Rooted in Resolution: Cultivating Good Fruit in the New Year - Garrett Worner - 3TC Podcast - 1/5/2025

Pastor Garrett discusses the importance of New Year's resolutions, tracing their origins back 4,000 years to the Babylonians. Common resolutions like saving money, eating healthily, and exercising are common today. But as believers, we need to have a heart change and produce good fruit (Luke 6:43-45). As we look into the new year, we should add the necessity of loving enemies, being merciful, and avoiding harsh words. The Holy Spirit helps us foster good behavior and the importance of guarding our speech, as it reflects the heart's contents.  

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Transcript

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Welcome to the three timbers podcast. We hope this will encourage and uplift you today. All right. Last ones out. How's everybody doing this morning? Happy New Year to you all All right. I started out with a real bad joke. You guys ready for fashion a story? So there's a woman got this out of a Reader's Digest. If you guys remember what those are? Woman wrote last year when I called my parents to wish them a happy new year, my dad answered the phone and I asked them, well, then what's your New Year's resolution? And then my daddy said proudly, well, to make your mother as happy as I can all year, so what you got off the phone with Dad and Mom gets on the phone goes, Well, Matt, what's your resolution this year? And her mom replied, to see that your dad keeps his New Year's resolution. How you how resolutions? How many who made a resolution this year? Oh, we have 123, this is great because I did a little research. Guys, did you know that New Year's resolutions actually dates back almost 4000 years ago to the Babylonians. They would do a 12 day ceremony where they would go up and they were either vote in or say, We want a new king, or they would say, we resolve that we will work our follow you king for the next year. And they get that, and it's been going on and on and on different ways, different times, all the way through history up to now. And so I thought, hey, it's the new year. Let's start out with some resolutions. So let's see, and get any of this list you're the most common new year's resolution, save money, eat, healthy and exercise. We got that slide sweet find a better job, travel. Read more on my personal favorites. Stop for Christ, today, tomorrow, I'll start that. I did find a humorous list as well, too. So maybe this is a little bit more for this year's resolution. I plan to embrace the chaos and inspire to make my bed at least once a month do that. I love that one about this year, I plan to practice the fine art of remembering where I left my keys at least twice a week. I promise to conquering a pile of unread books by turning them into a stylish home decor. As for my wife, this year, I aim to become a morning person, starting at noon. I am in big morning person, starting at it myself. And this year I will try yoga, or at least how to touch my toes without toppling over. I'm feeling that one guys feeling it, not being able to get up and move around for three weeks. Yep, that I put on the I put on the Christmas 20, that's for sure. So did any of these make your guys' list this year? Anybody have one on the list? All of them, right? Cuz I do. I think that resolutions are and goals, especially, goals are good, even when we fall short of them. Do you guys know that the second Friday, most people don't keep the resolution past the second Friday in January? It's actually called quit day. Yeah? So yeah, they happen. It's crazy. But here's the thing, is that I think that we should be regularly striving to improve our mind, take care of our body, and, most importantly, grow our spiritual strength through the disciplines of prayer and Bible reading and studying. So this morning, I like to go in like a little bit of an unusual direction for you, maybe, but I would like to suggest a resolution for this year that we all should strive for. Cuz, this year, I would like for us all to focus our attention on our hearts, and I would encourage each of us to resolve to allow God to soften and to shake and to mold our hearts, because our key verse this morning is out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. So let's pray, Lord Father, God, I just thank you for being here today, Lord I thank you that for all of your wisdom, all of your blessings. Thank you God, that you are a God that keeps us promises that you are so faithful to us, Lord, Lord God, I just ask that you open our minds to your word today, but more importantly, open our hearts so we get to know you better, Lord God, I just ask that you get me out of the way and just use me, Lord, use me as your mouthpiece. So it's only your your words that come forth this morning. It's your son's name. We pray Amen. Alright, open your Bibles if you got em or your apps. Let's go to Gospel of Luke. Make it easy, chapter six, and we're going to be mostly between 17 and 49 so we're going to kind of bounce around a little bit in there, but there will be four main verses that we're going to study this morning. Out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks so good, so truth. I think, before we get into this, one of the most important skills that I think that we can gain as followers of Christ is to realize that the Bible doesn't attract some of us. The Bible is not written to us. Now, before you take that the wrong way, we gotta remember this, guys, the Bible was not written to us. The Bible was written for us. Don't get me wrong, the Bible was written to a people group two to 4000 years ago. So context is extremely important. Context is so important. In fact, I have spent the last couple years of my life studying contextual leadership at seminary. That's how important I think context is. We gotta know what is being spoken about back then, not today. Yes, we can use it for today. Don't get me wrong there either. But we gotta look at the context. So let's dive into the context of Luke here. First of all, we find ourselves at the end of the kind of a practical section of Luke's Gospel. This section is known as the Sermon on the Plain. And you guys are not going to believe this, but it's called that because Jesus gave this sermon on a flat piece of ground in front of hundreds of people, don't you? Little one is easy, like that. That's pretty good, right? I like that. So the servants also preach primarily to believers, the followers of Jesus. And so we find ourselves as followers that we can have some immediate application with these verses in our lives. And if you're not a follower, that's okay, keep your ears open. Holy Spirit will speak, and maybe he might draw you closer. Now, if we backed up a bit in the sermon, let's say in this room again. Oh, there we go. Let's make sure you're awake. I don't want you falling asleep yet. So the sermon, especially at the verse 27 Jesus has been instructing his followers to do some things here, He's instructing them to love their enemies, do good to those who hate them, to give, to be merciful, not be judgmental, to not condemn others, to forgive others and to remove the darn plank from your eye before you try To grab us back out of someone else's eye. And that's the only way that we as Christians can do any of these things. The only way at all is to have a heart change. That's it. When we let God change our heart, our inner being by the power of the gospel. Then Then we are in a position to be able to do these things, to not be judgmental, lower enemies, etcetera. This is essentially what Jesus says in the next few verses. And our subject of the text this morning. So we all open to Luke, 43 and 45 643. 45 for a good tree does not care bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. A good man out of the good treasures of his heart brings forth good and an evil man, out of an evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil, for out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks, amen, you guys. I know it's bitter cold this morning, but I think one of the worst things about winter for me is that fall is over. I love the fall. It's absolutely I just it's my favorite, favorite season. Anybody else in the same boat here? Man, I love us for football. I love Ryan's football, especially the last two years. I love that it starts to get cooler, it starts to get darker at night. But here's the thing, one of my favorite things is especially driving from Oakland to Bennington, driving down the roads and seeing the harvest. I love seeing the combines out, where the stuff spraying in the air and everything. It's just such an awesome sense to me, seeing the food like the place on the side of the streets of. Like produce. It's not like pumpkins. I It's just great the smell that's in the air. Well, one of the things that has kind of always fascinated me, even as ugly as they are, is the apple tree. It's just always kind of thought like, How could something so ugly produce something so tasty? Last this last fall, we brought our students out to Dallas, and all the trees were in harvest out there. It's pretty awesome. They're picking them, you know, selling them, eating them, crushing them, drinking them. But all the different flavors and the styles that they have out there. Have you ever noticed how many different kinds of apples just a ton of different ones. But no matter what kind of Apple they grow at, valleys, guys, whether it's red, green, sweet, tart, each apple produce apple. Tree produces apples. These trees, they start out as seeds, and then they grow and they produce fruit. But I have never once in my 48 years seen an apple tree produce a peach or a pear or orange, right? An apple tree produces year after year, season after season, an apple tree continues to produce apples. Now Jesus here at His teaching that Christians are a bit like an apple tree. First, we start off small, having first believe the gospel, and then God changes our heart, and we begin to grow and bear fruit. We continue growing year by year, decade after decade, and we continue bearing more fruit. That's how it should be, right? And the reason should be that way so people could come by us and check us out, just like we check out the apple tree, and they can see evidence of life and evidence of vitality. People can see the fruit of our lives. People can see the evidence that we are Christians, by the way we love our enemies, by the way we are not judgmental, by the way we are merciful towards others, and by the way we forgive. That's the fruit of our lives that indicate that we're true followers of Jesus. Look a little deeper. Verse 43 for a good tree does not does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Now, the way to say it is a tree is known by its fruit, please. That's what Jesus is actually saying in the beginning of verse 44 as well. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For Men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. I love this about Jesus's teaching, because we know he's talking about this stuff, right? But we know he is not just talking about horticulture here, right? We know that. We know that he is trying to get to a deeper issue. His main concern here is not teaching about thorns and brambles. His main concern is to teach us how we are like fruit trees and Thor mushes. Verse 45 a good man out of the good treasures of his heart brings forth good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bring forth evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks, paraphrase, what's inside a person will come out. It will always just eventually, whatever we have on inside is going to come out. Adrian Rogers is a preacher I like to listen to sometimes, and one of the things he likes to say is, if you want to see what a man is made of, shake him up a bit. And then, if you really wanted to find out whether a person's nice, just kind of ruffle his feathers a little right, put the pressure on, see how they react. And because we get all at nice and good, can't we? We can put on that face, especially at church, Bible study gatherings, right? It's really easy to put on that. Oh, he's so nice and so good face. But if you got a guy who all he talks about is love, mercy, oh, patience, I get it all figured out. It's great. And then somebody comes along and pops him in the face, or runs into his car or makes fun of him and puts him down. How that man responds is going to determine who he really is, isn't it? So I'd like to give you three things this morning. And God, it's the word. It's not that we have to be producing good food. I'll get into that in a second. I don't want to turn anybody off every right away, anybody. We all gotta be perfect, because we are not perfect. We can't be perfect. Thank God we have somebody who is perfect that we can follow. Three things I want us to take away, bring to the new year. Number one. Christians are known by the fruit they produce. If a person says they're found in Christ, that person will produce fruit, and it will be good fruit. So remember, the context of a man or a woman says they're a Christian, then they're going to give evidence of a Christianity. How, by loving their enemies, by being merciful, not judgmental, not condemning others by forgiving and removing that plank. And a bigger whether to go into this or not, but I think I will feel back to 637 real quick, because you get a lot of you get a lot of disdain with the judging stuff, right? You can't judge me. Don't judge me. Bible says, Judge not. My student, judge you can't judge me. Yes, Judge not does not mean what so many people in today's American culture use it to mean. People use this phrase judge not to exclude any kind of judging whatsoever, don't they? So some preacher on a Sunday morning says something that is biblically true, and it convinced somebody, and they come up, oh, preacher man, you can't say that you're a preacher. You should know. You should not judge. Or somebody tumbles out of a bar reeking of alcohol, gets behind the wheel and starts it out. The two buddies on the side go, Hey, shall we say something? No, I'm a Christian. It says I shouldn't judge so what Judge not means here, when Jesus says Judge not, he does not mean that we're never to make decisions based upon people's behaviors. It just means we don't look down our noses at people think that we're superior to them being judgmental. That's different. Of course, we make decisions based on people's behavior. We do it every single every four or two years with our government city work, anything that we do, where we vote people in, we see our behavior, we make a rational judgment of whether we want them to lead us or not. Yes, that's okay, right? We're just not better than the other person. Every tree is known by its fruit. He's saying you can determine whether a person is a true follower of Christ by the way they live their lives. Now, again, contextually, this means that Christians will love their enemies, and you notice repetition here, will love their enemies, will be merciful, will forgive and will remove the plain from their eyes. Why? Cuz we gotta change hearts. Second, Corinthians, 517, says, If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation when we receive Jesus, Christ as our Lord and Savior. Guys. God gives us the Holy Spirit to dwell within us and change us, as Paul writes in Galatians five, then we have the Spirit of God in us. We bear the fruits of the Spirit like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. And I gotta put this reminder in here, guys, we do not do these things in order to become a Christian. We do these things because we are a follower of Christ can't get into heaven by doing good, because none of us is perfectly good, nor can we ever be. So we don't read the Sermon on the plane as a condition that must be met in order to be saved. The standard is perfection, guys, that's our standard. It's perfection, and none of us can meet that perfect standard. It's impossible. When we speak of Jesus dying on the cross, we must also remember that the gospel means that Jesus lived for us. He lived according to that perfect standard, never once lied, never once was unforgiving. He always loved his enemies. He was perfect, and if we follow Jesus. All, then we're credited with his perfection. So the Gospel is that Jesus died to take the punishment I deserve for my sins. But the gospel is also that Jesus lived the perfect life I could not live. That's why I love the song living. He loved me, dying, he saved me, buried and carried my sins far away, rising, justified, freely, forever. Oh, one day he's coming, a glorious day, living. He love me. Jesus loved us so much that he lived for us the life that we could not live and we could not live it because we're in bondage to sin. We're enslaved to it. So Jesus lives and he dies for us that we can be free from sin, and when we're still not perfect, we now have the ability, with the Holy Spirit within us to live the life that God wants us to live. So the reason that we do that whole list of things that Jesus is talking about in his sermon, the reason that we do it is because our hearts are being changed by the power of the gospel. We have the Holy Spirit within us to live the life that God has called Christians to live. But on the other hand, guys, if we're saying we're Christians and there's no fruit to back it up, or it's really crummy fruit. Are we used to seeing ourselves? Theologian, JC Ryle says there is only one satisfactory test of a man's religious character. That test is his conduct and conversation. Let It Be a Subtle principle that when a man brings forth no fruits of the Spirit, he has not the holy spirit within him. Christians are known by the fruit they produce. Alright. Point number two, it's possible for Christians to bear bag fruit, but not for long. It is possible. We're not perfect. We already went through that, right? We're going to make mistakes. We're going to mess up. That's who we are. We're going to slip up in simple thoughts. We're going to do sinful actions or sinful words. But at this moment in our lives, we need to remember to preach the gospel to ourselves. When we do sin, guys, we gotta immediately go to God and confess the sin, don't we? God, have sinned. I messed up again. Thank you so much for dying for that sinful thing I just did, or that sinful word I just spoke. I'm sorry. I repent. I don't want to do it again. Forgive me for hurting you, and thank you that because of Your grace and mercy, you have already forgiven that sin. It's already gone. It's a side note, just because it just hit me. I was driving home 36 the other week, and I was going, you know, 6570 miles an hour, as you do on that road, and a u haul came, not even a block and 4 million cut me off, and I honked at him, as I thankfully no traffic was coming, swerved around him, and then he gave me the nice single finger salute, saying I was number one, and something flipped. I Slammed on my brakes, I got out of my car, and all of a sudden I'm like, What are you doing, you idiot? I got back in my car and drove away, because something changed inside me. Now there was a day where I would never would have done that. Sometimes we slip up, don't we? He was that guy ever was about ready to hear some really nasty fruits coming out of me. I'll tell you that much it happens to us all. Guys see, the gospel is not for just when a person gets saved, but the gospel is for every moment of every day, as we as Christians, live our lives. So a Christian can't bear bad fruit, but not for long, because the Holy Spirit will convict us to repent of our sins, and we're going to cry out to God. There's a line graph that I like to use sometimes too. It's maybe getting whoever for grass you got so you start out there when you're saved, right? You want to be up there follow Jesus, and here's where you're going to go home to be with him, right? And you should see good fruits continuously through your life, shouldn't you? But let's talk reality, right? Maybe it's getting good, and then, oh, messed up. And then maybe it's getting good, and oh, you know, and then it's this, and then it's this, right, like a David and Bathsheba moment, where it's just, you just royally messed up. But guys, if you start down here and it never goes anywhere. It. What kind of fruit is that showing it should continuously try to get better. Where was I? Oh, yeah, so somebody's saying that they're a Christian, but there's no overall pattern of growth. Are they really a Christian? And the reason I bring this up is I'm asking myself this too, because when I you a lot of guys know my testimony. When I was in high school, I walked away from the church. I walked away from God. I still said I was a Christian. I would say, if anybody asked me, oh yes, I believe in God. Definitely. I believe in God. Please give me this god. Please give me that God. Do this for me. God. Do this for me, me, me, me, me, me. There's no fruit coming out of that. None at all. The fruit that was coming out of me during those years of my life were crappy. They were not good fruit at all. So was I really a Christian? Why wasn't I really a Christian? I'll tell you, because A tree is known by the fruit it produces, because a good man out of the good treasure of his heart bring forth good and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bring forth when we do something we shouldn't do, guys, when we sing something We shouldn't say. We gotta experience that conviction, right? So all we learn here so far this morning, Christians are known by the fruit they produce. It is possible for a Christian to bear bad fruit, but not for long. Finally, burning at home, the most obvious fruit Christians bear is good speech, verse 45 again, at the end, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. What's inside a person, what's in our hearts will come out, and it'll usually do so through our speech. And now this is not just about saying bad words, is it? I mean, it is. But that's not the main point here. So important for us to consider that we spend the majority of our time thinking about what we spend the majority of our time thinking about what's in our hearts will eventually come out. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, A man is what he thinks about all day long. Is that the truth are the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks quick. Great example. Anybody been to church in the last couple of weeks doesn't have to be three numbers. Did you hear a message? Was it powerful? Did you feel convicted? How long did you feel that way. Did the message get deep down turn your life around? You're going out and telling people about Jesus, inviting them to church, inviting them to go out to coffee with you. Or did you forget most of it by six o'clock at night, and instead you're thinking about dinner, or you're thinking about what movie you're going to stream, or what book you're reading, or will my football team be the number one seed in the playoffs. Important things, right? Because out of the heart the mouth speaks, what do you spend the majority of your time talking about, cuz it will, most likely it's going to be what you spend the majority of your time thinking about. And I gotta remind myself all the time, guys, I have to remind myself what am I consuming into my heart, into my mind the most, and when it comes out of me, as inevitable as it will it's going to come out of me? Will it be pleasing to God? It also reminds us, we gotta guard our tongues and say only things that glorify God and build up others. Did you guys know that we speak on an average, 16,000 words per day, 16,000 words. Now there are some people who say that women speak more words than men. I know my wife does. I mean, don't tell her. She's very aware. It reminds me of a husband who was looking through his paper and he came upon a study that said women use more words than men, and excited to prove to his wife, and he been right all the time. He shows her the studies. See, men speak 15,000 words a day, women speak 30,000 words a day. And the wife thought about it for a minute, and she finally said her husband, and she says, Well, yeah, that's because we gotta repeat everything we say. Because what intriguing is hard to find if women actually speak more than men, but I did find a study that says that we do on an average, speak 16,000 words. The day and giving this back, shouldn't we all pay more attention to our tongues? Someone once said, A tongue three inches long can kill a person six feet tall. That's just some anonymous person. Let's hear what God says. Colossians, four, six. Let your speech always be with Grace seasoned with salt that you may know how you ought to answer each other or each one. James 126, if anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is useless. Proverbs 616, through 19. I won't read the whole thing, but in your Solomon list six things that the Lord hates, and one of them is one who sows discord among the brethren, I think we all gotta remember that anytime we are inclined here to speak ill of anybody here at three timbers church, in our small C's church, or even in the Big C church, if we're going to talk something about somebody the Lord hates, the one who sows discord among the brethren. So we gotta remember the children's problem, right? Anybody know this one, if you your lips would keep from slips five things observed with care of whom you speak, to whom you speak, and how and when and where. Finish up with a story for you guys. There's a preacher named Gordon McDonald. He tells Italians in Japan on a speaking tour with a close personal friend, and Gordon says he was a number of years older than I was. As we walked down the street in Yokohama, Japan, the name of a common friend came up and I said something unkind about that person. It was sarcastic. It was cynical. It was a put that my older friend stopped, turned and faced me, until his face was right in front of mine, and with deep, slow words, he said, Gordon, a man who says he loves God, would not say a thing like that about a friend. Gordon said he could've put a knife in my ribs and the pain would not have been any less. He did what a prophet does. But you know something, there have been 10,000 times in the last 20 years that I have been saved for making a jerk of myself when I've been tempted to say something unkind about a brother or sister. I hear my friend's voice say, Gordon, a man who says he loves God, will not speak in such a way about a friend. I ask you to take Gordon's name out of it, put your own name in it. Garrett, a man who says he loves God, would not speak in such a way about a friend. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. So my prayer for us all this year, guys, is that the Spirit speaks, that we continue to listen, we continue to work on our hearts, that we're filled and continue to fill ourselves with good things, and we continue to choose to live our lives by filling our hearts with the goodness of God. Jesus promises you that if you continue to do this, to fill your life, to fill your heart with His truths, with his word, and you continually strive to be a reflection of him that overflow, that abundance that comes out of you, it's going to go on to produce some amazing fruit. I look forward to it this year at BTC. Let's pray, Lord Father God, I just thank you for your word. I thank you that we can all just dive in so deeply into it and learn so much about how we should act, how we need to act, and how we need to rely on you to change our hearts, Lord God, I just ask that you do that to everybody here in this congregation, this full year, and that we remember the abundance of our hearts The mouth speaks that we just fill ourselves with everything good that is you as your son's name, that we pray these things. Thank you for joining us. For more information about three timbers, church, ministries and services. Visit three timbers.org. We would love for you to join us in person. You.