He is Good | The Tree, the Temple, & the Curse | Mark 11:12-21 | Coleton Segars

We're doing a series titled He Is Good, Looking at the Life of Jesus through Mark's lens.

And today the text comes from Mark 11, verses 12 through 21.

Mark 11:12–21

And so I'm going to read these and then we'll get started.

Mark writes, The next day, as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry, and seeing in the distance a fig tree and leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit.

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

Then he said to the tree, May no one ever eat fruit from you again.

And his disciples heard him say it.

On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there.

He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts.

And as he taught them, he said, Is it not written, My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations?

But you have made it a den of robbers.

And the chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.

And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city.

And in the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots.

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

This is the word of the Lord.

I read this quote.

Um I can't remember if Rainey sent it to me or something, but I read this quote.

Uh, this right here, go to the next slide.

There it is.

Yeah, I read this quote that says, After turning 35 to 40, men must make a decision to either get really into World War II history or really into smoking meats.

And then I turned like 36, and my brother was 37, and he got really into smoking meats.

And I got really into World War II.

And I was like, this is some prophet, I don't know who this was that said this thing, but I was like, there is so much truth in that.

I like, I've watched Band of Brothers, uh, I'm on my third time through, and it's this World War II Tom Hanks does this whole thing, and it's like documentary slash, you know, show.

And uh I'll just finish it and then start back at the beginning and just do it again.

And then he anything that he does, like on this thing, the Pacific, and there's all these other ones, like it's just I love it.

I love it so much.

And I'll watch documentaries of the easy company, which is what it's based on.

And I don't know.

I don't know what I'm gonna do with all that information, but I'm just fascinated by it.

I think it's hysterical, I'm not hysterical, it's wonderful to learn from.

And my brother loves smoking meats.

And so um, I say all that just to give you some insight into my life.

Um, but then also this text, what I want to do with it today is I kind of want to go documentary style, and maybe it's because I'm watching all these documentaries, but I want to go documentary style through the text because there's so much going on here.

And so I kind of want to document each scene and like here's what's actually happening behind the scenes in this thing right here.

And so kind of tell you how the story fits together.

And so we'll be going through this thing, documentary style.

It might feel like, what does this have to do with anything in my life?

What does all of this information have to do with anything for my life?

Because most of the message will be that.

And then at the very end, I do want to actually apply some of this to us and go, here's just ways of application that we can take from this text.

And so that's what it's gonna be like.

And so documenting each particular scene of this thing and trying to explain what's happening here.

That's what we're doing today.

Please stay with us.

If you get bored in the midst of it, just stand up and just shake it off and then think about World War II, and you'll be right back in.

Okay.

I'm gonna explain what's happening.

The first thing that Jesus is doing here with this fig tree, Jesus uses this fig tree to symbolically reveal that the temple system in Jerusalem at this time, the temple system is diseased and broken.

Okay, that's what he's doing.

He's using the fig tree to symbolically reveal that it's broken, that it's diseased.

And so in verse 12, it says he's hungry.

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

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

And so on the surface, what it sounds like is that there shouldn't be any figs on the tree, anyways, for it's not the season of figs.

On the surface, it sounds like there should be nothing here.

Why is Jesus doing this?

But that's not actually the case.

Fig trees always produced early figs before they fully leafed out.

And so the idea would be if you see one that's fully leafed, there should be early fruit there.

And so it's not the actual season in the space, but there should be something there.

Even God Himself says uh about Israel in Hosea 9, he says, When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert.

When I saw your ancestors, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree.

So this is a very normal thing that Jesus is doing.

He's not looking at this tree and being like, it's not the season for figs, I'm just angry and I'm mad.

It's like there's supposed to be something here if it's fully leaved.

James Edwards in his commentary explains this really well.

He says, before a new harvest of figs, branches of fig trees sprout buds.

These buds swell into small green knobs, known in Hebrew as pagim in March and April, followed shortly by the sprouting of leaf buds on the same branches, usually in April.

So the fig trees thus produces fig knobs before it produces leaves.

Once a fig tree is in leaf, one therefore expects to find branches loaded with pagim in various stages of maturation.

This is implied in verse 13, where Jesus, seeing a fig tree in full foliage, turns aside in hopes of finding something edible.

And so this is a thing that he's expecting.

There should be something there.

And then Tim Keller picks up on this in his book Jesus the King, and he talks about this of what it means that there's no fruit there.

And he says, if you found a fig tree that had begun to sprout leaves, but had none of these delicious little nodules or pagim, you would know that there's something wrong.

It might look okay from a distance because the leaves had emerged, but if it had no pagim, no nodules, it was diseased or maybe even dying inside, because growth without fruit was a sign of decay.

And Jesus is simply pronouncing that such is the case here, and he's referencing the temple.

And so the tree is filled with leaves and looks like it's full of life, but actually, once you get closer to it, once you get inside of it, and once you start looking in it, it looks like it's filled with life, but it's actually diseased and it's dying.

And so then you get to, you leave that space, and Mark sandwiches the temple scene in the middle of you have tree, temple scene, tree.

And so he sandwiches the temple right in the middle of it.

And so you get to the temple scene, and what you see there is a lot of leaves.

It looks like there's so much life there.

There's so much religious activity going on in the temple.

Tons of tons of people, tons of animals.

Uh Josephus uh in AD 66 said that um the Passover, this this particular time of the year, that they would have 225 or over 225 animals for sacrifice.

And so this in this space that's supposed to be for worship, there's more than 225,000 animals that are about to be slaughtered as offering and sacrifice to the Lord.

And so it looks like there's a lot of religious activity going on.

God wants, according to the scriptures, he wants pure and spotless lambs and sacrifices.

That's what he wants.

Can't have any blemishes, nothing like that.

And so, instead of having people travel a long distance with their animals, instead of them going, like, hey, just bring your animals to us, because if you travel that way, there's a chance that you might get something blemished on your animal.

Instead of you having to do that, we'll make it easy for you.

We'll put it right here in the temple, and you can make sure that these things are unblemished.

It sounds like a really good thing.

Uh the temple is set up for the sale of animals so they can have that.

There were these money changers that were there that was supposed to look very religious as well, because they were changing the Roman coins that had the deity Caesar on it.

They're like, well, we can't use that in the temple because this coin has a different God on it.

We can't offer those to God.

We can't transfer those money.

So they would change the money in in order for it to be something that doesn't have an image on it to another deity.

And so it looked like, well, that's very religious.

Like we're trying to stay away from idol worship.

That's really good.

That's really great stuff.

And so they would change the coins out, and it looks like they're doing it right.

It looks like they're being very religious, and it looks like there's so much life in this place.

But the closer you get into the leaves, the more you realize it's all diseased.

The money changers don't care about God or his holiness.

Maybe some of them do, but for the most part, they don't care about any of that.

They're charging exorbitant amounts to actually transfer the thing.

And so, really, what it became was like, give me your coin at a higher rate.

If you want to get the temple coin, if you want this, like it's gonna cost you a lot more of those than this.

And so the trade wasn't one-to-one, it was much more than that.

And so they weren't doing that to give it to God, they were doing it to line their own pockets.

And so there's a den of thieves and a den of robbers that are robbing people in the name of God.

And so then you get the the markets were there with the cattle and all the different stuff.

The markets were never supposed to be in this place.

It's supposed to be a place of worship, not a place for the selling of animals.

But Caiaphas, the high priest, uh, at this particular time uh in AD 30, he actually created those markets and put them there.

And so William Lane in his commentary says this says that there used to be these four markets on the Mount of Olives where pilgrims to Jerusalem, they could buy their doves and other ritually pure objects to sacrifice for the temple offerings.

About a mile and a half away from the temple, there were markets for this.

Like if you it was a long way to travel, you didn't want to do that yourself, you can buy them here.

Then you got about a mile and a half to the temple, and you can do that.

Well, Caiaphas, the sale of animals in the temple court, was an innovation of recent date and was introduced by the high priest Caiaphas in AD 30, just a few years earlier.

And he wished to set up a market which would be in competition with the traditional markets on the Mount of Olives.

And so he sets up these temples of these markets in this space.

And again, with the with the ruse of like, this is gonna be better for everybody.

We're gonna increase and enhance the worship.

We're gonna have pure, unblemished animals.

They don't have to walk a mile and a half anymore.

Now they're just, we sell them right here, and now they go directly into the temple, they're pure and unblemished.

And that's what he's setting up, that's what he's doing.

But the truth is, like, you're just making a bunch of money on this.

Like you're you're competing with other markets, and now you're gonna make some money here, and you can charge extra because as they do at concerts, like you can buy online for$30, but at the door it's$50.

That's how they're doing this.

That's what they're doing.

And so the area where the selling of animals was held was supposed to be the place where the Gentiles were able to encounter God, to pray to God.

That's the only space they could go to inside the temple.

I should have done an image, I almost did it, but there was a billion, most of them were confusing.

But there was this space that was like five football fields long.

The area was so big, they said it was something like 30 acres of like where the Gentiles could come and worship.

And all of that was filled with markets and money changers and a ton of animals.

And so it was supposed to be a place of worship.

And um, Caiaphas put that stuff in there in order to make money, but it also was like, this is the most unholy place, anyways.

Like the Gentiles, like they're they're gross, they're so it had a strong sense of racism about it to put it there, like we don't actually want them here.

The Gentiles are out there, we're the chosen people.

Strong sense of racism in the midst of it.

And so, again, the more you peel back the layers on this thing, it's like it looks very righteous.

It looks very holy.

It looks like these people are crushing it in church.

And then the closer and closer you get to this thing, the more you realize, like, man, everything that you're calling righteousness is actually sin.

The temple has become completely corrupted.

And the things that they're like, this is going to enhance worship.

They don't see that, like, this is prohibiting worship.

This is gonna make worship better.

It's like you're actually hindering it.

This is supposed to be a place of prayer.

This is supposed to be a place of worship, and now they can't even get in here because all of this stuff is going on.

Caiaphas, the high priest, the one who was supposed to intercede for the people so that they could actually meet with God and draw near to God.

He is actually being used in this space as a barrier for people to get closer to God.

He's supposed to be the one that people are like, oh, thank goodness we have a high priest who can intercede for us and then we can draw close to God.

And actually, he's the one placing stuff in the middle of it to keep people actually out.

And so Jesus rolls in there and he's mad.

And he's the true high priest.

He's actually we have a we have a greater and truer high priest.

And so Jesus, the true high priest, walks in there and starts restoring what should have been worship all along.

And he starts driving these things out.

And this is what he does in verses 15 and 16, and then he announces what his house as the true high like this is this is supposed to be a space of worship, and you've made it something else.

You've made God's place, God's house, a place where you can sin, but just cover it up as righteousness.

You can do whatever you want in God's name because you're doing it in God's name and nobody can say that.

And so he's furious.

The temple was diseased and it was corrupted from within, just like the tree.

And that's what the tree image is supposed to show you.

There's something wrong that's happening in the temple worship.

James Edwards again says that the leafy fig tree, with all of its promise of fruit, it's as deceptive as the temple, which, despite its religious activity, is really an outlaw's hideout.

That's verse 17.

Just as the leaves of the tree conceal the fact that there was no fruit to enjoy, so the magnificence magnificence of the temple and its commerce and ceremony, it conceals the fact that Israel has not brought forth the fruit of righteousness demanded by God.

And so the curse of the fig tree is a symbol of God's judgment on the temple.

And so that's what's happening here.

It looks religiously alive, but it's actually dead on the inside.

That's what's taking place.

And then that leads us to the next day, to like the next day of the cursing of the fig tree happened one day, and then the withering fig tree happens the next day, and it leads us to the withered tree the next day.

And so in verse 20 through 21, how are we doing?

We okay?

Y'all tracking?

We're good?

No one, okay, that's fine.

It's interesting to me, so at least we have that.

Um, so verse 20 through 21.

It says, In the morning as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots, and Peter remembered what Jesus said and said, Rabbi, look, the fig tree you cursed, it's withered.

And the withering fig tree, so as the the fig tree itself represented something, and then we saw that the withering fig tree and the withered fig tree represents two very important symbolic things that Jesus wants to announce through this thing.

Everything is symbolically announcing something else.

And so the cursed, or excuse me, the withered fig tree represents two very important truths.

One is that the temple system, the way of paying for your own sin.

Bring your own sheep, your own goat, your own doves, bring your own stuff, pay for your own sin.

This temple system of doing things, it is withering away and it is going to be replaced.

That is what this is symbolizing.

This is going away.

The temple system is withering away and it's going to be replaced.

And so the temple was the space where you meet God, encounter God's presence, and Jesus is showing that is coming to an end.

James Edwards again spent a lot of time in these commentaries because this is a passage that I've never taught them before.

So it was very helpful to have a lot of people speak into this.

But he says that we see that the temple is coming to an end and it's going to be replaced through Jesus' death on the cross.

He says, at the moment of Jesus' death, the great curtain inside the temple that divides the Holy of Holies from the people is torn in two.

And it's dramatizing the dissolution of the temple as the means and the ways to approach God.

In his sacrificial death on the cross, Jesus alone is now the access to God.

The fig tree thus symbolizes the temple.

As the means of approach to God, the temple is fundamentally from the roots, is what it says.

It withered from the roots.

From the roots is being replaced by Jesus as the center of Israel.

Jesus is becoming and going to shift into like, who how in the world do we meet with God?

He's like, I am the temple.

I will be the new space of encounter between God.

And this is why Jesus says, no one comes to the Father except through me.

Because everybody understood you have to go to the temple in order to get to the Father.

You have to go to the temple in order to get to God.

And he's going, that's going to be replaced, and it's going to be replaced in me.

I am now the space.

I'm the way.

I'm the truth.

I'm the life.

No one comes to the Father except through the new temple, which is me.

And so this is good news for us.

It's supposed to be something that Jesus is revealing, and then we're going, like, oh, thank God.

I don't have to go to Jerusalem.

I mean, I'd love to go to Jerusalem one day, but like I don't have to go to Jerusalem to get my sins forgiven.

I don't have to do any of that.

And so if you want your sins forgiven, if you want to be right with God and draw near to God, and you don't want to have to make a sacrifice, your own sacrificial offering to cover your sin, you don't have to do that anymore.

You don't have to pay for your sin anymore.

And I think we get stuck in this sometimes where we still feel like we have to do that, where it's like I sinned a little bit.

As long as I can be really good this next week and read my Bible and pray a lot and not sin, then I then then God's gonna really like me a lot.

He's gonna be very happy with me when I don't sin.

He's gonna be really angry with me when I do sin.

And I got to figure out a way of actually paying for that.

And so what Jesus is actually saying is like, there is no payment for sin left.

Like I have done that for you.

I have I have paid that thing for you.

You still have to go to the temple to get your sins forgiven, but the temple that you're going to is to Jesus.

And when you show up to that temple, you find that he's not asking you to offer anything.

He's like, I've already done the offering.

I've already made the offering.

It was my body given for you, my blood shed for you.

The offering's already been paid.

And so you get to go to the temple not in order to get your sins forgiven and to have to pay for them yourself.

You get to go there to actually just encounter God knowing that he has made a way for you to actually do those things.

And so, just as the people during this time, they had to place their faith in an animal.

They placed their faith in an animal that if they gave that animal, that it would pay off their sin.

They just believed by faith.

If I show up to Jerusalem with this animal and it's offered to God, I believe by faith that he's going to forgive my sin.

Well, in the same way, now people, a little bit different, now people are called to place their faith in Jesus, an animal, the Lamb of God.

They're asked to place their faith in him who takes away the sins of the world.

But it's not them offering Jesus.

We're not offering Jesus as the sacrifice.

He has done that for us.

And so we're not having to do that.

And so this is supposed to be this really beautiful thing for us where it's like, what is the withered tree?

It looks like death.

And it's like, yes, but it's a good, necessary death.

This temple system must go away.

Because if you keep trying to pay for your own sins, you're never actually going to be forgiven because you can't pay for your own sin.

And so somebody has done that for you.

You don't have to pay for your own sin.

You don't have to try and work, work it off or be good to get it paid off.

Jesus has paid for your sin, so you don't have to worry with it.

That's the first thing that the withered tree represents.

And it's good news to us.

That's why the gospel is supposed to be good news, why the word is good news.

Because how do I draw near?

It's like someone else has made a way for you to be righteous.

Somebody else has done this thing for you.

So that's the first thing.

Jesus is saying that the temple system, you paying for your sin, that was that is withering away, and eventually on the cross, I will take care of it, and that will be gone.

And then in 70 AD, which is wild, this isn't in my notes.

Um, but after Jesus died, the temple curtain was torn into, right?

And now you have access to this to God.

Okay.

Well, the temple system goes on for another 27 years, 37 years, something like that, until AD 70.

What is that, 27 years?

That is 37 years.

So for another 37 years, the temple system keeps going.

So what that means is they sewed that thing right back up.

They sewed the curtain back up, or they got a new one, and they were like, no, no, no, this needs, I know it tore from top to bottom, and that's impossible, and it looks like a miracle.

It's not.

Uh we don't have access to God.

Let's sew this Joker back up and let's keep making sacrifices for sin.

And it's like, y'all continued in this thing, and you never received Christ as Lord.

You never received Christ as Messiah.

And so we'll get to this in, I think it's Mark, Mark 13.

Like, this is why Jerusalem was destroyed and sacked in AD 70.

Just to really show, like, not only is the temple curtain torn, but now not one stone will be left on another.

This temple system will be destroyed.

And the stone that was rejected will now become the cornerstone, and that's Jesus.

Anyways, all right.

That's one thing.

That's what the withered tree represents in one way.

The second thing that the withered tree uh symbolizes is that Jesus is reversing the curse of sin.

And it's always important when you see trees and you see uh eating of fruit or not eating of fruit, it's always important to let that remind you of Genesis 3.

Everything goes back to the garden.

Okay, it's very important for you to see that.

And so Jesus is reversing the curse of sin, and this withered tree is revealing that.

And so, go to the next slide here.

In Genesis 3, Adam, known as the Son of God in Matthew, Adam, the son of God, was cursed by a tree.

Okay?

Here in Mark 11, the tree is cursed by the true and better Son of God, Jesus.

In Genesis 3, fig leaves, which are on the tree, covered the sin and shame of Adam and Eve.

And on the cross, Jesus will cover our sin and shame through his shed blood.

And so it's important for you to see these things.

And I could go a lot further.

I've told Rennie, I was like, how much of this is necessary for this sermon for it to make sense, and like it was it was very interesting, but it was too much.

But there's all these, Mark is giving us the last seven days of Jesus' life.

And if you think of creation, there were seven days of creation.

On the sixth day, man was created from the ground.

Well, on Mark's sixth day, the Son of Man is put in the ground.

He is reversing a thing, he is pinning it back, and Mark is being very creative and looking at this and going, How can we make this very, very clear that what the Son of God did in Genesis 3, the true and better Son of God is going to reverse here in the gospel.

And so that's what he's showing.

So Jesus is making the same figure of the fig tree.

Oh, excuse me.

Um, this is uh from a church father, uh Cyril of Jerusalem from like a very, very long time ago, but an early church father, he says this.

He says, Jesus is making the same figure of the fig tree, the very last of his wondrous signs.

Just as he was headed toward the cross, he cursed the fig tree.

Not every fig tree, but that one alone for its symbolic significance, saying, May no one ever eat fruit from you again, which is what they were called to do in Genesis 3.

Do not eat from that fruit.

And Jesus is like, they'll never do it again.

In this way, the curse laid upon Adam and Eve was being reversed.

And so Jesus is showing us that through his, through the death and withering, uh, excuse me, Jesus is showing us that death and withering came through one Adam, one son of God, death and withering came in.

Into all the world.

And now life comes through Jesus, the true and better Son of God, who wasn't cursed by a tree, but he was actually cursing the tree.

He did the cursing.

And so it looks like Jesus is bringing death into the world, but he's actually bringing death to death.

This tree is already dead.

There's not fruit on this thing.

It looks alive, but it's dead.

And sin looks alive, but there's death in it.

And as soon as you press into sin, and it's like that's gonna make me feel better.

As soon as you do that, you find out that it's empty and it's death.

And the wages, what it can pay you in is death.

And so Jesus is bringing death to death.

That is what he's doing, and he's showing that here.

All right.

Those are the things that that goes to, okay?

In the last section of this, uh, I just want to give you, just by way of application, I want to give you, us, two cautions and then just one encouragement, okay?

Um and before I get into that, I just want you to know like seeing those things, seeing what Jesus is doing in this space and reversing this curse and doing all of that, like it is a really beautiful thing to go slow with and to see and understand that like he is not just like he's just a nice teacher who said some cool stuff and like died for our sin, that the way that, which I think he did, he is a nice teacher and he did die for our sin.

He does believe all those things.

Uh, and I believe all that stuff.

But it's very important to see that like the world has been broken for so long, and the person who aches the most is God himself and has spent the story of the scriptures trying to get back to the garden.

And it's like there's just something in the way of this.

There's something, it just can't, there's so much death and so much destruction in the world.

We need something to fix it and to shape it.

And Jesus does this beautiful reversal where he does this thing where he becomes a curse hanging on a tree, because cursed is anyone who's hanging on a tree.

So that then when he's buried, the curse is buried, but he rises again in victory over the curse of sin, Satan, death, and hell.

And now there's a space with him.

And so it's this magnificent thing that he does.

It's really beautiful.

All right.

Two cautions, one encouragement.

The first, we all, all of us, need to beware of just being a leafy tree without fruit.

Beware of being a leafy tree without fruit.

It is so easy, especially in the South, it is so easy to claim Christianity, to be very involved in religious activities, to look like a very good Christian, that you have a very good Christian family, Christian marriage, Christian whatever.

But behind all those leaves, there's no fruit.

It is so easy to do that here.

If you've been in church for any period of time, you've likely seen this, experienced this, maybe it's you.

But I've seen it as a pastor.

You see these families, they come into church, they show up looking like the perfect family.

Like they're dressed to the nines like me today, and they're just sorry, I was trying to add some levity in it.

I don't know.

Thanks for the two of you who left.

Um, but you show up, you they show up to church and they look perfect.

It's like this is the perfect Christian family.

But then many of us have seen the horror stories of the perfect Christian family and what they look like, and like behind the scenes, there's a lot of division, a lot of hatred, a lot of bitterness, infidelity, addiction.

And you're like, man, I didn't see any of that.

I had no idea.

And then we're shocked by it.

They looked like the perfect Christian family.

They looked like they had it all together.

They looked like, how in the world could that happen to them?

And it's like leafy, leafy trees, man, leafy trees with no fruit.

It happens so often.

To look like the perfect Christian couple.

I got the perfect Christian marriage, but in the middle of it, there's division, there's bitterness, there's distrust.

To look like the perfect Christian man or woman leading in the church.

I lead this, I'm a deacon in this, I'm doing this, but then there's addiction, there's lying, there's hiding, there's infidelity, there's all this stuff.

And we have just we have just experienced horror stories of people's lives that look like leafy fruit trees.

And the closer you got to them, and the more you pulled behind the scenes, it's like there's just no fruit there.

It looks like life, but there's death.

And we have to be careful to not show a version of ourselves that looks like a leafy fruit tree when there's no fruit.

Jesus says that if you abide in him, that you will bear much fruit, that if you allow his word to live in you, that you will bear much fruit.

If you practice his word, you will bear fruit.

That it's to the glory of the Father that you bear fruit.

You should bear fruit.

There's never a season that you shouldn't be bearing some version of fruit.

And it's like, well, fruit doesn't grow in all seasons.

I I don't, I agree, but like not here in the text.

Like, not here.

You're always supposed to have something developing or growing in you, some fruit growing in you.

The fruit of the Spirit, uh, he talks about all these different things, like the Holy Spirit living in you, and the work that the Holy Spirit wants to do in your life is supposed to bear fruit in you.

And so these things on the screen here, these things should be growing in your life.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

And then other things, honesty, sacrifice, generosity, community, reconciliation, freedom, restoration, joy in the midst of suffering, hope in the midst of despair, trust, rest, selflessness, forgiveness, mercy.

Those are just fruits of his kingdom.

Those are fruits of his life.

And so those things should be showing up in your life.

If you are actively following him, working to abide in him and to stay with him.

He's just saying this stuff will be something.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

But if you stay connected to the vine, you will bear much fruit.

And so you just get to look at this list and go, like, is this fruit showing up in your life?

Or are you just a leafy tree who, like, I'm cr I come to church, I give some money to the church, I lead some things at the church, I look like a church family, I look like all these different things, I got all this stuff happening in my life.

I look very religious.

If anybody asked me, I would tell them I'm a Christian and therefore like I look like all these leafy things.

But is this fruit actually showing up in your life?

Are you just claiming to be a Christian?

Do you bear the name but not the fruit?

Because it's easy to bear the name and not the fruit.

Is that fruit showing up in your life?

Is that fruit showing up in your home?

Look like you got a good Christian family, but like what would your kids say at the house?

Like, would you, before people showed up to your house, like, would you fix a bunch of things and get a bunch of things in order so that people only still see the leaves?

Or is this fruit actually showing up in your house?

Is the fruit of it showing up in your family?

In your relationship with your kids, is this fruit showing up?

Or is there something else there?

Is this showing up in your relationships and your marriage and all these different things?

Because if the fruit isn't there, it was evidence of the in the tree that like something's broken, something's diseased, something's messed up.

And so if the that is true for you, if like I I do all the Christian stuff, but I'm not experiencing any of this fruit.

And it's like it's evidence that there's something broken there, there's something missing, there's something lacking.

Maybe you are falling into the trap of like, I claim the way of Jesus, but I don't actually follow the way of Jesus.

Because if you follow the way of Jesus, putting his word into his life, he says this, he's like, if you put your put my word, if you plant it into your life, it will grow because seeds grow.

And so if you plant it into your life, it will grow.

And so beware of just claiming the name, but not actually bearing the fruit that the name actually provides.

So that's one.

Second, beware of becoming a corrupt temple.

Beware of becoming a corrupt temple.

There's a corrupt temple here in this text.

The temple leaders began deciding that what they believed was right and wrong instead of like actually allowing God's word to decide what's right and wrong.

The temple leaders, the high priest himself, is like, I'm gonna do this.

And it's like, well, you know that the scriptures say that you shouldn't do that.

It's like, yeah, I think God, He's okay with it because of my reasons.

And so they knew the law, they knew they shouldn't be doing this stuff, they knew that this is supposed to be a space for worship and not a space for cattle, they knew all that.

And they were like, I'm gonna do it anyways.

Even though it's hindering worship, I'm gonna do it anyways.

And so, in doing this, they disobeyed God's original commands to do exactly what they wanted.

And so the temple was corrupted from within.

The temple was corrupted.

And so the reason the temple became like it was this beautiful space back in the day where like God's glory fell and all this stuff.

But what happened is people began saying this, they began to say, like, I know what God says, but and that's like it just one line, I know what God's word says, but.

And then they I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do this thing instead.

And so that's how it became corrupted.

That's the things just broke just by saying one thing.

I know what the word says, but I'm gonna do this instead.

And I think the same is true for us.

He says that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, and we can become corrupted the exact same way.

And so if you begin saying, I know what God's word says to me in this situation, but I'm gonna do my own thing.

I know what God's word says, but and so I know that I should forgive.

I know that he says that I should forgive people who sin against me.

I know I should do that, but he doesn't really know this situation.

This situation's different.

Well, then all of a sudden you begin rationalizing what's true for you and going, like, I know what God's word says, but I'm gonna do my thing instead.

And in that, you add corruption into something.

You add your life into something which is not the fullness of life.

I know that he says I should love my enemies, but I know that he says that I should bring my kids up in the way of the Lord, but I think I'll just let Instagram and TikTok and YouTube disciple my kids.

That's actually a lot easier when you just put a screen in front of them.

I know he says I should seek to live at peace as much as it concerns me with those around me, but I really hate them.

I know he says I should be generous, but I don't have a ton of money right now.

I know he says I should be in community, but uh it's awkward.

I know he says I should be putting to death my sinful desires and cutting off the hand and plucking out the eye, but honestly, I really need my phone and my computer and this stuff.

I really need this stuff in my life.

It's like the butt there is keeping you corrupted by the things that you want to actually put in your life versus what he wants to do.

I know I should pray, but and so when we do this, we begin rationalizing our sin and we become like the corrupted temple.

There's something in us that exists that's not of him.

And he was trying to drive out corruption and clean, cleanse things and do that.

And when we say, like, hey, I know what you say, but I'm gonna do my thing instead, we become a corrupted temple.

And then the last thing.

So that's those are the two warnings.

Check and beware of becoming just a leafy tree that's not experiencing the fruit of what he actually wants to do in your life.

Fruit is a good thing.

Not only does it is it wonderful for you, but it feeds other people around you.

And so you want that.

And the stuff that he wants to grow in you is life-giving.

So beware of becoming just a leafy tree that does a bunch of religious stuff.

You're super busy in religious stuff, but just not bearing any fruit.

Make sure you don't do that.

And then, secondly, don't become a corrupted temple.

Because when you do that, the temple was supposed to be the space where other people could meet God Himself.

They could actually draw close to this temple and get to know God.

But if it's corrupted, what they get is a corrupted vision of God.

And I feel like if we become corrupted, then we'll what we showed, I'm a Christian, but it's like your temple is corrupted, then what people get from you is a corrupted view of who God actually is.

They don't see someone who's as forgiving as God because you're not as forgiving as God.

You've chosen to do your thing instead of his thing.

They don't see someone who's as generous as God because you're not that generous.

You're you're just choosing to go like, I know he calls me to it, but I'm gonna do this instead.

And so you're the temple of the Holy Spirit in which Paul says that that's what you are.

It's supposed to be this testimony to the world, this is what he's actually like.

But if it's corrupted, we give a corrupted view of who God actually is.

And so those are the two warnings.

The last thing, and then I'll close.

Last thing as an encouragement, I would say, give Jesus, give Jesus access and authority over every area of your life.

Give to Jesus full surrender, every area, access and authority over every area of your life.

Leave nothing off the table.

Give him full surrender, full obedience.

I will do whatever you say, salute to the king.

You, I will like, it's weird some of the stuff you asked me to do, but I'm gonna do it anyways.

Because we should do that.

Because he is, and we saw this just a few minutes ago, he is the only one who can actually have the power to curse the tree and reverse the curse.

So he's the only one that has the power to do that.

Adam in Genesis 3, the Son of God, again, cursed by the tree in Genesis 3.

And now, everyone who is in Adam, everyone who is born, which is all of us, all of us are born in Adam.

We have his bloodline.

That's what we have.

And so, because of that, he was poisoned by sin.

He then bore children, who bore children and more children, more children.

He was poisoned by sin, and when we are in him, we are poisoned by sin.

And you see that in your own life.

Sin wreaks havoc in our lives.

We struggle with it, we have temptations, these things that break and it's brokenness.

Because we are in Adam, we are also poisoned by sin.

But Jesus wasn't poisoned by this.

Instead, he he actually curses the tree.

It's the other way.

And so instead of uh he cursed the tree, and then on the cross, what he did was he made a way where the curse of sin could actually be undone, where the poison could be removed.

And so now, now you can go from being in Adam.

I was in Adam, but now I'm in Christ.

This is your, you have this new option now.

He has made a way.

All of us were born in Adam with the poison of sin, but now you can be in Christ, who was not poisoned by the tree.

And so you can move into a space where sin doesn't wreak havoc in your life, where you have victory over sin, where it doesn't have this space in your life where it can wreak this brokenness.

And so this is why Jesus says, like, hey, you need to be born again.

You need to be born like you were born once into a sinful space because you Adam was poisoned by sin and you're poisoned just like he was.

But you need to be born again out of that, and you can be born into a new family with a new bloodline.

You can have mine covering you.

And so you can have this space where you're in Christ.

And this is what Paul says when he says that people who are in Christ become new people.

They become new creations.

They're no longer the old way.

Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 5.

He says, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation.

The old in Adam life, born in Adam life, that's gone.

And the new life, the in Christ life, is here.

And so he's talking about this idea, is like there's this, there's this way now where like this thing that plagued you no longer has to plague you anymore.

Anyone who is in Christ who surrenders their lives to him, they now no longer live, but it's Christ that lives in them the way that Paul says.

And so we get to experience the life that Jesus wants for us, the life that he actually wants to give us.

He says, He's like, I came to give you life in all its fullness.

I came to reverse a thing that happened and to take you from someone who's in Adam to someone who's in Christ.

And so the reason I believe we should give Jesus every possible access and authority in our lives is because what he wants to do is remove all the in-Adam stuff that's in us, all the poison.

He wants to remove all of that stuff that wreaks havoc in our lives.

He wants to remove it and lead us out away into a space that we are in Christ, made new, completely new creations.

That's what he wants to do.

And so I want us to experience the life that he has for us.

But if we hold things back, if he looks at our lives and he's like, I there's some poison in your life in this particular, in this relationship, and this way that you do things, and this way that you think about your money, and this way that you think these thoughts, and the way that you do your job, like there's some poison in these spaces.

And if you will let me, I will, I will be the person who goes in there and removes those things from you so that sin no longer wreaks death into your life, so that that poison no longer actually does those things.

But if we choose to go, like, no, I'm so sorry, you can't go here, then he's like, he's not gonna force himself, and he's not gonna go in there and do those things.

But it's stuff that we actually want, and that's what he wants to do as well.

He is trying to do that.

I love Joy to the world at Christmas time.

It's from Psalm 98, but there's a line in there that says that Jesus comes to make his blessings flow for as the curse is found.

And like, what does Jesus want to do?

He wants to pour out blessings into your life in every area where the curse is found.

It's like as soon as I find the curse and the poison of sin, all I want to do is I want to remove that and replace it with blessing.

That's what he wants to do.

And so for us, I want that to I want us to experience that.

I don't want us to like him to look at our lives and go, like, hey, you can have this category, this category, this category, this one, but not these.

Because what's gonna happen is like we'll experience some abundance here, but he's like, I came to give you life to the full in all these spaces.

And if you withhold those things and refuse my hand in these spaces, then you're gonna continue to experience that in Adam life, and you're not gonna experience what it's like to live life in Christ with me.

And so that's my encouragement to you.

He wants to lead us out into all freedom, into all liberty, into all joy.

That's what he wants to do for us.

And so he's asking for access for those things, and I just encourage you, give him that access, give him that authority, let him lead you so that you experience what he actually has for you.

All right, let me pray.

Lord Jesus, thank you for really this really odd interaction uh that you had with a tree.

Um thank you that you want to go into a temple and basically break it down to the studs in order to rebuild it into something that's far better.

But we don't have to pay for our sins anymore.

Thank you that you love us enough to do something that we didn't even know that we needed, uh, but you're doing it anyways.

God, I pray that you would help us.

Um each individual here, Lord, help us to look at our lives and to consider where do we need to give you more access?

Where do we actually need to follow you more closely?

Where do we need to give you the authority to actually make the decisions instead of us doing that for ourselves?

Would you show us that?

And give us this trust and this faith in you that you actually want to lead us into a space where we experience the life that you have for us, that you did not come to steal from us, to kill, or destroy, but you actually came to give life.

Would you help us to believe that so that we follow you?

In Jesus' name.

Amen.