Do you have something against your brother?

We’re diving back into our study of the Gospel of Mark, and we’re entering the section that covers the final week of the Lord’s life. As you might expect, in the days leading up to the cross, Mark records several confrontations between Jesus and the religious authorities. What’s interesting is that Mark’s Gospel both begins and ends this way. At the start of the book, we saw five major conflicts between Jesus and the religious leaders, and as we come to the final week, Mark records another series of five conflicts—this time between Jesus and the powers in Jerusalem.

And as we learned last week Jesus comes into Jerusalem guns blazing. He gets into town, heads to the temple, and starts cleaning house. In fact, let’s read a couple verses just to get the flavor of what’s going on.

Let’s pick up at verse 15 in chapter 11,

Mark 11:15 NKJV

15 So they came to Jerusalem. Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.

Let me briefly explain what is going on here.

“People coming to the temple to worship the Lord needed animals to sacrifice. Since most people came from other cities, they would need to buy the animals in Jerusalem, near the temple. There were places to purchase animals on the Mount of Olives, but the religious leaders had established their own markets in the temple. It would have been a very profitable business venture. (Yates, pg. 418 Lessons in Discipleship).

Simply put, the religious leaders had set up a business for themselves. They made money by selling animals, but this wasn’t the only way. Verse 15 says Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers…

Another way they profited was by changing money. You see, people coming from out of town would need to convert their currency into Jewish shekels. This is because a person couldn’t pay the temple tax or buy sacrificial animals with their own currency. Roman money had a picture of the emperor on it and would have been considered idolatrous. So, the religious leaders charged a fee to exchange Roman money into Jewish shekels.  Here is the point. Jesus comes to the temple desiring to find spiritual fruit, and instead He finds the religious leaders lining their pockets off people coming to worship the Lord. He comes to the temple hungering for Godly fruit, but all He finds is religious activity designed to enrich the corrupt religious leaders of His day.

Let’s read on...

Mark 11:16–17 NKJV

16 And He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. 17 Then He taught, saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ”

Notice what Jesus says in verse 17, “Is it not written, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations”.  Now I’ve probably told you more than you wanted to know about the temple, but I have to share one final detail. This marketplace was happening in a place called the “Court of the Gentiles”. This was a large area on the outer edge of the huge temple complex. This is as far as gentiles were allowed to go, and it was a place where they could come to pray and worship God. This is what Jesus was referring to when He says, “a house of prayer for all nations”.  

You see, the religious leaders have taken a place that was designed for worship and prayer, and they made it “a den of thieves”. To me this phrase makes it obvious that they were taking advantage of people. We might say, “they were robbing people blind”. This was a place where the gentiles could come and pray, but the religious leaders turned it into a profit center.

Jesus says, you turned my house of prayer into a den of thieves. This is proof that the religious authorities cared nothing about the people. They were more interested in taking advantage of them. They were interesting in making money. Worshipping God in the temple was not a priority for them. It was all about the money.

And listen to how Mark describes the reaction of the scribes and chief priests. He writes,

Mark 11:18–19 NKJV

18 And the scribes and chief priests heard it and sought how they might destroy Him; for they feared Him, because all the people were astonished at His teaching. 19 When evening had come, He went out of the city.

Let me make a quick point about the scribes and the chief priests Mark mentions in the beginning of verse 18. We need to understand that the scribes were the most educated men among the nation’s leaders. These were the experts when it came to the Jewish religious laws, and the chief priests were the men most responsible for the temple. Simply put, these are some of the most powerful and influential men in the nation of Israel, and it is hard for us to imagine how much these men must have hatred Jesus.

I mean here comes this poor carpenter that came riding into town on a donkey, rebuking them for their greed. I’m sure they would have killed Him right then and there, but they couldn’t. Verse 17 says, they “sought how they might destroy Him; for they feared Him, because all the people were astonished at His teaching”. You see, it was Passover time and there are massive crowds in the city, and they are afraid if they kill Him it was going to cause and uproar. This would mean big trouble with the Romans, or it could mean more financial loss as the people rebelled against them. Then verse 19 says, “When evening had come, He went out of the city”.

So, the cleansing of the temple ends this day, and Jesus and the disciples leave the city to go find a place to sleep for the night. And this brings us to the verses we covered last week. Let’s go ahead and review them because all of this context is important for the verses we are going to study today.

Mark 11:20–21 NKJV

20 Now in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. 21 And Peter, remembering, said to Him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree which You cursed has withered away.”

Notice verse 20 says, “now in the morning”. So, this is the day after Jesus cleansed the temple, and Peter mentioned this fig tree that Jesus cursed. Well, as we learned last week, Jesus was looking for some breakfast right before He cleans out the temple and they ride up to a fig tree with no figs on it. Well, when Jesus doesn’t find any fruit on the fig tree he curses it. He says, ”let no one let eat fruit from you ever again”.

Here is what you need to understand about this fig tree. When Jesus curses the fig tree , He is really talking about the temple. This whole incident with the fig tree was like a live-action parable. Mark records the fact that Jesus was hungry, and he was looking for fruit from this fig tree, and He finds nothing but leaves. This was painting a picture for the disciples. You see, Jesus, the Messiah, had arrived in Jerusalem hungry to find some spiritual fruit in His temple. But when He gets there he doesn’t find any fruit. All his finds is a bunch of religious activity. Just like on the fig tree he finds a bunch of leaves, but no fruit. He finds religious activity that looked healthy, but it wasn’t true fruit. It all looked impressive from a distance, but up close there was no real fruit.

The fig tree was a picture of Israel’s temple: it full of religious activity, but empty of spiritual life. Simply put, Jesus destroys the fig tree because it was never going to bear fruit. And in a few short years, Jesus was going to destroy the temple because it was never going to bear fruit.

And once we understand this context, Jesus remarks in the next couple of verses become easier to understand. Let’s read on.

Mark 11:22–23 NKJV

22 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. 23 For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.

First, let’s talk about the mountain. Moving a mountain in verse 23 is a figure of speech. Jesus isn’t talking about giving us superpowers that will allow us to move literally mountains. Just as the fig tree was a symbol of the Temple and the Nation of Israel producing no spiritual fruit, the same is true of the mountain. The mountain is a symbol for something. What does the mountain symbolize? The mountain represents an obstacle that can’t be moved by human means. In short, moving a mountain simply means to do the impossible. (Yates, pg. 424)

Moving a mountain means to do the impossible

Think about this for a second. The disciples were getting ready to face impossible circumstances. The religious leaders were going to crucify the Messiah. After that, the same religious leaders were going to persecute the disciples themselves.

But not only that, the disciples were going to be opposed by the full might of the Roman Empire. The temple, the center of their religious life, was going to be destroyed.

The kingdom that they thought was coming was going to be delayed, and their Messiah was going to leave them.

Simply put, the disciples were going to face mountains. That is what Jesus is teaching them. He is teaching them to have faith because God would supply the power to move these mountains. He is teaching them that God would see them through the seemingly impossible circumstances that lay ahead. And the key components to moving the mountains were faith and prayer.

They disciples needed to have faith in God and they needed to pray. Verse 24 says,

Mark 11:24 NKJV

24 Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.

Now, I ran out of time last week, and I was only able to quickly touch on this verse. So, l want to spend some time here. Notice Jesus says “whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you will receive them, and you will have them.

Let me make a point here. Jesus said whatever you ask for you will receive.

He did not say, they could ask for whatever they wanted.

Do you see the difference there? Because this is an extremely important point. Jesus was able to destroy the fig tree by speaking to it because it was the Father’s will. In fact, every miracle Jesus ever performed was done in accordance with the Father’s will. You see, Jesus voluntarily lived in perfect submission to the Father’s will and He depended on the power of the Holy Spirit. He came to do what Adam failed to do, live in perfect obedience to the Father.

And this is where all of us get prayer so so mixed up. And all of us in this room have spent who knows how many hours praying for things outside the will of God. It reminds me of my kids constantly asking me for things. Dad, can I get a cell phone. No son your nine years old. Please dad. No son, that’s not what’s best for you. But Dad, all my friends have one. Dad, can I get an Xbox, no son. Dad, can I eat popsicle. No you just ate a massive bowl of ice cream and a bag of sour patch kids. But dad…

You see, we have to get past just asking God for whatever we want. And James touches on this problem as well.

James 4:3 NKJV

3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.

When James says you ask “amiss” in this verse, it translates a Greek word that something like you are asking badly in a moral sense. In other words, you are asking with selfish motivations. You are asking badly so that you “you may spend it on your pleasures”. James is writing to believers here. He is writing to the church, and He is telling them that they are asking for things that will only satisfy their worldly lusts and desires. In other words, they were praying for worldly treasures that had no eternal value. They were asking for things like our children do when they come wanting this, that, and the other.

And all of us are guilty of doing this. We spend all of our prayer time asking for more money or better job opportunities, but we are asking for these things with selfish motivations. You see, we ask for all of these things for ourselves, so that we will have a better quality of life. But rest assured that is not what Jesus had in mind when He told the disciples that they would receive whatever they asked for.

Mark 11:24 NKJV

24 Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.

These disciples only have a few more days with Jesus. Their Messiah is preparing to be crucified, and once they began preaching His resurrection, they would face severe persecution. They would stand before councils, kings, mobs, and empires. They would endure prisons, beatings, rejection, and eventually death. So when Jesus says, “whatever things you ask… you will have them,” He is not giving them a blank check to pray for anything they want. No, Jesus is promising them that every mountain standing in the way of the gospel—every threat, every barrier, every impossibility—would be moved by the power of God in response to their prayers. Their confidence wasn’t in their strength, their strategy, or their courage. Their confidence was in a God who delights to move mountains when His people pray in alignment with His mission and according to His will.

So, let me ask you a question?

What are you praying for?

Are you praying mostly for temporary pleasures? Are you praying with selfish motivations? Are you praying only for things that relate to the here and now? If that is the case let me invite you to change you focus. Let me challenge you to start praying for eternal things.

I’ll give you something you can pray for right now. Pray for the spiritual growth of this church. Pray that this body of believers would grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Pray that every time someone gets up here and delivers a sermon that the Holy Spirit opens our understanding so that we can comprehend the scriptures. Pray for the Sunday school teachers and their lessons. Pray for this church.

If you aren't actively serving God, pray that God will open the door of opportunity for you to serve Him. And if you are actively serving pray that God will give you perseverance to run your race to the end of this life. You are going to face challenges. The world, the flesh, and the devil will oppose you. To use the Lord’s language, you are going to face mountains, and you are going to want to quit. You will face criticism, and that criticism sadly will often times come from believers, it will often times come from inside the church, but God will empower you to keep going. The strength of your flesh might fail, but God empowers us through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirt, so that we can endure.

Now, I can’t keep going down this rabbit trail or I won’t make it to the verses I want to cover for today. So let me summarize this into a single point.

Start Praying for the Mission

You want to tap into the power of prayer? Stop praying so hard for your mission and start praying for God’s mission. You see, once we stop focusing so much our our circumstances and we start praying for God’s will to be done, that is when we unlock the power of prayer. It is when we start praying for our church. It is when we start praying for the spiritual growth and health of our brothers and sisters. It is when we start praying for God to use us to glorify Him that everything begins to change.

My prayers look so radically different today then they once did. When I’m praying for myself I spend time praying for heavenly wisdom. I pray for God to help me endure through the power of the Holy Spirit. I’m praying for my mind to be renewed and transformed as I study the His word. I pray constantly for God to help me handle the Scriptures correctly, I spend time praying that every message that I write glorifies God and edifies the church. You see, I’m learning more and more to be mission minded, and these are the prayers that we can have confidence that God will answer.

But it wasn’t always this way. You see, I used to do nothing but pray for my circumstances, and often times I was praying for God to get me out of situations that were caused by my own sins. You see, often times we live completely on our own terms. We want to live our way, and this leads us away from God and into sin. Well, then we suffer all the consequences of our sin. Our hearts get broken from inappropriate relationships, we develop drinking or drug problems, or we lust after more and more money, and then we things fall apart we cry out to God for help. And the entire time we are locked into this vicious self-absorbed, self-will run riot cycle, and it can be blinding. Don’t live like that. Don’t pray like that. Start to focus on the mission and then God will answer your prayers.

So, the point is that God isn’t going to answer self-centered, self-absorbed prayers that are outside of His will. James puts it better than I can.

James 4:3 NKJV

3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.

But praying outside of the will of God is not the only hinderance in our prayer life. There is something else that negatively impacts our prayer life, and this is one that we all struggle with. Unforgiveness. Listen to what Jesus says next.

Mark 11:25–26 NKJV

25 “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. 26 But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”

The Lord says, “whenever you stand praying. Now, we need to understand that it was common practice for Jews to stand as they prayed. So, Jesus isn’t talking about some special prayer. He is saying whenever you pray. Whenever you come to the Father in prayer asking for the impossible to be done, if you realize that you have unforgiveness in your heart, you need to forgive the person that has wronged you. That’s is what verse 25 says, “if you have anything against anyone, forgive him”.

And then the Lord goes on and tells His disciples why they needed to forgive the person that wronged them. He says so “that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.” And verse 26, drives home the same point. Jesus says, “But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses”.

Ok, when need to spend a few moments here because these verses confuse a lot of people. You see, often times these verses are taken to mean that if we don’t forgive our brother that we can lose our salvation. But that is not what these verses are saying.

First, notice Jesus says “that you Father may also forgive you”. The fact that Jesus says your “Father”, that let’s us know that this is a family issue. If we have a have unforgiveness in our hearts, God doesn’t stop being our Father. That can never happen. However, what does happen is that the relationship with our Father is affected by our unforgiveness (our sin).

Think about it this way, when your children misbehave you get mad at them, right. You discipline them, and it affects the relationship. But could they ever do anything to stop being your children? The point is when we are talking about forgiveness from our heavenly Father we are talking about a personal issue that affects our fellowship with God.

Let me put it this way.

Forgiveness is a personal issue between two parties, not a judicial one.

You see, when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life we are born-again into God’s family. And at the moment of faith another amazing thing that happens is that God the Father justifies us. What does it mean that we are justified by God the Father? Well, justification is a legal term and it means that we are declared righteous by God. You see, when God the Father declares us righteous that is a judicial decision by God that we are now righteous, and we are no longer guilty. That judicial decision, that legal declaration is forever. It cannot be undone.

However, as live live out our lives in the flesh, we sin against God everyday, and our sin offends God. God is personally offended by our sins, and we need God’s forgiveness. And the way that we get God’s forgiveness is by confessing our sins to Him. Everyday when we realize that we sin against God, we should take a moment to confess our sins to Him. And as 1 John 1:9 tells us

1 John 1:9 NKJV

9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Here is the point. When we sin as children of God it is personally offensive to God. In the same way it is personally offensive to us when are children disobedient. Sin affects our relationship with God. Simply put, when we sin it breaks our fellowship with God, and we need God’s forgiveness to restore the fellowship. That is what John is teaching us in this verse. Every time we sin against God, if we confess our sin to Him, He forgives us. In other words, our relationship with God is restored. Our fellowship with God is restored.

So, think about it this way. If we need God’s forgiveness everyday, if everyday we have to go to God and confess that we have wronged Him, we should be willing to do the same for the brother that has wronged us. Do you see that? How hypocritical is it for us to seek God’s forgiveness everyday, if we aren’t willing to do the same when someone seeks forgiveness from us.

That is the point of these verses.

Mark 11:25–26 NKJV

25 “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. 26 But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”

In verse 26, when Jesus says, if you don’t forgive, “neither will you Father in heaven forgive your trespasses”. Jesus isn’t teaching that we will go to hell. He is saying, if you’re not willing to restore fellowship with someone who has wronged you, don’t expect your Father to restore fellowship with you.

As people who need God’s forgiveness everyday, we should be willing to forgive everyday. If a brother comes to you seven times in a day asking for your forgiveness, seven times in a day you forgive Him. Just like your heavenly Father forgives you seven times a day. Amen.

Ok, I’m out of time so let me make my final point. As a body of believers, I want us to do big things for God this year. Man, I want all of us focused on the mission praying for God to move mountains. I want us praying that God is going to transform this church and every person that comes in contact with the church. I want us praying inside the will of God, believing that whatever we ask for He will do. But you know what? We can’t pray effectively if we are all running around here if unforgiveness in our hearts. We can’t be in fellowship with our Father if we are unwilling to forgive those who sin against us. We need God’s forgiveness daily. Therefore, we should be willing to forgive daily. So, let me close with a question and this is the title of today’s lesson.

Do you have something against your brother?

If you do go be reconciled to your brother. Forgive him so that your heavenly Father will forgive you. Forgive him so that you can be in fellowship with God. And if we are all in fellowship with God, and we pray mission minded prayers inside the will of God. Then we will watch God move mountains, and we will get to take part in His perfect eternal plan. Amen.

Let’s pray.