Two Journeys

God has lavished on us everything we need for life and godliness, and in return, God expects us to bear fruit as a return on His investment.

Turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter 12. We continue our study in the Gospel of Mark, and we look at this parable of the wicked tenants. As we do so, I'm mindful of the fact that throughout the scripture, Almighty God demands fruit from his people. From the very beginning, God created a world to bear fruit. In Genesis 1:11, "Then God said, 'Let the land produce vegetation, seed bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds, and it was so.” I think about the wondrous variety of fruits, papaya and mango, pineapple, succulent, pears, tart, crisp apples.  Fuzzy brown, kiwi fruit, all kinds of fruit. The Lord has made a world of fruits, all of them from seeds, the genetic code of which God created at the beginning. 

So also when God created man, male and female, in his image, this was the command that He gave to them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." Fruitfulness in that verse meant having children, many children, who themselves, each one of them would be in the image of God, that they would be fruitful and multiply, that they would fill the world with human beings so that the earth would be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. The consistent teaching of scripture is that God has lavished on us many advantages and many blessings, everything that we need for life and godliness and fruitfulness. In return, God expects fruit. He expects a return on his investment.

Many scriptures testified to this issue of required fruit. With the coming of the kingdom of God, John the Baptist preached a very fiery message. He said to his generation, "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance." He also said two verses later, "The ax is already at the root of the trees. And every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." Jesus himself said much about fruit. He said, "Make a tree good and its fruit will be good. Or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad. For a tree is recognized by its fruit." And very poignantly, in John 15, He gives an image of a vine with many branches. He said, "I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. While every branch that does bear fruit, He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”  Similarly, this powerful parable in Mark 12 teaches this vital lesson, Almighty God expects fruit from his people. He expects a return on His investment in our lives. 

Let's understand this parable in its context, the immediate context for Jesus. This is the last week of his life on earth. It is the Passover. Thousands of pilgrims, Jewish worshipers were flooding from all over the Greco-Roman world into Jerusalem for the Passover. The triumphal entry has already happened. Jesus has entered Jerusalem to shouts of acclaim and triumph to the praise of the people. But Jesus' enemies are there as well. They're ready to attack Him, to tear Him down. On route, the next morning after the triumphal entry to Jerusalem, He saw a fig tree with lots of leaves on it and He was hungry in the morning, so He went to get fruit from it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then He said to the tree, "May you never bear fruit again."

I think this prophetic cursing of the fig tree with its judgment and its immediate withering was connected to the spiritual fruitlessness of the nation of Israel, because He's just about to go in there and cleanse the temple of all of its wickedness, its wicked corruptions. The cleansing of the temple involve driving out greedy money changers and corrupt religionists who are making money on religion. Jesus then began His ministry there in the temple. He was teaching the people. He was doing miracles. He was healing in the temple. And as a result of all of this very bold and powerful ministry and action, the religious leaders opposed Him to his face. They demanded to know by what authority He was doing all these things, and we addressed that last time. He challenged them saying He would ask them a question. If they answered, then He would answer their question about authority.  “John's baptism, where did it come from? Was it from heaven or from men?”

It's very wise on Jesus's part because the same one who sent John to baptize in water sent His son into the world to do all these things. Jesus' authority came from God, because all true authority comes from God. But because they didn't answer his question, He didn't answer theirs. So that was last week. So that's the immediate context of Jesus.

There is an ancient context to Jesus's parable of the vineyard, and I'd like you to look at it. Turn to Isaiah chapter 5. Keep your finger in Mark 12, but we're going to go over to Isaiah 5. There is a background to the parable of the vineyard. It's a song that the prophet Isaiah sang for God, a song that he sang for God, but it's very similar to the parable that Jesus tells. It's got some similar points of connection.  Isaiah 5:1-6, there, the prophet Isaiah, seven centuries before Jesus, wrote down this song, "I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard. My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up, cleared it of stones and planted it with the choice of vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a wine press as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. Now, you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I look for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? Now I will tell you what I'm going to do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge and it will be destroyed. I will break down its wall and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated and briers and thorns will grow there. I'll command the clouds not to rain on it."

That's Isaiah's song of the vineyard. It's got some points of similarity and some points of difference with Jesus' parable. Jesus employed a lot of similar imagery in his parable. There is a vineyard, there are choice vines. There is, around it, a protective wall. There is a wine press. There is a watchtower. And there is also a very disappointing outcome for the owner of the vineyard. But there are some major differences as well. 

The central major difference in the parable is the rhythm of the sending of messengers, in Jesus' parable, messengers from the owner of the vineyard demanding harvest and how those messengers are treated. There's none of that in Isaiah's song.  Furthermore, in Isaiah's song, the vineyard is destroyed, crushed, ruined, but in Jesus's, the vineyard goes on and is given to other people who will produce its fruit. So there's some significant differences. In Isaiah's song, the vineyard was the city of Jerusalem and its people, and the fruit He desired was righteousness in His people, and the judgment that would come would be the destruction of Jerusalem under the Babylonians.

So that's the backdrop. Go back now to Mark 12 and let's look at Jesus' parable. Mark 12:1-11, "He then began to speak to them in parables. 'A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the wine press and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. At harvest time, he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard, but they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Then he sent another servant to them. They struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others, some of them they beat, others they killed. He had one left to send, a son whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, 'They will respect my son.' But the tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him and the inheritance will be ours.' So they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He'll come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. Haven't you read this scripture? The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone. The Lord has done this and it is marvelous in our eyes."

Mark introduces this passage saying Jesus began to speak to them in parables, plural, but He only gives us one parable. Matthew gives us one more, the parable of the two sons that were commanded by the father to go work in the fields, both of them were bad sons. One of them said, "I will not," but later has changed his mind and went. The other one said, "I will, sir," but he did not go. That's that parable. Other than that, we get the feeling that probably Jesus taught many other parables, some of which are recorded in other places in the Gospels which He taught again in Jerusalem. But this is the only one that Mark gives us.  

Now let's walk through the parable and try to understand it. With parables, you definitely want to try to understand the main point, the central purpose. There are details that are valuable, but there is a main idea, and the main idea of Jesus's parable of the vineyard is fruitlessness produces judgment. Fruitlessness produces judgment from God. The image is that Israel is a vineyard with an absentee landowner or landlord. The central figure is this landowner literally called a man, a householder. He planted the vineyard as an investment. Ordinarily, it would take three years to begin getting that return on the investment.

Now every advantage was given to this vineyard. First of all, there's a wall around it for protection to keep out wild animals and thieves, the wall. There's also a wine press, which was an anticipation of the harvest, an anticipation of the prophet from the vineyard. Generally, it would've been two basins carved out of rock and then lined with white plaster, an upper one and a lower one, and the servants would put the grapes in the upper one and tread them out with their feet. Then the wine, the grape juice, would run down into the lower basin where it would begin the process of fermentation, be gathered for fermentation, the wine press. Then there is the watchtower, which enables guardians to look out over the vineyard and make certain that it's well protected, a constant vigil looking out over the surrounding terrain.

Then in the parable, there are these tenant farmers. Now what is a tenant? What does that mean? Tenants are hired laborers, skilled laborers who are brought into work the vineyard. It's not their vineyard, it belongs to the landowner. Their skill and their labor is essential to the success of the enterprise. These tenant farmers are brought in as stewards or workers under the owner. They don't own the vineyard, it doesn't belong to them, but if they do their work well, they'll share it in the profits. This is the key concept. The vineyard belongs to the landowner. The tenant farmers are just working the vineyard in the hope of sharing its harvest.

Also essential to Jesus' parable is the absentee landowner. The owner goes away on a journey. He's not visibly there moment by moment, controlling the venture, looking out over it, managing it. He's not there. In the Luke version, Jesus says the master goes away for a long time, so the tenants were on their own. They do not see the master day by day. They have to remember them in their minds and be faithful to him in their hearts.

Then there's harvest time, verse 2, “At harvest time, he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard.” The owner could mark the seasons. He knew when it was time to expect a return on the investment, and so he begins to send messengers, servants, to come and get his share of the crop at harvest time. Then comes the shocking rebellion on the part of the tenant farmers. In verse 3, “They seized the servant that was sent. They beat him and they sent him away empty-handed. Then he sent another servant to them and they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others. Some of them they beat, others they killed.”

Now this must've been stunning to his hearers. Jesus crafted this parable to maximize shock. They knew Isaiah's song. None of this happens in Isaiah's song, but a different kind of judgment happens there. The details of Jesus' parable really are repulsive. The violence gets worse and worse with each successive messenger. The first servant is beaten, the second one is crushed in the head and treated shamefully, exposed to shame, humiliated, the next man is murdered outright.

Even more amazing as how patient this landowner is. The crowd listening must have wondered how much more of this the owner was going to put up with. Jesus said the owner actually sent many others, many. Some of them they killed and abused. Others, they beat. Every one of them, however, got treated shamefully and the owner got none of his return on the investment in any case. Then comes the most shocking plot twist of all, verses 6-8, "He had one left to send, a son whom he loved. He sent him last of all saying, 'They will respect my son.' But the tenant said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him and the inheritance will be ours.' So they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard."

This is so amazing, and it would've been stunning to Jesus's hearers. I think some in the crowd must have said, "Wait a minute, don't do that. I mean, isn't it obvious what's going to happen? Don't send your son." Notice that Jesus calls him “a son whom he loved”. At Jesus's baptism in Mark's Gospel it says, "You are my son, whom I love. With you, I am well pleased." That was a message spoken directly from God to Jesus. To the world, in Matthew's account it says, "This is my son whom I love. With him, I am well pleased." And the owner in the parable said to himself, "They will respect my son." Friends, that's exactly what should have happened, they should have respected his son. They should have delighted in his son as God does. They should have listened to his son as speaking the very words of God. They should have obeyed his son. They should have honored his son. They should have worshiped him and followed him. That's what they should have done. Instead, they rejected him, they despised him, they opposed him. And in the end, they killed him.

In the parable, what is the tenant farmer’s motive? The tenant farmers did not want the owner ruling over them, they rejected his authority. They didn't want to give him anything. They wanted full ownership of the vineyard themselves. They wanted all of the proceeds to come back to themselves, and when they see the son, they think, "This is the final moment here of us gaining control over the vineyard." They thought to kill the heir and take his inheritance, meaning the vineyard. "It'll be ours then.”  Notice the detail, "They kill him and throw him outside the vineyard." This is a clear prophecy of Jesus's rejection by the leaders of Israel and His crucifixion outside the city gates, completely rejected by his own people. He died outside the city.

That's the parable, then Jesus summons them to render a verdict just as Isaiah did. In Matthew's account, Jesus asks them for a verdict, Matthew 21:40, "Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?" They give the verdict, verse Matthew 21:41, "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, they replied, and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time." In Mark's Gospel, Jesus renders the verdict himself, “He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” It's similar to what Isaiah says concerning his song, "Now then, you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done for my vineyard than I did for it?" He draws his hearers into rendering a verdict, a judgment on this behavior. 

That's the whole parable. Let's interpret it. Let's try to understand it. You go line by line and you just think, "What does each figure and each aspect represent?" Let's start with the absentee landowner, and that's obviously God. The absentee landowner is God. The parable puts some of God's attributes on display beautifully. It starts with the sovereignty of God, His right to demand a harvest. There is nothing in the universe that doesn't belong to God for He made it, and it belongs to him. He made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them. Every molecule is His. Everything that grows is His. Every animal is His. This parable asserts his right to the vineyard itself and to everything that comes from it.

We also see the goodness of God, God's full provision for Israel. God lavishly provided everything Israel would need for a full rich spiritual harvest. Certainly a physical harvest, but a spiritual harvest as well. God gave them promises through the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God gave them Moses, the deliverer, who led them out of with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with ten judgments on Egypt and the story of God's deliverance, including the Red Sea crossing. God gave them manna, bread from heaven to eat. God gave them water from a rock miraculously flowing. God gave them His word, His perfect word, the laws of Moses, the Ten Commandments written, engraved in stone. And then in all of the other books of Moses, the first five books of the Bible, he gave them a perfect law.

God also gave them the promised land, a land He said, flowing with milk and honey. He powerfully cleared out their enemies under Joshua. The walls of Jericho fell like they were made of sand, and He destroyed people, nations, seven nations stronger and mightier than them. Cleared it out and gave them this beautiful land. He then continued to protect Israel from their enemies again and again. He was a wall around them protecting them, and He gave them everything they needed for a rich physical harvest, yes, but more especially a spiritual harvest, that they would love him with all of their hearts, soul, mind and strength and that they would love their neighbors as themselves. God gave them everything they needed for that.

We also see the absence of God. In Mark 12:1, he went away on a journey. Let's try to understand what this signifies. In many of these parables, the owner, the king, the master is in some sense removed from the scene. He's in some sense, absent. He's the master who entrusts five talents and two talents and one talents to his servants and then goes away on a long journey. He's not there. He is the owner of a house who entrusts the care of his servants to a steward who will look after the household while he's gone. He's the bridegroom who is a long time in coming and all 10 of the virgins fall asleep. Five of them are wise and five foolish, but they're all waiting a long time for the bridegroom to come. He's the noble man that goes away on a distant journey to get himself made king and then comes back at the right time [Luke 19].

Here's the idea. The key concept of all of this is we, the people of God, will be judged by a visible God on Judgment Day based on what we did by faith in an invisible God in our lives. Let me say that again. On Judgment Day, we will be judged at that time by a visible God based on what we did by faith in an invisible God. Here in this parable, the tenant farmers never see the landlord again. They only deal with his messengers, that is until the end in Matthew 21:40, "When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?" He's coming. He will not be invisible forever. He is coming. Judgment Day is coming. The absence of God, however, is from our human perspective only. We perceive him as absent because we don't see him. The Bible actually reveals that God is everywhere present all the time. Psalm 139:7-9, "Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise in the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me. Your right hand will hold me fast." God is always present. However, the Bible also reveals that God is a God who hides himself. Isaiah 45:15. "Truly you are a God who hides himself, oh God and Savior of Israel." This means then that God, the king, the owner of all things, does not stand in front of us physically at every moment, demanding to be loved, honored and obeyed, demanding his share of the crop.

God is invisible. He's invisible, immortal, God-only wise, effectively absent from our five senses as we make decisions about our lives, what we will do with our things. He's not right there while we make those decisions.

Thus, we must have faith. We must be able to see the invisible God by faith, knowing that God sees everything that we do and that He will hold us to account for the decisions we make with his things. It is precisely for this reason that God sends His word to strengthen the faith of His people. Faith comes from hearing the word. And as the word is ministered, your faith gets strengthened. Faith is the eyesight of the soul by which we see invisible spiritual realities, most especially God, the invisible God, by faith in the Word. The ministry of the Word is vital to this. The word minister is God's presence, His future coming, Judgment Day when His kingly authority will be obvious to everyone.

In the parable, we also see remarkably the patience of God. Don't we see his patience, his long-suffering nature? He's an astonishingly patient man in this parable. Again and again, He reaches out to a rebellious people. Sending one messenger after another. Finally, after all of that, He sends His son. This shows the incredible patience of God with the nation of Israel. In Romans 10:21, it says, "Concerning Israel, he says, 'All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people'." What picture comes in your mind as you think about that image? Romans 10:21, "All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and option of people." That's a patient God.

In Ezekiel, the prophet, symbolically but also physically, is tied up with ropes and made to lie on his left side, the left side of his body for the number of days that equaled the number of years of Israel's rebellion against God in idolatry. It was 390 days. Imagine that being your job and eating ration food and ration water laying on your side for 390 days. But the big picture there is not Ezekiel and all of his trials. The big picture is God's patience. He waited for Israel to repent for 390 years. What does that tell you about God? Stunning patience on the part of God.

We also have the vineyard in its harvest. We might think that the vineyard represents the physical promised land flowing with milk and honey. In some sense that's true, but it's only part of what God entrusted to Israel. Actually, Christ says that it represents the kingdom of God. In Matthew 21:43, he says, "Therefore I tell you, that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce his fruit." So the vineyard is the kingdom of God. God is not so concerned with the physical land and its harvest as he is with the hearts of the people as Isaiah the prophet said about his song [Isaiah 5:7], the vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of His delight. He looked for justice but saw bloodshed for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

More than just Israel though, the promised land, the chosen people, God had his eyes on the whole world and all the people in it. Habakkuk 2:14, in my mind, is one of the most important verses in the entire Bible. It sums up God's intentions in creating the world and creating human beings on it. "The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." That's what God wanted. He already filled it with his glory, beautifully filled the physical world with His glory, but it's not filled with the knowledge of His glory. The knowledge of His glory, that's us, that's our job. People created in His image are to see the glory of God in nature and in creation, and to not be idolaters, but to worship and serve the God who made it. That's what God intended.

God wanted Israel to live for the praise of His glory, for the salvation of the distant nations, the Gentile nations, that the rich blessings of God on Israel would be a display of God's rich goodness that He wants to give to all nations. That's the fruit, that's the harvest, that's the righteousness. Justice, mercy, loving kindness. He wanted on display the attributes of God, the glory of God, put on full display in Israel for all the world to see so that the Gentiles would praise the true God and the living God, and the Gentiles would worship and follow Him. That's what God intended.

But these tenants were wicked tenants. Who are they? They're the Jewish people generally. Start there. The Jews were sinners like all mankind. They thought that the blessings of God were merely for their own pleasure, for their own satisfaction. God gave them all these things richly to enjoy for themselves only. They were selfish with them. They had no vision of salvation for the Gentile nations generally, that God's ways might be known on earth as salvation to the ends of the earth. They didn't have a vision for that. They lived self-centered lives and for the most part used the richness of the promised land to become idolaters, worshiping and serving created things rather than the creator. They spent the lavish provision of their harvest on false gods like Baal and Molech and Ashtoreth and other false gods and used all of that stuff that God lavished on them so that they could worship false gods and goddesses.

The wicked tenants could be the Jews generally, but especially the leaders. Jesus zeroes in on the builders, quoting Psalm 118:22, "The stone, the builders rejected has become the capstone. The Lord has done this and is marvelous in our eyes." Such an important verse. I'm going to spend a whole week on it next week, God willing. At the end of the account, it's clear that the chief priests and the elders knew very well that Jesus was speaking about them. Look at verse 12, "They looked for a way to arrest Him because they knew He had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd, so they left Him and went away." The Jewish leaders, the builders, had rejected Jesus decisively. As Isaiah predicted, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised and we esteemed Him not.” Amazingly. In this very desire that the Jewish leaders had to arrest Jesus and have him killed, they were fulfilling the very parable that Jesus had just told.  The leaders bear the most responsibility for the wickedness of the nation in rejecting Christ. The wicked tenants, therefore, are the Jewish people generally, but the Jewish leaders specifically because they did not live righteous lives in front of the lost and dying world. And because they did not treasure the glory of God, they were fruitless.

Who are these messengers that keeps getting sent? The messengers? The messengers were definitely the prophets, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. They were effectively God's covenant attorneys. They pressed the claims of the covenant, the laws of Moses on them and reminded them of their obligations to God, the landowner. That was their purpose. Prophets were sent to speak in God's name to remind us of His claims over our lives. This was an immense privilege the people had of getting messengers who are coming and saying, "You owe God everything. You owe him a harvest. You owe him yourselves." To hear the word of the Lord, to hear the voice of God speaking through the voice of a man, a human prophet, a tremendous privilege these prophets had. But Israel generally did not cherish these messengers as they should have. Instead, they persecuted them, beat them, treated them shamefully and even in some cases killed them.  As Jesus himself said, "Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who killed the prophets and stoned those sent to you, how often I have longed they gather your children together as a hen gathers your chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Behold your house has left you desolate." So He sent these messengers and they treated them shamefully. They were in Hebrews 11, "Men of whom the world was not worthy."

Then finally, the son. There's no doubt who the son is. The son whom the landowner loves is Jesus, the son of God. He's the incarnate son of God himself. So therefore, do you see it? Do you see the courage? Jesus is calmly, clearly predicting his own death in this parable. "You're going to kill me. You're going to throw me out of the vineyard and kill me.” 

We also see God's righteous judgment on Israel. The judgment is named by the sinners themselves. Matthew 21:41, "He'll bring those wretches to a wretched end and He'll rent the vineyard to other tenants who will give him a share of the crop at harvest time." And then Christ in verse 9, "What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others." And in Matthew 21:43, "Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit." That judgment is fulfilled.

This is a significant change in redemptive history. The focus of God in the old covenant, in the Old Testament, was with the Jewish nation, the Jewish people. It's not that God wasn't doing things out with the Gentiles. He was to some degree. But the focus of God's activity on earth was the nation of Israel. With the coming of Christ, the rejection of Christ, the death of Christ, and the resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the focus is different. Now there's, as Ephesians says, one new man out of the two, Jew and Gentile, believer in Jesus and a new work that God is doing that extends to the ends of the earth and includes Gentiles.

The Gospel began in Jerusalem, spread through Judea and Samaria, but then went to the ends of the earth as God always had intended. It wasn't plan B. It was always what God wanted to do. The kingdom therefore was taken away from the unbelieving Jewish nation and given to a people who will produce its fruit, namely the church of Jesus Christ, including both believing Jews and believing Gentiles who will produce its fruit. 

Now we need to take the application to the church. Jesus said that the vineyard would be transferred to a people who will produce its fruit. That must be the church of which we, dear friends, First Baptist church, are part. We're part of that. We're part of the people who have now been entrusted with the vineyard and who must produce its fruit. What is the fruit of this vineyard? What are we talking about? What is the fruit? I would commend, what I've been talking about for years, the “two journeys” is a good way to answer that. The “two journeys” is a good indication of the fruit. There's the internal journey of holiness, a growth in holiness to become conformed more and more to Christ, to be like Christ in your mind and your heart, to think like Christ, to love like Christ, to act like Christ yourself more and more. That's fruit.  The Bible calls it the Fruit of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. You see these things in your self, in your marriage, in your parenting, in your work lives, in everything you do, that's fruit. He wants that fruit. 

Then there's the external journey fruit, which is the spread of the Gospel through evangelism and missions. We're surrounded every day by people who do not know God. They don't live for God, they don't love Him, and it's our responsibility to win them to Christ. It's our responsibility to share the Gospel with them, to bring them out of darkness into light by our bold witness. We are responsible for that. We're responsible for this generation. We're responsible for this region.  Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, for the lost people in this region, not we alone, but other good local churches, same thing. Christians in this area, we're responsible to share the Gospel with lost people, that's fruit. And that's the fruit that God wants to see.

For you as you're listening to this sermon, you need to stop and just ask, "Am I saved? Have I come to faith in Christ?" Because everything you have, your intelligence, your body, your health, your strength, your talents, your gifts, everything that you have in life has been given to you by God. "Every good imperfect gift is from above coming down from the Father,” and He will hold you accountable. He'll ask you in Judgment Day what you did with it. All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, we can't save ourselves. So God sent his son, the very one mentioned in this parable, to die in our place under the wrath of God that we might be forgiven of our sins. That's where the whole thing starts. You can't bear fruit until your sins are forgiven.

But once that's happened, now what? I'm generally speaking to saved people, people who have been justified already. The question is, "All right, how does this parable speak to me?" That is very clear in Matthew 21: 43, "God wants you," all of us, "to produce the fruit of the kingdom." He wants you active in personal holiness and in the spread of the Gospel to lost people.

Here are some applications. Number one, intensify your faith to see the absentee king to know he's not absent at all. He sees everything you do and is very aware of every choice you make.

 Application number two, learn everything you can about Judgment Day in which you will show the absentee landowner the harvest of your life, the harvest of the kingdom. 

Application number three, learn everything you can about how God defines fruit. I've just given you what I think the fruit is. Test it and see if it's true in scripture. Is the fruit of the spirit fruit of the kingdom? I think it is. Is winning loss people the faith in Christ, the fruit of the kingdom? I think it is. But you need to come to that conviction yourself.

Application number four, delight in the vineyard and see the richness of God's provision. He has provided better for you than He provided for the old covenant Jews. We have better promises. We have the New Testament, 27 books of the New Testament. We have the indwelling Holy Spirit. We have the whole story of Christ, His bloodshed on the cross for us, His resurrection. We have better promises. We have a better hope, we have a better life, we have better everything. Delight in that, we are surrounded by a wall. God's protecting us from demonic forces. There's a watchtower. He's watching over your life. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. He's protecting you so that you can be fruitful.

Application number five, marvel at God's patience with you. Look at how many messengers He's sent to you, how many times He has spoken his word to you, how patient He has been with you. Has not God been patient with you? Think about that.

Application number six, make the most of God's patience because God's patience we're told is to lead you to repentance.

Application number seven, if I could just put it this way, don't shoot the messenger. Isn't that what this is about? They shot the messengers. What does that mean, that expression, “shoot the messenger"? I always picture some king and he wasn't at the battle and some battle was fought and it was lost. Messengers were sent to tell the king that the battle was lost and he shoots the messenger because he doesn't like the message. That's a picture I get of shooting the messenger. Do we ever do that? Oh, we do. God sends somebody to convict you of a sin pattern in your life or something like that, and you don't want to hear it. I tell you in the book of Proverbs, the essential difference between the wise and the fool is what you do when you're convicted of sin. The wise person listens and is humble and makes changes. The prideful person shoots the messenger in one form or another. So the key moment in this parable is when God speaks to you and sends you messengers, listen to those messengers and be humble, be thankful, and believe what they have to say.

Application number eight, honor and revere the son of God that He sent, the one that He loves. The hero in the story is the Son who died. This parable isn't the end of the story. We know that his death atones for sin, that his resurrection gives hope of eternal life. This isn't the end, it's just teaches one aspect of it.

Application number nine, understand where we are in redemptive history. We are the people who are supposed to produce the fruit of the kingdom. That's us. It's our time now, dear friends this is our opportunity now to produce the fruit of the kingdom. Let's be faithful. Close with me in prayer.

Father, we thank you for the powerful lessons of this parable. It is a disturbing parable. It is difficult to read. It's difficult to understand the human nature of the wicked tenants and to be humble enough to see tendencies like that in ourselves. But at the same time, we thank you that our sins re forgiven, that we've been transformed. The heart of stone has been removed, and the heart of flesh has been put in. We yearn to be pleasing to you. We delight in our inner nature. We delight in God's laws. We want to produce the fruit of the kingdom. So Lord, make us fruitful. Help us to be faithful. We thank you for Jesus ,the hero of every story. We thank you for His courage, His willingness to die and His giving of His spirit so that we might be eternally and infinitely fruitful. In Jesus name, amen.

In 1 Corinthians 16, Paul provides instructions on offering for the saints, among other pieces of advice, and sends greetings to the Corinthian church.

The post 1 Corinthians Episode 24: The Collection for God’s People and Final Words appeared first on Two Journeys.

On September 6, Andy Davis and Wes Treadway invite you to follow the new podcast series in the book of 1 Timothy.

The post 1 Timothy Podcast Overview appeared first on Two Journeys.

No man in history submitted so perfectly to authority as Jesus Christ. And no man in history had as much authority given by God the Father as Jesus Christ.

Turn in your Bibles to Mark 11:27-33 as we continue our journey through the incredible Gospel of Mark. In this text today, in today's passage, the religious leaders, the enemies of Jesus, surrounded Him with a challenging question on His authority. In Isaiah 6, the prophet Isaiah had a vision of the pre-incarnate Christ seated on a lofty and glorious throne. Angels known as seraphim, literally in the Hebrew “burning ones,” were constantly surrounding Him and ministering to Him. They had six wings. With two wings, they covered their faces. With two, they covered their feet, and with two they were flying and calling out to one another, "Holy, holy, holy, the Lord almighty.”  The Gospel of John tells us that Isaiah saw Jesus's glory and wrote about Him. The glory of the pre-incarnate Christ enthroned.

 In Ezekiel 1, the prophet Ezekiel had also a vision of the pre-incarnate Christ, seated on a high and lofty throne, a throne of fire.  High above an expanse, below that expanse, were mysterious beings called cherubim, barely able to be described with human language, with fire moving back and forth amongst them. With wheels interlocking with wheels and eyes all around the rims of wheels, high and awesome, and when the pre-incarnate Christ seated on His throne spoke, they lowered their wings and stood quietly and listened to His voice. 

In Revelation, the apostle John had a vision. He was invited to come up off the island of Patmos and in the spirit he was transported through a doorway into the heavenly realms, and he immediately saw a throne with someone seated on it. That throne is the center of the universe.

Everything in the universe visible and invisible revolves around that throne, whether it knows it or not. That throne is a throne of the sovereign God. The vision and revelation concerning Jesus and that throne is a little more complex. The one seated on the throne, the Ancient of Days, is Almighty God. God, the Father. Jesus in that vision is portrayed as the lion of the tribe of Judah, awesome and powerful, but also a lamb looking as if it had been slain. There is a scroll in the right hand of the one seated on the throne, almighty God. A call went out into the universe, “Who is worthy to take the scroll and open its seals?” Only Jesus in the universe was worthy and had the right to take that scroll.

He's pictured mysteriously as standing in the center of the throne, surrounding that throne are other thrones. Twenty-four elders are seated on their thrones, subordinate power; subordinate authority in a concentric circle around the throne of God. But none of them have the right to take the scroll, only Jesus. None of them has the right to stand in the center of that throne, only Jesus. There are beings that we can scarcely understand seraphim, and burning ones, cherubim, hard to describe. Archangels we’re told means “ruler angels." It's what the Greek prefix ‘“arch'" means, they’re ruler angels. Hence, there is this language of thrones and principalities and powers in the spiritual realm, authorities. 

Man was created in the image of God and placed on the earth to rule over it, to subdue it, and rule over it.  God reigns over all of these lesser authorities with absolute total authority on a throne of glory. Psalm 103:19, "The Lord has established His throne in heaven and His kingdom rules over all." So at the center of the universe is the throne of Almighty God, the glorious throne of God. The seraphim can't even look at it, so great is its glory. Therefore, at the center of our sin is rebellion against that authority, rebellion against the authority of almighty God. Therefore also at the center of our salvation must be submission, glad submission to that authority. 

Jesus’ enemies gather around Him to ask Him about His authority. What a moment that was.  Imagine if the seraphim could have been summoned that moment, and they were asked, "What could you tell us of the authority of this one?" What would they say? "We can't even look at His glory. We'll do anything He tells us to do." If Ezekiel's cherubim were summoned and asked the same question, “Tell us about the authority of the one seated on that throne of fire,” what would they say? “When He speaks, we lower our wings, we lower our heads, we listen, we do whatever He tells us to do.” But these human beings, with utter disrespect, challenge Jesus and ask Him by what authority He is doing in these things.  It's only possible because in the wisdom of God, God sent His son in the likeness of a servant and the likeness of a man. “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.” [Isaiah 53] So they saw Him as just a man. “How dare you do these things.”

This sermon's bigger than just a quick conversation between Jesus and His enemies. It really goes to the core of everything that God sent His son into the world to do. These chief priests, teachers of the law and elders of the people put their finger on the question of Jesus's authority. They're challenging Him. They were the religious leaders of the Jewish nation. Their authority was established in the human realm by the laws of Moses. Jesus said that in Matthew 23, "They sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. “  It was also upheld by Roman law in its wisdom. The Roman Empire did not seek to interfere with local religions and local government. They wanted them to rule. They just wanted tax money and peace, commerce. So by law, it was established there. The chief priest, teachers of the law, and the elders had authority. 

Yet despite their authority, they were indeed blind leaders. Jesus calls them blind guides in Matthew 15:14, “If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” Their central blindness was vertical. They didn't see their sin before Almighty God. They thought they were righteous in His sight. They sought to establish their own righteousness by their own good works.  They were utterly convinced of this, and anyone that sought to point out their sin, they hated with a deep passion. Jesus says in John 7:7, "The reason the world hates me is that I testify that what it does is evil." These religious leaders were steeped in pride, spiritual pride, but they also had pride of their position and their power and all of the prestige that flowed in because of that position of power. Anyone who challenged that, including their money, their flow of revenue, anyone that challenged that was their enemy. But Jesus openly challenged it, their authority, and He openly challenged their righteousness, so they were Jesus's most violent foes. Their hatred of Him went marrow deep.  They're constantly opposing Him, debating Him, laying traps for Him, scheming against Him, plotting to take His life.

Here they try this frontal assault method. Look at verse 27:28, "They arrived again in Jerusalem. And while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priest, the teacher's law, and the elders came to Him. 'By what authority are you doing these things?' They asked, and who gave you authority to do this?" What do they mean by these things? What are they upset about? Jesus' recent actions were offensive to them, shocking even. Think back to the triumphal entry, Jesus is acclaimed as the Son of David. They're all cheering for Him. “Hosanna” calling out, “save.” Jesus accepted this worship, even defended it. On the second day, He cleansed the temple. Look at verses 15-17, "Jesus began driving out those who are buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts."

And as He taught them, He said, "Is it not written? My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. But you have made it a den of robbers." Look specifically at that statement in verse 16. He would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. I mean, these are caravans that are just making the temple a thoroughfare. It was just easier to get from point A to point B right across the holy ground. Jesus said, "Absolutely not. Not today. You're not doing that." He stopped them. Who is He to do that? To forbid them from coming across. Those buying and selling in the temple worked directly for Annas, the high priest, the real high priest, and for Caiaphas, his son-in-law who is the puppet high priest. He worked directly for that wicked family.

So Jesus' authority to do that was specifically in their minds because they had charge of the temple area in that whole system. So here the chief priest and the elders assume that they were operating from position of strength. By this they could, they thought, humiliate Jesus. They were the religious authorities in Jerusalem. They ruled the temple and everything to do with it. They had absolutely not given Jesus the right to overturn those tables. They'd absolutely not given Him the right to stop the commerce going across. They had absolutely not given Him permission to walk around teaching the people there in the temple area. They knew that. Even the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate upheld their authority on pain of law.  If any Roman soldier went in the temple area, the Romans themselves would see to it that they would be executed. They upheld the authority of these Jewish leaders. These men truly were in charge of the temple and they're demanding from Jesus, "Show us your credentials. What right do you have to do this?” The Jewish leaders thought they had trapped Jesus. They figured they had Him either way, either He had to acknowledge that He had no authority to do what He had been doing, in which case He would be humiliated before them or He would claim to be operating directly under God's authority, in which case they would've grounds to execute Him for blasphemy. Either way, they had Him, so they thought. Tragically, really tragically, they never stopped to consider, is it true?  Could Jesus really be who He claimed to be, the son of God, the Messiah, the Savior of the world?  These are not truly religious men, they’re not truly religious seekers. They don't want the truth. They were hardened hypocrites. They were whitewashed tombs seeking to protect their own power and authority and self-righteousness. That's who they were. 

Let's try to understand this issue of authority. What is it? A definition could be this: authority is the God-given right to command, thought and or behavior in a certain area or realm. Authority is the God-given right to command. Keep it simple.  The God-given right to command, command behavior in a certain prescribed realm. That's what authority is. The Bible teaches us that all genuine authority comes from God, from that throne that I began the sermon, all authority flows from that throne, genuine authority. Romans 13:1 "Everyone must submit Himself to the governing authorities for there is no authority except that which God has established." The authorities that exist have been established by God. That's the truth. The biblical truth about authority. It's a God-given right to command in a certain realm. It comes from God. That's what “God-given" means, and everyone must submit Himself to those governing authorities. 

I'm going to make two assertions that are going to kind of dominate the next part of the sermon. Two assertions about Jesus. Number one, no man in history so perfectly submitted to authority as Jesus Christ. No man in history so perfectly submitted to authority as Jesus Christ. Number two, no man in history has as much authority as Jesus Christ. No man is as perfectly submissive to authority and no man wields so much authority.

Let's look at the first. No man in history so perfectly submitted to authority as Jesus Christ. Why do I say this? Let's keep it simple. Because Jesus never sinned, because Jesus never sinned. All sin is an abrogation of God's authority, a rejection of God's authority. Jesus was born, we're told under the law, and He lived His whole life until the moment of His death under the law of Moses. He perfectly fulfilled it. He never violated one of its precepts, not one of its major or minor precepts, not once. He was perfectly submissive to His parents, imperfect as they were. They were good people, but they were still sinners, yet He submitted to His parents.  The Bible tells us that openly, He was submissive to them.  He was the only perfectly obedient child in history. Some of you may have a claim, but I'm not going to believe it. The only perfectly obedient child that's ever grown up in any family is Jesus. I've often wondered about His younger brothers and what a burden that was hearing from Mary. "Why can't you be like your brother Jesus? He never gives us any trouble." Jesus was even perfectly submissive to the wicked authorities that killed Him. “He was led like a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before its shearers was silent, He did not open His mouth.”

He was submissive to them, but supremely, He was submissive vertically to His father. In every respect, He submitted to His father, every moment. Jesus's fundamental submissiveness to God was predicted in many places in scripture, but especially Psalm 40:7-8.  There, the Psalm prophetically says of Jesus, "Here I am, I have come. It is written about me in the scroll. I desire to do your will, O my God, your law is written within my heart." Think about that. That's Jesus. The author of Hebrews says that's Jesus saying that to His father.  “Your law is written in my heart. I'm here, Father, to do your will.” Philippians 2 says, "Jesus made Himself nothing. Taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross." Perfectly submissive to His father. John's Gospel testifies about this over and over and over and over again. So many verses I could have chosen, but here's a few. John 6:38, Jesus said, "For I've come down from heaven not to do my own will, but to do the will of Him who sent me." John 5:30, "I seek not to please myself but Him who sent me." John 8:28, "I do nothing on my own, but I speak just what the Father has taught me to say." I don't even say a word except what the father's told me to say.  Then in the very next verse, John 8:29, "I always do what pleases Him." It’s an incredible statement. Ultimately, this comes fulfilled in Gethsemane, when God the Father reveals, supernaturally, reveals the cup that He's going to have to drink to save our souls, the cup of His wrath, the infinite wrath of God. Jesus is literally knocked to the ground and He's asked a question by the Father, "Will you drink it?" He said, "Abba, father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me, yet not my will but yours be done even if it costs me my life." Hence my assertion that no one in history has been as submissive to authority as Jesus Christ.

But the real issue here that His enemies are bringing is Jesus' wielding of authority. Did He have the right to cleanse the temple? Did He have the right to walk through the temple and teach the people? Did He have the right to do all of the amazing things He was doing? By what authority was He acting like this? And who gave Him that authority? Now here I make this assertion, no man in history had or has as much authority as Jesus Christ. His authority was displayed in many ways.

 First, in His teachings. Jesus taught like no man anyone had ever heard. No one spoke like this man. The Jewish teachers frequently cited other rabbis or other authorities based on their assertions. This rabbi said this, commenting on this thing that was said by this other rabbi, Jesus didn't do any of that ever.  Seventy-five times in the Gospels, He said, "Truly, truly, I say to you." You see it very plainly in the Sermon of the Mount. "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, do not murder and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that anyone who is angry with His brother will be subject to judgment." Again, “You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in His heart." “You have heard, but I say to you.” Doesn't that beg the question? Who are you? At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, it was said, "When the people heard Him, they were astonished because He taught them as one who had authority and not as their teachers of the law." 

Jesus authority was also displayed in His miracles like authority over demons.  Again and again in Mark's Gospel, have we not seen how the demons instantly obeyed Him? They were clearly terrified of Him. No doubt about it. Even Legion was terrified of Jesus. Jesus had authority over every disease and sickness, He rebuked a fever and it fled like it was some living thing. When Jesus came around, sickness ran away from Him. There was no disease or sickness He couldn't heal, absolute authority over it. He had authority over fish. He made fish swim into nets. “All right, all you fish take a strong left-hand turn,” and they all go into the nets, or one single fish with a coin in mouth found its way to Peter's hook. He had authority over matter, material. He created loaves and fishes out of nothing. He created Malchus' ear out of nothing.  He had authority over weather, over the wind and the waves. He stretched out His hands over the storm and said, "Peace be still,” and it instantly obeyed Him. The weather obeyed His voice. He had authority over death. He spoke to Lazarus and said, “Lazarus, come forth,” and He came out. He had authority, claimed authority that only God has. He dispensed with the traditions of the elders, the hand washing and all of that, as manmade rules, he dispensed with them. He declared all foods clean, ending the old covenant dietary laws.He had the right to declare all foods clean.

He claimed absolute authority over the Sabbath. Imagine this statement, the Son of Man, “I am Lord even of the Sabbath.” I'm in charge of the Sabbath. It’s an amazing statement made to the Jews. Only God could have said that. He sent out His apostles with authority. He delegated authority of them. They could drive out demons and heal people and preach the gospel. But especially, and this is where the rubber meets the road with us, He has the authority to forgive sins. How good is that news, dear friends? If Jesus tells you that your sins are forgiven, they are. In Mark 2,  He healed a man to prove that the Son of Man had authority on earth to forgive sins. He ultimately has the authority to judge the world. He will be the judge of all the earth. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the nations, all the peoples of the earth into two categories, believers and unbelievers, sheep and goats. He has that power. He has that authority.

He has the authority over His own life, death and resurrection. He said in John 10:18, "No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the authority to lay it down and I have the authority to take it back up again. This command I receive from my father.” “I can die whenever I choose and I can come alive again whenever I choose. God gave me that right." He is the authority to give eternal life to whoever He chooses to give it. John 17:2, "He prayed to His father. You granted Him authority over all people that He might give eternal life to all those you have given Him." “Him” being Jesus in that sentence. He has the right to give you and me eternal life. 

On trial, before Pontius Pilate, just like Jesus's enemies, Pilate did not know who He was dealing with.  Pontius Pilate was frustrated that Jesus wouldn't answer him at one point. "Do you refuse to answer me? Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?" And Jesus answered, "You would have no power over me if it were not given you from above." After His resurrection, He made this supreme claim, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." Think about that claim. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. The Bible makes it plain in Psalm 1:10, "God, the Father said to the son after His resurrection, sit at my right hand until I make all your enemies a footstool for your feet." Right hand of what? Of the throne of power, throne of God. In Ephesians 1:20-22, "God raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way." That's amazing. Ephesians 1 says, Jesus is not just above authority but far above, infinitely, above all authority. The gap between Jesus and whatever's in second place behind Him in authority is infinite, far above all rule and authority, all authority in heaven and earth. That's the true answer to their question: “Who gave you this authority? His answer is, "Almighty God gave me my authority." So I say, no man in history has as much authority as Jesus Christ.

Let's look at the conversation here between Jesus and His enemies, now that we've set it up. Jesus knew that they could never accept this truth about His authority. He doesn't try in this conversation to say all these things. They're all true. But He doesn't try to do that. They would consider His claims to be blasphemous. When He said to the paralyzed man, "Your sins are forgiven,” they thought He was blaspheming saying, "Who can forgive sins but God alone?" When He defended His healing on the Sabbath by saying, "My father is always working and I too am working,” they picked up stones to stone Him. They're not going to listen to Him, He knows that. So instead He asked them a question.  Look at verse 29-30. Jesus' counter question, “Jesus replied, ‘I'll also ask you one question. Answer me and I'll tell you about what authority I'm doing these things. John's baptism, was it from heaven or from men? Answer me.’" Jesus seizes control here. Do you see that? He's taking charge of this conversation. He's never reacting to them. They have to now react to Him. Notice that they thought to trap Him, yet actually the shoe’s on the other foot. He ends up trapping them in their own cowardice. Jesus sets them a condition. If they meet it, He'll answer their question. If they don't, He won't.

Jesus's question is not a diversion or attack. It actually goes to the heart of the issue. Are they able to recognize God ordained spiritual authority or not? Wouldn't you say consistently the problem of Israel is that they hated the messengers God sent to them and sought to kill them? It happens over and over. That's a fundamental blindness the Jewish nation had. So Jesus goes into this, the origin of John's baptism.

Let's talk about that. John's baptism is a symbol of His entire ministry.  In John the Baptist’s ministry, baptism was at the center of it. Now, baptism, John's baptism, was a new thing in the history of Israel. There's no command or example or anything of it in the 39 books of the Old Testament. It's not an Old Testament ordinance or anything. It's a new thing.  Scholars tell us that in the intertestamental period when the Jews had been scattered throughout the Gentile world because of the Diaspora, because of the Assyrian invasion and the Babylonian invasion and the Jews were everywhere, many Gentiles wanted to become Jews. They learned about monotheism. They wanted to follow the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They wanted to become Jews. The men had to be circumcised, but both men and women converts to Judaism, had to have a bath, to cleanse them of their nasty Gentile paganism. So it wasn't commanded, but that's just what they did. Now, along comes John. Who is he baptizing? Jews. “So you're saying we're as dirty and filthy as Gentiles.”  “Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying.” He came and preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  “And do not think you can say, we have Abraham as our father. I tell you, out of these stones, God can raise up children for Abraham.” Don't bank on that.

So the question is, where did all that come from? The baptism, John's baptism. Who gave John the authority to do this ministry? Who sent him to baptize? John the Baptist was an enigmatic, divisive, shocking figure. He appeared in the foreboding spirit of Elijah, dwelling out in the desert, wearing camel's hair and a leather belt around His waist just like Elijah did. He ate locusts and wild honey, like Elijah. He was utterly devoid of love for worldly comforts and luxuries. He had no interest in them. Like Elijah, John was utterly fearless, a preacher of the truth, no matter what. Like Elijah, John's words were fiery. They called on his hearers to repent. Like Jesus, John the Baptist singled out these specific men and opposed them publicly.

When John saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, He said, "You brooded of vipers who warned you to flee from the coming wrath, produce fruit in keeping with repentance." So they are questioned by Jesus. "Where did John's baptism come from? Who gave Him the authority to do it?" The Pharisees and Sadducees pull off into an unholy huddle. They pull off and they're just talking among themselves. Look at verse 31:32, "They discuss it among themselves and said, if we say from heaven, He will ask them, why didn't you believe him? But if we say from men, they feared the people, for everyone held that John really was a prophet." Rather than trapping Jesus, it was Jesus who trapped them. They hated John as much as they hated Jesus for the same reasons.  But the crowds loved John, especially now that Herod had martyred him. There was no doubt in the crowd's mind that John was a prophet sent from God. That's done. Everybody knew that. These wicked men were afraid of the crowd's reaction. 

So what is the truth about John the Baptist? God sent Him. In the Gospel of John 1:6-7, it addresses John the Baptist. It says, "There came a man sent from God whose name was John." Well, that settles it. Don't you think that settles it? I think it does. He was sent from God. God sent him. Later that same chapter, John 1:32 and following, John gave this testimony when he saw Jesus and he identified Him and said, "Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." John gave this testimony. "I saw the spirit descend from heaven as a dove and remain on Him. I would not have known him except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, the man on whom you see the spirit descending or remaining is the one. He is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. I have seen and I testify that this man is the son of God." But within that answer, listen to what he said, “The one who sent me to baptize with water.” Who's that? God. God sent him to baptize in water. The fact is this is a regular pattern. It's a tragic pattern in Israel's history of hating the messengers God sends and not recognizing their authority. It happened over and over. A very good example of this is Amos the prophet to the wicked northern kingdom of Israel. Amos was from the southern kingdom and he was sent by God up to the wicked idolatrous northern kingdom of Israel to prophesy.  A priest named Amaziah confronted him and said to Amos, "Get out, you seer. Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. Don't prophesy any more here at Bethel because this is the king's sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom." That's an authority issue. "I'm warning you keep doing this, we will kill you." Then Amos answered the priest Amaziah, "I was neither a prophet or a prophet son. I was a shepherd and I also took care of sycamore fig trees." I love that line,  “I was particularly good at sycamore fig trees.” But anyway, "The Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, go prophesy to my people Israel. That's why I'm here." 

So enemies of Jesus, do you believe in that whole thing? Do you believe that God can raise up someone and anoint him with the Holy Spirit and send him to the people? Do you believe in that?  No, they didn't. They didn't. Let me just tell you right now, we're all sinners. We've all violated God's laws. We will be saved only if we believe the prophets. It's the only way we're going to be saved. This is the Word of God sent through people, and you'll be saved if you believe it. Well, they didn't. They told us this. Jesus told us what they thought about John, “John came neither eating nor drinking and they said He has a demon.” They thought He was demon possessed. They thought Jesus was demon possessed and therefore none of these religious leaders of Israel had submitted to John's baptism. Luke 7:30, "The Pharisees and experts of the law rejected God's purpose for themselves because they had not been baptized by John." They did not receive the baptism.

They did not believe he was a true prophet sent from God. They did not believe his message that the kingdom of God was near and they certainly didn't believe the one who came after him, the thongs of whose sandals John was not worthy to untie, the one who had baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire. They didn't believe Him either. To believe in John was to believe in Jesus. They were linked together.  It was John that testified that "Jesus is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the worlds. And I have seen and I testify, that He is the son of God." 

They had unbelief, but they also had cowardice.  Why didn't they just say we think He was a false prophet? We think John was a quack, he was demon possessed and a bad man. Why didn't they say that?  The text tells us they were afraid that they were going to get killed. They were afraid of the people. They didn't have the courage of their convictions. In Luke 20:6 it says, "But if we say from men, all the people will stone us because they're persuaded that John was a prophet." So they lied and said, "We don't know." And just understand who they are. They are the spiritual leaders of the nation of Israel. Along comes a massive figure like John the Baptist, and they're not sure about him. It's like, well then, what is your function here? You don't have any role at all. You don't know one way or the other.

Jesus judges them with a profound judgment. Silence. The silence of the Word of God. Do you understand what a privilege it is to hear God's Word? It is a privilege. It is a privilege to have God speak to you by His Word. Jesus says, "All right then I'm not going to tell you by what authority I'm doing these things." Amos, that same prophet, said that he would judge Israel by sending a famine because they did not hear the word of the Lord. There is a window of opportunity for all of us sinners, and it all has to do with what you do with the prophetic word, apostolic word. Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call on Him while He's near. You have an opportunity now to believe the preached word. 

What are the lessons from this? First of all, recognize the heavenly origin of Jesus' authority.  Jesus' authority was established by His miracles, by His teachings, by His fulfillment of prophecy. It was all there. His credentials were absolutely in place. And what authority? Well, first and foremost relevant to you and me is the authority to tell us that our sins are forgiven through faith in His name. How beautiful is that? To have the judge who's going to sit on your case tell you ahead of time before your trial, on judgment day, "You will be acquitted, you will be forgiven, you'll be welcomed into heaven." How beautiful is that? On what basis? All you need to do is do what He said, what John the Baptist said, repent and believe the good news of the kingdom of God. Repent and believe that Jesus Christ shed His blood for your sins and you'll be forgiven. In order to do that though, you have to be willing to submit to Jesus' yoke.

We sang about that in the  “Come to Me” song. What a beautiful song that is. In  some of the most beautiful words Jesus ever spoke [Matthew 11:28 -30], "Come to me all you who are weary and burden and I will give you rest." What does He say next? "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I'm gentle and humble and heart, and you'll find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy, my burden is light." The yoke, dear friends, is His kingly authority. It is His right to command you as your king. That's what the kingdom of heaven is. You're entering into glad submission to God as your king. You're done with your rebellion. His yoke is His right to tell you what to do. You're like, well, wait a minute, about what?  Everything. He has the right to tell you how to spend your money. He has the right to tell you how to spend your time. He has the right to tell you what to do with your relationships. He has the right to tell you to listen to His apostles, like Paul and Peter and others. He has the right to tell you to do things. As a matter of fact, your love will be measured by your obedience, “If you love me, you'll obey me.” What that means is, “Submit to my authority, you'll do what I tell you to do.” The beautiful thing of the gospel is He enables you, empowers you to do it by His Holy Spirit. He doesn't leave you like an orphan. If you submit to Him as your savior and recognize that means yielding to Him as your Lord, He will, by His spirit, enable you comprehensively to obey Him.

Guess what? You're going to spend eternity with redeemed brothers and sisters in heaven, perfectly submissive to God, the King. You're going to enjoy every moment of it. So come to Christ, trust in Him. Make certain your sins are forgiven through faith in His name. And then, dear brothers and sisters, obey Him. 

Close with me in prayer. Father, thank you for this sermon today, this chance that we've had to look at the authority of Jesus, which is infinitely greater than we can possibly imagine. Help us, O Lord, willingly, gladly to submit to His authority. Help us willingly, gladly to bring every area of rebellion in our lives under the authority of His word. Help us to realize it's not thereby that we'll be forgiven of our earlier sins, but by faith in His blood. But just because you are setting us free from sin, we're finding that your yoke is easy and your burden is light. Help us so Lord, in Jesus name. Amen.

No man submitted perfectly to authority except Jesus Christ and no man in history had as much authority given by God the Father as Jesus.

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In 1 Corinthians 15:35-58, Paul teaches on the glory of the resurrection body in heaven after Christ triumphantly gives death the final blow.

The post 1 Corinthians Episode 23: The Nature, Glory, Encouragement of Our Future Resurrection appeared first on Two Journeys.

It is important to ask for great things from God, seeking by faith to perceive what God wills to do and by prayers to be involved in his work.

Turn in your Bibles to Mark 11. We resume a series now in the Gospel of Mark, and the focus, as you heard in my prayer today, is Mountain-Moving Prayer. On Wednesday, May 30th, 1792, at Friar Lane Baptist Chapel in Nottingham, England, a simple cobbler named William Carey preached one of the greatest sermons in church history. It was later called the Deathless Sermon. It was a call for Christians to make every effort to take the gospel to unreached peoples to the ends of the earth and to the end of time. Up to that point in history, missionaries had usually been Roman Catholic, often Jesuits who are taking Roman power to distant lands, but not the pure gospel. Christians who had rediscovered the gospel through the reformation led by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and others had, up to that point, not really gotten that involved in foreign missions. William Carey would be a pivotal leader in the history of Protestant missions and would himself be part of the solution when he boarded a ship and went to Kolkata, India.

William Carey's deathless sermon was broken into two main headings. Number one, expect great things from God, and number two, attempt great things for God.  Since that time, at the close of the 18th century, the true gospel has spread to every political nation on earth and the number of genuine Christians all over the world has exploded beyond all boundaries. We don't know how can we know how many are truly born again, but the number may be 500 million, 700 million, a billion, 1.5 billion. We don't know, but it's astonishing. Compared to that, the moving of a physical mountain into the depths of the sea is as nothing. I'm going to take liberties with our brother, William Carey. I don't think he'll mind me adding a third heading to the sermon. I'm not trying to improve on a deathless sermon. How could I?

Certainly, we should expect great things from God, but before we can attempt great things for God, I think, based on the text I'm going to preach today, we should ask great things of God. That links the two. Expecting great things, asking great things, attempting great things. I don't think William Carey would mine. Mountain-moving prayer links our expectations, great expectations with great actions. Look at the text, “'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 has said will happen, 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.’” The passage is stunning. Jesus uses lavish language to charge his people to ask God to do mighty things and answer to prayer. So let's set the context.

We're moving from a withered fig tree to a fruitful church. It is the last week of Jesus's life. Lots of dramatic moments are happening, beginning with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. “Hosanna! Hallelujah to the son of David. Blessed it is the coming kingdom of our father, David,” all of that. He goes to the temple, scouts it out. But because it's so late, He goes out of the city to Bethany. The next morning, He goes back in to cleanse the temple, to purify the temple of all that wickedness. En route, He sees this fig tree. Look at verses 12 -14. "The next day, as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry, seeing in the distance of fig tree and leaf. He went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again,’ and his disciples heard him say it.”

Now, Jesus' hunger was both physical and prophetical.  Jesus represented his father, and this fig tree symbolized Israel. God wanted fruit from Israel from centuries of him pouring out blessings on that nation. But the tree had only leaves, just as Israel had only an appearance of spiritual vitality, but without any genuine fruit in the sight of God. It represented essentially a spiritually dead Israel. So Jesus cursed the tree in a massively significant prophetical action. Prophets did this kind of thing, these kind of symbolic actions. The cursed fig tree died instantly, but not apparently so, not in appearance. Moments after Jesus cursed it, it looked the same. Just like the nation of Israel had leaves and would continue seemingly apparently alive for decades before God finally brought the hammer blow down through the Romans in A.D. 70, destroying the temple.  So, immediately after the cursing, it looks fine, but the next morning radically different. The moment Jesus cursed it, it died. But the next morning, it became apparent that that's what had happened. The following morning, Peter noticed and remembered, look at verse 20-21, "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 is withered.’" There's nothing miraculous about a fig tree withering, but there is something miraculous about that happening after powerful words spoken by the son of God, and hours later it looks like it's been dead for years. Now that's a miracle, and the disciples wanted to understand it. In Matthew's Gospel, they asked the question, how did the fig tree wither so quickly? That's the issue. So Jesus at that moment pivots to teach about faith-filled prayer. 

On the surface, this may seem a bit strange. How did the fig tree wither so quickly? Have faith in God and ask great things in prayer. What's the connection? How do we understand why that lesson at that moment? I think the connection, the link, is fruit. The reason that the fig tree was cursed was fruitlessness. The reason that God would judge Israel was the same fruitlessness. He's about to tell a parable of a vineyard that He's going to give this same lesson on the issue of fruit. In that parable, Jesus speaks of a vineyard planted by an owner. The owner works the soil thoroughly, plants the vines, puts a wall around it, digs out a wine press, and builds a watchtower. Then he rents out the vineyard to some tenant farmers and leaves. But when he sends messengers to collect his share of the fruit, they beat one, kill another, stone a third. Last of all, he sends a son, and they kill him too.  In Matthew's telling of that parable, Jesus sums it all up. Matthew 21:43, "Therefore, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you." He says to his enemies, "And given to a people who will produce its fruit." Friends, that's us. That's our job. It's given to the church, both Jews and Gentiles, believers in Christ. It's given to us to produce the fruit of the kingdom, and that fruit will only come about by the power of Almighty God, and that expressed in prayer as we pray.

I want you to take a minute, put your finger here in Mark, and go over to John 15, and we're going to look at verses 5-8. This is a phenomenal cross-reference. Usually, cross-references are okay, give them a B+ for connection. But this is a top to bottom cross-reference connection here.  The lesson of the withered fig tree and the issue of fruitfulness is overtly and clearly taught in John 15:5-8. Look what it says. Jesus said, "I am the vine. You are the branches. If anyone remains in me, and I in him, he'll bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he's like a branch that is thrown away and what withers. Such branches are picked up and thrown into the fire, and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, then ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you. This is to my Father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples." Surely you must see the points of connection here. It's an agricultural image, that's true, not a fig tree in this case, but a vine with branches. But this goal is the same. It's fruit.  A fruitless branch is severed from the vine, thrown to the ground. It withers, and it's thrown to the fire and burned, judgment. Branches that remain in Jesus, people like you and me that stay close to Jesus are intimately connected with him through repentance and faith and are alive in him and stay connected with him. We abide in him. We can pray. If we have God's word saturating our minds, we will know what to pray for. We're not guessing here. God will tell us in his word, what we should pray for, and as we are saturating God's Word, if we remain in him and his words dwell, or abide, or remain in us, then we will ask according to his will, we'll ask whatever we wish, and it will be done for us.  In this way, we'll bear the fruit of the kingdom that He talked about. 

Go back to Mark now, and you see those same lessons. This is a new lesson for his apostles, they were not prayer warriors up to this point. They were not men of prayer. He says in John 16:24, "Until now, you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you'll receive, and your joy will be complete." You've not learned this lesson to pray.  They're about to be commissioned to go into all the world and be fishers of men, and build the kingdom of God to the ends of the earth. They've got to be men of prayer. So He says in John 14:12-14, "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father, and I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the son may bring glory to the Father." You may ask me for anything in my name, and I'll do it. It's prayer. It's prayer. Again and again, it's prayer. 

There are lots of mountains to be moved from Jerusalem through Judea, and Samaria to the ends of the earth. Lots of mountains had to be moved. People's hearts would have to be changed. The heart of stone removed, the heart of flesh given. People would have to cross over from death to life, and there'd be practical aspects of the spread of the gospel, obstacles that would have to be overcome or moved out of the way. Lots of mountains would have to be moved, and only the Holy Spirit could move them, and He would do it in answer to faith-filled prayer, Mountain-Moving Prayer. That's why Jesus went from the dead fig tree to a lesson on prayer. 

So let's walk through it now. Let's look at the words. Let's just go step by step through what He says. I'll read them again, beginning at verse 22.  "Have faith in God. 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 has said will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

Just walk through it, it begins with the statement, “have faith in God.” Jesus points his disciples to Almighty God as the focus of their lives and especially the focus of their prayer. Focus on God. Faith is the eyesight of the soul, by which you see the invisible God on his throne. Focus on that. Have faith in him. Everything comes from God. For him and through him and to him are all things in his hand is every blessing you want. He opens his hand and satisfies the desires of every living thing. Have faith in the God who can give you what you want, what you need. Have faith in God. Then He says, "Truly, I say to you." Jesus says this from time to time. Everything Jesus said was true, but when he says, “truly, I say to you” or something like that, He's saying, pay attention. Take notice.  This is a very important thing I'm about to say to you. Unusually significant, a solemn assertion. Then Jesus says, "If anyone says..." The doctrine He's about to give about prayer is universal; it's for all his followers, not just for the apostles, or for the super spiritual ones, or for the real super leaders, the great William Carey. It's for anyone and everyone. “If anyone says,” basically, in these words, He's going to give three universals. “If anyone says”... so it's any person and then, anything. Whatever you ask in prayer, you'll receive it. Amazing. And then, any unforgiven sin. If you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, these are universals. Sweeping statements “If anyone says.. .”  Jesus is expanding our conception of prayer. God is able to immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. 

Then He says, "If anyone says to this mountain, go throw yourself into the sea." Now this should not be taken literally. Some of you have literalistic minds, right? It's like, well, that's it. We believe in errancy, pastor. I do believe in errancy, but I also believe in figures of speech. This is a figure of speech. Jesus did this. He said to the Pharisees, “you strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.” I'm going to stop you right there, you literalist. That never happened. It's a metaphor. You're focused on tiny details, and you're missing the big picture.  The mountain represents some massive obstacle to the plan of God. That's what the mountain represents. This mountain, was almost certainly the Mount of Olives, and just so you know from Zechariah 14, God has plans for the Mount of Olives, He doesn't want it moved and thrown into the sea. It's going to be the very place where Jesus will return at the second coming, so let's just leave that mountain right there. In any case, it's a metaphor, and it represents massive obstacles to the plan of God. 

Then He says, "and does not doubt." Now we get to the issue of doubt. The enemy of faith is doubt. The essence of doubt is questioning God, questioning his existence.  Is God even with us? Questioning his nature, questioning his word, did God really say this or that? Questioning his truthfulness to his promises, questioning his faithfulness, questioning his power, his goodness, his love, quavering, wavering on it, going back and forth. It's an essential instability, a rootless instability. James gives us this picture in James chapter 1:5, “But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind, that man should not think he'll receive anything from the Lord. He's a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." That's the picture of doubt, isn't it? It's instability. It's like, I don't know, Will he? Won't he? Will it happen? I don't know. That's doubt.

Paul, the apostle, cites Abraham, our father in faith, as a powerful example of faith despite all obstacles. Romans 4:19-21, talking about how he was going to have a son in his old age and his wife, his barren wife, would have a son in her old age, and he's dealing with that promise, the promise from God. Paul writes this about Abraham, "Without weakening in his faith, Abraham faced the fact that his body was as good as dead. Since he was about a hundred years old and that Sarah's womb was also dead." That's scoping the mountain. Well, it's a big mountain. He's looking at it.  He's facing the fact that's going to be, it's impossible actually if God doesn't work. "Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God." That's Romans 4:20. That's a clear description of doubt, wavering through unbelief like a flickering light bulb, "But was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised." That's the essence of faith-filled prayer. God has power to do what He has promised He will do.  So Jesus says, If anyone has faith and does not doubt but believes that what he has said will happen, that he has said in prayer, you going to speak prayer, and it's going to happen. Instead of doubting, this prayer warrior really believes a mountain's going to be lifted up and thrown into the sea. God has the power to do anything. And he reasons, which is harder for God to make the mountain out of nothing or to move it from one place to the other? You think about that, if God can make a mountain out of nothing, He can move it from one place to the other, and every mountain that exists on planet Earth, God made out of nothing.

The prayer warrior believes that God has told him to pray for this. This mountain must move, and God has laid this burden on my heart. It is essential for this mountain to move for the kingdom of God to advance in this specific way that mountain's going to move. That's what faith and prayer is, is being a human channel of God's awesome power to do amazing things. The nature of faith therefore is perceiving and then receiving, perceiving then receiving. Perceiving the will of God as He has revealed it in scripture and in providence, and then receiving the will of God as He delivers it by his power and Jesus says, "It will be done for him." 

Prayer accomplishes amazing things, mighty things, but it doesn't in and of itself accomplish anything. It's always God that does things through prayer. It's God that moves the mountain.

Your prayer didn't move anything. John Piper speaks of prayer in this way. "Prayer is the splicing of our limp wire to the lightning bolt of heaven." Isn't that a great image? Splicing your limp wires. Is your wire limp? Mine feels limp a lot. Splice that thing to the lightning of heaven and see what God will do. There's nothing mighty in prayer in and of itself. It's that God is mighty, and He answers prayer. Then Jesus gives a universal application in verse 24, "Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." It's awesome. 

Then He goes to another topic, it seems, look at verse 25, "And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”  When I was memorizing the Gospel of Mark, this one verse stuck out to me more than any other of the 876 verses, or 676 verses, in this Gospel, this one verse. Let me be honest, just like any sinner, I can easily hold things against people. It's easy to be bitter. It's easy to remember the hurts that people have done in your life. Any of you like that? Any of you specifically know right now that this person, that person or the other person has hurt you and you're holding something against them? It's really very remarkable here. Jesus is here, giving you effectively emancipation proclamation of your own slavery to bitterness. He's telling you, let it go.  Just like the parable of the 10,000 talents, you've been forgiven much. You must forgive. And look at how sweeping it is, "Whenever you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him." In other words, every time you pray, it's an opportunity to do that. “Search me, oh, God, and know my heart. Show me if I'm bitter against somebody. Show me if I'm upset at my mom or dad or my son or daughter or my brother, my sister, a fellow church member, a pastor, a spouse, a husband, a wife, a neighbor, a roommate, a person from my past.” You know the person. You know the group of people. Maybe you have a lot of them. Anytime you pray, it's an opportunity to obey this verse and be set free. Set free. Stop drinking the poison. You're just set free from bitterness. 

Now you may wonder, what does it have to do with mountain moving, faith-filled prayer? It seems like an odd thing to go from verse 24 to 25, but not so much. Just keep in mind what is happening. The faith-filled, mountain-moving prayer is all about the building of the kingdom of God. How important would you say the forgiveness of sins will be in the kingdom of God? And is not that forgiveness going to be both vertical and horizontal? Are we not going to spend eternity in heaven with other sinners, some of whom we knew in life, and we'll be free, and there'll be no bitterness, there'll be nothing but sweet fellowship? So that's the kingdom Jesus is building, and He wants us to be set free and not harbor sin. An image on this came to me, I love Hebrews 4:16, it’s a great verse. It says, "Let us draw near to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”  Isn't that a great verse? The curtain and the temple, torn in two from top to bottom, is open. We have access to the throne of God. We're invited in this text to draw near to the throne of God, but before you enter the throne room of God, you got to give up your weapons. I watch the “Lord of the Rings” movies, some of you have as well. And in movie number two, a bunch of warriors are trying to get into the Hall of the King, Théoden, but they can't go in with their weapons. They have to leave their weapons at the door. That's the image I have here. You can't bring bitterness and unforgiveness to the throne of grace and expect to get anything from God. You got to let your weapons go. Now let me extend the image. I find it may be one of the hardest things there is to do in life. It's easy to hold onto bitterness. Have you ever heard of the expression nursing a grudge? What a weird thing to do to a grudge. I would kill the grudge, but instead we nurse it. Why? Because it puts us in a position of power. We can hold it over that person and be bitter toward them, and they can maybe walk on eggshells toward us and all that. Let it go. What's so beautiful is the one seated on the throne of grace, if we're having a problem, will come out to the doorway where we're having trouble giving up our weapons and say, “what's the problem here?" “Well, I want to come in, but they won't let me. I can see why they won’t.”  “Can I help you with that? Can I help you get rid of that bitterness? Can I remind you that I forgave you all of that sin because you begged me to? Let it go. Let it go.” So that's walking through. 

Now, let's draw out elements of mountain-moving prayer. First of all, faith in God. Have faith in God. That has to do with history and theology. First of all, remember what God has done. Remember how Peter looked back and remembered that Jesus had cursed the fig tree? That's an issue of remembrance. Remember what God has done. Psalm 77:11-12, "I'll remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I'll remember your miracles of long ago. I will meditate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds.”  Think of God, the God of the Bible. Is there anything He cannot do? Think of the Red Sea crossing. Before that, think of creation. "In the beginning, God created heaven and earth." God can do anything. Look at his track record again and again and not just in the Bible, but look at his track record with you. How many of your prayers has He answered? George Mueller kept a record, a record book, 50,000 answers to prayer in connection with his care for 10,000 orphans over his life, 50,000 answers to prayer. He wrote them down, and that built and built and built his confidence in prayer, the specificity of it. So have faith in God, remember his mighty deeds, and think who God is.

What should you consider when you have faith in God? I would say these elements, first of all, God's glory. Pray in reference to God's glory. God does everything for his glory. Whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. What is that? The manifestation of the perfections of God. Pray that in this moving of this mountain that God may be displayed as a great, loving, kind, powerful God. That God may be put on display, the glory of God.

Secondly, God's omniscience. Keep in mind, God has already thoroughly studied the problem.  He has all wisdom and knows exactly what to do. “Your father knows what you need before you ask him." [Matthew 6:8], or this Romans 11:33-34, "Oh, the depths of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?" I'm going to say something in a minute about this, but let me tell you something. In prayer, you're not God's counselor. You do know that, don't you? It's not like, “God, let me tell you what I think you should do here.” We'll get to all that.

Next, God's sovereignty. God is sovereign and has meticulously crafted a plan that goes down to the tiniest detail of every day of redemptive history. He's already sovereignly, decreed his will. Ephesians 1:11 says, "In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will." That's everything. God is sovereign. God's omnipotence. There is nothing that God cannot do. Is anything too hard for God? Isaiah 40:26:"Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls them each by name because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing." The power of God. 

And then think of the goodness of God. God wants to do good things for his people. He wants that more than you do.  Matthew 7:9-11 "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" God wants to give good gifts to us, and again, Romans 8:28, "We know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose." I've struggled my whole Christian life to understand the effectiveness of prayer.  The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective, I'm told in James. I'm an engineer. I know what power and effect is. It means that I am a change agent. I'm a catalyst. I'm an earth mover, I guess, if I'm effective. That's not what effective prayer is. Prayer is not us, number one, teaching God a solution He hadn't thought of, or number two, persuading him to do something He didn't want to do before He talked to you. I know that that logically seems like effective prayer. It's like, it made a difference because I told God something He didn't know or I persuaded him to do something He wasn't going to do.  That is not what powerful, effective prayer is all about. Rather, effective prayer is discerning what God has already determined to do and asking him to do it for His glory by his power. That's what effective prayer is. So putting it all together, whatever we pray, we do so mindful of God's glory and that is our top priority. God's omniscience in that God's already figured out what's best to do. God's plan, He's already decreed based on his wise plan. God's power, there's nothing He cannot do and God's goodness is in his desire to bless his people. We pray like that. He will give us anything we ask for. 

Now, what is the mountain that needs to be moved? Seeing the mountain that needs to be moved.  “If you say to this mountain, go throw yourself in the sea, it will be done for you.” I said it's a specific obstacle to the spread of the gospel, a specific obstacle to the growth of the kingdom of God. That's what it is. So you could see that there's a specific government official somewhere withholding a visa, and he won't let some critical workers into a country because he is withholding a visa. It's a mountain that needs to be moved. Some prayer warrior praises until that individual, for some strange reason, changes his mind. That kind of stuff's happened again and again and again. Or a pastor being held at a restrictive nation, and the people of God pray, and he's released.

That happened in the Bible with Peter. They prayed, the people of God, were praying even after James had been executed. They kept praying for Peter, and he was released, an answer to prayer. Or with George Muller's specific physical needs for hundreds and hundreds of orphans. They need to eat today, give them this day their daily bread, and then stuff happens. Amazing. You don't want to be driving a bread truck by the orphanage when there's a need. Your truck's going to break down, and you'll have nowhere else to go with that bread except the orphanage, and God answers those prayers. 

Now, what does it mean for us?  What is our field? We are in the Raleigh/ Durham/ Chapel Hill area. We are positioned here by the wise plan of God. We're positioned here for the kingdom of God. We're positioned right here in Durham, this triangle area with the RTP and all that is attractive to people. People are moving in here in large numbers. Last night I went walking around all the restaurant areas. I walked all the way down to the Insomnia coffee or cookie place, I walked in there. There was no one there. I said, what time do you close? "3:00 AM.” Anyway, but there was no one working. That was interesting. Then I walked back, and as I was walking, I was thinking and praying. I was like, I wonder how many of these people are lost?

They're pouring in here. They're living in all those condos and houses and all that that are being built, and the overwhelming majority of them are unchurched. They're lost. Our mountain to be moved is within their hearts, their hatred for Christ, their opposition to God. They're thinking they don't need any of this. That's our field, that's our mountain. That we would see baptisms in numbers like we have never seen before, that people would be brought from death to life because we boldly attempted great things for God after the first two things happen, expected great things, and ask great things. That's our mountain to be moved. We ask God to do it. We keep on asking and it will be given to us. We keep on seeking, and we'll find. We keep on knocking, and the door will be opened. As Jesus said, He told the parable of the persistent widow that they should always pray and never give up.

I'm not a big fan of church sign ministry. Some of them are just cheesy. You know what I'm talking about. I mean, really bad, but I saw one that stuck with me. I really like it, “Pray until something happens." I love that. Doesn't it line up with this text? Pray until something happens. Keep praying until you see that mountain move. We expect God to answer. Mark 11:24, "I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." Charles Spurgeon was talking to a young preacher about his lack of fruit and street evangelism. He preached again and again without seeing any converts at all. Spurgeon asked him, "Do you expect people to be converted every time you preach?" "No, sir." He said, "Well, that's the reason you don't succeed because you do not expect to do so. According to your faith, it will be done to you." Wow, Spurgeon's tough. Imagine him as your mentor. But what's our level of expectation? Do we expect to see people converted because of the witness of us?

Expect it, and then be humble about sin. The next time you go to pray, ask the Lord to show you. Are you holding anything against anyone? Are you bitter toward anyone? Ask the Lord to help you forgive and to release.

I have a section of my sermon here on warnings against misunderstandings about the “name it and claim it” thing and all that. I'm not going to say any of it. You want to know, come and ask, and I'll tell you about Creflo Dollar and all those guys, but I just don't think that's our problem. I don't think we're “name it and claim it” people. We're under-utilizers of the promises in this text. That's the problem. We're erring on the side of not asking enough.  So let's ask and see what God can do. 

 So applications, first of all, to any that are here that are lost, you're on the outside looking in. You don't know this, not like you should, but your sins are like a mountain that has to be moved. Your sins are like a mountain between you and friendship with God, adoption into God's family. That mountain has to be moved, and if it's not moved, you cannot come into sweet fellowship with God. In Micah chapter 7, He has promised that He will take our sins and throw them into the depths of the sea, and you'll see them no more. All you have to do is call in the name of the Lord Jesus, know that He shed his blood to provide that ocean of grace, and trust in him. Call on the name of the Lord, and He'll move that mountain of your sins and throw it in the depths of the sea, and you'll see it no more.

For us as Christians, there's two applications: pray that we would pray. Let's start there. Pray that we'll become a praying church. That the obstacles to us praying like this would be removed, and that we pray as we have never prayed before, and that we would pray to fulfill the mission for which we have been positioned here in the Raleigh/ Durham/ Chapel Hill area, and that is the winning of lost people. Pray for that, and pray that we would be a sweet, gracious, and forgiving church. That whatever grievances we may have against each other, against anyone that we would readily, quickly forgive.  

We're going to go now to a time of the Lord's Supper, so I'm going to close the sermon in prayer. Father, thank you for the things we've learned in Mark's Gospel about mountain-moving, faith-filled prayer. We thank you for that, and we pray now that as we experience the Lord's Supper, that you would be mighty in this place, giving us an encounter with God, the living God, through the Ordinance of the Lord's Supper. In Jesus' name, Amen.

We ought to ask for great things from God, seeking by faith to perceive what God wills to do and by prayer to be involved in his mountain-moving work.

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In 1 Corinthians 15:20-34, Paul teaches that the human race is destined to die because of Adam, but all who are in Christ are destined to raise from the dead and have eternal life.

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In 1 Corinthians 15:1-34, Paul counters the false idea that a resurrection from the dead is impossible, showing that Christ’s resurrection from the dead is both essential to Christian life and faith.

The post 1 Corinthians Episode 21: Raised From the Dead in Accordance with the Scriptures appeared first on Two Journeys.