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An archive of Jacob Nannie's Sermons & Lectures
okay I'll project because I don't hello hello okay good okay today's scripture reading comes
from Mark chapter 11 verses 1 through 21 and can be found on page 898 if you're using one of the
bibles provided by the church and if you don't have a bible of your own you can take one of those
as a gift to you today again today's scripture reading comes from Mark chapter 11 verses 1 through
21. Hear the word of the Lord. When they approached Jerusalem at Bethpage and Bethany, near the Mount
of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and told them, go into the village ahead of you. As soon
as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring
it. If anyone says to you, why are you doing this? Say the Lord needs it and will send it back here
right away. So they went and found a colt outside the street tied by a door. They untied it, and
some of those standing there said to them, what are you doing untying the colt? They answered them
just as Jesus had said, so they let them go. They brought the colt to Jesus and threw their clothes
on it, and he sat on it. Many people spread their clothes on the road, and others spread leafy
branches cut from the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, Hosanna! Blessed is
he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David. Hosanna in
the highest heaven. He went into Jerusalem and into the temple. After looking around at everything,
since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. The next day when they went out
from Bethany he was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree with leaves he went to find out if there
was anything on it. When he came to it he found nothing but leaves for it was not the season for
figs. He said to it may no one ever eat fruit from you again and his disciples heard it. They came to
Jerusalem and he went into the temple and began to throw out those buying and selling. He overturned
the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves and would not permit anyone
to carry goods through the temple. He was teaching them. Is it not written, my house will be called
the house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of thieves. The chief priests and the
scribes heard it and started looking for a way to kill him, for they were afraid of him because the
whole crowd was astonished by his teaching. Whenever evening came, they would go out of the city.
Early in the morning, as they were passing by, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up.
Then Peter remembered and said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered.
This is the word of the Lord.
You may be seated.
Well, good morning, everybody.
So good to be with you here, all of you here this morning.
My name is Jacob.
We've not had the chance to meet yet.
I am the associate pastor resident at the Shawnee campus, and I'm just thrilled to be
back here again this morning preaching to you all.
I wanted to start with a question.
I'm curious to know, what makes you angry?
And that's an aggressive question at 9 a.m. on a Sunday, but what makes you angry?
And I'm not asking, like, what sort of makes you angry, what kind of makes you upset, but
what really, really sets you off?
What really sets you off?
Now, don't think about that question too hard.
I don't want you to get too angry this morning right now.
But what sets you off?
What gets you super angry?
For me, it is when I loan out a book to someone and they mark it up.
Ooh, it's right.
What are you doing?
People work really hard to typeset books.
They choose specific fonts and headings and margins and footnotes.
It's a work of art.
Why would you mess that up?
And what's more, it's my book.
What are you doing marking up my book?
Don't highlight it.
Don't underline it.
Don't circle it.
Don't under any circumstances dog ear the pages.
And if you find something interesting,
take a picture.
It'll last longer, right?
I don't like people who mark up books.
One time I loaned a book to a family member,
and with specific instructions,
don't mark up this book.
And it came back marked up and soaked in coffee.
I threw it away.
Couldn't have it any longer.
Now, I'll admit that's a silly thing to be upset about, to be angry about.
And I truly do get angry at that.
And we all have things that are a little silly, but we all have things that truly do make us angry.
And there are real things in this broken and shattered world that we should be angry about.
There are things that deserve a certain level of anger.
There are things in this world that should really set us off.
I'm sure we can all identify those things that should make us uncomfortable and angry and upset.
Betrayal, abuse, abandonment, addiction, injustice, violence, war, hypocrisy, church scandals,
political idolatry, your in-laws. That's another silly thing, maybe. But there are things that
really do make us upset. You know, I'd served at a small local EFCA church in California before
moving here. And the church we were at had quite an eclectic group of people. And multiple members
of this church had literally been shut out of other churches. Some of them were socially outcast
from churches because of their mental illness. Some of them were outcast from these churches
because of the way they looked or the way they smelled. Others were literally told to find
another church, just based on these things. And people would come to our church and they'd share
their experience with us, they'd share their story with us, and friends, hearing these things made me
incredibly and extremely angry. Again, we all have our list. We have a list of silly things that
really set us off, make us angry, yes, but also lists of things that make us appropriately angry
as well. You see, what makes us angry reveals who we are. The fact that it angers me that my books
get marked up reveals that I really care about the design of a good book. The fact that it angers me
when the poor and powerless are shunned from churches reveals that I really care about making
sure the poor and powerless have a place, not that they're welcome to, that they belong to.
What makes us angry reveals what we care about.
You learn a lot about a person by understanding what makes them angry.
What makes you angry?
And what does that reveal about you?
And what makes Jesus angry?
What exactly gets Jesus so mad that as we heard in the scripture reading this morning,
he flips tables, drives people out of the temple, and curses an innocent fig tree?
Understanding what makes Jesus angry, this angry, will lead us to understanding his heart
and will lead us to understanding what he truly cares about.
Now, I know that we might feel a little uncomfortable thinking about how Jesus gets angry
and this thought of this explosive scene in the temple.
I know I get a little uncomfortable with that sometimes, too.
Sometimes I prefer the calm Jesus, the Jesus who Matthew says is gentle and lowly, right?
Isn't Jesus gentle and lowly?
What is he doing flipping tables and fashioning a whip and driving people out of the temple?
I want to calm Jesus.
Don't you want to calm Jesus?
But here's the thing.
That's not actually what we want.
We want a God who gets angry at evil.
We want a God who gets angry at injustices.
A God who's angry enough to do something about it.
And so what makes Jesus angry?
Well, it's revealed in our text this morning.
If you have a Bible, turn to Mark chapter 11.
And we've been studying the gospel of Mark for the past six weeks.
We've been journeying with Jesus toward the cross.
And today's not Palm Sunday, but it is that classic Palm Sunday text.
Our story begins with that classic Palm Sunday text.
And Jesus is in his final week of life.
He has maybe two or three days left.
What would you do with your final days had you known they were coming?
Well, Jesus gets angry.
That's what he does.
In fact, it's the angriest we have seen Jesus,
and these accounts are in all four Gospels.
If you want to know what makes Jesus angry,
all you have to do is look at a donkey, a temple, and a fig tree,
which I admit sounds like the beginning of a terrible joke.
But it's here we learn a lot, a lot about Jesus.
The story we encounter is in chapter 11,
And it's a story of Jesus and a donkey.
Verse 1 says,
When they approached Jerusalem at Bethpage and Bethany near the Mount of Olives,
he sent two of his disciples and told them,
Go into the village ahead of you.
As soon as you enter it, you will find a donkey, a colt, tied there,
on which no one has ever sat.
Untie it and bring it.
If anyone says to you, Why are you doing this?
Say, The Lord needs it, and we'll send it back here right away.
And I always find funny, it's just a quick side note,
It's funny in this passage, someone does ask, what are you doing?
I imagine the disciples are like, the Lord needs it?
I'm like, okay.
But friends, this is a long journey that Jesus and his disciples are on.
From Jericho to the Mount of Olives is about 15 to 20 miles,
depending on what route you take.
It includes about 3,500 feet of elevation climb.
This is a long, all-day uphill hike to Jerusalem,
which might color the way we read these verses.
Is Jesus, when he asks for a donkey, is he asking for a donkey because he's tired of walking?
Well, that can't quite be right, because he only had about a mile left to go.
Instead, Jesus is doing something more.
He's showing what kind of king he is.
He's not choosing a royal stallion to enter Jerusalem.
He's choosing a humble donkey.
He's not choosing a beast of war, but an animal of peace.
I mean, this donkey doesn't want to go to war.
He just wants to frolic in the fields.
An animal of peace.
Jesus, by doing this, is fulfilling the Old Testament prophecy of Zechariah 9.9.
Shout in triumph, daughter Jerusalem.
Look, your king is coming to you.
He is righteous and victorious.
Amen?
Humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
And the crowds kind of put the puzzle pieces together, just a little bit.
They see Jesus riding on a donkey, and they start to roll out the red carpet of their day.
Their very valuable clothes and palm branches.
And they shout in verse 9,
Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David.
Hosanna in the highest heaven.
But notice I say they kind of are putting the puzzle pieces together.
They kind of get it.
They kind of see Zechariah 9, they kind of see what's happening, but they miss some of
what Jesus is doing because they have very recent history in mind.
When Jesus came riding in on a donkey, they would have been thinking of Judas Maccabeus.
Judas Maccabeus, who is the hero of Hanukkah.
Hanukkah is a celebration, a look back at what Judas Maccabeus did, and he delivered
the Israelites from the Greeks.
after doing this, he rode into Jerusalem. We don't know if he rode on a donkey or a horse or whatever,
but he came in Jerusalem to cleanse and rededicate the temple. He entered Jerusalem
as a victorious military leader. In fact, an ancient book detailing his military campaign
titled First Maccabees says this, he extended the glory of his people like a giant. He put on his
breastplate. He bound on his armor of war and waged battles, protecting the camp by his sword.
He was like a lion in his deeds and like a lion's cub roaring for prey. I mean, that would get me
fired up too, right? Thinking about this. That's strong language. Judas was a military leader who
was victorious for the sake of Israel. And to symbolize this, to remember this, the Maccabean
revolt Israel used palm branches so when the crowd see Jesus coming they
remember Judas Maccabeus they remember the rededication of the temple they
remember being saved from Gentile rule and they want Jesus to do the same
deliver us from the Romans Jesus but Jesus doesn't do this rather than head
to the Roman fortress, he leads himself and his disciples right to the temple.
The temple that is right next to that fortress. We might expect Jesus, even right now, we might
expect Jesus to head to that fortress to fight the Romans. The eyewitnesses expected that.
Those who remembered Judas Maccabeus and saw Jesus and were kind of putting the puzzle pieces
together, they might have expected Jesus to go straight to the Roman fortress. But he doesn't.
This war happens at the temple, not with Roman leaders, not with Roman soldiers,
but with the religious leaders of Jesus' day.
Verse 11, he went into Jerusalem and into the temple.
And after looking around at everything, since it was already late,
he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
Some scholars believe that Mark is saying two things here when he says it's already late.
Yes, it's late in the day, they're tired, they're going to go back home, find a place
to rest, but it's also too late.
It's too late for the temple.
It's too late for the religious leaders, and it's too late for their fruitless religion.
So Jesus heads back to Bethany, he goes to bed, and he wakes up with a plan.
And the next day, he wastes no time.
He marches to the temple, and he's so angry as he marches to the temple
that he curses a fig tree on the way.
More on that later.
Verse 15, they came to Jerusalem, and he went into the temple
and began to throw out those buying and selling.
He overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves
and would not permit anyone to carry goods through the temple.
Jesus arrives, and Jesus is angry.
John says that he fashions a whip, and he casts people out.
And that Greek word for cast is the same word used for when Jesus casts out demons.
Now Jesus is casting out evil from his father's house.
He flips tables, he knocks over chairs, and stops people from coming and going.
And for a moment, Jesus grinds the temple system to a halt.
And having done this, he teaches those in an earshot.
Is it not written,
my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations?
But you've made it a den of thieves.
The chief priests and the scribes heard it
and started looking for a way to kill him.
For they were afraid of him
because the whole crowd was astonished by his teaching.
Why was Jesus killed?
This is why.
In anger, he overturns and opposes the fruitless religion
of the Jewish religious leaders.
He's opposing them.
He's fighting them.
And they're going to fight back too,
but they're going to fight back with the Roman cross.
The temple was supposed to be a place where the people of God came together to participate in the worship of God.
The temple was supposed to be a place where God dwelt with his people.
The temple was supposed to be a place of prayer, of communion with God.
And the temple was supposed to be this for all the nations and all people.
For the rich, for the poor, for Jew, for Greek, for male and female.
But this is not how the religious leaders of this day treated the temple.
They were treating the temple differently.
Rather than treating it as a house of worship,
they were treating it as a place of commerce that was actively rejecting outsiders.
Friends, this happens today.
I've witnessed it myself.
Where the church becomes a place of commerce, a place of business or busyness,
and it rejects outsiders.
That's what the Pharisees did.
That's what the religious leaders did.
They turned the temple into a place that had all the appearance of holiness and righteousness.
A place to look and feel good about themselves.
They turned God's house into a den of thieves.
And den of thieves is not just a location where thievery happens.
It's a place where thieves hide out between their crimes.
The religious leaders turn to God's house,
they turn God's house into a place
where they could hide their criminal activity
behind the appearance of righteousness and holiness.
And when Jesus points a finger at this,
when he points a finger at the religious leaders,
they have two options.
They can repent and receive forgiveness
And friends, isn't Jesus willing to extend a loving hand to receive that repentance?
Or they have a second option.
They can kill the one that's accusing them.
As Tim Keller says, if this is who Jesus is, either you'll have to crown him or you'll have to kill him.
The one thing you can't do is just say, what an interesting guy.
That's the hard part about that quote is Jesus is a really interesting guy, though, isn't he?
Remember that fig tree that he cursed on the way to the temple?
Yeah, that fig tree is dead now.
Mark tells us that in chapter and verse 12.
The next day when they went out from Bethany, he was hungry.
This is before the temple.
Seeing in the distance a fig tree with leaves, with leaves, he went to find out if there was anything on it.
When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves.
Nothing but leaves.
Because it wasn't the season for figs.
And he said to it, may no one ever eat fruit from you again.
And his disciples heard it.
Man, Jesus is really mad at this fig tree.
I mean, didn't he know it wasn't the season for figs?
What did he expect?
Well, he expected something, right?
A fig tree that has a lot of leaves should have at least something on it.
Should have at least what are called knops.
Knops are not yet ripe figs or not yet fully formed figs.
And you could expect to have those and eat those and enjoy those if a tree looked green and leafy and healthy.
And the fact that there were no knops, but this tree looked full, was a sign that it was dying.
Some of you might know that I farmed almonds.
If you found a tree that had no nuts on it, that's not like a, oh, it'll come next to your thing.
It's a, something's really wrong here thing.
The fact that there were no leaves was a sign that this tree was dying.
It wasn't just that it hadn't borne fruit yet.
It was that it was fruitless.
It was empty.
It was a waste.
And so later when they leave the temple, they pass by the tree again.
In verse 20, early in the morning, as they were passing by,
they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up.
From the roots up.
And then Peter remembered and said to him,
Rabbi, look, the fig tree you cursed has withered.
They were shocked that Jesus did this.
Do you see what's going on here?
The tree represents the temple and the religious leaders.
On the outside, at first glance, it looks great.
The temple seems magnificent.
In fact, later in Mark 13, the disciples will say,
Wow, Jesus, look how magnificent this temple looks.
The religious leaders look righteous.
They look holy.
They have the appearance of being busy at God's work.
The temple and its system looks leafy green.
But really on the inside, it's fruitless and dying.
Friends, fewer things anger Jesus more than fruitless religion.
Nothing angers Jesus more than fruitless religion.
Nothing angers Jesus more than fruitless religion.
And hearing this should prompt us to not want fruitless religion, right?
How do we avoid that?
Because if we're honest with ourselves, it's easy to slip into the appearance of a fruitful faith, isn't it?
I mean, you're here right now, you all look good, well-fed, you're at church, you're going to sign up later to serve.
It's a great thing.
A lot of us serve in other ways.
We may even give our time, our talent, and our treasures to the church.
Well, hey, the religious leaders did that as well.
And Jesus was furious with them for being fruitless.
How do you avoid fruitless religion?
Well, first we have to ask ourselves, what are the symptoms of fruitless religion?
Where do I see the signs, maybe, of fruitless religion popping up in my own life?
I'm sure we all want to know how to not anger Jesus, right?
So let's look at a few symptoms.
There are three in particular that you and I should keep an eye out for.
And the first symptom is this.
The first symptom of a fruitless religion is when our busyness for Jesus overtakes our being with Jesus.
when our busyness for Jesus, quote-unquote for Jesus, overtakes our being with Jesus.
Does your busyness do that? Does your busyness get in the way of you being with Jesus? I'll admit
as a pastor, as someone who prepares to preach to you, prepares to teach adult classes, prepares to
minister, it's really easy to have the appearance of fruitfulness when I'm really just being busy.
I have to ask myself, is my busyness overtaking my being with Jesus?
And it should not.
Because you and I were created to be with God, with God,
before we were ever created to do anything for God.
In fact, this is one of the overarching themes of Scripture is life with God.
This is how the story in Mark fits into the larger narrative of the Bible.
You and I are created to be with God.
And this temple was created to be a place where people dwelt with God,
a place to be in God's presence.
Again, this is a theme that goes throughout all the scriptures from the beginning in Eden.
Eden was a temple.
In fact, the temple was meant to look a little bit like Eden,
to recall what we had in the beginning where Adam and Eve dwelt with God in his full presence,
life with God.
Back in the garden, Adam and Eve didn't really think life with God was enough.
And they were tempted not just to be with God, but to be like God.
And they fell into that temptation.
And ever since then, you and I have been constantly tempted to replace being with God,
which is what it's all about, with doing things for God.
This is what the religious leaders of Jesus' day did.
This is a symptom of a fruitless religion.
The religious leaders were so busy working for God
that the system became more important than knowing him.
That the commerce became more important than being with him.
That the busyness of the temple was more important than being a house of prayer.
They were so busy working for God that they turned God's place, God's house, God's presence, into a place of business.
Friends, this can and does happen to churches.
Even today, even this house of God, it can happen to this house of God.
Listen to what Tim Keller writes.
He says,
The temple was religiously very busy, just like most churches are.
Tasks, committees, noise, people coming and going, lots of transactions.
But the busyness contained no spirituality.
Nobody was actually praying.
There are many things we do that can appear to be signs of real belief,
but can grow without real heart change.
Evidently, we can be very busy in church activities without real heart change
and without real compassionate involvement with others.
Are you being transformed as you spend time with Jesus?
Or are you simply just doing a bunch of churchy things?
Avoiding time with Jesus and replacing it with doing a bunch of churchy things
is a sign that your religion, your faith has no fruit.
And friends, the antidote to that is to spend time with Jesus.
Reminds me of Matthew.
Seek first, first, first the kingdom of God,
and then all those other things, they'll be added to you.
Seek Jesus first, then everything else will come.
Don't let your busyness overtake your being with Jesus.
Because when we avoid that time with Jesus,
we begin a slow drift into fruitlessness.
And that shift is a shift from a person to a practice.
Because another symptom of fruitless religion
is when our trust shifts from a person to practices.
The second symptom of a fruitless religion
is when our trust shifts from a person to practices.
Those of us who have grown up in the church
or maybe even been attending church for some time,
we have the temptation to subtly shift our trust
from the person of Jesus to the practices of the church, don't we?
Even that subtle shift, just a few degrees off course,
can yield drastically bad results.
That's what happened at the temple.
That's what happened at the temple in Eden.
Adam and Eve were tempted just a few degrees off course
and ended the land of the world in sin and death.
At the temple, it was a slow shift one degree at a time
away from God towards religious practices.
The temple became a religious system
where people thought they could practice their way into forgiveness.
They could practice their way into the presence of God
rather than being with a person who is Jesus,
who is there with them now.
Even God in the flesh with them, they miss that because they had turned from a person to a practice.
Are you missing God's presence because you're turning from a person to a practice?
Because you can do the same thing.
Again, we come to church, sing songs, we give some money, we listen to a message, we take communion.
And we think, if I do all that stuff, surely I'm a Christian, right?
I'm here every Sunday.
I sing real loud.
Surely I'm a Christian.
But friends, you know, standing in a garage doesn't make you a car.
Sleeping in a library doesn't make you a scholar.
All that glitters is not gold.
Going to church does not make you a Christian.
The power is not in the building.
In fact, the power is not in the songs.
The power is not in the giving of money,
no matter how much or how little you give.
Nor is the power in the bread and the juice that we have this morning.
Now, all of those things are powerful when they're done in faith in a person.
When they're done in faith and when we trust in a person.
When we have utter dependence on God, when we have utter dependence on Jesus
as our only hope in life and death, then those things become powerful.
then, because of Jesus, because of a person, those practices are empowered to minister to us.
Do not make the mistake of doing church practices over trusting in the person of Jesus.
Do not shift away from person to religious practices.
Because if you do, that is a sign that your faith and your religion is fruitless.
And when we make the slow and subtle shift away from Jesus to practices,
we might experience a third symptom of a fruitless religion,
which is when our outrage outpaces our obedience.
The third symptom of a fruitless religion is our outrage outpaces our obedience.
This is hypocrisy, and it's rampant all throughout Christianity.
When we become focused on the busyness of the Christian life and the practices of the Christian
religion, we slip into outrage instead of faithful obedience. We become more concerned with
holding people accountable in real life or online, calling out injustices in our social
circles and society, mastering the language of critique or winning the moral argument
of the day. I've been there. And we do those things rather than pursue a life of sustained,
quiet, transformative work on our own character and habits.
Now, this doesn't mean you have to be perfectly formed before you can speak out
on things that are really injustices and really lacks of faith. But still, it does mean you must
pursue faithful and fruitful
obedience with greater zeal
than any outrage.
Pursue
faithful and fruitful obedience with greater
zeal than your pursuit of outspoken
justice and faithfulness.
Don't let
your outrage outpace your
obedience.
Those are the three symptoms
we must look out for. But there's
another question we have to consider.
What fruit
am I bearing?
Now you know some of the symptoms, but what fruit are you bearing?
If Jesus hates fruitless religion, what does a fruitful relationship with him look like?
That's a great question. Thank you so much for asking.
The scriptures describe a wide range of fruit, from being faithful and effective in our work and vocations,
to pursuing justice, to practicing spiritual disciplines.
I mean, we might know, we might know in Galatians that Paul says to have the fruit of the Spirit,
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Those are all good things.
You should be bearing those fruits.
But Jesus highlights two things in particular in our passage this morning.
And the first is prayer.
Right after Peter notices the dead fig tree, Jesus starts talking about faithfully expecting things.
Jesus replied to them, have faith in God.
Truly, I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, be lifted up and thrown out into the sea,
and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.
Therefore, I tell you, everything you pray and ask for,
believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
Now, there's way more that we can talk about on prayer,
way more than we can't unpack here, but do you notice something?
These words of faith and expectation and prayer seem totally random
if we don't keep the whole context of Mark 11 in mind.
Remember, Jesus just pronounced the temple,
The place that was supposed to be the house of prayer for all nations, the house of prayer for all nations, to be a dead fig tree.
Rather than being a house of prayer for all nations, the temple merely has the appearance of religious practices.
Thus, the new house of prayer for all nations will be the community of Jesus' followers.
This, friends, is the new house of prayer.
It won't be a building marked by animal sacrifice.
It'll be a community marked by people who are marked by prayer.
Prayer is deeply significant for the people of God.
And are you bearing the fruit of faithful and expectant prayer in your life?
Is this community bearing the fruit of faithful and expectant prayer?
You know, as we've been studying the second half of the Gospel of Mark,
We've been focusing on prayer in the form.life companion journal.
In fact, the new journal for this next couple of weeks starts tomorrow.
You can find it at the ends of the rows or on your way out of the worship center this morning.
I would encourage you to pick that up and start practicing the fruitfulness of faithful prayer with your community.
Because we must be a community that engages in faithful, expectant prayer.
And we must engage in that practice often.
Scholar Sharon Dowd says this, commenting on these verses.
A community that does not nourish the expectation that God will answer prayer
will not see the activity of God in its midst.
Friends, do you want to see God move in powerful ways here?
Do you want to see God move in powerful ways at the downtown campus?
Then we must nourish that expectation by faithfully praying together as a community.
But there's a second fruit that must accompany that fruit of prayer.
And that is a fruit of forgiveness.
Mark 11, 25, Jesus continues.
And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him.
Not if you have anything against anyone and they say they're sorry.
Not if you have anything against anyone and they repent.
If you have anything against anyone, regardless of their state, forgive them.
So that your Father in heaven will also forgive your wrongdoing.
Again, forgiveness is a second massive topic that we can't unpack here, but a few points are relevant.
The lack of forgiveness, God's forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of others, puts a barrier between us and God.
Again, Sharon Dowd says,
Unforgiven sin blocks God's answers to prayer, and in order to receive God's forgiveness for their sins, Christians must forgive each other as well.
This is not a uniquely New Testament or post-biblical idea.
It comes from Isaiah.
Isaiah 59, verses 1 and 2.
Indeed, the Lord's arm is not too weak to save,
and his ear is not too deaf to hear.
But your iniquities are separating you from God,
and your sins have hidden his face so that he does not listen.
Throughout the Old Testament, and actually even in other religions,
there's a connection between a lack of forgiveness and effective prayer.
The point in Jesus' words is that a community of faith that harbors resentment,
that harbors grudges, and withholds forgiveness and has unforgiveness against each other,
those communities cannot expect God to move.
we must bear the fruit of forgiveness.
We must bear the fruit of expectant prayer.
If you want to see God move here at the downtown campus
or wherever you are, you must pray expectantly.
We must not let our outrage outpace our obedience.
We must not pursue religious practices over Jesus.
and we must not let our busyness
get in the way of our being with Jesus.
Friends, nothing angers Jesus more
than a fruitless religion.
So we must be a community
that bears much fruit.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you.
Thank you that you are a God
that cares enough about us
that you hate it
when through our busyness,
our pursuit of practices,
and our flight to outrage,
all outpace our being with your son.
God, even right now,
right now, God,
may we bear much fruit
as we pray as a community,
faithfully expecting you to move.
God, we are expecting you to move
in prayer powerfully
here at Christ Community Downtown.
Amen.