Mark Sermon 14: No Fruit on the Tree

So, pray that, you're all well. This morning, we continue with our our study of the gospel of Mark. And, I've said many times as we've gone through this gospel, Mark has a distinct style, where he does what scholars have come to call the Markan sandwich, in where he starts a story that is, he begins one way and and then he ends one way, but right in the middle there is something else. And we're going to we're going to see that firsthand today as well. I'm going to read through the whole thing and then we're going to discuss as we, move along.

And so today's scripture starts in Mark 11, verse 11. And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the 12. On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree and leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it.

When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, May no one ever eat fruit from you again. And his disciples heard it. And they came to Jerusalem, and he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple. And he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.

And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, Is it not written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations? But you have made it a den of robbers. And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. And when evening came, they went out of the city.

As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered. And Jesus answered them, have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven, may forgive you your trespasses. Did you catch the sandwich? You have the tree, and then the temple, and then the tree. And it's an odd story. It probably presses you on what you think Jesus did or did not know while he was walking around doing ministry.

Because the first part is, he comes to this tree and it says he was hungry, in verse 13, And seeing at a distance a fig tree and leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. Well, do you think Jesus knew or didn't know that there was anything on the tree? He says, When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And so Mark gives you this explainer that it was not actually the season for figs, and you go, Well, that doesn't help Jesus' cause. Why does Jesus get mad at a fig tree when it's not the season for figs?

Can you imagine one of us doing the same thing, right? Going out, I love planting a garden. I put seeds in the ground this week or in little containers, ready to go, but I didn't walk out to my garden and curse my raised bed and say, Why aren't there peppers out here? Here? Right?

It's not the season for peppers, right? It's summer ten months out of the year here in Houston, but right now is not the season. But Jesus, I believe, whether he knows there is, you know, immature fruit or should be or whatever, I think Jesus uses whatever is available to teach, and I think that's why Marcus put these together like this. Because Jesus walks over and he sees nothing but leaves. Why didn't he eat the leaves?

That's not the good part of the tree, is it? No. What you want to see is if you go to a fruit tree, you want to see good fruit. You don't want to see a squirrel running off of the fruit. You don't want to see a bare tree. You want to see fruit on the tree. I'm hungry. I want to eat. And so, he found nothing but leaves, because it wasn't the season for figs, and he said to it, May no one ever eat fruit from you again. And it says, And his disciples heard it.

And so it was so impactful that at least that got into their brains, like, I don't know what you think if your teacher goes out and he's cursing a tree. I don't know what to do with that, right? But immediately, Mark tells you that this is going to be connected. The reason he does the sandwich is that these two things are connected. Okay?

And so, follow me with this. And so, in verse 15, They came to Jerusalem and entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and overturned tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. Now, what would happen, this is the word, they use the word pigeons and doves interchangeably, you don't know exactly what this is. When I visited, Israel, we got to go down in this, like, cave. It wasn't actually very deep.

It might have been a little lower than the ceiling, like the ceiling was the earth, And in there were all these little, round holes in the wall, in the dirt of the wall, where they actually raised these things to bring them to the temple to sell. Now this was actually a service for some people because if you were poor, actually, Joseph and Mary brought, bought a dove. They were very poor. This is what poor people would use because if they brought something a long way, it might be, judged as not good enough for a sacrifice. And so it was actually a service for people that, I didn't have to bring anything.

How many of you like packing for a trip? You know, we have vehicles that we can get around very quickly. Can you imagine packing for a trip? None of you ladies will gripe about this anymore. Can you imagine loading up the donkey, to head out and thinking, oh, forgot that thing. Let's stop by the Walmart. Oh, yeah. There is none. We don't have that yet. Yeah.

So, that's what they were doing, right? And so they would come to the temple and they didn't have to worry about, like, bringing the right thing. We could actually buy that. But the problem is whenever there's a buck to be made, people take advantage of other people. You know that?

And so what Jesus finds is that, people have come to the temple and they're trying to do their best and offer the best sacrifice, but they're being taken advantage of. And so, well, they raise the prices, the priests are in on it, they're able to make money off of this. And so, Jesus is upset, and he starts overturning the tables. I told you in a recent sermon that I get I get kind of irritated with people because they take this out of context, that Jesus overturned tables, and so I'm gonna use that as an excuse for all of my bad behavior. The reason I'm yelling at somebody on social media is because Jesus turned tables over.

It doesn't make any sense. That's what people do. It's like I, if Jesus had righteous indignation, mine is the same as Jesus's. And it never is, Right? You shouldn't be acting like a child on Facebook.

Right? You should still act like a Christian and a mature person. Jesus is doing this because people are being taken advantage of right in his father's house, in the temple where you were coming to worship and you're coming to sacrifice. And so he turns over these tables, says of the money changers in the seats of those who sold pigeons and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, Is it not written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations?

Quoting, I believe, Jeremiah there, but you have made it a den of robbers. And so, what he is saying is, okay, people have come for this. This is the purpose. It is set aside for this. But what we see is people being taken advantage of.

That you are using this to just get money. And that's all it's for. And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. Now they feared the crowd and they were upset about this whole thing is because they were making money off of it. Isn't that sad?

That I will allow all of this bad behavior just because I am being paid, right? And so when Jesus speaks to that, do you think that was a very safe thing? No. Jesus, for some reason, we have this picture of Jesus that he just walked around hugging everybody. But Jesus came and he spoke truth into the crowds, right?

If you're doing something wrong that went against God, he was going to tell you. And, well, that got him killed, right? And then we wonder why we try to live the Christian life and things don't always go the right way, right? Well, you shouldn't be surprised because that's the kind of life Jesus lived. But it says there was astonished at his teaching.

And when evening came, they went out of the city. And so you get out of this part of the sandwich and back into, okay, and they passed by in the morning. They saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree you cursed has withered. Peter is actually on top of it.

He didn't stick his foot in his mouth this time. He noticed something, right? I'm not very observant. You know, somebody puts up a new sign in town and I notice it and Katie is like, It's been there for like three months, right? And so, Peter gets it. He said, hey, remember that? You cursed that tree, we didn't know you thought you were crazy, right? But it is withered. And Jesus answered them, have faith in God. Have faith in God.

Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Jesus uses this as a time to show the disciples, you need to have faith. Anything is possible. Not because you did it or you said it or anything like that. He says, verse 22, Have faith in God because God is able to deliver.

Now, when he said this, he's talking, you know, they're standing on a mountain and the Dead Sea is not very far, and so he can point and say, Hey, say to this mountain, Get in there. And so it was very visual for them. It may not be for us. But, you know, when Peter looks at this and is astonished that it actually happened, Jesus said, Well, have faith in God. Jesus doesn't even take the credit for it.

It. You have faith in God, and what God can do is above and beyond what you even think is possible. Right? That's why Peter is astonished. But have faith in God, whatever you say, or whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.

Now, what I don't want to do today is to take this out of context. What I don't think Jesus was saying was name it and claim it. I don't think, what Jesus was saying is, hey, let's come together. Let's all pray. Jesus wants you to have a nice house, and Jesus wants you to have a nice car, and all those things.

I've heard those I've heard those sermons before, and I wonder how people stick around when they don't end up with a nice house or a nice car. But they do. I don't think Jesus was saying that. I think when we pray, Scripture tells us that we pray in the will of God. Remember, Jesus prayed that the cup would pass from Him in the garden, right?

But he prayed, not my will, but yours. Now we like to pray in our own will, because we know what we want, we know what we need, we've got all the answers, don't we? We don't like to probably pray as much in God's will. Like, I think the hardest thing is especially when someone's sick, right? Do you ever pray if it be your will when someone's sick?

It's like, God, you should want these people to be better, right? It's almost like it's easy to think about. Well, I think we should pray everything in the will of God. We want this to happen. And I think that's what he's talking about, that this was used for their learning in this.

He So therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in Heaven may forgive you your trespasses. Now, Terry kind of said this when we talked about communion this morning. Let's ask for forgiveness, right? That there is nothing, nothing on our hearts, nothing on our souls as we come to worship God.

Okay, and and that's what Jesus says about prayer. Now, we come to prayer often again with all the answers, what we believe should happen, and when it should happen, and why it should happen, and how it should happen. But do you take time when you're praying to think about, I need to ask for forgiveness. I need to ask for forgiveness. I need to forgive my brother or sister.

Because there is always something that could be between you and God. You understand that? I think sometimes we are so kind of arrogant or blind to it, have our blinders on, that we think we're the only ones right with God and nobody else is, and so whatever else I'm mad about, I'm just gonna be mad about, and that's right. Jesus said, when you stand praying, forgive. We pray a lot here.

We want to grow closer to God and closer to each other. Jesus said, with the greatest commandments, love God, love your neighbor. Right? And so, when you stand praying, asking your God who can do all of these things, who can take the very mountain you stand on and throw it into the water that you see down there, when you're praying to him, why don't you forgive your brother or sister, that issue you have? Because often what we do is, again, we kind of allow ourselves to be off the hook, that I'm all good with God and they're the ones with the problems.

So I can still be mad and my relationship with God is okay and theirs isn't. But what that is, is it goes back to what Jesus has just shown them. What Jesus found in the Temple was very similar to what he found on the fig tree. Because what he found in the temple was a bunch of people that were acting religious. He had a bunch of people in there that, if you look from the outside, looked good.

They were seen with respect and they had authority and they had the people believing them and they saw what you saw was good things, and it's kind of like if people just sat out at the road and watched us come into church. Boy, those are nice, God fearing people this morning. As if none of us had any issues about anything in life, right? Do you believe that to be true? Do you believe that any of us, there are none of us in here that are struggling with anything?

And so, what Jesus found in the Temple was that it looked like a lot of good things were happening, and when He got to it, what He saw, just like He saw with a tree, no fruit, all leaves. Boy! Can you imagine if Jesus showed up today? It looks good, you dressed up nice, you look like your family has got it together, but you knew somebody just walked in the room that knew your heart, That knew the discussion you had on the way over here or the discussion you're about to have on the way home? We'll talk about this in the car.

Anybody said that already this morning? You want to confess to it? But that's the parallel, that's what Jesus was showing, is that you can look good from the outside. We can go up to it and think, man, this is going to take care of everything. It looks great.

And all we find is leaves. Just like the Pharisees that Jesus talks about. They really like the best seats in the houses. They like to dress up, and they like to look important, they like to look like a lot of good things are going on. But what do we find on the inside?

And so, was what Jesus found today if he walked into our midst? Would it be a fig tree full of leaves or would there be a lot of good fruit? And don't sit here this morning and think about, Well, I am the good fruit and they are just the tree full of leaves. Because we should all have the same heart, right? We should all have the same heart that we want to be closer to God, closer to each other, and sometimes that means I need to forgive.

Sometimes that means that I ought to be able to have that fruit, which I assume I have, I need to forgive someone else, and that's tough. Especially when I think I've been wrong and they owe me. I don't really wanna deal with that. So that's the question we have this morning. Are you a tree full of leaves?

Are you a tree full of good fruit? That's the question. And so we're gonna offer a song of invitation. We'd love to pray with you. We'd love to see you begin your journey with Christ, putting him on in baptism.

That we're going to encourage you not to just be baptized and be done with it, but to, live a life that is fruitful. To live a life that honors God, that that helps out the church, and you become a member of the body of Christ. That all members have roles and responsibilities, and that you bring something to this place. That we are not a place where we just sit on the sidelines, but we want people to be active, looking to bring other people in as we're gonna bring John Rowe in to teach us about sharing the gospel with other people. Would you come this morning as we stand and as we sing?