Zeal for His House
John • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 4 viewsthis covers the cleaning of the temple and nicodemus
Notes
Transcript
If you have your Bibles, we will begin today
When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
We begin today with one of the more famous scenes in the Gospels. I want to approach in perhaps a different manner than it may have been explained before. You will see what I mean when we get to those verses but first we start with Jesus going to Jerusalem, as with the custom the Jew would travel to Jersualem to celebrate the Passover.
This is important and will help you realize why Jesus does what He did and how we really have to do what we can to not forget what God has done for us. Passover was God’s grace delivering them from slavery in Egypt.
For the Israelites, the Passover represented God’s faithfulness in bringing them out of Egypt and protecting them from destruction.3 The festival marked one of the most significant divine interventions in their history—when God destroyed Egypt’s firstborn but spared Israelite homes marked with blood on the doorposts.1 Beyond its historical commemoration, the festival contains symbolism that points ultimately to Jesus, in whom the deeper significance is fulfilled.4
Jesus is the Passover Lamb sacrificed for our redemption and our salvation is linked directly to His blood. Passover in Exodus was a foreshadowing. In Exodus the Lord freed them from physically slavery. In Jesus we are freed from spiritually slavery to sin. When we take communion as a church the wine and unleavened bread are elements from the Passover tradition.
It is one of the most significant divine Interventions in history. and here is what Jesus finds.
In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!”
Map of Temple
We see here the layout of the temple. All around these large courts people had turned a place of worship into a place of commerce. You see Jesus had a righteous anger because people had corrupted the Worship of the Lord.
The Bible Knowledge Commentary 2:13–14
the pilgrim traffic became a major source of income for the city. With money to be made, worship easily became corrupted. The money changers were another convenience for the pilgrims. Temple dues had to be paid in the acceptable Tyrian coinage, and a high percentage was charged for changing coins.
This is happening during Passover, a time when they should have been giving thanks to the Lord for their deliverance from slavery. And instead they had tarnished that worship with greed.
“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.
But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness,
We see right here in Malachi, when we studied this. Then the Lord you are seeking will come to His temple. Jesus came to His Father’s temple to cleanse it. It bring them back to the worship they were supposed to have. Jesus had to show them that this was leading people astray and it was causing people to stumble and more importantly than anything they had corrupted their own worship of the Lord.
His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
His disciples remembered Psalm 69:9
for zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.
Zeal for His house, Zeal for Worship, Zeal for following the Lord Jesus Christ. We have to wrestle with this, just as we did with the faith of John The Baptist. You see throughout history the Lord has brought what what we call reformation. In the Biblical record it was new covenants, prophets, and ultimately Jesus Himself. In the gentile age, a reformation has had to happen over and over, not all of them are as big as Martin Luther, but the church will lose it’s way. We have to bring it back to the Lord, because this is His House. Our Father’s house.
So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
Jesus freed us from slavery, and we became children of God and co-heirs with Jesus. They corrupted the temple with commerce and Jesus flipped the tables. It was His Father’s house not theirs. This is not our house but the Lord’s house. We have to have the same zeal for the Father. Jesus is not afraid to flip tables if they need to be flipped. This is what we mean when we talk about standing on Biblical beliefs. Jesus stood up while everyone else watched them turn the temple into a market place. It was the Passover, there were so many people there that could have done something and that is not to mention the years that this had been going on and yet they didn’t. It took Jesus. You are co-heirs with Jesus, do not believe what the enemy says, that someone else better or stronger than you is going to stand. The Lord goes forth and there is always victory. We stand because Jesus stood.
The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
When Jesus clears all of this out, and this is the very sad part. They do not realize the error of their ways, they are upset with Jesus , that want to know on what authority He does this? We looked at pride before but this is how deeply pride can blind us. They don’t see their sin, they only see losing the money they would have made. They did not serve the Lord, they served their greed. Jesus does not give into their demand but instead gives them something to think about. By the way this would later be used at his trial for saying this.
They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
The Lord works in higher ways than we do. It took the resecurrection for even His disciples to understand what they were talking about. Again Jesus was laying the foundation of who He was well before He goes to the cross.
Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.
Jesus stayed at the passover performing miracles and healing people. The last two verses are very important. He would not entrust himself to them. Jesus knows His people. He knows the dangers of a shallow faith. He know that those that were following Him simply based on the miracles would turn their back and He was correct. When He did not take the throne in Rome like so many of the people wanted Him, they would turn. This is the danger of a shallow faith. We have to trust our Lord completely, and not turn away because something didn’t go exactly like we wanted. His ways are higher than ours and He has already proven He is the Son of God.
He did not need help understanding mankind. As we are about to see with Nicodemus, and later with the woman at the well. Jesus knows what is in each of our hearts. He knows you. Honestly stop and think about this for a minute. He knows all of the good and all of the bad. He knows your pain and struggles, but He knows what you are capable. Do not turn from Him and do not corrupt your faith of Him.
We come to probably my favorite conversation in any of the Gospels.
Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
I think that more people have things in common with Nicodemus than they think. Nicodemus was the best teacher in the nation. He was a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin. He was a smart, educated and successful man. He also believed in God. So first, why does Nicodemus visit our Lord at night. It is the same reason why it takes the cross for him to believe in Jesus. Nicodemus feared being seen with Jesus. His fear of man was greater than His fear of the Lord. In all of that education that Nicodemus had recieved, one conversation with Jesus and you realize what Paul had to realize, in light of Jesus, nothing else matters.
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
Very truly I tell you, you must be born again. The spiritual transformation must happen and this is what Nicodemus is not understanding. You must be born again to move from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom Of God.
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
Flesh only gives birth to flesh. There are 2 distinct positions for people to be in. Paul would go on to expound on this further in his epistles. Spirit however, now that is different. Man cannot save himself, only through the working of the Lord can a man be saved. Jesus is talking about the wind and comparing it to the spirit, because man does not control the wind. Man does not control the Lord.
“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.
I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
You are Israel’s teacher. As I have said, everything is bigger than we think it is. Just as Jesus had to cleanse the temple, He now must correct Israel’s teacher. Nicodemus also represents the nation’s lack of knowledge. The greatest teacher couldn’t understand what Jesus was talking about. The lack of knowledge of who the Messiah was to be. Everything in this world is spiritual, I say this because Jesus says this. You are of the flesh or of the spirit.
They do not believe Him when He speaks of earthly things, so how can we possible understand the heavenly things? In verse 14 Jesus tells him exactly what will happen. The son of man must be lifted up.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
John 3 16 is probably the most famous verse in the whole Bible. But here is the part that I want to drive home. God does not send Jesus to condemn, because without Jesus we are already condemned. This is what Nicodemus and those in the courts did not understand. We are saved because of Jesus , we are moved from condemnation to salvation.
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
This the verdict cast down from the Lord, Jesus the light came into the world, do not be lost in that darkness but instead move toward the light of Jesus
Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
When Jesus comes to you and says follow me. Do not turn from fear of your sins, instead turn in repentance and accept the greatest gift of Grace the world has ever seen. When you do that , take it seriously, live by the truth of the Word of God because you have been counted among the righteous because of Jesus Christ,
Let us pray.
