Bearing Fruit For The Kingdom Of God Series

In the US they do a lot of research and one such research was on Perspective. Research was done on mice. They put them in buckets of water and let them swim around to see how long it would take for them to drown. They found on average mice would swim for about 30 minutes and then give up.

Then they took another group of mice and put them in a bucket of water and had them swim. But with these mice, every five minutes they were picked to get a view over the rim and then put them back. They kept swimming past 30 minutes and even past an hour.

The conclusion: The mice that got some view over the rim could swim for about 36 hours before they gave up.

This morning I am hoping we will get a view over our rim and get a perspective concerning our situation and God’s concern for our situation.

God expects us to bear fruit for His kingdom. We will focus on 3 different kinds of fruit from:

Matthew 21:18-22

1. The fruit of our relationship with Jesus

2. The fruit of the Spirit

3. The fruit of our lips

Verse 21-22 are the most preached verses from the Bible. “If you have faith and do not doubt, when you pray, you will receive what you are praying for.” It is a beautiful promise.

Jesus’ proclamation that with faith we can move mountains is beautiful.

ILLUSTRATION:

A Church was under construction and they had a date for the inaugural service of the new building. They had a problem. Literally they had a mountain there and did not have the resources to clear it so that they can have a parking lot. Building was completed and they invited people around to come. So the pastor said, “This Sunday everyone who is devoted to prayer and believes that Jesus answers prayer, please come.” Out of 700 people, about 30 people came and they prayed earnestly, “God move this mountain from here so that we could have the parking lot.” The

Pastor then said, “Alright, we will begin the service here next week.”

That Monday morning there was a knock on the church office door. The man said, “I am from a construction company and we are building a very large building couple of miles from here. We do not have enough dirt to build our foundation. And we like permission to remove this mountain of dirt behind this church. We will pay for any part we will flatten.”

The next day they came in with bulldozers and flattened the property. They laid the pavement and built the parking lot for the church. The next Sunday morning the church met as announced, with the mountain having been removed.

God is faithful.

But I like to suggest to you that the main point of this passage is not this, but on BEARING FRUIT.

Jesus comes up to this fig tree. In that area of the Middle East, Fig trees would sometimes begin to flower early and when they flower, they would also have buds and bear fruit. Jesus saw that the fruit must have been there, but there was no fruit. So He cursed the tree.

Matthew 18:23-27

The religious leaders were having a discussion. They were not discussing “Was John the Baptist from God or man?” Instead they were saying, if we answer this way, this will happen. If we answer that way, that will happen. They were not concerned with the truth. Rather than asking what the truth was they were reasoning among themselves, therefore they did not answer. They knew that the baptism of John was from God yet they did not want to acknowledge him.

APPLICATION

You cannot play games with the truth and bear fruit for the Kingdom of God at the same time.

With our earthly wisdom we want to be wise in what we say. If you want to be obedient to God, be wise in what you say, and always tell the truth. Jesus said, do not cast pearls before the swine, but we should still have pearls to cast. The truth should be in our mouths.

Matthew 18:28 – 32

Belief, Faith, Obedience are the elements which cause people to enter God’s kingdom.

This is difficult for many to accept. It is the faith in Jesus that people have problem with. Most people have some kind of faith and in fact it is that faith that prevents them from having true faith in God. It is that faith in Jesus that causes us to bear fruit in the Kingdom of God.

Matthew 18:33-43

As Jesus enters the city, there is a fruit tree not bearing fruit, so He curses it and it withers and dies. Jesus is speaking to the Scribes and Pharisees, the religious leaders! In today’s terms, it would be the church leaders. And I count every single person in this room to be church leaders. When God calls you, He does not simply call you to sit and warm up the plastic chairs in the church, He calls you to minister. Everyone who is called of God is called to minister. So Jesus is speaking to us. If we do not bear fruit, He is going to throw us out, and will replace us with someone who will bear fruit. Be careful!