Bearing the Fruit: Introduction

 Matthew 7:15 Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.  16 You will recognize them by their fruits.  Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistle? 17 So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear good fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

You are probably wondering what good fruit that Jesus is talking about here.  Is He talking about evangelizing?  The answer to that is yes, sort of.  Keep in mind that the "diseased trees" try to spread their beliefs as well.  In this passage Jesus is specifically referring to the way in which we live our lives.  What good does it do if you profess belief in Jesus but do not live your life the way that He wants you to?  Matthew 7:21 Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' 23 And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'   We produce good fruit by doing God's will, not just professing belief in Him. 

While Matthew 7 does teach us how to tell the false teacher from the good, it should also cause you to examine yourself in order for you to make sure that you are in line with God's Will.  In the book of Galatians, Paul gives the people a list of things that should not be done followed by a list of characteristics that should be shown by anyone who truly accepts Jesus as their Lord.

Galatians 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.  I warn you as I warned you before, that those things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 

While the list of things that you shouldn't do is important, the list of things you should do is far more important.  By verses twenty-two and twenty-three we know that the fruit produced in us by the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  These are the things that as Christians, we should examine in order to test that we are following Christ as we should.  These fruits are a gift from God through the Holy Spirit that we received through our salvation.  Therefore, anyone who has truly repented of his or her sins and trusted his or her life to Jesus will exhibit these characteristics.

There is something I would like to clear up at this point.  Just because you do not perfectly exhibit the fruits of the Spirit does not mean you are not saved.  While we have been justified through Christ Jesus our Lord we have yet to be completely sanctified.  Indeed our sanctification will not be completed until we die or Jesus returns.  We are sinful creatures; therefore we cannot perfectly exhibit Christ's characteristics but we are called to pursue them with all that we have and that is what makes the difference. 1 Timothy 6:11 But as for you O man of God, flee these things.  Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness,  gentleness.  In the next verse Paul urges Timothy to, "Fight the good  fight of the faith."  As Christians it is important to realize that nothing in this world is a bigger obstacle to us than our own sinful natures.  Romans 7:18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.  For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.  The fruits of the Spirit are not natural for us.  That is why it is so hard for us to exhibit them, and why it is so important for us to exhibit them.  These are the things that set us apart from the rest of the world.

For the next little while each post I make is going to be over one of the fruits of the Spirit so that you might gain a better understanding of  them that you might be able to accurately test yourself to make sure that you are exhibiting them.  If you find that you are seriously lacking in these fruits then I would suggest you take a step back and completely reexamine your faith.  Have you repented of your sins? Do you really believe that Jesus was crucified in payment for your sins? Do you believe that Christ was raised from the dead after three days in a victory over death? Have you confessed that Jesus is your Lord?  If you have truly done these things then you should be able to look at your life and see the influence that Christ has had on you.  Have you completely devoted your life to Him?  By examining the fruits of the Spirit I hope that we can better understand the types of lives we are called to lead as Christians.  Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Judged by Righteousness

Psalms 9:7 But the LORD sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice, 8 and he judges the world with righteousness; he judges the people with uprightness.

I have discussed how God is both our Creator and our King.  Today we are going to look at a much trickier aspect of God and that is God as our Judge.  What gives God the right to judge us? Well, He did create us and as our King He gave us laws to follow so logically who better to be our judge than God?  The Bible states in the above verses and in other places (Acts 17:30) that when God judges us, He will judge us in righteousness because He is a righteous judge. Psalms 7:11 God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day. So that begs the question, what is righteousness?

This is where things can get tricky.  It's very important that you don't rely on just what I point out here, but that you also open up your Bible and discover all it says about the subject of what it means to be righteous because the word "righteous" appears in the Bible (ESV translation) two hundred and sixty-two times.  The word "righteousness" appears two hundred and fifty-nine times. Clearly the Bible has a lot to say on the subject that I can't fit into one post, so please do some research on your own.  However, I am going to try to explain the concept of biblical righteousness as best I can.

First let's ask the question, who is righteous before God? Psalm 143:2 Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you. There you have it.  No one who is alive is righteous before God.  Even Jesus backs this up. Mark 10:18 and Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone." Why is no one good?  Because God gave us His standard of righteousness in the law.  These laws embody who God is.  The laws that God gave the people of Israel are a description of God because they outline His very nature. In order for a person to be righteous he must keep God's commandments.  However, this is an impossible task.  All anyone has to do is go through the Ten Commandments to discover that they are guilty of breaking these laws, are therefore unrighteous in the eyes of God. 

You may be asking yourself what you can do in order to be judged worthy to get to heaven, and the answer to that question is that there is nothing you can do to get to heaven. Romans 5:17 For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in the life through one man Jesus Christ.    Paul tells us here that righteousness is in fact a free gift of God through the death of His Son Jesus.  Just as one man's actions (Adam) caused the rest of us to have a nature of sin, so it is that we can receive righteousness through the actions of Jesus.  But the most important thing to take away from that verse is that righteousness cannot be earned by anything that you or I do as people because it will be given to us as a freely given gift of grace. 

But it is important to point out that God will not force this gift upon you.  If you don't want any part of the grace offered to you then God will not make you accept it and give it to you anyway.  God has offered you the gift, but it is you who must accept it.  The Bible says in both Genesis 15:6 and in Romans 4:3 that all Abraham had to do was to believe and it was credited to him as righteousness.  So what does this have to with you? Romans 10:9 because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  All you have to do is truly believe that God gave His Son to die for your sins and raised Him from the dead after three days in a victory over death, then confess that fact with your mouth.  Because if you truly believe then you are going to recognize your sins and the unrighteousness in your life and you are going to give those up in a pursuit of righteousness.  While The Bible tells us that we cannot obtain righteousness by the works of our hands, we are to pursue righteousness.

1 Timothy 6:11 But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13 I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, 14 to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which he will display at the proper time- he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, who dwells in the unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.  To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

King of Kings

1 Timothy 6:15 which he will display at the proper time-he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of Kings, and the Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

In my last post I discussed God's role as our Creator and His purpose for doing so.  This time we are going to take a look at God's role as our King.  This role is vital in understanding a lot of God's decisions.  Today the word king has a very negative connotation to it, especially in the United States.  This was because we rebelled against the rule of a tyrant.  Would we still have rebelled if King George had been a kind and gracious king?  God isn't just a kind, gracious, and patient king.  God is the most kind, most gracious, and most patient king.  God is so gracious that he has never done anything that wasn't for our benefit. Psalm 103:8 The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

I discussed a couple these things in my previous post.  One of those is that He created us and the world around us.  The other is that He gave us dominion over it.  Another thing that God did for our benefit is give us the Law through Moses on Mount Sinai.  Why is this for our benefit? At the time God had just delivered the Jews from their oppression in Egypt and they were a new nation.  Any nation needs laws so God gave them laws that if they kept them then they would be called His people.  It is important to point out that these laws (the Ten Commandments) are impossible for us to keep because they are God's standards and no one who is not Him can keep them.  As the King, God punished the Jews when they failed to keep His laws although more often than not it merely involved God standing aside to let them harvest the fruit of their own actions so that they would learn that God's way is always the best way. 1 Samuel 8:7 And the LORD said to Samuel, "Obey the voice of the people in all they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. But no matter how many times they turned away from Him, God was always willing to welcome them back with open arms once they realized just how much they needed Him.

God loves us very much and takes His duty as our King very seriously.  He knew that we would never be able to keep His holy laws because of our own sinful nature.  However, He can't change the laws because the Law is a reflection of who God is and changing them would mean that He denied His own holiness.  Yet all crime must be punished. Sin must be paid for.  So what did God do in the face of this dilemma, knowing that sin cannot be unpunished but still wanting us to be able to be with him? He sent his one and only Son to take the punishment in our stead. Romans 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

As our King, God had to make a very hard decision in order to save His people.  He had to sacrifice His innocent Son to the death that we rightfully deserved for rebelling against His law.  I can't imagine what that would feel like but I don't know many fathers who would willingly sacrifice  their innocent children so that some outlaws might be saved.  That is what makes God such a merciful King.  He sacrificed his Son to the traitor’s death that we deserved, in order to save us from that very thing.  

The Perfect Word

Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness 17 that the man of God may be equipped for every good work.

In order to properly understand the things that I will be addressing in later posts it is vital that you have a proper understanding of exactly what the Bible is and why it is important.  This will be a broad generalization when considering the purpose of the Bible and if anyone would like to know more about a certain aspect then feel free to send me a message or leave a comment and I will do what I can to address your question.  For example I am not going to break down the sections of the Bible and explain their purposes in this post; that is another post for another time.

The above verses from 1 Timothy 3 are excellent in explicitly stating the broad purposes of the Bible.  The first and most important thing to look at is the first few words, "All scripture is breathed out by God."  This states pretty clearly that all of the Scripture, which is the Bible, comes directly from God.  Was God the one that penned it out? No. But He did dictate it to the men who did, and they wrote exactly what He told them.  Some people may try to point out that because the Bible was penned by man that it is inherently faulty because man is faulty.  That type of thinking is faulty on two counts. The first count is that these were men of God.  They knew exactly who God is.  They knew that He is both all-knowing and all-powerful.   So you are going to try to sell me the fact that they were going to try to change God's word to suit their own purposes all the while knowing that one day they were going to have to give an account of their actions to God? Not gonna happen.  The second point goes back to the fact that God is all-knowing.  Do you really believe that God would make the mistake of choosing someone to pen out His will knowing that the man He chose would change it, therefore condemning future generations? That is also not happening.

Verse 16 of 1 Timothy 3 goes on to tell us what it is that scripture is to be used for and that is, "for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness."  Let's take a brief look at each of these items.  What is the Bible teaching? The Bible educates us as to who God is.  It shows us that God is specifically our Sovereign King, our Just Judge, our Loving Father, our Merciful Savior, and our Closest Friend.  These are several aspects of God that I will go into detail about at a later date but if you want to explore them yourself all you have to do is simply open up your Bible and start reading.  

Lets move on to reproof.  Dictionary.com states that reproof means, "the act of reproving, censuring, or rebuking."  The key word in that definition is rebuking.  The Bible is the means by which we can learn the difference between what is right and what is wrong (Exodus 20).  The Bible also tells us exactly what will happen to us if we do not change our sinful ways (Romans 6:23). This goes hand in hand with correction.  The Bible does not only expose us to what it is we shouldn't do but it also spends a great deal of time explaining the things that we should be doing along with the proper ways of doing them.  

Now for the interesting one, "training in righteousness." This is a combination of the first three things we talked about.  If we allow the Bible to teach us and discipline us then we are training to be righteous.  But here is the kicker.  We can't be righteous on our own merits no matter how much we try.  Romans 4 deals with this issue stating that if you put your whole faith in God, who sent His Son to die for our sins and raised him on the third day then it will be credited to you as righteousness.  Of course there is more to it than that but that is just an overview.  The point is the Bible trains us to be more righteous by helping us realize that the only way for that to be possible is by faith in the sacrifice of Jesus, the Son of God.

While verse 16 explains to us what the Bible is for, verse 17 explains to us why it is important.  Scripture should be the primary tool used when spreading the Gospel.  It contains everything we need to complete our mission.  That is why it is imperative that we as Christians must actively study it and learn from it.  The Bible is the Word of God.  Why should we try to use our own words when advancing or defending our faith when God gave us His own words? When we are trying to spread the Gospel we will be met with resistance because as stated in Ephesians 6:12, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritually forces of evil in the heavenly places." A few verses later in Ephesians 6:17 after explaining the other parts that make up the Armor of God it explains to us what the Word of God is, " and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." The Bible is our primary weapon against the darkness because it is through the message that is contained in the Bible that will bring the lost into the light.  But as Christians we must be very cautious because the devil will try to use the Bible against us just as he tried to use the scriptures against Jesus in the desert during Jesus's period of temptation. (Matthew 4:1-11) How did Jesus defeat the devil? He used scripture.  People will pick out points in scripture to try to use against us but as long as we study and maintain a growing knowledge of what the Bible says we can use the Bible to defeat their attacks.

There is still so much that can be said about the Bible, but hopefully you now have a grasp of its importance.  The Bible is the primary tool God gave us to help with our spiritual growth so that we might better use His word to spread the Gospel.  Like anything else the more time you spend with the Bible the better you will know it and understand what it contains.  It is of the utmost importance that the Christian donates a healthy amount of time to studying and understanding the Bible, because a working knowledge of the Bible is essential in fulfilling our mission while not falling into the traps that are placed by the enemy.