Rev. David Holwick F Life On the Level, #6
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
February 17, 2013
Luke 6:43-45
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I. A classic story I read as a kid.
"TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am;
but why WILL you say that I am mad?
The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them.
Above all was the sense of hearing acute.
I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth.
I heard many things in hell.
How then am I mad?
Hearken! and observe how healthily, how calmly, I can tell you the
whole story...."
Do you know who wrote this?
It is the introduction to Edgar Allen Poe's "The Telltale Heart."
In the story, the narrator kills an old man who was irritating him,
and skillfully conceals the body under the floor boards.
When the police come to investigate a strange scream heard in the
night, the narrator deftly explains it as his own shriek in a
dream.
The old man is away on a holiday, he quietly explains to the police.
As he chats confidently with the police, they seem absolutely
convinced that no crime has occurred.
But the narrator begins to hear, or thinks he hears, the THUMP,
THUMP, THUMP of the old man's heart.
He writes,
"It grew louder -- louder -- louder!.....Almighty God!
-- no, no? They heard! -- they suspected! -- they KNEW!
-- they were making a mockery of my horror!
-- this I thought, and this I think.
But anything was better than this agony!
Anything was more tolerable than this derision!
I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer!
I felt that I must scream or die!
-- and now -- again -- hark! louder! louder! louder! LOUDER!
"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed!
-- tear up the planks! -- here, here!
It is the beating of his hideous heart!" [1]
A. Of course, it was his own heart that was doing the talking.
B. What does your heart reveal about you?
II. Jesus leads off with a story from agriculture.
A. He often used familiar objects to convey spiritual truth.
1) Much like Pam Freund and her children sermons.
2) Here, he uses fruit trees, which are probably more
meaningful to first century farmers than to us.
B. My own experience is limited but illuminating.
1) My first fruit tree was a plum.
a) It gave awesome fruit in its very first season.
b) They were a good size, juicy, and delicious.
1> Just as good as anything in Shoprite.
2) But then it was hit by a blight.
a) Black spongy growths encased the branches.
b) The plums were the size of your thumb, all shriveled up.
c) I had to cut it down.
III. How do fruit trees relate to humans?
A. What is on the outside is determined by what is on the inside.
1) Good fruit only comes from good trees. 6:43
a) It's just like with my plum tree: good doesn't come
from bad.
b) They have to be authentic trees too - plums don't
come from thornbushes.
c) So first, you have to become the right kind of tree.
2) We need transformation before we can do reformation.
a) Spiritually speaking, God is not expecting bad people
to start doing good things. They can't.
1> Their essential character has to change first.
b) In the Gospel of John, Jesus calls this being
"born again."
1> It is not a suggestion, but a requirement.
2> One thing many people don't get about the Bible
is that it is not primarily a morality manual.
A> It is a relationship manual.
B> Jesus wants people who will be committed to him
and let him transform them through the Spirit.
3> Are you a Christian, or just religious?
On Friday I met with Kristin, who is the director of
the American Christian School in Succasunna.
She has a very professional manner about her - I found
out she used to work at AT&T.
Kristin has been religious most of her life.
She grew up Episcopalian.
She went to church every week.
But she wasn't a Christian.
It was only after she read the New Testament that
she "got it."
Jesus is someone she knows, someone she talks to
every day.
She realizes that being saved is much different
than being religious.
What about you?
B. After you become the right kind, you need to live accordingly.
1) Fruit trees are expected to bear fruit.
a) They are designed for that purpose.
b) Humans are the same way.
2) In verse 45, where Jesus moves from the image of a tree to
the application to our hearts, he talks about storing
up good in our hearts.
a) If you have become a Christian, you should start doing
the things that Christians are supposed to do.
1> The acts of kindness and forgiveness that he has
already talked about.
2> James, the brother of Jesus, gives a similar
thought:
"But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of
all pure; then peace-loving, considerate,
submissive, full of mercy and good fruit,
impartial and sincere." (James 3:17)
b) Fill your heart up with it.
3) Is it always as stark as Good vs. Evil?
a) You get the impression here that hearts are one or the
other.
b) But Jesus has already spoken of his followers having
issues with sawdust (and planks).
c) If you are genuine, you should be motivated to change
those things.
1> Not so you can get saved, but because you are saved.
C. What is on the inside inevitably comes out.
1) There is always spill-over.
a) Over time, your character becomes evident.
2) You can fool people, but only for a while.
a) As I did my preparation for his message, I came across
something called "deceptive fruit." [2]
It is a biological term.
You might call it "fake-out fruit."
Apparently some plants produce fruit that only looks
like fruit on the outside, but there are no seeds
or fruitiness on the inside.
It's like those fruit bowls in model homes.
It looks good but takes like plastic, because it is.
b) People can fool others, but eventually folks catch on.
IV. It usually shows up through your mouth. 6:45
A. Bad language.
1) What does your mouth reveal about you?
2) Most movies make it seem as if every other word is supposed
to have four letters.
a) But most people I know don't talk this way.
b) Christians certainly shouldn't.
c) If you have a clean heart, you should have a clean
mouth.
B. Criticism and negative comments.
1) Jesus has already preached about not judging and condemning
people.
2) Criticizing people doesn't jibe with praising God.
a) James has a close parallel here too. James 3:9-12:
"With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with
it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness.
Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing.
My brothers, this should not be.
Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same
spring?
My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine
bear figs?
(note the images he probably borrowed from Jesus)
3) How should you speak about people?
The preacher Gordon MacDonald tells of a time he was in
Japan on a speaking tour with a close personal friend.
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-down.
My older friend stopped, turned, and faced me until his
face was right in front of mine.
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 have put a knife into my ribs, and
the pain would not have been any less.
He did what a prophet does.
But you know something?
There have been ten thousand times in the last twenty years
that I have been saved from 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 would not speak in
such a way about a friend."
#63915
V. Hearts are like piggy banks.
A. Everything you add to it, accumulates until it overflows.
1) Start storing up good.
B. What is going into your heart?
1) Every experience, every word, leaves its mark.
2) When you hear the beating of that heart, like Poe's
narrator, does it condemn you or reassure you?
3) Make sure what enters your heart would be welcomed by Jesus.
a) Is he at home in your heart?
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
[1] “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Edgar Allan Poe, 1843, <http://www.literature.org/~
authors/poe-edgar-allan/tell-tale-heart.html>.
[2] “The effect of deceptive fruits on predispersal seed predation by
birds in Pistacia lentiscus,” Miguel Verdứ and Patricio Garciá-Fayos.
Plant Ecology 156:245-0248, 2001. <http://www.jstor.org/discover/~
10.2307/20051152?uid=3739808&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101815963017>.
#63915 “Straight From the Heart,” sermon by Rev. Dr. Todd A. Linn, First
Baptist Church of Henderson, Kentucky, September 26, 2010,
quoting Gordon MacDonald’s sermon "Feeling As God Feels,"
Preaching Today audio #196 the sermon
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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