The Gospel of John: All Things New - Jan 12, 2025 (Myles Holmes)

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

The spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

And he's made such great promises for us when we do.

And so we want to get right into God's Word.

If you have a copy of God's word, you can open it up to John chapter 2.

John 2 · chapter mention

And if you don't own a copy of God's word, the ushers are making their way down the aisle right now, and you can just slip your hand in the air.

They would love to get a copy into your hand, and you can keep that.

This is our gift to you.

We love God's word here and to work through it verse by verse, just as we'll do today to see God's power in our lives.

Why don't you stand with me as we read from John chapter 2 in its entirety together and give reverence to God's word that he has spoken to us?

John 2 · chapter mention

John writes in John chapter 2, starting at verse 1, on the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.

John 2 · chapter mention

Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.

When the rant wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, They have no wine.

Jesus said to her, Woman, what does this have to do with me?

My hour has not yet come.

His mother said to the servants, Do whatever he tells you.

Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.

Jesus said to the servants, Fill the jars with water.

They filled them up to the brim, and he said to them, Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.

So they took it.

When the master of the feast tasted the water, now become wine, and did not know where it came from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew, the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine, but you have kept the good wine until now.

This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days.

The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting in sitting there.

Making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and oxen, and he poured the coins of the money changer and changers and overturned their tables.

And he told those who sold pigeons, Take these things away, do not make my father's house a house of trade.

His disciples remembered that it was written, Zeal for your house will consume me.

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

Jesus answered them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

The Jews then said, It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?

But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs he was doing.

But Jesus, on his part, did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

Let's turn to the Lord in prayer.

Father, we bow before you, and God thank you for the glory of Jesus Christ.

The glory that we read of in in John chapter one, it was a glory that was manifest before the creation of the world.

Lord, a glory in Jesus that you have delighted in in all of eternity past, and a glory now that we get to see.

And God, my prayer is exactly the intention of John in this chapter that as we see these signs and miracles of Jesus Christ that he performed in his day, God, that we would believe.

And that not only would we believe, but we would taste and see the glory of Jesus Christ, a glory that far outweighs anything this world has to offer.

God, we confess, we get so caught up in the pursuits of this world and in seeking fulfillment in this world.

And God, we are reminded this morning that true lasting joy, fulfillment, blessing.

Lord, it can only be found in you.

And so, Lord, no matter where we feel, we are on the scale of believing that, Lord, that we truly can find it in you.

I pray that you would help us in these moments to turn to you and to taste and see that the Lord indeed is good.

God, we believe this.

And so we pray this in the name of your son.

And all God's people said, Amen.

Amen.

You can grab a seat.

D.A.

Carson tells a story of a professor that he had in seminary, and D.A.

Carson had spent some time with a friend of his sharing the gospel.

This friend was a skeptic, a hardened skeptic, and one day he invited his professor over, kind of, you know, to sort of invite the big guns into this conversation.

And after some time having a conversation, this man was still hardened, and so this professor looked to the man and he asked him something profound.

He asked this hardened skeptic if he would come and live with him for a few days.

Sort of radical, but he had such a belief and confidence in the gospel that he believed if he could just walk with this man for a few days, if this man could see what a life looks like when there's this nearness to Jesus Christ, then his opinion and his worldview, and therefore his life would be transformed and changed for the better?

Now let me ask you this question.

I wonder if your life would have the same effect.

If you were to invite someone into your life, would the evidence of your transformation be so profoundly overwhelming that it would provide for you a witness stronger than the most eloquent words ever could?

This is what Jesus calls us to, isn't it?

His plan is simple.

His followers are to be transformed by him and bear an unmistakable mark of redemption on their lives.

And as they live in Christ, the glory of Christ is there to radiate through their lives so that the watching world can see.

That's what our lives are to be.

We've talked about this before, that to meet Christ is like the physical equivalent of being hit by a Mac truck.

Nothing can be the same.

Everything is different.

It changes everything.

It's significant then that as we come into John chapter 2, this is exactly what Jesus is doing.

John 2 · chapter mention

John chapter 1 has the writer has spent time telling us that Jesus really is the glory of the world.

John 1 · chapter mention

He says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God.

And through the testimony of John the Baptist, he tells us that this is the Lamb of God who is able to take away the sins of the world.

You see, in Jesus we have something special, but it's one thing to say it, it's an entirely another thing to see it.

And what Jesus wants to do for us this morning is show us it.

See, it's so significant in John chapter 1, if you were with us, that as John called five of his first disciples to himself, Andrew and another unnamed disciple, likely John the writer himself, asked him, Rabbi, where are you staying?

John 1 · chapter mention

And Jesus said, What he's gonna say to us this morning, come and see.

Why?

Because Jesus' desire is that you know his glory.

Jesus' desire for your life, and what we will taste, I pray, and see this morning, is that his ministry to us be not only in words, but also in witness.

That's why, as we read through John, you'll notice you can look down at your Bible with me, that time and time again, John the gospel writer, brings up this fact that the reason why he is writing of these signs is though so we can see his glory.

Look at verse 11.

This is the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

Again, he will say this in verse 22.

He was speaking of the about the temple of his body, when therefore he was raised from the dead.

His disciples remembered that he had said this and they believed the scripture and the word that he had spoken.

Again, he says it in verse 24 and 25.

But Jesus did not entrust himself to them because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man.

You see, Jesus is performing these miracles with the idea that when we see them, we will taste and see his glory, a glory that has pre-existed time, a glory that the triune God has delighted in for all of eternity past and for all of eternity future.

And you and I this morning are excited, are invited to partake and see and taste that glory.

Are you excited, church?

Yes.

Okay, so we sit up straight, then we stop slumping the sl, you know, slumping our shoulders because this is an amazing glory.

There's nothing so amazing.

Jesus wants us to know him.

And he not only wants us to know him, he wants us to experience him.

You know, it's one thing to know that honey is sweet, it's another thing to taste it and experience it.

And so this morning, Jesus is inviting us to experience him through these two signs that he did at the very beginning of his public ministry.

Here's the first thing Jesus wants us to uh experience this morning, and that is that he takes our emptiness and he fills it.

He takes our emptiness and he fills it.

This is what you see when you come to Jesus.

This is exactly what Jesus' first miracle in Cana bears witness to.

Step into chapter two, and we need to take a moment really to recall how chapter one ended.

Jesus calls five disciples to himself, and it ends there with Nathaniel, who is shocked, because Jesus knew everything about him, and Jesus sort of gives Nathaniel this promise that I think is a promise that Jesus can give to us every day for the rest of eternity.

And Jesus' promise to Nathaniel is this is listen, you haven't seen anything yet.

Doesn't that excite you, loved one?

That you know, we're gonna get to heaven, and Jesus is gonna say, hey, listen, his glory is as this is.

You haven't seen anything yet, because every day you're gonna see more and more glory.

Why?

Because how infinite is Jesus' glory.

It's infinite.

You haven't seen anything yet, Jesus says to Nathaniel.

Then he says, This in verse 51 truly, truly I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

Jesus points back to Jacob's vision in Genesis, where he saw a ladder descending from the heavens to the earth, and angels going up and down the ladder.

And here in Jesus' vision, the ladder is descending upon himself.

And what Jesus is saying is heaven is here.

If you are with me, if you are experiencing me, you are tasting heaven.

I am heaven on earth.

Jesus' proclamation of himself, his historical claim is this is that something new is here.

Something better is here.

And in John chapter 2, immediately at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus will prove that by showing his sovereignty over creation.

John 2 · chapter mention

He can take water and turn it into wine.

Something else I want you to notice about John chapter 1, and it's likely that you didn't notice this as we went through the first chapter over the last couple of weeks.

John 1 · chapter mention

In fact, I didn't really notice it, but but that is this that John, after verse 18, after he's finished his prologue, John is kind of obsessed with telling us all about the dates.

You see that there in verse 19.

Sorry, beginning in verse 29.

That's the first day that John tells us about.

Sorry, sorry, 18 is the first day where John the Baptist is confronted by the Pharisees.

On verse 29, we are told it's the next day of, this is in chapter 1, that John the Baptist saw Jesus coming towards him.

This is the second day.

In verse 35, John then tells us about the next day, where John the Baptist was standing with two of his disciples and saw Jesus.

And then in verse 343, we see the next day that Jesus decided to go to Galilee.

And then in chapter 2, verse 1, we come to here and we're told that it's on the third day.

Now, if you do all the math there, and I've done it, so you'll have to trust me.

Something you should never do with me in math, but I spent a long time on this.

If you do the math, that's seven days.

Seven days.

Significant for us because John isn't like, you know, remember Nehemiah.

Nehemiah was always obsessing about the dates.

Nehemiah was like, I had a church history professor who, when he was eight, he just loved dates.

You know a person like that?

You like tell him you did something, like, oh, what time was it?

Like, well, it's irrelevant to the story, but I don't know.

Well, this professor, when he was eight years old, he memorized for fun all of the names of the monarchs of England and their dates.

That was just like he loved to do this stuff.

But John isn't like that because through the rest of this gospel, he doesn't really care about chronology.

So you know something significant is here, and and what's happening is on the seventh day, Jesus is coming into Cana, into this wedding, and he's multiplying the wine.

What is John doing here?

John is telling us that at the coming of Jesus, a new creation order is being put in place.

John's already been in Genesis 1, right?

You remember John 1.1.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was God.

That intention there is to take us back to Genesis 1-1.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

And so, in the very first words of John 1, John is echoing the writing of Genesis 1, but then as we pass the prologue, what we find is that John is continuing to carry on the theme of Genesis 1 to tell us that what Jesus is doing is the spiritual equivalent of the physical equivalent of what God did in Genesis 1.

In Genesis 1, the world was void and without form and shapeless and purposeless, but he miraculously spoke life into the world and he brought about order.

He filled the voidness, he filled the emptiness.

And Jesus is here to say, I am here to do it in an even more significant spiritual way.

It is a new creation order that I am ushering in.

And so listen, this is the reality of your life.

If your faith is in Jesus Christ this morning, and I pray that it is, do you understand that something that is even more significant than the creation of the world has happened in your heart?

It truly is miraculous, which is astounding to me because as I read Genesis 1, I cannot help but to marvel at how amazing it is that God creates the world the way that he does.

It's such a display of power, such a display of miraculous power that only God can do to create something out of nothing.

And yet, in your heart, if your faith is in Jesus Christ, the exact same thing, if not even more significant, has happened.

That's why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, 6, that the God who said, Let there be light has shone in our hearts.

So the question for us is this do we stand in awe of what God has done in us?

Does your life bear the resounding mark of having been a newly created spiritual son or daughter of God?

I'm reading a book with my kids, and it's a fiction book, but it's kind of based on the Bible, and so these fictional characters they go back into the stories of the Bible, and you know, it's all it's it's pretty borderline heretical, you know, whenever you're kind of creating fiction of real things that happen in the Bible, but you know, we're doing it.

So we're reading this book together, and uh these characters are are in Genesis 1, and God is creating the the world, and it's this amazing picture.

Like, I don't know if you can imagine it, of just like he says, Let there be light, and light shoots from his mouth, and he creates trees and animals.

And if you could just imagine the wonder of that day, like these animals are made out of nothing.

Imagine the wonder of Adam being created, and you know, he's looking at his at his body and the world, and he's saying, Oh, you know, this is life.

This is life.

How astounding and marvelous that would be.

How they'd stand in awe of all the little things and loved one.

God has done that in you.

You are a new creation.

So let me ask you, does it does your life bear the awe it should be given the fact that you are a spiritual miracle?

You know, church does our worship as a church, it does our worship give evidence to the fact that what we are are singing about we believe to be the most miraculous, astounding truth in the whole history of the world.

Does our worship do it?

Jesus takes what is empty in our lives and he fills it.

This is the heart of the miracle at Cana, and and this is why John places it here in the gospel.

The problem in the story is that Jesus and his disciples are at a wedding and they have run out of wine.

Now, if you were Jewish here and you heard that, you this is like gossip in the day of Israel, okay?

This is like the most juicy gossip you could have.

If I told you Jesus was with the disciples and they ran out of wine, there'd be an audible gasp.

Shocking.

The weddings in these days would often last as long as seven days.

You thought you've been at some long speeches.

You have not even begin to experience it.

And so you can imagine that, especially in a shame culture, what kind of dishonor it would be to run out of wine.

It wasn't just a small oversight, it was the responsibility of the bridegroom to provide for this wedding and make sure that there is enough of it, and so there would be great shame heaped upon the family.

There even could be lawsuits because of this.

I mean, you thought you went to some crazy dramatic weddings.

You haven't even begun.

Jesus steps into the wineless party, and as he does so, there are deep and rich implications for us.

You see, the Old Testament, it often uses wine as a symbol of joy and blessing and prosperity, so that prophets like Isaiah and Amos, they speak of a time when the Messiah will return and wine will flow freely.

And it represents this time where God's provision is going to be abundant.

Isaiah 25, verse 6 says this on this mountain, the Lord Almighty, I mean, I love this.

Isaiah 25:6

I think this is gonna be my life verse, okay?

The Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine, the best of meats, the finest of wines.

Amos 9 13 paints a picture of this abundance.

It says, the mountains will drip with sweet wine.

But the fact that Jesus has now come to this world, everything we celebrated in Christmas.

And he's at this wedding, and the wine has run out, tells us something about this world.

It paints a vivid picture of this world that you and I live in.

We are in a wineless world.

Until Christ returns, we are at the wedding banquet and we have run out of wine.

We have run out of the resource that's meant to give us joy, provision, blessing.

That's what it means to live in this world.

Do you know what that means, loved one?

Do you know what that means, believer?

That you and I need to stop putting the expectation on this world that it can satisfy us.

It can't.

The day is coming where Jesus will finally and forever complete the new created order, and then wine will flow freely until then, as much weight as you put on this world to satisfy you, it will not be able to.

We know this about food, don't we?

You know, I love McDonald's.

I really do.

I have never eaten McDonald's and then said, okay, let's go tackle this day.

Never in my life.

Have you?

I know exactly what's gonna happen.

I'm gonna eat it, it's gonna taste good for like seven seconds, but then it's gonna be a brick in my stomach, and I will not be able to do anything.

I know that about McDonald's.

The more you fill yourself up, the emptier you feel.

Loved one, do you know that about this world?

Do you know that the things of this world cannot sustain you?

McDonald's, there's no nutritional value for it too.

The world, there is no spiritual value for it too.

It cannot.

And so, as much as you place your hope in changed circumstances, as much as you place your hope in changed people, as much as you place your hope in a promotion, in a whatever it is, you must understand this and be convinced of it to your core.

That this world is a wedding without wine.

It's not spiritually possible for it to sustain me.

The wine is coming, the provision is coming, but we wait with faith filled, hope, and expectation.

We wait for Jesus to return.

It was an embarrassing situation.

And so here Mary steps forward with this problem.

They have no wine.

It's likely that Mary was more than probably a widow at this point.

Joseph is completely off the picture in all of the gospels, and so it's very likely that she had come to depend on her son Jesus as sort of an innovator, someone who could solve problems.

And so he she comes to him, they have no wine.

Now, Jesus responds in verse four and says, This woman, what does this have to do with me?

My hour has not yet come.

Now it's very difficult to translate this word woman because you know, some people have thought maybe like the southern ma'am is good close to it, but it's it's really not because that sort of is a little too respectful, I would say, but it's certainly not as disrespectful.

You know, if I were to go to think to any of the women in our church and say, hey, woman, what are you doing?

You know, I don't think that would go over well for me at all.

And so it's difficult, but I want you to understand that what Jesus says here is certainly not disrespectful, but it is shocking in the sense that it's not endearing.

Nowhere do we have in all of the writings of the ancient Near East a son calling his mother woman.

But remember that what's happening here is the first sign of Jesus' public ministry, and a transition has taken place in which Jesus has is now on a mission to the cross.

This is why he says, My time has not come.

Literally, time means hour.

He's looking forward to a time where the purpose for which he came will be fulfilled.

It is the cross.

And all throughout the Gospel of John will come back to this phrase: My time has not yet come.

My time has not yet come.

Because now that Jesus' public ministry has begun, his eyes are on the cross.

He's looking forward to the day of resurrection.

Now Mary's tone then changes in verse 5, and I love what one commentator says.

Mary turns to, addresses Jesus as a mother, but leaves as a believer.

And with sort of this faith-filled expectation, she says to her servants, do whatever he tells you.

Mary has this understanding, something significant is going to happen here.

Even though she's turned away, she she has the faith to say this there is something significant happening.

Now it's significant that the next time that Jesus will talk to his mother in the Gospel of John will be when he is on, guess, the cross.

And on the cross, he will look to his mother and say, woman.

And I wonder if the shock of that moment to Mary would bring all this moment flooding back into her mind.

There was another time when Jesus called me woman, and he said, My time has not yet come.

And there on the cross, Mary would know with full certainty the time has come.

Jesus did not come for this work so that the party could have wine for the remaining of days.

He came for a more significant work so that those who believe in him could have life for all of eternity.

What Jesus does is then profound.

He looks at six stone jars that are holding water.

These jars are used for ceremonial washing.

And I think, you know, many of us are familiar with this story, but I think we sort of misunderstand what's happening here.

Jesus calls the servants to go to a well and fill the ceremonial washing jars with water.

When he says in verse 8, now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast, it is that well that the servants are drawing the water from.

It's not the ceremonial jars.

In fact, the ceremonial jars and the filling of them has a deep significance and spiritual lesson for us.

These jars, we are told by John himself, are used for ceremonial washing.

This was part of the Levitical law that you were to cleanse yourself from physical uncleanliness before eating as sort of a spiritual reminder, and this was good.

You know what the problem with it was?

You had to keep filling up this jar of water for ceremonial washing because you were never clean.

It's miraculous almost how quick someone can get dirty.

And you kept having to ceremoniously cleanse yourself.

When Jesus fills the jar, he is saying this that the jar is full because no one is going to need it anymore.

Do you understand?

You know, like I've I've bought cabbage before.

You guys ever bought a cabbage before?

No one.

See, no one in this room has ever bought a cabbage.

And I've bought the cabbage and it has remained in my fridge, taking up half of the fridge, and I've never even cut into it.

It has remained full because nobody needs cabbage.

Nobody, right?

Disgusting.

Now this jar will be filled to the brim, John says, and it will remain full.

Why?

Because they do not need it anymore.

Why?

Because Jesus came to give them true cleansing, cleansing that would cleanse them once and for all.

Now from that same well that they filled the ceremonial jars from, now the servants go to that well and they draw out, we're told in verse, in verse 8, they draw out water.

So they took it.

When the master of the feast tasted the water that they drew out, it had now become wine, and the servants didn't know where from.

Jesus had miraculously transformed the water into wine, and not only just any wine, this was the best wine that the master of the feast had ever tasted.

Now, listen, this is this is our application for us, okay?

What you are expecting me to say is this when you come to Jesus, listen, everything's gonna be hunky-dory.

You know, hey, listen, you got emptiness in the world?

Just come to Jesus, okay?

Just come to Jesus.

You know, I've sat in the counseling room with people before who have told me I just don't get it.

I just you know I still feel the emptiness of the world, and I'm trying to turn to Jesus and I'm trying to, but I just don't, it's just not working.

And I want you to understand, like, redemption is not yet complete.

And so if you have this expectation that you're gonna come to Jesus and every all your problems are now gonna be solved, and you're never gonna struggle with the brokenness of this world again, and every weight that's ever been on your life is gonna be lifted from your shoulders, you're misunderstanding the timeline here.

We're not in heaven yet.

Our application is this is that when Jesus finishes work, there will never be emptiness again.

The time of the resurrection has come, but Jesus has not yet consummated the new creation.

That means that as believers in this world, there will always be a sense of emptiness.

And some of you who, you know, you're constantly struggling with the despair of the emptiness that you feel, with the feeling like just things are not right.

You need to settle in for a moment and just acknowledge this that they're not.

That this world is incredibly broken.

But that doesn't drive you to despair and depression and hopelessness.

It fills you with hope because you remember that Jesus is coming to make things right and that you only have one hope.

Listen, when you're driving down the highway and you are, you're, you know, you're so ravenously hungry, when you are in the right frame of mind, you drive by the McDonald's and you can say, even though I'm hungry, that's not gonna solve the problem.

I need some substance, I need some real food.

And so listen, right now you may be hungering for fulfillment.

You may be experiencing the hardship of living in a broken world.

But what do you need to do?

You must wait on the Lord Jesus Christ who will bring fulfillment.

Things are not right.

And we can we say this?

Like, I don't know if I can say this, so send me an email this week if I can't.

But things suck.

And the world is broken.

It's not the way that it should be, but there is a day coming.

So we stop placing weight on the world it cannot bear.

Instead of faith-fueled hope.

What are you turning to in this world right now?

To try to relieve yourself of the emptiness and the brokenness of it.

My prayer is that this morning the Spirit is opening your eyes to the reality that nothing but Jesus can deliver you.

How does he deliver us?

I think Mary's words here are so helpful.

This should be a banner of our life.

What she tells her servants in verse 5 do whatever he tells you.

Do whatever he tells you.

That's how Jesus delivers us to fulfillment.

It's through his lordship.

We say this all the time: the blessings of obedience far outweigh the blessings of disobedience.

Jesus is leading us to the fulfillment that we seek.

You know, in a few weeks, we're we're gonna talk about Jesus being living water and living bread.

This is what Jesus came to do, he longs for you to be filled.

And so don't think you're the only one with this intense longing in your heart.

Jesus longs for it.

He is with you and he is doing it.

And so we submit to his lordship.

This is the second thing I want you to see here.

Jesus takes what is empty and fills it, but he takes what is corrupt and makes it clean.

He came to cleanse what is corrupt.

One of the things I love about the holiday season is when you have young kids and you especially have friends and family that really love those young kids, you know, over the span of the few weeks that your house just becomes an absolute disaster of batteries and toys and flashing lights, and you can't hardly walk from the wrapping paper and the toys that are all over the floor.

And then over the span of a few weeks, I don't know how it happens miraculously in my house, things get cleaned up and tidied up and put away.

I don't know how it, it's definitely my wife, she does that.

But then now we get to reap the reward of like living in a normal house again.

The ebbs and flows of this are especially relevant at Christmas.

Well, it's not just my house that's like that, though.

The house of God is like that.

And throughout the span of the Old Testament, you know, we found this when we were going through Ezra and Nehemiah.

That the temple of God is, it goes through seasons where the people are rightly treating it and worshiping in it.

Through seasons where they're profaning it.

And Jesus walks here in verse 13 into the temple in Jerusalem and he finds it in disarray.

They are making a mockery of it.

This was the temple of God.

It was the holiest of all places.

And it was to be cherished because if you were proper, if the temple was properly functioning and you were worshiping in it, then the presence of God was with you as a people.

So that all throughout the Old Testament, one of the most basic things we know is that if the temple was in working order, you were doing just fine no matter what enemy you faced.

The chariots of Egypt, if the presence of God is with you, you're good.

Filled with greed.

Instead of the house of God, it was a marketplace.

And so he enters the temple, and in an instant he is filled with this righteous anger.

Well, how do we know it's righteous anger?

It's very easy to know how it's anger.

Look at verse 15 with me.

He makes a whip of cords, and he drives them all out of the temple.

Loved one, I think we um, what's the how do you verb?

We Sunday school-ify this verse, you know, like you we make Jesus to be like this, you know, fluffy bear, and I think he is, you know, I think he's a very huggable person, but he also makes a whip and chases people with it.

You remember Nehemiah did this too.

You, and here is the greater Nehemiah.

Chases the people out of the temple, tells them to get out, said stop turning his father's house into a market.

Jesus is not going to let corruption continue in God's house.

Certainly he was angry, but I want you to see that it was righteous.

Why?

Because his zeal, we are told, was not for his way, but was for God's way.

Listen, loved one, you many of us struggle with anger.

Do you know what the heart of anger is?

The heart of anger is kingdom warfare.

Anger happens when your expectation is not met, often that your kingdom runs the way that it should.

And so anger is the outburst of thinking that if I, maybe whether it's physicality or verbal anger, if I use my anger, I can get things right again.

But the problem with our anger, the reason why it is sinful, is that often we are using our anger to establish whose kingdom?

Our own.

You cut in front of me.

I wanted a peaceful drive to work.

How dare you?

It's our kingdom.

Here, Jesus is concerned about his father's kingdom.

And what we find here is that righteous anger, rather than being destructive to God's plan because it's establishing our kingdom, it brings healing to us because it establishes God's kingdom.

God's temple had been corrupted.

You know, to this day and even to this very moment, God's house is still being corrupted.

The Bible says that the temple now is in our hearts.

And this work that Jesus has done of cleansing the temple, it's a work that he continually does because you and I, just like the Israelites, are constantly letting things into the altar of our heart creep in that shouldn't be there.

The distractions, the idols, the sin, the pride, the selfishness.

Like, do you not look in your heart right now?

Can you see that?

The jealousy.

These things are in your heart.

And sometimes don't you just feel so helpless just to look at the state of your heart and say, I don't want these things in there.

I see the destructiveness of them.

But Jesus is in the business of cleansing a temple.

And church, I want you to be encouraged this morning that he is doing this in us.

That what he did in the temple, he wants to do in each of his children.

And the question then must be this how?

Well, first, I want you to notice he commits himself to an unclean people.

Jesus went to Jerusalem.

Jesus came to this world knowing exactly what was happening in the temple.

And when he invited you into relationship with him, you know, he was not unaware of what wickedness was in your heart.

In fact, he is more aware than you could ever be of exactly what is there.

You haven't even begun, if you think you have a knowledge of the wickedness of your own heart, you have not begun to scratch a surf the surface of it, but Jesus, knowing the full extent of your enity, called you to him, called you to follow him.

So that, you know, when when you bear all your sin before the Lord, Jesus is not in heaven, you know, going, you what?

There was pride in there?

You know, it's not like we bought a car and it's a lemon.

Jesus never thinks of us like that.

He knows.

And he's committed to getting into your heart and calling it out.

And I love it.

This, you know, just this week, a brother called me in Christ, and he it was a tough conversation, but but he was just drawing out this pattern of sin that he had seen.

And as I was on the phone, you know, I have never seen this in my life before.

I had no idea that it was there.

And yet there is God lovingly, the hands of Christ using a faithful words of a brother or sister in Christ, calling out sin and cleansing the temple.

Jesus is doing the work.

Secondly, he does it by driving out the corruption.

You know, no one is we the the way that we feel about our sin is often this great sense of shame and I want you to know no one is more committed to to your holiness than Jesus himself.

No one is more committed to cleansing your heart than Jesus himself.

No one is more willing to put on the gloves and get messy in the mud and dirt that is in your heart right now and clean it out than Jesus.

He's the one who does redemption.

I want you to notice though that it is a real work that he had to do.

He had to go in and flip tables to make a whip and to crack the whip.

There was work to be done.

And loved one, can I ask you, are you putting in the work?

I mean, so often in this church, we're trying to get to the so what, but it's never enough.

We always need to ask this question: what am I doing?

Not in a legalistic, am I saved way, not in a way of like God could love me anymore, but because God loves me, what am I doing to purify my life?

Are you on an effort to understand what is actually even in your heart?

When you see that, are you repenting of it?

Are you doing the work of repenting, of turning to the Lord and prayer?

Are you memorizing Scripture and the battles you know you face?

Are you memorizing Scripture to put tools in your tool belt to fight that specific issue?

It's a work we need to do.

I want you to see thirdly that it's Jesus that cleanses us.

Listen, uh, you you can change your life.

Do you know that?

I mean, you can change, you can get the bad things out of your life.

You know what you can't do though?

You cannot cleanse yourself.

You cannot get righteous standing before God.

Why?

Because that is a spiritual reality.

I love what the psalmist says.

Uh Dennis read it this morning.

Create in me a clean heart, oh God.

I love the helplessness of that.

If I were to tell you today the application, hey, listen, create in yourself a clean heart, what would you do?

Like, I don't know how to do it, I can't reach it.

Are you talking about the hard-to-reach places in your house?

There's nowhere harder to reach than your heart.

It's impossible.

And so there's this sense of helplessness right now that the spirit stirs and us and that's a good thing where we say, Lord, I'm helpless.

I can't do it.

I need you.

You have to do it.

It's only in you alone that this will ever be done.

And so where do I stand?

I stand in Christ.

He is doing the work.

It is his presence that cleanses us.

And the cleansing of the temple was the picture of what Jesus was going to do on the cross.

He would make a way for us to be clean.

So that what it says in 1 John 1:7, the blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from all sin.

1 John 1:7

He takes what is corrupt and makes it clean.

The most amazing thing is that he's doing this work today.

Listen, to none who come to Jesus in faith, does Jesus look at and say, Well, that's a mess.

You really got yourself in a situation, you know.

That's too bad for you.

I say that to my kids all the time.

You know, my kids make giant messes.

If we could do the Mess Olympics, I think my kids would probably win it.

And they always look at me behind this mountain of mess as I say, you're gonna have to clean that up.

You know, and the tears come and I say, too bad for you, you know.

Well, they can deal with their mess.

But as we look to Jesus, he knows that we can't.

And that's exactly why he came.

He looks to us and says, I can make that clean.

I can purify you.

I can restore you to what you were meant to be.

But you must follow.

I can make you whole, but you must be near me.

I can cleanse you, but you gotta let me into the temple.

The question for us this morning is this: are you willing to let Jesus in?

You let him in and he will cleanse the temple, but you must do it by faith.

He knows we're empty, and he is unwilling to leave us there.

He knows we're corrupt, and no one is more committed to our cleanliness than him.

But there's only one way that it'll happen.

If we say what Mary said to the servants, do whatever he tells you.

We stand in him as he makes us clean and fills us.

We're gonna turn to the Lord now in song and declare this together that it's him alone.

But before we do that, why don't we turn to him in prayer?

Father, we thank you, God, for the gospel.

Lord, we do um we take this time to just acknowledge the emptiness and the brokenness.

I talk to so many people before and after the service, and so often, Lord, we are struggling with the brokenness of this world that we face.

Lord, people in our family hurting and relationships broken and marred by sin, our lives suffering because of the sinful brokenness, whether it's our own or just other people's or just the world, Lord.

And God, we just are here to say, Lord, this world is broken because of sin.

But God, our hope is not there.

Our hope is in you.

Our hope is in your son who is returning to make all things new.

God, there's only one place, it's in Christ.

And so we declare this truth together, Lord, that it's in Christ alone that we can find strength to be filled and to be made clean.

And we thank you.

We pray this in the name of your son.

Amen.

Would you stand and sing with me?