Are You Bearing Fruit?

Y'all will be excited because I'm actually preaching out of Luke. Yeah. So I know.

No, I didn't. I didn't. But here's what I'll say.

He skipped it. So we're actually backing up a little bit, and we're gonna hit on the parable of the fig tree. We are in Luke.

No, no, no. I'm staying in Luke, but I'm backing up a little bit in chapter 13. So our passage today comes from Luke 13, verses 6 through 9. To put that kind of in the flow where Carrie's been, you know, at the beginning of chapter 13 is the story where, you know, the people come to him and say, what about the Galileans that Pollock killed? You know, they're asking him these questions, and he says, well, what about them? What about the people that the Tower of Siloam fell on? And basically, it's a call to repentance, right?

He's saying, you know, unless you repent, you too, like these, will perish. No matter if it's persecution or natural circumstances, whatever happens, there's judgment that's coming. So it's a call to repentance. This is the parable right after that story. So I'm gonna, we'll read this passage, and then we'll dig into it a little bit. So starting in Luke 13, verses 6 through 9. Verse 6 says, and he told this parable, a man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit from it and found none.

And he said to his vinedresser, look, for three years now, I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground? And he said to, he answered him, sir, let it alone this year also until I dig around it and put more manure on it. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down. So what's that mean, right? That's what we're going to talk about this morning.

A lot of times in scripture, Israel is referred to as God's vineyard, right? So this is directed towards Israel when Jesus said it, but there's some application for us that we can pull out of it. The first thing that you want to know is that God expects fruit in our lives. It's not a thing that we enter into when we get saved, and all right, I got my ticket, everything's good, I can just coast from here on out. Like there's an expectation from the Lord that the transformation that He's doing in our heart begins to bear fruit, and is available to Him to be able to inspect and see, but it's also available for other people to see and testify against. So for us, when we enter into a relationship with Jesus, we're planted in Christ, right? And so there's an expectation for us to bear fruit.

The next thing that comes to mind when I think about this specific parable is that with the expectation that there should be fruit, is that God's also patient. He says, you know, I've come year one, year two, year three, like He's continually looking for that fruit in our lives. So it's not, hey, you got saved day one, all right, you're the next Billy Graham, you got to be out there and, you know, preach to millions. It's not an immediate thing that happens. There's a process that takes place in our lives where God begins to transform the way that we see ourselves, the way that we see our world. He begins to put His heart in us, and then the natural overflow of that is that we see people different, we see the world different, we see ourselves different, and we begin to function out of that reality. John 15, verse four through seven says, 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. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered and thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me, my word's about in you. Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. There's a lot of religiosity that can take place in our lives where we try to manufacture what it looks like to be a good Christian, what it looks like to be a person that's following Christ. We have a, you know, if we all close our eyes and imagine, we have a picture of what a good the challenge for us is not to necessarily try and manufacture that. I can get my checklist and, okay, a good Christian goes to church on Sundays and reads the Bible and is kind to people and, you know what I mean?

Like we could go down the checklist of what we think a religious person is. The temptation for us, or at least for me, is to judge myself on external factors.

Am I checking the boxes? Am I doing the things that I know I'm supposed to be doing? Where Jesus cautions us and says, if you're not abiding, all that other stuff is just religion. The cool thing about Christianity is that we don't have to work our way back into God's good graces, right? Every other religious structure out there says, God's up here. You're down here. You got to get your way to God.

The gospel is that God's up here. We're down here. Jesus came down and made a way for us to be reunited in fellowship with the Father. As we think about what it means to be believers, we need to caution against looking for external validation of whether or not I'm checking the boxes. I'm a list type of guy. You know, I go to work and I've got my checklist of things that I know I got to get done for the day. And it's a successful day when I've checked off more list items than I left unchecked.

You know, there is a little bit of tension in the gospel. Like Kerry said a couple of weeks ago when he talked about the narrow door, strive to enter the narrow door. So it's not like there's no effort on our part, but it's not up to us where those results come from and where the fruit actually comes from. Interestingly, like if you look at the word strive, you know, Kerry said it was an athletic term, like a competition term. The Greek word for that is where we actually get our English word agonize. So it really means to wrestle with. So it's a word like if you've ever agonized over a decision, you know that feeling that you're in.

That's the posture that we need to take when we're entering into Christ is agonizing over it, allowing the Holy Spirit to look at us and show us things in our heart that maybe don't match up with what his standard is. And then realize that he's the one that's saying, hey, give me that. Let me let me have that frustration. Let me have you got a little pride here.

Give me your pride. You got a little anger here. Give me your anger. Right. And he wants to take those things, forgive us of them and cleanse our hearts and give us a new heart so that we can truly live for him. The next point is the warning of fruitlessness. All throughout scripture, even back into the Old Testament, you know, you're seeing this expectation of fruit that God has and a warning that comes when he doesn't see fruitfulness.

Several times throughout the book of Isaiah and Jeremiah, there's a call to, you know, my vineyard is fruitless. My vineyard is not producing what it needs to produce. There's this theme that happens in the Old Testament. So it wouldn't be out of line to find some of those themes that carry over into the New Testament. When when John the Baptist showed up on the scene, you know, he's he's out in the wilderness calling people to repentance and people are going out to him. You know, people are saying he's he's he has the spirit of Elijah on him where he's calling the hearts of the fathers back to the children and the children back to the fathers. Like he's he's calling people to a place of repentance.

There's a there's a story in Matthew chapter 3, excuse me, where, you know, John's out at the Jordan River and he's baptizing people and a group of Pharisees and Sadducees show up. And he he says to him, you know, he calls him a brood of vipers. He says, who told you to flee from the wrath that was coming? You know, and they're they're coming out maybe just to observe. And he's saying, what are you? Are you are you coming out to be baptized, too? And he tells them to bring forth fruit worthy of repentance, like bring forth fruit.

He's he's saying the fruit that I see on your lives is not saying that you're that you're submitted to what God wants to do in this season and in this hour. But he's calling them to a place. He's saying, hey, look at yourself, look at the fruit that's in your life and. Judge it, judge your own fruit. I think that Jesus calls us to do that as well is to do a little self-examination and that that's not something that is necessarily fun all the time for us to sit down and really take take pause. And allow the Holy Spirit to say, hey, this thing right here is. This isn't good, this isn't working, this interaction that you had or this attitude that you hold in your heart.

I want to change this, right? We'll get into a little bit later. We'll look at the fruit of the spirit and what those heart attitudes that the that the Lord wants to grow in us and what that actually looks like. But I would encourage you guys this week as we leave here to spend some time. Looking at the fruit of the spirit and do a little heart inventory this week. I've been doing that over the past couple of weeks and even even further back. The Lord's been speaking to me about the fruit of the spirit for the last year and and trying to let the Lord convict me where I need to be convicted and encourage me where I need to be encouraged and really remove the things in my heart that are a hindrance to true fruitfulness taking place in my heart.

So I would encourage you guys this week to sit down and even if you know, you get your little piece of paper and make yourself a checklist. And how am I doing in this area? How am I doing in this area? And and take 5-10 minutes, you know, per attribute that the Lord says is is the fruit of the spirit and allow him to speak to you and see, you know, even if he gives you a roadmap. Here's here's what we're going to work on for the next six weeks and and let him let him work on your heart that way. You know, it's not only God the Father that is looking for fruitfulness. There's a story in Mark chapter 11 where Jesus it says Mark chapter 11 verse 12 on the following day when they came from Bethany. He. He was hungry.

This is talking about Jesus and seeing in the distance of fig tree and leaf. He went to see if he could find anything on it when he came to it. He found nothing but leaves for it was not the season for figs and he said to it may no one ever eat fruit from you again and his disciples heard him say it a few verses later in verse 20. It says as they pass by the next morning in the in the morning. They saw the fig tree withered at its roots and Peter remembered and said to him rabbi. Look the fig tree that you cursed has withered Jesus. Sees a fig tree that has a specific purpose like it's supposed to bear figs to be able to nourish you right?

So he sees he sees a fig tree. That's full of leaves. If you if you know anything about about fig trees when a fig tree is normally in season when it's putting on fruit. It's also full of leaves. So he sees the fig tree that's full of leaves and makes the assumption. Hey there should be there should be some fruit there right? So for us when we when we look at the the religious activity in our lives that's what the leaves are right?

It's giving in the offering going to church. I'm fellowshipping with believers. I'm being charitable like I'm trying to be a good person. We can do all those things and still have bitterness in our hearts. Still have anger in our heart and not have a heart that that really is after God. And we can think well, I'm doing all the right things.

So I'm good. Jesus is telling us in this in this story. It's not just about the the outward stuff that we can see. He's really looking for a heart transformation that that has taken place. Yeah, when we will go back to the second part of the parable at the beginning that we read where it talks about Jesus. What I would say is Jesus being the gardener or the vine dresser in that story. You know, the father comes and says, hey, I've been coming to this tree for a couple years and it's not doing what it's supposed to get rid of it, right?

And Jesus intercedes and says, no, let me let me work on it a little bit more. Let me dig up the soil. Let me let me fertilize it. Let me take special care and attention and we'll see if we can get this tree to produce some fruit. And then he says, but if it doesn't bear fruit, then we'll cut it down. There's you got to hold that intention a little bit. Knowing the context of where that parable is being told.

He's speaking to Israel. He's not necessarily speaking to the church in that story. There's a passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 where Paul talks about our works being judged as the church. You know, it says that everything is built on the foundation of Christ. Some build in gold and silver and precious stones, some with hay and wood and stubble, things that can be burned up. He says there is a day coming when judgment comes, where everybody's true work will be revealed, where everybody's fruit is going to be revealed. It's going to be tested by fire.

The last part of that part of that verse, it says, you know, everything's going to get burned up. And what remains, you know, those that have works, fruit that remains, they'll be rewarded. The ones who don't will suffer, but they will be saved. Right? So there's not this expectation of, if I don't do this, then I'm not a real Christian and I'm not going to receive the gift of eternal life in Christ. But there is an urgency to make sure that we are building in the kingdom things that remain. Right? And so true fruit is the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

That's an outworking of that internal process that happens as we're submitted to him. You know, there's a couple of things that we can look at as we think about Jesus in this story. You know, he's intervening. He's interceding between the Father and us. And he's saying, I'm going to take his place. Like there's intercession that happens as Jesus. And it says, even later in the New Testament, you know, it says that he lives to make intercession for us.

Jesus right now is resurrected, standing at the right hand of the Father, interceding for the church. That's his main task right now is the role of the great intercessor. Right? And so we can have confidence in the intercession of Jesus on our behalf, on my behalf, on your behalf. Right? There's an opportunity for us to rest a little bit, knowing that Jesus' work, even though it's finished on the cross, you know, he said it is finished. He said, tell us, the work is done.

The price has been paid. It's finished. But he didn't quit when he ascended into heaven. His role just transitioned to where now he's praying for you daily. The Lord intercedes for each one of us that we would make it to the end, that we would finish the race, that we would succeed in receiving the gift that he's given to us. I don't know about you guys, but it's comforting to know that the King of Kings and Lord of Lords is concerned with me and prays for me and wants to see me receive everything that he purchased for me on the cross. Right? That means salvation.

That means being able to be. used by him to see other people come into relationship with him. That means me being able to walk in freedom. That means me being able to be a good father and a good husband. Right? That means everything that that encompasses. So he's interceding for us.

He's also cultivating us. When we come to church, when we listen to a sermon on the internet or read something out of a book or online where we're encouraged, looking at scripture, he's using people in our lives to bring teaching and correction and conviction. If you will listen, I promise the Holy Spirit is speaking to you. He doesn't always do it in this place. It may be a song on the radio. It may be just a short interaction that you have going to work or going to class. The Holy Spirit is always trying to knock on the door to say, hey, you know.

and so it's up to us to say, Lord, give me ears to hear what you're trying to say. He nourishes us with his grace and with his spirit, with his very presence. When we, one of the things that's beneficial about coming to worship on Sunday is coming to a place where we gather together. It's not just singing that we're doing here. It's collectively, we're coming together to exalt the name of Jesus. And there is something spiritually that takes place in our hearts when we see that we're bound together in a body of believers, where you know that you have people that care about you. You know that you have people that you can lean on when you need someone to talk to, when you need someone to come move a couch or help me get rid of this old refrigerator.

Like there's there's a community that is knit together in the body of Christ that's not just a social connection. There's a deeper spiritual connection because we're part of the body of Christ. The last thing about, you know, the parable of the barren fig tree is there is also a warning that time is limited, you know. Jesus said, let us look at it one more year and then we'll cut it up, you know. Like I said before, that's more specifically about Israel and less about the church, but there is a sense that we've got a limited amount of time on this planet. You know, the last song that we sang this morning talks about the last song or maybe the first song? Anyway, so one of the songs, it talks about receiving a crown, right?

The things that we do on this earth, we're building a legacy that will either will be a reward for us or it will be a when we when we get to heaven or there's going to be some dissatisfaction in our hearts when we realize, man, I was focused on the wrong stuff, right? Wouldn't it be so much better if we could allow ourselves to be focused on the right things so that we're adding to those crowns, not so that we receive a reward, but so that we can at the at the last day, like the the elders, take that crown and lay it at Jesus' feet. To be able to say the things that I did in my life, this is an offering to you, Lord. And there is, you know, there is a promise of being rewarded in heaven. So it's not like we're, you know, completely self-sacrificing. Like there is a promise that when we do focus on the Lord and let Him abide in our hearts and we do bear fruit for Him, that He's going to be able to say, well done, good and faithful servant. So to be able to hear that is probably the best blessing that any one of us could ever hear.

I guarantee you that trumps having a big crown is being able to say, here, attaboy, you know, you did it, good job. The part that we get to play in that is seeing the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. We'll put up Galatians 5 is where the list of the fruit of the Spirit is in the scripture. It says, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. You know, if Jesus really is the gardener and He's concerned about seeing fruit in our lives, it's these aspects, like these attributes that the Lord wants to develop in each one of us. And if you think about the fruit of the Spirit, there's an internal dynamic that's the heart transformation where, and only you and the Lord know what your heart looks like.

Sometimes we don't even know what our heart looks like. It takes some diagnosing with the Holy Spirit sometimes for us to go, my heart really was ugly in that. you know, I was blinded by my pride in that interaction with the person and I didn't, I wasn't loving, I wasn't gentle, you know, I wasn't compassionate. It's very easy for us to be self-deceived on what our heart looks like. If you're married, you can ask your spouse what your heart looks like and they can tell you. Because a lot of times they might know a little bit better on the state of your heart But, you know, when you think about the fruit of the Spirit, it really is a heart transformation. None of us, without the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, can really be loving.

You know, true joy doesn't come from our circumstances. It comes from an assurance that Jesus is who He says He is. He did what He said He did and He's going to do what He says He's going to do. Like, there's a solidness that allows joy to spring up in our hearts regardless of the latest diagnosis, the latest headline in the paper that says, you know, so-and-so has achieved nuclear readiness or whatever. Like, there's a confidence in the Lord that allows us to breathe easy and be able to rejoice in all circumstances, right? Does that make sense? So, how do we bear fruit, right?

It goes back to what Jesus says in the Gospel of John, abide in me, right? We're going to look at cooperating with the gardener, cooperating with the vine dresser. Point number one, I would say, is stay rooted in Christ, right? John 15.4 says, Abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself. Unless we're abiding in Him, real fruit is not going to be there. If I try to white-knuckle it, if I just get my checklist of, here's what it means to look like a Christian, here's what it means to look like somebody that follows Jesus, and I just try to do those things, I might achieve the outward appearance, but the inside is full of anxiety and stress and anguish of trying to hold on and trying to make it look like it's supposed to look. And that's untenable.

You might be able to do it for a season, but eventually the wheels are going to come off, right? And sometimes the graciousness of the Holy Spirit in our lives is letting the wheels come off, right? Because we get to the end of ourselves and we finally get to a place where we can say, Okay, Jesus, I can't do this, I need you, right? And that's really the place that He wants us to be is submitted. He wants us to be yielded to His Spirit, right? He wants us to constantly be in a place of saying, Here I am. Show me what you need to show me.

Help me walk the way that you want me to walk. Teach me what it means to be submitted to you, right? A practical thing that we can do is submit to God's pruning. That's not always the most comfortable situation that we put ourselves in, but it really is encouraging and it's for our best, you know? If you can get to a place in your relationship with the Lord where you're comfortable saying, All right, God, let's get the mirror out. Show me what you want to show me. And sit there in that place and allow Him to speak to you.

I promise that He will. And even though it may be uncomfortable to prune things away, I don't know if y'all have hedges. We have electric hedge trimmers. We have a battery-operated one now because Logan kept cutting my extension cords. But the trimmer that we have, you know, I mean, if you really zoomed in and saw what it was doing, it's violent. You don't want to get your finger stuck in there because it will cut it off. So pruning is not always a gentle process.

There are some times in our relationship with the Lord where He says, You know what, we need to cut this out of you. We need to cut this out of your heart. And so when you cut things, there's a wound, right? So there's going to be an injury that takes place. There's going to be a time of healing and restoration that takes place. But that process of getting rid of the things that don't need to be there, that are draining your resources, that are blocking true fruitfulness, once those things are done and removed, it allows us to really bear the fruit that the Lord wants us to bear in our lives. And then nourish, you know, nourish the soul.

And what I mean by that is spend time daily getting before the feet of Jesus and be in the Word, be in a place of confession before the Lord. Like, you know the issues that you struggle with. I know the issues that I struggle with. And it's a daily submission to bring those things to the feet of Jesus and say, All right, Lord, we're going to try again today and lay that before the Lord. Be in the Word. You know, it doesn't necessarily have to be ten chapters a day or five chapters a day, but there does need to be some digestion of the Word of God in your life for you to be able to walk in a relationship with the Lord and abide in Him. He's given us a great gift in the Word of God.

Internet today, there's all sorts of tools that you can use and download, and you can do deep dive on Word studies and Bible studies, and there's an endless amount of resource out there for you to dig into and really get Scripture rooted deep down in your heart. And so I would encourage you guys to do that. The last thing that we'll look at is really just, I've entitled it The Way of Fruitfulness. In John chapter 12, starting in verse 24, it says, There's a dying to ourself that has to take place in order for us to really be fruitful for the kingdom. Self-centeredness, being concerned about me, being concerned about, am I doing this right? That's a self-centered way of trying to relate with Jesus. That self-centered approach has its place in certain circumstances where the Lord wants to interact with you and point out certain things, but if all of our interaction with the Lord is me-focused, we're missing it, right?

When we submit ourselves to Christ and we die to our own ambition, when we die to our own ideas about what we're supposed to be doing, is the place where the Lord can start to speak into us vision and direction. The real heart transformation happens when we start to ask the Lord, what do you think about this? What do you think about this situation or this circumstance? We're in conflict with somebody at work or somebody in line at the grocery store, and our first response is to get frustrated or whatever. If we'll pause and ask the Lord, how do you see that person and allow him to speak to us, I promise that that will change the fruit that is expressed out of our heart when we allow him to show us the way that he thinks about other people. Because we're all God's kids, right? Even the ones that are annoying.

Even the ones that agitate us and push us to a place where we don't necessarily act the way that we know Jesus wants us to act. I would even say, in those situations, the people that cause you the most frustration and the most agitation are the gift of God in your life to be able to really reveal where you're at. He wants to change our attitude towards the people that we interact with so that we can be loving and compassionate and kind and express the heart of the Father to them. Even if it's just a smile or a gentle interaction instead of a contentious interaction, the Lord can use those things to be a blessing to other people. And when you think about it, fruit really is for other people's nourishment. It's not for the tree. It reproduces.

It's got the seed in it that reproduces. That's the benefit to the tree. But the tree expends its energy to produce fruit so that it can reproduce itself. It doesn't get anything from the fruit other than that. The fruit is for the benefit of others. Is that good? I think I'll conclude with that.

Like I said, my encouragement for you guys this week is maybe go read Galatians 5. And get your notebook out and sit down with the Lord and make yourself a list of the fruits of the Spirit and let Him do a little inventory in your heart. And be willing to receive correction.

Expect to receive encouragement. And trust that Jesus, the vine dresser, the gardener, is concerned with making you fruitful. Good deal?

So I'm going to pray and we'll be done. Jesus, I thank you for today. God, I thank you for the people that you've placed in this room. God, I pray that this week as we try to figure out what it means to abide in you, God, as we sit down before you and allow you to examine our hearts, Holy Spirit, I ask that you would be thorough and you would be kind and you would be loving to each one of us. God, you know what we can handle in any given moment. God, you know where we're at and what we need to receive from you. And Holy Spirit, we invite you to do that.

God, we say as a church and as individuals, we want to bear fruit for you and for your kingdom. God, I ask that you would allow us to be fruitful. God, we want to be nourishment for the people in our lives. God, we want to have those seeds that we deposit that multiply and reproduce for your kingdom. Jesus, you are worthy of our lives and we offer them to you as living sacrifice. I say, God, in Jesus name, amen.