John 2:12-25 - The Zealous Pursuit of Pure Worship

Pray

Father, thank you for the opportunity to preach your Word.

I pray that you would speak through me now and use the proclamation of your Word to change us all into the likeness of your Son in the power of your Spirit.

Please show us what to change in our thinking and in our actions, and give us the desire and power to change by beholding the glories of Christ.

It’s in his name we pray. Amen.

Intro

My niece is 3½ years old, and her wild curls are almost as strong-willed as she is.

Her favorite color is orange, and one time she was at our house playing with some colored foam blocks.

She found all the orange blocks and put them in a pile in front of her.

Like a good uncle, I decided to mess with her… just a bit.

I took a blue block and put it right on top of her pile of orange blocks.

Whoo! You should have seen the look she gave me…

I had done the unthinkable.

I messed up her little orange sanctuary.

I tainted it with the wrong color.

So, she took that blue block and threw it across the room.

Don’t worry, nothing broke… they were foam blocks remember.

Well, as soon as she threw it I took another blue block and put it right where the other one used to be.

She gave me that same look and threw that block as well.

This kept going until there were no more blue blocks.

My niece had created something that she wanted to keep pure, and she made sure that it stayed pure.

And she had the authority to do it because she was the one who made that little pile of orange blocks.

She was zealous for her pile of blocks to remain purely orange.

Just like my niece showed a zeal for the purity of her pile of orange blocks, Jesus shows a zeal for the purity of worship in John 2:12-25.

Because our worship of God tends to be tainted by other things, Jesus zealously pursues pure worship in our hearts just like he did in the temple.

In our passage we are going to see three aspects of Jesus’ zealous pursuit of pure worship.

Let’s read John 2:12-25 and then I want to highlight Jesus’ cleansing zeal, his authoritative zeal, and his omniscient zeal.

John 2:12–25 ESV

After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days. The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 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 of the money-changers and overturned their tables. 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.” 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. 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. Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

So, the first aspect of the zealous pursuit of pure worship is…

Jesus’ Cleansing Zeal (12-17)

We start out with a transition through Capernaum (12)

Jesus and his family and his disciples all head from the wedding in Cana down to Capernaum.

Jesus had probably moved to Capernaum after growing up in Nazareth.

And this is where he had his base of operations for his ministry in Galilee.

Now, Capernaum was “down” in elevation by the edge of the sea of Galilee compared to the higher elevation of Cana where he had just turned the water into wine in the previous passage.

And a few days later Jesus went “up” in elevation to spend Passover in Jerusalem (13)

Jesus and his parents went to Jerusalem for every Passover.

Luke 2:41 “Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.”

They probably brought Jesus with them every year.

And Jesus probably continued the tradition into adulthood.

But this time Jesus found something at the temple that had not been there at any of the previous Passovers.

This time the temple was being misused (14)

The court of the Gentiles was overrun with vendors, animals, and money changers.

Now, these are all legitimate services for Passover.

There’s nothing wrong with animals, vendors, and money changers in and of themselves.

The problem was that these legitimate services were being done in the wrong place.

And being done in that wrong place effectively excluded a large group of people from worshipping in the temple.

Can you imagine trying to come to church for the worship service,

and the only place you could come to worship was the foyer,

but there was an active animal auction for missions going on there during the service…

What are you probably going to do?

I’d probably go home or go find another church.

But those who were restricted to only worship in the court of the Gentiles… they were stuck.

There was nothing they could do, so Jesus has a cleansing response (15)

Jesus removes these legitimate services from their illegitimate place.

He makes a whip out of the cords that were laying all over the ground from leading the animals around.

Then he drives them all out of the temple and dumps the coins on the ground and overturns the tables!

Do you think Jesus was angry?

It sure looks like he was angry.

But there’s actually nothing in these verses indicating that Jesus acted in anger.

We infuse this passage with that idea because these are the actions we would expect of someone who is angry.

We read that Jesus made a whip to drive them out of the temple…

and we assume that he struck both man and beast violently with it.

We read that Jesus poured out the coins and overturned the tables…

and we assume that the coins went flying across the temple grounds,

and the tables were thrown and splintered in the wrath of the Son of God.

But these are assumptions not the words of Scripture.

Jesus was forceful, but he wasn’t necessarily violent.

In fact, the animals that Jesus drove out were herd animals.

A whip was a perfectly reasonable and necessary tool for the removal of those animals…

and they would have stayed together after being herded out of the temple grounds, so their owners would not have lost any of their livestock.

And the coins were only poured out to show his displeasure, not scattered in wrath.

And in verse 16 Jesus tells the pigeon vendors to take the birds away instead of letting them loose to scatter.

Jesus did not cause chaos, he brought order.

And he did not cause a loss of property, only a relocation.

But why did Jesus do this?

What was it about this situation that caused him to take such seemingly extreme action?

We see the reason for Jesus’ actions in verse 16.

After he tells the pigeon vendors to take the pigeons away, he explains the main problem that compelled him to act as he did.

He says, “do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.”

They had done that very thing.

They had turned God’s house, the temple, into a marketplace rather than a place of worship.

They had tainted pure worship of God with other things that were intended to aid in worshipping God.

These things that were intended to help people worship God were preventing them from worshipping him purely because they were in the wrong place.

Then John identifies a further reason for Jesus’ response.

In verse 17 he records that the disciples remember a prophecy.

His disciples remembered Psalm 69:9 “For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.”

Jesus was zealous for the house of the Lord just like Psalm 69 prophesied he would be.

That’s why he responded like this when the house of the Lord was illegitimately repurposed.

But zealous doesn’t mean angry.

Zealous means eager or enthusiastic.

Jesus was eager and enthusiastic for the Lord’s house so that people could worship the Lord.

He was so enthusiastic that he would later suffer death on the cross so that true worshippers could worship in Spirit and truth in their hearts.

I don’t think it’s too much of a leap to see our hearts as little temples that need to be cleansed.

Jesus is zealous for your heart just like he was zealous for the Temple.

What legitimate things might be taking an illegitimate place in your heart?

What might be tainting pure worship of the Lord rather than properly serving that end?

Your Job or Your Family

Entertainment or School

Money or Politics

or even Theology or Ministries!

All of these have the potential to hinder pure worship of God in our hearts.

Some of them might just need to go, but most just need to be in the proper place in your heart.

They all have the potential to hinder worship, but really, they’re all occasions for worship because all of life ought to be worship.

Too often, though, we don’t worship God in these aspects of life because they’re in the wrong place in our heart.

Jesus is eager, enthusiastic, zealous to cleanse your heart and make it fit for pure worship in all aspects of life if you will let him.

Ask him to identify anything that needs to change, and the Holy Spirit will let you know.

Then all you have to do is obey.

Jesus pursued pure worship through his cleansing zeal.

But the Jews, the religious leaders… they didn’t like it when their authority was challenged.

So, Jesus is confronted about his authority to do these things.

Now we come to the second aspect of the zealous pursuit of pure worship, let’s look at…

Jesus’ Authoritative Zeal (18-22)

The Jews demand a sign to authorize Jesus’ actions in verse 18.

These signs are proof of divine authority.

Kind of like the miracles from the Old Testament that would accompany God’s prophets to prove that they were speaking on God’s behalf.

The assumption here is that the only one who had the authority to challenge the religious leaders would be God himself.

So, they demand a sign to prove his divine authority assuming that this Jesus guy would crumble under their scrutiny.

But Jesus doesn’t crumble because he really does have that authority.

Jesus proves his authority by figuratively referring to his future resurrection in verse 19.

He says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

Now, when Jesus says, “Destroy this temple,” he says it as a command, a challenge, almost a dare.

At first glance, Jesus challenges these religious leaders to destroy something that was very dear to them, so that he could prove his authority by restoring it to them in a very short amount of time.

And that’s exactly how they took his claim.

They think he is speaking literally as their response in verse 20 shows.

They think Jesus is saying, “Destroy this temple building that’s taken so many years to build, and I’ll build it back up in only three days.”

Even that literalistic understanding of Jesus’ statement would be a miraculous claim.

After Solomon’s magnificent temple was destroyed by Babylon, the Jews were eventually allowed to return to rebuild it under the supervision of a guy named Zerubbabel.

You can read about that in the books of Ezra and Haggai.

That temple took about 20 years to build, but it was small and not nearly as glorious as Solomon’s temple.

Then, when Herod the Great was in charge, he started a temple renovation project to try and make it just as glorious as Solomon’s temple, or even more so.

And that project had been going on for forty-six years, and it still wasn’t completed.

And now Jesus shows up and says that if they were to destroy all that hard work, he would rebuild it in only three days.

That’s an amazing claim…

But we know that that’s not what Jesus was talking about.

John gives us the answer to Jesus’ figurative language in verse 21.

Jesus was talking about his body, not the actual temple building.

It’s significant that Jesus uses a different word for “temple” than John had used in the narrative up to this point.

The previous word that John used refers broadly to the temple grounds including the court of the Gentiles where this incident happened.

But the word Jesus used refers very specifically to the place where God’s presence resides.

God’s presence resides in Jesus’ body because… he’s God.

Jesus’ challenge to these religious leader was effectively, “Destroy my body, God’s body, and in three days I will prove my deity by rising from the dead.”

They were looking for a miraculous sign to prove that Jesus had God’s authority.

And Jesus gave them a challenge that they thought was silly.

I mean… rapid temple construction had never been used to authenticate a prophet before.

But Jesus’ real claim was more divinely authenticating than they realized.

His real claim was that he had authority… over death itself. (pause)

John explains in verse 22 that later on the disciples would remember Jesus’ prophetic words here.

Turn over to Acts 2:22-24 briefly, so we can see how Peter remembered and believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken… Acts 2:22-24.

Now, this is after the Holy Spirit is poured out on the believers at Pentecost, and Peter says to the crowd starting in verse 22 of Acts chapter 2…

Acts 2:22–24 ““Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.”

Peter remembered Jesus’ words and believed.

He remembered that Jesus performed many signs to prove his deity.

He remembered Jesus explaining God’s plan to destroy his body on the cross through the actions that the Jews were responsible for.

And he remembered Jesus’ claim from our passage that he could not be held by death because he has authority even over death.

Jesus has the highest authority… there is no higher authority because he is God.

He created everything… he created you.

He has the authority to cleanse the temple… and he has the authority to cleanse your heart.

So, when Jesus through the Holy Spirit convicts you about something in your heart that needs to be removed or put in the proper place…

How should you respond to him?

How should you respond to Jesus’ authority over your heart?

Submit to his authority to reorder your heart for pure worship because he has the highest authority.

Remember who he is and what he’s done, and submit to his authority over your heart.

Jesus pursued pure worship in his cleansing zeal, and then he showed that he has the authority for that cleansing zeal because he is God proved by his resurrection, his authority over death itself.

Jesus’ zeal for your heart drove him to die on the cross on your behalf, then rise from the dead three days later proving that he has the authority to cleanse the temple of your heart and return it to its intended use, worshipping God.

We saw Jesus’ cleansing zeal and his authoritative zeal, now for the third aspect of the zealous pursuit of pure worship, let’s look at…

Jesus’ Omniscient Zeal (23-25)

People believed in Jesus because of the signs he was doing… we see that in verse 23.

We don’t get to know exactly what those signs were.

This is what John referred to later in chapter 20 verses 30 and 31.

John 20:30–31 “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

John included specific signs in his gospel account so that we, the readers, would believe that Jesus is the Christ and have life in his name.

And many people did believe that Jesus is the Christ when they saw the signs he was doing in Jerusalem that Passover.

In chapter 3 Jesus will explain to a Pharisee named Nicodemus exactly how belief in him results in new life…

But he didn’t explain this to the public…

In verse 24 we see that Jesus largely kept his true purpose hidden like he did at the wedding in the previous passage.

It says that he did not entrust himself to the people who believed in him because he knew all people.

And then John comments on Jesus’ omniscience in verse 25…

He knows what’s in everyone’s heart!

This is one of the most amazing parts about the gospel.

Jesus went to the cross fully knowing the sinful rebellion in all of our hearts.

The prophet Jeremiah wrote in Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

We can’t even understand our own heart let alone anyone else’s heart…

But Jesus understands it.

And instead of casting us aside or treating us as enemies, he died for us and gave us the best gift in the entire world… himself.

So that we could live with him forever.

Jesus knows what’s in your heart, and he is zealous that it be devoted to worshipping God not worshipping yourself or the things of this world.

If you haven’t already put your faith Jesus, then I beg you to do so right now.

Come to him in faith and he will cleanse your heart just like he cleansed the Temple and just like he continues to cleanse the hearts of everyone who put their faith in him.

You don’t have to clean up your heart first.

In fact, you can’t really do that without him.

All you have to do is believe that he is the Christ and submit to his authority to cleanse your heart.

He knows your heart, and he loves you anyway.

Because his love for you is not based on your performance, your self-righteousness, or your effort to clean up your own heart.

He fully knows the sinfulness in all of our hearts…

but he offers us forgiveness and mercy instead of the just penalty we deserve…

because he loves us, and he already paid the penalty for us.

How does knowing that Jesus already knows your heart help you to submit to his authority to cleanse it?

Too often when we know that we have messed up we want to hide it in shame or to avoid the consequences.

We have the mentality, “Oh no! I messed up… I hope my dad doesn’t find out!”

But God already knows… Jesus knows your heart, and he loves you anyway.

If you put your faith in Jesus, then you don’t have to be ashamed before God about your sin because he looks at you and sees the righteousness of Christ.

And you don’t have to worry about the eternal consequences of your sin because Jesus already paid that penalty on the cross in your place.

So, in Christ we can have a very different mentality about our sin.

Now we can say, “Oh no! I messed up… but Jesus already knows, and he still loves me!”

Now in stead of running away in our sin we run to Jesus to confess our sin and find forgiveness and cleansing as 1 John 1:9 promises…

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Conclusion

Jesus is zealous for pure worship in our hearts just like he was zealous for pure worship in the temple.

He is eager to cleanse your heart and put worship back in its proper place in your heart.

So, ask Jesus to reveal any areas in your heart that need cleansing.

He has the authority to cleanse your heart because he made you and he’s the one who paid the penalty for your sin by dying in your place on the cross, and then rising from the dead proving his authority even over death itself.

So, when he reveals those areas that need to be cleansed submit to his authority and obey.

And Jesus knows what’s in your heart, that’s why he went to the cross in the first place, to save you from sin and death because he loves you.

So, run to him for cleansing rather than away from him in shame.

Pray

Father, thank you for showing us the glory of your Son in your Word.

I pray that we would all look to Christ and desire our hearts to be cleansed and reordered to pure worship of you.

Lord, all of us have things in our hearts that are not in the right place.

I pray that you would reveal to us what those things are and whether they need to be removed or just reordered.

And as those things are revealed, I pray that you would remind us of your authority so that we will not resist your cleansing.

You have the highest authority, and we need to remember that so that we don’t end up resisting you.

And Lord, we know that those areas that need to be cleansed in our hearts are sin.

And I pray that when we realize those areas of sin that need to be cleansed, that we would not run away from you in shame.

I pray that you would help us remember that you already know our hearts and you love us anyway.

Father, help us remember that so that we can run to you and confess our sin and find forgiveness in your Son because he already paid the price for it.

It’s in his glorious name we pray all of this. Amen.

Communion

Well, we are going to celebrate communion now.

And if you are visiting with us and you are a baptized believer in good standing with your home church, then you are welcome to join us.

Often, we read a portion of 1 Corinthians 11 before celebrating communion because Paul so clearly explains the nature of this celebration.

As the men pass out the elements I’m going to read that whole passage, 1 Corinthians 11:17-34.

And I’m going to talk a bit about the context of that passage and why Paul felt the need to explain communion to the church at Corinth, and I want to consider how we ought to approach the communion table as well.

1 Corinthians 11:17–34 ESV

But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another— if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home—so that when you come together it will not be for judgment. About the other things I will give directions when I come.

The church at Corinth had a lot of problems, but we can thank God for those problems because Paul had to address them, and we get to learn from them and avoid those mistakes.

One of their problems was a lack of compassion for each other.

There were divisions, factions, cliques, where each group considered themselves better than the others for different reasons.

Obviously, there’s a natural division between true believers and false converts, but there ought to be no further division than that.

And one of the ways these factions showed a lack of compassion for each other was in the communion celebration.

That’s why Paul explained it here.

In verse 21 he says that each one went ahead with his own meal, one going hungry while another gorges himself.

This celebration is supposed to unite us as one body under Christ, the head.

But how can there be unity when we’re only looking out for our own interests and ignoring the needs of others?!

And this celebration is about Jesus and what he did on the cross… it’s not about you and its not about food.

We don’t do this as often as we eat and drink to sate our physical appetite… we do it look to Christ to sate our spiritual appetite.

And we do that by remembering who Jesus is and what he’s done on the cross.

We do this in remembrance of him, proclaiming his death until he comes!

So, eating the bread and drinking the cup in an unworthy manner, then, is doing it in an unloving way and ignoring the reminder of Jesus’ sacrifice.

That’s what we should be examining ourselves about before we come to the table.

Too often I have heard instructions before communion to examine your heart for any unconfessed sin.

But, rather than examining our heart for unconfessed sin, we should be examining our actions and our understanding of the gospel.

Make sure your actions in taking communion are loving toward each other,

and make sure your mindset in taking communion is remembering the Lord’s death until he comes.

If you find yourself actively not loving a brother or sister in Christ by taking communion, then let it pass.

If the way you are taking communion is unloving, then don’t.

But if you find yourself convicted of a sin in your life, then remember the gospel, repent, and take communion!

It only takes a moment to confess your sin to God.

Just tell him your sin and that you don’t want to sin anymore!

You should be doing that all the time, not just before you take communion.

Confess and rejoice that your sin is forgiven because Jesus paid for it already!

Celebrate because you don’t have to remain in your sin!

Pray

Father, thank you for this reminder of your sacrifice.

You gave us your best, you gave us your Son.

You sent him to the cross to die in our place… to take your wrath so that we could experience your love instead.

We remember his death and we remember his resurrection, and we look forward to his return in glory.

We thank you and praise you in Jesus’ name. Amen.