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Feb 02, 2025

Life Lessons from Flipping Tables | Come and See

Life Lessons from Flipping Tables | Come and See

Speaker: Matt Petty

Series: Come and See

Category: Sunday Sermons

Keywords: spiritual transformation, authentic worship, temple cleansing, spiritual barriers, righteous anger, worship center, spiritual reformation, divine presence, spiritual cleansing, spiritual hindrances, temple worship, holy anger, jesus authority, divine justice, passover celebration, jesus passion, spiritual conviction, come and see series, jesus flipping tables, jesus anger, temple courts, worship barriers, spiritual marketplace, temple system, worship revolution, worship renewal

Discover what happens when Jesus confronts corruption in the temple courts. In this powerful message from John 2, learn why Jesus flipped tables and what it means for our worship today. Explore how Jesus responds when anything stands between Him and His people, and what areas of our lives might need some "table-flipping" of our own.

Well, good morning church. I hope you have had a great week this week and you've been able to get outside in the last 24 hours. The last few weeks have been so cold and gloomy, but finally, the Lord has given us a couple of pretty days. Before I jump into the message, can you tell the worship teams all over this building how thankful we are for them? It has been a sweet season here at Burnt Hickory. If you've been around, you know it has been a great month, and I can't wait to see where God is going to continue to take us.

If you have a copy of scripture this morning, go with me to John 2. We're going to pick up in the back half of where we left off last week in this series. We are walking through the gospel of John. John's main point, at the end of the day, is to show us exactly who Jesus is, not for just knowledge's sake, but so that we can see him as God. We can submit our lives to him and he can deliver us. John’s gospel spends a lot of his time proving the deity of Jesus, that Jesus is God, and that he is the word made flesh. Everything points to Jesus. In chapter one we saw that Jesus was called the Word, the Lamb of God, the Creator, the Light, the One and Only, the Messiah, the King of Israel, the Stairway, and the Son of man. Chapter one was incredible because it set the tone and described Jesus in these incredible words. Jesus steps into the scene and calls the first of his disciples. And he shows us that he is so much more than just a good teacher or a moral leader… he's God.

Last week we started chapter two, where Jesus, his mother Mary, and five disciples were with him walking into Cana. They were invited to a wedding that was about to take place. We see in chapter two where Jesus steps in with power and shows us the descriptions of chapter one. And he starts to live this out. Jesus performs his first miracle, and John shows us that he not only enters the scene as a religious leader, but he steps in as a miracle worker. Last week we talked all about how he is the one who steps in when nothing else can help. All he asks of us is to offer the little that we have to give him, to answer his call, to be obedient to him when it doesn't make sense. We said last week that Jesus adds his extra to our extraordinary to make it extraordinary. He not only wants to give us life, he wants to give us abundant life. And we said that our role in all of this is to simply just do what Jesus tells us to do.

Today let’s start in John 2:13. We're going to see Jesus through a light that most of us have probably skipped over quickly. Jesus will show us some lessons, and we’re going to call it Lessons from Flipping Tables. This is one of two passages of scripture where Jesus says, enough is enough. Where he shows us his passion and shows us this divine, holy anger. You know, compassion and love are the two things that stand out the most when we think about Jesus. But today, Jesus is about to get hot, because people were not worshiping rightly. Context means everything here.

John 2:13 says, when it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now pause there, because anytime you see a person going to Jerusalem, they are always going up. They're going up physically and they're going up spiritually. Because the Sea of Galilee, Nazareth, the Dead Sea, Cana, and all the areas around it were below Jerusalem in altitude. So no matter which way you went out of Jerusalem, you're walking down, and going into Jerusalem, you're coming up.

It's also an incredible symbol of coming into the presence of the Lord. And that's exactly what Jesus is doing. This is Jesus's first ministry visit to Jerusalem. The Book of John shows all three Passovers that Jesus shows up to. But this one is the first visit, in what I would call a ministry context. Now obviously if you know the Bible, it is not the first time he's been to Jerusalem. And it's not the first time he's been to the temple. We first hear of Jesus at the temple in Luke 2:22 when his parents, Mary and Joseph, brought him at seven weeks old, to the temple to present him before the Lord as the firstborn. That was the practice of the day. The second time he went was when he was 12 years old. In one of my favorite stories in scripture, Luke 2:41 says that every year Jesus's parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. When he was 12 years old, they went up to the festival. According to the custom, Jesus's parents did what they did every year, other than the years that they were in Egypt. They went to the temple at the Passover. So Jesus' parents took Jesus and his siblings and they went to the temple to offer their sacrifice before the Lord. That's what was expected of them. And somehow his parents actually forget about him for a minute and they leave him at the temple. Can I get a good amen from all those church kids that were ever left at the church, right? It's what happens in Jesus's life. So Jesus has probably been to the Passover week, some 20 or 30 times. That's how their Jewish family lived.

Let me remind you of the hugeness of Passover. Most of us are not Jews, so we tend to skip over this. The Passover is a festival, a day that God set up after he delivered the people from Egypt, with the Passover lamb. In Exodus 12, at the end of the plagues, God was delivering his children out of bondage and slavery. The last way God delivered them was when he said, if you want to be delivered, paint over your doorposts blood from a lamb, and that is the sacrifice for your family. If you do this, I will pass over from killing the firstborn from your family, which was the last plague. Well, they do this. God delivers them from Egypt. And on the backside of the exodus, God says to pause every year at this moment and remember when I delivered you. Remember that I was the one who gave you the way to be delivered.

At this moment, 1500 years later, Jesus is about to walk into this temple, they had been celebrating this week as a symbol of their deliverance. And Jesus now goes to the Passover. It's incredible, isn't it?

Now, when I was growing up and thought about the Passover, I always thought about maybe two or three families in the courtyard of the temple celebrating this thing. But that's not anywhere close to what the Passover would have been in Jerusalem. I want to paint a mental picture for you. The best way we can tell, the first-century city of Jerusalem had about 200,000 people living there. Now, that's a big city in ancient times. But at the Passover time, the city would swell to about 2 million people. Because God had told them, as part of the central point of worship for Passover, that every Jew living within 15 miles of the temple was expected to be there. And every Jew, no matter where you lived in the world, was expected to be here at least one Passover in your life for that week. The central point of the Passover was the temple complex. When I say temple, think of a large area.

I have a little picture to display since the graphics went so great a couple of weeks ago. This is what the first-century temple during Jesus's time would have looked like. The middle was the holy of holies, where only on the day of atonement, the high priest could go. Right outside of that was where the sacrifices were made daily by the priests. Only priests could go right outside of that. Working from the inside out was the Jewish court where the Jewish males who were pure could go. Right outside of that was the Jewish lady court. Don't get on me, it's just how they did it. I don't know. Right outside of that were the courts of the Gentiles. It was two huge blocks. That's where you and I could go unless you're Jewish. If you're Jewish, you could go farther in. But we couldn't as Gentiles. To give you some perspective, those two Jewish courts put together are about 36 acres in size. To give you a little context, if you put all of the land that our parking lots have at Burnt Hickory, plus the little neighborhood that we own beside us, we own about 35 acres. That's how large the courts of the Gentiles are. If you go to Jerusalem, you'll see this.

Now, there are 2 million people in Jerusalem at the time. They're pouring into this complex every day. At any given moment, there would be between 10-20,000 people in these courts. So don't think, oh look, there's three families in the court. No, this thing is huge. Think about where the Hawks play at State Farm arena; which holds about 12,000 people. That's how many people were here.

Now get back to the verses and read it through this context. Verse 13 says, when it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts, he found people selling cattle and sheep and doves and others sitting at tables exchanging money.

A little disclaimer here: before all the phone calls and texts and messages come in this week, this has nothing to do with a coffee shop in the lobby of a church, nothing to do with selling books, and nothing to do with the student cafe or the Coke machine in the back. If you send that to me in an email, I will trash it. That is not what it's talking about. If that's what you’re thinking, you're wrong, because that’s not the context.

The temple at Passover was supposed to be all about worship, but it became about evil religious leaders who put into practice some gnarly principles that kept people from worship. All those things that we offer, the aim is to help you worship. What John describes here is keeping people from worship, because it's pricing worship out of the normal family's ability to bring their offerings before the Lord. Therefore, their family could not connect to God. That's the problem here. You see, every Jew that participated in the Passover, whether it was every year if they lived close or once in their life, would come to Jerusalem and the first destination that they needed to go to was the temple. Because they had to pay what was called their temple tax. Can you imagine, what if we did that? What if we put somebody at the door going, Nope, gimme 20 before you come in here. That's actually what they did. They had to pay their temple tax.

But not only did they have to pay their temple tax. They had to pay it in the local temple currency. We may not think of that as a big deal, but it was a huge deal. And here's why. The high priest through his little priest cronies came up with a system, and history proves this, to where they wouldn't just exchange money for convenience. They would exchange money and extort people out of 10 to 20% on an exchange rate. And this was God's money. So when people came in to exchange their money, if you gave them your money, you lost 20% of what was yours. They were ripping people off.

And check this out: if you came to the Temple, you needed to sacrifice your animal, which everybody had to bring with them. Let's say you came from a long way off. You wouldn't want to drag the lamb with you for two weeks and it shows up looking all scrawny when you got there. So what happened for years and years was you would buy your spotless lamb right there on the scene, so that you could present it to be sacrificed. The problem is these same crooked people controlled the sale of all the animals. So now you were exchanging your money and losing 20%, then you had to exchange your money to buy the lamb that they charged an exorbitant amount of money on. Think $9 hotdogs at a football game, right? You're coming in, and now you're losing in both ways, and you can't worship, because you can't afford that.

On top of that, these same cronies were the ones that gave the 'yeses' and the 'nos' when you brought your little lamb to be sacrificed, to tell you if it was pure and spotless enough. Let me walk you through what Josephus tells us in church history. Very rarely would the priests allow a lamb to come in that was considered spotless and approved as an adequate sacrifice to God. So they would buy your spotted lamb, they would charge you double for a spotless lamb, and the next day they would sell your lamb to somebody else.

Great business plan… horrible worship plan. That's why Jesus is so angry. In fact, that's why in Matthew 21, the second time Jesus sees this happening, Jesus gets so mad at these guys that he says, you have turned my father's house into a den of thieves and robbers.

So at the most holy moment of the year, when God connects to his people the most, the religious leaders had set up a system that completely missed and completely perverted the point of the Passover. The point is that your sin could be forgiven. Are you feeling the weight now of why Jesus is so hot? He’s so mad because he's the lamb of God. What Jesus does next is probably not what you would expect if you hadn't read this story.

John 2:15 says, so Jesus made a whip out of cords, and he drove all of them from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves, he said, get out of here. Stop turning my father's house into a market. The disciples remembered that it was written, the zeal of your house will consume me. (That was David talking about the temple and Psalms, you can go read it this week.)

Jesus enters this court with 10 to 20,000 people. He evidently begins to stoop down and pick up the pieces of leather that these people would have had their animals tied to all this stuff to keep them from running away. He starts weaving together this little whip. And there would've been a lot of these little pieces of leather around. Remember the volume. Don't think 12 or 13 animals here and there around the court. Josephus, the ancient historian, tells us that every year at the Passover 250,000+ lambs were slain. That's how grand of a scale. These animals were in a place that was designed to be the connection point between people and God. This whole temple complex was the connection point of a holy God facilitating worship. This was where the presence of God on earth was. And now it has turned from a place of worship to a place of advancement and wealth for some evil people. That's why Jesus is so mad.

The first life lesson from the flipping tables is this: nothing enrages Jesus more than irreverence and a hypocritical worship of God that puts me at the center. That’s why Jesus was so mad because they took God off the throne. It took the advancement of God and his glory off the throne, and it put an evil system on the throne. God wants to be worshiped. He is the one to be praised, and he should be the center of our life. He should be the only thing in our life that we are pressing into with this kind of zeal. And when we flippantly approach God, when we have no desire to approach God, and when all we want to do is enrich ourselves, whether that's socially, relationally, money, whatever… we are taking God off the throne and putting my advancement as my God. That's what angered him. That's what these people were doing.

I might add, that's a huge struggle in American Christianity today. Think about it. These “vendors” were so close in proximity to the presence of God. They were in the court right by the Holy of Holies. But they couldn't have been any farther in true worship of God. It was all about them. They were driving walls in between people to be able to worship God.

Listen to what Eugene Peterson says: Worship is the strategy by which we interrupt our preoccupation with ourselves and we attend to the presence of God.

Man, that's exactly the opposite of what these guys were doing. I know the context is different, but let me ask you this morning, is Jesus the center of your worship or are you the center of your worship? When you come before Jesus in worship, is it more about you or is it more about him? Jesus looked at these guys and said, it's all about you. And it frustrates me. So nothing enrages Jesus more than irreverence and putting ourselves at the center of worship.

Here's the second thing that stood out for me from this text. Number two, Jesus gets extremely frustrated when anything comes between him and his people. And he has every right to. And if Jesus wasn't angry right here, I would question his authority and character because he is the one to be praised. Jesus's sole reason for coming to this earth was to forgive sin and to connect a holy God to sinful man. And these people were driving a wall where people could not connect with God. And Jesus gets so frustrated when anything comes between him and his people. At this point, these people want nothing to do with God. And to take it a step further, they're keeping people from connecting to God.

Verse 15 says, So he made a whip out of cords and he drove all from the temple courts, both the sheep and the cattle. He scattered the coins of the money changers and he overturned their tables. I love the picture of Jesus with the locks holding the lamb, just petting them. But I love this one too. He flips over the tables, and he drops people out of the courts.

Normally, I don't point out places where there's a bit of room for mystery, but this is one of those cool mysteries in scripture. This phrase drives them all out, we really don't know what that means. It can mean two different things. It either means he drove the vendors and their animals out of the courts, which would've been a huge deal. 250,000 lambs. Or it means he drove every person and animal out of the courts, which would be somewhere between 10 and 20,000 people plus the 250,000 lambs. Which one is it? I don't know. But can you think about Jesus for a minute? He’s literally driving thousands of people out of the place. We don't hear of anybody getting hurt. We don't hear of anything happening. All we hear about is Jesus crushing the evil system that is not pointing to God.

What is it that Jesus needs to run out of your life? I know the context is different, but what in your life is coming between you and a holy God? Is it sinful behavior that is either public or private, that is a hindrance between you and God? Maybe for you, it's pride or self-centeredness hindering you from truly following him. Maybe for you, it's fear or anxiety preventing you from fully trusting God. Maybe for you, it's a worldly distraction, not necessarily a sin. It should be a good thing, but it's become a God thing, and it's driving a wedge between you and God. Maybe for you, it's a lack of commitment or discipline that you need him to flip over in your life. Maybe for you, it's unforgiveness that your heart has never left with him. What is it the thing Jesus needs to step into and flip over in your life? Jesus does some table flipping, but we should too. We have a part in this.

Hebrews 12:1 says, therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race that is marked out before us fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith.

Jesus is the connection point. It's the whole reason he's angry. Jesus is the one who flips tables. And Jesus is angered when anything comes in front of him. But will Jesus take his toys and go home? No. Jesus will fight it from you. Number three, Jesus is not a soft savior. (I wanted to put sissy there, but I don't think you can use that word anymore.) He'll fight. He'll fight for his glory, your holiness, and your worship. He's willing to stand against injustice. He's willing to stand against the sinfulness of man. He's willing to stand against the system. He's willing to stand for what is right for His glory, for your holiness, and your worship. No matter what it costs Jesus… and it did cost him his life. You may think, that's not very loving of Jesus. It is loving of Jesus to stand for these things because he's looking at eternity. Jesus stood with wisdom, power, and conviction.

Verse 16 says, to those who sold doves. He says, get these out of here and stop turning my father's house into a market. He didn't say “their” father's house because these guys weren't believers. They may have claimed to be believers, but they didn't know Jesus. We're seeing their actions. They didn't know God. They weren't submitting their hearts to God. They were just enriching themselves. And Jesus begins to upset the institution.

If you're reading John on your own, which I encourage you to, anytime John talks about the Jews, he's not talking about all Jews. He's talking about the religious leaders. That's his nickname for them. He says in verse 18, the Jews then responded to Jesus saying, what sign can you show us to prove that you have the authority to do all this? Jesus answered them, destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days. Then they replied, it has taken us 46 years to build this temple, and you're going to raise it in three days? I love what John says, but the temple Jesus had spoken of was his body. This is the first time in the book of John that he talks about the resurrection. This is a whole message in this one little section right here, but I want you to write something down that kind of brings it into our context.

Number four, Jesus not only cleanses the temple, but he replaces the temple, and now he has made us the temple. Jesus not only is at the temple, which is the place of God's presence. But think about it: Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. For 1500 years, the temple hosted the presence of God until Jesus, Emmanuel, was born. He became the presence of God on earth. He walked out the presence of God on earth to the point of crucifixion and resurrection. And in the Book of Acts he sent the Holy Spirit to make us the presence of God. 1 Corinthians 6:19 says, do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own. You were bought with a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies. The temple, Jesus, is standing at the temple, doing this work to make us the temple. He's already proclaiming his death. He's already proclaiming that we are going to be the presence of God.

Number five, Jesus's resurrection is the ultimate sign that he is the one who deserves our full belief and devotion. Last week he called us a water pot. This week we are the temple of God. The only sign I need to give my life and my devotion to him is the fact that he lived, but he rose from the grave. These religious leaders are looking at him asking for a sign. His response is, I'm about to give you a bunch of signs. In John’s gospel, people are always asking for a sign, and he's always doing signs. They wanted a sign in the air. But Jesus is saying, your heart is too hard to believe it. He's the resurrection and the life, and he's the lamb that takes away the sins of the world.

Look at verse 22, and we're going to land this plane. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples believed the scriptures and the words that Jesus had spoken. And Jesus says, I am still fighting, I am still available, I am still making changes, I am still offering my life, and I am possibly even flipping tables in your life.

Jesus deserves our worship, and Jesus wants our unselfish devotion. He wants all the praise, and he wants to make us His. Because he is the lamb who loves us where we are, but he loves us way too much to leave us there. It’s merciful when Jesus steps into your life and rebukes you. It's merciful when Jesus flips the tables over in our life. He didn't leave us to our own devices or vices.

Let me ask you something this morning. What would it look like for Jesus to step into your worship moment? Would he be pleased or would he say, we got some work to do? What would it look like if Jesus in the flesh stood in the middle of this room as you were offering up your praise to God? Would he look at you and say, that's one of mine. Or would he say, we got some work to do? What would it look like if tomorrow at your board meeting, Jesus sat around the table and looked at you? Would there be a flipping of that board table? What does God need to work on in your heart this week? Or maybe today you're finally connecting it all and saying, I can't worship without having Jesus. Do you need to give him your life today?

Follow Along with the Message

Life Lessons from Flipping Tables

 February 02, 2025
John 2:13
When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Luke 2:41–42
41 Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. 42 When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom.

John 2:13–14
13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money.
John 2:15–17
15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
Life Lessons from Flipping Tables:

1. Nothing enrages Jesus more than irreverence and the hypocritical worship of God that puts at the center.

“Worship is the strategy by which we interrupt our
preoccupation with ourselves and attend to
the presence of God.”
— Eugene Peterson

2. Jesus gets extremely when anything comes between him and his people.

John 2:15
So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.
Hebrews 12:1–2
1 ATherefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,  2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.

3. Jesus is not a soft savior; he will for his glory, your holiness, and your worship.

John 2:16
To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!”
John 2:18–21
18 The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” 20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body.

4. Jesus not only cleanses the temple, he replaces it and has now made the temple.

1 Corinthians 6:19–20
19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

5. Jesus’s resurrection is the sign that he is the one who deserves our full belief and devotion.

John 2:22
After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
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