A Warning of Fickle Fruitless Faith - Aaron Roberts

[SPEAKER_00]: Hello one, Happy New Year and welcome to our second online service.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am so glad that you could join us this morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the last of our online services.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll be meeting back in person next Sunday.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the 11th of January of 10 a.m.

[SPEAKER_00]: So look forward to seeing you there.

[SPEAKER_00]: But why don't you join me in a word of prayer as we begin our gathering together.

[SPEAKER_00]: Father, thank you for this time, we can have together.

[SPEAKER_00]: We thank you for this new year and we pray that you be glorified each and our lives individually and in our church in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Today, we have another message from our guest speaker, Aaron Roberts.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you didn't see last week's message, Aaron is an old friend of mine.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've been friends since my seven-year-days, and he'll be speaking today from Mark 11.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to read the passage, and then we're going to worship together, and then Aaron will join us for the message.

[SPEAKER_00]: Join me as I read Mark 11, versus 1, 2, 21.

[SPEAKER_00]: as they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethpage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus sent two of His disciples saying to them, go to the village ahead of you and just as you enter it, you will find a cultide there, which no one has ever written.

[SPEAKER_00]: Untire and bring it here.

[SPEAKER_00]: If anyone asks you why you're doing this, say the Lord needs it, and we'll send it back here shortly.

[SPEAKER_00]: They went and found a cult outside in the street, tied at a doorway, as they untied it, some people standing there asked, what are you doing, untying that cult?

[SPEAKER_00]: They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go.

[SPEAKER_00]: When they brought the cult to Jesus, and through their cloaks over it, he sat on it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Many people spread their cloaks on the road while others spread branches that they had cut in the fields.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed is the coming kingdom of our Father David, Hosanna in the highest heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts.

[SPEAKER_00]: He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelfth.

[SPEAKER_00]: The next day, as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry,

[SPEAKER_00]: Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit.

[SPEAKER_00]: When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves because it was not the season for figs.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then he said to the tree, may no one ever eat fruit from you again, and the disciples heard him say it.

[SPEAKER_00]: On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus answered the temple courts,

[SPEAKER_00]: and began driving out those who were buying and selling there.

[SPEAKER_00]: He overturned the tables of the money changes and the benches of those selling doves and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as he taught them, he said, is it not written?

[SPEAKER_00]: My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of robbers.

[SPEAKER_00]: The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and they began looking for a way

[SPEAKER_00]: because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.

[SPEAKER_00]: When evening came Jesus and his disciples went out of the city, in the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots.

[SPEAKER_00]: Peter remembered and said to Jesus, Rabbi, look, the fig tree you cursed has withered.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the word of the Lord.

[SPEAKER_02]: The time goes as soon as you go.

[SPEAKER_03]: For all the love, all the consumer But with it is all of my years my life Give it as it is all for you But with it, my heart

[SPEAKER_02]: And now, but we're in our hearts Until we see your image in our story Come rain and now, clear away the child In the crucible we find before your glory

[SPEAKER_02]: All surrounding, cast out, feast, land out, so air, step out, so, and graze.

[SPEAKER_02]: Until we see your image in us only Remember, you ain't enough in the crucible

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh holy fire, full of fresh uners That our hearts food, go with your power and light with your love Oh holy fire, full of fresh uners That our hearts food, go with your power and light with your power

[SPEAKER_02]: All through the day with your power and heart with love For we fire, for the flesh on us And our hearts will be held in the power of love

[SPEAKER_02]: And till we see her in, we're doing our song.

[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_02]: All the fresh on us, And our hearts will flow in your power by with your love.

[SPEAKER_02]: For we find a full of fresh on us, And our hearts will glow in your power.

[SPEAKER_04]: Hello, one-chitch, Aaron Roberts here, Tim,

[SPEAKER_04]: It makes him say this to him and has to be short, so it gets straight into it.

[SPEAKER_04]: So we're looking at Mark and Lev and it's a great story and I want to zoom in on a particular theme and implicit warning in the passage for us and the warning is against putting on a good religious show where when you're hard to actually a bit indifferent or a bit fickle.

[SPEAKER_04]: Um, my wife is American.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm a keybie.

[SPEAKER_04]: We live in Canada here and, you know, sometimes I watch American sports with my wife and whilst watching, I can say, I can say all the right things.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, go, Tim, go.

[SPEAKER_04]: Um, you know, open your eyes, riff, come on, riff, defeat the opposition or whatever.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, whatever you say, watching American sports.

[SPEAKER_04]: I can say the right things, but I'm not, I'm not really that into it, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: That's not how we want to be with Jesus.

[SPEAKER_04]: So that's what we're talking about and what we'll do is we'll just kind of walk through the story through Mark chapter 11.

Mark 11 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_04]: So at beginning the passage, basically the story is as Jesus is just about to enter Jerusalem and it's a big city, it's the religious sort of headquarters that's passed over.

[SPEAKER_04]: So there's going to be like as bonkers amount of people, thousands of thousands of pilgrims have come for a big festival and lots of noise, lots of excitement, lots of nationalistic further, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: and just Jesus decides to actually make a big entry.

[SPEAKER_04]: And so he gets this small horse, which has been organised beforehand.

[SPEAKER_04]: And remember, Jesus is a pretty big deal at this point.

[SPEAKER_04]: And people are excited about him.

[SPEAKER_04]: He knows when he enters Jerusalem he's gonna be a bit of a drama.

[SPEAKER_04]: So why right on a small horse?

[SPEAKER_04]: Why right on this donkey?

[SPEAKER_04]: Well, he's trying to communicate something.

[SPEAKER_04]: about himself.

[SPEAKER_04]: And what's he communicating?

[SPEAKER_04]: Well firstly, it's a reference back to Zechariah 9 9 9.

[SPEAKER_04]: Let me read that to you.

[SPEAKER_04]: Rejoice greatly, odortar of Zion, shout aloud, odortar of Jerusalem, low, your king comes to you, triumphant and victorious as he humble and riding on a cult.

[SPEAKER_04]: So it's this prophetic picture of a king riding a little horse, which is the kind of things

[SPEAKER_04]: and humility.

[SPEAKER_04]: So Jesus knew the text, that's where he wrote a little horse, and he knew that others would make the connection finally.

[SPEAKER_04]: No, well, we could say a lot more about this, but I really want to move on to the crowd, because the crowd's interesting.

[SPEAKER_04]: So the crowd, you've got all these people, great, strong of people around Jesus in their shouting, Joseanna Ramaheis, Joseanna Ramaheis, as Jesus writes in, and you could be thinking, yes, they really get them.

[SPEAKER_04]: They really, they've really got them.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is awesome.

[SPEAKER_04]: Here's the thing though.

[SPEAKER_04]: These are standard Passover shouting things to say.

[SPEAKER_04]: Now we could look at their words and we can see the deeper many of them.

[SPEAKER_04]: We're back in the days, they were just saying the things that you say at Passover.

[SPEAKER_04]: And they were saying them in Jesus' direction because he had done cool stuff.

[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe he was a prophet and I don't know if they knew for sure.

[SPEAKER_04]: but just hold that thought for a moment.

[SPEAKER_04]: I want you to notice a deliberate anti-climax that happens from verse 10 to a living.

[SPEAKER_04]: So, verse 10 to a living.

[SPEAKER_04]: Blessed is the coming of the kingdom of our Father David, Hosanna and the highest, verse 11.

[SPEAKER_04]: And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple and went here and looked around at everything a situation, a situation, a situation.

[SPEAKER_04]: Did the crowd with the crowds gone?

[SPEAKER_04]: They've just disappeared.

[SPEAKER_04]: And Jesus enters the temple alone.

[SPEAKER_04]: when they're all very shouting about Jesus, their son, great stuff, and then they go on, like, what happened?

[SPEAKER_04]: The shouting goes down around the highest, you know, has that around the highest?

[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, it's getting a bit late.

[SPEAKER_04]: Like I get some dinner, 10 a.m. dog for walk.

[SPEAKER_04]: But, obviously, that didn't really think Jesus was the Messiah.

[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, if you thought God had entered Melbourne and you were there and you saw Him and you'd be shouting, oh, is that a, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

[SPEAKER_04]: God's hitting over there, I'm like, ah, I just leave it.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm gonna get it to bed.

[SPEAKER_04]: Be on my way, get an early night.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's the feeling that isn't it.

[SPEAKER_04]: It seems to me Mark here warns us against mistaking enthusiasm with faith.

[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, they put on a good show of faith, but he was not real substance to it.

[SPEAKER_04]: They had a fickle faith.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's what they had.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'll say this really plainly here.

[SPEAKER_04]: We can say the right things and we can appear to have gusto at times and we can still have quite a pretty shallow fate.

[SPEAKER_04]: We can have a faith that's just built on some positive experiences, you've had some brushes with Jesus, yet a good time at camp.

[SPEAKER_04]: you sang a song that moved you out.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's all good stuff.

[SPEAKER_04]: But we actually what we need is that we need a faith built on a deep conviction of who Jesus is.

[SPEAKER_04]: If you're not sure about who Jesus is, go and ask one of the pastors.

[SPEAKER_04]: Now, I want to get to the victory, but, okay, because that's really significant, but before moving on to the victory story, I want you to just look at verse 11 one more time, okay, verse 11.

[SPEAKER_04]: Jesus entered Jerusalem and it went to the temple and he had a look around and everything what's that about?

[SPEAKER_04]: Some interesting verse, no, he's sizing up the temple.

[SPEAKER_04]: to see if it's fulfilling God's purposes for it.

[SPEAKER_04]: So the next day when it comes in and he flips over all of the tables and stuff, it's not a spontaneous act.

[SPEAKER_04]: It was pre-meditated judgment.

[SPEAKER_04]: Go hold that thought.

[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, the fig tree incident.

[SPEAKER_04]: Let's get a really big picture here.

[SPEAKER_04]: Jesus' curse is a fig tree.

[SPEAKER_04]: So you hear this story read, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: Jesus' curse is a fig tree.

[SPEAKER_04]: then he treasures the temple, the courtyard and the temple, and then he goes back to the fig tree.

[SPEAKER_04]: So it's fig tree, temple, fig tree.

[SPEAKER_04]: Now this was written in 2000 years ago, but just a reminder, it's free sophisticated literature.

[SPEAKER_04]: This is the sandwich fig tree fig tree with temple in the middle.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's not random, it's trying to tell us something.

[SPEAKER_04]: So the fig tree incident, okay.

[SPEAKER_04]: So Jesus is walking along.

[SPEAKER_04]: He sees a fig tree.

[SPEAKER_04]: He goes over to it.

[SPEAKER_04]: It doesn't have any figs to eat.

[SPEAKER_04]: But it was a leafy fig tree.

[SPEAKER_04]: At that time of the year, it should have had some little nodule things that you actually can eat.

[SPEAKER_04]: But it didn't.

[SPEAKER_04]: So he curses it.

[SPEAKER_04]: May no one ever eat of this, you know, eat this fruit ever again.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's like a reverse miracle.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it's a miracle of destruction.

[SPEAKER_04]: And it's a story that's troubled a lot of people because people think, oh, Jesus is flipping out.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's PT, he's lost his temper over a silly thing.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's using his power as carelessly, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: Sometimes I flip out of my kids.

[SPEAKER_04]: So they'll do something I don't like and I'll say something out of rage.

[SPEAKER_04]: Just like, you pick up your socks or I'll throw your PlayStation out of the window.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not going to throw your PlayStation out of the window.

[SPEAKER_04]: I've just lost my temper.

[SPEAKER_04]: After was I come down on my podcast, it has that sense about that story, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: That's what people think, but it's not at all what's going on here.

[SPEAKER_04]: Remember the sandwich, fig tree, temple, fig tree, okay?

[SPEAKER_04]: Jesus doesn't lose his temper here.

[SPEAKER_04]: The fig tree is this living parable that Jesus is just created.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's telling us something about the temple.

[SPEAKER_04]: See what I mean here?

[SPEAKER_04]: The fig tree represents the temple.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's why it's in the middle of the sandwich here.

[SPEAKER_04]: There's leafy fig tree for all its promise of providing food is actually barren.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's actually bankrupt.

[SPEAKER_04]: So the fig tree it was all show.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's just as deceptive as the temple.

[SPEAKER_04]: and that will make more sense in a moment.

[SPEAKER_04]: So let's talk about the temple.

[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so we're in verses 15 to 19 here.

[SPEAKER_04]: So Jesus, I go to the temple and he starts driving at all the vendors and he says, this is supposed to be a place of prayer and you've made into a den of robots.

[SPEAKER_04]: What's going on there?

[SPEAKER_04]: It's some, when you first walked into the temple, there's lots of different areas.

[SPEAKER_04]: The first one is called the Court of Gentiles, I think.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's where the Gentiles can meet God.

[SPEAKER_04]: that the Gentiles can pray and meet God.

[SPEAKER_04]: But it becomes just this mess of marketplace with all these vendors and there's lots of corruption.

[SPEAKER_04]: So you couldn't use outside money, you had to use inside money and the exchange rates were really, really terrible.

[SPEAKER_04]: And you know, it was supposed to be this place where Gentiles could pray and have access to God and learn about forgiveness

[SPEAKER_04]: and it was just a gong show like the place had become a circus, like the fig tree and looked impressive, it was huge, it was busy, it was shouting, it was fruitless.

[SPEAKER_04]: Didn't seem like anyone's lives would have been changed.

[SPEAKER_04]: It was just that it was a vehicle for greed.

[SPEAKER_04]: Now, let's get to the bottom of this fig tree sandwich now.

[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, this is 20 to 21.

[SPEAKER_04]: As they're passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree with it away to its roots and Peter remembered and said to them, look Rabbi, the fig tree that you cursed has with it.

[SPEAKER_04]: So when Jesus cursed as a fig tree, if he was 20, it's telling us there's no recovery for this fig tree.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's not coming back.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's rotten to the core.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's what it's saying about the temple.

[SPEAKER_04]: The temple is not coming back.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's rotten.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's going the way of the victory, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: And it was, it was destroyed in 70 AD.

[SPEAKER_04]: That's the, that's the, that's the victory fan sandwich there, sort of explained.

[SPEAKER_04]: Friends, I want to sort of finish now, I want to sort of pull some of these threads together.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I think this one really big point in this.

[SPEAKER_04]: Jesus enters the temple, enters, sorry, he enters Jerusalem.

[SPEAKER_04]: People shouting all the right things, conventional things, right?

[SPEAKER_04]: And then the crowds disappear.

[SPEAKER_04]: They just carry on with their lives.

[SPEAKER_04]: Jesus enters the temple alone.

[SPEAKER_04]: They had a fickle faith.

[SPEAKER_04]: They were easily distracted.

[SPEAKER_04]: They thought Jesus was interesting, but it wasn't at the center of their life, which is Jesus rightful place in our lives.

[SPEAKER_04]: They had these bursts of enthusiasm, but nothing really changed for them.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's just like the temple industry.

[SPEAKER_04]: It was all show, it was chaos and business.

[SPEAKER_04]: It was leafy, but there was no fruit.

[SPEAKER_04]: It didn't seem like anyone's lives were being changed there.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think this is the big challenge of the passage here.

[SPEAKER_04]: Jesus wants more than just our excitement, our fickle excitement.

[SPEAKER_04]: He wants more than religious business.

[SPEAKER_04]: He's not impressed by just sort of perfunctory religious language to say in the right things.

[SPEAKER_04]: These things can look good from the outside.

[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you can look, you know, leafy, but are you changing in your character?

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it was the life of Christ being a reproduced in you.

[SPEAKER_04]: Are you becoming more humble as you come to Jesus and repentance and bring your brokenness to them?

[SPEAKER_04]: Are you trusting God with your future?

[SPEAKER_04]: Are you becoming less distracted by money?

[SPEAKER_04]: Like when was, you know, when was the last time Jesus actually called real changing you?

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, these are the questions I ask myself, each year, like I ask myself, where are the areas in my life, which Jesus is not the center?

[SPEAKER_04]: Areas where I know the Christiany things to say.

[SPEAKER_04]: I know the doctrines, I can look leafy, the crisis is not there.

[SPEAKER_04]: These are good things to take into account, I think.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's becoming the end of the year, end of the year, beginning of a new year.

[SPEAKER_04]: You know, you're probably gonna write some goals down,

[SPEAKER_04]: really good one would be to have some spiritual reckonings, you know, ask yourself for my just try to look religious.

[SPEAKER_04]: Am I just like one of the crowds at the gate and leafy fig tree, a busy temple?

[SPEAKER_04]: It was God really the center of my life.

[SPEAKER_04]: Folks, bring your brokenness to Jesus and ask Him to change you, bring your whole life and submission

[SPEAKER_00]: you will not regret it.

[SPEAKER_00]: or you can visit our website or connect via our socials.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we are so looking forward to seeing you in person next week on the 11th of January 10 a.m. here at 1 and don't forget we are moving to two morning services 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Sunday the 1st of February.

[SPEAKER_00]: Friends, let me conclude our time together with a blessing May, Christ be at the center of your lives this year, and may God's Kingdom come and His will be done on Earth just as it is in heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: In 2026, and always, in Jesus' name, Amen.