Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Live Out Jesus's Calling | Mark | Mark 11.12-25

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. If this podcast has been helping you in your walk with God, would you take five seconds to help us? Hop onto Twitter and follow our new Twitter account at TMBT Podcast. If you go there, you can see our latest episodes. You can also follow Keith and I and send us messages. We'd love to follow you back and see what's happening in your life.

Starting point is 00:00:34 life. Right now we are asking, who is Jesus? Sometimes the Bible makes you say, what the heck is going on here? Let me give you one of those examples. Mark 11, verse 12, we read this. On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he, this is Jesus, was hungry. And seeing in the distance, a fig tree and leaf, he went to it to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves. So there's no fig fruits on it. That's the point. For, it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, may no one ever eat fruit from you again, and his disciples heard it. So let's pause here. What did the fig tree do?

Starting point is 00:01:13 Well, the fig tree didn't have any figs on it. But the author points out, it's not even the season for figs. So what did Jesus expect? Why would he think that there would be figs on a fig tree when it's not fig season? But the story gets even weirder. Five verses later, we read this. As they passed by in the next morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered.

Starting point is 00:01:40 So this tree, which shouldn't have been in season, the tree actually dies because Jesus curses it. In fact, this is the only miracle Jesus does anywhere inside of the Gospels that kills something. So why did he do it? Well, some commentators say that he was hangary. You know what I mean, hungry and angry about it. Now, I get hangary, right? I get hangary all the time. but does Jesus get hangary? I don't know. The dude fasted for 40 days and didn't even sin when the devil

Starting point is 00:02:10 tempted him, so I'm not sure that hangar is one of his problems. So what's happening here? Well, here's what I think Mark wants us to see. This is a living illustration. In the Old Testament, the prophets often envisioned Israel as a plant, sometimes even a fig tree, which God had planted and God had tended to so that he could gather up the fruit from the plant. But the fig tree, which God plants in the Old Testament, doesn't produce the fruit that God had cultivated. Instead, that tree produces idolatry, injustice, and impurity. And so God ends up deciding to have his fig tree, which is Israel, cut down. He sends Israel off into exile in Babylon.

Starting point is 00:02:50 Now, of course, one day the Israelites return, and they rebuild their temple. And the entire program of groups like the Pharisees and the priests that were running this new temple, their entire program was to produce the fruit that God wanted this time. They failed to produce the fruit in the past, but now, in the present, they were finally going to be the fig tree that God had planted that gives God the fruit that he desired. And so the question Mark wants us to ask, and Jesus wanted his disciples to ask, was, were they succeeding? Had the communal life of Israel in the days of Jesus, was it producing the fruit that God was looking for? We get the answer to that question and the story that takes place in between the time when Jesus curses the fig tree and when the fig tree actually

Starting point is 00:03:34 dies. So let's read what happens in between. And again, the story in between is trying to tell us, has Israel produced the fruit that God was looking for? So chapter 11 verse 15. And they came to Jerusalem and he entered the temple. Okay, so let's pause here for a second. Jesus enters a place, which is supposed to be the epicenter of fruitfulness, because this is the place where, Yahweh and humans come together. So what does Jesus do when he gets here? Mark continues, and he began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple. And he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.

Starting point is 00:04:16 And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying, is it not written? My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations. but you have made it into a den of robbers. And the chief priests and the scribes heard it, and they were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching.

Starting point is 00:04:41 And when evening came, they went out of the city. Okay, so what's happening here? Well, in the simplest terms, Jesus is angry. He's not angry. Here he really is angry. And his actions and words tell us why. The temple is malfunctioning. It's not producing the fruit that God wanted it to produce.

Starting point is 00:05:00 A few years back, I had to deal with a malfunctioning problem. A few buddies of mine decided that we wanted to spend spring break. So, gosh, this is over 10 years ago when I'm in college, but we're going to spend spring break backpacking at Voyager's National Park. But on the way up, the car started malfunctioning, and it just stops smack in the middle of nowhere, Iowa. Mason City, Iowa, just in case you care to know. So anyways, we end up getting a tow to a Ford dealership in Mason City, and the mechanics come out, and they tell us your transmission has gone out, and it's going to be a whole day before we can replace it.

Starting point is 00:05:36 Well, the guy who owned the car was a little bit shocked. He goes, wait a second, replace it. That's expensive. Can't you just repair it? The mechanic says, no, it's beyond repair. You're going to have to replace it. And isn't that the way things always go when something malfunctions? There's always a little bit. There's always a little bit of it. You're going to be beyond repair. You're going to have to replace it. There's always only two options. You can repair it or you can replace it. And this is what Jesus is showing us in his actions. The temple is malfunctioning. It's not producing the fruit that God wanted and it's past the point of repair. The temple needs to be replaced. But you should pause at this moment and ask, how was the temple malfunctioning? What was the fruit that God wanted it to produce and what is it producing instead? Well, Jesus makes it clear by quoting God's words in Isaiah, my how shall be called a house of prayer for the nations. Okay, so what's that mean? Well, Jesus is reaching

Starting point is 00:06:30 backwards 950 years when King Solomon first dedicated the temple. During this dedication, he prays that through the temple, all peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God and that there is no other. That's 1st Kings 860. So the temple was supposed to be this place that was drawing not just Israel, but all of the nations, to God. And so this is why Isaiah wrote that one day God would, and I'll quote from Isaiah 56 here, that God would bring the foreigners to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. So that's the temple, the house of prayer. This is what Jesus calls it in the passage. God goes on in Isaiah. He says, their burnt offerings, this is of the nations, their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my

Starting point is 00:07:17 altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations. Unfortunately, the temple wasn't magnetizing the nations in Jesus' day. The people who were running the temple weren't magnetizing the Gentiles to God. Instead, they were repelling the Gentiles and keeping the Gentiles out of the temple. The reason why Jesus starts flipping over tables of the money changers and sellers isn't primarily because he was disgusted by commerce in the temple. That's not the point. They were selling sacrifices. That kind of makes sense. The problem was that these money changers set up their tables in an area called the court of the Gentiles. See, back then, the temple was divided up into different regions, and the closer you

Starting point is 00:07:59 got to the center of the temple, the fewer people were allowed. The Jewish people set up signs all around the temple banning Gentiles from entering certain parts of it. They had to stay outside in the court of the Gentiles. So as if it's not bad enough to ban Gentiles from getting close to the temple, the Jewish merchants took it one step further, and they begin to use the place that the Gentiles were supposed to own as the place where they would auction off animals. There's nothing worshipful about a petting zoo for slaughter animals, but that's what they had turned the court of the Gentiles into. Jesus is disgusted by the fruit of the temple. The temple is supposed to draw the nations to God, and instead it's turning the place of the nations into a place for animals. Flipping the tables over

Starting point is 00:08:43 is a symbolic enactment of what would ultimately happen in 70 AD, when God would finally destroy the entire temple. So now we go back to the fig tree. God set apart Israel for the purpose of restoring all creation and drawing the nations to himself. When Jesus curses the fig tree, he is showing that Israel is like that fig tree. It might have leaves. It might look good, but it's still failing. It's still not producing the fruit that God wants. Israel needs a replacement for the temple, not just a repair. And so this is why Jesus has to kill the fig tree, symbolically to show what needs to happen to Israel. The problem has to be dealt with at the root. Jesus presents himself as the replacement for the temple. Jesus is the true Israelite, the true

Starting point is 00:09:31 temple who calls and magnetizes all nations to God. How does he do it? He condescends to graciously work through us. We're the means by which he draws the nations to God. In Ephesians 2, Paul calls the church, Jesus' body, the temple. We are now the place where, people through whom God magnetizes the nations. So what would Jesus say about the fruit in your life? Does your character, behavior, attitude, work ethic, relationships? Do those things magnetize people to God or repel them? Do we treat Jesus like he's only for me the way that the Jews did or do we share him with others? Have we excluded people from God's presence by getting too busy or too present? proud to let them in on our faith? What's the fruit in your life? What would Jesus say?

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Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Live Out Jesus's Calling | Mark | Mark 11.12-25

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