John 2:12-25 (Sermon Outline)
Sermon Outline
John 2:12-25
I. Opening illustration:
a. For those of you who are old enough to know what that show was, you will remember that Sanford and Son was a TV sitcom from the 70’s starring Red Foxx. He was a very rough and raunchy comedian/actor back in the day, and why this show appealed to me when I was a young boy is because he reminded me of my grandpa, who could be Red Foxx’s twin brother from a different mother. Not only did my grandpa have the same crude since of humor, but he was also a self-made man, who didn’t take smack from no one, and whose occupation was similar to Sanford and Son.
b. When I was growing up, going over my grandparents house to stay was always one of my favorite things to do, because there was always a great adventure waiting for me. Whether it be playing in their Bicycle Shop, or my grandpa’s auto-yard (where he had cars that were once totaled, that he was now fixing up to sale), or whether it was playing in their large backyard, with fishponds, rabbits cages, gardens, and a ton of other incredible things for a young boy to get into. Of all places, it was my grandparents backyard that was the most incredible playground for me to enjoy growing up. I have so many fond memories of that time.
c. But as I grew up and as they got older and retired, they began doing large yard sales from their house, which yielded them several hundred dollars every week. But the longer this continued and the older my grandparents got, the more junk my grandfather collected. You could hardly walk anywhere in their backyard now. There was too much junk and clutter everywhere. And as my grandparents got to the point where they were not able to take care of themselves any longer due to their failing health, they ended up moving in with my parents. And when that happened there was a lot of work that had to be done to clean up their house in order to get it ready to sell it. That’s why I began this sermon with the intro to that 70’s show, Sanford and Son, because if you’ve seen that show, then you can get some sort of idea of how my grandparent’s house looked like. Their entire backyard and 2 garages were cluttered with junk everywhere. Anything from beat up rusty automobiles, to lawn mowers, bicycles, and various other contraptions that one might find at junkyards, auctions, and yard sales. This once beautiful house was now pretty embarrassing to look at and to live in. It truly became a junkyard. Underneath it were the beautiful memories of many childhood adventures. But now, because my grandfather decided to buy and sale junk, the junk overran his house, and it was nothing more than a junkyard. And when it came time for my family to clean that house (and the yard) up in order to sale it, it was an overwhelming and difficult task because of all the junk that my grandparents had accumulated. And yet, they didn’t have a choice, that junk had to be removed, because there was a new owner coming in to that house, and in order for him to purchase that house, that house and yard needed to have the junk removed.
II. Introduction:
a. And the reason I share this story with you, is because today we are going to be continuing our study of the gospel of John and we are going to see that Jesus is going to enter into Jerusalem for the first time during His earthly ministry, and as He does, He and His disciples are going to find themselves in the midst of a religious junkyard.
b. When Jesus arrives in Jerusalem we will discover that there was a lot of compromise that was going on at the Temple, and without hesitation Jesus immediately begins to remove the junk from the Temple by driving out all of those who had set up business within God’s house. We are going to see that Jesus will be confronting the hypocrisy that was going on within the Temple of God among the people of God, due to the fact that they had gotten way off course in their relationship with Him, and were not only turning God’s house into a religious shopping mall, but in doing so they were also hindering others from having a relationship with Him. And so today as we look at how Jesus dealt with the enormous mess that was going on within the Temple of God, the big question we will be answering is how do we remove the messes in our own lives that try to weigh us down and get us off course in our walk with God? How do we get rid of the junk that gets piled up in our life so that we can remain in a right relationship with Jesus?
III. Message: If you would please stand in honor of reading God’s Word that is the question we are going to be answering today as we finish up looking at John 2 this morning.
READ: John 2:12-17
a. How do we remove the junk from our life? We put GOD FIRST in our life (2:12-17)
i. Last week, the GRACE of God was powerfully demonstrated by Jesus, at the Wedding in Cana. This week, the TRUTH of God will powerfully confront us, as Jesus deals with the hypocrisy that was going on in Judaism at that time. Jesus will make it clear that the House of God was meant for the people of God, and those who represent God had better put God first in their life. And the only way they will be able to do this, is if they remove the compromise from their lives.
ii. And it is this idea that has inspired the first answer to this mornings big question. How do we remove the junk from our life? We put GOD FIRST in our life (2:12-17)
iii. Guys, the only way we are ever going to escape from the stuff that holds us back from our relationship with Jesus is if we put God first in our life. Until we put God first in our life, its going to be impossible to experience the freedom that Jesus wants us to experience. The Bible tells us that the way Jesus confronts the hypocrisy that was taking place, was by going into the Temple at Jerusalem where He found a gigantic mess that had been created in the midst of the most important place on the planet, the house of God.
iv. In (v.13) we read that Jesus went to Jerusalem because the Passover of the Jews was at hand. The Feast of Passover commemorated Israel’s deliverance from bondage in Egypt, when God miraculously and single-handedly destroyed the greatest army on the planet and freed the Israelite slaves from their cruel bondage. And much of the Gospel of John revolves around the Passover festivals in Jerusalem, as this is the first of 3 Passovers that are mentioned in John’s gospel (cf. 6:4; 11:55). There is no doubt that John wants to make sure we never lose sight of who Jesus was and why Jesus came. Jesus came to fulfill Passover!
v. Passover is an important time in Israel. In Jesus’s day Jerusalem would have been teeming with Jewish pilgrims from all around the Roman world, all there to observe and celebrate the Feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread (which immediately followed Passover). Because of the multitudes who came to Jerusalem, Passover meant big business for Jerusalem-based merchants, much like the Super-bowl brings to the city who hosts it each year (which if you didn’t know is over $600 million each year).
vi. When the pilgrims arrive, their first destination is the temple, to pay the tax, and purchase a sacrifice to give to God. And because it wasn’t practical to bring their own animals, since many travelled from such long distances, merchants turned God’s house into a shopping center for any would-be God-seeker so that they could capitalize off of their guests. In addition to this, moneychangers were also set up to exchange foreign currency for the pilgrims, which was at an incredibly unfair rates of exchange. What had begun as a service to the worshipers of God, had unfortunately degenerated into exploitation and usury.
vii. And so when Jesus arrives, the temple doesn’t look like a place of worship; it looks like a place of business. Inside the temple He finds men selling animals to be sacrificed, moneychangers ripping people off. It was complete chaos as the house of God had been turned into a religious shopping mall.
viii. In response to this, Jesus makes a whip out of cords and begins driving all of these merchants and their livestock out of the Temple area. No doubt this would have been a chaotic seen as the moneychangers have their coins flying everywhere as their tables are overthrown, and those who are selling doves, sheep and oxen are ordered to get themselves and their livestock out of the temple.
ix. READ: John 2:16-17
x. Here we read that as Jesus clears the Temple, He rebukes the religious leaders by saying, “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!”
xi. There are two powerful truths that Jesus presents to us here, that really drive home what it means to put “God First” in our life.
1. REMOVE COMPROMISE: What Jesus is clearly revealing to us here is that God doesn’t want us coming to Him with the wrong motives, nor does He want us representing Him to others with the wrong motives. And I bring this up just to point out that when it comes to our life of faith and our relationship with Jesus, He will not settle for compromise in our life. Jesus will always seek to remove the compromise from our life. One of the ways He does it, is that He allows us to experience the chaos that comes from compromise. There is no peace in the heart of a believer who is living in purposeful compromise.
2. FUEL THE FIRE (ZEAL): Jesus doesn’t just tell us to put God first, He demonstrates it with His own actions in this passage, and (v.17) informs us that it was His zeal for God that has inspired it all! Talk about a moment where the whole community was shaken to the core… this was it! Compromise had overrun God’s people. They must have known that what was taking place was wrong. They must have felt it within their core. And yet, Jesus is the first person that truly confronted it, because of His love for the Father!
xii. And here in (v.17) we read that Jesus was passionate about His Father and the things pertaining to God. Jesus had a heart that was on fire, and that is the type of heart that He wants His followers to have as well.
xiii. But nothing will extinguish a fire in the heart of a child of God faster than spiritual and moral compromise.
xiv. LIFE APPLICATION: As we have been looking at, the way Jesus confronts the hypocrisy that was taking place at the Temple, was by going into the Temple and driving the compromise and hypocrisy out. And as believers we have to understand that we are Temple of Holy Spirit, and God wants to remove the junk that is within us, that is causing us to compromise in our walk of faith.
xv. The first point we’ve been looking at thus far is that in order to get rid of the junk within, we have to PUT GOD FIRST in our life. And before moving on I see one more Life Application for us.
xvi. As we continue on with our next passage we are going to see that the Religious rulers challenge Jesus by asking Him to perform a sign, and rather than given into their will by producing a sign at that moment, He does give them a powerful promise about the most important sign God would ever give to humanity, which is the promise of the resurrection. Though they clearly did not understand what Jesus is promising them, He does attempt to put their focus on the Resurrection.
xvii. And it’s this idea that has inspired the 2nd answer to this mornings Big Question.
b. How do we remove the junk from our life? We keep our eyes focused on the RESURRECTION(2:18-22)
i. READ: John 2:18-22
ii. And so here we read that upon cleansing the temple some of the Jewish leaders came to Jesus to see what He was doing and why. They challenge Him by saying, “On what authority do you do this on?” They were not looking for information from Jesus, but challenging His authority. In other words, “Who in the world do you think you are Jesus?” And therefore, they said, “You better show us a sign from God if you are going to take it upon yourself to do this.”
iii. Jesus responds in (v.19) by really throwing them off, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up!” Being spiritually blind, these individual misunderstood what Jesus was saying. Throughout the Gospel of John, we will find people misunderstanding the spiritual truths of Jesus and interpreting them in material or physical terms (Nicodemas in John 3 – Born Again, the Samaritan woman in John 4 – Living Water, and the Jews in John 6 – Bread of Life). And here the individuals who come to investigate Jesus also misinterpret him. Herod’s temple was started in 20 B.C. and not completed until A.D. 64. How could one man “raise it up” in 3 days? They couldn’t understand that Jesus was giving them the most important promise that could ever be given to them, He was telling them that He was going to conquer death! But they were too hardhearted receive it. What’s worse, their hearts were so hard, they didn’t ask Him what He saying to them. “Why are you saying that Jesus? What does that mean?” Their hardened hearts kept them from inquiring more. Even though Jesus’ response to them was hard for them to understand, He was pointing them to the most important promise and most important sign that humanity would ever be given by God, and that is the resurrection.
iv. But this statement from Jesus is a promise of hope to everyone who hears it with the ears of faith. The resurrection is our hope. And it is the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ that should cause all of us to draw closer to Jesus, and do our best to honor Him and serve Him with our lives. It is the reality of the resurrection that should cause us to remove the junk from our lives.
v. In fact, listen to what the Apostle Paul tells us in Colossians 3:1-17.
vi. READ: Colossians 3:1-17
vii. And so we see here that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and our faith in Him should change everything for, and cause us to want to remove the junk that is within us. Jesus wants us to get rid of the compromise.
viii. Let’s move onto the final passage now in John 2:23-25.
ix. READ: John 2:23-25
c. How do we remove the junk from our life? We trust in Jesus and not OURSELVES (2:23-25)
i. And so here we read that “many people believed in His name”, and yet, this chapter ends with an odd reality, which is that Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and what was in man.
ii. The point is, is that we are weak, and we are flawed, and we are always one bad decision away from train wrecking our lives. So like Jesus, don’t put our trust in ourselves, but instead, lets continue trusting Him.
iii. It’s this idea that has inspired our final answer for today’s question.
iv. How do we remove the junk from our life? We trust in Jesus and not OURSELVES (2:23-25)
IV. Life Application:
i. In (v.15), we read that Jesus “DROVE” them all out of the temple. In the Greek “drove” out is ekballo and it is the same word that is used to describe what happens when Jesus “cast out” demons (cf. Mt. 8:16).
