An Act of Faith: Prayer - Mark 11:20-25

3:25So, we're going to look at what happens in this lesson that Jesus gives. And in verse 12, we see that Jesus and his disciples were traveling from Bethany to Jerusalem. It was about a two-mile journey, and Jesus was hungry. He spots a fig tree in the distance, and it has leaves on it. He approaches it looking for fruit, and he doesn't find any fruit on it. And so, I want to say that this is a good time to make a note about interpretation. As I was reading the passage, I realized that I don't know anything about fig trees. I don't think I've ever seen one. I don't think I know the first thing about how they behave. And I think I like fig Newtons, but that's about the extent of what I know about figs. And so, whenever a historical or cultural detail in the text is given, it's always a good chance to go to the commentaries or even an encyclopedia and see what you can learn about that detail. And so, I went to see what I could learn about fig trees. It turns out that they usually take three years to produce fruit. They usually yield two harvests in a year. And Mark mentions that this is not the Season for harvest, which was true. And so here in Mark 11, we're about in the month of April. The harvest season would normally be June. Something else I learned about fig trees is that the leaves and the fruit always come up together, or the leaves come up after the fruit. But the important key is that the leaves don't come before the fruit. It's very unusual. And Jesus, seeing those leaves, he would naturally think, great, this plant has fruit earlier than usual and would expect to see fruit on it. And the way I'm using the ESV translation, the way it reads, it makes it sound like Jesus should not have expected the fruit because it mentions that it wasn't the season for figs. But I don't think that that's the idea that is being conveyed. The phrase, it's not the season for figs, could be translated a lot of ways. It's a very unique phrase. And it seems like Mark is simply giving us information about this tree. He wants you to know this tree is strange. What's happening here is unusual. And he's making the point that the tree is not behaving as most of the fig trees around it. And since leaves always come with or after the fruit, we know that it was normal Jesus would expect to see fruit. So the point of that is Jesus sees the leaves, he should find fruit.

5:46That's the sequence that should happen. So that's not out of the ordinary. And I think Mark is making this point because of Jesus' reaction. You look at what Jesus does, he says to it, May no one ever eat fruit from you again. It seems like Jesus is punishing the tree for its deception. The tree held out promise of fruit because it had the leaves, a deceptive tree. And it had the promise because of these leaves, but Jesus walks up to it, and the tree had pulled one over on him. And I don't see any indication that Jesus was in a rage or in a fit or being emotional. As we would say today, I don't think Jesus gets hangry. I think that what Jesus, if you know that term, it's hungry and angry. I don't think Jesus was doing that. I think it was very intentional. He had a lesson to teach. And so he wasn't being irrational. He's going to use this tree as a lesson. And so Jesus and the disciples, just after this, they go to the temple, and Jesus cleanses out the temple for the second time. That's the chunk in the middle we skipped over. He gains authority over the temple courts and prevents people from profaning it any further. And then the evening comes, and they travel back to Bethany. The next morning, they're going back to Jerusalem, and they come by this fig tree. And in verse 20, we see that this fig tree has now withered away. And the point is that this was not normal behavior. A tree does not go from being leafy green one day to being fully rotted, fully withered, and decayed. And we know that it's unusual because Peter says, Rabbi, look. Or in Matthew, it says that the disciples marveled at it. And so something supernatural has happened to the tree. Tree and the disciples know it. And they're surprised by what has occurred here. And this is where the story takes a turn. Jesus begins to show that what has happened reveals a deeper lesson that the disciples need to learn. In verse 22, Jesus answers them, Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. We now know that the lesson that we are about to learn is about faith. And so, whatever we take away from this passage, the central lesson is to have faith in God. Jesus wants his disciples to have and exercise genuine faith. And I would point out that this is a theme of scripture, a very large theme of scripture. From cover to cover, one of the main charges that God gives to people is to have faith. And one of my favorite definitions of biblical faith comes from one of my professors at Shepherd's Theological Seminary. We have an extension here. And Dr. Bookman, whenever he talks about faith, he defines it as allegiance. And specifically, biblical faith is faith or it's allegiance to King Yahweh. I love that definition of it because when somebody comes to me and says have faith, at least for my mind, it's a little bit ambiguous to know what that would mean. But to say that it's completely. And full allegiance to the king, the creator of the universe, Yahweh, at least for me, that helps me get my mind around it. That makes a lot of sense to me, and I think has the intended impression. And so, here in Mark, Jesus wants us to have faith in God. And so, what does that faith look like? I think the most common interpretation of this passage is that Jesus is teaching his disciples about prayer and the kind of faith-filled prayer that believes and has confidence in God's answer. But I actually think that Jesus is being more specific here than that. So, let's keep looking at the text. Jesus says that they can say to a mountain that it should be thrown into the sea. And I struggled with this for a while because it's strange to talk about throwing mountains. I don't think any of us do it very often and talk about it. We certainly don't do it. And I had a more fundamental question: why in the world was this an appealing proposition to the disciples? So, the disciples have been with Jesus in his ministry, and so in my mind, what in the world would make them want to be able to change the topology of the land? Why would it be appealing for them to be able to move around mountains? And so, let's put ourselves into the shoes of the disciples. And as you're standing there, you're marveling at this tree that has withered. And I think that you're marveling, they're marveling. At the fact that Jesus has killed and cursed something, which is very uncharacteristic for Christ among the miracles that he did. And then all of a sudden, Jesus tells you, have faith in God, and that you would be able to toss a mountain into the sea. It seems odd, and at first glance, I think it seems unrelated. There are two other times in the New Testament that language like this is used. In Matthew 17, you might remember the demon-possessed boy the disciples try to heal and they fail. Jesus is able to heal the boy, and then he says to the disciples, they ask why they couldn't heal him, and he says, Because of your little faith. For truly I say to you, if you have faith like the grain of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, Move from here to there, and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. So, very similar to our passage here. Also, in 1 Corinthians 13, the chapter on love, Paul begins with, If I speak in the tongue of men and angels but have not love, I'm a noisy gong or clanging symbol. And if I have prophetic power and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains but have not love, I'm nothing. So, clearly, removing mountains has something to do with faith. And so, once again, I went to commentaries to see if there was something unique about tossing mountains, about moving mountains. And it seems that there is. There seems to be widespread agreement on the historic validity of this, that there was a rabbinic saying. In that day, about those who were movers of mountains, or they might call them uprooters of mountains. And it was used to describe teachers who could do the impossible, ones who were particularly wise.

12:14It might be the kind of rabbi or teacher that you could ask impossibly hard questions, maybe really complex things about family or about some moral conundrums that you have that you would want to ask a rabbi. Or the hardest question of all, did Adam and Eve have belly buttons? Which probably these mountain movers would actually have been able to answer, but we've been speculating for all these millennia and we still don't know. So these kinds of rabbis would be described as movers of mountain, someone who could do the impossible. And Jesus, of course, has proven himself to be this kind of rabbi. And what's interesting is he shows himself to be this kind of rabbi just after the account here in Mark 11, where he is given the most difficult line of questioning in his ministry from the chief priests and scribes. And he answers them so brilliantly that at the end of it, it says they just stop asking him questions. It's clear that they're fed up that they can't trip him up, and he answers so wisely. And so, as far as I can tell, none of the disciples would have been interested in literally throwing mountains, but were they interested in doing the impossible by understanding the ways of God and answering those who object to? Jesus and his teaching. This is the ministry that they're given. Would the disciples need to have the ability to overcome the obstacles placed in their way by the Jewish leadership and the religious hypocrites of the day? I think absolutely. The disciples wanted to have strong faith. I think that's clear from many of their interactions. And we're going to come back to that faith aspect in just a moment, but we need to put some more pieces together first, and then we will tie that together. So let's take a step back here and look at the context. Jesus has gone up to a fig tree that appeared to be fruitful. He saw the fruitful fig tree standing by the road, and to complete his joy, he walks up to it, hoping to get some delicious figs. And instead of figs, this tree proves to be a waste of space. It's taking up good soil, and so Jesus curses it.

14:22And as I was even looking back at that, that reminded me, you may remember the parable of the fig tree in Luke 13, 6 through 9. It's very similar. The vine dresser comes looking for fruit and doesn't find any. And for three years, this happens, so he wants to cut it down so he can plant another plant that would be fruitful. And the man who planted it says, Sir, let it alone this year also until I dig it around it and put on manure. Then, if it should bear fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down. So I believe the parable teaches a very similar thing as our passage regarding the fig tree. It's representing Israel and the temple, and we'll. We'll see that now. So in Mark 11, 12 through 14, Jesus curses this fig tree, similar to that parable, because it is taking up space that could be given to fruitful fig trees. And so look in Mark at what happens next. So as we go this, we're going to kind of go back and forth through the passage. And I found this necessary myself in putting all the pieces together. So look at what happens next after verses 12 through 14. Jesus goes into the temple and he drives out the money changers and the other thieves that are there. And what he finds in the temple is absolutely appalling. Instead of genuine worship, or probably any kind of decent worship, Jesus finds dishonest commerce. And he drives the people out and he says to them, is it not written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for the nations, but you have made it a den of robbers? And Jesus is quoting from Isaiah 56. And if you go and study that chapter in Isaiah, it's about how the temple is supposed to be the means by which the whole world, the foreigner and Jew alike, comes and worships God. The temple was supposed to be the means by which anyone could come and pray to God and worship him. And Israel was supposed to point people to God, and the temple was part of the means of them being able to do that. And so Jesus goes into the temple and he blasts them for what they're doing. He says to them, not only are you not helping anyone to worship God, you're actually going to be able to do that. Actually, getting in the way of the worship of God. And worse, some of you are leading them into sin. They come to find God and they're led away into sin. I think it would be similar to if, so you came to Emmanuel Baptist this evening. If you came in, and instead of hearing a sermon, if I were to get up here and say, Why don't each one of you pay $1,000 to me and my ministry that I set up on the spot, and God will be pleased with you. He will accept your worship if you will pay me that money. If I were to do that, it would be appalling because not only would you not hear a sermon or anything useful, you'd be out some money, but you would leave believing that you've worshiped God and you haven't. You've just worshiped your pocketbook and some promise to have power or whatever I tell you you could do because of that. And so the temple was that, but much worse and had been that way for a long time. So the next morning in verse 20, the disciples see the withered fig tree.

17:32Jesus was giving an object lesson of judgment upon Israel. The fig tree looked good, it had leaves, and it should have had fruit. Think about it. Israel looked good. They had the temple. They should have had worship to Yahweh. But when Jesus drew near to the fig tree, not only did it not have fruit, but the tree was deceptive by having leaves and taking up space. Remember, Jesus. Had just been welcomed as king into Jerusalem, the triumphal entry. As he drew near the temple, he saw that no fruit was present in Israel, nor was worship present. Jesus is pronouncing condemnation on Israel and is going to remove them. Jesus goes to Israel and says, that's it. You're done. You should have been producing fruit. You're not. God has given you second chance after second chance and no more. A significant condemnation is coming. The temple is going to be destroyed, and Israel's place as ambassador to the nations is going to be removed.

18:36So do you see the parallel between the fig tree and between what's going on with Israel? I think this is, it's undoubtedly what Jesus had in mind here. And I think most interpreters agree up to this point that that is what the lesson is that Jesus is giving with the fig tree. But then look at verse 22. This is where it gets unexpected even more so. Jesus says, have faith in God. So they see this withered fig tree, and Jesus says, have faith in God. And so in what way would the disciples be struggling to have faith, and why would they need to be told by Jesus to have faith? Why this lesson here? And it's at this point I want to make a point about interpretive method. Here at Amino Baptist Church, we believe in a literal, grammatical, historical interpretation of Scripture.

19:30It's the same conviction that the Master's Seminary holds where Tom graduated, or Shepherd's Theological Seminary, where Jeff graduated, where I take classes. And if you're curious what each of those mean, you can ask me or several others later. It's a way of understanding how we let Scripture speak and we don't impose our own views on it. And so, in summary, it's that we take the text literally and we keep it in its historical context. So, the Bible speaks what God intended it to, not what I make up, is the short version. However, that's simply a broad set of principles, and how you work it out on a given passage sometimes is really hard. And people with the same convictions about Scripture come to different interpretations. I'm sure you've all experienced this. Two people who have a high view of Scripture come to different interpretations about what it means. And so, all we can do is be faithful, ask that God would show us what it means. And I'm very thankful God gave us the source material. We can always go back and check anybody's interpretation of scripture. And so, for me, as I interpret the text, I lean towards a very heavily contextual meaning of it. I like to stay in the circumstances of the passage. And one of my professors really, I think, exemplified this, and I came to love that method because I think that's how God intended it to be read. Rule of thumb for me is when we're in a passage, let's stay there unless we're given an indication that the topic has changed. And so my point with that is in verses 20 through 25. In verse 22, many see that as a topic shift when he says, Truly, I say, or when he says, have faith in God, and goes on teaching from there. The problem I see is that we see these transition words in verse 12, in verse 15, in verse 20, and verse 27. The day changes, or the time of day, or even the location. I think in those cases, you have a good reason to think, okay, perhaps the teaching has changed here. But in our passage, we have no transition. Jesus curses the tree. They see it withered. Peter says, Rabbi, look. And Jesus turns and says, have faith in God. And so what was difficult for me in looking at this passage is that most will jump from here and say, well, Jesus had this teaching on his heart. It didn't really relate, but he decided it was a good time to teach them about faith through prayer. And I didn't feel comfortable with going there. I respect many who do. But I think that Jesus's response has to be related to what has just happened with the fig tree. So the disciples are shocked by the death of this fig tree, and they say, look.

22:30Jesus says, have faith in God. And I think we can make sense of this transition if we assume that the disciples understood the object lesson of the fig tree. If we can assume that the disciples got the meaning of what Jesus was trying to say, I think it sheds some light on it. This is the first and only time that Jesus kills something. And that would have made the event very unique to the disciples. I think they would already know this is not a normal miracle that Jesus is performing. And partly I say that because think about it, Jesus could have simply said to the fig tree, produce fruit. And the fig tree could have given fruit. And so why did Jesus instead curse it so that it would not produce fruit anymore?

23:22Right after he curses it, Jesus goes and cleanses the temple, as we said. And the temple cleansing would have been extremely public. It would have been a very intense event. The disciples are there with him. Jesus took the fight to the home turf of the Jewish leaders and used very strong language to condemn them. And then Jesus and his disciples see this dead fig tree that he's cursed. The disciples heard him curse the fig tree. They saw Jesus clear the temple. They had already heard numerous other parables from all of the four Gospels record that Jesus says the coming of destruction of Israel. And Jesus talks about that and the faithlessness of Israel. I think the disciples saw the dead tree, and I think they are visibly shaken. I think they see the dead tree and they're shocked because I think it's a scary thing to see, having just come from the cleansing of the temple. And so put yourself in the disciples' shoes. You know that Jesus is coming to destroy Israel in the context that he destroys it now, I don't think finally.

24:29And he's going to remove them from the place that they have. And as a disciple, you're thinking, I'm an Israelite, I'm a Jew. Is Jesus going to come remove me? Is Jesus going, is God going to put me under the punishment that this fig tree has just received and that Israel is about to receive? And in that moment, Jesus says, have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. I think that we can summarize Jesus' response to them this way: He's saying to them, Are you all afraid that you will end up like the fig tree? Do you want to know how to avoid ending up like the fig tree? Like this. Have faith in God. Have faith that God will accomplish the impossible task of the fruit of faith for you. Pray for faith. Believe that God will bestow the necessary things for it to produce fruit. And unlike the leadership of Israel in the heart of much of that nation, forgive that you may be forgiven. And so what I'm saying is this: Jesus is giving the disciples a formula for how to avoid ending up like the nation of Israel, like the fig tree that's standing there before them. It's a set of instructions for fruitful living and avoiding the judgment of God upon faithfulness. So let's look at how these elements come out as we walk through the rest of the text. So the major assertion is to have faith in God. So every point in Jesus' teaching supports that assertion. Have faith in God. That's his primary teaching. So first, he says, Truly, I say to you, whoever says to the mountain be taken up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. So he says, do not doubt, but believe God will accomplish the impossibility of the fruit of faith on your behalf. So we discussed the phrase earlier and talked about that it speaks of the most faith-filled and wise sort of spiritual leaders, these rabbis who were thought to be perhaps the most godly. They were these mountain movers or uprooters of mountains. And Jesus is telling his disciples, God is the one who moves the mountains. You don't have to be the best or the wisest. Simply have faith and don't doubt. It's God who does it. You don't have to move mountains. God does it, and he will move them for you. And as I was studying this, I wonder if this idea appeared in any other passages. And I think a very similar idea appears in Matthew 17. If you'll turn there with me quickly or take your time. You want to get exactly to Matthew 17.

27:37Matthew 17 and verse 14. I mentioned briefly this passage earlier, but I'm going to read starting in verse 14. And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and kneeling before him said, Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples and they could not heal him. And Jesus answered, O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me. And Jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of him. The boy was healed instantly. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, Why could we not cast it out? And he said to them, Because of your little faith. For truly I say to you, if you have faith like the grain of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, Move from here to there, and it will move. Nothing will be impossible. For you. And so, why does Jesus call them faithless and twisted? And why were they unable to cast out the demons? And I think it's because the disciples are trying to do it in their own power. The disciples seem to have thought that they had the ability to cast out this demon on their own. They fail miserably. It seems to be embarrassing for them. And Jesus rebukes them for it. But it's interesting, doesn't Jesus' rebuke of them seem kind of harsh? In some ways, it seems like the disciples are just doing their best and it doesn't turn out. And it seems like he's being harsh to them at first. And they ask why they weren't able to cast out the demon, and Jesus says it's because of their little faith. But then he says something I think kind of confusing at first glance. He says, if you have faith like the mustard seed, you can do the impossible. So he chides them for having very little faith and then tells them they only need the faith of a mustard seed, which is a very small seed. And so it seems that their faith must have been practically non-existent in some way. But I think really what he's saying to them is that their faith wasn't in the right place at all. Their faith was non-existent. It wasn't in God's ability to do it. They wanted to do it in their own power or authority. And so when Jesus walks up, he's able to cast out the demon. Well, looking back at. Mark 11, I think Jesus makes it clear in verse 23 when he says, it will be done for him. That means that we are to petition God and have faith in God. God's the one who does it. He doesn't delegate this power to us. We are not the ones with power.

30:17Jesus tells them to have faith. And I think in the context, he's saying to his disciples, place your faith in God when you come across impossible obstacles. Ask God to remove them, and he will, as opposed to believing that they could do it themselves from some kind of power that they had. And in contrast to the leaders of Israel who were acting out of their own power and believed that they could do the mighty things, God didn't want them to trust in their own power. These leaders of Israel didn't trust God for their power. They trusted in their money or their power or authority they had, their religious appearances, their law-keeping. You could probably think of the various passages where Jesus condemns them for various things that they seem to rely on. But it's not God. They're not relying on God and His power. I think we see that consistently. So next, Jesus says to them, Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

31:20The people of Israel apparently had faithless prayers. They did not believe God would answer their prayers. I mean, the nation as a whole, not every person. And they did not turn to God in prayer. And I don't think when Jesus says this, he is saying here specifically that we can ask God for anything, any particular thing we could think of, and that God will do it. In this context, I don't think that's what he's saying. For example, if I or one of us wanted to pray for God to move Mount Everest into the Indian Ocean, I feel very confident saying that God is not going to do that. And I think here he's not saying that God can do anything you can think of. I think the context is constraining what he's talking about because the focus is faith.

32:13Jesus is saying that they should have a sincere faith in God. There are other passages in the New Testament that talk about the contents of their prayers, of what our prayers should have in them. But I think in this passage, his point is not specifically telling them what to pray for. I think he is saying that their prayers should be full of faith. Those are the kinds of prayers that they should be praying. Believing that God hears their prayers and that God will accomplish it. And in the context, the sort of thing that they would want accomplished here is these impossible things. I think particularly the unbelief that they see Jesus spoke of when he cursed the tree.

32:55I think a third lesson here is that Jesus says they are to forgive. So that they may be forgiven. The Sermon on the Mount shows how much the Jews had departed from this kind of thinking. They were unforgiving of each other. They were vindictive, selfish, certainly. And when you're unforgiving, you're telling everyone around you in some form that you yourself don't need forgiveness. You're putting yourself above that. One of the biggest statements that you make when you're above forgiveness is a proclamation that you don't need it yourself, that you're right, that you're fine.

33:42And God is the only one who is the judge who is in that position. He doesn't delegate that authority to us. All of us need forgiveness. And one of the ways we exemplify the fact that we need forgiveness is by forgiving others. And so, why does Jesus bring that up here? I think it's because he's teaching them how to have faith. And a central component of faith is prayer. I think he points that out here as well. And Jesus knows that unforgiveness is antithetical to faith, and it renders your prayers meaningless. It's clear that you lose access to God when you don't forgive, and you render your faith useless. You render your faith not faith, essentially.

34:31Okay, so the point of the passage, the point of Jesus' teaching to them is to have faith. And unlike the Jewish leaders and Israel of a nation, we should have a sincere and active faith. So I want to conclude a few things and try to tie some of the pieces together that we've gone through. For the religious hypocrites of this world, so the disciples have just seen a picture of the religious hypocrites of this world in the temple, and those who put on the appearance of fruit, God is not fooled. That lesson is clear, right?

35:13Jesus has come close to this tree that had leaves. It looked like it was going to be good, and it didn't have fruit on it. And so God is not deceived by your leaves, just as God was not deceived by the sacrifices that were still going on in the temple. He knew that the people's heart was far from him. Because God knows the heart. Specifically, God knows your heart and my heart. And for Israel, there were specific promises related to curses that would come upon them if they were not obedient to God, that they would be dispossessed from the land and would lose their place as a blessed nation. But this concept holds true for all of us: that fruitlessness will meet with destruction, and when it comes, it will be very swift. Destruction in the end. For those who are not of the household of God, you are not going to meet God as a friend at the end. You might enjoy this life for a time. You may think that you can run away from God's commands or fake it in some way, but it's not going to end well for you because God does not forget His promises that He will bring justice to this world. Sin will be punished. And so it's clear that we should not let our sins go unforgiven. If you are in the state where your sins are unforgiven, then cry out to God for the forgiveness of your sins because the leaves will not deceive him. But I want to focus specifically on the role that prayer has in faith in this passage. And isn't it interesting that as Jesus here is teaching us about faith, that he's contrasting it with this religious hypocrisy from the leaves that don't produce fruit? That prayer is such a central component of his teaching. And it's not just any kind of prayer, it's the prayer that believes God will accomplish what is being prayed for. And I think we can learn a lot about prayer and our prayer lives from this passage.

37:22We learn that prayer is the evidence of our faith. Firstly, if you do not pray, it's because you don't have faith. Conversely, if you pray, it's because you are faith-filled, you have faith. And it's clear that prayer doesn't produce faith, but it does reveal it. And I think we can say accurately that those who are full of faith are full of prayer. They come together. Secondly, God desires to answer faith-filled prayers. The lesson is taught most directly, I think, in Luke 11, in the parable of the persistent neighbor. God desires that his name would be associated with answering the prayers of his people. You remember in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches that just as evil men give good gifts to their children who ask for them, how much more does God give good gifts to his children? Well, look at Mark 11 here, verse 23.

38:19Jesus is saying that God answers faith-filled prayers. God is faithful to answer them. Third, because prayer springs from a sincere faith, if we have doubts and we fear our own unbelief, or I guess fear the effects of our unbelief, we should pray to God, and God will answer that prayer. I believe the context of this teaching is that the disciples are afraid. You remember when Jesus said to the Jewish people that unless their righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, they will not enter the kingdom. When Jesus taught that, that was meant to shake them. I think a Jew would say, then, my goodness. What hope do I have? And I think similarly here, the disciples know that if Israel and the Jewish leadership is like this fig tree that's going to be destroyed because of fruitlessness, that they have to fear for themselves.

39:15Would the disciples consider themselves more faithful than the Pharisees? I don't think so. Not if you were to get a genuine answer. They would think the Pharisees are surely more godly people than us. But Jesus tells them to pray with faith. He says, turn to God, believe in God's power, pray to God, and God will grant the faith. God will grant the fruitfulness. It's a work of God. And so for you, Christian, go to God with your faithlessness and your doubts. Cry out to him and believe that God hears you and that God can grant the gift of faith and the power to bear the fruit of faith in your life. I think that's one of the lessons Jesus wants the disciples to walk away with. And lastly, fourth, in verse 25, do not harbor arrogance and unforgiveness in your heart. I think the hallmark of one of the hallmarks of religious hypocrisy is believing that you're better than the people around you.

40:15Fundamentally, unforgiveness reveals that you have set yourself up as the judge. If you don't forgive others, it means you think you're above being forgiven. Only God has the right to do that. And so tonight, to each of you, my friends, fellow members of this body of Christ, partakers of the grace of God, I think charges be filled with belief, be filled with faith in God, and that we should be filled with prayer towards God, especially as our faith falters or as we see the effects of judgment that come upon unbelief.

41:10And as we are filled with prayer, I think that God uses that to bolster our faith as well. It's interesting to think about prayer's role in faith and faith's role in prayer. I found you can just go back and forth. They keep going back and forth and feeding each other. And so I think that Jesus wants us to be filled with prayer because it shows that we're trusting in God's power, not our own. And that's what he wanted the disciples to learn from the lesson of the withered fig tree. So if you will pray with me. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity to come together and study your word. I confess this is, it's, at least for me, a very difficult passage to. Interpret, but I believe you want us to know what you have placed in your word, and so we ask that you would help us to understand fully your teaching here, and that from understanding it, we would know how that ought to change our thinking and how that ought to change our living.

42:19And we ask that we would be faith-filled people, we would not be leaves that produce no fruit, we would not be a temple that has no genuine worship. And for the unbelief in our lives and the ways that we act in unbelief and against you, we ask that you would help us to root those things out and that we would be so fully confident of your purposes in our lives that those have no place in our lives. We ask that you would help us in our prayer lives, that we would have very rich prayer lives, that you would compel us to pray often, that our church would be known for prayer and for each other. And we thank you that you are a God who wants your name to be associated with listening to prayer and with answering prayer and with giving good gifts to those who seek them. And we pray these things in your Son's name. Amen.