TomNicholas.org

I never felt like I belonged. I always felt like an outsider. A stranger in my own skin. The girls I liked, never liked me. The friends I had were never the “cool” kids. And, I just never knew what to say or do. I felt weird. All the time. I was self-conscious.

My brother, on the other hand, he was an Athlete. Outgoing. Hardworking. Popular. He made life look easy. I so wanted to be him!

In 1 Peter 1:14, 15 Peter tells us to not be afraid of being different. He uses a word, “Holy.” And ‘holy’ means, set apart for a special purpose. When we come into a salvific relationship with Jesus, we are reborn. We are no longer the same people we were before Christ. But, we have to make the choice to abide in Him; to remain in Him. So easily we slide back to who we were before Him. Peter encourages us to not give into social pressure (peer pressure) and return to the old way, the old person. In Jesus, we will be weird, to the world.

In Matthew 21, on Jesus’ last week before the crucifixion, He enters the temple; coming in He sees the money changers and the merchants buying and selling sacrificial animals, Divinity flashes through humanity and He drives away all the merchants with a shout, “My house shall be called a house of prayer! But you have made it a den of thieves!” Some translations say, “…you have made it a house of merchants.” And then Jesus healed and performed many miracles and the children sang, again, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”

The next day, Jesus returns to the temple. His “classroom” is interrupted by the same rulers from the day before. They ask Him, “Who has given you authority to do these things?” In other words, they are the rulers of the temple. They are the administrators, the pastors, the board members, the teachers. How is it that Jesus can feel like He has authority over them; to condemn them for mismanagement of the church?

Jesus answers them in typical Jesus fashion, with a question: “By what or by who’s authority did John the Baptist teach?”

Not wanting to get caught in a verbal trap, the rulers went into huddle and came out with this answer: “Uh, we don’t know.” Interesting that they would rather look dumb than be caught between the proverbial rock and hard place of religion and politics.

So, Jesus tells them a story about a man who had a vineyard and two sons. To one son he tells to go to work. The son replies that he doesn’t want to. But, he eventually does, anyway. Then, the father tells the second son to go to work. The son says, “Sure!” But, he never does. “Which one of these sons did the will of his father?” Jesus asked. “The first,” they replied. “Tax collectors and prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you, because they believe, and you do not.”

The religion of the temple rulers had caused the temple of God to be desecrated. More than that, they had organized church life in such a way as to desecrate worship. “My house shall be called a house of prayer!”

While it is still appropriate to have a dedicated house of worship, the reality is that we don’t only go to church, but that we are the church. 1 Corinthians 6:19 “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” 1 Corinthians 12:12 “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.” Romans 12:4-5 “For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” 1 Corinthians 12:27 “Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it.”

If “My house shall be called a house of prayer.” Than, we are to be a people of prayer. We, believers in Christ Jesus, who are individually and collectively the Body and Temple of Christ, we are to be individually and corporately a House of Prayer.

We often examine the first century, or New Testament church to see what they did and how they do it. We see that they had all things in common. We see that they broke bread together. We see that they met in each other’s homes. We see that they organized and had apostles, missionaries, and male and female deacons. And so, we try to create community that emulates them.

But, what gave them power? What caused them to grow exponentially? Was it that they shared everything in common? Was it that they took up offerings for the widows? Was it that they sometimes preached all day and all night, even though it killed the youth?

While all of those things did happen. Those things that they did are not a model for how to “church.” What they did, and this is the only model we need to follow: They prayed. Theirs was a house of prayer. And then the Holy Spirit came upon them and they had the power to preach, they had the power to teach, they had the power to live their lives and build community; because the Holy Spirit empowered them through Prayer. They reverenced God’s House and made themselves a House of Prayer.

Question: Are we a House of Prayer? Or are we trying to re-create the New Testament fellowship and social functions as a model for church?