Worship Matters - John 2:13-25

It’s really no secret that the American church is in decline. Only 47% of Americans claim to belong to a religious house of worship. We’re not even talking about regularly attending, we’re talking about people identifying themselves with a particular house of worship. Not even Christian for that matter; that includes the other major world religions as well. So really, it’s less than that.

As if that isn’t bad enough, even those who attend church don’t even have a biblical worldview. In fact, a large minority of those who participated in Ligonier’s State of Theology held heretical, unchristian, unbiblical views.

30% of American Christian evangelicals believe that, “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.”

Here’s what Ligonier said:

“While evangelicals tend to express great concern for the gospel, trends in our findings reveal that many evangelicals also express erroneous views that mirror the broader U.S. population. A substantial minority of evangelicals deny the deity of Jesus Christ (noted above), and many U.S. evangelicals exhibit confusion over who takes the initiative in God’s salvation of sinners.”

There are a lot of reasons for why we are where we are. But I can’t help but wonder,could the church of Jesus Christ be so compromised that our worship is no longer pleasing to the Lord?

That’s what I want you to really think about as we study this passage. Obviously, I’m talking about the broader church.

There are three things that we see in our passage that we must be cognizant of and willing to repent of: half-hearted worship, unbiblical influence, and indifference towards the presence of God.

This is one of those passages that challenges our conception of Jesus Christ. This story doesn’t neatly fit into the description of Jesus being a meek and mild man, especially when you consider the fact that he took the time to make a whip of cords in order to drive animals out of the temple.

Premeditated thought went into cleansing the temple. Jesus didn’t have a psychotic break or an emotional outburst. This was deliberate and purposeful.

Jesus is a complex individual, just like the rest of us. He was fully human and experienced the range of human emotion. We all need to be careful to never pigeon-hole Jesus as a stoic that never got mad, we also shouldn’t overemphasize this passage to demonstrate that Jesus was a vengeful rage machine. Jesus was balanced. His anger was always righteous.

I had a professor in seminary that would always say, “We must be balanced as the Bible is balanced.” We must see Jesus as a complete man who experienced every emotion that we do, and yet did so without sin.

And what we read of here is anger, but it was righteous anger.

Before we dive too deep into this passage, I want to make some broad observations. First, most scholars tend to think that Jesus cleansed the temple twice. Once at the beginning of his ministry and the other at the end. Only John records the cleansing at the beginning of his ministry. The other gospel writers have Jesus cleansing the temple towards the end of his ministry.

But isn’t it interesting that one of the first things Jesus does in his ministry is cleanse the temple? It is very telling that he cleansed what you could call the Old Testament church. I recently listened to a sermon where the preacher made a fascinating point about this passage. Jesus didn’t cleanse the government. He didn’t cleanse false religions. He didn’t cleanse the Hollywood elites of his day. It goes without saying, he was making a point.

Half-hearted worship (vv. 13-17)

So why did he do it? Because temple worship had been corrupted. It catered more to man than God.

And this kindled the righteous anger of our Lord.

We’re told at the beginning of this passage, that it's Passover which was the major time sacrifice for the Jewish people. They offered sacrifices at the temple at Passover to commemorate how in Egypt the Lord passed over and spared the firstborn of all that smeared the blood of a lamb on their doorposts.

This was and is frankly, the most important time in the Jewish calendar.

But it also helps us understand why there was so much hustle and bustle at the temple.

But John tells us in verse 14 exactly what Jesus saw that outraged him.“In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there[.]”

So there were merchants in the temple courts selling animals and exchanging money. Oxen, sheep, and pigeons were all animals that they would offer as sacrifices to the Lord. People would sacrifice animals based upon what they could afford.

But originally, people were supposed to sacrifice not based upon what they could afford, but what they had. Those of lower socioeconomic status would have to buy something. For example, Joseph and Mary sacrificed young pigeons. The idea was you had to bring your best to the Lord. Obviously, not everyone had oxen, or cattle, or sheep, or pigeons.

But it was about sacrificing the best of what you had to the Lord.

And it was through this you’d see your sin and your sin forgiven and express your love and gratitude to the Lord. If you really loved God, you should want to bring your very best to Him.

This is in a nutshell how Old Testament worship worked.

But the whole sacrificial system is short-circuited if you can pick up the animals at the temple. It’s no longer about offering the best that you have. It no longer requires anything of you. This makes a glorious act of worship become a task to check off. Suddenly, worship to the One true God is a duty. It’s going through the motions. And the next thing you know, their convenience is more valuable than how they worship God.

Merchants in the temple encouraged half-hearted worship. And we know how Jesus feels about half-hearted, lukewarm worship. He says, “because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

Is any of this sounding familiar?

When the church caters everything to the people, and convenience is a top priority, you create lukewarm, half-hearted, Christians. This is how you end up with 30% of Christian evangelicals failing to believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

Worship that prioritizes people over God is a modern Christian epidemic. We want to find a way to put our Christian faith on autopilot. We want to know what’s the least amount of faith I can have and still slip through the pearly gates? What’s the bare minimum Christian I can be? The church has encouraged a lowest common denominator mentality. We’re taught in very subtle ways that Christianity requires nothing of you.

This leads to pragmatism.

It’s appropriate for a business to constantly search for better ways of doing things. To streamline and become more efficient. That’s being a great businessman or woman.

But the church should never seek to improve worship efficiency. Rather, the question we should be constantly asking ourselves is, “is it biblical?”

This is the exact question that the temple priests failed to ask! It wasn’t biblical to have a la carte animals and money-changers in the courts of the temple. But it worked and lined their pockets at the same time. They may have even known that their practices were unbiblical but didn’t care.

Christianity requires sacrifice. We’re required to sacrifice our sinful inclinations, impulses, and desires to the Lord over the course of a lifetime, because the beauty and riches of a life devoted to Jesus Christ are worth it.

The moment you believe there is a formula or autopilot to Christianity is the day your worship will be half-hearted and your faith will be lukewarm.

Unbiblical Cultural Influence (vv. 13-17)

The selling of animals in the temple encouraged half-hearted worship and needless to say, this made our Lord angry. Angry enough to drive animals out, pour out money, and flip over tables.

Because the temple wanted to make worship easier. And by doing so encouraged half-hearted worship. But one of the other things that I want you to see here, is that half-hearted worship and pragmatism opens the door to unbiblical influences.

Notice that money-changers were also in the temple. The Jewish people were traveling long distances to Jerusalem with Roman coinage in hand that had idolatrous language and imagery on it. So they would have to get their Roman money exchanged into appropriate money for buying sacrifices.

And obviously, this was a service that was being provided within the temple courts. Not only is it likely that the money-changers were cheating the people, but it’s also likely that the priests were getting a cut as well. Because who let these folks into the temple to begin with?

So you have blatant corruption taking place in plain view inside the temple courts. But what’s most disturbing about all of this, is that the outer court of the temple, where all this commerce was taking place, is where gentiles were permitted to worship.

The temple was a series of courts and that became more restricted as one got closer to the holy of holies. Gentiles were permitted to worship in the outer courts, Jews could worship in the inner courts, and only priests could enter the holy of holies.

Just imagine for a second, you're a gentile sincerely trying to worship the one true God, while animals are making noise and people are negotiating the price of an animal right next to you.

Temple worship had been completely corrupted. Obviously, the Old Testament never permits any form of commerce to take place within the temple courts. So it’s not like the merchants just woke up one day and walked right into the outer court of the temple and started selling animals and exchanging money.

This level of corruption doesn’t happen overnight. No doubt it was a process. It happens slowly over time because compromises were made.

Merchants slowly worked their way inside the temple. What began with picking up an animal along the way, ended up with picking up an animal inside the temple.

But here’s what I want you to consider: the merchants didn’t force their way into the temple, someone let them in. It may have been as simple as, this will make worship easier, but it corrupted temple worship.

How many bad things, especially within the life of the church, began with good intentions?

What an incredible warning to us all this evening. Compromises have consequences. Small, incremental compromises can and will corrupt the church. What the church teaches, both implicitly and explicitly, has repercussions. There is a slippery slope.

How many false teachings and insidious ideologies have been invited into our churches because we’re told it’ll make things easier, or they’ll help us be more sympathetic and understanding? And we should all desire to be loving and understanding.

Who doesn’t want to understand the challenges people of different ethnicities face? But that doesn’t mean Critical Race Theory is compatible with Scripture.

Likewise, who doesn’t have a family member or friend struggling with same-sex attraction or transgenderism? Don’t we all want to know how to lovingly share the hope of Jesus Christ with him or her?

But that doesn’t mean that we bring LGBTQ ideology into the church and adopt its agenda.

The truth is unbiblical teaching and ideologies rarely come into the church by wholesale adoption. They make their way into churches through incremental compromises over time.

It’s how blatant corruption makes its way into the temple courts. But it all goes back to the question I asked earlier: is it biblical?

When biblical convictions are secondary to everything else, corruption lurks right around the corner.

The Presence of God (vv. 18-25)

Here’s the really scary thing: Eventually, unbiblical ideologies, practices, and false teaching become more important than communion and fellowship with the living God. The God of the Bible takes a back seat to false ideology, practices, and teachings.

This is precisely what happens in our passage.

The Jewish people are infuriated when Jesus drives out the animals and the money changers. They’re not mad at the commerce happening within the temple courts. They’re mad at Jesus.

Look at verse 18 with me.

“So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?”

That’s why they demand a sign. Jesus if you know better, then show us a sign. Perform a miracle.

Irony of ironies, right? The God they’re at the temple to worship is the God they hate. Jesus Christ, God in flesh is in their very presence and rejecting their corrupt practices, and rather than reflecting on the point he’s made, they turn on him.

They were more committed to their unbiblical ways than the Lord.

Again, the relevance is incredible. This is how a church can become more committed to unbiblical practices, ideology, and false teaching than the Lord himself. These other things become so ingrained, that God himself is expendable.

But notice Jesus’ response: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” John clarifies what Jesus meant because: “... he was speaking about the temple of his body.”

The presence of God that the Jews sought in the temple was in their physical presence, and they rejected him.

George Whitfield was that great methodist preacher that was very instrumental in the first great awakening in the American colonies. Whitefield’s sermons would often invoke hysteria, and one of the rumors floating around was that his preaching would evoke images of Jesus. Basically, if you heard him preach you might have a vision of Jesus.

This troubled some American ministers. One minister named Ralph Erskine was troubled deeply by this rumor because many people would go to hear Whitefield preach for this experience.

The issue in his opinion was that they were more interested in the God of their imagination than the God of the Bible. They were more excited about the premonition of Jesus than the Jesus of the Bible.

Often we want a God of our own invention, rather than the God of the Bible. This is why people will often say something like, “my god would never…” People think they get to dictate who God is.

The Jews thought the same thing. They wanted a god that approved of their corrupt practices.

Do we want to serve the one true God or do we want a god that will serve us?

This is what John reveals in verses 23-25.

“Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. 24 But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.”

The belief that John speaks of in verse 23 is a superficial belief or faith. A disingenuine faith. John is telling us that these people are looking to see signs from Jesus. That’s why he says, “Jesus… did not entrust himself to them…”

When they looked at Jesus they didn’t see the Son of God, they saw a circus act. They wanted to see him perform!

They didn’t want to conform to Christ, they wanted Christ to conform to them. We must accept Christ as he is, not who we want him to be.

The problem that we see in our passage is the problem we still experience today: Is what God has given us in His Word enough? Do we believe in the sufficiency of God’s Word? Even if that means we don’t get an easier faith, or something that is more culturally palatable.

God’s Word protects His Church from compromise. Protecting our families, protecting each other, and protecting the church is serious business.

You and I need to commit or recommit ourselves to being men and women of the Scriptures.

But we can’t do this perfectly can we? No matter how hard we try, we’re still sinners. A certain level of hypocrisy is inevitable among Christians because we often know what is sin and still find ourselves mixed up in it.

There’s a great book called “The Man Who Moved A Mountain,” who established five churches on Buffalo Mountain near Floyd County. They’re the rock churches.

But in the book, there is a wonderful episode where Bob Childress, the man who established the churches invites a man to church with him and the man says churches are full of hypocrites, and Bob looked at him and said, “well then what’s one more?” The man got in the car and went to church with him.

No doubt, once Jesus left the temple, corruption continued.

But there’s a prophetic element to this passage. Just as Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose from the grave, just as Jesus saves and redeems sinners like you and me, Jesus Christ will redeem, sanctify, and purify the church.

Just because things are messed up right now, doesn’t mean they’ll always be that way! Praise God!

“Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up!”

We must commit ourselves to the Word of God. We must stand firm against the schemes of the evil one, but we also must look forward to that day, when Jesus will come and make all things new.