On the Road to Easter Jesus Teaches an Important Lesson on Faith

Text: Matthew 21:18-22

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Matthew 21:18-22

Jonah Albrecht

1^st Sunday in Lent

March 9^th, 2025

Matthew 21:18-22

Jesus’ Teaches an Important Lesson on Faith

May the Grace of God, the Love of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all, Amen.

In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry. ¹⁹ And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and 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. ²⁰ When the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither at once?” ²¹ And Jesus answered them, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. ²² And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”

INJ who is looking for fruits of faith in our lives, DFR:

Some lessons are so obvious they need no explanation. Have you ever seen the picture of the piece of straw that was driven through a telephone pole by a tornado? If so, no has to tell you that tornadoes are incredibly dangerous. If you want to teach young people about the risks of drinking and driving, you could force them to sit through hours of lectures, with the latest statistics on alcohol-related fatalities. Or, you could do what the people at MADD do: park the twisted wreckage of a car in the front lawn of the school. If you’re looking for a way to communicate the harmful results of drug abuse, you could hire a specialist to describe how brain and nerve cells are damaged, or, you could show them an egg frying in a pan of hot butter.

Our text today has a visual aid, like that. It shows us the withered fragments of what had been a healthy fig tree. To get the impact of the lesson, just imagine seeing one of the healthy trees in your yard suddenly drop all of its leaves and die. What is the lesson of the withered fig tree? What importance does it have for your life? On the Road to Easter Jesus Gave an Important Lesson About Faith. 1. A dead faith bears leaves and no fruit 2. A living faith can move mountains.

Our text this morning takes place the morning after Jesus triumphantly rode into Jerusalem to the sound of the crowds shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” He had gone into the temple that day and “cleansed it” a second time by throwing out the money changers. He said, MY HOUSE IS TO BE A HOUSE OF PRAYER BUT YOU HAVE MADE IT A DEN OF ROBBERS.

That night, He returned to Bethany, but the very next morning, we find Him on the way to Jerusalem again, and hungry. Along the road ahead He spots a fig tree with leaves on it, and so He expects it to have fruit. When He finds none, He says, “May no fruit ever come from you again!”

Why did Jesus curse the fig tree? This is the only miracle recorded for us where He isn’t healing or helping someone else. If it were you and me, the answer would be obvious: we would be angry that we didn’t get what we wanted from the tree. But this is Jesus, and Jesus committed no sin.

To understand the bigger picture here, let us remember a parable Jesus told in Luke 13. In that parable, a farmer planted a fig tree, but for 3 years it would not produce any fruit. The farmer said to cut it down, but the vinedresser begged him to let it be for one more year while he fertilizes and nurtures it. Then, if it still doesn’t produce, it can be cut down.

Now think back to our text. Jesus wasn’t angry with the fig tree itself, but what it symbolized – the lack of fruit that was among His people. Jesus had been ministering for 3 years at this point and He saw a lot of religion, but almost no fruits of faith. He wanted His disciples to see what He saw – to see what James would later pen by inspiration, “Faith without works, is dead.”

It wasn’t like the people had no warning. Before Jesus came, God sent John the Baptist to proclaim the message, “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” Then, early in His ministry, Jesus drove out the money changers the first time, warning the people to turn from their faux religious status and seek God. But after all the preaching and all the warnings, the people of Jerusalem were a barren fig tree. Jesus faced this kind of religion most of His ministry.

Sure, they had leaves, making it appear like they were bearing fruit, but Jesus reveals their true, shriveled and dead nature. The people had rejected God, rejected Jesus, rejected faith. When He preached repentance and proclaimed the kingdom of God, the Jewish leaders complained. They complained that His disciples shouldn’t be picking grain on the Sabbath because their Sabbath rules were more important that hearing the Word. They complained that He healed a cripple on the Sabbath day — because it was too much like work and any good Jew shouldn’t work on the Sabbath. They complained when Jesus went to dinner with tax collectors and sinners. They complained when children tried to sing His praises. What Jesus saw in His people was a hollow and empty religion. All leaves and no fruit. The lesson of the withered fig tree? Whoever has the show of faith but lacks the fruit of faith stands in danger of the judgment.

What happens when Jesus pulls back the leaves of our religion? Will He find fruit in keeping with repentance? Or are we too, a shriveled fig tree? What about the person who offended you and needs your forgiveness. It doesn’t take much faith to avoid him or her. What about the coworker who keeps asking difficult questions about Christianity? It doesn’t take much faith to pretend you don’t know the answers. What about the sin you’ve learned to live with – instead of deal with? It takes no faith to stop struggling and give in. What about those prayers that never get said in the morning? Or the Bible that is not being read? The call to repentance is obvious. We are sinners by nature and battle against our flesh every day. How easy it is for us to come to church, to listen, and worship — and then to go home and forget it for the rest of the week. Peel back the leaves on YOUR faith and what do you find? You find the same need I find — to be forgiven and blessed with a living faith that can move mountains.

²⁰ When the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither at once?” ²¹ And Jesus answered them, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. ²² And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”

Is what Jesus says really possible? A faith that can move mountains? Yes, it is. A trust in the power of God’s Word is what makes the impossible possible. Peter had that faith and he accomplished the impossible by walking on water. The other disciples would use that faith to do many miraculous acts even raising some from the dead.

This is a very timely topic for Jesus to bring up. In the next five days, He would do something that would demand the disciples have this faith to understand. Jesus would go to the cross as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He would descend into the pit of hell to suffer in agony in our place. He would pass through death and rise again on the third day to win us a victory. He did this for all people, but only those with faith grab onto it. Only those with faith in Jesus can move the mountain of sin and guilt and cast the power of Satan and death into the depths of the sea.

Have you piled up a mountain of sin upon your conscience? Have you tried to forget, or make up for them by your own merit? It isn’t possible. Have faith that Jesus paid for those sins upon the cross and God remembers them no more. Then step back, and watch the mountain of your sin be moved into the sea.

Maybe your life has become one mountain of grief and sorrow on top of another. Day by day you watch it grow and so does the helpless feeling that you’ll never get out from under its weight.

Your life hasn’t exactly panned out the way you’d like it to and you won’t get to retire at your target date – Have faith that God provides for your daily needs, and will continue to take care of you even through setbacks. Then, step back and watch the mountain move.

The doctor has told you that you will have to learn to live with the pain. Use your faith. Trust that God will do what is right, every time. Then, step back and watch the mountain move.

Try it for yourself. Take a moment, right now, to reflect. You know what is lying the heaviest on your conscience. You don’t need to tell me, simply have faith that your Heavenly Father already knows; now step back and see how He can your mountain into the sea. See in the words of Paul in Romans 8:

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

The kind of faith that moves mountains — is really just simple, plain, saving faith. It’s the kind of faith that knows that Jesus died and rose again — in order to move the mountainous problems of this life and cast them into the sea forever. That’s the kind of faith He wants us to have. Amen.