Teaching the Disciples: Two Foundations

Good morning!

We are finishing this short section where Jesus teaches his committed followers.

I talked about the importance of context last week, and the same is true today.

This challenging message from Jesus is for his committed followers, not the unbelieving crowds.

Importantly, we will see today that our adherence to Jesus’ directions will exponentially impact our lives and the church's message.

These closing sections are the capstone that completes this message and defines the kind of life they are to live and the required response for a disciple of Jesus.

Over the last few weeks, we have talked about loving our enemies and living without judgment and condemnation of others.

The two short illustrations that Jesus uses in the final verses of chapter six are to help us understand the application of those messages.

Jesus wants to make it abundantly clear what the life of a disciple looks like.

Unfortunately, this message is as needed today as it was when Jesus gave it to the disciples.

For generations, it is evident that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

Many of us have spent years detoxing from churches' false teachings and subversion of the gospel message.

The desire for wealth, power, and control drove the message and mission of the church rather than the Holy Spirit.

This has produced a culture that doesn’t understand the mission of Jesus, and they have, in turn, created disciples who don’t know Jesus.

It would be easy to hear how I’m talking about this and wonder if I heard my message last week on judgment.

But this is not judgment.

When you go to the doctor, they aren’t judging but diagnosing.

I am not claiming to be a doctor or the one making the diagnoses.

Jesus is the one making this diagnoses.

Jesus addressed these kinds of things many, many times during his ministry.

He is constantly challenging the religious leaders of his day because what they are teaching is missing the point.

They created a religion that was focused on something other than God.

The same is true of our religion today.

As we read our passage today, we are going to see for ourselves just how far from the gospel message the church become.

This is not new information for us.

All of us have experienced this.

And so have many of the people that we know.

I spent two days with a young man this week who described growing up in a “christian” culture in which the leadership lorded over those that were under them.

Their religion was used for manipulation.

It was used to create fear so that people would act they way they wanted.

As a result of this environment, he has a huge distrust for anyone who calls themself a follower of Jesus.

And rightly so!

Unfortunately, this is a common story.

That is why this message is needed today.

Jesus wants to course correct the church so that the focus is on people knowing God, not behavior modification.

In this message from Jesus, he explains the kind of men and women his followers should be.

Let’s look at the first example.

Luke 6:43–45 CSB

43 “A good tree doesn’t produce bad fruit; on the other hand, a bad tree doesn’t produce good fruit. 44 For each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs aren’t gathered from thornbushes, or grapes picked from a bramble bush. 45 A good person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart. An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.

Life Group Questions: Last week we were encouraged to examine our tendency to judge others. As you have looked inwardly over the last week, what kind of fruit did Jesus reveal?

Life Group Questions: Is the fruit of your life representative of God’s Kingdom or your own kingdom?

I know that I have shared this example before, but it creates such a great visual.

When we bought our house from my grand mother, there were foam apples on one of the crete myrtle trees in my yard.

Those fake apples didn’t make that an apple tree.

Just because we put something on that looks like fruit, doesn’t mean we are a tree with good fruit.

Life Group Questions: How does fake or bad fruit affect the world’s understanding of God?

The first part of this verse, in which Jesus says that good fruit doesn’t come from bad trees and bad fruit doesn’t come from good trees, is a diagnostic tool.

It allows us to look at the fruit in our lives and see where we are.

Remember, this isn’t about judgment or condemnation, it is about diagnosis.

Jesus isn’t just looking at the surface either, he is looking deeper than surface level.

Have you ever bought a package of cherry tomatoes?

You wash them and eat them whole.

Have you ever eaten one that looked good on the outside, but was bad on the inside?

That can ruin a good salad in a heartbeat!

I meet someone recently that won’t eat bite size tomatoes because of a bad experience they had once.

I believe the same kind of experience happens on a daily basis in the church.

A person experiences the “fruit” of someone’s life and it prevents them from every trying it again.

When the fruit is eaten, you know whether it is good or bad.

How we live and treat others is the fruit that they partake in.

In this example that Jesus is using it is clear that good fruit is the goal.

No one wants bad fruit.

The fruit of our lives will either draw people to God or drive them away.

In my friend's experience, my own experiences, and in your experiences, there were people whose fruit wasn’t quite right.

Luke 6:44 CSB

For each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs aren’t gathered from thornbushes, or grapes picked from a bramble bush.

Whether you realize it or not, every interaction you have with someone is revealing what kind of tree you are.

It reveals your beliefs about yourself...,

your beliefs about Jesus...,

and your view of the person to which you are speaking.

We talk about sharing the gospel all the time, but Jesus wants the disciples to understand that everything they do and say is communicating something about the Kingdom of God.

The same is true for us as well.

Jesus is teaching this because he came to redefine the nature of the relationship God wanted when he created humanity.

There was such a focus on everything except the relationship with God that people were way off track.

Their interactions with God had been reduced to guilt and shame regarding their ability to fulfill the law.

God wanted so much more for his creation.

God created us to walk with him in the garden.

To know him and to be known by him.

Jesus came to correct humanity’s course.

He came to steer us back toward God instead of allowing us to continue moving away from God.

As a disciple of Jesus, we are responsible for living as He did and continuing His mission of revealing and steering people back towards God.

That is a huge responsibility!

The fruit of our lives is what reveals God to the world.

We must ask if we are producing good or bad fruit.

We ask this of ourselves because Jesus makes the point to show us that our lives matter in the Kingdom.

The fruit that is produced through us educates the world about God.

The condition of the church is the direct result of the fruit that it has produced!

That doesn’t mean that the church hasn’t produced any good fruit, but it only takes a few bad pieces to keep people from trying any of it.

It only took one bad tomato to run my friends taste for them. He is done with cherry tomatoes.

So how do we produce good fruit?

If the church has gotten it wrong, how do we get it right?

What did Jesus say?

Good fruit is the result of living in an abiding relationship with Jesus.

I hope you guys don’t tire of hearing us talk about abiding.

It is the essence of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

Life Group Questions: How has abiding in Jesus transformed your relationship with God?

Hundreds of thousands of churches in the United States are committed to studying scripture.

That is a vital part of the process of being a believer.

However, if we never put that knowledge to use in our lives, we have missed the point.

Knowledge about God did not lead God’s people to a right relationship with God before Jesus.

Knowledge about God won’t lead people to know God today, either.

Jesus is the key to bringing that knowledge from our minds to our hearts.

Paul is a great example of this.

He was fully committed to the Jewish religion and persecuted the church.

But after his conversion to Christianity and he looked back, he realized how empty that religion was.

Philippians 3:4–7 CSB

4 although I have reasons for confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised the eighth day; of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; regarding the law, a Pharisee; 6 regarding zeal, persecuting the church; regarding the righteousness that is in the law, blameless. 7 But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ.

Philippians 3:8–9 CSB

8 More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God based on faith.

Paul was very clear about his religious leader status before his encounter with Jesus.

But he says that all of that was nothing compared to knowing Jesus and him crucified.

Paul lived under the law, spent his entire life knowing it perfectly, and did.

Even though he did, God revealed on the road to Damascus that he had missed the point.

Knowledge about God is not the same as knowing God, and it took a life-altering encounter with God for Paul to realize this.

Life Group Questions: How has your abiding relationship with God helped reshape someone’s understanding of God?

Just knowing a lot about God does not produce good fruit in our lives.

This is why we have and will continue to talk about abiding so much.

We know by experience that when we operate outside of God’s guidance, we lead ourselves and others farther from God, not closer to Him.

Let’s consider abiding in the context of what f is teaching his disciples about being good fruit.

John 15:1–8 CSB

1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he removes, and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.

There are three things I want to draw front his passage to apply to what Jesus is teaching.

Branches are removed or pruned.

As we think about the church as a whole, about our church, and our own lives, we need to remember that the life of a branch will not be without difficulty.

If we are not producing fruit, God will remove us, if we are producing fruit, God will prune us.

In either situation, God is active in shaping his Kingdom.

If we aren’t helping or are hurting the process, God will deal with us as he sees fit.

If we are helping in the process, God is going to work in our lives to make us more fruitful.

That pruning can take different forms, but all of them are going to require changes in our lives.

Change isn’t always fun, but it is necessary if we are going to be made more like Jesus.

Branches only produce if they are connected to the vine.

The only way we can ever produce good fruit is by being connected to the vine.

Apart from Jesus, we can never produce good fruit.

We can hang good-looking fake fruit on ourselves, but that will only fool people for so long.

It is only a matter of time before we are in a difficult situation and the real fruit is revealed.

Through connection to the vine, we are teaching people that this is the kind of activity that Jesus wants.

Hanging fake fruit is not helping the Kingdom.

It makes people think that the Kingdom of God isn’t real.

Only good fruit, produced by a branch connected to the vine, reveals the Kingdom of God.

God is glorified as we produce much fruit and prove to be Jesus’ disciples.

The fruit produced through us as we abide brings glory to God.

Luke 6:45 CSB

45 A good person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart. An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.

We get to decide what kind of fruit we are producing.

If we abide in Jesus, we are a good people, and the good fruit is the overflow of what Jesus is doing in our lives.

But this is where the rubber meets the road.

Jesus goes on...

Luke 6:46–49 CSB

46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do the things I say? 47 I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them: 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. When the flood came, the river crashed against that house and couldn’t shake it, because it was well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The river crashed against it, and immediately it collapsed. And the destruction of that house was great.”

If we only hear the words of Jesus but never do them, we are setting ourselves and others up for destruction.

It is worth pointing out that a person or persons among the disciples was not fully committed.

Jesus doesn’t call them out by name, but he does call them out.

Life Group Questions: Is this message from Jesus different than what you learned growing up? If so, what was the focus of the message you were taught?

You know, I shared a story about my friend and his experience with the church at the beginning of today.

His experiences, and perhaps some of yours, result from this very thing that Jesus is calling someone out about.

Jesus isn’t pulling any punches here.

He is making it clear that our obedience is the difference in life or death.

Both for ourselves and for those around us.

The idea that what we do in our own lives doesn’t really affect others is gone.

Hearing the Holy Spirit and doing what He says is the difference maker.

There is a desire in all of us to want the best out of life.

Many have looked at the message of Jesus and the fact that he died to forgive our sins.

They recognize their need for this and their salvation and want it.

They want Jesus’ sacrifice, but they want it on their terms.

In other words, they want to be the ones in control of their lives.

Which, by the way, they can totally do.

God has never and will never force himself upon us.

He gave Adam and Eve a choice to obey, and everyone had the same choice afterward.

In his example, Jesus is making it clear that both men had the opportunity to build their foundations correctly.

One built it correctly, and the other did not.

Jesus says that the one who hears his words and obeys is like the one who built a proper foundation.

The one who hears and does not obey is whose house was destroyed.

Every person who has heard the gospel has had the same opportunity.

We could either hear and obey or hear and disobey.

Romans 6:23 CSB

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is where we all begin, with a choice.

But it is so much more than a simple choice.

It is deciding between eternal death and separation from God or eternal life, which begins at the moment of your salvation.

Jesus wants the disciples, us, to realize that this message and his life were not about ethical behavior or religious activity.

This is about why we do what we do.

Life Group Questions: What difference has the “why” made in your relationship with God?

James 1:22 CSB

But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

Jesus is looking at the heart of every person who calls themselves his follower.

He sees the reason why we do what we do.

He sees our motivation.

He points out in verse 46 that confession without obedience is meaningless.

Luke 6:46 CSB

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do the things I say?

He wants us to understand that if we build our house on any foundation other than him, that house is destined for destruction!

Our blessedness and escape from God’s divine judgment depend on how we respond to Jesus.

He will look at our motivation and our actions to determine where our hearts are.

Jesus wraps up this message to the disciples with two illustrations.

They are designed to make us examine our lives.

What kind of fruit is being produced through us, and how does that affect the message of Jesus?

Good fruit only comes through an abiding relationship with Jesus.

If we hear Jesus’ words and don’t obey, we haven’t understood his salvation.

Jesus draws a clear line in the sand and sorts the sheep from the goats.

Which side of that line you choose to stand on is completely in your control.

God won’t make you do anything, but Jesus has made it abundantly clear what is required for us to stand with the sheep.

God wants us to have a relationship with Him, but it is completely up to us.

If we are going to be his disciples, we will choose to abide and obey.

Any other decision leads us away from God; we are not his disciples.

The choice is yours.

In life, we are going to build a foundation of some kind.

That foundation can be built upon the God that created all things, or it can be built upon the things we build in our own power.

Jesus is clear that the storms of life will reveal the foundation we have chosen to build upon.

He is challenging us to examine our lives.

To consider our fruit and our foundations.

Let’s pray.

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