What Fruit Looks Like (or Not)

SERMON: 2008-07-15--sm0857--what-fruit-looks-like-or-not SOURCE DURATION: 00:33:59.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The sermon begins with a narrative anecdote (segment [0]) and continues through theological exposition until segment [342]. Segment [343] marks the clear transition into a formal prayer/benediction, which is excluded from the main expository body. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:30:41.820-00:33:58.640 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Well, it happened a good many years ago now in one of the churches that I pastored. It was after a Sunday morning service. One of the men who was obviously displeased with my preaching came to me and he asked me this question point blank. He said to me, "Why is it that in your preaching you put so much emphasis on the third section of the Catechism?" The Catechism in question, of course, is the Heidelberg Catechism, it's one of the doctrinal confessions of our denomination. And if you know anything at all about the Heidelberg Catechism, then you know that it's divided into three sections which are usually summarized by the words sin, salvation, and service. Section one deals with the question, "How great is our sin and misery before God?" Section two deals with the question, "How, through faith in Christ, God sets me free from all my sin and misery?" And then, of course, section three, "How I am to thank God for such deliverance by living a life of service to Him." Someone this man came to me, asked me that question. I knew immediately what it was that he was after. He was asking me the question, "Why in your preaching do you place so much emphasis on practical Christian living?" And so as gently as I could, I explained to him that very early on in my preaching ministry I sought to determine from scripture what the Biblical emphasis of God's teaching to His people was to be. And I discovered when I looked at, for example, the great letters that Paul writes to the churches, letters which really were extended sermons addressed to the New Testament covenant community, that he followed a very similar pattern to what subsequently we have found in the Heidelberg Catechism, for example. He typically begins with the question of sin and our separation from God. Then he talks about Jesus and how God in Jesus has made provision not only for the forgiveness of our sins, but the restoration of our lives as He imparts to us the power of the Holy Spirit. And then almost inevitably He ends His epistles with a practical outworking of that faith. Because as James puts it so well, faith without works is a dead faith. Well I don't know if my answer satisfied that particular individual. I think probably it didn't. But that emphasis on fruit bearing, that emphasis on leaving out what you believe in your practical everyday Christian life, is what Jesus here in Matthew chapter 7 tells us is the ultimate test of the genuineness of our faith in the person of Jesus Christ. Listen again to how He puts it in the verses 18, 19, and 20. He says, "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit." A bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire, thus by their fruit you will recognize them. And then lest there be any doubt in anybody's mind what it is that He means by fruit, He now continues in His ongoing teaching of the Sermon on the Mount to spell out for you and for me and anybody that will listen in here exactly what the kind of fruit is that He is looking for. In fact, He puts it negatively, not only what is the fruit that He is looking for, but what does not constitute true fruit. And so in the time that we have, I want to try to walk you through this passage, verses that I said a few moments ago that I think are some of the most sobering verses in Scripture and that are going to come as a huge surprise to multitudes of people on that final day. Better we know now so we can deal with it than be standing there in amazement and surprise on that final day of judgment when there's nothing that anybody can do about it anymore. So what does fruit look like? Or to put it negatively, what does fruit not look like? Well, first of all, says Jesus, the fruit that He is looking for is not merely correct doctrine or correct theology. Notice again how He puts it. Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven. Now, the kingdom of heaven, as you know, is God's reign over creation. It's complete reconciliation between the human race and all of creation. It is God's will being done on earth as it is in heaven. It is splendor beyond anything that you and I can imagine because every cause of sin and brokenness will have been thrown out and God will be all and in all. How do you get into the kingdom? You get into the kingdom by calling Jesus Lord. That is to say, confessing that I am a sinner, confessing that I deserve my sin and misery, I cannot save myself. Jesus came on the cross to die for my sin. He arose for my justification. By faith in Him, I become a new creature. God grants me the Holy Spirit who transforms my life and who one day will present me before God without spot or blemish or wrinkle or any such thing, and we will live in God's eternal kingdom forever and ever. That's the confession, Jesus is Lord. The Apostle Paul later on in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 says that nobody can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. And now here's Jesus and he says, "Not everybody who calls me Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven." What does he mean? Well what he means is that it is possible to pay lip service to his Lordship and yet not yield to his authority. And the world is full of people who call themselves Christians, people who call Jesus Lord, who intellectually agree with his authority, who profess that they are no longer their own but they have been bought with a price and they now belong to him. But nevertheless, they still do what they want to do and their actions deny their words. In Luke chapter 6 verse 46, the Lord Jesus puts it this way, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord and not do what I say?" As I said, the world is filled with people who profess his Lordship and yet who do not yield to his authority. And on that final day, when they stand before the throne of Jesus, he's going to say, "Well, you know, you claimed to belong to me, but I have never recognized you because there was nothing in your heart that took seriously my authority." Don't understand that this doesn't mean that if you and I disobey or if we fall into sin or if we don't do everything just right, we don't enter into the kingdom of heaven. That's not the point. The point is we need to do more than profess his Lordship. We need to do more than call him Lord. We must let him be Lord. We must struggle at taking up our cross daily and following him. We must grow in his grace and in his knowledge and let him be the authority in my life. As I said, the world is filled with people who called themselves Christian, but you never recognize them because their lives have not been shaped by the authority of Jesus. Sobering words indeed. So Jesus says it's not only not having correct doctrine, neither is true spiritual fruit merely demonstrating spiritual enthusiasm. Because notice again how he puts it, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven." In other words, here is a person who not only calls Jesus Lord, but this person has a measure of excitement, a measure of enthusiasm, a measure of passion, "Lord, Lord, you matter to me. I take this seriously." And what Jesus is saying is that just because somebody demonstrates a measure of passion for Jesus and a measure of passion for spiritual things, that by no means guarantees that their lives are bearing fruit because fruit, as we will see, is still always a question of obedience. So that raises the question then, how can somebody be enthused spiritually and still ultimately be excluded from the kingdom of God? Well the reason for that is that enthusiasm in the human heart can of course come from at least one of two sources. First of all, it can come from God. In fact, the word enthusiasm comes from two Greek words, enthyos, which means to be in God. There is a level of experience of the Christian life that I suspect is foreign to most of us. It certainly is largely foreign to me where a person gets so caught up in God that you cannot but overflow with the grace and the knowledge and the power of God. You see that a little bit in the day of Pentecost when the early church is so filled with the excitement of God's kingdom that everybody thinks they're drunk. And I often say, "When's the last time anybody thought you were drunk for Jesus and confused your spiritual enthusiasm with that which comes out of a bottle?" In Corinthians 5 13, the apostle Paul talks about that actually when he says, "If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God. If we are in our right mind, it is for you." The phrase "out of our mind" is the Greek word from which we get the word ecstasy. And Paul there is talking about an ecstatic experience where he is caught up in the things of God and he says, "When I'm out of my mind, when I am in a state of ecstasy, I am there for God's sake and for God's glory." But he says, "If I'm going to hang around with you, I'd rather be of my right mind because that way I can bless you and I can help you." So yes, when the Holy Spirit comes on a person, there is a place for enthusiasm that drives us from deep within and that connects us powerfully with God. And even if that only happens once or twice or however many times in your life or in my life, we know, we know that we've touched God and that God has touched us. And spiritual passion that is stirred in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whatever that looks like in a given person's life is typically something that has lasting power. It perseveres and it enables us to push on and remain faithful to the Lord even in times of great stress and great difficulty. That is the kind of passion that God is looking for in your heart and in my heart imparted to us by the power of the Holy Spirit. But you know, just as well as I do, that in addition to the passion that God can inspire in our hearts, there's also a passion that can come from the flesh. That is to say, our own personality, our own likes, our own dislikes can be engaged. We can get excited about things in ways that really have very little to do with the Spirit of God, but it's just our personality. And so we're part of a rousing worship experience or we listen to preaching that deeply stirs our souls that we can identify with, or we get caught up in some great program or some cause our hearts are stirred by the needs of the poor around the world. And yes, we're filled with enthusiasm, we're filled with excitement, but that excitement is not necessarily excitement inspired by the Holy Spirit. It can just be our own flesh reacting to the situation and the circumstances in which we find ourselves. How do we know? Because that kind of enthusiasm typically doesn't last very long. That kind of enthusiasm comes forward at the altar call and says, "Oh God, I want to repent of my sin and I want to serve you." But a week later, two weeks later, it's all worn off and I'm back to my old way of life. That's the kind of enthusiasm that sits and listens to rousing preaching that speaks deeply into the heart and that says, "Yes, I've got to get my life in order, I've got to do a better job in my family, I've got to do a better job at my job." And a month later it's back to business as usual. It's the kind of enthusiasm that throws itself into this cause today, but throws itself into another cause tomorrow, and it does not have staying power. And so the question always to ask when our hearts are stirred, or when somebody else's heart is stirred, is what does it lead to? We'll talk more about that a little bit later. Does it produce a life that bears fruit? For notice how Jesus puts it in this passage, "Not everyone who calls me Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does what? The will of my Father who is in heaven." Sometimes you and I, we hear people stirring testimonies and we hear people's powerful tales of experience, and I'm not one, as you know, to minimize the importance of the ecstatic or the importance of spiritual experiences in our lives. They can be life-changing and life-transforming, but sometimes we hear those stories and we hear those testimonies and then we look at our own lives and we say, "Well, you know, I don't feel that way, I don't have that way, it's just little old me going along doing my life," and you've got to remember that when all has been said and done, what counts before God is not how many leaves there are in the tree, but what kind of fruit your life is bearing. And the mom who stays up with her sick kid all night long, gently rocking her with a spirit-inspired parental skill, or the man who is faithful on the job and who shows up on time and earns his keep when done for the sake of God and when done for the glory of God is bearing a lot more fruit than some of that big hullabaloo that doesn't lead anywhere. Again, don't misunderstand me. Spiritual experiences can be good, they are biblical, they can lead us on to God, but spiritual experiences alone, says Jesus, mean diddly-squat, if it doesn't produce a life that is bearing fruit. You with me so far? You're still glad to be Christian? It's not simply a question of believing the right thing, it's not simply a question of, oh, I am powerfully and deeply stirred within my soul, I've had a spiritual experience and therefore I must be a Christian. And says Jesus, it's not even a matter, just of having spiritual gifts of power, because he goes on, many, many will come to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and perform many mighty miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you, away from me, you evildoers. Now that has got to be one of the most disturbing verses in all of scripture, because there is a category of people, says Jesus, who do what? Well, they prophesy in your name, that is to say, they profess to speak on behalf of Jesus. Not only that, but in his name, they drive out demons, when's the last time you drove out somebody's demon? I mean, this is no minor spiritual power and these are people who do many miracles. And so Jesus says, it is possible to do all of that and yet miss the boat altogether. Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you, away from me, you evildoers. I get really struck by this, I will tell them plainly, I don't even want Jesus hinting around at me, let alone tell me plainly, like, you're up buddy, get lost. That's about as bad as it gets in the universe, you think it's bad when your lover breaks up with you or your husband or your wife leaves you or your kid turns his back, wait till God turns his back on somebody, it doesn't get any worse than that. So again, here's the big question, and that's what makes this verse so perplexing. How can you prophesy in the name of Jesus? How can you cast out evil spirits in the name of Jesus? And how can you do many mighty miracles in the name of Jesus and still miss the boat? And the answer is, of course, that spiritual power can come from at least three different sources. Let me quickly walk you through that. Spirit and fruit, first of all, are not the same. The fruit of the spirit is a heart that has been transformed by the power of Jesus. And it's the fruit of the spirit when push comes to shove that matters before God. The gifts of the spirit are the anointing of the Holy Spirit that comes upon you to enable you to do the work of God. And here's the thing that a lot of people don't understand. Your character has nothing to do with the gifts of power that you can receive. In fact, you can be a very carnal believer, you can even be an unbeliever, and this is really weird in scripture. You can be an unbeliever or a very carnal believer and yet powerfully experience the anointing of God's Holy Spirit. Why do I say that? Balaam in the Old Testament was a pagan soothsayer. God comes upon him, uses him against his own wishes, you might remember. King Saul in the Old Testament, a man whose heart was far removed from seeking God, yet powerfully received a spirit of prophecy. The proverb in Israel was, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" No one comes to the New Testament Judas when he gets sent out with the rest of the apostles. Don't you think he preached? Don't you think he cast out evil spirits? And don't you think he engaged in many miracles? Yet we all know where he ended up. Gifts and fruit of the spirit are both important, but because you can have gifts without fruit, you can exercise spiritual power and spiritual authority and still desperately miss the boat. Very important to remember. But more than that, gifts or power can come from three different sources. It can of course come from God. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. The baptism of the Holy Spirit, as that is often called, the anointing of God's Holy Spirit, is the power gift given to the church to do the work of the kingdom. In biblical language, the world is under Satan's dominion. People have been sold out. And the anointing of the Holy Spirit, as you see in the life of Jesus and in the life of the early church, and in the life of Christian community from then on, is a powerful gift that enables you to step into a situation, declare the kingship of Jesus, drive out the powers of darkness so that people can come to faith and start living God's way. And for that reason, the grand outpourings of the Holy Spirit in scripture almost always take place in the context of a missionary setting, in the context of the church coming against the powers of darkness, God pouring out his Holy Spirit so that powerfully and prophetically Satan's power can be driven back and people can come into the kingdom. I call the power gifts the power tools of the kingdom. It's like the difference between spading a field with a shovel and using a tractor. I mean, if we had to carry all that dirt yesterday by shovel, we'd still all be there. And we wouldn't have more than two flower beds done. But we had what? Four front-end loaders, carted all that dirt around, made life so much easier. That's what spiritual gifts are for in the kingdom. We can't do the job without the power of the Holy Spirit. But Satan is the great copier of God and his work. And so throughout scripture and throughout history, he also inspires his own. The Bible says concerning Judas, Satan entered into him. And when you read in the Old Testament the story of the magicians at Pharaoh's side contending with Moses, those are people who experience power from below. And when you hear some of the great religious movements of history, people experiencing powerful revelations, those aren't always revelations from the Holy Spirit, sometimes they're revelations from the evil spirit. And Satan puts forth his people to try to advance his purposes. In fact, the Bible says concerning the end days that the coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan, displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that will deceive those who are perishing. I've said this before. The Bible says before history comes to a close, God is going to allow a spirit of delusion to come upon the human race and everybody who does not love the truth is going to be deceived. What that means is stuff is going to happen that seems so logical, that seems so powerful, that seems so anti-God that most everybody will buy into it. And every so often you see the stirrings of that, you know, the tomb of Jesus or the bones of Jesus or some grand thing that will illustrate the Bible is not true, science has got it all correct and why believe in God anyway. That's where history is going. And you and I must love the truth or we're going to be deceived in that day. And then of course, their self, we don't often think about that. But the human personality, the human spirit also has a great deal of power. Some people call it the latent power of the human soul. And you'll run into that. There are certain people that you meet, they are just a presence, aren't they? They fill the room. You want to sort of defer to them and people honor them and they have the push to make things happen. And yes, sometimes that's because God's working in them. Sometimes that could be because the devil is working in them. But sometimes it's just because that's who they are. And there is a human personality, there's a human spirit that can have a lot of power. So here's the big question then, with all that kind of power floating around, how do you know what is real? And how do you know what is truly of God? And as always, here's the answer, true power that comes from God will always lead to Jesus. That is to say, it will always lead to the biblical Jesus. Remember what Paul says, no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. And the biblical Jesus is the Son of God who comes into the world to bear our sin so that forgiveness is a reality and new life in Christ, a definite possibility. And wherever the true Jesus is proclaimed, guess what else happens, lives are always transformed. Here's how the Bible puts it, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." What all is said and done, what matters? What matters is the spirit of prophecy is always directed towards the biblical Jesus. And the biblical Jesus will always convict us of our sin. He will always be uncomfortable to be around when we live in rebellion against God and when we want to go our own way, he will always in that place be our enemy. But when we will bend the knee before him and when we will acknowledge our pride, our sinfulness and our arrogance and acknowledge what the catechism calls our sin and misery, when we most fear that he's going to throw us out, he most reaches out to embrace us in his mercy and his forgiveness. And when we are most overwhelmed by the hopelessness of ever being what God wants us to be, guess what, he says, "Listen, I not only forgive you, but I'll come and live in you and together we'll walk this out. And together I can guarantee that no matter how badly you're put together, no matter how big your sin is, no matter how messed up your life is, no matter how much you struggle, I'm going to see to it that I'm going to present you without spot or wrinkle or blemish before the throne of God with rejoicing." That people is the good news of the gospel. And that's the message we profess. And that's the message we want to proclaim that only to this whole city, but to the country into the world. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:30:41.820; remove through 00:33:59.000] In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we consecrate the Lord to thee. Take my moments and my days, let them flow in endless praise. Let them flow in endless praise. Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of my love. Take my free and let them be, swift and beautiful for thee. Take my silver and my gold, not a mine would I withhold. Take my intellect and use every power as thou shalt choose. Every power as thou shalt choose. Take my voice and let me sing, always only for my King. Take my lips and let them be, filled with messages from thee. Take my will and make it mine, it shall be no longer mine. Take my heart, it is thine own, it shall be thy royal throne, it shall be thy royal throne. Take my love, my Lord, and go, at thy feet is treasured soul. Take myself and I will be, ever only all for thee. Ever only all for thee. 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