Well, I have been blessed this week. I have some friends here from Arizona. That's Wayne and Sherry, yeah. They are true servants of Christ, and they're taking a little break and riding a motorcycle all around the United States of America. And so, if you think about it, pray for them. They're heading up north today, but I have just been so blessed by you guys, and I really hope that this worship service and this word ministers to you, and that's my prayer for you guys today. My heart is tied into, and your heart should be too, into the church that is in all the world. You know, we have very much, so much common ground, so much commonality, so much of a bond of love. We are one in Christ with saints everywhere. I still so much think of My church family back in Arizona. I think of Phil at Cokesbury today. I think of our missionary partners in Utah and Uruguay and in Haiti. And we just have to remember that we are an unshakable kingdom. We are the family of God. We have great things to look forward to. And and though we may not know everyone in the kingdom now, there will be a day when we shall all be together worshiping Christ before his everlasting throne. Amen. Let's go into this passage, my former pastor, now that I'm thinking of this, my former pastor, he tells a story about a tree that he once had in his front yard. It was a big tree, sturdy looking tree. It was one of these trees where the branches went out real far and leaf was great on it. But one day a storm came through, a surprising storm came through, and it just broke the tree. It wasn't one of those storms that you see the tree fall down and the roots all come up. It just broke the tree and fell down. And this is one of those trees, you know, when those trees fall in your yard, it takes like two days to clean it all up. You have all the branches everywhere. You have all the leaves everywhere. You're raking up those particles forever. But as my friend examined the tree, it was no wonder why it had fallen. Because though it had leaf, though it had big branches, though it looked sturdy on the outside, there was one simple reason. And you've seen this before. As that tree was laying on the ground, if you could examine its core and all that life that was supposed to be there running through it, he found that it was completely rotten on the inside. You ever seen a tree fall like that? All leaf looks sturdy, looks great, but on the inside, no life, no life. Really is a great illustration of what's before us in this passage. Trees are important to God. God wants trees to be on your mind as you read the scriptures, even from the very beginning, all the way to the very end. Trees have many spiritual lessons to teach us. They're very important symbols. They mean a lot. Even in the description of God. Trees have a part to play. Psalm 121 verses five through six. Remember that awesome passage, the Lord is your helper. It says this, the Lord watches over you. The Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun will not harm you by day nor the moon by night. Jesus is also a sort of tree. You know that the prophets call him the shoot sprouting from the stump of Jesse. Isaiah 53, 2 calls Jesus and says this about him. For he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. The nation of Israel, the Jewish family, was supposed to be a fruitful tree. It was supposed to be a fruitful vine. It was supposed to be this nation, this family that God planted in the promised land to provide spiritual fruit and true worship out to all the nations. But when God looked upon it, look at what it says in Jeremiah 8, 13. When I would gather them, declares the Lord, there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the tree. Even the leaves are withered. And what I have given them has passed away from them. That's really what Jesus is saying with this fig tree. The church today. Is a certain type of tree. Remember, the church is that that visible kingdom of God on earth. Matthew 13, 31 through 32. The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown, it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a what? A tree. A tree. so that the birds of the air come and make their nests in its branches. And we know that the church is also the olive tree of God, rooted in Christ. And then as it grows up, God grafts in people from every tribe and tongue and nation. So there is no more Jew nor Gentile, slave or free. It is one tree rooted in Christ, bearing fruit for the glory of God. That's Romans 11, or like an olive tree. But not just the church, even individually, you, Christian, disciple, you are meant to be a tree. Did you know that? You're meant to be a tree. I put these verses in your outlines for you to meditate upon. Psalm 1-3, or Psalm 1, if you remember, I'll begin in the beginning of that psalm. You remember what that psalm teaches. It says, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of mockers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. What does it say about this man? He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. Jesus even says, you're either a good tree or a bad tree. You either bear fruit, you bear the fruit that comes out of your heart, what's sown into the heart. It's out of the mouth the heart speaks. Here's the thing. It's this that God, by the giving of new life through Jesus Christ, He wants you to have true life. He wants you to have vitality, spiritually speaking. He wants you to be vital, to be fruit-bearing. True religion in the sight of God lives. It's alive. And if you've been tracking as I've been preaching to you, Jesus has been running through this whole Jewish system in the first century with the temple, and he is showing that this is a giant, monumental religion that has no fruit. It is dead. It's dead. It's not living. When Jesus turned to this fig tree and saw no fruit on it, he saw everything that was wrong in the religion of His people. The people that He had come to. The Israelites. Remember, He had gone up the great mountain of Jerusalem. He had walked through those gates of splendor, you know, earthly speaking, these temple gates into the temple. What did He see there? He saw all kinds of religion. He saw every religious deed. He saw the blood sacrifices. He saw the priests in their beautiful clothes, people busy with festivities. He saw all the religious activity. He saw a mountain of religion, but no spiritual fruit. He saw all leaf and no fruit. In fact, that's what he says. He says my house should be a house of prayer. My house shall be called a house of prayer. But you have made it a den of what you remember thieves, robbers, scoundrels, criminals. There was no heartfelt repentance, no holiness in life, no sincerity in faith. People coming from everywhere, all around, in all the world, expecting to have fellowship with God, but living any which way they pleased. It was the picture of hypocritical religion. And you have to have that in mind. Hypocrisy is not afraid of walking next to religion. It's not. It's not. Jesus hated the whole thing, so he cursed it all. You could say he damned it all. In just 40 years, this is true, in just 40 years, history would show in real time, in real history, God would unleash the Romans on Jerusalem and they would crush this temple down to rubble. It would be over. It still has never been rebuilt. Jesus was done with it. God was done with it. But take this down to your own heart. This is the trouble that every man or woman has to face. You have to ask yourself, is there true life in me? Is there true spirituality in me? Is there true fruit coming out of me? Am I alive spiritually? Am I really alive? Or, the other question is, am I just playing games with God? Because this is just the action of man in sin. You know you're in sin, you know you've broken God's commandments, you know you've rebelled against God. And so what do you do? What do you do? We always try and cover it up with leaves. Remember Adam and Eve? Remember they sinned? Remember they understood that they were naked, they were afraid, they were ashamed? Do you know what they covered themselves up with? Fig leaves. They tried to cover themselves up with fig leaves. And they tried to reason with God. It was her fault. God comes to Adam. It was her fault. It was your fault. God comes to Eve. It was the devil's fault. There's all this religious talk. In sin, the temptation and the action is to cover yourself with religion, religious activity. You hide behind religious talk. You present yourself as being a serious believer. I mean, how many people, Christian to Christian, when you confront a believer who's in error or doing something wrong, and they say something to the effect of, look, I understand this is all wrong, I hear what you're saying, but you know what? I think God wants me to be happy. That's religious talk. That's fig leaf stuff. That's covering it up. But not only that, we keep our sin covered. Sinners keep sin covered with agreements like. I've got some things wrong, but look at all these good deeds I have. Look at all the religion I have. Look at my resume. Or you just it's a comparison thing you say, I know I get it wrong sometimes, but other people get it wrong or, you know. Hypocrisy walks right next to religion, but Jesus, here's the thing. Jesus sees it all. He sees it all. He's not fooled by any of this. His eye is on it. You remember what Jesus says to the Samaritan woman that the Father is seeking in all the earth, right? People who will worship him in what? Spirit and truth. He's seeking. He sees. And the main thing that you need to know for today, we've been talking about the jealousy of Christ, the jealousy of Christ for the home of God, the jealousy of God for the worship of God. And now I want you to know this, that Jesus is jealous for his disciples to have true spiritual life, true spiritual life. He won't let you go on being hypocritical, He won't let you go on not bearing fruit. Jesus promises his disciples that they will have true spiritual life. And he is jealous for his people to be alive spiritually, to be vital, to be bearing fruit. So, I want to draw you into this passage, into a little bit of the drama of this passage, because that's what Jesus does with the disciples. This is, by the way, a section on discipleship. You know that Jesus has just entered into Jerusalem. The day before this, he turned over the tables in the Jerusalem temple. And now he's going to bring his disciples in to to show them why he did that. In other words, this fig tree cursing is a commentary on Jesus's flipping over the money changers in the temple. And we know this is the pattern of discipleship. We know this Jesus will do something incredible. He'll do something that the masses are confused about or that frustrate the religious authorities. And then he takes his disciples to the side and then explains the lessons to them. he brings them in it's that inner circle of discipleship and you this morning i we have this awesome privilege of being brought into that inner circle of discipleship to understand the meaning of the fig tree understand the meaning of the temple curse and the condemnation there and what he is doing is he is showing The disciples that the faith of Israel, this faith that they grew up in, no matter how earthly monumental it looks, no matter how grand it looks, is fruitless, hypocritical, and dead. Jesus was saying to the temple, he was saying to the disciples about the temple, he was saying to the whole system of the Jews, I am done with you. I'm done with you. How do you know he's done with you? Just take what it says about the fig tree. He cursed it how far down? To the what? To the roots. To the roots. That doesn't mean Jesus is done. Thank God he's not done. But his aim and his accomplishment will be raising up a new Israel of God, a true Israel, those who follow him, his disciples, those who he's going to make a people who are powerful, fruitful, full of spiritual life. So let's take this section out in two parts. First, you have the cursing of the fig tree. And then the second part is the lesson for the disciples, the cursing of the fig tree. What's going on here? I want to show you something about this passage that that is important, it helps us understand really the role of Jesus in all of this. The verse before this, verse 17, it says this about Jesus. Matthew writes these words. He says, and leaving them, being the priests and the scribes, he went out of the city, meaning Jerusalem, to Bethany and lodged there. This is a very meaningful verse. It seems like a simple narration. But Jesus leaves the priests and the temple and goes out of the city to Bethany. And in Bethany, we know who lived there. That was the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus. Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead. Mary, who sat at the feet of Jesus. Martha, who said to Jesus just before he resurrected her brother, she said, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God. These three friends of Jesus. Jesus left the leaders in the city and he goes to the home of his friends. You got to remember this about Jesus. You got to remember this about Jesus. Jesus is God in the flesh. He is the full radiance of the glory of God. He is the exact imprint of his nature. He is the invisible God made visible in Christ. All the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in him. That's important because think about this. Jesus has left the building. Jesus has left the temple. The glory of God has departed, which is the reason the whole temple exists. It's supposed to be the home for the glory of God. And you remember in the Old Testament, there was an episode during the days of Eli, the priest, where the tabernacle, the mercy seat, was stolen out of the camp of Israel. And do you know what it said? Do you remember what it said? It said, the glory of the Lord had departed. The glory of the Lord had departed. And I think one of, I think if I'm remembering this right, one of Eli's sons has a child, and they name that child Ichabod, which means the glory has gone away. This is what Matthew is saying. Matthew is saying this is like that. Jesus leaving the temple is like that. That God in all his glory is not living in this temple any longer. But, look at where he is living. He's living in the home of Christ's friends. Think about that. These poor people. These people who just confess him to be their Lord. He's living with them. God comes near to those who are poor in spirit, of a humble and contrite heart. That's where God dwells. Bruised reeds, smoldering candles are the ones that he does not despise. The Holy One of Heaven dwells with the meek. So have that in mind. And so now you see Jesus come upon this tree. He has this hunger. He has this physical desire for physical food, which is pretty amazing because he was God and yet he was fully man too. He was looking for usefulness in this tree and he found none. He was looking for fruit on this tree and he found none. It was all leaf and no fruit. So he cursed it to death. And you might think, well, this seems unfair. Poor little fig tree. That's kind of rude. That's kind of angry. But remember, Jesus is the Lord of all creation, for one. But for two, remember, this is not so much about physical nourishment as it is about a parable. He's showing symbolically what the temple, what the cleansing of the temple means. And he's showing symbolically that God is no longer with this religious system. He's not. He's withdrawn from it. This is, by the way, the only miracle of destruction in all the Gospels. It's the last recorded miracle before Jesus' resurrection. That's important. Think about that. The last miracle, the demonstration of supernatural power that Jesus pours out in this world was to show that He despises Empty religion. He despises lifeless worship. He despises it. Don't miss what he's saying here. People, it says that God desires you to be fruitful. He desires for you to have that life within. He desires these things. Church, we've got to take note of this. Jesus our Lord does not look upon the church, Nelson's Memorial Church or any church that matter, and say, wow, what a bunch of great programs they have. What a bunch of activity they have. What a great attendance they have. What big budgets they have. They are so alive. You know, by the way, football stadiums have great programs. They are well attended, wealthy. There's all sorts of things that have worldly proof of greatness and grandeur. But what was Jesus looking for when he went into that temple? Do you remember? Do you remember what it simply was? Go back a couple weeks in your mind, maybe just last week. It was simply this prayer. Could he go upon that place and see people connected to God, communing with God in prayer? Without that, we can do a lot of great stuff. We can do a lot of fun stuff. We can do a lot of big stuff. But there's no prayer, just as we have already heard this morning. There's no life. And for individuals, just Christians, people, you have to know this, like God is not looking at your resume of good works, your resume of life accomplishments and saying, wow, that proves he or she is spiritually alive. That's not it. What does God want to see? He wants to see that life that's connected to God. And he offers that life that's connected to God. This curse was a demonstration that Jesus despised the empty religion. He was not impressed by how big things were. He wasn't impressed at all. But let's look then at the lesson for the disciples. The second part. He needed them to learn this lesson. And he needed them to learn this lesson, that he's not impressed by the things that man can come up with. He's not impressed by fancy priestly robes or big buildings. That's not it. Those things aren't wrong, by the way. I'm not saying that everybody should worship in a shack or something like that. That's not it. We should do our best to build buildings that house God's people and help us. get in the right mindset for worship and the heart set for worship. But they didn't quite understand at first, right? They're more interested in kind of the magic of the miracle, aren't they? They're saying, they're saying, look, how did you do that? How did the tree wither at once? How did it become so dead all of a sudden? They were more interested in the magic of the curse. But Jesus wanted them to learn something about themselves. He wants you to learn something from these disciples, too. See, these men, think about this. These men, these 12 disciples, and one would die off. This is Judas, of course. One wouldn't continue. But these 12 disciples right here at this fig tree, looking upon the giant Temple Mount, these 12 disciples, let me tell you something about these men. They weren't much, y'all. They weren't much. These were young men, mostly uneducated. They were moneyless, resourceless. They didn't have popularity among the Jewish people. They didn't have influence. They didn't have clout. They didn't have resources. They didn't have connection. This is a pretty unimpressive group of young men. But Jesus wanted them to see that they, in fact, were going to replace this giant monument. Do you remember what I said to you about this temple? Do you remember this? Think about this. A million people come upon this temple at Passover. 250,000 lambs slaughtered. This temple mount can hold 30 football fields on it, 15 stories high. Think about how big this thing is. It took a Roman army to crush this. Think about how big this thing is. And now Jesus is looking at the disciples and he's saying, you young men, you who were like a few years ago, you were fishing and you weren't even good at that. You are going to replace this. You are going to outdo this. You are going to be more fruitful than this. Now the question should be on your minds is how is that even possible? How is that possible? Let me tell you something, it's not possible. It's not possible. It's impossible. That cannot happen according to worldly measurements, worldly expectations. It can't be done. But Jesus was telling them that they would be the beginning of the new temple of God. They would be the tree that would become the mustard seed, or they would be the mustard seed that would become the tree that would provide shade and shelter in God for all the nations. They would become the new tree. Well, and the question is, how are they supposed to do this? How are they supposed to grow into this thing or be better than this thing? How are they supposed to be more impacting than this incredible 70 years or 80 years long building project? Who knows how much money got spent putting on it? How are they supposed to be more impactful than that? Jesus has two things that will make this all happen. Two things. You know what they are? You already know what they are, I've read it to you. You remember what they are? Faith and prayer. Faith and prayer. How can these young, rather immature, hasty, inexperienced, uneducated, penniless, resourceless men become the seeds that would bring forth the church of God. It's not that Jesus gives him a pile of money. He doesn't give him a bunch of bulldozers to go build a new temple. He doesn't give him a seminary training on the spot. What does he say? You'll do this, this cursing of the fig tree. and this moving of this mountain, you'll do it all by what? You remember? Faith. Faith. Faith. Where are the disciples supposed to start? They're supposed to start with faith and prayer. That's what Jesus saw in the temple, or that's what Jesus never saw in the temple, remember? The people had faith in this sacrifice, in that pilgrimage, in the words of this priest, but they didn't have faith in Jesus, the one who came to save them, the one who came to forgive their sins, They offered prayers upon prayers, these rote prayer systems to the God of their making, but not to the true God who said he would save them by giving his son to them. He found none of these things in the temple. So why is faith so important to spiritual life? Why is it so important? This is, by the way, the primary mark of someone who lives to God. Why is it? Well, faith is important because of its definition. How would you define faith? How would you do it? If I said define faith, how would you do it? Well, I'll do it for you, okay? I've got four words to define faith for you, okay? Four, just four words. Here they are. This is where everything starts. Here they are. I can't, God can. That's faith. You understand that? I can't, God can. Let me hear an amen for that. That's what faith is. That's what it boils down to. I can't, but God can. That's how these disciples are able to turn the world upside down. No, they can't do it, but God can do it. They can't do it. I can't save myself. I can't find forgiveness. I can't make a sacrifice worthy enough to take away my guilt, to cover my shame. I can't do that. I can't build the church. I can't preach a message that will get your hearts to commune with God. I can't do those things. I can't fix the brokenness in relationships. I can't fight sin in my own strength. I can't heal hurt. But who can? God can. God can do those things. That's why Jesus says, have faith and don't doubt. He says if you have faith and don't doubt, you will be able to say to this mountain, get up and go be thrown into the sea. What is doubt? You know what doubt is. It's very simple. If faith is, I can't but God can, take it the other way around. Doubt is, believing in your stuff and making less or minimizing God's abilities and saying, oh, maybe I have some abilities and maybe God doesn't have so many abilities, right? And what does doubt cause? It just causes worry, it causes doubt, it causes more doubt. Doubt is, doubt can't be mixed with faith. It cannot be mixed with faith. Doubt is when you fall back on your abilities and minimize God's. Again, I say these disciples were nothing in the eyes of the world. They were nothing. And Jesus says, with faith, they could say to this mountain, get up and be thrown into the sea. And this is metaphoric language, OK? This isn't just some sort of spiritual balm. It's it's not like, oh, you know, if you just believe in God, he'll move every mountain and all of that. It's not it's not like that. This is Jesus is referring to a literal mountain here. This mountain. What's that? The Jerusalem mountain. And he's referring that it can be brought to nothing. He's telling them that. And you know what, actually? Let me tell you something. This actually happened. This exact thing happened for the disciples. I'll show you. Acts chapter 5. Acts chapter 5. You see these disciples, they were anointed by Jesus. He breathed his spirit on them and said, receive my spirit. And then when they started preaching at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down on the people and the church was born and they kept on preaching and finally got them into trouble. and they were thrown in prison, and they were miraculously released from prison, and then they were brought before the chief priests in the Sanhedrin, the Jewish council, and this is what happens, Acts 5, verse 27. Acts 5 verse 27 says this, and when they had brought them, this is the disciples, this is, them means the disciples, this is the 11 disciples that were left after Judas, but one was added to him named Matthias. When these disciples were brought in, they set them before the council, and the high priest questioned them saying, we strictly charge you not to teach in his name. And look what it says, yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching. You have filled Jerusalem with your teaching. Look at what had happened. Jerusalem had become the center for the Christian faith. It had been filled up with the name of Christ. You see that. How did this happen? How did this happen? Was it because after Jesus was resurrected, they somehow got a pile of money dumped in their laps? They somehow were able to woo the council to their side. They were able to launch a political campaign. No. What did they do? What did they do? They said, believe in Jesus. And you shall be saved. What did that do? The name of Jesus pushed that mountain aside and a new mountain was constructed. It was the mountain of the Christian faith, the church. Though even small then, it still grew and grew and grew, and it's grown into all the world like it has today, and still has much more to go. This is why faith is so important. These disciples were nothing in the eyes of the world, but they were able to move the mountain. Church, that's us, that's what we have to do. We might look around and we think, you know, we're kind of small and despised or we're kind of puny in the eyes of maybe even a town like Hebron as small as ours. But do you know this? Right. Do you know this? That if we just keep on by faith, believing Jesus, keep on proclaiming his name, keep on living those principles out that Jesus has said, follow me. Guess what? Soon, we shall see the day when in the homes of heaven, Jesus Christ will be adored. We shall see this little town become a mountain, a little hill for the Lord. All because it started when God's people laid hold of Christ by faith. And we said, I will proclaim your name, Jesus. Not anything of myself, but Jesus' name only. You know, this past week, well, this past year, really, I've been working with our missions team, and we've been studying the lives of some incredible missionaries, historically speaking. And this past week, we studied the life of William Carey. Have you ever heard of William Carey? Incredible missionary. You might not know this about William Carey. He was a missionary to India. Incredible man, incredible faith. But do you know how he started in life as a young man? You know what his profession was? I'll tell you what it was. He was a shoemaker. He was a cobbler. That's what he did. He built shoes up. Built shoes for people. But he had this burning zeal, this passion to go and bring the gospel to the heathen nations. those people who were dead and entrenched in paganism and witchcraft and sorcery and all sorts of violence and all that, he said, the church needs to go there. And so he rounded up a missionary society with a bunch of other great preachers and all this, and they raised a bunch of money to start working on this work, and you know how much they raised? Less than $100. Less than $100. But you know what? You know what he said? His simple words, he preached one simple sermon, he said this, Expect great things from God and do great things for God. That's it. That's it. That was his whole principle. And he went. And guess what? Still today, there are places where the impact of William Carey can be felt. Still today, the cultural there have been cultural shifts because of the preaching of the gospel. Still today, people are coming to Christ because pastors are being trained in the in the training grounds that he built. It's still standing. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world. So the next question then is how does faith work? How does it act? What does it do? How does it accomplish the impossible? And that's where the second part comes in. Do you remember? Starts with a P. It's the word prayer. Prayer. Prayer accomplishes the impossible. The answer is prayer. And prayer became the life characteristic of the apostles. I mean, you could say it was their preaching, it was their boldness, but all of that came after they prayed. Do you understand that? If you read the first 12 chapters of the first half of the book of Acts, it's all about the church growth in Jerusalem. In every single one of those chapters, There is a direct statement about the disciples and their prayers and what they asked God for. Acts chapter four, they had just been released from jail, charged, do not preach in the name of Jesus. Do not heal in the name of Jesus. And what did they say? Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with even greater boldness. And that's what God gave them. And that's what God granted them. You see, these things, faith and prayer, what does this mean? What does this do for us? It puts our life in God's hands, right? It puts our life, it puts your life, your heart, your soul, your mind, in the very life of God Himself. You're attaching yourself to His power and His strength when you put your faith in the Holy One of Israel. when you put your faith in Jesus. And Jesus says, if you, if you, if you remain in him, that when you are, when you're connected to him, he says, if you abide in me, you will bear fruit, and your fruit will remain. You see, that's the whole promise of the gospel. The whole promise of the gospel is that Jesus died to forgive your sins. He washed away your sin and shame. He stood in your place and bore the wrath that was for you. That curse, that cursed damnation, condemnation that went on the temple and the tree, that is where you would end up if it were not for the grace of Jesus. Because you have no life in you. Thanks be to God, He gave you Jesus who died on the cross for you and bore that curse in Himself and He died. But He was resurrected. And if you put your faith in Jesus as the sufficient sacrifice for your sins and trust in God for His grace, He will raise you up too. And He will join your life to the unconquerable life of His Son. So that you have a union with Christ. You're united with Christ by faith. And now you are part of that fruitful vine. You are a branch of that fruitful vine that draws its nourishment no longer from the world, no longer from from from man, but from Christ himself. So that you will bear fruit, promised to bear fruit. Remember that, just remember that faith is always going to move mountains. And prayer isn't this thing that we do so that we can get God to do things for us. That's that's one of the lessons Jesus wants you to see. Remember what he has. He has in store a mission for the disciples, a mission for you. He has in store a conquest of the world, a gospel conquest of the world, whereby the whole all the nations will come to the temple of God, which is that spiritual city, the church and worship Jesus. And keep this in mind, This process, this whole thing is God's work, God's way. It can't be done with the efforts and the resources of man. In fact, it often happens in spite of the efforts and resources of man. And so prayer becomes this thing, prayer becomes this activity, prayer becomes this life, really, where we are asking God not to do things for us, but to remove the obstacles so that we can do great things for who? for him. That's what the prayer is. It's not some sort of blank check. You know, you have some desire for a new Jeep or a new boat or whatever it is. That's not what that is. Or a bigger bank account. That's not it. It's God. There's a mountain in my way. A mountain, maybe it's of bitterness, maybe it's of persecution, maybe it's of poverty. These things I can't overcome, Lord, please remove them. And hey, the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. That's what the book of James says. God will remove these obstacles, why? Because he wants you to live and to bear fruit for him. And you know, really, this is the whole, you might think in your life, in your current situation in life, you might think that you are suffering under a mountain of things you cannot get done. Maybe it's a relational struggle. Maybe it's even a marriage struggle. There's just so much grief stored up in between one another, and you're like, I'd rather check out. I'd rather do nothing, right? And it's just a mountain of bitterness, a mountain of these things. Well, guess what? Resolve in your hearts. Resolve in your hearts right now to say, by faith and by prayer, I will take it all to Jesus. If you both work on Jesus, work on being connected to Jesus, guess what? There's nothing that's impossible with Jesus. It could be a relational struggle. It could be in your family. It could be in your work, whatever it is. When you set your mind and focus on Jesus and being connected with Him, there's nothing that can't happen. And you might say, well, it still seems like it's still so hard, but I want you to consider this. If you have faith at all, God has already removed the mountain of your life for you. You know that at one point you were dead in your trespasses, and this means that there was a mountain of sin on top of your chest. A mountain of impossibility for you to cross or to climb so that you could get to heaven. A mountain of chaos ruining your mind because you're trying to find life in everything but Jesus. But when you heard that gospel word and you heard that Jesus says, Lay hold of me, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden. Guess what? By faith, he took hold of Jesus and he moved that mountain right off of you. And put your feet on a rock so that now you stand on top of Christ's own conquest in your stead. Know that. Always know that he is always, and I don't mean to sound like some sort of prosperity preacher, he is always moving mountains by faith. Always moving mountains by faith. That is the truth. That is the truth. In closing, I want to offer you just some help, some practical helps as you think about as you think about examining yourself in light of true spiritual growths, true spiritual life. And I'm gonna run through these just rather quickly here because I think you'll understand them. I took these actually, my friend Ryan here mentioned the man JC Ryle, I took them from him. And I have these posted outside of my own office, my own study, as I think about what it means to truly grow, increase, What it means to truly increase in spiritual life. Well, if you have that vital, true spiritual religion, the principle of faith at work in you, the life of Christ at work in you, I want to say, first of all, that you grow in humility. You grow in humility. Do you know that? Do you know when fruit kind of grows and it ripens? It doesn't grow like the leaves and the shoots. Do you know what it does? It kind of bows and hangs. That's the way our heads ought to be about ourselves as we grow further on in the faith. Is that when we are before Christ, we are bowed before Him, still realizing our neediness, still depending on Him for life. The more you grow, the more you know how dangerous your sin still is. Don't ever think of yourself as some sort of established Christian that can't be touched. Remember, take heed lest you fall, the Apostle says. I always, it burdens me sometimes as I meet with people who are older in age, and they're coming to that point in life, and they're growing older, and all they wanna say is all the compliments they've done, and all the things they take pride in about their resume, their accomplishments, the life they've lived, and all that, and all of it, and some of it is pretty impressive, y'all. I'm like, wow, I wanna congratulate you, but then I hear another one say, you know what? If it wasn't for God's mercy, I would have never made it this far. If God had not stood by me, I would have perished in the way. I'm still growing. I still need all the application of Christ's blood on my sins. Be humble. We grow in humility. We grow to understand how sinful we are and how we still need Jesus. Number two, increase love for Jesus. More and more as you grow, you have a desire to know Jesus more, to spend more time with him, to understand that the best suitor for your soul, the best satisfaction for your soul, the best source of life for your soul, the only forgiver of your sins, the greatest friend, it's all who? Jesus. And you grow and grow and grow and you have a desire to love him and to know him more and more. To know his ways. To ponder his life. To meditate on him and with him over his words. That's a true spiritual life. Number three. increased holiness in life, increased growth, increased life like Jesus. You grow more and more like Christ. Remember, you see those characteristics, those attributes of Christ. What was he like? And we tend to think we tend to think maybe only one thing. He was all love or he was all this or all that. But just remember this. The principle that Jesus lived by is that he aimed to please the Father in heaven. That's what holiness of life is, being set apart for God's purposes. And more and more you make your aim to glorify him, more and more you wanna feel his pleasure on your life, and not the pleasures of worldly things. Number four, increased spiritual appetite. I think this is a clear, a very clear sign of life, spiritual life, spiritual appetite. What do you hunger for? Men and women, what do you hunger for? What do you put in your mind and heart? What are you constantly looking at? What are you constantly reading? What are you constantly listening to? What is the company that you keep? As you have spiritual life in you, these desires, the appetite for spiritual, true, spiritual, good, spiritual things. gets stronger. That's a very important thing. Because you know what? There's a lot of information out there. There's a lot of stuff you can consume. There's a lot of entertainment you can consume. There is. How much of it is good? How much of it is spiritual? How much of it profits your soul? How much? Not much, but there is true spiritual things that profit your soul. And not only that, but the things that are that are that are so that you consume, they tend to become what you are and what you do. Right, this is what Jesus says, what you what you put in, you're going to put out. I mean, men and women, what are you what are you consuming? What are you constantly taking in? Do you crave that spiritual milk? Right? And then as you mature, do you crave that meat, the meat of sound doctrine, the words of Christ? Just think about a baby. When a baby is born, they don't come out of the womb and say, man, that was rough. I'd really like a cigarette right now. No, they say, I want milk. I want that which is going to nourish my soul. But that's what, I mean, it seems ridiculous, but that's what we do when it comes to the things we take in. There is spiritual good things, spiritual food. Are you craving that word that is preached? Are you craving those teachings of the church? Are you craving that music that is rich, that sings of the glory of God? Are you craving that company that will challenge you, that will call you out, that will help you grow in Christ? That's the appetite of someone who's spiritually vital and alive. You want that good stuff that will nourish you. Finally, increases yield for doing good to the souls of others. I think this is another true mark. Do you have that passion to see others grow in the Lord? You have that passion to see someone come to the Lord. You have that passion to see. Evangelism everywhere. To see missions funded and financed, to see more and more people go out and serve. To be that servant, even as we heard earlier in the sermon, you have that passion to do good to the souls of others. To bring them to Jesus. This is the passion that these disciples gained. They became those who faced every odd, every absurdity, every persecution. And they did it all. And they did it all by faith. And they did it all by prayer. And the Lord moved the mountains for them. He will do it for you. He will do it for us. That's what Jesus says. Take hold of Christ by faith, call upon him by prayer, and expect great things from the Lord on high. In him is all strength, all power, all the kingdom and all the glory. To him be glory forever. Amen.