Jesus Cleanses the Temple (2)

Intro

Today we are talking about purpose. Purpose is something that every single person thinks about at several points in their lives. Purpose is one of those words that starts to pop up when your mind has been emptied of all the distractions life keeps you busy with. Purpose is one of those things that might catch you off guard, perhaps you weren’t seeking after your purpose in life, and yet you found the question nagging at your mind anyway.

Maybe when you were a high schooler staring down college, or when you got married or had kids, or when you realized you hate your job, or when you slowed down for a minute and realized that decades seem to have passed in minutes. These are all moments that we can find ourselves asking: what is this all about? Why am I here? Am I doing what I am supposed to be doing? Am I truly living a life of purpose?

One thing we can be thankful about as Christians is that God has not left us wondering about this. He has not placed us on some scavenger hunt to determine our own individual purpose in the world. Our struggle does not come from knowing what our purpose is, but rather our struggle against our God-given purpose.

So today I want to talk about purpose: purpose given, purpose tainted, and purpose redeemed and restored.

We allow religious lives to distract us from the true worship of God

We were made for worship

John 2:13 ESV

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

WCF 1: man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Another way of thinking about this is that humans were made for joyful worship. Its why we’re here. Its our purpose.

When God made Adam and Eve, he made them to walk in communion with him and to live lives of joyful worship.

The calendar for God’s people reflected this reality: the way they kept track of time was based around religious festivals. Here we see Jesus and his disciples acknowledging that fact as they made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration, which was a time for the people of God to remember that he redeemed them from slavery in Egypt and to worship him as their redeemer.

That was the purpose of the event: the people of God would return to the temple from all over to come and worship their great God, to celebrate the redemption they have in him.

You can imagine the anticipation during the journey as they drew nearer to Jerusalem and the temple: they were on their way to the central hub of the true religion, to the place God had given to his people so that they could fulfill their purpose to worship God. Soon they would be among the company of God’s people, doing what they were made to do; joyfully worshipping God their redeemer.

Apply: Have you ever experienced that type of anticipation? Have you ever gotten into the car on Sunday morning and just smiled, knowing that you were on your way to do what you were made to do? That you were on your way to join God’s people and joyfully worship your redeemer together? That you were going to get just a little slice of heaven, a sneak peek of glory?

Have you ever been seriously disappointed when you arrived at the building, and the church you went to never made mention of the good news that God has redeemed his people from their sin? Did you ever show up to a place that you expected to be all about the joyful worship of our awesome God, but it seemed like they were about everything other than that?

As Jesus drew near to the temple with his disciples, he was about to walk in to a massive disappointment.

Worship often becomes secondary or worse as we pursue our real desires

John 2:14 ESV

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

When Jesus enters the outer courts of the temple, he should have been met by gentile proselytes praying to God while maybe even some pagans observing the events of Passover; that was what God intended to be happening there.

But solemn prayer is far from what they beheld as they entered the outer courts; rather they were met with all the commotion and bustle of a marketplace. Oxen were lowing, sheep were braying, pigeons were flapping their wings and cooing. People are shouting over all the noise as they make their transactions, purchase the animals that would shortly become their offerings to God, convert their local currencies into the proper forms of payment.

What Jesus beheld horrified him: God’s people had transformed what was set apart to be used for the pure worship of God into a business opportunity. Worse, they had done it in such a way that made proper worship completely impossible for anyone who actually sought to worship God on Passover.

No longer was the temple set apart for worshipping God their redeemer, but their religious practices just became a good opportunity to chase after what their hearts really wanted.

This is why Jesus was flipping tables and using a whip to drive the people and animals our of the court of the gentiles. This was bigger than a mere disagreement on preferences. The temple was God’s gift to humanity, that they might live purposeful lives as they worshiped their great God. And, like most other gifts God gives to man, the people had wrecked it.

Illustrate: Imagine churches on Christmas, when you get all kinds of people you haven’t seen in forever showing up to worship on a special occasion. Imagine there were people who really wanted to come and celebrate the birth of the Christ on that day, but when they got there they found that that day was Santa themed. You could track Santa,

Apply: There are plenty of ways in which true and proper worship gets lost in our lives today, even if we lead very religious lives. This passage serves as a warning to us; to consider what God has called us to do and be, and to examine ourselves to make sure we have not strayed from that.

In one sense, it isn’t hard to see how many churches have fallen into this trap. In many cases, church has become more about entertainment and comfort, or convenience. You can walk into churches and rather than be met with joyful reverence of God, you’re met with the atmosphere of a bustling coffee shop. In the sanctuary, you’re met with heavy clouds of fog and lightshows, endless screens immersing you in an emotional concert experience.

But that isn’t the only way we become guilty of this type of thing. There is something else at play in provoking the anger of Jesus as he observes what is going on in the temple. Part of the tragedy of what has happened in the temple is that they have completely disregarded their responsibility to the gentile converts and those who would be seeking God in the temple. Their worship was meant to include the gentiles, but their own internal pursuits of convenience, profit, and functionality effectively made that impossible. They had become so focused on themselves that their worship had completely failed to make provisions for the gentile worshipers as God had commanded.

So also we must be careful as the church that we don’t become so turned in on ourselves, our conveniences, our aims, our own growth, that we fail to be a place that welcomes outsiders and seekers.

As we consider the reality that our own worship is often plagued by distractions, dual allegiances, and sinful desires, let us also take the time to appreciate the beauty of Jesus in this passage as the true worshiper of God.

Christ is the true worshiper of God

Christ cared deeply about the pure worship of God the Father

John 2:16–17 ESV

And he told those who sold the 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.”

State: Isn’t it magnificent to see someone who zealously protected and advocated for the pure worship of God, especially in the midst of a people whose worship had become so tainted?

This passage of Scripture normally comes as a surprise to people who read it for the first time; this is probably not the portrait of Jesus that they had in their minds. They think of Jesus more as the meek and humble servant, but this passage expands our understanding of who Jesus is. It’s true that Jesus is gentle and lowly in heart and that he made himself a servant of all; but he is more than that. Jesus is not, as some would come to expect, some kind of pacifist or pushover who is content to just let other people do whatever makes them happy. When Jesus saw the temple of God be profaned and misused, he exhibited a righteous anger and zeal for true and proper worship.

In Jesus we see the true Worshiper of God perfectly fulfilling the purpose of humanity. Remember; we were made for joyful worship. Where we have failed to live lives that are marked by pure, unadulterated, joyful worship, we see Jesus doing exactly what humans were meant to do, while correcting the shortcomings in us.

Both in this specific passage and in his life more broadly, we see in Jesus the worshiper that God intended each of us to be.

As a child, he remained in the temple after his parents were already headed home and told them, “you should have known that I was in my Father’s house.”

In his adult life and ministry, he was consistently in the synagogue praying and teaching the word of God.

In his dealings with others, he was always preaching the good news about who he was and what he came to do.

In his dealings with his disciples, he was always teaching them about himself and teaching them how to pray and rightly discern the word of truth. In fact, he was known to often pray through the night.

For Jesus, his life was centered on the pure and proper worship of God the Father

Illustrate:

Apply: What does this mean for us? We have to see the heart of Jesus in this passage so that we can better understand him and better seek to follow him.

First of all, we have to acknowledge that Jesus cared deeply about worship. We have to get out of our minds the possibility that someone can “love Jesus but hate church.” Jesus found himself as the purest worshiper humanity has ever seen, and even though he found himself in a very broken community of worshipers, he continued to commit himself to it and to its purity.

Its true enough that the church is a broken place in many ways. We often make mistakes, sin against one another, and hurt people. We should hate that this is true, but we can’t ignore it. Nobody understood “church hurt” better than Jesus. And yet, Jesus was still so committed to that broken church that he literally died for us. We must stop with the mindset that we can follow Jesus without being committed to worshiping God amongst the rest of his body.

And though we ought to try and recenter our commitments around truer, purer worship, I am afraid we will still find our efforts woefully inadequate. But there is good news here in what Jesus says.

In all of this, Jesus serves as a shining example of what our lives should look like; but that really isn’t the main point of what he’s doing. He didn’t come primarily to give us an example for how to live; he came to do what we couldn’t and wouldn’t and to redeem our tainted worship. How would he do this? By replacing the temple that they stood in with the temple of his own body.

Christ has become our temple

John 2:18–21 ESV

So the Jews said to him, “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 then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

Christ foretells that the worst profaning of the temple is yet to come. As badly as God’s people treated Herod’s temple in the time of Jesus, we know what they will ultimately do with the fulfilment of the temple, Jesus’ body.

But although they would desecrate the temple of Jesus’ body, Jesus stayed true to his word and raised it up again after three days.

It was then that the enigmatic saying of Jesus finally made sense to his disciples and they realized that the temple that stood in Jerusalem had been replaced with a truer, better temple.

John 2:22 ESV

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.

The fact that Jesus has fulfilled the purpose of the temple has monumental consequences for your life, perhaps in ways you haven’t yet considered. I want to focus quickly on just two ways that Jesus has fulfilled the temple’s purpose and why it matters for your purpose in life.

The temple was 1) the place where the people could meet with God, 2) The place where sacrifices could be made to atone for the sins of the people. In theory the temple was everything the people of God needed to worship God, but they failed to use it properly.

Jesus fulfills the purpose of the temple by become all of that for us

Jesus has redeemed our worship by being the true worshiper and by becoming the fulfillment of the temple of God on our behalf

Jesus fulfills the temple by becoming: God with us

The temple has always been the sign of God’s presence with his people. In the Old Testament we read about the Tabernacle and the Temple, which God’s Spirit filled and where God’s people could go to meet with God and worship.

In the book of John, we read about the Word of God, who took on flesh and “dwelt” among us, but another word for saying that is that he “tabernacled” among us.

In Jesus, we come to meet God and worship him in Spirit and in Truth. There is no special building where this happens, no special part of the world, no special time of day, but when the people of God desire to worship God, they meet him in the person of Jesus Christ.

Just look at this congregation:

those of you that have been here long enough remember when you worshiped in Pastor Steve’s house, and it was beautiful not just because it was in a house but because you met Jesus in worship there.

Now we have been worshiping in this school, and it has been beautiful for the time that was alotted because we met Jesus for worship here.

Soon we will be in our new building and it will be beautiful, not because of some awesome architecture, but because we will meet Jesus in worship there.

As we come to Jesus in worship, we encounter God Himself.

RC Sproul said, “By raising Christ from the grave, God established His church. Christ is the temple, and all men are commanded to come to Him in order to worship and serve the one true God.”

Jesus fulfills the temple by becoming: The true mercy seat

In the innermost place of the temple we would also find what is called the Mercy Seat, and this was a critical part of the worship of God.

When the high priest made sacrifices for the people of God on the day of Atonement, he would take the blood of the animals and sprinkle it on the Mercy Seat. This was commanded by God, for if the high priest offered an acceptable sacrifice on the mercy seat, God would forgive the sins of the people.

Jesus also fulfills this purpose perfectly and beautifully by becoming a sacrifice for us.

In fact, Jesus is hinting at this very reality as he talked to the Jews in the temple. When he refers to them tearing down the temple, he is referring to when Jesus will be offered up as a sacrifice for God’s people.

The book of Hebrews goes into great detail about this and it is truly beutiful. While the priests stood at service and offered sacrifices for the sins of Gods people continually year after year, Jesus offered a sacrifice to end all sacrifices. In the sacrifice of Jesus, the atoning purpose of the temple was finally and fully fulfilled. We have been made clean once and for all, and so as we approach Jesus in worship we will see that we our sprinkled clean from the guilt of our sin.

There are more aspects we could discuss in greater detail, but these are a few examples that help us to see how vital it is that Jesus has fulfilled the purpose of the temple perfectly.

As we come to Jesus in faith, he redeems our inadequate worship. That is why it is only with this gospel message in mind that the author to the Hebrews says,

Hebrews 12:28 ESV

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe,

Through all of this we can see that Jesus has done a truly amazing thing. Though we failed to live out our purpose of joyful worship, Jesus did it perfectly. More than that, Jesus has restored us to living purposeful lives as he has redeemed our worship. That means that we can all commit ourselves to lives of worshiping God and know that even when we fall short, the blood of Jesus has redeemed us and caused us to offer acceptable worship to God. All praise and glory be to our magnificent savior, Jesus Christ.