Matthew 21:18-22…Ready

Matthew 21:18-22…Ready

21:18  Early in the morning, as he was on his way back to the city  he was hungry. 19 Seeing a fig-tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered. 20 When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. (You would think the disciples having seen many of Jesus’ miracles already would not have been so surprised. But this miracle was different because it was the only destructive miracle Jesus had performed. Also in every other miracle Jesus brings  restoration and life, where here He brings destruction and death.)  How did the fig-tree wither so quickly? They asked.  21  Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig-tree, but also you can say to this mountain Go throw yourself into the sea, and it will be done. 22 If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”.

Extended Sermons

“Teaches how God doesn’t want a outward religious appearance, but those who are the real deal.” ⇒ Do you just look good on the outside, busy going about my religious activity, doing the right things, saying the right things,  God wants heartfelt affection for Him, not just doing religious things. Do you worship God with your whole life or are you putting on a show like those in the temple? There’s a big difference between going through the motions in looking holy and sounding righteous to being righteous. Are you only concerned with having the facade and the appearance of being a Christian.

“Teaches how God wants us to go beyond just sounding like people of faith to being people of faith.” ⇒ God is not looking for the appearance of faith, He’s looking for the fruit of faith.  Will you examine yourself. Are you in the faith, or are you all talk and just deceiving yourself.-(2-Corn. 13:5) Does your life reflect Jesus or not? Does your life look like your a believer? When people look at you do they see the fruit of someone who loves and follows Jesus? Do they find you giving out the peace and love of Jesus, or someone who is always bitter and unforgiving. Do they find you sticking with Jesus through thick and thin, or giving up at the first sign of hardship or struggle? Do they find you sacrificing all for Christ, or someone who gives God the leftovers.

“Warns of the danger of hypocrisy. It is easy to appear godly all the while having a heart that is far from God.” ⇒ We can be like the tree, full of leaves, but with no fruit. We should be mindful of how God responds to those who profess Him outwardly but inwardly live for themselves.

“Warns how just like the fig tree if were not producing fruit beyond outward religious things, it can wither away.” ⇒ Faith is not just about working the system, go to church, observe the traditions, say the Hail-Mary’s. Faith is not just following Jesus on Facebook and Twitter. Faith is not familiarizing yourself with Church doctrine and creeds. But rather faith is saying God what’s my next step, what do you want me to do. Faith is saying God where do I need to grow more. Faith is saying God I want to see you work more in my life.

“Even today, many churches can look religious and not be fruitful. They have all the leaves of religious formalism. They have great worship services. Great production and entertainment. Lots of lights, screens, the best video system, the best fog machine, the best music director, etc. They even have the Billy Graham of preachers. What about your own life? Maybe you look very religiously impressive. You know the right things to say, you have the right Sunday clothes, you serve in the youth ministry. And yet you bear no spiritual fruit” ⇒ If the Lord Jesus visited your Church what would He find. If the Lord Jesus were to visit your home what would He find. If the Lord Jesus were to visit you when you’re alone and no one around, what would He find. Would He find fancy fig leaves and a busy life of Christian activates. Would He find the leaves of religious pretense of just going through the motions. Or will He find the fruits of repentance, regeneration, and holiness. Will He find the fruit of a heart that’s been changed and born again. Will he find the fruit of a love for God’s Word.

Additional Notes & Applications

Warns the dangers of overpromising and then under delivering. There are risks associated with promising more than one can deliver.

Encourages believers how Jesus’ hunger, He’s like us and understands what it’s like to be human. He knows the hunger of pain and loss. He knows the hunger of………. (Heb. 4:15)

Teaches how God hears and answers the prayers of those who are bringing honor, praise, and glory to His name.

Promises where prayers are seeking more of Christ’s rule and ways perfected in us will be heard and answered by God.

Teaches how God calls us to reflect his love, character, and grace to others.

Calls for seeing that were worshipping a God of transformation and not obligation.

Calls for seeing that were bearing fruit from the inside-out, not from the outside-in.

Warns a nation or individual that celebrates sin and wickedness will find itself under the curse and judgement of God.

Teaches how Jesus doesn’t stand afar, but comes close to inspect our lives to see if we are bearing fruit. If the Lord Jesus came to inspect your Christian faith what would He find? If the Lord Jesus visited your Church what would He find. If the Lord Jesus were to visit your home what would He find. If the Lord Jesus were to visit you when your alone and no one around, what would He find. Would He find fancy fig leaves and a busy life of Christian activates. Would He find the leaves of religious pretense of just going through the motions. Or will He find the fruits of repentance, regeneration, and holiness. Will He find the fruit of a heart that’s been changed and born again. Will he find the fruit of a love for God’s Word.

This verse is often misapplied as a “Name it and claim it.” That if you have strong enough faith and believe you can get whatever you want.

Though the cursing of the fig tree is a lesson on faith and fruitful transformation. It is also on the fruitlessness of hypocrites as well. As we’re reminded in Jesus words recorded in the Gospel of John. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”-(John 15:5-8)

One of the most well-known symbols for Israel is that of the fig tree. It is one of the country’s indigenous and plentiful fruits. Dried figs are a delicious treat! Fig trees figured prominently throughout the Scriptures. Figs and fig trees, as symbols, go all the way back to the Garden of Eden. After sinning in the garden of Eden, in an attempt to hide their shame and embarrassment, Adam & Eve sewed fig leaves together as coverings.-(Gen.3:7)  In Numbers chapter 13, the spies whom Moses sent into the land brought back an enormous cluster of grapes, as well as figs and pomegranates. So, figs became symbolic of a lovely and fruitful land into which the Lord God was bringing His people. Fig trees also symbolized peace & safety. During what we call the Golden Age of Israel, under the kingship of Solomon, we are told that Judah and Israel lived in safety, every man under his vine and his fig tree. Fig trees were also symbolically connected to the coming messianic era. When Jesus says He saw Nathanael under the fig tree, He was saying that He knows Nathanael had been waiting for the day he would encounter the Messiah and that day was now fulfilled.-(John 1:43-51) The the fig tree was employed as a symbol of judgment by the prophets, who chastise Israel for her idolatry and unfaithfulness. The prophet Jeremiah (5:17), writing during the Divided Monarchy to the northern kingdom Israel, prophesied that the Assyrians would invade the land and usurp the vines and the fig trees that the people had planted and labored over.                       

 I will take away their harvest,
declares the Lord.
There will be no grapes on the vine.
There will be no figs on the tree,
and their leaves will wither.
What I have given them
will be taken from them.                                                                                                               

Hosea (2:12) used the same analogy of judgment, but directed his prophecy at the southern Kingdom of Judah, declaring that God would lay waste all of Jerusalem and Judah’s vines and fig trees because of their disloyalty. In fact, in chapter nine Adonai uses the vine and fig tree analogy to decry the nation’s spiritual corruption, by referring back to what happened so long ago at Baal Peor. He said, “When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert; when I saw your fathers, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree. Joel (1:7, 12) also prophesied the destruction that would come upon Judah, saying;

The vine is dried up and the fig tree is withered;                                                                                  the pomegranate, the palm and the apple tree–                                                                                    all the trees of the field– are dried up.                                                                                                Surely the joy of mankind is withered away.                                                                                           

The prophet Amos (4:9) declared that the years of failed crops and barren fig trees had been God’s way of trying to get the Jewish people to wake up and repent but, alas, to no avail.

Many people have trouble with Jesus cursing a fig tree. It seems stunningly out of character for Jesus, who is love, grace, and truth. He’s a compassionate healer, who walks on water and feeds thousands of people with a few pieces of bread. Why did Jesus take out His anger on the poor fig tree? To start with Jesus is not just zapping a poor fig tree for no reason. He isn’t angry, He isn’t grumpy of having nothing to eat all night. The Gospel of Mark says it wasn’t the season for figs. Which makes Jesus’ act even more heartless. That Jesus was asking something of the fig tree that is wasn’t even supposed to give or could give even if it wanted to. But if we look closer, Jesus had every right to do what He did because this fig tree was professing to have figs, at least early fig-buds. According to the Gospel of Mark records that the reason the fig tree had no fruit was do to the fact that “it was not the season for figs”-(Mark 11:13) Many resolve Jesus unjustly destroying a tree that was not in season by saying Jesus cursed the tree for its hypocrisy. The lack of fruit was not the reason for the curse. It was the pretense of the leaves! The tree was making promises it could not deliver! Also note the Gospel of Mark records that it wasn’t until the next day when returning to Jerusalem that the disciples noticed the fig tree had withered-(Mark 11:12-17, 20-27) Many resolve the discrepancies by suggesting that Matthew, in general, arranges his material in topographical order rather than in chronological order) Also according to Marks Gospel it says that the fig tree withered, not immediately. but the next day-(Mark 11:20) Many resolve the discrepancy by suggesting that in Matthew’s Gospel what the disciples were noticing that the leaves were immediately dropping whereas in Mark’s Gospel the next day the disciples notice the process was complete that the “fig tree withered from the roots” ).

Bible scholars see Jesus’ cursing the fig tree and it’s withering as a prophetic act of judgment foreshadowing the destruction of Jerusalem and the Nation of Israel by Rome which would take place 40 years later in 70 A.D. We find in the Gospel of Luke a parable in which Jesus employs the imagery of a fig tree to teach the same truth about the Nation. And He began telling them this parable: “A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any. And he said to the vineyard-keeper, ‘Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?’ And he answered and said to him, ‘Let it alone, sir, for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer; and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.”-(Luke 13:6-7) Jesus’ three-year ministry gave the leaders of the Jewish nation more than ample time to evaluate His messianic claim. But it didn’t occur to ‘the builders’, who rejected Him, that they themselves were being weighed in the scales.

Note: This is Jesus’ only destructive miracle of judgment. Every other miracle were done in compassion, mercy, and love. Or were performed to mend, correct, and right something. Many times Jesus used stern words of warning. But there was no judgment in His miraculous deeds except to this fig tree. Which makes the severity of this miracles stand out in the importance of bearing fruit for God’s glory or suffer the consequences for all eternity.

SIGNS YOU MAY BE BEARING LEAVES AND NO FRUIT

• Do you make God’s word, will, worship, and work as the first priority in your life, or is it just an afterthought?

• Do you have all the trappings of religion and salvation, but no real commitment to God?

• Do you shout, testify and pretend to worship while you hold things in your hearts against others?

• Do you look and act Saved at church, but live like the devil everywhere else?

• Do you plan your life around all the things you want to do, but don’t see the need to plan around the Lord’s work?

• Do you have any real fruit in your life?