Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Morning church.
[00:00:05] Oh, I should put that on my head.
[00:00:07] You'd be able to hear me better. Yeah, that's better.
[00:00:13] I love the senior care ministry. It is such a cool ministry. For those of you guys that don't know, we have a team of people that goes and leads a worship service in a local nursing and care facility here in west county twice a month.
[00:00:28] And Bruce said this so perfectly for us.
[00:00:32] You know, when you, when you hang out in a nursing home for any reason, what you find really quick is the vast majority of people who are living in nursing homes don't get visited, period. Period. Vast majority. That's across the spectrum. The loneliness, the feeling of not being seen is palpable. It's painful. And to get to be a gospel presence in that is such a privilege that our church gets to do that. But I'll tell you guys, it shines a spotlight on the fact that we live in a lonely world.
[00:01:05] And you have a whole lot of neighbors and co workers and friends and maybe even family members who are experiencing similar levels of isolation and need the love and light of Jesus in their life. And so what a cool reminder.
[00:01:18] Well, okay, so we are continuing our series called Jesus vs. Religion. We're looking at Jesus's confrontation with the religious leaders of his day during the Passion Week, during his last week of life. And I think we're seeing some really helpful and biblical critiques of man made religious practices.
[00:01:42] I said this last time and I'll probably repeat this a few more times. Right. But we live in a cultural moment that doesn't exactly hold a high view of organized religion. But there really is a deep importance to religious practice in our lives. Religion is a wonderful thing when it helps point us to Christ and to holy living. It's a great tool. It gives us natural rhythms of things like this worship, connection, service.
[00:02:15] But like all things, when sinful humans are involved, religious practice can become horrifically corrupted. And some of us in this room have been the victims of dangerous, selfish, broken, worldly religion. And over these few weeks, I think we're going to see how Jesus gives these critiques of the many ways that religion was broken in his day. And I honestly think it will be heavenly helpful.
[00:02:44] Today we're going to look at the lie that religion can be used to control God.
[00:02:52] So those of you guys who know my daughter, my oldest daughter Millie, she's a cat person, very much passionate cat person. She got a cat for her birthday a year and a half ago. I guess his name's, his name is, his name is Smokey Oreo Milkshake, Star Shooter, the first.
[00:03:10] And he's great. He's a little black cat. He's a little black cat. He's wonderful. He's my buddy. He follows me around the house. And so in the last six months or so, she got the itch, because those of you guys who are cat people know one cat is the wrong number of cats. There's not a right number, but one is the wrong number, right?
[00:03:28] And so she wanted another cat. And I said, like a good father who loves my daughter. No.
[00:03:36] But that turned into this. If you become the person in our house who takes care of the pets, then sure, we get another cat. Here's what that means. You would have to be a person who feeds and waters the cats and dogs every day, who changes the litter box every day, who walks the dog and who grooms them. And I said this to my 9 year old, thinking surely this will end the conversation.
[00:03:58] But we are now 40 days into her doing that every day. And so we had to go get a cat. And so I took her this week on our snow day, and we went and got a cat, a second cat, who. His name, I named this one, and his name is Alvin Plantingclaw.
[00:04:16] And you get 25 Jesus points if you get that pun. Alvin. Alvin Plantingclaw is named after Alvin Plantinga, the famous Christian philosopher who no one's heard of unless they have a master's degree in theology. But anyway, I share all that to say this. So we brought Alvin into our home this week. He's a little seven month old tomcat and he's a sweetie pie, and he's lived his entire life in the pound. And so he only knows other animals, and so he's happy and curious and ready to be there. Smokey, on the other hand, was not exactly thrilled with this new arrangement that we've arrived at. And so I go on YouTube and I watch a ton of videos on how do you integrate cats together? And I watch these different things and you put them in different rooms and you make them smell each other and do this. And I go through this whole thing for days and days and days, and there was not an ounce of increased affection between Smokey and the new cat. The videos were like, oh, if you do this, by 48 hours in, they'll be wanting to play with. No, no, no, no, no. It was so bad that if I carried Smokey in the same room as the room adjacent to where the other cat was locked, he would just start hissing, right? And so it culminated in just going, these cats have to meet. We just got to get it over with. And so we did and they met and they figured it out. Okay? But I said all that to say this.
[00:05:37] I was convinced that if I followed the right steps from my five YouTube videos from Cat whisperers, that I would make these cats best friends. I was convinced. But any of you that own cats already know you don't control cats, you coexist alongside them, right?
[00:05:58] There's no facet of me manipulating that cat into doing what I want him to do. I just, they just have to figure out how to coexist. And they are right.
[00:06:09] I say that to say this, it is a common, common lie that religion can be used to manipulate and control God. It's something we come back to all the time. In fact, it is the one of the primary reasons that many people engage in religion is to try and figure out the right practices to do the right things, to say the right rhythms to have in your life so that you can get God to give you the things you want in life. But the problem is it just doesn't work that way.
[00:06:44] That is man centered broken religion. That is dangerous. Today in our text we're going to be reminded of, of Jesus kingship and just what that means for us.
[00:06:58] See, as our religious practice is helpful when it points us to Christ.
[00:07:03] And if it's pointing us to Christ, it's going to point us to his lordship and our participation with him in his kingdom work. My main point today is just going to be this. Good religion believes in Jesus to bear kingdom fruit in our lives.
[00:07:17] Bad religion tries to manipulate and control God. That's, that's what it's trying to do. Good religion is going to believe in Jesus to bear kingdom fruit in our lives. There is a really simple truth in our text today, but it really pushes on some cultural buttons. You guys cannot control God. You can't, you can't manipulate him. And anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something false.
[00:07:47] Jesus is Lord. He does not submit to you. And he certainly doesn't submit to me. Rather, he expects his church to bear kingdom fruit.
[00:08:00] We don't get to make demands of him. He gets to put expectations on us.
[00:08:06] That's how it works. And that's kind of heavy, right? Honestly, it's kind of scary. I mean, I feel like I say this a lot, but aren't we all bad at spirituality and religion and faith? Isn't the kingdom supposed to be for us sinners who are bad at spirituality? Like, how can it depend on us. How can the standard be on us to bear fruit? Well, praise be to God, isn't that right? But there is a truth that you can't move the needle yourself.
[00:08:34] You can't do it. What you can do is believe Jesus and trust him and trust him to bear the kingdom fruit in your life that he's actually looking for. So stick with me for a few minutes. I'm going to pray and then we're going to dig into this text and see what God might have for us. Jesus, we need you today.
[00:08:54] We pray that you would be our teacher, that you would be our discipler, that you would clarify your text to us, and that we would leave here challenged to consider you in fresh ways, Lord, and to rely on you new and life giving ways. We need you to do this spirit. So we pray it in your name, Jesus. Amen.
[00:09:12] We're going to be in Matthew 21 today. If you want to go ahead and turn there. If you don't have a Bible with you today, we have house Bibles around the room. Just kind of look underneath the chairs in front of you. We really believe in the importance of access to God's word here at Emmanuel. If you don't own a physical copy of God's Word, I would strongly encourage you to take one of the pew Bibles or ask one of our pastors. We'll give you a nicer one. But while you're Turning to Matthew 21, let me remind us of the scene.
[00:09:38] We've entered into what is called the Passion Week. This is Jesus's last week on earth. He. He's entered into Jerusalem for the last time in his earthly ministry. He's publicly accepted the mantle of the Messiah. The crowds are gathering around him. They're actually worshiping him. And in this authority as Messiah, with the crowds around him, Jesus marches into the temple and shakes the whole thing up.
[00:10:02] He publicly rebuked the religious leaders in the temple by throwing out the money changers and those selling animals for sacrifices in the temple courts. He then invited the blind and the lame into the outer courts and publicly began healing them. The religious leaders then try and rebuke Jesus because he's doing all this and he's also receiving these messianic praises from children who are dancing around him crying out, hosanna, son of David. And Jesus responds by furthering the conflict. He basically looks at the leaders and goes, well, you guys weren't praising me, so someone had to. And then when this all is done, when he stirred up the pot, when he's made this conflict unavoidable. He leaves.
[00:10:45] He goes and camps out for the night. He's going to be in Jerusalem for a week, and he's not going to hang out in the temple at night. Every night he walks about two miles outside of town and hangs out with his friends and I'm assuming has a good old time. But during the day, for these next few days, he's going to be in the temple debating and arguing and working through this conflict with the priests. Our text is going to pick up the next morning. You see these guys, these religious leaders. They are looking for their excuse to kill him. That's why the debate's going to go on for a few days. They see the crowds, they don't want to incite a mob, and so they're trying to trick Jesus, beat him publicly, mess him up in his theology, do something to get the crowds to turn against him so that when they kill him, it won't go badly for them. But Jesus uses that as his platform to spend a few days just publicly showing how wrong they are about the gospel. But our story picks up. It's the next morning Jesus walked out. He did all that he stirred up. He stirred up the horn says, did all that stuff, went out and camped with his friends. And the next morning he's getting back up and he's walking the two miles back to the temple to keep things going. So we're picking up in verse 18 of chapter 21, and it says this early in the morning, as he was returning to the city, he was hungry. He is Jesus in this context, seeing a lone fig tree on the road, he went up to it and found nothing on it except leaves. And he said to it, may no fruit ever come from you again. And at once the fig tree withered. When the disciples saw it, they were amazed and said, how did the fig tree wither so quickly? Okay, that's a weird text, right? I'm not the only one. That's a weird Bible verse. That whole thing is very strange to me. And there's a couple things here that we need to address to talk about how strange it is. The first one is a little granular and heady, but I actually think it's important for us to say out loud. And it's chronology. We've talked about this a couple different times. But as a reminder, the gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they weren't as concerned about the exact details of chronology and timeline in their storytelling as we are today. That's a weird hump to get over as modern Western readers, because in our day, when we write biographies, we expect every single detail to be lined up perfectly. Like we have academics who study history and they debate and they and study people's lives and get into the granular details of like who sent what letter on what date and how did it coincide and all those sorts of things. But it was not always that way. In the first century when the Gospels were written, these authors were much more concerned with capturing the essence of the person and their teaching than they were about the granular details of their lives. This is also why the Gospels skip over the majority of Jesus life, right? They tell you almost nothing about his childhood, almost nothing about his early adulthood. They focus almost exclusively on the time of his public ministry. And then all the Gospels spend at least a third of their chapters in the last seven days of Jesus's life, right? The space there is weird because they're not super concerned about the details. They're concerned about the message. I say that because if you go and you read this same story in Mark, it's obviously the same story, but the details line up in a weird way. Mark tells this story with Jesus cursing the fig tree on his way to the temple to overturn the tables. And the disciples don't see it until they're marching back to camp. Matthew puts the two stories fully and complete right next to each other. And that is a little weird difference, right? But it's because they're not worried about that bit. What they were concerned about is that you realize this text is to be understood in light of what happened in the temple. This text is connected to the overturning of the money changers tables and the throwing out of those selling animals and the rebuke of the religious leaders that happened in the temple.
[00:14:49] This leads to another really second strange thing we need to talk about in terms of understanding the story. It's just a weird text. Like, I don't know if you guys got this, but when I read this text on a surface level, when I first just look at it, it's kind of upsetting.
[00:15:08] Anyone else get that? It's kind of uncomfortable. I think there's a real specific reason for that. This is the only recorded time in all the Gospels when Jesus curses something, right? He kills something. He uses his divinity for something destructive and let's be honest, kind of petty, right?
[00:15:31] He's mad about a fig tree, so he kills it. We've made a big deal in our study of Matthew about how Jesus uses his divinity to love and bless and serve others and not seek his own comfort and his own well being. And here we have a story that seemingly in like two sentences, puts that on its head. Jesus is hungry. He doesn't get food from a tree, and so he curses the tree so it dies.
[00:15:57] Doesn't that seem alarmingly out of character for Jesus?
[00:16:01] The answer is yes, this is strikingly out of character for Jesus. That's why the story sits with people the way it does. This isn't a miracle narrative. The way we've seen other miracle narratives. This text is actually kind of set aside on its own. This is closer to one of Jesus's narrative parables. So what we see here is that Jesus is joining into the grand tradition of Old Testament prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, where instead of simply telling parables, sometimes they acted out parables. Now, Jesus has not done this in his ministry up to this point, but the stakes are high. This is his last couple days with his followers. And so he wants this to worm its way into their hearts. And so he does something new. He does something a little different, and he acts out this parable in the hope, I think, of driving it into their brain so that they'll actually be able to think about it on the other side of his resurrection. Okay, so that kind of sets it up, right? It's weird. Yeah, but it's a parable. We get it. So what is the parable like? What are we supposed to understand in light of Jesus's challenge he just had with the temple leaders? What is going on here? Well, here's the scene. It's early in the morning and they're all walking these two miles from camp back to Jerusalem, back to the Temple. This is all for Jesus to continue his public teaching and ministry after he's rebuked these leaders. He's hungry and he wants some breakfast along the way. And Jesus sees a fig tree. Both Matthew and Mark go out of their way to let you know. This is a lone fig tree on the side of the road. There's a rich tradition within Judaism of planting fruit trees and crops all the way to the edges of your property and along the sides of roads and not harvesting those edges. This was done as a form of hospitality and benevolence. It created space where those who are impoverished could still eat and those who were traveling could grab snacks and not worry about stealing from people. Right. So Jesus sees a fig tree, and it's in full leaf. These are all over Israel to this day. And the wild ones look something like this. We have a Picture of one?
[00:18:11] Yeah. Big old tree. They're not super tall. They get real wide. They grow a long, long, long, long time. And when they get ready to go into fruit, they cover in leaves like this. Now, interestingly, Mark goes out of his way in his telling of the story to let us know that this wasn't fig season.
[00:18:30] This is not when these trees would have normally borne fruit. No one would expect figs to be ripe and ready to eat at this time of year. That's not the fault of the tree. Right.
[00:18:44] But it does tell us that the tree is in leaf.
[00:18:48] Now, you have to understand, these trees have a little interesting bit in their life cycle. When they get ready to go into growing season, they grow a ton of extra leaves. They fill out and they go into leaf. And as soon as they go into leaf, they begin to grow fig buds. They kind of look like this. I have a picture of them.
[00:19:08] Yeah, cool, guys. And the thing about these fig buds is this. They're sour, but they're completely and totally safe and edible.
[00:19:17] And so when you saw a tree in leaf that wasn't owned, that wasn't being prepared for harvest, that was sitting on the side of the road, it would be really normal for travelers walking along to snag buds off of it to get a little munch while they're walking. That's a really normal thing. These buds are safe to eat, right?
[00:19:39] When Jesus checks the tree, however, it's in full leaf, and yet there are no buds. It looks like it should have them, but it doesn't. And we have no idea why. The text doesn't tell us. Was the tree sick? Had it already been picked? Was it too young? Was it too old? The text doesn't tell us. And here's the thing, guys, that's not necessary for our parable. What's important is this.
[00:20:02] A fig tree in leaf should have fruit.
[00:20:08] That's how they're made to be. Even if it's just buds, should have something. It's advertising fruit by having its leaves out, right? It's a fruit tree. Its purpose is to provide fruit. And rather than do that, this tree is full of leaves and nothing else. It's all talk. It's all display, and it has no fruit. And when Jesus discovers this deficiency, he curses the tree. It's done had a chance to bear fruit and it didn't. So now it never will again. It withers, it dies. And it goes to just being future firewood. Because remember, this parable is connected back to Jesus's judgment of the Temple system. What we're supposed to see in this is that the temple in Jerusalem is a fig tree in leaf.
[00:21:03] It's loud, it's bold, it's magnificent, it's inviting people to come into it. But its purpose was to connect people to God, and it was not doing that.
[00:21:16] Just like a fig tree and leaf with no fruit, the temple is loud and imposing, but it is bearing no spiritual fruit. In fact, we saw last week, it's creating barriers for people to connect with God.
[00:21:30] Brings to mind to me the words of the fiery John the Baptist when he was calling out the religious leaders of his day and said, you brood of vipers who warned you to flee the coming wrath, produce fruit. In keeping with repentance, produce fruit. Or else he actually told them, the axe is already at the root of the tree. Right?
[00:21:55] Temple religion is not bearing fruit and it will be cursed to wither just like the fig tree. But here's the thing, guys. Jesus is not just a prophet prophesying something about people's lack of covenant faithfulness and the grand tradition of Isaiah and Ezekiel that is happening. He is that. But he's not just a prophet. He's not just a Jewish rabbi in the first century teaching his followers. He's not even just the Messiah, although he is that as well. No, no, because you have to remember, Jesus is the king.
[00:22:28] He is God himself. This temple is not Jesus's connection to God. It is Jesus's temple. It's his.
[00:22:37] He put it there to draw people unto himself, and it was not doing that. In Luke 13, Jesus tells a parable really similar to this story. He says this. A man had a fig tree that was planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he told the vineyard worker, listen, for three years I've come out looking for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any. I'm done. Cut it down. Why should it waste the soil? But he replied to him, sir, leave it just this year. Also, let me dig around it and fertilize it. Perhaps it will produce fruit next year, but if not, yes, let's cut it down. Cut it down.
[00:23:19] The king has come. He has inspected his temple, his fig tree, and it bears no fruit. It had warnings, it had time, but it bears no fruit.
[00:23:32] So Jesus is done.
[00:23:35] He's going to tear it down. He's going to do something new.
[00:23:39] That's intense, right?
[00:23:42] And I think what's so interesting here is just like so much of Jesus's earthly ministry in this moment, the Disciples have no clue what Jesus is doing or talking about. It's only later, after his resurrection, with the help of the Holy Spirit, they begin to understand these teachings, these parables that Jesus gave in these moments. But right now, in the space, instead of going, oh, wow, look at this. Jesus is using his kingly authority to render judgment upon the temple. Instead, they're like, dang, dude, you killed a tree with your words. That's pretty cool. How'd you do that? That tree's dead. That's nuts. That's, like, as far as they got with it, right?
[00:24:16] And so Jesus responds, and his response is brilliant. Verse 21, Jesus answered them, truly, I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you tell this mountain, be lifted up and thrown into the sea, it will be done. And if you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.
[00:24:40] This is kind of strange, but it's brilliant. Rather than stop and explain what he's doing.
[00:24:46] No, no, guys, this is a parable. Here's what it means. Jesus just rolls with the question, that is nuts that I killed a tree with my words. That's pretty wild.
[00:24:56] And then he goes on and uses his answer to draw them back to what he's trying to teach in the first place. He essentially says, oh, you think that's impressive? Killing a tree with my words? You think that's cool? Well, do this. Lean into me, have faith and don't doubt, and you'll do stuff greater than withering a tree.
[00:25:15] It's a figure of speech, you know, about throwing a mountain. He's not actually telling them to throw mountains. But this is a common figure of speech to mean big, heavy, hard, difficult, miraculous things. He's saying that his followers in faith, will do greater things than they're seeing him do right now.
[00:25:33] Okay, now we have to hang out here for just a couple seconds. I think this part of the text is actually relatively simple, but there are two big obstacles to us fully engaging this section of the text. The first one here is this. Jesus's teaching here kind of seems like a non sequitur, right? Like, it seems like he switches subjects really quickly. He's acting out this parable about God's judgment on the temple and the regions, the religion's lack of fruit, and when his disciples don't immediately get it. Rather than explain what he's doing, Jesus talks to them about faith and miracles. And I think on a surface, like, when you first read it, you're just like, that's confusing, I don't get it. But I think that we have an extra layer that we have to dig through. And you're going to have to permit me just a little bit of a rabbit trail here because I think this is actually really important for us. We have an extra barrier in understanding this text because this is a text that is among a group of passages incorrectly used to justify heresy in the modern day church in the form of the Prosperity Gospel. If you don't already know what that is, I'm going to take a little second and just talk about it. This is a little bit of a rabbit trail, but I think it's important in our cultural moment to talk about these things when we're able and when they naturally come up in the text. Let me sum up this bad theology for you as a warning that you might avoid it. Some folk who claim the name of Christ interpret the Bible through a lens that says this because God defines his relationship with us through covenants or agreements. That's biblically true, by the way, but because he does that, they say that Jesus work on the cross didn't just secure our redemption from sin, it does do that, but that it also includes all the literal exact promises of all the covenants that preceded it.
[00:27:22] Specifically that on the cross, in the moment of atonement, Jesus didn't just pay for sin, but paid for literal immediate physical health and literal immediate material prosperity or wealth. He did that on the cross. And because of that, every Christian who is alive who has faith in Jesus is guaranteed access at any given time to healing wealth and financial success if they only have enough faith. Oh, and conveniently, did you actually know the best way for you to build up faith? A magic way for you to build up faith is to give money to ministries like theirs.
[00:28:03] That's rough, but that's a real thing. Listen, guys, if you know me, you probably know me well enough to know I don't like to bicker with brothers and sisters about secondary issues. But this is not like Baptists and Presbyterians debating about whether or not we should baptize babies or grownups.
[00:28:19] We're talking about a destructive heresy.
[00:28:23] The Prosperity Gospel is heretical, breaks the gospel of Jesus. It not only manipulates and steals from people in the name of Christ, but it shipwrecks people's faith, shipwrecks people's faith. Prosperity Gospel and a lot of the Word of Faith movement that's connected to it, guys.
[00:28:43] Heresy, pure and simple, and has to be denounced. It has to Be denounced in strong terms because you and those who you love should be protected from that bad teaching, that bad man made religion. The Bible does not teach that.
[00:29:00] This book does not tell you that Jesus guarantees you health and wealth and comfort and success if you have faith. It does not say that. But these preachers, they probably should use air quotes when I said that end up with net worths in the hundreds of millions because they have taken it from their followers by promising them these things.
[00:29:26] This is uncomfortable to hear, uncomfortable for me to say actually, but I think it's important to do it to this level in a space like this. Folk like Kenneth Copeland or Benny Hinn or Joel Osteen or Joyce Meyer or even well known evangelists like Todd White teach that your faith or your lack of faith is a block between you and physical healing and material prosperity that you need and want. And you need to know that is a lie from the pit of hell.
[00:29:57] Charlatans will use texts like this one that we just read to justify this position.
[00:30:03] I think it's why it's such a hard block for many of us to get over when we read this text, when we're actually trying to study it. Because when we read this text, rather than hearing Jesus and his challenge and his comfort and his gospel, we're envisioning televangelists wearing suits that we couldn't afford with half a year's salary.
[00:30:22] I promise you, beloved, the prosperity gospel is far from what Jesus is teaching here. Far from it. Jesus does not say here that is, or he does say here that his followers will be involved in wonderful miracles. Right? Like that is what he's inviting us to. Like, in your faith you can be a part of amazing things, greater things than just withering a tree. And we should take that seriously. Jesus is speaking into a supernatural promise here. Jesus church and Jesus followers. We get to join Jesus in his miraculous ministry. That's awesome. That's a cool invitation. However, the very phrases that today's prosperity teachers misuse, when understood in their context, they put these texts in the right biblical light.
[00:31:16] Jesus says if you have faith, if you do not doubt, if you believe, then these things will happen.
[00:31:22] So what does that phrase mean if it doesn't mean I just got to have enough faith to get the stuff want in life? What does it actually mean?
[00:31:31] How do you just have faith and no doubts?
[00:31:34] And if their faith is right, they can really just ask for anything, just have it on the surface.
[00:31:42] If you didn't have access to like, oh, I don't know, the rest of the Bible.
[00:31:47] I can actually see how you could take this verse on its own out of context and justify a prosperity mindset.
[00:31:55] Because a basic tenet of biblical interpretation is that if you have multiple passages over the course of scripture that seem to teach in one direction, and then you find a few, a small amount of verses that seem to be in conflict with that. A basic tenet of biblical interpretation is this. You interpret the minority texts through the lens of the majority texts, not vice versa. You don't interpret the majority text through the lens of the minority texts. It's not how it works. So when you have a whole Bible that talks about the reality of sin and the reality of suffering in the context of the curse and the fact that following Jesus means giving up earthly pleasures and experiencing hardship, you don't take one or two verses where Jesus is talking about supernatural, miraculous prayer and go, well, I guess that just brushes aside the whole rest of the text. No, you need to step back and go, if this verse I'm reading seems like it's in conflict with like the rest of the Bible as I understand it, I probably should look at what I'm missing in this text. There's probably something going on here that I'm not engaging correctly. Right. And I think that's what's happening here. When Jesus is talking about faith and belief and not having doubt, there is something below our surface rating, our surface reading. Guys, you have to remember this whole text is talking about Jesus's judgment of the fruitless temple worship.
[00:33:24] When Jesus says to have faith, to believe, not to doubt, he's not talking about believing in another fruitless worldly religion like the temple.
[00:33:35] The religion of the temple took God and tried to lower him to human concerns. If you go back and study pharisaical and even Sadducee ical theology from the first century, what you find out is this.
[00:33:48] They were, they were trying to use worship to get God to give them what they wanted in this world.
[00:33:54] Political independence, worldly prominence, the return of the good old days of ancient Israel. They thought if they did the right religious practices, if they followed the right laws, if they did the sacrifices, if they built the temple and enough people should and did the sacrifices, then they could get God to do what they wanted to restore Israel.
[00:34:16] This is the exact kind of empty, fruitless, worldly religion that Jesus rejected and cursed so he wouldn't then immediately tell us to do the same thing. Believe in whatever you want and you can have it. No, no, no, no, no. The faith and belief that Jesus is talking about here isn't faith and belief that God will do what you want, that he will bow to you. It's faith and belief in Jesus himself.
[00:34:46] It's the kind of faith and belief that aligns your heart with the heart of Jesus and the ministry of Jesus. You see, beloved, core to the true gospel is the reality that Jesus is Lord. That he's not just your savior, he's not just the lover of your soul, he's not just the friend of sinners. He is all those things. But he is not just those things. He is Yahweh, the creator, the king, the Lord of reality. He made all of this.
[00:35:17] Everything you see, everything you don't see, he made you. He made me. He designed us. And beloved, he is the one who sustains us in this reality in spite of our sin and rebellion. He's the one who. Who made a way for our sins to be forgiven. He's the one who sought us out in our death. He's the one who went to the cross and paid the price for our sin. Beloved, the gospel is because of the love and generosity of God, not us.
[00:35:51] It's not something we've done.
[00:35:54] It's the gift of the gracious, loving, kind God. We get to respond. Yeah. Yes, yes, and amen. We get to respond. But we get to respond because of God's amazing, wonderful goodness.
[00:36:10] To think of your faith, to think of your religion, some sort of method to get God to obey you guys, that's just magic.
[00:36:20] It's witchcraft. That's figuring out spells and incantations to control the world around you. That is not biblical gospel. And hear this, beloved, it is a poor religion.
[00:36:33] It is fruitless and unsatisfying because God doesn't worship us.
[00:36:40] He doesn't bow to us. You don't control him. You don't manipulate him. You don't trick him. You don't command him. You, beloved, worship him because he is God.
[00:36:53] He's your king, your Lord. You, beloved, fall at his feet in repentance and gratitude because of his kindness.
[00:37:05] You don't come to him demanding. This life is hard. I need wealth, I need comfort or anything else.
[00:37:12] You come to him believing that he is good, he is gracious, that he makes a way for you to be forgiven of your sins.
[00:37:20] This, beloved, is what Jesus is getting at in our text. This is what it means to join with Jesus, to pray in faith with no doubt, with belief. Not that you're so confident that God will heal that illness or give you that new job or make that relationship work, but rather that you pray with a confidence that Jesus is good and in spite of his holiness and your sinfulness, he's still and making a way of restoration for you and preparing for you and for me, a perfect eternity. That, beloved, is your confidence.
[00:37:54] So yes, yes, we pray and we pray boldly. You pray for your sick friend and you know what? When they're healed, you praise God and you thank him. And when they're not healed, it's not because you lacked faith where they lacked sufficient faith to activate the Jesus power of healing.
[00:38:16] It's because sometimes sickness does not get better in a cursed and broken world. But God is still good and heaven is still real and it is still for you in that space. Yes, beloved, you will see God move mountains.
[00:38:32] Praying in that kind of belief will continually align you with the work of the kingdom and the desires of Jesus. Listen, there's no amount of faith that can unlock your selfish prayer for a new car to magically work. That's not a thing.
[00:38:49] But when you really believe the gospel, when you've really experienced just how good Jesus is and how amazing his heart for you is, and your life and your prayers begin to move toward kingdom things.
[00:39:02] And your prayers for your children to come to love the Lord, and your prayers for breakthroughs in your own spiritual life, and your prayers for God to move in power on mission trips. And your prayers and heart desire to see more Christians step up and engage in ministry for the kingdom. And your prayers to see more foster children in Christian homes. And your prayers to see the gospel break into countries where the government tries to suppress it and persecute believers. And you begin to pray in kingdom things.
[00:39:28] You will, beloved, get swallowed up in the miracles of God.
[00:39:32] You will see Jesus work amazing miracles in this world and you will get to be a part of them.
[00:39:39] You get to participate with him. If you don't believe me, go back on our back wall and literally pick any of those missionaries and just email them and ask them.
[00:39:50] Just ask them. There is something about stepping out in faith for the sake of the kingdom that opens the door for us to join with Jesus in works that are much greater than withering trees.
[00:40:03] That's what it means to pray in belief. Without doubt.
[00:40:08] It means to trust that Jesus is who he says he is, that his gospel is real. And it means that you get to align yourself with him, see him do amazing things to really wrap it all back together. This, beloved, is the fruit Jesus is looking for in his church. That's what he's looking for.
[00:40:26] That lack of fruit that led to judgment, that was the natural outcome of selfish, man centered, bad religion.
[00:40:35] But the kind of religious practice that points us back to Jesus, to his gospel, to his church, that kind of religion will begin to bear this kind of gospel fruit in our lives. It will. This is what Paul was describing in that famous passage in Galatians 5. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. There's no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ, Jesus has crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
[00:41:08] As you align with the Spirit, as you believe in him, as you experience him, as you're reminded of the gospel, the Spirit will bear his fruit in your life. Jesus called this abiding in John 15. Our belief, our faith, a faithful, remaining in and with Jesus, spending time with him, being rooted in the Gospel, coming back to it continually. These are all biblical ways of saying this.
[00:41:33] We trust to Jesus.
[00:41:35] We trust that he is as good as he says he is and that His Gospel is as sufficient as he says it is. We trust him. And when we do that, the Spirit of God himself bears fruit in our lives.
[00:41:50] Our lives cease to be a tree full of leaves.
[00:41:54] Rather, God himself bears the fruit, which is just so heartening, isn't it? Isn't it just so encouraging? Yes, Jesus is looking for followers who bear fruit. Yes, we are sinful and bad at bearing spiritual fruit. But beloved, the gospel was never dependent on you.
[00:42:14] It was always Jesus.
[00:42:17] It was always Him.
[00:42:19] And when you continue to trust him and rely on him, rather than trying to control him to get what you want in this world, he is faithful to bear the fruit that he is looking for in your life.
[00:42:31] It's a good religion. Trust Jesus to bear fruit.
[00:42:35] That's what it is.
[00:42:37] I'm going to land with three practical thoughts, Chris, if you want to come back up.
[00:42:41] I just want to give us three thoughts. Take this out of like the abstract and go like man. What are some things I can do with this truth in my life? Stepping out of church today, I think first and foremost there's a real gut check here.
[00:42:54] Are you using religion as a way to manipulate God to get what you want?
[00:43:00] It can be so much more subtle than the heretical prosperity gospel.
[00:43:05] We can reject the idea that God will make me rich, but hold on to the idea that if I'm spiritual enough, God will make me happy.
[00:43:12] Right?
[00:43:14] I read my Bible enough. I go to church. If I tithe, if I go on a mission trip, then God will give me a happy life. We just spend a whole little series talking about pursuing happiness, right?
[00:43:24] The good life is not found in tricking Jesus, but in trusting Him.
[00:43:30] It's in joining with him in his work.
[00:43:33] And that does mean a life that includes hardship, that includes suffering, that includes loss. But in the midst of all of that has Jesus.
[00:43:43] That's enough, guys. So there's a gut check there for us. But secondly, I think it's really worth asking if you were taking the steps toward that kind of good religion that Jesus talks about, good religion that points you to Jesus, that reminds you to trust Him. And guys, if that's something you want to pursue or grow in your life, it will almost certainly mean prioritizing your life in the Word of God.
[00:44:07] Are you engaging His Word?
[00:44:10] Do you have a prayer life? Do you participate in the community life of the church?
[00:44:17] Join with us. You could jump into one of the Bible reading plans that many people in our church are doing right now. You could seek to grow in your prayer life by processing the scripture you read on paper in prayer. The life of trusting Jesus, guys, is always best accomplished when we do it together, beloved. We can grow together and grow toward Jesus together.
[00:44:40] We do that in His Word, we do that in our worship, we do it in small groups.
[00:44:44] And lastly, this one is really connected to our text.
[00:44:49] Are you looking for kingdom work in your midst?
[00:44:53] You're jumping in, in prayer, in an action.
[00:44:57] Because if you want to see the miracles Jesus is talking about here, if you want to see the mountains move in your life, if you want to do more than just withering fig trees, it'll happen when you're sinking yourself up to the work that Jesus is doing in our midst.
[00:45:14] Beloved, those of you who are in Christ, what lost person or persons are you praying for right now?
[00:45:23] You got to know guys, there is room in the kingdom of God.
[00:45:27] There are plenty of empty seats. There's room.
[00:45:33] So who is that one more that you're praying for that you're thinking about on a regular basis, on a daily basis?
[00:45:43] Are you looking for opportunities? Opportunities to invite them? Are you praying that the Spirit would give you supernaturally non awkward conversations and opportunities to invite them to come to know Jesus, to soften their hearts? You being bold and jumping out there and doing it, having a conversation?
[00:46:04] Beloved, what if, what if you're the one who's supposed to get into our gross little kiddie pool and baptize that person next year at our baptism service.
[00:46:19] What if that's you?
[00:46:21] What if you're the one that God is going to use to bring that person from death to life, to share the gospel with them, to just see God move in their heart and their lives and power.
[00:46:32] What if that's you?
[00:46:35] That God's actually going to use you, you to save that grandkid, that co worker, that neighbor, that your boldness, your prayers, the spark that will ignite the fire of the Spirit in their life.
[00:46:48] That's some mountain moving kind of faith guys.
[00:46:53] We can jump into that with Jesus. We can pray toward that beloved. The gospel of Jesus is amazing.
[00:47:04] It's amazing the King of the universe would regard such as you and I what an embarrassment of riches we have in Christ. Amen.
[00:47:14] Let's, let's do this.
[00:47:18] Let's take a few minutes in prayer.
[00:47:20] Let's consider what God might have been telling us over this time.
[00:47:24] Maybe you need to work through that gut check of the way you've been trying to manipulate be like God. Maybe you need to think about what it looks like to grow in good Christ centered religion.
[00:47:36] Or maybe it's you're just ready to jump in and join with Jesus and see mountains move, speak with him for a few minutes, then we'll continue on with their communion.
