Pastor Fredo Ramos: A strawberry, a strawberry, dad, dad, come look out my window. A few weeks earlier my son Eli had come home with a bag of plants that he and his classmates had planted in his garden club at school. Now I gotta be honest with you, his first words to me when he came home with this bag of plants was, Dad, please do not accidentally throw these away. Because you gotta understand, at my home I am the director of sanitation, and I take that job very seriously. And so in our home we preach the good word that everything has a home, and if it doesn't have a home at the end of the day I find a new home for it as the director of sanitation.
As you can tell the spirit is already moving in this message especially for parents. But this time was different, they throw it away and weeks later Eli's saying dad dad a strawberry. We look out the window and of course there this thing was hanging off this plant, a real strawberry. And my son's face was shocked, overjoyed, elated and I gotta be honest, I'm shocked too because he planted it right? I'm a little surprised.
But it's growing, it's healthy and the proof of the life was what? The fruit. And it got me thinking because for weeks we had watched this thing just sit there and it appeared to be healthy but we didn't know for sure. Which reminds me that so often in our lives there is a gap between appearances and reality. The way things appear to be and the way that they actually are.
Because things can look healthy in your life today. They can even look green. They can be active and yet we can be producing very little fruit. That's true of our gardens, that's true of our relationships, and it especially can be true of our spiritual lives. And so let me just ask you a question as we begin today.
How do you measure your spiritual health? How do you measure it? Like how do you know when you feel close to God? When you're growing? Or when you're distant and you feel like you're regressing?
How do you know? Maybe for some of you the way that you measure your spiritual health is through your choices. Like whether or not you overdid it at happy hour on Friday night with some of your friends or whether or not you're obeying the boundaries you set with your boyfriend or your girlfriend or whether or not you clicked or didn't click online this week when no one else was looking or whether or you lost it on your kids or your spouse or maybe for some of you it's more of your spiritual Christian practices. That's how you measure your health, like how many times I cracked open the bible, how many times I prayed today, did I go to church this weekend or maybe for some of you you gauge it less on activity and and and that kind of inner peace you feel and you judge you judge it more based on like, what you're doing for Jesus out in the world. Am I in a discipleship group?
Am I serving at church, not just going? Did I share the gospel with someone at the barbershop that I see? I ask you this question because listen, you definitely have a measurement for growth, and your life right now is way too valuable for you not to know what that measurement is. Because if it's the wrong measurement then it cannot give you the right information. And so whatever it is, please know it is affecting you right now in this moment.
It's affecting you emotionally, your measurement is affecting you spiritually, and it's impacting the way you showed up to church today, it's impacting the way that you show up to your family, to your friends, to the world that God has sent you into. Is your measurement for spiritual growth telling you the truth? More importantly, is your measurement the measurement that Jesus himself used? In one simple word, fruit. Like my son Eli, a strawberry, a strawberry.
You see the great challenge before all of us this morning as we begin our time in the Gospel of Matthew is that we have to confront and be challenged with the gap that exists between how things appear to look in our lives and the reality of what they actually are. And so we desperately need this word from Jesus and so I'm gonna ask you if you are willing and able that you would stand with me for the reading of God's word. Matthew 21 beginning in verse 18, Jesus says this, in the morning, I'm sorry Matthew writes this, in the morning as Jesus was returning to Jerusalem he was hungry and he noticed a fig tree beside the road. He went over to see if there were any figs but there were only leaves. Then he said to it, may you never bear fruit again.
And immediately the fig tree withered up. The disciples were amazed when they saw this and asked, how did the fig tree wither so quickly? Then Jesus told them, I tell you the truth, if you have faith and don't doubt, you can do things like this and much more. You can even say to this mountain, may you be lifted up and thrown into the sea and it will happen. You can pray for anything and if you have faith you will receive it.
This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father we thank you so much for your word today and we pause in prayer as we have gathered today to acknowledge you who have gathered with us too. And so we ask now that as Jesus said you would give us ears to hear and eyes to see so that we might become all that you desire us to be in him. We pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.
Thank you so much, you can be seated. Now I will be the first one to admit this is a strange story, is it not? Jesus yelling at a plant and this is on the heels of him getting angry in the temple, making a whip, a DIY whip, you know, going in there and casting out not just the sellers but also the buyers. And so it leaves people observing the life of Jesus to be a bit puzzled, somewhat even standoffish from this passage because what we are so used to is a Jesus that blesses people not curses. And now we see him cursing.
It's a bit of a strange passage even after that rare moment where we see Jesus somewhat unhinged angry in the temple and so it leaves us to maybe ask like what is going on to Jesus? Is is the pressure and the weight of being the savior of the world you know starting to get to him? Like what is happening? To help us I think navigate through that question, I want us to walk through this passage line by line and then just be open and attentive to what God's gonna say to us as it relates specifically to our lives. And so let's start there in verse 18 together.
Matthew writes, in the morning as Jesus was returning to Jerusalem he was hungry. Now let's pause there. Remember the next, the previous day he had come out of the temple and we're told that during this week of his life, the final week of his life, he is staying in the town of Bethany right outside Jerusalem at either the Simon the leper's house or at the home of Mary and Martha, we're not exactly sure. But he's staying in Bethany so on his way back in after his morning coffee he gets up for a walk, heads back into Jerusalem and we're told what? He's hungry.
Don't miss this. This one word reminds us of the humanity of Jesus. We love to talk about his deity, which we should. He is the divine son of God. As Paul writes, that from him and to him and through him all things hold together.
He is supreme. He is Lord. And at the same time being fully God he is fully human. Fully human. He has so much power as God and yet submits himself to the daily limitations of being a human.
Think about this, the walking sourdough starter has hunger pains, which means that he is intimately aware of human experiences, your experiences, such that there is no human experience that Jesus is not aware of and had himself. So whatever you might be feeling today, whether you follow him or not, if you're frustrated today, Jesus knows what it's like to be frustrated. If you're hurt today, he knows what it's like to be hurt. If you're happy today and full of joy, he knows what that's like too. If you're waiting for God to answer a prayer request, he knows what that is like too.
There is nothing that you can possibly be feeling or experiencing that Jesus himself doesn't also understand. He lived life just like you and I, which is why the author of Hebrews says that we do not have a high priest who was unable to sympathize or empathize with our weaknesses. Rather we have a high priest who like us was tempted in every way yet without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with what? Confidence.
Confidence, so that we might receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Let this one word in our story today remind you that you ought to stop sanitizing your prayers. Be honest with God. Be honest with Jesus. He's a human just like you.
As we practice being real with God in our own lives, that starts with you in prayer saying to God what is actually inside you, not what you think should be inside of you. Say it to him. Now side quest over, back to the text. Verse 19, we're told there he noticed a fig tree beside the road, Of course he's hungry. And he went over to it to see if there were any figs, but what does it say?
There were only leaves. Then he said to it, this is when he starts cursing, may you never bear fruit again. I can only imagine what this had to look like. Like I would I gotta imagine the disciples have seen Jesus do some interesting things to say the least, but this has gotta be near the top of the list. Yelling at a tree, may you never bear fruit again.
Cursing it. And then we're told that it withers. What what is possibly going on here? He walked up to that tree looking to satisfy his hunger. It's breakfast time.
The man needs to eat. Now I gotta tell you, my experience with figs is to the extent of a Fig Newton, which isn't a great thing. Even on my list of a top 50 snack, the Fig Newton bar ain't cracking that list. So I don't know a lot about figs, but I would imagine Jesus living in the era before high corn fructose syrup, if I said it right, that this thing probably tastes delicious and he is excited to eat this. He must have loved him some figs.
But what's interesting is in Mark's account he notes that it wasn't the season for figs. So what is going on here is like Jesus unaware of the life cycle? Like if they're looking at him like, Lord don't you know that it's not the time for the fig? What possibly is happening? What is he doing here?
Listen, Jesus in this moment is acting out a parable to make a point. Oftentimes Jesus teaches parables. In this moment he's demonstrating a parable just like all of the previous great prophets did before. Case in point, we only have time for one so listen up. Ezekiel strangely is told by God to lay on his side for three hundred and ninety days.
He's acting out a parable. That's weird y'all. And the reason why is because God is warning the people that if they don't turn from their rebellion, their lives will become so drained that they don't even have the ability to get up from their side. So Jesus in the line of the great prophets is doing what they have all done in the past. He's acting out this parable.
Additionally, what you need to know from the story of scripture is that oftentimes the spiritual state of the people of God is likened to the physical state of botanical growth in life. So that if the people of God are in a healthy place, obeying God, walking with their Lord, the land is lush and full of fruit. You can find this in passages like, Hosea nine, Jeremiah chapter eight. And this is true on the communal level. You walk with God, the land will be running, overflowing with fruit.
You don't walk with God, this place will be barren and dry without fruit. And as I said, that's true on a communal level but it's also true on a personal level. You think of the words of Psalm one, this book that we have, the hymn book of the Bible, a 150 different prayers and songs. The first one says this, blessed is the man or happy is the person who walks not in the counsel of the wicked or stands in the way of sinners or sits in the seat of scoffers but his delight, her delight is on the law of the Lord and on the law of the Lord they meditate day and night. What does it say?
He is like a tree. She is like a tree planted by streams of water who grows fruit in its season. And then it says this, whatever he or she does, they prosper. How many of you long to have a life like that? Where you bear fruit?
Where you prosper? And so with all that in mind, we also keep in mind that this fruit was meant for the world. There's a specific place in Isaiah 27 verse six where it says that the people of God would one day under the reign of their great king provide fruit for the entire world. So the point of fruit is not just to benefit you but the people around you. Jesus knowing all of that sees this fig tree is hungry and from a distance what does he see?
Leaves. Fig leaves. It looks healthy. It appears to be alive, but he got close and there was nothing on it. The problem here, the condemnation of Jesus is not so much that the tree is fruitless, but that it is pretending to be fruitful.
That's the problem here. That's what he's cursing. That's the kind of life that Jesus is frustrated with, a kind of religious showiness. And before we stand back from this passage and think that could never be us, take a deep breath friends. How many of us are good at playing the religious game?
The church game, you show up, you like the songs, you even like the lights. Now it's funny. You join a group. You keep it shallow though because you know you're a person with dignity. How many of us are prone to engaging in Christian activity?
Playing the church game. This is perhaps one of the main sins of the American church. Swimming in Christian culture but still acting like our ancestors from Genesis three. You remember Adam and Eve hiding from God, not being honest. How do they clothe themselves?
With fig leaves. Fig leaves. The very thing that Jesus himself only sees on this tree bearing no real fruit. Take a moment and just ask, is it possible that your life right now is looking like a barren fig tree? This gap between appearances and reality.
Notice verse 20 there, the disciples response says, they were amazed when they saw this and asked, how did the fig tree wither so quickly? Now this surprises me a bit y'all. Why? Because the disciples have seen Jesus do a lot of miracles already. The lame walked, they saw blind men healed, they saw a withered hand come back, they saw thousands get fed with a few of bread and fish, they saw a dead man, Lazarus, come out of the grave, like they've seen Jesus do amazing things.
The storms were calm, Jesus walked on water and still this miracle, which interestingly enough is a moment where Jesus uses his power not to bring something back to life but to destroy something to death surprises them and it should surprise us all. This cursing of the tree, listen now, ought to warn all of us about our lives today. It is a sobering sign that we should not run past too quickly and to consider the deep honest frustration of Jesus when he sees people who kind of parade around with a spiritual life that is not authentic and real and has nothing to offer the world. Social media feeds with scripture, nothing to offer the world. Posts about politics, nothing to offer the world.
You show up to church regularly, nothing to offer your neighbors. Careful friends that we heed this this curse of Jesus and not think, could this be me? And before I dare say that to you, have to examine my own life and be bothered at my own life this week That it is so easy for me this week to prepare a message about God and never ever be with God. And you can look at my life. I talk with people about God.
I help people toward God. My calendar is full with church meetings here at Samuel's Church where there's a lot of God talk going on. My calendar is full of God, but is it the right kind? Is it one in which my life is actually rooted to him? Because from the outside, from a distance, everything looks healthy.
But what makes it so dangerous for me is that I can confuse production with intimacy, usefulness with intimacy as a pastor. That is my own warning today. And what's so ironic is, as I'm preparing this message, I'm looking out of my backyard, and a number of years ago Ash and I were fascinated with olive trees, especially from the Psalms you know, I'm like an olive tree, I root myself in the love of God, I'm like that's a great thing, let's plant that, right? So we planted that in our house. Except we planted olive trees that are seedless.
Get this, they're genetically designed to appear healthy, but never ever grow fruit. So I'm convicted this way, looking at like, dang Lord, is that a picture of me? Like I got this for hope, and you know, because I feel like a Christian. Now I'm sitting there like, oh my word, I'm gonna look at this beautiful tree every day and hear Jesus say, careful, you appear, you appear to have leaves in life. But when I get close, there ain't no fruit on that thing, and I picked it.
Seven of them. But it does, it stands in an honest reminder, Fredo, do you appear to be alive? But up close, there's nothing there. Because quietly over time, my attentiveness to the loving presence of God, which is what prayer is, has grown thinner and thinner. And the gap of my life, I think if you're willing to be honest here today is the gap that we all face.
This gap between appearances and reality where I can appear spiritually healthy while quietly living disconnected from God. The fig tree had leaves, the temple had a lot of activity. Don't don't get it wrong. They had tons of church services. You think we're gonna have a lot on Easter?
The temple had church services around the clock. Their giving was high, sacrifices happening, standing room only, but no fruit was in there. Which is why I think we need to heed these very cautious words from Jesus in Revelation three, because they sound so familiar. So when I say open to Revelation I know that sound effect goes off where it's like, because we're gonna get all excited and confused at the same time as to what's going on, but please don't miss that the book of Revelation, before it's you know, you and I trying to connect the dots to the future, it is a collection of letters written by the Apostle John from Jesus to the churches who were enduring difficult times. Listen to his words from Revelation three to the church in Sardis.
He says write this letter to the angel of the church in Sardis. This is the message from the one who has a sevenfold spirit of God. That's a way of saying the fullness of God's spirit, this is Jesus, and the seven stars. So here come Jesus' words, I know all the things you do. At this moment, maybe we can swap out Sardis and insert sandals.
To the church of sandals, I know all the things you do. I see them all. I see all of the church campuses. I see all of the activity, all of the discipleship, all of the things that are happening. I know all the things you do.
Listen to these next words. And that you have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead. I'm grateful. There's an end at verse one. Verse two, wake up, wake up, strengthen what little remains for what is left is almost dead because I find that your actions do not meet the requirements of my God.
Notice, yes this language is harsh, it's difficult to stomach, especially as a pastor of a church, but Jesus in this harsh language does not abandon them. He doesn't say you're done, there's still an invitation. What did he say? Wake up. Sounds Church, it's time to wake up.
Wake up and receive this invitation to do so, but it's going to require honesty. Because as we go back to our passage we remember that Jesus, as he approached the tree, it's the morning time, he just had coffee, he's got a bit of an appetite, so he goes up to this thing, he's hungry, he is looking for this tree to bring him nourishment in the same way that your spiritual life, your Christian faith is meant to bring nourishment to the people around you. And so as you try to wrestle with, do I have an appearance of life, but am I actually dead? Ask this simple question, is my faith feeding anyone else around me? Like is there anyone in your life today that benefits from you being a Christian?
Who is nourished by your faith today? Who gets nourished because you showed up to church? Who gets nourished because you apologized to your spouse and to your children? Who gets nourished because you do work with dignity when you show up, and character and integrity? Who is your faith feeding?
Does your life have fruit? In the words of my son, a strawberry. A strawberry. Because if it doesn't, heed this warning from Jesus today and repent friends. And don't forget that it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance.
If you're being convicted, that's not God's anger, that's his kindness right now. His kindness is coming to you saying, come back, repent, turn from your ways, stop hiding in the fig leaves and acknowledge what is missing. But let's press a little bit further, because if what is missing is the fruit to the tree, why was it missing in the first place? Well remember the story. Jesus in this passage, bear this in mind because it's easy to kind of read through the gospel and kind of miss important details.
Meaning this, before Jesus ever confronted people in the temple, before he ever flipped over a table, before he ever cursed this fig tree. Luke and Mark tell us that Jesus entered the city as the humble king on the donkey and then what does he do? He observed the state of things. Mark actually says he goes into the temple and sees what's happening. Luke then says these important words.
He prayed and then he wept over the city. He wept. Before he rushed in to do anything and make his whip, he observed it all. Which tells us the temple wasn't cleansed out of irritation and uncontrollable anger. The fig tree wasn't cursed because Jesus was just hangry.
Both of these intense and dramatic acts of Jesus flowed out of a heart that had first been with God the Father. This isn't a reaction because Jesus didn't pray, no. This is a response because he first prayed friends. Don't miss that. This is why prayer matters so much to the story.
This is exactly what we learn from Jesus who weeps over the city, weeps over the state of things, then he takes action. Which is why I think these words from the archbishop Oscar Romero are so helpful for us. Listen to this quote from him. There are many things that can only be seen through eyes that have cried. See what that.
There are many things that can only be seen through eyes that have cried. Prayer, honest unsanitized prayer gives us those kinds of eyes friends. It slows us spread. You know prayer is a way of slowing you down even when you're driving a little crazy on your way to work, prayer is always slowing you down. Prayer is a way of softening you before it sends you out to do something and this is a good warning for us.
A lot of us I would imagine are excited to be the righteous angry Jesus in our lives today at the state of the world, the state of the church, the state of politics, but have you wept? Have you prayed yet? Are you taking time to root yourself in God allowing the fruit of God to slowly bear out of your life? Because there is a direct connection between fruitlessness and prayerlessness and perhaps the best example today in modern America, the year 2026 of a fruitless fig tree is a Christian without a prayer life. So you wanna see a fig tree that doesn't bear fruit?
Find a Christian that does not have a sustainable prayer life. And so just ask yourself, are there any places in your life that are not bearing fruit and could there be a connection that you are not praying much in that area because prayer is the root where spiritual fruit grows. There is no way around this. Before prayer ever begins to change things out there, it changes something inside of me. That's what happens.
Listen to the words of Jesus from John 15. Anytime I get a chance to teach you could put money on the fact that I'm probably gonna quote John 15. So I mean, I'm not encouraging you to gamble, don't hear that the wrong way, but just know at some point Fredo's gonna take us to John 15 because we need these words. Jesus speaking, yes I am the vine, you are the branches, those who remain in me and I in them will what? Will produce much fruit.
This is a promise of Jesus. If you abide, if you remain, if you root yourself in me, you will, not maybe, you will produce fruit. A strawberry, a strawberry, it will come. But apart from me you can do nothing. Also a statement of fact from Jesus, which tells us then the growth you want, the fruit you long to see, the fruit you desire to feed other people is not something you can manufacture, but it comes from a life of first learning to root yourself in Jesus.
And not only is that possible, but there is a power that comes with that too. Notice the disciples, they're amazed there in verse 20, they're amazed at what happened. There's a power there and notice Jesus' response. Let's go back to the text. There in verse 21 It says, then Jesus told them, I tell you the truth, if you have faith and don't doubt you can do things like this and what?
Much more. So not only are you tapping into abide with Jesus to bear fruit, but according to Jesus there's a power available to you and I as we tap into him through prayer. And according to him we're gonna participate with him in this great work over the course of our lives because what he's thinking about, I think in the mind of Jesus, is that days after this, when he's resurrected and ascended into heaven, power from on high is going to fall down on these disciples and they're gonna be born of the spirit. That's why he goes on to say, you can even say to this mountain, may you be lifted up and thrown into the sea and it will happen. That's an insane thing to think about.
Now according to my knowledge about history, which is very small, I have never seen someone lift a mountain. And so there's a few ways that we might interpret this. Maybe Jesus is just kind of harkening back to the Hebrew idiom, the figure of speech, which is to say this phrase means you'll you can do the impossible, which is something he has said before in this very gospel. We've read it before. Or we can be a little bit more specific and say uniquely in this passage what Jesus is saying is you can say to this mountain, don't miss that article, this mountain, where are they?
Jerusalem. What is he pointing at? The Temple Mount. He is saying this entire religious structure will fall down into the sea. It will crumble, meaning the center place of God's power and presence will no longer be in a building, it will be in people.
It will be in you and I. And so here is the great shift that happens and matters for us. After the resurrection, the Holy Spirit of God is poured out so that the dwelling place of God is no longer in a building, it's in you and I. So get this, the the meeting point, the doorway between heaven above and earth below is your body, is where you reside. Wherever you go the temple of God goes.
Wherever you go the loving presence of God goes, which means now we don't leave our ordinary everyday lives to go and pray, we bring prayer into our everyday ordinary lives. And when he says you'll be able to do anything, he's not just giving us a check to write like, hey, say whatever you want and I'll bring it. This is not magical thinking. This is him saying that the power of prayer works in us and forms us into the kinds of people who can receive God's power because listen, prayer, your prayer is not about you getting God to do what you want. Prayer is about God getting you to do what he wants.
That's what happens in prayer. This is what Jesus does in his life. He prays, weeps over the city, and then he becomes his prayers by going into the temple and cleansing it. Prayer led to action, prayer led to justice in the same way that prayer will lead to fruit. And I know at some level deep down inside every single one of you long to have this kind of life.
And so how do we get there? As we close, confession. Confession. Our lives are fruitless lives because our lives are prayerless lives. Just confess and name that today.
At some level say God in some way shape or form my life is very much like this fig tree. And then let's reflect together and ask this question, what in my life has kept me from prayer? First one on this list for us, noise. Noise. We are addicted to noise.
If you're like me, the second I enter silence, I'm looking to fill it with noise. What does this say about us if we can't be silent with God? You know the experts will tell you the more comfortable you are with someone, the easier it is to sit there in silence and do nothing with them. Not about you, like a lot of my car rides with Ashley, like we're just quiet. We're not mad at each other.
There's no there's no beef. We're actually excited about what we're about to do. We're just enjoying the silence. So what does it say about your relationship with God if it is hard for you to be silent with him? Perhaps noise is keeping you from a life rooted in him, a prayer life rooted in him.
Embrace silence. Secondly, our busyness. There are some incredibly gifted people here at this church and you love Jesus. You love Sandals. We are so glad to call you family here but let's be honest, you're busy.
You are busy and your calendar is marked by what you have to do sometimes for God and not marked by being with God. And that's the case for me. The first thing even as a pastor that gets shoved off my calendar and I just push it off to the end, it's prayer. I can get to it. I'm gonna pray at work.
I can get to it later. Busyness. Thirdly, fatigue. Not about you but there are days where I am just kinda going about what I gotta do and I just get so tired that I start to feel guilty that I show up to God too tired and I can't bring in my best and so I actually guilt myself out of prayer. Is that anyone else or just me?
Awesome, just me. It's great. It's wonderful. Thank you. Thank you.
So I start to overanalyze my inability to bring my best to God. As if I need to wait till everything's perfect and then I'll go pray. What is wrong with that? Lastly, distraction. I sit down to pray, get quiet.
Oh man, what time do Lakers play tonight? Luke is still hurt? Maybe I should even watch the game. Because when I don't watch the game they do better. Yeah, maybe I won't watch the game.
Oh shoot, I'm supposed to be praying. Jesus, here I am. Distraction. And honestly, means you are not a bad Christian, it just means you're a human being. So reframe distractions.
They're a gift. Return to God. Pray for the Lakers and then keep them moving, right? Lastly though, this is probably the one that I think stings us the most as modern Americans today, productivity. You see in the world we all live in today we measure things and give them value based on their output.
What I can see, what I can complete, my strategies, my plans up into the right. We love to trust in what we can control, the things that we manage in our lives. We love to optimize our existence. From our diets, to our workouts, to our cars, to our TVs, to our Amazon devices in our rooms. We love efficiency and productivity.
And the hidden atheism inside of all of our churches, inside of all of our hearts, is that we believe in the power of productivity more than we believe in the power of prayer. We don't pray and you know what today is okay to admit that. Confess your productivity. Perhaps that is what keeping you from a prayer life. And the irony in all the productivity talk is that the very thing we believe it will give us makes us actually less fruitful.
And so please don't hear me say, well he's a pastor, he's an enneagram nine, he just loves to sit down to do nothing. That's why he's gonna tell us to pray today. No, no, no, no. I actually love productivity, and the only way I'm gonna get anything done is if I first pray. And so this is not an invitation to do less because I just think we shouldn't do anything at all, it's an invitation to do more first and rooted in the fact that you need to learn to pray.
This is a call to prayer. A call to prayer not built on a requirement, you now must go pray. That's a terrible sermon, that's religion. We're a church. We follow Jesus.
There's good news in this building today, which means prayer is not a requirement. It's a return to God. It's an honest return to God. It's about coming. When you think about it, prayer is about coming back home.
Prayer is about coming home to where you belong. And this is a perfect time for us because we are in a season called Lent. We are preparing for Easter. Easter is weeks away y'all. Now I gotta tell you for many years the Christian church has prepared for Easter, not just with posting all of its service times, picking out outfits colorful again.
I've never seen anyone show up to Easter like an all black. I mean, I guess we should talk to that person if they do but there's more to it, right? And the church has called this season Lent, a forty day period of preparation. Lent, you know, fell out of our vocabulary, but it's an old English word that simply means springtime. It is Christians for forty days focusing on the truth and the hope that through Jesus new life can be birthed through death.
Not apart from it. Springtime is here, new life is coming. The grass looks barren, new life is coming. Your relationships look barren, new life is coming. Marriage difficult, new life is coming.
Lent is about preparing for the new life that God is going to do in and through you. A critical step to Lent is learning and embracing what has kept you from that new life, which is why Christians for many years have practiced giving something up. Some of guys may be familiar with this. We give something up in order to gain more of Jesus. Not out of guilt, guilt or doom and gloom, but we wanna create space for God to bear fruit, To bear fruit.
And so one of the ways that we're doing this here at the church is through the Sandals Church app and we put people, time, resources into the app. Why? Because we know you are on your phones. We are on our phones too. And so we have designed a discipleship tool to support you in daily rhythms of being with Jesus.
So over the next forty days, you can go into the app, find a short scripture reading, emphasis on short, a way to reflect on God's word and an opportunity to pray. This has been an incredible gift. Why do I say that? Because the power has not just been found in us as a church completing 250,000 daily rhythms today, which is pretty cool. The power has not just been found in 10,000 prayer requests being made in the app, which has happened.
The power has not just been found in a few 100,000 prayer requests being prayed over. No, no, no. You see the gift of prayer is not all the things that are happening before you say Amen, it's everything that happens after you say Amen. So much so that quickly now out of an example, a prayer surfaced out of the app. Someone was struggling financially, couldn't cover their rent.
Church members saw that, made a decision to help and accept and cover that. You know what that reminds me of? Not just fig leaves but real fruit. The power of prayer not just in everything you say before Amen, but everything that comes after Amen. And so engage with the app, let it serve you.
Lastly, as we sit with this warning of the cursing of the fig tree, I want us to be open to the reality that there is also a blessing for us in the cursed tree. Because our hope today is not in me you or me telling you as the pastor, go home and pray better. That's an awful sermon and I'm sorry if that's what you got out of this. Our hope today is in the one who had the power to speak a cursing over a tree is the same one who has became a curse himself when he hung on a tree for us. Jesus just doesn't curse trees, he allowed a tree to curse him.
Paul in Galatians three, but Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. Notice what it says, for it is written in the scriptures, cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. Friends, we can go to Jesus in prayer. Why?
Because he just doesn't curse trees but allows the curse of our sin to be spoken over him so that we can become the kind of people who bear real fruit in our lives. Fruit is going to come and one day in the not too distant future you are going to wake up, look out of the window of your life and cry out to your father in heaven, dad, dad, a strawberry. Strawberry. Let's pray. God we thank you for your word today and we ask God that in this place where we acknowledge our need for you now that you would come into your work.
We confess our prayerless lives and we declare to you that we long to see fruit. Fruit that just doesn't benefit us but fruit that can feed the world. Fruit that can feed people around us. And so would you, just as the disciples when they asked you, we as a church ask you now, would you teach us to pray? Make us people of prayer.
Make us a church of prayer that just doesn't look alive but has fruit to prove it. God we wanna see strawberries in the name of Jesus. Amen. I wanna take a quick second to say thank you to all of you who are watching online, wherever you might be, wherever God might have you. We are grateful you took time to be with us today.
I wanna let you know here at Sandals Church, we just don't take prayer seriously, we take it practically. One of the ways that we do that is through the Sandals Church app. And so I know that you might live far away from a campus, but the app is a helpful tool that allows you to connect with us as a church and the work that God is doing in and through our church. And so I'd love for you if you haven't yet, download the app, be a part of the daily rhythms. And also through that you can reach out to us.
I would love to follow-up with you, hear more about you. As always, if these messages or anything Sandals Church is doing is serving your journey as you follow Jesus in a real way. I wanna encourage you to pray about giving and supporting the work that God is doing here. To do that you can go to sandalschurch.com/support. Grace and peace.