What Will They Find

What Will They Find

GNLCC 3/25/2007 Psalm 15:1-5 Matthew 7:13-27

Have you ever had a crush on someone and you thought this person was just so beautiful or so handsome and you were ready to fall in love with the person. But the closer you got to the person and the better you got to know him or her, you discovered he or she was not at all what you thought he or she might be. The person was nowhere as near as loving, sensitive, or kind as you first thought he or she would be.

It’s possible for good looks to initially hide bad qualities. But with time, things begin to reveal themselves. Without recognizing it, you were going through the process of being a fruit inspector. You were discovering what this person truly was like. After evaluating the fruit, you chose to let it pass by.

The interesting thing about fruit, is that it tells your about it’s source. If you have an apple, you know it came from an apple tree. If you have an orange, you know it came from an orange tree. If you have a pear, it came from a pear tree. Do you know how much money I could raise for the New Life Center, if I had an apple tree that produced oranges? Absolutely nothing, because if it produced oranges it would be an orange tree.

Jesus even said, you don’t get grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles do you? No you get grapes from the vine and figs from the fig tree. Jesus goes a step further when he says, a good tree is not going to produce diseased or bad fruit. Nor will a sick or diseased tree produce good fruit. If you go to a good tree, then you ought to find good healthy fruit. If you got to a sick or diseased tree, then you ought to fight sick and diseased fruit.

By looking at the fruit, you can tell something about its source. Jesus in warning us against false prophets or people pretending to be one thing, but in actuality or some thing else, he said, “Beware” and “recognize that you would know them by the fruits.” What does Jesus mean by telling us to look at the fruit of a person? When a person in Jesus’ day heard the word fruit, he or she would immediately think of conduct and character. By telling us to examine a person’s conduct and character, we can determine what a person’s motive truly is.

Has anyone tried to be extra kind and nice to you, and you wondered what on earth does he or she have up his or her sleeve. If someone offered to take a million dollar life insurance policy on your life, with him or her as the paid beneficiary and you allowed him to do it, would you be eager to go on a mountain climbing trip with him.

Have you ever done something, that you hope nobody ever finds out. I have and I am not about to tell you what it is. Isn’t it something that God knows about it, and God still loves you and loves me and want to have a relationship with you and with me. God still believes you can be somebody wonderful. I do not fully understand how the Lord can be so accepting of us when others if they knew, would alienate themselves from us.

Apart from those things that we never want anyone to know about, if a person started to examine you, to look for evidence of who you really are, what would they find? Did you know that you are being examined everyday, by someone? Did you know you’ve been examined since you entered the church today. We have all displayed elements of our character, and our conduct has been seen and it has affected others. What have others find out about us so far this morning? One of the great tragedies that has come up on our society is that you can somehow separate your character from you conduct. We are in a world in which if your conduct can produce the right results for us, we could care less about your character.

This thing has crept into the church. It comes in the form of thinking that you can accept Jesus Christ as your Savior without changing your life. I’ve got some bad news from Jesus. Jesus says, just because you call me “Lord, does not mean you will enter the kingdom of heaven.” In other words, you can come forward at the end of service, repeat the sinner’s prayer, cry a few tears and still go to hell. Pastor Rick, are you saying I could lose my salvation. No I’m saying you probably have not gotten your salvation in the first place.