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Cleaning House

January 26 2025

Book: Luke

Scripture: Luke 19:41-46

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family. 

Before we read today’s text, I want to remind you about the purpose of the Gospel of Luke. It was written specifically to convince Gentiles that Jesus is the Christ… that they might know God as their Father through Jesus. They were the outsiders. They were the outcasts. They were the unwanted. But as we draw near to the end of this book, Luke goes out of his way to show Jesus pursuing and loving the Gentiles. Luke 19, beginning in verse 41:

41 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it,

I don’t want to rush past this. I want us to pause for just a moment and picture Christ weeping for the city of Jerusalem. Jesus loved the Jews as well. And this is another picture of the heart of God – His concern for the lost and his concern for the fallen condition of this world. Jesus is feeling it. He’s letting Himself feel it. We should feel it. He wept over it…

42 saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.

“Things that make for peace” could also be translated the “terms of peace”, like a treaty or a ceasefire agreement. But this peace is not between Rome and Israel. He’s talking about peace with God… reconciliation with the Father, the reason Jesus came to earth. It’s what the entire Gospel of Luke is offering us.

What should have been obvious to them was now hidden from them. The people have already rejected Jesus, because they have completely misunderstood His mission. And it had serious consequences.

43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side

44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

This is a prophecy. And it happened. In 70 AD, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans and the people were scattered. According to Jesus, it was the people’s rejection of the Messiah that led to their destruction.

It is ironic that this scene follows the triumphal entry, when the people gladly received Jesus into Jerusalem. At that time, they believed Jesus was the Messiah – but He didn’t turn out to be the kind of Messiah they expected. In a few days, another crowd would be calling for his execution and none of these people are going come to His defense.

And so, Jesus weeps for them. He weeps because He cares deeply for their souls. They have rejected the Savior appointed by God. They have failed to recognize the presence of God in their midst. They will go on trying to worship God in an ignorant, distorted way having rejected His grace. And it will have serious consequences.

Do you know this morning that Jesus cares deeply for your soul as well? And for your neighbor’s soul? And for your enemy’s soul? He rejoices with us in repentance and He weeps in our rejection, because He cares.

When Jesus enters the city, He goes immediately to the Jewish center of religion and culture. He goes to the temple.

45 And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold,

46 saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.”

All four of the Gospels include this event – the cleansing of the temple. Matthew tells us that Jesus overturned their tables. John tells us that Jesus used a whip to drive people out. So, this is a very different mental image than Jesus’ weeping for the city.

In my opinion, the best Super Bowl commercial in history was made by Reebok twenty years ago. Office Linebacker Terry Tate. A company hires an NFL linebacker to enforce company policies by tackling employees and yelling in their face. It’s hilarious because it’s so out of character for those two worlds to come together.

That is the kind of thing happening here with Jesus. It seems so out of character. He’s in the temple driving people out with a whip and knocking over tables! Jesus is angry.

The money changing itself was not wrong, but they were over-charging for the exchange rates. They are taking advantage of people. They are exploiting people’s desire to worship God. And this sends Jesus into a holy rage.

Because God’s church should be accessible to everyone, including the poor. And this is something we need to talk about, because the American church is full of this nonsense.

People are attending worship in churches, and they are constantly hearing messages about giving by pastors who are trying to exploit their desire to honor God.

But church’s leaders getting rich on the backs of their people makes Christianity look foolish. Every time God punished Israel in the OT, one of the main reasons was because her leaders were exploiting the poor for profit.

It sends the message to outsiders that Jesus just wants your money. Or that we are using Jesus to get your money…

That should not sit well with us. It should make us angry. It made Jesus angry back then. I imagine it still does. But that’s not the only reason Jesus is angry.

Arguably worse than the exploitation of the poor was that the Gentile courtyard was being used as a marketplace, interfering with their ability to worship God at all!

Most Jews despised the Gentiles, and they hated the fact that they were supposed to allow a space in the temple for them to come and worship the true God. Gentiles were “technically” welcome at the temple, if you don’t mind all the animals and people yelling out prices while you try to pray.

Jesus had a serious problem with the fact that the temple was not accessible for the Gentiles.

This is something I think Jesus is extremely passionate about. And notice, the people don’t try to stop him because I think they knew there was a problem with it. They just didn’t want to be the ones to deal with it.

But Jesus cares deeply about His place of worship being a place where everyone can come and find Him. And so, at this church, we want to serve our community by making our worship accessible to everyone who lives here to the best of our ability. We’re even trying to remove the language barrier with live transcription.

John says that Jesus was consumed with zeal for his father’s house. But that means something more than the temple.

The word “house” is used all over the New Testament to refer to the local church.
And so, Jesus does this as a sign pointing us to something bigger.

The days of this temple and the old system of sacrifices are almost over. He is declaring in his actions that this is not how you get close to God anymore.

“Cleansing the temple” is ultimately symbolic of our need to be made holy by Jesus – because our worship is always distorted and deficient apart from him. And yet, we are deeply valuable to Jesus so much that he gave His life as a sacrifice to make our worship acceptable.

The best way to interpret the passion of Jesus for His Father’s House is to consider His love for His church – for us! He is zealous for us, for our holiness.

Jesus appears strong here. But there was never a stronger moment in the ministry of Jesus than the moment when he appeared his weakest. On the cross.

That’s where Jesus conquered sin and took the full punishment for our sin on himself. He died to free us from our exclusivist, self-righteous, self-indulgent hearts.

Jesus is showing us how much He loves us – how much we wants His bride, the Church, to be pure. And if the temple of God is now the human heart, where His Spirit rests, then we need Jesus to keep cleaning house.

One of my favorite songs is the ballad of Love and Hate by the Avett Brothers. The song tells a story about a husband who is portrayed as selfish, cold, and indifferent, living recklessly and focused solely on personal gratification. He leaves Love behind without a thought, engaging in activities that feed his desires and disregard the consequences.

His wife, on the other hand, is selfless, patient, and faithful. Despite being abandoned and hurt by Hate, she remains loyal and hopeful, preparing for his return and continuing to care for him in his absence. In the end, Hate returns, weary and broken from his journey. This is how the song ends:

Hate stumbles forward and leans in the door
Weary head hung down, eyes to the floor
He says, “Love, I’m sorry” and she says, “What for?”
“I’m yours and that’s it, whatever”
“I should not have been gone for so long”, he says
But Love replies, “I’m yours and that’s it, forever”
“Your mine and that’s it, forever”

Love welcomes him back with unconditional love.

But that’s impossible without sacrifice. And that’s how the Gospel works. Jesus doesn’t just weep for us. He’s working towards a blood-bought vision of what we will be one day, a vision described in Revelation 19:

7 Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
8 it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

It was granted her. She didn’t earn this. It was granted her. Jesus will dress His bride in His own righteousness such that it becomes our righteousness.