied by Jesus Christ sinful things were cleansed.  Those things that bore pagan images and took the focus from God were removed.  It was not things that were happening in the Holiest Place that angered Him, but things that were happening even in the outermost courtyard.  Because of the things happening out on the fringes of the Temple Jesus compared that place to the dens and caves inhabited by thieves outside of the city.  The priests had turned this into a place to hold the riches they stole from those who were seeking God.  They had become the embodiment of the prophecies of Ezekiel, Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves…you do not feed the sheep.  The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed (Ezekiel 34:2, 3)…

            Jesus would tolerate a system that excluded people from the service of God.  He would not allow those of influence to keep others from making the sacrifices they had been called to make in favor of their own sinful preferences.  These people believed that sin would benefit them personally, so they tolerated in in this outer courtyard of the temple.  When men and women who earnestly wanted to know the presence of God came in, they found a temple devoid of Yahweh.  God had promised years before, The Lord is with you while you are with him.  If you seek him, he will be found by you (2 Chronicles 15:2)… 

            Often we tolerate sin when it builds our pride or benefits our pocketbooks.  The priests did both.  Jesus cleansed the temple of these things to show that God desired man to come to Him.

 

            When Jesus walked in the temple and began to drive away the sinful things God’s power became evident.  Those who were there did not form a mob to try and stop him.  They simply stood by and watched.   The power of God working through the people of God cannot be stopped.  We look around us today and see the church – God’s people – stumbling powerless through the world.  The people of Israel had done things their way four centuries, but the power of God was always missing from their efforts.  The church today practices the same futility.  We work on our five-year plans and form our long-range vision committees.  The longer I study Scripture the more I am convicted that anything more than the revelation of God and the guidance of His Holy Spirit is wrong for the church.  We have spent the better part of half a century trying to do things our way in the church and we have seen little progress.  But history proves again and again that when God moves in we know without a doubt that He is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work (2 Corinthians 9:8). 

            When we look around the church, we shouldn’t have the great talent and skills of people to talk about and glorify.  The most talented people on earth cannot compare to the work done in the power of God.  When God moves into His temple the work that is done is far greater than anything we could design, orchestrate, or administrate.  We will not be able to take the credit because God’s work is beyond what we could ever do.  Even the children noticed this in the work of Jesus.  The children would never have been allowed to speak in the temple, but when the power of God began to work their joy and praise could not be contained.  God’s power brings judgment on the corrupt religions of our society that try to manipulate Him and show His glory to those who humbly seek Him.

 

            When God moved into the temple in Jesus, the hearts of the people were captured by His holiness and purity.  They were consumed with His power and they sang out to Him, Hosanna to the Son of David!  They turned their attention from the sacred attire and formal rituals of the priests to the power of God at work right there among them. 

            At time we seem to convince ourselves that we can continue on without God’s presence and conjure up the appearance until He shows up again.  We tell ourselves that if we just keep doing what we always do (the epitaph of many dying churches) God will eventually honor our cold, dead ritual.  There are always people who see through that ritual and simply seek the presence of God.  There will always be those who are unimpressed with big budgets, and professional-looking program and our little skits and plays.  They want to see God, and will do anything to experience a revival of His works.  Those who understand the revelation in Scripture realize that we are blessed, not for performing ceremony, but for drawing near to God as Scripture commands.  Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts!  We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple (Psalm 65:4)!  God honors those who know, A day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.  I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness (Psalm 84:10).

 

            It is exciting to image God’s people overwhelmed by His presence and the joy of being close to Him overflowing from their hearts.  But as uplifting as this thought is, there will always be some who meet God’s presence and power with indignation.  We would expect this from the people of the world because they do not know God.  But all too often it’s the religious leaders who respond this way when God moves into His temple.  Verse 15 tells us this.  The leaders of the religious structure of the time were more interested in the integrity of the structure than they were the presence of God, and they were not alone.  We use rivers of ink and mountains of paper to publish writings about how we should structure the church.  There is nothing inherently wrong with the necessary organization, but it cannot become the focal point of our ministry.  The more organization we create the more control we have, and this violates the government of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit taught in Scripture. 

            The presence of God is unwelcome to some because it threatens our control.  The people who were seeking God began to praise Jesus and ceased to look to the religious leaders in that day.  Their faith was turned away from those who had controlled the functions of God’s people.  Some, even in our day, will stop at nothing to keep this control.  They have placed the church in the same bondage in which the Jewish religion found itself in the time of Christ.  Too many times we find ourselves in bondage to the creation of man to the extent that it becomes difficult to do ministry.  We are obligated to ministries that no longer accomplish what they were intended to do and in bondage to the tradition that we have established.  After a time these things begin to take the place of God as we convince ourselves that if we just keep doing these things God will honor them.  We plan and budget around them whether God has moved or not, and we seldom – if ever – voice a prayer to ask God if it is still within His will for us to do these things.  We just assume that God will submit Himself to our will, and wonder why some of the things we do struggle along and will not go. (This is not a commentary on the Bible studies and church services missed by those who choose sports or hobbies first, we know those are God’s will because Scripture tells us so.)

            Those who are determined to maintain the integrity of the social club that we have built cannot allow the presence of God to fill His temple.  Then the attention of the people is turned from some of those things to the will of God.  His power is sought and the people begin to understand the words of Jesus, It is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer…”  The temple Jesus cleansed had been put in a position where people could not even come to seek God’s will through prayer.  There was so much commotion and noise from the things of man happening that God would never be found there; His still, small voice would not be heard.  We cannot allow ourselves to forget the purpose of the church.  It is the dwelling place of God.  When we come together it is not first and foremost for social gatherings.  There is nothing wrong with building relationships, but we have often sacrificed the presence and power of God in favor of those social functions which have become sacred to us and taken center-stage in the church.  Bill Konstantopoulos tells us, “There are times we get so engulfed in the organization that we confuse our ways with God’s ways and have the tendency to assume the role of the Holy Spirit and ignore the instructions of God’s Word.”  He reminds us further,

 

“As unpopular as it may appear in our days, I believe that legalistic, dry, self-centered organizations keep the church in many localities in bondage, hinder the freedom of the Spirit, deny the authority of God’s word, and have turned the people of God into a social club with human rules and regulations, erasing the distinct mark of the people of God.”

 

            We have lived for countless decades without the presence of God – in His church and in our personal lives.  Isn’t it time we put off all of our own ideas and let God move in?

            If the people of Israel were ever going to experience the presence of God, the tradition of man had to be overcome.  Jesus knew this.  Those who needed a fresh experience, something more than ritual, met God with praise and adoration.  They rejoiced at the fresh outpouring of power they witnessed in the temple that day.  It was those who were happy with the status quo, their influence and affluence, and their sense of power who despised the presence of God.  The Lord showed up for the first time in half a millennium, and they were so focused on themselves that they missed it.  What might keep us from experiencing the presence of God today?  When God moves, how do we receive His presence?