Matthew Part 45 | The Fruit Won't Lie

Matthew 12:33–37 (ESV)

“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. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Why Listen?

Me: Years ago, one of the questions that I had to wrest with was “Am I a true Christian?”

Is my faith my own?

Am I just playing church?

We: I think most of us have probably wrestled with that question at one time or another.

Bible: We aren’t the first generation to wrestle with that question.

The book of 1 John is dedicated to assuring true Christians of their salvation and graciously warning false converts.

Today’s text addresses the evidence of true faith.

We know that we are saved by grace, through faith, in Christ. How do we know our faith is genuine?

The Heart

The Bible Teaches that true believers have hearts that love God and are bent towards doing His will.

Heart in the Bible: Not about the blood pumping organ in your body.

Biblically the heart is the core of our being. It is the deepest, most spiritual part of us.

The Bible mentions the heart almost 1,000 times.

We’ve seen throughout the book of Matthew that God looks at the heart.

The Pharisees kept a slew of religious traditions in their attempt to earn their way to God and to bolster their own egos.

But though they kept some strenious rules, their hearts were not in the right place.

Historical Context

A couple of weeks ago, we looked at the previous passage in Matthew, where Jesus delivers and heals a blind and mute, demon-possessed man. Instead of celebrating the life-change that happens before their eyes along with the crowd, the religious leader (the Pharisees) insist to the crowd that Jesus is empowered by Satan, not the Holy Spirit. Jesus is in the spotlight and these men want to taint His reputation.

Many of us have been entertained by the Depp vs. Heard trial. Amber Heard, had attempted to ruin her ex-husband—Johnny Depp’s—reputation.

Depp then took Heard to court for allegations of defamation of character, and Heard countersued.

Depp was awarded $10 million dollars and Heard was awarded 2 Million in her counterclaim.

What was crazy was that while Heard attempted to make Depp look crazy, she actually came out looking like a lunatic… and boy did the internet have fun with that.

While I am not comparing Jesus to Johnny Depp, I do think we find a similar situation in our text today. The Pharisees have attempted to make Jesus look out-of-his-mind and evil, but—it turns out that Jesus reveals the depths of evil in their own hearts. They are the ones who come out of the situation looking like fools.

The question I want to address today is: How do we know that we have the right heart? What is the evidence of a heart that is pure and loves God?

I. A Right Heart Bears the Right Fruit

Matthew 12:33 (ESV)

“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.

An apple tree produces apples.

A peach tree produces peaches.

And a healthy tree produces healthy fruit.

Historical Context

Jesus has been going around, proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom, caring for the most marginalized, healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, and pouring out compassion on people.

Through these actions, He has demonstrated both the heart and power of God. He bears good fruit, hence we clearly see He is of God.

The Pharisees on the other hand, who would claim to be righteous , have failed to bear spiritual fruit.

They pray and give to others—which would seem like good fruit—but they do those things for the applause of man and to bolster their own egos, instead of out of compassion for others.

In Matthew 9, Jesus had a dinner party with tax collectors and sinners.

He went to the broken, offering them an invitation to the Kingdom.

The Pharisees judged Jesus as they were appalled that he would dare associate with such people.

Yet, Jesus quoted from the OT, showing that God desires mercy.

Jesus offered mercy, while the Pharisees only offered condemnation.

Application

We’ve all known people who consider themselves extremely religious, but they are mean as snakes towards people. They are hateful, they are cynical, they are angry all of the time.

You can be religious and yet not have a right heart.

There are two types of fruit that reveal the condition of our hearts, namely, our words and our actions.

A) Our Words

Matthew 12:34–35 (ESV)

You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.

Words are very revealing as to what is in the heart.

Anyone can say nice things or religious things.

But hang out with someone long enough, and eventually, what is in their hearts will come out in their words.

Spend enough time with a person who has a lustful heart, and eventually, you will hear crude joking our off-color comments.

Hang out long enough with a person who has hatred in their heart, and eventually, you will see them blow up and speak evil against others.

Get to know someone well enough who has a prideful heart, and you will hear them toot their own horn and put themself above other people.

What is in the heart will eventually come out—for better or for worse.

Think about a spouse. You can sing your spouses praises; you can post on Facebook how wonderful they are. And you go along like their are no issues, perhaps even convincing yourself that's the case.

But then, you have “a moment of intense Christian fellowship” and all of the sudden you lose your temper and unload a huge laundry list of frustrations that you have with your spouse (things that you may not have even known were there).

And after the argument is done, you say, “I am sorry, I didn’t mean those things.”

But what you both know is that—in that moment of weakness—some of your true feelings came forth.

Inconsistent Words

A person with a heart far from God will be inconsistent with their words.

The Pharisees—out of one side of their mouths—claim to love God with all of their hearts.

Yet, out of the other side of their mouths, they blaspheme God by renouncing and rejecting Jesus.

They bless God with their words, but will turn around and use their words to crush people.

James 3 is about the revelatory nature of the tongue.

James 3:9–12 (ESV)

With it (the tongue) we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.

James is saying that their shouldn’t be an inconsistency in the speech of a true believer. We shouldn’t bless God out of one side of our mouths while speaking ill of people who are made in his likeness.

Darren Hardy said, “We must be careful with our words—we’re like superheroes and words are like our super powers. Super powers should always be used to help others. “Darren Hardy”

I once worked for someone who continually claimed that he loved God.

He had all the Christian lingo down.

At first glance, you would think “man, this guy is the real deal.”

But it didn’t take long to discover how horribly he spoke about other Christians.

That kind of inconsistency in speech should give us pause.

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One of the things that is blowing me away right now, is how many people who love God are speaking words that condone things that God hates.

Isaiah 5:20 (ESV)

Woe to those who call evil good

and good evil...

It is an inconsistency to support with our words what God clearly despises. In Isaiah, God warns of impending judgement upon those types of people.

All of us have said things that we aren’t proud of. If you slip and say something ungodly or impure it doesn’t necessarily mean that your heart is far from God. But if their is a pattern of ungodly words flowing from your mouth, that is a real issue.

Our words testify to the condition of our hearts. They are one type of the spiritual fruit that give evidence to the condition of the heart.

There is one other spiritual “fruit” that reveals a person’s heart:

B) Our Actions

Matthew 12:35 (ESV)

The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.

In the context of this passage, the focus of “bringing forth” good or evil, is on our words.

But the Bible often connects “spiritual fruit” with our actions.

John 15:4–6 (ESV)

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. 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.

Here, Jesus uses the image of bearing fruit to illustrate the importance of good works.

Positively, someone who does the good works that advance the Kingdom, shows that they are connected to Jesus, demonstrating that they have a right heart.

Negatively, someone who claims to be a Christian, whose actions do not bear spiritual fruit, shows that they do not belong to Christ.

1 John 3:5–7 (ESV)

You know that he (Jesus) appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.

If someone claims to be a Christian, but habitually walks in sin, they show that that their heart is not right and that they don’t really know the Lord.

I saw a great post on FB yesterday:

“Christianity is not a Bible verse tattooed on your arm. Christianity is not a cute Hillsong Lyric. Christianity is not on line in your Instagram bio. Christianity is actively dying to yourself and living for Christ.”

The life of a true Christian will be marked for a love for Jesus that is demonstrated by the spiritual fruit of pure words, good works, and a hatred for sin.

Salvation by works?

We are saved by grace alone through faith alone.

Our words and our actions are not the means of salvation, but they serve as the evidence of salvation.

They demonstrate a changed heart that loves God above all things.

Luther said that “we are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.”

During His earthly ministry, Jesus demonstrated by His words and His works that He was of God—that He had the right heart.

Likewise, a true Christian—whose heart has been changed by the Gospel—will bear the spiritual fruit of godly speech and actions.

II. The Deceitfulness of a Hardened Heart

It seems to me that in this passage the Pharisees really believe that they are doing the right thing by rejecting Jesus.

Their hearts are so hardened by their self-righteousness that they are blind to the things of God. They cannot even see the state of their own hearts.

Me and Basketball

Took me years to realize that I wasn’t a great basketball player.

Pharisees are so confident in their self-righteous ways, that they think their hearts are right with God.

It is tragic to think that they are so self-deceived that they think they are right with God, but in the end, will face the judgement of God.

Closing

Are your words and actions consistent with who you claim to be?

Do you have a right heart? A heart that is bent towards pleasing God?

Last week I read a heart-warming story of a girl named Abby Wardell. She was born with a defective heart and had her first open heart surgery as a baby and was in and out of the hospital and at 11 years old, doctors told her she needed a heart transplant, as her heart was only functioning at 13%.

Soon after, Abby’s life was saved by an organ donor.

After a few weeks, Abby said she felt better than she ever had in her life. She had more energy than she could have ever imagined.

In a news story, Abby expressed how grateful she was for the donor and his family. Her mother said that there are no words for the gift that she had been given.

Abby could not do anything to change the condition of her defective heart. In order to live, she had to be given a new heart.

In order to live eternally, we must have a new heart. A heart that loves God and loves people. A heart that is pure.

Like Abby, there is nothing we can do to change the heart that we are all born with.

But thankfully, Jesus, gave His own life, that we might live. And because of his death, we are offered a new heart, through Him.

Ezekiel 36:26 (ESV)

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Non-Christians: Need a New Heart?

Christians: Let’s guard our words and are actions, using them for the glory of God and the good of others.