Different Fruit (Derik Fuller) | Different

Please be seated church good morning forward you're going to

ask you to open your Bibles to Luke chapter 6 verses 43 to 45.

Luke 6:43–45

You're using the Bibles found underneath some of the chairs in

the main odd here it's page 915 or you can download the Bible

app. What a great tool that is.

You can get all the versions of the Bible in all sorts of

languages. It's absolutely free.

You can download it on your phone.

But we're in Luke chapter 6, verse 43 to 45.

Luke 6:43–45

What a great morning it's been this morning, man.

It's so good to worship together as God's people, to be rooted

and reminded of these great truths that we've been singing

together, and then to celebrate these baptisms.

What a joy that is to use the language of our text today.

What those people who are being baptized were saying was this,

that Jesus has given them a different route and that's

creating different fruit. That's what I want to talk about

today. So if this is your first time

with us, man, we're so glad that you're here.

Maybe you're just looking for a church to call your own and, and

to make your home. We'd love this to be the place

for you. Maybe you're here today and

you're exploring faith. You heard some of the stories of

people just exploring faith and finding Jesus.

Maybe you're on that journey of exploring faith.

We're glad that you're here. Maybe you don't know what you

believe about God. Maybe somebody's dragged you

along because they got baptized today and deep down there, like,

hey, this is what's changed my life.

I would love to see it change your life.

And whether you knew that or not, that's why they brought you

along and they wanted you to be here to witness what's going on

in their life. No matter who you are, no matter

where you've been, no matter where you're coming from.

I just want you to know this, we love the fact that you're here

and just relax right now because I know it's nerve wracking.

You come into church, maybe you haven't been in church for a

long time or never been in church.

You're like, what's this guy going to do?

I'm not going to ask you for money right now so you can let

go of your wallet. I mean, I'm not here to guilt

you. I, I don't want you to walk out

of here just feeling all uncomfortable.

What I want to do this morning is this.

I want us to see how the baptisms that we experienced and

the words that Jesus are going to speak today, they tell the

same story. So we've been in this section of

scripture in the in the book of Luke that's called the Sermon on

the plain. Jesus has given this extended

teaching about what it looks like for people to follow him

and how different life becomes. And there's this huge crowd

that's gathered and he's just given this consistent message.

And hopefully you've seen it if you've been walking with us,

that if you're going to follow Jesus, life is going to be

different in all sorts of different ways that we've talked

about. And so today Jesus is kind of,

we're in the second to last week of this.

Jesus is bringing it all to a head.

And he's saying that ultimately, all these differences that he's

been speaking to the crowd in front of them that we are

receiving today as we walk through his word are rooted in

the fact that they come out of a heart that's been made

different. And the big idea that's going to

kind of undergird not only everything that we're talking

about today, but everything that we've talked about thus far is

this, that the fruit of your life will always reveal the root

of your heart. The fruit of your life will

always reveal the root of your heart.

So let's let's walk through these verses together.

Luke 643 to 45 encourage you to read these words as I walk

through them, read along with me.

This is the words of Jesus. Jesus is a good tree doesn't

produce bad fruit. On the other hand, a bad tree

doesn't produce good fruit, for each tree is known by its own

fruit. Figs aren't gathered from thorn

bushes, grapes picked from a Bramble Bush.

No, a good person produces good out of the good stored up in his

heart. An evil person produces evil out

of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from

the overflow of the heart. Here's the first thing that I

want you to see today. You can't produce good fruit

from a bad root. That's that's what Jesus starts

off by saying. He uses this really obvious, It

seems like a of course Jesus type of illustration, right?

You don't need a commentary for this.

You don't need any type of theology degree.

You don't need to be a horticulturalist to understand

the reality that you can't produce good fruit from a bad

root. And I love this about Jesus.

I love the fact, see anybody can make a simple thing and make it

complex. Lots of people like to sound

smart by taking simple things and making them complex.

One of the things I love about Jesus is Jesus takes really deep

truths and makes them so simple and approachable for us, right?

He's just saying this. Healthy tree, healthy fruit,

unhealthy tree, unhealthy fruit. Jesus's primary concern here,

though, is not that we understand horticulture.

It's about teaching us about some realities of the human

condition. And he's saying this, what your

life will eventually reveal is what you're rooted in.

Your life always reveals through your actions, your words, your

deeds, what you're rooted in. And you can fake it for a little

while, right? You can fool people for a little

while, you can Polish yourself up for the right situations, you

can behave well in public for a bit, you can keep up an image

for a while. But eventually, inevitably,

inescapably, fruit shows up. Because the fruit of your life

will always reveal the root of your heart.

See if you're rooted in pride. Eventually, it'll show up in

your relationships. Eventually, you'll be in a

relationship with people. And the people who are closest

to you, they often see this first, right?

Like they'll know that you're the person who's quick to

criticize you Got a critical heart.

Why is that? Because you have a root of

pride. You'll be a person who struggles

to grant forgiveness because you're too proud.

I mean, you don't have to grant forgiveness if you never ask for

forgiveness, right? If you're rooted in insecurity,

it eventually shows up in your decisions.

It'll show up in your people pleasing behaviors, or it'll

show up in your inability to make a decision.

The fact that you're constantly paralyzed if you're in rooted in

bitterness, I mean you, we've, we've all, we, we all know the

people around us in our lives who have a root of bitterness

has grown up because it just flows out of their tone, right?

It's, it's just their tone drips with a sense of bitterness, envy

at other people. If you're rooted in fear, it

comes out in your reactions. You will be an anxious or angry

person. By the way, both of those things

tend to be rooted in fear, anger, and anxiousness.

If you're rooted in selfishness, it, it shows up in your bank

account, in your bank statement. It shows up in the way that you

invest your time in things or don't invest your time in

things. Because the fruit of your life

will always, at the end of the day, reveal the root of your

heart. You can't hide it forever.

So many of us try and fix ourselves by starting at the

wrong end. We started trying to fix

ourselves by focusing on the fruit.

We're like. We're like a gardener going out

and seeing the the tree is sick and taking good fruit out of our

fridge and stapling it on to the tree.

We try and fix the problem by stapling some fruit on, but that

doesn't make the tree healthy and eventually what happens?

The staples fall out, the fruit falls off, and you see once

again clearly the tree is sick. You can fool people for a while,

but you can't fix the problem by stapling fruit on a tree.

For some of you, This is why your spiritual life feels so

exhausting, because the entirety of everything that you have been

doing is just trying to fix the fruit.

You just keep on trying to staple stuff on and it falls

off. Then you're going to get more

fruit. You got to staple it on.

It's exhausting work. A tree doesn't work itself up

like that. The tree bears fruit from its

roots. Like an apple tree doesn't have

to say, I got to try really hard to make apples.

Apples are what come off of apple trees.

You need to stop trying to produce fruit and instead let

Jesus transform the root. The whole sermon on the plane

Jesus is describing what happens when someone is rooted in him.

This is so important if you're going to understand this passage

here in all of Scripture, right. He so he said, like, if if

you're rooted in me, you're going to produce a different

type of love where you even are able to love your enemies.

You can't work that up in you. You're going to you'd have a

different way about you and your ability to forgive.

It's going to be different the way that you treat people who

hurt you. It's going to be different the

way that you look at other people.

You're not going to look at other people through a lens of

judgement and and a critical lens.

Your heart's going to be different when it comes to

generosity because we're going to see your speech is going to

be different. And you can't do this through

just sheer force of will. I'm just telling you, you will

get exhausted and you will give up or everybody will see that

you're a fraud sooner or later. If you truly want to change your

fruit, you got to change your root.

You can't produce good fruit from a bad root.

Then he says this. He says in verse 44, each tree

is known by its own fruit. Figs aren't gathered from thorn

bushes or grapes picked from a Bramble Bush.

The second thing Jesus wants us to see is that your fruit shows

what you're rooted in. See, as Jesus is extending this

metaphor, he's extending the illustration in the point.

He's saying if you want to know what type of tree a tree really

is, check out the fruit that grows.

That's how you find it out, Don't You don't ask the tree

what the tree claims to be. You don't.

You don't look for a label on the ground somewhere that's

affixed to the tree. It's it's not about what the

tree intends to be. What a tree ultimately is is

revealed by the fruit that comes off of it.

Fruit always tells the truth. You you say?

So I'm like, I believe in God. Wonderful.

I'm a spiritual person. Great.

I go to church when I can, if I can make it.

Sometimes I even go to a discipleship group.

If I'm really, really, really spiritual, I go to an equipped

class. I've got one of those Christian

T-shirts that I put on from time to time that Derek showed a

couple weeks back. I haven't worn it since because

I felt embarrassed. I got a Jesus fish on my back.

I've memorized all sorts of scriptures.

All great. That's wonderful.

But Jesus says, what's the fruit?

Because a thorn Bush, it can't grow figs.

A Bramble Bush, it can't grow grapes.

A heart that lacks deep faith is going to struggle to show deep

peace. A heart that hasn't experienced

forgiveness at the end of the day is going to run out of the

ability to forgive these as Jesus has walked through the

things that should be true of his followers.

Again, that radical love for enemies.

This is Jeremy talked about last week.

Just a heart for for justice and for those who are oppressed to

be met with justice and kindness and love.

Hearts filled with mercy and generosity.

Humility instead of hypocrisy. Those are not tasks that Jesus

is giving. They're traits that show up when

your heart gets transformed. He's listing fruits that grow

out of a new heart. Again, Jesus doesn't say each

tree is known by its intentions or each tree is known by the

rightness of its theological beliefs.

Let me ask you a question. If you came to a tree and it had

a label on it that said orange tree but there was a whole bunch

of bananas growing off of it, would you assume the tree was

wrong in its fruit or the OR the sign was wrong on the tree?

That's what Jesus is saying. Each tree is ultimately known by

its fruits. Your fruit will always show at

the end of the day what you're rooted in.

No matter what label you want to put on yourself, if you're

rooted in Christ, it should end up showing up in your fruit.

It doesn't happen. All the ones.

You don't go out to a tree all at once and see all the fruit.

One day there was no fruit. Now there's all fruit.

It takes time. God works on us.

But when the root gets changed, the fruit begins to change.

And if the label isn't matching the fruit, the problem is not

the fruit, it's the label. Verse 45 A good person produces

good out of the good stored up in his heart.

An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his

heart. That's what what he's saying is

this. What takes root in your heart

will bear fruit in your life. See Jesus now taking what has

been implicit in this illustration He's given.

He's getting us real explicit. He's moving from the orchard to

our souls. He says, your heart, my heart,

it's like soil. Whatever takes root in that soil

and the quality of the soil that's there with the root

that's in it will determine and will bear fruit right here in

the here and now. So what takes root in your heart

will bear fruit in your life again if you allow bitterness

and, and, and the Bible even talks about this thing called a

root of bitterness that just works its way down into our

hearts and our souls. And when that bitter root gets

rooted, man, it produces nasty fruit.

When fear gets rooted in our heart produces anxiety.

Lack of peace. When shame.

Man, I've just seen this so many times that I'm so sick of seeing

this because I think Satan just uses shame in powerful ways that

so many of us don't understand. When shame takes root in your

heart, When you see yourself through the mirror of shame,

isolation is what happens, and people run away from community

right when they need it the most.

When pride takes root in our heart, sense of entitlement,

even anger at God when things don't go my way takes root.

Roots never stay hidden forever. They start down there in the

ground under the soil, but sooner or later as that root

sits there, it puts shoots up. At some point in due season, we

see what comes out. But the flip side is also true.

And this is what Jesus says here, right?

Because it's not just a bad root that takes root and bears

Bratford, but he says, no, there's also this other reality.

This is a good news reality that the good news, the truth of God,

goodness can take root. The gospel can take root in a

life, and when the good news takes fruit, good fruit begins

to bear. Like the gospel.

At its core is this. We talked about this a couple

weeks ago, Romans 5/8 that God proved his own love for us in

this. While we were still sinners,

Christ died for us. I don't know how to tell you how

good that news is. It is such good news, and when

you believe that to be true, when when that truth starts to

take root and you begin to believe it in all these

different areas of your life, when you allow the truth of that

to take root, all sorts of things by the power of the Holy

Spirit begin to change. See when grace takes root in

your life. When you realize I didn't earn

my salvation. God proved His love for me and

this there was nothing good about me, and he ran towards me

to save me and rescue me. When that's true in your life,

when you begin to believe that in all these different parts of

your life, you know what gross gratitude grows.

Man, God is so good to me. He's so kind, He's done so much.

I deserve nothing and he gave me everything.

How could you not grow in gratitude?

When love takes root, When you understand man, God loved you at

your worst while you were a Sinner, Not just the sins you

had committed, but all the sins you're going to commit still,

and he ran towards you instead of away from you.

Then instead of shame taking root, instead this, this

beautiful reality of confession within the context of community

where we can support each other and love each other, that takes

root. When faith takes root, when you

have roots going down that really believe that Jesus saved

me and if he did the saving, there's nothing I can undo

because this isn't about me, it's not about my works.

Then you know what grows up in you?

Peace and confidence. Because you know nothing can

take you away from God, and if He's promised you a future with

Him forever in heaven, He'll deliver that you can't get away

from it because He's running after you to pull you back.

A new heart and new truths produce a new root and new

fruits. The best way to test?

Because we're like, what? It's really hard to know

sometimes, right? What's in US until sometimes

it's too late because we've really done some damage.

How would we test what is inside of us?

What what's taking root? Jesus says, let me tell you,

it's your words. It's verse 45.

A person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart

and evil produce person produces evil out of the evil stored up

in his heart. And then he says this, for his

mouth speaks from the overflow of his heart.

You want to know what's going on in your heart, in here inside

you. Watch your words because your

words are the ripened fruit of your rooted heart.

See, up to this point, Jesus has shown us right.

What you're rooted in will eventually come out of you.

Your fruit shows what you're rooted in, and what takes root

in your heart will bear fruit in your life.

And now he says, if you want to see your fruit clearly, if you

want to see what that root is that's in there, listen to your

words because your words are the right fruit that shows what's

truly rooted in your heart. He's saying this.

He's saying your words. My words, they're a loudspeaker.

I think a lot of us, we wonder we, we come to these points,

something happens in our life and all of a sudden we just lose

it on somebody, right? And we said, where did that come

from? How did that come out?

Why did I take that tone? Why was I so sharp?

Why? Why did I explode like that?

I got a cup here. If somebody bumped into me in

this moment and hit my arm, what would come out of this cup?

Whatever is already in it. Whatever is already in the cup,

something that's not in here can't come out.

What comes out when I get bumped is what's already in it.

What comes out of me when life bumps up against me, when

somebody rubs up against me wrong, when somebody makes me

angry. No, they didn't make me angry or

anxious. I was angry and anxious and they

bumped into me and it came out. See, Jesus says what's in you is

what comes out of you. What's in you is what shoots out

of your mouth. So when when condescending words

slide out of your mouth, when demeaning words that tear

somebody else come out of your mouth, it's because you got a

root of pride already in your heart.

That's what's in you. Somebody's not put it into you.

It is in you. It's come out of you when when

angry words, when rage filled words.

Guys, I'm talking to you especially man.

So many men struggle with anger. And as long as you think that

those words that came out of you, those angry words are

ultimately the result of somebody else, you won't ever

get to the root of the problem. Nobody made you angry.

You have an anxious or an entitled heart.

Somebody bumped into you and wrecked the fact that you're not

the center of the universe, and out of you spilled the rage that

came with that. If you struggle with lying,

struggle with telling the truth, it's because maybe you have an

insecure heart. So you've got to create an

image. You've got to craft an image

that will make people think something about you.

Or you've got to say lie so you don't set somebody else off

because they might think poorly of you.

Or maybe you've got a fearful heart that people would actually

see you for who you really are, and so you craft stories.

Maybe you've got a striving heart where you want to be

somebody else and you want to get ahead, so you try and

deceive your way there. But the issue is there's

something in your heart that's causing the lies.

Our words are the ripened fruit of our rooted heart.

Your mouth will eventually tell the truth about what you're

rooted in and where the roots go.

So if you want to dive down into your heart, start with your

mouth. But the good news again, it's

just as real when grace takes root.

When, when, When you allow the truth of God's grace to to

continue to change your heart. Then words of gratitude and

appreciation, instead of criticism and judgement grow.

When confidence takes root, you don't have to puff yourself up

or tear others down. Then words of encouragement take

root or take or grow as love takes root in your heart.

Words of care and compassion for others grow when humility takes

root. It's amazing how much more

patient our words get because when Jesus takes root, Jesus

like words grow. Words aren't the cause of the

problem. Words are the evidence of the

root. So how do you change the fruit?

You change the root. If your words are going to

change, if your actions are going to be transformed, then we

need to be changed from the inside out, not the outside in.

To produce fruit we have to be made new.

We need new hearts, we need a new route, and that starts with

allowing Jesus to make you new, to change your heart, to give

you a new heart inside. 2nd Corinthians 517 to 18 says,

therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away, the new has come.

Everything is from God. God does it all who has

reconciled us to himself through Christ.

That's how things begin to change when we begin to believe

that truth, that Jesus alone can make me new.

And we place our faith in the fact that Jesus, when he died on

the cross, all of those bitter, angry, awful roots, they get

nailed to the cross. Jesus puts them to death on the

cross. So that's the old us now.

And He gives us a new heart that's been transformed by His

grace and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We choose to believe that my sin was nailed and put to death with

Christ, so I get to live in Christ with Christ.

That's the first step. You've never come to a point

where you have believed that your sin can't get fixed by you.

Stapling new fruit on your sin can only get fixed by trusting

in Jesus Christ and rooting yourself down deep in the truth

that He saved you, He rescued you, He paid the price and

you're righteous through him and not of yourself.

You can do that today. Just call out to him and say,

Jesus, I believe I'm done trying on my own.

I'm done working this trying to staple fruit on myself all the

time. Would you come in and make me

new? And that's what he does by the

power of the Holy Spirit. That's the gospel.

But Christians, we don't move on from the gospel.

We root ourselves in it. I think so many Christians think

I received the gospel is true. Now give me all the stuff to do

as if that's maturity. That is not maturity.

Maturity is figuring out where you still don't, your heart

still struggling to believe the gospel, and allowing the gospel

to get real in those areas, like those of you who are baptized

today. The rest of the journey is

figuring out how to apply the truth that you confessed while

you were in that tank to all the different areas of your life.

That's what it looks like, letting what you confess and

Jesus has already done in your life through the cross work its

way out in all of these areas, letting the truth of that sink

down deep. Followers of Jesus, what's the

fruit of your life? Especially the words of your

mouth, because the words of your mouth are proclaiming where

there's still work to be done in changing your heart to believe

the gospel to be true. A good person produces good

fruit out of the good stored up in his heart.

Are you storing up the truths of Scripture so the Holy Spirit can

bring those to mind and and can bring new fruit out of it?

Don't settle for stapled fruit, Church.

Don't settle for stapled fruit. This is not a call to try

harder. This is not about you

manufacturing fruit in your life.

You know, we don't participate in all these things, these

spiritual disciplines. We don't participate in reading

the Word of God and praying and fasting and coming and

worshipping together collectively.

We don't participate in them to put fruit on ourself.

We participate in them so that God can produce new fruit in us

through our participation. The stuff, the disciplines,

they're not the fruit. They're they're the nourishment

we give so that Jesus can work the fruit.

Holy Spirit can work the fruit up.

The fruit of your life reveals the root of your heart.

To change the fruit, you got to change the root.

You need to, like we talked about at the beginning of this

fall, you need to abide. We're going to close with this

song Abide that we started singing back in September and

and I would just say as we sing this song, sing, sing the words,

but also just be calling out through the Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit. Are there are there roots in my

life that need to get fixed? What what's been what's been

taken hold in your heart? Just show him look, what in my

life needs to be pruned? Where do I need to believe

different truths and have a different route?

So I would bear different fruit and just ask Him to help you to

abide daily, deeply, desperately.

Because a different fruit always flows from a different route.

And a different route begins when you allow your heart to

begin to abide in Jesus and what He has done for you.

Let's sing.