Why Worship?

Our text this morning is another one of those familiar texts that John's Gospel is filled with. Today's text is about Jesus' clearing out the Temple and doing that with some heat. What I’d like to do with this text is explore an area that you may not have thought about, at least not in the context of what Jesus did in the Temple. So, this is what we're going to do. I will quickly go over what happened to make sure that the text is clear to everyone. Then I'm going to ask the text a question or two to lead into this other area. Our text is John 2.13-17. Please listen as I read.

So, what happened? Jesus is in town to celebrate the Passover. He enters the Temple and sees people selling animals for the sacrifices. In the Temple! At that point, to put it mildly, he goes ballistic. He grabs some rope and makes a whip. With whip in hand, he chases people and animals out of the building and makes a mess of the place. As he does this, he shouts what it is that has gotten him so angry. 'Do not make my Father's house a house of trade.' And that's what happened. It's pretty straightforward and easy to understand. Jesus violently reacted to the selling of these animals in the Temple.

That was a 'What?' question. What happened? Now, let's ask a 'Why?' question. Why did Jesus react in this way? One answer you may have heard goes something like this. Jesus saw how the moneychangers and the others were taking advantage of the people. They were ripping off these people. Seeing this, Jesus went into a rage. It was, for him, a matter of social justice. Well, to be sure, social justice is important. The Scriptures have a lot to say about the protection of the poor and how their God will confront their oppressors. But there's a problem with that way of understanding what happened. Nothing in our text says that this was what motivated Jesus.

Someone could try to make a case for this, using historical research and all of that. And I would be surprised if the people weren't being taken advantage of. It was, after all, a very corrupt time. Sometimes you need to read between the lines to understand a text. But that isn't necessary here. The text already tells us why Jesus got so angry. Actually, it's Jesus himself who explains. 'Do not make my Father's house a house of trade.' And John's own comment at the end of this section puts this answer beyond doubt. 'His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”' Jesus got angry not because of social justice issues but because of worship issues. This building, God's house, the Temple, was to be a place of worship, but it was becoming a market. Worship was being nudged aside. Jesus saw that, and he got violently angry. 'Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.' The reason for Jesus' anger was not about justice but about worship.

And that leads us to the area that I want to explore. Worship is a big deal for Jesus. In fact, you could say that worship is the reason that Jesus came in the first place. This should not be surprising. Consider this OT prophecy. It's from Malachi, and it describes what was to happen when Messiah arrived.

Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant 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 fullers' soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

'The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.' Isn't that what our text is about? Jesus shows up at the Temple. And what purpose does Malachi give for this coming? 'And he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver...' He comes to refine and to purify. And note the goal of this work of Jesus. 'And they will bring offerings in righteousness to the LORD.' Worship! The goal of Jesus' coming is purified worship. According to Malachi, Jesus came to create pure worshipers.

And this is confirmed elsewhere in John's Gospel. Remember Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well? Part of that conversation is about worship. This is what he tells her. 'But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.' The Father seeks true worshipers, pure worshipers. So what did he do? He sent his Son. Jesus came to purify and thus create true worshipers of God. That was the motivation behind Jesus’ actions in the Temple.

So, Jesus has come to create purified worshipers, those who would worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Now, when Jesus tossed the tables and all the rest - did that result in pure worshipers? Did that do the trick? No. I have no doubt that the next day the sellers set up shop once again just like they did the day before. They may have taken a quick look around first, just to be sure that that hothead wasn't anywhere around. But once someone gave the all-clear, it was business as usual. So, does this mean that Jesus failed at creating purified worshipers? Absolutely not! Don't you think that Jesus knew what would happen on the day after his rage? People might call Jesus lots of things, but naive isn't one of them. He knew what would happen. But he never intended that day to be the fulfillment of Malachi's prophecy. No, it was simply a pointer to that prophecy and maybe even a faint (very faint) picture of its fulfillment. It was a warning and an appeal to those people. Jesus' actions on that day were a picture of that prophecy, acted out for the sake of the people. Hopefully, some of them took the warning to heart before the reality of that prophecy crashed upon them. 'The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. … But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?'

So, when did Jesus fulfill Malachi's prophecy? When did he make the big change so that there would be purified worshipers? I'd say that it was Pentecost. It's difficult, if not impossible, to separate the events of the Cross, the Resurrection, Jesus' Ascension and Pentecost. They really all go together. But Pentecost is when this change could be clearly seen in people's lives. That's when the purified worship of this new age of the Spirit was let loose on the world. On that day there was a switch from God's Temple as this building in Jerusalem to God's Temple as Jesus' Church. Now, the Church is the house of God. The proof that this switch had occurred was when that building in Jerusalem, the one that used to be the Temple of God, was destroyed by Roman armies sent by God. That's when the Lord came to his Temple and completely expressed his rage. 'But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?' The pure worship of God is now the domain of the Church of Jesus throughout the world and not a building in Jerusalem.

So, you see, Jesus didn't just come so that we could be forgiven, though he certainly did that. And Jesus didn't just come so that we could receive the Spirit, though he certain did that. Jesus has come so that we might worship God, and that we might do that in spirit and in truth. He came so that we might worship God as pure worshipers. Being a Christian is all about worship.

Now, all of this is a very interesting, to be sure. (At least I think it is!) But, if this is going to be helpful to you I need to develop it just a bit more. So, let me pose a question. And it's a simple question. 'Why?' Yes, Jesus has come to make us into true worshipers of God. But why do we need to do that? Why do we need to worship? Why do we need to get together, like we are right now, and tell God how great he is? Why? Why is worship such a big deal?

This is an important question. And how many there are who do not have a good answer for it. As a result, they pursue a good habit for some really bad reasons. How many people go to church out of guilt? They figure God won't be quite so mad with them if they show up fairly regularly. And let's face it, for some people, going to church is about enjoying the music, of whatever style, or being intellectually stimulated by a good lecture/sermon, or it's just an empty habit. And that means that worship is fairly optional. If I don't make it to church, I might miss out on something I enjoy, but it's no big deal. There's always next week.

So, Jesus has come so that we might worship God. Why should we do that? If we aren't to worship for these selfish reasons I've mentioned, then why should we?

Here's one suggested answer that I suspect few people within the Church would say out loud, though there are plenty outside the Church who have. God has a fragile ego, so he needs us to tell him how great he is. We need to praise him so that he will feel better about himself. And from the outside, that is what it looks like to a lot of people. So, are they wrong?

The first step in understanding worship is to remember this simple, though profound, fact. God does not need us. I've told you this before. God - Father, Son and Spirit - were doing quite well together, enjoying each other, loving each other, for an eternity. They were happy before we ever showed up on the scene. God didn't create us because he needed us. We are completely unnecessary to him. Completely. So, if he doesn't need us, then he doesn't need our worship. No, God doesn't have a fragile ego that needs propping every week or so. His ego is quite healthy without our intervention. So much for that evil suggestion.

But we still need an answer to our question. Why does he command worship? Why did he come among us in Jesus to purify us and thus make sure that we are able to worship him? The answer is obvious. It just takes a little Bible-guided logic. If worship isn't because of his need, then it must be because of our need.

Listen to these words of praise from Revelation.

And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, ​​​​​​​who was and is and is to come!” ​​​ And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, ​​​​​​​​“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, ​​​​​​​to receive glory and honor and power, ​​​​​​​for you created all things, ​​​​​​​and by your will they existed and were created.” ​​​

Truer words of praise have never been spoken. Never! And they need to be spoken. But God doesn't need to hear them. We need to hear them. Jesus' coming so that we might worship God was an act of love for us. Think about it. Who needs to be reminded of God's holiness, his absolute might and his eternity? He knows that already. We're the ones who keep on forgetting it. Who needs to remember who gets the glory and who it is that decides, moment-by-moment, that we should still exist? Worship is for our benefit, not God's. So, his commanding us to worship him is a kindness. We are dense. We forget what is most basic about reality. Worship is God's way of changing that.

Now, be careful. Don't think of this in merely psychological terms. 'Well, if I repeat words about who God is over and over maybe they'll sink in.' What is that? Salvation by repetition? The problem is not that our minds don't remember as well as they should. The problem is that we are sinners. Our forgetfulness is a moral problem, a problem with our souls. There is no salvation by being reminded. There is only salvation by Jesus. We need Jesus to deal with sinful souls that want to forget, rebellious souls that want to ignore the truth, selfish souls that want to be the center of the universe. And he has dealt with that. The Father sent the Son so that the power of sin - our willful refusal to worship him purely - could be broken. Then, Jesus sent the Spirit to apply that reality to the little nooks and crannies of our souls where our sins hide out. The Spirit crushes our sins, one by one, so that, more and more, we might worship our God in purity, and thus live according to what is real: that he is God and we are not. And, appropriately, this work of the Spirit makes its greatest progress when we are worshiping, either alone or as families or as a congregation. It is by worshiping that we are purified more so that we might worship aright. The Spirit acts in the midst of our worship, and we are blessed.

So, as we worship, we benefit. And that's why God commands worship, for our sake. But - and this is so very important - we will not benefit from worship in the way that God desires if we focus on our benefit. We will benefit as he intends only as we focus on him. If you fail here, if you tell yourself that you will worship God for the goodies that you will get, then you make God a means to some other end. According to this kind of thinking, he is not the goal, but he will get you to what is your real goal. And that is blasphemous! God forbid that any of you do such a thing, using God as a tool to get something else, something that you desire more than him. We do not love God for what he will give us. We love God for who he is. But in so doing, we benefit. The Spirit blesses.

To be sure, our worship is not pure. Hardly! But Jesus has come. He, as our High Priest, makes our defiled worship acceptable to the Father. He purifies it. And at the same time, he purifies us, by the Spirit, so that our love for our God and our worship of him might come from a heart that is increasing in purity.

Now, I hope you see a bit more clearly why Jesus did what he did in the Temple on that day. It's all about worship. He was sent to create purified worshipers. His goal in creating such worshipers is that we would, deep in our souls, understand who is the God of this creation and who is the creature, and that in understanding this, we might live as he originally intended.