A Tree is Known By its Fruit
Notes
Transcript
A Tree is Know by its Fruit....
A Tree is Know by its Fruit....
Good morning, hope you all are well today.
Have you noticed the days are getting shorter my friends? It seems like the earth is beginning that journey of moving us toward fall and of course whether we like it or not, winter will be here before we know it.
I walked outside the other morning and it was a little cooler, and that reminded me we are moving from one season to another.
This my friends are part of God’s plan and work in this world. He has ordained that we would go from one season to another as the days pass.
And just as God has ordained the days of our life so He has called us to live for Him, to imitate His ways to the world around us.
Let me ask you a question:
How do you imitate His way? How do you serve, act and live so that others see Jesus in you?
Well this is where we are heading today as we come back to Matthew chapter 12, where by Jesus says that a tree is known by its fruit.
Do people know you are a Christian by your fruit? What you produce?
So lets go to our text and see what Jesus says...
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.”
Wow, Jesus will always have powerful words for those around Him, especially those in positions of leadership and power the Scribes and the Pharisees.
And rightly so, for those who are in positions of power, leadership that serves and leads others, those people are held to a high standard. It was so in the days of Jesus and it is true for those in leadership today.
As leaders, we are responsible for those under us just like the shepherd is to the sheep of His pasture.
As we open the text, I want to share three thoughts with you today. The first one is this...
1. Jesus says Make Up Your Mind....
There is a phrase we are familiar with as we walk through this thing called life. “Make up your Mind” when we are stuck between choosing one thing over another.
In fact, from childhood into adulthood we are forced to make decisions everyday.
Where do you want to eat today? what do you want to eat? Who do you want to eat with? So many choices and we have to make up our mind.
So consider this phrase… How will you live? You make a choice every day about how you will live? You will do good or bad or some will try to straddle the middle.
At the center of it all, is that phrase “…make up your mind.” What are you doing to do?
Listen again to what Jesus says to the religious leaders...
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.
When Jesus is saying either make the tree good or bad, Jesus is saying make up your mind… The religious leaders claim to represent God, they claim to live righteously, they claim to serve others....
As as we looked at last week, the religious leaders have accused Jesus of blasphemy, they accused Him of being in league with the Devil himself. Using his power to cast out His own minions.
Jesus tells them that their argument was faulty, in truth it was ridiculous to even make such a claim.
So here Jesus calls them to get their house in order, and make up their mind about what they are going to do and how to act.
IN fact verse 34 Jesus calls them a “Brood of Vipers...” essentially a den of snakes… they claimed to be good, they claimed to be righteous but their actions, their words and most importantly, their heart proved other wise.
So Jesus says “Make the tree good or make the tree bad. — Make up your mind but stop pretending that you are righteous… because you are not.
Make up your mind!
The same is true for us… there must be a conscious decision to take His yoke upon us… Jesus invites us to in Matthew 11. But we must make the choice.
My friends, that is the call for every child of God. Make up your mind because you are either all in or you are not.
Let me share this quote with you from a favorite author of mine, Mark Batterson
“The gospel costs nothing. We cannot buy it or earn it. It can only be received as a free gift, compliments of God’s grace.
So it costs nothing, but it demands everything. And that is where most of us get stuck — spiritual no-man’s-land. We’re too Christian to enjoy sin and too sinful to enjoy Christ.
“ We’ve got just enough Jesus to be informed, but not enough to be transformed.” - Mark Batterson, All In: You Are One Decision Away From a Totally Different Life
We have to move past those places that seem to catch us and hinder us and let Jesus have everything .. surrendered to Him for His use and for His glory.
Make up your mind.
Faithfullness isn’t just remaining or holding on to what we have, no faithfulness is also charging the gates of Hell to push back against the evil and expanding the Kingdom of God.
I love Joshua 24:15
15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Make up your minds...
Are we all His or we are all someone elses......
“You can have faith or you can have control, but you cannot have both.” If you want God to do something off the chart, you have to take your hands off the controls.”
We must make up out minds…
Now this bring us to the second thought today....
2. A Good Tree will Bring Forth Life.....
There is the goal my friends, Jesus has high expectations for His children… especially those in positions of authority like the religious leaders. We have already talked about that briefly.
So Jesus tells them that a good life, a good heart and a good mouth are all evident from the life they enjoy in relationship to God the Father.
Look again at the text.... verses 33 to 35
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.
Now as we have just looked at, Jesus has called on the religious leaders make up their minds about what good or evil, Literally saying make the tree good or make it bad.
But He calls them to stop pretending, to stop being hypocritical in their lives, You cannot say and act as if you are good when your hearts are evil.
Now look at the beginning of verse 34, Jesus echos the words of John the Baptist back from chapter 3… You brood of vipers, you den of snakes … and in saying that Jesus is revealing the current status of their hearts. - He is accusing them of being a bad tree that produces unhealthy fruit.
Why… they are not abiding with their God the Father....
If they were, they would be a healthy tree, producing good healthy fruit.
Look over in the Gospel of John, chapter 15
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
Look at what Jesus is saying here.
Jesus begins by saying I am the “true vine” I am the one who is steadfast and authentic, and he expects His followers to be the same, the children of God should be different that the world in which they live.
The religions leaders failed at this… Jesus said that out of the abundance of their heart, their mouth revealed who they truly were...
If they had seen, believed and received Jesus , they would have been connected to Him and thus they would have bore “good fruit”
Jesus says in John 15:5 that whoever remains in Him will bear must fruit, why .. they have a healthy tree.
A person who matter how hard they try, cannot live acceptably in any capacity apart from God.
This is why Jesus stresses the importance of abiding in Him.
Here is a question for you? Do you want to bear good fruit?
I think the answer is yes, we all want to bear good fruit. We hope to be out best for Jesus. The key Jesus says is abiding or remaining in Him.
This was the failure of the religious leaders. They relied on personal efforts instead of His efforts.
The sought to try to keep all these interpretations in regard to the law, they thought works, their good efforts were enough.. but they failed. Jesus said they were “White washed tombs” full of dead men’s bones” Matthew 23:27
They looked good on the outside, but they were dead on the inside. God doesn’t look to the outward appearance, but to the inward.
Look to your grape vines or the trees in your yard… the outside may look good but the life force is on the inside. Our connection to the Father, to His precious Son and the Spirit isn’t based on our outward works. --
It is based on the spiritual....
The relationship we have and adore with God is one that produces good works, based on what He is doing inside of us through the Spirit because we are His, and that should be evident on the outside… the Christian bears fruit.
A healthy vine produces grapes on all the branches. A healthy tree produces fruit after its own kind on its branches.
Healthy branches ( His people) who are connected to the true vine, the main vine will produce fruit.
So a question begs to be asked?
What are you producing? Good fruit? Stunted, little shriveled up fruit? Or rotten fruit?
If you are not producing good fruit? Ask why? Ask God what is happening? Is my soil bad? Am I lacking a little fertilizer (like the word) in your life, does something bigger need to change?
So lets find a little help...
If you are saying I am not producing like I should or not at all - How can that change?
Let me share with you 5 things real quickly that can help you grow and produce good fruit...
A. Are you Saved? I always start here.... you know this for certain. You know you made a decision to follow Jesus.
B. Are you being watered with the Word? Are you making it the habit to take the Word of God into your life. How can you know how to live unless you search, study and take the instructions for life into our hearts.
C. You need established prayer time. If you are not talking to God how do you know what He is saying, How do you know His plans and purposes
D. Are you surrounding yourself with other believers? Every good plant needs other plants around us and not weeds. Weeds spread they seek to over take and smoother out the plant. As a child of God we need lost friends, but we must have out fellowship of believers to bless and nurture each other lives.
E. Are you committed to gather together to worship corporately with other believers? Even in times like this, we need to worship together, at times it might need to be electronically at times, but when we can, when we are able we need to come together.
We must strive to be our very best for the Lord our God. Remember Jesus tells us over and over again, their will be accountability.
3. We will Give Account of every Word and Deed....
First off, lets get the Elephant out of the room, Accountability in this life is a theme that is taught over and over again by Jesus.
Accountability is not a new concept, we are accountable for many, many things in this life.... and just as it applies to the physical, it is true for the spiritual.
Think of it like this, you are the son or daughter of your parents. Nothing will change that, you are theirs..... and as such you are responsible before them. We are responsible for our name, our actions and our life.
Jesus teaches this in the gospels as well.... The Master has given responsibilities to His servants and he goes away.... but then He returns and settles all accounts with them. There is accountability
The same is true for us, He has given us this great life, many blessings and of course salvation. So we are responsible for how we live in front of Him in both word and dead.
Listen to Jesus in our text...
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 sum up that Jesus is saying… two types of people as reflected in two type of trees… good and bad.
And these trees reflect by their own health, good and bad fruit, good or bad work, words etc...
So here is an important truth: So truly A tree is to its fruit what a person’s heart is to his or her speech and deeds.
A person is either good or bad… and the wicked will not escape judgment. IN fact Jesus says that God will judge every careless word they speak.
The word “Careless” is important, it speaks to every “idle or work-less word.” What does all that mean …
What may seem to be trivial or casual words may at times reflect the attitude of the heart. What is truly inside of you comes out when you are stressed and squeezed....
Think of Paul, he has been faithful for the Lord, even in sorrow, pain and suffering he has been faithful. And when the stress of death is upon Him, I can see him saying. Let do this… Im ready to go home.
He lived his life so outwardly, so prepared, who upward that no matter what happened.... He was happy to serve the Lord and bring him glory.
A good healthy tree or good person is careful with their words so that they are precise, effective and right.
So by what you say and do you will be judged and acquitted or condemned.
So take a moment and search your heart… look deep and ask Jesus to look deep, show you what is unhealthy, stunted etc....
Ask him for forgiveness, ask Him to change you so that it is good fruit that is being put forth every day.
IN doing this, People will know who you are, they will know the one who you serve, the Lord Jesus and your fruit will be evident and known.
Are you ready to trim off, prune off the bad, throw it out so that the rest can grow and be healthy
Lets pray...