In the sermon titled 'The Root & The Fruit,' Peter Allison explores the metaphor used by Jesus in Luke chapter 6, where He compares people to trees known by their fruit. A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. This analogy is applied to individuals, emphasizing that one's actions and words reflect their inner nature or spiritual DNA. Allison explains that believers are transformed into new creations in Christ, acquiring a new spiritual DNA that enables them to produce good fruit. He underscores the importance of actions as evidence of genuine faith, drawing on biblical examples like Rahab, who demonstrated her faith through her actions. The sermon also highlights that trials reveal the true foundation of one's faith, illustrating that a life built on Christ stands firm amidst adversity. Ultimately, Allison encourages self-examination, urging believers to assess the fruit in their lives as an indicator of their spiritual state and relationship with God.

Please turn with me to Luke chapter 6 for our scripture reading this morning. We begin at verse 43. For a good tree does not bear 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 treasure of his heart brings forth good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil.

For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. But why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do the things which I say. Whoever comes to me and hears my sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like. He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock, and when the flood rose the stream beat vehemently against the house and could not shake it for It was founded on the rock But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation Against which the stream beat vehemently and immediately it fell And the ruin of that house was great." Thus far the reading of God's Word. May the Lord redeem us from the oppression of man that we may keep his precepts.

Heavenly Father, please open our eyes and teach us this morning. May we see you through your word. May we hear you. May we know you. May you speak, Lord, and accomplish this through a vessel of clay.

Sanctify these sinful lips, I ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, there are Good trees and there are bad trees and There are Apple trees peach trees fig trees and there are Brambles and Raspberry and blueberries. When we all know this, we all know this very well, and Jesus takes this very simple knowledge that any of us know, and probably even the youngest among us this morning, know these simple things. We can become very scientific and detailed in the knowledge and explain this in terms of the DNA that is in each of these trees and how the DNA in that tree controls, has the genetic information that determines what kind of fruit that tree will bear.

The DNA of a peach tree is different from the DNA of a pear tree, or of a grapevine, or of a bramble, a thorn bush, That bears fruit or that doesn't bear fruit we we could explain all that but The message this morning that Jesus is bringing to his disciples in this sermon on the plane Is a very is a very simple one that there are good trees and there are bad trees. And that a tree is known by its fruit. Good trees produce good fruit, and bad trees produce bad fruit, fig trees produce figs, and apple trees produce apples, and you don't get figs from apple trees or apples from fig trees. You can do a lot of games with grafting. You can remember we had a tree once when I was growing up that supposedly had lots of different varieties on the same tree.

But they were, I think it was a pear tree, but they were all pears, or they were all apples that the apple tree was producing. They could graft in different varieties, slightly different varieties, but they were still apples. You can't graft a fig tree into an apple tree. You can't graft a peach tree into a pear tree. They don't, it doesn't work.

So the kind of fruit that is produced comes, is determined by the kind of tree. And Jesus applies these very basic grammar, shall we say, the grammar of genetics to people. To say that there are good people and there are evil people. And there are those who produce good fruit and there are those who produce evil fruit. Now we might, if you've been paying attention, you might remember that Jesus said, There is no good man.

Remember the ruler that came to him and said, good teacher, good master. And Jesus brought him up short and said, why are you calling me good? No man is good. No one but God is good. Jesus here is saying, he's talking about a good man.

He says a good man out of the treasure of his heart, brings forth good, good fruit. So what does Jesus mean? We need to be clear about that. And also he's talking about fruit. What is fruit?

Fruit. Well fruit in this passage, that word is speaking about that which is produced. That which is produced. It is the effect or the consequence. It's that which is produced.

That's what fruit is. That's what is on a tree. You water the tree, you fertilize the tree, you prune the tree, you give the tree air and sunlight, you plant it in good soil, and then something And then something is produced out of all that work, out of all that tree. And that's the fruit. All that, What Jesus is saying is all that proceeds from us, our attitudes, our words, our expressions, our thoughts, our actions, how we spend our time, What we spend our time doing, how we spend our money, what we spend it on, what we teach, what we believe, what we say, all of these things are the fruit that is produced out of us.

And Jesus is saying we are like a tree in that. And that DNA, if you will, That genetic code determines what kind of fruit gets produced. There's a qualitative description here about good and bad fruit, but there's also the description of type as well. You can have an apple tree that's, you can have a good apple tree and you can have a bad apple tree. You can have a very fruitful apple tree that produces lots of fruit or an apple tree that produces a little bit of fruit.

Or a tree that produces bad fruit. I've seen some of those. The tree, year after year, it just produces bad fruit. The fruit is small. It's not sweet.

It's not desirable. It's just bad. But it is an apple or whatever, in that case it was an apple tree I believe. It always produced these little tiny apples that were very bitter, very pithy, no sugar, and year after year that's what it produced. So Jesus is saying we are like that, in that what is inside of us determines what we produce.

Determines what we produce. Now Jesus said, no one is good but God. Because all men, born of Adam, are sinners. We are under God's wrath and condemnation. There is none that does good, there is none that speaks what is right, but all have gone astray.

All are sinners, and all are under God's condemnation for that. And so that's why Jesus said, there is no one good but God. But there is also Jesus Christ. And He came to earth to live with a human body like ours, to live as we live under the law, with the limitations of a human body, to be tempted in every area like us, and yet without sin, so that his righteousness, because that's what that is, he's perfectly obeyed the law of God, where we didn't, he did. So that his righteousness can be imputed to us, and our sin, for which we are rightly condemned, he took.

Our sin is imputed to him. He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might know the righteousness of God and so In that Transaction in our justification and adoption as we exercise faith believe in the Lord and turn away from our old way, we are made new creatures in Christ. Our DNA is changed. Paul told the Corinthians that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. It means we have a different DNA.

There is something different in us that makes us produce a different kind of fruit. Old things have passed away, behold all things have become new. We have a new heart. It has different desires than the old heart did. We have a new life.

We go in a different direction. We have Different goals, different aspirations. We do things differently on Thursday morning at nine because we are a new creature in Jesus Christ with different DNA. We Think differently. Our thinking has changed.

We begin to think Christ's thoughts after Him. Our minds are renewed in knowledge, in righteousness, in holiness. And we put off the feudal way of thinking. We have a new name. Because we are a new creature, we have a new name.

We are given, we are called the children of God, the sons of God. We have a new song on our lips. Maybe you remember when, the days before you were converted, Some of you might not, but many of you probably do. And one of the things that probably changed is the songs that you listen to. When Jesus justifies us and adopts us as His children, we are new creatures.

We have a different DNA within us. Within us. And so out of that outward conversation, our outward conversation flows from our conversation with Jesus Christ. Our outward conversation flows out of this conversation that we have with Jesus Christ. A good man, out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good.

There's a connection, Jesus is saying, between this inner man and the outer person, what we see. There's a connection between what's going on inside of us and what we do, what we say, the actions that we take. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good. This good man Jesus is talking about Here is someone who is a new creature in Christ, who has this different DNA, who has a Holy Spirit living within him. Paul said to the Galatians that the life that he had been crucified with Christ, his old man had died, and the life that he now lived in the flesh, not talking about something down the road in heaven, but the life that he now lived in the flesh, he lived by faith in the Son of God, that Jesus Christ lived within him.

So this inward reality is shown in what we do and say, in the outward expression of our life. Our physical body is very much connected to our spirit and the spiritual side of our body. Again, where we spend our time. What we value, the things that we put great value on, change. The things that we talk about, change.

The things that mean the most to us changes when Jesus changes our DNA, when His righteousness is imputed to us and our sin is imputed to Him, when he makes us that new creature. Now, it says, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks That's really you think of that is what overflows out of the heart Comes out our mouth People can we can deceive ourselves not just the people out there, but us. I can deceive myself. You can deceive yourself about who you are. Who you are.

And Jesus says here that what spills out of your mouth, What spills out in what you do is the real indicator of what's inside. Not what we think, we want to think is there, but what actually comes out of our mouth. James talks about this in his letter to the churches. He talks about faith that doesn't have any works. Faith that doesn't produce anything.

Can that kind of faith save anyone? Well no, it can't because that's not saving faith. Saving faith produces a change. It changes our DNA and we produce a different kind of fruit. See just saying something is Not enough we are to love not in word but we are to love in deed.

If a brother or sister is naked or destitute or ill-fruited, and we say to them, well, depart in peace, be warmed and filled, but we don't give them anything, what good does that do? The words don't do anything. There has to be, James is saying, there has to be some action, some deeds. And he says that's like our faith by itself. If it doesn't produce any fruit, then it's not saving faith.

And someone he says will say you have faith and I have works show me your faith without your works he said James says and I will show you my faith by my works. You can believe that there's a God but you're not any different than the demons. They believe that there is a God too. They believe that Jesus is the Son of God. They can say all those things, and they know that they're true.

They believe and they tremble. That's not saving faith. Abraham, our father, was justified by works. He was shown to be justified by what he did. He offered Isaac on the altar Or he started to tell God stopped him And you see that faith was working together with works and by works faith was made complete.

Not that these works in any way contributed to Abraham's justification, but these works demonstrated, they showed that There was saving faith within him. You see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith only. Likewise was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way. This is an example of what we read about today in the account of David's life. Those people that cursed him were believing that David was on the way out and by cursing David they would be able to earn favor with the people that appeared to be in power.

Which tells you how fickle they were. Whereas Rahab was in that same position. Here were people coming to her house who she knew were representatives of this new nation Israel, this people without a country, this people that have been wandering about as vagabonds in the desert for 40 years, the people that had been slaves in Egypt. Now they had, God had done some, given some amazing victories to them. But she was faced with this question as they stood before her and asked for help from her, asked her to hide them.

Who do I believe? If I hide these people, if I receive them, as Hebrews says, if I receive them in peace, then I'm committing treason against my own city. If I reject these people, then I'm going to win the favor of my King who is, as far as I can tell, has the power of life and death over me right now and who will be happy with what I do, but I will have rejected these messengers from God." See, who did she believe? In that moment, who did she believe was the true God? Who did she believe was the creator of heaven and earth?

Who did she believe was right? It would be one thing to simply say, oh yeah, look at that nation Israel. That's the true God. But she was put to the test. Her faith was tested when those men stood before her.

She couldn't have it both ways. She was either going to reject those spies and in so doing reject God or she was going to reject her own King and place herself in the hands of God. You see, what James is saying is, her decision, what she did, was evidence of saving faith within her. She believed God. She hid those spies and sent this king's messengers out the king's servants soldiers another way Because she believed God.

That's that's what Jesus is talking about here when he when he says that out of the the heart speaks out of Her the mouth speaks out of the abundance of the heart. That what we do flows out of our conversation with Jesus Christ. That what comes out of our life, the decisions that we make, are the true indication of what we really believe. Trials can reveal the hidden foundation. Trials can reveal the hidden foundation.

Trials can reveal the hidden foundation. Jesus asks people, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do the things which I say? Why do you call me Lord, Lord? Why do you say something, but you don't do what I say? In other words, you are calling me Lord, you are saying these words, but you are not acting as if I was your Lord.

If I was your Lord, if you were acting as if I was your Lord, then you would be doing the things your Lord is commanding you to do, or telling you to do. And Jesus says, why do you call me Lord, Lord? But you are not doing anything that I say. It shows that you don't really believe that I am the Lord. Whoever comes to me and hears my saying and does them, I will show you what he is like.

He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the storm beat violently against the house, and it couldn't shake it. It didn't fall. But somebody that hears what I'm saying and doesn't do anything, they build a house and the two houses look the same. You can't, You don't ordinarily see the foundation of a house.

It's hidden below the ground. And you can see two houses that look identical. They can both look very beautiful and desirable. They can both look like a place that you would love to live until the storm comes. And then you find out that the roof leaks, or until the winds come.

And then you find out that they cut corners on the foundation, or there isn't a foundation as Jesus says. And what happens then? The house can stand as long as nothing bumps into it. But as soon as something bumps into it, As soon as there's a little bit of wind, the house with no foundation falls down. The house that has the foundation doesn't fall down.

So trials, storms, can reveal the hidden foundation. People might say and look as if they are saying they are disciples of Christ. They may be able to say outwardly things that make sound like they are disciples of Christ. It sounds like they are these new creatures that have this different DNA because they're saying the right things. But the trials, the storms in their life reveal who has a foundation that is built on Christ, who has a new DNA and who doesn't.

So you see Jesus first talks about just what we say and you can have good fruit there or bad fruit, But then he goes a step further and he says, you can have what seems to be good fruit on the outside. It looks like it's fruit, but it's really not. Jesus talks about the those branches that are in the tree that are cut out when they don't bear fruit. They may look, they may be there with nice green leaves and they may look like they are living, they may appear to be living, but there is no fruit. So when the storms come, the wind comes and it beats against this house, That reveals what the basis of the house is.

It reveals what the foundation is. It reveals whether there is different DNA within us, whether Christ is living in us, whether we are in Christ, or whether we are not, whether we do have a new song in our heart, whether we do have fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ, whether the Holy Spirit is in our life, and whether We are being led by the Spirit, or whether it is just an outward show. See, orthodoxy by itself is not enough. It is not enough to simply say, Jesus is Lord. We have to say that, that's true.

And if we can't say that or don't say that, that shows that we're not a good tree, we're not in Christ. But it's possible to simply say these things without actually being in Christ, without actually having this new DNA. We can profess to know God, but by their works deny Him. We are called to examine ourselves as to whether we are in the faith. Test ourselves.

Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you? Do you know? And we examine ourselves by looking at the fruit in our life. What is the tone of our voice? What are the words that are coming out?

Are we short? Are we impatient? That's not the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is patience. This is very convicting.

I say that of myself. What are the words that come out of our mouth? What is the tone of voice that we speak in. We might say those are little things. Sometimes things come out of our mouth and then we realize after we've said it, oops, That wasn't right.

That wasn't right. What does a good tree do when that happens? What does a good tree do when that happens? We repent. We turn around.

We acknowledge our failure to all those that are a part of that and we turn around. That's what a good tree does. That's what a good man does. Turns around when we're going the wrong way. Now I had to do that this week in my work.

There was a meeting and I said something I shouldn't have said and I was leading a meeting. So after that meeting, as I thought about it, I said, you know, this wasn't right. These people aren't Christians. They probably would never know or think too much of it. But I had to Send a note to those people and say, I'm sorry, that wasn't an appropriate thing to say.

See the blessing is not merely in hearing God's Word, but it's in doing it. And we're not perfectly able to do all that God calls us to do. And so when we look at ourselves and we see this bad fruit that has come out, This thing that we can't say, oh, I didn't mean that because we did it what the mouth speaks is a reflection of what's in our heart. We have to we have to recognize that was some bad fruit. And as someone who is a good tree in Christ, we repent.

We turn around. That is a grace of God to us. You see, it's not what happens to us that determines what our life produces. It's not what happens to us that determines what our life produces. It's not what happens to us that determines what our life produces.

If you think of your tree, where it's planted, the amount of water that it has, the sunlight and all those things, they determine the type and quality of fruit that that tree produces. But it's not what happens to us. It's not the outward things that come to us, the circumstances in which we find ourselves that determine the fruit of our life. It is what happens in us. You remember from last week, those of you that were here, I told you about a man by the name of Louis Zamparini.

Louis Zamparini was producing a life of bad fruit, you remember. Drunkenness, joblessness, broken home, filled with strife, a wife wanting to divorce him, nightmares and flashbacks, anger, uncontrolled anger that burst out. And he thought it was all because of the evil that had happened to him. He said, this is why I'm this way, because of this evil. In fact, that's what everybody was saying.

It was a widespread problem. Four out of five, eighty percent, the people that came back as prisoners of war were dealing with this. And You might be easily tempted to say, well, they're that way because of what happened to them. But then what happened? His heart changed.

God changed the DNA in his life. He gave him a new heart. He made him a new creature in Christ. He put a new song on his lips. He gave him a new name.

And then his heart was changed and he started producing good fruit. Sober, no longer drunk, a stable home filled with peace. He lived with the wife of his youth for over half a century. Beneficial work instead of joblessness, aimlessness, ministering to youths who were broken and troubled. What changed of anything that happened to him?

Nothing. Nothing changed of anything that had happened to him. The same terrible, evil things still had happened to him. But all of a sudden, he was producing a different kind of fruit. The flood was still very much, just as much a part of his life after his conversion as it was before.

God didn't take away the fact that he had been so cruelly mistreated for so long. But the fruit that came out of him was totally different. You see we're kind of like that cup. And as long as nobody shakes the cup, it can look just fine. It's when the cup gets bumped, and the stuff in the cup spills out that we see what's in there.

Now, if bad stuff spills out of the cup, the Bad stuff is not there because the cup got bumped. The bad fruit was always in that cup all along. We only saw it when it spilled out because it got bumped. So you see in Nui, Zamparini is just a wonderful example, but it's true of all of us as well. The things that we say and do, the fruit that comes out of our life that we bear, it's not the result of what's happened to us.

It's not the result of parents that didn't love us. It's not the result of people that mistreated us or took advantage of us. It's not the result of some church or some pastor or somebody who did something to us. It's not this terrible home that we grew up in or so we think. If we are producing bad fruit, it is because of what's in us.

And if we're producing good fruit, it's because of what Christ has done in us. Because as Jesus said, there is no one good but God. But God takes bad people and makes them good. He changes the DNA of our heart. He changes our nature.

He gives us his spirit to dwell with us so that we are able to produce good fruit, so that we are able to stand when storms come, the house stands. Our life will produce good fruit. It's in the times of the storms, it's in the times of the trials That we can most easily examine ourselves and see when we were irritated, when we were upset, when we were inconvenienced. When we were sinned against, then what came out of our heart? Then what do we say?

Those are the moments of truth. When the storm comes, the trials, it doesn't produce the bad fruit. It simply reveals and demonstrates what was already there. There is an implicit promise here. He hears my saying and does them.

He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock and when the flood arose the storm beat vehemently against the house and could not shake it for it was founded on a rock. Could not shake it. When Christ is the foundation of our life, when he has given us new DNA, when his Holy Spirit dwells with us, and we are yielded to his spirit. We are living by faith in Jesus Christ. There is nothing that can shake our life.

The economy can crash. The Japanese can imprison you and torture you. The communists and the socialists can take every penny that you ever had. All your children can go. Remember Job lost all his children.

Every single one. They're dead. Now we tend to think about Job as, well, wouldn't it be nice to have double all of your wealth? Wouldn't it be nice to have double everything that you had before? But those ten children, they didn't come back.

They died. You see, Job could stand with everything gone, his health broken, his wife against him, all his children taken from him, everything he ever owned gone, all his servants killed, and say the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. This is the promise that is implicit here. That those who are new creatures in Christ, there is no storm that can destroy the house.

There is nothing that can break the house. There is nothing that can shake us when we are in Christ. That's just an amazing promise, especially today, but in any day. We don't know what's going to happen. We see the great wickedness in our land.

We see Christians being persecuted, being deprived of their property simply because they are being faithful to the Lord. Brothers and sisters, if you are in Christ, then you don't need to be afraid. You don't need to fear because your house is secure. It won't fall. Let's pray.

Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word. We ask for faith to believe your word. Not just when it is easy to say it, But when the trials come, and the storms come, we ask, Lord, that You might be our God, our our Father, our Redeemer, our strength, our salvation, our comforter, our rock. That you might put your name upon us. That you might know us.

And that you might live in us, and we in you. And that whatever you bring to us, whatever you call us to endure, for your sake and the sake of the gospel, Father, may we a good fruit, and may we show by that fruit that we are indeed new creatures in you. Lord, we want to be pleasing to You, to be well pleasing to You our God and our Father, our Redeemer, our Savior and Friend. In Jesus' name we ask, Amen. In the name we ask, Amen.