Mark's Gospel chapter 11, I'll begin reading at verse 12. Hear now the inerrant holy word of God. Now on the following day, when they came from Bethany, Jesus was hungry, and seeing in the distance a fig tree and 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 of 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. 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, behold, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered. Jesus answered, 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 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. Whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also, who is heaven, may forgive you your trespasses. This is the word of the Lord. We thank God for it. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you. Thank you for coming. Born a baby in a manger in Bethlehem who lived a perfect life. Indeed, the perfect life that we ought to live in joyful obedience to you. But in every way that we have failed, Lord Jesus, you have succeeded. And that you came not only as the king born in the city of David, but you then proceeded as that promised son of David to Jerusalem, where you would restore all that we have broken. where you would cleanse everything that we have defiled. And so we pray now, Holy Spirit, that you would work in us, that you would use your word as you have intended to use it to soften our hardened hearts, to cleanse our burdened consciences, to encourage and embolden us to believe you so thoroughly and so completely that our actions would demonstrate the truthfulness of your word. Oh Lord, we beg of you that you would do that. Speak through this humble servant now, we pray. In Christ's name, Amen. In Winchester, Virginia, they had every year the Apple Blossom Festival. And as a kid, I loved going to the Apple Blossom Festival. Not only was it absolutely gorgeous to see all of these hundreds and thousands of apple trees blooming, but they also had all kinds of fantastic food. games and activities and all kinds of things. It was a wonderful thing. But as pretty as apple blossoms are, they're not really the point. At least, they're not the point of apple trees. The blossoms tell you what? Fruit's on its way. You know, apple blossoms are pretty, but they're not very filling. But apples, now we're talking. Jesus uses a similar object lesson in his day, because he wasn't in Winchester, Virginia, but there in Jerusalem, everyone was familiar with fig trees. And the point of the fig tree was not just a little shade on a hot day. But the leaves were there to tell you something. Figs are supposed to be not just on their way, but there ought to be figs there. Now imagine the Lord of all creation The God who made, who designed, who spoke into existence every fig tree that has ever existed. And that he's come on Christmas to take human form, where he's not simply God, but God and man, subject to all of the things of humanity like hunger. The king is hungry and so goes to one of his servants, a fig tree in this case, for food. They're flying the flag, this tree is flying the flag that fruit's ready. But there's none for the master. Now there are those who will take this account as proof that Jesus was a man, sure, but just a man, given to flying off the handle just like you and I are. But that's not why Mark has included this in his gospel account. Jesus is not sinning here. He's not taking out his hunger-induced rage on a fig tree. No, in fact he's making a very important point and lesson to his disciples that Mark has recorded for us. So let's dig into this a little bit. In your order of worship you'll see an outline that gives you some things to kind of follow along. You'll see there the first thing we're going to look at is the warning that Jesus gives to both fruitless trees and fruitless temples. Second, how Jesus arrives as a gardener and priest. That may be language that you're not as used to thinking about as regards Jesus, but we're going to unpack the text and see how that motif actually helps us to better understand who Jesus is as our Redeemer. And then third, we'll see how Jesus was a curse, that is, he bore the curse. for us in order to make us his holy temple. So let's look at each one of these in turn. First we have this fruitless tree and fruitless temple. You see Mark is tying these two things together in his gospel account to help explain the temple cleansing as it relates to us. It's not simply that Jesus goes in and cleans house and that has nothing to do with us. No, he's doing this temple cleansing very specifically to help us to better understand the redemption, the restoration that he's come to bring. And so Mark ties these two together, literally, by sandwiching the temple cleansing in between the cursing of the fig tree to begin with, then giving the temple cleansing, and then the explanation of the cursing of the fig tree. Do you see how that, in this passage, that's the flow that you would have. And by doing that, Mark, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, of course, is highlighting this temple cleansing as significant for more than just a day in the life, so to speak, of Jesus. He's helping us to see the significance of what Jesus is doing in this temple cleansing. And so we find first Jesus cursing the fig tree as a warning against hypocrisy. The fig tree looks one way. It has leaves. It's in its leaf as a declaration to weary travelers, there's food to eat here. It's waving a flag. It's like the on sign in a restaurant. We were just recently down in New York City, and there's this wonderful thing right off of Times Square, where you've got all these lights, but out of all those lights, there's a Krispy Kreme sign that's huge. It's bigger than our house. And this Krispy Kreme sign has under the Krispy Kreme logo, what? It says, Hot Donuts Now. Right? It's a beacon. It's calling you. You begin to salivate just seeing the sign lighted. There could be Krispy Kreme melting in my mouth right now. That's the flag that the fig tree is flying. But it doesn't match the reality. Did that ever happen in your life? Have you ever told friends, neighbors, co-workers, yes, I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. And the scripture says that in the lives of followers of Jesus, there will be the fruits of the Spirit. And yet when they look, There's no fruit. No demonstration of the supernatural power of God. No graciousness demonstrating our understanding of being forgiven, beloved, and adopted. Jesus curses the fig tree as a warning against hypocrisy. And he then goes into Jerusalem and into the temple to reveal the temple's fruitlessness. You see, the temple was not just an architect's creation. It wasn't just that Herod thought, well, this would be nice to build a monument, to employ lots of folks, to have something as a nice edifice to show my great power as a king. No, the temple was God's idea. And the temple very specifically was a replica of what was in the heavens in terms of God's throne room. And that was to be mirrored by the earthly temple as a witness. As a place for human beings to go and realize that there is a God who can hear their prayers. And the temple was built specifically with these three different parts that led into the inner sanctum, the Holy of Holies, that was the place where God's presence dwelled. We're given the image of a footstool in a king's throne room. See, God's throne room is far too massive for any place on earth, or even the whole of the earth. It's just a footstool for Yahweh. And that Holy of Holies is the place that God in his presence dwells. And that once a year, only once a year, the high priest would go into on the Day of Atonement to offer sacrifice for his people. So this inner part, the Holy of Holies, was where God's presence touched down on earth, so to speak. And then there was the court of the Jews, where God's people would go to worship and to pray, to praise God for His goodness, to be overwhelmed by proximity to the King. But then the far larger part of the temple was the court of the Gentiles. The place where people who had not yet converted to Judaism could not only go but were supposed to be welcomed. That's why Jesus in lambasting them and cursing them like he does the fig tree, reminds them what that temple was supposed to be. Did you catch that? Look with me again at the text. Jesus in teaching them says, is it not written, this is in verse 17, is it not written my house shall be called a house of prayer for whom? Just the Jews. Is that what the text says? No. What does it say? My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations. That's why most commentators believe that what is being described here in Mark most likely is in this outer court of the Gentiles. The place that was supposed to be a quiet refuge for those who were not part of the household of faith, those who were not born into the Jewish people, but who had encountered something about their God, something about Yahweh, and they knew that there was something about this God, Yahweh, that was different than Zeus, or Hades, or Jupiter, or any of the other pantheon of gods. This was a God who was altogether different. And so they had oftentimes sold what they had, left their families, left what they knew, and traveled to Jerusalem, and come here to see this place where Yahweh, the God of the Bible, is said to be on earth. and instead of a quiet place to contemplate and to pray and to seek this only God who truly is. Instead of quiet they found tumult. They found that to come and to enter into God's temple They had to exchange their Roman currency for not just Israeli currency, but for temple currency. The money changers were there to give them not a fair exchange, but to milk them for all their worth. And then they could go from the money changer to the place where they were selling pigeons to offer as sacrifices. and there again the exchange was not in their favor. And so you've got stalls, and markets, and booths for all of these things for people to gain instead of God being glorified. And Jesus will have none of it. He cleanses the temple to reveal the deadness, the fruitlessness of the temple of that time. And then he explains to his disciples their priestly authority on his behalf. And all of these things are connected and so Mark shows them to us. together. And this connection runs throughout scripture. This is not just something that Mark creates or introduces. No, he's picking up on themes that run throughout the scripture. Now to look at that in any kind of comprehensive ways way beyond the time that we have here this morning. But let me just point you to some of the things that I think are helpful for us to better understand the passage that we're looking at. The first thing is to see that the Garden of Eden is the ground zero. It's the beginning place for this theme. It's a place that God creates that's full of trees. We're told specifically of the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Those are two specific trees. But the picture that's painted there in Genesis is of a lush garden full of all kinds of trees. All kinds of trees that are full of fruit for human beings to eat and to enjoy. And not only that, but we're also given these instructions that Adam and Eve are commanded to guard and tend that garden. That God places Adam and Eve in His garden to come alongside Him, made in His image, to garden with Him. Now I have not just a brown thumb but a black thumb. I can kill almost any plant known to man. You do not want to ever entrust me with your plants. But we see in the scripture this calling of humanity to be stewards over what God has given us. And that many of you who really enjoy gardening, you find something of that, what I think of as the Eric Little principle. You know how Eric Little, the Scottish runner from the Olympics in Paris, he talks about, when I run, I feel the smile of God. There's something of that that many of us feel and experience in gardening. Just get your hands in the dirt and to see the results of careful gardening. And that's not just some hippie thing. That's actually part of how we're designed. and that the garden is there for that. And in the garden, before Adam and Eve fell into sin, there were no false flags. There were no trees that indicated that they were in fruit that wouldn't also then have fruit. You see, that's something that comes after the fall, that it's after Adam and Eve's sin that there are thorns and thistles, that there's drought, that there's difficulty, that there's a world with its plant life out of whack. And that that's part of what Jesus is not only encountering, but is showing that he's here to restore, to make right, to undo all of the horrific ways in which our sin has twisted the actual earth and all of creation. But not only was the Garden of Eden full of trees, we also find that the Garden of Eden was a temple. It's the place where they met God. The scripture tells us in Genesis that God would come and that they would walk together in the cool of the day. That there is this connection between Adam and Eve and God in the Garden of Eden. and that they're charged again with that tending of the garden. And this is imagery that's picked up later in the scriptures in the establishment of the temple. That Aaron and his children, the Levitical line, are charged with guarding and keeping the temple in much the same way. And that God actually designs the temple in ways where there are markers or signs calling back to memory the Garden of Eden. That there were pomegranates fashioned in the decorations of the temple. That there were woven into the curtains images of this kind of fruit. And so the Levitical priests were there to guard and purify the temple much like Adam and Eve were to guard the garden. And so Moses calls on the priests in Exodus 32 when the people have fallen into unholy idolatry. Remember that Moses calls who is with me and on the side of the Lord and it's the Levitical priests who come to him and help purify the people. Or Phineas in Numbers chapter 25 who purifies the people so that the horrific curse can be stopped. All of these things are showing us these themes carrying out through scripture and then Mark picks up on that in our passage before us. Do you notice how we looked at last week how Jesus comes into the temple and walks around and sees everything that is there and then leaves and we talked about the deafening silence that the chief priest and the scribes, nobody does anything. Here's the King of Kings come to his temple, nothing. Notice where the chief priests and the scribes are in this passage. Did you see it? He tells us the chief priests and scribes heard and did what? Plotted how to destroy Jesus. Oh they're doing something alright. They're figuring out how to kill him. an utter failure of what they're supposed to be doing. Jesus has come precisely to restore what has been so defiled and desecrated and destroyed. So that brings us to our second point that Jesus arrives in Jerusalem as this gardener priest. As we see with Adam and Eve. As we see with the Levitical priesthood. He is in that role. Now there are lots of other roles that Jesus also serves. Right? We know Jesus as not just the priest but also as the prophet who speaks the Word of God. Who John says is the very Word of God. We also see Jesus as the son of David. As the king. So there are lots of different roles. This particular passage is focusing in on this priestly aspect with these kind of gardener themes to them. And so his warning about hypocrisy in the cursing of the fig tree is not something that Jesus is doing to add to our shame. He doesn't curse the fig tree and then turn to the disciples and say, okay, you're next. He's using this as a warning that they might see the real danger of hypocrisy. And that seeing that, they might do what? believe Jesus and turn from their sin. It's faith and repentance. This is what we see God doing through his word time and again. He chides us. He warns us. He does things to get our attention so that he can really get us. No. He does those things because yes those things are dangerous and will and always do lead to destruction but he is kind and good and merciful that he reminds us of these things so that we might believe him and turn away from them and turn to him. So he gives this warning about hypocrisy and Mark here, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is prodding his readers to pay attention. As he tells this story about the fig tree, there's this very odd sentence. Look with me in the text, verse 14. He's just cursed the fig tree, or as he said to it, may no one ever eat fruit from you again. And then right after his cursing it, what does it say? His disciples heard it. What? And we've seen with Mark, time and again, he's much shorter. His gospel is shorter than Matthew or Luke or John. He leaves stuff out that they include. Why does he give a whole sentence? I mean it's a short sentence, but why does he make sure that we understand that the disciples heard Jesus is cursing the fig tree? Mark's not just including that for our sakes, he's wanting us to see that Jesus did this so that the disciples would hear it. And that we've had 10 chapters already of Mark where by and large the disciples didn't hear and didn't understand. They didn't see and the blind man sees. They didn't get it and yet the one who doesn't have does get it. Again and again he's been showing this. Now as they're getting closer to the cross his disciples begin to actually hear. To actually understand. Not only does he tell us specifically that the disciples heard it, but then jump down after the cleansing of the temple. When they come back the next day after the cleansing in the temple, they see the fig tree withered away to its roots, and then what does verse 21 say? And Peter remembered. Not only did he hear it when Jesus said it, but usually when the disciples heard something that Jesus said that was significant, they forgot it like in a nanosecond. Here, Peter sees the withered tree. Hey, wait a minute. You cursed this fig tree yesterday. Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered. Do you catch the humor here? Here, Peter, spokesman of the disciples, who's come all of this way with Jesus. They've now finally gotten to Jerusalem and Peter's, huh, you said this and it actually happened. Who'd have thunk? That's incredible. But it's not just that Peter is starting to get it. Do you hear the loving shepherding of Mark to the congregation in Rome to whom he's writing? Beloved, are you starting to hear it? Are you starting to see that Jesus is doing all of these things because he loves us? Because he's come to restore us out of the death, out of the hopelessness, out of the drought, out of the brokenness, out of all of these things into life. And so Jesus arrives in Jerusalem as this gardener priest, and the disciples are beginning to actually hear it, and understand it, and remember it. Do we? Do we remember on Wednesday what we've heard, what we've read, when temptation comes knocking on Thursday evening? are we remembering that God is good, that Jesus has come, that he's delivered us from these things. He's weeding out the false fig trees and he's cleansing the temple so that we might understand what he's come to do in us. The fig tree withered away to its root and the temple was cleansed here, but he's also pointing forward to and talks about in the gospel how his body is actually the temple. And if they tear that down in three days he will restore it. Speaking of his resurrection. But also we find in history that this temple is not around much longer than in 70 AD. It's torn down entirely that not even one stone remains on another. The physical temple will be destroyed because it's going to be irrelevant. As he's the restorer who's come to make a new temple made of living stones. That is all who trust in Christ. in this new era of the living temple his instructions against hypocrisy will be even more important. What does Jesus stress? Look with me at the text. The meat that's in the middle of the sandwich here that we have from the Gospel of Mark, verses 15 to 19. As he talks about all of these things of why they're fruitless, why the house of prayer has been turned into a way to rob people. He goes through all of that cleansing and then turns in verse 20 and is explaining that to his disciples as they see the result the next day of his cursing of the fig tree. And so look with me at verse 22. He says, And Jesus answered them, have faith in God. Now just as a placard, just as a normal quote from Jesus, right, something that is going to be put on a needlepoint thing and hung in your house somewhere, you know, I mean that's a pretty standard thing, have faith in God. Yeah, okay, sure. But why does Jesus say that here and now? when what Peter has just said is whoa that fig tree that you cursed is toast. And Jesus says have faith in God. Because the fig trees cursing has to do with this hypocrisy of proclaiming leaves and not having fruit. And so I'm warning you disciples to not be like that. But rather what should you do? Have faith in God. Is your outward expression of following Jesus grounded in the inward reality that you believe in Christ? That you trust him more than you trust anything else? Have faith in God, he says. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass. It will be done to him. Now, how often have you gotten to a passage like that and said, so how does that work entirely? Have you, like me, prayed for lots of things that didn't happen? And there's a very unfortunate part of evangelicalism that will look at passages like this and then turn it around and say, you didn't get what you prayed for because you didn't believe enough. And so what Jesus is saying here is try harder. believe more. Except that's not what he says is it? He says rather have faith in God. The point is not how much faith you have but what you're placing that faith in. Have faith in God not in yourself having enough faith. And so he goes on talking about these things that seem kind of abstract, right? That if you were to say to this mountain, move, that it would move. I don't know about you, but I'm far more likely to be praying for food to eat or health for my kids or grandkids than I am for Pico Mountain to move over to Mount Tom so that it's closer and we can ski more easily. How often do you need to say to a mountain, move? What's that all about? Well again, it's the Old Testament context. This isn't just about moving the mountains in and around Israel. It's about how Jesus has continued to tell us through his word that when Messiah comes the mountains will be moved and laid flat and the valleys will be raised up. There's all this imagery of the Old Testament of moving mountains and valleys so that what? So that they could be level, so that what could happen? So that the parade of Messiah could come to his people. It's graphic imagery talking about what we see any time the folks are making a highway. They grind off the mountaintops and fill in the valleys so that you've got easy passage, and can pay the payment for a highway. But the highway here is talking about the Lord. He's talking about the proclamation of the kingdom, of the kingdom going out to all the earth. He's not talking about you changing The structure of the mountains, he's talking about you extending the kingdom of God. You say, okay, but I've still got the same problem, Pastor. I've been praying for my neighbor for 30 years, and they still haven't trusted in Christ. And this says, if I trust in God, then that mountain will be moved. How do I do that? How do I make sense out of that? Trust in God. Have faith in God. Not to do things as you direct him to do, but that you can trust him with your needs. And the thing about this prayer that Jesus is talking about is the same kind of prayer that Jesus demonstrates in John 17. That it's not so much about us as it is about Christ and his glory. That what is being talked about here is the intercessory prayer of God's people acting as the priests he has made us to be. He tells us that he has made us to be a nation of priests. That just as Jesus is a priest, so are we to be. Have faith in God, he says. and forgive others so that the Father may forgive you. Well there's a lot more that we could say. Let me move to the third point. We find that Jesus goes to the cross and becomes cursed so that we might be made his holy temple. You see all of this cursing and all of this cleansing is foreshadowing what Jesus is about to do. And in the context of what we've just seen what Jesus is about to do is what Adam couldn't do. Adam was to guard and protect the garden. Adam was to be a gardener and a priest in God's temple in the garden. And he failed. Jesus is about to do what Aaron and the Levites could not do. Jesus is this high priest in the order of Melchizedek, as the book of Hebrews tells us. Where the Levites, yes, did have some shining moments of doing what they were supposed to. Mostly, as we read through scripture, is time and time again them acting just like the chief priests and the scribes during Jesus's time. When they should be proclaiming Messiah, instead they're looking for a way to kill him. What the Levites couldn't do, Jesus came to do. And that's what Jesus does on the cross. He protects us from our own sin. He produces fruit in keeping with repentance. He proclaims the glory of God. So much so that even the Roman centurion couldn't help but to cry out, certainly this man was innocent. You see since Jesus has restored both tree and temple we are free now to do what he's made us to do. To be his image bearers. To delight in him as we do the things that he's given to us to do. So let me just mention two. What does it mean for us to proclaim his lordship? I would say first we proclaim his lordship over all of life. As evangelicals, we often are very uncomfortable even with the imagery that is used here in this passage that I've talked about in terms of gardeners and trees. I remember one of the times that I was talking with a group of pastors about our sensing God's call for us to come here to New England and to tell people here in New England about Jesus. And one of the old pastors kind of scratched his head and said, New England? Son there are more trees there than people. Well yeah. Now let me be clear God cares more about people than he does trees. But let me also remind us that God does care about the trees. He made the trees. That the scripture tells us that the trees and the mountains and the rivers are groaning awaiting our being what we are actually made to be the sons of God. So what does it look like for us to proclaim the lordship of Jesus over all of life? Over all of creation? Do we have young men and women that we're encouraging to consider being a park ranger, being a conservationist, being engaged and involved with actual creation? Or do we just say, no, no, no, you ought to be a missionary or at least get a good enough paying job so that you can support missionaries. And a lot of evangelicalism, those are like the two tracks. Either of those is fine, but anything else well that's kind of second-class. No it's not. We ought to proclaim His Lordship over all of life. I love the way that the Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper talked about this. He said there's not a molecule in all of creation over which Jesus does not claim mine. It's fantastic for followers of Jesus to get involved in all kinds of things and there proclaim Christ's Lordship. Second thing, not only to proclaim His Lordship over all of life, but to proclaim His Lordship everywhere. Yeah, it is a good thing for us to be praying for our young men and women to consider being missionaries. and going to places not just deepest darkest Africa but also darkest deepest Vermont, New Hampshire, proclaiming the good news of the King. We need to proclaim Christ's Lordship everywhere because the temple is no longer just in Jerusalem. It's made of living stones throughout all the earth. Everyone needs to hear. everyone needs to be called to repentance. And so since Jesus has restored both tree and temple what are we to do? Let's proclaim His Lordship over everything and everywhere. Let's pray. Jesus thank you. Thank you for this passage and we've only just barely scratched the surface. There's so much richness here. Lord thank you that your word is so rich. Lord help us to apply this word to our lives. Help us to see not only the literary majesty of how you put this together but how all of that points to your majesty and how you have restored what we have defiled. Lord we praise you. Help us, Lord, to praise you over all of life and everywhere. In Christ's name.