Fruit: Love God, love others, make disciples

Introduction

What is the bi-product, or fruit of being a disciple of Jesus? Is it simply learning more and more information about God? Is it like taking a set of classes and then having to pass a test that you understand the doctrine of Scripture, of God, the Trinity, the nature of Christ and his work, all the commandments, and the overarching story of the Bible?

What is the point of education, whether it is primary, secondary, or higher education? What is the biggest question and complaint of younger people who are in high school? Any guesses? "What does this have anything to do with real life? Why am I having to learn this?"

Most people do not want to waste their time learning things that they will never use or put into practice. When we are forced to learn things that we don't value or don't think are necessary, what happens? We simply do what we have to in order to get by, like trying to simply get a passing grade, get the certificate to let us continue to work, and then our minds and hearts throw it out. Why? Maybe it is because we know that we were made for something much more than simply existing. We know we have value and we don't want to waste our time on things that will not contribute to our purpose or goal in life.

So, why is it that people who find themselves in the Christian faith, calling themselves disciples of Jesus, and are content to simply take in bible studies, various spiritual lessons, and sermons and be content to do either very little or absolutely nothing with it? This question is a critical one and I hope that today will mark the day that you see that we can't live this way, we shouldn't live this way, in fact, it is incredibly dangerous to live this way (see Jesus’ words in ).

Today, we are going to see that because of Jesus’ completed work, universal authority and continued presence, as disciples, we are to bear fruit of loving God, loving others, and making disciples.

The series

The life of a disciple of Jesus Christ is like a tree. The roots of the tree are our identity as sons and daughters of God. The trunk of the tree is the servant’s heart of Christ. A disciple who is firmly rooted in their identity in Christ is so secure that they can stoop to the lowest of places to love sacrificially, to love in the way of service.

The branches and leaves of the tree represent our unique calling or mission from God. This calling is how we reach beyond ourselves and bring comfort not only to the other members of Christ’s church, but also to the world around us.

But if we are like a fruit tree, what is our fruit and what if we don’t bear any fruit. Well, Jesus says that every tree that does not bring forth good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire.

We know that an important part of a fruit tree, no, the whole point is that it actually bears fruit. Producing fruit is simply what they do.

Today we will see that the fruit of a true disciple of Christ is a life built around three things: loving God, loving others, and making others into disciples. But ultimately, these things all really come from one thing a heart that is consumed with God, madly in love with God which pushes itself out into our entire life.

Background

There are two backgrounds that we need to deal with because we are looking at two passages. The first is for . Here, Jesus is in his final few days of his ministry on earth. He has inspected the temple and found that instead of a place of prayer for the nations its fruit had become a mockery. Israel was not producing the fruit that God had designed it to, and the leaders didn’t care. They were trying to ask him questions to discredit him.

The second is from . Here, Jesus has completed his work of redemption through his life, death, burial, resurrection. He is about to ascend to heaven to co-rule with God the Father. These will be the final words that Jesus gives his disciples in his newly resurrected body from earth. He gives them their marching orders, making disciples of all nations.

Exposition

Loving God

Why would somebody go to a trade school, college, or university to learn about something they didn’t love? Why would they spend the time and money if they weren’t passionate about it? Why would we go if our whole being wasn’t aligned…body, mind, heart?

The same holds true of God. Why would we bother to learn about him if we weren’t committed to him and didn’t love him? In , when asked what the most important commandment is, Jesus doesn’t give an action to be done, but a whole-life consuming principle.

Jesus gives the first and greatest, essentially, the most important commandment, love God with everything you have. Then he tells the man that the second most important is to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus shows that every commandment springs from these two as their root and principle. There are no disjointed commands, everything must spring from a life of love to God and man.

All our Heart

We are to love God from the very root or core of our being...with all our heart. Think of the seat of our physical, spiritual, and mental life, the real me on the inside or the hub of the wheel of our existence.

All our soul

We are to love God with a white hot, intense fire that is constantly blazing...with all our soul. Think of this as our spirit, the self-conscious life or the seat of our emotional activity.

All our mind

We are to love God with the fullness of our mental faculties…with all our mind. Think of this as our intelligence and thought life or the seat and center of our purely intellectual life and our dispositions and attitudes. It is a full-on intellectual pursuit of the love of God in Christ.

With all our strength

We are to love God with every bit of power and energy we have...with all our strength. Think of our bodily powers, the will or power. This love should give all to seek and find God and keep all his commands.

Conclusion

This love must not be half-hearted or double-minded, but whole-hearted and single-minded. Anything other than this is religiosity, not true discipleship. So, loving God is at the core of all that we do. It is the fruit of our union with Christ, our servant’s heart, and calling.

Loving Others

If we go back to our school concept, why would we be taught by somebody else if we didn’t plan on doing something with it? Why would we go to school to learn how to fit pipe if we weren’t going to ever work with one?

The same holds true of our life as a disciple. All people are created in God’s image. They are intrinsically valuable; they give us a picture, though marred because of sin, of God. Our purpose on this earth as someone who loves God is to love him as he is seen in his images.

Jesus quotes , telling us that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus is asking that we act toward others with the same degree of goodwill as for ourselves.

So, what is this love? It is caring for them when they are poor, not stealing from them, not lying to them, being fair in our business dealings with them, caring for them in their disabilities like deafness and blindness, dealing justly with them, avoiding slander against them, keeping from “jeopardizing” their life, avoiding “harboring hatred against them”, rebuking them when necessary for their and our good, and not taking revenge or bearing a grudge against them.

It is second, not because it is not important, but because if the source of our love is not in God, then we won’t be able to or even want to show God’s love to our neighbors. This is truly a servant’s heart.

Desperation

Are you completely overwhelmed by now? You need to know that in Jesus you have the fulfillment of the Law of Love toward God. Love Yahweh your God...Jesus doesn’t just tell us about the Shema’s devotion, but he lived this devotion his entire life. Throughout the whole gospel Jesus has shown us his love to God with his whole being.

In Jesus you have the Fulfillment of the Law of Love toward your neighbor. Love your neighbor as yourself...Jesus doesn’t just tell us that we should love our neighbor, he actually does it, but even to a deeper extent, for he loves his enemy as himself. He shows this by giving his life “as a ransom for many” (). He shows us what true love of neighbor is.

Make disciples

If you know about the way many of the skilled trades work, you will know about the idea of an apprentice and a journeyman. People can’t work forever, and they don’t live forever. New people must come and replace them in the workforce. Without new people, the skilled trades die. Skilled trades must be not only taught, but caught.

In the skilled trades, when new people come in, they become an apprentice to a journeyman. A journeyman is experienced and can show the apprentice everything they need to know. The apprentice works alongside the journeyman and helps him until they know enough to begin to do it themselves. By doing it this way, the journeyman is essentially replicating himself. The value of the skill or trade is passed on to another. The trade is preserved.

In , we see that Jesus asked his disciples to replicate themselves all throughout the world by doing two things: baptizing others into the Triune name of God and teaching them to observe everything he commanded them. He told them to train apprentices.

Christ’s universal authority

But, doesn’t this seem like a gargantuan task? Can we really do this? How can we teach people to give their entire life in discipleship? How can we ask them to be wholeheartedly devoted to God in love toward him and in service toward others in love?

Christ’s universal authority is our confidence to enable us to be faithful on our mission to make disciples. When Jesus commissioned the disciples, he told them they would be empowered for their task by his authority. Jesus declares that there is nothing at all in the universe that is not under his authority. He has the right, liberty, and power to do whatever he wants anywhere in the entire universe.

If Christ has this authority, and he commands us, to do something, what reason is there to think that we will not have what we need to fulfill it? Jesus’ universal authority is our confidence that we will be able to do whatever he asks us to do. We as his disciples have what we need.

Christ’s command

Jesus tells the disciples, and us, to go, because of his authority, and make disciples of every single people group that exists in this world. Then he says to baptize them in “the name” of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. As well as adding that we should teach them to observe, obey, or keep, everything that he commanded them.

So, what then is this task of “discipling”? And how do we do it? Well, in order to make disciples, we must be a disciple ourselves, and we must know how to make them, so what is a disciple?

A disciple is one who is increasingly worshipping Jesus in all of life, and one who has been, is being, and continues to be changed by Jesus into His likeness (new identity given them in baptism), and is obeying Jesus increasingly in all of life and is also leading others to do the same.

So, how can we define our mission of making disciples? It is the process of being and leading people to increasingly bring all of life under the Lordship and empowering presence of Jesus.

But how is discipleship done? It is done life on life. We are visible and accessible to those we are discipling, we are living life together. It is life in community. We are living in Christ’s body that has many members, we are living within the family of God. It is life on mission. We are making disciples of and with others, we are learning how to submit to Christ in all of life with each other. It affects all of our lives.

Thus, discipleship is not just doing spiritual activities, like doing “churchy” stuff, but being devoted to each other’s development in Christ, seeing every person within Christ’s body grow up into His likeness. It is being commitment to one another for the glory of Christ. But, it is more than this, it is being committed to tell others and make others into these same types of people.

Christ’s presence

This seems like an incredibly difficult task, right? We can’t make people into disciples, can we? We don’t have that power or authority. But Jesus has that authority. When Jesus calls, people don’t make excuses, or turn away, they come. Jesus’ continuing presence with us provides us with the ability to fulfill his commission to us.

His presence gives us the ability to bear fruit in our lives and on our mission. He said that we will bear fruit if we abide in him. In other words, all our power to be faithful and fruitful is found in him.

And because this is the fact, our whole life is changed into a life of Christ, with Christ. He changes all of us. Our thoughts. Our desires. Our will. Our relationships. Our purpose. And because of this, we bear fruit in the world. But our fruit is tied to loving him and obeying his commands. And how do we do this? We must abide in God’s word.

And so, as disciples of Jesus, we believe his word no matter how much it stretches us. And, as disciples of Jesus, we proclaim his word no matter how much it costs us.

Second, Jesus’ presence provides us comfort. He never told us that his mission would be easy. In fact, we must be willing to take up our cross, an instrument of torture and death and follow him.

Since we know that following him as his disciple is not easy, and is the narrow way, the way that is hard, we need the Good Shepherd to be with us. He will lead us and guide us through the valley of the shadow of death. We will not have to fear because we are abiding in him. We can take comfort in his loving and continual presence.

We can be on his mission to make disciples who make disciples. We can not only ourselves increasingly bring all our life under the Lordship and empowering presence of Jesus, but we can lead others to do the same.

We must understand the importance of us being on mission. And we can do this by understanding that God is a missionary (sending) God. He sent His Son into the world to bring redemption and renewal, to find a people and make them His children. The very nature of God shows us the importance of us being on mission. And since we are His children, we are to be like Him and so we are also sent on mission.

This is why Jesus commissions His people as His disciples who are to make other disciple-making disciples. Jesus tells us that the harvest for people coming to know God is plentiful, but we should pray for more workers to help gather. Prayer is critical to the endeavor of evangelism and any discipleship, because only the Holy Spirit can change heart.

Application

So, a real good question is what keeps us from bearing this kind of fruit. For fun I went online and looked up what are some common problems and what do you do if a fruit tree isn’t bearing fruit, this is what I found.

First, pollination problems. For fruit trees to bear fruit they need pollination. Bad weather or predators kill insects that pollinate. So, the insects might need some form of screening in bad weather. Not only this, but most fruit trees need a pollination buddy, another tree nearby that helps in the pollination process. You also should avoid using pesticides that kill the very insects that are needed for this pollination.

In our world today we have bad weather, the attacks of Satan, predators, our own flesh and spiritual warfare, and we have the world which has convinced us that we can be solitary Christians.

Second, soil conditions. Fruit trees need good soil to grow. Some people try to put quick-release fertilizer to get a bumper crop. It may seem like it works, but it produces weak, soft growth that hurts the flowers and fruits and attracts unhealthy pests. Grass and weeds also compete with the tree for water and nutrients, so they need to be kept clear of the tree in the early years.

The Christian life is, as Euguene Peterson said, a long obedience in the same direction. We shouldn’t try to short-circuit growth. We must remove the grass and weeds that prevent our growth. These are the world and flesh. The world seeks to give us things that make us content and happy instead of being good for us. Also, many Christian authors and preachers offer quick-growth solutions that eventually produce rotten fruit. The only soil that is healthy is the soil of God’s gospel-centered community that always feeds us the truth of Christ.

Third, pest attacks. There are certain pests like the winter moth that will make flowers and fruits fail. Also, birds will come in and steal the buds off the fruit. Some solutions are to cultivate a garden that encourages biodiversity. Different types of trees and plants that will attract different bugs to police the pests. Also, you might have to net the trees to keep the birds out but let the insects that pollinate in.

The life of a disciple is similar. Without the diversity of the body of Christ around you, your fruit of loving God and others can’t blossom or grow. It will be snatched away. You need other believers to help you love God and to be there to encourage you to love others and provide opportunities to love others. Also, you may need to prevent the world from snatching your fruit by living in a way that “keeps yourself spotted from the world.”

Fourth, pruning errors. Pruning needs to be judicious and not overzealous. Only those things that fit into the 3 Ds should be pruned: diseased, dying, and dead wood. And any crossing branches that point inward. The tree should be encouraged to grow into an open structure that allows light to reach all parts of the plant.

The life of a disciple is similar. Only God should be allowed to prune the tree. He alone knows what is diseased, dying, and dead. His word and prayer are the two clearest ways that this happens. Being in community will expose these problem branches as well. Also, all those things which are inward focused, self-centered need to be cut off as well.

Fifth, biennial bearing. Often times, fruit trees will produce one year and not the next. This happens when trees exhaust themselves by producing too much fruit. So, the fruit will need to be thinned. And this thinning usually needs to be done by hand every year. If trees have access fruit they will drop them early to reduce the strain.

The life of a disciple is similar. If you are not abiding and resting in Christ. If he is not pruning and thinning what you are doing. If you are not resting in him but trying to produce as much fruit as possible without relying on the Holy Spirit, you might find yourself in a lack of fruit from year to year.

These are simply some thoughts on the life of a disciple and how to produce the kind of fruit that God expects from us. It is a life of constant abiding in Christ. Without a life of dependence, acknowledging our helplessness and inability to love him, love others, and make disciples, we quite simply won’t be able to do it. We must acknowledge not only Jesus’ authority, but his power and presence. We must be filled with the Holy Spirit and live a life that is devoted to the word, prayer, fellowship, and mission.

So, we have seen today that the fruit of a disciple is love to God, love to others, and make other disciples. Because of Jesus’ universal authority and continued presence we can have confidence and assurance that we will be able to produce the fruit that he asks.