Good morning. It's my privilege again to read scripture. I'll be reading from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 21, verses 12 through 17. This is Jesus cleansing the temple, and it's a historical narrative. And when Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons, and he said to them, it is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers. And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things he did and the children crying out to him in the temple, Hosanna to the son of David. They were indignant. And they said to him, do you hear what these are saying? And Jesus said to them, Yes, have you never read out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praises? And leaving them, he went out, out of the city to Bethany and lodged there. This is the authoritative word of Almighty God. You may be seated. Good morning, church. Well, with God's help, we'll allow that reading from Matthew's gospel, his account of Jesus' second cleansing of the temple. We'll allow that to lead us into our time of communion. So before the bread and the cup are distributed, let me just say a little bit about this. Now, it would be difficult, I think, to overstate the significance of the temple in Jerusalem to God's people in Jesus' day. The temple was the symbol of God's visible presence with Israel. And as you know, it was to be a place of prayer, it was to be a place of worship, of teaching, of sacrifice, People coming and going from the temple was intended to be a living picture of God's friendly relationship with his people. And instead, in Jesus' day, the temple had become something of a national good luck charm. As long as Israel had the temple, God would favor his people. That's what they said. As long as they went through the motions of what God had prescribed for the temple, they would remain in good standing with God as his people, they thought. And not surprisingly, the temple's rote activities morphed into something that was utterly man-centered. Religion so often does that. Priests made exorbitant profits selling animals for sacrifice to out-of-state travelers. Even the poor, those who could only afford Pigeons or doves as we just heard people like Mary and Joseph for example were charged fees that lined the pockets of high priests like Annas or later Caiaphas and his cronies and Those who were awarded concessions to exchange money for temple currency likewise made rich profits and And likewise, the court of the Gentiles, which should have been a kind of representation of God's open arms to the world of repentant people, had instead turned into something akin to an open-air market. Religion then, as it so often is now, was big business. And God's warnings through the prophet Jeremiah had come to life once again in Jesus' day. Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of thieves in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says the Lord. I see what you're doing, God says. The caves. in the desert wilderness around Jerusalem were used by robbers and other criminals. They'd hide out in those dens to escape the law. I wonder, can you imagine people today hiding out in church to escape God's law? And Jesus comes into the temple and he sees people doing this very thing. Hiding behind the rituals, hiding behind the religious motions that were so engaging. Maybe as a pretense to appear devout. Maybe as a way to appease their own consciences. Some kind of quid pro quo with God. And Christ's zeal for the Father compelled Him to clean house at the sight of it all. God the Son has a zeal for holiness that simply parallels that of God the Father. He and the Father are one. Holiness in His people. devotion from his people, love for God and love toward others flowing out of his people. So why does Jesus cleanse the temple? God cannot and will not abide among an insincere, unholy people. God cannot and will not be at home in a soul a temple polluted with sin, he'll not be his people's good luck charm. And the communion table, of course, reminds us that it's worse than we think. It is not a matter of sweeping up this and trying harder to get rid of that. Salvation is to do with a total makeover. And so God, the Son, came into this world to accomplish just that. How do you make something unclean clean? It's impossible. But how many of you know all things are possible with God? And so God comes to us today in his gospel and he says, stop the pretense. Stop the hypocrisy. Stop hiding in religion. Come to me. Jesus lived that holy life, that pure life God requires of His people and substitutes that perfect righteousness of His. For all of our filth, He took that sin upon Himself at Calvary and His blood was shed taking upon himself the judgment, the hellish wrath of God, all of your sin deserves, all so that you might be credited, I might be credited with his holiness, his loyalty to God. And he's done this as well, hasn't he, to make it possible for us to live unto God, for us to live set-apart lives as redeemed people. And so, in that sense, the communion table is a remembrance of our great need for Christ. And in remembering, it is also a time of consecration. And so, The scriptures compel us to examine ourselves. What's in the house that needs to be cleaned out? Because the heart of God is still to have a holy people. So we'll take a few moments now To do just that, let's spend some time in reflection, Christian's gratitude for the enormity of what God has done in Christ for us. Then with God's help, with the Holy Spirit's work, let's examine ourselves, repent of anything in our house, our soul. that needs to not be there. And let me just remind you that this remembrance of Christ's love and work for his people is for believers. This is for those who have come to Christ by faith. So if that is not you, if you are unsurrendered to Christ in that sense, well, first of all, I urge you to come to Christ right now. But if you'll not, then let the bread and the cup pass you by. You do danger to your soul by partaking in unbelief. So let's go to the Lord now. Behold the Lamb who bears our sins away, slain for us. And we remember the promise made that all who come in faith find forgiveness at the price. So we shout in this prayer of life, and we pray of His sacrifice as a sign of our bonds of peace around the table of peace. The body of our Savior Jesus Christ, born for you. He can remember the wounds that heal, the death that brings us life, pay the price to make us wise. ♪ In this world of love and we believe ♪ ♪ On His chocolate box as a sign of our bonds of love ♪ ♪ Around the table of God's love ♪ The blood that quenches every stain of sin shed for you. Drink and remember the drain that's pumped that I may enter in to receive the life of God. ♪ So we share in this bread of life ♪ ♪ And we drink of His sacrifice ♪ ♪ As a sign of our bonds of grace ♪ ♪ Around the table of the King ♪ And so with thankfulness and faith we rise to return. And to remember our call to follow in the steps of Christ as his body e'er on earth. In His soft caroling we proclaim Christ will come again and we'll join in the feast of life around the table of my King. Let's give thanks, shall we? Father, we come to you this morning so grateful that you moved toward us in love and in mercy to bring us salvation, Lord. Jesus, we thank you for your perfections, Lord, the beauty of your perfect life, the wonder of your perfect love demonstrated on that cross where you said, it is finished. You have done everything necessary to make us right with God. You have opened your arms wide for us to welcome us into your family. And Lord, you are alive, risen, living within us now by your Spirit. And Lord, I pray that this remembrance would be pleasing to you And Lord would encourage your saints. Lord that we might be fortified in our faith that we might. Be consecrated even more so Lord. To live as your body. As we await your kingdom in its fullness. And we pray this Jesus in your name. Amen. The scripture says Jesus took some bread and after. Blessing it he broke it and giving it to the disciples. He said take eat. This is my body And when he had taken a cup and given thanks and He gave it to them saying, drink from it all of you for this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom. Praise God. The king is coming again. And this morning we will consider his teaching, his disciples and us, about our readiness for His coming again. We're in Matthew 21, and it's a count of Jesus cleansing the temple in Jerusalem. Again, the temple was that place that God had ordained as a visible symbol of His presence with His people, and yet it had become leprous with unbelief and superficial ritual. David Israel's ancient king saying in Psalm 69, zeal for your house has consumed me. And now Matthew tells us the greater David has come, the Messiah has come, and he has come with zeal for holiness in God's temple. And this temple cleansing fits hand in glove with what follows in Matthew's narrative. There is this strange interaction that Jesus has with his disciples and a fig tree. Verse 18 of Matthew 21 says, now in the morning when Jesus was returning to the city, to Jerusalem, he became hungry. Seeing a lone fig tree by the road he came to it and found nothing on it except leaves only note that and he said to it no longer shall there ever be any fruit from you and at once the fig tree withered and seeing this the disciples marveled saying how did the fig tree wither all at once and Jesus answered and said to them, truly I say to 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 say to this mountain, be taken up and cast into the sea, it will happen. And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive. You just have to ask yourself, now what do the fig tree and the temple have in common, because Matthew has very deliberately placed these two happenings together in his narrative. Why? Well, both were intended to bear fruit, and both had failed to do so. It's not a complicated thing. Both temple and tree failed their intended purposes, and both would be judged. Both were lovely to look at. The temple was renowned throughout the ancient world. Herod had made sure of that. It glistened on the horizon as travelers approached Jerusalem. And a fig tree leafed out in a dry, dusty, desert land was a beautiful and seemingly purposeful thing. Tree leaves normally signify fruitfulness, especially when it comes to figs. They would bear fruit twice a season, still do. But in this tree, all the leaves were false advertising. Just like what was going on in the temple seemed so religious and devout and yet was mostly false advertising. The lesson is obvious. Religious appearance without genuine purpose nauseates God and brigs judgment. So happy new year. But that is why the temple and the tree are given to us together as they are in this narrative. What does Jesus think of that, you wonder? No longer shall there be any fruit from you. And we understand that 40 years after Jesus' temple cleansing, the one here in Matthew 21, Rome sacked Jerusalem. The temple was destroyed, not a stone unturned. And Jesus' pronouncement of judgment on the temple inconceivable to those who heard that prophecy from Jesus was fulfilled. And here the fig tree's withering is a pronouncement of judgment on Israel herself. The nation, not Jews, but the nation and its brand of dead religion are to be no more. All throughout scripture, Israel is likened to a fig tree. Israel was planted by God to be fruitful for him, to be his image bearers as a witness to the nations. But Israel, not unlike you and I, have failed in that purpose. I will surely gather them up, declares Yahweh. There will be no grapes on the vine and no figs on the fig tree, and the leaf will wither, and what I have given them will pass away, says Jeremiah. And then God says through the prophet Micah, woe is me for I am like the fruit pickers, like the grape gatherers. There is not a cluster of grapes to eat or a first ripe fig which my soul desires. You mean God desires? Yes. What does God desire? God desires holiness from his people. And he has made every provision for his people to be holy. We're meant to bear the fruit of his holy image. So the person who claims to know God, yet is all show and no substance in that regard, think ancient Israel, the temple trappings, is a contradiction. deceiving others, self-deceived perhaps, but nonetheless a contradiction. John MacArthur in his commentary on Matthew puts it this way, fruit is always an indication of salvation, of a transformed life in which operates the power of God. People's right relation to God is evidenced by the fruit they bear. We've heard this before. This is not new to us, but doesn't it seem to you that it's something we constantly need to be reminded of? So Jesus has nothing against this particular fig tree in Matthew 21. Don't think that. Don't think that he is hangry. You know, the way you and I sometimes get hangry, you know, in need of whatever the Ancient equivalent of the Snickers bar was. Nor was Jesus prone to talking to trees. This is an object lesson for the disciples and for us. God is done with the temple in Jerusalem. And God is done with ancient Israel for her insistent on using him and her false religion as a good luck charm. And Jesus will make this abundantly clear in verse 43 of Matthew 21 in the parable of the vine growers. The kingdom is given to a nation that bears fruit. But for now, let's not miss the point. The gospel of the kingdom brings not a minor renovation, don't think that, but a total makeover. A total makeover. You cannot have a saving encounter with the living God and be unchanged. You cannot have a saving encounter with God the Son and just be slightly more religious. No, this is a new birth. Paul says to the Corinthians, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things passed away, behold, new things have come. In just a short time from these events that we read of here in Matthew 21, the people of God will no longer be primarily those from national Israel, but a people from all nations, in all parts of God's world, Jews and Gentiles who have run to God through faith in the work of Christ for them. Not to some place, not to some religion, but to Christ. and Christ alone. From then on, God's people are those who know Christ personally as Savior and King. I wonder this morning, with the year 2025 approaching, can you believe that? Will this be a year in which you can say, I know Christ personally as Savior and King? I am a fruit-bearing member of Christ's body by grace. You see, after the crucifixion, after the resurrection, after Pentecost, the sending of the Holy Spirit, from then on, God's temple will be his people individually and corporately as his church. 1 Corinthians 6 says this, do you not know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body. What is that to do with? It's to do with God desiring a holy people, a consecrated people for his glory. You, Christian, are the temple of the living God. And the Bible says the church, collectively, the aggregate of God's believing people, we comprise the temple of the living God. Ephesians 2 says this, so then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household. Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole building, being joined together, is growing into a holy sanctuary in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. What a mystery this is. And yet what a clear purpose this is. God setting apart for himself a holy people. And so holiness in us as individuals, holiness among us as a church ought to be something of a preoccupation with us because it is so with God. And you say, well, that sounds a bit like legalism to me. Didn't we just celebrate the Lord's table? Isn't that to do with grace, which is unmerited favor? Isn't that to do with mercy, which is God withholding from us what we actually deserve? Oh, it is all of that. It is all of that. But how many of you know to be saved? is not only to be saved from hell, judgment, it's to be saved in real time from the power of sin to dominate your life. To be saved is to be one who, we just sang about it earlier, is living toward that time when we will have been saved from even the presence of sin around us, but also within us. Oh, glorious day. Well, the disciples have no sense of this, standing in front of that tree as they are, watching it wither. Jesus has not yet gone to Calvary to atone for the sins of his people, though he'd been three times so far in Matthew, Jesus had been telling them that, preparing them. He has not yet been buried and then raised again, though he told them that too. The disciples did not understand Jesus prophesying these things at all, how he would be raised again on the third day. They're just standing there, jaws dropped, watching A beautiful tree all of a sudden become ugly as it withered before them. Look at verse 19. At once the fig tree withered. And seeing this, the disciples marveled, saying, how did the fig tree wither all at once? In other words, how did this happen? Show us how you did this. These men had been given power earlier from Jesus to cast out demons, to heal, to do all sorts of kingdom labors in the name of Jesus, and maybe they're thinking, are we gonna get the tree killing thing too? I mean, can we do, Jesus, show us how you do this. How did this happen? And really, that's the wrong question, don't you think? Better to ask, what does this mean? What does this mean? And of course, they were meant to see the same basic lesson in the tree that they had seen in the temple cleansings. Religion without godliness will never please God. Religion without godliness is actually met with judgment, not favor. But you notice how Jesus continues to be patient with his men. How many of you are glad today that Jesus is patient with his people? The same way he's patient with us, Jesus is patient with these first followers, and so he answers their questions. Look at verse 21. And Jesus answered them and said to them, truly I say to 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 say to this mountain, be taken up and cast into the sea, it will happen. Now here is a verse that has suffered terrible misapplication. And so we wanna slow down and take great care. The prosperity gospel folks absolutely love this verse. Ask God anything, believe enough in what you're asking God for, and it will be so. And how many of you know false teaching like that is often a subtle thing? I mean, it sounds right, and yet it's, how many of you know if something is half right, it's still totally wrong? So that interpretation is totally wrong. We're not called here to have faith in our faith. If we just somehow have a certain kind of faith, superman, superwoman faith, then whatever we ask of God, he is obligated to do, as if God were a genie. Our wishes are unlocked if we just have this certain kind of faith. Folks, that's an offense to God. And it's actually heresy. So we need to be careful here just as we had to be careful to rightly understand that mustard seed faith that Jesus spoke of back in Matthew 17. So first things first, if you have faith and do not doubt. Jesus is describing one thing here, not two. Faith, by definition, is the absence of doubt. Now there is strong faith and weak faith, but faith, by definition, is trust. So the king here is not describing a certain kind of faith, a super powered faith. He's simply describing faith itself. God is planting in his world a people of faith in Christ. Faith in him, allegiance to him. If you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, be taken up and cast into the sea, it will happen. Notice that Jesus says the fig tree, and Jesus says this mountain, not a tree and a mountain. Turns out that matters. We're not to think of the Himalayas, or Mount Rainier, or some such, or the tree in your backyard. The Temple Mount now symbolized fake religion, hypocrisy, pretense. What removes such a mountain? Oh, how tall a mountain is false religion. What removes it? Faith in Christ. Faith in Christ removes it. And so I urge you, friend, this morning, you who have not exchanged an empty religion, though it happens in a building with a cross on it, it's a matter of the heart. If you've not yet exchanged an empty religion for active faith in God the Son, in Jesus Christ, I just urge you to repent and turn to Christ right now. He welcomes you with open arms. Stop the pretense. End the show and come to Christ. Whatever will remove the kind of life that is all leafy but has no fruit? Jesus. Whatever will remove the kind of life that's beautiful on the outside and yet still fails to bear the fruit of righteousness unto God? Faith in Christ. Faith in Christ. And with people, this conversion from fake to genuine is impossible. The scripture says salvation is of the Lord. This is a work of God the Spirit to enable this kind of faith. But when we turn to God in this God-enabled faith, the impossible becomes possible so that the unfruitful tree, the temple of our pretense is cast into the sea. Are you hearing this? Folks, this is good news. All of that pretense, all of that sin is covered in the sea of God's saving and sanctifying grace. God's grace, in that sense, is always a transforming grace, isn't it? Again, the people who are saved are a people being saved. Titus 2 says this, For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all lawlessness and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works. You see, there it is again. All throughout our Bible, salvation is not only relational, it is, by God's grace, in the power of his spirit, transformational. And so Paul says to Titus, this saving grace of God is an instructing grace and a reconstructing grace. The temple of religious pretense is torn down that the temple of the living God might be built up in the soul. And the saved man, the saved woman bears the fruit in some measure and in some increasing measure of godliness. And if we, you're still listening. If we had more time, we could go to Galatians 5, 22 and 23. We could go to 2 Peter 1, 5 through 9 to amplify this, but I commend that to you in your time at home today perhaps. But here is Jesus standing in front of a fig tree having cursed it. Here is Jesus having left the temple, having cleansed it. And he is zealous for holiness. And so those who are indwelt by the Spirit of Christ are made new and are made, what? Zealous for holiness. This is the fragrance of Christ and His people, and that's the faith that moves mountains. Christ has come to remove the mountain of falsehood and fruitlessness that is native to all people apart from His grace. You say, That's not the gospel as I've heard it before. I thought the gospel was a get out of hell free card. And off you go on your merry way. Well, you've misunderstood, friend. Now is there a more general application here when it comes to the prayer of faith? Well of course we believe with God all things are possible. And so we pray that he would remove the cancer. We pray that he would provide what's needed. We pray all of these things believing with God all things are possible. But we pray with hope in God, do we not? Not just in a particular outcome. believing that God will accomplish his will. Jesus himself taught us this by example in Gethsemane when he prayed, you know, Father, not my will but yours be done. William Hendrickson in his commentary puts it this way, no task in harmony with God's will is impossible to perform to those who do not doubt. And so in light of Jesus' teaching here of temple and tree, can we not pray with absolute confidence that the Lord would do a powerful work in us this year to break that stronghold of that besetting sin that's still in your life? that God, the Holy Spirit, in his generous power would come to us and kill off that sin that we know keeps dogging us, keeps following us around wherever we go. And you say, well, I can't do it. No, but he can, is the thing. He can. Both temple and tree provide the primary context for this statement about prayer in Matthew 21. Do you desire to be fruitful for God? Anybody wanna be fruitful for God in the new year? Man, I do. Do you desire that the false, the pretentious be killed off and replaced with what is genuine and sincere love toward God in your life? Let's ask him for this. Let's ask him for this as a church family. And then let's live in the direction of our asking in the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, let me end with some more direct application. I apologize that this has not been practical. What do a temple and a tree have in common? Both teach us that our King is zealous for purity. Both teach us that our King, our Savior, is zealous for purity. We who belong to Him, let's welcome His purifying work in us. This is normal Christianity, and it's a wonderful thing. That's why he shed his blood, that we would be pure from all unrighteousness and be eager to do what's good. And so we ask him for this and we cooperate in the spirit, we cooperate with this work he is so eager to do. Paul says to the Corinthians, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Let's put a finer point on it. Sexual purity. Purity in our speech. Purity in our relationships. Purity in the way we exercise Christian liberty. These things matter to God. And so they must matter to God's people, amen? Since we are collectively God's temple, let's welcome His purifying work in our church. Let's be a church where the fruit of righteousness matters to us, not for show. We're done with the show. We have Jesus for His glory. Let's be a church whose people are concerned with the fruit of holiness in our community. We serve God in our community to that end. What does that mean? We oppose what God says is wrong. We support what God says is right and best for his image bearers. People will think we're, let them think you're weird. We already know we're weird. Some more than others, but you understand my meaning. And church, let's embrace these things by faith as we live toward this future that's promised to us. One day, God will dwell with his people in perfect righteousness. Isn't that astounding to think that there is a world coming that is only righteous, ruled by our righteous king, served by a people made righteous, by his grace. That's why the ancient King David looked ahead to the work of the greater David, Christ himself, when he sang these words. This is Psalm 37. He says, for evildoers will be cut off, but those who hope for Yahweh, they will inherit the land. Yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more. You will look carefully at his place and he will not be there. but the lowly will inherit the land and will delight themselves in abundant peace. And Jesus actually quotes this psalm, doesn't he, in the Beatitudes when he says, blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. See that the land, the land of promise for God's people today. Well, this thing's going global, friends. The earth is the Lord's. God's gospel work is one of purging his world and preparing his people for his eternal kingdom. And that, folks, is what a temple and a tree have in common. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for these simple yet deeply profound illustrations in Matthew's gospel. We thank you Jesus that you stood in front of a beautiful leafy tree one day and taught your disciples this important truth about fruitfulness and your strong ability to have a fruit bearing people for your glory. Would we rejoice in this? Because we who belong to you, Lord, live with the hope that you are making us holy from the inside out. And you will relentlessly pursue this until that day when it is accomplished. And Lord, we thank you that there is a day coming when we will see you as you are and we will have been made like you. And Lord, we wanna take to heart this charge to us We who have this hope to purify ourselves as we await your return. And we pray this, Jesus, for your namesake, that you might be glorified through your people, that we might experience the best life that you have for us. And so we pray this in your name, amen.