One more year!
Notes
Transcript
So every few years or so, as the temperatures drop and it is time to start wearing a heavier clothes, I will put on a coat and when I put my hand in a pocket and find money. $5, $10 or $20. Well it doesn’t take long for me to start checking every pocket on that jacket, then pretty soon all the coats in my closet.
Well, Imagine if every pocket you find money, and the more pockets you look in, the more money you find. When would you stop looking?
I had intended to finish with looking at the parables of Jesus and move to covering one of the New Testament letters....but with every parable I study, I keep finding more treasure.....So this morning we will continue.
We will be in Luke 13 this morning with the baron fig tree. Verse 6 starts out, “And He began telling this parable:”, so immediately we know that we have to look at what led up to the parable.
Verse 1 starts out “Now on the same occasion.....So we need to look back a little further. If we are not careful here, we will end up back in Genesis 1:1.
Jesus was teaching the urgency of the Kingdom of God.
The crowds were getting larger, the Phrases were trying to catch Him with every word. The Earthly ministry of Jesus was going toward a crescendo. (remember the Jaws music)
but the people were still bringing these petty disputes to Jesus asking Him to solve them. Many had believed or heard that He was the foretold Messiah, but their idea of who the Messiah was and what he would do was skewed.
In 12:13 a guy wants Jesus to toll his brother to divide the family inheritance with him. And Jesus is trying to get people to keep the main thing the main thing.
He tells the parable of the rich farmer and concludes it with “You fool! This very night you soul is required of you.”
Don’t worry about what you will wear, or eat, or even worry about your life......
31 “But seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you.
35 “Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps lit.
40 “You too, be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect.”
He talks about being a faithful steward and what they should do.
43 “Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes.
And then adds a warning.
45 “But if that slave says in his heart, ‘My master will be a long time in coming,’ and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk;
46 the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces, and assign him a place with the unbelievers.
Then Jesus, our loving and patient savior, says this.
49 “I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled!
and adds,
50 “But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished!
When you love someone so very much, but you see them headed down a bad path, you start off with gentle, soft nudges. “Hay, have you thought about do this, or that.” But the closer they get to the edge, the less you care about their feelings, and the more you care about their fate.
This seems to be where Jesus is at this moment.
He tells them:
54 And He was also saying to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out.
55 “And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a hot day,’ and it turns out that way.
56 “You hypocrites! You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time?
57 “And why do you not even on your own initiative judge what is right?
WAKE UP!
1 Now on the same occasion there were some present who reported to Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.
So someone told Him this terrible story about some Galileans who had gone to present their sacrifices to God, and while they were in the act of making sacrifices, Roman soldiers came and executed them.
There were probably trying to get Jesus fired up to deal with Pilot immediately. Remember, thy thought that the Messiah was going to immediately free the Jews from the Romans and would sit on the thrown s their King.
Jesus, instead, takes the time to turn the focus back on what was important.
2 And Jesus said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered this fate?
It was common to think that when tragedy struck, it was God’s judgement.
Remember in John 9 Jesus and His disciples came across a a man blind from birth, and the disciples asked, who’s sin, His or his parents.
3 “I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
The main thing, the main thing.
4 “Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem?
5 “I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
It is interesting that in all the English translations verse 3 and verse 5 are identical. NASB has a note on verse 3 that there is a subtle change in the verb repent.
In verse 3 Luke used the present imperative. (Are repentant) day by day act of being repentant.
In verse 5 the tense depicts a single decisive action. Repent.
What Luke is highlighting is that in the life of a Christian, there is an initial act of repenting. That act of turning away from sin and toward God, but it is followed with a continuous act of every time we see our focus leave God and start to turn toward the world again, that we go back to the cross. The first repentance is a change in direction, the continuous act of repentance, is a course correction.
Jesus then deals with that initial change in direction.
6 And He began telling this parable: “A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any.
7 “And he said to the vineyard-keeper, ‘Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?’
8 “And he answered and said to him, ‘Let it alone, sir, for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer;
9 and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.’ ”
Jesus is talking about a new tree.
Three years.
A couple years ago, we brought some avocados back from Florida. Martye got the idea to take one of the seed and plant it and grow an avocado tree. So, I looked up how to grow an avocado tree, and found that you can expect to get avocados from an avocado tree somewhere between 10 and 15 years after planting. That means if we manage to keep this thing alive, we won’t see and avocado until I am in my 60’s.
A fig tree on the other hand can expect to grow fruit within one to two years.
The fact that Jesus tells us that the man has waited three years for fruit, shows the patience of God toward us.
But the time has come for this tree to either put up, or shut up.
But the vineyard keeper intercedes on behalf of the tree.
One more year, let me fertilize it.
34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.
25 Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
This parable is not a call for Christians to try harder to bear fruit.
This parable is that unbelief will kill you.
John the Baptist:
8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance;
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
Jesus is life, and if you reject Jesus, you reject life.
After Jesus entered Jerusalem, He became hungry and saw a fig tree. He went to see if there was fruit on it, but there wasn’t, as a matter of fact, it wasn’t even the season for figs to grow.
And Jesus cursed the fig tree, saying “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!”
But we are told in 2 Timothy to be ready “in season and out of season.”
Later as Jesus and the disciples were going back by the fig tree, now withered and dead, Peter was like, Jesus Look!
Jesus’ words were simple: “Have faith in God.”
See, fig trees don’t have to try and produce figs, they just do.
True followers of Jesus don’t have to try and produce good fruit, He produces the fruit through us.
That is why Jesus said, “you will know them by their fruits.
If you don’t have fruit, don’t try harder, repent and believe in Jesus.
So what is the message for those of us that are in Christ Jesus.
You are the fertilizer......You are a bunch of turds that just need to allow yourselves to be used by God.
Jesus tells us: You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.
Be that.
We are to spur one another on to good works. The good works that He prepared for us, that we are to walk in. So that dead fig trees might see Jesus in us, repent and start bearing fruit before the are cut down.