Fruitful Christian Living

Mark 11:12-14, 20-25
Gregory Perry | Sunday, February 14, 2021
Copyright © 2021, Gregory Perry

While some people may be harder to fool than others, it is not too difficult to impress people, for the most part. Even the worst of people can put up a good enough show to make a good impression, at least for a season. Even if your heart is hard and your motives are wrong, you can often sway people through what you say and how you look outwardly.

Even discerning people can be fooled. But the message is this: You cannot fool God. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. The omniscient God is not impressed with our outward show. He sees and judges the thoughts and attitudes of our hearts.

There is an incident recorded in Mark 11 that demonstrates these principles. When Jesus curses a tree full of leaves but without fruit, it is a stark picture of God’s judgment on all who only appear on the outside to be very godly. They may be sound in their external religious duties, but their internal life is disorderly. They honor God with their lips but their hearts are far from him. They diligently clean the outside of their cups, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

In this section in which Christ curses the fig tree, Jesus, the ultimate master teacher, teaches us two valuable lessons. We learn, first, that we need to be fruitful followers of Christ, and, second, he teaches us how to pray effectually. So these are our two points this morning. One is the cursed fruitless tree, and, two, effectual prayer.

The Cursed Fruitless Tree

Let us look at the cursed fruitless tree. The first thing we see about the fig tree that Jesus encounters is that it is full of leaves but bears no fruit. We read, “The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in 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” (vv. 12–13). Though this was not the normal season for figs to be producing, they ordinarily have fruit when fig trees are in leaf.

Some ask why did Jesus curse this tree when it was not even the right time of year for it to produce fruit. First, the point here is not that Jesus was just frustrated with the fig tree for not quenching his hunger pangs and, in an uncontrollable fit of rage, swore down curses upon this poor, innocent tree. You will see godless Bible scholars saying things like this. One says that this is “a tale of miraculous power wasted in the service of ill-temper.”[1] These are people who do not get the point.

Such irreverent interpretations completely miss the point of what Jesus does here. This is a symbolic action that Jesus is making to teach his disciples and by extension to teach us a greater spiritual lesson and a most serious spiritual lesson. In this visual parable, Jesus uses this leafy, fruitless tree as a symbol of a fruitless believer. The tree with leaves and no fruit is like a man who has all the outward form of religion but denies its power. All the external marks are there. He professes faith in Christ. He was baptized in the name of the triune God. He belongs to a solid Bible-believing church, and he faithfully attends three services a week. He even reads the Bible daily, and has daily devotions, both personally and as a household.

He has all these things, yet something vital is missing. He lacks real spiritual fruit; that is, fruit produced by the indwelling Holy Spirit. This lack of fruit points to a lack of real life in Christ. Spirit-produced fruit is the inevitable result of God’s work of regeneration in the life of a believer. The man born of the Spirit necessarily produces the fruit of the Spirit. When God regenerates a man, he makes him fruitful. As Jesus says in Matthew 7, “Every good tree bears good fruit” (Matt. 7:17).

The fruit of the Spirit describes godly character traits that are evident in a true Christian. So the apostle Paul in Galatians 5 famously gives the fruit of the Spirit. He says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal. 5:22–23). If you are born of the Spirit, you will manifest these qualities.

We can look at any one of these fruits of the Spirit to illustrate this point. But let’s just look at the first couple of fruits named. If we have all the outward form of religion and yet lack love, we are missing the very heart of true faith. The apostle Paul makes this point in 1 Corinthians 13. He says, “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2–3).

You see, you may have a lot of leaves of religion. But if you lack Holy Spirit-produced love, then you have nothing. Romans 13:10 says, “Love is the fulfillment of the law.” It means that those who love Christ will keep his commands. For while love always obeys, not all forms of obedience come from a heart that loves God truly. I may obey God’s word in order to impress people or just to stay out of trouble. Or I may just do what God wants me to do out of sheer habit because it is just the way I was raised. But such loveless obedience is not the fruit of the Spirit. It is nothing more than a leafy tree without real fruit.

Or look at the fruit of the Spirit of joy. If we do God’s will, but it is all drudgery and no delight, then it is not true spiritual fruit. For born-again believers, the Lord’s commands are not burdensome. His yoke is easy, and his burden is light (Matt. 11:30). Born-again believers now run in the path of God’s commands because he has set their hearts free (Ps. 119:32). The baptized churchgoing orthodox believer who has no joy is the leafy tree without fruit.

The primary fruit of regeneration is heart obedience to God, doing his will immediately, exactly, and with joy. The fruitless tree says, “Lord, Lord,” but he does not do what the Lord says. And even though the fruitless tree prophesies in the Lord’s name, and in his name drives out demons and performs many miracles, on the judgment day the Lord will tell him plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” (Matt. 7:21–23).

The leafy fruitless believer is the Christian who professes the correct faith but does not live the correct life. He has orthodoxy but not orthopraxy. He has faith but not the deeds that accompany true faith. He has faith without works. We know that we are saved by grace through faith, not by works, but we are also told we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do (Eph. 2:10). A Christian is not saved by his works, but his works are the necessary evidence of the authenticity of his faith in Christ. As our pastor always says, we are not saved by our obedience, but our obedience proves—our obedience demonstrates—our true saving faith. Obedience is the fruit of saving faith.

Remember, this leafy tree looked good from a distance. But a closer look revealed its fruitlessness. May this not be true of us. May we not be those who just look good from a distance. We have a good job. We have a nice home. We have good church attendance. May we not be those who at a closer look prove spiritually hollow and superficial.

But why not? What is the big deal, anyway? What is wrong with being a leafy tree without fruit? Well, you may not think it is a big deal, but the whole point of this passage is that God does. Our hypocrisy and duplicity is a big deal to him. This is evidenced by the fact that Jesus curses the fruitless fig tree. Verse 14 says, “Then he said to the tree, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’ And his disciples heard him say it.” Jesus curses the fruitless tree, and the next day they bear witness to the consequences of this cursing. The text says, “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 has withered!’” (vv. 20–21).

We should first note the obvious point, that this fig tree withering at the curse of Jesus, just like the calming of the storm, shows his absolute power over nature. This is an obvious demonstration of the deity of Jesus Christ. This Jesus is no mere man. He is nothing less than the all-knowing, all-powerful God over all.

While this is true, this is not the main idea of the passage. In other words, Jesus did not curse this fig tree just to show everyone that he is God. The main idea that Jesus is conveying is a symbolic one. We saw that the leafy, fruitless tree is symbolic of a Christian who professes faith in Christ but does not evidence it by the fruit of his life and character. But the point here is that, like this fig tree, such a fruitless believer is cursed. In fact, the fruitless believer is not a true believer, no matter what he professes to be. The false believer is not truly born again. Therefore, he will not see or enter the kingdom of God. He stands condemned in his sins, and God’s wrath remains on him.

Jesus speaks elsewhere of the faith of the false believer in another parable of the fruitless fig tree in Luke 13. He tells the parable, saying, “A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I have been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’” (Luke 13:6–8). And Jesus similarly said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:19, “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” He is speaking about judgment. The tree without fruit, no matter how beautiful and bountiful its leaves, will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

It is important to note that fruitlessness does not equal being a weak Christian. No, even a weak Christian of little faith will bear fruit. Yes, it will be thirtyfold rather than a hundredfold, but simply put, the Christian without fruit is not a Christian. No fruit equals no faith. Every Christian must produce fruit. He not only confesses his sin and renounces it, but he produces fruit in keeping with repentance. The man who fails to prove his repentance by his deeds is the one who just keeps on sinning. And if he lacks the fruit of repentance, then he has not truly repented, even if he is claiming, “I have repented.” But if he continues to sin, then he is not truly repented, and so he remains condemned in his sins.

That is really what this visual parable of Jesus is all about. The fruitless Christian will be judged by God and ultimately condemned. He will be cut down and thrown into the eternal lake of fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. All will surely stand before God in judgment. And the Bible repeatedly informs us that judgment will be based on our works—not just our profession of faith, but the fruit that our faith produces.

This is all over the Bible. It is all over the New Testament. I will just give you a few verses. In Matthew 16:27 Jesus himself says, “For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.” The apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:10 says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” Notice that. Everyone will appear and give an account for everything done while in the body—what we do, the fruit that we produce. Or in the last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22, the Lord Jesus says, “Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done.”

We see this principle of judgment based on our works being played out in Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25. To the sheep on his right, the heavenly King grants their eternal inheritance because, as he says, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat,”—you see, you did something—“I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” These are all fruits of real faith. These are things that they did. When the righteous asked when they did these things, the King answers, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matt. 25:34–40). The love that they showed to the weak and needy was a fruit of true faith.

The first fruit of the Spirit is love. All this is why, if someone who knows you and has good spiritual sense sees a lack of fruit in your life, this is something you should take very seriously. It is true if anyone comes to you, but especially if this is from someone God has delegated as a spiritual authority in your life. A good tree bears good fruit.

Those who are in Christ are a new creation. The old has gone and the new has come. And now that we are a new creation, we are to live a new life in Christ. Are we living that new life in Christ? We are to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Faith without works is dead. And a tree full of leaves but without true fruit is fit only to be fuel for the eternal fire. That is the first lesson that Jesus teaches his disciples here.

Effectual Prayer

The second lesson is our second point. He teaches them about effectual prayer. The disciples marvel at the power Jesus demonstrated in withering the fig tree. But Jesus uses the occasion to teach his second lesson from this visible parable. He is teaching them how to pray to God effectually—in other words, how to pray in a way that God responds to.

There are a number of ways that we do this. The first thing he highlights is the importance of believing prayer. He begins by instructing them about the power of believing prayer. As the end of the earthly ministry of Jesus nears, as his death is approaching, he is burdened to instruct his disciples on faith. So he says, “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 says 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.”

The kind of faith that saves, what we call saving faith, is not some abstract mere agreement to a set of doctrinal statements. It is not just agreeing with “I believe God in three Persons in one Godhead,” or, “I believe in the deity of Christ,” or, “I believe that the Bible is the word of God.” That is not the whole of saving faith. Saving includes mental assent to these truths, but it is more than that. True saving faith is entrustment. The Latin phrase is fides est fiducia: faith is trust. To have faith in Christ means to entrust your whole life to him. You surrender yourself to him absolutely and you commit to him as Lord. This is why the basic confession of faith is “Jesus is Lord.”

Jesus tells us in John 14:1, “Trust in God; trust also in me.” Notice how Jesus uses the present tense. We are to trust in him ongoingly. (GWP) We are to exercise faith daily. Faith is more than just a one-time commitment that you make when you first come to Christ. We are to trust in him daily. We are to grow in faith daily.

The arena that Jesus addresses here, and in which we are to exercise our faith, is the arena of prayer. Real faith results in prayer. If I really believe in God, I speak to him. I praise his name. I give him thanks. I confess to him my sins. I ask for him to do what I cannot do for myself. Faith prays.

The disciples marvel at the ability of Jesus to cause this fruitless fig tree to wither. But Jesus wants them to know the great power that is at the disposal of any praying Christian. He tells them that if they tell the mountain to throw itself into the sea and do not doubt in their hearts, but believe that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. The point here is not that we should literally look to move mountains in our prayers. What Jesus is speaking about here is the power of believing prayer; that we need to come to God in prayer with mountain-moving faith. We should pray in faith that he will do for us what seems impossible. What is impossible for us is not impossible with God.

We must not bind God to our own weaknesses and inabilities. Mountain-moving faith does what the eighteenth-century missionary to India, William Carey, famously said: “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.” We must be rebuked for our little faith and our low expectations.

This is especially true in our evangelistic endeavors. How many times have we remained silent because we were convinced that the person we were talking to would never come to Christ? He is too far gone. He is too hard. He is too proud. He is too smart. Or he is too stupid. He is too unrighteous, or he is too righteous. And there are a thousand other excuses. But we should realize that we are not just belittling that person when we have that attitude. No, we are actually belittling God himself. We are saying he is not able.

But he is able. Ephesians 3:20 says, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” We remember earlier in this gospel of Mark when Jesus had to rebuke the man who wondered if Jesus was able to heal his demon-possessed son. This is in Mark 9, starting in verse 21: “Jesus asked the boy’s father, ‘How long has he been like this?’ ‘From childhood,’ he answered. ‘It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.’ ‘“If you can”?’ said Jesus. ‘Everyone is possible for him who believes.’ Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, ‘I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!’” (Mark 9:21–24). The man believed, and it was evidenced by his coming to Jesus to heal his son. But he was weak in faith. And so Jesus had to fortify and strengthen his faith. Jesus helped him overcome his unbelief. And we need his help to overcome ours. We need our faith fortified.

Likewise, Jesus fortified the faith of Jairus, the synagogue ruler. When the people came to him and told him it was too late, that his daughter had already died, the text says, “Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, ‘Don’t be afraid; just believe’” (Mark 5:36).

This is how we need to approach God when we are praying in our time of need. Don’t be afraid; just believe. We are to pray in faith and expect our God to hear and answer our prayers. We read recently from Psalm 5:3: “In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.”

We can have confidence in praying to God because he has promised to hear the prayers of his holy people. Expectation is not presumption. Faith expects God especially to do what he has promised. For example, in Jeremiah 29:12–13 God says, “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.” He is promising, “I will listen to you when you come and pray.” He continues, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Or as Jesus himself said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matt. 7:7–8).  That is the word of our Lord to us.

In fact, lack of faith in prayer is an affront to God. It is an insult to him. Believing in God to answer our prayers honors him. Doubting his ability and willingness to answer our prayers is calling into question both his power and his goodness. God responds to faith, not doubt.

Now, don’t be confused. This is not the “name it and claim it” theology of kooky charismatic charlatans. God is not some sort of genie who just grants our every wish as long as we have enough faith. But faith is a key component of real prayer.

So the first thing about praying effectually is praying in faith. Second, we need to pray according to God’s will. We must keep in mind that our degree of faith is not the only qualification. We pray effectually when we pray according to God’s will. We read this in 1 John 5. Beginning in verse 14 it says, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 5:14–15).

We are to strive to pray according to God’s will. Prayer is not just us going and telling God all our wishes and what our will is. We want to know what God’s will is and then pray that to him. Prayer is not just expressing our will to God and then asking him to do it. But prayer is discovering God’s will and then praying that God accomplish his will in and through us. Prayer in which we plead God’s promises is a way of also asserting our confidence in his word and our confidence that our God will keep his word. If God promised it, it is guaranteed. I know his will so I must believe that he will do what he has said.

There is another element of effectual prayer, which is a righteous prayer. Beyond believing prayer and beyond praying according to his will, prayer is to come from a believer who is walking in obedience to the God to whom he is praying. This is what is called righteous prayer. The blind man healed by Jesus rightly points out in John 9:31 that God listens to the godly person who does his will. God does not listen to those who refuse to do his will. We must come to him with clean hands and a pure heart. As Psalm 66:18 says, “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” And James 5:16 tells us, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”

The prayer of an unrighteous man who is doing his own thing is not powerful and effective. God is not hearing the weak prayers of an unrighteous person. First Peter 3:12 says it this way: “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer”—not the unrighteous but to the righteous. And it goes on to say: “The face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” Or 1 John 3, beginning with verse 21, says, “Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him” (1 John 3:21–22). If we are not obeying God, we are doing what pleases ourselves, and he is not hearing and answering our prayers.

God is sure to answer God-honoring, expectant, believing prayers that come from his obedient children who strive to know and do his will. That being said, God often does not answer exactly how we expect or when we expect. This is his way of reminding us that he is the Sovereign God, he is the One in control of all things.

The final aspect of effectual prayer is forgiving prayer. Jesus closes this section by stressing the point that effectual prayer necessarily comes from someone who has forgiven his brother. In verse 25 he says, “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

This is telling us that if I am not right with my brother, then I cannot be right with God. And notice the universality of the statement. It says, “If you hold anything against anyone.” This includes everything from petty little quibbles with others to more serious personal wrongs that have been done to us, whether real or perceived. And this can be committed against or by your worst enemies or your best friends. “If you hold anything against anyone.” You see, you cannot pick and choose what you will forgive. You cannot pick and choose who you will forgive. “If you hold anything against anyone.”

Jesus tells us that we are to forgive those who wronged us even as we stand there praying. Don’t go on praying or worshiping while you remain in conflict with your brother. Settle the matter quickly. There is clear application to us as we prepare even now to take the Lord’s Supper. We are to settle matters beforehand. I should not partake of the Lord’s Supper while I bear a grudge in my heart against a brother who wronged me or if a root of bitterness is in me against some elder. Nor should I eat and drink the body and blood of Christ when I am at odds with my brother or I am quarreling with my spouse.

The command is simple: “Forgive him,” Jesus says. “Forgive him.” It may be difficult to do, but it is simple. Pastor Mathew very recently preached a whole sermon on this, the sermon called, “The Forgiven Forgive.” And we cannot hear the word preached by Pastor, we cannot hear it preached this morning, we cannot read it in the Bible, and then just go on in bitterness. We cannot receive forgiveness from God and then fail to forgive others. That would be utter hypocrisy.

The classic parable that Jesus told in order to illustrate this hypocrisy is the parable of the unmerciful servant, which tells us about the servant who had been forgiven much but could not forgive even very little. This is what we are like when we gladly receive God’s forgiveness, but we refuse to forgive those who sin against us. We would do well to remember that no one has sinned against us worse than we have sinned against God. Yet God has graciously forgiven us in Christ.

All of this must be taken very seriously because lack of forgiving others is a sure sign of not truly being forgiven by God. Hear what Jesus said: “Forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

Jesus taught the same truth in plain terms in the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 6 he said, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matt. 6:14–15). It is not that God does not forgive you because you do not forgive others. Rather, it is that your failure to forgive others is evidence of an unregenerate nature. It is bad fruit, pointing to a bad tree. When you have truly been born again, you quickly forgive others because you yourself have experienced God’s forgiveness.

The major point of Jesus’ teaching about effectual prayer is that we must get rid of everything that hinders our prayers, whether it be unbelief, or failure to pray according to his will, or personal unrighteousness, or lack of forgiveness. And to come full circle, if we are regenerated, God pours out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. With our new heart, we love God, and we love his people. And if we truly love from a renewed heart, that will bear certain fruit. We know that it is easy to forgive those that we truly love. Lack of forgiveness is a sure sign of a lack of love. And love is, as we know, the first fruit of the Spirit. So without this fruit, we are nothing but a leafy fig tree with no fruit. May it not be so with us!

[1] T. W. Manson, quoted  in “The Lesson of the Fig Tree,” at https://www.thingsofthesort.com/sermons-2/2019/10/28/mark-1112-25-the-lesson-of-the-fig-tree