A Tree is Known by its Fruit
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Call to Worship:
1 The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, 2 for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.
3 Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.
5 He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
Introduction:
Children’s sermon with illustration
Have any of you ever helped your family plant a garden or a flower bed? What is the purpose of a garden? Why do you go to all that work?
And what is the purpose of a flower bed? Why bother with all that work?
We planted a flower bed in the last couple of weeks, and it was a lot of work! We had to dig up the ground, spread good soil, put fertilizer down, pull up weeds and even a little oak tree, and then dig holes and plant all the bushes and flowers. Then, we had to cover it all up with mulch and be sure to water it really good for a while.
Here’s a picture of one of the types of bushes that we planted. Why do you think we planted that type of bush? (Because it grows really pretty flowers!)
So what do you think I would do if after all that hard work and money, it didn’t make pretty flowers? (I’d dig it up and rip it out of the ground! I planted it because I wanted the flowers. If it’s not going to produce flowers, there’s no reason for it to take up space in my garden.)
And if that bush doesn’t produce flowers, what does that tell you about the bush that I planted? (That it’s not healthy, or it isn’t what I thought I planted.)
When Jesus saves us, the Bible says that he saves us so that we will love him and follow him. Our love and obedience to Jesus are like pretty flowers or fruit. If our lives don’t show that we love Jesus—if there’s no pretty flowers or fruit in our lives—what does that say about us? (That we aren’t really saved.)
Do any of you know the fruit of the Spirit? (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control) Having these things in our lives is what shows that we’re truly a believer in Jesus Christ.
Text: Matthew 12:33-37
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.”
Prayer
Your sin goes deeper than you think.
Your sin goes deeper than you think.
We have a bad habit of focusing on our behavior. We focus on what our actions and we try to clean up on the outside. But our real problem isn’t drinking, or drugs, or sexual promiscuity, or anger. Those are just symptoms pointing to a deeper issue.
Sin is the fruit of a heart that does not love God.
Sin is the fruit of a heart that does not love God.
The problem isn’t the behavior, it’s the underlying heart issue.
If I go to the doctor complaining of constant headaches, he’s probably going to want to run some tests. If I object that “I just want you to give me some pain medicine so it doesn’t hurt,” a good doctor is going to refuse. Because the pain is just a symptom. He’s going to want to figure out what’s causing the pain. He may run an MRI or CT scan, or he might hook me up to those electrodes and run some tests on the electrical signals in my brain.
See, the headache really isn’t the problem. The real issue is something deeper—electrical signals misfiring causing migraines, a brain tumor, poor sleep or nutrition, or any number of things.
Imagine the insanity of going to the doctor with a knife sticking out of your head and asking him for a Tylenol!
But so many times we focus on just the surface-level problems in our lives—addictions, depression, spiritual apathy, sin—and we refuse to look deeper, because we’re afraid of what we’ll find.
In Matthew 12:22-32, Jesus casts out a demon that was making a man mute and the Pharisees around him refuse to believe the obvious conclusion—that Jesus was the Son of God. Later on in Matthew 12:38, they demand a sign from him to prove he was who he said:
38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”
39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
But Jesus refused. Why? If Jesus could perform such miracles, he could have just done a miracle then and there and then they would have believed, right?
But, Jesus knew that their problem went so deep that no miraculous sign could convince them. In Luke 16, Jesus tells a story about a rich man and a poor man to illustrate this very point.
19 “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.
20 And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores,
21 who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried,
23 and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.
24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’
25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.
26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’
27 And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house—
28 for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’
29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’
30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’
31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’ ”
And the great irony here is that many who refused to believe Jesus’ teachings still refused to believe even after Jesus DID rise from the dead. Jesus literally performed the ultimate miracle to attest to his deity, and they still refused to believe.
If you refuse to believe in Christ, the problem is not that you haven’t seen enough evidence. Many have seen less than you and have still believed. And you may tell yourself, “If only I saw ____, then I’d believe.” Well, I’m here to tell you that you wouldn’t. Because your problem isn’t the lack of evidence. Every single one of us has seen enough evidence to know there’s a God. The fact that Earth is so precisely positioned in its orbit so that it is not too close to the sun or too far away to be hospitable is a miracle that defies probability or chance. Probably every single person here has witnessed someone survive a close call with death that they shouldn’t have survived.
Your problem is not that you can’t believe or don’t have enough evidence to believe, your problem is that you don’t want to believe, because if you believe then you have to submit to an all-powerful, sovereign Lord of the Universe who demands obedience. Your problem is that your heart is hard and you are in rebellion against Christ’s authority.
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.
The fruit in our lives—our actions and attitudes—are just an outward growth of the seed that is in our hearts:
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.
Unforgiveness comes from a heart that has not experienced the grace and mercy of God’s forgiveness.
Sexual immorality and greed and idolatry come from a heart that finds the pleasures of this world more satisfying than the pleasures of God.
Drunkenness and drug addictions come either from a heart in love with worldly pleasures or a heart that is seeking escape from trauma, and thinks that chemicals can provide more satisfaction and pain relief than the healing God provides.
And such people who belittle the grace and mercy of God, who reject the offer of true joy in exchange for fleeting worldly pleasures, show through their actions that their hearts do not belong to God. And that is why Scripture says
21 ...those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Good works come from the work of the Holy Spirit in your heart.
Good works come from the work of the Holy Spirit in your heart.
You cannot change the externals in your life without an internal change.
You cannot change the externals in your life without an internal change.
Imagine trying to glue a tomato onto a poison ivy vine. You might fool a few people for a little bit, but it won’t take long before people notice that the fruit is rotten. A poison ivy vine cannot grow or sustain a tomato. But, a good, healthy tomato vine will have no problem growing a tomato.
We see this illustrated in Mt. 12:43-45. Even if all demonic influence was removed from your life, you would be no better off if your heart is not indwelt by God.
43 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none.
44 Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order.
45 Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”
This is a person who tried to “clean house.” They had a demon before, but somehow (for the sake of argument) they were able to get rid of the demon. But, they didn’t invite Jesus in the house. The house stayed vacant. So, the demon brought some friends with him and the end was worse than the beginning for this man.
And the reason is that you and I are not capable of producing good fruit in and of ourselves. Scripture is very clear on this point.
18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.
8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
The whole point of that passage is that we couldn’t produce holiness or righteousness on our own—that’s why Christ came!
But, if you surrender your life to the Holy Spirit, and you live your life by the power of the Holy Spirit, he enables you to do what you could not otherwise do.
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.
One day, we will all stand before the judgement seat of Christ to give an account for our lives.
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
Not because we are saved by good works, but because our works and the fruit of our lives are a testimony to what is in our hearts. God is a master gardener. He always tends his garden well. So, if we fail to produce fruit in our lives, the problem isn’t the gardener, it’s the plant.
So, take an honest look at the fruit of your life this morning. What does the fruit in your life point to? What kind of seed is really in your heart? Don’t deceive yourself by thinking that because you go to church, or because your parents are believers that you’re a believer, too.
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’
23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
At the end of the day, what matters is whether or not Christ is on the throne of your heart.
As we prepare for the Lord’s Supper, I want to invite you to take a moment and evaluate your heart before God. Let the Holy Spirit judge you now, while you can still repent. Don’t wait until the judgement seat of Christ, because then it will be too late.
Invitation/Transition to Communion
