Matthew 21:18-27

In this sermon Josh Turansky teaches from Matthew 21:18-27. He explains Jesus' cursing of the fig tree as a profound spiritual diagnosis of outward appearance without inner fruitfulness, contrasting it with God's desire for a living trust and faith that enables one to do mighty things. He also discusses Jesus' encounter with the religious elite, highlighting how Jesus' question about John's authority exposed their hypocrisy and hard hearts, demonstrating God's loving but direct engagement.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We've come to Matthew 28, 18 through 27. The psalm that we read this morning, Psalm 1, is perfect for this section because what we're going to see is a story about Jesus cursing a fig tree. And then the second scene that we're going to take up and look at briefly is the religious elite, the chief priests and the scribes, asking Jesus, who gave you the authority to be here. Beneath this scene of the fig tree lies a profound spiritual diagnosis, one that speaks directly to our hearts. Oftentimes we find ourselves looking the part of a Christian, maybe, or somebody that's religious or spiritual, maybe productive, busy. But if we're honest, there is maybe a barrenness, an emptiness about our life. And outwardly our life may seem like it's in order, but inwardly there's this struggle with doubts, apathy, or genuine faith. And like this fig tree, we can appear that to be healthy, but distance, healthy from a distance, and yet bear little fruit in our lives in the light of God's expectations. A living trust is what God wants for us. He wants for our lives to be fruitful. To be fruitful. And so let's look at these set of verses and we will make our way through it. Let me just re-reorient myself so I can see what is going on on this screen. There we go. So starting in verse 18, he says this early in the morning as he was returning to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a lone fig tree by the road, he went up to it and found nothing on it except leaves. And he said to it, May no fruit ever come from you again. At once the fig tree withered. When the disciples saw it, they were amazed and said, How did the fig tree wither so quickly? Jesus answered them, Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you tell this mountain, be lifted up and thrown into the sea, it will be done. And if you believe, you will receive whatever you ask in prayer. And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching and said, By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority? Jesus answered them, I will also ask you a question, and if you answer it for me, then I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Did John's baptism come from heaven, or was it of human origin? Well, they discussed it amongst themselves. If we say from heaven, he will say, then why didn't you believe him? But if we say of human origin, we're afraid of the crowd, because everyone who considers John, uh because everyone considers John to be a prophet. So they answered Jesus, we don't know. And he said to them, Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. So we're looking at this book of Matthew because we want to understand what is Jesus about. One of the main things, one of the main verbs that Jesus calls us to is to follow him. We often talk about, hey, you need to believe, you need to repent and believe. That's important. It's important to repent and believe. But one of the things that Jesus asked for the most often was just, hey, follow me. And so the question that we're asking as we go through Matthew is, well, what does it mean to follow Jesus? And we happen to be now in a section where we're in the last week before Jesus is crucified. We've already seen what happened on Palm Sunday. We've seen kind of the activity of Monday, and these events probably occur on Tuesday. And I showed you last week a picture of the Temple Mount where there was teaching, and he was doing these miracles, and there was just this observation of the wondrous signs that Jesus was doing. And Jesus had turned over the tables and the chairs of the money exchangers and those buying and selling. He attacked basically the commerce going on in the worship space, and he said, This is supposed to be a house of prayer, and you've turned it into a den of thieves. And so now we progress in this story, and we're probably on Tuesday, Friday night will be when Jesus is crucified. And so this account, Jesus has been staying in Bethany out of town, and he comes into Jerusalem during the day. Bethany, that's where Mary and Martha and Lazarus lived. And Jesus was probably staying over at their house with his disciples, and then during the daytime, he's coming into the city. And so let's look at this first account of Jesus coming into this city. Well, the first thing that we are told is that he is hungry. He's hungry. He um had been staying in Bethany, and now he's returning to the city. And I all that I want you to notice, because some there have been groups who call themselves Christians who have tried to take away from the body of Jesus. It's very important to understand that Jesus was both God and fully human. And so here we see the humanity of Jesus coming forward. His body is talking to him and saying, I'm hungry. And we saw back, or if you go early on in his ministry in John, we see that Jesus has an encounter with a woman at a well, and it says there that he was thirsty. So the humanity of Jesus comes forward. And we see in verse 19 that he on this road sees a fig tree, and he found nothing on it except for leaves. Maybe let me just show you for a second this um what this would have looked like. This is a fig tree in the region of Jerusalem, maybe maybe even on the road from Bethany to Jerusalem. Here's um what the figs would look like if the figs were growing on the fig tree. And so Jesus has this experience of seeing a fig tree with leaves but no fruit. Before we get to the curse that he calls down on this or or gives to this tree, one of the things that you need to understand is that if you go back to the very beginning of your Bible, uh trees are a type or a metaphor for humans. There are many different ways in which people are spoken of as a tree. One of my favorites is in Isaiah that talks about how you'll be like an oak that is a strong, sturdy oak, rather than a scrubby brush out in the desert. Yeah, Felicia. That's right, we covered that already, right?

unknown 9:08

No fruit is a bad tree.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

And where was that at? That was Matthew 7, right? When we were, I think that was Matthew 7, and end of Matthew 7. Yeah. So this idea is pervasive, not just in Jesus' teaching, but Jesus is just carrying on the story of Scripture. And the name sometimes the nation of Israel is spoken of as if it were a tree. But it is a common metaphor for you and I. One of the most famous passages about being like a tree is both Psalm 1 and John 15. In John 15, you have a vine, you have this vineyard picture, and so you have the core trunk of the vine, and then it has branches, and you're told that you're like a branch, and that the vine itself is the father, and that you are, as long as you're that branch connected to the father, you're able to be fruitful, and you're called to stay connected to the vine so that you can bear fruit. But I want you to see here the fig tree is a common metaphor for humans, and so Jesus, in the state of hunger, sees a fig tree, but it doesn't have figs on it. There is this expectation. In fact, let me show to you John 15 8. My Father is glorified by this, that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples. What does that mean? Let's talk about that for a second. Let me I'll just show you 16 as well. Jesus says to his disciples, this is at the he says this here on Thursday night. Right? So just a couple days later in his own life, he's teaching his disciples in the upper room, and these are the things that he says. And he says, You did not choose me, I chose you, and I appointed you to produce fruit, that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you. So let's just talk about this for a second. When when we're in this passage, and we're seeing Jesus talking about and seeing this unfruitful tree, and then John records Jesus' teaching about, hey, I expect you to be fruitful. What would be fruit in our life? Okay, so good good things, like um Jesus teaches how to live, and then we do what he says. What are some of the things that he said to do? Okay, so in the Ten Commandments we have a do not to honor your parents. Yep, so that you have those types of commands. What else? Yeah, to love one another. Yeah, yeah, what else? Yeah. Yeah, to share, like to be a witness, to talk about who Jesus is. Yeah, that would be something that he instructed. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, God's the one who's saving them. But yeah, we're sharing about here's what Jesus is doing, here's his plan for your life. Yeah, yeah. So somehow, though, we have to understand this without it being um this idea that we're earning our salvation. So some people think that um to be a follower of Jesus means that you earn your way into heaven by doing good works. Maybe that conversation comes up when you have a conversation with somebody, you're like, how do you know God's gonna let you into heaven? Faith. By faith. We know that it's through faith. But you'll hear people oftentimes will say, Well, I God's gonna look at the good things that I did and he's gonna let me in, as if you earn your way into heaven. But that's not what Jesus taught at all. So it is by faith, like the response to Jesus, that we are not saved by our works, our good works, while we are called to do good works, that doesn't save us. So if you're on your spiritual journey and you're trying to understand who Jesus is, you need to know here that the expectation for your life is that you will be fruitful, but in your being fruitful, that's not saving you. Does that make sense? And so your design, if we go back to Genesis 1 and 2, we see God making Adam and Eve and saying to them, Adam and Eve, I want you to be fruitful, multiply, subdue, and rule in this garden. I want you to tend to the garden. In fact, it says that there was no fruit coming up out of the garden because God hadn't caused it to rain on the ground yet and he hadn't tilled the ground. And so there from the very beginning, humans were called to do, right? And our brokenness, the problem that we have separated, alienated from God, not yet saved, is that our doing is broken. Now we can kind of get in the right direction, we can think well, but our doing does not, it doesn't really round out the picture of the garden. So we can do the things that humans are supposed to do, but those things don't last if you don't have a relationship with Jesus. Now, somebody who doesn't know Jesus can be loving, right? They can love their neighbor. The difference between us as followers of Jesus and somebody who is not a follower of Jesus is that we would say we're forgiven. We wouldn't say we're better, we would say we operate from the position of our sins are forgiven, and we've been united back with the life of God. And so as we do good, we know that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, animates the things that we do. He leads us into the good we should do. So when you, and hopefully if you haven't done it already, today is your day, when you say to God, I'm ready to receive Jesus into my life, and you step into the life that God has for you, one of the things that happens is he gives you his spirit. The Spirit of God comes into you and begins to create the fruit that he has for you. And so here we have a story of a fig tree where Jesus is hungry hoping to get some figs, and there's no figs there that look like that. And so he says, May no fruit ever come from you again. At once the fig tree withered. So he sees it, he curses it, and immediately it's withered. And what we see is that the disciples saw it and they're amazed. How did the fig tree wither so quickly? It's like it's one day it's good, and the next day it's all scrawny. What happened? What happened? So this question is posed, and let's look at how Jesus answers the question. How did it how did the fig tree wither so quickly? So Jesus answered them, truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you tell this mountain, be lifted up and thrown into the sea, it will be done. So here's the disciples. They're just like, what is going on? And Jesus uses this moment not to interpret the metaphor, but instead to say that, look, if you have faith, if you have faith, if you have faith, if you have faith, and don't doubt, you're not only going to do what happened to the fig tree, but there's this mountain. What is he talking about, the mountain? Here's one of the hypothesis. When Jesus is saying this, about seven miles away was this mountain. It's called Herodium. You could see this mountain peak from where Jesus was teaching there on the on the outskirts of Jerusalem. That is a man-made mountain.

unknown 18:55

What is it about?

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Herodias. Herod made that mountain. Herodium is a, it's like a pyramid. It was a place that was created to mark his death. Here's another view of it. The circle, you can see it through the haze in that circle. This is from the Sea of Galilee. Or maybe it's a Dead Sea. What does it say there? Yeah, from the Dead Sea. You can see this mountain. So Jesus is saying, now, now, Herod, who put this mountain there, before the time of Jesus, this is a different Herod than the one that Jesus interacted with, right? There was an animosity, a hatred from the Jews towards this type of thing because Herod represented the Roman Empire. They were these foreign occupants in Israel, and they were keeping the Jewish people from being able to be completely liberated and have their own land. In fact, here is this Roman leader who goes and messes up the topography, moving and creating a mountain. And so when Jesus says, if you say to that mountain, be moved, it will be moved, it'll be cast into the sea, it's probable that this is the idea that he had in his mind. But he's calling his disciples. Who here is a disciple of Jesus? If you are a Christian, then you're a disciple. Who here is a follower of Jesus? Same thing. It's all the same thing, right? It means that you have a personal relationship with the one who's talking in our text. And so you join with the disciples. They represent you in this text going, What is going on? That fig tree just withered when you talk to it. That's crazy. And they speak on your behalf, asking a question, why did it wither so fast? And then Jesus responds to the disciples so that you can understand something. And this is again what he says. If you have faith and do not doubt, you'll not only do what's done to the fig tree, but even tell this mountain, be lifted up and thrown into the sea. It will be done. Okay, so that's a problem. Who says that kind of thing? Who says that? That's pretty bizarre. That's pretty, pretty wild. Now notice, notice too, that he's not saying, bow your heads and close your eyes and pray to God, the Father, that the mountain will be moved. Do you notice how did Jesus interact with the fig tree? What did he say? He just commanded it and it withered. I just want you to know this is deeply troubling to me. Because I don't have that kind of faith. Now I have enough faith to pray for you if you're sick. But I am not going, I am don't have enough faith to walk up to you and be like, yo, be healed. That's weird. But but I just want you to notice that when Jesus teaches on this, he is transferring what he's done over to his disciples. And he's saying, not just the fig tree that you're talking to, but mountains being moved. So do you feel the tension there in your own life as a follower of Jesus? Like, isn't the cry for us, like just for a moment, like, God, strengthen my faith? Help me to know, like, without being a total weirdo around my family, how to know, how to like operate with that kind of faith. Where I'm saying to the mountain, be moved. Now, what would change in Baltimore if we follow Jesus, the Holy Spirit's animating our life, and we're exercising faith in that way. I don't know. I don't know, but but Jesus is walking, he's not like, yo, yo, yo, this is just for me because I'm the Son of God, right? He could say that. He could have been like, yo, yo, disciples like, pretend you didn't see that. That was just like God stepped out of heaven for a second and and was frustrated with the with the fig tree. No, he's like, that was an illustration for you. Man, I don't know if we can go on. That's that's quite a quite a scene to encounter. Like, what does that mean? So you have been redeemed from sin. Like the God of the universe sent his son into the world to die on a cross so that your guilt could be completely removed, and then you're invited into his kingdom, and he tells you, pray that his kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven. And then he says, I do not pray that you take them out of the world. Because God could just like elevator, like he could do the Star Trek thing, like beam you up, Scotty. You met Jesus, you're saved, like get you out of here. But he doesn't. You're still here. And he's telling you to pray that his kingdom would come, and then he gives you these kind of stories. What does it look like to be a follower of Jesus? Like, what does it look like for us to follow Jesus and to obey what he says here? This is pretty crazy stuff. So he's not done yet, unfortunately for us. He goes on a little bit further. He says, and if you believe, you'll receive whatever you ask in prayer. Have you ever gone to the a car dealership or signed a contract for a phone? And there's like the big front cover page that sums up everything, and there's like eight pages of small fine print. I always see these kind of verses, and I think, well, there's got to be the fine print. There's got to be all like the little, like, well, it works here and here, but it doesn't work in these other 15 other scenarios. But I got some news for you. If we go to the next verse, there ain't no fine print. Jesus just says this. If you believe, you'll receive whatever you ask in prayer. Now, we know from James, he says you're lacking things in your life because you don't ask for it. And then you don't have it. Maybe you do ask for it, but you don't receive it because you ask amiss, or you you ask for it in the wrong way. It's like you're like, oh wow, Jesus said that. So I need to go ask for a Ferrari. No, no, that's not how prayer is supposed to be, right? Prayer is just a word that describes your having conversations with God, right? You talking to God regularly. That's what prayer is. And there are ways that are appropriate to talk to somebody. And Jesus expects that, hey, when we talk about communicating with God, there's an appropriateness about it. There's a that this is an informed conversation. But he just lays it out there. He says, believe and receive whatever you ask in prayer. So listen, most of us are Christians. Most of us have made a decision to follow Jesus. This I mean, it's very clear that this text is telling us that we need to do this next week from a position of faith. And we really need to see the things around us. Here's the humanity of Jesus, engaging a fig tree, he's like, curses it. I don't know what your week, I don't know what tomorrow holds. What's your Monday going to be like? But if you're a follower of Jesus, the Spirit of God is in you, and this is a symbolic act that Jesus does. It accomplishes a purpose, it's prophetic, it's judgment essentially. This is a week to be praying, to be walking by faith. Let's go to the next section, just so that we cover it. This section where he goes into the temple, and the chief priests and the elders of the people, they come to him in the midst of him teaching, and they ask a question by what authority do you do these things? Who gave you this authority? So the idea in this time was like, here's the religious elites. The Roman government gave these chief priests the um authority to operate in their position. Does that make sense? Yeah. So so they have their authority, and then they have public support. So if you were to ask this question of a chief priest, they would say, Well, I have my authority to be a chief priest because one, I'm a Levite, and according to the Torah, my family lineage gives me the authority to be here. Second, the Roman government gives me the authority to be here. And third, I have the popular support of the nation to hold this position. But so they pose this question to Jesus because Jesus, you know, he's casting, he's turning over tables, he's throwing out the money changers, he's healing people, he's rebuking this fig tree. It's like, well, what is what's your authority for what you're doing? Because it stood out. And so Jesus turns it around on him. This is probably Tuesday. Jesus uh turns this around. He says, I'll answer your question if you answer mine. That's one of my favorite parenting uh techniques right there. Because the answer is contained within his own question. He's because remember, he's not just factual, right? Because it Felicia, you didn't decide to follow Jesus because you got information. There was a part in your heart where you had to surrender to him, right? There was information, but there was just like an opening of your heart. That's what happens in all of us. And they have hard hearts. They're challenging, they're not just like, hey, give us the facts, who's your authority? They're watching, and the expectation is that they should know better. They should know better. Now, there was some well-meaning Pharisees like Nicodemus that we see in John 3, who's just like, how do I get saved? And Jesus has a very sincere conversation. He says, You need to be born again. And so Jesus isn't kind of playing these games. But what Jesus does is this is like playing chess, this question. Because by in in answering this question, or by asking this question, the answer to this question is the very same answer to their own question. So let's look at this. I'll ask, I'll ask you the question, and if you answer it, I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Did John's baptism come from heaven, or was it from human origin? What's the answer? Heaven, right? Because you all have read Isaiah chapter 40, and you know that God promised that he would send his forerunner to prepare the way of the Messiah, right? And and when God promised to John the Baptist's parents that this child would be born, he keyed him in to Isaiah chapter 40. So so it's it was known, like this should have been obvious to the Pharisees that John was the fulfillment of Isaiah 40. But he puts the question to them and they discussed it amongst themselves, and he says, we have a problem. So here's our problem. If we say it's from heaven, they're gonna ask us, well, why didn't you believe what John was saying? That's a problem. But if we say it's of human origin, we're afraid of the crowd, right? They only have their position of influence because the crowd's supportive of them. It's because everyone considers John to be a prophet. And so they're stuck. And they end up saying, we don't know. And so Jesus says, Okay, I'm not gonna tell you by what authority I do these things. You see, he answers the question by asking a new question. Yeah. And don't you appreciate their wrestling? Because they're stuck. He he he puts them in this checkmate position. We can't fess up to who John is, or we'll indict ourselves. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty cunning. It's pretty cunning. Because yeah, he could have just been like, oh yeah, this is I'm I'm working on behalf of God the Father. And in other points he does, but he does this kind of thing because he loves people. And if he just gives these guys information and he doesn't ask a question to surface their hypocrisy, then he's he, you know, he's bringing, he's he's engaging them in a loving way. And so, just in closing, what is the Spirit of God asking you? Like what's what is how's how's the Spirit of God engaging you this morning? Because just like Jesus here is able to engage these religious elites and their hypocrisy, for you and I, the Spirit of God comes and he says to you and I, like, listen, I don't want you to just have another sermon. I don't want you to just have the facts or the information. No, I want you to have life. I want you to be, I want you to be the source of fruit for your family. I want you to be a source of fruit for your co-workers, for your neighbors. Like you're this tree, but you need to know, you need to know that what's standing in the way of the work of the Spirit of God in your life are these barriers that you and I put up. And the best thing that could happen to us is that the Spirit of God, in accompaniment with the Word of God, asks us questions. That puts us in a corner, that pins us, that says, hey, listen, what are you doing? What are you doing? And and I would just encourage you to let God win in your life so that you can be like that tree. We we read about it in Psalm 1, that you're like a tree planted by streams of water, who yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. Do you want to go into this week and prosper, live a prosperous week? Yeah, I want that for you as well. God wants that for you as well. He wants you to be that fruitful tree. And it's not really all that complicated other than being in relationship with him. So even with the stubborn, stubborn religious elites, he's asking questions, getting to the root of the problem. And I'd encourage you, friends, family, Christians, let him get to the root of the problem in your life so that you can be fruitful. Father, we thank you for your word this morning. Thank you for wanting us to be like that tree that yields fruit. In John 15, 16, it says that you picked us to bear fruit and to produce fruit that's not just momentary, not flash in a pan, but long-lasting fruit. We want to cooperate with that vision of life. Find in us a willing companion. Find in us, Lord, a tender heart willing to be fruitful with you. Thank you, God. Thank you for your patience with us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.