2024-10-27 True or False (part 2)

We are continuing our series this week through Matthew 7:12-23, on being / / Kingdom Ambassadors.

Last week we looked at our need to be aware that not everyone is out there teaching sound biblical truth, and not everyone who says they speak for God is actually speaking what God says. There are unfortunately those who are teaching things that are contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And this isn’t something new. Paul had to address this in the very beginning of his ministry of the Gospel. He writes to the church in Galatia, / / I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ. You are following a different way that pretends to be the Good News but is not the Good News at all. You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ. (Galatians 1:6-7)

Now, something interesting about this issue that Paul had with some of the early churches he started. One of the issues he was having was that Jewish believers in Jesus, who were misinterpreting the gospel were coming in saying that if you wanted to be a Christian, you had to first become Jewish, and as such, had to follow the law of Moses. They didn’t understand that Christ had completed, or fulfilled the law. And one of the core things Paul is teaching in his letters, is that we are free in Christ from the curse of the law. But these other teachers were coming in saying, “No, wait, If you want to be a Christian, you have to become Jewish and that means you need to be circumsized.”

So, we have to be aware of what this “false teaching” can entail.

Sometimes what we see as false teaching is directly against the teaching of Jesus.

Sometimes aren’t preaching Jesus at all.

Sometimes they’re preaching that Jesus is one of many ways to salvation, or to heaven.

And sometimes, as was Paul’s experience, he’s having to make sure that the people he’s been teaching the true gospel to, aren’t led astray by a teaching that is going to put them back under the bondage of the law.

Now, this is a delicate issue, and it’s something we talk about a fair bit here, the balance of law vs. grace, or freedom and righteous living. See, the law was, and is, important. Paul says it. He says he loves the law. But he loves the law because the law showed him what he was doing wrong. He says in Romans 7:7, / / …it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, “You must not covet.”

See, some people look at the law as a set of rules and that we get punished if we break them. But let’s just think about this for a second, ok. In the Garden of Eden, all the way back to the beginning. God has created everything, and Genesis 2:15-17, / / The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden - except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”

This could be considered the first law, or commandment, or instruction, right?

Now, I wanted to make sure here what this was saying, so I went and looked at the various translations and ya know what, all of them it in basically one of two ways:

you shall surely die.

you will most certainly die.

one even says, “for in the day of thine eating of it - dying thou dost die.”

But you know what I didn’t see. Not a single one of the more than 30 translations I read say anything close to, “When you eat that fruit, I will hunt you down and I will punish you by killing you for disobeying me.”

Why do I bring this up?

Because the law is a gift to show us the way to live. The law, as Paul says in Romans 7:7, is meant to show us our sin, or to just show us sin in general. If God doesn’t highlight for us what it means to sin, and sin is what kills us, how fair is that?

If you view sin as something that God wants to punish you over, then you’ll think he doesn’t care whether you know what sin is or not, and he’ll punish you whether you know what it is or not. BUT I think we need to see sin as something that God wants to set you FREE from, something he wants to PROTECT you from. This is how Paul sees sin, Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23, / / For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard… For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

When you view sin that way, you begin to realize that the law is God’s way of saying to humanity, “This is what will produce death and this is what will produce life…” So, if I live in this way that breaks these laws, we could say say that’s akin to eating the fruit in the garden, it will produce in me death.

That’s why in Deuteronomy 30:19-20, after laying out the law, it says, / / “Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life. And if you love and obey the Lord, you will live long in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

That’s why when Jesus comes he is preaching, “Come follow me.” Why? Because He is God and He leads to life. John 14:6, / / “I am the way, the truth, and the life…”

Matthew 4:18-19, / / …he saw two brothers - Simon… and Andrew, “Come, follow me…”

Matthew 9:9, / / …he saw… Matthew sitting at his tax collector’s booth, Follow me and be my disciple...”

Matthew 19:21, to the rich young ruler, / / “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

To all of his disciples he then says in Matthew 16:24-25, / / “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.”

So, let’s ask the obvious question here… What is God in the Old Testament through the law of Moses, and what is God in the New Testament through the words of Jesus / / always trying to do? / / Lead you to life.

Even in Genesis, there were two trees in the Garden. God did not put a barrier between man and the tree of life until man was corrupted by Sin and the compassion of God was to say, / / “Look, the human beings have become like us, knowing both good and evil. What if they reach out, take fruit from the tree of life, and eat it? Then they will live forever!” (Genesis 3:22)

It wasn’t about punishment for wrong doing. It never has been. It’s about God creating a world and a universe where / / the only way for there to be true devotion is to give the opportunity for true rejection. If you can’t say no, your yes means nothing.

Now, we have to clarify here. What was Paul’s point in focusing on the law and focusing on the free gift of salvation through Jesus? He says in Romans 8:3-4, / / The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.

The law could not save us. So even though the law shows us the choice of death and life. The only way to eternal life, meaning, the only way to escape this ultimate “wage of sin is death” scenario is through the power of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross and his resurrection. In the book of Revelation, John the Apostle sees Jesus in this vision he has and Jesus says to him, / / “Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last. I am the living one. I died, but look - I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.” (Revelation 1:17-18)

In taking our sin to the cross and dying with it on the body that He had been given, Jesus, being God the Son, became the eternal sacrifice that broke the power of death and the grave. So even though the wages of sin is death, we now have access to this free gift of God given through Jesus sacrifice.

Why is this so important? Why do I talk about theses things so often?

Because there is a fine line between falling into thinking we are saved through works, and being saved and called to good works.

Works will never save you. The law will never save us. It’s impossible. Paul calls the law perfect, but he also says that it’s weakened by human flesh, meaning, we can’t keep it. It’s a statistical impossibility. Let alone most theologians settled on what we call Original Sin based on the writing of Scripture. Paul says because one man, Adam, sinned, all have sinned. That can either mean that as our ancestor all the way back to the beginning, through the bloodline we are now all born into sin, or it simply means we all, like Adam, can’t live a perfect sinless life. We’re going to pick the wrong tree, too.

Either way, the end result is the same. We can’t do it. The only way we can be truly righteous before God is if Jesus deals with sin and then gives us his own righteousness.

But, and Paul says this, that doesn’t mean we throw away the law, or what the law tells us we should do, or what Jesus said we should do in following him. Think about it. We have spent more than 30 weeks this year talking about what it looks like for us to live in the Kingdom of God by living the Jesus way that he lays out in the Sermon on the Mount. And I don’t want you to get confused thinking that by those works you are saved. It’s not a scale and as long as the good things you do outweigh the bad things, you’ll be fine.

This is the litmus test, and this is a perfect question, if you are ever in a position to talk to someone about the gospel of Jesus. / / If you die today, and You are standing before a Holy, Perfect God, and He asks you, “Why should I let you into heaven?”

The answer is NOT, “Because I lived a pretty good life. I was a good person.”

The answer is, / / “Because I believe in Jesus Christ, who is God the Son, who became flesh, took the consequence of sin on the body he was given, and died a sinners death on a cross, went to the grave and rose again, back to life, and forever destroyed the power of sin and the grave.”

I want you to remember a statement. Memorize this one, ok.

/ / I am saved by grace ALONE, through faith ALONE, in Christ ALONE

Now, I know that might have seemed like a bit of a rabbit trail, but we now jump back to the beginning, Paul writing his letter to the people in Galatia saying, don’t let these other teachers con you into thinking that you have to be subject to the law for redemption, that was never the point anyway. We are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone, and now we consider ourselves slaves to Christ.

And so we asked the question last week, is it still true today that people come preaching something contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ? And the answer to that is unfortunately… yes.

And I don’t just mean from the pulpits at churches, but there are from every avenue those who claim to be speaking on behalf of Christ by the simple fact that they identify themselves as Christian. Or, Spiritual. Or connected to God. They don’t always want to be associated with a particular religion, so they don’t explicitly call themselves Christian, but they say they trust God. But then what they say and how they live end up being contrary to the way of Jesus Christ.

And we are in this political season right now where the name of God gets dropped regularly for the purpose of getting votes. You’ll notice none of them are offering an altar call at the end of their speeches. They are asking for your vote and your political donation.

We had this happen last night. We are a big “The Voice” household, and the episode we were watching one of the contestants did the song “Oceans”, we sang it this morning. And one of the contestants says, “I love this song”… and Kaylee says, “I didn’t know she was a Christian…”

Now, I’m not judging whether this person is a Christian or not, that’s certainly not my place, but I did need to explain to my 11 year old that not everyone who says they are a Christian is living a life that looks like they are actually following Jesus.

So, Jesus says in Matthew 7:15-20, / / “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.”

Now, I want to make a clear distinction on what I believe constitutes a “false prophet”. Again, as I mentioned last week, that word being / / pseudoprophetes means both a pretended foreteller, or an actual prophet that is prophesying falsely, but also means / / a religious imposter, which I would define as someone who presents themself as a Christian, on any level, and does not actually live, teach, or model a life of following Jesus.

There is also the delicate subject matter of pastors and preachers who fall into some sort of scandal. People, who through there own struggle with sin, or lack of accountability, or sinful desire for personal gain, even though they maybe have started out with a real desire to serve God, for whatever reason have fallen into what we might define as “serving two masters”. Specifically, Jesus says this about money in Matthew 6:24, / / “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

But I would say that is true of what we would call the / / “Three G’s: Gold, Glory, Girls (or Guys)”

Let me just say to that. The enemy will try and ensnare anyone from anywhere. He doesn’t care who you are or what you say you believe, if you confess Christ he’s gonna be about messing you up. It’s his nature. Remember what we’ve looked at before. The devil only knows how to lie. It’s his very nature. That’s what Jesus said. He is the father of lies and when he speaks he tells lies because that’s his very character.

And we are unfortunately seeing this all across the Christian church at the moment.

Recently, a prominent leader in a ‘prophetic ministry’ was removed for having an inappropriate relationship with a student at the ministries school.

A incredibly well known leader from a main prayer movement in the world, it came out that they had had the same kind of infidelities in their life.

A really well know, strong, reformed calvinist out on the west coast has just been found out to having had a 5 year affair.

Another leader from a major church movement in America has been accused of financial impropriety and is under investigation.

Why is this happening? Why are these things coming out? Why is sin being exposed?

Because Jesus said, / / …a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Which means for a season your fruit might look good, but eventually the disease of sin within the branch is going to reveal the true fruit. And I don’t believe that sin changes the truth. If you were a good bible teacher, but living in sin, that doesn’t ‘mean the truth you preached is no longer true, but, it does impact who will now trust the fruit of that tree. You can be saying all the right things, but if people don’t want to listen to you, and they don’t trust you, then it doesn’t really matter, does it?

And the church has unfortunately not done a good job at fixing these issues. They will often cover up the sin for the sake of the “anointing” or the “gift”. “He’s such a good teacher.” Does that matter? “He’s such a good minister. He’s clearly anointed.” Should that matter?

Jesus said in Luke 12:2-3, / / “The time is coming when everything that is covered up will be revealed, and all that is secret will be made known to all. Whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and whatever you have whispered behind closed doors will be shouted from the housetops for all to hear!”

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 says, / / Here now is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty. God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad.

And if I can maybe share what I think might be some prophetic insight, meaning, I believe this is what God is doing right now in the earth, in the church, or at least in the western church. / / God is calling His church back to a place of Good Fruit. He is calling us back to a place of truly following him. Not just saying we are Christians, but truly following Jesus Christ in everything that we are and everything that we do. And in that process, things are being exposed. Sin can’t say hidden when the light of Christ shines brightly. Things will be exposed.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be a pseudoprophetes, a religious imposter. Obviously not as a pastor, of course, but not as me, a simple, everyday, normal follower of Jesus. I mean, I’m no different than anyone else. And it’s not about what my ‘job’ is or what my role in this church is. We are all called to the same thing… to follow Jesus.

And I don’t think I am a religious imposter, and I don’t think any of you are either. But I feel an increased need and pull toward holiness and honesty before God these days, I just want to be a million miles away from anything that even smells of Religious Imposter.

So, if we don’t want to be people who say we speak for God and God is like, “No they don’t.”

And we don’t want to be a religious impostor. Then what is the solution?

Well, that’s what Jesus is saying in Matthew 7:15-20, And of course to this point we have been kind of focusing on the negative, those producing bad fruit, but Jesus also says the opposite. / / You will recognize [people] by their fruits… every healthy tree bears good fruit… a healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit… you will recognize them by their fruits.

So, let’s ask a couple questions on that this morning. / / What does it mean to bear good fruit? And how do we do that?

/ / 1. What does it mean to bear good fruit?

In my church history class this week we watched a video about The First Great Awakening. It was a time of renewed following of Jesus in the early to mid 1700s right here in America. But, leading up to it things in this new world were not so great. There was a feeling of Spiritual deadness, materialism had taken hold. It was the new world, you were allowed to own your own property for the first time. Even the Puritans, who were very devout strict followers of Jesus had lost their desire for the things of God. Harvard University, which had started as a school to train pastors, had become more and more secular and humanist, following more the teaching and ways of the enlightenment period coming out of Europe and people were scorning Christianity. The morality of the colonists was waining into an uncommon deadness. And the churches were full of people that were simply ’baptized into a denomination’ without ever having had a personal recognition of sin and confession of Jesus Christ as their savior. You could call them ‘religious imposters’.

And how will you know them? Their fruit stinks. Like churches full of people that say they are Christians but their lives don’t look anything like Jesus.

Then comes what we call the First Great Awakening. God saw it fit to shine a light. And through the passionate preaching of men like Gilbert Tennent, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield and others, they called people back to what it meant to be a Christian, to be a follower of Jesus. They invited people who said they were Christians to get saved, and then to worship, pray, study scripture together, to be about good deeds and their fellow man.

There are stories of the elders of the churches coming forward in confession to get saved. Why? Because religion had become a matter of a badge to wear, not a life to live.

And this started with just a few good trees bearing good fruit. When God gets the hearts of people and they choose to follow Jesus, good fruit follows. 10% of the population of the colonies got saved. Imagine today if 10% of America turned to follow passionately after Jesus? That would be 34 million people.

Good fruit isn’t just a good idea. It’s Jesus’ plan for your life.

John 15:16 says, / / You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit…

James 3:17 says, / / But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds.

Colossians 1:9-10, / / So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.

So, might seem like a simple question, but / / what does it mean to bear good fruit?

/ / It means your life looks like something, smells like something, tastes like something.

And by that I mean, / / Your life is pleasing to God and produces a harvest.

Proverbs 3:1-6 says this, / / My child, never forget the things I have taught you. Store my commands in your heart. If you do this, you will live many years, and your life will be satisfying. Never let loyalty and kindness leave you! Tie them around your neck as a reminder. Write them deep within your heart. Then you will find favor with both God and people, and you will earn a good reputation.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.

So, never forget the things I taught you. And what’s he teaching? To follow the way of the Lord. And what will it produce? Favor with both God and people. Why? Because your life looks like something. Your life is producing something.

Ok, so / / to produce good fruit is that something good, something Godly, is coming out of your life, which is the result of honoring God, trusting Him, and following His will and His commands.

That’s what it looks like.

Now, to the second question:

/ / 2. How do we bear good fruit?

How do we do that?

I want to look at three different aspects of bearing good fruit.

These are the fruits of:

/ / Dedication

Transformation

Christ-like Behavior

In a way, these could be likened to how John Mark Comer defines true discipleship, to be with Jesus, to become like Jesus, to do what Jesus did.

/ / The Fruit of Dedication

We could argue there’s a bit of a chicken and an egg situation here. Scripture says that God loved us before we loved him, that He is the one who draws us, and calls us. So ours is not the first step, however, I am assuming you are saved, recognize Jesus is your Savior, and are wanting to produce good fruit in your life. If that is not the case, and you have not found this place of seeing Jesus as your personal savior, as the gift from God to set your life free and on track, please talk to me at the end of the service.

Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit comes, / / “he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment.” So, just like Paul says the law showed him what sin was, we now have the Holy Spirit who shows us what sin is, and you have either felt that already, or you’re feeling it this morning, the leading of the Holy Spirit to turn toward Jesus Christ for your salvation. And if that’s the case, and you have turned your life toward Christ, then your life should begin to look like something and produce fruit.

/ / The fruit of dedication is our personal life toward God. This is the answer to the call of Jesus in Matthew 16:24, / / “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.”

That is the fruit of dedication, it is the process of laying down our own way, taking up our cross and following the way of Jesus.

What is the way of Jesus?

Well, ask yourself, what did Jesus do in his own personal dedication to God?

He prayed, a lot, right? He would go away, seek times of solitude and silence, he would pray.

He knew scripture, He was a brilliant teacher of scripture, people marveled at his understanding of scripture, which means he not only read scripture, but he studied it.

He gave himself to community. More than anyone else he gave himself to community, both to living in it with others and to teaching and helping them.

He fasted.

He was generous, providing for many.

He worshipped. He went to the synagogues for service. He followed the Jewish festivals.

He followed the Sabbath. But he also knew He was God, and said things like, / / “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of the people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27) meaning God isn’t just looking for heartless following of laws, but he actually gives these instructions to lead to life. I will be 100% transparent with you on this matter. I do not do a good job keeping the Sabbath. I do not have a day where I stop. Especially in this season of my life with full time school, and work and all else. And I also know, my life would be better if I did. I don’t feel condemned by God that I don’t keep the Sabbath in that way, I feel condemned by my own actions that I don’t. Meaning, I feel the effect of it in my body, mind, soul and spirit. Does that make sense?

God is not looking for heartless, blind obedience, but he is calling us to something that does require obedience to the way of Jesus.

But this the way of Jesus when we read, “give up your way and follow me…”. It is what / / the fruit of dedication can look like:

Sabbath, Prayer, Fasting, Solitude, Generosity, Scripture, Community, Service, Witness.

And in the coming months we will have opportunity to learn together what these truly mean and how to employ them in our lives to the benefit of our own life and the lives of those around us.

Our lives should look like something.

/ / The Fruit of Transformation

I’ve talked about this many times, but for whatever reason, God chooses that within our dedication to Him, He produces in us wonderful spiritual results.

Jesus promises good fruits, and like I said earlier, it’s not just about what we know or learn. If you say all the right things but your life doesn’t match, then what’s the point?

If you, the tree, are planted in Christ, planted in the way of Jesus. And allow the Holy Spirit to work in you, you will start to grow fruit.

/ / The fruit of Transformation is the work of the Holy Spirit in us and through us.

Galatians 5:22-23 says, / / But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

So, what does this look like?

Well, the more we align ourselves with the way of Christ - Jesus says if you abide in me, and my words abide in you…the more the Holy Spirit produces fruit in us. The more time I spend desiring and dedicated to becoming like Jesus, the more the Holy Spirit actually does that work in me that I cannot do myself.

But this fruit requires something.

It doesn’t happen if I don’t want it.

It doesn’t happen if I don’t work toward it.

I would love if my desire to be fit actually made me fit, but it doesn’t. Whether I like it or not, I actually have to work out, I have to exercise. All the mental dedication in the world will produce zero results in my physical body.

Even after getting saved. Giving my life to God, the Almighty Creator of the Universe, who can do anything and everything instantaneously….My life is redeemed in Christ, but my waist isn’t…

You ever see the joke on the internet… Brain cells die, skin cells die, even hair cells die, but Fat Cells… they must’ve accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior because these bad boys acting like they have eternal life!

It’s funny, but why do we think it’s different with any other part of our lives?

That anger you’ve dealt with? Is it going to go away if you never want it to and never do anything about it?

The propensity to procrastinate - as long as you’re ok with it being around, it’s ok with being around.

The desire to watch Netflix instead of read the bible. Listen, that one just isn’t going to go anywhere until you train your life to operate differently.

Or that taste for liquor, that desire for relationship comfort, whatever it might be that draws you and pulls at you…

We might have desire to change, but until we put our lives into it, we don’t expect that we will actually see change, do we? So of course, in the same way, all my “oh ya, I’m totally a Christian” without actually following the way of Jesus does not produce in my life spiritual results.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not discounting or saying God doesn’t do wonderful sovereign acts of Grace. He does. And I have experienced them, and I am grateful for them. But those are not the overwhelming majority or even the normal occurrence. Not even biblically.

This is why I often say that when it comes to expecting God to move in our lives, we pray, we seek, and we ask Him for a miracle, while also moving toward the goal set before us that will produce that change. That is not a lack of faith, that is faith in action. It’s saying, “God, if I don’t experience a miracle by instant method, I will experience the miracle by your grace and strength with me every step of the way! And if I DO experience a miracle of instant change, I will praise you!”

Either way, God gets the glory!

Paul actually gives the church in Corinth a bit of a hard time over this. 1 Corinthians 3:1-3, he writes, / / …when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in Christ. I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger. And you still aren’t ready, for you are still controlled by your sinful nature. You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature? Aren’t you living like people of the world?

Peter says in 1 Peter 2:1-3, / / So get rid of all evil behavior. Be done with all deceit, hypocrisy, jealousy, and all unkind speech. Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation. Cry out for this nourishment, now that you have had a taste of the Lord’s kindness.

What are these two apostles saying? Yes, start with milk, but don’t stay there… Grow, grow into a full expression of salvation.

1 Corinthians 13:11, / / when I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.

For so many Christians today it’s time to put away childish things and take the following of Jesus seriously so that in our lives the Holy Spirit will produce His fruit - / / the fruit of Transformation which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Man, the world needs that last one. But this takes work on our part.

Romans 12:1-2, / / …present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Don’t conform, or copy the way of this world. Don’t act like the world… instead, dedicate your life as a living sacrifice. What does that mean? It means dying without dying. Paul would call that crucifying the flesh. It is no longer I that live but Christ that lives in me! But that takes work. It doesn’t just happen.

I don’t know about you, but I wake up on the same side of the bed every morning, except, sometimes that side of the bed feels like the wrong side of the bed.

Some days my emotions seem all out of sorts.

Some days I feel fine and other days my finances seem to get to me.

Some days I have patience through the roof, and some days I don’t just have a short fuze, I feel like my fuze barely even exists!

Why? Because I’m called to produce fruit of dedication, and when I do that, I will experience fruit of transformation through the work of the Holy Spirit in me.

/ / The Fruit of Christ-like Behavior

Ok, the last one this morning, the fruit of Christ-like Behavior.

What do I mean by this?

/ / Personal dedication to God produces internal transformation by God (through the Holy Spirit’s work in us), that should produce in our lives an outward focused action.

Remember what this series is called, Kingdom Ambassadors. We are meant to be different, not just for ourselves, but for those who have not yet received the love of God in personal relationship and dedication to Jesus Christ.

/ / So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” (2 Corinthians 5:20)

/ / The fruit of Christlike behavior is the outward focus of God’s love working through us, because it has been working in us. And that happens through two means:

/ / Christlike behavior toward the church.

Christlike behavior toward the world.

Is one more important than the other? I don’t think I would say that it’s a matter of importance as much as it’s a matter of natural priorities.

If you don’t love the church how can you love the world?

1 John 4:20 says, / / If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?

Now, hate is a strong word, right? But let’s just be honest, making relationship work is hard work. Being a part of a community takes work, take’s practice. Some people don’t want to, for whatever reason, maybe they’ve been hurt before, maybe they are introverts, whatever the case may be. I was talking to someone the other day and they said that they had been going to a church group for a while, ended up moving to another campus of that same church, and so stopped going to that group and not a single person ever reached out to them. What’s worse than the actual act is the feeling it leaves behind. This can feed into our expectation that this is what we will experience anyway, so why bother.

Ok, let’s just define Christlike Behavior.

Christlike behavior is serving. Jesus lived an others focused, self-giving life. He served people. In a very healthy way. He had good boundaries, He went away when he needed to go away. And even in the midst of all the conflict surrounding his life, he continued to serve.

So, the questions for us are: first, / / do we serve the church? And by that I don’t specifically mean “Cutler Bay Worship Center”, although, that is the most natural, easy way to serve the body of Christ, to serve through the church you are a part of. But just naturally, do we look for, are we aware of ways we can serve each other? How do we love each other?

And second, / / do we serve the world? Do we put ourselves in situations where we are able to fulfill that mandate of 2 Corinthians 5:20, We plead on Christ’s behalf when we say, “Come back to God!”

And there may be seasons where that is more natural, or more of a focus. Obviously we are in a season right now where we aren’t consistently doing food distributions, where we were serving our community in that way. I actually had someone ask me the other night, and I said, “It’s not for a lack of desire, it’s been simply by lack of ability. I don’t have the capacity to oversee it and it was relying on that ability, which I have not had to give.” Doesn’t mean we’re done forever, just means we need it to work so we don’t burn ourselves out. Jesus doesn’t need you to burn out. He had good boundaries, we need to have good boundaries. Jesus wants you to thrive, to be so filled with his love and purpose through your life’s fruit of dedication, the Spirit’s fruit at work in you so that the fruit of his behavior can grow and flourish.

Matthew 7:17 (ESV), / / …every healthy tree bears good fruit.

It’s not about the fruit, it’s about the health of the tree that will naturally bear good fruit.

So, in closing, this is what I am proposing as an invitation from Jesus when he says we are meant to bear good fruit:

/ / The Fruit of Dedication, where we give our lives to following the example, the life, and the teaching of Jesus.

/ / The Fruit of Transformation, where we invite and allow the Spirit of God to work in us to transform us from the inside out.

/ / The Fruit of Christ-like Behavior, where we look outward to those we can serve, first in the church with the body of Christ, and second to the world around us that we plead, “Come back to God!”

/ / Let’s pray