The Cost of a Counterfeit Faith: The Cursing of the Fig Tree
2024-02-11
Charles Billingsley
Mark 11:11-26
11 And Jesus went into Jerusalem and into the temple. So when He had looked around at all things, as the hour was already late, He went out to Bethany with the twelve.
A. Apparent Contradiction
B. The What : Jesus Curses the Fig Tree
Mark11:12 Now the next day, when they had come out from Bethany, He was hungry. 13 And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would find something on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. 14 In response Jesus said to it, “Let no one eat fruit from you ever again.” And His disciples heard it.
C. Jesus lowers the Boom
15 So they came to Jerusalem. Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 16 And He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. 17 Then He taught, saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ”18 And the scribes and chief priests heard it and sought how they might destroy Him; for they feared Him, because all the people were astonished at His teaching. 19 When evening had come, He went out of the city.
D. The Why: Jesus teaches the lesson behind the miracle
20 Now in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. 21 And Peter, remembering, said to Him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree which You cursed has withered away.”
The disciples were more interested in how He did this, than in why He did this.
So Jesus gets to the “why.”
22 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God.”
NO Faith, No Fruit!
1. Be a person of faith
Faith is the doorway to knowing God
23 For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.
Do you know of anyone who’s moved a mountain?
Jerry Falwell worked like it depended on him, prayed like it depended on God – and here we sit 50 years later.
God has a plan and a purpose for your life too. Maybe your mountain isn’t Liberty mountain. Maybe it is something as simple as just conquering the doubts and fears in your own soul? Everybody has a different mountain to be moved. So let your faith in God be what moves it.
2. Be a person of prayer
Prayer is the passageway to hearing God
24 Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.
3. Be a person who forgives
Forgiveness is the roadway to freedom with God
25 “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. 26 But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”
4. Be a person who worships
Worship is the gateway to the presence of God
John 15 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.