Divine Stories - The Barren Fig Tree | Sunday Message

In this first message from our summer series, Divine Stories, Mike unpacks one of Jesus' most overlooked parables and explores the difference between grace and permission. Through the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree in Luke 13, Jesus reveals that God's patience is an incredible gift but we've got to do something with it.

If you've ever wondered why God seems patient with your failures or what repentance really looks like, this message will challenge and encourage you. Join us as we explore how Jesus' teaching in Luke 13 calls us beyond comparison and complacency into a life that bears fruit for God's Kingdom.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Do Life Different Podcast by 1128 Community. Today you're listening to our most recent message. We are a church community in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, led by co-pastors Mike and Colleen Francisco. 1128 is about helping people do life different by setting rhythms and values with Jesus at the center. If you want to connect with us, text the word podcast to 414-441-1128. We hope today's message helps you in your faith journey.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

I want to start off by asking a question because we've got our elementary age kids here, and maybe you guys would be the best ones to ask this question too. Have you ever been in a food fight?

unknown 0:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Okay, I heard a yes over here. I saw a bunch of kids that were like, nah, I don't know. Gina said yes. Anyone else? Yes? Yeah. Okay. Okay, great. So you might relate with me on this level. Beth was like, yes, who hasn't been in a food fight? Of course, everybody has been. I was in high school and uh junior year of high school. I at that point in my life I wasn't always making the best decisions in life. And so my friends, there were about 10 of us that sat together at tables like these every single day for the last couple couple years together. We started to plan and prepare for the greatest food fight that Naperville Central High School would ever see. We planned it out for a few weeks, and by the time we got to the day before, everybody knew what they were bringing to the fight. We had one guy that was bringing in a whole thing of cupcakes that you might find at like Sam's Club, you know, for birthday season. Another guy that was bringing like packs of applesauce. You could rip them and throw. And then we had one kid. This is not something I recommend. Not that I'm recommending any of the other things, but he actually had little paintballs that he had prepared and he had his pockets loaded. I don't even think you could get into school these days with paintballs. But he had a Ziploc bag, he blew it up, and he was gonna stick it in there and then shoot them across the room. Like this fight was gonna be epic, and it went off without a hitch the day of. We're sitting at the table, everybody's eating their lunch, and then all of a sudden, our table and the other table we'd been planning with across the room. We stood up and everybody just started chucking stuff, and it was chaos and screaming. Colleen doesn't even remember this. She claims that it didn't happen. I think we just had different lunch periods. We were the talk of the school for the next decade. I really believe that deep in my heart. It was so fun and it went so, so fast. And here's what's happening immediately after this epic food fight. They did it. Right? It was anybody but me. We are so quick to point fingers and to say, no, it wasn't me. I only threw the slice of cake. That person threw the apple that exploded on the wall next to the lunch monitor's head. It wasn't me, it was them. They did it, she did it, he did it. And at the end of the day, for us as students, we got off really pretty easy. We got two days of detention. Now, I would imagine for some that might be like a week-long suspension or something like that, but we got two days of detention. It felt like we experienced a whole lot of grace in this situation. And let me tell you, the food was everywhere. The floor was covered, the walls were covered. I think we went home probably covered in food that day, but there was grace for us in that moment. And if we're being honest here this morning, sometimes we need some grace. Sometimes we're so quick to point fingers that we see the things that other people need grace for that we don't see the things that we need grace for ourselves, right? Like we point fingers and we're like, well, at least I'm not making the kind of poor decisions that they're making. At least I'm not screwing up like he is, right? Like uh at least I'm not lying to that level. Um maybe it's just a little bit of cheating. I'm not like cheating on my taxes. I'm not stealing, I'm not sinning that bad. Like, I'm just an ordinary person. I'm I'm above that bar. Whatever that bar is. And we don't realize that, yeah, they need grace, but I need grace as well. And this is something that's true for all of us here this morning. God has grace for you. No matter how bad, no matter how messed up, no matter what it is that you've done, the poor decisions, the screw up, the lies. Maybe it is the cheating on the taxes or the stealing or the giant sin that you've had hanging over you for years and years. God has grace for you. God has grace for me. God has grace for everyone that's outside of these building walls here this morning. Grace doesn't give us permission, though, to continue walking in the same path. Grace doesn't give us the permission to just keep doing what I'm doing. Grace gives us time to figure it out. Grace doesn't give us forever, though. And so this morning, uh, we we need to understand that really grace is divine patience. Grace is God's patience with us. Here's the tension that I think we're all maybe feeling or we've felt at another time and point. Uh we mistake God's patience, we mistake God's grace for permission. We mistake God's grace, we mistake that patience that He has with us for permission to keep living my life the way I want to live my life. Because at least I'm not them. At least I'm not doing what they're doing. Yes, God is patient with you. Yes, God is patient with me, but God also has a purpose for you, God also has a purpose for me. And so this morning, as we step into our summer Sundays series called Divine Stories, we're gonna explore grace, we're gonna explore divine patience, and we're ultimately gonna ask, what is the purpose that God has for us? Now, these divine stories in scriptures are known as parables. Parables are the primary way that Jesus taught about the kingdom of heaven, this kingdom that he was bringing into the world and showcasing and putting on display. These teachings, these parables, these divine stories, they were meant for his disciples, his closest followers. They were meant for the less committed followers, those that had heard his name but didn't know what he was about yet. They were for the interested crowds, they were for the hardcore opponents of Jesus, people that were like, I hate that guy. But they all had a few things in common. They were all attracted to him: the well-known healer, the storyteller, and ultimately the teacher. Luke gives us a little bit of context about today's parable in chapter three when he writes, about that time, some people they came up and told him about the Galileans Pilate had killed while they were at worship, mixing their blood with the blood of the sacrifices of the altar. Now here's the thing. We start off with this about that time, and we get into this violent scene, and this isn't an uncommon scene. Violence in those days was pretty common. Galilean Jews, they had traveled to be there, and they were going to worship, they were presenting sacrifices at the altar, and it was there in that time of worship when Pilate, the Roman ruler in that region, had them killed. Sounds kind of familiar, unfortunately. But Luke, when he says about that time, he's actually connecting chapter 13 with how chapter 12 had ended. Chapter 12 ended with Jesus saying, Hey, I'm going to talk to you and I'm going to interpret the times. And so he just wrapped up this message about interpreting the times. And so now, coming out of that, about that time, they get to see Jesus actually put into practice the things that he just talked about in chapter 12. And so Jesus responds to these people who had said, Hey, haven't you heard about this? Don't you know what happened with these people that Pilate had put to death? And Jesus responds, saying, Do you think those murdered Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans? Not at all. Unless you turn to God, you too will die. And those eighteen in Jerusalem, another thing that happened recently, those eighteen in Jerusalem the other day, the ones crushed and killed when the tower of Siloam collapsed and fell on them, do you think they were worse citizens than all other Jerusalemites? Not at all. Unless you turn to God, you too will die. Now I'm reading from the message, which is a paraphrase of the traditional text, but the NIV, it makes it even more clear. Were those who were murdered, like worse than you? For those of you here with me, this crowd, these people, those of you hearing this message, were those people who were murdered, were they worse than you? I tell you, no, the NIV says, but unless you repent, you too will perish. Unless you change your ways, you will experience death. Unless you do an about face, a hundred and eighty-degree turn, unless something changes in your life, a rendering of your heart, you too will face the consequences of your decisions. And then he told them a divine story, a parable. A man had an apple tree. Now here's the thing. I this is a little bit of a tangent. Man had an apple tree. That's what it says in the message, right? Like it says it right up here, apple tree. That's not what the actual text says. If you were to go and look in like the NIV or the NLT or the ESV or the NASB or maybe probably even most certainly the New King James or the King James, you would read, a man had a fig tree. Man had a fig tree, not an apple tree. This is a little side note, a little rant here, but like in the message version, Eugene Peterson, who wrote this and paraphrased it, he was writing with the idea of helping a family member understand the Bible because somebody had said to him in his family, like, hey, sometimes I read the Bible and it makes no sense to me. Anybody relate with that, by the way? Yeah, okay, a bunch of hands. Uh sometimes I read the Bible and it makes no sense to me. And so Eugene Peterson said, Well, let me help you with that. I'm gonna write this in a way that is helpful and understandable to the common person. And so he wrote this. And because we're not so familiar with fig trees, maybe we're familiar with like fig newtons. Those were a thing, at least when I was a kid. I don't know if any kids, are you guys still eating fig newtons these days?

unknown 11:56

I have no idea.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Yeah, exactly. Leave it to my kid to be like, I don't know what you're talking about. Like figs and fig newtons, like not so relevant even here today. So Eugene was like, let's call it an apple tree. Let's just say it's an apple tree. But the problem is when you change this to apple tree and you move away from fig tree, you lose the significance of the tree. Because the fig tree is actually the first tree that's ever mentioned in Genesis chapter 3, verse 7, when they discovered that they were naked and they sewed these fig leaves together, right? And then it goes on to be throughout the Old Testament, like highlighted as a sign of prosperity. Jesus curses a fig tree if you read a little bit further on in the Gospels. None of these situations, none of those other fig trees are related to this particular passage, but a fig tree is a significant thing. And so when you're reading the scripture, and especially if you're reading from something like the message, which comes in all kinds of fun and relevant colors and things, uh, make sure that you you dig in a little bit more and you look up and see things like this. The apple tree, and oh, it's a fig tree, and why is that important? When you investigate scripture, you'll find a lot of fun things. So, anyways, a man had a fig tree planted in his front yard, and he came to it to ex came to it expecting to find fruit, but there weren't any. He said to the his gardener, What's going on here? For three years now I've come to this tree expecting fruit, and not one fig have I found. Chop it down. Why waste good ground with it any longer? The gardener said, Let's give it another year. I'll dig around it and fertilize, and maybe it will produce fruit next year. And if it doesn't, axe it, chop it down. All right, so Jesus, he first he says, like, hey, who's worse? Those sinners that were killed and murdered, or you guys that are here standing with me now, no, they weren't repent. He's got this message of repentance, and now he's got a picture of a fig tree that's not producing any kind of fruit, and a gardener that wants to have it chopped down. Why? It's a weird connection. Well, the people of the Mediterranean, they were avid agriculturalists. Is that a word? It's a word now. They knew their plants, they knew their trees, they were very familiar with fig trees, they checked them regularly, and so they would have said, if this tree is not producing anything, cut it down, get rid of it, it's wasting space, it's costing us resources and other things like that. They would question its usefulness ultimately. So the man in this story, he raises the question about the tree's usefulness. Should I cut it down? Because all it's doing is taking up space. We could have a tree that's actually producing fruit here. It feels like Jesus is kind of getting a subtle like message in front of these people that are listening, saying, like, hey, you Jews, you're not producing, you're actually kind of disappointing. Maybe the Gentiles, maybe those that aren't so religious, maybe that will produce more fruit. I don't know if that's actually what he's saying, but that's what it kind of feels like to me. But hey, give this tree another chance. Give it one more year, and then if it doesn't produce anything in the next year, then chop it down, then get rid of it, plant something new, and move on from there. It feels like this divine story has shown us what divine patience looks like. It shows us what grace looks like. Give it some time. Give it some time, give it some space, give it the space to grow and start to produce fruit, but we're not just giving it forever. We're not giving it forever. Because if nothing changes, consider it dead. If the dre if the tree doesn't start to live, if it doesn't start to grow up and live out its purpose of producing beautiful figs, it's gone. God was patient. The gardener was patient with the fig tree because he had a purpose for it. And God is patient with you because God has a purpose for you as well. Let me ask you this question here this morning. Are you living living out your God-given purpose today? Are you living out your God-given purpose today? Are you able to articulate your God-given purpose here today? Can you put words to it? Could you write it down? If somebody said, hey, what's the purpose that God has designed you for? Would you be able to give an answer? Would you be able to give a picture of how that looks and how that plays out? Have you asked God, help me sort through this, help me figure this out, help me figure out my purpose in life? Or are you just content doing what you're doing, living your life day after day, doing the same thing over and over? Wake up, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, grill, go to sleep. Are you content with that? Living your life, maybe pointing fingers at everyone else saying, at least I am going to church on Sundays. At least I'm in a group. At least I pray before my meals and before bed, right? Like maybe the bar is here and you're just okay living there. At least I'm not making those kinds of poor decisions. At least I'm not screwing up that bad, lying all the time, cheating all the time, stealing anything, or sinning as bad as they are. Let's not confuse God's patience for us with permission to keep living content lives. Lives where it's just barely above the bar of comparison to what somebody else is doing. Let's not be okay living lives that are purposeless. Let's not be okay living a life at the lowest standard that can be set. Yes, God is patient with you. We got it up here on the screen. God is patient with you, but he also has a purpose for you. Are you living out this purpose? Because God's patience has a period of time. It doesn't last forever. As we wrap up this part of our morning together, here's a question to get you thinking a little bit deeper. Where is God wanting to see you grow that you've been putting off? Where's God wanting to see you grow that you've been putting off? For some, we've been putting off evangelism or sharing our story, sharing the story of how God's working in us and changing us and transforming us. We've been putting that off. We've been putting off telling our neighbors, our friends, our coworkers, our families, our classmates, like, hey, this is the good stuff that Jesus is doing in my life. We've been putting that off, and God's saying, I got I got a way for you to grow. Your faith will grow when you allow me to work through your story. For some of us, we've been putting off serving. We've said, I like just showing up on a Sunday to church and having it all set and ready to go. I just like doing it that way. But you know, God's saying, like, hey, it's time for you to grow in your faith. It's time for you to grow in this community. Some of us, we've been putting off giving or maybe putting off giving a little bit more, because even though we sense God saying, like, hey, be generous. This is something I expect, and this is something I put in front of the people that call themselves Christ followers to do. We've said, like, I'm just not comfortable with that. We've said, I'm gonna ignore that nudge, that conviction, whatever it is that's inside of us. For some of us, we've been putting off addressing our poor language, considering what TV we watch, evaluating on if we're drinking too much alcohol, if we're adding a website blocker or not to our computers and our devices. We've uh debated, should I really evaluate my friendships and if these friends are helping me to honor God with my life. Because we've mistaken God's grace, we've mistaken God's patience for permission to keep living lives that we're okay living. And at the end of the day, at the end of the day, God doesn't tell an unproductive fig tree, Well done, good and faithful servant. God doesn't tell an unproductive fig tree, you've done well. And if the scripture is true, what he'll actually say is, I didn't even know you. I didn't even know you. Let us not be unproductive fig trees anymore. Let's be people that live on our birds. Let me pray for us. God, thank you. For grace, for divine patience. For allowing us to mess up and calling us back to you every single time. God, we confess that maybe we've taken advantage of that grace and that patience you have with us, that we've we've been okay continuing to live the same life over and over and over again because it's it's easy, it's content, it's not as bad or as look down upon as the person next to us. But God, you have so much more for us. You want so much more for us. Would we say yes to what it is you have in front of us? God, as we step into the rest of our morning together, would we be able to hear things that inspire us, encourage us, and maybe even motivate us to do life different, to trust you more, to step out in faith, to start living lives of purpose and production. We pray this all in your name. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Thank you for listening to today's message. We hope you had a meaningful moment with Jesus. You can join us on Sundays at Oak Creek High School at 10 a.m. for our in person gatherings. Hope to see you soon.