Where's Your Fruit?

Life of the Church

Opening Prayer

Sermon

I’m not really done with Easter yet, because so much happens in that last week of Christ’s earthly life that we need to hear right now, and today’s scripture is a perfect example. But we’re going to begin with a question: what is the number one reason why Christians tend to be more and more disliked in this country?

That’s kind of a loaded question. There are a lot of reasons, not least of all is that fact that Jesus didn’t just say that we would be disliked, he said we’d be hated. In John 15, he tells us that, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

So there’s one reason, and it’s one that guarantees a struggle that we’ll always have in this life. If the world rejected Christ, then it will surely reject the followers of Christ and always will. But there are other reasons too. I don’t know that there was ever a time when our country could have been called a Christian nation, but certainly we had a shared foundation of right and wrong and good and bad that every person leaned on regardless of their belief. That foundation was almost entirely Christian. Almost everyone had at least a simple knowledge of God and the Bible, and those teachings were what drew us together and helped us to have trust in our institutions. It was our common story.

But that’s not the case anymore. Now there is no common truth. Everyone has their own truth. Right and wrong are being twisted and turned upside down. We’ve become a people that Isaiah warned us never to become, a nation that calls evil good and good evil, that puts darkness for light and light for darkness, that puts bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. We’re living in an age that looks and sounds a lot like the final verse in the book of Judges: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did was was right in his own eyes.” So when a group of people come along and say, “Not everyone can have their own truth. There’s one truth for everyone, and that’s God’s truth,” people aren’t going to like that.

Another problem is that politics is now our national religion. That’s why we can’t agree on anything anymore, and that’s another reason why Christians are so disliked now — because when a lot of people see a Christian, they see a Republican. They don’t see a Christ, they see a party. Some of that is society’s fault — Christians can and should vote for any party, and the very people who are the loudest about not stereotyping are the ones who stereotype the most. The ones who say we have to tolerate everything won’t tolerate anyone who believes or thinks differently than they do.

But a lot of is our fault too. It is, and I read something this week that very neatly tells us why. E. Stanley Jones was a very well-known missionary in the middle part of the last century, and he had the occasion to meet with Gandhi, who was one of the most respected leaders in modern history. Gandhi was a Hindu, but he would often quote scripture in his speeches, especially scripture from the Sermon on the Mount. Stanley Jones asked him about that. He said, “Mr. Gandhi, you quote the words of Christ often, so why do you reject becoming his follower?”

And Gandi looked and at him and replied, “Oh, I don’t reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It’s just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

What do you think of that statement? In polls and surveys, that’s the biggest reason why people don’t like Christians. We’re hypocritical. People like Jesus — at least they like they’re idea of Jesus, and that’s important to note because people’s ideas of Jesus and Jesus as he really is are often two very different things — but they don’t like the people who follow Jesus because they don’t live as Jesus lived and taught. On one hand, that’s not really fair. No Christian I know would say they’re perfect because they believe in Christ. We’re still sinners after salvation, we’re still fallen creatures, we’re still going to do and say things that we shouldn’t do and say. The only difference is that we’re forgiven. But on the other hand, these people do have a point. We might still be fallen sinners, but God still expects His people to live differently than everyone else. His standard for us as believers is much higher than His standard for people who want nothing to do with Him.

The truth is that for the most part, people don’t judge the value of Christ by looking at the Christian faith. They judge the value of Christ by looking at Christians. And that’s important because we’ve been talking a lot these past months about revival, and how much our community and nation and world need revival, but that revival has to start with us. With God’s people. Because revival will only come again the way it has always come, and that’s by people who aren’t Christians looking at people who are and saying, “I see you living with a joy and a peace that I can’t find. I want what you have, so how do I get it?”

I’m talking about fruit. Living a fruitful life. Jesus loved to talk about bearing fruit, but there’s one story in the Bible where he addresses this head on, and that’s found in Mark chapter 11. Turn there with me now. We’ll start with verses 12-14:

On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in 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.

Now skip down to verses 20-24:

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 this is the word of the Lord.

Let’s get this out of the way right here: Jesus doesn’t come off looking very good here, does he? He’s heading toward Jerusalem where he’ll be crucified, coming from Bethany, where Mary, Lazarus’s sister, has washed his feet (remember that?). He spots a fig tree in the distance that’s full of leaves, so Jesus goes in search of a little breakfast. But when he gets to the tree, he finds there’s no fruit. Then Jesus curses the tree and says, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.”

There are only two places in scripture where Jesus uses the power he has to destroy. One is when he casts out the demons into a herd of pigs that then drown themselves in the sea. The other is right here, when he causes this fig tree to die. What’s going on here? How are we to think of these verses?

It’s important to keep in mind that Jesus taught using three different ways. He taught by referencing the prophets and the imagery of the Old Testament. He taught through miracles. And he taught through parables. This is the only time that Jesus uses all three ways of teaching at once. That can only mean the lesson he’s telling us is one we’d better pay careful attention to.

Jesus walks to this fig tree because, it says in verse 12, he’s hungry. And I love this. We always have to keep in mind that Jesus was fully God but also fully human. He was God in the flesh, but also flesh. He came to save you, but he also came to experience firsthand what it was like to be you. That way you can go to him with any weakness or fear or worry, knowing that he will understand. And so we find places in the gospels where Jesus knows what it’s like to feel tired. He knows what it’s like to feel burdened and overwhelmed. And right here, Jesus knows what it’s like to be hungry.

He and the disciples are on the Mount of Olives. There are fig trees everywhere. But this tree stands out because it’s filled with leaves. That’s strange because Mark says at the end of verse 13 that it wasn’t the season for figs. Fig season is actually three months away. So there are two questions we have to answer here. First, why doesn’t Jesus know that it’s fig season? And second, since it wasn’t fig season, why curse this tree?

Here’s everything you need to know about fig trees. A fig tree produces leaves around the end of March. Before the leaves, though, the trees produce these small knobs that are called early figs. They’re green. These early figs were eaten by people — especially poor people — when they were hungry. After a time these green figs fall so that the real figs can grow. So even if a fig tree is out of season, if it’s full of green leaves, there should still be those little knobs of early figs. But this tree doesn’t have any. And here’s the important part — if a fig tree has leaves but no early figs, then it won’t produce any figs at all.

Which means that this tree Jesus and the disciples are gathered around is useless. So when Jesus curses the tree and says, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again,” that curse doesn’t make the tree barren. The tree already is barren. Jesus speaks this curse in order to seal the tree up in its own barrenness.

None of the disciples understand what Jesus is doing. We know that by the last phrase in verse 14: “And his disciples heard it.” They heard Jesus say these words, but they can’t comprehend what they mean. Jesus has done something that seems so out of character that the disciples can’t help but notice it. It’s as much a shock to them as it is to us.

But remember what I said about the three ways that Jesus taught — through miracles, through parables, and through the stories and images of the Old Testament. What happens with this fig tree is clearly a miracle. Aside from the fact that this tree is never going to produce fruit, it’s still healthy, and fig trees are known for their amount of sap and moisture. It takes months, even years of doubt to wither a fig tree. But in verse 20 when they pass by this tree again the next morning, it’s withered away to its roots. The green leaves are now brown and shriveled in the dirt. There’s nothing left but a dead tree.

Matthew talks about this story in his gospel as well. His account is a little different. Matthew says the fig tree withered at once, which makes the miracle even more powerful. But we have to ask why Matthew and Mark seem to have the details mixed up. Some of the older commentaries say that Jesus and the disciples passed by that tree in the evening, so when Jesus cursed it, it was so dark that the disciples couldn’t tell it had withered. It was only when the passed by again the next morning that they saw it was dead. Maybe that was the case. But more modern commentaries point out something that gets us a lot closer to the truth of why Jesus does this act that seems so out of character. The gospel writers didn’t always lay out their stories in chronological order. What they did instead was arrange their stories around larger themes. That’s what Mark’s doing here.

Notice what happens in between Mark’s account of the fig tree, in verses 15-19. Jesus cleanses the temple. He overturns the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sell pigeons. He won’t allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.

Mark is explaining what Jesus is doing in the temple by talking about this barren fig tree. It’s not just a miracle, it’s an acted-out parable. It’s an old-fashioned Old Testament warning to Israel and to us about the cost of not only being unfruitful, but of looking fruitful but not backing it up.

Over and over in the Old Testament, Israel is described as God’s vineyard, God’s tree, or God’s planting. But over and over again, the nation bore no fruit. Their religion was empty. The scribes and Pharisees worshipped the law more than God. The people weren’t holy. They weren’t faithful to God or loving to their neighbor. The synagogues were always open, but the teaching was lifeless. Israel had no good influence over its neighbors. The whole nation was a fig tree full of leaves, but it had become spiritually barren. They called themselves God’s children but lived as orphans who made their own rules.

Jesus stood by this fig tree that looked so beautiful and healthy on the outside but was dead on the inside. It showed signs of life and flourishing but in reality was barren. The same thing could be said for the religious leaders of Israel, who looked righteous and godly on the outside but were cruel and corrupt. Leaves, but no fruit. And just as Jesus said to the tree, “Because you will not bear fruit now, may you never bear fruit again,” he was saying the same to Israel itself. It was divine judgment, and God would use the Romans as the instruments of that judgment. In only about 40 years, the Romans would lay siege to Jerusalem and destroy the very temple that Jesus said had become a den of thieves.

But Jesus isn’t just talking about the people of Israel and the temple here. He’s talking to us. There are a lot of Christians who are like that fig tree. They look righteous and godly on the outside, but they’re dead on the inside. They go to church and carry their fancy Bibles and shout Amen, but there’s a lack of spiritual life inside them, and because of that, there’s no fruit.

We can say this is a harsh parable that Jesus acts out, but that’s exactly why he did it — to make us uncomfortable and to give us a warning. He says to you and to me, “If you really find rest in my arms, if you really know the peace of my forgiveness and grace, if I really am your Lord, then those things need to be reflected in your life.”

Do you know what Jesus is called in the New Testament? The Second Adam. He’s called that because he was sent to undo the damage that the first Adam had caused in the Garden of Eden. When the first Adam sinned, what was his first response? He saw he was naked and wanted to clothe himself. And what did Adam and Eve use to clothe themselves? The leaves of a fig tree.

The first Adam came to the fig tree looking for leaves. The Second Adam came to the fig tree looking for fruit, and he does the same with us. He searches our hearts to see if there’s any real faith, searches our lives to see if there’s any real joy, searches our minds to see if there’s any real peace, searches our lives to see if there’s any real walking with God, any indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And if he doesn’t find those things, then all the church-going you do and prayers you speak and sermons you hear and scripture you read doesn’t matter at all, because they’re just leaves.

The people who get upset over Jesus killing a tree because he couldn’t find any fruit better start thinking about what Jesus is going to do to them for the same reason. Because guess what? Our Lord has a right to find fruit wherever he knows it should be. Jesus had every right to expect fruit from a tree with green leaves, and he has every right to find fruit in every one of his brothers and sisters. And I’ll ask you who is worse in God’s eyes — someone who’s a barren tree because they refuse to believe in God, much less in Christ, or someone who’s a tree filled with leaves, who calls Christ Lord and prays and reads scripture and is at church every week and wears a cross around their neck and has a John 3:16 bumper sticker on their car, but who has no fruit?

Jesus had every right to condemn a tree that led the hungry and the poor away from the road they were on with the promise of food. Isn’t that what we do if our lives as Christians don’t produce any more fruit than the lives of people who don’t know Jesus at all? If we say the grace of God is in us but our lives don’t reflect that grace, aren’t we as much of a curse to the world as a tree that promises fruit but doesn’t deliver on that promise? Jesus didn’t curse that fig tree just because it could never bear fruit. He also cursed that fig tree so that it could never deceive anyone else.

So according to Mark, Jesus curses the fig tree, then he and his disciples continue on to Jerusalem. Jesus cleanses the temple, and then they return to Bethany. It’s evening now, so the fig tree can’t be seen from the road. But the next morning as they’re walking back to the city, they pass the tree again. And in verse 20, we see that it’s withered away at the roots. The judgement has been carried.

Peter says, “Look Rabbi, the tree you cursed has withered.”

And how does Jesus respond in verses 22-24? He starts talking about prayer. Why does Jesus start talking about prayer? Here’s what he’s saying, both to Peter and the disciples and to us. He’s saying, “You are my instruments.” The disciples would be the instruments God used to transform the entire world and bring forth fruit from all nations. For us, we are to be the instruments God uses to bring fruit from a community, a nation, and a world that’s sunk deep in the darkness of despair. Bearing fruit means having faith in God. We can’t produce fruit on our own. I town’s happen. We’re too broken and too selfish. God has to produce that fruit through us, and the only way that happens is through prayer that’s rooted in the faith of God.

Look at the first words of verse 23: “Truly, I say to you ... ”. Jesus often uses that phrase in the gospels as a way to show us that what he says next is important. He says the power that’s available to us is the kind of power that can move mountains. It can cause miracles. It can remove guilt. It can purify the heart. And he says in verse 24 that this power, this faith rooted in prayer that bearers fruit, is yours for the taking. All you have to do is ask. All you have to do is want it. It’s all waiting right there. God has it all in his hands, ready to pour them into you and through you. And Jesus says that for as powerful and life-changing as that faith is in producing fruit, it’s also simple. He’s not talking about an extraordinary faith. He said that all you need is faith the size of a mustard seed.

The faith that produces fruit in your life can be easily gotten. All we have to do is ask. So if we refuse to ask for something God gives so easily, why shouldn’t he lay judgment on us? If we refuse such a great and abundant and free gift, do we really love God at all?

The Christian life is about a lot more than going to church and reading your Bible and praying and trusting Jesus. All of those things are so important, but so is showing that going to church and reading your Bible and praying and trusting Jesus have made a difference in the kind of person you are, that those things have transformed you and made you act and think and talk and live differently than people who don’t know God at all. Because that’s how revival starts. That’s how the church grows. That’s how Christ looks at you and says, “Here is my salt in a world that’s decaying. Here is my light to a world gone dark.”

If Jesus really is your Lord, if the Holy Spirit really is in you, your life will be constantly producing heavenly fruit. And what is that fruit? Paul tell us in Galatians 5: it’s love. It’s joy. It’s peace. It’s patience. It’s kindness and goodness and faithfulness. It’s gentleness and self-control. That’s the fruit that defines the Christian life.

But still we gossip. Still we’re arrogant. Still we talk down to people. Still we’re filled with pride. Still we try to control people. Still we’re just downright mean and nasty. Still we just spout off words that hurt and then try to cover it up by saying, “Oh, I’m just kidding.” If you ever say, “I’m just kidding,” that’s a sign that whatever you said just before is wrong. We do all of those things as Christians, but Jesus curses this barren fig tree and says, “There is no excuse in the world for you to be so barren.”

But we try out all those excuses, don’t we? “I know I have a short temper, that’s just how I was made.” You think Jesus accepts that excuse? No. He says, “With me you are a new creation. Put on the new person I’ve made you to be, and leave that old person behind. “I know I can say hateful things, but you don’t know what I’ve been through.” You think Jesus accepts that excuse? No. He says, “Don’t think about the former things. Behold, I am doing a new thing.”

We can make all kinds of excuses about why our lives aren’t fruitful. This fig tree in Mark had an excuse for not being fruitful, but Jesus cursed it. That’s what he thinks of excuses. “Are you mine or not?” He asks. Because it’s one or another, and the best way to know that answer is by the kind of person you allow yourself to be.

“I am the vine,” Jesus says in John 15, “you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” And then Christ says this: “By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.”

Did you get that? You don’t get to just say you’re a disciple of Christ. You have to prove it. And you don’t prove you are a Christian by how many Bible verses you can quote, or how you vote on Election Day, or what your stance is on some social issue. You prove it by the way you live out your every day. You prove it by your love for everyone, regardless of who they are. You prove it by the joy you have in every circumstance. By the patience you offer. By the kindness you give to everyone you meet. By the goodness of your words and the faithfulness of your daily devotions and prayers. By the gentleness you show to others, and the self-control you show to yourself. Because Jesus says our faith is shown by our fruit.

This story is a warning, and we should be thankful for it. We need a God who gives us warnings as much as He gives us grace. Because our lives can look like healthy trees, but our roots can be dry. There might not be any fruit under all those leaves. That’s why we all have to take a hard look at ourselves, because sometimes all those leaves on our trees can fool even ourselves.

We’re called to shoot for perfection in the people we are, even though God says we’ll never get there in this life. But I take a look around this country and see a lot of Christians who aren’t even trying anymore. They look and sound and live like everybody else. They’re every bit as mean and hateful and filled with pride. Will God bring revival when so many of His people are living that way? Because that’s where revival starts. It begins with God, but He starts with His church.

Every pastor will tell you that Covid really hurt the American church. Attendance is down most everywhere. A lot of churches have closed. We can ask where God was in all of that, but I’ll tell you that God was right in the middle of it. I think God used Covid to rid our churches of a lot of people who just went through the motions, people who had one foot in church and the other in the world. And I think He did that because He was getting ready to do something wonderful, something amazing, with those children of His who stood firm. Same thing with these big denominations that are about to split over social issues. Some of those churches are saying, “We have to change and look more like the world.” Christ says, “The more your church looks like the world, the less it looks like me.”

What’s Jesus see when he looks at his church? Love, or hate? Joy, or doubt? Peace, or worry? Patience, or rage? Kindness, or hurtfulness? Goodness, or sin? Faithfulness, or lies? Gentleness, or harshness? Self-control, or a life governed by feelings alone? Does he see fruit, or just decoration?

We say, “Bring revival, Lord!” And we should. We should pray for that. It’s what this world needs now more than ever. But let the next words out of our mouths be, “And let it begin with us.”

Let’s pray:

Father we are so thankful to have a God of grace and mercy, a God who never gives up on us even when we give up on ourselves, a God of love who loves so deeply that you give us these warnings to live the lives you want us to live. Lives that are fuller than we can imagine, lives bearing fruit that never spoils, lives that feed the lost of this world. For all these things, Father, we depend upon you. Give us the peace of your presence. Give us a desire to empty our hearts of ourselves so that they may be filled with you. Let us have the faith that grows leaves that draw the hungry and the poor, and when they come let them find fruit that satisfies all their needs. .For it’s in Christ’s name we pray, Amen.