My name's Matthew Capone, and I'm the pastor here at Cheyenne Mountain Presbyterian Church,
and it's my joy to bring God's Word to you today.
A special welcome if you're new or visiting with us.
We're glad that you're here, and we're glad that you're here not because we're trying to fill seats,
but because we're following Jesus together as one community.
And as we follow Jesus together, we become convinced that there's no one so good,
they don't need God's grace, and no one so bad that they can't have it,
which is why we come back week after week to hear what God has to say to us in His Word.
We are continuing our series in the Gospel of Mark, and we've come to this point.
We started last Sunday or two Sundays ago with the triumphal entry.
Jesus makes His way on a Sunday into Jerusalem, and He has no longer keeping the secret about His identity.
In fact, His conflict with the religious establishment is coming to a head.
We saw that last time with the fact that He was being praised as the King coming into Jerusalem,
and He'll continue that conflict this week with the famous passage of Him clearing the temple
as He has this confrontation with the religious establishment.
We're not only going to see that famous passage, though, we're also going to look at the strange passage,
often misunderstood part about the fig tree that Jesus curses.
And we're going to understand Jesus is using that as an illustration to deal with religion that has an outer ritual
but no inner substance, religion that exploits people rather than healing them.
That's the flashpoint of Jesus' confrontation with the rulers of the temple.
And so it's with that, I invite you to turn with me in the Gospel of Mark.
We're in chapter 11, starting with verse 12.
You can turn with me in your Bible.
You can turn in your phone.
You can turn in your worship guide.
No matter where you turn, remember that this is God's Word.
In Proverbs chapter 30, verse 5, tells us that every word of God proves true.
He's a shield to those who take refuge in Him.
And so that's why we read now, starting at verse 12.
Verse 15.
And they came to Jerusalem.
And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple.
And He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.
And He would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.
And He was teaching them and saying to them,
Is it not written,
My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.
But you have made it a den of robbers.
Verse 18.
And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy Him.
For they feared Him, because all the crowd was astonished at His teaching.
And when evening came, they went out of the city.
I invite you to join me in prayer as we come to this portion of God's Word.
Our Father in Heaven, we thank You again for giving us Your Word, for speaking to us,
for not leaving us alone to figure out things by ourselves.
And we ask that You would do that this morning.
You'd show us Jesus and His passion, His heart, His zeal,
for us to have access and intimacy with God,
that You would grow our love and affection and our reverence and our awe for Him.
We ask all of these things in the mighty name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
We continue the story of Holy Week this morning with a little bit of a strange incident
with Jesus encountering this fig tree that He seems so frustrated with.
And it's actually not just the tree that we need to focus on,
but in fact, the whole situation.
All the little details in this story matter for us.
And so, track closely with me as we go.
Remember here that Jesus is commuting into Jerusalem from Bethany.
Bethany is this suburb that's to the east.
And so, they're traveling in every day along with all these other pilgrims.
And it turns out as He's coming in here on Monday, verse 12,
Jesus must not have eaten breakfast.
So, Bethany was not apparently a bed and breakfast,
but instead Jesus encounters this fig tree.
Verse 13, he's hungry and he sees this chance for him to be able to eat.
It's important for us to note that he sees this tree in the distance.
It looks like this tree is exactly what he needs.
It looks like this tree is going to offer Jesus what it desires.
It is going to fill him up where he's empty.
It's going to make him full where he's hungry.
Why?
Same verse, because Jesus sees that it is in leaf.
In other words, everything looks great and attractive from a distance.
And yet, Jesus is in for a great disappointment.
Again, verse 13,
He found nothing but leaves.
And the point is this, that the tree is involved in false advertising.
The tree is offering from a distance what it cannot deliver.
We might say that the tree is all sizzle, no steak.
The tree is all foam, no beer.
The tree is all hat, no cattle.
The tree is all leaves, no figs.
The tree offers one thing, but the reality is very, very different.
Now, some people are frustrated with verse 13 because it tells us it was not the season for figs.
And so they believe that Jesus here with this tree is somehow being stupid or unfair.
Yes, Jesus knows it's not the season for figs.
Jesus is not an idiot.
That is not, in fact, the point.
Jesus is acting out an illustration for his disciples in the same way that an Old Testament prophet would act something out
before God's people to help it cut home to their hearts.
Jesus is trying to tell them the temple looks good, verse 13, from a distance.
It looks good if you're far enough away.
If you get up close, it cannot, it will not feed you.
And in fact, that's the point.
Verse 14, his disciples heard it.
The point of all of this is that he can demonstrate and teach his disciples what is actually going on with the temple.
And so what's been foreshadowed with this first episode now happens as he comes to the temple in verses 12 through 19.
Jesus is prepping his disciples for the same point.
The temple is involved in false advertising.
The temple offers something that it cannot deliver.
If you're familiar with the Old Testament, you know fundamentally the temple is about God's presence with his people.
As Israel was traveling in the desert, they had the tabernacle, the precursor to the temple.
And the tabernacle was in the center of God's people, and they would be camped all around it
to make this point clearly for them that God's presence was in the very center of their community.
The temple continues that same point as the tabernacle, but instead, this time, it is not temporary, but permanent.
It's not a tent that can be moved, but a building that cannot.
And so this is the place where they're supposed to meet with God and have their spiritual needs filled.
This is the place for forgiveness and healing and meaning and belonging and significance.
This is the place that God's people are coming to be with him.
This is the place where their spiritual needs are supposed to be met.
And yet Jesus here encounters something very different in verse 15.
He's already done his recon, by the way.
You may remember from last time, verse 11, the very end of Sunday, Jesus went to take a look around the temple.
So when he comes to this fig tree, he already knows what he's setting up.
He's already seen these vendors.
He already knows the temple courts are being abused.
And so it's not a surprise here when he comes, verse 15, and finds that there are those who are selling and buying.
And he drives them out.
He overturns the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.
Now, many of these things that are going on in the temple are actually necessary in some way.
Jesus has traveled to Jerusalem over the last few passages, much as Jews would do from around the world.
This was the high holy day of Passover.
And so it's actually a convenience that they're offering here.
It would be great as someone coming to Jerusalem to know that you don't have to bring your pigeon with you.
You can bring your money.
You can buy it on the way.
It's great to be able to exchange money because the temple tax would have to be paid with a Tyrian coin, which is different than Roman money.
And so what they're offering here is actually in some ways necessary and important for God's people as they travel to Jerusalem.
The problem is not what they're doing.
The problem is the location.
They have camped out the outer portion of the temple, which had one purpose.
This outer portion was the only place that Gentiles, that non-Jews, could come to experience God's presence.
If they were a Gentile, they could not proceed into the inner portions of the temple.
And so this was a precious and sacred space for them, for it to be filled up with these folks who are selling and changing money.
For those who are using it as a furrow fair is to say, we don't care about the Gentiles.
We're not actually concerned with whether people can have access and fellowship and communion with God.
That is not something we are worried about.
And so they've lost the meaning, the importance of the entire event.
Verse 16, there's something even worse going on.
It's not just that these folks are selling in the space where people are supposed to access God, but they're actually using it as a traffic point.
You know, sometimes when you enter a neighborhood, there'll be a sign telling you there is no outlet.
You can't get anywhere from here.
And yet you'll see drivers often trying to find a shortcut.
Someone comes to a stoplight next to a gas station, and they'll pull into the gas station and pull around so they can make a right turn, skipping the traffic light.
That's the same thing that's going on here.
People are using this outer court, this place that's sacred for Gentiles to access God's presence and experience communion with him as a shortcut for their traffic.
As a way to get from point A to point B much faster.
And so that's why Jesus comes down so hard.
That's why he's flipping over tables and driving people out.
Because verse 17, he gets to the heart of the matter.
Is it not written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations?
Those who are running the temple have missed two important fundamental things.
First of all, they've missed the very purpose of the temple.
They've missed the fact that it is there for relationship with God.
They've missed the fact that it's there for God's people to experience God's presence.
They've missed the point that it is for God's people to worship him and hear from him.
And so they have all the show, they have all the trappings and none of the substance.
But they've missed something else as well.
They haven't just missed its purpose, they've missed God's heart.
A house of prayer for all nations.
They've missed what we've been told throughout the entire Old Testament,
which is that the promise that was made to the Jews is ultimately meant for all the nations.
They don't care about the Gentiles.
They don't care about non-Jews having intimacy with God.
And so ultimately they end up serving greed rather than God.
They like the appearance.
They don't care about the substance.
They are fascinated by the outside.
They are uninterested in the heart.
And so we can understand Jesus' anger here.
What could be worse than to treat God's presence,
his love for his people, as nothing more than a commodity?
What could be worse than treating access to God, fellowship with God,
as a sporting event?
They are vendors here to make a buck rather than those who care about God's people.
Now we still have a little bit more to unpack with this fig tree.
Why is it so important?
Why is Jesus so offended?
Why is he so frustrated by the fact that this tree has no fruit to offer him?
It's very simple.
It's because Jesus is hungry.
Jesus is making a point here.
The fig tree refuses to meet Jesus' physical needs, his physical hunger.
But how much worse is it that the temple refuses to meet God's people's spiritual needs,
their spiritual hunger?
In other words, Jesus is filled with anger because the temple has left his people to starve.
This is the place where they have communion with God, and it is blocked by vendors.
The temple is supposed to be a place where people are restored and not exploited.
It's supposed to be a place of reconciliation and healing and forgiveness.
And here they're given a counterfeit.
God's people are robbed.
They take not just their money, but their opportunity for relationship with God.
Remember that the Passover is the celebration of God's great deliverance of his people from Egypt.
It was him bringing them out of slavery and giving them freedom.
It was their first step on the way to the promised land.
And so that's why pilgrims are coming from all over to be at Jerusalem for this celebration.
And so we understand how bad our things are when this celebration of God's deliverance has become simply an economic event.
It's one thing to withhold figs from a hungry person.
It's quite another thing to withhold the very presence of God.
Now, we don't have to look far in our own culture to find holidays that can become about profit rather than healing.
So think with me for a minute about Valentine's Day.
By the way, I'm a big fan of Valentine's Day.
I have nothing against it.
It's this holiday that's meant to be about expressing love and vulnerability and intimacy and self-sacrifice.
And it can become just another economic extravaganza.
It can become just another hallmark holiday meant to build the bottom line.
And so you can imagine Jesus coming home, right?
Maybe imagine him as a spouse coming to this dead and lifeless marriage.
And the home is filled with roses.
It's full of wonderful, expensive roses.
And Jesus comes in and throws them all in the trash.
And he says, look, I don't want your roses.
I want your heart.
This can't make up for what's lacking in this relationship.
In fact, it's a slap in the face that you think you can buy your way out of the troubles of this marriage.
And that's what's going on in this passage.
You won't give what's truly important.
You won't give your time and energy and investment.
All you're willing to give is your money.
You give many flowers, but your heart is somewhere else.
We could say, all roses know love.
That is why Jesus is so frustrated in this passage.
That is why he set the stage with the illustration of the fig tree to point out how empty and fruitless and exploitative and damaging the system has become.
And so as we understand all of those things, as we get a sense of Jesus' frustration and his anger, there's two things simply that I want us to take from this passage.
And the first is this, that it is possible to completely miss the point.
It is possible to engage in ritual with no heart and not to even realize it.
This is the father who is proud of the Bible studies he attends and the doctrine he knows.
But he has no compassion or grace towards his spouse or children.
Loves the ritual, misses the heart.
It's the congregant who is proud of her service in the church and at the same time lacks the fruit of the spirit.
She's busy, but there's no love, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, or self-control.
Loves the appearance, misses the heart.
It's the church that's proud of its ministries and its activities.
And it burns through people rather than taking part in their healing.
Loves the appearance, misses the heart.
It's the leader who uses the manipulative tactics of the world and justifies it because he's doing God's work.
Loves the appearance, misses the heart.
And so the question for us in all of that is this, in all of the busyness,
in all of the religious activity that we take part in,
are we actually bringing others to know God?
Or are we simply getting in the way?
In the busyness and activity of religion, are we actually showing fruit?
Are we growing in love, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control?
Or are we all hat and no cattle?
All leaves, no figs.
Jesus here is giving us a warning and a reminder
that it is possible, it is easy to have fruitless religion.
It is easy and possible to be full of activity
and also to simply follow the desires of our own hearts.
Fruitless religion is a real and present danger.
Now I told you there were two things
that I want us to take from our passage.
That is the first.
The second is this.
None of what I have said this morning
matters
unless we see
Jesus.
What is Jesus' heart
and his passion here?
What is it that gets Jesus fired up?
What is it that drives him
to turn over tables
and get people out?
Jesus' passion here
is that you
would access
his presence.
Jesus' anger
is because
his people
are being starved.
Jesus' action here
is because
God's people
are hungry
for God's presence
and his healing
and that there are men
who are getting
in the way.
And so more than anything else
we have to see
Jesus' love
here for these people.
His love
for the Gentiles.
His love
for those
who are being blocked
from God.
His love
for you.
Jesus is passionate
that his people
would experience
the healing
and forgiveness
and reconciliation
the purpose
and the significance
that comes
and only comes
from his presence.
He is angry
on behalf
of someone else.
He is angry
on behalf
of his people.
He's angry
on behalf
of you.
Jesus'
passion
is that
his house
would be a house
of prayer
for all
nations.
What makes
Jesus upset?
Jesus is upset
when you
are blocked
from him.
Jesus is upset
when rote
and ritual
religion
get in the way
of you
experiencing
the beauty
and the glory
of knowing
his love
and his forgiveness
for you.
He is upset
when people
miss out
on the glory
of worshiping
him,
singing to him
and hearing
from him
words of life.
that is
what gets
Jesus
going.
He's upset
when you're
kept
from forgiveness
and healing
and meaning
and wisdom
and belonging.
And so
the same
question
that we've
been looking
at for a few
weeks
comes to us.
Hast thou
seen him,
heard him,
known him?
is not
thine
a captured
heart?
Captivated
by his
beauty
worthy
tribute
haste
to bring,
let his
peerless
worth
constrain
you,
crown him
now
unrivaled
king.
Yes,
be careful
about fruitless
religion.
Yes,
be careful
about blocking
people from
God's presence.
Yes,
watch out
for the
way in
which religion
becomes
about the
appearance
rather than
the substance
and,
most of
all,
more than
anything else,
see Jesus'
heart.
Jesus has
come to
Jerusalem
so that
he can
die.
Jesus has
come to
Jerusalem
so that
any barrier
between people
and him
would be
broken down.
Jesus has
come so
the temple
and its
sacrificial
system
would not
be needed
anymore.
Jesus has
come so
that we
every year
are not
making a
pilgrimage
to Jerusalem
to be
in his
presence,
but we
can be
in his
presence
now fully
and finally
because of
the work
of Jesus
Christ.
Jesus
came so
that his
people
could be
in his
presence.
I can
tell you
all sorts
of things
about the
abuse of
religious
systems
and none
of it
matters if
we don't
see this
Jesus
and grow
in our
love
for him.
Captivated
by his
beauty.
See the
beauty of
Jesus in
his love.
See the
beauty of
Jesus in
his anger.
There are
stories that
have been
told of
folks who
have
experienced
horrific
things
and there's
many things
that are
upsetting
about that,
many things
that are
haunting and
traumatic.
One of the
things that
haunts people
in those
situations is
this.
No one
was angry
for me.
No one
was upset
for me.
My parents
or my spouse
or my friends
didn't fight
for me
in that.
More than
anything else
in this
passage, I
want you to
see this.
Jesus angry
for you.
Jesus angry
for anything
that blocks
you from
his presence.
Jesus angry
for those
who keep
you from
him.
that is
his beauty
and his
glory.
Now Jesus
gives a
curse here
in verse
14.
It's a
curse that's
for the
tree.
Remember I
told you all
the details
matter and
there's a
parallel for
the temple
as well.
The temple
in a sense
is a lame
duck at
this point.
It is
almost
obsolete
because the
temple is
doing a
performing a
function that
will no
longer be
needed after
Jesus'
death.
When we
get to
Mark
chapter 14
and Jesus
dies, one
of the things
we're going
to see is
that the
inner curtain
within the
temple that
protects people
from the
very greatest
and intense
point of
God's presence
is going to
be ripped
from top
to bottom
in half
because there
is no
longer a
need for
the temple
to mediate
God's presence
with his
people because
Jesus has
come to be
Emmanuel,
God with
us.
Jesus is
God's
presence,
not the
temple.
Jesus is
going to
make it
no longer
necessary.
What he
does in
part here
in clearing
out this
narthex for
God's people
to access
him, he's
going to
do in
full in
the cross
because when
he's on
the cross
he is going
to die
the death
that we
deserve
even though
he lived
the life
that we
should have.
He's going
to take
the punishment
we deserve
on him
so that
we can
have
access
to
God.
Not as
pilgrims
making our
way to
Jerusalem
but as
those who
can pray
anytime,
anywhere.
Jesus is
so passionate
that you
have fellowship
with him,
that you
have access
to him
that he
dies.
That is
his ultimate
clearing of
the temple.
In John
chapter 4
Jesus meets
a Samaritan
woman.
There's lots
of things
that happen
there and
they talk
about but
one of the
things they
talk about
is this,
she asks
him to
resolve this
debate for
her about
where the
appropriate
place of
worship is.
Are we
supposed to
worship in
Jerusalem or
are we
supposed to
worship here
in Samaria?
And Jesus
says,
look,
that's not
going to be
even an
issue soon.
The time
is coming
when you're
not going to
worship here
or there,
you're going
to worship
in spirit
and in
truth.
Meaning
that this
system is
coming to
the end,
the temple
is obsolete
because of
me and
my work,
you will
come to
God in
my name
wherever
and whenever
you need
to.
Mark
chapter 11
verse 17
my house
shall be
called a
house of
prayer for
all the
nations.
And now
we look not
to the
temple but
to Jesus
himself who
is God's
presence.
That's why
we pray
in Jesus
name.
And so
let's do
that now.
Our
Father in
heaven,
we