[Steve Myers] Someone once said, “You never know what you have until you clean your room.” That may be true. I did hear the story about a mom who was giving her son a hard time. For all of us are sons out here, did your mom ever give you a hard time about cleaning your room? Well, maybe you’ve heard this story. The son wouldn’t clean his room, wouldn’t clean his room. I can’t identify with that at all, but he wouldn’t clean it. Finally, his mother got just so irritated with it. She just finally said, “You know what I should do? I should just charge you $500 a month.” The son just looked at her and said, “$500 a month? For this pigsty?” He said, wakes you to reality in that. It is interesting though when you think about what you find when you clean. It is a theme that runs throughout Jesus’s ministry, about cleaning house. Cleaning house. You know, there’s a couple of times during His ministry that He focused on that very thing. One of them is in Matthew 21:12. You’ll probably find this is a familiar section of Scripture. Matthew 21:12 is where Jesus overturns the money changers table.

And this happened right before the crucifixion. So, we’re near the end of Jesus’ ministry when this takes place. He’s coming to Jerusalem and He goes to the temple. What does He find? Well, Matthew 21 begins to describe what He finds and what His reaction is. So, notice verse 12, Jesus entered the temple, drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of thieves.” Then later, He heals people and cured them. I mean, no doubt He is angered with the money changers. The merchants who were there, He drove them out. He focused on the fact they were turning the temple into a marketplace. And that was unacceptable before God. And once cleaned, He heals. He heals the blind and the lame.

This is at the end of His ministry. But it’s also interesting to note that this also took place toward the beginning of His ministry. Very similar event, but it’s a different time. Take a look at John 2:13. This was something that the people who were attending here may have harkened back to. This seems vaguely familiar, maybe a little deja vu here. Didn’t this happen before? And if they thought that, they would have been right. John 2:13 describes an event that took place toward the beginning of Christ’s ministry. In fact, this is two years or so before this last overturning that we read in Matthew. John 2:13, it says, “The Passover of the Jews was near. Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” Interesting. Same time of the year, isn’t it? Same time of the year, two years earlier. But look what happens, verse 14, “In the temple, He found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves.” In fact, this is the only place in the Gospel the cattle and the sheep are also mentioned.

And of course, money changers seated at their tables. Making whips of cords, He drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and He overturned their tables. We get a little more detail here in John, don’t we? Verse 16, “He told those who were selling doves, ‘Take these things out of here. Stop making My Father’s house a marketplace.’” His disciples then remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume Me.” “Passion for the temple of God will devour Me,” some translations say. And so, here we see a very similar event. Passover time, two years apart, Jesus rebuking them for making God’s temple a place where cattle, and doves, and sheep were exchanged for money. Well, why were they doing this? What was that all about? Why money-changers anyway? Well, in order to offer sacrifices, you needed an animal, like a cow, or a sheep, a little lamb, or a dove. You needed... Well, some people weren’t farmers. So, they had to buy those animals.

Well, if you’re going to buy an animal, how do you purchase it? Well, do you bring Roman currency to do that? Well, they try, but that wouldn’t buy the animal in the temple. They had to have temple currency. You had to have the money of the temple in order to buy those animals. So, I’ll take your Roman currency and I’ll give you the temple currency so you can purchase these animals. That’s what the money changers were doing. Of course, they were so magnanimous, they did that out of the love of their heart. Right? You ever exchanged money before? Did they just do that for free? No. It costs them to exchange money. And then, of course, there was also this half-shekel temple tax that also had to be paid. Well, they didn’t do that for free. And so, the money became the issue. Making money a marketplace. It was like a bank.

Now, they weren’t doing this right in the temple per se, not in the holy place or the Holy of... They were doing this in the Court of the Gentiles. This is the only place where the Gentiles could come and worship God. But it had been overrun with animals and banking. And Jesus comes in and says, “This is it.” He signals the end to business as usual. That’s what Christ does. And in both these cases, both at the beginning of His ministry and toward the end, He says, “This is wrong. This is misuse for the temple. This isn’t the proper place. This isn’t the proper time. This isn’t the proper manner to be doing these things.” And the amazing thing is, when we put these passages together, we can begin to recognize there’s application for us, as well. This isn’t just about money changers and animals but God intends us to understand this as a metaphor. There’s greater application here, especially as we think about who we are as God’s people. We could ask the question, how’s your temple doing? Are you aware that you even are a temple? And the fact is, God says, “Clean house.” Now’s the time to clean house because our body is a temple.

Our body is a temple. Take a look at 1 Corinthians 3:16. If we haven’t thought of it this way before, the apostle Paul certainly puts it in those terms, so we can recognize a little bit deeper meaning, a spiritual meaning behind Jesus actions in the temple, both at the forefront of His ministry and at the end as well. Here the apostle Paul talks about the fact that we, as the church collectively are the temple of God, 1 Corinthians 3:16, He says, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple?” And, of course, if you looked up the Greek here, He’s not just saying me as an individual, but He’s saying all of us. All y’all, if you were a southerner, right? All y’all are God’s temple. “God’s Church is the temple of God,” and He says, “And that God’s Spirit dwells in you.” So, all of us collectively combined, are the temple of God. And then He goes on and says, “If anyone defiles God’s temple, the church, God will destroy him, for God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” So, collectively, we are God’s temple. The church, representatives of God’s way. We are to represent God. We are His living temple, the living tabernacle.

And so, Christ shows that deep spiritual meaning in that way that there’s lessons here for us to learn from what Christ did. In fact, a little bit later, if you fast forward to 1 Corinthians 6, just a couple chapters from here, 1 Corinthians 6:19, Paul says a similar thing, but it has a little bit different intent. Almost sounds the same, but when you really dig down a little bit deeper, it’s slightly different. Let’s notice that. 1 Corinthians 6:19, Paul says, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, which is in you?” Now, this you is not us all together, the Royal you, collectively. Now, he’s zeroing in on me, zeroing in on you. We, as individuals, are the temple of the Holy Spirit as well. So, there’s a collective sense all of us together. There’s an individual sense, each one of us, house God’s Spirit? We are the temple of God. Then he says, “You are not your own. You are not... You don’t belong to you. Now that you house the Holy Spirit, you belong to God. You’re God’s house. You’re God’s temple and tabernacle.” Verse 20, “Why? For you were bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

And so, we have the physical thing going on and the spiritual side of things as well. And, of course, that ties right back to what Christ said, what Paul says, “You defile the temple of God, what’s the result?” Well, you incur the wrath of God then because the temple is to be holy. It is to be special. And by the power of God’s Spirit dwelling in us, we can be a holy temple. We can have a special relationship with God the Father and Jesus Christ. He strengthens us through the power of His Spirit. We can have a relationship with Him and we can deal with the overwhelming effects of sin because we’ve got power over sin, through the Holy Spirit. And so, as we begin to think of ourselves as a temple, what kind of temple am I? What kind of temple am I to be? What kind should I be? Well, think about the ancient temple, where in fact, there were a number of them. How were they used? What was their purpose and what did God say? Well, Christ said in Matthew 21, “My house, My temple, should be a house of prayer.”

But what did the money changers, and the priests, and the Levites do? They turned it. They turned it from a house of prayer to, remember what Christ said, “A den of thieves.” Now, that’s not just talking about a cave somewhere. But it does tell us something important. That word for den is literally a hideout, because if you’re a robber, you’re a thief. What do you do? You watch “Westerns?” I watch “Westerns” once in a while. Okay, they hold up the stage, then what do they do? Hang out in town? No, they’re going to be arrested. They go run away and hide out. They hide out. That’s what Christ is saying here. “My house is supposed to be a house of prayer, but you’re hiding out like a thief. You think you can hide from Me? You think that you have your special lair that you can get away from My sight? You don’t think I see what’s going on here?” It’s kind of what Christ is saying here. He said, “This house was to be a house of prayer for all nations,” which, kind of, ties back to Isaiah 56, where Isaiah prophesied that very thing and he said, “You’ve made it a den of robbers.”

And so, what had happened, literally, during the course of the time of the temple, was not fulfilling God’s ordained role for its purpose. It was to be a beacon of hope, a house of prayer for all the nations, but spiritual neglect, wrong political practices. It became all about money, and personal gain, and materialism. But that was all wrong. And as we think about the connections to us, can we hide out from God, or are there expectations for our temple for how we conduct business in our house? We know that there is. Good example is over in Colossians 3:5. Let’s take a look over there. Colossians 3:5, here again, the apostle Paul writes to God’s people in Colossae. He writes to us by extension, recorded for us. And he gets into the behaviors that often can be found within our human nature.

And notice this list of issues that the apostle Paul brings us, that we all have to deal with in one way or another. Notice what he says. Colossians 3:5, he says, “Put to death...” Oh, yeah, what were they putting to death in the old temple? What were those priests killing? Okay, think of that for just a moment, “Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly, whatever is carnal, physical. Get rid of that,” he says. And he gives some examples: sheep, fornication, impurity, cattle, passion, evil desires, greed, the doves. We see a connection between these things. He said, “On account of these, the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient.” Verse 8, “Get rid of all such things: anger, wrath.” Now, these are all general things, kind of a generic list of all kinds of different things. But I have to think about this, from my perspective, what are my issues? What are my problems, malice, slander, abusive... does that fit my temple, the way my house is organized? He says, “Don’t lie. Seeing that you have stripped off the old self. You’ve gotten rid of that. You’ve gotten rid of the old man.” And he says, “We’re to be different.”

And Paul points out pretty clearly. Unfortunately, all too often, we’re like that physical temple. They abused the temple. And oftentimes, we abuse ourselves as well. The temple in Jerusalem was supposed to be this beautiful house of prayer but became a commercialized marketplace. And the same can be true of us, collectively and individually, when we become guilty by focusing on all the stuff and the physical things and the distractions all around us, we become enemies of Christ, and we begin to serve ourselves. And we find ourselves not following the will of God and we offer our bodies as a sacrifice but all the wrong things. These things have to be driven out. I mean, do we find that cows just leave on their own free will? Anybody ever worked with cows before? Yeah, I got my hand up. They can be a real pain. Because I think in some ways, they’re probably the dumbest creatures ever created. To get them out of that pen into a different pasture or try to get them into a trailer sometime, oh, boy.

What did Christ have to do? He had to drive them. He had to make a whip and get them moving, to get them out of there. You see, these things don’t leave on their own. These things are inherently sinful. In fact, there are some things that we’ve got to drive out that may not seem all that obvious, not just these lists of various sins are the only sins we have to deal with in our temple. There’s these other things that we’re told about, the cares of this life. Remember when Christ talked about the cares, the riches, the pleasures, the things that occupy our thinking, the things that detract us, they take our time, and hinder our ability to really serve God, with our bodies, with our hearts and our minds as well? And we get focused on those things. And so, in a way, Christ is asking us, what’s the condition of your temple? What kind of shape are you in? I mean, are we in need of a major overhaul? I mean, imagine Christ coming into your temple. What would He have to drive out? It is time to clean house, isn’t it? It’s time to clean house. Well, how do we do that? How do we begin to approach that house cleaning, that temple overhaul that we all need?

But when we look at the example of the temple itself, the physical temple, I think we find some interesting connections here that apply spiritually to us. We see this example of Christ can apply spiritually. When we look back to the Old Testament, it is so beautifully interconnected with spiritual lessons that come from the physical things. When we look back at 2 Chronicles 29:5. In this particular example, we’re going to look at a time when that physical temple stood. And there were a number of temples, three, in fact. We’ll look at one of them. After they come back from Babylon, they’re talking about this particular temple. And it’s interesting the instructions that God gives the priests and the Levites. Notice what He says, 2 Chronicles 29:5. He says to them, “Hear Me Levites. Now sanctify yourselves.” In other words, set yourself apart. You can’t just be a part of the world around you. You’ve got to be special and offset from this world. He says, “Sanctify yourselves and sanctify the house of the Lord God of your Fathers,” that would be the temple. That has to be sanctified.

Well, how do I begin to do that? Here’s what the instructions were for them. “Carry out the rubbish from the holy place.” Are you kidding me? I mean, there is junk in the actual temple. Now we’re not just talking about the Court of the Gentile, the holy place. That’s that first part of the temple. And there was rubbish there. I mean, think about that spiritually. You see, that’s our first step. Our first step is get rid of the junk. We’ve got to get rid of the junk that clouds our life, that causes us to just have a physical perspective, instead of the spiritual view that God wants us to have. You know, spiritually speaking, we got to get our cell phone out and call, 1-800-GOT-JUNK. That’s not an advertisement for the company or anything. But we got junk. We all do in our life. Here, God says, “Get the rubbish out.” Verse 6, “Why was it there to begin with? Well, our fathers have trespassed and done evil in the eyes of the Lord God. They’ve forsaken Him. They’ve turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the Lord, and turned their backs on Him.” Of course, I’m to be the dwelling place of the Lord. Am I guilty of this? Have I forsaken and turned my back on Him? And in what way have I? Do I need to get the junk out?

I mean, look down to verse 11, verse 11 says, “Do not be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand before Him, to serve Him, and that you should minister to Him and burn incense.” I mean, beautiful spiritual connections here for us. We’re to stand before God. We’re to stand righteously before Him. We’re to put away these things and get the junk out, and serve, and minister in that regard. In fact, verse 15, adds even more. Notice what we find, “They gathered their brethren. They sanctified themselves. Now they’re following God’s instructions.” They’re going to get this junk out. And it says, “They went according to the commandment of the king, at the words of the Lord, to cleanse the house of the Lord.” What did they do? Verse 16, “Then the priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord, to cleanse it.” But they didn’t just start cleaning. What did they do? They brought out all the debris that they found in the temple of the Lord. That’s where it’s got to start. Right? We’ve got to call that spiritual 1-800-GOT-JUNK and get it out. That’s where it has to start.

Verse 17, “On the 16th day of the first month, they finished. They went into the king and they said, ‘We’ve cleansed all the house of the Lord,’ the altar of burnt offerings with its article, and the table of showbread with all its article.” You see, there was so much garbage, and debris, and rubbish that was defiling the temple, they had to get rid of all of that before purifying the temple, before the real cleansing could take place. Christ drove out the animals, He drove out the sheep, and the cattle, and the doves so that real cleansing could take place. Christ did that. He poured out the money changers table, and that money went everywhere, showing the contaminants, the pollutants, the things that desecrate the temple have to be gone and thrown out first, in order to be clean. And so, what needs to be cleansed and thrown out of our life? What’s cluttering our hearts and our minds so that it’s keeping us from really following God?

Are we really clean? Man, that’s a great question for these days. I know the coronavirus is in the news. Anybody hear of what’s going on starting from China going around the whole world. And it’s interesting that oftentimes we think of these big things. Oh, I’ve got these monstrous things. And I’m okay there because I haven’t murdered anyone lately, so I must be okay with God. But what about our intent? What about our thinking? What about that spiritual applicant? We have to cleanse ourselves of those things as well. I mean, what’s the chief thing they say to do in order to avoid the coronavirus or any flu that might come along? Wash your hands. Wash your hands. What percentage of the time do people wash their hands correctly? You know, they’ve actually done studies on this. They’ve actually done studies. The U.S. Department of Agricultural study, found... All right, got that number in your mind what percentage wash their hands incorrectly, they don’t do it right? Survey says 97%. Ninety-seven percent of us don’t wash our hands correctly. That’s using soap and water, making sure we wash for the amount of time we’re supposed, at least 20 seconds, right? Twenty seconds is what we’re supposed to do. And then we’re supposed to dry our hands on a clean towel. That’s what’s supposed to happen.

We don’t do that. We don’t do that. In fact, some really disgusting studies have been done, the really disgusting ones, Michigan State University did a study, after using the bathroom, what percentage of people fail to wash their hands long enough to kill harmful bacteria? It’s pretty close, 95%. Ninety-five percent. So, yeah, let’s all be grossed out by that. Then, of course, there’s the American Society for Microbiology did a study. Let’s get specific now. What percent of women don’t wash their hands after using the restroom? Okay. Let’s all look at the ladies right now. Seven percent. Okay, guys, ready for this? What percent of men don’t even come close to that sink after using the restroom? Thirty-three percent. Thirty-three percent of guys say, “Yeah, forget it.”

Now the interesting part, in this survey, they also called up Americans to find out, all right, what do you say you do? You know, am I guilty of this? What percentage of Americans in the telephone survey say, “I always wash my hands after using the restroom?” Ninety-six percent of us say, “Yep, I do all the time.” Wait a second. Obviously, that’s not true. The reason I tell that is oftentimes we overlook things. Oh, yeah, we think we do. Maybe I do wash my hands but am I really doing it in the proper way for the proper amount of time to really kill the bacteria? If I don’t get rid of the junk, I don’t get rid of the bacteria, I’m still going to get sick. Spiritual principle applies as well. We will be sick spiritually if we don’t throw out the junk. It was true in Hezekiah’s day and it’s true today. Let’s get rid of the spiritual trash, and junk, and rubbish that clouds our thinking. We know we have to. We know those passages. There’s so many of these lists of bacteria, well, you could say sin throughout the Bible. An interesting, one of them is found in that same section of Scripture that talks about all the good stuff we’re supposed to have. Remember where that section of Scripture that talks about the fruit of the Spirit, and the germophobes that are all over my hands, the works of the flesh it talks about?

Well, maybe we could look at that for just a moment. That’s in over in Galatians 5. Galatians 5, let’s find where that is. Galatians 5:19, here it talks about the rubbish, the trash that we’ve got to get rid of, what we have to wash our hands clean of, our minds have to be cleansed. “The works of the flesh are evident,” it says, “adultery, fornication.” Oh, I’m good there. I must be fine. Well, hang on here. Let’s look a little bit deeper, are we really washing our hands long enough? Uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, selfishness, dissensions, heresy, envy, murder, drunkenness, revelries. What does he say? And to verse 21, “Those that practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.” That’s unacceptable. That temple is not housing God. We have God’s Spirit so we can overcome these things. So, let’s try to look beyond the generic and find the application for ourselves. Are we really cleansing ourselves and doing it properly and doing it in the right manner?

You see, if we’re going to do that, there’s a second step. First, we’ve got to get the junk out before we start. Secondly, we’ve got to go to the expert. We have to go to the expert. Now the reason I say it like that is there was a time when we lived in Minnesota, that I went out to water the grass. It was early in the year, first time, in fact. I was going to water the grass because it was kind of brown after the winter, salt from Minnesota roads can make things pretty rough. So, I was going to water the grass. So, I go around to the side of the house where the hose is and, hey, cool, it’s already there, ready to go. Hook up the sprinkler, turn it on. Then I left with my family on probably about a two-hour bike ride. Family time, this is wonderful, great together. We get back and we go into the house, and I hear this funny noise, [vocalization]. It’s like, that’s unusual. What is that? I go down into the basement, it is flooded. Totally covered with water, the ceiling is partly falling down. That hose was hooked up over the whole winter, and it wasn’t one of those fancy little spigots that prevent freezing. What had happened since it was on there all winter, the water was caught in there and it broke the pipe. And I just turned it on and let all that water go right down into the basement, which we had just recently finished.

I mean, it was beyond what I could handle. What do you do? Well, call the insurance... Well, I just started getting as much as we could out there to begin with. I had to call the experts, call the insurance company first, it’s like, “Oh, I’m in trouble. What do I do?” Do you know what they told me? “Call ServiceMaster.” Well, they’re a company that comes in for these types of things specifically. And they come in, it’s amazing. They rip up the carpet. They get it out. They suck up the remaining water. They start cutting out the sheetrock all around the whole basement. They start taking down the ceiling where it was damaged. And they knew what they were doing. Obviously, they’ve done this before. I had to call them because, otherwise, it was overwhelming. And I think there’s a valuable lesson there. When you think of it spiritually. I mean, we have to go to the expert. I mean, who knows how to clean things up? I mean, here, I’m plugging all kinds of companies today. Okay. They did a good job for us. We were really happy with them. It was great.

But when we look back to the examples in the Bible, you look back to the Old Testament. Yes, they had to get the junk out, and cleaned, and purified so that God would put His presence there. And there is a connection here, as we look back, to our spiritual application. Look at Ezekiel 45. Ezekiel 45, here, the temple needed to be cleaned. It needed to be purified. And it’s interesting the method that they took to do just that. We read earlier in Chronicles about getting the junk out first. That’s got to happen. Now let’s see how going to the expert applies here. Ezekiel 45:18, it says, “Thus says the Lord God, in the first month on the first day of the month, you shall take a young bull without blemish and cleanse the sanctuary. The priests shall take some of the blood of the sin offering and put it on the doorposts of the temple, on the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and on the gate posts of the gate of the inner court. And so you should do on the seventh day of the month for everyone who has sinned, unintentionally or in ignorance. Thus you shall make atonement for the temple.”

So, in order for the people to be cleansed, the temple to be cleansed and purified, there had to be a sacrifice. They had to go to the experts. They had to go to the priesthood in order to do that. And, of course, many, many years later, Christ comes into the temple and He purifies the temple by driving out those animals that were going to be used as a sacrifice. And in a way says, “No more business as usual. These animal sacrifices, this is done.” I think part of the reason He drove them out is to show the fact He was the ultimate sacrifice. It was over for the cattle, and the doves, and the sheep. That’s not going to happen anymore. Christ Himself is the expert in sacrifice. He’s the expert in purification. We have to go to the expert, don’t we? We have to go to the expert. Hebrews explains that connection and how this is symbolic.

This is representative of a deeper spiritual lesson that we can learn. If you look to Hebrews 10, take a look at Hebrews 10:4. Hebrews 10:4 connects these two things together showing how we have to look somewhere else than just a physical sacrifice. Look beyond ourselves in that matter. Hebrews 10:4, he says, “It’s not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sin.” That’s not going to happen. Christ drove all of that out to show it was only through His expertise, only through His sacrifice, that it would be possible. Verse 10, “by that we will have been sanctified through the offering, not of doves, or bulls, or goats, or calves or anything like that, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all.” You see, all of that was symbolic that Christ will purify us, like the priesthood purified the temple, like the people came and were atoned for sin. And so, there’s a spiritual version of the Holy of Holies, for that matter, that certainly God in heaven on His throne is the real Holy of Holies.

But where does God’s Spirit dwell? It dwells in us. It’s on the throne of our life. That’s where God needs to sit. And so, we are a type of that Holy of Holies. And so, Christ is telling us, no more business as usual, humanly speaking. We’ve got to turn the spiritual page on things. And how is that possible? It’s only possible by turning to the expert. Jesus is the only one whose blood can atone for our sin. He’s the only sacrifice that is precious enough to cover not only our sins, but the sins of all mankind. And He can clean up the pollution. He can clean up all of us, as we turn to Him if we truly go to the expert. Now, we’re not baptized. We haven’t even started this process yet. You know, if we haven’t claimed Him as our Lord, our Master, our High Priest, boy, we are totally cluttered with junk. Those of us who are baptized, yeah, that junk can get in there, can seep in, just like that water coming through the ceiling. That’s unacceptable. We’ve got to get that cleaned out. And if we don’t go to the experts, God the Father and Jesus Christ, it’s not going to happen.

In fact, 1 John tells us about that. 1 John 1:9, here, it points us to that great spiritual expert, the real sacrifice for our sins, where there is a solution. If we’re going to quit doing business as usual, and come out, and truly be purified, notice what we’re reminded of here in 1 John 1:9. 1 John 1:9. It says, “If we confess our sins...” which means we turn to God, we have to repent. We have to change our thinking. We have to be sorry for what we’ve done and be dedicated to change. When we do that, we’re told, “He is faithful and just. He’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” So, we have to live our faith, and have that trust and confidence in Him as our Savior because there’s no other way we can be right before God. There is no other way our sins can be forgiven. There’s no way we can be acquitted of guilt, without our acceptance of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It’s only by Him alone, making it possible. And so, that has to be a vital step that we turn to Jesus Christ. And through Him, we have an advocate to the Father, so that we can be forgiven, because it points out the fact that no matter how hard we try, we on our own efforts, can’t keep our lives clean enough on our own. It’s not possible. It’s not possible. We need the help of the expert. So, we have to turn to our Savior Jesus Christ and our great God as well.

Now you might think, “Okay. I’m there. We did it. Must be done.” Hang on just a moment, because there’s another step. I believe there’s a third step that’s also involved. When we look back to the ancient temple again, go back to 1 Chronicles 23. And we’ll find another step in this cleansing process. 1 Chronicles 23, notice verse 28. 1 Chronicles 23:28, gives us another step in this cleansing process. Now we know the priests were responsible for giving the sacrifice. They assisted the Levites in this whole situation. And here, we just have a little description of some of the things that they were doing. So, let’s notice what it says in this just this little excerpt here. 1 Chronicles 23:28, it says, “It was their duty,” talking about the priests, “to help the sons of Aaron, in the service of the house of the Lord, in the courts, and in the chambers.” In other words, the whole scenario, everything.

And what was the purpose? It says, “In the purifying of all holy things and the work of the service of the house of God.” And so, what this is reminding us, was this cleansing just a one-time thing? I mean, this is a great reminder. This was an ongoing situation. Our third step is, we have to keep cleaning. We have to keep scrubbing our lives. Here, the priests and the Levites are told, “This has to continue to happen on a habitual basis, ongoing. This purification was something that was necessary.” In fact, how often did this purification have to take place? When we think of it in terms of sacrifices, every day. Every day, there were sacrifices. In fact, some days, even more sacrifices, Holy Days, especially.

And so, when we recognize this, this is our duty. This is our responsibility because in much the same way, we must continue turning to the expert of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and go to God our Father, in repentance, continually, as we fall short of following His way. We have to submit to God’s Holy Spirit so we can be different. So, this cleaning process can refine us to be more like Christ, every single day. And it’s interesting. God could have done this on His own. I’m sure He could have cleaned it up if He wanted to all miraculously, all by Himself, but He didn’t do that. The people had a part to play in going to the priests, in giving these sacrifices.

And that’s such a great reminder for us, we need to keep cleaning because we have a part to play. We have a part to play. Yes, we’re dependent upon Jesus Christ for our cleansing, but that doesn’t completely do it all for us. Christ says He does it in us because we have the power to overcome sin in us. Christ does it in us and through us. But He doesn’t do it for us. Not in that way that I don’t have to worry about that. We can see that we have a part to play. And Scripture is consistent in that. Certainly, I can’t do it on my own but I have to harness and submit to the power of the Holy Spirit so I can be purified. 2 Corinthians 7:1 is a great reminder of this. Yes, I’m dependent on the expert, but I can’t just think that that’ll solve all my problems and sit back and do nothing on my own. Paul certainly reminded Corinth about that.

2 Corinthians 7:1, we’ll kind of jump in the middle of a thought here but it certainly is a reminder as he talks to the Corinthians. And, of course, if you think about Corinth, they never had any problems. They never had any issues. They all got along so well and there weren’t any... Okay, they were in trouble. They had so much junk in the closet, it was almost overwhelming. And so, Paul points them to the fact, “You got to get rid of divisions. You’ve got to understand how to put God’s Spirit to work in your life. You’ve got to turn to the expert and then you better get busy.” And Paul makes that point to Corinth. He makes it to us here, 2 Corinthians 7:1. He says, “Having, therefore, these promises, Dearly Beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

And so, Paul makes this point so beautifully, God’s given us the power to overcome sin. He’s given us the means by His Holy Spirit to be purified. And it involves, yeah, getting the junk out, putting off things. But he also says, we’ve got to put the right things back in the temple. You know, like we read about the ancient temple, they had to make sure the table of showbread was in its right place and ready to go. They had to make sure all of the candlesticks were properly fitted so that they would do their function. They had to do all of that and make sure that was all in its right place and put it into the holy place.

And spiritually speaking, we do too. There’s a passage that the apostle Paul writes to Ephesus that kind of summarizes this whole process of cleaning our house. It’s in Ephesians, 4:22. Verse 22 is where I’ll begin. So, turn over to Ephesians 4:22, he reminds us of this whole process that takes us right back to Christ, the money changers, and driving out all of those animals. Let’s see if we notice the connection here as Paul, kind of, summarizes this whole concept for us. Ephesians 4:22, he says, “Get the junk out.” Okay. Well, he doesn’t say it that way. But he says, “Put off concerning your former conduct. That’s got to go.” The old man that grows corrupt according to the deceitful lust, that’s our normal everyday human way of thinking, and reasoning, and acting. But it doesn’t stop there. He says, there’s a part that you have to play. Verse 23, “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” Yeah, we can’t do that all by ourselves, we got to go to the expert.

Verse 24, “Put on the new man that was created according to God, in true righteousness, and holiness.” And so, we see those three steps encapsulated here. Yes, we’ve got to get the junk out. We’ve got to turn to our Savior, Jesus Christ, and our great God as well, and then we’ve got to get to action in our own lives and put in those things that really speak to eternal life. We change our minds and we fill it with the things that are worthy of praise and the things that are truly virtuous. And so, as we read these passages, it does cause us to ask, “What’s the condition of my temple? Where am I at? Is it a place that God has taken up residence? Am I truly responding to God’s Spirit, so that I am a place of prayer?” Christ said, “My house would be a house of prayer.”

I just talk to God once in a while here and there, oh, maybe only when I really need it, or are we constructed of prayer? Have we built that real relationship with God the Father and Jesus Christ, so we are housed in prayer? Because that brings true Glory to God. But if we’ve let those mundane things of life just preoccupy our thinking, our temple, and the things that God intended, that just become common or, you know, it’s not that big a deal and we become distracted, it’s a reminder it’s time to clean things up. It’s time to look to God, because ultimately, He’s the only one that can provide that cleansing that we need and the only one that can provide us the power that we really need to overcome and live a life that is a representation of the character of Jesus Christ. And so, He’s given us the ability through His Spirit to clean out the sin and replace it with good. And that then fills our temple and even the temple of God’s church with praise, and with virtue, and with godliness.

And so, let’s dedicate our temple to fulfill the words of Jesus Christ, “My house shall be called a house of prayer.” Let’s clean house.