Recreate Church, Pastor Michael Shockley—Service, November 5, 2023

The Fruitless Tree

Today, Pastor Michael discusses when you thought something would help you, but it didn’t. 

A time when Jesus found a fruit tree that didn’t grow fruit.  An obscure story that surrounds a famous story, but the fruitless tree withers whether it be a fig, a nation, or you and me.  

This is one day after Jesus entered Jerusalem, and He knew deep down that the folks therein did not understand why He was there, so he left the city.  Now, He’s on his way back to Jerusalem and spots a fig tree looking for figs.  Jesus knows (because he’s omniscient) that this tree will never produce fruit.  And this fig tree was a symbol of Israel.  

So they went to Jerusalem and came upon the temple, and Jesus stopped folks from conducting commerce in the temple; essentially, the folks had made the temple a den of thieves.  The temple was for worship, but many had turned the temple into a trading post of sorts.  The fruitless fig trees pointed to the fruitless temple, a connecting point of this story.  

This story isn’t about a tree; it’s an illustration.  This story is about a spiritually bankrupt temple and nation.

(CSB Bible Notes) Thus, he (Mark) meant for readers to see the connection between the barren fig tree (symbolic of Israel) and the barren temple. Jesus’s cursing of the fig tree was an acted-out parable of God’s judgment on Jerusalem and the temple.

Verses can be found in Mark 11: 11-21. 

Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.