A Serious Call to Repentance and Prayer

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0:18I am Brian Hansen, and it's a joy to serve as one of the elders here. We are in the midst of the 21st chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, and we have arrived to a very pivotal, significant moment, both in Jesus' ministry and in the history of Israel, the cursing of this fig tree. So let us go to the Lord and ask Him for grace and help in this text. Our Lord, will you please show us the glory of Christ in this text? Show us the greatness of Christ in this text, and show us, please, the forgiveness of Christ in this text. In Jesus' name, amen.

1:07On a Friday afternoon in May 1997, one of the most covert and successful Soviet spies and operatives during the Cold War was arrested by the FBI on US soil. That Soviet KGB agent was Jack Barsky, and of course, that was not his real name. That very definition of a spy was fake identities, deception, and multiple aliases, and Barsky was all that and more as he became the spy master of his craft in Soviet and Cold War history. He lived in two different worlds and had two different families as he lived a double life and maintained that for 20 years. He had children in both marriages, and his family never knew anything about that deception until 20 years later when he was arrested by the FBI in 1997.

2:11He maintained his cover in order to do one mission, spy for the Soviet Union. When both of his wives learned about his fake identity and his deception, they understandably were upset, and they divorced him. And I believe to this day, he's married to a third wife. He wasn't the person he said he was. His double life was exposed by the FBI, and it came crashing down. In our text this morning, Jesus exposes the person who appears to be a Christian and even professes to be a Christian, but in reality, it is a fake identity. It is a fraudulent, a fake Christianity. In this very text, Jesus highlights two primary fruits or marks of true faith, repentance and prayer.

3:08These two fruits are the essence of true, not fake, but true Christianity. Perhaps our eyes are drawn most to Jesus' words on the type of prayer and faith that moves mountains. Maybe you were drawn to that when you heard the text read. But in order to understand even that moving the mountains type of faith, we must understand the overarching theme of this section, which is the fruits of genuine faith, which are repentance and prayer. These two fruits and evidences of true faith form the structure of our text this morning. So in verses 18 and 19, we have the first section, which is Jesus' cursing of the fig tree demonstrates the need for true repentance.

3:56In the second section, which forms verses 20 through 22, Jesus teaches a lesson from the fig tree, and it demonstrates the need for faith-filled prayer or prayer that is full of faith. So what is the main point of this text? The main point of the text is this. Jesus calls his disciples, including us, to repentance and faith-filled prayer as evidences of true faith. Jesus calls his disciples to repentance and faith-filled prayer as evidences of true, genuine faith. So this text is a serious call to place our faith in Jesus Christ and to live a life of Christian repentance and faith-filled prayer every day.

4:49Jesus is calling each of us this morning to true faith, which produces a life of ongoing sanctification, which is true biblical Christianity. And this includes coming back to Jesus again and again through repentance and through prayer. So look with me at the text for our first section, which is Jesus' cursing of the fig tree and its demonstration of the need for true repentance. Look with me at verse 18. "In the morning, as Jesus was returning to the city, he became hungry." So the chronological setting of the cursing of the fig tree is the final week of Jesus's life and ministry. I know it's hard to believe here in Matthew 21.

5:35We have seven more chapters to go, approximately, but we are now in the final week, the Passion Week of Jesus. And Mark 11 tells us that this cursing of the fig tree occurred on two different days. But Matthew here is condensing it into a single event. The triumphal entry earlier in this chapter transpired on a Sunday, and the cleansing of the temple occurred the next day on a Monday. Therefore, this cursing of the fig tree occurs on a Monday and also on a Tuesday. And remember, Jesus was crucified on a Friday, the Friday after.

6:15Jesus and disciples were staying in this town of Bethany. You see this in verse 17. Look up to verse 17. "And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there," most likely lodging with his friends Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. Then Jesus and disciples walk about two miles from Bethany to Jerusalem, which is a city mentioned here in the 18th verse. Notice that Jesus is hungry. There are at least two things I think we can gather from Jesus's hunger. Number one, he must have not eaten breakfast. I think that's one logical conclusion. But secondly, I think the more important conclusion here that Matthew is inserting here is Jesus is truly man, and he hungers for food as men do.

7:01And this is another affirmation in the Gospel of Matthew that Jesus is fully man, and he's fully God at the same time. And then in the 19th verse, we're introduced to a solitary fig tree. Look with me at verse 19. "And seeing a fig tree." Perhaps there were multiple fig trees along this wayside, but this is a fig tree that he looks at here. "He went to it," the fig tree, "and he found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, 'May no fruit ever come from you again.' And the fig tree withered at once." Fig trees were ubiquitous in Israel in the first century, as much as maple trees are here in Minnesota with all the helicopter seeds flying down on your path.

7:52It was one of the most common trees of the day, and figs were a common fruit for Jewish people to eat at different meals. This is not the only time in Jesus' ministry where fig trees are mentioned in his teaching. For example, in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus referred to the fig tree in chapter seven, verse 16, during the Sermon on the Mount, and then again later on after this event in chapter 24 in verse 32 as a little parable. And in the Gospel of Luke in the 13th chapter, Jesus tells a parable about a barren fig tree, which actually that parable has striking parallels to this account in our text this morning.

8:30For Jesus, the common fig tree became an important object lesson to communicate spiritual realities. So then what does Jesus do with the fig tree? Again, look at verse 19. He says to it, "May no fruit ever come from you again." He issues a curse. He curses it with eight words in the Greek text, and the fig tree is rendered immediately permanently barren. It was barren temporarily, but now it's permanently barren. How do we know that? Because the leaves wither. Life is drained of the tree immediately, and it's conspicuous and obvious to disciples, as we'll talk about in a moment. They're surprised by this withering of the tree.

9:13Now, is Jesus throwing a temper tantrum or pitching a fit, as some scholars actually have boldly even submitted? Some have submitted that he was losing his temper in this chapter by cleansing the temple and now by cursing a fig tree. No, Jesus is not pitching a toddler fit. What he's doing is he's enacting a parable. An enacted parable is a divine message that's fleshed out through mainly symbolic actions, not words. His Jewish audience would have immediately captured this, both his disciples at the time and also Matthew's readers later on in around AD 60 when this book was composed approximately.

10:00They would have immediately recognized and connected the dots to something going on on the mega-narrative of fig trees in the Bible. So there are three things that I want you to see in this enacted parable that the disciples and Jewish audience of Matthew's day in AD 60 would have seen here. So number one, we should see and note in this enacted parable that Jesus is the true prophet. Jesus is a true prophet who rebukes Israel, particularly its religious leaders. Now, how do we know that? How can we prove that from this text and the text surrounding this in our Bibles? Now, Jesus' act of cursing of the tree is a prophetic action, and it is symbolic and drawing directly from the Old Testament.

10:48The Old Testament, as you read your Old Testament, you're going to notice numerous references to fig trees over and over and over again, and those fig trees often are being cursed in the Old Testament. I'll just give you a smattering of examples here or references for you to jot down. Isaiah 34:4 or Jeremiah 8:13, Jeremiah 24:1-10, Hosea 2, Joel 1, Micah 7, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are a number of references to fig trees being cursed in the Old Testament. In each case, the fig tree represents the nation of Israel. So we have a window, a key here. The nation of Israel is being cursed as the fig tree who is unproductive.

11:30For example, listen to these words from Jeremiah 8:13. God says, "When I would gather them, there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree. Even the leaves are withered, and what I gave them has passed away from them." The disciples would have been very much aware of this text and would have connected this text and others to this moment in Jesus' cursing of the fig tree. Now, the enacted parable that Jesus does follows a tradition of Old Testament prophets such as Ezekiel and Isaiah, Jeremiah, and famously Hosea with his prostitute wife. These are enacted parables that are a divine word from the Lord, and they give a divine message and usually one of judgment against his people, Israel.

12:22So what Jesus' enacted parable communicates then to his disciples is that he is not only giving a divine word, but he is the divine word itself. Jesus is not only the true prophet or better prophet, which he is both, but he is God himself in the flesh as the prophet. So that's the first thing I want you to see here in this enacted parable, but there's a second thing here also in verse 19. Jesus secondly asserts his authority regarding salvation. Just as no human could perform such a miracle on this fig tree, no human possesses any authority to save or to curse a person or a group of people as represented by the fig tree.

13:13Jesus is the Lord of salvation. By his act of cursing, Jesus asserts that he is the sovereign Lord and author of salvation. Now, some of us might be tempted to think what Jesus did to this particular fig tree was unfair. Why did Jesus target this particular tree and not any other tree or all the trees along the wayside in Jerusalem? But we must remember that Jesus has all authority to do and execute his holy sovereign will, including the creation of this fig tree, up to the cursing of this very specific fig tree. Likewise, no one but Jesus today has the authority to give or declare the right to become the children of God.

14:00So this is a divine act, proving once again throughout his ministry that Jesus is God and the savior of sinners. He has authority alone to save and to curse. Now, this is a hard word for society today, isn't it? And yes, there is a divine mystery to God's predestination and election of his people and his passing over some. But as John Calvin reminds us, we must submit to and embrace the divine counsel of God and not to go even one inch past that divine counsel.

14:38Jesus demonstrates through this miracle that he has divine authority over any fig tree and divine authority over any human soul. God is the author of salvation, not men. And thirdly, and I want you to see this in this enacted parable. Thirdly, Jesus warns his disciples in this cursing to avoid the judgment of the religious leaders of Israel by producing fruit of repentance. Notice again in verse 19, why does Jesus curse it? Because he found nothing on it but only leaves in the middle of verse 19 there. The fig tree represents not only the nation of Israel in this case, but specifically the religious leaders of Israel who are like this barren fig tree without spiritual true fruit.

15:27This is the same point Jesus makes in the parable of the fig tree in Luke 13. So how do we know that Jesus is referring particularly to religious leaders? I want you to see this. In these five verses, these five verses are sandwiched by two narratives that have phrases that refer to the religious leaders. Look up in your text earlier in chapter 21 at verse 15 with me. Look at verse 15. We see this phrase, "The chief priests and the scribes." Now look at verse 23. "The chief priests and the elders." And then drop down to verse 45 near the end of this chapter. "When the chief priests and the Pharisees..." See, Jesus' message all across chapter 21 is for all people, of course, but it is specifically targeted at the hypocritical Pharisees, who represent this fig tree in the middle of this chapter here. Jesus' message for these religious leaders is that one fruit of genuine true faith is true repentance that leads to good fruit.

16:31Now, John the Baptist had already exhorted the Pharisees and the scribes in Matthew 3, verse 8, if you remember, to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And he cautioned them, warned them that every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So the cursing of this fig tree is a significant moment, as I said earlier, in Israel's history. How so? Go all the way back in your Bible in your mind, and you can turn there if you would like, but in Genesis chapter 12, do you remember what God promised to Abraham in Genesis 12 in those early verses? That Abraham's seed would be a what to the families of the earth?

17:10A blessing. In the narrative last week, we saw that Jesus cleansed the temple, which represents the need for reformation of Israel. But in this text, Jesus now moves to curse Israel, a permanent curse. The religious leaders of Israel argued repeatedly during Jesus' ministry that they were sons of Abraham. This is one of their echo statements over and again. We are sons of Abraham, and they used that national heritage as a shield from God's judgment. For example, in John chapter 8, they say something such as this. "We are the people of God because we are sons of Abraham." They were convinced that their national religious pedigree would make them accepted before God, and how wrong were they?

18:01They equated being a child of Abraham to being a child of God, but Jesus' enacted parable here shatters that illusion. In God's mercy, we see later in the New Testament that many Jews, praise the Lord, believe in Jesus for salvation as the church is born. So this is not a curse that means every Jew can't come to Christ, but we see later on in the book of Acts that many Jews do come to Christ, so God is still gracious and merciful even in that. So in this enacted parable, Jesus warns his disciples and us today that genuine repentance will produce genuine fruit, and if there is no true fruit, there is no true repentance.

18:39Jesus had already taught this in the parable of the soils in Matthew 13, as we saw months ago. But what the chief priests and the Pharisees lacked was true repentance. They were like fig trees without any fruit. They were depending upon their own credentials as the elite religious leaders of the day. They were depending upon their pedigree and their religious standing rather than faith in Jesus.

19:05There was an English pastor in the 18th century named William Grimshaw, who was an example, like the Pharisees, of one who trusted in his own credentials and the fact that he was a religious man, a clergyman, actually, before he came to Christ. He was ordained as a minister in the Church of England in the 18th century, in the 1720s, and he became a pastor at the age of 23. But the problem was he was an unbelieving minister for 10 years. He believed that his position as a pastor in his congregation in England was enough to justify him before God. As a minister, Grimshaw immersed himself fully into the vices of the day, including gambling, drinking, and cursing.

19:48He was a debauched, wicked pastor, and yet he claimed to be a Christian. Instead of faithfully pastoring his flock, his normal activity, according to his journal, every single day was to hunt or to fish rather than shepherd his people. And one day in 1734, a married couple in his congregation came to him for counseling because they had lost their infant daughter. She passed away, and they were sorrowful, of course. And so he counseled them to be merry, to engage in pleasure, and to take up drinking the bottle to wash away their sorrows. He pointed them to the bottle and not to the Bible to wash away their grief.

20:27Can you imagine one of your pastors telling you that here? And yet that's what he told this couple. Two weeks later, unsurprisingly, they came back to him and they said, "Minister, that did not work." Of course it didn't. That is exactly the moment where God convicted Grimshaw, and he realized the depravity and the bankruptcy of his own soul, that the counsel he was giving was wicked. It wasn't pointing people to God. It was driving them away from God. It was seven more years where he tried to reform and clean up his life and to become more moral as a pastor, but that was also a dismal failure.

21:02Finally, in 1741, after 10 years of living as a hypocrite sham pastor, a drastic life occurred in his life. He gave himself to Christ, and now he pointed his congregation to the Bible and not to the bottle. And God used Grimshaw in those next 10 years for the conversion of several thousand souls in what is now called the Yorkshire Revivals in northern England. True repentance always produces true fruit. So what is your standing in Christ right now? Have you repented from your sins like Grimshaw did? Or are you continuing to harbor sins and to live a hypocritical life like Grimshaw, claiming that you have access to theology, you have access to traditions and pedigree, and that justifies your relationship with your salvation?

21:54If you have true repentance, you have true fruit. True Christianity is not a facade or some type of veneer that is clean and moral on the outside, but rotten to the core in the inside. Christ condemns such hypocrisy. As Grimshaw's story demonstrates for us, mere profession of faith is not true faith. There must be repentance in the heart and the mind, which is then evidenced in the entire life through spiritual fruit. Charles Spurgeon preached once, "Sirs, it is not the cloak of religion that will do for you. It is a vital godliness you need. There must be a change of heart, real, radical, vital, entire."

22:41Spurgeon is right. This is Christian sanctification. If you are a believer, you have repented from your sins, and you should continue to repent from your sins. This is Christian sanctification, and you continue to bear the fruit of the Spirit in the Galatians 5 way. I want to say a particular word to those of you who grew up or are growing up in church, including this church, both adults and children. There is no credential that can save you from your sins. There's no biological pedigree or ethnic heritage that can save you. You can be raised by godly parents, and praise the Lord for that, and yet have not repented from your sin.

23:21You could be the most orthodox, doctrinally sound person in a North church and yet be without Christ. You can have theological and biblical knowledge that rivals the Pharisees and the chief priests, and yet have not repented from your sins this morning. You can go through all the motions of church attendance, Bible studies, and all the externals of Christianity, and yet not possess true faith.

23:47Regardless of your background, your socioeconomic status, your education in theology or lack thereof, God calls each of us this morning to repent from our sins. You must repent and renounce your sin, renounce your pride, renounce your self-reliance. Stop justifying yourself or comparing yourself to your past self. I'm doing better than my past self, or I'm better than other people. No, Jesus is calling disciples, not mere professors of the faith. Jesus is calling true repenters, not hypocrites. Friends, Jesus is calling you now to repentance. True repentance from sin is not a one-time check-off-the-box duty.

24:31Martin Luther said it well when he wrote in his 95 Theses, "When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, 'Repent,' he willed the entire life to be one of repentance." For some of you, you might not think that this curse will come upon you. You might be saying, "I'm not concerned about that," or, "I'm good to go. I'm not too bad. The Lord will accept me for who I am."

24:56What you need, friends, is true belief and true repentance. Oh, how frightening the thought that Jesus would utter a curse on the one who doesn't repent and produce evidences of repentance. Surely it is a horrifying reality to hear these words, "May no fruit ever come from you again." Not one of us wants to hear those words one day. It is indeed a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Oh, that the Lord would give you true repentance.

25:34But there is a second section here, a second lesson that Jesus teaches. Look with me at verse 20. Jesus' lesson from the fig tree demonstrates the need, secondly, for faith-filled prayer. Faith-filled prayer, or prayer that is full of faith, is the second fruit of true faith. Faith-filled prayer is a result also of continual repentance and growth in sanctification. The more you're sanctifying, the more your prayer is deeply immersed in faith and grows in faith. Look with me at verse 20. "When the disciples saw it," the cursing, "they marveled, saying, 'How did the fig tree wither at once?'" Then Jesus, in response to this disciple's utter amazement, which focused upon the visceral power.

26:20It's not clear in the text that they really got this connection. They would've got this connection from their Old Testament readings, but they don't talk about it, at least in this text. But what they talk about is the miracle itself, and so Jesus hones in on faith that fuels prayer. He begins by focusing on faith without any doubting, and notice again in verse 21, "Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt." This faith without doubting motif is a frequent one throughout the Gospel of Matthew. In fact, can you please turn with me just a couple pages back to Matthew chapter 13? I'm going to show you a couple of other references of this faith without doubting motif that has already transpired in the disciples' minds. In chapter 13 verse 58, Jesus did not do many mighty works in his hometown, Nazareth, because of their unbelief.

27:19In the case of Nazareth's unbelief. In chapter 14:31, turn to that, page to your right. Chapter 14 verse 31, "Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of Peter, saying to him, 'O you of little faith, why did you doubt?'" And in chapter 17, again a couple pages to your right, verse 20, Jesus uses strikingly similar language to here in chapter 21. When the disciples ask why they could not cast out a demon from a boy, Jesus responds, "Because of your little faith." You're doubting. "For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you."

28:10So you see, the disciples were already very familiar with Jesus' teaching and rebukes regarding their faith, their lack of faith rather, and their prayerlessness. The moving the mountains instruction of Jesus intend here to stress that God has appointed prayer as the means, the sovereign means of asking that the impossible things in life occur. Of course, moving a mountain is impossible, and this is a metaphor or a symbolism for the impossible things in life, humanly speaking. And then in the next verse, 22, Jesus gives a promise with a qualification. Look with me at verse 22.

28:51"And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive," here's a qualification, "if you have" what? If you have faith. Know that Jesus uses this phrase twice in this section. Verse 21, "If you have faith," and now here in verse 22, "If you have faith." Jesus is inviting his disciples to pray with faith, yet it is not up to them, and it is not up to us to generate or muster up faith within us. We must ask God to increase and deepen our faith when we pray for that metaphoric mountain, like one example in the Gospels, "Help thou my unbelief. Increase my faith." And then when we see this word whatever, what should we do with that? What's going on in these two verses?

29:38Do we have a warrant from these verses to pray and to ask God for whatever we want? Do we have assurance here that God will answer any prayer we utter? Let me be very clear here. This is not name it, claim it theology. That's not on Jesus' teaching and mind here. Jesus does not elaborate on the nuances of prayer here in this text, but his teaching here needs to be qualified with other biblical statements. And I want to note four observations on Jesus' teaching on prayer throughout the Gospel of Matthew to help ground these two verses in the larger teaching of Jesus on prayer so we don't make a mistake of falling into name it, claim it theology.

30:19So number one observation is this: Prayer must be in submission to God's will. Where do we get that from? In the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6. According to the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, we can pray for material needs such as our daily bread, but remember, before give us this day our daily bread is this petition. Your kingdom come, say it with me, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Your will be done. When we ask the Lord to meet our needs, it's ultimately and always in relation to God's holy will and not ours. Those petitions that we ask must be grounded in the sovereign will of God, and our motivation for asking our petitions must align with the holy will of God. Not for selfish gain, not ultimately for pleasure and comfort, but for one purpose, the glory of God.

31:15I like how John Bunyan simply states it. "Prayer submits to the will of God." It always does. When we are submitted to God's will, God's sovereign will, will shape the way we pray. God is not obligated to work every miracle for us, but He will answer according to His perfect holy will for us. And yes, it will be a mystery, and that's okay. God never promises in the Bible, for example, to heal every single person for whom we pray. And yet we continue to pray, and we are committed to submit that prayer to the will of God, if the Lord wills. Prayer, brothers and sisters, is not a carte blanche ticket to using God as your genie in the bottle on what you rub for whatever you want.

32:10God is not a vending machine on what you push and push. "Come out, give me this." And neither is He a restaurant waiter or flight attendant at your beck and call. That's not our God. God is not a being that we approach to fulfill our fleshly, base, lustful desires. Even the religious leaders asked Jesus throughout His ministry to do different signs, such as miraculous signs and acts, or to come down from the cross. And did Jesus answer those requests? No. Many Christians have an unbiblical view of God and prayer, and perhaps even in this assembly this morning, some of you need to correct your view of prayer so that your prayers align with God's character, God's holy will, and God's glory.

32:57Secondly, prayer is personal communion with the Father. We see this in the Lord's Prayer. "Our Father, who is in heaven." At the core, prayer is an intimate relationship with the Father. We approach the Father's throne with reverence and worship and not with a personal agenda. "Hallowed be your name" is the ethos of true biblical prayer. If we're praying biblically, we are wanting to advance His kingdom, not our kingdom. Prayer then has nothing to do with us, it has everything to do with God. Prayer is a means of fellowshipping with our Heavenly Father and not a tool by merely we get something from God that we want. Prayer is personal communion with God.

33:40Number three, prayer should be with patience and persistence. Matthew, chapter seven, Jesus taught to knock, ask, and seek, and do it continually. This is one of the hardest things to do in our culture, is it not? We live in an age of instant gratification. Give this to me right now, I mean this second, right? People lack patience, so they give up. And sadly, many approach the spiritual discipline of prayer the same way. We should not just pray when we are desperate or when we are sad or when we are lonely. Prayer is a spiritual discipline. It should be habitual and a natural activity. For some of you, you hardly pray.

34:22You only pray when you are desperate or occasionally when you think about it. I want to invite you to full-throttled, full-blooded prayer. That you are praying without ceasing, that you are engaging in all prayer all the time. Jesus invites His disciples in Matthew 7 to do this type of prayer, and this is what's behind this exhortation in Matthew 21, to continually be in prayer as you ask the Lord to move the mountain in your life. Be persistent. Knock on the door and seek and do not quit. Some of you might say this morning, "But I've been praying for years that the Lord would heal my debilitating disease, and He's not done that."

35:07Or, "I prayed for my father or my mother or my brother or sister or my son or daughter to repent and believe in Jesus, but the Lord hasn't answered that prayer. He must have failed me." Many of us are asking this morning, "Lord, how long?" Many of you pray every day, for example, for my daughter, as I do, and we are still waiting and asking, "How long, oh Lord?" And I want to encourage you to keep praying. Keep praying for her and for that mountain to be moved. Be persistent in prayer and don't give up. And that's a message to you and a message to me. As I think about persistence of prayer, my mind goes back to 1849 when the 17-year-old Hudson Taylor, who was later to be a missionary in China, was a grief to his parents as a teenager.

36:01And his mother, Amelia Taylor, was very burdened for her son's conversion. She prayed daily for years. And one day she prayed as she was apart from him, 70 miles away, she prayed one afternoon for several consecutive hours until she was convinced that Hudson came to Christ. So she prayed, and during the same moment, unbeknownst to her, Hudson picked up a Christian book and started reading from his father's library. And overcome with conviction, he bowed his knee to King Jesus and came to Christ that very same moment as Amelia, his mother, was praying for him. The Lord does hear persistent prayers.

36:41And today we remember how the Lord mightily used Taylor for the conversion of thousands of souls in China because of a praying mother. Persistently pray and do not give up as you pray for your lost relatives. God is working while you and I are praying. Don't doubt God's goodness Lean into faith-filled prayer today and let God work patience within you when he answers your prayer by a different means or through even hard circumstances. And fourthly, regarding this prayer, God uses prayer to overcome temptation. Jesus teaches his disciples throughout the Gospel of Matthew, but particularly in the Lord's Prayer and in chapter 26, we don't merely pray for material needs or emotional needs we desire.

37:25Yes, pray for that, but not merely that. We sometimes forget that prayer is a weapon against sin. "Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil." And later in this gospel, we see Jesus exhorting his disciples to "Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation." In the middle of the Christian armor text in Ephesians 6 are these words: "Praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication." Do you pray against temptation and your sin more than you do your own material needs? The answer to that question will reveal your priorities. Do you care more about the spiritual or the material in your life?

38:05Do you pray more for personal holiness? Do you pray for a closer walk with God like the hymn writer? "O for a closer walk with God, a calm and heavenly frame." The Lord is calling each of us this morning to true faith in Jesus for salvation. This true faith produces true repentance and a faith-filled prayer life. If you are in attendance this morning and you've not placed your faith in Jesus Christ this morning, I invite you to repent from your sin. If you are living a hypocritical life, pertain to be a Christian at the North Church or whatever church you're attending of, I urge you to go to Jesus, humble yourself, and believe in him. The sobering reality is that Christ will in the end reject those who claim that they are Christians, and we'll see this in Matthew 25 later in the series. Profession without the reality of repentance is an abomination to God. So I want to call us as believers this morning of the North Church to be, first of all, a repenting church.

39:08One of the evidences and key identifying markers of true faith is continual repentance. North Church, may we be believers who continually wrestle against and kill sin and continue to repent. We should be compelled this morning to go again and again to the cross of Jesus and find forgiveness. We're promised in 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Go to that text again and again and again and wash yourself in that truth as you repent from your sin every day. May the Lord show you and press upon you even right now the secret or specific sins in your life that you are committing right now, and stop justifying those sins and go to God.

39:54And lastly, I want to call on us as a North Church to secondly be a praying church. And I praise the Lord that this is a praying church, but let me continue to encourage you to be a praying church. We get to pray to our great God. We get to go to the throne of grace to find mercy and grace to help in time of need. What a privilege that is. All because Jesus tore the curtain and we have access to God the Father through Jesus' name. So be a praying Christian. Pray for one another. Pray with one another. Pray spontaneously before or after the service as many of you are accustomed to do. Keep doing that.

40:28If you have not entered into the spiritual discipline of prayer, let me encourage you that this week is a good week to begin. Today is a good day to begin, in fact. Be habitual. Have a devotional commitment to the Lord. There is nothing too mundane or silly to pray about. Start praying. Pray for the Lord's help in the menial task you're doing. Pray about the purchase of your house or a vehicle or even your food. And ask the Lord what insurmountable mountains in your life right now that are in your view that need to be moved through prayer. Is it a medical diagnosis? Is it a disease? Is it an insurmountable financial need or a hard, broken marriage?

41:08Or maybe your mountain this morning is your own sin. Ask the Lord to move that by his grace. You need God to move that mountain. You can't move it, but pray with faith in the Son of God that He alone can kill and destroy that besetting sin. Jesus invites us this morning to pray for those mountains, but ultimately, it is not our faith that moves mountains. It is God himself that moves the mountains. And there is no contradiction here between God's sovereignty and our faith. Both are true when we pray, and God uses our prayers for his sovereign means to accomplish his sovereign purposes in our lives.

41:48Thomas Brooks said it well, "It is only fervency, importunity, and prayer that we will make a man prevalent with God. Fervent prayer hits the mark, carries the day, and pierces the walls of heaven." Brothers and sisters, I invite you to join me and to pierce the wall of heavens together with faith-filled prayer. Let us pray. Our Father, give us a godly sorrow over sin this morning, leading to true repentance. And give us faith without any doubting as we pray without ceasing to you so that the humanly impossible will be accomplished for your own glory and our eternal joy. The dearest idol we have known, whatever that idol be, help us to tear it from thy throne and worship only thee. In the name of Jesus.

42:45Amen.

Jump to live
Jump to live

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