Bearing Fruit

Intro

Have you guys ever picked fruit? Maybe it was apples, maybe blueberries, etc. Growing up my Gram had 4 apple trees in her back yard and I remember picking apples from the tree. Now when you pick fruit, you have to be careful because there can be both good and bad fruit.

and sometimes if you aren’t careful you can take a bite into a gross apple, I’m speaking from experience. You see you don’t want the bad fruit it’s garbage, you want to find and keep the good fruit.

Now we read in Matthew 12:33-37

Matthew 12:33–37 ESV

33 “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. 36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

So this is telling us that there are some who produce good fruit and others who produce bad fruit. and the fruit is based on your heart. So if you have a good heart that treasures up good things you will produce good fruit. So those would be the people that hide God’s word in their heart and allow it to affect their lives.

However I want us to notice verse 36, It’s easy for us to read right over it. (read 36-37)

That may be a little concerning for some of you. and that’s because we say things carelessly. We’ve all done it, we blurt something out without thinking, and what we read here is that we’re going to give account for those things even if we may not have truly meant them.

Part of the reason for this is because we need to understand that the things we say is important, the words that come out and how they come out are important. We read all through scripture how important our words are. our tongue is described as a ship rudder and a sword. open your bibles to Proverbs 18:21

Proverbs 18:21 ESV

21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.

In fact the words we use and the power of words is so essential that the scriptures even refer to Jesus Christ himself to be the word of God.

and so we are faced with the challenge of speaking carefully. and when I say challenge I mean it. It’s not easy to consider every word that comes out of your mouth, however that which is coming out of you is a part of the fruit that you produce.

Now here’s the good news, the fruit we produce comes from within us, and us believers have something else in us which helps that fruit to be good… The Holy Spirit

Our Bad Fruit

Open up to Galatians 5:16-26

Galatians 5:16–26 ESV

16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

So we have this war raging within us between the spirit and the flesh. Now there are those out in the world who don’t have the spirit of God, they simply desire the things of the flesh, and they freely give into the things listed here. But we do have the spirit and so their’s conflict.

I mean some of these things are common things that most people just pass off as part of being Human, who here is angry? what about jealous? who has rivalries, dissensions and divisions, Heck look at the division in the church! That alone is a sign of bad fruit right. These are common things that we all struggle with.

But we aren’t supposed to partake in these things, we are supposed to put those things off. Which is why we need the help of the spirit. Too often I hear this, “I want to stop being angry but I can’t help it.” and the person that says that, is absolutely right!

“YOU” can’t do a thing about your anger, “YOU” can’t do a thing about your jealousy, “YOU” can’t do a thing about your dissension, However the Gift of the Holy Spirit can do something about it!

Why do we insist on trying to overcome these things on our own, when all we need to do is rely on the spirit who has already overcome these things. And you may say, “Clay it’s not that easy, I have the spirit but I can’t stop these temptations” again you’re right the temptations aren’t going away, It’s a matter of denying yourself and keeping in step with the spirit.

Good Fruit

Who here desires to inherit the Kingdom of God, How bad do you want it? It’s like the would you rather game;

Would you rather get angry at the car that just cut you off or inherit the kingdom of God

Would you rather have dissent between you and another or inherit the kingdom of God

would you rather get drunk or inherit the kingdom of God?

So if you truly desire to inherit the kingdom of God then why is it such a struggle to deny your flesh, say no to those things don’t live in your sin flee from temptation don’t put yourself in the situation to be tempted in the first place, follow the spirit that is within you.

When we follow the spirit this is what happens look at Galatians 5:22-25

Galatians 5:22–25 ESV

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

That doesn’t sound like to bad of a trade off right, we can give up strife for love, anger for joy, dissension for peace. Sounds like a no brainer. and here’s what we read in verse 24, those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with it’s passions and desires.

Do you belong to Christ Jesus? Then you need to Crucify your flesh, you need to die to yourself and live this new life that God has offered us. And guess what when you were baptized maybe you didn’t change how you lived, maybe you worked on somethings but you were still giving into the flesh. It’s not too late, you can let go of that conflict between the flesh and the spirit. “Oh Clay It’s not that easy”, It really is, you have the Spirit of God within you, the things you have to gain far outweigh the things you must let go of.

Just die to yourself, just let go. your eternity is on the line. We can not call ourselves Christian and yet live in the flesh. We are called to be different than those in the world. they live according to their flesh they give into their temptation but we live according to the spirit of God.

We allow ourselves to be slaves to sin, we are like a slave that is shackeled and tortured every day and we cry out in anguish saying that we can’t escape, and yet we are holding the key to freedom. Some people don’t think they deserve freedom, but I think they are scared to let go of their sin.

after all this sin is what we use to fill us, if you let that go how can you be sure that you won’t feel empty.

There’s a song by David Wilcox, and I encourage you to listen to it if you haven’t already heard it. It’s called a break in the cup, right that down. and he talks about how we are all broken cups and everything that is poured into us leaves us empty, and that their is only one true way to be filled up, and that’s to go to the waterfall.

You see God is our waterfall, he is able to not only fill our broken cup but to overflow our broken cup if we would just allow him to.

Review

So we can either produce good fruit or bad fruit, but the branch that produces bad fruit gets cut off from the tree. There will be no bad fruit in the kingdom of God, When Christ calls us to live apart from the world, not desiring the things of the flesh but of the spirit, he’s not just making a suggestion, He’s saying you will live according to the spirit if you desire to inherit the kingdom of God.

Now when we live this way it’s life giving, Open your bibles to Matthew 5:13

Matthew 5:13 ESV

13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

Jesus tells us that we are the salt of the Earth. those of us living according to the spirit bearing good fruit we are the Salt of the Earth. that’s important! Salt in the time of Jesus was very valuable it was even used as currency in some situations. Now what do we know about Salt?

It’s Pure, It’s used to Flavor, and It’s used to preserve.

Salt is pure it can be nothing other than salt, just like we can be nothing other than those who walk in the spirit. and on top of that we are to preserve and flavor?

How does a Christian flavor the Earth? well to start in order for salt to properly flavor your food what must happen? You must salt evenly so It’s important that Christians are found all over the world, we can’t hide away all in one area that’d be gross. Now I like to think of the church as more of a salt shaker than just a pile of salt.

We come here to be encouraged and instructed of how we can be better salt. Have you ever had a meal that was kind of gross and bland and then you salted it and the meal was suddenly quite a bit better. That’s should be the experience of those in the world, they should be in our presence and see our good fruit, and it should be flavorful to them. it should be refreshing it should make them desire to have salt all the time.

Is this making sense to you? When we bear good fruit we are going to be a blessing to the world to all those around us, we will inherit the kingdom of God. we will be like Salt. But what if the Salt has lost it’s taste, what if it no longer bears good fruit. It’s useless, “Christians” who bear bad fruit are useless. scripture tasteless salt is to be tossed out and trampled under feet, the branch that bears bad fruit is cast into the fire.

Close

When we bear good fruit, not only does it benefit us, it benefits the kingdom of God flavors and preserves the whole world. I really don’t want this to be a sermon that goes in one ear and out the other, I want you guys to take this to heart. and I hope that you feel conflicted by this sermon. I hope you are telling yourself right now, That something in your life does need to change.

This life we live is short in face of eternity. sure you can please your flesh in the 80 years or so you may have in this life, but it results in an eternity in hell. Or you can deny yourself those 80 years and have an eternity of peace. When you think about it, the life is like the bug that you killed in elementary school, “you might be asking, what bug” EXACTLY! we have eternity on the line.

Here’s my challenge for you, ask yourself have I died to myself? and when considering that question reread Galations 5:16-26. take some time to consider, can you deny yourself sleep or free time for the sake of your personal time with God. can you deny yourself sports and entertainment for the sake of coming together for worship?

Allow yourself to live according the spirit of God that is within you!

Let’s Pray.