FBC Daily Devotional – May 5, 2021

The Challenge of Singing Hosanna on Sunday and Living It on Monday

Really good Wednesday to you, middle of the week, and we are halfway through the first week of the month of May and trust your week is going well. Again, just a reminder that tonight in the midweek service we'll be gathering together for a time of Bible study and prayer.

Young people will be meeting and children meeting as well at 645, and if you can make it for those times tonight at the church house, we'll be glad to have you join us for that time together. Today we read a couple of different passages in our reading, Mark chapter 11 and then a verse in Proverbs chapter 10, but I want to focus on the passage in Mark chapter 11, and it begins with a very familiar account of the triumphal entry.

And as I read that I was reminded about how easy it is to sing songs of praise on Sunday and then kind of forget about it the rest of the week. And what I'm getting at is that here in the triumphal entry the disciples begin, you know, recognizing and honoring Jesus, putting him on the donkey and bringing him down the down the pathway, and then the crowd gathers and they they throw the cloaks and the palm branches and everything in the pathway before him.

And in verse 9 they sing out, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. And how easily it is in that moment, in the euphoria of that moment, when there's this.

Very.

Evident symbolism of the presentation of Jesus as the Messiah, as the King that's coming in the name of the Lord. Very easy to sing his praises and to shout his hosannas.

Then,.

Then, in that circumstance. But what about later on? What about later on? When things don't go the way I think they should go, when things turn south, when Jesus does some things that I don't expect him to do, and they kind of kind of rattle me a little bit, and they ruffle my feathers a tad.

You know, how how exuberantly do I shout hosanna and recognize Jesus as Lord and King? That's why I say, I think, you know, on Sunday, you know, when God's people gather together, and we open our hymnals, and we sing these songs of praise and so forth.

And we can really mean it. We can really mean it. What about Monday, when I go to work, and I get frustrated with what's demanded of me, or expected of me, or I get some news that is unpleasant news, and I take that, and I wring my hands over that, and I forget about the Lordship of Christ.

Or, you know, what about when I want to do something that I want to do, and it's not, it's not what the Lord would have me to do. It's something that would be violating his principles, or his code, his law.

What then? Do I submit to his Lordship gladly, eagerly, enthusiastically, as enthusiastically as I did on Sunday, when I was singing the songs, or not? That's a good, a good question for us to ponder.

And it's, again, from the distance of 2 ,000 years, looking at this triumphal entry, it's, it's easy to, you know, kind of not see ourselves as those who would shout hosanna on Sunday, and then maybe distance themselves later from Jesus Monday through Thursday or Friday.

The Cursed Fig Tree as a Picture of Israel's Barrenness

I don't know. Well, and then another thing I want to point out in this passage, and I do so because it's so odd, is when Jesus curses that fig tree. He goes, he goes by the fig tree, and sees the leaves on it, there are no figs on it, and, and he wanted something to eat, and so then he said, curses it, he basically, he says, you know, may no figs grow on you ever again, and basically condemning the fig tree to death, if you will.

And, you know, we read that, and we say, well, is that a little bit, is that a little bit overkill? Well, actually what Jesus was doing here, he's doing a couple of things. He was wanting to teach a couple of lessons, and one of them is, he wanted to use that barren fig tree as a picture, as an illustration of.

The.

Dominant attitude of Israel that is about to be seen in this Passion Week. The attitude where there are a lot of leaves, quote-unquote, of righteousness, especially in the part of the religious leaders, and these who are telling everybody else how to live.

They've got all these leaves of righteousness, but there's no real fruit in their lives. They're, in fact, going to encourage the condemnation and crucifixion of Jesus. They are like that barren fig tree, and Jesus wants to use that as an illustration of the dominant attitude of Israel in the rejecting of the Messiah, showing that they have the leaves of spirituality and religion, but not the real fruit that accepts their Messiah.

Faith, Prayer, and Moving Mountains

But the other thing he does is, he uses that also, the cursing of the fig tree, to teach the disciples about faith. Because later on, they come by that fig tree later, and it's all wilted. And one of the disciples says, look, look, the tree's all wilted.

It's gone. And it's like, what do you expect, you know? And what he does is, he encourages them in verses 22 to 25 about the importance of faith. He said, if you had the faith, this shouldn't surprise you, he said, if you had the faith that was, you could move mountains, in essence, he's saying there.

So he says, for example, verse 23, he says, whoever, I surely, I say to you, whoever have faith in God, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be removed and cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things that he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.

Therefore, I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. And again, there's a lot that can be done, said in explanation of that, so that we don't misunderstand what Jesus is saying, and assume that just because I really, really believe it, I'm going to get that whatever I'm asking in the will of God, and so on and so forth.

We understand that. But the point is that Jesus used that cursing of the fig tree to teach a couple of very important lessons. All right. Well, I hope you have a good Wednesday, and that the Lord will bless you, and let's pray and ask him to do just that.

So our Father and our God, I pray today that each one of us here in the middle of the week would be continuing to sing the praises of Jesus as our Lord and King, and not only sing his praises, but truly be surrendered and submissive to him.

And this we pray, in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. All right. Good day. God bless.