“Worship That Angers God”
John 2:13-17
Sermon Series: “Getting Acquainted With Jesus”
Introduction: Last week, we saw that Jesus deals with sin based on an anger that is righteous. In applying this passage, we focused on our anger and the anger of God. This week, we are going to look at the same passage and principle but focus our application on worship and look at worship that angers God.
By way of reminder, this is the sin (and it directly relates to worship) that produced His anger. They were not glorifying or worshipping God, but they were using the worship of God to enrich themselves, and they were taking advantage of others and being a bad witness to the Gentiles in the process. They were failing to love God or their neighbor but were loving themselves. It was a religious racket led by religious hucksters. Their actions were making it difficult for people, especially poor people, to come to God.
Let’s look at some specific characteristics of worship that angers God that can be discerned from this passage. As we do, I want us to think about this question, “If Jesus showed up today, what would He be cleansing?”
1. God is angered by worship that focuses on getting instead of giving. God does bless us through worship, but true worship is focused on God instead of us and involves us giving ourselves to God as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1).
2. God is angered by worship that focuses on the love of self instead of the love of God. These religious leaders did not love God. They loved themselves. This was about what they could get out it for themselves. They were not truly interested in worshipping and glorifying Almighty God.
3. God is angered by worship that consumer-driven instead of Christ-focused. Mark Driscoll defines a consumer as one who “takes the most for the least cost.” He then defines a worshipper as one who “gives the most for the benefit of others.” They were worshipping out of convenience when God is looking for sacrifice. Are we giving God our best or our leftovers (see Malachi 1)? Some areas this applies in when it comes to corporate worship are:
Personality
Place
Programs
People
Problems
Performance
4. God is angered by worship that mistreats other people instead of loving them. 1 John 4:20 says, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?”
5. God is angered by worship that keeps people from Him instead of bringing them to Him. Jesus quoted the Old Testament and said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations” (Mark 11:17). True worship is not about us; but it is about glorifying God, loving our brothers and sisters in Christ, and helping others to meet the true and living God.
Conclusion: Jesus saw a mess when He went to the Temple for the Passover celebration that day. What should He have seen? What should we really experience in corporate worship? Let me close with these three concluding statements.
1. The temple (us, the church) exists for the glory of God to be manifested (1 Kings 8).
2. Worship is giving God the glory due His Name (Psalm 29:1-2) through celebrating who He is and what He has done for us and by repenting of our sins.
3. Worshipping Jesus is the natural response of a saved heart (see John 9:38). In other words, a Christian is a worshipper. Are you a worshipper?
