Jesus Cleanses the Temple
Download MP3Hey, everybody. We're gonna be in John chapter 2 today. So if you wanna go ahead and start opening up your Bibles, it's also in your worship guide. We've been in this study in John's gospel for a couple of weeks now. Last week, we looked at the the wedding at Cana where Jesus performed his first miracle, turning the water into wine.
Jeffrey Heine:And today, we we continue on in in the narrative where, Jesus is making his way into Jerusalem for the Passover. And so we'll be in John chapter 2 starting in verse 13. See if you can start making your way there. It's a joy and a privilege to open up God's word together with you. And so let us listen carefully, for this is the word of God.
Jeffrey Heine:John chapter 2, beginning with verse 13. 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.
Jeffrey Heine:And he told those who sold the pigeons, take these things away. Do not make my father's house a house of trade. His disciples remembered that it was written, 'Zeal for your house will consume me.' So the Jewish leaders said to him, what sign do you show us for doing these things? And Jesus answered them, destroy this temple, and in 3 days, I will raise it up. The Jews then said, it has taken 46 years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in 3 days?
Jeffrey Heine:But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. This is the word of the
Connor Coskery:Lord. Thanks be to God.
Jeffrey Heine:Let's pray. Oh God, you know each of us, each one of us better than we know ourselves, And yet, you love us. And we know that not because our lives are easy, but because of Jesus. Help us to hear from you today. Dwell with us.
Jeffrey Heine:Teach our hearts to believe. Awaken us today that we might know you and know your love. You are God, and we are not. And for that, we are thankful. So speak, Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:Your servants are listening. Amen. So when I was a kid growing up in Paducah, Kentucky, yes, that Paducah, Kentucky, the one that you all know and have visited many times, as I grew up in Paducah, Kentucky, when I a kid, my my parents 1 year, when I was 10 years old, offered for us, my sister and I, the opportunity that instead of getting a birthday present, a birthday gift, we could go on a birthday vacation. A little mini vacation. And so my sister, my older sister, she chose to do a shopping trip to Nashville, Tennessee.
Jeffrey Heine:And I kind of feel like that's cheating. I mean, that's She gets both. It's a vacation, but it's a shopping vacation. But I digress. I chose, at 10 years old, when it was my turn to decide on what my birthday mini vacation would be, I said, I want to go to Graceland.
Jeffrey Heine:Because at 10 years old, I loved my mom, I loved Jesus, and I loved Elvis. And perhaps at times in that order. Different orders, different times. But I I loved Elvis. Now, now you might think, that con considering Jess and I named our, first born June, after June Carter, that we are just big Johnny Cash and and June Carter fans, and we are.
Jeffrey Heine:But that's really because I could not convince Jess that we should name her Priscilla, Because apparently that's a bad idea. But I was so excited. We went to Graceland. We we took off in the Dodge Voyager van, and we we headed to Memphis, Tennessee. Poor boys and pilgrims with their families making our way to Graceland.
Jeffrey Heine:And and as we, as we got there, we're going down Elvis Presley Boulevard. We we see the big welcome center. We we we, pull in. And I mean, every every ethnicity, every culture is just kind of in this big parking lot as we're all all these pilgrims making our way to Graceland. Now Graceland, for those of you that that may not know, is, the former home and burial site of Elvis Presley.
Jeffrey Heine:And, and so we went, and and, my whole birthday mini trip was, I wanted to go on the platinum tour. I wanted to see it all. And so we went into the visitor center. We we bought our, you know, $40 tickets, and and started making our way. Now, as you shuttle across, you go through the big gates of Graceland, you you you enter through the front door, like, you know, front door of the home.
Jeffrey Heine:You walk in, there's a stairwell. Up the stairwell, there's a a portrait of his daughter, Lisa Marie, just, you know, kind of frozen in time, the whole scene. And there's plastic on the carpet. And that's because over half a 1000000 people walk through this home every year. From all over the world, people travel to see Graceland, and and we were one of those families.
Jeffrey Heine:We we walked through, we saw the kitchen, we saw the jungle room, we saw, the the Gold Record room, the jumpsuit room, the TV room. Everything had like a thing room. Like, as you make your way throughout, you see you see the pool, there's the meditation garden, you see where he's buried. And and even as a 10 year old boy, I felt like there was something strange about this. It was strange to be with all of these strangers walking through a man's home.
Jeffrey Heine:Like, what what once was a house for a family, like a a mother and a father and a little girl, friends, singing, food, love, had now just become this tourist trap. All of us shuffling in, people that didn't didn't belong inside of this home, and here we are, over half a 1000000 people every year, just bustling through. Now, in a much more serious and in a much more severe manner, the temple in Jerusalem was no longer being treated like the house of God. It was being being treated more like a tourist trap. Picture, you know, sweaty Israelites with sun visors and fanny packs, you know, just like like making their way in after their days of travel, dirty from the road, tired, kids running around.
Jeffrey Heine:And there are money changers converting their local coin so they can come into the temple. Now, they had to have money changers because the coins that were being brought in had foreign gods on them. They had pictures of kings and rulers and and and these strange little g gods. And so, they had to be changed over because those were graven images. That was breaking one of the commandments, and so they had to have someone there who could change it out.
Jeffrey Heine:And then, because these people had traveled long distances, they traveled for days, so as to not have to travel with a bunch of animals to sacrifice, you could just buy your sacrifices there. It's kind of like a Christmas tree lot. You don't have to go out there into a state park and illegally cut a tree anymore. Like, you can just drive to Walmart, and there's going to be a bunch of trees there. And so these sacrifices were there, a convenience for these weary pilgrims.
Jeffrey Heine:But it it wasn't just convenience that was going on here. There was also carelessness. There was a cheapness to the worship that was happening here. Didn't really cost them that much. A couple of coins, but it didn't take anything else.
Jeffrey Heine:And this is not what God had given his people as a way to meet with them and to be worshipped. You know, this is souvenir cups and easy worship, and God God wanted more for his people. So this is this is the scene here in John chapter 2. 300,000 Jewish pilgrims were in Jerusalem for the Passover. If you're keeping up with the sermon word math today, that's half as many people as that go through Graceland every year.
Jeffrey Heine:So, 300,000 Jewish travelers, these pilgrims, they've all made their way into Jerusalem for the Passover. The Passover is that that time of remembrance, that celebration of remembering God delivering Israel out of Egypt, you know, that we studied in the Exodus. And so they are coming there to worship, days of sacrifices, days of celebration. And what was happening here is these money changers were converting these coins, these blasphemous graven image coins, and the animals were for sale for the convenience of these travelers. And it wasn't without reason, right?
Jeffrey Heine:Like, it makes sense. You don't want to have to just carry all of these animals. You have to keep them alive. That's another mouth to feed. You have to keep them alive as you make your way in to be sacrificed.
Jeffrey Heine:And so and so these conveniences were set up for them. But it was disturbing the purpose of this area. Inside this area of the temple, this gentile court is what it was called, in this courtyard, it was supposed to be open for Gentiles, non Jews, who had heard about Yahweh, had heard the stories, feared him, and wanted to come in and pray. They were welcome to come into this area of the court. But instead of using it for that purpose, people were coming in for commerce, for trade, to make a quick buck.
Jeffrey Heine:And one of the ways they were doing that was by taking advantage of the poor. Price gouging is what we would call it. Alright, you're here. You made it all the way to Jerusalem. You really need to sacrifice something, and boy, have I got a deal for you.
Jeffrey Heine:And so as they were doing that, they were taking advantage of people, and it was particularly damaging to the poor. Now, this whole system that's at play here, I think it's helpful for us to get, to get some some perspective on what's happening, the sacrificial system that's at play. This system had been in place in Israel for 1500 years. As you might recall from our study in Exodus, when God took the people out of captivity in Egypt, he set in place a priesthood with Aaron. It was called the Levites.
Jeffrey Heine:And and the Levites were in charge of the tabernacle. That was that large tent where they would meet with God and they would make sacrifices. That big pillar of cloud that that symbolized that the presence, that unique presence of God that led them through the wilderness. As as that cloud would pick up and move, they would pick up the tabernacle, that that tent, and they would move it. Now it's a very elaborate tent.
Jeffrey Heine:If we were to build it today with the materials that are talked about in the scriptures, it would cost about $20,000,000 to make. It was a very elaborate tabernacle, and these Levites all had their different roles in how they would carefully take each part down and travel. And when the clouds stopped, they would come in and build it back up right where the pillar was. And where that pillar was, that that special unique dwelling place where God was with his people was called the holy of holies, that inner part. And so this had been established for some time as a way that God's people, Israel, would meet with God.
Jeffrey Heine:They would offer these sacrifices. They would offer, offerings of various kinds. And through all of this, god was teaching his people, his children, the great principle of forgiveness. Forgiveness through the substitutionary death of an innocent sacrifice on the part of the guilty. God was instructing them that true forgiveness required a suffering, not just strength, but also suffering.
Jeffrey Heine:And God loved his people. He loved his rebellious and defiant people, and he made a covenant with them at Sinai. And that covenant that was made at Sinai in the desert with the people Israel was so important for the identity of of who Israel was as god's people. And these ritual sacrifices were a daily part of that life with God, because every sacrifice that was made, every offering that was made, it really highlighted 2 things. It highlighted guilt and hope.
Jeffrey Heine:Every time a sacrifice was taken up to the altar, every time blood spilled out, every time smoke, because they would take that that offering, and after after in the blood sacrifices, after, the animal was killed, the animal was placed onto a fire, and the smoke went up to symbolize that offering going up to Yahweh. And so as they did this, this is how they learned about their guilt, the wages of sin, and they learned about the hope of God's salvation. The priests would wake up every morning and make a sacrifice of a lamb, and before they went to bed, they made another sacrifice of a lamb. There were sacrifices done for the 1st day of every new month. There was a sacrifice made every day of passover, during the feast of Pentecost, the feast of trumpets, the the day of atonement, the feast of the tabernacles.
Jeffrey Heine:There were lambs on special occasions, like when a leper was cleansed or after the birth of a child. And that sacrifice, that that offering, of after a child, we see that in Luke chapter 2, when Mary and Joseph take baby Jesus into the temple, and they offer 2 turtle doves, pigeons, birds. That's what you would buy if you couldn't afford a goat or an oxen. If you were poor and you could not afford these these, nicer, more expensive sacrifices, you would buy a bird. And that's what you that's what you would take to the altar for for being sacrificed.
Jeffrey Heine:And with these sacrifices, the great salvific principle was being taught, that salvation comes to the one who turns from their sin to the forgiveness from Yahweh and approaches him through the blood sacrifice, the blood of another, whose guilt, your guilt, was being taken on by that innocent representative, that substitute. See, this is a shadow. The animal sacrifices, it was all a shadow in which the spirit was was teaching the people of God that a messiah would come, that there would be a substitute who would take away the sin of God's people. And all this was set up, this house of God, this home with family and friends and singing. And that is what the temple was supposed to be about.
Jeffrey Heine:It was that kind of a home, a home with life in it, not just people shuffling through, walking on plastics so as not to disturb the shag carpet. No. This was life with Yahweh. And this had gone on for 1500 years. And now it was the Passover, and 300,000 people were making their way into Jerusalem to celebrate and to worship and to make these sacrifices.
Jeffrey Heine:Now you might recall some time ago, we studied the life of David. We looked at the gospel and the life of David. And towards the end, we see where David is saying, I wanna make a I wanna make a house for God. And God says, no, I I will be in charge of this. I will make the house.
Jeffrey Heine:And it's actually David's son, Solomon, who builds this temple. So they go from the tabernacle, the the, mobile nomadic worship of God to this fixed place temple. And Solomon builds the temple. In 586 BCE, the temple is destroyed. Israel goes into Babylonian captivity.
Jeffrey Heine:Under Nebuchadnezzar, they come back, and during that time, they build the temple back up. And that's the 2nd temple. During that time between, afterwards, the you you saw, a lot of conquests that were happening, a lot of strife that happened in Jerusalem. The temple was defiled a number of times. There were foreign rulers that came in, even walked into the holy of holies.
Jeffrey Heine:They sacrificed pigs. Unclean animals were sacrificed on the altar of Yahweh, and then you had that that struggle, the the Maccabees struggled for the temple, and they they they get it back, and they the Maccabees, they they set up a time. They only have enough oil in a lamp for for one day, and that's where you get the story of Hanukkah is is this wrestling for the temple as they as they retrieve it and they set up worship again within the temple. And there's, King Herod comes in, and and Herod is, expanding and and doing construction within the temple for some time. This this goes on for a long time.
Jeffrey Heine:Herod's version of the temple, as as construction is going on, redoing some sections, expanding different sections, and it's Herod's temple. It's the temple under King Herod that that Jesus walks into. And it's when Jesus walks into the temple that everything changes. So look with me in verse 13, John chapter 2. The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Jeffrey Heine: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 the oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned the tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, take these away. Do not make my father's house a house of trade.
Jeffrey Heine:And his disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for your house will consume me. What they remembered, the disciples remembered about the zeal that Christ would have, that's actually that's from King David in Psalm 69 verse 9, where David is talking about his love, his fidelity for, his his passion for, his commitment to the covenants and ordinances of God. And that that zeal, that that passion would consume him, and they say, we see that fulfilled in Jesus, as he walks into this temple and he does this. Now the the money changers were offensive, and the animals were found insufficient. The gentile court, this place where the Yahweh fearing gentiles, the non Jews could come and pray, this place of prayer was being used as a place of commerce and trade.
Jeffrey Heine:And poor widows who were being sold pigeons because they were they were poor and they could not afford anything else were being ripped off. And Jesus would not stand for it. Men who had with had money and had traveled in were just easily buying these sacrifices to Yahweh. I'll take these many goats. I'll take this many oxen, all for a couple coins.
Jeffrey Heine:This is cheap and careless worship. This is not what God desired for his people or his house. Think about this. Jesus is walking through the car courtyard. Like, imagine this with me.
Jeffrey Heine:He's walking through the courtyard. All these people, they've been traveling for some time. They smell like tourists. They're animals, the sounds of animals, the smells of animals, children running around, people pressing in on Jesus as he's walking, walking outside of the temple. And inside of the temple is the holy of holies, where God uniquely was present with his people.
Jeffrey Heine:And here, God himself, dwelling in flesh, is walking amongst the people, and they don't even see it. He's walking around not only the one who is being sacrificed to, but the great sacrifice himself. And nobody knows. Nobody sees they're going about their business, the business of worship. See, the business of worship had distracted the people from the purpose of worship.
Jeffrey Heine:And as we saw last week, as we looked at Jesus and his first miracle at the wedding in Cana, the time for Jesus' public ministry had come. And I'm sure that for years, Jesus had gone to the temple. We see that, you know, boy Jesus in the temple. We see that in Luke's gospel. But he'd been going to the temple for years.
Jeffrey Heine:And think about how many times he walked around, and he saw this cheap and careless worship. He saw these insufficient sacrifices, and he had to keep telling himself, it's not time. It's not time. It's not time. But when the time came, Jesus, he's good at making things, he's a carpenter, he takes some cords, and he fashions a whip.
Jeffrey Heine:I just think think about the disciples who are with him, and they're Okay. They've traveled with Jesus for a little bit now. What is he doing? He does not look happy, and I think he's making a whip. And he does.
Jeffrey Heine:He makes this whip, and he drives them all out. I love how John puts it. He drives them all out. He lists all the animals, and he says he drives them all out. What's he driving out?
Jeffrey Heine:People and the oxen and the goats. He kinda uses he he he flips this whole idea. He's he's driving them all out. Yeah. But what he's driving out, he's driving people out.
Jeffrey Heine:And then he drives the animals out with them. And as all of these animals are being driven out of the temple, out of this area where they were being sold, the pigeons, he says take them away. He drives out the oxen. He drives out the goats, and the only sacrifice remaining is the lamb of God. All of these other sacrifices that would never take away sin, never really deal with it fully, these temporary shadows are driven out, and the only sacrifice left is the lamb of God.
Jeffrey Heine:And now, the Jewish leaders want to know, what just happened? It's kind of similar to when we looked at John the Baptist, and the Jewish leaders, they go to him, and they say, what gives you the right to do what you're doing right now? And now they turn that question to Jesus in the temple. They might have even understood why he did it, because these Jewish leaders, they they understood that what was happening in there was not good. They just weren't gonna do anything about it themselves.
Jeffrey Heine:So so they might have understood, hey, you you did a good thing. We just want to know what gives you the right to do it. How do you have this kind of authority? And so he gives them a sign. Look with me in verse 18.
Jeffrey Heine:And so the Jews said to him, what sign do you show us for doing these things? And Jesus answered them, destroy this temple, and in 3 days I will raise it up. The Jews then said, it has taken 46 years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in 3 days? But he was speaking about the temple of his body. And when therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, And they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
Jeffrey Heine:Remember that the temple had been under a lot of renovations and construction since, they had built up this second temple upon their return from Babylon. And Jesus says that the sign that he's going to give them, that he has the authority to to do this work, to cleanse the temple, the sign that he's going to give is his death and his resurrection. Now, this is confusing to them. This whole cleansing thing has been confusing. Now, think about that.
Jeffrey Heine:The the term that we use when we describe this is always the cleansing of the temple. Cleansing had been has has so far been a pretty big theme in John's gospel. Right? In chapter 1 we saw John the Baptist, he's out there baptizing and he is cleansing, he's washing the repentant in the waters of baptism. Last week in, chapter 2, Jesus performs his first miracle in the wedding in Cana, and he takes those purification vessels, those large, I mean like 200 or 300 gallons of water, these purification vessels, these large stone vessels that were used for purification rituals, ritual cleansing, He fills them to the brim and turns the water into wine.
Jeffrey Heine:He chooses the symbol of all the ceremonial law, the symbol of the ceremonial law, which is the the do not eat, the do not touch, all these, cleansing rituals, all of that. He takes the sign and symbol of that, and he literally fills it. Just like in his death and his resurrection, he will fulfill the ceremonial law. And now he is walking into the temple. And in the temple, he has chosen the symbol of the sacrificial system, the symbol of all these sacrifices and offerings that were made round the clock.
Jeffrey Heine:And he's taking that, and he is also saying, I fulfill this too. This cleansing, as he cleanses the temple. He is he is showing us and all of his readers that the point of his ministry, his life and death, is about purifying. It's about cleansing the people of god. And the Jews are wondering, what does all this mean?
Jeffrey Heine:It's taken 46 years to get the temple to this point. You're going to raise it up in 3 days, Because his word to them is, you will destroy, you will undo this temple, and I will raise it up. They're thinking that he's still talking about Herod's temple, but he's not. The disciples didn't know that. The Jewish leaders didn't know that.
Jeffrey Heine:No one understood what he meant by this. But the sign that Jesus gives for his authority to cleanse the temple, to disrupt the commerce, to disrupt the worship within the Passover gathering, the sign that he has the right to do this is his destruction and his raising up. Now, after the resurrection, John says the disciples remember what he said. They they remember after the fact that this is the sign, this is the sign that he promised, that he has this authority to put to end, to disrupt, to up end this sacrificial system because he's going to fulfill it in his death and his resurrection. Simply put, Jesus had the authority to clear out the sacrifices because he is the sacrifice, and he is the resurrection.
Jeffrey Heine:Has it ever been confusing to you that within this whole of the Christian faith and history of the people of God in the Old and New Testament, that the temple was such an important part of daily life with God, and yet we don't have a temple today. Have you thought about that? Because the temple wasn't replaced with church buildings. These these buildings themselves aren't holy and sacred. It's a little harder to convince you of that now.
Jeffrey Heine:But when we used to meet at some other different places, it might have been a little bit easier to understand that when we were at Girls Inc, and there were, you know, girl empowerment posters all around us. It's like this this is not the temple. All right. But it's not that church buildings did not replace the temple. The church, the church is the temple of God.
Jeffrey Heine:Paul reminds this, he reminds the Corinthians of this truth in 1st Corinthians chapter 3 verse 16, where he says, don't you know that you are the temple of God, that the holy spirit dwells in you? Now what he means by that is not that we are a bunch of individual temples. He says you, plural, you all are the singular temple. That's who we are because god dwells with us, and he dwells with us by his spirit. We are the temple of God.
Jeffrey Heine:And knowing this, knowing that we are the house of God, then we are we are faced with a pretty important question. If we know that, we believe that, that that as God's people, we are the temple of God because he dwells with us, then what tables need to be turned over? What needs to be driven out? Now, not not the oxen and and not the goats and that kind of thing, But is it cheap worship? Is it careless worship?
Jeffrey Heine:Is it just going through the motions? Is it simple social Christianity, which is pretty prevalent here in the South? You go to church because that's what you do, and you don't want to get fired from your job? Or you don't want to be, you don't want to lose respect? You don't want people to look funny at you and think, well, they haven't been going to church in a while.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm I'm sure there's all this backstory to it. Is it just that social Christianity? What is it that needs to be driven out from the temple today? The temple cleansing was about a lot of things, but it was primarily about Christ's zeal for honest, authentic, and costly worship. Jesus cares about you and me truly meeting with God, celebrating the true atoning sacrifice, and truly worshiping our God with all that we are.
Jeffrey Heine:See, we aren't a bunch of tourists. That's not who we are. We're not just stepping off the bus and shuffling our feet through the building. We are the very children of God who have access to the Father through a sacrifice to bring an offering of praise. Jesus and his disciples, they had a pretty long distance to make from getting to Cana, then Capernaum, and then a few days' trip to Jerusalem.
Jeffrey Heine:And they were traveling with a lot of other people that had just made their way too. And I bet a lot of those people felt pretty good about themselves for just showing up. Like, I'm here. I did my bit. I made it to Jerusalem.
Jeffrey Heine:I took time off of work. I got everything squared away back there. People should be God should be thanking me for making my way to Jerusalem for the Passover. But you and I both know that just showing up isn't enough. Right?
Jeffrey Heine:Just making our way to a building and and shuffling around, that that's that's not enough. That's not that's not deep and real enough. Worship is to be costly. And I don't mean like money in a box costly. I mean it costs us something.
Jeffrey Heine:When we're putting sin to death, sin of envy and intolerance and hatred and pride, it costs us something to offer that worship to God. True repentance, really turning from our selfishness and self focus and navel gazing, and really turn to worshiping him. Because the deal is worship doesn't happen by accident. We we don't stumble into authentic worship. So because of Jesus, worshiping God, we can do that.
Jeffrey Heine:We have access. We we have confidence to enter into the holy places. But, yes, we are to be confident, and yes, he is accessible through Christ, but it's not supposed to be easy. It's not supposed to be careless. So what do we do?
Jeffrey Heine:What do we do? And I think a question that we turn to ourselves and we answer individually is, well, why did you come here today? Why did you make your way, find a parking spot, look as pretty as you do right now? All of those things. Why?
Jeffrey Heine:Why? And that's something that I think that we need to be able to answer to ourselves. What is it? Is it to worship God? Is it to find more out about the Christian faith?
Jeffrey Heine:Is it to stir up your brothers and sisters to faith and good works, as the author of Hebrews puts it? Why? Because if it's not those things, then what do we do? And I would say this. The answer is not try harder.
Jeffrey Heine:It's not dig deep and become the better you. I would say this. Look to Jesus. Just just see him there as the the sacrifice that remains in the temple, the one who lays down his life for his friends. And that because of God's love, he would call you friend.
Jeffrey Heine:See him, hear the gospel, the good news that God has come to dwell amongst us, to rescue us, and that he has made promises to us, not based upon our goodness back to him, but based upon his perfect goodness. Hear the gospel. Believe it. Because it's not easy, but it stirs in us by God's spirit this desire to begin to worship him. When we come together as the house of God, are we coming as tourists, or are we coming as family?
Jeffrey Heine:Are we coming just to shuffle our feet through the building, or are we coming as brothers and sisters, rooted in his love to worship him, to celebrate him, and to know him? See, he who has begun a good work in us, the one who was destroyed and raised up, he will complete his work in us to the praise of the father from now until the day of eternity. Pray with me. God, we thank you for your word, and we thank you that because of the blood of Christ, we can come to you. That right now, you hear us.
Jeffrey Heine:You hear us when we speak wise words. You hear us when we speak foolish words. That you, Holy Spirit, interpret the very groanings of our hearts even when we don't know what to pray. And perhaps some of us feel that right now. I don't know what to pray.
Jeffrey Heine:I don't know what to say. And so, spirit, we rely on you. Interpret our hearts. Interpret our groanings, and help us to trust in the only sacrifice that remains. Help us to seek righteousness as children of God, not to become children, but because we are children of God.
Jeffrey Heine:Help us to worship you as your children. We pray these things in the name of Christ our Lord. Amen.
