SPEAKER_01: This is really a phenomenal passage of scripture.
SPEAKER_01: It's one of those passages that reveals Jesus is not a person that any ordinary human could have possibly made up.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is inescapably who he says he is.
SPEAKER_01: He is the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: And it's on display in this chapter.
SPEAKER_01: And I think the best thing that we can do is to read the section that we're going to study this mor this evening.
SPEAKER_01: It begins in chapter 2 in verse 12 and then runs through verse 22.
SPEAKER_01: So let's read this passage of scripture together, and then we'll look at it in some detail.
SPEAKER_01: John in chapter 2, look down at your Bibles with me at verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: God's word says this.
SPEAKER_01: And after this, he that's Jesus, he went down to Capernaum with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days.
SPEAKER_01: The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and money changers sitting there.
SPEAKER_01: 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 and the money changers, and overturned their tables, and he told those who sold the pigeons, Take these things away.
SPEAKER_01: Do not make my father's house a house of trade.
SPEAKER_01: His disciples remembered that it was written, Zeal for your house will consume me.
SPEAKER_01: So the Jews said to him, What sign do you show us for doing these things?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus answered them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
SPEAKER_01: The Jews then said, It's taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you'll raise it up in three days.
SPEAKER_01: But he was speaking of the temple of his body.
SPEAKER_01: 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.
SPEAKER_01: It is an inescapable fact of human nature that we are worshippers.
SPEAKER_01: There is something in your life that will occupy your chief attention, will occupy your affections, will occupy your emotions, and to which you will make sacrifices.
SPEAKER_01: You will make sacrifices of time and relationships and effort.
SPEAKER_01: There's something in your life that you will worship.
SPEAKER_01: It's an inescapable reality of human nature.
SPEAKER_01: It's also a inescapable reality of human nature that we become like what we worship.
SPEAKER_01: That whatever occupies priority in our affections, whatever occupies priority in our minds, will transform even our very nature.
SPEAKER_01: We will become like what we worship.
SPEAKER_01: This is why Paul, in this appeal that we have all of our wanted kids memorize, in Romans in chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, this is exactly what the principle that Paul teaches us.
SPEAKER_01: In Romans 12, Paul says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.
SPEAKER_01: Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, Paul is saying there's no neutrality in spiritual life.
SPEAKER_01: There is no such thing as neutral ground in your spiritual life.
SPEAKER_01: You are either in the process of becoming more like the world if you worship the world, or becoming more like Jesus Christ if you worship Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: This is fundamental to biblical teaching about human nature, about worship.
SPEAKER_01: It undergirds Paul's introductory teaching to the letters of the Romans.
SPEAKER_01: And in that text, he describes all humankind as those who claiming to be wise became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
SPEAKER_01: This is the exchange that every human heart naturally makes.
SPEAKER_01: We exchange the glory of the immortal God and worship creation rather than creator.
SPEAKER_01: And do you see the result of that?
SPEAKER_01: The result of that is spelled out in the rest of the chapter.
SPEAKER_01: Where Paul says that therefore God gave them up to the lust of their hearts and to impurity.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, God gave them over to dishonorable passions.
SPEAKER_01: And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, verse 28, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
SPEAKER_01: They're filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice, they're full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, gossip, slanders, etc., etc.
SPEAKER_01: On down this list.
SPEAKER_01: When you worship anything that's in the world, when anything that's in the world becomes the place where you find your primary source of security, of identity, of hope, of meaning, you will become like the fallen world that you worship.
SPEAKER_01: You will become as corrupted as the fallen world.
SPEAKER_01: There's only one alternative because there's no option not to worship.
SPEAKER_01: Even secular folks, like the late novelist David Foster Wallace in his little essay, This Is Water, writes, there is no alternative everybody worships.
SPEAKER_01: The only choice is what you will worship.
SPEAKER_01: You will find security and meaning and value in something in this world.
SPEAKER_01: The one caveat that the Bible would add to this astute observation by David Foster Wallace is that apart from the supernatural miracle of the new birth, all you can choose is to worship something in the created world.
SPEAKER_01: Because all your heart can perceive, all your taste, your spiritual taste buds can taste is a corrupted fallen world.
SPEAKER_01: But the scripture declares in texts like Ephesians chapter 2 that we've been studying on Sunday mornings, God, because of He was rich in mercy, even while we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So that by grace we've been saved.
SPEAKER_01: God does this work in the life of the people that he redeems, where he awakens them to the reality of his son Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He awakens them to the reality of the gospel, he opens the eyes of their heart to perceive the glory of Christ and to put their faith in him.
SPEAKER_01: So all of Christian life then is lived in this process by which we choose not to be conformed to this world by worshiping and idolizing the things of the world, but be transformed by the renewal of our mind.
SPEAKER_01: And that that's a one-way street.
SPEAKER_01: The one way by which we have the ability to be transformed is by beholding the glory of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So this is Paul's teaching in 2 Corinthians in chapter 3, where he says that we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, and this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: It's the Spirit that enables us, as our redeemed hearts perceive the glory of Jesus Christ, to undergo a process of being transformed into the same image, into the image of our Creator, into the image of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, all of Christian life is a process of beholding the glory of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And as you behold the glory of Christ, the Spirit transforms you to reflect the glory of Christ in your life.
SPEAKER_01: This is why we need the Gospels, not just as an introduction to our spiritual life, but we need the four Gospels as wells that have no bottom to continue to draw spiritual nourishment, to continue to draw from again and again and again and again.
SPEAKER_01: And as you go back to the Gospels again and again in the course of your spiritual life, you'll find that they are a spring that never runs dry, that there is more of Christ and more of Christ and more of Christ and more of Christ to behold.
SPEAKER_01: And you will never, ever, ever exhaust the glories of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And it's only as by the Holy Spirit your eyes are open to perceive the glory of Jesus Christ that you can be transformed into the image of this glorious Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: What we're looking at this evening in John and chapter 2 is, as I said this morning, this is Jesus' introduction to public ministry.
SPEAKER_01: And in these two episodes in John and chapter 2, there's something really at the heart of who Jesus is that's put on display for us.
SPEAKER_01: There's something at the heart of who Jesus is as this unique Son of God, Son of Man that's on display in this text for us.
SPEAKER_01: And it's as we perceive this glory, I pray that the Lord would enable us by his Spirit to be more conformed to his image.
SPEAKER_01: In particular, before we dive in, I just I'll say explicitly what is so incredible about this text is what Jonathan Edwards has once called, the diverse excellencies of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: There is no one like Jesus, who is both the Lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world, and is the lion of the tribe of Judah who has conquered and overcome.
SPEAKER_01: There is no one like Jesus who unites diverse perfections, diverse glories in one solitary person.
SPEAKER_01: He's infinite in his majesty and intimate in his meekness.
SPEAKER_01: He's perfect in his power and in his patience with you.
SPEAKER_01: There is nobody like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And the very first thing that Jesus displays for his disciples so that they can know who he is, know the truth about him, put their trust in him, and have eternal life in his name, the first thing that he does in this, these two episodes in John 2 is he reveals something of the diverse excellencies of his person.
SPEAKER_01: So the very first miracle he does is he turns water into wine and fills up the lack, the lack of joy, the shame, takes it away, and he supplies his friends and his family with joy, with intimacy, and with love at a wedding celebration.
SPEAKER_01: And the very next scene, Jesus reveals himself as the mighty and blazingly holy Lord with a whip in his hand, who is zealous for pure worship.
SPEAKER_01: He is both united in a single, perfect person, totally, absolutely deserving of all of your worship and affection.
SPEAKER_01: Let's walk through this passage in which Jesus displays for us something of his diverse excellencies.
SPEAKER_01: What Jesus is going to show us is the way that he views worship in this text, the way that he views worship, not just corporately for his church as a body, but individually for his people.
SPEAKER_01: How Jesus views worship.
SPEAKER_01: The first thing we see in the text is what Jesus calls a problem with worship.
SPEAKER_01: The problem with worship, or we could call it a problem with religion.
SPEAKER_01: It's in verses 12 through 14.
SPEAKER_01: So look down at verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 12 sets the scene with these words.
SPEAKER_01: After this, after the miracle in Cana and Galilee, he went down to Capernaum, that's about 16 miles northeast of Cana, and it became something of a home base for some of his later ministry.
SPEAKER_01: And he stays there with his mother and his brothers and his disciples for a few days.
SPEAKER_01: We won't linger on this, but I trust many of you are already well aware of the fact, the simple fact that the scriptures tell us that Jesus had brothers.
SPEAKER_01: Mary and Joseph had other children.
SPEAKER_01: One of them, they are named in Matthew in chapter 13, when Jesus begins to do miracles in his hometown, and many are incredulous, they respond with these words.
SPEAKER_01: Is this not the carpenter's son?
SPEAKER_01: Is not his mother called Mary?
SPEAKER_01: Are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?
SPEAKER_01: And are not all of his sisters with us?
SPEAKER_01: It is a simple fact the scripture attests that Jesus had brothers, and those brothers, upon his resurrection, came to worship him.
SPEAKER_01: I said I won't linger, so I won't linger.
SPEAKER_01: So let's go on to verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 13 begins the scene, and it starts with this great feast.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus is going to leave his tiny village, and he's going to go to Judea because verse 13 says the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and so Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, the Passover celebration is instituted in Exodus in chapter 12 because of the historical event of the Passover, wherein the tenth plague in Egypt, God sends the plagues upon Pharaoh into Egypt in order to redeem the people Israel out of Egypt to bring them to the promised land.
SPEAKER_01: The final plague is that God strikes down the firstborn of each home, except for every home where the Israelites had slaughtered a lamb, had painted the blood over the doorposts of their door, and in seeing the blood, the angel, the destroyer, passed them over.
SPEAKER_01: God in Exodus chapter 12 prescribes for the people of Israel every year to celebrate the Passover and lays out a ritual, including sacrifice, to remember the reality that through the sacrifice, through the blood of the Lamb, the destroyer passed them over.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus celebrates the Passover.
SPEAKER_01: Every year of his life, he celebrates the Passover.
SPEAKER_01: John mentions three distinct Passovers here, chapter six, and finally in chapter 11, where he stays in Judea and fulfills the Passover in his own death as the final sacrificial lamb to remove the wrath of God.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus celebrates the Passover.
SPEAKER_01: And as he's heading down to Jerusalem, we need to have something of the scene in our mind because this is a really big event.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just the people in Judea or the surrounding regions around Israel who are traveling to Jerusalem for the Passover.
SPEAKER_01: It's Jews from all over the world, from the far from corners of the world.
SPEAKER_01: They're coming from Babylon and Egypt and North Africa, all throughout Europe and Syria.
SPEAKER_01: They are flying down to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.
SPEAKER_01: There are swarms of people making the trek up the hill to the Temple Mount to celebrate the Passover.
SPEAKER_01: One of the only contemporary accounts we have of these events comes from the Jewish historian Josephus.
SPEAKER_01: Josephus is born in the 30s.
SPEAKER_01: He's from a priestly line just after the time of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He's involved in the rebellion against Rome in the late 60s.
SPEAKER_01: He's in charge of the troops in the region of Galilee.
SPEAKER_01: He then surrenders to the Romans and comes under the employment of Vespasian when he becomes the emperor, becomes employed by the emperors to write a history of the Jews.
SPEAKER_01: And so from his histories of the war with the Jews, we find this little detail.
SPEAKER_01: He tells us that Passover, and he says he's speaking from experience, as a priest who participated in the sacrifices, that it was a big deal.
SPEAKER_01: That there were 256,500 sacrifices made in the temple at Passover.
SPEAKER_01: He says that the sacrifices were then enjoyed with groups of no less than 10 per sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: Some groups were bigger.
SPEAKER_01: And so he estimates that there were 2,700,200 persons in Jerusalem during the Passover, plus the people who were excluded from participating in the rite because of ritual impurity.
SPEAKER_01: Now, it is certainly possible that he's expanding the numbers a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: But let's just be extra, extra conservative.
SPEAKER_01: We're still looking at a million people swarming Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: This place is densely packed.
SPEAKER_01: There's fervor and excitement in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus, as he always did, makes a track to Jerusalem, walks to the temple, and then verse 14, he finds something that displeases him.
SPEAKER_01: So verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and money changers sitting there.
SPEAKER_01: He arrives to worship the holy God of the universe, and he finds a business.
SPEAKER_01: A business.
SPEAKER_01: This is what's happening.
SPEAKER_01: The those who are selling in verse 14, those who are selling oxen, sheep, and pigeons, well, that's in some ways a very reasonable thing to do.
SPEAKER_01: After all, you're required to offer a sacrifice at Passover.
SPEAKER_01: And there are people who are coming from Libya.
SPEAKER_01: What are you gonna do?
SPEAKER_01: Put a sheep on the boat and drag it thousands of miles?
SPEAKER_01: Easily, a more prudent thing to do would be to purchase an animal to sacrifice in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: And so, in some ways, you could say, well, these priests are just doing what makes sense.
SPEAKER_01: They are selling sacrifices right where the sacrifices need to happen.
SPEAKER_01: It's just reasonable, right?
SPEAKER_01: And then there are these money exchangers, and the money exchangers are performing a duty for those who have come to offer their temple tax.
SPEAKER_01: Every Jew, every male 20 years and up would offer a temple tax, and they're coming from all around different empires, and they have different currencies with them.
SPEAKER_01: But the priests only wanted one particular currency.
SPEAKER_01: Tyrion's silver was the particular currency that they wanted, and so these money exchangers were offering a service.
SPEAKER_01: We'll exchange your currency for the only one that's accepted in the temple for a small fee.
SPEAKER_01: In some ways, this is just kind of reasonable, but not to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is to these to these priests making these transactions, Jesus is just a random nobody from Galilee who looks like everybody else.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus isn't just a random nobody from Galilee who looks like everybody else.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the Lord of the temple.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the one who prescribed the building of the temple.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the one that articulated what worship of the holy God of the universe is to look like in the temple.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus sees through the business to the hearts, and he sees the apathy towards the holy God evident in these transactions.
SPEAKER_01: It's hard not to hear the echoes of the prophet Isaiah in what's happening in the temple in this text.
SPEAKER_01: And so I invite you to flip up back in your Bibles to the book of Isaiah.
SPEAKER_01: You can keep your place in John, because we will come back.
SPEAKER_01: But I think it is worth traversing back in our Bibles to the book of Isaiah because it's hard for me to think that Jesus doesn't have something like this in his mind as he confronts these religious leaders.
SPEAKER_01: In Isaiah in chapter 1, you have something of a courtroom scene where the Lord of Israel brings Israel before the court and confronts them for their false worship.
SPEAKER_01: And listen to the echoes between the way he condemns false worship in Israel to the way worship was being conducted in the fur the first century in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah chapter 1 and verse 12, the Lord says, When you come appear before me, who's required of you this trampling of my courts?
SPEAKER_01: Bring no more vain offerings.
SPEAKER_01: Incense is an abomination to me.
SPEAKER_01: New boon is Sabbath and the calling of convocations, I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.
SPEAKER_01: Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hates.
SPEAKER_01: They've become a burden to me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm weary of bearing them.
SPEAKER_01: When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you.
SPEAKER_01: Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen.
SPEAKER_01: Your hands are full of blood.
SPEAKER_01: Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.
SPEAKER_01: Come now.
SPEAKER_01: Let us reason together, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow.
SPEAKER_01: Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
SPEAKER_01: If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land, but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
SPEAKER_01: Corrupt worship.
SPEAKER_01: Let's become apathetic towards the holiness of God and more concerned with the pragmatics of a business transaction and the logistics of conducting all of this crowdfair in a peaceful and orderly manner.
SPEAKER_01: But no love for Christ, no love for holiness, no love for the Lord of the temple.
SPEAKER_01: Now you could ask yourself, is Jesus here condemning the religious system in Israel?
SPEAKER_01: Is Jesus condemning the religious system in Israel?
SPEAKER_01: It's a frequent thing to hear that Jesus came to condemn a religious system.
SPEAKER_01: And there's a sense in which that's right.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the religious system often was perverted in the history of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: It was often corrupted.
SPEAKER_01: But the system itself was perfect.
SPEAKER_01: God made it.
SPEAKER_01: God gave Israel a perfect religious system.
SPEAKER_01: The way to approach God, all of the sacrificial system, all of the ordinances, all of the rituals that are prescribed in the Torah come down from heaven.
SPEAKER_01: They're given by God Himself on Mount Sinai.
SPEAKER_01: They're revelation of the perfect religious system.
SPEAKER_01: So it's not the system in itself that's the problem.
SPEAKER_01: And it's not the system that's the problem in the book of Isaiah.
SPEAKER_01: The problem with religion is not the system, it's the sinners.
SPEAKER_01: It's the people that are involved.
SPEAKER_01: It's not the religion, it's the religious.
SPEAKER_01: And even Isaiah says this the beginning of this condemnation of Israel in verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: He points that it's the heart that's the problem.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah 1 and verse 4, the prophet says, O sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly, they have forsaken the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: They've despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.
SPEAKER_01: Why will you still be struck down?
SPEAKER_01: Why will you continue to rebel?
SPEAKER_01: Here's Isaiah's diagnosis.
SPEAKER_01: The whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint.
SPEAKER_01: From the sole of the foot even up to the head, there's no soundness in it, but bruises, sores, and raw wounds.
SPEAKER_01: They're not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil.
SPEAKER_01: The problem is the person, the inner man.
SPEAKER_01: From the sole of the foot to the top of the head, the entire person is corrupted by their sin.
SPEAKER_01: And so any religious system that God gives to sinners, they will corrupt.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus walks into the temple, the Lord of the temple, you can go back to John in chapter two, and the very first thing he sees is what inevitably happens when God gives sinful people a good system.
SPEAKER_01: They corrupt it.
SPEAKER_01: The system, if it's flawed, it's flawed because of the sinners that are in it.
SPEAKER_01: They don't need a new system, they don't just need a restoration of the system either, because that's happened over and over and over in Israel.
SPEAKER_01: They don't need a system, they need a savior.
SPEAKER_01: They need a savior.
SPEAKER_01: The problem with religion is the sinners, and it's so clear in this text.
SPEAKER_01: And so the next thing that we see is Jesus' solution.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' solution is his holy worship.
SPEAKER_01: That's the solution, is holy worship.
SPEAKER_01: And we see something of the person of Jesus in the next stage of this passage.
SPEAKER_01: We see Jesus' zeal for holy worship.
SPEAKER_01: So look down at verse 15.
SPEAKER_01: This is the way that Jesus responds.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 15 Jesus making a whip of Cords, he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and oxen.
SPEAKER_01: He poured out the coins and the money changers and turned over their tables.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is just unbelievable.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Jesus, when he makes this whip, it's not like there is some kind of really intimidating weapon available.
SPEAKER_01: It says that making a whip of cords, that is, he grabbed whatever rope was available, so he cut off some rope from one of the stalls that was housing the animals, and he made a quickly contrived, I mean, Jesus is a professional blue-collar worker after all.
SPEAKER_01: It probably was pretty well made.
SPEAKER_01: But he makes this quickly contrived whip.
SPEAKER_01: And he immediately, in this absolutely massive cathedral that is the temple, begins to drive everyone out.
SPEAKER_01: And he he succeeds with apparently no pushback.
SPEAKER_01: He drives everyone out of the temple.
SPEAKER_01: That's unbelievable.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is a nobody who looks like any ordinary backwoods Galilean who's betrayed by his podunk accent.
SPEAKER_01: If anyone else had made a whip and had begun beating these prestigious officers' animals, they would have sent the temple guard to them, they would have put their arms around him, there would have been a swarm of the security of the temple around Jesus, and they would have said, Hey buddy, we have ways of dealing with you, but not Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus drives everyone out of the temple, gone, turns over the tables, throws out their money, throws out those carrying the pigeons.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, can you imagine these men who are selling their pigeons and they're imagining what they're gonna do with their new retirement investments, tucking their cages under their arms and hightailing it down the stairs?
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus got a little bit of rope.
SPEAKER_01: How is Jesus possibly able to manage this?
SPEAKER_01: And if you're reading the text with just kind of an imagination of what the scene would have looked like historically, there's absolutely no way there can be a doubt in your mind that what happens here is another divine miracle.
SPEAKER_01: This is another display of Jesus' supernatural power.
SPEAKER_01: There is no other explanation for the way that one single human could drive this crowd, including armed temple guard officers, out unless there was some divine reality of Jesus unfolded before them.
SPEAKER_01: There's something of Jesus' absolute, supreme, burning desire for holiness and his power to achieve it that's put on display and turns everyone away from him.
SPEAKER_01: This is a display of Jesus' person, unlike that in the first half of the Gospel of John.
SPEAKER_01: This is a display very much unlike the calm and loving and patient Jesus who puts his arms around his friends and supplies their joy.
SPEAKER_01: This is a Jesus with a whip in his hand and with fire in his eyes, who is zealous for holy worship.
SPEAKER_01: It's a display unlike anything his disciples have ever seen, and they know it.
SPEAKER_01: And you see their reaction in verse 16.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus tells those who stole the pigeons, take these things away, do not make my father's house a house of trade.
SPEAKER_01: His disciples remember that it was written, zeal for your house will consume me.
SPEAKER_01: They know who this Jesus is, and they know he's unlike anything they have ever seen.
SPEAKER_01: And they are seeing something of the diverse excellencies of Jesus that they never could have imagined on their own.
SPEAKER_01: This is a Jesus unlike anybody's creation.
SPEAKER_01: This is a person unlike anyone's creative ability.
SPEAKER_01: This is a Jesus all his own.
SPEAKER_01: This is a Jesus of patience and of pure burning zeal for God.
SPEAKER_01: As I mentioned at the beginning of our worship service, Psalm 69 is the text that the disciples remember.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a text that's all about David as a servant of the Lord, the representative of the Lord, as the king of Israel, who has a passion for the Lord's holiness and is afflicted for it.
SPEAKER_01: And it's interesting that that text ends with David saying, I will praise the name of God with a song, I will magnify him with thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01: This will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull with horns or hooves.
SPEAKER_01: That's what a genuine worshiper of the Lord understands.
SPEAKER_01: It's the same thing that God told Saul.
SPEAKER_01: I desire obedience more than sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the one who said that.
SPEAKER_01: And I just would like to make a note in passing before we go any further.
SPEAKER_01: Zeal is one of these very dangerous emotions, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Zeal is uh one of these one of these realities, human emotions, that in and of itself is perfectly neutral.
SPEAKER_01: What matters when it comes to zeal is the object of your zeal.
SPEAKER_01: There have been some that have said that in this text it's revealed that Jesus was nothing more than one of the other zealots of the time, these political revolutionaries who wanted to overthrow the Romans and take back power for the people.
SPEAKER_01: But you'll see in this text that Jesus is in no way resembling the zealots who would kill and exploit in order to obtain power.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus, as we'll see through the rest of this gospel, chooses to die rather than to kill.
SPEAKER_01: He came into the world in chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: He will say not to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.
SPEAKER_01: He's nothing like the zealots.
SPEAKER_01: His zeal is not directed towards a political cause.
SPEAKER_01: His zeal is directed towards the holiness of God.
SPEAKER_01: His zeal is for the God of the universe, for the triune God.
SPEAKER_01: That's where his zeal is entirely, solely, perfectly laser-like focused directed is towards the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And as we behold this Jesus, I think it's helpful just for us to begin to reflect on how unlike Jesus we really are.
SPEAKER_01: How radically unlike Jesus you and I are.
SPEAKER_01: If you poke Jesus, you see what's inside of him, what you find is burning passionate love for God.
SPEAKER_01: Burning, unbroken, eternal love for God.
SPEAKER_01: And that flame of love for God radiates in this heat of zeal for pure worship of this God that he loves.
SPEAKER_01: That is not like you and me.
SPEAKER_01: When you confront Jesus with false worship, Jesus burns with a desire for holiness, for righteousness, for justice, for goodness, for truth, for mercy.
SPEAKER_01: If you poke us, what you would typically find comes out is love for self, it's love for our reputation, it's love for a million things in the place of God.
SPEAKER_01: The zeal of Jesus exposes how unlike Jesus we really are.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, just ask yourself some questions.
SPEAKER_01: How often do you actually get indignant about the sin in your heart?
SPEAKER_01: How often are you frustrated with the holy frustration about the absence of love for God you see in your own heart?
SPEAKER_01: This is the kind of zeal that if we really are beholding the glory of Christ, we'll grow into more and more.
SPEAKER_01: But I think it's also helpful to remind ourselves that there is a kind of faux religious zeal.
SPEAKER_01: That it's a real danger for us, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: That kind of zeal that pours itself out in frustration and indignation on others when they are wrong.
SPEAKER_01: And we blame it on Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We say, Jesus, overturn the tables! Can't I type something?
SPEAKER_01: And yet, how unlike Jesus are we in that Jesus has no flaw in him.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has no sin.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has no corruption.
SPEAKER_01: There's nowhere else for his zeal to be directed except outward in order to bring other people into his holy love for God.
SPEAKER_01: But we are not like that.
SPEAKER_01: In order to be zealous, in order for our zeal to extend towards other people, we have to skip over all the corruptions in our heart.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's helpful for us to just ask the simple question.
SPEAKER_01: We are to be conformed into the image of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That includes we are to have a zeal for God, but I think it's helpful for us to ask the question Do we find in our own lives that we are more indignant about the sin and the errors of others or ourselves?
SPEAKER_01: Are we more indignant about the flaws we see in others?
SPEAKER_01: Are we more indignant about our own corruption, about our own lack of love for the Lord, about our own conformity to his image?
SPEAKER_01: What sparks more holy zeal?
SPEAKER_01: What sparks more frustration?
SPEAKER_01: One of those zeals is conformity to the Lord, and one of those is really just exalting ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: Now we've seen the problem with religion is, well, it's the sinners who are involved in religion.
SPEAKER_01: And we've seen that Jesus in his person is burning with this flame of love for God.
SPEAKER_01: He is zealous for pure worship.
SPEAKER_01: And the final thing we see in this text is Jesus' solution.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' solution for pure worship.
SPEAKER_01: How he's going to get pure worship is that he's going to create a new temple.
SPEAKER_01: The solution to false worship is a new temple.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we see in the rest of the passage.
SPEAKER_01: So look down at verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus responds in the way only Jesus can, verse 19.
SPEAKER_01: He answered them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
SPEAKER_01: And the Jews said, It's taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it in three days?
SPEAKER_01: Forty-six years.
SPEAKER_01: This is Herod's temple, of course.
SPEAKER_01: It's add-on's additions to the second temple that we see built in Ezra and Nehemiah.
SPEAKER_01: And it was under construction for decades.
SPEAKER_01: Herod's been dead for decades already, and yet it's going to continue, even past the time of this scene, for a couple more decades.
SPEAKER_01: It won't be completed, all the renovations to the temple until 63 AD, just in time for the Jewish revolt and destruction by the Romans in AD 70.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, This temple is not the solution to your problem.
SPEAKER_01: I have a better solution.
SPEAKER_01: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
SPEAKER_01: But of course, Jesus' authority here is not about bricks and stone, it's about a new temple.
SPEAKER_01: So, verse 21, John adds this addition.
SPEAKER_01: He was speaking about the temple of his body.
SPEAKER_01: When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
SPEAKER_01: That's Jesus' solution, is a new temple.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, the temple is the meeting point between God and man.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the temple is designed to be.
SPEAKER_01: It's the place where God will reside, it's a place where God will meet with his people, where they can relate to him, where they can worship him, where they can know him, where they can enjoy him.
SPEAKER_01: And so when the temple, the first temple in the Old Testament is completed by Solomon in the book of 1 Kings, at the conclusion of that building, 1 Kings chapter 8 says that they complete it, they dedicate it, and when the priests come out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: God's glory manifested itself in the temple to demonstrate the temple would be the meeting place between God and man.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the temple is for.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus constitutes a new temple in his resurrection from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, who is fully God and fully man in his incarnation, his death and his resurrection, upon the destruction of the temple, and even before that, the rending of the veil that separates the Holy of Holies from the sinful worshipper, Jesus becomes the new meeting point between God and man.
SPEAKER_01: He becomes the one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, who is the word become flesh, who's dwelt among us to reveal the glory of God, who is the fullness of God, becomes the only way to the Father, so that no one comes to God but by him.
SPEAKER_01: But if you believe the gospel that Jesus died in your place for your sins and resurrected from the dead and is alive at God's right hand right now, and if you turn from your sin and you put your trust in Jesus, God unites you to his son, constitutes you as a member of his church, gives you his spirit, and you are so joined to Jesus Christ, God's new temple, the new meeting point between God and man, that in fact the scripture goes on through the rest of the New Testament to say, you become the temple.
SPEAKER_01: You, in your union with Jesus Christ, and by the filling of the Holy Spirit, you become a part of the temple.
SPEAKER_01: You become in your body the meeting point between God and man.
SPEAKER_01: So Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 16, do you not know that you are God's temple?
SPEAKER_01: God's Spirit dwells in you.
SPEAKER_01: What is a temple?
SPEAKER_01: It's the meeting place of God and man.
SPEAKER_01: And if you have repented of your sins and embraced Jesus Christ, then what are you?
SPEAKER_01: You are joined to the God man by faith, you are indwelt by his very spirit, you are the meeting point between God and man.
SPEAKER_01: You are the temple.
SPEAKER_01: That comes with some pretty serious, significant, amazing implications, just one of which would be what Paul says just a couple chapters later in 1 Corinthians.
SPEAKER_01: If you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, then you must know that you're not your own.
SPEAKER_01: For you were bought with a price, and your body, the meeting point between God and man, is now not a vessel for dishonorable use, but for honorable use.
SPEAKER_01: You are commanded to glorify God with your body.
SPEAKER_01: You're commanded to use the temple well, not to clog it up with the 10 million things that were in the temple in Jesus' day, not to prioritize things of the world, not to prioritize the passing world that will fade away, but to prioritize the pure worship of the God with whom you now meet in your very body.
SPEAKER_01: You are the temple of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So we've come full circle here.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says that the problem with religion is what?
SPEAKER_01: I am, I'm the problem, my sin, my heart, the way that I would corrupt any religious system that was given to me, even if it came down from heaven on tablets.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus is burning with love for God, and he's zealous for holy worship, and so he comes up with the perfect solution: new temple.
SPEAKER_01: In his death and resurrection, he is the meeting point between God and man.
SPEAKER_01: And by the proclamation of the gospel and by the repentance and faith, we are joined to Jesus, and we are joined to God, and we are indwelt with the Spirit, and we become his temples on earth.
SPEAKER_01: Now, all of Christian life then, because we're not seeking a new temple, we're not making a journey to Jerusalem, but Christian life then is a process of cleansing God's temple.
SPEAKER_01: It's a process of getting everything out of your life that is just earth, corrupt, and fallen.
SPEAKER_01: Everything that gets in the way of pure love for the God that indwells you.
SPEAKER_01: It's beholding the glory of the Lord and becoming more and more like Jesus, who is zealous for pure worship.
SPEAKER_01: And I think the right way to conclude this little section of scripture is to flip over to the book of Titus.
SPEAKER_01: The book of Titus.
SPEAKER_01: You can leave, John, because we're not coming back now.
SPEAKER_01: Titus in chapter 2, Paul actually says that just as Jesus is zealous for pure worship, he has redeemed you, he has indwelt you with his spirit, he has joined you to himself, he has made you his temple in order to conform you to his image, and if you're being conformed to his image, it will reflect in true zeal.
SPEAKER_01: And that's shown to us in this little text in Titus.
SPEAKER_01: This is where we will close tonight.
SPEAKER_01: Titus in chapter 2, verse 11 says, The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness, worldly passion, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, a people who he will even indwell himself by his spirit, who are now zealous for good works, the flame of whose heart burns with love for God, and who express their love for God in a zeal for good works, in a zeal for pure worship, and a zeal to be used by God.
SPEAKER_01: This is the way that we reflect the glory of God is by reflecting the very zeal of our Lord Jesus, not on others, but primarily in our zeal, in our hearts to love God and express it in good works.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we thank you for this picture of who you are, in your diverse excellencies, your holiness and your compassion.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we could behold you forevermore, and we will.church.
SPEAKER_00: If you want information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to tms.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been an encouragement to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.
SPEAKER_00: May the Lord bless you.