Dennis Tuuri

We return today to John 2:12-22 for our sermon text. Finishing up this account of the cleansing of the temple and The title of today’s sermon is a snapshot of the son. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. John 2:12-22.

After this, he went down to Capernaum. He, his mother, his brothers, and his disciples, and they did not stay there many days. Now, the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and he found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business.

When he had made a whip of cords. He drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen and poured out the changers money and overturned the tables. And he said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away. Do not make my father’s house a house of merchandise.” Then his disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house has eaten me up.” So the Jews answered and said to him, “What sign do you show to us since you do these things?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple and in 3 days I will raise it up.

Then the Jews said, “It has taken 46 years to build this temple and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. Therefore, when he had risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this to them, and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had said.

Let’s pray. Father, help us to believe the scriptures and the words that Jesus says. We thank you that this word is inspired by him. It is his word to us. We thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit to take this your very breath as it were that blows upon us and to cause it to transform our lives. We confess that this book is unlike every any other book. It must be spiritually understood and discerned. We acknowledge our inability to understand this word apart from the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, apart from his illumination of this text or understanding.

We ask for that Lord God and context of our worship to you. We know that we come as needy, needy of having our minds transformed by the washing of your word. We pray that would be accomplished through this word today. In Christ’s name we ask it. And for the sake of his kingdom, not ours. Amen.

Please be seated. His kingdom, not ours. I say that frequently in our prayers. And this text is a is one that would summon those words to our minds because what we have here is the Lord Jesus Christ going to war against those that in the name of the church, in the name of correct ritual, in the name of needing clean animals and proper money for the poll tax that was to be paid as the worshippers came to pass Passover.

In the name of all of that, these hypocrites were building their own kingdom instead of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we can come to this place today and be just like them in our hearts. We pray that God would deliver us from that great sin. That he might come and overturn whatever idolatrous tables we have in our own hearts as we come to worship God today and ask for his work to be amongst us.

That we might indeed not be his enemies, but rather indeed be matured as his friends.

We come to this text for the second time. Young children, I know you’ve probably already noticed this is the same children’s outline as two weeks ago when I preached the first half of the sermon or the first take on this passage on Father’s Day. And that deliberately we’ll look at a minute and see how well you remember what you learned two weeks ago to see if this is of benefit to you or not.

And your parents will be able to do a little evaluation on that understanding. But I don’t really want today to tell you what you ought to do. You know, the preaching of God’s word always is meant to bring us to the praise of God. It has doctrine in it. It has an agenda in it as well, things to do. And I don’t think it’s improper to get up and say what you ought to be doing. But I think that another very important perspective is that when we come to the word of God, we come to see who we are if we’re part of the elect community of Jesus Christ.

In James chapter One, we have a very common text that’s used repeatedly. If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.

Now, it’s a text that probably could be taken in several ways, but I think I think that at least it’s a legitimate interpretation of the text that when we come to the scriptures, we come to stare at that perfect law of liberty, we come to stare at the Lord Jesus Christ and Jesus is telling us this is who you are. I mean, not in obviously what he does here in these texts before us in the whole picture of the destruction of the old covenant worship that the new covenant times in Christ might be fulfilled.

Not in coming to die as he predicts here for the salvation of the world. Not in bringing the ultimate miracle. What the water to wine and the joy at the marriage feast just prior to this text. Not in those God aspects, but certainly in his restoration of humanity. This is who we are. We’re called Christians applying to ourselves the name of Jesus. We’re little rocks, little stones. As he said, he is the rock.

But we’re when we come to a snapshot out of Christ and his actions. I think it’s appropriate to say this is who we are and we forget who we are. We think somehow we’re this Adamic fallen person in our basic identity, but we’re not anymore. So, we want to look at the text and say not what we ought to do. But who are we? We are these sorts of people if we’ve been regenerated by the grace of God. We’re like Christ.

We’re to be Christlike. There is a certain place that is accurate to say what would Jesus do. I know that is way overused, but there’s a certain truth to that as well that we don’t want to miss out on.

I watched a movie this last week called Unbreakable. I thought it was really a fine movie. Couple of swear words, no nudity, little bit of violence, but you know, you wouldn’t want to show it to young children, little intense scenes here and there, but basically a pretty clean I think it was PG-13.

And this movie is about comic books. It’s about the origin of a superhero. So Bruce Willis plays a fellow who really doesn’t know who he is. And by the end of the movie, he understands that he’s a man who has been given certain strengths or powers to affect deliverance of people in fighting crime. So it’s an interesting movie. It’s interesting in it cinematography. It’s sort of if you look at it like a comic book, it’s very fascinating what how that’s done.

But in any event, Willis has this difficulty with his wife. At the first part of the movie, they’re sleeping in separate rooms, separate floors actually of the house. And you find out as the course of the movie goes on when Willis comes to understand his calling that he’s called to deliver people and he’s not doing it prior to coming aware and not forgetting who he is, but rather understanding who he is.

When he comes to that awareness and he goes to his first night of crime fighting, it he comes home and there’s a reconciliation between him and his wife and the marriage is healed. Frequently, problems in marriage really are problems with men in terms of their vocation or calling and not doing what God wants them doing or not understanding that it is a calling from God. And that’s that’s important. We talked about this the other Wednesday evening in our courtship discussion.

It has implications. Genesis 1 and two does that Adam has vocation prior to Adam getting a wife. You see, and that’s kind of the model that there should be vocation. in place and that’s going to and even in married relationships frequently marriage counseling should be employment counseling as well. But the Willis movie is interesting on another level because of what we’re talking about here. Willis was to bring hope to a world that was losing hope.

That was a very explicit message in the context of the movie. The only true hope that this world has is the Lord Jesus Christ and the people of Christ living out lives of hope in the context of despair. All you got to do is listen to a little of the male music that’s produced in the pop culture to recognize that there’s no not a whole lot of hope, purpose, or anything in the male subculture. It’s interesting that the women the female music is different.

But there’s a great loss of hope because the our culture is moving away from Christ. Our job is to be superheroes in a sense. Our job is to live lives of hope boldly for the Lord Jesus Christ and to make a difference in the world in which we live. And we come every Lord’s day having forgotten some of that and having just sort of floated down into the culture and be formed by the culture. And we pray every Lord’s day.

We don’t read the verses hardly ever during the offeratory, but it’s printed in your outline, your order of service from Romans 12, that we don’t become a cookie cutter image of our culture, but rather are transformed by the word of God. And the transformational power should produce men and women, boys, boys and girls who go out and make a difference in this world. Not in some big dramatic splashy way like Bruce Willis does in the movie, but in very significant ways living lives of hope in spite of the vicissitudes, the trials, and the difficulties of what living in a culture that is increasingly under the judgment of God is like.

So that’s what we’re here to do is to look at Jesus a little bit and remind ourselves of who we are, if indeed we have faith in the Lord Jesus. Jesus Christ and God has called us as his own, we’re to be hopebringers. Okay.

Now, a little bit of review. That’s the introduction. A little bit of review. We spoke two weeks ago in the first half of the first take on this passage of zeal for the father, the Lord Jesus Christ. Zeal for his father is right there at the center of the text. And, young people, I want you to see how well you remember what we learned two weeks ago. What did we say? the mission of the Bible text from two weeks ago was for us. What was the mission? What mission did that text send us on?

And you should think a little bit of how well you did on that particular day. The mission was to try hard to please our father in heaven and our fathers on earth in the Lord the providence of God. We were at that text on the same day that Hallmark has produced this tradition of father’s day. So and that was appropriate because children your father he You can say you love God, but if you and respect him, but if you do not honor your fathers, you really are not respecting and honoring God. God says you’re a hypocrite and a liar.

We’re going to see that the people that Jesus booted out of the temple were hypocrites. We’re going to look at that today. You don’t want to be a hypocrite. So, you know, the mission was to try very hard to please our father in heaven and try very hard to please our fathers on earth. And you remember we said that this cleansing of the temple, why did Jesus cleanse the temple? Zeal for the father’s house has eaten him up. Love for the father, ardent desire, passion for the father’s way on earth as it is in heaven led our savior to this action.

How many times did he do this action? Do you remember kids? He did it twice. He did it at the beginning of his ministry and at the end of his ministry. That’s the way the text reads. And we have this demonstrable evidence and the you know great God is so gracious there’s any doubt about whether it’s twice or not. He puts that reference to 46 years of the building of the temple and we have historical records knowing when it started and we know that this happened not the year of Jesus’s death.

This incident happened at the beginning of his ministry. He does it twice just like the lepous house is cleansed twice and then if it’s still lepous it’s torn down and the and the old system will be torn down. He cleanses it twice. What’s another word for zeal? Zeal for his father’s house has eaten him up. Passion. By the way, that’s spelled P A S S I O N children. P A S S I O N. Passion is another word for zeal.

A phrase that means zeal is strong feelings. To really feel strongly about something. Strong feelings is what Jesus has for the father. Strong commitment, passion and zeal for his father. And this is expressed by that particular phrase.

Which of the animals Jesus removed from the temple. Were there any pigs in there being sacrificed? No. Were there sheep? Yeah. Were there dogs? No. Elephants? No. Oxen? Yeah. Tigers? No. Doves? Yes. Eagles? No. Now, eagles, elephants, dogs, and pigs aren’t bad. But in the providence of God, he had certain animals designed to be used for sacrifice. So, it shows us that the people that Jesus kicked out of the temple were trying to maintain an external formality. They were obeying which animals were supposed to be sacrificed.

So those are the animals and you know I pray to God that over the next 10 to 15 years we raise a whole generation of people here that know the book of Leviticus which is a simple book to understand and understand the sort of sacrificial use of these animals and what it’s all about. Let me ask you this. Once he drives the ox and the sheep out and then he tells the dove people to take the cages of the doves out. He doesn’t throw them out. He’s kind to animals. what’s left in the temple? He’s left in the temple. Who is he? He’s a lamb, right? He’s the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

We have here a picture of what’s really going on. The whole purpose of sheep and doves and oxen was to be a picture of the coming one who now is in the temple. And he gets rid of the others. to show starkly I’m in the temple and in the conversation that follows he says I’m going to die you’re going to tear down this temple and it’s going to be raised back up in three days it’s the whole point of the sacrificial system and Jesus makes it very clear by leaving himself and himself alone in the context of the sacrificial system going on at that time.

Which part of the temple had become a place to sell stuff Caiaphas it was only in Jesus’s day that this was changed apparently from the records we have Caiaphas, the high priest at the time, had a bright idea. Well, gee, it’ll be a lot easier if we bring this money changing and this exchange of sacrificial animals into the temple itself instead of outways. Yeah, you can control it better. It’s more efficient. The sheep won’t get blemished or hurt somehow in the way from where they bought them to the temple if they’re in another part of the city. So, you know, it’s going to work out better. And we can use the prophets then.

You know, we could take the prophets and build the temple and make it even better. So, we have this big temple complex and where did they move these things into? Do you remember children what that was? What part of the temple grounds? It’s significant. It’s important to know this. You got to know your Bible history. But where it was, it was the court of the Gentiles. See, there were these different places and courts.

And we know from the records that this was the court of the Gentiles. This was where the Gentile god-fearers would come into. They couldn’t go to where the women believer women Jewish women were allowed into the court of the women. They couldn’t go into the court of the Jews and they certainly couldn’t go into the temple complex in its innermost places where only the priests could go. There’s a series a series of entrances which were proper.

It’s the way God sort of wanted it. But what they were doing in essence was taking the gentile place of the temple where they were supposed to come in and worship God and turned it into for admire. You see? So it shows a disdain for the Gentiles. That’s why it’s important Because we’ll see this in Jeremiah and another text, the Jews of the day had completely forgotten their mission that they were to be unbreakable.

That they were to be go out there and bringing hope to the gentile nation and wanting all the nations to come into the temple. They forgot it. They sinned. They turned their back against that truth. And all he cared about was themselves. They were better than the Gentiles. So what if the Gentile court is used for commerce? We wouldn’t bring it into our own court, but we’ll let the gentile court be defiled in that way.

You see, that’s the attitude of the Jews who inhabited this temple. And we know that from the from the rest of the gospel accounts. You see, this temple had a high priest who would in the context of the temple, we know this, preach insurrection against God’s ordained authorities, the Romans, and would orchestrate mob actions to get an insurrectionist released and a murderer released. and would orchestrate mobs in the context of that temple to crucify Jesus.

Now, that’s the kind of men that were involved. These are the Jews that John’s gospel talks about. Now, not all Jewish people, of course. Some of them were believers, but most weren’t. And the ones that weren’t, the leaders, this is what they were like. They were ethical rebels against God. Understand it? And and the great point there is that they’re doing this in the in the court of the Gentiles. So, you know, that’s what we talked about last week and we talked about the importance of that cleansing and some of the things that were going on wrong.

By way of review, I want you all not this is actually isn’t redo. I didn’t get to this last week, but in Psalm 119, we have the phrase my zeal has consumed me by the psalmist. So, this is a parallel phrase. Remember last week, let’s do this. Turn to Psalm 69, if you will. What were those disciples remembering? They were remembering Psalm 69 is what they were remembering. They saw Jesus get in big trouble. I mean, they understood probably the way we don’t understand as we’re just reading the text.

They understood the significance of Christ’s actions in that they understood this was probably the death nail for their savior in the first year of his ministry. They saw this and figured it’s over for him. This is the great opposition that will be cited as he goes to his death as the charge against him. Well, in Psalm 69 is the reference that’s being quoted here. It’s verse 9, but let’s just read a little bit here beginning in verse one.

Save me, oh God, for the waters are come unto thy soul. My soul rather, I sink in deep mire where there is no standing. I am come into deep waters where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying. My throat is dried. Mine eyes fail while I wait for thy God, my God. They that hate me without a cause, are more than the hairs of mine head. They that would destroy me, being mine enemies, wrongfully art mighty.

Then I restored that which I took not away. Oh God, thou knowest my foolishness. My sins are not hid from thee. Let not them that wait on thee, oh Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake. Let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake, oh God of Israel, because for thy sake I have borne reproach. Shame hath covered my face. I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children.

For the zeal of thine house has eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me. When I wept and chasened my soul with fasting, That was to my reproach. I made sackcloth also my garment and I became a proverb to them. They that sit in the gate speak against me and I was the song of the drunkards. And it goes on and this is clearly a messianic psalm. He talks about them giving him vinegar to drink.

So it’s a messianic psalm. But what I wanted to turn here for was to ask you that when you read in this account, zeal for my father’s house has eaten me up. Not knowing what I just told you. Did you remember that from the Old Testament? The disciples did. As soon as he says it, they remembered, you know, what he was saying that it was in the scriptures. The text tells us. What’s my point? My point is they knew their Bibles.

It doesn’t leap off the page to me as I’m reading through this psalm. The centrality of the meaning of the zeal for your house has eaten me up. It did to the disciples. They made the connection. You see, we think of these disciples as ignorant fishermen. They were fishermen, but they were not ignorant. As we’ve said before in the first couple of chapters of John, they use some very exacting theological titles, names, and truths about Jesus Christ.

They knew their Bibles. And so should we. If Jesus is a snapshot of who we are in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus reminds us that we have a passion for the father that is reflected in a passion and a zeal to know the word of God. Psalm 119, we read that my zeal has consumed me. That’s verse 139. Now, let me put it in context. Righteous are you, oh Lord, and upright are your judgments. Your testimonies which you have commanded are righteous and very faithful.

My zeal has consumed me because my enemies have forgotten your words. Your words. Your word is very pure. Therefore, your servant loves it. I am small and despised and I do not forget your precepts. Say Jesus has a zeal for the father that’s reflected in a zeal for his word. And if we have that zeal and God says this is who we are in Christ, next year you’re going to be more knowledgeable about your Bible than you are this year.

Children, you’re going to know your Bibles better than your parents. do for the most part in this church. We didn’t we weren’t trained in the scriptures every week. We want to see that kind of stuff going on in our homes. We want our children to be children of the word. How can you try hard to please your father in heaven today, young people? You can do it by understanding and knowing his word. You can be zealous in terms of your knowledge of his word.

Okay. So, The Lord Jesus Christ has a zeal for the father which is reflected in a zeal for the father’s word. I wanted to mention here and by way of review again that we made application properly so about this zeal for the father and zeal for his word that resulted in this reformational act of holiness. John as he frequently does brought the word of god bear the conversation after the sermon. Very important text for my points last week about sexual purity.

1 Corinthians 6:15-18. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not. Or do you not know that he who is joined of a harlot is one body with her? For the two, he says, shall become one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.

Jesus says that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We’re we’re called the temple of God corporately as a church, but also individually. Our bodies are Christ. And to sin against Christ by means of this sexual immorality is to desecrate, as it were, the temple of God, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, which is your body. What does the text tell us? What’s a reformational act of holiness as surely as cleansing the temple was for Christ?

The reformational act of holiness given to us by 1 Corinthians 6:18 is to flee sexual immorality. Not to try hard not to do it. Not to coexist with it in a mild form. Not to let it be a little bit in your life. Little looking at this and that, little touching of this and that. No, the scriptures And this is not the only place. It’s repeated over and over. Flee sexual immorality. And we’re going to talk about this a week from Wednesday as we follow up our courtship and dating and preparation for marriage Wednesday night study.

What are the implications? You that are going to be there a week from Wednesday. What are the implications of that text for how young men and young women go about preparing for marriage in the context of this church? You just think about it. And we’ll talk about it a week from Wednesday. I think the implications are pretty great. Let me give you another text that has some implications that is related to this topic.

In 1 Corinthians, no, wrong text. Last week I mentioned that this passion that Jesus has is a correct passion and that it’s the same word that’s used in other places for illicit or wrong passions, wrongly directed. But there’s a proper use of it as well. And another place where this text is, this particular Greek word is used in a positive sense, Paul talks about jealousy. I talked about this last week.

hopefully I can find the citation. Thought I had it here. But Paul says to the church, he says, “I was jealous for you. with a godly jealousy because I had betrothed you to Christ. I cannot find the text. it’s probably later in my notes. When I find the text, I’ll give you the citation. But Jesus, that’s what Paul said. Godly jealousy for you because you’ve been betrothed to Christ. Another question for the courtship discussion two weeks from Wednesday.

What implication does that text have for male female relationships prior to marriage? There’s a proper jealousy over one’s mate, one who has been betrothed or married to someone. That’s the proper jealousy that Paul puts out. One of the implications about that for jealousy about partners in dating. Okay. So, what we’re trying to do is say that we want to have the same kind of passion that the Lord Jesus Christ has, the same kind of zeal and ardent desire for the father.

And this has rel relationship to us in terms of a love for his word and also following up from two weeks ago in terms of sexual purity. All right.

Now, we can get to a few observations on the text. and few additional observations I wanted to make following up on the sermon from two weeks ago. First, the snapshot of Jesus shows us that he’s the life of the party. I a little ashamed of the phrase. Maybe it’s not could produce a little stumbling.

talking some here but it is true that Jesus is the one who gives true life. In him was life and his life was the light of the world. Okay. And so Jesus brings life into the world and he brings joy to the party. We see this in the wedding feast at Cana of Galilee. Next Lord’s day I’m going to preach from Romans 14 and talk about you know what does it mean Christian liberty and the proper use of wine because our savior would be accused by many fundamentalist churches today of putting stumbling blocks in front of drunkards by making so much wine and making it readily available.

Did he sin? Of course not. The church needs to remember that the faith is a joyous event in the context of our lives. Yes, there’s trials and tribulations. Yes, there’s time for anger. But Jesus Christ has a passion and zeal for the father that results in him bringing joy to proper parties and celebrations. Jesus is the life of the party. We should be people that going into proper observation, proper events, wedding feasts, celebrations, whatever they are, if they’re proper and not sin going on, we should be people that bring joy to these events.

You see, that’s the kind of superhero we are in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are joybringers to the parties and celebrations that we’re involved with.

Secondly, Jesus is bold here. Now, we’re transitioning to this particular incident, the cleansing of the temple. You cannot walk away from this without being challenged in your views of a feminine Jesus. Jesus is bold. You know, Doug Wilson talked at family camp about masculine spirituality.

And he is an example of, you know, one young man in the church pushing another young man in the church and saying, “What are you, an idiot for dating a non-Christian?” I don’t know if we really want to encourage each other to push each other, but there but see, it’s a challenge to our view. view of spirituality that is I think Wilson is correct is primarily become feminized and he mentioned that great book that many of us here have known about and read 15 years ago feminization of American culture by Anne Douglas is the culture as the faith moved from Calvinism to Armenianism.

It was a movement from a masculine view of the faith and spirituality to a feminized view and men became you know uh dandies and they became less than men in their understanding of what Christian spirituality is about. Jesus is a man and he says to you, Christian man, if you look into this perfect law of liberty at work, it is not wrong to be bold in confronting sin. In fact, it is it is wrong not to be bold.

Jesus is bold. Martin Luther wrote a letter to Philip Melanchthon. I got it on your outline there. Sin boldly. I’m not saying Jesus sinned. Please, please. Of course, he did not sin. You will. Everything you do is tinged with an element of sinfulness. Your motivations are probably never 100% pure. Your actions are never 100% all wise. And because of that sin that exists in us, we end up not wanting to be bold. If we think that everything depends on us, if we understand our sinfulness and not the greatness of forgiveness in Christ and the overarching sovereignty of God that accompanies all of this theology, then we’re going to be reticent to speak to anybody.

You see, we’re going to pull back. Well, that was what was going on with a young man named Philip Melanchthon in 1521. He was a preacher. He was getting in some hot water for his preaching and you know, he kind of gotten timid and Luther wrote him a letter. Let me read you what Luther told him. If you’re a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace. If grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin.

I mean, if grace is true instead of just being some kind of Greek concept to us, then it means our sin is true. We bear true sin, not fictitious sin. Of course, we have sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner. It’s what God says you are. And sin boldly, Luther said. Not in the sense of doing things you know are wrong, but understand that everything you do is going to be have an element of imperfection to it.

But be bold in how you live, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly. So Luther tells me, “Sin boldly. Preach what you understand to be the word of God. If you make errors, you know that’s going to happen, but do it boldly, understanding that you should rejoice and believe in Christ even more boldly. For he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here in this world, we have to sin.

This life is not the dwelling place of righteousness, but as people Peter said, “We look for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. It is enough that by the riches of God’s glory, we have come to know the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day.” Do you think that the purchase price that was paid for the redemption of our sins by so great a Lamb is too small?

Pray boldly. You too our mighty sinner. Now, there’s lots of things in there we could talk about and stuff, but the basic point that Luther makes is absolutely sound. And it’s shown to us here by the Savior. We are to be people of boldness and action. We’re not to be sitting on our behinds in the context of this world, particularly if we see sin going on or matters that need correction. This was Wilson’s whole point and his emphasis, excellent emphasis on the responsibility of head of households.

Be bold in shepherding your family. Anything else than that is sin. Worse sin than if you are bold and make mistakes in what you do in your boldness. You see, be responsible. You are responsible. You are bold in Christ. Take away whatever it is that is restraining that boldness that you are supposed to have in Christ this week that you may be bold like the Lord Jesus Christ. Get involved. in what God has given you to do.

Do your do what God has called you to do in your home, in this church, in your workplace with gusto, with boldness, passion, and zeal. This is who we are. The Lord Jesus Christ said, you know, great disasters can happen, horrible things can happen in the world, but not there is nothing Romans tells us that can separate us from the love of God. If we think about what may happen in the context of our world, we become fearful and timid and we let the old nature manifest itself.

But if we recognize the truth of Romans that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, not whatever you think you’re doing wrong or whatever difficulty or predicament, nothing can do that. And as a result of knowing that, we should live boldly. And that’s Luther’s point. Get off your behind. Do something he was telling me. Paul said the same thing to Timothy. Don’t let them look down on your young age.

Be bold. Confront these guys. Do what you got to do. Live your life. Jesus is bold.

Third, Jesus is forthright. Matthew 18, don’t start with an elder. See, Jesus saw sin going on and he didn’t go and talk to the disciple. You know what those guys are doing? What should we what should we do about that? He saw sin. He went to the sinner and he said, “Don’t do this anymore. See, we see each other in the church and you know what what happens I don’t know how often is that instead of you talking to the person that you see sinning or parents of the one you see sinning or whatever it is you know I end up hearing about it and you know there are proper times to involve the elders of the church you know if there’s something going on that is dangerous to the church or necessary for the elders to have knowledge of.

Okay? Or if you’ve gone through Matthew 18 and started with that person and gone back with another and then brought in the elders, but do not start every bit of boldness and confronting sin by coming to me or Pastor Wilson or by going to your friends or whatever group you hang out with to talk about the problems you see in somebody’s life. See, talk to them. Be bold, but be forthright as well.

Four, Jesus, his passion is focused on worship. Okay, talked about this last week. I’m going to talk about again this week. We are aiming for 100% on timeness here. You should be diligent and bold and forthright in how you approach worship. I believe the Lord Jesus Christ sang loudly because the psalter exhorts us to sing loudly and psalter is the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. So I think when we come to church, we should sing boldly knowing that you’re a sinner, knowing your voice isn’t the best and it won’t be the best.

We should sing boldly and we should be here on time. Jesus went to Passover on time. You know, to come habitually late to the Lord’s day worship services is a travesty. Would you be late to work tomorrow morning? And if you’re habitually late to work. I do want to know about that because now you’re you’re you’re you’re defaming the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Either that you have no testimony at work and they’re not going to know that it’s a Christian who’s late all the time, which is even worse.

They should know you’re a Christian. You should understand your need to live boldly as a superhero in your place of work. And one of the ways you manifest that is by getting to work on time. And if worship is the most central of activities in life that form our understanding of everything else, I believe it is. Then this is where promptness, attentiveness, preparation, dressing properly, proper participation in the service, this is it.

See, and we should have a situation going on here where if you think somebody is dressing really improperly for the Sabbath or if you think somebody is late or if you think somebody, you know, is sleeping in the pew, Or if you think you know people are leaving here the rest of the day whatever they want to do buying and selling and doing various things you should talk to those people you should be bold and forthright.

You should be loving but you should be bold forthright. God says that’s who we are. This is the picture of who Jesus was. He talked to people forthrightly about their difficulties and he made it a point to be at the time and the place and in the proper way of worshiping God. Worship is important. That’s what this tells us. These two great signal events at the beginning of this narrative structure of who Jesus is.

We have him going to the family and a creation of new family and the joy there. And we have him going to church and acting in an act of reformational holiness. And the importance of the church and family are laid right out for us there. See? And so this is a very important thing to recognize that what Jesus is doing is removing will worship. It’s wrong to come to church and decide to worship the way you want to worship and have your will be the determining fa factor in what we do here.

That’s why we try to worship according to biblical patterns. We sin boldly by producing an order of worship every Lord’s day that we try to tr conform to the image of God and his worship patterns in heaven, but we know we’re going to fall short. We don’t give up on the task. We boldly pursue godly worship.

Five, Jesus’s passion is focused against the den of thieves. You know, who were these guys? I said before that in the second cleansing, he calls them a den of thieves.

And maybe we can see then at first he wants to make clear by this first account, it’s not simply illicit commerce that he was upset about. It wasn’t cheating, you know, in the in the transaction for animals or exchange of money. He was he was upset that there was any merchandising going on in the context of the worship of God at all. He’s upset with Coke machines, you know, coffee bars which are becoming widely used in secret services, you know, exchange of monies.

Money is a good thing, but the ultimate exchange is the exchange that we go to at worship here when God gives to us freely his gifts and it determines a proper sense of commerce. Jesus is but in the second cleansing of the temple in all three accounts in Luke, Matthew and Mark, he calls them a den of thieves. Now Jesus is quoting from Jeremiah chapter 7. But before we look at Jeremiah 7, I want us to talk a little bit about what’s going on at this particular time in Jewish life.

First of all, we can say that he was upset with materialists. They were more concerned about materialism and consumerism than they were the pure worship of God. And so they brought it into the worship service. In our culture today, you know, materialism is all there is. And materialism is in our hearts. It’s one of those idols. You know, we want God to tear down every idol that we’ve constructed against the Lord Jesus Christ.

And if materialism, if your desire for gain, which is proper in and of itself, leads you to sin in any way it has become an idol to you. It has displaced God at that particular point in your Christian life. They were idolatrous with money. Jesus tells them in another gospel that they say an oath by the temple isn’t okay. But if you swear by the gold of the temple, that’s okay. You see, they had placed a higher value on gold, money, commerce, materialism than they had on the God who had created them and called them to worship him.

Second, They were pragmatists. As I said, it’s easier to bring it into the temple. You know, it works better. If it works, that’s the test of whether it’s good or not. Rushdoony said that is the major dominant religion in America today is pragmatism. If it works, yeah, if it doesn’t work, must be wrong. Well, God tells us to do all kinds of things that don’t work. He told Israel to wander in the wilderness 38 years.

Go here. Go here. Go here. go here and it’s not going to work if by work it means getting at a destination. You’re going to wander in circles. Now, it does really work, of course, because it was preparation for going in. Everything works from God’s perspective. But in our short-term perspective, whatever is best in terms of working things out and making things smooth is not always what God wants us to do.

He conforms us to his image, not us conforming what he tells us to do to our image of what works. The church must centrality of worship and then the institutional church and increasingly all the rest of our lives must not be operated as it was some sort of institution which we just simply look at the bottom line.