The Fruit God Desires (Mark 11:12-25)

So we're going to be in Mark chapter 11, starting in verse 12.

Mark 11 · chapter mention

And as you're turning there, I just as a reminder of what's leading up to verse 12.

Last week we saw the triumphal entry.

We saw Jesus inspect the temple, and then he and his disciples headed out of Jerusalem into Bethany.

The next section that we're going to be jumping into picks up with the next day when they're returning to Jerusalem.

So that's where we're on the road, they're returning to Jerusalem.

So let's stand for the reading of God's Word.

So Mark 11, starting in verse 12.

It says, The next day when they went out from Bethany, he was hungry.

Seeing in the distance a fig tree with leaves, he went to find out if there was anything on it.

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

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

And his disciples heard it.

They came to Jerusalem, and he went into the temple and began to throw out those buying and selling.

He overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves, and would not permit anyone to carry goods through the temple.

He was teaching them, It is not writ is it not written, My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of thieves.

The chief priests and the scribes heard it and started looking for a way to kill him, for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was astonished by his teaching.

Whenever evening came, they would go out of the city.

Early in the morning, as they were passing by, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up.

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

Jesus replied to them, Have faith in God.

Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, Be lifted up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.

Therefore I tell you, everyone you pray uh everything you pray and ask for, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven will also forgive you your wrongdoing.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you for much so much for your word.

Lord, I thank you just for the richness of it.

Thank you for all the things that you have in store for each one of us here today.

Lord, I pray that you would speak through me through the power of your spirit, that I would be your mouthpiece here today, that you would help me to rightly divide your word all for your glory and for your honor.

I pray that we would approach you with open ears and hearts and eyes and minds, and that you would do the speaking here today.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So, as you may have noticed while we were reading this text this morning, you know, of Jesus cleansing the temple, that on both sides of that story we have the story of the fig tree.

Which might make us wonder, you know, why would Mark not only include this, but separate the story on both sides of the story of the temple cleansing?

Well, it's because it's actually a big part of the temple cleansing.

It's a live action parable that we get to look at today.

Now, kind of like last week, we're gonna be visiting a good number of prophecies and cross-references.

So if you're a note taker, be ready.

Um, because there's actually gonna be some cross-references I'm just gonna mention, but we're not gonna read, so that you can go and look those things up later.

So let's jump in right here with verse 12.

It says, The next day when they went out from Bethany, he was hungry.

And we're just gonna stop right there.

Because I want to keep reminding us of Jesus' humanity as Jesus gets closer and closer to the cross, remembering that he's 100% God, but he's also a hundred percent man, that he's experiencing all of the same emotions that we do in our humanity.

He was experiencing those same things.

And I want to remind us of this because I think we can gloss over all that Jesus went through leading up to the cross before he was even arrested.

You know, he knew exactly what he was walking into as he kept approaching Jerusalem and as the week kept going on.

And Hebrews 12, too, tells us that he despised the shame of the cross.

And I think it's safe to say that he was not looking forward to the physical pain and the torture that he knew he was walking into.

So in this verse, the fact that Jesus was hungry should make us pause for a second and should make us think about the fact that Jesus, God, was hungry.

That Jesus had a need.

That he truly came to us as one of us.

That he didn't approach the cross with some God force field, you know, that was shielding him and surrounding him, keeping him from experiencing basically everything that any other human would experience on the week leading up to, and then the torture that he suffered.

Because he experienced all of that in our place.

And he experienced all of that just like we would have experienced it if we went through it ourselves.

And I think the fact that Jesus was hungry reminds us just of that, of Jesus' humanity.

Look at verse 13.

Says, seeing in the distance a fig tree with leaves, he went to find out if there was anything on it.

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

So this verse has always been a bit confusing for me.

And I understood the lesson behind the fig tree, but I could never figure out, and I was always baffled by why was Jesus looking for figs when they were out of season.

So I did a really deep dive of fig trees this week and just started doing a bunch of research on it.

And what I found out is there's a ton of different varieties of figs and fig trees that grow all over the world in all different climates.

And a good number of those fig trees grow what are called braba or tuquash.

We're just gonna call it braba from now on because tuquash is too hard to say.

But uh basically what it is, it's the first of two crops that these certain varieties of fig trees have, and they produce those two crops every year.

And for these varieties, the first crop, or the braba, as I was talking about, it's a small fruit that is a precursor to the larger, better fruit that comes in the summer or in the fall.

And it blooms and it grows on last year's growth.

And then the second crop blooms and grows on that year's growth that happens in the spring.

And in the Middle East, the braba are ready to eat around late March or early April, which is exactly when Passover would be taking place.

And braba usually grows in with the leaves of the tree, or sometimes it actually grows in just before the leaves of the tree, but they tend to come at about the same at about the same time.

Then the braba falls off and the tree continues to grow, and then the the desirable figs, the figs that everybody wants, start to grow, and then those are harvested in the summer and in the fall.

So braba is a fruit and it's edible, but it's not desirable.

Some varieties do have some good tasting brada, but most of them do not.

Hang with me, this is all going somewhere, I promise.

But in the Middle East, it's actually the Braba is actually considered peasant food.

Now, another interesting fact about Braba, according to the biblical scholar and commentator F.

F.

Bruce, is that if a tree does not have a crop of braba on it for whatever reason, then it's not going to produce its better crop in the summer or the fall either.

So no braba, no later crop.

So let's read verse 13 again in light of all of that.

So seeing in the distance a fig tree with leaves, remember, Braba comes in with the leaves.

He went to find out if there was anything on it, looking for Braba.

When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, which means no fruit is gonna be coming later on in the year as well.

For it was not the season for figs, because it was the season for Braba.

It was the season for the peasant food, the undesirable food that was edible, but if you had enough money, it wasn't something you're gonna be going after and wanting to eat uh if you didn't have to.

Now, Mark's initial audience that he's writing this to would have understood all of this.

This is a part of their culture.

They have fig trees all over the place.

So I think that's why he doesn't elaborate and get into real detail of this.

He just says the figs weren't in season because it was the season for Braba.

Um and uh so I personally found a lot of answers just by learning about Braba this week, so hopefully you did as well.

So that's why Jesus approaches this tree with leaves in hopes of finding some food.

Look at verse 14 with me.

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

And his disciples heard it.

Like I said, this fig tree is a live-action parable, and everything we just covered will come into play after we see Jesus cleanse the temple here in verse 15.

Now, I want you to remember that Jesus had a full night and a partial day to think about what we saw last week.

He went in and he inspected the temple.

So he had a full night to think and process about everything that he said and a partial day.

And now he's coming back in to Jerusalem that next day.

Look at verse 15.

So as they came to Jerusalem, and he went into the temple and began to throw out those buying and selling.

He overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves, and would not permit anyone to carry goods through the temple.

Now, I want you to think back over the whole book of Mark that we've been covering, and compared to everything else that we've seen in Mark so far, think about how this compares.

We haven't seen anything like this so far in the book of Mark.

We've seen some very pointed words come from Jesus, but never an action like this.

And it says that he overturned tables.

Now I think this is a good time to talk about righteous anger and to talk about sinful or unrighteous anger and to define those two things before we move on.

Righteous anger is the good emotion that we get when something is not right, when we see some sort of an injustice.

It's the emotion that we should feel when we hear about sex trafficking or elderly abuse or abortion or slavery or any sort of injustice like that.

Those are bad things that we should be angry about.

Now, on the other hand, is unrighteous anger.

And that's sinful.

That's sinful anger.

And the best definition that I've ever heard for unrighteous anger came from a counseling course that I took years back.

And they defined it like this.

They said, anger is the emotion we feel when we are not getting what we think we deserve.

That's unrighteous anger.

And I'm gonna read that again because I really want this to set in.

Anger is the emotion we feel when we are not getting what we think we deserve.

So the next time you get angry, I want you to ask yourself what is it that you don't think that you're getting that you think that you deserve?

That's something I've started to do ever since I got that definition because it made so much sense.

And I've noticed that one, it tends to diffuse the anger very quickly.

But two, it every single time it helps me realize my own selfishness.

Because that's what it boils down to every single time that we have unrighteous anger.

It when we get down to the root of it, it's selfishness because we don't think that we're getting what we deserve.

So I challenge you to try that.

The next time you feel that emotion rising up inside of you is to ask that question.

So we're seeing Jesus right here, and he's experiencing righteous anger, obviously, because he was sinless.

And the fact that he spent all night and a part of the day thinking about it tells us that this was also calculated anger.

He thought on it all night.

It wasn't this sudden outburst of anger because he saw something and he just, you know, takes it over.

In John chapter 2, we see Jesus cleanse the temple the first time.

John 2 · chapter mention

He did it in the beginning of his ministry as well.

And it tells us that Jesus saw what was happening in the temple, made a whip out of cords, and then drove out all the businesses out of the temple.

You know, it takes a bit of time to make a whip.

It wasn't this outburst that we're seeing from Jesus.

So he makes that whip, he drives them out, and rightfully so, because what they were doing was not good.

But I point that out because it was calculated.

The cleansing of the temple both times were very calculated.

At its core, what these people are doing is they're taking people's desire to glorify God and to be obedient to him, and under the disguise of helping people, they're turning a profit.

And so there's no question of why this is making Jesus angry.

They're taking what people are wanting to do as a pure desire, and they're making a profit over it.

So let's look at some details of what these people were actually doing that made Jesus so angry.

First, let's look at the money changers.

So each Jewish male in this culture was expected to pay a temple tax in the currency that the temple was using, which at the time was a shekel.

And as these people were coming from all over the place, you know, making their pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover, these money changers would exchange to the temple currency so that these people could pay their taxes, and they would do it at an exorbitant rate.

So if someone wanted to pay the temple tax, or if they wanted to buy a pre-approved animal to sacrifice, they had to exchange their money into the temple currency, which was the shekel.

Because what else are you going to do?

That's what's required.

They had no other options that they could go to.

So they were kind of forced into this currency.

And then the other thing that we see is we see that people are buying and selling, and people are selling doves.

You know, in John 2, in the first temple cleansing, it says that they were selling doves, lambs, and oxen, which we can assume were all being sold there as well.

And basically what they're doing is they're providing anything that you need if you didn't want to travel with your sacrifice, if you didn't want to travel with that animal.

And if you had enough money to buy one once you got there, they said, hey, we have all the stuff that you need for the sacrifices, you just come in, pay the exorbitant rates, and we'll take care of you.

And the thing is, specifically with the doves, is that God had given a provision in Leviticus 12 that allowed for the poor to offer doves or pigeons if they could not afford a lamb.

And I think this would have been close to Jesus' heart, because his mother Mary and his stepfather Joseph offered two doves and two pigeons when Jesus was presented in the temple right after his birth.

Mary and Joseph were poor.

They couldn't even afford a lamb to present the lamb in the temple.

But the point is that even the poor are being taken advantage of in the temple by the selling of these doves to make a profit.

They're taking advantage of the poor.

You know, the the other way that all of this kind of was a racket in a way is the animals you did bring, if they had a spot or a blemish or anything that the priest said was unacceptable, then you couldn't offer it.

But then they could say, oh, this one will work.

But if you come over here, you know, we can provide one for you at an exorbitant rate, and then you can offer that one, and then you'll be good to go.

So you had the option to buy one while you were there.

And there's a lot of evidence, historical evidence, to support the fact that the religious leaders were in cahoots with the money changers and with the people that were selling the livestock.

And they made sure that everybody that was buying and selling, including the priests and the religious leaders, they made sure everybody went home with a prophet that day.

It had the appearance, like I was saying, of being a helpful service.

And who knows?

Maybe it started that way.

Where it was like, hey, it would be nice if these travelers actually had these options, but then the rates just kept going up and going up until they became like Disneyland prices, you know, where it's$6 for a bottle of water and$15 for a frozen hamburger or something like that.

But right now it had turned into that just exorbitant money exchange and exorbitant prices for these animals.

So we've been talking a lot lately about the importance of worshiping God in the way that he desires.

Worshiping the God that is and not the God that we want him to be.

Worshiping God because we are in awe of him and not because of what we get out of it.

Worshiping in spirit and truth and allowing God's word to inform us on how that is done.

So Jesus, we're gonna see, informs the crowd with Scripture on what things should look like.

Look at verse 17 with me.

It says, He was teaching them, is it not written, my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations?

So he's quoting Isaiah 56, 7 right here.

And this is what it should look like: a house of prayer for all nations.

But Jesus goes on and he says, But you have made it a den of thieves.

He's rever referring to Jeremiah 7.11 right there with the den of thieves.

He's saying, This is what it should be, but this is what you've made it into.

A den of thieves.

You know, what a contrast.

A house where nations can gather to pray and to worship to God.

And it's turned into a place where criminals can come in and hide out.

That's about as far from the left to the right as you can possibly get.

What a progression that it had taken from becoming a house of prayer to becoming a den of thieves.

So, as we see, Jesus did something about it, and he taught the people why he was doing it.

And then we're gonna see right here in verse 18 the religious leader's response to Jesus calling them a den of thieves.

It says the chief priests and the scribes heard it that he had called them a den of thieves and started looking for a way to kill him.

For they were afraid of him because the whole crowd was astonished by his teaching.

Why were they afraid?

It was the fear of man.

The religious leaders were so afraid of man.

And somehow Jesus is teaching through all of this.

You know, I would have loved to be a fly on the wall of the temple at this time to just kind of take it in and see what's going on because I have so many questions.

Like, was nobody fighting back against Jesus as he was driving him out?

Was nobody resisting?

Was nobody trying to stop him or saying, no, I'm here, you know, you can't drive me out.

And they all, you know, or are they all just like, okay, this is getting crazy, we're just out, we'll be back tomorrow.

We're just gonna call it a day.

You know, who knows?

But the point is that Jesus had had it, and with a calculated response, he cleansed the temple and he took care of what needed to happen.

And he didn't just do it and leave, he did it and taught the people why he was doing it.

And this was the last straw for the religious leaders.

You know, they knew all about Jesus, they had been plotting on how they can kill him and how they can get rid of him, but this really was the last straw for them.

The the triumphal entry had just happened, and then now he's coming in and he's basically tearing up the whole business that they had set up within the temple, and that was the last straw.

Look at verse 19.

It says, whenever evening came, they would go out of the city.

So they're leaving Jerusalem.

Early in the morning, as they were passing by, they saw the fig tree withered from its roots up.

Okay, so now we're back to the fig tree again.

Okay, it's it's a book in on both sides of the temple cleansing, and it's all gonna tie in here.

But remember, Jerusalem.

Jesus cursed it for no fruit.

And then the next day it is completely dead and from the roots up, which is important because it just wasn't the leaves that died on this tree.

The whole thing, the roots, all the way to the tips of the branches were dead.

And that's important because that's not how trees die.

It's usually a slow death over a long period of time.

Even if it's sprayed with poison or poison somehow, it takes a long time for the tree to die all the way through the wood.

And I mentioned that because what we're looking at here is we're actually looking at a miracle of Jesus.

That he cursed this tree and it died that quickly.

And he did it for the purpose of a sermon illustration.

So let's finally talk about this live action parable of the fig tree.

So in the Old Testament, God refers to Israel in regards to a fig tree or in regards to figs themselves.

So if you're taking notes and you want the cross references, now's the time to get ready.

The first one I'll read to you though, it's Hosea 9.10, where God says, I discovered Israel like grapes in the wilderness.

I saw your ancestors like the first fruits of the fig tree in its first season.

And then you can read the entire chapter of Jeremiah 24, where God refers to the Israeli exiles as good figs and bad figs.

But then we see that most often when Israel is referred to as a fig tree, it's symbolically to gauge the health of the nation, whether physically or spiritually.

And there are too many of those where God uses that to read this morning.

But if you weren't, if you're taking notes, you can find it in 1 Kings 4.25.

You can find it in Joel 2.22, Micah 4.4, Zechariah 3.10, and then I'll read to you Jeremiah 8.13, because it's very pertinent specifically to this verse that we're going through this morning.

He says, I will gather them and bring them to an end.

And he's referring to the religious leaders of Israel, specifically in Judah.

This is the Lord's declaration.

There will be no grapes on the vine, no figs on the fig tree, and even the leaf will wither.

Sound familiar?

Whatever I have given them will be lost to them.

So what we are seeing in this withered tree that we're looking at here today is symbolic of the health of the nation of Israel spiritually.

And from a distance, Israel looked like a healthy tree with leaves.

And it's coming to life in the spring, just like any healthy tree should be at this time.

But with closer inspection, you realize that it looks healthy, but it's not bearing fruit.

And it will not bear fruit in the later seasons as well.

You know, if someone were to walk into Jerusalem for the first time and just look around with all of the Passover festivities going on, it would look like a very healthy tree.

The city was bustling, full of people making their pilgrimage to Jerusalem and to the temple specifically.

And the temple is full of people that came to worship and to offer sacrifices.

It has the appearance of healthy worship, the appearance of religious devotion.

But it was just leaves.

There was no fruit.

And there's not going to be fruit coming under the current system of leadership that Israel has in this time.

The religious activity was thriving, but it was empty activity.

We saw in Mark 7, 6, Jesus already told the scribes and Pharisees, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines, human commands.

And that line, they worship me in vain.

The appearance is there, but the results are not.

You see, the worship of God, it's not for our benefit.

We, of course, benefit from the perspective that we gain when we worship God, but it's not for our benefit that we worship.

These money changers and this marketplace, they were set up for the benefit of people.

Some of the scribes and Pharisees were making up and enforcing oral traditions that were for their own benefit.

They have the appearance of following God, but they did not have the fruit.

Which is the evidence, as we see in Scripture, of a right relationship with God.

Jesus is very concerned with fruit.

He's very concerned with it specifically in a believer's life.

And he's very concerned with it in the life of a leader as well.

In Matthew 7, 15 through 20, he said, Be on your guard against false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravaging wolves.

You'll recognize them by their fruit.

Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?

In the same way, every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit.

A good tree can't produce bad fruit, neither can a bad tree produce good fruit.

Every tree that doesn't produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire, so you'll recognize them by their fruit.

Jesus is very concerned with fruit.

And that's how we're to judge the real deal as well, as followers of Christ.

If somebody is saying that they are a Christian, you know, so they have leaves, they have the appearance of health, but they're living in debauchery and they're drawing people away from God so they don't have fruit or they have bad fruit, don't believe them, that they are a believer.

If somebody is saying they have a word from the Lord, but it's not lining up with scripture, with scripture, get away from that person.

The proof is in the fruit.

If somebody is saying that they are a Christian, but they don't display love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, you know, the fruits of the Spirit, then don't believe that they're a believer in Christ.

And we're all gonna fail at all of those at some point.

But the point is there should be evidence of all of those things in our life if we're truly walking with Jesus.

If a person is miserable, short-tempered, compulsive, a flake, don't believe that they're a Christian.

That is not the results of the fruit of the Spirit living in and through them.

You know the old af the old adage that the proof is in the pudding?

You guys all heard that at some point, hopefully.

Jesus is saying the proof is in the fruit.

And if you're not sure if somebody is a follower of Christ, or that you should believe them or listen to them or maybe follow them, look at the fruit.

That is what Jesus is telling us, that we need to see the fruit.

Now, before we move on, I want to point one thing out.

This is the only miracle that we see Jesus perform that ruined something.

Everything else brought life and it brought healing, it brought multiplication.

This one miracle that we see of Jesus brought death.

So I think we need to pay special close attention to it.

I think this shows us how serious Jesus took the appearance of religion without the fruit to back it up.

And I think this illustration of this tree shows us exactly that.

The whole lesson of this tree boils down to this if you're not producing fruit, you're not really following Jesus.

And if you're not really following Jesus, that leads to death.

Now let's take a look at verse 21, where the disciples recognize now that the tree is dead.

Verse 21.

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

Literally, it means does not have moisture.

It has dried up.

Which is a great illustration of trying to be religious without the Spirit of God living in and through us.

It's a great picture of trying to be religious without abiding in Jesus Christ.

You know, he told the woman at the well in John 4 14, whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.

The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

You see, Jesus is the source of our water.

And if we abide in him, we will not wither.

So if you're experiencing a dry season in your walk with Jesus, abide in him.

Draw nearer to him.

Hunger and thirst for righteousness as if our life depends on it.

Because it does.

Verse 22, look at it with me.

Jesus replied to them, Have faith in God.

Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, be lifted up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.

So I have a question for you.

If I prayed hard enough that the top of Pine Mountain, you guys know what Pine Mountain is the word?

That monolith got set up a few years back.

If I pray hard enough that the top of that mountain will be cast into the ocean over Morrow Bay, will it happen?

You can respond, it's okay.

Everybody's afraid to you now, huh?

The answer is sure, absolutely.

If it's God's will.

Which we're gonna get in here, into here just in a second.

But first, Jesus wants to address two different things, and then we'll get into the whole praying with faith.

But he wants to address two roadblocks to prayer.

The first one being faithlessness, and the second one being bitterness.

So first he addresses faith in verse 24.

Look at it with me.

It says, Therefore I tell you, everything you pray and ask for, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

From John 15, again, I want to read you this.

And this is Jesus' words again.

He says, If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want, and it'll be done for you.

The key to both of these verses, here in John 15 and the one we just read in Mark, the key to both of those verses is remaining or abiding in Jesus.

Psalm 37, 4 says, Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart's desires.

That does not mean he's going to give you what you desire.

It means he will give you the desire in the first place.

He will place or implant his desires into your heart.

And if you're desiring the same thing that God is, then he will say yes to anything that you ask for.

You see how that works?

So take delight, abide in Jesus, allow him to implant the desires into your heart in the first place, and believe that he is able and has the authority and is strong enough to answer all of those prayers, and he will.

That's what this verse boils down to here.

Now, let's read verse 24 here again in light of that.

Therefore, I tell you, everything you pray and ask for, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Now let's look at the second roadblock that Jesus is mentioning in prayer here.

And that is bitterness or unforgiveness.

Look at verse 25.

And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven will also forgive you your wrongdoing.

So if you're holding bitterness or unforgiveness towards someone, you're not showing the fruit of the spirit.

I counted, and bitterness and unforgiveness violate nine out of nine of the fruits of the spirit.

You're not being loving if you're holding bitterness towards somebody.

You're not going to experience peace if you have bitterness or unforgiveness in your heart.

You're not showing patience with a person and forgiving 70 times seven if you have bitterness.

You're not showing kindness towards that person.

You're not showing goodness towards that person.

You're not showing faithfulness to Jesus because he forgave us of everything, yet we're holding on to unforgiveness and bitterness.

We're not showing gentleness towards that person.

We're not showing self-control because we're unable to do the things that God has told us that he wants us to, to forgive all.

So if you're harboring unforgiveness and bitterness toward anyone, then you can't be fully abiding in Jesus Christ.

And if you're not abiding in Christ, God is not implanting his desires into your heart.

And if he's not implanting his desires into your heart, you're not going to know how to pray.

So you see how that roadblock works?

And it all starts with bitterness and unforgiveness.

You know, the lie that I think so many of us believe, and it absolutely makes no sense whatsoever, is that if we hold on to unforgiveness, that we are in some way getting back at our offender.

Which in most cases I think the offender probably doesn't remember.

Or isn't thinking about it, or isn't thinking about you, or maybe doesn't even know that the offense took place in the first place.

Or maybe they just don't care.

Maybe they did it and they're just a jerk and they just don't care.

But the the only thing that we accomplish by holding on to bitterness and unforgiveness is allowing that bitterness and unforgiveness to steal our joy.

And and to kind of muffle all of the other fruits of the Spirit that God wants to see coming out of our life.

If you forgive, and hear me, even the undeserving, you benefit more than anyone.

You benefit way more than the offender does by not allowing the unforgiveness and the bitterness to well up inside of you.

And verse 25, look at it.

It says, anything and anyone.

There are no rooms, there's no room for exceptions here.

That removes all scenarios and all stipulations.

There's no exceptions whatsoever.

So we need to stop believing that lie, that unforgiveness in some way is benefiting us.

Or getting revenge on the offender in some way.

It's only making us wither up.

And the idea here in verse 25 is that we are the offenders.

Every single one of us.

We're the offenders of God.

We're the ones undeserving of forgiveness.

Our sins pinned his son to the cross.

We were the ones yelling, crucify him.

We were the ones that were swinging the hammers.

And God just keeps forgiving and forgiving and providing his sufficient grace at every moment of every offense that we've ever done against him.

So Jesus says, you need to forgive so that your Father in heaven will also forgive you your wrongdoing.

And I want you to hear this.

No one in this world has offended us more than we have offended God.

Through our sin, through our rebellion, through our offense to Him.

So how could we not forgive when we have been so freely forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ?

We don't have a reason to hold unforgiveness in our lives.

You know, so much of today's passage is reinforced in John chapter 15, which I'm going to ask all of us to turn to right now.

John 15 · chapter mention

John chapter 15.

John 15 · chapter mention

It's two books to the right in your Bible, and we're going to end with this.

But John chapter 15, it's where our theme verse is as a church.

John 15 · chapter mention

It's where we got our name abide.

So let's turn there.

John chapter 15, starting in verse 1.

John 15 · chapter mention

And let's read this in light of everything that we've talked about here today.

John chapter 15, starting in verse 1.

John 15 · chapter mention

It says, I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener.

Every branch in me that does not produce fruit, think of the fig tree, think of the religious leaders.

He removes and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit.

You are already clean because the word I have spoken to you.

Remain, or some of your translations will say, Abide in me, and I in you.

Remember, Jesus is the source of living water and all nutrients that we need.

Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains or abides on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

The one who remains in me, and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me.

If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch, and he withers.

They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want, and it will be done for you.

My father is glorified by this, that you produce much fruit, and prove to be my disciples.

The proof is in the fruit.

As we end here today, I want to leave you with a takeaway and with a challenge.

First, we're going to look at the takeaway.

And that is proof of being a disciple of Jesus is bearing fruit.

And my hesitation is after a message like this, that we just all go out and try harder.

That we grin and bear it, that we white knuckle it, that we strain to try and produce this fruit.

This is not a message that can be accomplished by trying harder.

I want to make sure that you know that.

This is about abiding closer to Jesus.

If you draw near to him, he will draw near to you.

And as we draw nearer and nearer to Jesus, we'll find that we're becoming more and more like him.

And the fruit is just going to be a natural thing that just starts to happen in our lives.

We become more and more dependent on Jesus.

We become more dependent upon the Holy Spirit living in and through us.

And then we realize, like John 15, 5 states, that we can do nothing without him.

It's not about our effort in what we can do, it's about abiding in Jesus.

And like I said, this isn't about trying harder.

This is about depending more deeply.

That's the only way that we won't just look like followers of Christ, but we'll actually bear the fruit as well.

That's the only way that we can ensure that our worship doesn't become about our own profit or our own benefit.

It's the only way that we can ensure that our prayers are being heard and that our hearts are aligning with the Father.

And that's all through abiding in Jesus Christ.

And now for the challenge.

How does he want to make our worship more pure?

What are we profiting from, or maybe being deceitful in for our own profit?

In what ways are we trying to selfishly profit in our worship to God?

So an honest assessment of what tables does Jesus want to overturn in our life.