2025 Jesus Knows How to Clean House

Luke 19:41-48

Most men in this room run everything at the house. “ I run my house...” You run the house and everything in it. You run the washing machine, the dryer, the weed eater and the lawn mower… You run it all!

You know how to clean house…

Daddy knew how to clean house another way.

When daddy came home and the house was chaotic… when us boys fighting and carrying on like we did… destroying things and making a mess of the house...

Daddy turned that day into D-Day, took off his weapon of choice: Old leather belt… And he cleaned house in this way...

Our Heavenly Father and our Heavenly Jesus knows how to clean a house too.

Jesus is walking on towards “God’s House...” The temple of God, and HE stops to weep over Jerusalem. He looks at the city and weeps over it.

It is as if the Prophet Jeremiah is coming out here: “My eyes cause me grief at the fate of all my daughters of my city...”

Now listen men: Jesus is a man’s man… the perfect man… The Son of God… and He weeps. He has perfect and healthy emotions in His humanity. We are all emotional people, but we may all get emotional over different things: Raining on fishing day, Georgia Bull Dogs losing, bad golf game, watching Old Yeller…

But what about over souls, over people who are lost, those who are hurting and miserable, and they are all just messed up???

We may or may not weep over the godliest things… But Jesus did… And this is good.

He is weeping at what will happen. He is weeping, thinking of the day when Jerusalem will be surrounded, all the people inside will be destroyed and every stone will be removed.

There is going to be a cleansing that will come to this city.

Going back to Matthew 23 and 24 - Jesus says, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house will be left to you desolate!”

And Jesus says, “Not one stone here will be left upon another...” Not one stone of these walls, of this temple will be left standing… It will all be destroyed.

Jesus tells the people, that unless they repent… they will all perish...

And did the people of Jerusalem repent as a whole? No. Does the nation repent as a whole? No. And the Lord brought judgement on them all...

The Lord is going to come in and clean house...

Why? Verse 44 - Because they did not recognize the time of Jesus’ visitation. They refused, rejected, and will kill their own Messiah. They will kill the Prince of Peace and declare war with God.

In Matthew 24:16 - Jesus will tell the Christians how to escape this time. When you see these signs, “those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.”

And in 70 AD… this happened.

The Roman armies would surround Jerusalem… for some reason they will pause long enough for those who were ready, to escape to the mountains… The Christians tore out of the city and survived… Everyone else in the city died or were enslaved.

Josephus, the Jewish historian, wrote that 1.1 million people were killed. They were starved to the point of cannibalism. The city was hammered with giant stones and then burned. All of those big, beautiful stones that the people loved… were removed.

Let’s put a pin in that and move on down to the temple cleaning...

Verse 45 - Jesus entered into the temple and began to drive out those who were selling… What was going on here? Worship has been corrupted. The holy temple has now become a religious market. It was a money making racket.

It was lawful to sell for sacrifices… but the priests and those involved were selling for outrageous prices. This was not right. This was not of God. These folks were taking the worship of God, the house of God… And they were acting as if they owned it.

Religious folks can do this from time to time. They can take the things of God, the worship of God, the house of God… and begin to think that it is all about them and their family… That it is all about money… That it is about making them happy...

What is the truth?

This is God’s house. This is about God’s worship. This is about making God happy.

And you have turned this into something else...

This is not just isolated to Jesus’ day, is it? No.

People still do this to this very day. Church people still try to do this to this very day.

And when this happens… It is no longer a house of prayer, a house of worship, a house of praise… it is not the house of God...

It is a house of merchandise… it is a den of thieves… A place where people take from God, to receive for themselves… You rob from God to give to yourself.

You come to be served and not to serve. You come only to get and to never give.

That is how many church goers treat services. And it is wrong.

This temple is chaotic. This house is a mess. This is not how God has ordered worship… And God really cares about obedience and worship that is done in Spirit and in Truth...

And on that day… Jesus cleaned house.

Was this the first time? No, John 2:13, very early on in His ministry… Jesus came to the temple and saw the same thing going on and He made a whip of several cords and drove the people out of the temple who were corrupting worship.

Zeal for His Father’s house consumed Him.

And that zeal should be in all of God’s people.

All Christians should have this zeal, to worship, and to protect worship, to protect the holy things of God. This matters to Jesus. Our worship, our hearts, our attitudes matter to Jesus. The way we conduct ourselves in worship matters to Jesus.

The way we sing our songs to Him matters. The way we pray and praise matters. It all matters to Jesus.

We are to look to the Bible to see what pleases God. Can we find our practices in the Bible?

Do our songs reflect the Bible’s message? Are they more about man than God? Are our songs more about getting something for us? Are we singing self-centered songs instead of God/Christ centered songs?

It matters to God. Does it matter to you? Does it matter to me? Does it matter to us?

And some will say, “Yeah, don’t sell stuff in church… Yeah, don’t let the homosexual lead worship… Ok, amen… and … Yeah, and don’t get mad when we don’t sing the songs you like to sing, when we don’t take your song request… Don’t get up and leave during a worship service because a quartet is singing or when young people are singing...

If it is God honoring, God pleasing, Christ centered… What is the problem?

Jesus cares about your heart, your attitude, and your worship.

We will guard that which is holy… which is what we do here: Holy stuff.

Worship leaders must be holy. Our songs, sermons, Sunday school lessons, fellowship, all under Christ... must be holy. Everything we do here must be holy… And then it will be pleasing to the Lord as we do service with holy love.

How dare we take the holy things of God and make it about ourselves?! How dare we do it our own way?! Remember what happened to Aaron’s sons: Nadab and Abihu - They tried to do worship their way… and the Lord cleaned house… by removing them from the face of the earth.

And this is what is going to happen to Jerusalem...

God is going to cleanse house...

Jesus has come to His own and His own rejected Him. They have rejected God. They are not worshipping God and they are trampling the Blood of Christ under their feet.

God is going to remove them from the face of the earth.

Some have traced this to Leviticus 14:33-57 - The Cleansing of the Diseased House - The priest will hear of the diseased house, have the house emptied. He will come back a second time and inspect the home, and if it is still diseased… He will have the house destroyed and every stone removed from the city...

Jesus came to the house once… He came to the house twice… And the third time, in 70 AD, He removed every stone and totally destroyed the house.

Now, when it comes to the church today. The local church? Will Jesus do the same?

Revelation 2 - To the church in Ephesus - Repent, or I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand… the lampstand is the church. He continues on with the other churches… Repent or I am coming to you… and to paraphrase I am going to cleanse house in some way… If you don’t stop doing this… I am going to do this...

Jesus really cares.

Jesus cares about His Name. He cares about what we do as His representatives. He cares how we are operating as His redeemed people. He cares. He is passionate about this.

And we should be as well.

And maybe, we do not want to pray… “Lord clean this house up…” Because we just read some pretty terrifying things about how Jesus cleanses places.

We don’t want the whip. We don not want Jesus to take anyone out.

So… What is our prayer?

My body in a house for God. My home is a house for God. My church house is a house for God. I need it to be clean and orderly. I need it to please the Lord. It is His, and not mine. The Lord is watching, looking and waiting… Will He give me more time?

I do not know...

For the unbeliever: “I have not recognized the day of Jesus’ coming. I have not worshipped Him or lived for Him. I am a sinner in need of a Savior and I need the heart of a worshipper. Lord save me and give me the heart of a worshipper.”

For the believer: I am made for worship. I am saved. But I have not been worshipping as I should. I have turned worship into something else and I have made the Lord’s business, the Lord’s house, the Lord’s day… about me and my desires...

Lord, bring me back to the heart of worship, when it is all about you.

Lord as a local church body… as a local church house… Help us to keep this house clean. Help us to reflect holiness in all that we do. Help us to operate in this house in a way that is always pleasing to the Father and the Son. To worship, pray, praise, sing, minister, serve, love… Your way, and not my way.

Lord help us.

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