Amen. Thank you for that song. Our life's greatest desire is to know Jesus more and more until we get to be with him forever and eternity. Amen. Amen. Well, let's start out this morning by playing some fill in the blank. Ready? Michelangelo, right! Yes, they are the four greatest artists of the Renaissance. Of course. What were you guys thinking I was talking about? Michelangelo in particular, the artist, is an Italian sculptor, painter, and architect. And he lived from 1475 to 1564 when he died at a ripe age of 88 years old, which is quite good at the time. His nickname was the Divine One, because of his seemingly unique ability to evoke a sense of divine awe from his art. Most famously, his arts include the Statue of David, as well as the sealing of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Michelangelo was and is a giant in art history, regardless of the fact that you all associate him with the cartoon turtle. But as much as he was known as a great artist, he was known, at the time at least, just as much for his unbelievable work ethic. Michelangelo worked so hard that he viewed personal hygiene as largely an optional endeavor. And in fact, one biographer writes that Michelangelo contracted several serious illnesses in his life, almost all during times of extreme focus on his work. Well, when he was on a project, he would stop eating, he would stop sleeping, and he would even stop changing clothes. because he didn't want to waste time. And one time, he got so ill from gout that his legs swelled up, and he could no longer get his boots off. In fact, a surgeon had to be called to cut him out of his boots, taking some of the flesh with him. In fact, this picture of Michelangelo was taken by his rival, Raphael. Yes, they are real people. At the time, and partly Raphael was mocking him for his grungy look, and included the boots, of course. Well, why did Michelangelo work so hard? One need look no further than an incident that happened when Michelangelo was a young man. At the time, he was seeking to be apprenticed to a master sculptor. And the sculptor, no doubt accustomed to seeing Young men without the requisite determination flame out. He wanted to impress on young Michelangelo the seriousness and the dedication that it would be required of him to be successful in his craft. And so he looked Michelangelo in the eyes and he said to him, this will cost you your life. And Michelangelo didn't miss a beat. And he responded, yes, I know. But what else is life for? See, Michelangelo was a man with one singular passion. And that singular passion drove him to greatness. Well, today I want to look at, with you, another man who was driven by a singular passion. Let's find them together in John chapter 2 verses 13 to 17. If you'll turn with me there in your Bibles. If you don't have one, there's a Bible available in your pew. I believe it's on page 1016. John chapter 2 verses 13 to 17. Let me read it for you. The Passover of the Jews was near. And Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and within the temple grounds, he found those who were selling oxen, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. And he made a whip of cords and drove them all out of the temple area with the sheep and the oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned the tables. And to those who were selling the doves, he said, take these things away from here. Stop making my father's house a place of business. His disciples remembered that it was written, veal for your house will consume me. Let's pause for a moment of prayer. Father, as we gaze upon the riches in your word, I pray, Lord, that you would open our hearts to see what you have said, open our minds to understand it, and then have it come into our will and affect our actions and our lives. I pray, Lord, that we would be men and women who live your word, And when we get to our final destination, in your courts, we will hear the words, well done, good and faithful servants. In Christ's name, amen. Here we find Jesus at the very beginning of his ministry during the Jewish holiday of Passover. Jesus' ministry consists of really four different Passovers that expand. The last Passover, of course, is when Jesus goes to the cross. But this one was the first Passover, so it was quite early in the ministry of Jesus. The Passover is the major Jewish holiday in Judaism commemorating the deliverance of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. during the time of Moses. It was a celebration, in fact, mandated by God in the Old Testament, in that every male over 12 years old needed to pilgrimage to Jerusalem and bring an offering to God's temple once a year. See, it wasn't like today when there's a church in East Millstone, and a church in Princeton, and then there's a church in Manville, and they all preach the gospel. You can go to any of them. But back then, there was only one temple. And if you were going to be obedient to God's command to bring a sacrifice, then that's where you had to go. That's the only place. So it came that every year during Passover, people from all over the Roman Empire would stream into Jerusalem for that week. And it's estimated that the population of Jerusalem was probably about 100,000 people or a few hundred thousand people maybe at the time. But during Passover week, that population would swell to probably over a million. Everybody's coming into Jerusalem. And guess what? Everybody is trying to get into the temple. So it'd be just pure chaos. If you have been ever shopping on Black Friday, one year I decided to brave the crowds, and we were out in front of Best Buy at 5 a.m., and the door opened. And I'll tell you, it was insane. I was scared for my life because when those doors opened, the crowd rushed in, and you were just kind of pressed by the weight of the crowd, and you were just kind of brought in. And, you know, once you got in, It was all you could do to not be trampled. There was stuff flying around everywhere, people jammed together, people fighting over boxes, and it's an insane madhouse. And it's like for $15 off, right? That's what people are doing that for, and that's why I don't think I'll do that again. It's not worth it. But now imagine that scene, but now you're throwing in ox and sheep and goats in the mix. And I think you get some sense of what this is like. But when you got to Jerusalem, if you're a pilgrim, you need to do two things. First, you need to have a burnt offering. Now, your offering could be a sheep or an ox or a goat or a dove, and that just simply depends on your income or your wealth. And you're free to bring an offering, of course, from home, but if you're coming from a few hundred miles away, you try lugging an ox a few hundred miles, It's just not very practical. It's much more practical to buy one once you're in the city. And the second thing you need while you're there is if you are a male over 20, then by Jewish law, you needed to pay an annual temple tax. Right? This is an annual tax. In fact, there's a record of this in the Bible in Matthew 17, 24. You don't have to turn there, but Jesus paid this tax himself in a rather unusual way by plucking it out of the mouth of a fish. That's a sermon for another time. But this tax goes towards the upkeep of the temple, and it equals about two days' wages, so maybe not too bad. But the problem was that the coin situation back then was complicated. Every province, every area had their own coinage. But the temple would only accept coins of a certain type because of the purity of the silver. So unless you happen to live in a place where the coins are accepted, you're going to have to change your money to the right currency. All right, so if you're coming into Jerusalem for Passover, you need to buy your animal, and then you need to change your money. Let me tell you a little bit about the temple itself. The temple is split into a few different parts, but what you need to know is that there's this large outer courtyard, and that's called the Court of the Gentiles. It's the name of that region. It's the Court of the Gentiles. And this is just a model. The actual temple was destroyed, of course. And it's the only place where non-Jews are allowed. And even Jews who are ceremonially impure could go into the court of the Gentiles and pray and seek God. Now, the intention of the temple of God was always for it to be a house of prayer. In fact, in Isaiah 56, 7, I'll read to you how God describes his temple, his intention for the temple. And he says, even those I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. their burnt offerings and sacrifice will be acceptable at my altar. For my house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples." So you see, in this court of Gentiles, you should be seeing people of all nations praying and worshiping and offering sacrifices and giving thanks to God. But of course, what's really happening in the temple And it seems from historical records that the high priest was very likely in on this. Is that they realized, you know, when you have hundreds of thousands of people coming in every year, and they're all shopping for animals, and they're all shopping to exchange coins, well, you can make a lot of money. And they decided, you know, what would be convenient? is if you could just buy your animal right there as you come in into the court of Gentiles. And also, you can change your money right there as well. Wouldn't that be convenient? So, every year during Passover, these merchants would set up this huge operation right in the court of Gentiles at huge markups, whatever they could get away with. See, this would be their Black Friday. A few months ago, I was at an amusement park with my kids, and it was lunchtime, and they were hungry, and they wanted a burger. So I went to the concession stand, and I couldn't believe my eyes. This burger was $20. They wanted $20 for a burger, and I said, $20? I've never paid that much for even a steak, like $20 for a burger. And it wasn't even that good, but the reason it cost that much is because there's nowhere else to go. Right? Otherwise, you would have to go out of the amusement park, and that's inconvenient, and you waste all this time, and it's kind of like that. You know, you can charge whatever you want, because you have a monopoly. Well, one year, the historian Josephus estimated that more than 250,000 lambs were sold in the temple. And that's just the lambs, it's not including the other animals. Some of these estimates are just some other estimates, but it's at least in the tens of thousands. So how many people are in this temple at once? And I want to just give you a sense of scale so you have some idea. The Temple Mount is huge. It's about the size of 10 to 20, 25 football fields, depending on how you measure it. And one historian estimates that the temple as a whole could fit a capacity of about 75,000 people at once, which is pretty close to what you would see in a modern football stadium. So the temple is a lot bigger than you might be thinking. So you just think, you walk into this temple, and all the noise and all the haggling and all the smell and the bleeding of the animals and the sounds of coins dropping into purses, thousands of people at once. And in this scene is where Jesus walks in. So now think about what Jesus sees as he comes into his father's house. Instead of finding people repenting and praying and worshiping, what he finds is a den of thieves. See, nobody was there for God. They were there to make money. All he saw was buying and selling and haggling, people looking for the big payday. And you know, there wasn't even room in the court of Gentiles for actual Gentiles. Because there were too much livestock, there was too many money changers and shoppers. And not only were the money changers and the merchants and the shoppers not worshiping God, they were taking up the space that was dedicated for the Gentiles to do so. And so this text tells us that Jesus pulls out this. It's a whip. He made it, we don't know how So long it took him to make it, he's probably better at knitting than I am. So maybe not too long, but what I want you to understand is that, you know, we're a bit numb to this because we might've heard this story many times. But what you should really be thinking at this point is what is Jesus planning to do with that? In a crowded place with tens of thousands of people, and crowds and animals. As an experiment, if you guys, if any of you are football fans and you're gonna go to a football game one day, I'd like you to try bringing a whip and start whipping people and see how many people you can drive out before somebody stops you. And let me know, I'm very curious to know how many people you can get out. You see, in our text, verses 15 to 17, it's very understated, isn't it? It seems like this was easy for Jesus. It was a walk in the park. Anybody could do it. But consider, do you think that these money changers carrying large sums of money might have guards? Might have bodyguards? Do you think there's temple police available? Or security guards? Or do you think some of these people might actually even be packing swords? Or lethal weapons? There were, in fact, historical reports of riots historically in the temple and violence happening there. So this stuff was on people's minds. Of course there was. Of course there were people with security and bodyguards. And with all that money, you would be a fool not to have protection lined up. But that's not a lethal weapon, is it? Just a few ropes tied together. And Jesus somehow uses this to drive all these people out. Literally, the text tells us that he takes the money from the money changers and he dumps it on the ground. And not just one money changer, right, as is popularly depicted in our popular plays and shows about this. It's not just one guy. It's money changers in the text. It's plural. And the historians tell us that it wasn't just one money changer, but there were rows of money changers lined up. They're lined up like bank tellers because there's such a crush of people that have to be processed. And so Jesus, one man with a whip, is here to upset this entire profitable operation. Why would they let that happen? A single random guy with a whip, why would they let that happen? They wouldn't. You know, Jesus here is in the beginning of his ministry. He's not even that well-known. See, only Jesus as the Son of God could have done this. You and I could have tried it, but we would not have been successful. I mean, we have some buff guys in here, right? Can you guys take on 100 people who are possibly armed and also some animals? No, there's something supernatural here. Here is a miracle of God. And you know why nobody stopped Jesus? is because they came face to face, not with a mere man, but with the fury of God himself. I think thousands of people that day saw something that terrified them, that terrified them to the core and caused them to run for dear life. And maybe they saw something like in Revelation 1.14, in which the Apostle John describes Jesus' eyes and his vision as a flame of fire. Or maybe it was something about the irresistible authority in his voice. The same voice that caused the paralyzed to simply get up and walk, or the dead to come back to life. What's even more remarkable is that with all these people, no one got hurt. No records of any stampedes, nobody being trampled in their haste to get out. Jesus did not wield a lethal weapon. Nobody got hurt from that. And there was no evidence of any sort of larger scale riots or unrest that was caused there. And in fact, It's well known that there was a Roman peacekeeping garrison of soldiers located very close to the temple, because historically, it's been a flashpoint of unrest, even back then. And they were there, ready to mobilize at any sign of trouble, before things got out of control. But there was never any trouble for them to respond to. So it seems like everyone, the traders, the money changers, the animals, simply exited in an orderly fashion, and they left their money behind. This is not easy. You try driving out a bunch of animals, how long would that take you? It's hard to get a bunch of animals to do anything, but even they obeyed Jesus. And it's hard to understate that this would have been a catastrophic loss of wealth and income for the people there for the merchants and for the money changers. See, none of this makes any sense. If Jesus was maybe carrying an assault rifle, you might believe this, but he did that with a few ropes. In fact, this is so outside of anything we can understand that many commentators would point to this as being a partial fulfillment of a prophecy in Malachi 3. I'll read that to you, Malachi 3, 1 to 2. It says this, Behold, I am sending my messenger, this is God speaking, and he will clear a way before me. And the Lord whom you are seeking will suddenly come to his temple. And the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight Behold, he is coming, said the Lord of armies. But who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? For he is like the refiner's fire and like launderer's soap. See, this was not the full fulfillment of the prophecy, but that's going to happen when Jesus comes the second time, right? And at that time, Jesus is not going to be so gentle. God's patience at that point would have come to an end and people will get hurt. And that time he will come in his full fury and no one will stand. But this was a small taste of that. Well, what did all this look like to his disciples who were standing there and watching him from their vantage point? I want you to look again with me at John 2, chapter 2, verse 17. The disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for your house will consume me. This is a remarkable verse. And at various points in my Christian life, God has used this verse to jolt me out of my sense of complacency. It's one of these verses, I think, where there's a lot more going on in here than meets the eye. I think when we truly understand it, it will change our lives. So for the remaining time we have today, I wanna peel back this verse with you and try to explore what riches God has for us in this verse. I wanna take this in three parts, okay? So let me give you an outline. It's going to be pretty complicated. You might want to write this down. Part one is zeal. Part two is for your house. And part three is will consume me. Okay, that's your outline. First, let's look at zeal. Zeal is just an intense and profound passion. It's a profound passion. This word actually zeal is translated in Hebrews 10, 27 as the word fury. The fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. Jesus was a force of nature. And something the disciples saw in Jesus's eyes and his demeanor spoke of a passion so profound that they said to themselves, wow, this is zeal. This man has zeal. So I'd like to ask you, what are you passionate about? What do you wake up thinking about and what do you go to sleep thinking about? See, I think everybody is zealous for something. Even if you're a couch potato, you're zealous for your own leisure and entertainment, aren't you? Maybe it's cars. Maybe it's sports. Some of us, we're zealous for video games. Some of us are zealous for politics. Gotta be real careful, we're not more zealous for politics than for God, right? Well, where do you see this passion in your life? Somewhere. And if you can't think of anything, I recommend that you ask your spouse. They'll tell you. Or you can ask your kids, and they'll tell you. But what was Jesus zealous about. He was zealous for God's house. Jesus was passionate for the Father's house. Not the four walls, you understand. Not the structure of the temple. The structure was fine. The building was fine. They took great care of the building. No, what Jesus was concerned about was God's people. He was zealous that God's people would be taken care of and provided a situation where they could worship God in spirit and truth, and that they could rightly have a relationship with God. Today, we call that gathering of people Church. A church. That's what he was passionate about. So then, believer, how zealous are you for God's church? Is the church the center of your life? Or is it just an afterthought? Many years ago, as I was going to college, A relative gave me this advice. She said, you know, study hard, Greg. Get good grades, make some good friends. And then if you are able to do all that and have that under control, then if you still have some time left over at the end of the week, then go to church. But don't let that get in the way of your studies. Don't let that get in the way of making friends for life. My friends, that's the very opposite of Jesus' heart, isn't it? But I think that's how many Americans today view the church. It's somewhere to go if you don't have anything else going on on Sunday. If your kids don't have a soccer game. If you're not too tired after a long week's work, maybe you can pop in for an hour. Say hi to some people. Maybe an add-on to your life, but not the center of your life. You see, my friends, the church was not an afterthought to Jesus, was it? It was the very center of his zeal. So how zealous are you for God and his people? Could somebody look at your life and then say, wow, that person is zealous for God's house. Feel for God's house has consumed that woman, that man. Okay, but you say, you know, Greg, I'm here. I'm present every week. I've been here for 15, 20 years. You know, I even have my own pew. Of course, we don't have assigned pews here, but I think you all know what I mean. Some of us can get attached to certain pews. But you know, this passage would have you then ask yourself a slightly different question. And that's this, and that's why are you here? Are you here because you're passionate to serve God's interest? Or are you here to serve your own interest? You see, the money changers and the merchants, they were present. They were there. And the money changers, you know, they may even have told themselves, we are here providing a valuable service for God's people. noble purpose, travelers, they need to be able to get their sacrifice. They need to be able to get their money changed, and we are the ones that are enabling that. But the thing is that in their heart of hearts, they were there in the name of self-interest. They were in it for themselves. And likewise, you know, it's easy to tell ourselves, isn't it? We as regular church goers that we are coming to worship God. But are we really? Could it be that in reality we are coming only to get something for ourselves? Maybe it's to get our ears tickled with some new teaching. Maybe it's so that we can meet some nice people. Or maybe it's even to serve, but maybe you serve with a selfish motive. Is that possible? Is that possible to serve God with a selfish motive in his church? Yeah, you bet it is. And maybe nobody would ever know that except you and God. But for example, you may come primarily to serve so that you get some sense of importance for yourself. Or you're in a position of leadership and, you know, that gives you a sense of power. Or maybe you're a project-oriented person and here you get to execute on your pet project that gives you a sense of pride. Maybe you enjoy being seen and applauded by men. We need to ask ourselves if we come to serve with selfish motives like that. And then we need to ask ourselves if Jesus would have driven us out with the money changers. Would you have driven us out? See, our focus then, even in ministry, must be on serving God's church and not a self-centered thing. Or in Jesus's words, we must come to serve and not be served. I was listening to a, I guess YouTube recommended to me a Paul Washer video. entitled, You Say, I Love the Church, No, You Idolize Your Ministry. And he was talking to church pastors, actually, and leaders, and the point he was making is that even church leaders can become so enamored with their grand vision of the church, and church planting, and programs, and conferences, that they can forget that the church is not really about any of that. but it's about the people. It's about the people. And he said in this message that, this quote, you only love the church as much as you love its most difficult non-growing member. And I said, ouch. So how are you in your interactions with your brethren in the church? When you come on Sunday, when you come to minister as a ministry leader, after people interact with you, are they leaving that interaction encouraged and more a worshiper of God? Do they say, after looking at you, wow, that is somebody who is zealous for God and his people, and that's what I want to be like. In your ministry, are you leaving a trail of discouraged people and hurt feelings as you plow through them as you serve? Because it's about you, and it's your way or the highway, right? Or on the other side, are you serving with your brethren, but you're quickly offended and quick to criticize? and ready to call it quits at the slightest provocation. And if that describes you, then maybe your zeal is really for yourself and not for God's church. Because this is what Ephesians 4.16 says. It tells us that the way God builds is by causing the growth of the body for the building up of itself in what? Love. and love. If you're not serving and leading with love, then you're not doing it God's way. See, Jesus' focus and zeal has always been on love, on love of his people. And we can't lose sight of that. That's what we need to be about as well. Zeal for your house will consume me. Finally, we come to our last point, The last phrase of this quote will consume me. I don't know how it's gonna go on the slide. Oh, there it is. Will consume me. We've been taking this to mean in our time here that Jesus' passion and fury so consumed him that it oozed out of him in a burning passion, right? That's most likely what the apostles were thinking in this context as well. But I told you there's more here than meets the eye. And the original scripture that the disciples were reminded of that this quote comes from is from Psalm 69. Why don't we try to turn there briefly in Psalm 69. Psalm 69. Okay, this is a Psalm of King David. And he's writing it at the time when he is being persecuted and mocked by evil men for his faithlessness, I'm sorry, for his faithfulness to God. So he was faithful, other people were not, and he was being mocked by them, all right? That's the context. So let's start from verse seven and read to verse 12, verse seven. Because of your sake, I have borne reproach. Dishonor has covered my face. I have become estranged from my brothers in an alien to my mother's sons. For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. When I wept in my soul with fasting, it became my reproach. When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them. Those who sit in the gate talk about me, and I am the song of drunkards." Stop right there. Okay, so I want you to notice two things here. The first thing is that in this psalm, in verse 9, the context of the word consume isn't to be filled with passion and emotion. That's not the context. It's actually talking about the word consumed and using it in a different sense. It's being is being used to denotes being utterly used up. Like firewood that is consumed in the fire until there's nothing left but ash. David is saying that his faithfulness to God has led him into the situation where he is indeed zealous for God's right worship. But this has caused him to pay a price. And now he is consumed. He's used up, exhausted, tossed aside. And now he's weeping, a byword, and that means to be mocked. And he's a song of drunkards, and that means that they wrote derogatory and crass drinking songs to mock him as they drank. His family has disowned him, dishonor covers his face, and that's the sense in which he's consumed. It's a very different use of the word. And the second thing to notice here is the tense of the verse, because it's slightly different, isn't it? See, in Psalm 69, is it the past or the future tense? The word consumed. The past tense, it says, feel for your house, Consumed me I'll flip back to John chapter 2 and You'll see is that the past or the future That's the future tense and when G when David penned this To him the verse was can was pointing to something that happened to him in the past. He was consumed By the situation where he was being persecuted and But in our passage in John, it's referring to the future. So what's this talking about? Well, you guessed it. In a few years time, Jesus would indeed as well be consumed on the cross. It's a prophecy. And it would happen during another Passover. But this time, instead of offering ox and sheep and goats and doves, Jesus himself would be offered up as the Passover lamb. The only Passover lamb that ever really satisfied God's wrath for sinners. And there, the scripture tells us, Jesus, a man who knew no sin, became sin on our behalf so that we would become the righteousness of God. That is, Jesus took the penalty of our sins upon himself so that whoever believes in him would not perish, but have everlasting life. And so he did that. He was consumed for you, for his church. See, it was, Jesus' zeal for his father's house, yes, even for you, Calvary, that caused him to be consumed on your behalf on the cross. And you know what's more? Jesus did it all willingly. And it was only because Jesus was willing to do that, to be consumed, that the church could be built at all. Because the scripture said this, right? The stone that the builder rejected has become the what? The cornerstone. Cornerstone of what? Of a building. See, the whole thing is a building analogy. The church is under construction and the ground was broken when Jesus was consumed on the cross. And the first block The cornerstone of the building was produced from Jesus' sacrifice. And then what? Well, then the apostles came along, and they allowed themselves to be consumed their entire lives for the gospel, and it's well documented that they also died martyrs' deaths, most of them. So they were consumed as well. Then what? And then throughout history, even the reformers, Many of them allowed themselves to be consumed so that the church could be built. So then God's third question for you this morning is this. Are you willing to let yourself be consumed for his church? See, we're not all called to die for Christ's cause necessarily, but we are all called to live for it. Are you willing to let your life be consumed? Don't you see, this is what the church is built from. The building blocks of the church has always been sacrifice. There's no building without sacrifice. God's true church has always been built brick by brick by brick on the sacrificial love and service of God's people. That's what the building is made of. First, Jesus' sacrifice, the cornerstone, then the apostles, then centuries of countless Christians spending themselves so that you could have the gospel preserved for you. Investments of time and money and lives, emotional energy, so that the church could be preserved throughout time. And now, it's our turn. We're up next. Will you, beloved, will you willingly and joyfully spend yourselves to build your Savior's church? Jesus would ask no less of you. So I want you to ask yourself, is this the kind of relationship you have with God's church? Are you zealous to build his church, to grow his church, to minister to her members and to pray for her? to guard her unity, to fight for her purity, to serve her physical and spiritual needs with your mental and physical abilities, to love her and adorn her. I know that's asking a lot, isn't it? Seems like it's asking a lot. Sometimes it's hard. You know, sometimes it can be very painful. Sometimes you will be sinned against. And you should expect that. Because why? Is the church perfect? No. No, it is not. The church is full of sinners. That's what it is. And sometimes she can be frustrating, and sometimes you may want to throw up your hands and give up. But let me ask you this. What kind of sacrifice would it be if it was easy? That would be no sacrifice at all. Will you say, That's still a lot to ask. I don't know if I'm willing to do that. How do I know that this will be worth all the sacrifice? We know we often have weddings in this church. We just had one a few weeks ago. And weddings are the only time where those doors in the back there open up. And when they open up, you know that the bride is standing in front of that, in the back of that door in her, beautiful, radiant white dress framed by the daylight. And it's a sight to behold even as a guest, but it's something else to behold that as the groom, isn't it? And of course, the groom is usually just standing here, mostly as an afterthought, but you know, when he sees his bride walking down this aisle, his heart leaps because he thinks to himself, This beautiful woman is about to become my wife. In many weddings, they read Ephesians 5. Let's just turn there for a minute. Let's just look at Ephesians 5 for a second. Ephesians 5, verse 25, let's look at that for a minute. Ephesians 5, 25, I'll read it. We're familiar with this part. It says, husbands, love your wives just as Christ also, pay attention, loved the church and gave himself up for her so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word that he might present to himself, the church and all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. Why should we do this? Why should we spend so much effort on the church? My friend, it's because the church is Christ's bride. But you see the church. She's incomplete right now. She's not quite ready as it is. She's not quite as pure as she needs to be yet. She's not quite as mature as she needs to be. She's not quite as beautiful as she needs to be yet to walk down that aisle. She needs a lot of work. She needs to grow more. She needs more unity. She needs more purity. A bit more hospitality. A bit more joy. A bit more love. She still needs to be bathed and cleaned and have her wrinkles ironed out. Doesn't it? Don't we? And this verse is telling us that Jesus is really well aware of that. If you look at this verse, what you find is that Jesus is actively and intimately involved in making her ready. Because that's his deal. The church is his bride. But I want to point this out to you. Do you know, my friends, the means by which he is accomplishing that, the means by which he is accomplishing that. I want to look at one last verse with you today, and that's in Revelation 19. Can you turn with me, please, to Revelation 19? It's close to the back of your Bible. Revelation 19. We'll close with this. Here we find ourselves at the marriage supper of the lamb. At this point, the church is complete. The bride has been made ready. And the celebration is ready to begin. Verse seven. Let's look at verse seven. Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to him For the marriage of the lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean. For the fine linen is what? What is it? The righteous act of the saints. Did you get that? You see that? The bride of Christ is being dressed by what? She's being dressed and prepared by your service, by your sweat, by your tears, and by your sacrifice, and your righteous deeds. See, that's what she's dressed in. Every patch of her beautiful dress was tailored from an act of sacrificial love by you. By you. I think on that day, when we get to that day, some people, some of us will be able to point to large squares of the fabric and say, here Lord, here is what I made for you. Here is what I brought to your wedding. Does it please you? Is it beautiful to you? But tragically, some will only be able to bring a tiny thread. And on that day, what you will wish more desperately than anything else is that you could have brought more. You could have brought more for your Lord. If only you could have brought more. If only I could have contributed more to the beauty of your bride on your wedding day. My Lord, more joy, more glory, more honor. Don't you want that? Don't you want that more than anything? Verse nine. And he said to me, right. Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the lamb. What does that mean? It's reward time. It's party time. It's time for the reception. Time for the dancing. See, Jesus does not take your sacrifice and give you nothing in return, does he? Remembers what it says in Hebrews 10. It says, for God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown towards his name by having what? Served, and by still serving his saints. That's what the Bible wants from you. See, there's the church again, right? See the zeal that God, that Jesus has for his church. Jesus won't forget your service, and your reward in heaven will indeed be great. In fact, you will be astonished by your reward. It's gonna be wildly out of balance with what you actually sacrificed. We cannot give God, can we? Of course not. What a wedding day that will be. Amen. My friends, zeal for your house has consumed Jesus. If we love Jesus, if we say we love Jesus, how can we not love his bride too? So Calvary, let's go. We have a wedding gown to make, right? Let's get to work. Amen. Let's close in a word of prayer. Father, so grateful for your word and the clarity by which you've laid out how you would want us to center our lives. First and foremost, we want to worship you. We want to give you glory and ascribe to you honor. We want to have a relationship with you, which you've freely made available to us when we put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, when we confess with our mouths that he is Lord, and when we believe in our hearts that you raised him from the dead, and when we believe that we are adopted into your family. But that's not the end of the journey. That is the beginning. And once we're in your family, we get to serve you and we get to sacrifice for you. And we get to do the one mission you've left us on the world to do, which is to build your church and to grow her, to take care of her and to feed her. We pray, Lord, that through this text, you would have impressed upon us how important that is to you and that you would empower us to build a beautiful wedding gown that we might celebrate with you on that day. We look forward to the day you come to redeem us and the party that awaits us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Let's stand together. Amen.