Jesus, Consumed with Zeal
“His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me’ “ (John 2:17, ESV).
Bernie Madoff, the confessed operator of the largest Ponzi scheme in world history and the largest financial fraud in U.S. history, is now terminally ill. Many, I imagine, are glad to hear this. The man’s a fake and is responsible for the financial ruin of countless Americans. Nobody likes a fake, especially when our life’s savings are on the line.
Our text this morning describes a different type of fake: religious fakes - those who know how to go to church but have no idea how to find God when they get there. Such individuals stand as perennial reminders to us all. Knowing about God and actually knowing Him are two very different things. We do well to distinguish between the two. Let me see if I can unpack this danger under three headings.
First, beware lest you have religion without relationship. To the mind of Jesus, the temple was all about God. It was His Father’s house (John 2:16-17). At least in theory, people went there to find Him. When Jesus went there, however, he found men turning religion into a business. They had the goods of religion without the God of religion. The place of all places where men could meet their Creator had become a place for men to make money. To His soul, blazing with zeal for the glory of His Father, nothing could have been more obnoxious. He exposed their hypocrisy with holy, excoriating violence. In our day, the temple is a people, the family and flock of God. Individually and corporately, we are those in whom His Holy Spirit resides. Rest assured then that even still over two thousand years later, He feels this same intense zeal about you and our church, the individual and collective temple of the Holy Spirit. Do you share this same passion of His? Is your soul, first and foremost, about fellowship with God, or do you have bigger fish to fry? Is your heart a place of prayer? Or is it mostly a place of business? Hear me, now, I am not calling you to pack in your day jobs and become ministers or missionaries. But I am calling you to make knowing God your 24/7 preoccupation. Even our worldly business should be done in a spiritual manner. When you run, be an Eric Liddel not a Harold Abrahams. Abrahams, you remember, viewed the 100 yard dash as “Ten lonely seconds to justify his existence.” Liddel, on the other hand, ran to feel God’s pleasure. There is a world of difference. In your work-a-day pursuits have you tasted what I mean?
Second, beware lest you have conviction without communion (John 2:23-25). Many people saw the signs Jesus was doing and they believed in Him. The problem, however, was that Jesus did not believe in those men. John uses the same Greek word “believe” to describe both responses. What was wrong? Something was missing beneath the surface. Christ knew what was lacking in man. He always does. We can fool others, but we can never fool Him.
Third, beware lest you have learning without life. John’s Greek prose is beautiful. Do you see the connection? Jesus knows all men, and then along comes a man...
“Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many Ibelieved in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all men and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.” (John 2:23–3:1, ESV)
Here is Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel, the most learned man in all Jerusalem, but yet, he didn’t know the ABC’s of the life of God in the soul of man. He had been born once, but he needed to be born twice. Until that happened, he could neither see nor enter the Kingdom of God, and he would remain dead in his sins. Jesus saw this dilemma immediately. It is the first thing that He checks for when He looks into the heart of a man. Have you been born again? Are you alive in your soul? Have you been born twice?
Going to church and engaging in religion cannot fix this problem; however, the One you meet there can. According to His abundant mercy, He can cause you to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1Peter 1:3-5). May the Lord give us all grace to deal openly and honestly with our souls in His presence. His zeal has not cooled. He is as passionate as ever that you and I know reality in the presence of God. Come to Him. Open your heart to Him. He will not lead you astray. He will lead us all to life. Godward life. Abundant life. Everlasting life.