Have Faith In God

Transcript

Good morning, Trinity Church. How are you all? Today, we will be in the words written by Mark, inspired by the Holy Spirit here in Mark chapter 11, starting in verse 12. If you don’t have a Bible, you should be able to find one in front of your seat. If you don’t own a Bible, we would love for you to take that and make that your own. And more than anything, we’d love for you to read that and hear the words of life there within. Please stand with me for the reading of God’s word.

Mark chapter 11, verse 12. He says, and he went to the temple and 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. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, is it not written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations, as they set before him. And he continued, and they feashed upon him. As they feared him, the children of Israel went out into the town and went to pray and hear the voice of the Lord. And day and night they went out and prayed for Israel’s people. They prayed every night and hymned and chanted every day for life and good, for renewal and St. John’s Day for the saving them.

For the life of the whole people. 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, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive. If you have anything against anyone so that your father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please pray with me.

King Jesus, we come to you with empty hands. We come to you as people with nothing to offer. But for those of us who believe, we come to you as children, as forgiven sinner saints, as people made new, as people invited to live in a faithful presence for your glory here in Portland through Trinity Church. We live as people who you have said have faith, believe, trust, pray, forgive. And so Lord, I pray for us today we would obey your command and have faith in God. We’d have faith in your authority. We’d have faith in your word. And we’d have faith in your movement through both prayer and forgiveness. I pray for us, Lord, that we wouldn’t just look at these people in the temple and think to ourselves horrible things about them, that we’d see that they claim Christ in their foundation or they claim God in their foundation,

but the accoutrements are those of the world. Rather, we’d assess our own lives. We’d allow you to adjust our lives, bring our lives into harmony with you, that you’d forgive us for our sins, you’d lead us in all truth. And even in a city that’s seeing chaos right now, Jesus, we’d remember that you’re the king. That though it can feel like someone else is in charge around here, whoever we might think that is, Lord Jesus, that you’re on the throne. And so guide us, Lord, whatever’s just of me, may it be forgotten, but may the things of you sing in our hearts today. We love you, Jesus, and pray these things for your glory and for our joy. In your name, Jesus Christ, amen. You may have a seat.

Have Faith in God

Have faith in God. It’s in the imperative. It’s command. Have faith in God, Jesus’ words in Mark 11, verse 22 here. He just says it, have faith in God. And I would argue as we look at this passage, this whole thing that we’re about to look at hinges on Jesus’ command to his disciples here and by extension us, to us, have faith in God. Now, I think it’s really critical for us is that we stop and actually think about this word. Words have meaning, words count. Unfortunately, I would argue the word faith in the 20th century has sort of been hijacked even in terms of Christian framework. We think about this idea of blind faith. And I even am sympathetic and understand for those who popularize this comment about having blind faith, what they’re saying is, I’m going to believe even beyond what I can see.

I’m going to believe in Jesus and I’m gonna believe in his word and I’m going to trust him beyond what I can even rationalize and reason myself. But I think somewhere along the lines, we’ve kind of reinterpreted this word blind faith to mean that I’m gonna put these blinders on my eyes and despite the fact that there are obvious objections to whatever I believe, I’m going to ignore these clear truths that actually contradict what I believe and I’m just gonna have blinders on. Now, the amazing thing about faith in the Bible is this is never God’s conceptualization of faith. This word faith in the original can also mean trust. It’s not a blind faith where we ignore things, but actually that God calls us to have a reasonable trust in him. And yes, there are things beyond what our eyes can see. We are supernaturalist by nature.

We believe in the power of God to do things beyond what we can even imagine because he’s God around here, by the way. But when we talk about faith, when he says have faith, he’s not talking about putting blinders on and ignoring reality, but actually inviting us out into reality, into the reality of who God is and what he’s done. And to be frank, I think as Christians, we can be picked on from time to time and I always want to be careful not to talk about how much we get picked on, but I think sometimes people go, oh, you all over there, you religious people, that must be nice for you, you have this crutch, whatever works for you, if that helps you get through your day, you have faith, I have reason. Actually, I would argue that when I believe the Bible, we have a reasonable faith.

But this became illuminated to me as I was evangelizing to my neighbor, Mike. And as we were talking, Mike realized at some point in time in our conversation, he said, oh, my wife and I are talking, he was like, you all are like Christian Christians, like you believe the Bible. And we’re like, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And he said, oh, that’s not for me. And as we began to talk a little further and the night went on, he started to say things like, you know, actually, I actually have faith in a lot of things. I have faith that the sun’s gonna come up in the morning, but why do I think that? Like, it’s just done in my whole life, I just think it’s gonna happen. And he began to realize that there’s all these things that he puts his trust in and his faith in

about reality and how it works. And for a moment, he stopped and said, why do I think the sun’s gonna come up tomorrow? Which by the way, opened the door for greater awesome gospel conversations in there. But we put our trust and our faith in so many things that we’re gonna wake up tomorrow. It’s not a guarantee that our retirement plan is gonna be there, that our job’s gonna be there, our health’s gonna be there. Whatever it is, it’s gonna be there. We have a lot of faith in a lot of things, whether we’re believers in Jesus or not. But Jesus has a durable command that will hinge our whole time together as we explore. And I think it’s what Mark is really hinging this whole thing on. And it’s this command, have faith. But Jesus isn’t just saying have faith because the sun came up yesterday,

it’ll hopefully come up tomorrow. He’s actually saying have faith in what, in God. And I think Jesus is doing this based on two things. He’s looking back into history and he’s looking forward to the cross. He’s looking back to the redemptive work of God. And we see this again and again. The Old Testament does it. It doesn’t say have blind faith in God. God says, remember, I’m the God that redeemed you out of Egypt. Remember, I’m the God that fed your fathers in the desert miraculously for 40 years. And he goes on and on and will point to his mighty works and his mighty deeds and say, I am the God who creates, I am the God who redeems, I am the God who preserves, trust me.

Trust me. But also Jesus knows where he’s going. We’re here in Holy Week. He knows he’s headed to the cross. He knows what he’s about to do, in fact, or what he’ll have done by the time we actually get to this line as he turns over the tables in the temple and he really lights the fuse that heads to the cross. He knows this. And this is what you need to know if you’re in here and you’re not a Christian, that this is what we believe, that the God of the universe is holy, right, and perfect. And we have separated ourselves from him by all our evil deeds, by all our right actions for the wrong reasons and all the good things we’ve chosen not to do. But this God in his grace and mercy entered into human history in the person of Jesus to live the life we should have lived,

to die on that cross in our place, and to raise from the dead. And we’ll wipe all the tears from all the eyes and he’ll put the world back the way it’s supposed to be. And what makes us a Christian is not that we’re quote-unquote good people, it’s not that we’ve tried harder, but that the God of the universe has come down to rescue us from ourselves and from our sin.

God’s Authority Displayed

And Jesus is saying that’s, he knows that’s what’s coming. So I think when he says, have faith in God, he’s talking about the whole redemptive work of God in history. And this is bona fide. And this is something we can take to the bank. But we’ll see him unpack that for us here and it’s fantastic. So we’re gonna see three things as we look at this text. Have faith in God’s authority, have faith in God’s word, and have faith in God’s movement. We’re in verse 12 of chapter 11. Have faith in God’s authority. On the following day, remember just yesterday, in the story that is, just yesterday he’s come into Jerusalem, they’ve said, Hosanna to our king, God save us. And this amazing thing has happened. And he went out to Bethany, now he’s going back in, he went out east and he’s going back into Jerusalem.

On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. By the way, fully God, fully human. Never forget it. He was hungry. He knows what it’s like to be you. He knows what it’s like to be hungry. And he knows what it’s like to have all these other things. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see it, if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. Real talk. When Thomas said, hey, do you wanna preach in a couple of weeks? I had prayed that morning and I’d asked God to give me more preaching opportunities. And so when he asked that, if I would come and preach, I said, yes. And as I calculated, I said, wait a second. Oh, I’m gonna be in the fig tree.

I hate the fig tree. I don’t know what to do with it. And I’ve had to wrestle with it. But it’s really wonderful and beautiful. And there’s things I didn’t understand and I didn’t know. And this is why we have to put things in context. So something I didn’t know about fig trees until now, now I’m ready to plant a fig tree or something, I guess, is that there’s an order to which they grow. So first comes the fruit or what will become these nice ripe figs. And those come in springtime around Passover when Jesus would be here in Jerusalem. So that happens and then come the leaves and then come those things that are the unripe fruit become the ripe fruit, right? But it turns out people actually eat that unripe fruit. And so he’s hungry, he sees leaves, and he knows there must be those unripe figs

at this point in time on the tree when he goes up to look at it because we’re gonna hear him curse it in a second. And it says, but it wasn’t the season for figs. And that always kind of weirded me out if we’re being honest. But the reality is that he thinks that those little would-be fruit are gonna be on the tree. But if the leaves come out and that fruit isn’t there, there won’t be figs on the tree that year. That year it will be a pretty tree with no fruit. Fascinating. It’s always good when you have a point like that and you hear several people go, hmm, that’s good. So here we are. So there’s fig tree and leaves. That means there’s gonna be no fruit this year. He went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves

for it was not the season for figs. So this is telling us that this is gonna be a barren tree that year. And he said to it, may no one ever eat fruit from you again. And his disciples heard it. They heard him say this. Now, it’s really critical, and I’ll even tell you why this has weirded me out. Because all of his other miracles have a purpose. They have a form, and so does this one, by the way. Not a big surprise, because it’s Jesus and he knows what he’s doing. But when you look at the miracles, he could have done anything. He is the God man. He’s the most spirit-filled man who ever lived. He could have done anything in those miracles. But as we’ve seen in Mark’s Gospels and as we read in the other Gospels, what does he do? He heals the sick.

He forgives sins. He can do that as God. He heals the sick. He raises the dead. He casts out demon. He feeds the hungry. He calms storms. He walks on water. These are the kinds of things Jesus does. Now, of course, he could have flown in the air and shot fireworks at his fingertips. He could have done other things that would have been impressive to people about God. But why has he done these things? They have a restorative function to them. Because God made the world good. He made this an unbroken world and we broke it. And Jesus comes to give a foretaste of God’s peace because people aren’t supposed to be sick and people aren’t supposed to be hungry and demons aren’t supposed to be in people and so on and so forth. He has this restorative function.

Here with this tree, then, there’s a bit of an outlier. Now, one, as we’ll see in a moment, he’s giving us sort of a piece of physical poetry or art, almost, if you will, because this tree is gonna be like the temple we’re gonna see in a minute. At the same time, what Jesus is doing, like when he calms the sea or walks on water, he’s exerting his authority in creation. And he is exerting the fact that God is the one who’s in charge of everything. And really, he’s setting us up for some poetry here. That as this tree has nice leaves and looks awesome, but is barren and is living outside of its design and he’s judging it, so the temple is right now outside of God’s design and he’s going to judge it. There’s a way in the world, the way the world is supposed to work best,

and that’s the way that God shows us and leads us and guides us. May no one ever eat fruit from you again. And his disciples heard it. Verse 15. Have faith in God’s word. And they came to Jerusalem. So they’ve now entered the city. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and bought in the temple. And he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. Now, the temple complex is giganto. That’s the technical theological term for how big it is. And people are coming from all over, all over the diaspora, all over the diaspora, maybe even as far as places like Egypt, coming to the temple. And so what they’re doing is, is that in a sense, there’s a convenience here. You don’t wanna have to bring your turtle doves from Egypt.

You wanna be able to buy them here in Jerusalem. But what they’ve done is they’ve actually set up shop. They’ve set up their commerce inside the temple compound here. And there are people that are taking advantage of this as a space for commerce. Right? They’re that unbelieving person that puts the fish on the side of their tow truck so that you will give them tow business. Right? They’re using, you’re using God and his effects to make money and to capitalize on the situation. And Jesus is unhappy about this. And he entered the temple and he began to drive out those who sold and those who brought in, and those who bought in the temple. And he overturned the money changers and the seats and those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And then he was teaching them

and he taught them saying to them, now what he does here is he takes some of Isaiah 56 and some of Jeremiah seven and he actually sticks them together. And so we’ll look at both those passages in a second.

Is it not written, my house shall be a house prayer to all the nations, but you have made it a den of robbers

— Isaiah 56

, Jeremiah 7

(ESV)

. If you’d go with me to Isaiah 56.

We’ll look here at verses six through eight. Now Isaiah of course is looking forward to God’s restorative work on the planet. He’s looking forward to what God will do. Verse six, and the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord and to be his servants. Everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it and holds fast my covenant. Again, he bears repeating every time, covenants are about relationship. Contracts are about stuff, but covenants are about relationship. God is a covenantal God. He’s a relational God. These I will bring to my holy mountain and make them in my joyful house. These I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offering and their sacrifices will be acceptable to my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer

for all peoples. The Lord God who gathers the outcasts of Israel declares, I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered. Sometimes we can just sort of read over this and we miss the beauty of the new covenant and we miss what Jesus has done, that God had a special people, Israel, and these people were to be a lighthouse to the world. They were to follow his commands as a signal to the world that they have a covenant with this amazing and wonderful God. They were to be his people and they would be in his place, the temple, which has lots of problems at this point in time in history, but they were going to be his people and he was going to be their God. But even as we see in Isaiah, that faithfulness, that sort of beacon of hope was to be a beacon of hope to the world,

not just for themselves, but for these nations who are far from God, who are at this point in time worshiping pretend gods, living in opposition to the God of the universe. They had a mission on planet Earth to be faithful to God and through their faithful presence, I would argue, reach these other nations, these people who are worshiping pretend gods, these people who are far off, which by the way, if you don’t come from a Jewish background, if you’re not ethnically Jewish, that’s you. That’s you, that’s me, that’s who we are. We’re in this promise and that God had this plan to get people like us into his family, which he ultimately fulfills in Jesus. But verse two, pardon me, Jeremiah seven, verse 11, the other verse there, we’ll start in verse eight of Jeremiah chapter seven. Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail.

Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal? Yon can correct my pronunciation later. And go after other gods that you have not known and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name and say, we are delivered. Only to go on doing all these abominations. Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? So what’s happening here? So what’s happening is, essentially, and this is a little bit of a remix, but here’s the prophets in very short order. The people of God have grown unfaithful. Even, dare I say, bored with the God of the Bible and the God of the universe and the God who had called them and done all those things we already talked about, the God who redeemed them and made him their own.

And, for lack of a better word, it was more fun to worship pretend gods. It was more fun to party with the nations and all their sin and all their iniquity than it was, in their mind at least, to be faithful to God. Yet, because the temple is with them in the land, they’re basically saying, hey, we can do whatever we wanna do. Oh, but, you know, God’s gonna look out for us. We can live like we don’t belong to God in any way, shape, or form, but God’s got it when we need it. Break glass in case of emergency. And we see this. This happens from time to time. This happens in Ezekiel. In Ezekiel, these armies come to Jerusalem. They surround Jerusalem. The people of God have been partying with the pretend gods and the temple prostitutes and whatever other thing come along with all that stuff.

And then they look out their window and say, oh, shoot, there’s a real army here. We better get the prophet because we actually need to deal with them. We’re gonna need the big guns. They go to God’s prophet, and they go to the prophet and say, we need to talk to God because there’s some armies here. We’re in trouble. So he goes, and of course, in the Old Testament, they usually walk through this. So then the prophet goes and talks to God, and God says, I have something for you to tell them. Go tell them the only thing we’re going to talk about is their idolatry.

Because they think those armies are what are scary and important. What I’m telling you is my relationship with you. My faithfulness to you and your faithfulness to me is what’s actually at stake here. This is what we actually need to talk about. And we live in a time and a place where we’re living under the tyranny of the urgent. And we can kind of check some confessional boxes about Jesus and live like the rest of the world, like there’s no difference between us and the world. We live loving the things of the world and the stuff of the world and the pace of the world.

And we’re surprised when our lives are sort of just as vacuous and empty as the world. When we don’t have the fullness of life that Jesus has talked about for us. But nonetheless, Jesus is here and he pulls these two texts together. And so he says, okay, my house is to be a house of prayer for the nations and you have made it this other thing in your unfaithfulness. So he cleans house and calls out this temple. So just as the tree had a design, that the tree was in a sense living outside of that design and function to be a tree that bore fruit, to feed people as God had planned. And because it was operating outside of God’s design, he judges it. And here he is in the temple, flipping tables and clearing out the temple and purifying it in a sense and reminding them,

by the way, God built this thing so that you would live here as a faithful people, as a lighthouse to the world, that the world might come in here and make this thing a house of prayer to me. Rather, you’ve made it a den of robbers. You’ve said you have the temple and you’ve said you have me, but you’re just after the world stuff. The foundation says faithfulness to God, but the accoutrement says this house belongs to the world. And so Jesus comes and he clears out the accoutrement. My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations, but you’ve made it a den of robbers. Verse 18, and the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him. Jesus is on the move. And when Jesus is on the move, he is very, very scary to these worldly authorities.

Faith in God’s Movement

For they feared him because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. And when evening came, he went out of the city. And when evening came, he went out of the city. It’s a big day, by the way, cleaning out the temple. But this is certainly the place where we have to remember, and Mark wants us to know this, yesterday he came in and they were saying, Hosanna, yay, Messiah’s here. But it turns out usually we only like Messiah when he does what he wants us to do. We like Jesus when he’s just on our team. What we don’t like is when Jesus actually calls us out. I think we see this in evangelism on a regular basis. As I talk to people who don’t know Jesus, the phrase that often comes out is, I would believe in Jesus if it weren’t for X, Y, or Z.

If we could get rid of this moral teaching, moral teaching A, B, or C, or whatever, however you wanna fill in the blank, because it’s, my concern for us is we can isolate it to like one thing at one time, and it’s usually whatever our hobby horse is. It turns out people have lived in rebellion against the God of the universe for a long time, and there’s lots of different people who have lots of different things that are called defeater beliefs, often by apologists and evangelists. They’re like, well, I could buy into Jesus if he wasn’t like this. Here’s the thing about Jesus. He’s the king of the universe, and we don’t get to dictate terms. We don’t dictate terms. So they liked Messiah yesterday, they don’t like Messiah so much today. Right? They liked Messiah yesterday because they thought he was gonna come and kick out the Romans,

but all of a sudden he’s saying, hey, this thing you’re doing in the temple is unfaithful, and you all need to stop right now. And now all of a sudden we’ve gotta figure out how to kill him. So yesterday we like him, today we don’t. And if we’re not careful, we actually miss that this is in succession. Yesterday was a good day, today not so great.

And I think we need to be careful of this ourselves. We love Jesus when we’re in a fix, but then when he calls us to more, or calls out our pretend God, or calls out the thing that’s bringing false meaning to our lives, then all of a sudden we get a little sensitive about it. This can also happen, by the way, when we’re talking to our friends lovingly about where they’re off in the gospel. I think our human inclination is when someone says, hey, brother or hey, sister, I see this thing in your life. I’m really worried about you. This is what the Bible says. This is what you’re doing, and they’re different, and I love you. Our tendency rarely, or often, maybe I’ll say it this way, I won’t tell you how to feel, but I think this is what I’ve seen, and I think we all have this at least in us,

is when that brother or sister comes to you and says, hey, this is what you’re doing, this is what the Bible says, and they’re different, and I love you. Our tendency is not to say, wow, yeah, you’re right. The accoutrement doesn’t match the foundation here. We tend to say, you wanna talk about me? Let’s talk about you. How about that thing you did last week? And we have this tendency to divert and do something else, and we actually need to do is own it. God’s a gracious God. Again and again and again and again, he told his people, if you turn from these pretend gods and return to me, we’re gonna be all good here. I’ll blot out your iniquity. I’ll take care of it. Now, their answer isn’t to stop here and say, you know what, that was totally bogus, because that’s a common first century word, bogus.

But they don’t stop and say, you’re right, Isaiah 56 does say that this was to be a house of prayer for the nations, and it’s not a house of prayer right now. It’s at best a religious convenience store, right? They don’t stop and hear what Jesus says and say, Jesus, you’re right. They stop and say, our power is threatened, and you’ve gotta go. The people are listening, and they’ve caught on. You’ve gotta go.

Here we are in verse 20. As they passed by in the morning, so we’re on the next day now, but as you see, Mark does these sandwiches. It’s a fig sandwich, which sounds delicious. As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree wither away to its roots.

And Peter remembered and said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered. And Jesus answered them, have faith in God. And what he says here is very fascinating. So this is a little rabbinic phrase, apparently from the first century. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believes what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Now, the rabbis thought the way you got here was by pious behavior, by the works you piled up. If you had done a bunch of good stuff, you would see impossible things happen. These big things happen. And of course, they’re talking about this mountain as this great and mighty thing. But God flips that, Jesus flips that on its head.

And he’s actually saying, no, it’s not even about you or your works. Trust God, believe God. Be taken up and thrown into the sea and he, pardon me, in his heart, let me start there. Be taken up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believes what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. And whatever you stand praying, forgive. If you have anything against anyone, so that your father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. So here we see this faith in God’s movement. And what he’s doing here is he’s commanding them have faith in God. And this idea of moving the mountain is gigantic and huge. Mount Hood, get up and get in the Columbia River.

We don’t want that because it would ruin my drive home on 84. But I think the problem for us is that we actually kind of go there if we’re real as human beings. And we begin to say, well, yeah, maybe if I had more faith, if I could muster up something inside of myself, if I believed enough, God would give me all the green lights on my way to work. God would move this tree in my yard that I don’t have to dig up and move it over here. It’s smaller than a mountain, it’s a tree. I was reading Lord of the Rings and that would be cool.

What we’re actually missing here is that God is calling on us in prayer. To traffic in the impossible. At least in terms of human perception. I think we’re, our prayers can be so small. Our belief in his movement can be so small. Now we’ll temper this in a second through the Lord’s prayer. But what we’re doing in prayer, that was my caveat because we’ll have to talk about health and wealth. We’ll get there, don’t worry if you’re getting nervous. It’s all right.

Through prayer, we’re not just praying our list. We’re not just saying, God, would you please fix Aunt Susie’s stubbed toe? God cares about Aunt Susie’s stubbed toe, by the way. He’s someone who heals cancer and he’s someone who heals stubbed toes. He’s the God of the universe. But I think the thing that even these people missed in the temple, right,

is that our life in God here and our life in prayer is both about communication and encounter. They like the accoutrement of the temple and their religious stuff, but they weren’t after God. And in prayer, God is asking us into relationship with him, but not only that, in such a way that he glorifies his name by doing the impossible, by moving the mountains, the Mount Hoods into the Columbia River. And that when we ask those big prayers, we actually don’t need to get them off the hook. So my family had, I won’t get into the details, we had an epic health problem in my life. And when my friends who were of the more reformed persuasion who loved God and his sovereignty, who were quick to somehow, and I love God and his sovereignty and have a high view of God’s sovereignty in all things,

when they would pray for us, they were always trying to get God off the hook. God, if it’s your will, but we know it’s probably not, that you would heal this person. And that when you don’t heal them, Lord, would you please just comfort them? And they wouldn’t quite say that, but that’s kind of what they meant. And as we’re in the hospital, and my charismatic friends who believe in miracles, by the way, we’re all Christians, so we believe in miracles, would come. I’d be so thankful for their prayers, even though we don’t align eye-to-eye theologically on everything. I mean, I believe in the continued work of the Holy Spirit, just to be clear. But when they show up, they pray big prayers. They go something like this. King Jesus, you are the king of every atom in the universe. Would you reign your power down here?

Would you do something great that shows off to the world in your glory and your grace who you are, and that you’re not bound by illness, and you’re not bound by the wicked things of the world, and you are a mighty God? Now, you see what they’re doing there is they’re having faith in God. They’re not just having a blind faith. They’re actually having a trust in God to say, God, you’re God around here, and I’m gonna ask you to do some God stuff. Would you please do some God stuff? And when we’re praying God to do the God stuff, what we’re not doing is trying to say, if I really feel it enough, and I don’t think this is what Jesus is after here. He’s not saying, if you just really feel it harder. If you would feel it harder, it would work. And this is the danger of the health and wealth movement.

If you just believe more, you wouldn’t be sick. Lazarus was risen from the dead, and eventually got sick and died, because the world’s still broken. When God is answering these big prayers, he’s interrupting the disordered nature of the world and bringing his peace to bear and power, right? Now, the thing here is that we have the tempering peace, that I just, I hopefully didn’t sound like I was mocking, but I do wanna call out a little bit. We do want it under the Lord’s will. God, if it be your will, do what you’re going to do that’s best. Say yes in the world in a way that brings you the most glory and us the most joy, not just now, but also forever. And we see this in the Lord’s Prayer. We see kind of how these movements can work out. Our Father who art in heaven,

it’s an upward sort of direction. God, your God here and everywhere else, how I, and I have it memorized from the King Jimmy, how I be your name. You can say make your name holy is actually what you’d kind of say there, but how it just sort of sounds more religious and it’s just how it’s stuck in my head. There’s an upward movement. Our Father who art in heaven, holy be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done. Because here’s the thing, we actually know God’s ultimate will in the universe. It’s to redeem sinners from death to life, to call a people to himself and to put the world back the way it’s supposed to be. And so when we’re praying those big prayers, we know he will eventually wipe all the tears from all the eyes. And then regardless how things go in that hospital room,

he is in the business of putting things back the way they’re supposed to be. But it’s really good to say, and Jesus, please, show off, show the world, show the world what you do for your glory. We trust him in his timing. To him a day is a thousand years, a thousand years is a day. We trust you with your time and we trust, but Lord, please, we trust you enough. We have faith that you would move here and that you are capable of moving here. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done. Just to finish off, even in personal prayer, so our prayers aren’t just praying for Aunt Susie or just praying for Aunt Susie’s toe. There’s an upward movement, there’s a downward movement, then there’s an inward movement. Our Father who art in heaven,

hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. God cares both about our material and spiritual needs. But then also the thing that they were missing, of course, in the temple is that missional drive, that on-mission movement. I’m realizing I can’t actually say it until I go to the beginning like the ABCs. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from Satan. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory

forever and ever, amen. Upward, downward, inward, outward. I get this from a guy named Mark Ives. Outward, I get this from a guy named Mark Batterson, by the way, who discipled me in prayer. It’s right there for us. Glorifying God, asking him to bring his power down. Moving the kingdom in here and moving as we go as ambassadors to the world because the task we’ve been given is impossible. But do we trust him enough in our prayer? Do we trust him enough with these things? And it’s wild to me that he ends here

The Power of Forgiveness

and whenever you stand praying, forgive. Wait a second, I thought we were talking about moving mountains. What do you mean forgive? If you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. Why would God link these things? I think we see this pattern in Mark. When we read Mark carefully, he’s done this already, right? Do you remember the guy who got lowered in? Jesus forgave his sins. But just so you know, the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins. Rise, take up your mat. As far as Jesus is concerned, forgiving is the harder part. Mountains are easy. Saving sinners from death to life is hard. In fact, the thing we see in Luke 18. When we see the rich, strong ruler in Mark’s gospel, he doesn’t turn and he doesn’t follow Jesus

and the disciples get freaked out and they say, well, if that guy can’t be saved, who can be saved? And he says, with humans it is impossible, with God, all things are possible. It is not, whatever’s happening in Portland right now, it’s been a rough weekend in Portland, by the way. God’s redemptive power is not beyond the rough weekend we’ve had in Portland. That sister or that brother in your life that curses God every day, God is not beyond them. Because the grace of God is greater and more sufficient. Because God comes down to get us, not the other way around.

If you’d go with me to Ephesians chapter four, I want you to hear this about forgiveness. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin. By the way, you can be angry and not sinning at the same time, we conflate the two too often. You can be angry and sin at the same time, don’t get me wrong, but we do conflate the two. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. There’s something about our lack of forgiveness that really lets Satan into our lives. Satan is real, he hates you, he wants you to die. He’s a malevolent being who’s trying to destroy you and get you away from Jesus. Thomas Brooks, the great Puritan said,

he doesn’t care what’s on the hook as long as you bite. He doesn’t care, he just wants you not to love Jesus. But it turns out a really great way for him to get in your life is for you being unwilling to forgive others, for you being bitter against others. Because in that, as one pastor said, Satan beats the drum and we like the rhythm. That guy is an idiot and he is totally stupid. You’re right, that guy should die. I hate him, but it misses something, right? We become ensnared to the devil when we live in that, when Satan’s beating the drum and we like the rhythm. Let me keep going.

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such is good for building up as fits the occasion and it may give grace to those who hear and do not grieve the Holy Spirit by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted. Listen to this. Forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. So how do I forgive? I forgive not by, again, mustering something up from inside, but trusting God in who he is. So I don’t muster something up inside. I actually remember how much I’ve been forgiven for my sins.

And when I actually see how much I’ve been forgiven for my sins, which are many, how much easier it is for me to forgive someone else on a human level compared to the sins that I’ve sinned against God who died on the cross to save me from my sins and from death and to life. And in here, there’s the right design, the freedom that sits in all of these things. Because I would argue that the power of this forgiveness is actually an impossible one. It’s one that God has to work in our lives, but it’s rooted in the impossible work that God has done to forgive us for our sins.

Living as God’s Temple

So Jesus comes and he judges this tree. This fruitless tree. And then he comes and he judges this fruitless temple. And I think it’s really critical for us as the people of God to remember, well, one, we’re now the temple, according to Paul in Corinthians. The Holy Spirit now dwells inside of us. Our temple is not made by human hands, but it’s this people here together. It’s not to forget that, but also to remember how he has designed us to live. We’re gonna close with Ephesians chapter two, verse eight.

Because this is the thing they missed. Because there are these people who are built by God, for God, to know him, to love him, and to walk in his ways in response to him and what he’s doing in the world. So, chapter two, verse eight says this. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is a gift from God. These people, their life and God was a gift to them. These are people that God called. You know, Abraham’s this pagan, pretend God-worshiping dude that God calls and the people he preserves and it’s a gift to them and he calls them to himself and he sets them free. And instead of responding to him and his glory and his beauty and his wonder and his kindness, they said, let’s go worship pretend gods. And friends, as Christians, if we’re in here,

we’ve been saved by a gift. We didn’t get up to God, God came down to get to us. He set us free, but he didn’t just set us free so that we could go run around in the woods or play risk all day. If you were at the men’s retreat yesterday. He set us free to do those things for his glory, to do everything for his glory, keep reading.

For by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing, it is a gift from God, not as a result of work so that no one may boast. So they were boasting in their position, they were boasting in the temple, they were boasting in their lineage, they were boasting in their pedigree, they were boasting in the things that they had and they said, everything’s good here because we’re good people and God likes good people and this is awesome. As Christians we say, we’re actually bad people who need to be saved by a good God who saves us by his grace, who comes down and gets us, who deals with all our wrong and all our right for the wrong reasons and all the good things we’ve chosen not to do and all our idolatry and he saves us from ourselves

and he saves us from our sin to be set free and let loose in the world to do the work of chapter or verse 10, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So how do I know that the people of Trinity Church are Christians? Because I see the spirit of God bearing good fruit in this church. I see people laying down their lives for each other and loving each other and serving each other and living for the glory of God. It’s not just that we’re saved, it’s that we’re saved from ourselves to God, to life in him. As the temple of the spirit, we live in Portland to glorify the God who set us free, to be a faithful presence here like they were supposed to be and to welcome in those outside of our community

into our community because God is a God who’s in the business of making his enemies his friends. But I would propose to you that this is an impossibility. We’re not gonna be able to program that. We’re not gonna be able to muster that up from within ourselves. We’re not gonna be able to feel that one up. But what we are able to do is to trust the God who is in the business of saving sinners from death to life. And so if you’re not a Christian in here today, I pray that today would be the day of your salvation. You would turn from your sins and you would turn to Jesus and be saved and know this God and love this God and live for him. And if you’re in here today and you’re a Christian, don’t blow off this temple. Don’t blow off Jesus’ judgment of this tree or these people.

The foundation might be that, sort of have a Christian feel to it, but how are the accoutrements in the house? Is your life engineered around living for Jesus and his glory and a response to his grace and mercy in your life? And if it’s not, what needs to change? And if you’re in here today and your life looks more like that than it doesn’t, what does it look like to bring more and more people into that? What does it look for us to live like a community who are giving of ourselves to help each other follow Jesus, to help build the rhythm and the time of our lives around his glory, that we might enjoy him and glorify him in the city and live as ambassadors to this place? Let’s pray. Jesus, we thank you for today.

We thank you for your grace in our lives. I pray you would give us faith and that we would have faith and we would obey your command to have faith and to trust in you and what you’re doing in the world. That we would lean into your redemptive purposes on planet Earth. We would lean into the truth of your gospel. We’d even lean into your correction where we realize our life is not engineered, designed or organized around you and your glory and your grace. That you would correct us, Lord. That we would change our lives and we would repent. But also, Jesus, we do this because we actually know we can live in joy of you and in the freedom of your gospel there. That we would be a house pleasing to you, a people pleasing to you. But we can only do these things

by the power of your spirit, your grace in our lives. We love you, Jesus, and pray these things for your glory and for our joy in your name, Jesus Christ, amen.