Sermon Tone Analysis
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Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Mark 11.
We come this morning to a portion in Scripture that rounds out more fully our understanding of our Savior.
So many believers have incomplete Jesus’ in our heads.
Like a portrait half-painted, our understanding of Jesus is undone.
We know Jesus is meek and mild, we know he’s a friend of sinners, we know he’s a gentle and lowly savior.
But for some of us, that’s all he is.
In our text this morning we encounter Jesus making a full frontal assault on the false religion that had infected God’s people.
It’s an amazing insight into our Lord’s heart.
He is by his very nature loving and merciful, and his anger burns against those who demean his love and mercy.
It’s an attack on self-righteousness, false religion.
We need to listen up this morning.
Open rebellion is a threat to our souls.
But smiling, neat, nice, false religion is a much more devious and invisible danger.
I think Grace Rancho is not in danger of following the devil into open rebellion.
I think Grace Rancho is always in danger of being proud, self-reliant, and self-righteous because we’re quite convinced we’d never fall for the devil’s tricks.
A few weeks ago I mentioned Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, “The Admirable Conjunction of Diverse Excellencies in Christ Jesus” where he admires Christ’s infinite highness and infinite lowness.
Here’s another pair of excellencies in Christ: tenderhearted gentleness and lionhearted anger.
This morning we encounter a passage that describes the righteous anger of Jesus.
Mark 11:12-21.We’re going to see 3 things that make Jesus angry. 1) Hypocrisy makes Jesus angry.
2) Greed makes Jesus angry.
3) Self-absorption makes Jesus angry.
Let’s get our bearings.
It’s a monumental day in redemptive history.
Two weeks ago we spoke about Palm Sunday, Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem.
Now it’s Monday of the Passion Week.
By Thursday he’ll be joining his disciples for the Last Supper, he’ll wash his disciples’ feet, and by Friday he’ll be on the cross.
He came into roaring crowds on Sunday, he’ll be killed by Friday.
Verse 12 he’s coming from Bethany.
Remember, he and his disciples are staying in Bethany for the evenings.
It’s a 2 mile walk from Bethany to Jerusalem.
The text says that he is hungry.
Jesus experienced hunger, like you have.
And verse 13, “seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it.”
Fig trees didn’t necessarily grow in large groves of trees, so it was common to see a single fig tree standing out from the rest of the landscape.
It says he saw it “in leaf,” meaning it looked big and green and healthy and sometimes, when the leaves are full, you can expect to find fruit.
So the tree has the appearance of health and seems to be a promised source for food, and he goes up to it and there’s nothing on it.
What seemed to be fruitful is empty.
The text says, “When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.”
What appears to be fruitful isn’t.
Jesus inspects the tree and finds no fruit at all.
Mark tells us that it wasn’t the season for figs.
So was Jesus simply ignorant of when fig trees produce fruit?
No, it wasn’t uncommon for some fig trees to bear fruit early.
But it happens from time to time.
Now Jesus sees the fig tree, which appears fruitful but isn’t - and says, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.”
And he says it loud enough that the disciples hear it.
The disciples understood this to be a curse - verse 21: “Rabbi, look!
The fig tree that you cursed has withered.”
Jesus saw a tree that appeared fruitful but was fruitless, and he cursed it.
Now, this incident with the fig tree must be understood in connection with his entrance into the temple.
What he does with the fig tree is an analogy of what happens at the temple.
The fig tree looked fruitful but was barren.
The temple looks busy, looks active, looks alive, but is dead.
And what he does in the temple is a graphic visual of what God is doing with Israel as a nation.
In other words, in the cursing of the fig tree we see the fundamental problem with the false religion Israel had embraced: hypocrisy.
#1 Hypocrisy makes Jesus angry: Leaves, but no fruit.
Outward appearance, inward barrenness.
This is what Israel, as a nation, was.
They had priests and sacrifices and rituals and even the temple, but upon inspection, it was empty, barren, void - of anything that pleased God.
Israel was chosen by God, redeemed miraculously, given the law, given the covenants, but had, throughout the generations, become entrenched in hypocrisy.
Israel was all leaves and no fruit.
Hypocrisy is particularly repugnant to Jesus.
He called the hypocrites, “white-washed tombs” and a “brood of vipers” in Matthew 23.
He reserves his harshest invectives for hypocrites.
Sometimes Christians are wrongly accused of hypocrisy.
Your sin doesn’t make you a hypocrite.
But sometimes, it is an entirely accurate accusation.
How many times have we heard about Christians who lived double lives?
The kind of person who always agrees with truth and wisdom outwardly, even while pursuing selfish indulgence inwardly?
A text like this causes us to pause: Are you, perhaps, living as a hypocrite?
Your aim is to present something outwardly about yourself that is not true inwardly?
Are you more concerned about looking godly, or being godly?
Do you worship God in private, confess sins in private, rejoice in the gospel in private?
Or are you, spiritually speaking, non-existent when you leave the crowd?
Are you becoming more legalistic, but calling it holiness?
Or are you becoming more lazy, and calling it Christian liberty?
Are you becoming more critical, and calling it discernment?
Could it be that you are sliding into the sin of hypocrisy?
You can deceive some people for a while.
I’ve known people who have spent years playacting as a Christian before their hypocrisy was exposed.
You will not deceive God.
Here’s the irony of hypocrisy.
The one who is most deceived is the hypocrite himself.
God is not deceived.
Often people can sniff out the hypocrisy.
You’re only deceiving yourself.
Church, this is why we pray prayers of confession.
They remind us that we cannot cover our own sins before God, but that we must bring them to him, remembering that he has covered them with the blood of Christ.
Prayers of confession remind us who we really are.
They wipe away the facepaint and makeup we’ve been trying to hide behind.
Hypocrisy angered Jesus.
And he cursed it.
But that’s not all that angered Jesus.
# 2 Greed makes Jesus angry.
Vs 15-16: “And they came to Jerusalem.
And he entered 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.”
Jesus the night before, Jesus went straight to the temple, examined it, and left.
This time, he goes straight to the temple to completely upend the entire system.
It actually is a fulfillment of Malachi 3:1, “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me.
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