Today’s message summary of August 26, 2018 from Pastor Gus Brown:
If you fail to abide in Jesus Christ, you are not hurting Him…but you are hurting yourself.
Your fruit in your life reflects the progress of your growth in Jesus Christ.
Acquiring knowledge, by itself, does not mean growth. Application of acquired knowledge is true growth.
John 15:8 CSB
“My Father is glorified in this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.”
James 1:22-25 CSB
But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like someone looking at his own face in a mirror. For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of person he was. But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer who works–this person will be blessed in what he does.
To not abide in Him or in His Word can bring about serious consequences:
- There is a loss of fellowship with Jesus Christ and other believers.
- Your life as a Christian begins to wither. There is a loss of vitality in your walk.
- You can get burned. A loss of rewards and experiencing fiery trials (1 Peter 1:6-7, 4:12; 1 Corinthians 3:11-15; Ephesians 6:16).
Abiding with Jesus keeps you thinking in a right manner.
Bearing fruit speaks as to what your relationship with Jesus Christ really means to you.
Bearing godly fruit is not easy for the Christian because of your old nature. Your old nature does not want to submit to Christ.
Galatians 5:17 CSB
For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don’t do what you want.
Ephesians 5:8-10 CSB
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light–for the fruit of the light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth–testing that is pleasing to the Lord.
Goodness, righteousness and truth is your goal. Your relationship with Jesus Christ should be such that you want to please Him and do so consistently.
When you please Him, you are bearing good fruit.
Ephesians 5:1-2 CSB
Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.
Put off your old self! Why? Your old nature corrupts you through deceitful desires. Put on the new self-created to be like God. This is God’s will for you…to be pleasing to Him.
Ephesians 4:20-24 CSB
But that is not how you came to know Christ, assuming you heard about him and were taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, to take off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.
What are two essential things that you and I need to do to bear good fruit?
The heart and the mind.
Colossians 3:1-2 ESV
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
Matthew 6:21 ESV
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Philippians 3:17-20 CSB
Join in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and pay careful attention to those who live according to the example you have in us. For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction; their god is their stomach; their glory is in their shame. They are focused on earthly things, but our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians 4:18 CSB
So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
Your life is hidden within Christ.
Colossians 3:3-4
For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Philippians 1:21
For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
Akron Alliance Fellowship 