This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Here we are at day four already of our look through Mark chapter 11, this last
week of Jesus' life that begins in this chapter. We're going to look at verses
20 to 25 today, but before that I want to go back a few verses. I want you to
remember Monday morning.

This is Tuesday morning we're going to look at today, but on Monday morning,
remember what happened? Verses 12 to 14, "The next day as they were leaving
Bethany, Jesus was hungry, seeing in the distance a fig tree and leaf. He went
to find out if it had any fruit.

When he reached it, he found it had nothing but leaves, because it was not the
season for figs. And then he said to the tree, 'May no one ever eat fruit from
you again. ' And his disciples heard him say it.

" Now there's a question here. Before we find out what happens to this tree
next, there's a question we all have here. Why did Jesus curse this tree for not
having any fruit when it wasn't even the season for fruit?

I mean, the Bible tells us it wasn't the season for fruit. You don't have to
look it up in some almanac or learn it from some history. Right here in the
Bible it is written it was not the season for figs, but Jesus cursed this tree
because it didn't have any figs.

Why did he do it? The obvious answer is this, because he had something to teach
his disciples. There is a parable in what Jesus is doing here.

Some people think he did it just because he wanted a fig that day. No, no, this
is the last week of Jesus' life. Everything he does is done with great
intention.

And this he is doing as a parable, a living parable to teach his disciples
something. Jesus is teaching them a parable about the danger of leaves without
fruit, or the danger of an appearance of life without a fruitfulness in life. An
appearance of life without the resurrection life.

Now, with that in mind, the fact that Jesus is teaching his disciples a parable
through this tree, look at what happened Tuesday morning. They've gone into
Jerusalem on Monday morning. He cursed the tree.

They went in. They cleansed the temple. He went back home.

And now, Tuesday morning, they're walking back into Jerusalem. Here's what
happened in verses 20 to 25. In the morning, as they went along, they saw the
fig tree withered from the roots.

Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look, the fig tree you cursed has
withered. Have faith in God. " Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth.

If anyone says to this mountain, 'Go throw yourself into the sea,' and does not
doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done
for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that
you've received it and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold
anything against anyone, forgive him so that your Father in heaven may forgive
you your sins.

" Jesus is teaching his disciples and teaching you and I something through this
fig tree. Fig trees with leaves should have fruit, he's saying. Now, I know it
wasn't the season for figs, but he's teaching us something about ourselves, not
something about fig trees.

He's teaching us in this picture something about potential without any fruit.
All promise, no fulfillment. John Ogilvie says about these verses that life is
God-given for the purpose of fruitfulness.

God puts you into this world for the purpose of bearing fruit. You're not
supposed to just have leaves, just look good. You and I are put on this planet
to make a difference, to bear fruit for God.

The fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control. The fruit of sharing your faith with others and
seeing other people come to Christ. The fruit of answered prayer.

Life is God-given for the purpose of fruitfulness and faith in God, Ogilvie
says, is the secret of fruitfulness. He's just mirroring what Jesus says here.
Jesus did this miracle with the fig tree so that he could teach his disciples
about faith.

Jesus is teaching us about fruitfulness and so he obviously talks about faith.
And in these verses he has three things to say about faith. He talks about faith
and doubt.

He talks about faith in prayer and he talks about faith in forgiveness. When he
talks about faith and doubt, he says some things that wow us. He says you have
enough faith to say to this mountain be thrown into the sea, it'll happen.

Now Jesus isn't telling us here to throw mountains into the sea. He's saying
that the greatness of God means there isn't anything too big to believe. Here
are his disciples, they are amazed that a fig tree has withered from the roots
and Jesus is saying amazed by that, you could tell a mountain to be thrown into
the sea if you believed.

For a lot of us we think, I've never seen God do anything like that, I've never
seen God throw a mountain into the sea, I've never seen him wither a fig tree,
I've never even seen him wither a fig when I asked him to do that. So what's
going on here? What is Jesus talking about when he talks about faith here?

He's talking about faith and doubt. He says if you have the kind of faith that
truly believes that God has said he will do that and that he will do that, then
the greatest things are possible, but then he makes it more personal. And he
says faith and doubt means you have to talk about faith and prayer.

Because where is this confident faith practiced? It's practiced in prayer. It's
not me telling the mountain to be thrown into the sea, it's me asking God to do
it, it's practiced in prayer.

And so Jesus said in prayer you believe that you receive what you have asked
from God. Now how does this work? What is he talking about here?

This is not faith in yourself. This isn't even faith in prayer. He's talking
about faith in God.

And as Jesus talks about genuine faith here, he's not talking about wanting God
to do something. He's talking about believing God will do something, an absolute
assurance of the heart and the will of God that is expressed in your prayers.
Many times in my prayers when I'm talking to God I'm not absolutely assured of
his will.

And in those prayers I need to say to God, God I'm not assured of your will, but
I trust in your will. I'm not assured in this case if you're going to heal this
person or not, but I trust in your will. I'm not assured in this case if you're
going to act in this way or in this way, but I trust in your will.

But there are other times in my prayer life when God invites me into a kind of
prayer that trusts that he's going to do something. When I'm praying for someone
to come to faith in Christ, I can't pray that God would force their will. God's
told us he won't force his will.

So I can't pray a confident prayer that says, God make that person a Christian
because God already has told us he's going to give us a choice. But I can pray
this, God send somebody into their life that'll show them what it really means
to be a Christian. And I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt when I pray that
prayer, God answers that.

Now I may visibly see the answer or not visibly see the answer, but whether I
see it or not, I know that it's happened because God says that he cares about
that person. And I know that it's God's will, God's desire that he bring them to
himself. So that is a prayer I can pray and know that God has answered.

For me to flippantly pray, God, throw that mountain into the sea, why would God
want to do that? But if God put it into my heart that for some reason he had to
do that so that this village of poor people could have an opportunity to get to
know him, could be rescued, then I'd be able to pray that kind of a prayer.
Jesus is teaching us here that faith and prayer are all about trusting in what
God's will is in our lives.

Not my will, but God's will. And Jesus teaches us one more thing about that just
to really personalize it. Faith and doubt go to faith and prayer, but faith and
prayer means I have to think about faith and forgiveness.

Did you notice? Jesus immediately talked about forgiveness in these verses.
After talking about this great faith, he says, "Whatever you ask in prayer,
believe you received it, it'll be yours.

" And then he says, "When you stand praying, if you hold anything against
anyone, forgive him so that your Father in heaven may forgive you. " It is very,
very telling that this theme of forgiveness weaves itself into these statements
about mountain-moving faith. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus makes the statements
about moving mountains in response to questions about forgiveness.

In Mark, he says, "The prayer that moves mountains will not be heard without
forgiveness. " You know what these verses are saying? Unforgiveness is keeping a
lot of mountains in their place.

Spiritual mountains, personal mountains, family mountains, leadership mountains,
mountains of what God wants to do in your life. Jesus talks about genuine faith
in these verses, and at the end of this talk, he talks about forgiveness,
because he knows the number one thing that blocks me from having genuine faith
is a lack of forgiveness towards others. Get this.

Faith moves mountains. Unforgiveness makes mountains, makes mountains in my
soul. So it keeps me from trusting God at the significant points where he's
inviting me to trust him.

God couldn't make it any clearer here. Jesus tells us unforgiveness ruins our
relationships with others, and with him, it builds barriers rather than knocking
them down. So you want to have faith, you want to have mountain-moving faith,
start with forgiveness.

Let's start right now. Let's talk to him. Jesus Christ, I want to start with
forgiving, and as hard as it is, as much faith as it takes, as much trust in you
as it takes, I want to choose to forgive today, to forgive that wrong that was
done to me, whether it was yesterday, this morning, this afternoon, or whether
it was 10, 20, 50 years ago.

God, I trust you with this wrong that was done to me. I trust you as the judge.
I trust you as the forgiver.

I trust you. And instead of me holding onto it bitterly to exact some kind of
retribution, I let it go into the hands of Almighty God. I trust you with it.

I start with forgiving, and then, God, I pray that you'd work in my heart
towards believing. Help me to see where I need to believe in you today, what
your will is, and help me to trust you at that point today. I ask this, Jesus,
in your name.

Amen. Join us tomorrow as we finish this chapter. We're going to be talking
about how the authority of God works in our daily lives.