Glyn is a great friend doing an amazing work at !Audacious Church in our city and it was an honour to host him at Ivy Church (Kingsway) this morning. Here are my notes on a fabulous talk.
‘My house will be called a house of prayer – but you have made it a den of thieves.’
This is that moment – when Jesus gets mad.
When my wife gets mad I get nervous
When my mum gets mad I get nervous
But here’s where Jesus got mad – because he’s come to the house of God, expecting one thing – gets another.
Like when you turn up to a holiday hotel, expecting something fantastic – and get a B & B. When the expectation is high, but it’s terrible when you get it.
You buy the car and it breaks down in the first week.
May our church, our house, never be a disappointment to Jesus!
Church is a house, not a ceremony
Royalty expects a ceremony.
But Jesus calls this a house – it’s a place you live in.
The Gospel says you can come as you are.
The church is not a Ceremony – it’s a house.
Sometimes in a house it’s all clean and tidy and everyone gets along fine.
Some Sundays it’ll be amazing in church.
But our commitment is more than to a ceremony it’s to the house, the house of God.
The church is not a Hotel -it’s a house.
Jesus called it a house, not a hotel.
Hotels are great. We get to assess how good they are and how well we got served and we can rate them on Tripadvisor.
I love that I have no responsibility for the place. They put the signs up about not overusing towels and I want to save the environment but if I want to I can use all the towels I want when I want.
But imagine if I treated my house like a hotel? That’s not what you do in family.
God expects those in the house to take responsibility for some things in the house. If you want the blessing of the house you need to take responsibility in the house.
Church is not a business transaction – it’s a house.
Jesus came into the Temple expecting people wanting Intimacy with God, but found them busy with the business of church, not the intimacy the house was meant to facilitate.
Those who are planted in the house of the Lord
Shall flourish in the courts of our God.
They shall still bear fruit in old age;
They shall be fresh and flourishing,
To declare that the Lord is upright;
He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.
Blessed is the man and the woman who is planted in the house of The Lord! You will flourish, even in old age! This is a house where we get to do intimacy.