Dr. Kevin DeYoung | The Minister’s Zeal

0:00 Let me pray as we come to God's Word. Father in heaven, give us ears to hear that this Word would do the work that you have for it in our lives for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen. John chapter 2, verses 13 through 17. The Passover of the Jews was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple, he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting there and making a whip of cords. He drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, take these things away. Do not make my father's house a house of trade.

0:55 His disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for your house will consume me. Clearly, Jesus was not happy with what was taking place in the temple. Of all the amazing things Jesus did, though this is not a miracle as miracles are understood, it is one of the most surprising stories of Jesus' ministry. Almost seems out of character until we understand that it is completely in keeping with His concern for the worship of God, the glory of God, and that he might be the central place in all true faith and religion. He's not happy with what the temple has become, the animals, the commerce, the money changers. As we'll see, it isn't so much that someone might have, say, a book nook. Hopefully, that's not the same thing that's happening here. But rather, what this great bizarre of trade and commerce had become and what it was crowding out with the true worship of God.

2:04 He made a whip to prod the large animals to drive them out. He emptied the bags of the money changers and made quite a scene to spray their coins on the ground and then to flip over their tables. And he says to those with the pigeons, well, it's hard to whip a pigeon in a cage, So, he says, take those things out of here. What a dramatic scene. Probably more than one person was having that sort of nervous energy. What is happening here? More than one person was probably very upset, not least of all, those who made a living on this trade. But even those who liked Jesus might have thought, what in the world motivated such an action? We often reference this story as an example of righteous anger. Here's a story of sometimes anger is good and righteous, and that's not inappropriate, but notice the text does not credit His actions to anger, let alone frustration or rage, but there is one word to describe His motivation as the disciples remember what was written in Psalm 69 and that one word, zeal. That's what marked out Jesus' actions. It's the action of one who was zealous.

3:29 When you think about zeal, you might just think about a certain personality type, Someone who's just intense about everything, pathologically serious, ready to, at a moment's notice, have a great high of joy and jubilation or the greatest depth of despair. Well, this is not a personality type. Jesus did not act this way very often, perhaps one other time if we understand the other story to be a second example of this occasion. No, it's not a person out there. There are many different ways to be zealous. And the title of this sermon, The Minister's Zeal, I was thinking about some of the most well-known Presbyterian preachers and pastors of the last 20 years. R.C. Sproul, Sinclair Ferguson, Tim Keller, you listen to their sermons, all very different styles.

4:31 very different ways of pursuing zeal. Zeal is about a mission and a goal. Zeal is ardor in pursuit of an object, a purpose, or an ideal. The quintessential example of zeal in the Old Testament was Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the high priest. Phineas, the story in Numbers 25, it seems that Balaam had led the people of Israel to adulterous and idolatrous complicity with the women of the Midianites. These women, in turn, seem to be guilty as they enticed the Israelites to sacrifice to their gods and bow down before them. And so, we have this very dramatic story, these women and these men, God is absolutely rightfully angry at the people and orders that all the men who are guilty of this sin be killed. And there is a plague put upon the people. And as the story unfolds, the people are weeping at this pronouncement. One of the men has the gall to bring a Midianite woman to his tent. This is the very cause of Lord's plague among them, and so we have the quintessential example of zeal. Phineas leaps to his feet, grabs his spear, thrusts it through the man and the woman, and by his zeal the plague was stopped. Now, every Christian is called to be zealous. This is not just for ministers, Romans 12, 11, do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit. Now, if that's supposed to be true of all of us, not slothful in zeal. So, what does the Bible mean by zeal? Well, the opposite.

6:21 So, to not be zealous would be slothful. How to maintain zeal is to be fervent in the Spirit. That is not to languish, not to give in, not to give up. And even more so than how much the minister ought to be an example of zeal. Why do I say that? Well, just a few verses earlier in Romans 12, as Paul is talking about using our gifts of grace, he says, the one who leads, let him lead with zeal. So, there is something particularly necessary for leadership that it must correspond with zeal. Not zeal for no cause, just say, well, that brother is really passionate. Yep, might be a hothead. But zeal in the cause of righteous leadership is necessary. I never tell people that I think being a pastor is the hardest job. You all have a lot of jobs I wouldn't want to have. I love being a pastor. I think it's the best job. But it is true that there are some particular dangers in pastoral ministry and some particular temptations and ways in which if the minister goes wrong, a congregation goes wrong, and maybe even a town or a denomination goes wrong. And one of those is that a minister would languish in zeal.

7:43 Let me be careful, that doesn't mean that ministers don't get tired, we do. They need days off, sabbaticals, vacations, breaks. Spurgeon was prone to seasons of melancholy. Many of the greatest ministers have had these dark nights of the soul. So, That's not what we mean by zeal. But if a minister finds himself bored with the Word of God, lacking in passion for the church of God, no longer enthusiastic to deliver the Word of God. I remember one of these studies years ago, and maybe I remembered it because I liked what it said. I forget the studies that say things I don't like what they say. But this was a study of ministers and congregations, and it was asking the question, do you think that the sermons ought to have more visual aids or movie clips? This wasn't exactly a PCA survey, but they were asking these sorts of questions.

8:43 And what was surprising was the percentage was higher among the ministers who thought that the sermons needed these things than the people who thought that the sermons needed these things, as if to suggest that the pastors got bored with their sermons before the people did. You know why I remembered that one study. I hope it's true. But it is a danger. Ministers find themselves feeling like they're saying the same things, lacking in zeal, fervent in the Spirit. What we see from Jesus with one word to describe His actions in the temple. Now, there's a lot going on, but the disciples remembered zeal. Now, what was He zealous for? There are all sorts of things that we can note, but just note the most obvious in verse 17. His disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for what? For your house.

9:43 No point. In fact, there's great danger in a minister just being zealous if he's not zealous about the right things. And I think we can safely move from the house here, the temple, to then apply this to a zeal for the church because later in the New Testament we are told that we are living stones. The apostles and prophets are the foundation. Jesus is the cornerstone. The house is the church of the living God. Calvin gives his gloss on this passage. He burned with a holy zeal to maintain the church and at the same time the glory of God with which it is inseparably connected, a zeal for the church. Ministry allows for a lot of flexibility. There's some basic things you have to do, but then there's a lot of ways, especially in a big church, where ministers can have some specializations and they can do certain things that fit their interests and gifts. And so some ministers may be drawn to a chaplaincy or they want to volunteer to ride along with police officers, or they may write or do outside speaking, or some may be drawn to scholarship in service of the church. Others want to counsel, others street evangelism, others would sign up for every mission trip. So, zeal for the church does not mean that one's ministry only takes place within the four walls of the church. But if you are a minister, your zeal ought to be supremely so for the ministry and the mission of the church. And what is that?

11:20 I think the best simple definition of the mission and the ministry of the church is given the Westminster Confession 25.3. Just eight words, eight words. Here's what the ministry of the church is supposed to be about. It is for the gathering and perfecting of the saints. So, bringing in, building up, the gathering and the perfecting of the saints. There is a danger that ministers might let their avocations, their hobbies, their other interests, which is good to have those, become their vocation, or peripheral things become central, or entailments of Christian obedience supplant the importance of the church itself. One of the things I just told RTS Seminary students last week in my pastoral ministry class talking about the lecture I do on the mission of the church, I said, if you wake up in the morning and your heart is beating and what you can't stop thinking about is how to turn America back to God, how to save Western civilization, how to perfect the United States Constitution, how to transform the arts scene in your city, those can all be legitimate pursuits to the glory of God. And if that's what you wake up dreaming about, thinking about, then that may be a wonderful thing for your life, just don't be a pastor.

12:53 Your zeal, I said, must be for the house of the Lord, for the church. You're thinking about the gathering and the perfecting of the saints. We see that Jesus in His zeal for the house of God had a zeal for the worship that took place in the house of God. So, this is Passover. This is one of the high points of the Jewish calendar to commemorate their departure from Egypt. And you need to have animals because worshipers come from far and wide and they need to make sacrifices. So, there is a legitimate purpose for pilgrims to purchase animals for sacrifice. And there was certain coins for the temple tax. Roman money had to be converted into a certain shekel to pay the temple tax. So, it's not illegitimate that some of this would be taking place. The problem, as is so often the case, is the hearts and what these necessary things crowd out. elsewhere in a parallel story Jesus calls it a den of robbers a house of trade they had become covetous they'd become careless not that there was no reason to have trade or commerce at one time merchants set up across the Kidron Valley so the problem wasn't that they had to come to the temple and they had to exchange and buy things that was necessary but this was the father's house And it was a place for worship, for reverence, for contemplation, for devotion, for piety, not for making a quick buck.

14:23 There was a zeal for the purpose and the purity of this house. So many examples. Now, I hope not in our midst, but it's easy to see examples in this country of worship becoming trivialized. You can watch those clips on YouTube. You don't know to laugh or to cry of pastors coming into the pulpit on a zip line. It's been done. Won't be done here. Promise. Services being overrun with movie clips or skits. I just saw a horrifying, tragic article yesterday at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. A beautiful, magnificent Christopher Wren structure. and that Cathedral for the Church of England was signing a four-year contract with a London nightclub to stage events in the Cathedral. Let us have a zeal for the house of the Lord and for the worship that takes place here. Some pastors treat national parks with more sanctity than they treat their own church. Some would guard the rituals and traditions of a football game more than the liturgy of their own worship service. It is joyfully serious business that we conduct when we gather together for worship. So, it's important for the ministers that without a fake affect, there would be a holy zeal in the ministry of the gospel.

15:52 You've heard me give this anecdote before, one of those stories that if not true, it should be. that when they asked Benjamin Franklin why he continued to go to hear George Whitefield preach when Benjamin Franklin didn't believe anything that Whitefield said, Franklin replied, I know, but he does. He believes it. And so he listened. If our gospel becomes old news, tired news, boring news to the preacher, it will certainly be dull news to everyone else. Whitefield blasted the church in his day as he said, quote, the generality of preachers in New England talk of an unknown and an unfelt Christ. The reason why congregations have been so dead is because they've had dead men to preach to them. Whether or not he was completely fair in his assessment has certainly hit the mark in some places, and it would hit the mark in our day as well. As Martin Lloyd-Jones put it, I'm not looking for someone to set the world on fire.

16:54 I want to know that if I dropped you in the Thames, it would sizzle. There's a zeal. There's a burning. If you're wondering the Thames, it looks like Thames to us, but the Thames. There's a zeal for the worship that takes place in the house of the Lord, and there's a zeal for the nations to have access in that house to the Lord. The sellers and the money changers were callous in that they had set up shop in the court of the Gentiles. That's where all of this was taking place. It could have taken place on the other side of the Kidron Valley, but they brought it into the court of the Gentiles, the large outermost part of the temple precincts, which was, as the name suggests, as far as the Gentiles could go. This was as close as the nations could get at that time to the true worship of God. That's why in Mark's account of a later cleansing, we read that this is to be a house of prayer for all nations. See, they were forgetting the original vision behind the temple. They were so eager to make a buck, to find some way as the pilgrims came in to get rich quick, that they trivialized the worship that took place in the temple, and they had no regard for the nations, for the outsider who needed what the temple prefigured.

18:20 In 1 Kings 8, we read, likewise, when a foreigner, this is at the completion of the temple, likewise, when a foreigner who is not of your people Israel comes from a far country for your namesake, for they shall hear of your great name and your mighty hand and of your outstretched arm when he comes and prays toward this house here in heaven, your dwelling place, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you. That was one of the purposes of the temple. Now, we live in the New Testament with a go and tell, but they had a national and international focus, but it was a come and see. The nations will come, they will hear of your great God, and they will be drawn to the worship of your temple. And here these money changers had crowded out the very access point when the nations could have come close to God. It had become simply a Jewish nationalist symbol or a place for making money rather than a place where Gentile worship might be encouraged.

19:29 Let the minister have a zeal for the worship that takes place in the house of the Lord, and let it be a place that is ever mindful of those who are farthest from the truth of God. And above all and under all, this zeal that Jesus has is that he might be at the center of the worship of God's people. That's the point as they ask Him what He's going to do, and He says that He will destroy the temple and rebuild because He Himself and His resurrected body will be the focal point of all true worship. This incident marks the first direct assault on the spiritual bankruptcy of so much of first-century Judaism. They wanted a sign. and Jesus says, I am the sign. True religion now centers on me. God despises any religion that does not have Jesus at its center. Whatever that religion may be called, even Christian, if it does not have Jesus at the center. Let us never have a church that it's to put on a show.

20:40 I hope you don't come to church simply trusting that God is happy with your religious activity. Or perhaps here in the South it might be a good move for business connections or networking. Drive out every other motivation and every other impulse from the house of God than to put Jesus at the very center. And the minister must above all with an ardor pursue that mission and that ministry. A holy ardor for the house of God, for the worship that takes place here, for the nations that can meet God here. And through our ministry for the centrality of Christ in all that we do.

21:25 This is one of those verses that is tucked away in a little recess of my brain marked King James. because even though I'm not that old, NIV didn't come out until 1984. I was born in 1977. So I remembered some of these first verses, and this one stuck with me because it always sounded sort of funny to me. Zeal for thine house hath eaten me up.

21:50 It's eaten me up. Do you see the double meaning here? When they recall zeal for your house has consumed Jesus. Now, we understand it to mean he has an all-consuming zeal for the things of the Father. That's true. But it's not just the all-consuming zeal that he has, but this zeal for truth, this commitment to his messianic mission and identity, that zeal would consume him. His enemies would swallow him up. Psalm 69.9 says after this passage, quoted, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. Not just while he has a consuming passion and zeal, but that this zeal for all that is true and good and gracious and his own central purpose in God's plan would lead to his death.

22:55 Now, we are blessed here, very, very blessed at Christ's covenant. that by and large, you will appreciate a zealous minister. One of the greatest things I have to shake hands, and Aaron has had it too, and we'll have it as he continues to preach here. Thank you, pastor. Keep telling us the truth. We needed to hear that. What a wonderful thing to have a congregation like that. It's also true in many places, and maybe once in a while here as Well, there are a lot of Christians who want a pastor right up into the moment until he pastors them.

23:33 They want a church until the church starts acting like a church. The reproaches of those who reproach Christ and His Word may fall also on the minister, which is not fun, but the minister's task does not change. We continue with the holy ardor for the sake of worship, for the sake of the nations, and for the sake of the centrality of Jesus Christ in all things. And that zeal is sustained not by just ginning up our own enthusiasm, but ultimately by looking at the one who was consumed for our sakes. The only way for zeal to last a lifetime is to continue with the holy pursuit for Jesus Christ, the hope of glory. So for ministers and for all of us, let us not grow weary in well-doing, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Let's pray.

24:28 Lord Jesus, thank You for Your holy zeal, for giving Your own life when Your enemies surrounded You. You freely gave it up for our sakes, and so now we, looking to You, praying to the Father in Your name, ask that You would continue to keep us fervent in the Spirit, especially for all those who have the holy and daunting charge of being shepherds to this congregation and to others throughout our Presbytery and city. We pray that we would not be lagging in zeal. We ask for your supernatural sustenance.