|
Are you Bearing Fruit? Grace Emmanuel Church Pastor Sam Chess
Introduction: Let me show you some pictures. They are the outdoor work that is taking place up at the new church every other Saturday. I have three reasons for this… 1) To show you what is happening. 2) To appeal to you for your help 3) The pictures themselves are the introduction to what I am going to be preaching about today. _____________________________________________________________________ a-003 ; Notice the heavy vegetation we are wading into, trees, vines, weeds… b-006; As we remove the over-growth, we are finding and trimming good trees c-003; The good trees have been strangled by the vines and undergrowth d-009: We are finding (future) beautiful oaks and palms hidden under the growth e-012 f-010; As soon as we remove the strangling hold of the undergrowth… the oak trees seem to explode into new growth and form into perfect small, shade trees…. which we will one day sit under and enjoy. _______________________________________________________________________ The Bible often compares our spiritual lives to plants. It's a perfect metaphor for starting out as a new Christian…. growing bigger….. stronger…. more mature…. more enduring as time, and experience and the storms of lives comes our roots get deeper and our branches get stronger… The New Testament uses this description a lot… Jesus, himself, liked and used, the comparison of plant life to spiritual life a lot…It's there, is those illustrations, that we find something that really bugged Jesus. He was openly annoyed by the idea of a plant that had every thing it needed to flourish… but was simply not flourishing. Do you remember what happened when he walked up to a mature fig tree one day and there were no figs on it? He cursed it…and the next day it had shriveled up and died. That seems out of character for Jesus… "Well, he was just using it to prove a point about fruitlessness." Yes he was, but he could have made the point without killing the tree. I'm suggesting to you, that he was annoyed because the tree reminded him of something far more serious. Fruitless People……Fruitless Christians! Jesus gives us direct teaching on this subject…let me show it to you…. John 15:1 “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. 5 “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. 6 Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. 8 When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father. That's fairly graphic…comparing the Christ-follower to a grapevine….something very familiar to Jesus in Israel…perhaps less familiar to us, here, in the south. Grapevines grow quickly in every direction at the same time. If nothing is ever done you will end up with a maze of wood branches…and no grapes. The grape farmer was/is very careful to cut the branches off that are not producing any fruit… so the energy of the vine is focused in the fruit-producing branches. Even the producing branches are trimmed back so that the maximum amount of growth can go in to growing fruit and not just empty branches. There's that whole lot said, in the Bible about pruning, and how Jesus has to prune our lives, often in uncomfortable ways, to get us to be fruitful, but that is not the focus of this message. The fundamental question I want us all to answer today is: Is my life bearing fruit? Most of us…perhaps because of the normal demands of life…have branches growing out in every direction. I mean we have a branch going that way to deal with that and one going this way to deal with this. We get so many branches, heading so many directions at once, that they get all tangled up with each other and we meet ourselves coming and going….. Wait a minute!!! Do all the branches that make up your life have any fruit on them? The wood of a grapevine is designed to support the weight of pods of grapes…other than that, it is virtually useless…. You can't build houses with it. The only thing it's good for is firewood. You see where I am going with this…. We can live week after week (even a whole lifetime), using up vast amounts of energy growing branches in every direction that in the bigger picture (the one God is looking at) don't amount to very much. The purpose of your life is not to grow a lot of branches…it is to grow fruit!...lots of fruit. Jesus is very strong on this point: John 15:16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain… _________________________________________________________ We need to take a hard look at our lives today… 1) I envisioned, up at the property, some of our lives… so choked by every other thing that was growing in around us that we could hardly see the sun. (Son) In many cases, we need the undergrowth around us to be cut away so we can start to really grow. 2) That said, once we begin to truly grow… are we producing fruit? I don't know Pastor…what constitutes fruit? I'm very busy.. but how do I know whether my busy-ness is producing a crop or just wildly growing branches? What is fruit? What are the characteristics of fruit. What is the function of fruit? When you buy those tomatoes on the vine, what makes you pick off the red part and throw away the green and brown parts. When was the last time you nibbled on the tomato stems. Why didn't you? (besides the fact that they takes like….wood) T or F The chief function of fruit is to make a tree look pretty. T or F The chief role of fruit is nourishment! Fruit is designed by God to bring life giving nourishment to somebody else. Fruit never grows for its own benefit! The chief function of fruit is too bring nourishment to others! So the whole concept of: "Is your life fruitful" is not mysterious…. It's actually quite simple. You know your life is bearing fruit if parts of your life are developed solely for the nourishment of someone other then yourself. If everything in your life is centered around you finding ways to nourish yourself… you are not bearing fruit. Society tells you that self-fulfillment is the ultimate goal. Much of the philosophy of the world…is all about us growing huge, good looking, gold plaited, empty branches…. …..And if you fall into that trap, your life will have been unproductive and meaningless. The purpose of God putting you into this world, with millions of other people, was so that you could use your life to nourish the lives of others. ______________________________________________________________________ There's more….Again: Jesus, himself, in an example from the Bible: It's the story of the four seeds falling on four different types of soil…but when we get to the good seed, which is supposed to be us…growing… we see this: Mark 4:8 Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they sprouted, grew, and produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted!” (NLT) Notice the progression: Sprouted- sprang up Grew - increased Produced- el mucho! Not only are we all supposed to be bearing fruit…. but as we get more mature in Christ our fruit is supposed to be bigger and fuller and ever, more nourishing to others.. If you've been a Christian for a few months and you have a couple of pods of pithy fruit represented by your life, you are probably on track. If you've been a Christian for a long time and your life is not highly represented by big juicy pods of nourishment to others around you, you're not on track. Chances are, you've allowed way too much useless wood in your life to choke out the potential fruit . ________________________________________________________________________ So if… 1) When you become a Christian; your life is supposed to be characterized by fruitfulness. 2) Fruitfulness is defined as those parts of your life that bring nourishment to others Then: 3) Which elements of your life define whether or not you are being fruitful? I've come up with four… they all start with the letter "T": 1) Temperament- disposition - how you act toward others.. Your attitudes and actions will either drive people away from God, leave them exactly where they are, unchanged…or draw them in God's direction. As we grow, in Christ, our attitudes and actions are to by more and more reflective of Jesus. Our temperament "fruit" should become thick and nourishing to those our lives affect. Our Christ-like attitudes should sprout, grow, and produce el mucho. If you've been a believer for a long time and you are hard, uncaring, mean, malicious, self-centered, unkind, ungracious, etc… then you've got a "too much wood.. way to little fruit" growth problem going on! 2) Time- Minutes/hours that you give away purely… for the unselfish nourishment of others "I don't have enough spare time to give any away"…. If you're watching close… you'll notice.. that the people who give the most time away… always seem to get everything else done. It's part of the Biblical law of sowing and reaping. People who use their time only for selfish pursuits still often find themselves unable to catch up to themselves. Luke 6:38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." As you grow more mature your "time" is to sprout, grow, and produce…which means that your daily allotment of hours should become more and more focused as nourishment to others. Society tells you the exact opposite. Your early adult years, especially if you are young parents, are consumed with giving your time away… When you get older you should be able to focus on making yourself happy. Retirement should be the reward of using all your time to bring yourself maximum pleasure and self fulfillment…..unless, of course you are all hung up on this "fruit-bearing" thing… 3) Talents- Your willingness to share your God given special abilities…. Not for the advancement of your own self-fulfillment or personal ambition… but, purely, to enhance the living experience of someone else. Logic alone tells you that if God builds into your life a special ability… it is designed to be used in the lives of others. Whatever special abilities God has given you ( and everyone has some…if you think you weren't born with natural talents…God gives to every believer spiritual gifts …class 301) as you grow in him they are to become more nutritious to the people around you. The fruit of your talents should be juicy and meaty nourishment to others in ever increasing amounts as you grow in Christ. If you have long unused talents, the danger is that that branch of your life will grow hard and gnarly and woody, with little shriveled up hard knots where fruit was luscious fruit was supposed to be growing. 4) Treasure- Your willingness to give away your resources, purely, to benefit others. If was never Gods intention that we would use all that he gives us, on ourselves. In fact, he designed the system so that the more we funnel through us, the more he will put into the top of the funnel. Luke 6:38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." Everything that God gives us: (4 t's) was not meant to be hoarded but to be shared. In God's economy, the more your hoard God's blessing to yourself, the more dried up and fruitless you will become. The more you nourish others with your life…. The greater your potential will be to nourish even more. The size and quality of your life crop is determined by how much nourishment you are willing to supply to others. 2 Corinthians 9:6 Remember this—a farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop. But the one who plants generously will get a generous crop. 7 You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure. “For God loves a person who gives cheerfully.” 8 And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others. 10 For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you. 11 Yes, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous. (NLT) Jesus compares giving some of what God has blessed us with is away to others as the ultimate type of investing… Matthew 6:19-21 “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. 21 Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. (NLT)
|
