Fruitless or Faithful

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Shayne Poirier on Mark 11:12-14, 20-25.

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.
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This afternoon we're following Christ again through His final week of life and ministry.
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As we heard a few Sundays ago, Christ has just recently returned to Judea, the greater region of Jerusalem, for what has become known as the
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Passion Week, this last week that Christ will spend with His disciples and with His followers, teaching them and readying them for His departure.
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It will be the last week that He is able to fulfill all righteousness and to glorify
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His Father at the Temple and in Jerusalem and in the surrounding area.
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It will be the final week that He has to prepare
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His disciples for the coming of the Holy Spirit after He goes to the cross.
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From this and from other Gospel accounts, we know that Christ has now been here in this region for at least a few days.
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I thought it might be helpful for us to look at a little bit of the timeline of Christ's final week in Jerusalem, this final
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Passion Week. Generally, universally amongst conservative Christian scholars, they would say that Christ probably arrived in Bethany sometime around Friday or Saturday leading up to that Passion Week.
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So exactly one week ahead of Good Friday. On that Friday, if we look back at passages like John chapter 11, we see that Christ, when
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He arrived in Bethany, He arrived just at the right time to glorify the Father by raising
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Lazarus from the dead. Now it was probably the next day, maybe on Saturday evening when
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Christ reclined with Lazarus as people looked in amazement at this living man that was just in the tomb a few days earlier and He reclined with Lazarus while Martha served on Him and Mary, as we famously remember, was underneath Him on the ground, anointing
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His feet with ointment and wiping them, washing His feet with her hair.
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And then if we follow the usual timeline, we have Friday, Saturday, and then on Sunday, we encountered what we looked at last week, what is historically known as Palm Sunday, the day when
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Christ entered into Jerusalem as we read and studied on the back of that young donkey.
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Mark tells us that it was on this day that Christ received the praises of the people in Jerusalem that we'll remember the adults and the men and the women and the children shouted out loud hosannas and maybe a little pop quiz for the kids.
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What does the word hosanna mean? Does anyone remember? Okay, I think you tried it very similar to last week.
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Does anyone remember on this side? No, are we shy? Yes, deliver us quickly.
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Save, O Lord, we pray. And rightfully so, isn't it, to encounter
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Christ and to say to Him, Lord, save us, save me.
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And that's exactly what Christ did as He rode in. We heard last week that He was coronated as King or at least a pre -coronation as King.
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He went to inspect the temple as the Lord of that temple. And Luke even tells us in Luke 19 .41
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that when Christ looked at Jerusalem, He wept over the lost and rebellious state of Jerusalem.
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And then after that long and tiring day, we're told Christ returned to Bethany, maybe with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, we don't know, but probably in someone's home for the night.
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And so that was Sunday night. So this is Sunday night leading into that Passion Week, that final
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Passion Week of Christ. And now as our brother Lowell acknowledged, we've done a little bit of back and forth here over the last number of weeks here, but we find ourselves today returning to or following along with Christ in chapter 11 and verse 12 on Monday.
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On Monday morning in the Passion Week. It's four days before Christ will be condemned and flogged and put to death through a public crucifixion outside the city.
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And on this Monday, this is the same day that the Lord Jesus Christ, as we've already studied, will come into the temple and cleanse the temple and make room for Gentile worshippers in the court of the
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Gentiles. But first, he's going to have an important encounter. Interestingly enough, an important encounter with a fig tree of all things on his way to Jerusalem.
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And I think that looking around, most of us are probably familiar with this story, but it sounds a bit odd, doesn't it?
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One of the things that should be recorded in the Gospels is that Christ would have an encounter with a fig tree.
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But that's exactly what he does. And that's exactly what we're going to study today. I think it's important for us at the onset to note that many people simply gloss over this story and even more, do not understand it, have gotten the account wrong.
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And I feel like I say that probably every second week. And I don't just do that to frame it, that there are so many different interpretations and so many of them are so wrong.
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And that includes this passage again today. And we're going to explore some of those misinterpretations and maybe have a little bit of fun or humor at them.
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But as is often the case, the immediate context of this exchange is going to help us to quickly and easily learn to interpret what
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Christ is trying to teach us through this event. And this is what we're going to encounter. The big theme of today is that here in this encounter with this fig tree,
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Christ is going to teach us very plainly the consequences of fruitlessness, fruitlessness as a nation and fruitlessness in the
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Christian life and by extension fruitlessness in our own lives as people in this room.
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And at the same time, he's going to show us how it is that we are to ensure fruitfulness in our own lives.
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How are we to be fruitful? How are we to live with power and effectiveness in this world?
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You could say that Christ not only warns us about fruitfulness, but he gives us the remedy or the secret of fruitfulness in service of God.
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I thought about entitling that sermon, The Secret of Fruitfulness. Maybe that's a secondary title.
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And for those of us who are in Christ, please tell me you agree with me that for those of us who are in Christ, we desire to be fruitful, don't we?
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We desire to be effective. We desire to be useful servants in our master's hands.
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And what I think is beautiful, what's wonderful about this passage is not only does it give us a very stern warning about fruitlessness, but it gives us some very helpful counsel about how we are to live fruitful and effective, if I can even go so far as to say, powerful, useful lives in the service of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. And so, that's what we're looking at today. We have just a few verses, and I'm always amazed at how many words
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I can write about just a few words, but that's because the Lord's word is unsearchably rich and deep.
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But we just have two points and some applications, so hopefully I can subdue myself. And we'll read verses 12 through 14.
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So, Mark 11, verses 12 to 14. It says this, On the following day, so this is
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Monday, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree and leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it.
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When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.
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And he said to it, may no one ever eat fruit from you again. And his disciples heard it.
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And if I can tack on verses 20 and 21, the next paragraph or the paragraph after the next, he says, and they passed by in the morning, now
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Tuesday morning, and they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots.
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And Peter remembered and said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered.
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So the first of two truths that I want us to see in this passage is this. I want us to see the outcome, or you could say the consequences of a fruitless life.
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So here we find Christ, as I mentioned already a few times, on Monday morning. In true
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Markian fashion, in verse 12, without any introduction, Mark immediately transports us to the road between Bethany and Jerusalem, where Christ is on the move.
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And if we were to look in Matthew chapter 21 and compare that to this account, we would learn from the wording that Matthew uses, excuse me, that it was very early in the morning, sometime around sunrise.
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Commentators think probably even before six in the morning. And the reason why that detail,
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I think, is important is because what we see here is that Christ is a man on a mission.
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If you were given one week left to live, if you had a conversation with the doctors and they said, you are going to remain in good health for one week and then immediately perish on Friday afternoon, how would you live that life?
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I would hope that most of us would live it with a sense of purpose, seeking to glorify
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God with the remaining time that He has given us. And Christ, in His divine foreknowledge or His ability to see ahead of time, to know all things from the beginning, knows ahead of time that this is
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His last week. And so He's a man with tremendous purpose. Even though He was likely staying with faithful friends in Bethany, He doesn't tarry in Bethany too long.
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I pictured this, if He was staying with Mary and Martha, He doesn't hang around and let Martha make Him brunch. But He is up early in the morning and He is on His way to Jerusalem.
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And He's headed back to the city where He has business to accomplish. And I think what's interesting about this detail is that verse 12 doesn't just tell us that Christ was a man on a mission, but simply,
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I think it's an important detail, verse 12 tells us that Christ was a man. And here we see
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God the Son, Son who is
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God Himself, Jesus Christ who is God Himself, and at the same time, man.
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One being with two natures, a divine nature and a human nature.
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And most of us read over that when we read that Christ was hungry in verse 12. We don't pause about these little details.
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But it's here that we catch a brief glimpse at the very humanity of Christ. Although He was,
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I love the way the creeds put this, God of very gods. As our brother Lowell mentioned at our
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Statement of Faith class. Truly God and truly man. God with two natures.
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Even though He was God of very gods. I find it absolutely amazing that He would experience hunger and would need nourishment for the day ahead.
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That He would condescend to that level. That even though He had an eternal redemptive plan to accomplish.
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A plan that had been birthed before the foundation of worlds and galaxies in all the cosmos.
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He experienced hunger and this glorious act of condescension that He might redeem the fallen men and women in this room.
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And verse 13 tells us that Jesus looked into the distance. And who knows, maybe at sunrise it was dimly lit.
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But Christ looked into the distance and into the distance He saw a fig tree in leaf.
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Now we don't know. This would have been maybe in April, early April or so.
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But it was often the case that fig trees would just begin to grow their leaves around this time of year.
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And so maybe this particular fig tree caught Christ's attention because it was more mature than all of the other ones.
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But as He approached, He would have had in His mind at least an appreciation or an expectation from a human perspective that there would be figs on that tree.
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I know that most of us here aren't. Has anyone here been to Israel? I don't think anyone here has been to Israel.
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None of us have been to Israel. None of us grew up in Israel. As far as I know, none of the children are fig tree farmers.
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But what would often happen is sometime in early April, the fig trees would begin to develop green buds, green figs.
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And those green buds or figs would actually precede the leaves on a tree.
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And so if you were walking up to a fig tree from a distance, what you would see if you saw a fig tree with leaves is you'd say, well that has leaves, therefore it ought to have fig tree buds.
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And even this early at the Passover. And even though the figs were not yet mature or fully ripened, they were still a desirable food item for the people in this region.
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In fact, the Jews had a name for these immature figs. They were known in the Hebrew language as pagim.
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And we even see references to these early immature figs that you'd see on these fig trees in the month of April leading up to the
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Passover. In Hosea 9, verse 10, it says like, Grapes in the wilderness, I found
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Israel, like the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season.
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I saw your fathers, but they came to Baal Peor and consecrated themselves to the thing of shame and became detestable like the things that they loved.
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And so even though figs were most often harvested from mid -August to mid -October, it would have been very normal for someone to see a fig tree in leaf and to approach it and to enjoy some of the unripe and immature figs, to enjoy some pagim.
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And so when Christ arrived at the fig tree, this is what he was expecting. There were leaves, and so there should be figs.
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The first fruit of the tree is in its first season. But as we read, when Christ arrived at that fig tree, there was nothing on the tree.
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And I want us to note this, that it had the appearance of fruitfulness from afar, but upon closer examination, it was barren.
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And because it had no budding figs, and apparently because it was fruitless at this time, we know that it would have no figs later in the season.
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And so it would remain fruitless. And so verse 14 tells us that Christ cursed the fig tree.
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That's actually the language that Mark uses later on, or that Peter uses, excuse me, in verse 21.
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And verses 20 and 21 tell us what happens to that fig tree. The next day, on the Tuesday morning when the disciples returned, they found the fig tree not just barren, not just wilted, but withering away to its very roots.
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This implies the complete destruction of this fig tree. Now, at this point,
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I'm not sure how many husbands we have in the room. We're light on some husbands. But if you've ever been tasked to look after your wife's plants,
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I don't know if you've ever had that responsibility. If you've been to my yard, you know my wife loves to garden. And as is often the case,
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I share the responsibility of caring for those plants. Now, despite my lack of a green thumb completely, it would take a great deal of work for me to kill one of her annuals, one of her garden plants, in just one day's time.
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Usually, she'll come and they're tired or they're thirsty and she'll look after them.
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But I've had a very difficult time killing a plant in one day. But here, in a mere 24 hours, this tree, not an annual, not a delicate flower, not a house plant, but this tree has been rendered completely dead.
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It went from looking healthy and looking fruitful from afar to having its root system entirely collapsed.
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Now, what do we do with this? I implied at the introduction that this passage has been grossly misunderstood and misinterpreted in the millennia since it was recorded.
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It's rightly understood by many that this is, it is, the only destructive miracle in the garden.
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It's the only time that Christ uses his supernatural powers to destroy something.
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But the meaning of this particular encounter has been so skewed and confused that it's led both atheists and professing
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Christians to repudiate this particular passage. I stumbled across a few instances of that, of people reading this particular passage and not knowing what to do with it or doing something extreme with it.
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And a good example would be if anyone has heard the name Bertrand Russell. He was the
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British mathematician, a philosopher, a famed atheist. In 1957, he wrote a book entitled, this is a mouthful,
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Why I Am Not a Christian, and other essays on religion and other related subjects.
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And in this particular book, Bertrand Russell offers his commentary on this passage.
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And what he says about Christ is this, he blames Christ for what he calls his vindictive fury.
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That he saw Christ as being vindictive, angry, even sinful. And Russell cited this particular narrative as one of the reasons why he rejected
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Christianity altogether. Now isn't that interesting? Those who reject Christ and who reject the gospel, who reject
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God and who reject his word will look for anything to reject him for.
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In this case, it's part and parcel or part of the reason is because of this story of the fig tree.
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And he says this, he says, I cannot feel that either in the matter of wisdom or in the matter of virtue
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Christ stands quite as high as some other people known to history.
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So what he says is he actually thinks that there are human beings in the course of history who are both more wise and more virtuous than Christ.
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And part of me thinks that he was probably thinking about himself. But the criticism hasn't just come from atheists.
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One liberal Bible scholar, you might recognize the name T .W. Manson. He wrote that Christ cursing the fig tree in his words is a tale of miraculous power wasted in the service of an ill temper.
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He says for the supernatural energy employed to blast the unfortunate tree might have been more usefully expanded in forcing a crop of figs out of season.
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But he continues, as it stands, it is incredible. As you've got one atheist who says,
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I'm an atheist partly because Christ mistreated that fig tree. And then you've got a liberal scholar who says
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Christ sinned in the way that he treated that fig tree. Now, what do we do with this account?
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Where do we chart ourselves on the spectrum of these views?
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Should we, as many Christians do already, read this passage? Interesting story, a little bit strange, and carry on.
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Do we, as T .W. Manson did, do we attribute sin to Christ? Do we reject the gospel altogether looking for any reason to discount
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Christ and to run from God? To soothe our own consciences? Or as I recently heard one
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Prosperity preacher who was teaching on this text, he said that, no, no, Christ didn't curse the tree.
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That's why I pointed out, no, verse 21, Peter says Christ cursed the tree. But he said, no,
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Christ didn't curse the tree, he spoke to the tree. And as little gods, so we too can speak to God's creation.
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And we can issue blessings and curses and affect changes in the created world around us.
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Now, I would suggest, and I think you would agree with me, that all of these are based on a lazy interpretation of this scripture.
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And it misses the point entirely. And in fact, and I love this, for anyone who's taken the hermeneutics course with us,
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I love the study of hermeneutics and really coming to the meaning of this text boils down just to basic biblical interpretation.
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And if you've ever taken any Bible interpretation course or class or read a book, anything that's worth its salt, one of the things that you will hear repeatedly is this.
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Context is king. And that's exactly how we would find the meaning to this particular passage.
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When we consider this text, it's interesting, I know we kind of broke it up a bit funny in terms of looking at Christ's relationship with the temple, and then this week,
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Christ's relationship to the fig tree. But this, within its literary context, exists as part of what we would call a
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Markan sandwich. And Christ's judgment pronounced on the tree is not a miracle far removed from any other event, but it is in fact sandwiched with and runs parallel with Christ's judgment of the temple.
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And so what we see is a metaphor, as it were, of Christ's judgment upon the temple and Jerusalem and the greater nation of Israel.
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And for those lazy expositors or lazy interpreters of Scripture like Bertrand Russell or other liberal
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Bible scholars, they miss an important detail that runs throughout Scripture, which is this, the
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Old Testament prophets loved to refer to Israel as a fig tree, and loved to describe that fig tree in relation to God.
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I'm not going to read all of the passages, there are many, but Jeremiah 8 .13 is one of them. Jeremiah says there,
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When I would gather them, declares the Lord, there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, even the leaves are withered, and what
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I gave them has passed away from them. Even Christ himself, in the
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Gospel of Luke, in Luke chapter 13, in verse 6 -9, he says, A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none.
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And he said to the vinedresser, Look, for three years I have come seeking fruit from this fig tree, and I find none.
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Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground? And he answered him,
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Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure.
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Then, if it should bear fruit next year, well and good. But if not, then you can cut it down.
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And so what we see here, in fact, is that it has very little to do with this fig tree, and more and more to do with the nation of Israel.
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Israel had become a fruitless fig tree, so God was going to cause it to wither from the root.
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He's going to appoint the complete destruction of the temple, right down to the last stone.
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And that's exactly what happened. And over the course of the last several weeks, for as long as we've been in Jerusalem in this narrative, we've heard over and over again about Herod and his unique ability to engineer great buildings and great structures.
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And the temple, Herod's temple as it's often called, was exactly one of those. Herod's temple took almost 80 years to construct.
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It was only finished long after Herod's death, in the AD 60s.
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But in one day, on August 29th, in AD 70, Titus, the
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Roman general, and his army broke through the walls of Jerusalem and destroyed, razed the temple.
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In fact, they literally saw it as their purpose to knock every stone off the other.
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There's only one section of the wall that remained. And what was left of the rubble on the ground, they lit on fire.
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I love reading from Josephus, just to get that good Jewish history of these events.
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And Josephus says this, describing the carnage. And picture this in your mind, it's a vivid image.
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He said, One would have thought that the hill itself, on which the temple stood, was seething hot from its base.
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It was so full of fire on every side, and yet the blood was larger in quantity than the fire.
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And those who were slain more visible in number than those that slew them. From the ground was nowhere visible for the dead bodies that lay on it.
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In a day, just as with the fig tree, Israel withered away at its roots.
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And many commentators have rightly pointed out that the temple has not yet been rebuilt to this day.
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This is a picture, a grave picture of the consequences and the necessary outcome of a nation that refuses to bear fruit for God.
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Even God's nation that refuses to bear fruit for God. But instead bears only thorns and thistles.
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And if we drill down just a bit deeper still, it is a living illustration of what becomes of every man or woman who does not bear fruit for God.
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Who is a fruitless individual. Scripture is replete with examples of the consequences of a fruitless life.
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Matthew chapter 3 and verse 10. We see John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness.
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Baptizing people in the Jordan. And he says this, Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.
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Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
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In John chapter 15, just to pick a couple of verses. Verse 2 and verse 6.
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Christ says, Every branch that does not bear fruit God takes away. In verse 6 he says,
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If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers.
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Notice the similarity in language. And the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.
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Such are the consequences of a fruitless nation and of a fruitless life. If I can be so bold as to ask you,
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What does the fruit look like in your life? Are you bearing the fruit?
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If I can define fruit. Bearing the fruit of righteousness and obedience to God in his word.
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Is it evident? Not even in your own heart. But if you were to go to a person who is closest to you.
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A wife or a husband or a brother or a sister or one of your children.
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Is it evident to those closest to you? That not only is the Holy Spirit in you.
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But that you are bearing the fruit of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness.
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Faithfulness, gentleness, self -control. Is the fruit of Christ -likeness present and increasing in your life?
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Or is the fruit of your life sparse? Or partially spoiled?
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Or altogether absent? I thought about this just in regards to myself.
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Being a leader in the church and having to a certain extent a persona that people see.
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But to apply it to you. Are you seeing a steady pattern of growth and sanctification in your life?
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Or does your life look vibrant from afar? There's lots of leaves. But when you get closer we realize there's no fruit.
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A good showing. But little substance in the Christian life. As Christians we ought to engage in self -examination from time to time.
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Not consistent and obsessive navel -gazing. But from time to time scriptural self -examination.
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I think this passage presents the perfect opportunity for that. To ask ourselves.
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Am I bearing fruit in my life? Or am I less sanctified today than I was last year?
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Or five years ago? In what direction is my trajectory before God according to his word?
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We're going to drill in a little bit deeper in the next point. But I'm going to get us to the next point first. So the logical next question becomes this.
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How does one seek to bear fruit for Christ? How can we be fruitful in fact?
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And I think that Christ addresses that, I acknowledge, in part only. But in part in our next passage.
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So I'm going to read from verses 22 through 25. And Jesus answered them, saying,
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Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, Be taken up and thrown into the sea.
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And does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass. It will be done for him.
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Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, Believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
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And whenever you stand praying, Forgive, if you have anything against anyone, So that your
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Father also, who is in heaven, May forgive you of your trespasses.
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So the first point that I wanted to make was the consequences of a fruitless life.
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And if I can entitle the second truth that we're going to look at. I'm going to call it the secret of a fruitful life.
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Perhaps you're not happy with the fruit that you are bearing. What is the secret?
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What is the truth that we must accept and take hold of and follow through on to live a fruitful life?
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In verse 22. The Lord Jesus demonstrates that this living parable has a twofold application.
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Not only does it foreshadow the destruction of a fruitless nation, But it speaks to the remedy of this fruitlessness.
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So the following day we read, The disciples encounter this withered tree on the way to Jerusalem.
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And they marvel. They ask the question, Rabbi, how could this happen?
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How could their rabbi possess such power? And it's here that Christ gives them an object lesson
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To teach his disciples how to live. If I can call it a fruitful and spirit -empowered
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Christian life. And this is the secret. Now some people might be saying,
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Shane, I don't see him teaching on fruitfulness. I think what he's teaching on is power and on effectiveness.
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And the secret is this. The secret to a fruitful Christian life is not an obsession with fruitfulness.
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If you go home today and say, I'm not fruitful. I'm not fruitful. I'm not fruitful. I need to be fruitful. That will accomplish nothing in your life.
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But the secret to a fruitful Christian life is this. The prioritization of faithfulness.
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Of being an individual who has faith in God. And who lives with that faith in God.
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And who prays with that faith in God. Christ teaches his disciples not to concern themselves so much with fruitfulness.
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But with faithfulness. And he will take care of the rest. And so Christ answers the disciples' wonder in verse 22.
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He says, as I've already said, have faith in God. Now most of us, we read this and we say that sounds simple enough, doesn't it?
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Just to have faith in God. And yet I think, I fear, that many
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Christians have an insufficient understanding of what it means to have faith in God.
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We know Hebrews chapter 11 in verse 1. My children and I were talking about this on the way to church this afternoon.
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That faith is the assurance of things hoped for. The conviction of things not seen.
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I think most of us can probably recite part of that from memory. And yet, many of us do not give much thought into what it means to live with assurance in God.
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And in his power. And in his word. And the conviction of who
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God is. And of his faithfulness. And of his trustworthiness. Maybe I'll ask the children.
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It will frame the story that I want to share. But children, what is faith? Can anyone answer that?
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What is faith? Maybe over and above what I've already said.
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Maybe an adult wants to help out. How would you describe faith to a child? It's trust.
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My children said in the car, it's believing God. H .A. Ironside tells a story about a
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Sunday school teacher who was standing in front of his Sunday school classroom. And he asked this group of children.
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He said, children, what is faith? And I love the answer that one of the children gave.
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A little boy raised his hand. And stood up and said, I think it is believing
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God. And asking no questions. And what does that mean?
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To believe God and to trust him. It's like when
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I was working in a paramilitary organization. You don't ask any questions.
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You're given an order. You go. And you do it. Unless, of course, the law or the order isn't lawful.
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What a simple and yet profound definition. Faith is not merely believing in God.
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But to use this little boy's definition, it is believing God. And it's an unflinching confidence in the trustworthiness of God.
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It's reading what God says in his word. And holding fast to that.
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It is reading what it says in the gospel. And what scripture says concerning his son.
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And it's taking those words at face value. It is an informed and yet unrelenting confidence in what
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God has said. And believing that what God has said is true. It's staking everything on God.
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And on God's trustworthy word. It's believing and not asking questions.
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That's not a dumb faith. Or a blind faith. But a faith informed by the word of God.
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I found a perfect example of that in the annals of history. As many of us know, in AD 70,
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Mount Vesuvius erupted. A massive stratovolcano on the western coast of the
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Italian peninsula. And there was a town located about nine kilometers away from Mount Vesuvius.
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Does anyone remember the name of that town? Children at the base of Mount Vesuvius? It starts with a
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P. Pompeii. And there in Pompeii, what happened was as the volcano erupted, clouds of ash and debris came down the side of the volcano.
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And buried the city itself in 19 feet of ash and debris.
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It was buried so deep, in fact, that it wasn't discovered until the 1600s. And as archaeologists, and I'm not sure what you call those people that dig through ash from a volcano.
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But as those people dug up the city of Pompeii, they found what you might expect to find in something that had been preserved and frozen in time.
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They found buildings. And they found cultural artifacts. They even found the residents of Pompeii.
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They found people that looked like they were trying to escape to cellars in the inner rooms of their buildings.
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People that were huddled underneath furniture and in all manner of positions and places.
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But one particular resident of Pompeii that fascinated them was the
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Roman century who stood at the city gate. When they dug him up, what they found is that as that percolastic cloud came down from the volcano and entered into the town.
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And as this man was frozen in time. He was frozen and not huddled in the
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Roman barracks. But standing at the town gate where he had been ordered to stand.
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Standing tall with his weapons still in his hands. While he was buried under tons of ash.
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And one observer writes. They said, There while the earth shook beneath him.
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There while the floods of ash and cinders covered him. He stood at his post as he had been instructed to do.
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And there after a thousand years. We can say now two thousand years.
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Is this faithful man still to be found. That is a picture of trust and of faith.
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That God has said this. And that is what I will do. And so you want to live a fruitful life.
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Live that kind of life. The faithful life. A life of confidence in the
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Lord. And then in verse 23 Christ says this.
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Truly I say to you whoever says to this mountain. Be taken up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart.
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But believes that what he says will come to pass. It will be done for him.
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Here we have a word that we can stand firm on. What God has said is true.
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And is to be believed. And is to be acted upon. To live a fruitful life. And it's complimented.
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I'm only going to list a few. But can be complimented by a flood of passages.
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That support the same principle and promise. Psalm 34 verse 15.
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It doesn't blow our minds but it ought to. It says the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous.
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And his ears toward their cry. That the Lord not only looks to us but he hears us.
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And he desires to hear us. John 14 verses 13 and 14. Whatever you ask in my name.
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This I will do. That the father may be glorified in the son.
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If you ask me anything in my name. I will do it. In 1
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John 5 verses 14 and 15 it says. And this is the confidence. Another word for faith.
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That we have toward him. That if we ask anything according to his will.
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He hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask.
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We know that we have the request that we have asked of him. If you want to know the secret to a fruitful life.
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A faithful life. It is faith. It is believing God and his word. And it's believing this word about God.
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That he desires to hear us. Just as we saw Christ enter the temple. And clear the temple court.
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So that worshippers could come to him. So God desires that his people.
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You dear Christian. Would come to him. Boldly. Confidently. In prayer.
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Trusting that he will answer. When it is prayed according to his will.
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I said it before. I bear repeating it. It bears repeating.
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That we pray too often like atheists. We do not pray like this passage is true.
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But we pray as if it were true of Christ's disciples then. But not today. And yet God's word is inerrant.
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It is authoritative. It is sufficient. It is clear. And it is active for us today.
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The heavens and earth will fade away. But the word of the Lord will remain forever. And so this promise remains true.
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And dear brothers and sisters. Maybe you're living a fruitless or a less fruitful life today.
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Because you pray more like an atheist. Than you pray like Christ is teaching you to pray in this passage.
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And some of us might say, but Shane I'm reformed. And I believe that God ordains the ends of all things.
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And what I would say is yes. God does ordain the ends of all things. But he also ordains the means.
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The means including your prayers. John MacArthur says, he says,
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This place has no limit on the believer's prayers. As long as they are according to God's will and purpose.
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This therefore means that man's faith and prayer are not inconsistent with God's sovereignty.
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It is not the believer's responsibility to figure out how this can be true.
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But simply to be faithful and obedient to the clear teaching on prayer.
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As Jesus gives it in this passage. God's will is being unfolded through all of redemptive history.
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By the means of the prayers of his people. For our men that go through our institute classes.
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Our brother Sam just went through them. And if you were at the Monday evening mini conference we had.
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You heard Linda Hillary talk about this prayer. This prayer course. But we have all the men that go through the institute.
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Read a book called The Preacher and Prayer. By E .M. Bounds. Even if you're not a preacher.
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Or aspiring to pastoral ministry. That book is available. I think for free on the
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Kindle. On the Amazon app. And certainly on Monergism. Or one of those other book websites.
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The Preacher and Prayer by E .M. Bounds. It's a short book. It's a book that's only 126 pages long.
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But it's the kind of book that is literally 126 pages of progressive humbling.
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Every page as you read it. You think to yourself. I am prayerless.
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The life that I live is devoid of faith in God. When I read this man's words.
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I've described this book. It's as if he wrote a 1260 page book on prayer.
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And then someone came. And they took the top 10 % of that book. And they put it together into that one book.
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I commend it to you. But on one particular page. E .M. Bounds provides some examples of faith filled praying.
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And I'm not even going to list the whole list. But I want to read some of them. You're going to be familiar with some for sure.
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So I tried to pick ones that are less familiar to this particular group. There's no Charles Spurgeon. And he says this.
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Charles Simeon devoted hours. The hours from 4 till 8 in the morning to God.
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Charles Simeon, if you don't know anything about him. His first pastorate. They charged a pew tax.
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And he was opposed to the pew tax. And so the people in charge of the pews. Locked up the pews.
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And said fine. No pew tax. No one sits in the pews. And so people would have to sit in the aisles.
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Even some would turn their backs to him. At the back of the room. They were not going to hear his preaching. And what did
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Charles Simeon do? He preached there. I believe it was for 7 or 8 years. Before he won those people over.
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I'm so grateful that you listen to sermons better than they do. But he would pray from 4 till 8 in the morning to God.
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He says, Mr. Wesley spent 2 hours daily in prayer. He began at 4 in the morning.
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I'm not sure. We'll notice a theme here. Watch this. Of him who knew him well said he thought prayer to be more his business than anything else.
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And I have seen him come out of his closet with a serenity of face next to shining.
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John Fletcher. History tells us he stained the walls of his room by the breath of his prayers.
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Sometimes he would pray all night. Always. Frequently. And with great earnestness. His whole life, it was said, was a life of prayer.
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He said, I would not rise from my seat without lifting my heart to God.
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Even when he greeted his friends. Imagine being greeted this way. As a matter of fact, greet me this way next week.
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He would ask them, do I meet you praying? Archbishop Layton was so much alone with God that he seemed to be in a perpetual meditation.
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He said prayer and praise, or they said of him, prayer and praise were his business and his pleasure.
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Dear Saint of God, is prayer and praise your business? And if it isn't, what is your business?
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Put it away. Take up a new business. Samuel Rutherford, the fragrance of whose piety is still rich, rose at three in the morning to meet
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God in prayer. Joseph Alain, who wrote one of the gospel tracts that was used to convert
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Hudson Taylor, if my memory serves correctly, arose at four o 'clock for his business of praying until eight.
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He heard other tradesmen, I love this story, plying their business before he was up. He would exclaim, oh, how this shames me.
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Does not my master deserve more than theirs? And I could go on listing a whole others.
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John Welsh, maybe one last one. A holy and wonderful Scottish preacher thought the day ill spent if he did not spend eight or ten hours in prayer.
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His wife, I can relate with this man. And his wife would complain when she found him lying on the ground weeping.
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And he would reply, oh woman, I have the souls of three thousand to answer for. And I know not how it is with them.
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Most wives should complain, perhaps, if your husband has been gone for ten hours and you're being neglected.
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But Ian Bound summarizes with this. He says, the men who have most fully illustrated
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Christ in their character and have most powerfully affected the world for him have been men who spent so much time with God as to make it a notable feature of your life.
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And that's what I'm getting at when I share this. I don't mean to lay a heavy burden on you that you are not a true
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Christian if you're not praying four to eight hours a day. But simply to ask you, is walking with God a notable feature of your life?
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I recently read a statistic, or I guess it was a few years ago, that said not only do Christians not pray eight to ten hours a day, but most
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Christians don't spend eight to ten minutes a day in praying. And this is wholly consistent, or inconsistent, excuse me, with what
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Christ is teaching about the faithful and persevering prayer in this passage.
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The kind of faithful praying that moves mountains is not a kind of shallow, inconsistent, and perfunctory prayer that most
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Christians are familiar with. It is the praying of a man or woman who knows God, and who believes what he says, and doesn't ask questions.
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It is reserved for those not who periodically talk to God, but who walk with God.
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And that with a clear conscience. Forgiving others, and yourselves being forgiven.
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What would God do in your life if you prayed even partially to this extent?
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What would God do with your life if spending time with God was a notable feature of your life?
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I'm not sure exactly, but one thing I do know for certain, you will bear fruit. So how do we apply this?
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I'm going to make it very quick. Just three ways that we can run with this passage for today.
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The first one is this. Even before we get to praying, or plan to pray, or clear our schedules, or lay out pillows in our prayer closet so that we can get going tomorrow morning, the first way that we can apply this is repentance, brothers and sisters.
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For many of us, our chief application of this passage, if we're true to ourselves and we're true to the
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Word of God, is not to assemble a system to increase our praying, or to tell others how they can improve their praying, but it is repenting before God for our lack of praying.
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It's coming before God and saying, Oh God, you are good and worthy of my prayer.
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You are worthy of my time. And yet I've made it my business to do something else.
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I've made it my business to seek trivial things, and temporal things, and worthless things.
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So bear fruit, brothers and sisters, in keeping with repentance. Go to him on your face.
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Number two, once you have repented of that, resolve to pray.
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I'll break this up into two different sections. It's not enough to discipline yourself to praying, but it's meditating on the gospel and on God's perfections.
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What we cherish, what we desire, what we treasure, that we will pursue.
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So learn, if you haven't already, to treasure God. What a good
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God we serve. Faith in such a good
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God calls for unceasing prayer. As we pointed out,
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Christ cleansing of the temple. It invites us to come to God in prayer.
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God is not holding us back at arm's length, but he calls us to come to him.
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He commands us to come to him. In fact, that is the very purpose for which
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Christ died. It's so that we would come to God by faith in prayer until faith gives way to sight.
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Romans 5 .1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
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Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
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Many of us approach the daily practice of prayer more than any other spiritual discipline.
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I think with a deep sense of guilt and duty. But brethren, this is wrong.
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We need to reframe our view on prayer from a biblical perspective. It says on our website, one of our distinctives under prayer is that prayer is our greatest ally and privilege.
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We are often weak in prayer because we do not know
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God well enough from his word. We do not cherish him enough.
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We do not see that the greatest privilege in all the world is to come to him and to know him.
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Once you have meditated on the gospel and God's perfections, then make a plan.
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1 Timothy 4 .7 -8 Train yourself for godliness. Discipline yourself for godliness.
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I think of a quote, I'm not going to include it, but John Piper who said that oftentimes we think that our best times of prayer are going to come from spontaneous prayer times.
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He says, no. When we leave it to spontaneity, our prayer life flows to the lowest possible or lowest common denominator.
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But what we need to do is to plan to pray. For many of us, for me included, the best way
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I can plan to pray is by going to bed on time. And then, brothers and sisters, rest in Jesus Christ.
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Rest in Jesus Christ. Christ said in Luke 17 .5, he said,
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When you have done all these things which you are commanded, say, We are unprofitable servants.
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We have done what was our duty to do. What does that mean? That even when we accomplish everything, we are at the end of the day unprofitable and are dependent upon God for His grace.
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And we are dependent upon Christ and the gospel. That's one of the dangers of this particular message, is that it can come across as, hey you, do better.
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But what it is, is this. Brothers and sisters, bear fruit for the glory of God by the power of God, looking to Christ and the gospel and all that He has accomplished on your behalf.
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And so don't come with a sense of duty or guilt, but come in joy that Christ has made a way for you.
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And I'll conclude here just with a picture of fruitfulness. I love these stories from church history.
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Two brothers, when they were young men, were discussing after Sunday school their life's goals.
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And one brother said, and maybe children pay attention to this, One brother said to the other, he said,
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I want to be rich and famous when I grow up. And the other brother said to his brother, he said,
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I want to follow Christ to the fullest. Oh, I wish my children say that one day.
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Now it doesn't always turn out this way, but both brothers got their wish. The second brother that said he wanted to follow
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Christ to the fullest in his life, to bear the most fruit for Christ, he became a world -renowned medical missionary, a frontier missionary to Africa.
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We know him as David Livingston. And for his brother, he also became rich and famous.
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But he became rich and famous, or famous at least for a different reason. And the reason was this.
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When he died, on his tombstone it read, here lies the brother of David Livingston.
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There's great benefit, not only in this life, but for all of eternity, to live a fruitful life.
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We've only been given one. And the only way we live a fruitful life is by the power of God, by faith in God, through prayer to God.