Text: Luke 6:43-45 | Listen to Message
Your life is like a fruit-bearing tree – and the fruit that grows announces to the world exactly what kind of tree you are.
If the root of your life is healthy, and it’s planted in healthy soil, your fruit will automatically be healthy. But the inverse is also true: if the root of your life is sickly, or it’s planted in poor soil, your fruit will automatically be unhealthy.
The implications of what Jesus says here are both profound and immensely practical. If you want to change the observable part of your life, you have to change the invisible part. In other words, if you don’t like your actions, words, and emotions, you have to be willing for God to change the deepest desires of your heart.
A healthy root planted in healthy soil will always bear healthy fruit.
So how do we change?
First, acknowledge that your heart desires things other than God. Whether these desires seem good (like the desire for affection) or evil (like the desire for revenge), the Bible calls these over-desires “idols.” They’re idols of the heart because we treasure, trust, and serve them in place of God.
Second, repent of this idol. Confess that you long for approval, respect, power, control, or whatever your thing is more than you long for Christ. Agree with God that this idol has over-promised, under-delivered, and lured you away from contentment in Christ. Turn away from it.
Third, trust Christ to satisfy everything you need. Expel your over-desires with a greater affection for the person and work of Jesus. Root or re-root your life in Christ.
Fourthly, bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Actually, this isn’t another thing you do, it’s simply a tool you can use to evaluate whether you’re actually walking in repentance and faith. If you are, you will automatically begin to see the fruit of his Spirit being borne in you.
Finally, it’s important to note that this process isn’t just some religious checklist you perform to get your transformation. Moralism doesn’t produce any long-term growth in godliness; it just produces deeper and deeper hypocrisy.
But here’s an encouraging word about real transformation: When you plant the roots of your life in the Gospel, the soil works on you!
See, the Gospel is the power of God unto your salvation – which includes not only your justification, but also your sanctification. In other words, the source and power of your moral transformation is not your performance, but Christ’s performance for you.
If you want healthy, godly fruit, go to the root. Desire Jesus. Ask and trust him to work. And the fruit will follow.
Sermon Notes & Application Questions