What's Your Fruit

Introduction

We still see the results of February’s record setting cold.

Feb. 8th - 19th. Below freezing. 15th hi of 3. 16th low of -11.

And many of our trees and plants are still showing signs of that tremendous cold.

One neighbor was told to dig around the roots and put some nutrient rich soil. And for some of those plants, they recovered! The quality of the soil brought these plants back from death to flourishing.

Which makes us think, as we do, about the soil we are in. What do we have as believers and as a church to bring about life and fruit.

And not just fruit for ourselves. The fruit we produce should encourage other believers and it should propel the Gospel forward.

Over the next nine weeks we will go through I and II Thessalonians and see what the New Testament calls us to do and be for our community.

Where Is Our Root?

1 Thess. 1:1-5 “Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace. We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.”

Paul, Timothy, and Silas are writing to a church, a body of believers. They are connected together in this assembly of believers. Paul is thankful for them! Expressing this to them!

They are part of the church because they are saved in the Lord Jesus Christ (v. 4). Salvation brings about a fundamental change in life, as exhibited in v. 5.

Because of our salvation, we receive the Holy Spirit.

When I go see one of my doctors, they are always showing HGTV. List It Or Love It or Fixer Upper. Always get called back and miss the finale. When I see it, they’ve done all this demo work and I miss the finished product. The Holy Spirit is like one of those home remodeling shows. Just comes in and finds the rot and the mistakes and the hidden things and just begins to remove them. Chipping away from them. But, He doesn’t just leave them in disrepair. He finishes the job of repair by completely remodeling our lives (v. 6). Three key components that we see throughout the New Testament:

The Holy Spirit produces within you Faith, Love, and Hope.

As we think about our lives as the root and the soil is the attributes and qualities that we are exposing ourselves to, the things that influence our behavior, the Spirit generates Faith, Love, and Hope so that becomes what we are absorbing.

And not only do we absorb these things, but then they affect what we produce.

What Our Fruit Reveals

1 Thessalonians 1:6-10 “And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.”

Everyone produces fruit. It’s just that some people are producing poisonous berries and not apples or bananas.

Matthew 7:16 ESV

You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?

Some people try to disguise their fruit. Duct taped apples. You ain’t eating them!

Four fruits we find in this passage that the fruit of Thessalonica is producing because of their salvation and the Spirit’s Faith, love, and hope.

Fruit of Christlikeness

v. 6

In spite of the affliction they were in, they received the Gospel and then produced imitation. Walking around Walmart and hearing a parent get onto their kid for cussing. “Where did you learn that blankety-blank language?” Mimic. How we learn. Mimicking the sounds that our parents make, then their words, then their thoughts. As Leon Morris said about this, “The imitators became the imitated.” Paul, Timothy, and Silas had faithfully been seeking to imitate Jesus. Now, he is calling others to join in that imitation to produce the fruit of Christlikeness.

Learning what Jesus did and said and seeking to mimic that in our own lives. The Gospel story is the key to that! Provides us the design plans for us to implement in building our own lives.

Fruit of Encouragement

v. 7

Other believers in their region have observed how they endured this hardship and stayed faithful. “If they can do it, we can to.”

The value of YouTube - finding a video that explains how to do something. But, I don’t want the guy that does it for a living. I want the average Joe to explain what he learned by doing it wrong that helped him do it right. Makes it seem more realistic that I can also do it.

This is the encouragement. When we not only survive, but we thrive during difficult circumstances, it encourages others around us. In our culture, we have these extreme doom voices yelling in our ears - It’s the end of the world! This is going to end us all! If this or that happens, it’s the end of America or our way of life! Regardless of what happens, time moves forward and beyond each of those crises. Because God is bigger than anything we will face. But, when you, as a child of God, get wrapped up in the doom message, this doesn’t instill encouragement in others! Instead, keep your eyes on Jesus and shut off the doom voices. Find ways to thrive and be an encouragement to others.

Fruit of Evangelism

v. 8

Their faith has sounded forth - echo. A word used to describe a thunderclap. This thing that can’t be ignored and will not just wake you up but will rattle you out of your bed from a dead sleep. And it just keeps rolling.

That’s the way that our living out the Gospel and speaking it to others does. The Holy Spirit taking what you have said and applies it to the lives of those that God is drawing to salvation. It becomes something that they can’t get out of their mind until it gets into the heart.

This is the power that comes from the Holy Spirit to your Gospel witness. You aren’t doing it in your own strength or your own power. So we trust God to do what only He can do as we do what He has called us to do.

Fruit of Righteousness

v. 9

The dangers of distractions of the culture. Idols were the norm, they were expected! You were weird if you opted out. You were liable to the government if you didn’t partake in worship of the Emperor. But the Thessalonian Christians chose to reject all of those distractions and focus on Christ and serving Him in righteousness.

When Facebook first developed notifications on their website, long before it was an app on a phone, they decided to make their notification alerts red. They wanted to create a sense of urgency to them and red most evoked that type of response. Phone designers implemented the same system - that little red number. Makes you more likely to pick it up and check it! Then you fall down the hole of distraction - Doom scrolling. The longer you scroll the more adds you see! When those little notifications are typically the furthest thing from an emergency. Your Aunt Karen like the picture of your breakfast from this morning. Not an emergency.

We get so distracted by the things of the world and we forget that we have been given faith, love, and hope. In fact, many of the distractions that we face today are in direct contradiction to the things which we are to experience in Christ. In 1997, John Ortberg said, “The first casualty of culture wars is not truth but love.” How much more true is this today! The battle doesn’t start with truth, but love. Once we lose love we will never gain truth.

Instead, we are to live a life or righteousness - a life focused on living a life that is pleasing to Jesus.

Conclusion

The old phrase, “The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

We get to be involved in what influences us.

And then we will produce others that are like us.

Lives focused on Jesus produce lives focused on Jesus.

It’s true for our kids. It’s also true in our community.

Eastwood has influence in this community. And it can have a greater influence as we ask the question”

How can we love well our community?

I’m excited to let our church know that our mission team has some answers for that questions. Opportunities for you to partner with other believers here in Eastwood as we love others and share the Gospel.

Each week we will talk about different ways that this can be accomplished to make a Gospel impact.