FRUIT OF THE BRANCHES IV
Series on John 15 pt. 13
Heb 13:15; Gal. 5:22
3/18/07
I want to begin this morning message with a quote from the great 19th century preacher Charles Spurgeon,
“It is of no use for any of you to try to be soul-winners if you are not bearing fruit in your own lives. How can you serve the Lord with your lips if you do not serve Him with your lives? How can you preach His gospel with your tongues, when with hands, feet, and heart you are preaching the devil’s gospel, and setting up an antichrist by your practical unholiness?”
That is a very practical statement. We cannot expect to be what God desires us to be if we are not bearing fruit in our lives. Fruit that brings God honor. A fruitless Christian is an anomaly. A fruitless Christian may very well not be a true Christian. Jesus is very clear in John 15:5, "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit.” If you are truly abiding in Christ then you will bear fruit, because Christ in abiding in you. And that abiding, that living in Christ and Christ living in you WILL produce fruit.
Just as a vine that is cared for, nourished, and pruned, will bear fruit, so will the branches who are abiding in the true vine who is Christ.
In our look into John 15 we have been looking at what exactly is meant by the term fruit in the Bible. That is what is meant by good fruit, fruit that brings God glory.
We have seen thus far that this fruit must fall with in two categories. It must bring God glory, and it must be derived from the Holy Word of God. Last week we began to look at some specific fruit that is mentioned in the Bible.
We saw fruit of evangelism, the fruit of righteousness, and the fruit of giving. We saw how these fruits are seen in us through God.
Remember the words of Paul in 1 Cor 3:6-7 “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.” Which tells us that God gives the increase when it comes to evangelism. Any one who comes to Christ through our sharing of the gospel does so not by our abilities but through the working of the Holy Spirit of God. God produces the fruit in us.
We saw that with fruit of righteousness. We are told in Phil. 3:9 “and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;” Again we see that this fruit, the fruit of righteousness is seen in us through faith in Christ.
Also the fruit of giving. We looked that example of Zacchaeus. Did he give his money to the poor because he all of a sudden thought it would be a good idea to do it. No. He did because he had an encounter with Jesus Christ by which he was regenerated, he it was through that regeneration that the fruit of giving was produced. He no longer at an attachment to the material things of this world, but what was now important to him was Christ.
Thus what we have seen so far points back to the what is said in John 15:5; “"I am the vine, you [are] the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”
If you abide in Christ these fruit WILL be seen in your life. Not so much because you are turned into a swell person, but because Christ is now alive in you, and if He is alive in you it WILL show forth with fruit.
Let us continue now in looking at specific fruit that is mentioned in the Bible. We have two more that I want us to look at. The next fruit I want to point is the fruit of our lips.
Listen to Heb. 13:15; “Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.”
But before I get into the good fruit spoken here I want us to understand that what comes out of our mouth can be good fruit or bad fruit. And the bad fruit is not just bad fruit, but it is poison.
I think of the story of Snow White. Remember the witch who wants to be the fairest of them all. So she make a apple, but it is a poison apple. A poisoned fruit.
Listen to Rom. 3:13-14 “"Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit"; "The poison of asps is under their lips"; "Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness."”
We see the poison in peoples words all time. Through using the Lord’s name in vain, through cursing, through speaking lies, through speaking untruths about others and so forth. What the Bible states is that we can produce fruit to the glory of God by what we speak, or we produce bad fruit, poison fruit.
We can see from Heb 13:15 that the fruit that our lips brings forth is twofold. We see that first of all the fruit of our lips comes when we “continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God.” What we are told here is that we ought to being in the habit of praising God.
We ought to praise God not just when we are at church, but when we are at home, or work, or school, or bowling, or on the golf course, where ever we are, whatever we are doing, the Word of God tells us that we should be “continually” offering up the sacrifice of praise to God.” This continual praising of God reflects what we think of God, how much we love Him. If we do not speak words of praise to God it simply shows that we not love Him as we should. It shows arrogance and pride.
So let this fruit, this fruit of lips be seen in you.
The second part of this fruit is that we to give thanks to God. “… giving thanks to His name.” Again this fruit demonstrates our feelings towards God. We ought to be thanking God for all we have. Thanking Him for our families, friends, one another here at the church. Thanking Him for all His provisions, His care, His love, His grace, His glory, and so on, and so on.
This fruit, this fruit of our lips ought to be so abundant in our lives. It ought to overflow from our lips.
Before we move on I want to point out something you may have missed from Heb. 13:15. Listen again to that passage; “Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.”
Notice what the first part of that verse says, it is “by Him” that we continually offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. Who is “Him”? We have to go back to 13:12 for the answer. “Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate.”
The “Him” which Heb 13:15 speaks of is Jesus. Once more we see how the fruits of a Christian, are produced through God, through the Lord Jesus Christ. These fruits that we have mentioned can be produced in no other way.
This right in with what Jesus is telling us in John 15:4-5, verses that we will be looking at more closely next week.
John 15:4-5 “"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”
We must abide in Christ and Christ must abide in us for this fruit to be produced in our life. That is in essence of what Heb. 13:15, it is “By Him” (that is we abiding in Him and He in us) that we can “continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.”
This is a great example of the unity of Scripture and how the Bible reinforces itself.
The next fruit I want to discuss is mentioned in Gal 5:19-23. We read there; “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self–control. Against such there is no law.”
We see in this passage of Scripture how the works of the flesh are set against the fruit of the Spirit. The reason I want you to see that is because I want to point out that the works of the flesh is our work. Man does not need any assistance at all in doing those works. They come out of the sinful nature of man. They show the spiritual deadness of man.
But notice that it is the fruit of the Spirit. It is the Spirit alive in us. We go back to what Jesus states in John 15 about Him abiding in us. This fruit come from God. It is manifest in us through God, through us abiding in Christ and Christ abiding in us. This fruit is the fruit of Spirit. It is what happens when the Holy Spirit dwells or abides in us.
I also want to point out this. Notice that the “works of the flesh” is plural. While the “fruit of the Spirit” is singular. Why is this? I believe the reason that that the fruit of Spirit is singular is because it should be seen in it’s entirety in the live of the believe.
You see a man or women can be an adulterer and not a murderer. A person can be a drunkard and not given to outbursts of wrath. They can be contentious but not practice sorcery.
But a professing Christian should not love and yet not have peace. A professing Christian should not have kindness without goodness. This fruit ought to be found in its entirety in every true believer.
One other item to consider is that the Scripture talks of the “Gifts” of the Spirit. Paul writes in Romans 12: “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us,” According to the Word of God all Christians do not have the same gift. We are each given at least one gift of the Spirit to serve the body of Christ.
Yet every Christian is to have the fruit of the Spirit in its entirety.
To the question of what is this fruit, Boice answers, “…the fullest answer is that it is simply the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ in His followers.” He goes on to point out that Christ cannot be divided. When Jesus Christ abides in us, and we in Him, we get the whole package. We just do not have the love of Christ abiding in us. We get his kindness, compassion, His joy, His peace. It is all there. It is all one, that is why we see it referred to as the fruit (singular) of the Holy Spirit. (It is also referred to as the fruit of the Holy Spirit in Eph. 5:9 as well.
Let’s break down what is said about this fruit of the Spirit. What are its parts?
The first component we see is love. It is fitting that love would be the first mentioned. For we in I john 4:8 that “God is love”. Also in verse 19 of that same chapter of 1 John we are to “We love Him because He first loved us.” The relationship that God has with us is based on His love.
What does 1 Cor. 13:13 tell us; “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” The greatest character a Christian can have is what? Love.
We are going to be talking more about God’s love when we get to John 15:9-10. But suffice it to say that love is an important part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
Next component of the fruit of the Holy Spirit is joy. Joy ought to be a part of the Christian live. There should be no miserable Christians. Joy in Christ ought to be a part of our lives. When we begin to truly understand, truly believe that this is nothing compared to the next, we will have joy.
When we truly believe Rom 8:18 which tell us; “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” When we truly believe that is when we begin to have the joy in Christ that we ought to have.
As with love we will be talking more about this joy when we get to verse 11 of John 15.
Next component is peace. Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon defines is this way, “the tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and content with its earthly lot, of whatsoever sort that is.”
That is wonderful definition of the peace that we ought to have in Christ.
This peace that is part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit is the peace we have with God through Jesus Christ.
Rom 5:1 tells us “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” Without Christ we are at war with God.
As Rom 8:7 tells us “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.”
With Christ we are peace with the Father. The hostilities have ended.
This peace that is part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit is also peace with one another. Col. 3:15 “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.”
This is the call we have in Eph. 4:3 “endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
This part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit must manifest itself in our relationship with God, in our relationship with one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, and with our relationship with all men. As we are told in Heb. 12:14; “Pursue peace with all people..”
The next part is longsuffering or patience. I like to define this this way “putting up with others the way God puts up with us.” Ever think about that. The patience God has towards mankind simply amazes me. The patience He has towards me amazes me. It ought to amaze all of us. And that is the type of patience that is seen in the fruit of the Spirit.
Next part Kindness. The kindness we are to have as Christian ought to be like the kindness God has towards mankind. God is kind towards man. Even though the majority of mankind is living in rebellion towards God, God is kind.
Goodness. The Greek word here means, “uprightness of heart and life.” Want an example of goodness. Read the gospels. Look to Christ. Study His words, His action, His relationship with the Father. Look at the live of Christ and you will find in its fullest form the fruit of the Spirit. The fullest form of what goodness is.
Faithfulness. This part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit must be seen in us. We are to a faithful people. A people of conviction. It has a sense of being reliable. We are to be reliable to God, always willing to serve. We are to reliable to one another, there for one another. To bear the fruit of the Spirit is to be a faithful Christian, a reliable Christian. Just as Christ is faithful and reliable to us, we are to be faithful and reliable to Him.
Gentleness. This has to do with meekness. Again I would say turn to the gospels and the life of Christ for a look at what it is to be gentle. To be lowly and meek and humble. Some may define meekness as strength under control.
The last component of the fruit of the Holy Spirit is self-control. This is that which enables us to have victory over the desires of our flesh nature. There so many folks who are who want to blame the everyone but them selves for the things they do. We have all heard the expression, the devil made me do it.
The fact that we are given this as part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit indicates to me that we are responsible for our own actions, not some demon or anyone else. Self-control ought to be seen in our lives if we are claiming to be true Christians.
It is self-control that is given, not the fruit of blame someone else.
So today we have examined the last two specific types of biblical fruit that we will be looking at. The fruit of our lips and fruit of the Holy Spirit.
As we have looked at this fruit that the Bible mentions I pray that you have looking at your own life and asking yourselves, are those fruits being brought forth in my life. Asking yourself, do I have fruit? And if not, why not. Perhaps you are not abiding in Christ as you should.
To have fruit in your live you must first have Christ in your life. Have you trusted in His gospel. That Christ died for your sins, that He was buried and that He rose again on the third day. Have you trusted in Christ and Christ alone for the forgiveness of sin and eternal live. Do you desire to abide in Him? I pray that each person here has professed Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.
If you have any question regarding your salvation please see me. He remember the words of our Lord Jesus, “you will know them by their fruits.”
LET US PRAY
