Consumed by Zeal

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our father and from our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. I want to start out by focusing on the words that Jesus fulfills. You could say in the gospel reading, his disciples see him cleansing the temple, and they remember that it had been written, zeal for your house will consume me. So you see Jesus well, consumed by zeal. What's zeal? Zeal is a kind of eagerness for something, maybe a passionate desire that drives you on to pursue something. Or in this case, it's an eagerness for God's house. It's a love for what's good and maybe a hate for what's evil that goes along with it. Jesus, passionate about his father's house, consumed by it. Zeal for your house will consume me. The King James version. This is psalm 69 that's being quoted. The King James version says, eat me up instead of consume. There's a little difference in tense, also, just a translation choice. Zeal for your house has eaten me up. Eaten me up. I mean, consuming. Right. Consumed by anger. You think of being eaten up by anger, that sort of thing. Eaten up. So Jesus is eaten up by Zeal for his father's house. That's the sense in the psalm as well. And it's the psalm that was part of our intuit. That was our intuit, really? So for zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. The psalmist has been consumed by zeal for God's house. And that means that the reproaches of those who reproach God have fallen on him. He's been taken up into God's life. He's been consumed by God. I want to think about that imagery of consuming something. When we eat something, we take it into ourselves and we make it a part of us. We make it our body. So food becomes our body. The lion kills, the zebra eats it, and the zebra becomes the lion's body. This is just how consuming things works. We talk about consuming things like social media, consuming information, and it's the same thing, just on a spiritual level, our invisible life. This is the same way that it works. We consume information, and then we make it a part of our body of knowledge, you might say. And so our inner life grows based on what we consume. So maybe a good spiritual diet would be important. Right. All right, so think about it this way. As we consume, let's say, social media, then it also consumes us. Both things are happening. Did you ever think about that? Don't raise your hand if you're on TikTok. Let's just start with that example. So when you're watching videos on TikTok, just like when you're hearing God's word on a Sunday morning, you are consuming that and it's imprinting itself on you. So the videos that you see or the things that you hear, those things get imprinted in your memory and they become a part of you spiritually. And then you are what you eat. If this is what then your body of knowledge or your mind, your memory is made of, it's made of the things that you've seen and heard, and there are things you can't unsee. You've heard it said, this is just the way it works. You are made of what you consume. You can look at it the other way around as well. That TikTok, social media, it is consuming something as well, right? Social media has a product that it sells. It sells to advertisers. And what's the product it sells? It's your attention. So it's harvesting your attention and then selling that attention to advertisers for a profit. So in that sense, you could say that social media is consuming you to make you a part of its body, a part of its inventory to be sold to advertisers. So you are being eaten. You are being consumed by what you consume. The same is true of news. The news cycle is addicting and everything's really important. And, boy, the world's changing so fast. And every day there are new things to be concerned about, worried about, excited about, hopeful about. And don't leave, because after these commercials, it's going to get even more exciting. So it is consuming you, making you a part of its body, in order to sell your attention to advertisers. This is just the way things work. The same thing is true of your work. So if you are part of a company, then as you do your job, you are part of the whole, right? Everyone's working towards something. You have your place. You could say that your company is kind of consuming you and making you part of its body, which is fine, that's fine. Just like you're part of the body of a family or a community or a church body, right? Christ's body, we'll get there. But your job, it consumes you and makes you part of its body. And you can think of that in terms of power as well. Like the lion eats the zebra to make it its body, because it needs power, right? It's got to be able to run, it's got to be able to keep living. It's got to be fast, it's got to be powerful, right? Same thing with earning money, selling our attention to advertisers. It's for power, it's for money. This is just the way that the world works, but it works both ways. So let's just take that and apply it to Jesus, which maybe sounds funny that we're going to do that, but zeal for your house has consumed me, has eaten me up. You could see it as the believer being taken up into the life of God and now sharing. It's like God's enemies are his enemies because he's been taken up into the life of God. The reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. Kind of like if you were on a losing team, like, you sign a deal and now you're on a losing sports team, like, yeah, you inherit the same kind of situation as the losing sports team. So you might pray. Deliver me from sinking in the mire. Let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters. Zeal for your house has consumed me. By what are you consumed by what am I consumed? On a daily basis, what do we give our attention to? God would have us consumed by his word. You hear the commandments in the Old Testament reading? Those were to be eaten up by his people, that their inner life would be shaped by God's words, that we call them commandments. The hebrew word is words, the ten words. God's desire for his people was that they would pay attention to his word, to his words, and that they would shape their inner life, that they would be consumed by God's word and taken up into God's life. So we are transformed by what we pay attention to. We are consumed by what we consume. [00:09:23] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:09:23] Speaker A: Does that make sense? Making sense now? We're consumed by what we pay attention to. And so that makes attention really important. Really important. So you see Jesus out there in the wilderness fasting and praying for 40 days. Well, why? Well, because he's going to be tempted by the devil. So he wants to be shaped by God's word. And sure enough, when the devil comes and tempts him, he's filled with God's word. What does he have to return to? The devil's temptations? [00:09:53] Speaker B: God's word. [00:09:55] Speaker A: He just throws God's word back at him because that's what he's made of. His inner life is built up by God's word. It's shaped by God's word. That's what he's been consuming. And he's been consumed by God. Zeal for his father's house has consumed him. So he goes up to the temple. He goes up to the temple, and he finds there things that don't belong. He finds idols don't make my father's house a house of trade. You're here, and this temple, it's about the worship of God, right? This whole place is about God's presence and our being oriented toward God and consuming him. And him consuming us. But you're prioritizing financial gain, let's say, making it a house of trade. So he clears it out like this. Shouldn't be here. Remember, the temple is at the highest place in Jerusalem. The text says that Jesus goes up to Jerusalem. Familiar language, but that matters. He goes up to Jerusalem and in Jerusalem, up to the highest place in Jerusalem. The temple, the place where God is consumed and the people are consumed by God. That's the highest place because it's the focal point. It's the place where attention goes. Remember psalm 121? I lift up my eyes to the hills, to the highest place. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. What do we place in the highest place? What do we think about and pay attention to all the time? What is it that's grabbing our attention? What are we consuming and what is consuming us? Where's all our time and attention going? Why are we so busy? Where's it all getting sucked up into? What body are we becoming a part of now? It's not all bad, okay? Like becoming something else's body. If you're in a kingdom and you become the body of the king, that's fine. If you're in a family, if you're in a company. This is just the way things work. But we want to be careful. What is it really that's grabbing our attention? [00:12:30] Speaker B: Why are we giving it our attention? That's an important question. Israel placed the temple in the highest part, symbolically at least, of Israel, for a reason. [00:12:48] Speaker A: It's both at the center of the. [00:12:49] Speaker B: Land of Israel and at the highest point, figuratively speaking. [00:12:54] Speaker A: Why? [00:12:55] Speaker B: So that God, the place of his. [00:12:58] Speaker A: Presence, the place where you go to. [00:12:59] Speaker B: Consume him and to be consumed by him, that that would be the center of their life together, the center of attention. And we have so many idols, and we struggle with attention to God. We struggle to pray constantly, like Paul suggests that we do. We struggle to hold our focus on the right thing. So how do we do it? There's probably some practical advice that could be given here, like some things about screen time or daily habits. What do you do when you wake up? What do you do when you go to bed? [00:13:43] Speaker A: Those things can be helpful. [00:13:46] Speaker B: It's not the ultimate answer, though. The answer is to look to Jesus. To look to Jesus and be consumed by him. See, we were all made to be temples of the Holy Spirit. Dust formed from the ground by God and then breathed into with his spirit, with his breath. We were all to be this temple. Cleansed temple. [00:14:17] Speaker A: Right. [00:14:17] Speaker B: Clean temple. [00:14:19] Speaker A: Focusing on the right things, consuming God's. [00:14:21] Speaker B: Word and being consumed by him, being taken up into his life, being shaped by his word. And we blew it. Paid attention elsewhere. So we were misshapen and such. And this is why Christ came. Not to point us in the right direction and say, no, really, you guys should be looking in the right direction. No, to draw us to himself. See, God wants the same for us. That zeal for the father's house would consume us as well. But what is the father's house? Who is the father's house? You might say Christ is the temple. Christ is the temple. He says it a few times in. [00:15:09] Speaker A: The gospel of John. [00:15:10] Speaker B: As we've seen in the Bible study that we're doing on the gospel of John. Christ is the temple. Zeal for your house has consumed me. The goal of the christian life is to be consumed by Christ. Christ consuming us. What does he do? He makes us his body. That's what happens when you consume something. So when we look to Christ, we're paying attention to Christ and consuming him in order to be consumed by him. That's communion. He gives us his body so that we consume his body, but his body's really consuming us. Remember the image of the wolf and the sheep. Just going to say it again. Luther says, most food, we consume it and make it our body. But this food consumes us and makes us its body. Christ incorporating us into his body, through his body that we consume. So it's like a wolf. [00:16:19] Speaker A: When a wolf eats a sheep, normally. [00:16:21] Speaker B: The sheep becomes part of the wolf. It becomes its body. But the Lord's supper, it works the other way around. Christ enters us through our mouth and makes us a part of him. It's like a wolf that eats a sheep and becomes a sheep, just like Jesus touching somebody who's leprous, who's unclean, and he doesn't become leprous. The leper becomes clean, the same kind of thing. This is the answer. That every day as we struggle for faith, that we would be looking to Christ in order to be transformed by him, that we would be looking to Christ in order to be consumed by him, so that zeal for the father's house would consume us. So that Christ would be all consuming for us. There's going to be failure along the way. There is failure along the way. But what a gift. Look at you all. And me. I came to church today. Look at us. Here we are. Thanks be to God. Right here we are, all oriented toward God. Wow. Thanks be to God that he sent Jesus to grab our attention, just like social media. Whoa, boy. People are good at grabbing our attention. But Christ, he came down from heaven for this purpose. That's a long way to come down. He condescended to come to the lowest place, to come to death for us. There he is on the cross, grabbing the attention of the world in order to hold it. And just like we heard last week, if anyone would come after me, he must take up his cross and follow me. So this is our path. Looking to Christ, fixating on Christ. [00:18:30] Speaker A: Oh, come, let us fix our eyes. [00:18:32] Speaker B: On Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. We all together, looking to Jesus, are being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory. And that image on earth doesn't look glorious. Christ is, as our epistle reading says, well, God is the source of your life. In Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. As we consume Jesus and are taken up into his life and made a part of his body, our life takes the same shape, sometimes in ugly ways. Just think of the apostles being martyred. It's not all glorious. It doesn't look like fun all the time to be a Christian. But what a gift it is to be incorporated into Christ's body, conformed to his life. And in him we have wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption. In Jesus name, amen.