The King

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info visit us at thrive-fl.org. So let's get reading this long text, the story within the story within the story, or the sandwich, okay, rather than the intercalation. Now, when they drew near to Jerusalem to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, go into the village in front of you and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied 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 has need of it and will send it back here immediately. And they went away and found a colt tied to a door outside in the street and they untied it and some of those standing there said to them, what are you doing and tying the colt? And they told them what Jesus had said and they let them go. And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it and he sat on it. And many spread their cloaks on the road and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, 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. And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. And when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, may no one ever eat fruit from you again. And his disciples heard it. And they came to Jerusalem and he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple. And he overturned the table of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying, is it not written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of robbers. And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him. For they feared him because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. And when evening came, he went out of the city. And as they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said, Rabbi, look, the fig tree you cursed has withered. And Jesus answered them, have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain be taken up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt it in his heart, but believes what he says will come to pass. It will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received in it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive. If anyone has anything against anyone, so that your father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. Wow, huge text, right? Lots of things going on in it. We're gonna focus on two different points that we're gonna kind of hopefully string these together. And that is the fig tree and the king. Okay, the fig tree first. You might go like, wait a minute, what does Jesus have against fig trees? I mean, the text says it wasn't the season for figs. He comes up to it, he seems hungry, he gets ticked off, he can't find anything, he curses it, boom, it's gone, right? It's not really about the fig tree. Like I said, this intercalation, this kind of three-layered sandwich, the tree, a fig tree has often represented the nation of Israel in metaphor from the prophetic times on. Jesus doesn't actually have it out for the plant kingdom, nor does he have it out for the ficus genus of trees, okay? And there's something else that makes a lot more sense about this. I didn't know this, but I've read that this kind of ficus, this fig tree, actually has two types of fruit. Yes, when the leaves come out, there are these little buds that develop right at that point in time, and they're really kind of good to eat. And a healthy tree, when the leaves come out, would have thousands and thousands of these little nubs all over its branches, showing a precursor to what will become figs later on. It's different that way. And so when Jesus finds that there are no nubs on that tree, it's a sign that this tree, though in full leaf and looking good, is diseased at its core. It's dying from the inside out. It looks good, and so his cursing of this tree is only really speeding the decay that was already there. And like I said, this is not the story about a fig tree and botany. It's a story about the temple and the people of God at that time. Jesus comes in and he cleanses the temple, right? He is basically saying, this place looks great, everything looks like it's in order, it's busy, it'...