Sermon Tone Analysis

*Fruitfulness*

*Intro:* Last month I spoke on the tree of LIFE - the need to choose life over knowledge.

Life is from God - He is the LIVING GOD - life is essential to who He is.

This morning I want to speak about something related.

What is life?

– it 's kind of hard to define, but two essential characteristics of life are growth and reproduction - fruitfulness.

This morning I want to talk about fruitfulness.

It is a matter dear to my heart.

Some twenty years ago now I came back to the LORD, was filled with the Holy Spirit and. as I said last week, it is the Spirit who gives life.

That was a signal point in my Christian walk and several significant things took place at that time.

One was an act of obedience, long put off, being baptised.

We all know the symbolism of baptism - we die with Christ, are buried with Him and rise to newness of life, the resurrection life of Christ.

[*Rom 6:3-13* /Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?

Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have become united with {Him} in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be {in the likeness} of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with {Him,} in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.

For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.

Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin {as} instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members {as} instruments of righteousness to God./]

That is the picture in baptism and the symbol was fulfilled.

New life came and there were immediate and supernatural changes - God did something!

Praise His Name.

At that baptism there were a number of significant messages from the LORD given through several believers.

God was speaking in a clear and dramatic way - it was very exciting to one whose Christian experience had been rather pedestrian, i.e. lifeless.

I knew God was speaking!

In particular there was a prophecy in tongues by a dear brother - I'd never experienced anything like this!

What did it all mean?

Well there was an interpretation of the tongue and, do you know? - it was just on what I had been reading in the Scripture.

God confirmed His word.

The word from the LORD was all about being FRUITFUL - and in particular that I would be fruitful.

If there is one thing that characterised my Christian life it was barrenness.

And here was God saying that He would make me fruitful.

One thing I knew, that if there was going to come fruit from Paul, it had to be God!

It had to be a miracle!

It had to be supernatural.

Well what do you do with a supernatural message from the LORD?

Sit back and bask in it?

feel good?

sit back and wait for it to happen?

True God does His work and fulfils His word but we must align ourselves with it, cooperate.

I knew that I couldn't make myself fruitful but what that word did was make me look to God's Word to see how fruitfulness comes, what I had to do in order to allow God's revealed purpose to come to fulfilment in my life.

So ever since that time fruitfulness is something that catches my attention and has been a matter of prayer ever since.

So I'd like to share a few thoughts from Scripture on the subject of fruitfulness.

For the promise or prophecy given to me is in fact the intention of God for all His chosen – that is why He chose you [*John 15:16* /You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and {that} your fruit would remain./].

*What is fruit:* It is all well and good to talk about how to bear fruit - but what is fruit?

Fruit is reproduction, so the obvious meaning is the life of Christ being reproduced – now this can be in others coming to know the Lord or it can be in His character being formed in us.

It is used both ways in Scripture – new believers: [*Romans 1:13* /I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented so far) so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles./*

Colossians 1:6*/ which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth./]

and of Christian character, the life of Jesus: *[Gal 5:22 */But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit/*.

**Ephesians 5:9 */for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth.

/*Philippians 1:11*/ having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God./].

The term fruit is also used of a gift of charity given by the Gentile churches to the poor in Jerusalem [*Romans 15:/28/*/ Therefore, when I have finished this, and have put my seal on this fruit of theirs, I will go on by way of you to Spain*.**

*/].

Always fruit it what you do: [*Matthew 3:7-10 */But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.

The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire*.

*/*Matthew 7:16-20*/ You will know them by their fruits.

Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?

So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.

A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

So then, you will know them by their fruits./]

The life we have in us will be seen in what we do.

Fruit is what the life of Jesus produces in you - His character in action, expressed in deeds – the outcome of a Christian life, what people see and benefit from the unseen life that is within us.

*How does fruit come?* – so how does fruit come – the following passages have been very significant in my Christian life in regard to this whole matter of bearing fruit – God told me that I would be fruitful, but I didn’t see any, how was it going to come about – He was going to do it but what was my part?

*Abiding:* - [*John 15:1-17 * /I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.

Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every {branch} that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.

You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

Abide in Me, and I in you.

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither {can} you unless you abide in Me. "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.

If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and {so} prove to be My disciples.

Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.

If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and {that} your joy may be made full.

This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

You are My friends if you do what I command you.

No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and {that} your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.

This I command you, that you love one another/] – An obvious thing about fruit is that it comes from a living tree – it is the product of life.

It is the same with us – the fruit that God looks for in us be it character or converts cannot (I stress that  CANNOT!)

come from us.

We cannot do it!

Until we come to that realisation we will be frustrated with total failure.

It doesn’t come from us it comes from Jesus.

It is His life that produces fruit.

It is not human love, human joy etc. it is Divine!

The only way is to abide in the One who has the life - abiding, not striving.

*Meditating*: - John’s favourite passage: [*Psalm 1:1* /How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!

But his delight is in the law of /hwhy/, And in His law he meditates day and night.

He will be like a tree {firmly} planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers./]

Jesus is the Source of the life that produces the fruit – how do we know Jesus – through the revelation of Him given in Scriptures.

Many people have many ideas about Jesus but the only reliable and true record about Him, in fact all that we know about Him, is found only in the Bible.

Jesus was the Word and the word, the Bible, accurately portrays the character of Jesus.

So as we meditate upon it, delight in it, absorb it – then that character becomes part of us.

We need to indoctrinate ourselves!

We have become a violent and sexually permissive society – why?

Because we spend so much time in front of a violent and sexually permissive TV.

We become like what we spend our time and thoughts upon.