AN IMPORTANT QUESTION: Is fruitfulness necessary or a nice bonus?
- Let’s start by briefly defining “fruitfulness” for those who may not be familiar with the term.
- A tree bears fruit – let’s say apples. It’s the produce of having an apple tree.
- In the spiritual realm, we’re talking about a life bearing fruit. There is a result from that life being there.
- We usually talk about two kinds of fruit: internal and external. (I realize the two are interconnected and ultimately inseparable, but we’ll talk this way for simplicity’s sake.)
- Internal fruit is becoming more like Christ in our own lives.
- External fruit is touching the lives of those around you, helping them to move closer to God.
THE ANSWER: Fruitfulness is not optional – it’s a defining characteristic of genuine faith.
- Luke 13:6.
- The man came looking for fruit.
- Luke 13:6.
- This is a crucial but easily-overlooked truth. He comes looking for fruit. It’s what he expects to find.
- God is looking for fruit from your life.
SOME EXAMPLES OF THAT:
1. HAVING NO FRUIT LEADS TO BEING "CUT OFF" AND "THROWN IN THE FIRE."
- Matthew 3:10; Matthew 7:19; Luke 3:9; Luke 13:7; John 15:2; 1 Corinthians 3:10-15.
- Let’s look at three passages:
a. Luke 13:7.
- “Cut it down!”
b. Matthew 3:10.
- This is John the Baptist.
c. Matthew 7:19.
- Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.
- These are obviously are all images of hell.
- The point that is being made is that fruit is a defining characteristic of a genuine Christian life.
- We’re going to get more into this in a later sermon in the series, but it’s important to mention the truth now: this is not saying that we’ve got to go out and manufacture some kind of results or God is going to cut us off. It’s not a “produce or I’m going to kick you out” situation.
- Rather, it’s what real faith looks like. If I have truly accepted the life-changing truth of Christ into my life, there will be a change. There will be results. It’s a (this is important) natural result of having made that choice.
- We’re going to talk at length later in the series about how fruitfulness actually happens and it’s not by us manufacturing results.
- Let me take a second to preemptively answer a question that I know is coming.
- In 1 Corinthians 3:10-15, it speaks of the Bema Judgment, which is where Christians are judged. That judgment is not for salvation, but for rewards.
- In that passage, it speaks of those whose believers who end up empty-handed but are saved “as through fire.” Doesn’t that go against the point I just made? If they’re empty-handed, then that means they weren’t fruitful, right?
- Actually, it doesn’t.
- The important thing to consider about the 1 Corinthians 3 passage is that they had work to be judged. It speaks of seeing whether what they’d done was like gold and silver or like wood and hay – whether what they’d done would stand up to the test of judgment. Notice: they had something to be tested. They had produced something. They were not empty-handed as they came into the judgment.
- That Bema Judgment will judge the quality of our work; not whether we have any work. Again, the fruitfulness is presumed.
2. JESUS GAVE THE KINGDOM TO SOMEONE NEW WHO WOULD PRODUCE ITS FRUIT.
- Matthew 21:34, 43.
- The parable of the tenants in Matthew 21 also speaks to the need for fruitfulness.
- In v. 34, again we see the master coming (or in this case, sending someone on his behalf) to look for fruit.
- Verse 43 is what I really want to concentrate on.
- Jesus notes that the Kingdom has been taken away from those who used to have it. (In this case, that would be the Jewish leaders.)
- And who is God giving it to? To “a people who will produce its fruit.”
- That’s significant. God is making the change because He wants someone who will produce the fruit of the Kingdom. That indicates that it’s really important.
- He could have said, “to a people who will revel in grace.”
- He could have said, “to a people who will be more thankful.”
- He could have said, “to a people who are more deserving.”
- We could discuss the relative merits of each of those potential statements, but the point to be made right now is this: that’s not what He said. He said, “to a people who will produce its fruit.” That tells us just how important, how essential, how crucial this is to what God is doing.
3. IT'S SO ESSENTIAL THAT JESUS CAN US IT TO SEPARATE THE BELIEVERS AND NON-BELIEVERS.
- Matthew 25:31-46.
- This is a challenging passage for many people. I think our fruitfulness discussion will help.
- At one level, this is a relatively straightforward passage: Jesus desires that we would help the less fortunate. Those who are hungry, thirsty, sick, etc. are people we are supposed to be there for. That’s both easy to understand and easy to appreciate the importance of.
- At one level, this is a challenging truth that Jesus is to be found in the “least-of-these” that we encounter every day. Helping the helpless is our way of showing our love of Jesus. This, while challenging, is also pretty straightforward.
- At another level, though, it’s an extraordinarily troublesome passage. Why? Because Jesus is separating the “sheep” and the “goats,” the believers and unbelievers. Where is the mention of grace? Where is the mention of the cross? There’s none of that. Instead, there is only a mention of seeing whether we helped those in these needy situations and then dividing on that.
- What is this? Salvation by works?
- The ideas that we’re talking about this morning help to bring things into focus. When we understand the fruitfulness is not an optional quality for the Christian, when we understand the fruitfulness is part-and-parcel of what it means to be a Christian, it makes more sense.
- How can Jesus divide the believers and non-believers based on the fruit of their lives? Because fruitfulness is a defining characteristic of genuine faith.
- That’s where the mystery disappears.
THE SIMPLE POINT: God expects fruit.
- Not to repeat myself, but let’s just summarize the point we’ve made up to now: God expects fruit.
- To go back to the sermon title: fruitfulness is a necessity, not just a nice bonus.
- This is essential to understand because we have largely ignored these passages that speak of the necessity of fruitfulness. We have defined “genuine Christian faith” only in terms of saying you believe in Jesus and perhaps occasionally go to church. No. It’s so much more than that.
- Part of the definition of a Christian is fruitfulness. We’ll talk more in upcoming sermon about why that’s true, but suffice it for today to say that it is.
WHAT IF I DON'T HAVE ANY? He is patient, but not without limit.
- Luke 13:8-9.
- You need to recognize that something is fundamentally wrong with your spiritual life if you’re not producing fruit. That sounds harsh, but as we’ve seen in the passages we’ve looked at today, it’s simply the Biblical truth.
- That’s the challenging part. We are going to go through in detail over the course of this sermon series the specifics about living that fruitful life.
- This morning, though, I want to close with a word of encouragement.
- Look at Luke 13:8-9.
- God is patient. When He doesn’t find fruit, He doesn’t just give up immediately. He works with it to try to bring about more fruit.
- He is patient.
- Of course, that patience is not without limit. The man gives it another year of work. (Note that we’ll discuss the “eternal security” issues with this idea later in the series.)
- It may be that you’ve never been saved. It may be that you’ve not understood God’s expectations. Now is the time to get on track to what God desires to do through your life.
