Root and Fruit

has been setting apart a dichotomy, two ways to live throughout this Sermon on the Plain. If you're new with us, we are walking through the Gospel of Luke. We took a break last week, but we've been looking at this particular sermon. And she's been constantly doing contrasts like this. But I want us to zero in. Let's just look at verse 45. You can see the good person out of the good treasure produces what is good. So simply put, good persons do good things. And the key issue there is what's in the treasure? Well, an evil person does evil. And again, the key is the treasure. What do we do? What do we treasure? And then what kind of person? The basic principle is what comes out of us was already inside of us. This culture we live in, it really values self-expression, and it's important to know how to express yourself, to be able to express who you are. But really, he's turning it other way in that he's making it clear we are expressing ourselves in a way that leads to self-examination. If you're looking for one sentence, what we express, exposes our need for self-examination. What we express exposes our need for self-examination. So three questions as we walk through. I'm gonna spend most of the time just really there in verse 45. Here are your three questions. What is our fruit? What is our root? And what kind of person? Before we get into those three questions, if you just look at the text, it begins with the word for. He's not introducing a whole new idea here. He's continuing on from what I believe is the entire sermon. Jesus has taught, blessed are the poor, woe are the rich. Blessed are those who are persecuted for Christ's name and woe to those who want others to speak well of them. You're called to love your enemies. You're called to be merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful. You're called to judge not, condemn not, forgive and give. And then we saw the parables. Specifically, the most immediate is the parable of the person who wants to get the speck out of the brother's eye, but has a log in their own, and he's a hypocrite. What he does reveals who he is. What he does reveals who he is. So what kind of fruit might we see? If we go back up, we see there that, Jesus making it clear, the tree bears the kind of fruit it has. The production is either good or evil. A healthy tree is going to produce healthy fruit. A bad tree is going to produce bad fruit. A bad tree cannot produce good fruit. It's a negation. It's an absolute. And then he makes another contrast. He states something else here. The figs that are gathered, they're not from thorn bushes. The grapes do not come from a bramble bush. The rationale is we see the fruit and we can determine the tree. Let's just think about that for a second. This past weekend, many of them were taken down, but we probably saw some trees that had spiders hanging down from them or ghosts. Well, those were Halloween trees. They were really easy to identify. On the goat home, we put a wall up and we put a trunk and then the girls take leaves and they're at things we're thankful for and we put it on there. Well, that's a Thanksgiving tree. And then soon we're gonna see trees with lights and garland and ornaments. Well, those are winter solstice trees. And those kind of trees are not at all what Jesus is talking about. Those are trees we put something on. The concern he has is what comes out of the tree. The kind of apple that an apple tree will produce. An unhealthy apple tree will produce unhealthy apples. Or in my case, all the different fruit trees I've produced have just produced nothing other than leaves and trouble. We see here, figs, they're not gathered from thorn bushes. Grapes, they're not from the bramble bush. Now there might be a conundrum, because blackberries are delicious and good and they come from a bramble bush. But we're just gonna leave that dilemma alone and keep moving on. We'll figure out the ethical dilemma if a blackberry is good or not over lunch. Let's get to the basic point. Do we have the kind of good fruit that demonstrates there's a healthy root, a healthy treasure, a healthy person, a good person. If we just go back to the kind of fruit he'd be talking about, are we judging and condemning? Or are we forgiving and giving? Bad fruit is judging and condemning. Good fruit is forgiving and giving. Bad fruit is standing over and only loving those who love you, and good fruit is loving even your enemy. That's the most immediate context of what the fruit is. Maybe the most heavy one. Do we have the good fruit of being merciful as our Heavenly Father is merciful? Look at verse 36. Be merciful even as your Heavenly Father is merciful. What a high calling that must bear fruit in the way we treat even our enemy. What kind of fruit do we have? Are we merciful or fault-finding? We know the difference, right? The person who's always going to pick out something that's wrong, the person that's always going to nag or insist on finding what's wrong, or the person that's encouraging that our overlooked sin that covers a multitude of sin with love. Go back to the imagery. Verse 44, for each tree is known by its fruit. Each tree is revealing itself. Each tree is known. How are we known? Look at the end of verse 45. For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks. We get to zero in, what kind of words do we use? What kind of words are we known for? At first we're thinking about this just as individuals. Are we known as liars? When we make a promise, do we keep it? Are we known as trustworthy people who do what we say and keep our word? That's an important consideration. Are we gossips? Are we trustworthy in a way that people share things with us and we don't share it with everybody else? That's an important way in which we can think about how we use our words. Are we harsh? Are we condescending? Are we mean with our words? Does that reveal anger or judgmentalness? Are we vulgar? Are we gross? Do we make people blush? Are we vindictive? Do we make sure people know they feel the pain when they wrong us? Or is there good fruit? Are we trustworthy? People know we will be where we say we will be and do what we say we will do. People can trust us with sharing difficult or sensitive things because we're gonna hold it into a vault and we're gonna care for them and not share with other people. Are we gentle? Do we forgive by absorbing the pain, not unleashing it? What kind of words do we use? The way we interact with others, especially in conflict or difficulty, really reveals or exposes the kind of fruit we bear. For us as a church, we should think about ourselves corporally here. It is about individual persons, because Jesus is speaking to disciples. Wanting to be clear, if you're to be my disciple, you must be bearing this fruit because you must be good. For the name of Christ. So as a church, what are we known for corporally? Do we uphold the word of God with conviction and compassion? Do we talk more about the sin out there than the sin in here? Does the sin in here, which is the most dangerous sin that exists, Among us, saints, believers, redeemed in Christ. The sin in here, are we more concerned with that than the sin out there? What do our words reveal about that? Do we put each other up? Are we seeking to transform people into good people with the way we use our words? We realize these are powerful instruments. The way we could leave someone with a simple encouragement or an unnecessary discouragement. They're powerful. We really take into consideration, how are we using our words? We got three basic applications here. First, simple. Go out of your way to encourage people. Go out of your way to find what we would call evidences of grace. I see God working you in this way. Do you realize how powerful that little encouragement can be? We typically see what's wrong and we kind of hold our mouths and kind of wonder and maybe pray, but going out of our way and looking, looking for ways to encourage each other in the evidence of grace we see. We're not praising them, we're wanting to say we see God working in you. We see God using you. It's very important that we hear this. Secondly, we need to insist upon the gospel truths. In our conversation, Titus 3 tells us the gospel that God saved us when he washed us with the Holy Spirit, through whom he poured out in Jesus. And then he says, insist upon these things. Are the things we're insisting upon the gospel truths of Jesus Christ? Not our own opinions, but Jesus Christ and what he's done for us. Are we encouraging each other? Are we insisting upon the gospel? And finally, are we inviting people to correct us? Are we actually inviting people to use their words in a way that would edify, challenge, and correct us? This doesn't mean the entire church, but it means somebody should be have, someone should have the permission to say there's odd fruit that doesn't really make sense with the profession of faith you make. There's ways in which we have these blind spots, and having someone who has the permission to say that something's off is extremely important for the health of a Christian. Especially regarding our fruit. Is it good or bad? Are we trustworthy? Are we using our words to build up? Are we using them to tear down? Now we get to the more intimate. That's something we can see in each other. That's something we can see in ourselves at some level. But now it's, what do we treasure? Our second point, what do we treasure? The good person out of the good treasure of his heart, or the bad person out of the evil treasure of his heart? This word here is the storeroom. What are we protecting? What are we holding on to? What do we hold dear? What do we love? Now let's play a game. What is this? You can just shout it out. It's a bottle that contains water. What do you think happens if I squeeze this bottle? The water's going to come out. Possibly. We could think maybe Dr. Pepper will come out magically. Maybe Twizzlers. What's going to happen if I squeeze the bottle? What's in there is going to come out. Sorry, I didn't mean to do that, sir. What comes in there comes out. What's in there just comes out. Now, here's the terrifying question. Is that always true of every container? And the reason that's important is that we have little slippages. A word of anger. Oh, that was just a coincidence. That was just a circumstantial thing. Oh, no. that I didn't realize it was so bad until I saw the blushes on other people's faces. No, that was just a simple incident. No, no friend, that came from within. We're too quick to dismiss the seeds of sin that come out in those moments. What comes out must have already been in. It's a universal truth. That leads us to this more difficult, more pressing, what do we treasure? And to see how important this word is, this is what, instead of Mary, whenever the angels came, and then the different prophets and prophetess came and told her who her son was, and she treasured these things in her heart. She held them dear. What do we treasure? What do we love? difficult. Because the heart itself is self-deceptive. The heart is already wicked. The redeemed heart still has an aspect of self-deception still stirring within. The redeemed saint, mature in Christ, still has every seed of sin lingering in the heart, ready to pounce forth. Why we need deliberate self-inspection. Now there's a picture here, because he's talking to disciples. But he does say a good person, and the word here is just a basic word for man. Image bearers, everyone, every human being, at some level decides what they're going to treasure, and that does determine what kind of person. And human beings can be better or worse. There's a way in which we can thank everyone, every human being. What am I treasuring? What is it producing? Is it really the life I want to lead? The believers. We know the good God, who shared with us His good Son, and His good Word, and has told us truly what is good. Are we treasuring Christ in what He says is good? The passage requires self-inspection and then recalculation. It's not a, we're supposed to just keep on being evil because we practice evil things and treasure things. No, the call of self-inspection to change, to recalculate, this is a call to heart work. This is hard. And it gave a warning because many will have the temptation to walk away from this text and think, what do I need? to work on. What kind of things do I need to add to my tree so I've got better fruit? That's going to leave you exhausted. It's going to leave you with still a rotten root. Stapling good fruit to a bad tree is not the solution. It's not getting busier to make sure we have better things on our tree. It's not trying to work harder so that the fruit masquerades. And the root is never seen. That's dangerous. The other temptation is to keep saying, I'm gonna work harder, I'm gonna be better. Every time there's a difficulty, no, I'm just gonna try harder, I'm gonna work harder. That's not the solution. It's really doing hard work, which is hard. It's looking in and asking, what is it that I love? What is it that I meditate upon? What is it that my mind constantly goes back to? What are the things I'm protecting? When I first became a Christian, my vocabulary was limited. It was pretty gross and vulgar. It was pretty easy to stop using the kind of language we shouldn't use. The next step, though, of actually thinking about the anger that was inside that led to those words, Much more difficult. Changing my vocabulary, pretty easy. Doing the heart work that would lead me to use those kinds of words. A long, grace-filled process. The key thing you need to hear today, believers, you're not slaves to sinful passions. You're set free in Christ. The Holy Spirit has produced for you a washing and regeneration that gives you a new identity, a new man that produces new desires that you can treasure. We're not bound. We can recalculate. What Paul talks about with putting off sin, putting on Christ, putting off hate, putting on love. We're not helpless. No, God has sent us, clear, help. The other thing we need to think about here is the treasuring. That's an activity. It's an activity we do. There's an intentionality. Now, oftentimes, we kind of just go through the process and we just keep treasuring the same things without really thinking about it. But love is an activity. It's something we initiate. Talked about my sin from 20 years ago when I became a Christian. Let's talk about last night. Going to StubHub, trying to make an exchange. Go to my computer, it doesn't work. Whatever it is, I get frustrated. Go to my phone, it starts to work, and the credit card doesn't work. Go back to my computer, try to change the password, doesn't work. Now I've got like six passwords, two credit cards, left the evening without an exchange, but with some unnecessary, unhelpful words. Now everything about me wanted to think, StubHub, you made me angry. No, no, no. StubHub's just a computer system. I was angry. We want to blame. We want to say, no, you make me angry, or somebody else did this. No, it's in here. The seed was just waiting to pop out. And the internet seems to be a really regular way that it comes out. Are we good? Are we evil? Are we actively recognizing sin, putting off sin, confessing sin? Are we recognizing that what we treasure really doesn't matter? Are we treasuring the merciful God who has forgiven us? so that we forgive as he forgives us? Or are we holding on to the grudges, waiting to jump at the right opportunity to use the hurts against whoever hurt us? Again, I'm just going back to the context. Forgive and give. Are we praising God for all the generous gifts and therefore we're giving? Are we hoarding? God invites us, this is the glorious invitation, non-Christian, Christian, confess our sin. Don't be afraid of talking about sin. Be afraid if you never talk about sin in yourself. We're invited to confess our sin, to redirect, to recalculate. I feel we oftentimes compromise when it comes to confession. Here's a few reasons why I think we compromise. One, we're not ready to stop loving that sin. Sometimes we don't confess sin because we actually still love it. We recognize it's sin, but we still love the sin. Another reason we might not confess is that we're afraid to acknowledge it and how others would treat us. That's why as a church we need to make sure we're ready to hear confession of sin and say, I forgive you. A third reason is we're confused about how grace and God works. He's inviting us, he's holding out his hands all day long, inviting us to confess and to restore us. Maybe fourthly, we're intimidated by the process. Confession means we repent. That's what we're talking about here. A self-examination that thinks, this is what I'm doing. This is what I'm treasuring. I don't like who I am and who I'm becoming. I confess it to Christ. And he forgives me. He restores me. It's an internal change. Third and finally, we've seen, we've considered the fruit. We've thought about the root, what we treasure. Now what kind of person, and this is really the main focus. The good person and the evil person. What kind of person are we? There's only two kinds of people. We want to believe there's some kind of third kind that we fit in, like we're okay. No, there's two kinds of people. And how do we evaluate if we're good or somebody else is good? There's all kinds of ways we're being pressed in, but let us just walk through because God is so good, he has told us what a good person does and what it looks like, even beyond what we've seen there in that you're not condemning, you're forgiving, you're not judging, you're giving. Here's some points from Paul regarding what a good person does. A good person gives thanks to God and honors him. A good person must have an upward-oriented worship. A good person gives thanks to God and honors him. A good person worships God alone and does not worship anything in his creation. A good person worships God alone and does not worship anything else in creation, especially his sinful desire. A good person does not presume upon God's grace. A good person hears the law, trusts the law, obeys the law, and keeps it. Now many of you may have been wondering where am I getting this from? This is all from Romans one through three. Where Paul begins, the wrath of God has been revealed against all unrighteousness. All that's not good. in his conclusion is that there is no one good, no not one. So what have we been talking about? No one's good according to the Bible. No one's worshiped God as he's worthy. So what do we do from here? The law is a mirror. It shows us what we need. That passage, no one is good, is then followed by another great declaration. But God declares those who are not good righteous. God alone makes us good. God alone declares us legally good. He washes the slate. He washes every accusation that could be made against us in reality because we've sinned in all those ways. He washes it away. Legally declared good. And he sends his Holy Spirit into our hearts to start working. To not just declare us good, but to make us good. To make us the kind of person who looks at the law and says, this is good, I want to start obeying it. With the very power of God inside to do it. Here's the reality, no one is good by their own works. No one is good by what they do on their own. God declares us good. God makes us good. And the fruit of that is that we start doing good works. That Galatians passage is so important that Ben read earlier. These are two different ways of living. In our flesh with sin, and it's evident, according to the Spirit, keeping in step with the Spirit. I met a Christian this morning. The hard words that we all have to hear together is that none of us, no one in this room, you can look around, hey, you're not good. You can do that, be weird. But no one, no one here can boast of being good. If at any point in the sermon, you've just thought, oh, check the box, I'm good. No, no one's good. Except for those who call upon Jesus, and He makes us good. We cannot be good on our own. We're born in sin, we love sin, we practice sin, and God saves us from sin. Believer. Good works leads to a changed life. Same thing Ben taught us last week. Ephesians 2.8, we're saved by grace through faith, and then we're saved for the work that Christ has put before us. If you look at chapter two, verse one of Ephesians, we were dead in our trespasses because we were walking in them. At the end of it, we're now alive in Christ to walk in the new works of Christ. Are we walking worthy of the calling? Are we walking knowing that God has set before us what is good, what is better than this sinful life? But it's truly good. We've explored, we've investigated, there's been self-examination. We look inside, we wanna look at the fruits of our hands. We wanna think of the words that come out of our mouth. We wanna look inside, what are the things we treasure, what we love, what we're holding onto tight that causes that kind of sin? We've done a lot of inward looking. Now, we must look up. Christ is seated. at the right hand of the Father because He has finished the work of salvation. He died so that we can be forgiven. He died and rose so that we can have new life. He is at the right hand of the Father so that we can call upon His name and be safe. We can look up to Him and He helps us. We look up knowing salvation is accomplished. And as we conclude, we look forward. This is the Lord's Supper. This is ordained for us at this moment as we've, I pray we've done self-examination and we're convicted. Oh, the sins that reside within and the sins that burst forth. We look forward and see that his body was broken, his blood spilled to save us from sin. It's our profession of faith in Christ alone that makes us worthy to participate in this supper, in this cup, in this bread, to remember, it's not my work, it's what He did. When we look forward with the blessing, He has declared us good. He has restored us. The view of the ordinance is it is a moment for self-inspection. As we prepare, we can turn over to 1 Corinthians 11. Then we'll walk us through the Lord's Supper, but we can go ahead and look at verse 28. Let a person examine himself, then so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. What we're doing here is we're going to have a moment of quiet reflection, praying for God to help us to see sin, not to be overcome by it, not to be overwhelmed by it, but so that we can profess it and we can confess it and we can profess Christ as our Savior So if we come to this table having confessed our sin, I'll close this time in prayer. Father, we confess again we have not honored you. We have not given thanks. We do not look up enough to consider your power, your love. We do not look in your word often enough to meditate upon your promises and your truths. Lord, we've gratified our desires rather than glorify you. We've exchanged your glory and desire to glorify everything but you. Lord, we've treasured up anger, lust. We've stored it within. We've presumed upon your grace. Father, we thank you that we can confess these sins and so many more. You are true to forgive us as we confess them in Christ. Lord, we thank you that you are true to your word, that you have promised a Savior and you have sent your Son to be that Savior. We thank you that you have promised that if we confess our sin, you do forgive us. And Lord, we come with the desiring assurance from you Knowing we have assurance as we participate in this table that Christ died for us while sinners. Thank you, Father. We pray that as we commit ourselves to you to confess our sin and to walk anew in Christ, you will bless us with the strength and the wisdom we need. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Let us sing together. Our song of response, Take My Life.