made me nervous there a little bit. I thought my wife was going to preach this morning. I wasn't sure what she was going to say about me. It'll probably be a very good sermon. My mother didn't raise any fools. Well, I want you to open your Bibles this morning to Mark chapter 11, verse 1. Mark 11, verse 1. It's on page 847 in your pew Bibles. We're doing something very different this morning. I hope that's OK. This morning, we're going to take a look at a much longer section of the text than we normally do. Normally, we'll work our way through about a paragraph-sized unit of the text. That's just because it's bite-sized, and usually that's about all we can handle. And there's no end to the good things that you can draw out of a paragraph-sized unit of the text. However, the passage that we're looking at today actually gives every evidence that it's meant to be read or understood or looked at as a whole, meaning there is some artistry and some intentionality about the arrangement. And scholars have long recognized this, and in fact, There's been some recognition of this all the way back to the early church. I think in the very first sermon on the series, The Gospel of Mark, I read you a quote from Papias around AD 130, where he said, Mark became Peter's interpreter and wrote accurately all that he remembered, not in deed, in order. of the things said or done by the Lord. So Pappius was saying that Mark wrote everything Peter said about Jesus. But Mark, he didn't just sit and write it all down. He exercised some artistry in how he arranged those things. That's important. Some of us get nervous when we hear that kind of stuff. We're saying, wait a second, are you saying that the presentation of this story is fake or deceitful in some way? No, no, no, absolutely not. That's not at all what we're saying. You understand that two people could look at the exact same events and tell it slightly differently in order to bring certain things to the surface, right? That's what we're saying. Presentation is an art form. It's part of the art of storytelling. In this situation, presentation matters. Presentation is how Mark is making his point. And so there's a sense in which to really get the full picture of what Mark is saying, we have to pull back and look at this story from the 10,000-foot perspective. So that's all I'm saying. Normally, we have sort of our favorite Zoom here at the church, if you can get into sort of Google Map thought for a moment. We have our favorite Zoom. Well, meaning there's a certain breadth of the text we like to see at a given time. What I'm just saying today is we're going to zoom out a little bit. And you know what happens on Google Map when you zoom out. All of a sudden, instead of just seeing Orillia and all the streets in Orillia, you actually see all of central Canada, all of central Ontario, for example. We're just zooming out a little bit today. We're going to look at a whole passage. And there's a really good reason for that. And I'm going to show it to you. So for you to see this, for you to understand why this is helpful, you're going to have to have your Bible open today. And this is not going to work on a phone Bible. P.S., phone Bibles are not Bibles. But anyway, it's not going to work on a phone Bible. It's only going to work on a real Bible. Okay? I don't want to be grouchy about that, but I don't like, you know, the problem with phone Bibles is you can only see the verse or two that you're looking at. And the reality is so much of the meaning comes from the context. And it's very much the case today. All right, so here's what I want you to do. I want you to open your Bible. Mark chapter 11, and we're going to look at the whole thing. And I'm just going to explain how this thing goes together. Once you see that first paragraph, all right? This is the one we read all the time. I've preached on this a number of times here at this church. Either this one or Luke's version of it. It's the triumphal entry, okay? What celebration, what festival of the Christian year do we read that one on, usually? Yes. Don't you feel like it's almost impossible to read this story without seeing Kevin Bettsworth wave that palm frond in the air? I feel that way. If I could illustrate my own Bible, there'd be a picture of Kevin Bettsworth right beside this picture. But here's what I want you to do. If you want to draw Kevin beside that, you can. But what would be helpful is from 11-1 all the way through 11-11, I want you to just beside that put an A. Put the letter A. Okay? then look at the next paragraph there probably has the title in your Bible Jesus curses the fig tree or something like that goes from verse 12 to verse 14 just put beside that a B alright and it's okay it's not a sin to mark your Bible alright so you can do that you can put with a pencil there a little B and then Mark 11 verses 15 to 19 want you to put beside that a C a C alright now the next paragraph Mark 11 verses 20 to 26. I want you to put beside that a B. B as in Bob. Now notice I didn't say D. I'm gonna explain that in just a minute. Put a B as in Bob. And then in the last paragraph there, Mark 11 verses 27 to 33, I want you to put beside that another A. Okay, that's A as in apple. Okay, and you say, well, Pastor Paul's not very good at doing the alphabet, and I'm gonna just explain what we're doing here. This is something called chiastic structure, and it's big in Hebrew literature. Obviously, it's not the way we tell stories in English, but that's okay, because the Bible wasn't written in English, and the Bible wasn't written in Hebrew either, all of it. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the New Testament was written in Greek, but it was written by people who thought and spoke and communicated. in the Hebrew culture. So that's part of why it's challenging to read the New Testament, because it's written in Greek by people who thought like Hebrews. All right, so here's what we're doing here. We're using these little things just to give you an idea of how chiastic structure works. And C stands for center. So that's nice and easy to remember. C stands for center. All right, so the way chiastic structure works is that there are answering borders So the first story the a story the triumphal entry story, okay that a story Actually goes thematically with the last story the story about the authority of jesus being challenged And you you can see that because the first story is about authority in the first story the story of the triumphal entry jesus is making a declaration of his authority He is doing a bit of prophetic theater. He arranges to have a colt, the foal of a donkey, available to him. He's made arrangements ahead of time. And he rides that donkey up the last hill into Jerusalem. And you say, well, why is he doing that? Maybe he was just tired from a long journey. No, no, no. This is very intentional prophetic drama because he's fulfilling a prophecy. Zechariah 9, 9. Again, you've probably heard this one many times because we read it on Palm Sunday. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Here it is. Behold. your king is coming to you righteous and having salvation is he humble and mounted on a donkey on a colt the foal of a donkey so jesus in this first story is declaring his kingship he's getting he's dressing himself in the garb of old testament prophecy and he is riding up to jerusalem and he's literally saying behold your king All right, so this story is answered by the last story in Mark's chapter, Mark 11. In the last story in Mark 11, there is a question, there is a challenging of Jesus' authority. The last story in Mark is about all the other leaders in Jerusalem gathering together and saying, we don't think you are who you say you are. We don't accept your claims of authority. So both these A passages are about authority. Authority stated, authority denied. All right, now we come in one. So in chiastic structure, the outer bits answer each other. They correspond to each other. The inner bits correspond to each other, and they all serve to drive us towards the center. And they want us to think about the center through the frame, just like you do when you frame a picture. The frame matters. All right, so let's talk about the first B. The first B story, right? Jesus curses the fig tree. Well, I guess to understand that, you've got to know something about fig trees. In ancient Israel, they planted fig trees all along the pilgrim roads. So there were roads that led up to Jerusalem that the pilgrims walked on. They planted fig trees as opposed to apple trees because fig trees were the perfect tree for that region and for that purpose. Fig trees had two growing seasons, so they produced figs twice a year, meaning for most of the year, you could go up to a fig tree and you could find something to eat. In those days, they didn't have Tim Hortons, right, on the side of the road. They didn't have en route. So while people were traveling towards Jerusalem, they got hungry. If they were poor, they might faint along the way. And so they planted these fig trees so that poor travelers could have something to eat. So fig trees were supposed to nourish and supply and support weary travelers. All right, so then you go over here to the second of those B ones, the one where they go in and they see that the fig tree that Jesus cursed has withered. And by now, you know that this was really about the temple, which we're gonna get to in just a minute, because they curse it on one way, and it's always connected to the temple. And Jesus says something there when he's answering there. It's a weird, if you don't understand this structure, you think Jesus has ADD. Because if you don't understand what's happening here, because they ask Jesus, they're like, hey Jesus, did you see that fig tree that withered? And he's like, I'm gonna tell you some stuff about prayer. And they're like, okay. Right, how does it, woo, synapses firing, right? But Jesus is assuming they're picking all this symbolism up. Okay, they asked him a question about the withered fig tree and Jesus tells him about prayer. Why is that important? Because in the seed part that we're going to talk about in just a second, Jesus has just condemned and cursed the temple because it is obstructing people's prayer. So here he says, listen, you guys are going to be great in prayer. You're going to be powerful in prayer. I'm going to help you. I'm going to be for you a conduit, an agent, a source. I'm going to magnify your prayers before God. You are going to move mountains. You're going to be great people of prayer, which is an odd answer to a question about a dead fig tree. But now we're prepared to look at this C passage, this center passage. What's it about? Jesus goes into the temple and he sees what's going on there. He sees that the area is set aside for prayer, right? Do you know where they set up all the money changing booths? In the court of the Gentiles. Because they didn't want the Gentiles there anyway. The court of the Gentiles was supposed to be the place where people from all over the world could come and pray. They didn't want those people there. Those were undesirable people. So they filled it with money-changing booths, and they made the point of offering so complicated, right? I mean, they just made it so complicated, they said you could only give your offerings in coin that you bought here. It'd be like if you could only pay your tax in a special currency that the government only produced once a year in a certain place, right? Like, that's the height of inefficiency. But that's what they did, right? Because they wanted to make money off it, so they'd rather make money than help people pray. And Jesus sees the whole system, and he wipes it all out. He curses it. He condemns it. He says, this is a bankrupt and barren religious system. And he wipes it all out. So you're supposed to arrive at this story, right? Think of these as like traffic cones that you're supposed to pass by so that you get to the center and you understand the center. The main point of this passage is only understood when you pass through these cones. And the main point of the passage is that Jesus is going to replace the entire Jewish system. Right? He's going to replace the leaders. The leaders are bad. The leaders are so corrupt, they don't even recognize their own king when he comes to them dressed in the costume of Old Testament prophecy. It's not like Jesus was making it hard for them. Like, I'm going to give you three options. Who am I? Right? Option A, option B, option... No, no. He literally clothes himself in the costume of Old Testament prophecy and says, Behold your king! And they're like, well, I'm not sure I'm buying it. They were so corrupt. They couldn't see Jesus even when he made it perfectly obvious for them. And, they're not like a fig tree. Meaning, Jesus is saying the temple is supposed to be like a fig tree. It's supposed to be a source of nourishment and protection and shelter and comfort for weary travelers. That's what the temple was supposed to be. Life is hard, have you noticed? And people are weary and confused. And they're constantly in conflict with a contrary culture. And they need a place where they can go and be helped and refreshed and refocused. They need a place where they can go and receive power so that they can be powerful people in the world. That's what the temple is supposed to be, like a fig tree. It's supposed to be helpful to weary pilgrims, but it's not. It's completely corrupt. It's completely bankrupt. It's like a barren fig tree that needs to be cursed, condemned, and replaced. That's what Jesus is saying. Jesus is wiping it all off the table and presenting himself as a replacement. That's the point of the story, all right? Now, you've seen it. Big picture. Now we're going to walk through it at ground level, and hopefully it'll make more sense to you. Hear now the word of the Lord, beginning in verse 1. Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples. He said to them, go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it, you'll find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat, untied, and bring it. If anyone says to you, why are you doing this? Say the lord has need of it and we'll send it back immediately to see that jesus has arranged In advance for this particular animal associated with that particular prophecy So verse 4 and they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street and they untied it Some of those standing there said to him. What are you doing untying the colt? They said to him they told him what jesus had said and they let him go. So jesus has created a pre-arranged signal There's some people watching the the animal and jesus says listen when the people come for the animal This is what they'll say when they say that you let it go and that's what happens And they brought the cold to jesus and threw their cloaks on it and he sat on it And many people spread their cloaks on the road and others spread leafy branches that had been cut from the fields And those who went before and those who followed were shouting hosanna Blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord blessed is the coming kingdom of our father david hosanna in the highest He entered jerusalem and went into the temple When he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, May no one ever eat fruit from you again. And his disciples heard it. Meaning, this isn't Jesus just having a temper tantrum, okay? This isn't just a random event. Jesus said something that he meant for them to hear, that he meant for them to think about. Verse 15, they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple. And he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, is it not written, my house should be called a house of prayer for all the nations, but you have made it a den of robbers. And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him because the crowd was astonished at his teaching. And when evening came, they went out of the city. As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered. And Jesus answered them and said, nothing about fig trees. Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not have doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you received it. It will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also, who is in heaven, may forgive you and your trespasses." And they came to Jerusalem. He was walking in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him, and they said to him, by what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority to do them? Jesus said to them, I'll ask you one question. Answer me, and I'll tell you by what authority I do these things. Who was the baptism of John? Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me. And they discussed it with one another, saying, if we say from heaven, he'll say, well, why then did you not believe in him? But what shall we say? From man? They were afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet. So they answered Jesus, we do not know. Jesus said to them, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Now, listen, just in case you feel like you've been enrolled in a course in Hebrew composition against your will this morning, let me just explain to you, make it very clear to you, we're not playing fast and loose with the text. This really isn't fancy exegesis. This is what is there. In fact, other gospel writers make this point in a much more straightforward way. In John's gospel, he records Jesus saying something right after he drives everybody out of the temple. He says, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews then said, it's 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. You see that? Exact same point. John's making it very straightforwardly. Mark's making it very creatively. Same point. Jesus is saying, if you destroy this temple, right? Just go ahead and destroy this temple. We don't need it anymore. And I'll go ahead and build a new one in three days. And they all say, wait a second. It's taken 46 years to build this temple. But Jesus isn't saying he's going to build up a new temple of stone. He's saying that he's going to raise up the temple of his body. What's he saying? He's saying, we don't need this temple anymore. This is now the place you meet with God. This is where you go when you need forgiveness for your sins. This is where you go when you need help with your prayer. We don't need this anymore. This is what's coming. And it's better. That's what John is saying. John's saying that very straightforwardly. Mark is saying it with a little more artistry. And in fact, as we zoom out, we say not only does Mark say what John says, but actually Mark's got some bonus content for us if we zoom all the way out. Not only is Jesus the replacement for the corrupt temple, he's the replacement for the entire system of religious life. The leaders, right? The architecture, everything. Everything. He's the better temple. He's the better leader. That's the point of the story, right? Now, the way the story is told, it is clear where Mark wants us to focus. He doesn't want us to get lost in the details here. He wants us to focus on the center of the story. He wants us to see who Jesus is and why he is better so mark has led here let us here by this path down this path and so we want to be informed by the journey we've taken in arriving at this place and so today i just want to ask two questions of the text first question is this why is jesus the better that's the main point marks working on here why is jesus the better temple that the temples not working right we know that The temple's like a barren fig tree. It's supposed to be helpful to people who are on a difficult journey in life. Life is hard. Remember Jesus said that? In this world, you will have tribulation. Jesus prophesied an uphill climb for your entire life on a dry and dusty road filled with pebbles and obstacles and stumbling stones. You need help with that. You need a place where you can stop. By the way, do you think sometimes about why we have the rhythms we have in life? Where are you this morning? You're gathered in the house of the Lord, right? With the Lord's people. What time is it? You got here early, right? Service started at 9.30. Are you picking that up? On the first day of the week, right before you get into another section of your weary journey, don't you need to be refreshed? Don't you need to be ministered to? Sometimes Christians are so arrogant. We have this, like, I don't need to go to church. I'm more of a servant of the Lord kind of type. I'm just gonna serve and serve and serve. Maybe we'll cancel church three Sundays of the week and just go down to the bus station and hand out bagels in Jesus' name. Wow, that's super arrogant. It sounds super spiritual, but it's really just super stupid. because it fails to wrestle with the reality of how hard life is in the world. If you go eight days without hearing from God, you'll start speaking in the voice of the devil. Did you know that? That's who you are, that's who I am. Do you really think you're an independent thinker? Do you think you have independent power resources like you're some kind of nuclear submarine that can just go on forever? No, you need gas on a regular basis. And so we calm. That's what the temple is supposed to be, but it wasn't. It had become a completely corrupt system. People went there and they just got more confusion. Sometimes people got total disappointment. Can you imagine some poor traveler from some Gentile country who just thought, I just need to get to the temple. I just need to get to that place where there's truth and clarity. I live in a world of confusion and demonic deception. I just need to get to this place where there's some air, where I can think straight about who God is and who I am and what I need to do to get right with God. I just need to get to that place. Can you imagine traveling, all the money you spend, and you get there and you find out you can't get in. Because some idiot has set up a booth to make money! Can you imagine that? That's what's going on. Jesus just wipes it all away. He says, we're not even going there anymore. We're not doing that. We're doing something different, and it's better. So let's talk about that. Why is Jesus the better temple? Let me suggest two things. I think they're the most obvious things, and I think they're the things that we're supposed to think, because they come right out of the frame. Jesus is the better temple, first of all, because he helps us with our prayers. Right? In the second B paragraph, if you remember that, that's verses 20 to 26, right? So that's this paragraph right here. In the second B paragraph where Jesus, the disciples say, hey Jesus, check out that fig tree that withered, that you cursed the other day. He starts talking about prayer, he doesn't say anything about fig trees. Says, truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. You people are going to see mountains moved through prayer. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it. Don't start doubting God. because it takes 10 years to get your citizenship. That's a mountain. God has his own time, but it will move if you keep praying and keep believing. Whenever you stand praying, forgive. Forgive if you've got anything against anybody so that your Father who's in heaven can forgive you of your trespasses. Do you hear that? She says, here's how it's going to work, folks. When you come to me, Jesus says, it's like you're going to pray up, OK? And I'm going to take those prayers, and I'm going to take them over to God the Father, and I'm going to present them as if they're mine. That's what it means to pray in Jesus' name. You're asking him to deliver your prayers under his signature. You ever thought about that? Which is why they've got to be the right prayers, right? The Bible says there's a whole section where it says, sometimes you ask yourself, and there's no way Jesus is cosigning that. Dear Jesus, I would like a new motorbike. And it needs to be better than the motorbike of that guy, because I'm not even sure I really like that guy. Love, Bob." Yeah, you're on your own. Don't say, in Jesus' name. You're on your own. If you want Jesus to co-sign your prayers, they've got to be prayers that Jesus would pray. but then he will take them up and then he will bring back from the father and give to you and that's how power is gonna be released into the world that's what jesus says and that's why she's got to keep the pipe clean because you just a pipe you're just a vessel memories to see your channel memories to sing a song channels only it was so i wish to sing in my church all the time when i was a kid i had to look it up on the internet so i could remember the words and my wife is terrified right now that i'm gonna sing it but i did not But do you remember we used to sing, channels only blessed master, but with all thy wondrous power flowing through us, thou canst use us every day and every hour. Do you remember we used to sing that? I looked it up so I could check the date. It was written in 1900, which means it was written before the entire charismatic movement blew through the church, which was a mixed blessing. So don't hear me saying it was all bad or all good. Here's one of the bad things that thing did. The charismatic thing that happened in the evangelical church changed the way we thought about spiritual gifts. We started thinking of them as if they were superpowers. Right? Like, now. We stopped talking about, like, God did something through me, and we started talking, now I am something. Right? So it wasn't just that God did a healing through me. No, no, no. Now I am a healer, and so I went out and got a white suit and some rhinestones and a fog machine, and we're gonna get this done. Right? Everything changed. That's not what Jesus said. Jesus didn't say he's gonna give you superpowers. Jesus said he was gonna do super powerful things through you. Vessels and channels, right? That's what the temple was supposed to be, a place where you'd be refreshed and empowered, because you can't make it through this world on your own. You need to receive power so that you can release power. You need to receive power just so that you can make it till tomorrow. as a Christian. I mean, the headwinds that you're facing are unbelievable. The slope that you're walking on right now is unbelievable. You need to receive power just so you can make it to tomorrow. But if you want to have any hope of touching anybody, you've got to receive. That's what the temple was for. The temple was the place where you went to pray, ask God for help. But it didn't happen. Right? The prayer place got filled up with the booths of the money changers. Temple became a place of commerce and corruption. So it was condemned and cursed. And that's a good thing. Because now Jesus, Hebrews 7.25 says, Jesus is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him. since He always lives to make intercession for them." Do you hear that? Jesus is the better fig tree, right? Jesus never closes. Jesus' fruit is always in season. You will never come to Jesus and go away empty-handed. He will give you the strength and the power and the encouragement that you need to make it through the day, and more than that, to be a world-changing force of gospel good in the world. Amen? And that's what he's talking about here. Jesus is better because he helps us with our prayers. Secondly, Jesus is the better temple because he feeds us with his flesh. Right? The fig tree was cursed because it didn't have any food on it for weary travelers. But like I just said, Jesus never disappoints. In John 6, he said, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger. Whoever believes in me shall Never thirst. Right? My fruit is always in season. You will never come to me and go away hungry. That's what he says. It goes on in John 6 to say, whoever feeds in my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Now, Jesus is obviously speaking in a spiritual way there. That's easy to misunderstand, isn't it? You know, this is a true story. You know, in the early church, one of the reasons the Romans persecuted the Christians when the Christians began to emerge is because they thought they were cannibals. They misunderstood the Lord's table. They heard that they got together to eat the body of Christ. And they were like, well, who's that? And they're like, well, he was this baby who was born to Mary. And they're like, whoa. So you get together and eat a baby? Yeah. And then they're drinking blood. And did you hear this verse? And literally, they thought the Christians got together to eat a baby and drink blood. I mean, you've got to be careful how you're hearing stuff, right? That's not what Jesus is saying. Speaking spiritually here, He's saying, if you feed on all of who He is, right? All of what He's done, His life, His teaching, His death, His resurrection, His ascension, His spirit. If you're feeding on those things, if you're meditating on those things devotionally, pursuing those things, You'll never be disappointed. You'll never go away empty-handed. You will eat and be satisfied. You will drink and thirst no more. You'll be refreshed and sustained in your journey. We need that. You know, sometimes I think of my communion with Christ, my devotion with Christ, as almost like a form of counter-conditioning. Maybe you think this way, maybe you don't, I don't know. Do you remember the book we used to have to read in high school? Do you remember the book, Brave New World? I don't know if they still read that in high school. If you're my age, you read it in high school, or you pretended to, or you lied and said you did. I don't know. But anyway, in that book, it's basically Aldous Huxley trying to write large what he fears is actually happening in society. So it's a giant exercise in hyperbole. He creates a ridiculous exaggeration, a ridiculous scenario to try to show us what he actually fears is actually happening. In the book, children are born in hatcheries, giant hatchery in London is where a lot of the activity takes place. And while the children sleep, they decide who they're going to be when they grow up, and they do different things. If they want them to be minors, then they make them afraid of the light and all this kind of stuff. But they also condition them while they sleep. They sleep in these giant big rooms, and a voice comes over the intercom at night saying all these crazy things. A soma in time saves nine. If you take drugs before you get too stressed out, then you won't get stressed out at all. And everyone belongs to everyone else. because they believe in communal marriage rather or communal sexual activity rather than marriage and all this kind of stuff. So they're conditioning them to make them more manageable. Now, like I said, that's an exaggeration. It's an exaggeration of what he believes is actually happening. Do you ever feel like you are being subject to daily conditioning messages from the culture? through the TV, through the ads on TV, through the radio, through the internet, through Facebook, through the school system? Do you ever feel like you're being fed some kind of mind-numbing propaganda that then you start hearing coming out of your mouth? And of course, it's a worldview that we're being taught. Remember, who's the prince in power of the world? The devil. What's his job? Well, according to the Bible, his job is to blind the eyes of people so that they don't see Christ and go to heaven. Okay. How does he do that? Well, he does that by whispering to us constantly. Do you ever feel like it's so hard to have an independent thought that you just start saying what you're always hearing? It's a very depressing worldview, right? I mean, if you think about it, if you actually think about what the world wants us to believe, it's terribly depressing. The world wants you to believe that you are a computer made of meat, an accident of an evolutionary process that was completely unguided. which, if you think about it, therefore means that there is absolutely no foundation for the virtues and values we're all told to espouse. So we're all told to treat each other, you know, everybody can be anybody they want, niceness and all that. But let me ask you a question. If I am the product of an unguided evolutionary process, if I'm only here today because my ancestors were better at killing and eating your ancestors and passing on their genes, remind me again why I should be nice to you? Why don't I just punch you right now and drag you home and eat you? Oh, no, no, no, no, don't think that. Take a Soma. Take a Soma. Right? So we have a set of values and virtues, no ideological foundation for that, but we're also not supposed to think for it. Is it any wonder that already right now more than 10% of Canadians take a daily prescription of antidepressant medication? Did you know that? Did you know that 16% of people in North America are on some kind of Psychotherapeutic medication? We're in a world that's going crazy, literally. And so what is our communion with Christ? So what are we coming here for? To hear the truth. To see the truth. It's reconditioning. To hear the truth about who God is, about who we are. and about how God saves us so that we can be truly human once again. That's what we've come for. That's what the temple was supposed to be. A place of light and clarity. By the way, when you understand that, don't you see why it's so devastating when the temple starts speaking like the world? When we start saying whatever it is they say. Don't you understand why it's so devastating now that so many churches just say whatever Oprah says? Because now you're not, it's not just that you're not part of the solution anymore, now you're part of the problem. You're part of the reconditioning, you're part of the world's conditioning software now. Instead of that voice of truth that this place was always meant to be. Jesus is the truth, right? He's the way, the truth, and the life. He's the better temple. All right, moving out of frame, moving out of frame. Remember, I mentioned Mark's got bonus content for us. So if we move out of frame to this frame about authority, we also say that Jesus is the better leader. Why is that? Well, first of all, because he came from heaven, right? That's the issue at the end of the story. The authorities are like, well, why should we listen to you? And Jesus says, all right, well, let me ask you a question. Why didn't you listen to John? Where do you think John came from? Where do you think he got his message? They're like, well, we don't want to answer, because we already know. Everybody knows John got his message from heaven. And so they're like, they know exactly what's coming next. If John got his message from heaven and you didn't listen, why should I tell you where I'm from? Because guess what? I am from heaven. It's not like just my message is from heaven. I am from heaven. So if you've already decided you don't like stuff from heaven, why am I even talking to you? That's what Jesus says. Jesus is the leader from heaven. They don't want to go there, but that's who he is. John makes the exact same point in a dialogue that Jesus has with one of those leaders. In John 3, one of those leaders, Nicodemus, he comes to Jesus at night, wants to talk to Jesus. John 3, verse 11, truly, truly, this is what Jesus says to him, truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I've told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. Do you see that? It's exactly the same dialogue with the same sorts of leaders. Right? You don't even accept it when we talk to you about earthly things. Why would I bother talking to you about heavenly things? Why do you want, I'm going to ratchet this up. You didn't accept what John said. John was an earthly guy with a message from heaven. I'm a heavenly guy with a message from heaven. Why are you going to listen to me? You're not. That's what he says. But in the course of saying that, he says something absolutely amazing. He says, only I have descended from heaven. That's why you should listen to me. You know why I have unique authority? Because I'm the only guy who knows what he's actually talking about. I'm the only guy with first-hand knowledge of the world you want to understand. Right? Do you understand how amazing that is? How unique that is? Moses never claimed to have descended from heaven. Muhammad never claimed to have descended from heaven. Muhammad said that he had a dream in a cave. By the way, his wife thought he was possessed of a demon. But he never said that he had descended from heaven. Only Jesus says that. So who are you going to listen to? You gonna listen to a prophet who sees in shadow? You gonna listen to a dreamer who might have been possessed by a demon? Or you gonna listen to the guy who is from where you want to go and who knows the way home? That's the second thing. Jesus is the better leader because he knows the way home. At the end of the day, that's what a leader is, right? What is a leader? Most simple definition is someone other people follow. ideally someone who knows where to go. Right? If the definition of a leader is somebody that other people follow, the definition of a good leader, because there are bad leaders, the definition of a good leader is somebody who knows the right way to go. That's what Jesus is. Hebrews 12 says that Jesus is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. Pioneer means trailblazer. He's the one who cuts the path. He's the one who opens it up. Perfecter means the one who does it right. That's who Jesus is. He's the one who goes first. He's the one who makes a way. He's the one in front of us, hacking away a path through the jungle. cutting away all those vines and weeds. So what do you need to do? You just need to settle in behind. You just need to take hold of the back of his shirt and follow Jesus, because he knows the way home. I've told this story before, but it's a good story and it's true, so it's probably worth telling again. When I was a youth pastor many years ago, I took a group of students down to the Dominican Republic, and we were doing a mission trip down there. And then on our last day, we had a cultural day where we were trying to understand the culture. And so we went to this museum. It was sort of a museum of Caribbean history. and it was in the home of Christopher Columbus's brother. So many years ago, I guess, San Domingo had been the capital of the Caribbean, so to speak, and it was where the governor's palace was, and now they turned this into kind of a museum filled with the treasures of conquistadors and old Spanish swords, and it was very interesting. And so we had this group of students, I think we had 27 students or something like that, and we were kind of going through this and we'd look at all the gems, all the sunken treasure, and all these swords and things. And then our tour guide, when he figured we'd had enough in one room, he'd stand over here and he'd call to us to go to the next room. But his name was Jesus. And in Latin America, every once in a while, you run into somebody who's named Jesus. North American moms don't do that to their kids. By the way, good choice. But in Latin America, and it wasn't Jesus. Jesus would not have been funny. His name was actually Jesus. And so he would get to the entrance of the next room, and after he'd given us enough time, he'd say, OK, children. Follow Jesus, we are moving on. And then he'd go to the next room. And I was like, that's the best thing I've ever heard on this mission trip. And then I would get the kids to delay in the next room just so that we could hear it again. OK, children, follow Jesus, we are moving on. That's gospel truth right there, friends. That's what we need to do. We need to follow Jesus. Because we are moving on. This world is hard, but it is not our home. There is a far, far better place to which we go. So follow Jesus. Go to him. He is the better temple. He is the better leader. And he knows the way. Thanks be to God. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word. Thank you for its beauty, for its power. Most of all, we thank you for how it shows us Jesus Christ, how we look in it and see the glory of God reflected in the face of Jesus, and how we are helped and changed. Thank you. We give you thanks, and now we ask, as humble pilgrims, we ask to receive. We ask to be led. We ask to be helped and to be sheltered as we make our way through this world and on towards the celestial city wherein our hope is found. We pray this with great confidence today in Jesus' name.