A Tree and its Fruit

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but every bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.

Matthew 7:15-20

Many of you know that I like hot peppers. I like them a lot. So much that I frequently grow my own. Last year I grew two kinds: cayenne peppers and habanero peppers. But there was one plant that didn’t quite look like the others. It was bigger than the other cayenne pepper plants and smaller than the habanero plants. As its peppers began to grow, they looked like cayenne peppers, but they were smaller, and I recognized them as ornamental peppers. When they got ripe, I tentatively tried one, and though they had a beautiful red color, they didn’t taste good.

They weren’t even hot!

So I left that plant with its pretty little red peppers, and at the end of the season, we ripped it up, peppers and all, and threw it in the wagon down here by the phone company.

This was important to me because I like to use my peppers – they aren’t supposed to be decorative. And I think the same is true of us as Christians. Our Christianity wasn’t meant to be decorative – it’s something that makes me look good – but was meant to be useful.

New Testament Christianity doesn’t make any sense without the Old Testament, especially regarding the covenant that God made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. "I will be your God, and you will be my people," God said. "I will bless you to be a blessing to the nations."

I grow peppers to be spicy. God grows Christians to be a blessing to others. What kind of plant are you?

Jesus prefaced this statement by telling his followers to enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

Let me go back to hot peppers for a moment: from one seed you can grow peppers of all manner of hotness. The trick is in the amount of water the plant receives. The less water it gets, the hotter the peppers it grows.

It is the job of a hot pepper to be hot, so, assuming that you want your hot peppers to be hot, it’s tempting to give them lots of water, but that will dilute the peppers’ heat. In the same way, I believe that our culture is full of false prophets who want us watered to the point where our heat is likewise diluted.

• They tell us that we can be just like everyone else, and that’s good enough.
• They tell us that times have changed and that our morals should change with the time.
• They tell us that sexual promiscuity is normal and that chastity and celibacy are outmoded; if we don’t agree, we’re just stupid.
• They tell us that we can be Christians on Sunday and something else the rest of the week.
• They tell us that our religious beliefs are private and should never be spoken in public.
• They tell us that it doesn’t matter what kind of garbage we put into our minds through the television and movies because "that really doesn’t affect us."
• They tell us that it doesn’t matter if we don’t know our Bibles – that’s what we pay our preacher for.
• They tell us to "do as I say, not as I do."

False prophets tell us all kinds of things, but the lies they tell us aren’t exactly Jesus’ main point. And, just as an aside, do you know what the Old Testament said about false prophets? Do you know how to spot a false prophet? If someone supposes to speak for God, they are to be judged by what they say. If they predict something will happen and it does not happen, they are a false prophet. And do you know what the Old Testament punishment is for false prophecy? If you guessed "death," you are correct. Why is that? It gives God a bad name, for one. When a well-known televangelist promised last year that God spoke to him and told him that there would be a major terrorist attack on US soil in 2007, and it didn’t happen, what did that do to his credibility? It shot it, as far as I am concerned.

This is one of the problems we face as we live as Christians in the world – simply put, every one of us who claims the name Christian, every one of us speaks for Christ. We speak by our words and our actions. And when the fruit of our lives doesn’t match with the plant "Christian" then we lose our credibility.

What fruit are we called to bear? Galatians 5:22-23 tells us that the Fruit of the Spirit is: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Is this how others see us? There is no law against any of these; nobody can say anything about them.

I was pretty disappointed when I found out that the pepper plant I’d planted was simply decorative – how much of our fruit is decorative? Good numbers for worship attendance and offering, singing songs that we like, looking nice, just getting along and not offending anybody. These are all decorative fruit.

But Romans 7:4 reminds us of the reason God saved us: so that we might bear fruit for Him. Remember the deal God made with Abraham? That He would bless them to be a blessing to the nations? That’s supposed to be our fruit as well! No matter what, we will be known by our fruit. So let’s be known by the fruit of the Spirit and by the harvest of souls for Jesus Christ.

Benediction: Colossians 1:9-14:
We have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from His glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints of the light.