The Fruit of the Heart
By Pastor Matt Black
17
January 2006
Mid-Week Prayer Service
Matthew 7:16-20
Open your Bibles to Matthew 7:16-20. The title of this evening’s message is “The Fruit of the Heart”.
Matthew 7:16-20, “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”
Introduction: Tonight we are going to go to the root of all human problems and we are going to see the only Biblical solution. The problem for our children is not their behavior. My problem is not my behavior. It is never that. The problem goes much deeper than that.
You may have a leak in the dam. One solution is to add water. The other is to go to the source. The source of all our problems is our heart. So tonight as we look at the fruit of our heart, our behaviour, we are going to see three principles:
I. The Heart Principle: The attitude of your heart is who you are. Your life produces what is in the heart. What you treasure in your heart is what will come out of your life. Your heart is always worshipping. It is always valuing something. It cannot be neutral! Tonight we need to do open heart surgery.
A. Man’s perspective.
An open heart reveals who you are. Now if you want to get to the heart, you must open up the thoughts and the attitudes.
Ø What are you like when you are alone?
Ø What do you dream of in secret?
Ø What do you do with your free time?
Ø How do you react in your inner attitude?
This passage says that is who you are! The fruit comes from the very life of the tree. Good tree=good fruit; Bad tree=bad fruit.
Now, you may be totally honest with your self, and still not get it. No matter how honest you are, you will NEVER see your heart as it is through your own spectacles. You will not stand before God on Judgment Day and be judged according to how you perceive yourself. This is the greatest lie in man’s heart—That God will judge us as we see us! We need to open our hearts tonight, but not on our own. That will never work. We need God’s assistance.
B. God’s assistance.
Your heart and life are not judged according to what you think it is, it is judged by what God knows it to be! You see, bad fruit may or may not be seen as bad by men, but God, who sees all motives and attitudes, and sees all secret things is the judge of the heart.
Ø Psalm 139:2, “Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.”
Ø We should pray as David. Psalm 139:23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
II. The Behavior Principle: Your behaviour reveals your heart. Matthew 7:16, “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
A. You see your heart is expressed on earth. It is expressed through your behavior. We see this in several places.
Ø Matthew 12:34-35, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. 35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.”
Ø Proverbs 4:23, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
1. A heart can only produce after its kind.
Matthew 7:17-18, “Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.”
Ø Bad Behavior comes from a bad heart.
Ø Good behavior comes from a right relationship with Jesus Christ.
B. Your heart may be expressed on earth, but it is examined in heaven! There is coming a day when all behavior will be judged. Our text Matthew 7:19, “Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.”
All men shall appear before Christ’s tribunal. All judgment has been committed to Him. “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:10).
Remember what Isaiah says about Christ? (11:4): “He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked”.
III. The Change Principle:
A. You are not in the business of changing hearts. Fallen creatures cannot change their sinful state—Why?
1. Pleasure. We are born as lovers of self and sin. We love sin like a pig loves mud. Our children are accustomed to doing evil. They love evil. “Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil” (John 3:19). Our children cannot change their sinful state because they are accustomed to it. This is all they know to do. Jeremiah 13:23 asks, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.” We do not have the ability to produce true goodness in the sight of God. Oh, we can produce plenty of things that look good in the sight of man, but anything that falls short of loving God with all our mind, all our heart, all our might—our strength—anything that falls short of that is SIN!
Have you noticed something in your children? They are accustomed to doing evil. They love it. They know it is wrong, but deep down in their hearts, they truly believe that God is going to excuse them, or else they would turn to him in mercy.
The truth of the matter is, without the grace of God, you cannot even open your heart, much less change it—you cannot see your own depravity, and neither can your children, except by the grace of God.
It is so important to grasp this in your own life. Your children will not turn themselves to God. They love their sin. They have pleasure in disobeying you and coddling their own way.
So neither us nor our children want to change their sinful state—Why? We have pleasure in sin and selfishness. But there is a second reason we nor our children cannot change.
2. Blindness. They do not see their sin as God sees it. They cannot. As long as they are in a state of depravity, they never will. Jeremiah (17:9) says “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked”—does everybody agree with that? Of course, but look what Jeremiah asks, “who can know it?”
Bible Principle: We learn here our depravity extends from our heart to our whole being and it surrenders us to total blindness of heart and life.
This is the point Jesus was making in Matthew 6:21-23, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. 23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”
In other words, if you have a filthy set of eyes (or a filthy heart) everything you see will be filthy. Even good things (light) will be filthy. And if even truly good things are filthy and tainted with darkness in your eyes (like God, His word), then truly, “how great is that darkness!”
So you say, I can’t change my child, what shall I do? Well, that’s why the whole Bible was written! You see,
B. God is in the business of changing hearts. The Bible term for this is: justification—God changes the heart to be reconciled to Himself. This is something God alone does out of an act of mercy and love. Let’s look at two passages: one in the Old Testament (Ezekiel) and the other in the New (Titus).
Ø In Ezekiel 36:25-27, “I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. 26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.”
Ø Titus 3:5-7, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; 6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; 7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
So the bright and glaring principle tonight is this:
If you want to change the behavior, you’ve got to change the heart.
Conclusion: You say, ok already, how does that happen?! I want to close by telling you how this change works. Change is initiated by God’s grace. Grace works upon the human heart through prayer and the Word.
Ø Preach and Live the Gospel before your children!
Someone once said, “Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.” You cannot expect to convert anyone if you preach the Gospel but you never live it.
Hypocrisy is not the Gospel. You must be totally convinced of Christ’s grace in your life before your children will ever be saved. If you are inoculated with the Gospel, it is very likely that your children are ten times more inoculated than you. You want to know the way that your children will hate the Gospel. Demonstrate hypocrisy before them. You want to know how to make your children treasure the Gospel? Let them see your heart broken over your sin! Preach to them out of a broken heart and a meek spirit!
Romans 10:14, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?”
Romans 10:17, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
Ø Pray!
James 4:2, “ye have not, because ye ask not.”
James 5:16, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”
Closing Hymn: 639 Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus