[00:00:01] Pastor Brian: Hey everyone, and welcome to the Calvary Callback, a podcast where we take a deeper dive into the weekly sermon here at Calvary Evangelical Free Church in the lovely Rochester, Minnesota. I’m your host, Brian Martin, and I’m here today with Kyle Bushre, who preached a sermon titled A Corrupt City looking at Luke 19: 41 through 48 in our ongoing series, Salvation Has Come. Is the corrupt city Detroit? We were just…
[00:00:28] Pastor Kyle: Hey now, come on.
[00:00:29] Pastor Brian: That was mean spirited.
[00:00:31] Pastor Kyle: That was just you being bitter that my Lions beat your Packers. That’s all that is. That’s just yeah, that’s sad on your part. And you should rethink your life.
[00:00:41] Pastor Brian: I can’t, I’m part owner of the team.
[00:00:44] Pastor Kyle: Oh. Oh.
[00:00:44] Pastor Brian: Remember?
[00:00:45] Pastor Kyle: Oh… I’m so sorry sir.
[00:00:49] Pastor Brian: I do have stock. I do own stock. My grandfather bought that for me in about 1992. It is, of course, completely worthless. But I do get invited to an owner’s meeting every year. Have I ever gone? No.
[00:01:02] Pastor Kyle: Never once. Huh?
[00:01:03] Pastor Brian: I almost went a couple years ago. Um, but you know, which, by the way, I lived in Green Bay for most of the time that I’ve owned that stock, and I still never went. So, um, I think it actually would be fun. They have fun with that.
[00:01:16] Pastor Kyle: But no, to answer your question, which I’m gonna take as a literal question. No, the corrupt city is actually first century Jerusalem.
[00:01:24] Pastor Brian: Oh, we don’t play them. They’re not in the division.
[00:01:27] Pastor Kyle: We do not play them, no.
[00:01:31] Pastor Brian: Uh, yes. I guess we can still be friends. Even after. I mean, really, we’re gonna blame the officiating more than the Lions.
[00:01:38] Pastor Kyle: I actually agree with that one, too.
Philosophy of worship services for believers and non-believers
[00:01:40] Pastor Brian: Yeah, okay. Anyway, football aside, let’s talk about more redeemed things I suppose. So let’s start here because I think it’s kind of an interesting philosophical conversation. You acknowledged at the beginning of your sermon that believers and non-believers might hear what you had to say a little bit differently, and/or you had concerns for believers and non-believers differently from the passage. And I think that’s a really interesting conversation when we talk about gathering for worship. And I’ve been in conversations before with people who would say things like, well, we only plan services for believers. And I’ve always thought that that philosophy lacked nuance a little bit. Anyway, I have some thoughts on that, but I’m just curious on your thoughts. What are some of your sort of philosophy of worship services specifically related to believers and unbelievers and who we assume is in the room and things like that?
[00:02:34] Pastor Kyle: Yeah. Well, when we gather, we’re gathering the believers to worship. So our worship services are, in that sense, they are for believers in that those who are regenerate, who have been transformed in Christ are the ones who can worship. Right? So when, uh, Pastor Jamie and I plan services, he does most of the planning. But we are, we are choosing scripture or songs and other elements of the service that are going to point us to the Word of God so that we can grow in Christ, right? We also recognize, though, and I think rightly so, I could even make a case from the New Testament that we should assume that there might be non-believers among us. Paul, for instance, told the Corinthians to practice their Lord’s Supper, their communion in such a way that it would teach the gospel to the non-believers. It would be a witness to them in some sense. So we know that. We know that here at Calvary, we gather 950 to 1000 people every week here at Calvary across our three services. And we know that there are non-Christians who are among us. You and I talk to them sometimes. We are aware of this.
[00:03:45] Pastor Kyle: And, uh, and so what we do, I guess the best way to say is, uh, our philosophy of ministry as it pertains to crafting services is we are crafting worship services for believers that I would say are accessible to the non-Christian. When we use terms, certain terms, we want to define those terms. We don’t want to just throw the word justification out there and not talk about what it is. Uh, we don’t want to use too much theological language that would leave a non-believer in the dust and couldn’t follow what we’re doing because we recognize that part of what we’re doing is evangelism. So when I’m wrestling with a passage, especially a passage of judgment like this one, those folks are front of mind. When I read a passage it would be easy and I think unhelpful to read a passage of judgment and then just turn to my church and go, hey, isn’t it great? We don’t have to deal with any of this? And the truth is, we do because we’re going to have different kinds of people in the room.
[00:04:49] Pastor Kyle: And, they’re not all the same. Some of them are going to be non-believers and they know it. They know they’re not. And actually, interestingly, this passage is written to people who would rightly have said they worship the Lord. And Jesus is saying, you’re missing something important. And we have people like that too, especially in our American church traditional background, where people will attend services just because that’s what you do on a Sunday. They grew up going to services. And I sort of addressed this a little bit. When I say you’re used to sermons like this, you know, all the knowledge you have, all the information, and yet you don’t know Jesus because you’ve never, he’s not actually your King. And that person, a person who fits that category, that person is also an unbeliever. They just may not identify as an unbeliever and recognize their own spiritual state. And part of what we do as a church is we shake that cage. We want people to really consider, Is Jesus my King? Even if I’ve been in church for 40 years. Is Jesus my King or do I just come here because that’s what I think I’m supposed to do, you know?
[00:05:57] Pastor Brian: Right. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I like that idea of for believers, but accessible to unbelievers. I think that’s good. And I think too, I think of sort of examples I could even name right now of tensions too, because I think there’s believer/unbeliever sort of, I don’t want to say tension, but considerations. But then there’s also like churched and unchurched considerations too. Like I can think of, um, someone in our church who has only been a believer since April and is a believer and grew up in a completely different religious tradition. Like not a Christian at all. And so what does that look like for him engaging in our services, right? Like that’s going to potentially be different or feel different for him if we don’t make some of those things accessible, even to him who’s unchurched. So I think that’s a different tension that we also have to carry when we think about these things. And I think we try to in fact. You know, before your time here when we had Dan Worthman here and we did our church survey, you know, we had a bit of a warmth problem is sort of what our people said was like, we’re just not very warm. And then we did several things, you know, pulled on several levers that I think really helped with that.
[00:07:08] Pastor Brian: And I think, um, I think we’re a different church in a really good way. Like we’re the same church. But because my comment when we were going through that, and that was sort of the result was, man, but there’s so many warm, wonderful people here. How is that not coming through? So it was really just revealing what was already there um, in a better way. And so some of the things we do, I think are helpful for those kinds of things. And I’m also sure there’s people who come into our services who it feels very odd and foreign, right? Like where else in culture, I mean, you could maybe say like a concert, but it’s still different. Where else in culture do we come together as people and sing. Like, it doesn’t really, you know, we watch other people sing a lot, and even a lot of concert goers don’t really want to sing along. They just want to receive whatever, you know, the great talented guy because he’s better at this than me. You know, kind of a thing. But, um, there’s things we do that are always going to be odd or off putting to some degree. And certainly the gospel at times is offensive, even. But I still think that’s different than we can be hospitable and warm and all of those things.
[00:08:08] Pastor Kyle: Absolutely.
[00:08:09] Pastor Brian: And explain like how certain terms are.
[00:08:12] Pastor Kyle: Yeah. And passages of judgment like this one do give us the opportunity to say very hard and challenging things to people who are not yet following Jesus. And, um, you know, as hard as that can be, it is what we should be doing. And so I find that the passage generally helps me or shows me how to address the crowd. And it’ll guide me if Jesus is making a pronouncement against people who reject him as King, I’m going to speak to people who reject him as King. If Jesus is cultivating his disciples and telling them to love one another I’m going to talk about what Christian community looks like when we love one another, right? And so in that way, the passage itself helps me to select the audience to address even as I’m addressing everybody and everybody can learn from this.
The judgement of God
[00:09:04] Pastor Brian: Love it. Well, to that point, so judgementalism is an interesting word because that’s one of the things people outside of the church most often say about Christians. They’re judgmental, right? And yet not all judgment is bad biblically in the sense of it’s not wrong. There are versions of being judgmental as a person that are bad, but God’s judgment is good. So I think that’s an important clarification that I think a lot of times people outside the church don’t understand. So to be helpful to that sort of nuance, can you define judgment and why God has the right to be a judge?
[00:09:45] Pastor Kyle: Well, sure, because God has the right to be judge because he’s holy and because he has a law, and because he designed us to be a certain way, and we’ve broken that law. So in that sense, God’s judgment is very much like the judgment that you would have in a court of law. Uh, his judgment isn’t a put down or, uh, like a gossipy thing like our judgment toward another person might be. His judgment is holy. It’s pure, it’s right. It’s just. And when he brings about final judgment, which is what he’s talking about here, which is the illusion, what happens to Jerusalem in 70 A.D. is an illusion or a picture of what happens to all people who reject Jesus as King, which is an important thing to remember. Uh, then in that sense, it’s a warning to us of what is coming when Jesus returns. So, uh, God’s judgment is good. Our judgment will always be flawed in a sense because we’re flawed people, we don’t see, we don’t have all knowledge that God works with. We’re not, uh, you know, omnipotent in that sense. Our judgment is flawed. We do our very best. Good courts of law will sift through the evidence and come up with the right judgment against a person. The tricky part, I think, is what you’re getting to is what happens when we take it out of the law court and we just put it into the minds of people.
[00:11:17] Pastor Kyle: Sure. And how do we guide? Here’s the truth. Uh, it is wrong for us to be judgmental. I don’t even like using that word when I talk. When we talk about Christian discernment. Uh, it is wrong to be judgmental if we just walk around condemning everybody for everything they do. Whether it’s different, you know, something I like or something I don’t like or something I want to gossip about or something. I mean, the gossip itself would be a sin too, to judge other people in that sense. But discernment and correction are very good things. Discerning right from wrong. Truth from error and correction. A loving correction that tries to help people get onto the right path to see right, the right way to go. Those things are very biblical. If they’re received as a judgmental attitude, that’s where I would want to step back and go, well, let’s actually weigh this out. Was this person lovingly trying to correct an error they were seeing in your life? Well, then maybe judgmentalism is the wrong way to talk about what they were doing or how they’re acting. And there’s a lot of people who just don’t like it when other people correct them and try to help them.
[00:12:31] Pastor Brian: Definitely.
[00:12:31] Pastor Kyle: And so they see that as judgmentalism. And for that person, if a person receives that from you and, you know, accuses you of being judgmental, in a sense, you can kind of shake the dust off your feet and walk away. There’s a pearls before swine kind of situation going on here where you go, okay, look, I tried to help. I don’t really know what else to do. It’s okay. I’ll pull away. We don’t have to talk about this anymore and move in a different direction. Uh, but I do think that there is a rightly deserved condemnation sometimes from outside the church toward church people who do act in a judgmental way about others and their actions. They’re not loving, they’re not gracious. They don’t, uh, you know, Paul said, what have I to do with judging people outside of the church? I’m talking about the people inside the church. We’re all committed and connected to Christ, and we’re helping each other along. I expect people outside of the church to act as unbelievers because they’re unbelievers. So in that sense, Paul said, I’m not here to judge those folks. I want to share the gospel with those folks. And so I would say we need to be discerning God. God’s judgment is pure and holy and just and right and good. And it is coming. It is coming for all of us. And that’s where we as ambassadors of the gospel, need to just simply point people to God’s judgment, but then offer them the grace. That’s what I think we ought to be doing.
[00:13:59] Pastor Brian: Yeah, there’s a hard nuance I think, of saying that we can and even should identify sin where there is sin, not even necessarily that we need to say it or point it out per se, if it’s somebody else’s sin or whatever, maybe we don’t even need to do that. But we need to know when sin is sin. But it’s a different thing. I think a lot of times when the Judgmentalism label gets thrown on Christians, sometimes it’s completely valid. But I think a lot of times it’s like because a lot of the world can’t separate, well, I think what you’re doing is wrong, but I love you anyway. And I think when it’s rightly applied, it’s when they don’t get the second half of what I just said where it’s, well, you’re disgusting because. Well, that’s not really how Jesus ever saw people, right? Yes, he condemned people for their sin often, but I don’t think he ever hated them in doing so. It’s can you see the value and love worthiness of a person despite their sin? I hope so, because otherwise you would never like everyone.
[00:15:05] Pastor Kyle: So it is becoming a cultural value, I will say, to say unless you agree with me or at least affirm my truth, then therefore you hate me. And you’re attacking me and you’re doing violence to me. That’s one of the things that’s happening.
[00:15:19] Pastor Brian: That’s really hard.
[00:15:20] Pastor Kyle: And if a person feels that way, I just say, well, okay, you know, I’m sorry you feel that way. I don’t see things the way that you do. But we don’t have to talk about this anymore. Let’s just move on. Because there’s nothing I can do at that point. I have things I’d like to share with them, but if I have to affirm them in order to not be doing violence to them in their minds, than we probably just going to have to talk about something else.
[00:15:49] Pastor Brian: And this is where it can be challenging in those conversations, because we have fundamentally different definitions of words that are really important, like love. What does it mean to be loving? Yeah, those are fundamentally different things. And even I find it ironic, fundamentally different understandings of the word tolerance. Like the word tolerance in the definition means I don’t totally agree or I don’t totally like it, but I’m fine with it. You know, like, I’ll tolerate it.
[00:16:17] Pastor Kyle: Yeah, I’ll tolerate it.
[00:16:17] Pastor Brian: I’ll still be in your presence, even though we disagree. And now it has to mean full affirmation of all things somebody else thinks or believes or does. And it’s like, well, that goes against the very definition of what it is.
[00:16:29] Pastor Kyle: Yeah. You can’t tolerate without difference. It has to be there. The only way you can tolerate something is if it’s different.
[00:16:35] Pastor Brian: Yeah otherwise it’s just agreement.
[00:16:36] Pastor Kyle: Yeah. Agreement and acceptance. Well, then I don’t need tolerance. If I accept, I don’t need to be tolerant.
How Jesus’s weeping informs our understanding of his character
[00:16:43] Pastor Brian: Yeah. We’re not tolerant of things we love, you know. I’m not tolerant of chocolate. Like I, I just really like it a lot. All right. Well, in any case, I had this interesting thought while listening, Sunday morning. I did like a very brief bit of research in this, but I think there are only two times we see Jesus weeping that I can recall from the Gospels. It’s when Lazarus dies and he’s concerned about his friend, even though he brings him back, but and this. These are the only two times Jesus that I can think of is described as weeping. And I did a word search. I didn’t do like super deep study, but let’s just say that that’s true, that these are the only times Jesus weeps and he’s described that way. What should that tell us? I mean, what is that informing us about the character of God, the character of Jesus specifically, I guess, um, that he weeps over Lazarus being dead and Jerusalem.
[00:17:52] Pastor Kyle: Yeah. Well, I think he weeps over Lazarus because Lazarus is his friend. And death is an enemy. And he’s about to raise Lazarus.
[00:18:01] Pastor Brian: Which is wild.
[00:18:01] Pastor Kyle: He’s about to overcome the enemy right there. He knows. And yet it breaks him because of because death is always an enemy.
[00:18:09] Pastor Brian: And he is fully human.
[00:18:10] Pastor Kyle: Yeah, yeah.
[00:18:11] Pastor Brian: As well as fully divine.
[00:18:13] Pastor Kyle: Exactly.
[00:18:13] Pastor Brian: But there’s, I think his weeping is a human moment.
[00:18:17] Pastor Kyle: Absolutely. I agree with you completely. I think his weeping outside of Jerusalem is a human moment. I think it’s a human reaction to an emotion that he feels both in his human nature and his divine nature, in that God isn’t pleased with the rejection of humanity. And so we see a God who, what we see in these instances is a God who is righting the world but is saddened by its wrongs. And I think that informs my understanding of how God goes about his business of redeeming.
[00:18:56] Pastor Brian: Yeah, yeah.
[00:18:57] Pastor Kyle: You’re like, I’m sad over the brokenness of our world, but so is God. If God was indifferent toward the brokenness of the world, first of all, I don’t think he’d send Jesus. I don’t think there’d be a plan of redemption if he didn’t actually care. But God cares. He is saddened by human rebellion. And so that makes sense for me when I’m saddened by the brokenness of our world. I, in a sense, understand God a little bit better because of my own brokenness. So I do think we’re shown these little bits of Jesus human responses to these things in order for us to understand God better and to understand our own reactions better. Um, I don’t know. I’d have to really think about that more. And I don’t know if he cries in other places. You know, he sweats great drops of blood when he’s, or great drops of sweat like blood in the garden. Uh, so he’s certainly emotional in other places. Uh, but yeah, and it’s not readily coming to mind if there’s a place that he openly, we’re told that he weeps.
[00:20:02] Pastor Brian: Right. I mean, he cries out on the cross, but that’s. And maybe there were tears involved.
[00:20:08] Pastor Kyle: I would think probably. But, um, I don’t know if we’re told that.
[00:20:11] Pastor Brian: But even that obviously there’s physical pain there too. And there might also be emotional pain, of course, presumably there was, but like, yeah, I don’t know. It’s just an interesting thought. And I think your point of him basically lamenting that the world is not the way that it’s supposed to be. And I think, you know, I think we should care about the things God cares about. And so in that sense, it’s a model for us. That, yeah, we should hate death too, which is why we should share the gospel. And I think it’s interesting a little bit too, that it’s an individual and a city. You know, the idea of Jesus caring for this city is interesting because I think sometimes Christians can get in the habit of like, you know, set apartness, as it were, right. And there is something to be said for that. And we have to hold these things in tension because we shouldn’t be of the world in that sense. But, you know, do I really care about Rochester? This place that I live and that I serve, do I actually care about it at a deep emotional level? And I think I should. I think we should care about the places where we live, and we should seek the good of the city, as Proverbs talks about, right.
[00:21:27] Pastor Kyle: Jeremiah, the prophet. The prophet Jeremiah said, when the people go to Babylon, seek the good of the city where God sends you. Make sure that you are, you know, planting gardens and building houses and marrying and giving in marriage and all these things because you should care about the environment. You’ve been sent to care about the place that God has put you. So to be an ambassador for the gospel in those places.
Political engagement as a Christian
[00:21:52] Pastor Brian: I think that’s huge. I think that’s a big thing. Um, well, interesting point then to that. You know, you also touched on politics a little bit and how you don’t talk about politics.
[00:22:04] Pastor Kyle: Oh, this will be a fun part of the podcast.
[00:22:07] Pastor Brian: No but I think that last point is an interesting segue to this because you talked about, you know, there is no party of righteousness. And I think that’s true. And I think, you know, I think as we’re in voting season, it’s next Tuesday, right? So, um, these are things we’re having to think about as Christians, right? So how would you say, you know, Christians should approach the political sphere? Like, how do we engage well in that conversation?
[00:22:37] Pastor Kyle: Yeah, the first thing I would say is I absolutely want those who love Jesus to be involved in those conversations, to be involved in the process, to go into politics and represent Jesus well there and bring about legislation that can bring the values of the kingdom of God into the values of the laws that we live by. I think that’s a fine engagement. There’s a healthy patriotism to loving our country enough to want to represent Jesus well within it. And so I would encourage Christians to be involved in the process and bring the values that you’ve learned, your Christian walk into the way you interact with people. And not just at a national or an election level, but actually at the level of engaging with society and in the civic functions of your city. Uh, I’ve learned a lot actually. James Lowe on our staff is a fantastic thinker in this line. And he talks a lot about, you know, get involved in conversations and help bring about change right around you. I mean, most politics that matter to the society around us are local. And so get involved in those groups that are helping to bring about good and get involved in those programs that are helping people and furthering good ideals within our culture. So I would encourage all of that. What I was speaking to yesterday, of course, is whether we should be using our worship services and our stage presence and my voice, for instance, and I’ve had people pressure me both sides, by the way, both Republicans, Democrats, conservative, liberal. I’ve had pressure from both sides to, quote, use my platform to do this or that thing, to speak out against this or that, to uphold this politician or that politician, to back that platform or this platform. And I simply think it’s not the right place for us to be doing that sort of thing. Um, because it is a time when we gather together to unite in Christ. That doesn’t mean we don’t speak about those principles from Scripture that will probably inform the way you vote or inform the way you engage in politics. But that would just be all of the things we talk about. All of the values and the good that we find in Scripture should be informing the way you engage in politics. But what should not happen in a worship service is the sort of trumpeting or platforming of any particular way people should vote or specific politicians or specific points of view that are out there. Um, so we have to be really careful. You and I both know the tension of this. We both receive, uh, guidance, let’s say, from others who would like us to act in one way or another. And so we have to resist that temptation, resist that tension. Uh, but I definitely think let’s get as many people engaged in conversations and civic duty as we can, because in that way, we care deeply for the place that God has put us.
[00:26:09] Pastor Brian: I would say even being a well-informed voter is maybe a version of seeking the welfare of your city. I think I could make a case of application to that. I think that could be good. I think I would add, I’m trying to think of how to say this well, Christians should always be Pursuers of truth and should always stand on truth. And I think that, of course, because politics are what they are. They’re all about spin.
[00:26:40] Pastor Kyle: Yep.
[00:26:41] Pastor Brian: And at times they’re about lies. And I think too many Christians get sucked into lies.
[00:26:47] Pastor Kyle: Yep.
[00:26:47] Pastor Brian: And so I think we need to be really shrewd and really wise um, in all things, but I think with extra sensitivity when it comes to politics and politicians, what is actually true, as much as we can determine it. And the reality is a lot of times we can’t. There are things we’re never going to know that happen at the federal level or whatever.
[00:27:07] Pastor Kyle: Right.
[00:27:08] Pastor Brian: But at the same time, we need to be careful not to be sucked in by a factory of lies. That is basically every political shop that exists, because that’s kind of their job. And I think we just need to be, um, skeptical in a good way. We need to be, have a healthy skepticism about what is actually true here.
[00:27:28] Pastor Kyle: Far more discerning than what we’re being encouraged to be right now. Right now we’re just being fed things and told this is what you ought to think. And a lot of people are just buying that as opposed to weighing even the stuff that comes from your own side. Weigh your own side. There’s probably nothing better I could say to political engagement today to try to influence it in the right direction, to a biblical direction, than to be critical when your own people, when your own politicians speak out and say, this is not how I think. Yes. Generally speaking, this direction or that direction is kind of where I engage politically. But I don’t agree with this or that and say something about it. There is no one clean platform or one clean politician where you can just point them and say everything that they think and do is everything the Bible calls us to. You can’t. It’s not there. Yeah. So say something about it.
[00:28:30] Pastor Brian: There’s no party of righteousness. That was such a good point. Yeah. I love that.
[00:28:33] Pastor Kyle: Yeah. Well, I had a guy tell me one time. The reason I use that phrase is because many, many years ago, I had someone come and tell me that his political party was the party of righteousness. That was the phrase he used.
[00:28:44] Pastor Brian: Wow.
[00:28:45] Pastor Kyle: And it took a long time to just kind of sort through that. And I tried to guide there, but you know what? You know the more I tried to bring discernment to that idea, the more I became the enemy in his eyes. It was sad.
[00:28:59] Pastor Brian: Interesting. Well, speaking of poor understanding of Scripture, um…
[00:29:06] Pastor Kyle: Oh, Do you have some poor understanding?
[00:29:08] Pastor Brian: No, I was really intrigued by, you had said you’ve heard people say that the outcome of this passage about the temple was you can’t sell things in church. I absolutely was told that…
[00:29:20] Pastor Kyle: Yes, I know.
[00:29:21] Pastor Brian: …at my home church this was something somebody said and the church wasn’t making that case. It was a guy.
[00:29:27] Pastor Kyle: A guy in the church.
[00:29:28] Pastor Brian: And it was like, and I was a young youth pastor at the time. And I was like, huh. Like, it had never occurred to me that that would… Okay, so with that, let’s do a little hermeneutical coaching here. Like, why isn’t that the practical application of that passage? Like what about our approach would tell us clearly that’s not what’s being intended here.
[00:29:53] Pastor Kyle: Well, the first thing I would do is I would step back and say, do you really think that Jesus went into the temple and flipped these tables so that 2000 years later, the church would be sure not to let kids sell candy bars for their sporting events? Let’s just be… is that why Jesus cleansed the temple? Right?
[00:30:14] Pastor Brian: Yes, I do think that’s why.
[00:30:16] Pastor Kyle: Okay. My work is done here then. No, you know, it’s one of those things where you know, they take a passage that’s probably I mean, you read the scriptures, right, so it’s probably got an incredible theological depth to it and somebody just went, oh, well, here’s this one rule. This is the rule we have because of this one passage and no more thought given. So you have to say, okay, why would Jesus be so upset at this? What would cause this level of show of Jesus, you know, in another gospel puts together a little whip and starts whipping and flipping and everything’s going nuts in the temple. Jesus is going off in the temple. We have not seen him do anything like this. What would cause that? Is it because some money is being made? Yes. But why? What’s the money? What’s the problem with the money? What’s the problem with selling? These people are coming from all over the region to come make sacrifices at the temple. They probably don’t have the doves or the wine or the oil or the things that they would use for sacrifice. They’re going to need to procure that from someplace. Why does Jesus have a problem with it happening in this temple? And go beyond just the simple act. It’s saying something about worship and then listen to Jesus words. What have they done? They’ve taken God’s temple, they’ve taken a house of prayer, they’ve turned it into a den of robbers. Now we’re getting at the real issue here. I would ask everybody who reads scripture to press beyond simple answers to get at what does this say about the worship of God, and what does it ultimately say about God if Jesus were to allow this to continue?
[00:32:02] Pastor Brian: Well, and to your candy bar example, is that being a robber? Is that kid asking, is he trying to extort people? He didn’t say, if the passage had said something like, you’re making profit.
[00:32:18] Pastor Kyle: Yeah.
[00:32:19] Pastor Brian: Yeah, we’d have to read that differently than him saying, this is a den of robbers. He’s saying these guys are specifically being unethical in some way, I would argue. And not only because they are selling things, but because they’re selling in some way that is unethical, unholy. However we want to say it.
[00:32:36] Pastor Kyle: Yeah and tied directly to worship. We can’t separate those two things. I suppose we get closer to it if there was a little, uh, machine at the beginning, at the front doors of our church and you just simply had to pay to come in. Now we’re getting closer to what was actually happening there. But like I said, I think it goes, theologically goes well beyond this. It’s not just, um, we got to look at the hearts of the people who were doing this. And what it was, is they didn’t care about Jesus. They rejected Jesus because they had a whole system of religion that benefited and profited themselves. They didn’t want to undo that. It was too lucrative. And they wanted the money far more than they wanted the Lord. And this is why Jesus weeps.
[00:33:25] Pastor Brian: Yeah, yeah. And I think, I mean, certainly there are, you know, Christian business owners. That’s one thing. There’s also sort of it’s not a great term in some ways, but Christian businesses, you know, we buy communion supplies from somebody. You know, stuff like that. And I think I don’t think all of those businesses are inherently evil or bad, certainly because even though they they might be helping facilitate worship, but they’re not tying it to worship in the same way. Like those are different things. Like, yeah, we got to get the little, the little cups from somebody, you know, and that’s fine. And that’s, that’s not the problem. It’s identifying because that’s not necessarily a den of robbers in that sense, they’re not.
[00:34:09] Pastor Kyle: They’re stealing from worship. Basically when the people walk in, they go, aha, money making opportunity coming through the door. Let’s see what we can extort out of these folks while they come simply to worship the Lord, right? Um, and churches, I put that in quotations here, put that in air quotes, churches that design themselves this way, and there are some out there, I think are very close to what Jesus is talking about here. Um, but again, I think it has individual application too. And that’s what I wanted to get to on Sunday is that, you know, don’t get stuck on the mode of the problem here. Uh, understand what Jesus is saying. You can approach religion, you can approach your worship of the Lord as something that you want to get something out of. That’s all you’re here for is I want my Christianity to serve me as opposed to my worship is an end in itself. I’m here for the Lord, not the other way around.
[00:35:08] Pastor Brian: Yep, yep. Uh, I have used before the metaphor of moving the lampstand in the temple. You’ve got the lamp stand directly across from the Bread of presence, and the idea of moving, like the whole point of the lampstand is to shine light on the bread, which is supposed to represent Jesus. So like the whole point of the church is to shine light on Jesus. And as soon as we move the lampstand and shine the light on something else, we’ve already failed.
[00:35:36] Pastor Kyle: Yeah.
[00:35:37] Pastor Brian: We’ve completely missed what the point is. And so, um, there are some things out there, some organizations out there who call themselves churches that are actually just political activism organizations.
[00:35:49] Pastor Kyle: That’s right.
[00:35:49] Pastor Brian: There’s other churches out there, quote unquote churches out there, whose sole purpose is to I’m going to say, I don’t know, uh, move forward the ideals of America or, you know. There’s any number of ways…those are the same thing. They’re the same problem is what I mean, that if you’ve moved the lampstand, like if your point, if the point of your entire organization is not to shine the light on Jesus, to help people understand who he is, to usher them into his presence. You’re not a church anymore.
[00:36:21] Pastor Kyle: That’s right.
[00:36:22] Pastor Brian: You’re something else.
[00:36:23] Pastor Kyle: That’s exactly right.
[00:36:24] Pastor Brian: Most of those things are nefarious.
[00:36:25] Pastor Kyle: Yep. Oh, you’re church adjacent. And at that point, you’re in danger.
[00:36:29] Pastor Brian: Yeah.
[00:36:29] Pastor Kyle: Yeah.
[00:36:30] Pastor Brian: And let’s be fair and honest. We’re all in danger of that if we’re not careful.
[00:36:37] Pastor Kyle: Yep.
[00:36:37] Pastor Brian: You know, because if we take that down to the microcosm of our own lives, how many times do we move the lampstand away from Jesus, you know more than we should in that moment or in that conversation or whatever. Right. Because, because of whatever reasons. And it’s just something we should, with humility, always be checking ourselves and checking each other and being in community. And I think that’s one of the biggest dangers of people who stop engaging in the public life of church, is they don’t have anybody to call them out on those things when they start drifting.
[00:37:08] Pastor Kyle: Oh, yeah.
[00:37:09] Pastor Brian: We’re all in danger of it.
[00:37:09] Pastor Kyle: I mean, if you move away from a good gospel teaching, preaching church and a community of people who love the Lord, you’re going to stray. Your Christianity is already, in a sense, just for you. Because it’s not for anybody else. It’s just for you. And you’re going to turn it into something selfish. And, as you put it, I think so eloquently, you’ll end up shining the light on something else and Christianity will just be a means or a method of getting that other thing that you want.
[00:37:37] Pastor Brian: Yep. Well, let’s not do that. Let’s keep the light where it’s supposed to be. Well thank you Kyle. Appreciate your time as always. And thanks for all of you for joining us on the Calvary Callback. We hope this time was an encouragement to you. And whether you’re a part of our Calvary Church family, or if you’re listening from somewhere else in the world, we invite you to join us in our mission to pursue passion for Christ and compassion for people. For Kyle Bushre, I’m Brian Martin. We’ll catch you next time on the Callback.