Fruitless and Fruitful

Introduction: Have you ever bought something and didnt get what you paid for? Doesnt it make you angry when this happens to you? I remember my friend once needed an IPAD so he ordered a used one online. It was a great deal! The package came in the mail and he was excited about it because he was getting a great tablet at a fraction of the price when it was new. I came over to see him and my friend, who is very mellow and laid back, was MAD! He had opened the package and found the IPAD box, but when he opened the box, there was no IPAD in it. The seller had gone through all of the trouble of wrapping up the empty cardboard box and shipping it, but it was all a scam! My friend went ballistic on the website because he wanted what he had paid for.

We are going to see something like this in our text today. Jesus is going to walk up to a tree, expecting fruit, and he is going to find a tree as empty as that empty cardboard box my friend received in the mail. Where there should be fruit, there is nothing, and in response, this tree receives judgement. But if we open our eyes to what the Bible is telling us, we will learn that we are not talking about trees and fruit, but really about how people who say they follow God are supposed to live their lives.

The Bible uses the symbol of good fruit many times in both the Old and New Testaments. According to the Bible, good fruit is the works of obedience and righteousness done by those who love the Lord. As we look at how Jesus responds to the fruitless tree and the fruitless Temple, I want you to ask a question, which is our main idea for today “If the Lord looked for good fruit in my life, what would he find?”

I. The Fruitless Temple vs. 12-21

Mark 11:12–25 ESV

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. 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.”

A. The Fig Tree

Clearly, everyone could tell it was a fig tree. Jesus walked up to it, because from a distance, it looked like it should have fruit on it. But when he got up to it, we are informed that the tree was empty. It looked the part, but this tree had failed to do what it was there for, which was to provide fruit. And the end result for this tree is that it is judged by Jesus. Literally, the tree is cursed!

It is easy to look at this story and be confused about what we are supposed to learn from it. By talking about the tree in verses 13 and 21, and by putting the cleansing of the Temple in the middle of these verses, Mark is helping us see that the tree is a word picture. One of the commentaries I looked at said that this is like a physically demonstrated parable.

The tree symbolizes Israel, but in particular, the Temple in Jerusalem. God had chosen Israel, and delivered them from slavery, and planted them in a good land, all with the hope that they would bear fruit that would bring honor to the Lord. And what fruit would this have been?

They would have been a radically different type of nation. They would have faithfully served only one God, and done so without the need for idols. They would have been a people who were bound to God’s holy Law, and they would have obediently lived by it. Israel was supposed to be a nation that was holy, and ruled by kings who served God and the people in righteousness. All of this would have led to people from all over the earth seeing the greatness, not of Israel, but the greatness of their God, and the other nations of the world would have desired what Israel had. In this way, we see that Israel was supposed to be what the Prophet Isaiah calls a “Light to the Gentiles,” leading the Nations out of darkness.

But despite God’s goodness, Israel had been unfaithful. In their history they had exchanged the worship of the one true God for the worship of countless pagan gods. Their land had been filled with idols and sacrifices to demons. Rather than trying to be different from their neighbors so that they could bless them, Israel always tried to be like their neighbors. Israel chose kings that reflected their own hearts. Selfish, and cruel. Instead of being a light to the Gentile nations, Israel constantly became a target for these nations to invade.

And now, after centuries of failure and disappointment, Jesus, the Son of God has come into the Temple, seeking fruit…….and there isnt any. Instead, Jesus sees the end result of generations of religious corruption. Thankfully, he does not find any idols to foreign gods. Instead, he comes upon a bustling marketplace, filled with greed, and he hates it! And just as the tree is judged by Jesus, his actions will show he does the same thing to the

B. The Empty Temple

So we have to ask ourselves what exactly is happening in here, and why it is such an offense to the Lord.

In the courts outside of the Temple in Jerusalem, huge numbers of animals were sacrificed to atone for the sins of the people of Israel. We are talking about potentially hundreds of thousands of animals being sacrificed over the course of just the Passover Week. Many of the Jews who came to celebrate Passover had traveleled from far away countries so they had to purchase a sacrificial animal when they got there. But the animals in the Temple could be over-priced. But if you had to make a sacrifice, then there was no option. Its like when you are at a sports game or Disney World and its so hot and you really need one of those frozen lemonades and so you stand in line and finally get up to the register and find out they cost $12! You dont want to pay it but you dont have any other options! They got you right where they want you!

But also, we see that in verse 15 Jesus flipped over the table of money changers. Every Jewish man had to pay an annual tax to the Temple. But the Temple would only accept one type of coin, the Shekel. This meant that every single person who traveled to Israel for the Passover had to exchange their normal Roman money at the Temple in order to pay their tax. But the money changers at the Temple who controlled access to these coins charged outrageous exchange rates. They had a monopoly on this business and could freely rip off everyone who came through.

Why did the High Priest at the Temple allow all of this over-charging for sacrifices and unfair exchange rates for Shekels to be donated? Because the priests took a slice of everything that was made in the Temple and it was a huge amount of money. The Temple was BIG business. This whole system was terribly corrupt. The priest’s greed had caused them to stop looking at the Temple as a place for worship of the one true God, and to see it instead as a cash cow that they could milk as long as no one rocked the boat.

But rocking the boat is what Jesus is here to do! Jesus will not tolerate this taking place in his Father’s house. His actions here show that he is indeed the Messiah. He has the ultimate authority given by God to say what can and cannot happen in the Temple.

C. The Authority of Jesus

And we see Jesus go off on these corrupt people! He is flipping tables and knocking over chairs! He will not allow anything to be bought or sold! It even says that he will not allow anything to be carried through the courts in verse 16. This is probably because, believe it or not, people were actually using the gates on either side of the Temple as a shortcut to carry stuff into the city of Jerusalem from the outside.

And the Lord quotes from Isaiah 56 when he says in verse 17 “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.”

Notice the Temple is supposed to be a house of prayer. A place where people come to pour out their hearts before God and find forgiveness for their sins. It is here that they should be learning how to live in this life and preparing themselves for the life to come, and all they are finding is the same greed that they would find in any marketplace.

But notice also that Jesus says the Temple is supposed to be a house of prayer, for all nations! This is particularly important because Jesus is standing in the outer courts of the Temple. This area was actually called the Court of the Gentiles. This was the only place in the Temple complex that people who were not born Jewish could come and worship. There was a sign leading into the next court saying that if any non-Jewish person tried to enter it, the penalty was death! Many of these people worshipping there would have traveled hundreds or thousands of miles to praise the God of Israel, and the area set aside for them had been turned into a marketplace and a corrupt bank, with people casually walking through it because it was a shortcut into the city. Rather than thinking like missionaries, and seeing the nations impacted for God, the behavior of the Priests could not possibly be more disrespectful to these Gentile’s who have put their faith in God! They are treating these people like second class citizens with a second class faith!

Belmont, it might surprise us to see Jesus this angry. But I ask you, if God being disrespected, and foreigners being kept from worshipping does not make us angry, then what will? Jesus shows us that there are absolutely things worth getting angry about!

And we see in verse 18 the response of these corrupt, twisted priests. They are afraid of this single man and instead of debating with him in public, where they know they will lose, they get together in a group and once again plot how they can kill him and get away with it. And they are doing this because they are afraid! Afraid that the crowd will listen to Jesus and not to them, and see that they have criminally mismanaged the Temple of the God of Israel, all for their own benefit.

Verse 20 takes us to the next day. The disciples see the tree that Jesus had cursed and it was withered to its very roots. This living thing that had failed to give fruit had been cursed and thus had died.

Now, remember, the tree is a visual parable. Jesus is teaching about the fruitlessness of the Temple and that judgement is coming.

The Temple would very soon be exactly like this tree. Jesus predicted in Matthew 24 that the Temple would be destroyed as a consequence of Israel rejecting him. In the year 70 while many of the people in our story would still be alive, his words came true and the Temple and the city of Jerusalem was totally, utterly destroyed by a Roman army.

But did that mean that the worship of God ceased? No, of course not, because Christ has come, and he personally, not any building, is the true center of our relationship with God! No Temple is necessary because Jesus himself is our sacrifice and he is our Holy of Holies and he was the Last Sacrifice!

Now after talking about the Fruitless Tree, Jesus goes immediately into describing how his followers should live. What he is describing is the opposite of the fruitless tree and the empty Temple, he is talking about

II. The Fruitful Life vs. 22-25

After Peter comments on the death of this tree, Jesus immediately starts teaching on what a life that bears fruit should actually look like. And this is so important for you and for me! Because we should want to live fruitful lives that honor our Lord and bring blessing to ourselves and others!

A. The Fruitful Life is marked by belief in God vs. 22-23

As Christians, our entire lives are supposed to be lives lived by faith in the Lord. This means that we hold to God and his promises, even when we cannot see evidence for them, and especially when it is hard.

The Bible teaches us in Hebrews 11:1 that Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Put another way by the writer AW Tozer,

… faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God.3

A. W. Tozer

And notice, that Jesus does not say something weak and sentimental like ‘Just believe in belief.” He says Believe in God! The important point is not the strength of our faith, but the greatness of the one that we are putting our faith in.

As his people, we have faith in God to take care of us, even if we cant see how he will do so. This means we do not not need to take matters into our own hands and lie and manipulate and steal like others do. We trust that God will provide for us if we submit our lives to him.

We have faith that the entire world is under God’s control, even when it feels like it is spinning out into chaos.

We have faith that his Word is true, which is why we read it and memorize it and pattern our lives after what it says, even when it is opposite of what our culture tells us and goes against what our emotions want.

We have faith that God will judge righteously in the end, so we continue living in hope and walking in holiness, knowing that it is better to please the Lord who called us than it is to please our own desires.

And we have faith, that the sacrifice he sent, Jesus Christ his Son, is the sufficient, once-for all sacrifice that was needed to save us from our sins. And because of our faith in the salvation that Christ has provided us, we move forward with lives that are marked by gratitude not by trying to earn something that is offered to us as a gift!

And Jesus teaches us in verse 23 that faith in God is not only necessary, it is powerful! That if we have faith, obstacles as great as mountains can come down before it.

But we also see that

B. The Fruitful Life is filled with prayer vs. 24

If you have belief in God’s great power and in his loving character, then that will drive you to act on that faith, and this will be proven in how you pray. Thomas Manton, an old English preacher said:

Faith is the fountain of prayer, and prayer should be nothing else but faith exercised.

Thomas Manton

Put another way, your prayers are your faith with shoes on!

How do you pray, Belmont? Do you pray little prayers asking little things, or do you pray great, daring prayers, asking great things from a great God?

Have you given up on praying for that lost relative to come to faith because its been years? Have you stopped praying for God to heal your broken marriage? Are you still praying in faith for your child to turn back to the Lord? Have faith Belmont, in the power and goodness of the God who made the heavens and the earth from nothing, and who sent his Son to die for you then raised him up from the dead! And when we pray these big prayers, we can be sure, that if our prayers are in the will of God, that he will answer them. And if it is not his will to give us what we ask, then our faith which we just talked about allows us to say that he knows better that us and we can trust the goodness of his plan.

And if you say “Oh my faith is weak and my prayers are too small and too few” Then I say, welcome to the club! None of us in this life have arrived yet when it comes to belief and prayer. We all must continue to grow and regularly say “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!” So let’s together commit to praying in faith that God will move in our lives and in our congregation.

And if you dont know what to pray for, then let the Bible teach you how to pray. The next time you sit down to pray, take your Bible and turn to the book of Psalms and pray the words of that Psalm back to God, for you and for your family, and for this church. If you will just commit to praying the Psalms, I promise you will never run out of things to pray for!

3. The Fruitful Life is demonstrated in forgiveness vs. 25

I do not know your past experiences. I do not know everything that has happened to you. But something I do know, as surely as the sun rises, is that other people have hurt you and let you down. I know this because it is the same in my life. To live in this world, is to be wounded by the sins of others.

But we cannot expect to be fruitful disciples of Jesus, while hanging on to bitterness at other people for what they have done to us. We are called to show other people forgiveness just as we have experienced forgiveness from God ourselves. As Ephesians 4:32 says“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

The key to our ability to forgive others is not to focus on them and what they did to us, but rather to focus on Christ, and what he has done for us. In light of the forgiveness of the Son of God, who died for sinners like you and me, who are we to hold a grudge against others?

And we see the Lord here says something heavy, that we must forgive or God will not forgive us. Now, the commentators are clear that this does not imply that our salvation is dependent upon perfectly forgiving every person we know. But it does mean that our relationship with God is impaired if we have broken relationships with other humans because of our unwillingess to forgive them. Speaking about his own prayers, David says in Psalm 66:18 “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” If you want God to hear you prayers, then the first step is to clear out the storehouse of bitterness and resentment that you have against the other people in your life.

Forgive others, and in so doing, you will set both them and yourself free from the chains of bitterness.

In conclusion, as our worship team comes back up, I want to ask you the question from the start of our sermon. If Jesus examined your life for fruit, what would he find? Would he find faith? Would he find a devotion to prayer? Would he find a life that is marked by the forgiveness of others, or would he find bitterness and resentment?

As we close, we are going to do things a little differently today. I am going to ask you to take some time to pray with me. I dont want us to wait to apply this message when we can start doing it right now. So while Ms Chiquesta plays for us, I would like for everyone in here to bow their heads and pray in faith that God will move in your life and in the life of your family. Pray for our church, that God will empower us and bless us and open our eyes to Odessa so that we can reach it with the Gospel. Ask God this moment, if there is someone that you need to forgive, and if so, then in the name of Jesus, the Savior, pray that God will help you forgive them and let go of your bitterness in the same way that you have been forgiven.