Lessons from the Last Week

This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

For more information on our church, please visit grandparkway.org.

Amen.

You can have a seat if you've got a Bible.

I want to invite you to take it and open it up to Mark chapter 11.

Mark 11 · chapter mention

Mark chapter 11.

Mark 11 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, there's one on your row.

I'm on page 847.

847.

And uh I want to talk to you today.

Uh basically, if I had to give a title to it, it would be this Lessons from the Last Week.

Lessons from the Last Week.

Palm Sunday marks the beginning of the last week of Jesus' life.

It's called Holy Week or the Passion Week.

He rides into Jerusalem, and he Jesus is going to be dead at the end of this week.

And by the way, there's something about people that are facing death.

They kind of speak and do life on a different level.

And by the way, a friend of mine is battling stage four kidney cancer.

And the doctors at M.D.

Anderson are basically trying to prolong his life.

They don't know if they it's spread, it's in his ribs, it's in his lungs, and it's it's everywhere.

And so he may be facing uh a terminal, well, he is facing a terminal diagnosis unless God intervenes.

I'm trying to get him to come here and preach one Sunday so you can hear from somebody that's actually facing death.

And we're trying to work that out.

And so if if that works out, you will hear from a man uh that that is dying.

And you say, Well, we're all dying.

He's dying sooner rather than later.

Uh and Jesus has this benefit upon us, he knows what is coming.

He is facing the last week of his life.

Now, I want to begin with a question that maybe you could think about in your community groups tonight.

And the question is simply this if you could know for certain that you had one week to live, what would you do?

Because Jesus knows for certain this is it.

This is Jerusalem.

I've set my face like flint, and I know that I am going to Jerusalem and I know what's going to happen.

Remember last week, three times he told his disciples, I'm going to Jerusalem and I'm going to die.

I'm going to Jerusalem and I'm going to die.

And then last week he said, I'm going to give my life as a ransom for many.

I'm going to be spit upon, I'm going to hand it over to the Gentiles, and all this stuff.

Now we drop in in Mark chapter 11, the next chapter, and we pick up the story of Jesus.

Mark 11 · chapter mention

The Bible says this.

Now, when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethpage in Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied on which no one has ever sat.

Untie it and bring it.

If anyone says to you, Why are you doing this?

say, The Lord has need of it, and will send it back here immediately.

And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it.

And some of those standing there said to them, What are you doing, untying the colt?

And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go.

And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it.

He sat on it, and many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields, and those who went before, and those who followed were shouting, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Blessed is the kingdom of our Father David.

Hosanna in the highest.

And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple.

And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

We'll stop right there for now.

Keep your Bibles open to Mark chapter 11, because we'll come back to that.

Mark 11 · chapter mention

Basically, I want us to look at three sections of Scripture and either preach three mini sermons or just one sermon with a lot of points, however you want to think about it.

But I want you to kind of just take this in, like your kids eat jello.

Kind of put those 11 verses in your mouth and kind of swish them around until you can swallow them.

I want to give you the picture of what is happening.

First of all, there's angaria.

There's a thing called angaria taking place.

Angaria is this, it's kind of almost like law, it's kind of understood.

It's a temporary procurement of possessions by a rabbi, a teacher, or a leader.

In other words, that's what they say when Jesus says you go into a city and you'll see a donkey lying there, the colt of a donkey, it's it's polos, an unridden donkey.

You'll see that tied up there, and just take it, and that's what Jesus was talking about.

And they said, Hey, why are you doing that?

Just tell them the teacher needs that.

It's Angaria.

It's ingaria.

And they go, okay, well, the teacher, the rabbi needs it.

He's going to use it and bring it back.

It's like this past week I was talking to my friend Taylor Brown, and he was kind of bragging about Taylor Maid.

If you're a golfer, Taylor Maid has invented this new technology, and they have these new clubs called rocket balls.

And so they make the ball go a lot further.

And Taylor was kind of giving me the business because I said, Yeah, I'd love to get one of those or two of those.

And he says, Yeah, I'm getting the five wood and the three wood.

I'm getting a new driver.

And he's just smiling, and I'm smiling because he's thinking, I'm going to get them and you're not.

And I'm thinking, Angaria.

The temporary procurement of things for the rabbi.

I haven't sprung that on him yet, so I'm waiting till he gets them, and I'm just gonna just go play, and I'm just pulling out of his bag and go, Angaria.

I'll bang the teacher needs these things, and I'll return them shortly.

That's what's happening there.

So they go and they take the donkey, they go, the teacher needs it, and people are like, Okay, no big deal.

Well, there's two two points I want to make out of these first 11 verses.

The first one is this when things seem most out of control, God is most in control.

When things seem most out of control, and there will be moments in your life, and some of you are like, oh, you followed me around this week.

There will be moments, there will be days, there will be periods of time.

Sometimes it's a day, sometimes it's a week, sometimes it's a month, sometimes it's six months, and you're kind of like, for the love of Pete, just get up off of me.

I can't take anymore.

I want to just remind you, that's when God is most in control.

You say, What do you mean?

Jesus is riding in to Jerusalem.

It's the first day of people when he rides in on Palm Sunday, and by the way, the reason it's called Palm Sunday because it said that people took their cloaks off, they took their jackets off, and they laid them down on the ground.

It's almost like they rolled out the red carpet, okay?

And some people got palm branches.

That's why it's called Palm Sunday, because when a conquering general would come back into a town, he would ride this white steed, this beautiful horse, and that'd be this procession, and people would kind of pay homage to them, and they're waving these palm branches, they're saying, Hosanna, glory to God in the highest.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

And Jesus knows what's coming.

He does not find his identity in other people's appreciation language.

He finds his identity in obedience to his father.

And so when things are most out of control, God's most in control, because Jerusalem on that day is bedlam and chaos.

So you say, What do you mean?

Picture this is that on that day people are selecting their Passover lamb.

See, there's two parallel streams that are taking place here.

There's what people are doing, and there's what God is doing.

People are selecting their Passover lamb, and by law they had to pick the lamb, and the lamb had to be in their home for five days so they could inspect it and make sure that it was spotless and without blemish, so that it could be sacrificed.

And so Jesus enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and he's going to be sent from this official and this official and the Pharisees, and they're going to be sent to Pilate.

And they're going to send him to Herod, they're going to send him here.

And finally, when Pilate says, I find no fault in him, he seals the fate of Jesus as the Passover lamb because what he's saying is he can now be sacrificed.

He's not saying it, God's saying it because God's doing more.

Remember, loudest desire, deepest desire?

Jesus' deepest desire was to glorify God.

And so he knows he's coming as a Passover lamb.

To get what's going on around him, Josephus, a Jewish historian, tells us that on that day, as many as a quarter of a million lambs were bought and sold.

Because that families had to take them home and get a little bit attached to it and make sure it was without spot or blemish.

And Jesus comes riding in.

Why?

Think of it like this the scene we think, well, 250,000, 260,000 lambs.

Have you ever seen the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange?

People are screaming, ah, it's like that with livestock mixed in.

And Jesus rides it, things are out of control.

It's bedlam.

It is crazy.

And Jesus rides in, not on a white war horse, dun dun.

He rides in on a little the foal, the colt of a donkey that's never been ridden.

The soundtrack is not Indiana Jones, dun dun dun, dun, dun dun dun.

It's more bombarded.

It's very unimpressive.

If you're used to seeing conquering generals, and here comes this upstart Galilean.

When things are most out of control, things God is most in control.

How do you know?

Well, Zechariah, don't turn him to Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9.

Zechariah 9:9

Way back in the Old Testament, we may have this to put it up on the screen for you.

Well, way back in Zechariah, Zachariah is an Old Testament prophet.

The book of Zechariah was written in 520 BC, 520 years before this Palm Sunday.

And it prophesied and said that the Messiah would come riding in on a donkey.

See, God's had a plan all along, so just because you and I don't know what to do, doesn't mean that God doesn't know what he's doing.

If you write down anything today, write that down.

Just because you and I don't know what to do, doesn't mean that God doesn't know what he's doing.

When things seem most out of control, God is most in control.

The second point in this little first 11 verses is simply this lasting change is coming.

Lasting change is coming.

You say, what do you mean?

Look at verse 11.

And he entered Jerusalem and he went into the temple.

And when he had looked around at everything, just breathe those words in for just a minute.

When he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

You ever open your kids if you got teenagers like I do?

You ever open your kids' bedroom door when they're out there and look around and just think, what in the cat hair happened in here?

I just every once in a while, my kids are at school.

I just open their doors and look around and I just think, what?

What are we like slaughtering pigs in here?

What in the world?

And then I go across the hall to the eight-year-olds thinking it's gonna be better.

And I'm like, what?

And I walk out, look at my wife, and I'm like, hey, have you seen those rooms?

Today's their day to clean their room.

I'm not reading a backhoe for that.

So Jesus does.

By the way, to understand the magnitude of his response, he just looks around at everything.

Hear that phrase again.

And he looked around.

That's what the Bible says.

And when he had looked around at everything, you know he didn't miss anything.

You know that, don't you?

He just opens the door and just looks around and scans the room and he figures out what's going on.

He goes into the temple, there's people selling lambs.

And by the way, it was so much more convenient to buy them there.

We'll get to that in just a minute, than buy them at the market.

They'd set up shop right there in the court of the Gentiles in the temple.

The church had become a place of capitalism.

You don't know churches that have coffee shops and stuff in them, do you?

And restaurants and bookstores, do you?

We wouldn't do that, would we?

We wouldn't make it just as easy as we could for you, could we?

A friend of mine works in a church, they have a restaurant.

They have a full-time staff.

It's not here in our city, it's in not far from here.

It's about four and a half hours that way.

And I'm not kidding you, they have a commercial kitchen and they have you can have lunch there on Sundays when you're done with church.

And the guy said to me, bragging, he said, We're a one-stop shop.

We got everything people need right here.

And I said, That's part of your problem.

He said, What do you mean?

I said, This is you don't want to know what I mean.

Let's just keep going with the tour.

And they gave me the tour.

Anyway, next section.

Look at verses 12 and 14.

The plot thickens.

Just notice, by the way, when I say lasting change is coming, Jesus doesn't look around and see what he sees and not do something about it.

And what that means in my life and your life is that God doesn't look down on your life and see you doing things you shouldn't do and not do something about it.

Nobody gets a hall pass.

He doesn't look down and kind of go, Oh, it's no big deal.

I understand.

I know, I know why you're doing it.

No, no.

He looks around and you may be thinking, Well, nothing's happening to me, and I've been doing this a long time.

No, no, no.

He sees everything.

Look at the next section of Scripture, verses 12 to 14.

On the following day, when Jesus had gone home and stood on it all night, on the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry, and seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it.

And when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.

And he said to it, May no one ever eat fruit from you again.

And his disciples heard it.

The key phrase is that last part, and his disciples heard it.

Now Jesus has gone into Jerusalem the night before, looked around, saw everything, kind of slept on it, comes back.

And he and a lot of people think, well, Jesus takes it out on this poor fig tree, because it even says, what's he mad about?

It says it wasn't even the season for figs.

Well, this type of fig tree, it wasn't the season for figs, but it had before the figs would come and had leaves, and then it had these little things called nodules.

Little nodules, there's like these little baby little figs, and people would break them off and eat them when they were traveling.

If you didn't bring anything, poor people, they'd see a tr a fig tree.

If it had leaves, it's supposed to have nodules.

What is Jesus saying?

Two things he's saying to us in this section of scripture as we kind of continue to go a little deeper into Palm Sunday and lessons from the last week.

Two things Jesus is teaching us.

Number one, growth without fruit indicates a problem.

Growth without fruit.

Having leaves without fruit indicates a problem.

Let me ask you a question I want you to think about this week.

Is it okay with you if people think something is true about you rather than it actually be true about you?

Hear the question again.

Is it okay if people think something is true about you rather than it actually be true about you?

Like, for example, because I'm a pastor, a lot of people think certain things about me.

They may think, oh, well, he's a pastor.

He, oh man.

And somebody asked me, they said, How do you kind of balance out that people thinking because you're a pastor, you've got it all figured out?

And I'm like, they spend five minutes around me.

They'll they'll realize I don't have it all figured out.

And I don't have the energy to fake it.

Now, my wife and I have had this conversation because my wife is such a nice person.

I mean, she's so sweet.

Y'all talk to her and you're kind of like, how does she put up with him?

I tell you what, I'm gonna pray for that woman.

I told her one time, we we've see, when you first get married, you gotta have hard conversations so that down the road you can have necessary conversations.

If you don't practice having hard conversations, you're gonna have to swallow a lot of words when you've been married 15 years.

You realize that, don't you?

Some of y'all are like, I thought this was a sermon on Palm Sunday.

Get back to Jesus and the donkey and leave my marriage alone.

One of the reasons some of you, there's this kind of a this cold, indifferent distance between the two of you, and your relationship is like a train track, this fixed distance apart, is because way back you didn't have hard conversations.

Like one of the hard conversations that my wife and I had is I just said, you know, I'm not saying you're not a good person, you're not a disciplined person, you're not a spiritual person, you're all those things, but you're so nice and people like you so much, they just kind of give you, hey, oh, I know she, I know Marcy's got this all sorted out.

Boy, and it'll be easy for you to just live with people thinking this is true about you than it actually being true about you.

Me?

I rub people the wrong way all the time.

It actually has to be true about me.

Because I don't stand a chance.

And she was like, You got yourself a point there.

What am I saying?

It's what what Jesus is saying when he comes and and and and he basically says to the truth, hey, I mean, to this to this fig tree, hey, no one may ever eat from you, eat fruit from you again.

Why?

Because growth without fruit indicates a problem.

And if you want to see what he's talking about, just think about the church in America.

And I'm not down on the church.

I love the church.

I've given my life to service to the church, okay?

So hear my heart.

But what I mean I say the church in America, growth without fruit indicates a problem.

Has anybody noticed that the bigger the church in America has gotten as far as the number of people that come on Sunday, and the bigger the show and the lights and the smoke machines and all this stuff we can kind of get in the building, that we've kind of the bigger the church has gotten, the less influence we've exercised over the culture.

Have you noticed that?

And and and and it probably five years ago, if you'd have said that, people have been like, oh, no way, you're just jealous, you're just a cynic.

And then one of the largest churches in America did a survey of their people and they realized they have the same ethics and morals as people out on the street.

It's kind of what Jesus says.

If the salt loses its saltiness, what is it good for?

See, growth without fruit.

Ask yourself today Am I growing?

Am I excuse me, am I bearing fruit or am I just maintaining appearances?

Because here's what happens in the American church.

If you're nice and you got good manners, my wife has great manners.

And she's also the real deal.

Don't don't don't mishear what I'm saying.

Studies, right now she's going through the book of Matthew, she's always spending time in the word.

Okay?

She lives with me.

She has to pray a lot, okay?

But if you're a nice person and you got good manners in the American church, we think you got it all figured out.

Ask yourself, when's the last time you had a really honest, authentic conversation?

Or somebody had a really hard, authentic, honest conversation with you.

Because one of my goals this week, as I knew I was going to be talking to you today about lessons from the last week, is that I realize that people that are dying, they have nothing to lose.

They just say stuff.

Like my wife's grandma, Mama Lois, Mama Lois was, I think, 96 when she died.

She got to be about 80, and she realized these people can't do anything to me.

No one's going to hit grandma.

So she just opened the valve all the way.

And what I love being around Mama Lois.

I'd ask her questions just because she'd say it.

Like one year at Thanksgiving, there's some people in my extended family who are kind of large, and and and they said, Mama Lois, can you scoot up so I can get by?

And the person was squeezing by, and Mama Lois just said, Good Lord, if you two have a baby, it'd be the fastest baby in the world.

And all of a sudden, I felt inspired to ask Mama Lois questions.

Because she would just tell you, can you just imagine?

See, here's my fear that we've kind of figured out how we can compliment each other.

I compliment you, you compliment me, and we'll both just kind of give each other permission to not be who the Bible calls us to be.

So this week I just thought, you know what?

Not that I'm not honest, but sometimes I hold back and don't say everything I'm thinking.

Y'all are like, really?

Are you kidding me?

Yeah.

And so this week I was talking to a friend of mine who doesn't work at a church, who has never really had a job at a church.

And he was kind of, we're having this email exchange back and forth, and he was kind of like, Well, the church needs da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

And all of a sudden I heard the elevator get to my floor.

Ding! You know, the bell rings, and you gotta step off.

So I had to just step off on him and say, hey, listen, that sounds like real good, but you're 35 years old and you ain't never worked at a church.

You might want to shut up criticizing the church.

Get you a job at one.

Because, see, standing up here is about 20% of it.

80% of it is putting up with crazy people that show up every week.

By the way, that's you I'm talking about.

And I told him, it's like the old country song, God's great, beer's good, and people are crazy.

Uh-uh, well, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, I uh because see, we're not used to authenticity.

We're used to just having some leaves on the tree and everybody leaving us alone because from a distance you look good.

But when somebody comes up and parts the leaves and says, There ain't no fruit on this tree.

See, Jesus is making a statement about this fruitless religious system they got going at the temple.

And the disciples hear it.

That's the key phrase, and the disciples heard it.

They're like, Jesus got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

Second thing he tells us in these three verses, 12, 13, and 14, is that prayer is a matter of authority, belief, and forgiveness.

You say, What do you mean?

Let me say it again.

Prayer is a matter of uh of authority, belief and forgiveness.

Skip down to verse 20.

Does it say above verse 20 the lesson from the withered fig tree?

Doesn't it say that in your Bible, something like that?

We all try to figure out what Jesus is, what he what he meant by that.

He tells you right here in verse 20.

He says, as they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away, because this is the next morning.

They saw the fig tree withered away to its roots.

And Peter remembered and said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered.

And Jesus answered them, no duh.

What do you just surprise you?

What did I say?

No, Jesus answered, Have faith in God.

Why does Jesus say have faith in God?

Because they don't.

They think prayer is just where they kind of throw up some words they've heard before.

Like, I just this is probably a confession, but this week someone said, Hey, I understand your back's been hurt, you have a pinched nerve and you're Back.

Why didn't you say something so I could be praying?

I've heard you pray.

I don't think it would help my back any.

I wish I didn't feel that way, but I did.

And the person's like, Oh, that hurts my feelings.

I don't want to hurt your feelings, but when you pray, it sounds like a collection of all the phrases you've heard your grandma say.

It's like a it's like a deacon rally.

So the way I'm going, I'm gonna have to be cremated because I'm running out of Paul Bears.

And I'm not trying to hate any, I'm not trying.

I can feel some of you kind of like, oh, what do you mean?

You like judging people's prayer?

Yes, I hold up.

There's a 5.5 from the East German judge.

No.

You've been with people when they pray, you're just like, this isn't coming from your heart.

You're just talking.

It's kind of like, ladies, when you talk to your husband, he's watching TV.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh.

And then you start making stuff up, and then I killed your mother.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, yeah.

That's what it's like.

When this person prayed, I don't evaluate people's prayers, and I have a long relationship with this person.

Why didn't you ask me to pray for your back?

Because I've heard you pray before.

I don't think it would do anything.

Yes, that came out of my mouth.

Because this person has leaves but no fruit.

And they sound good.

Oh, hell, well, mm-mm.

Lord, he'll kneels back.

They're like Peter.

Hey, hey, this thing you cursed, it's withered up down to the root.

What happened here?

Were you not here?

Look what happens.

He says, 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.

Look at me, beloved.

The reason I said what I said to my friend, he doesn't believe what he says.

It's like the old guy in the church that cussed all the time.

The pastor finally said, Hey, listen, you shouldn't do that.

You shouldn't use bad language.

He said, Hey, preacher, he said, you pray, he said, I don't mean anything by it.

He said, I cuss, I don't mean anything by it.

You pray, you don't mean anything by it.

We're both the same.

He says, Hey, truly I say to you, verse 23, whoever says this mountain, be taken up and thrown to the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe and you'll receive it, and it'll be yours.

And whenever you stand praying, forgive.

If you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also, who is in heaven, may forgive you your trespasses.

That's what I mean when Jesus is saying that prayer is a matter of authority, belief, and forgiveness.

And don't miss what he says there.

He says, Hey, if you believe, don't doubt, but believes what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.

Therefore I tell you, ask whatever whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

How would you pray if you really believed that verse?

Now I know some of you are here this morning because you prayed and you did not win the mega millions jackpot.

Some weasel in New Jersey won it or wherever.

I feel your pain, okay?

I told my wife, why don't you get in there and buy us a mega million tickets?

You know, play lotto, give God a chance.

And she's like, shut up.

That's not funny.

I was only partially kidding.

But anyway, uh, how could you pray if you really believe that?

Because you see, here's the disconnect in the disciples, they see this withered up tree, withered down to the roots, by the way, and they're kind of like, Jesus was in a bad mood.

And Jesus is like, no, I have authority to do these things.

Because I mean what I say when I say what I say.

I don't just throw empty words up into the air.

Bless the gift and the giver, hide the pastor behind the cross, be with the sick and the infirmed.

See, prayer is a matter of authority, belief, and also forgiveness.

What do you mean?

Jesus says, hey, if you don't forgive people that sin against you, your father's not going to forgive you.

Just let that in for a minute.

I feel the wheels turning.

Some of you are like, what, say what?

Here's what he's saying that to go out and not extend forgiveness as one who's been forgiven, you violate the very principle of forgiveness.

That's why the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 4, about verse 32, be you kind, tenderhearted towards one another, forgiving one another, as God in Christ Jesus has forgiven you.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

How did God forgive you?

Somebody tell me, how did God forgive you?

Completely.

So who do you think you are?

And I've heard people say to me, Oh, I just can't forgive that person.

Really?

On what basis?

Well, they hurt my feelings.

That means you get to hold a grudge?

Well, you don't know.

They just you don't know what they've done.

I don't need to know what they've done.

The Bible says, be kind and tenderhearted towards each other, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ has forgiven you.

How has God forgiven you and one person got it right completely?

Then how is it that you can have any unforgiveness in your heart and come to God and say, God, I want you to answer my prayers?

The reason some of your prayers are not answered is because you're prideful and you're unforgiving.

It's not that God doesn't want to or God can't.

Remember, this is the God that spoke and cursed the fig tree and it withered up down to the roots.

He has the authority.

It's just that he's not going to play according to our double standard.

Well, God, I want complete forgiveness, but I'll tell you what, my sister-in-law, you don't know what she did to me.

Next section of scripture, Jesus closes out with this.

Verse 15.

And they came to Jerusalem and he'd entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple.

And 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 to the temple.

And he was teaching them.

Isn't that beautiful?

He's flipping tables over, and pigeons are flying, and Jesus is going.

And for my next point, he's teaching them.

We should flip some stuff over up here.

I thought about pushing that piano off the stage.

Wouldn't that be great?

You go to lunch today, what happened?

Our pastor went berserk.

He flipped over a piano.

Your kids would wake up all of a sudden.

Whoa, easy.

That's what it says.

He's not just half-cocked.

He's not like your alcoholic dad that would get drunk and get mad and start slapping people.

He's not like you and you lose your temper.

He didn't lose his temper.

He's not angry because of something.

He's angry with a purpose.

He says, and he would not allow anyone to carry verse 16 anything to the temple.

And he was teaching them and saying to them, Is it not written, My house shall be called the house of prayer for all nations, but you've 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.

What is Jesus saying?

Four things, and we're done this morning.

Number one, Jesus is saying in this little section of Scripture, convenience is overrated.

Convenience is overrated.

One of my concerns about the American church, the church in America, which I love, is we've made it too convenient for you.

Which is what they did in the temple.

They had everything you needed right there.

It was just a one-stop shop.

You could buy your because people had to make sacrifices and they had to make a temple, they had to pay a temple tax.

And it had to be in the currency that they accepted there in Jerusalem.

So people would come from all over.

And they said, Hey, but by the way, a pigeon was six times more expensive in the temple than it was down the road at the open market.

Just file that away.

Talking about getting over on people.

It's like the credit card company that finds people that have bad credit and gives them a credit card with 23% interest.

Same thing.

Same thing.

Convenience is overrated.

You say, what do you mean?

Now I'm not saying, hey, we shouldn't do what we can to help people, but when worship becomes all about convenience, and I'll give you the most tangible expression of convenience.

There's churches that have a contemporary service, and then there's churches that have a traditional service.

Same church.

Well, our 8 o'clock service is our traditional, and our 9.15 is our contemporary, and our 11 o'clock is our Zulu service where we all.

Hey, suck it up.

Every Sunday we're not going to sing songs you like.

No, but here's what happens.

The church keeps twisting and contorting herself and kind of going, oh, you like that?

We'll do that.

No, we're not.

No.

No.

We're not having a harvest festival on Halloween.

Because me, no Pastor Neil X that when I started here.

And I told you, and I'll tell you again, by the way, we took up 20 minutes in staff meeting and talked about it.

Because this year, Halloween's on a Wednesday.

Here.

On Halloween, take your kids trick-or-treat if you want to trick or treat.

I don't think you're worshiping the devil.

I think if you read Harry Potter books, I don't think you're worshiping the devil.

I don't think if you go to Disneyland, you're worshiping the devil.

Remember the Baptists were boycotting Disney World?

You remember that?

Do you really want to spend your life being known for what you're against?

I don't.

No one, no one could tell Jesus, hey, could define Jesus in terms of what he was against.

I just, convenience is overrated.

So when Halloween rolls around, we're not going to have midweek services, we're not going to have classes where you can go learn the Bible, whatever.

We'll take that week off.

And some of you will send me emails.

God love you.

You can't help yourselves.

What kind of church are we, Pastor?

We're in Australia.

We should be in the Lord's house.

Let me tell you something.

I live in a nice middle-class neighborhood right over here.

We have friends that live in a neighborhood that's a little nicer than mine, and people that give out better candy.

I take my kids over there, and that's where we go.

We go trick-or-treating over there.

Because my neighbors are stingy.

They give out the Hill Country Fair candy, the H E B brand.

Them cats over there give out Snickers bars.

And so we go over and we have soup, all the adults, and then the kids, we take them trick-or-treating in the nice neighborhood, and I don't have to go through the candy, we do anyway.

But you know, I just think, hey, these people can afford to live in these houses.

They're going to buy nice candy, and sure enough, they do.

So I won't be here.

And you can come and you can have a Bible study about the evils of Halloween on that night if you'd like.

Enjoy yourself.

And after my kids go to bed, like I do every year, I'll pick their Halloween candy and pick out the stuff I want.

So pray for me while you're here on Wednesday night.

I'm not trying to make it inconvenient.

I just, hey, hey, hey, hey.

It just let me say, my wife taught me this.

Just because something's hard doesn't mean it's not right.

There's gonna be many a Sunday where that alarm goes off and you're gonna reach for that snooze button.

And there's gonna be many a times in your comment in your marriage, men, look at me.

Where your wife's gonna say something, and something's gonna well up in you, and you're gonna go, and there you are at the fork in the road.

If I say this, it's an hour and a half conversation that involves tears.

But if I say this, it's 30 seconds and I get to watch Kentucky and Louisville.

Veer to the right every once in a while.

Just don't do the cost-benefit analysis.

If I say that, how long do I really want to sleep on the couch tonight?

Just because it's hard doesn't mean it's bad.

Jesus is saying convenience is overrated.

Secondly, he's telling us that he hates injustice.

He hates injustice.

Now don't miss this.

Look at what he says there.

He says in verse 17, he was teaching them.

I love that he's flipping stuff over and teaching them and saying to them, Is it not written, my house shall be called the house of prayer for all nations?

But you've made it a den of robbers.

What he's teaching them is subtle but profound.

And he says, I hate injustice.

And here's injustice.

He is standing in what's called the court of the Gentiles.

Think of it as the foyer to our church out there.

It's the court of the Gentiles.

It is the largest part of the temple, but it's kind of like the outer courts because it's the only place in the temple, the place of worship that Gentiles, non-Jewish people, were allowed to go.

And Jesus hates injustice.

And here's the injustice on the day.

He's not mad because they're selling pigeons and stuff.

That's part of it.

But what really drives him is that wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, time out.

My house shall be called the house of prayer for all nations.

Why do the Gentiles have to stay out here and only the Jews get to go in there and pray in this place that is like the stock exchange with livestock mixed in, or where the Gentiles have to try to get quiet and pray and reflect on God.

Are you kidding me?

And Jesus was saying, uh-uh, this is unjust, and I'm not gonna stand for it.

And then he says, You guys turn this into a den of thieves.

You guys are profiting in Jesus' name.

We're not gonna do that.

Third thing Jesus is saying in this last section of Mark 11 is get used to the idea of going directly to God.

Get used to the idea of going directly to God.

Where do you get that?

Basically, what he's saying is that my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.

By the way, that doesn't mean that the Jews go in there and pray for the pagan nations.

That means that everybody from all walks of life goes in there and is allowed to pray.

That means it doesn't matter how much money you make, what you dress like, where you live, none of that matters.

You're all welcome.

I don't know, I don't know, I I know most of you in this room because I don't want I don't want to just preach to you.

I want to be your pastor.

Okay?

And so somebody said I had lunch with somebody new about a month ago, and they said, So what can I tell you?

As much as you want me to know.

I've never had lunch with a pastor.

Well, that's okay, I won't bite you.

I mean, I've been in church my whole life.

Wait, you've been in church your whole life?

You've never sat down with your pastor like this?

No, so I'm a little nervous.

I said, Is that why you're spilling your tea?

Well, okay.

Tell me as much as you want me to know.

I'm not gonna judge you.

Well, somebody told me that.

Uh well, uh, where do I start?

Where do you want to start?

How about this?

You got any tattoos?

No, no, why do you ask?

Just making conversation because you seem to be stuck.

Okay.

And away we went.

Had a great conversation.

Say, what get get used.

Person, tell me, hey, I grew up in a denomination and I was raised in religion where I had to go talk to a man and I couldn't talk to God.

And the guy said, When you pray, it's like you and God are friends.

I said, By the way, you and God are friends too.

And Jesus is saying, get used to the idea.

Because when he dies on the cross, there's a veil that separates the Holy of Holies, the presence of God, from the rest of the temple.

It's kind of set off and set apart.

And when Jesus is crucified, that veil is torn from top to bottom.

And when Jesus says, My house should be called a house of prayer for all nations, it's just a little foreshadowing what is to come.

I'm going to rend this veil because I want everybody to know that they're welcome.

They have full access to me.

You don't have to go here to this intermediary and tell them your sins and then they give you something to do.

Or you don't have to go over here to your preacher and say, hey, hey, can we get coffee?

This is what I've done.

Yes, be pastored.

Insist on being pastored.

Do not go to a church where you just come and listen to a stranger, give you things to write in the little blanks on the preprinted bulletin that they ordered online six months ago.

But know this get used to the idea of going directly to God.

Fourthly and finally, we're done today, is that neutrality is not an option.

You still with me?

Look at verse 18.

And the chief priests, neutrality is not an option.

And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking.

They heard what Jesus was saying.

Jesus, who's supposed to come, they thinking the Messiah is going to come and drive all these foreign hordes out of here.

The chief priests and the scribes heard it, heard him saying, Ali, Ali and Free, come out, come out wherever you are.

And they were seeking a way to destroy him.

I read from the ESV, the English Standard Version.

Sometimes I read it because it's the most literal translation out there today.

But sometimes we read things in the Bible and we don't really get the jagged edge of what they're saying.

Does anybody say something different than they were seeking a way to destroy him?

Does anybody say something different?

Hello?

Yes.

Thank you, Scott.

Y'all are like, no, no, no, no audience participation.

You just dance, monkey, and when you're done, we'll put 50 cents in the box on the way out and we'll go to lunch and talk about you.

Yes.

They were seeking to kill him.

Now look at me.

We're just about done.

You can go get your kids and go home.

Jesus, when he talked, he made people so mad they wanted to kill him.

And that's a better response than you come in here and doing a little golf clap.

Boy, your pastor's kind of unique.

Has he made the wonderful discovery of decaf?

No, he hasn't.

That's like kissing your sister.

You don't get anything out of that.

If you drink decaf, you need to repent today.

No.

Jesus would much rather you be one of those people that's kind of like, oh, I want to kill you than just go through life kind of like, well, you know, I've got money in the bank and I've got a good job and I've got a good pension.

Life's good, and God, you don't bother me, and I won't bother you.

That's neutrality.

That drives Jesus crazy.

You say, I don't think I believe that.

Well, you're wrong.

That's why he says in Revelation, I would rather you be hot or cold.

I would rather you love me with a white hot passion of a thousand sons or want to kill me.

But because you're just right in the middle, like a focus group in a political debate, he says, I will what?

I spit you out of my mouth.

You make me sick, translation.

Are you kidding me?

You think I did what I did for you to be neutral?

By the way, neutrality is motivated.

It's not that you you're you're more refined than everybody else.

Neutrality at its core is motivated by personal gain.

You do all of life based on what you can get out of.

You can say, how do you know?

A little lesson from history, and we'll be done today.

One of the mysteries of history was they couldn't find out all the Nazis, when the Nazis invaded, they took all the gold from all these countries, and for years they couldn't find this Nazi gold.

They looked for it everywhere.

Where is it?

We don't know what happened to all the gold the Nazis had.

We know they had billions of dollars in gold.

And then Eureka, they started tracking it down.

And guess what country had it all along?

Switzerland.

Who's notorious for their neutrality?

Neutrality is always motivated by personal gain.

It always is.

That's why when you're in conversations with your friends, ladies, and they say crazy unbiblical things.

Like, I don't think God minds if I have four glasses of wine and a sleeping pill every night, and you got nothing coming out of your mouth.

By the way, Lucy, how do you spell addiction?

Because that sounds a lot like it to me, and I love you.

We may have to get our coach bags and beat each other here, but that's okay.

La Madeline's needs to be mixed up today.

I'm just telling you, I'm concerned about you.

That's not a good habit to be in.

But instead, it's easier to reach down and get your glass and Merlot and go, well, you know, who am I to judge you?

That's neutrality.

That's neutrality.

That's just, hey, don't say anything to me.

I won't say anything to you.

And God can't stand that.

I'm not saying he can't stand you.

He loves you.

He trusts you to be his representative, to speak up and say, not to be the general manager of the universe.

I'm not that way.

You don't have to be that way.

God's not that way.

He's, excuse me, God is that way.

He is the general manager of the universe.

He's got it taken care of.

He rides into Jerusalem, and these goofballs are going, who's the enough?

And he's just riding on that little donkey, kind of thinking, yeah, liar, liar, pants on fire, okay?

You guys, in five days, you will deny me and you'll pick a thief called Barabbas.

So shut up, okay?

But he doesn't.

He just kind of rides along.

Why?

Because when things are most out of control, God is most in control.

And he knows that.

And he's going to demonstrate it.

And he's the perfect, while they're all selecting their lambs, he comes riding in as a perfect Passover lamb.

And they don't get it.

Because they've consumed Jesus upon their lust.

And they don't understand what he's all about.

And he's going to be sent to this person and that person and that person.

And then Pilate's going to wash his hands and say, I find no fault in him.

And Jesus is just going to smile.

Because he realizes that he's one step closer to glorifying his father.

One step closer to turning down the volume on his loudest desire.

Save me in living in light of his deepest desire.

Glorify your name.

And so he can't be neutral to that.

And the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they couldn't be neutral.

They wanted to kill him.

They were like, we gotta kill this guy.

Because the Bible says that the people were hanging on his every word.

They were just like, oh man.

Whoa! Yes! When that guy talks, my heart beats faster.

When you guys talk, I fall asleep.

Like a pot smoker at the Sonic.

Where are you in relation to God today?

Because here's what I'm saying to you.

And I'm really done.

This is now my fourth time to say I'm done, but I'm really done.

Either kill him or crown him.

It's real simple.

I don't know if I've told you this in a while, but I I somebody called me that listens to the podcast in like Ohio and just said, you really enjoy your people.

And so I want to just tell you, I really like you and I enjoy you.

And thanks for putting up with me and my six personalities.

Now let's stand.

Hold your hands out.

I'm gonna speak a blessing over you.

Ever since you've tumbled out of the womb, your father has enjoyed you.

He pursues you today, not to punish you, but to enjoy you, to encourage you to laugh and run faster, so that the fragrant aroma of Christ can be experienced by those who are perishing.

You smell good to him.

Depart now and let that fragrance be spread abroad.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you, you're dismissed.