26th January 2026

26th January 2026


Pray (ACts)


Read (John 2:12-25 focus v12-16)


Message (Alan Burke) 


There are some things that are worth fighting for, we all know it’s true. It’s worth fighting for the last packet of Tayto cheese and onion crisps; they are the superior crisp, and if you don’t agree, we can have a fight over it. It is worth fighting for colourful socks; they help cheer up a dreary world. It is worth fighting for the right way the toilet roll goes on the holder; the easy way to remember the right way and the wrong way is that “beards are good, mullets are bad”; it’s always over and never under. Ok, I hope that you know that I’m being a little facetious with my examples, but sadly there are many things that people get excited over that are not worth fighting about. What about worship? Is right worship important enough to get hot under the collar about? Is right worship something that we have even thought about?


Today we come to a passage where Jesus gets angry and it is all to do with worship. Jesus, we are told, went up to Jerusalem and in the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. This wasn’t all bad; the cattle, sheep and doves were there for the sacrifices and the money changers were there because you had to use a specific currency in the temple. In effect, they were providing a service to the people. There was a time whenever this took place across the Kidron Valley on the slopes of the Mount of Olives, but that was no longer the case. Now you procured your sacrifice in the court of the Gentiles on the way in and there were all these animals and moneychangers. To give you an idea of the Temple, the Temple sanctuary, which had the Holy of Holies, the holy place that was divided by a curtain, it was 150ft or 45 m by 75ft or 23 m covered in white marble so in the sun it would have been blinding. Then outside were the courts. These courts were areas that were designated for different people and uses. There was an area for the priests, an area where men could go, one for the women and outside of this enclosure was the court of the Gentiles. 


The Gentiles could come to worship God but could not go beyond this area and it was filled with cattle, sheep, doves. This was a place where the Gentiles were able to come to worship the LORD; they would come and stand in silence as the Jews approached God. There Jesus found in this court of the Gentiles men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. Making a whip of cords, we are told, Jesus drove them out. Jesus’ actions would have been seen as an attack on the whole sacrificial system itself, a threat to the priestly authorities and a way of life. His retort is “Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!” 


What we learn in the midst of what happens is that worship matters, it matters a lot. It mattered enough to see Jesus filled with anger, driving animals and people away from the temple. The temple was laid out in a way to make it clear to the people that how we approach God matters, how we worship Him matters. The church today can easily allow worship to become about our wants and desires rather than what is good and right according to the scriptures. The scriptures are our rule and guide, the scriptures lay out how God is to be approached. The Westminster Confession is helpful in this; it summarises the teaching of scripture reminding us that… ‘the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will, that He may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture’. (WCF XXI.1). If right was something that Jesus took seriously, it should also be something that we take seriously too, but sadly we often get more excited about things that don’t matter than things that do.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q81 What is forbidden in the tenth commandment?
A. The tenth commandment forbiddeth all discontentment with our own estate, envying or grieving at the good of our neighbor, and all inordinate motions and affections to anything that is his.