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Lansing SDA Church

David Shin

Fruits and Roots

Our message this morning is entitled, Fruits and Roots.

And I want to invite you to turn with me in your Bibles, if you have not already, to our Scripture reading, Matthew 7.

This is from the Sermon on the Mount, that great, the greatest sermon, I would say, that was ever preached, and Jesus here is giving the principles of the kingdom of heaven, Matthew chapter 7, as Doug has read, Matthew chapter 7, verses 1 through 5.

Jesus here is talking about principles of the Kingdom of Heaven.

He's laying down heavenly truth, And when you study the Bible, you will notice that whenever Jesus talks about truth, he never talks about truth as an isolated proposition or an idea.

This is coming from Greek mentality, which is very common to our thinking today because we've been educated and grown up in a society that has heavy Greek influences.

In other words, we think of truth as propositional, as a concept or an idea, a philosophy.

But Jesus made the revolutionary statement in the Gospel saying, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

In other words, truth existed in his person.

You cannot separate truth from an individual.

And here in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is illustrating that truth should affect our Christian behavior, amen?

And when we talk about truth, I have here on the screen a spectrum of different pits that many times we can fall into, and incidentally the devil doesn't mind which pit we fall into just as long as we fall into 1 of them.

On 1 side we have judgmentalism, and this is a side where a person may have a high view of truth, but they don't always have the right spirit.

On the other side, you have people that are very high on individuals, on people, but they have a low view of truth or a relative view of truth.

Someone may say, I accept you as an individual and what you believe is good for you.

And what you, what I believe is good for me, let's just love each other, hold hands, and sing kumbaya, and we can just come together.

It's a very high view of the individual, accepting the individual, but use truth in more relative terms.

On the other side, you have judgmentalism.

And this is a side where an individual has a high view of truth at the expense of an individual or a person.

Sometimes we can be so concerned about the truth, and yet we can be so unchristian in the way that we go about upholding the truth.

Jesus addresses both of these in Matthew chapter 7, and I want to look at the first 1 where Jesus addresses judgmentalism, 1-1-1-8, Matthew chapter 7, verses 1-5.

Jesus speaking, the words are in red, he says, Judge not that you be not judged.

For with what judgment you judged, you will be judged.

And with the measure you use, it'll be measured back to you.

And why do you look at the specks in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?

Or how do you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye, and look, a plank is in your own eye.

First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

I want to make a few simple observations here.

Number 1, the role of the Christian is always first self-examination.

In other words, God always calls us to examine ourselves and to see whether we are in the faith.

And the other thing is, isn't it human nature to always be looking out and comparing ourselves with other individuals?

You know, we live in a society like that where we're always basing our own standing with the standing of others, and I found that it's always easy to feel good about myself when I'm looking at the sins of others.

Here, Jesus says that we need to look at the point in our own eye before we look at the speck in other individuals' eyes.

Now, this poses somewhat of a problem because any time you say that something is wrong or something is right, we are, in a way, casting judgment.

And here Jesus addresses relativism, and I want to go very quickly to the latter part of this chapter in Matthew 7, verses 15-20.

And Jesus said, Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?

Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a 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.

And verse 20 says, Therefore by their, what does the Bible say?

So here Jesus is not saying that truth is relative.

He says that we are to look at the fruits of other individuals, not casting judgment, but also to know whether these teachers are from God or not.

Jesus here is addressing human nature, or the signs of humanity that we can see or not see, and people are made up of 2 dimensions in this way, the visible and the invisible, the side that everyone sees, the pastor in this case, the person that comes to church in his suit and tie, and the visible side, but there's also a side of humanity, a side of every person in this room that no 1 sees.

There's a side of you that only your family sees, and there's a side of you that only God sees.

That's your thoughts, your motives, your heart.

And Jesus here uses an interesting analogy from agriculture.

Here I have on the screen a picture of a tree, and on the tree you can see some of the fruits that are there.

This is the visible side of human nature that people can see, the side that people are aware of.

And then there's a side of you that no 1 sees, your heart, your motives, your desires, your intentions.

And Jesus here in Matthew 7 is alluding to the reality that when it comes to truth, there's a side of each 1 of us in this room that no 1 can judge.

That side of us that no 1 can judge is this side right here.

No 1 can judge our hearts, our thoughts, our motives, our intentions, and our desires.

Now, we've kind of swung the pendulum in society today because We live in a very pluralistic society.

And I've heard individuals say the statement, don't judge me.

And I think that's a truism in the sense that I am not to judge another person's heart.

But We also live in a society where we say we can't judge anything on the basis, on the moral basis, of whether something is right or wrong.

Let's say someone steals my car, my Subaru Forester.

They drive off with it, and I say, brother, if I have the opportunity to confront him, I say, brother or sister, that was wrong.

What you did in stealing my car was not right.

Now, that person may come back and say, David, don't judge me.

Now, I can't judge the motives or the intentions of that individual, but I can say categorically that someone stealing the car from me is wrong.

And that is the side where God is asking us to look not on the roots, but on the fruits.

If someone steals from me, If someone does things to break the 10 Commandments, this is not saying that the 10 Commandments are relative when it says we are not to cast judgment, but we are to leave things in the hands of God when it deals with this reality.

Now, there are instances in life, many times, when we see something visibly from the outside and we say this person is such and such and so and so and we're wrong.

Because we only see part of the picture, amen?

And that's where the Bible is telling us that when we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, we are to have compassion when looking upon others.

We are to first have a self-examination to see whether we are in the phase.

Here in 1 Samuel 16, verse 7, it says, Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

Praise the Lord that when the Lord looks at me he sees the complete picture.

He doesn't see just the outside but he sees the inside and the heart and I'm so glad that God is my ultimate judge.

Now I want to point out that this also applies to us in our own Christian experience that in our Christianity we are not to focus so much on the outside.

The outside will take care of itself when we're focused on the invisible side.

Here in Psalm 51 verse 10, the Bible tells us, create in me a clean heart.

That's a prayer that each 1 of us are to pray each and every day.

God says, cleanse the roots and The fruits will be right.

If you are in Jesus, you will have the fruits of the Spirit.

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Fruits and Roots

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