What Jesus Cares About Most

Well, take your Bibles and open them, if you would, to Luke chapter 19.

! All the way up to verse 8 of chapter 20. Actually, we're going to spend a couple of Sundays on this passage.

You most likely know, I'm sure, that the chapter divisions are not part of the inspired text. They're artificial. Do you know that? And so it's okay to start preaching in chapter 19 and go on over into chapter 20.

The chapter divisions actually didn't become a part of our Bibles until around 1200 A.D. It's a long time after Luke, of course, wrote or any portions of the Bible were written.

And verses, actual verse divisions, didn't come along until about middle of 1500 A.D. And so, you know, I think you probably agree with me.

It's a pretty good thing that we have chapter divisions and verse numbering. Because, you know, if I were to say this morning, open your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke and find where Jesus cleansed the temple, we might have a hard time finding it.

I don't know about you. Other than the fact that you are here every Sunday, you know where we're going in Luke, and so you know we're to that place. But it's good to have those divisions.

So instead, I say open your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke and turn to chapter 19 and find verse 45, and you know right where to go, don't you? So we're glad to have those chapter divisions and verse numberings and so forth.

And so that's where you are, right? Chapter 19 of the Gospel of Luke, and I'm going to read all the way through, starting with verse 45, all the way through to chapter 20 to verse 8 of chapter 20.

Then he went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it, saying to them, It is written, My house is a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.

And he was teaching daily in the temple, but the chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people sought to destroy him and were unable to do anything, for all the people were very attentive to hear him.

Now it happened on one of those days, as he taught the people in the temple and preached the gospel, that the chief priests and the scribes, together with the elders, confronted him and spoke to him, saying, Tell us, by what authority are you doing these things?

Or who is it? Who is he who gave you this authority? But he answered and said to them, I also will ask you one thing and answer me. The baptism of John, was it from heaven or from men?

And they reasoned among themselves, saying, If we say from heaven, he will say, Why then did you not believe him? But if we say from men, all the people will stone us, for they are persuaded that John was a prophet.

So they answered that they did not know where it was from. And Jesus said to them, Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. And I love that.

Now, this morning, I want to take, I actually want to take a couple of Sundays on this text. Not because it's just going to take that long to work our way through it, but primarily because I see, I want us to see somewhat, two somewhat different angles in the passage, or at least see Jesus from two different angles that we discover here in the passage.

There are at least two things. That this passage reveals to us about Jesus. And so this morning, we want to look at one of them. And then next Sunday morning, we'll take the same passage of Scripture and look at the other.

And so this morning, looking at this passage from a certain angle, or perspective, or vantage point, we want to discover what Jesus cares about most.

That's what we want to talk about this morning. What Jesus cares about most. And then next Sunday, looking again at the same passage, but from a different vantage point, we want to discover why we should care what Jesus cares about most.

All right? So that's where we're going to go this morning, and also next Sunday morning. So I hope you're here next Sunday as well. So as we look at this passage. All right, now, what would you say?

Does Jesus care about more than anything else? Hard question? I mean, you start thinking about it. Let me give you a few possibilities.

Is it social justice? Some people would say that. And he came to bring social justice for all. Is it economic prosperity?

There's a lot of people preaching that today. Is it physical wellness, health, healing, so forth? Or how about this?

Racial equality. Or gender equality. Or is it political reform? Would that be what Jesus cares about most?

How about world peace? World peace. Or responsible environmentalism. How about that one? You like that one? Or sustainable, renewable energy.

We hear a lot about that today. Or how about affordable health care for everyone? Hey, right. I know I'm being a little bit absurd here.

All right, so, some of our answers might be morality, purity. That is, biblical morality, obeying the Ten Commandments.

That's what Jesus cares most about. Or how about this one? Sanctity of human life. From the womb to the tomb. The sanctity, the sacredness of human life.

Or how about religious freedom? There are a lot in this community with BOM who are very focused on that particular issue and the persecution of the church.

So, maybe what Jesus wants most is a world that is free of Christian persecution. or is it Bibles for everyone in the hands of every single person, man, woman, child, and person in the world.

I mean, those are all very good things, aren't they? And certainly, Jesus cares about those things and wants those things. But most of us would probably say the salvation of souls.

It's the salvation of souls. That is what Jesus cares about most. And you would not be entirely wrong with that answer, of course.

I mean, just remembering back to last week's sermon and the text we looked at last week, Jesus himself said, the Son of Man has come to do what? To seek and to save that which was lost.

All right, so clearly, he's interested in that. Cares about that. And I would say to you, and you need to hear me out all the way through here, okay, I would say that that is a big part of it.

Huge part of it. A part of what Jesus cares about most. But it is only a part of it. A big part of it. And so much a part of it that it is indivisible from what he really cares about most.

All right, so what does Jesus care about most? My answer is worship. True, genuine worship.

Remember what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman in John chapter 4 and verse 23. You know, the woman at the well. You know, they were kind of talking with one another and this Samaritan woman was talking about the proper place for worship.

Remember, she identified the fact that the Samaritans believed that Mount Gerizim there in Samaria was the proper place for worship, the right place, the one and only place for worship.

So they worshipped there. And of course, the Jews said the holy city of Jerusalem was the proper place for worship. But then Jesus said this. He said, woman, believe me.

The hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, that will be Mount Gerizim, nor in Jerusalem worship the Father. And actually, the meaning is the whole debate about the proper place of worship will one day, very shortly, be a moot point.

Because in 70 AD, that's just probably less than 40 years after Jesus said this and had this conversation with the Samaritan woman, 40 some years later, the Roman general Titus will come in and he will destroy the place of worship in Jerusalem.

And by the way, not only there, but also the place of worship in Mount Gerizim in Samaria. And many countless thousands and thousands of Samarians were killed during that time.

So it's kind of a moot point to talk about the proper place of worship. And so he's saying that under the new covenant in my blood, the place of worship will not be the issue the nature of worship will be.

The nature of it, the character of it, the substance of it will be the issue. And then he said this in John 4.23, the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.

He's seeking worshippers. God's ultimate goal, worship. It's worship. He's looking for, He is seeking true worshippers.

And I would say to you, and think about it, even the Great Commission, as important as it is, it is important, even the Great Commission is best understood and obey when we realize this about the Lord, that His goal is worship.

I've quoted this a number of other times, and I'm not sure if I have here, but I really like the way John Piper put this. In his book, Let the Nations Be Glad, and I would highly recommend that you read it, he said this, he said, worship is the fuel and goal of missions, of the gospel, of the Great Commission.

It's the fuel and goal. He said, it is the goal of missions because in missions, we simply aim to bring the nations into a white-hot enjoyment of God's glory.

That's just an expanded way, a very interesting way of describing what worship is. Bring people to worship. That's the goal of missions, to worship the one and only God and His Son, Jesus.

It is, he went on to say, it is the fuel of missions on the front end. It's the fuel of missions because passion for God in worship must precede the offer of God in preaching.

Now think about it. I mean, you can't commend anything to someone that you don't cherish yourself. So worship is the fuel of missions.

And so to endeavor to bring the lost to Christ, which is something Jesus is very much interested in, there's no doubt about that, but to bring people the lost to Christ begins and ends.

in worship, in worship. We can put it this way, worshipers, well we are, hopefully you are, worshipers seeking to win more worshipers for the Lord.

It is the fuel and goal of missions. Now all of that to say that worship is what Jesus cares about most. And this story that really centers on the first two days, couple of days, of Jesus last week on planet Earth, this story reveals that.

What Jesus cares about most. And so the first thing then we can see here is what I want to call and the affinity for true worship demonstrated by Jesus.

The affinity for true worship, genuine worship, that's demonstrated here in the passage by Jesus Christ. Jesus had an affinity for worship. There's no doubt about it.

And so should we. That is, Jesus desires worship above all else. When he gets to Jerusalem, Jesus goes looking for true worship.

That's what we discover in the passage. And he looks for true worship in a place where he should have been able to find it. The temple. The temple.

Or we could say the church. Though it wasn't the church, of course. But it's kind of representative. He goes looking for worship where it ought to be. Where God's people assemble. Where God's people come together.

Where God's people come for, quote, worship, end quote. He looks in the temple. And so with that said, there's something I think quite amazing revealed here in verse 45.

That really can go unnoticed if you don't really think about it. And you have to kind of bring into play all that you know about the thinking of the people of that day and Jesus and who Jesus is and all of that coming together in their history.

When you kind of bring all that into play, then you find something here that's very interesting in verse 45 and following. And what does it say in verse 45? Then he went into the temple.

You're probably thinking, well, what's so amazing about that? You were kind of expected to go there. Well, you would. I would. But they wouldn't. He did not go where everyone in Israel thought he would go or wanted him to go.

He didn't go there. And you just kind of go back to the previous day. And we studied this last week. It's Monday of that last week of Jesus' life on this earth.

And it was Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Remember? Jesus' And so it started on the kind of the downward slopes of the Mount of Olivet. And there are thousands, a hundred thousand or more people that have gathered and they're lining up and down the road that leads into the eastern gate of Jerusalem, the city of Jerusalem.

And they throw down their clothes, their coats, their outer garments, and palm branches, many of them. And Jesus is riding on the fold of a donkey, and he enters into the city of Jerusalem while the people are shouting, Blessed is the what?

The king. Okay, you've forgotten already. Blessed is the king that comes in the name of the Lord. So who did they think he was?

King. Messiah. Messiah. And they had a certain conception of who the Messiah was and what he had come to do and would do when he comes.

And so he's the king. Blessed is the king that comes. And the procession would have ended there at the temple just inside the eastern gate. And it would have been, of course, late in the day because remember Jesus traveled all the way from Jericho, some 16 miles away.

And then he stayed a little while in Bethany and then came on into the city. So it would have been later in the day. The temple would have been closed per se for everyone except for the priests and they would have been getting things ready for the next day.

It's Passover week and so a lot of activity going to take place in the temple the next day. So Jesus couldn't go into the temple at that point and so Jesus journeys to the two miles back to Bethany and he spends the night there, lodges with his friends Mary and Martha.

And Lazarus, you know, the one who had been raised, raised from the dead. And so now we're up to date. We're in our text for this morning and it's Tuesday morning.

And Jesus enters the city a second time and where does he go? Well, did he go to the fort of Antonia?

The fort of Antonia was located in Jerusalem. You know where that was? That was the garrison for the Roman army? I mean, if you're going to come in and kick the Romans out, that's where you'd have to go.

You'd have to deal with them. And so did he go there first? Well, no. He didn't, did he? Well, why not? So you've got to kind of put yourself into the psyche and the thinking of the people of the day.

Why didn't he go there first? I mean, he's made his triumphal entry. He's declared himself. He's Hosanna, the king. He's the king that has come and he's going to kick the Romans out. And so when he comes in, they would expect him to go to the fort of Antonia and battle the Romans.

And so why did he not do that? It's interesting. I wonder, could you imagine what kind of military leader Jesus could have been? Let me think about it.

But one thing, he could have fed his entire army on just a few loaves of bread and some fish. Also, you know, when the soldiers were wounded, he could just heal them.

If they died in battle, he'd just raise them from the dead. I mean, think about it. Perpetual army. No one ever dies. And, you know, Jesus had authority over all the elements.

I mean, just drop a couple of dozen tornadoes on the enemy. Or a hurricane, even though they're not right there by the sea. And also, you know, Jesus demonstrated his power and authority over the demonic world.

And so maybe perhaps he could have just commanded a legion or a couple legions of demons to do battle with the Romans. And boy, that would be something. They would be well, you know, I'm just having some fun.

But Jesus didn't go to the fort. He didn't go to the garrison of the Roman army, did he? Well, did he go to Herod's palace?

You know, Herod had a palace there. Spent a lot of time there. Herod was kind of the puppet king of the region. He was the king in a sense. Some of it just self-declared king.

But he really was the representative of the authority, the representative authority of Caesar there in the land. And he spent a lot of time in Jerusalem.

Did he go to Herod's palace? Did he go to the house of Pilate? Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. I mean, if you're going to deal with the Romans, and you're going to kick them out and judge them and destroy them and thus free Israel from their oppression, and then establish your throne and kingdom, which is what they were expecting him to do, then that's where you would go.

He didn't go there. I think they were expecting him to, but he didn't. Instead, where did he go? To the temple. I'm trying to place in our minds how profound this is.

How, in many ways, how shocking it was for the people of Israel. He went to the temple. And so, Jesus does not attack the pagan, idolatrous, Roman oppressors and occupiers.

He doesn't attack them. He attacks the temple. He doesn't just simply go to the temple. He attacks it. Really, he does. One man army. He attacks the temple.

He attacks the very core of Judaism of the day. In fact, he attacks the most corrupt of all things in Israel.

Their worship. Their religion. Could it be that on Monday night when Jesus came in, came to the very door of the temple, of course, it would have been closed, but he could see in.

Could it be, I'm just speculating, could it be that he came to the very door on Monday night and looked in and he could see the money changer tables that were set up, their little scales, and he could see the booths of the merchants set up there in the court of Gentiles and the cages of various animals that would be sold for the sacrifice the next day.

It was going to be a busy day the next day. All that would be set up. Could it be that he looked in and he saw all of that? That set the stage for what he would do on Tuesday. I don't know.

I don't think Jesus has to see something to know something. He knows it already. You know, the Bible says in John, excuse me, 1 Peter 4, 17, for it is time for judgment to begin with the household.

To begin with the household. You see, Jesus is infinitely more concerned with what happens in God's house house than he is with what happens in the White House.

I know we're pretty concerned about that. Concerned about our country and so forth. But Jesus is infinitely more concerned and interested in what happens in his house.

And so, Jesus is infinitely more interested in the quality, the character, the genuine nature of our worship than he is, say, our pedigree in politics or whatever else.

He has an affinity for true worship. We need to know that about Jesus. Then, that just really kind of gets us started. We need to go deeper. And see, second of all, what I want to call the authority over true worship displayed by Jesus.

The authority over true worship displayed here in the story by Jesus Christ. Verse 45, then he went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it.

I've tried to picture this. And I guess, you know, we can do it fairly well. All of us probably have been to some Easter pageants and have seen kind of the Passion Week of Christ.

And we've seen how that is portrayed, him going in to the temple and turning over the money changers tables and letting loose all of the livestock and driving the merchants and peddlers out of it.

And he's doing this all by himself. It's probably a picture of Jesus at his most violent stage.

More violent here than anything we've ever seen him do in his earthly ministry. So he drives them all out out of the temple.

Now, by the way, what do we mean by temple? What does the Bible mean by temple here? You know, there are two words in the Greek language, two words in our New Testament. Both of them are translated temple in English, so we can't tell the difference between them according to our English text.

Sometimes a version of the Bible will capitalize temple and that tells us that it's a particular kind of word. There are two words. One of them is Naos. We could spell it N-A-O-S.

Naos, and it refers to the most sacred inner sanctuary of the temple, and we know that to be the holy place and through the veil into the holy of holies.

And in the holy place, only a priest, a priest that was selected kind of on a rotating basis. Remember Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist. His turn had come around to serve in the holy place.

So just one priest could go in there. And then through the veil into the holy of holies, only the high priest could go in there. So that's Naos, the kind of inner temple, the most sacred part of the temple.

The other word is Hieron, which refers to the temple proper, or in general rather, in general.

kind of the entire edifice. Alright? And so that's the word that is used here in our passage. And so specifically, Jesus is cleansing a certain portion.

It's kind of the first main part of the temple that you would enter into, and it's the court of the Gentiles. And everyone would be allowed in there. But, the court of the Gentiles, and we can find this when we reference passages that describe this back in the Old Testament.

But the court of the Gentiles was to be a place of quiet meditation upon the Lord and upon His Word. It was to be a place for the teaching of God's Word.

It was to be a place of prayer and communion with the Lord. It was to be a place where the people would come and offer their sacrifices to the Lord.

They would give their sacrifices, in this case, to the priests who would then take it and offer it to the Lord in the prescribed way. That's what the court of the Gentiles was for.

But it had been turned into a place of merchandise. But worse than that, a place of corruption. Corruption.

And we'll talk more about that here in just a moment, but what did Jesus do? What did Jesus do? He drove them out single-handedly. Now, did He have the authority to do that?

Well, that's what the Jewish leadership wanted to know. They ask that question in the next chapter. What right do you have to do this? And who gave it to you? Did He have the authority to do it?

And we'll talk more about that next week. But the short answer is yes. He did have that authority. Authority over the temple. And why? Because He's the Lord of the temple.

Jesus is. And really, He stated the basis of His authority, His right to authority, in the very next verse. In verse 46, look at it. He said, it is written, My house is a house of prayer.

Whose house? He said, My house. This is my house. And so, Jesus has the authority over what happens in His house.

house. And that includes this house. His house. It is. It's His house. He has authority over what takes place here.

And over all houses of worship, that is, those that claim to worship the God of the Bible, and His Son, King Jesus, has authority.

Jesus is the authority on worship. Jesus, and Jesus put that authority on display as He drove those money changers out of the temple and peddlers out of the temple as He drove the corruption out of the temple.

He displayed that authority. By the way, this is not the first time Jesus did it. Did you know, according to John 2, verses 13-14, Jesus did this at the beginning of His ministry as well.

First time He did it, it's not a parallel passage. So don't think, well, John got it wrong. He has it at the beginning and Luke has it at the end. No, no, that's not true. There are a lot of differences and different things said about it and what Jesus quoted out of Scripture.

These are two different incidents. So He did it at the beginning of His ministry, He fashioned that little whip and He whipped them and got them all out of there. And then according to Luke, Luke 19, and we can find it also in Matthew 21 and Mark 11, Jesus did it again at the end of His ministry.

So He's done it twice. At the beginning of His ministry, at the end of His ministry, and guess what? He's going to do it again because it didn't stick. It didn't last.

And so Jesus is going to do it one last time, and it's going to be 40 years later. This time He's going to do it through a Roman general by the name of Titus, and He's going to level the temple down to the ground with not one stone left upon another.

And guess what? God has not let the temple be rebuilt since. God is serious about worship. He's serious about it.

And so should we. And why? Why did He clear these people out of the temple? And so the last thing I want you to notice from the passage is not only the affinity for true worship demonstrated by Jesus, and the authority over true worship displayed by Jesus, but then finally the activity of true worship defined by Jesus.

Jesus defines what true worship is. And in this case, He does it in a couple of ways by identifying false worship and then also defining what true worship is and demonstrating that as well.

So the activity of true worship defined by Jesus. Again, verse 45, Jesus drove out those who bought and sold in it, in the temple.

And so clearly worship in Israel had been corrupted. corrupted. It was corrupt. The people were required to buy their objects that would be used for the sacrifices, whether they were animals or like lambs and birds, pigeons, grain even.

I mean, if you couldn't afford a lamb or a pigeon, then you could offer grain. They buy grain, oil for certain sacrifices, even wine was used as an offering.

And they could buy all they would buy all of these things, actually forced to buy all these things from the merchants there in the temple. Now, by law, by scripture, they could bring it with them.

And so you could bring your own lamb for the sacrifice. But the problem was it had to be approved by the priest. Any sacrifice you gave had to be approved by the priest. Especially the lambs.

They would scrutinize them and they would approve them to make sure they were spotless and no blemishes and all the other requirements that God had given. And so the priests would be the ones to examine them and they wouldn't approve them unless they bought them there in the temple.

All right? And then many of the people had to exchange foreign currency because they not only had a temple tax to pay, but they also had to purchase the various things for the sacrifices and so forth.

And because these people came from many different regions of the known world, they had different currencies and some would be accepted, some would not. They're in Jerusalem and so they had to exchange their currency. And the exchange rate was ridiculous.

It was unfair. They were actually robbing from the people. I heard one man liken it to going to a foreign country and exchanging your money at the airport as opposed to a bank.

Don't ever exchange your money at the airport. All right, just work what? Terrible exchange rate. But this is even worse than this. This was thievery. It was dishonest.

And here's what's interesting. The historians tell us that this activity, this thing that was going on in the court of the Gentiles, it was called the Bazaar of Annas.

The Bazaar of Annas. Who was Annas? Annas was the former high priest of Israel and the father-in-law of the current high priest, Caiaphas. And yet all historians agree that Anna was still the power behind the high priesthood.

And so he ruled the roost. He called all the shots. And so these merchants and these livestock peddlers and these money changers, they all worked for Annas.

They all worked for him and his organization. If they didn't work directly for him, they had to pay a certain fee in order to put up a booth in the court of the Gentiles. So Annas and Caiaphas and probably some of the chief priests, this was a racket.

This was a racket. And it put untold wealth into the pockets of Annas and Caiaphas and the chief priests. They all got their cut. See, from this. This is corrupt at the very court.

Now, Jesus reveals, I think, though, an even deeper problem than just the dishonesty and the corruption that was going on there in God's house.

And so in verse 46, Jesus quoted from a couple of passages in the Old Testament, a couple of prophecies. And he said, one of those prophecies was from Jeremiah 7, and he said, you've made my house, what?

A den of thieves. A den of thieves. Now, on the face of it, that certainly speaks to the issue of corruption and dishonesty. You know, the price gouging and the dishonest exchange rates and so forth.

But if you look at the prophecy itself, you go to Jeremiah chapter 7, Jesus quotes from verse 11 of that chapter. You've made my house a den of thieves.

That's in there, but it's only a part of verse 11. But you have to understand the whole context of the prophecy, I think, to understand the broader condemnation or indictment that Jesus was bringing upon the worship that was taking place in Israel in his day.

And so when you look at that passage, Jeremiah 7, this prophecy, and you back up a little bit to verse 8, verse 7 rather. Listen to what it says.

Then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever. Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit.

Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, that is idolatry, and walk after other gods whom you do not know, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, we are delivered to do all these abominations.

It's kind of like saying, you know, we just party all week, and then get right with God on Sunday, and then start all over on Monday. As long as we, you know, we come to church and get, you know, get things taken care of.

And that's kind of what they were saying. He said, will you do all these things and then come into my house and say that we are delivered to do all these abominations?

Has this house, this is the prophecy, has this house, that is the Lord's house, which is called by my name become a den of thieves in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it.

I've seen it, says the Lord. That's an interesting passage. You see the indictment? It really is pretty clear. They're living like pagans and then coming to the temple and going through the motions of worship, participating in all that pertains to that, and then claiming faithfulness to God and appearing to offer pure worship, and yet all the while they are law breakers.

God's commandments. And they're putting other gods before him. Idolatry. And they're worshiping themselves.

Because all idolatry really is that. And God says, I see you. I see you.

You may have fooled everyone else. And fooled everyone else into believing that here's a true worship. that I see you.

I know the truth. You can't fool me. See, their worship was hypocrisy. Not just among the leadership, but all the people of Israel. And it needed to be cleaned out.

And Jesus said, my house is a house of prayer. That's a quotation from Isaiah chapter 56. And it doesn't mean that it's just a place where you come and just pray all the time.

When he says a house of prayer, he's talking about worship. He's talking about communion with God and praising God and thanking God and worshiping God and learning his word and worshiping his nature and his character and his sovereignty and his mighty works in our behalf and on and on we could go.

This is a house of prayer, a house of worship, where the focus is God and his son, Jesus.

So really there are two things we should understand about the activity of true worship. We can go back to John 4.23 and see it kind of put right there in a nutshell.

The first thing is the spirit of worship. The spirit of true worship. Jesus said in John 4.23, true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit.

spirit. That's not spirit with a capital S. It's not the Holy Spirit he's referring to. Jesus is talking about the heart. He's talking about the heart.

The heart of the worshiper. A heart that is right with God. That would include, of course, salvation. Being saved. You can't worship the Lord if he's not true. But it includes the whole heart.

The purity of that heart. The rightness before God. And then there is the second, the substance of true worship. And Jesus said in that same verse, true worshipers will worship the Father in truth.

In truth. So, not only must our worship be consistent with the clear teachings of God's word. It better line up with God's word. They do not have worship that contradicts any part of God's word or contradicts even the spirit of it.

It must be in keeping with God's word. But also, true worship is by definition the response to God's word. As God reveals himself through his word.

That is the source of true worship. It is. And that is why, how we are to respond to the word of God. And with that said, notice what Jesus did after he cleansed the temple and drove all of the corruption out of it.

I mean, he cleared it out. Notice what happened after that. Verse 47, and he was teaching daily in the temple. And all the people were very attentive to hear him.

See, Jesus replaced all of the corruption and dishonesty and all of the aberrant kind of trappings of the worship of the day.

He replaced all that with his word. He brought the word of God back into the temple. Back into their worship. And the people responded. They were attentive to hear him.

Even in chapter 20, verse 1, he taught the people in the temple and preached the gospel. Do you see? They listen at the very, very, very, the substance of worship is God's word.

Whether it is a part of the music that we sing, certainly a part of the preaching that is preached, taught, which, by the way, is the real center point of worship.

The centerpiece of worship is the proclamation and teaching of God's word, because it's when God reveals himself through his word, that worship is produced in us.

It's not emotion that leads to worship. It is worship as we see God and understand his word that leads us to emotion. All right?

So a lot of churches have it backward. What we've got to do, what they're trying to do is just stir up worship. Well, it's God's word that produces worship. Jesus taught in the temple.

What a major change. All the corruption is gone and what's left? The word of God. Very basis for true worship. Now, churches today need to hear it.

Because so much of the so-called worship that is going on in many churches today is unscriptural, a lot of it, or it is minimal scripture, or void of scripture altogether.

It is much of it man-centered. It is, it turns, it's turned inward rather than upward. All through Malachi chapter two, I'll be finished here in a moment.

We'll not turn to that passage, but you can read Malachi chapter two, all throughout that chapter, the Lord is condemning false hypocritical worship. And then he says in chapter three, verse one, behold, I send my messenger.

Listen to this. And he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you see will suddenly come in his temple.

Even the messenger of the covenant, the Messiah, in whom you delight. Behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming?

And who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like launderer's soap.

He will sit as a refiner and a purifier. Of what? Of worship. That they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness.

That's a description of worship. That's what he did here in our text. I should have expected him. And expected him to do the very thing he did. They couldn't endure it.

They cannot stand. And that's what he will do again one day. And will the, quote, contemporary church of this day in America be able to endure that?

Will we be able to stand at his appearing? At his coming? What Jesus cares about most is true, genuine worship.

From a heart that is right, that as as it's substance, the word of God. Thank you.