Raise it Up in Three Days

And this morning we're going to be looking at verses 13 to 25.

Now, today is Easter Sunday, the celebration of the resurrection of our

Lord Jesus Christ. But yet in our church, we preach expositionally, sequentially through books of the

Bible. And while every once in a while we'll take a break, we don't often stop just because it's a holiday, but we continue to study straight through the book that we're in.

And it's amazing that we find our place today where we are because we're going to see that in today's passage, we actually have

Jesus himself giving a prophecy of his death, burial, and resurrection.

So even though today's passage isn't directly regarding the resurrection as today is

Resurrection Sunday, we are going to see Christ himself tell his opponents, tear down this temple, referring to his body, and I will raise it up on the third day.

So let's stand together and read. We're going to be reading verses 13 through 25.

We're in the English Standard Bible. And if you would like, there's a

Bible in front of you, or you can look with me on the screen. It begins in verse 13 by saying this, the

Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting there.

And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and oxen.

And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.

And he told those who sold pigeons, take these things away. Do not make my father's house a house of trade.

His disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for your house will consume me.

So the Jews said to him, what sign do you do for doing these things?

Or what sign do you show us for doing these things? Jesus answered them, destroy this temple.

And in three days, I will raise it up. The Jews said to him, it has taken 46 years to build this temple.

And will you raise it up in three days? But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Now, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.

But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man.

For he himself knew what was in man. Amen.

Let's pray. Our father and our God, we come to you in Jesus name.

And we thank you for allowing us this opportunity to gather around your word and be instructed by it.

And Lord, I pray that as I seek to give an understanding of the text today, first and foremost, as I pray every time

I step into the pulpit with great fear and trepidation, Lord, keep me from error.

For God, I know that I am capable of wandering from your word, wandering off into my own ideas and my own vain wisdom.

So Lord, I pray that you would keep me tied to the post of your word, that I might not wander from your truth and that your people might be edified by what is preached.

And Lord, if there are those here who are not yet your people who have not yet bowed the knee to the

Lord Jesus Christ, who have not forsaken this world and trusted in the savior,

Lord, I pray that today would be the day of salvation. And father,

I know that if your spirit is not in this message it will be preached in vain.

So I pray that your spirit would apply the teaching of your word, that he would take it not just into the ear or into the mind, but Lord, down deep into the heart and apply these eternal truths which come from your word.

And we pray this Lord in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen.

One of the most familiar scenes in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ is the scene where he cleanses the temple of those who are there selling animals and the money changers.

Many have been fascinated by this story and it shows in many plays.

Anytime you go watch a Jesus passion play story, you'll see this narrative or if you watch a

Jesus miniseries on television, you'll see this story played out because we're fascinated to think that man from Galilee, who so many of us are used to thinking of as being meek and mild in this moment, expressing a form of righteous indignation, real anger.

That's what indignation means, but it's not sinful anger like many of us express all the time, sinful forms of anger,

Jesus was rightly indignant. And that's fascinating to us.

One, because it's hard for us to imagine what it's like to be righteously angry because we're so easily unrighteously angry, but it's also an interesting thing to consider

Jesus being that way. I'm convinced that one of the biggest problems that we have in the modern church is that we have placed

Jesus into the category of nice. Jesus is kind,

Jesus is considerate, Jesus is loving, Jesus is merciful, but when we put him in that category of nice, often what that means is he would never judge anyone.

He would never bring condemnation on anyone. You hear the people today who will say, oh, my

Jesus doesn't judge anyone. Have you not read that when

Jesus spoke to the Pharisees, he said, woe unto you, hypocrites.

The word woe is not nice. The word woe means judgment upon you.

Judgment has met you because you are in fact a hypocrite.

And he said that to the Pharisees. And throughout his ministry, Jesus would often use language that was very stern and very harsh to our ears, to our modern sensibilities who can't handle anyone just speaking straight to us.

Often the way Jesus talks comes across very aggressive. So we ignore those parts and we focus on the other parts.

We focus on the parts where Jesus is nice. He's nice to the woman at the well, except for when he said, oh, by the way, you have five husbands and the man you're with now is not your husband.

And he kind of pointed out her sin. We tend to think, oh, well, that doesn't sound so nice. Or more recently, what

I've seen, particularly in liberal churches, often with women pastors, funny enough, I'm not gonna get into all that, but these lady pastors will say,

I just don't like it when Jesus said to the Syrophoenician woman that why would

I take the food of the dogs and give it to, or the food of the children and give it to the dogs? Was he calling that woman a dog?

How dare Jesus? I heard a lady preacher recently. She said, how dare Jesus speak to that woman that way?

And I say, how dare you think you can talk to Jesus? How dare you think you can judge the Lord of the universe with your modern liberal sensibilities?

Jesus Christ doesn't worry about being judged by you, but you ought to be worried about being judged by him.

That's the way it is. If you are thinking that Jesus Christ has to meet your standard, guess what?

You have placed yourself in the judge's box and that ain't where you belong. There's one person who sits in the judge's box and it ain't you.

God himself sits in the judge's box. And when we sit back and we think we can judge

Jesus Christ for his actions, we make ourselves twice as much a fool as we ever thought we could be.

So when we come to this story of Jesus going into the temple and making a riot, some of us say that's out of character.

But it's not out of character and here's why. Because Jesus actually cares about that which is holy.

God actually cares about that which is holy. And when that which is holy is treated like it's common,

God gets upset. When that which is holy is trampled underfoot as if it is not holy, the

Holy One actually has something to say about it. Jesus comes into Jerusalem.

He comes into the temple complex, which was an amazing structure.

Mike talked about it this morning in his Sunday school class. 35 acres, right? 35 acres, this temple complex took up.

You had the temple, which inside of it was the holy place and the most holy place. That was where the sacrifices were made.

That's where the day of atonement was made. That part of the temple was very important. But outside of that, you had the various courts where different activities took place.

And one of those courts was called the court of the Gentiles. Because Gentiles were not allowed to go into the inner courts because they were separated.

They were outside of the covenant people. And yet many of them would still come.

And so there was this place on the outside. Herod the Great had built this temple, by the way.

This temple was built, it began to be constructed about 20 BC. It already existed, but it existed in a much smaller and more rudimentary way.

Very quickly, the history of the temple. The first temple was built by Solomon. It was destroyed in 586 when

Nebuchadnezzar came in and wiped it clean, destroyed it. After that, after the Jews went into captivity,

Cyrus allowed them to go back to Jerusalem. And when they went back to Jerusalem, they began to rebuild and they rebuilt the temple under the leadership of Zerubbabel.

That was called Zerubbabel's temple. And you remember what the people said when they saw it? Said they wept.

Because it was nowhere near the glory of what had been under King Solomon. That became known as the

Second Temple. You ever heard of the phrase Second Temple Judaism? That's referring to those who worshiped during the time of the

Second Temple. Well, about 20 years before Jesus, about 20 BC, Herod the

Great, who wasn't that great, he was pretty great in some ways. He was a great architect, but he was also a guy who would commission the killing of every child two years old and under after Jesus was born.

So he was a pretty heinous guy, too. Herod the Great commissioned the rebuilding of the temple with the money that Rome gave him, and he built a massive complex.

And this complex was amazing. As I said, Mike can tell you more about it.

Mike's been there and he's seen the ruins of it because it was destroyed again in AD 70. It's not there anymore. But the ruins of it are there.

And some of the pylons underneath, I think is what you said, right? Those big stones, 90 by nine.

These giant stones that were quarried out and brought in and used for the foundations. Amazing what was there.

So amazing that when the disciples were with Jesus, they actually looked at the temple and they said, look at these amazing structures.

Look at this. And Jesus said, not one stone will be left upon another that will not be cast down.

Because Jesus actually prophesied what happened in history. See, Jesus lived to about the year between 26 and 30, somewhere around in there.

40 years after Jesus' death in AD 70, Titus came in, the Roman Emperor Titus came in, and he leveled

Jerusalem. He leveled the temple. Jesus said that.

He said, not one stone is gonna be left upon another. That's the temple Jesus is in in this story.

Jesus comes into the temple. He comes at Passover. In Passover, that was a time when there would have been hundreds of thousands of visitors to Jerusalem.

And the reason why there were hundreds of thousands of visitors to Jerusalem at that time was because all of the people who were

Jewish were coming to the temple to celebrate this Passover celebration that was required of them to come and they had to make a sacrifice.

Well, when you're coming from other places like Galilee, or up into Caesarea or Capernaum somewhere, if you're coming from these other places, you're not gonna wanna drag an animal along with you to sacrifice.

So the people who came often come at that point needing to purchase an animal to do the sacrifice.

Oh, and by the way, the money that they had wasn't no good in the temple either. Because the money that they had wasn't the standard that was required for giving the temple payment, the offerings.

So not only did they have to come and purchase an animal to give as a sacrifice, but they also had to have their money exchanged so that that money could then be used for the temple offering.

That's all fine, except that market where those things were done had been brought into the court of the

Gentiles. See, at one point it was actually out on the Mount of Olives. And if you can think of like a flea market, right?

I know that might be a modern anachronism, but if you think of like a flea market, if you guys have been over at the flea market over there, you walk through and you have all these different booths and there's a booth to buy animals, there's a booth to buy this, there's a booth to buy that, there's a booth to exchange money, that's fine.

But those things were moved into the temple complex. And when those things were moved into the temple complex, not only did it bring trade into the market, but it also brought with it some scandalous things that were happening behind the scenes.

The Bible doesn't tell us everything that was going on, but there's some other historical records that we have, like the writings of Josephus, who was a

Jewish historian, who lived around this time, who talks about the fact that essentially the

Jewish leadership had set up basically like a, for lack of a better term, a little mafia, where they were taking a kickback from some of the money that was being traded in some of this exchange that was happening.

And the exchange rate was exorbitant. They were charging them a giant exchange rate because they had the kickbacks that were going to these men.

And who are those men? Well, we learn about them throughout the Gospels. There's two men specifically that we're told about.

One's name is Annas and the other's name is Caiaphas. Caiaphas is the high priest during the time of Jesus' life, or the time of Jesus' death, rather.

His father -in -law is named Annas. Now, Annas was deposed.

Caiaphas goes into his role. Annas becomes a leader behind the scenes.

Now, the Gospels do tell us something about this because on the night that Jesus died, or I'm sorry, on the night

Jesus was arrested, where was the first place they took him? Did they take him before the

Jewish Sanhedrin, which was the legal court? No, not first. Did they take him to Pilate?

Yes, they would eventually take him to Pilate, but not first. Whose house did Jesus get taken to first?

The house of Annas. He wasn't even in a position of authority, not legally, but he was in position of authority behind the scenes.

He was the guy who was calling the shots. So the first place they take Jesus on the night he's crucified is to the house of Annas, then to the house of Caiaphas, then to the

Sanhedrin, then to Pilate, then to Herod, then back to Pilate. Jesus had to sit before six kangaroo courts before he was finally taken out and crucified.

But that goes to show us that Annas had a place in this narrative, a very insidious place in this narrative.

There's a phrase, the bizarre of Annas. I don't know how historical it is, but it is something that's been mentioned by MacArthur and several other commentators that I've read in preparation for this message.

And basically what they said was these marketplaces that were set up were basically under the leadership of Annas.

They called them the bizarre. You know, bizarre doesn't mean like bizarre like weird, but bizarre like a fair or a market.

So they called it the bizarre of Annas. So there's a marketplace set up in the house of God.

And the son of God, God in the flesh, the second person of the Trinity comes into Jerusalem.

He comes into the temple and he sees this market, which in one sense is absolutely debasing the holiness of God.

And in the other sense, it's absolutely taking advantage of God's people.

And he says, no, no.

I will not stand for the holy things of God to be mocked.

And I will not stand for the people of God to be mistreated. And Jesus got righteously indignant.

And so Jesus goes into the temple. Now for just a moment,

I have to at least stop and mention something.

Most of us are familiar with this story of Jesus cleansing the temple. But some of us may not realize that the gospels are somewhat confusing about when this event took place.

You guys know I love my charts. So I made you a chart. Okay. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, this particular situation happens in the last week of Jesus's life.

In fact, I believe it happened on Monday. Jesus rides into town on the back of a donkey on Palm Sunday, which we celebrated last week.

He looks around, he goes back and the next day he comes in Monday and he cleanses the temple, right?

So I believe that it happened on Monday of what we call Holy Week, the Sunday, Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday.

Matthew tells us that's when it happened. Mark tells us that's when it happened. Luke tells us that's when it happened.

There is no disagreement. What chapter of John are we in?

Chapter two. John puts this story after the first week of Jesus's ministry.

The first week of Jesus's ministry begins with John the Baptist saying behold the Lamb of God and it ends with Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding of Cana.

There's seven days between the day Jesus is called the Lamb of God and the day that he turns water into wine. At least according to John's narrative, there's a seven day event.

So there's the beginning week of Jesus's ministry and there's the ending week of Jesus's ministry.

And in John's gospel, John says Jesus turned water into wine.

Then he went to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers and his disciples and then he went to Jerusalem and he saw the money changers there and he cleansed the temple.

So what we have here is we have four gospels but two seemingly different accounts.

And so we have to come to a conclusion. And the conclusion is one of two things.

The first conclusion as it is on the screen, the first option is that there were two cleansings.

That Jesus cleansed the temple at the beginning of his ministry, three years later approximately, he cleanses the temple again at the end of his ministry.

Thus bookending his ministry with a cleansing at the beginning and a cleansing at the end.

Now, if that is the position you hold, I have good news for you.

A lot of people agree. Some of the pastors that I respect most,

John MacArthur, R .C. Sproul, James Montgomery Boyce, all of them agree that there were two cleansings.

But here's where I'm gonna disappoint you. I don't agree. I take the second option.

And you can leave today saying, I believe Keith was wrong about that and it's not a big deal.

Because this is not the main point of the message. But it is important at least to know why

I would think it is the way that it is. Because I think that John is much more concerned with theology than he is with chronology.

I think John is more concerned with what's happening than when it happened. And I don't think that John is telling us there was a second cleansing that none of the other gospels mentioned.

And let me just say this. There are a lot of things that Jesus did twice. There's the sermon on the mount, there's the sermon in the field or the sermon in the valley.

Two basically similar sermons but in two different places. Yeah, we get it. He probably preached that sermon many times.

Hey, it's the best sermon that's ever been preached. I'd preach it again. I'm just, I mean, Jesus fed 5 ,000 people and then later he fed 4 ,000 people.

He did that more than once. So is it possible that Jesus would do something more than one time?

Absolutely. Is there an issue with saying that it could be two cleansings? Not at all.

So if you agree with MacArthur and Sproul and Boyce and all the other wonderful pastors, you are welcome to be wrong.

No, no, no. It's fine. I will say I don't know for sure. But here's my reason.

Even though, even though it is clear that John puts this early in his gospel,

I think there's a reason why John puts this here. And that's what I wanted to try to explain to you today.

John is putting together scenes from Jesus' life that have one ending goal.

We are told John's goal in John chapter 20. These things have I written that you would believe that Jesus is the

Son of God. That's what John wrote. He is not writing a biography the way we would write a biography.

When we write a biography in a 21st century Western mindset, we go

A to B to C to D because we're trying to tell a story and we're trying to keep chronology.

John is not concerned with chronology. He's concerned with theology. And in the last story he told, he showed us how

Jesus transforms water into wine. And now he shows the story of Jesus cleansing that which is holy.

In those two things, we see the authority of Christ on display.

That's what these two stories are meant to remind us of. Christ has authority over the natural realm.

He can take water and without a word, it becomes wine.

He doesn't add wine, it becomes wine because he has the authority to make water wine.

Now he goes to the temple. And when he walks into the temple, he sees the holy place of God being trampled underfoot by sinful men and he cleanses that temple.

With the water and wine, he has authority over the natural. When he goes into the temple, he shows he also has authority over the supernatural.

The temple represents what? The presence of God. That's what the temple is.

By the way, if you wonder why the temple even existed, is because God was with his people in the garden.

He was with Adam and Eve in the garden. And when sin entered the world, what happened between Adam and Eve and God? Separation.

Sin has separated you from your God. This is what the scriptures say. Separation occurs.

They are told to leave the garden and the garden is forever cut off from them. But later,

God gives his people a temple whereby they can commune with him again.

He gives them a place to come to where they can have access to him again.

That separation that was brought by sin is given a reconciliation through the ministry of the temple.

And the temple becomes the place where God's people meet with him.

Therefore, it is called the holy place. Do you know what holy means?

Do you even know what, when I say the word holy, what does the word holy mean?

Holy refers to God's separateness.

To make something holy means to separate it, to make it distinct.

And God is distinct from all of his creation. Understand this.

There's only two categories that really matter in this conversation. And here are the two categories.

Creator, creation. The triune

God is the only one that fits in this category. Everything else, angels, matter, space, time, all of those things fit into the created category.

In fact, we can, in the beginning, time, God created. Matter, heavens. Space, earth.

Matter, that's all those things. That's what God created. And God is separated from us.

But the temple was the place where God met his people.

Therefore, the temple was called holy. The inside of the temple was called the holy place.

And the further inside the temple was called the most holy place, also called the holy of holies.

Jesus goes to the temple and outside on this court of the

Gentiles, which you may think is insignificant, but it's not insignificant. Not to Christ.

This all belongs to God. And he comes into this place and he sees the holy place being mistreated and he says, no more.

And so he fashions a whip and we see three verbs.

He drove, he poured, and he overturned. He drove out the animals.

He poured out the money and he overturned the tables of the money changers.

And in that moment, he expressed a form of authority over what was happening there that everyone said, who do you think you are?

How dare you? Don't you know we have permission from the leaders to be here?

The Jewish leaders said to him, do this, what sign will you show us that you have this authority?

What they missed is that was already the sign. Overturning the tables, casting out the animals, pouring out the money, that was the sign of a prophet because that's what should have been done already.

God's people should not have tolerated God's house to be turned into a marketplace. God's people should not have tolerated robbers setting up shop in the house of God.

By the way, that is another distinction. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus said, you've made my father's house a den of robbers.

In John's gospel, he says, you've turned my father's house into a market, which tells us something.

One, I still think it's the same story. I think Jesus could have said more than one thing, but it's wrong to make

God's house into a house of merchandise. It's double wrong to do it and be a robber at the same time.

It would be wrong to set up a market. It would be double wrong to exhort people and their money and mistreat the poor.

So Jesus comes into the temple. He's angry because the holy things have been mistreated and he's double angry because God's people have been mistreated.

And they say, who do you think you are? Who do you think you are? What sign are you going to show us that you have the authority to do these things?

And Jesus said this, he said, tear down this temple and I will raise it up on the third day.

Now, the one thing the gospel doesn't tell us is mannerisms.

Sometimes we have to imagine how things were said and even the motions that are being made.

And I can't prove what I'm about to say. I can only give you my opinion. But I think when

Jesus said, tear down this temple, I think he was pointing at himself and they still missed it.

Because when Jesus said, tear down this temple, he wasn't talking about the physical structure of Herod's temple.

The disciples, in fact, we have the commentary here in the text. It says, when the disciples later saw

Jesus die and resurrect, they remembered him saying this, which if I'm right, and this is actually happening in the last week of his life, this would only been like seven days ago.

They remembered him saying this and they said, this is what he was talking about.

When he said, tear down this temple and I will raise it up.

Here's something that every one of you need to understand. If you have any doubt about who

Jesus Christ is, if you have any doubt that Jesus is who he said he was, the resurrection is the proof.

The resurrection is the proof. Paul tells us that.

You go home today, I commend to your reading 1 Corinthians 15, because in 1

Corinthians 15, the apostle Paul says this. He says, if Jesus has not been raised, we of all men are most to be pitied because we have believed a lie and we're still in our sins.

But in fact, he has been raised.

Raised. If you are a Christian, you have staked your life on one absolute fact,

Jesus rose from the grave. If he didn't, if he didn't, all of this is worthless.

If Jesus didn't rise from the grave, I'm a liar. And everything

I've taught for the last 20 years is false. Everything I believe, everything we believe as Christians is staked on one historic fact.

Jesus Christ rose from the dead. What sign will you do to show us you have this authority?

You tear down this temple and in three days, I will raise it up.

That's not just a sign for his authority over the temple. That is his sign for his authority over the world.

When he rose from the dead, what did he say? All authority in heaven and earth is given unto me.

You understand the resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most attested facts of antiquity.

What do I mean by that? It is one of the facts of antiquity that has the most corroboration and there's no other religious figure in history who can claim what

Jesus Christ can claim. And here's what Jesus Christ can claim. He was put to death by men who were good at putting people to death.

The Romans were absolute masters at putting people to death. There are some people who believe that Jesus didn't die on the cross.

He simply fainted on the cross and then when they put him in that cold tomb, the cold tomb revived his body and three days later, he came out and convinced people that he had raised from the dead.

There's a couple of problems with that. First and foremost,

Romans know how to kill people. He hung on the cross and he died of asphyxiation, which means that his body pulling down on his lungs caused his lungs to begin to collapse and fill with fluid so that eventually, he would not be able to take a breath anymore and he would basically be strangled by his own body weight.

That's why they were gonna break their legs because nighttime was coming and they said, hey, we don't wanna leave these guys up here all night.

If you break their legs, they can't push down on the post anymore and take a breath.

You break their legs, they'll die in minutes because now they can't breathe anymore. But when they get to Jesus, we don't have to break his legs.

He's already dead. But just to make sure, we'll stab him in the side with a spear so that we pierce his heart.

And when they pull the spear back, out of the wound flowed blood and water, which means either that he'd been dead long enough for the platelets in the blood to begin to separate.

And the way that blood looks once it begins to separate is it looks like a mixture of blood and water. That could be one of the reasons.

Or the other reason is that when they shoved the spear up through his ribs, they pierced the pericardium, which is the sack that surrounds the heart and the water around the heart flooded out the wound.

He was dead. He was not fainted. He was not swooned.

He was dead. Because before they pierced his heart, he gave up the ghost.

You know, Jesus said, no man takes my life from me, but I lay it down on my own accord. Jesus looked up to heaven and he said, father into thy hands,

I commit my spirit. And he closed his eyes and he gave up the ghost. Jesus was dead before they pierced his heart.

They take him down off the cross. They lay him in a borrowed tomb and they put guards in front of the tomb so that no one would have the opportunity to steal his body and claim that he had resurrected.

Here's the interesting part about that. Peter wasn't even mad enough to stand up to a woman who was saying, hey, you've got a

Galilean accent. You know, he wasn't charging the Roman soldiers to get that body out.

People say, oh, the disciples stole his body. No, on resurrection

Sunday morning, the women were going to the tomb to complete the burial process for Jesus.

And they were even asking themselves on the way, how are we gonna get in? It's got a big stone in front of it.

And when they get there, the stone is rolled away. And an angel says, why do you seek the living among the dead?

He is not here, he is risen. And after he was risen, he was seen by over 500 people alive.

There is more evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ than there is for George Washington crossing the

Potomac. It's testified by eyewitnesses who went to their deaths, proclaiming not what they believed, but what they had seen.

And his disciples, after seeing him raised, look back to this moment.

And they remember Jesus's words when he said, tear down this temple and I will raise it again in three days.

Beloved, we do not have a faith based on myth.

We have a faith based on fact. Jesus Christ has risen from the dead and he lives forevermore.

And he says to everyone who believes in him, you too will live.

We saw a picture of that this morning. Buried with him in baptism, like he was buried in the tomb.

Raised with him to walk in the newness of life. As sure as Christ lives, those who believe in him will live forever.

So my question to you today is, do you believe in him? Have you trusted in the

Lord Jesus Christ? Do you know that 2000 years ago, there was an empty tomb because Jesus walked out of it?

If you don't, here's my appeal to you. Jesus said, come to me.

He calls us to come to him, to trust in him, to believe in his name and to believe in who he is and what he has done.

If you have never done that, I urge you, do not go another day without considering the condition of your heart.

God can change your heart like he changed water into wine.

And he can clean your heart like he cleansed the temple.

And he calls us to come to him for that change.

Have you come? Won't you come? Let's pray.

Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you for this opportunity to preach again the wonderful truths of Jesus's gospel.

That when he was on the cross and dying, he was dying for the sins of those who believe in him. And when he raised, he raised to prove that he is who he said he was.

And when his disciples looked back, they remembered. They remembered what

Jesus had said. And so, Father, today, let us remember what

Jesus said. Tear down this temple and I will raise it up again. And we know he was talking about his body, his body which was broken for us and was raised for us.

So, Father, today, may it be that those who trust in Christ would be reminded of why they have trusted in him and trust in him evermore.

And Lord, those who have not yet trusted in him, that they would be drawn to faith in him through the power of your spirit.