Trees, snakes, and fruit | Matthew 12:33-37

If you turn in your Bibles to Matthew 12 .33

and Karen will be reading from that verse to

verse 37. Thank you Gary. So Matthew chapter

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

12, if you have one of these blue Bibles it will

be on page 793. The black one will be on page

1515. These are the words of our Lord Jesus Make

a tree good and its fruit will be good Or make

a tree bad and its fruit will be bad for a tree

is recognized by its fruit You brood of vipers

How can you who are evil say anything good? For

the mouth speaks what the heart is full of A

good man brings good things out of the good stored

up in him, and an evil man brings evil things

out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell

you that everyone will have to give account on

the day of judgment for every empty word they

have spoken, for by your words you will be acquitted,

and by your words you will be condemned. This

is God's word. Thanks Karen. Good morning again

church. Just to let you know in today's newsletter

we're experimenting with the outline of the sermon

so if you haven't received a physical copy of

this we have emailed it out online but just to

let you know if you want to follow along today

with the passage that we're looking at you'll

find the outline there. But before we get into

the word of the Lord this morning, why don't

we pray together and ask for our Lord's help

in understanding these words. Father, we ask

this morning that your word would be illuminated

to us, that you would enlighten the eyes of our

heart by the work of your Holy Spirit. that this

morning our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that

He would be centre in all we do. We ask this

in Jesus' name. Amen. Church, I wonder if you

would be able to finish this sentence for me.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but brilliant.

nursery rhyme indeed that reminds the little

ones among us that words might be hurtful, but

they shouldn't be the things that destroy us.

But in saying that, do words matter? Do the things

that we say with our mouths just disappear into

the air, never to be thought of again? Or is

there something more to say on the way that we

speak? Well, in the passage that we have before

us this morning, Jesus teaches us something profoundly

sobering about the connection between our hearts

and our words. He tells us that our words aren't

just little vibrations that tickle each other's

eardrums for better or worse, but are a reflection

of what's going on inside, deep inside, deep

inside of our hearts. And that when we speak,

we're actually revealing the condition of our

hearts for better or worse, healthy or unhealthy.

And more than that, Jesus warns us that we will

give an account of every word that we speak.

Church, this passage challenges us to take a

good look, a good hard look at our speech, our

actions and more importantly, our hearts. To

put that as simply as I can, what we're hopefully

going to see today is that our words actually

say something about us. And in the end, they

were either just justify or condemn us. Now all

of this has come off the back of the Pharisees

verbally challenging Jesus on his very presence

in Israel. And since these verbal challenges

starting in chapter 12, there's been a contrast

of characters that have kind of come bubbling

to the surface. A contrast between our righteous

and holy Lord and that of the hard -hearted religious

leaders of the day. In the first 14 verses we

saw an exchange about the Sabbath and it was

there that Jesus told the Pharisees that they

just pay lip service to the command, taking the

law to the extreme and making it a burden for

the people. Whereas Jesus brings true and eternal

rest for all those that come to him because he

is the Lord of the Sabbath. Again in verses 15

to 21, in contrast to the character of the Pharisees

who condemned and continually tore people down,

we thought about the beautiful song of the servant.

and how Israel was to expect a compassionate

and merciful savior who Jesus clearly is as revealed

in all that he did and all that he said. And

then last week in verses 22 to 32 we saw our

Lord address the sin that will never be forgiven.

And we saw this particularly in the context of

the Pharisees that said with their mouths They

had an absolute rejection of the Holy Spirit's

revelation of who Jesus is. Which brings us to

the text that we have before us this morning.

And it's here that I think our Lord shows us

four things in relation to our hearts and our

speech. Four things that we would do well to

reflect on this morning. First, Jesus is going

to give us a bit of a picture about a couple

of trees and what fruit they bear so we can kind

of get our heads around just how important all

of this really is. Second, he's going to again

reveal the traits of hard -heartedness. Third,

words matter but so do our actions. And then

finally, Jesus is going to tell us that we have

to pay careful attention to all of this because

at the end of the day, It's all going to really

matter. So if you have your Bibles with you this

morning, read with me just that first verse there,

verse 33. These are the words of our Lord, make

a tree good and its fruit will be good. Or make

a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree

is recognised by its fruit. Right, so straight

off the bat, it's worth mentioning that Jesus

is directly addressing the Pharisees here. But

as he speaks to them, as he challenges them with

this picture, we learn something of the character

of Jesus as well. You see, in context, the Pharisees

had been saying that Jesus was doing good things,

like healing people, and though they couldn't

deny those good deeds, they also added that he

was essentially an evil person. You might remember

that from last week. Jesus had healed a man,

a great thing to happen indeed. But then these

Pharisees said that Jesus was only able to do

any of this because he was in cahoots with the

devil himself and thus deceiving the nation of

Israel. And so it's here that our Lord brings

attention to their rhetoric and says either approve

of me and my deeds or condemn me and my deeds

but don't say that I do good but I'm evil at

the same time. It doesn't make sense. That's

the challenge of Jesus to the Pharisees here.

He essentially says don't say that I'm an evil

man going about doing good things, make up your

minds and you can do that by looking at my actions

because it will tell you something of my heart.

That's why this picture here is so helpful to

us. An apple tree doesn't produce pears. And

a pear tree doesn't produce dragon fruit. A tree

is known by its fruit. And that's what Jesus

is saying here. He's saying the way we evaluate

the heart is by what it produces. And so with

that in mind, if we think of our Lord Jesus here,

From the get -go, from the very beginning of

this gospel that Matthew has given to us, we've

seen Jesus draw all manner of people into the

kingdom of heaven by his deeds and his words.

From the get -go, everything that Jesus has done

has reflected something of the true nature of

Him being the Son of God, the Saviour of the

world, the servant of God. His words and deeds

have reflected that every step of the way, He

has been Emmanuel, God with us. That's been the

fruit of the tree, so to speak. Now, contrast

that with the Pharisees. I mean, they acted like

these great men of God, but they spoke wickedly

towards the Son of God continually. They've said

one thing about how to obey scripture, but haven't

followed it themselves. They've followed their

traditions. Again, not so with our Lord. No,

we can assess Jesus by what Matthew has given

us to know him and he's revealed him time and

time again to be the Son of God because his life

reveals his heart. His life reveals to us a man

who is humble, a man who's caring and compassionate,

a man who served the weakest and most broken

and a man who loved not just in word but in all

that he did as well. To put that simply, the

fruit reveals that the tree is good. Very, very

good. So in light of that, I might ask this morning,

what do your words reveal about the deepest part

of you? If you were to say that someone was to

film your life for a good few weeks and then

you were to watch it back in a Netflix special,

what kind of drama would it be? What kind of

show would you be flicking on? A humorous thought

maybe, maybe not. But this is the sort of thinking

behind what Jesus is giving to us here. He gives

us something in these verses by which we can

truly examine ourselves. Our actions and our

speech indicate what's really going on inside

of us. It's the fruit of the tree, so to speak.

So would you say that your life and actions reflect

a life that's been transformed, that's been graciously

born again by the work of our Heavenly Father?

Would you say that your words and actions towards

those around you, even your enemies, has been

seasoned with the love and the grace of God?

It's amazing what we can learn about ourselves

and others when we stand back and look at the

fruit. Well, here that we learn that Jesus' fruit

reveals a good and godly character. And the Pharisees'

character, well, it was revealed by their fruit

as well. And we see here in our text this morning

that Jesus, he calls them on it. saying in verse

34, essentially what Jesus is saying here is

that the Pharisees are talking snakes in that

they want to look good but reveal their slithering

slimy characters by their slanderous words. They

might try their hardest to put on a good, godly

persona out there in the world, but to the King

of Kings, there was no pulling the wool over

his eyes, because their words, their words reveal

their hearts. Brothers and sisters, this truth

still stands today. I think it's a warning to

those in the church that deceive themselves.

I mean, you might preach, you might write books,

you might do missionary work, you might evangelise,

play music, all the while having a heart that's

deceived. That's the verdict that our Jesus pronounces

on these men here. They were the religious elite

of the day. They were the visible shepherds that

Israel looked to, but Jesus, he calls them on

their hypocrisy. He calls them on their actions

as revealing their true characters. And that's

because at the end of the day, they didn't really

know God. They didn't really know his love or

his grace or his mercy. And we see that in the

way that they speak about Jesus, who is the revelation

of God in the flesh, Emmanuel, God with us. I

mean, we saw it last week. They saw God operating

in their very midst, casting out a vicious, tormenting

demon. And instead of standing back and praising

and glorifying God for this amazing work, they

opposed Jesus to his face. with slanderous speech,

which revealed their hearts towards God. In one

way, they worked so hard to keep up a public

persona of godliness and piety, but their speech

gave them away. Their speech exposed their hearts

as being utterly darkened and hardened. to the

things of God. Church, this is a pretty terrifying

passage if we think about what's going on here.

I mean, we can work really hard to make the outside

look so nice and shiny. But if we haven't been

transformed by God's grace on the inside, It

might not happen straight away but there will

be some area where the truth of the heart is

exposed. And the warning here is that you might

try really hard with the makeup and with the

masks but there will always be an area of our

lives where the truth will break through and

expose what's really going on. The Pharisees,

they looked so good and shiny but their darkened

hearts manifested itself in blasphemy and slander

and it gave them away as men that didn't really

know the God of Israel who had sent his only

begotten son into this world to serve and to

seek and to save the lost. Brilliant sermon done

on this very passage was done by Augustine in

the fifth century. And he says this, the words

of men betray the secrets of their hearts. John

Calvin, the great reformer, says the tongue is

the mirror of the heart. If a man's words are

evil, it's evidence that his heart is evil. All

this to say our words, our speech, it comes from

the abundance of our hearts. It's the fruit,

it's the language of the soul. we might say.

And Jesus here, he points out a way for us to

know what's going on in our hearts. And it's

here that we see that even people who might go

to church, their whole lives can be utterly deceived

about the very real state of their hearts. This

is the thing, brothers and sisters. We're not

going through this text this morning because

we're going through it because Jesus doesn't

want us going the same way. Jesus doesn't want

people to be self -deceived. No, this event,

these words that have been inspired in Holy Scripture

is because Jesus wants us to stand back and really

take a long hard look at what is coming out of

our mouths. So we might think of this like a

tool in which we can test ourselves somewhat.

Granted, our speech doesn't ultimately make us

righteous, we'll get to that in a moment, but

it does, as we see here, reflect something that's

going on deep down inside of us. Jesus would

have us reflect this morning on how we speak

because it tells us a lot about ourselves. As

many of you know I was a drummer before I became

a pastor and I got a chance to travel around

quite a bit and it always struck me that anywhere

you went in the world you could an Aussie accent

with just a couple of words of them speaking.

Be it in a crowd, at a sporting match, or at

a party, as soon as you hear, g'day Cobber, radio,

striker lights. I always felt that sense of familiarity

and homeness. And I want you to think about this

because I never heard the Aussie accent and ever

wondered where on earth that person was from.

Now when I heard the harsh Aussie lingo, which

by the way stands out like a sore thumb in Europe,

I knew exactly what part of the planet that person

was from. And I think Jesus would have us think

the same way about our speech. It informs us

of which kingdom we belong to. A language that

is continually and unapologetically slanderous,

blasphemous and hateful reveals that one doesn't

really have a claim of having an accent that

reflects a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.

As a church, who do you sound like? What is your

speech full of? What is it flavoured with? Our

words are a language into the soul by which we

get a gauge of what kingdom we belong to. Jesus

then sort of revisits that first illustration

here in our text of trees and fruit, but this

time with storerooms out of which people kind

of bring things that have been stacked up in

there. Saying in verse 35, A good man brings

good things out of the good stored up in him

and an evil man brings evil things out of the

evil stored up in him. See what Jesus is getting

at here is that each person's heart is like a

storehouse in which we bring out the things that

have been stored and kind of stacked up in there.

I remember when Haley and I moved to England

and in order for us to have all our things overseas

we had to put our entire lives which was mainly

my drum kits and awesome record collection in

a shipping container so that when we got to England

we wouldn't have to start from scratch. Now not

for a moment did we expect that when the shipping

container arrived that when we opened it, that

there would be a car in there, that there would

be a boat in there and a whole stack of cash

just waiting for us to take out. And our Lord's

point is this, you can't bring something out

that isn't there in the first place. So when

we bring forth good things that's pleasing to

God, that's righteous in His sight, that's a

great sign that God's grace is at work in one's

heart. But when we continually bring forth things

that are evil, it's either a sign that we're

contradicting the work of the Holy Spirit in

us, or that we're totally empty and void of spiritual

goodness altogether. Church, the desire, the

want to do good, to praise God, to worship God,

and to obey his commands, well, that's a wonderful

indication of a spiritual work that is really

going on in our hearts. But when our hearts are

continually set on evil things and our words

are consistently tearing down and destroying

and slandering and gossiping about others and

irreverent towards God, will you be the judge?

Our Lord is clear here. The storehouse, the shipping

container. We can only bring out what's stacked

up in there, which is to say our hearts can only

bring out what's going on inside of us. And that's

heard in the way that we speak and seen in the

way we act. And Jesus would have us reflect on

these things, not because our works ultimately

save us. But they are key indicators to what's

going on. deep within our hearts. You see, the

true children of God want to sound and act like

their father. That's what children want to do.

They want to be like their father. That's what

we ought to long for. We ought to long to speak

and act like the one we proclaim to follow with

all that we are. And this can only happen because

of God's grace towards us. It will come as no

surprise to you, but one of the hardest things

to tame is the tongue. It's like a sword that

slashes and dashes and dices people to pieces.

It's why we teach our children that nursery rhyme

that you all remembered this morning. Well done.

Because our words are powerful and they hurt.

They cause great harm to others. But our words,

they can also build up. They can rally the troops.

They can inspire whole nations. I don't know

if you've listened to Winston Churchill lately,

but his stuff is inspiring. And the children

of God ought to desire to lean in on the Holy

Spirit's work in our lives to see the real transformation

that He is doing in this area. And that's the

thing, no one will see real transformation unless

the Holy Spirit is truly present and at work

in their lives. As He is the One. He is the agent

that gives the new heart to deeply desire to

want to obey our God with all that we are and

to want to bring things out that are pleasing

to our Father and Friends that only happens when

one believes on the Lord Jesus Christ when one

accepts his claims and Receives him as the only

Savior of our souls 16th century reformer Thomas

Cramner, he once put it like this, our words

are a testimony of our repentance and faith in

Christ. And all of this leads to verses 36 and

37, where our Lord says, but I tell you that

everyone will have to give an account on the

day of judgment for every empty word they've

spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted

and by your words you will be condemned. Jesus

couldn't be any more clearer. Our words either

condemn or acquit. Now you might be here this

morning and thinking to yourself, but wait, I

thought all I had to do was believe that Jesus

was a real person at some point in history. Well,

that's a good start. We do have to believe, but

belief as the Bible defines it is to trust Christ

implicitly with all that he claims to be and

do for us. And what our Lord brings out here

is that our words make manifest if they're a

life defined by that grace and that truth or

a life That really hasn't surrendered at all.

Friends, there will come a day when each and

every single one of us, not just in this room,

but on the face of the planet, will give an account

for what we've said and done. And it's here that

Jesus reminds us that our hearts will manifest

a life that's either trusted and obeyed or like

the Pharisees. has been self -deceived and hypocritical.

We don't like to think about this much in our

day and age, but in light of the revelation of

God as manifested in His Son, as revealed by

the Holy Spirit of God, our words don't just

disappear into the air, never to be thought of

again. God takes note. And slanderous grievous

evil words are displeasing to our God. So in

thinking about all of what we've looked at this

morning, what is the general and consistent tone

of your speech? Is it gracious and loving and

godly and edifying or is your tongue like a cesspool

that has the accent of darkness to it. Well,

brothers and sisters, only you can sit back and

judge yourself in the spiritual mirror this morning,

but I do want to say a couple of things as we

end in our text here. First, if you claim Jesus

as savior, then these words that we have heard

this morning are the words of God. And they remind

us that it's impossible, absolutely impossible

for any of us to walk perfectly before our God.

Our tongue teaches us a few things, yes, but

it also is the instrument in which we can confess

our sin and ask Him that by His grace, He would

forgive us. and that he would strengthen us in

this area so that our speech would more and more

and more reflect a life that has been truly transformed

by the power of God in us. Second, if you're

here this morning and you haven't called upon

the name of the Lord, then you need to know that

there's no amount of effort or works on your

behalf to keep the reality of your heart condemning

you in the end. The Bible says without holiness,

no one will see the Lord, but this is the thing,

dear friend. There is one who has been perfect,

who has been holy, who has been pure, has been

righteous, has the perfect fruit, has bought

out the perfect things from the storehouse. And

the Bible says that if you declare with your

mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart

that he was raised from the dead, you will be

saved. For it's with your heart that you believe

and are justified. It's with your mouth that

you profess your faith and are saved. Brothers

and sisters, none of us are accepted because

of our own storerooms and shipping containers.

In other words, no one is accepted because of

our own lives. No, it is only by the life, death

and resurrection of Jesus Christ truly being

credited to us that we will ultimately be accepted.

Do you believe that in your heart today? Do you

confess that with your mouth today? If so, may

our God give you the strength over your tongues

and over your actions by continually changing

and renovating and refining your heart, conforming

you more and more into the image of our Lord

Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father God, these are

potent words. but words that are from you and

your word is a double -edged sword. And we thank

you for the words of eternal life that cause

us to raise our eyes to the Lord Jesus and to

confess him as our only way. Lord, this morning

as you have worked in and among us, by your word

we ask that by your spirit we would Confess with

our mouths where we have fallen short. Confess

where we trust the gospel. And believe in our

hearts that as we go out into the world that

you are the one who is continually conforming

us into the image of your son. Lord, we ask that

you would use us as a living sacrifice, this

church, this community, as a living sacrifice

to be a light on the hill here in Armidale. We

ask for these things in Jesus' name and for your

sake.