Real Life Selkirk
**October 4** Understanding Spiritual Hunger (Matthew 21:12-22)

  • Sermon

    Key Passage

    Matthew 21:12–22 NIV
    Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “ ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’” The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant. “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him. “Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read, “ ‘From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise’?” And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night. Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered. When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” they asked. Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

    Introduction

    Today we are talking about a massively important topic: spiritual hunger.
    I was raised in church, so the idea of spiritual hunger is something that I am VERY familiar with
    People pray, “Give us a hunger for you. Give our community, our world, our universe a hunger for you.”
    Give that person a hunger or this person a hunger.
    I don’t want to be cynical, but this kinda makes me hungry.
    Spiritual hunger is something that is thrown around often, but there doesn’t seem to be any specifics for what it means.
    What is the hunger? What makes us hungry? How do we feel that hunger? What do we want to eat when we are hungry?
    At a really simple level, this is a really spiritual sounding concept, with tragically little understanding behind it.
    I want to break this down in a way that we can truly understand what this is by looking at our text.
    Now, I want you to know, I understand hunger. You don’t get to my size in life without feeling the gurgling, growling sound in my stomach on a fairly regular basis.
    I remember in college, a group of my friends would get together on a Friday and skip breakfast and go to an all you can eat taco place. When they saw us coming, they would start making tacos. I remember regularly eating upwards of 20+ tacos at lunch in those days. The poor lady would come out with plates of beans and rice trying to get us to slow down our taco eating, but we could see though the game. I don’t understand because that place eventually went out of business. I’m not saying that we put them out of business, but I believe it was a business model issue.
    I say all of that to say, I am pretty well versed on understanding hunger.
    Hunger is an interesting thing. If we read in the book of Genesis, we see that God created Adam, but didn’t create him completely self-sufficient.
    He created Adam with needs that Adam couldn’t provide for himself.
    He created Adam to need air—so God created air
    He create Adam to need water— and God created water
    He created Adam to need food—so He created the garden
    Adam had to experience hunger so he would know his need for food.
    Adam had to understand that he had needs and that God provided the solutions to the needs that he had.
    God also created Adam with a need for Himself
    Adam needed God. They walked together and talked in the Garden of Eden before there was sin.
    When sin entered the world, Adam was separated from that which was designed to sustain him.
    His need for God combined with separation created a hunger within him.
    This hunger is for what Adam had with God before the fall.
    Presence, intimacy, joy, and love.
    We all have spiritual hunger. All of us.
    We talked about this a few weeks ago when we were talking about false gods.
    We all have gods. We all worship those gods. We all sacrifice to those gods. It may not be with incense and a lamb, but we sacrifice our hearts, minds, time and resources to our gods.
    Our god provides us:
    Identity
    Security
    Hope
    Control
    Righteousness
    Meaning
    Everything we do to feed one of these is worship to our god.
    Satan sets up these false gods so we feel satisfied, but remain empty.
    It’s like eating Lay’s potato chips. You can’t just have one. Do you know why?
    They are addictive and they don’t satisfy.
    Then they make you fat.
    It may seem silly, but false gods always promise, but do nothing but destroy.
    God created us to be in relationship with Him and He wants us to experience that.
    We all know we need them, so we set up these gods in our hearts that provide them.
    This is why God allows things to be cut out of our lives sometimes. They reveal that we have inadvertently had a false god in our heart.
    We must fall on our knees before Him and allow Him to reveal himself. Only then will we find what our souls were created for.
    As we move to our passage, we will see Jesus correlate His physical hunger with the spiritual needs of the people around Him.

    Topic

    We are not going to begin with the first verse in our passage today. We are going to begin with verse 18 & 19
    Matthew 21:18–19 NIV
    Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves...
    We know this came after Jesus went to the temple, but I want to start here because Jesus was making a very similar point with this fig tree and the temple he had just visited.
    Jesus was hungry.
    Jesus was fully human. I love this.
    That growl and ache when you need food. That is what Jesus felt. In a way, you are like Jesus! Because He became like you.
    He went up to this fig tree.
    The fig tree looked good. It looked healthy. It was covered in beautiful leaves.
    I imagine that Jesus started to climb the tree and look around for figs. There were none.
    Jesus got mad and cursed the tree!
    There is a phrase for this: Hangry.
    But the point here is that Jesus was hungry, he went to where there was supposed to be food and there was no food.
    Keep that reality in your mind as we go to our first passage for today.
    Matthew 21:12 NIV
    Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.
    I want you to imagine this from the disciples perspective.
    In that time, if a person was hungry for God, they would go to the temple.
    The temple was where the presence of God resided.
    The temple was the means by which sinful people would come and be made right with a holy God.
    They would come and worship, pray, give money, give grain offerings, and sacrifice
    The sacrifice for their sin was a pure spotless lamb.
    The lamb would be killed in the place of their sin.
    They would place their hands on the head of the lamb, symbolic of transferring their sin to that animal and the animal would be killed.
    in our time, we have a Bible verse saying, “The wages of sin is death”
    They didn’t need that Bible verse. They saw it vividly played out in the sacrificial system.
    As Jesus is entering the city it is the week of the Passover, so people from all over the nation of Israel were coming to the temple.
    They had a hunger to be made right before God. This was the process by which they would do that.
    God desired them to come into His presence at the temple
    The people wanted to come into the temple to be with their God.
    Only one problem
    There were religious leaders and customs that were happening at the temple.
    Any time you have people, you find other people trying to make a buck off of those people.
    I took a historical journey through this, way deeper than I planned and way deeper than we have value of communicating today.
    But there were some elite priests that were taking portions of this money, taking the tithe money and even leaving other priests destitute.
    It wasn’t wrong to sell animals, the people needed a sacrifice
    But they were setting up money changing (From Roman to temple currencies), and selling sacrifices. All in the court of the Gentiles
    The temple was set up in a way that the Gentiles were welcome to come and worship the one true God.
    but these people were using the place where they were supposed to worship and selling things.
    Jesus saw this. He knew the temple was supposed to be a place where people came and their hunger for God would be satisfied.
    Instead, it had become a marketplace.
    People were left out of worship
    People were being ripped off
    Even priests doing their work were being ripped off by other priests.
    It looked like a spiritual place. The tree was covered in leaves.
    But there was no spiritual fruit in that place.
    It’s one thing to be hungry and not have figs on a tree
    It is something else if God shows up to the temple, where people are supposed to meet God, and they don’t meet God.
    This enrages Jesus.
    He takes the things that are getting in the way of people finding their satisfaction in God and turns them over.
    What was happening at the temple was exactly what was happening with the fig tree.
    Matthew 21:13–14 NIV
    “It is written,” he said to them, “ ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’” The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them.
    Jesus’ correction points to two passages of the Old Testament
    Jesus says, “Do you guys know what this is supposed to be?” “Do you know what fruit is supposed to be on this tree?”
    He points to Isaiah 56:7
    Isaiah 56:7 NIV
    these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”
    Imagine that this is a space intended for people who are not Jewish to come and worship God.
    All you see is a mall at Christmastime.
    It is chaos, noisy, and there is no space.
    How is that prayer time working out?
    We will talk more about the other “It is written” part of this in a moment. It is amazing.
    The people came to have their spiritual hunger satisfied by God in the temple and approaching God through prayer.
    Jesus cleared the temple so they could do that, and also, God showed up that day.
    The blind, the lame and other sick people came to Jesus and He healed them.
    They came to the temple for the fruit on the tree, but the temple itself was barren
    But Jesus showed up and gave them what their souls needed.
    Prayer and interaction with God.
    Matthew 21:15–16 NIV
    But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant. “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him. “Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read, “ ‘From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise’?”
    I love this passage.
    My friends and I used to sometimes make some noise in the church. And all of the old “mature” Christians would pretend like the church was a library. “Don’t make noise in the house of God!”
    These kids are running around saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”
    Kids are pretty perceptive. They were saying this likely for two reasons.
    First, they may have been in the crowd earlier as Jesus entered the city. Do you remember what the people were shouting as He entered the city? “Hosanna, Son of David”
    It means, “Messiah, Save us!”
    Second, kids parrot what their parents are talking about. If the kids are running around saying this, where do you think they heard it? Mom and dad.
    Jesus points to the OT and says, “This is the way it was prophesied that it would happen.”
    “Haven’t you ever read...”
    This was a jab. It wasn’t that they hadn’t read this. They literally had this memorized.
    This is like going up to a Supreme Court Justice and saying, “Haven’t you read the Constitution?”
    But the Chief Priests and teachers of the law had drawn their line in the sand.
    There was no one who could come in and tell them what to do on their turf. Who does he think he is?
    Matthew 21:17 NIV
    And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.
    Now, I want to walk back through the fig tree picture and we can connect a few things here.
    Matthew 21:18–19 NIV
    Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.
    The tree was full of leaves, but no figs. Jesus curses the tree and the tree dies.
    The temple was full of leaves, but no food. Jesus said:
    Matthew 21:13 NIV
    “It is written,” he said to them, “ ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
    The temple was supposed to be a house of prayer. They were not making it a house of prayer.
    So Jesus says, “You are making it a den of robbers”
    This is a curse of destruction on the Temple.
    There is a Jewish means of quoting OT scriptures not just to make a point, but to bring in a deeper context.
    I was explaining this to Jason last week.
    It is called a Remez.
    One quote that I love to use when I go to Spokane or other big cities is, “We’re not in Kansas anymore”
    I say that and I have literally never been to Kansas.
    But why would I say that?
    Because if you have watched the Wizard of Oz, you would know that I am bringing that context to what I’m seeing on the streets of Spokane.
    This place is weird. There are some flying monkeys over there. Here is a person dressed up like a lion.
    We’re not in Kansas anymore.
    When Jesus says, “You have made it a den of robbers” he wasn’t just saying that they were ripping people off.
    There is a “den of robbers” passage that Jesus is quoting from in the Old Testament and everyone in that culture knew exactly what Jesus meant.
    Jeremiah 7:11 NIV
    Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord.
    What makes this “den of robbers” passage interesting is the result of allowing God’s temple to become a den of robbers.
    Jeremiah 7:20 NIV
    “ ‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: My anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place—on man and beast, on the trees of the field and on the crops of your land—and it will burn and not be quenched.
    It is only a couple chapters from our point here in Matthew that Jesus again says, “Not one stone will be left on another” talking about this temple.
    Do you know how the temple was destroyed?
    70 AD Romans accidentally burned the temple. Every stone was exhumed to recover the gold.
    The fig tree withered and died.
    I want to take what we have covered and build some parallels to our lives and find some application.
    When we do, the rest of our passage will build on that understanding and make total sense.
    Identifying our Spiritual Hunger
    As we said earlier, every one of us has a spiritual hunger. You were created to need a god. We all have sought to satisfy that hunger with something in life.
    That spiritual hunger feels like an ache:
    Realizing I’m not ok
    After chasing you realize you are still empty
    Feeling restless with life
    Exhaustion from pretending
    Knowing there has to be more
    People came to the temple with:
    guilt they couldn’t shake
    wounds they couldn’t heal
    questions they couldn’t answer
    sin they couldn’t fix
    loneliness they couldn’t fill
    they came hungry, and left starving
    Rarely do we identify these things as “spiritual hunger”
    We tie them to burnout at work
    Anxiety
    Being overwhelmed or frustrated
    Our hunger gets labeled and dismissed.
    Instead of going to Jesus, we go to:
    Entertainment
    Achievement...one more mountain
    distraction
    relationships
    religion
    These quiet the hunger, but they don’t feed the soul.
    This is the moment every person eventually arrives to:
    The things that used to satisfy me, don’t satisfy me anymore
    The spiritual routines that used to feed me, now feel empty
    The religious habits that used to comfort me now feel hollow.
    The leaves are here in my life, but the fruit is gone.
    This is not failure. It is good. It is necessary.
    When your stomach growls, it isn’t failure. It is invitation to start finding some food.
    Jesus is showing you that only He can feed you.
    I want to bring a piece of clarification here:
    Church vs. Temple
    In our passage, everyone was going to the temple.
    In our world, it seems that the obvious correlation is the church.
    The temple was where they had to go because God was there.
    But because of Jesus, He has become the temple for us, not a building.
    If you are looking at the church or the ministries of a church to change your life or bring you life or feed you. You will leave hungry.
    Our ministries exist to point you to Jesus. Jesus will feed you.
    And you don’t need to go to a church, or building, or a day of the week to find Jesus.
    He is there for you everywhere.
    There is no longer a place where we have to go find God.
    God, through Jesus Christ has come seeking you.
    His Spirit lives within us and intercedes on our behalf.
    You become the temple because God now resides within you.
    You are a holy temple because of Jesus’ sacrifice
    You have a high priest forever and that is Jesus.
    We cannot make the church a temple
    The church has purpose and tremendous value. We need the church. But the church ought to point to the head or else we may become a fig tree with no fruit.
    There is also a warning in this passage about those who are entrusted with the message of the Gospel.
    in this case, the approach to God was facilitated by rotten high priests.
    There were consequences.
    We have been entrusted with the same.
    Dads, moms, small group leaders, grand parents, elders, ministry leaders.
    You have a calling and a role to ensure you are not a fruitless tree, but that you bear fruit so people can see God in and through you.
    I want to walk us through some self-examination. I don’t normally do this, but I want you to take a moment and answer these in your heart:
    Where do I turn when I feel empty?
    What do I do when I feel anxious?
    What do I do to distract myself?
    What do I use to feel like I am in control?
    How do I avoid silence?
    What are my excuses to avoid prayer?
    These questions will reveal within our hearts our false figs.
    Things that keep us from feeling hunger, but never feed us.
    How to find satisfaction from Spiritual hunger—Faith
    This passage continues with some pretty incredible statements about faith and I want to navigate them with wisdom and truth.
    Matthew 21:19–22 NIV
    Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered. When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” they asked. Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”
    We often think of faith in relation to the word, “believe”.
    I want you to know that “believe” is a part of faith.
    When this is our understanding of the word ‘faith’, this passage ends up saying, “If you believe hard enough, God will give you whatever you ask for.”
    I don’t believe this is what Jesus is saying. At no point does my belief intensity factor make the Almighty God submit to my wishes.
    Also, many will try to to gymnastics with this passage and basically say, “Jesus said He would answer our prayers, but He really won’t”
    Because he says he will!
    If you take the time to study this passage, the lynchpin of this passage revolves around the question, “what is faith?”
    We have a definition of faith here that has three parts:
    Faith:
    Relational knowledge of God as revealed by His Word
    Humble submission to His authority (Lordship)
    Faithful obedience to His will
    I would like to connect how we view faith to this definition, specifically the second point.
    Jesus was called the Messiah, the anointed one. He was the fulfilment of God’s promise to David that one day, one of his descendants would rule forever. He is called the King of kings and Lord of lords.
    In most of His parables, and teachings, he talked about the Kingdom of Heaven
    Jesus is the prophesied King and He ushered in the Kingdom of Heaven.
    What does it take to become a part of the Kingdom of Heaven?
    Scripture gives us this answer, “Faith”.
    I want to tie that word “Faith” to the Roman culture at that time.
    Pistis (Greek)— Faith
    Pistis and Kingdoms, specifically Rome were two ideas that were very closely connected.
    When Rome would invade a nation, they would go to the people and say, “Give Pistis to Caesar and you will live”.
    They were not telling the people, “Do you believe Caesar is alive?” “Do you believe Caesar exists?”
    They were asking for submission and allegiance to Caesar.
    If they did not give their Pistis to Caesar, they would not live. They would die.
    Pistis was turning your back on your prior allegiances (repentance) and declaring allegiance to Jesus Christ as your King.
    Paul and Silas used this exact language with the Roman guard who was guarding them when the doors were opened.
    That guard was very familiar with what that meant.
    Acts 16:31 NIV
    They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”
    This is where the idea of our definition of faith comes from:
    Faith:
    Relational knowledge of God as revealed by His Word
    Humble submission to His authority (Lordship)
    Faithful obedience to His will
    Point #2 is this allegiance and repentance.
    Now let’s break this passage down with this context and grasp the depth of what Jesus is giving us.
    Matthew 21:21–22 NIV
    Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”
    “If you have Pistis (allegiance after repentance from all other allegiances) and do not doubt.
    This is where the “faith is belief” people say, “see doubt is connected to just belief”
    This Greek word actually fits better with allegiance than it does with “belief”.
    Diakrino (Greek)— Separate from one another; to part; to be parted; to part and join different parties
    LSJ Greek-English Lexicon
    I can see how this word can mean doubt, but I can more clearly see this word in context of allegiance.
    This is exactly what Jesus was saying when He said, “No one can serve two masters. You cannot have allegiance to two masters. You will love one and hate the other. Or be devoted to one and despise the other.” Jesus was making the same point in the same way.
    Matthew 21:21–22 NIV
    Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”
    So, if we have allegiance to Jesus after turning our back on our old allegiances, and we do not waver or slip back into our old ways, then you can do some pretty amazing things in prayer.
    Now, what is prayer? Going to the King to whom we have allegiance.
    Let’s pull this back to the setting of a Roman kingdom.
    If a conquered person surrenders his allegiance to his old ways and kingdoms he is declared a subject of the Roman government. Now imagine that person comes to the Caesar and says, “Caesar, I want a new chariot. A nice Mecedes Benz chariot. Since I’ve declared my allegiance to you, you need to give it to me.”
    What do you think that Caesar would say?
    You’re allegiance is to me, not the other way around.
    However, if that person were to go to Caesar and say, I am your subject. I carry your name and the name of your kingdom everywhere I go. In carrying your name, I need something to do that well.
    Caesar would be very pleased that this person is representing him in a way that Caesar wants to be represented.
    It is the same for us as we take on the name of Jesus and surrender our old allegiances.
    In fact, pull this back further.
    When you are baptized, this is a act of obedience. What are you baptized into? The name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
    You now take on the name of God. You are declaring your allegiance to that name and denying all other names.
    And pull back even further.
    In the 10 Commandments, when it says, “Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain”, this is not using Jesus’ name as a swear word. That is not good.
    But if you take the name of the Lord your God, you represent Him
    Just like if I adopted a child and that child took my name, He would have my last name.
    He would represent my family because he has become a part of us.
    To take on the name of King Jesus in vain, not turning your back on your other allegiances, not living as His child, denying relationship with Him, this is what “vain” looks like.
    How does all of this fit into Spiritual hunger?
    Faith is what draws us to the source of our satisfaction.
    We can go to the Father and ask for His Spirit, His wisdom, His guidance, His love, His presence.
    There is nothing He cannot and will not give us of Himself if we ask.
    This is so much bigger than mountains being thrown into the water.
    This is sustaining to our lives.

    Conclusion

    Church family, when we walk through this passage, we’re not just watching Jesus confront a broken temple or curse a barren tree. We’re watching Him lovingly expose the places in our own lives where we’ve been living on leaves instead of fruit.
    Because here’s the truth: God created you with hunger. Not as a flaw. Not as a weakness. But as an invitation.
    Just like Adam needed air, water, and food, God created you with a need for Himself. And every ache in your soul — every restlessness, every emptiness, every longing — is your heart remembering Eden. It’s your soul remembering what it was made for.
    And Jesus, in this passage, is gently but firmly removing everything that starves us so He can give us what satisfies us.
    This is the heartbeat of our church’s vision: We want to be a people who encounter Jesus, who are formed by Jesus, and who live for Jesus. Not a people full of leaves. A people full of fruit. A people whose hunger leads them to the only One who can feed them.
    So hear this clearly: Your hunger is not your enemy. Your hunger is your invitation. Your hunger is the Spirit of God drawing you back to the One who made you, loves you, and feeds you.
    And when you come to Him — not with performance, not with religious habits, not with spiritual appearances — but with hunger… He meets you. He heals you. He satisfies you. He forms you. He fills you. He gives you Himself.
    This is why faith matters. Not because faith is a magic lever that gets God to do what we want, but because faith is allegiance — the turning of our hearts away from false gods and back toward the One who actually feeds us.
    When you give Jesus your allegiance, you’re not just believing He exists. You’re saying, “Jesus, You are my King. You are my source. You are my life. You are my satisfaction.”
    And when you come to Him like that — hungry, surrendered, loyal — He gives you everything your soul was made for.
    So today, I want to invite you to bring your hunger to Him. Not hide it. Not numb it. Not distract it. Not misdiagnose it. Bring it.
    Let Jesus feed you. Let Jesus satisfy you. Let Jesus be your King.
    What battles for allegiance in your heart?
    What do you fill your hunger with?

      • Matthew 21:12–22ESV

      • Matthew 21:18–19ESV

      • Matthew 21:12ESV

      • Matthew 21:13–14ESV

      • Isaiah 56:7ESV

      • Matthew 21:15–16ESV

      • Matthew 21:17ESV

      • Matthew 21:18–19ESV

      • Matthew 21:13ESV

      • Jeremiah 7:11ESV

      • Jeremiah 7:20ESV

      • Matthew 21:19–22ESV

      • Acts 16:31ESV

      • Matthew 21:21–22ESV

      • Matthew 21:21–22ESV

Real Life Selkirk
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