Coffee with Jesus

Coffee with Jesus

Monday, August 8, 2011

Matthew 3 (The Proof is in the Fruit)

We've talked about fruit before.  The genetic make-up of an apple tree makes it produce apples; pear trees produce pears, etc.  It is my desire as I continue in my walk with Christ, that He would take away the parts of me that produce sin (because of my gentic make-up as a sinful human being), and replace those parts with Himself so that I may grow in my production of Christ-likeness.

Today, the main focus of this chapter revolves around the Pharisees and Sadducees.  As they approach the Jordan River to be baptized, John the Baptist actually denounces them by saying, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee the coming wrath?" My goodness, that sounds harsh to someone who is coming to be baptized.  Yet, John knew where their hearts really were, and they were coming to baptized for all the wrong reasons.  Let's take a closer look at who they were.

My study Bible says the Pharisees were a strict group of religious Jews who "advocated obedience to the most minute proportions of the Jewish law and traditions."  They were very influential people in the synagogues, where people came to worship God.  They would separate themselves from anything non-Jewish, and behave as if their own religious rules were just as important as God's rules.  However, they often created a standard of perfection that even they themselves could not live up to.  They also believed that salvation came from perfect obedience to the law that than forgiveness of sins, and they ignored God's message about mercy and grace.

As I look on the description of them, I can be quite quick to judge them.  From what we read that John the Baptist said to them and later comments Jesus made about them, it's not surprising that we would feel judgement -- they were hypocrites.  There isn't a lot that I despise more than a hypocrite, and yet, I can see myself in them some, too.  In our churches, we behave as if our own denominational rules are just as important as what the Bible specifically teaches -- but the Bible doesn't say a word about what kind of music we play in church, do we have candles or not, can people wear jeans or not, hymns verses praise choruses.  The Church is the place where people want to come to connect with God, yet we often push people away by our quick judgements and our fake, outer shells of perfection as if you need to have all of your act together before you can be in right standing with God.  Or perhaps you separate yourself from anything non-Christian?  Your kids only go to Christian schools; you have only Christian friends; or you listen to 100% only Christian music with the thought that God will approve of you more for doing these things.  Or worse -- others will approve of you more.  Or maybe when you see someone homeless on the street, watch someone being arrested and taken to jail on t.v., or a pass a homosexual person in the grocery store you pass judgement in your mind without thinking a second thought about the heart of that person and what their life story has been.  Sometimes, we all are nothing more than a brood of vipers, aren't we?

Or maybe you relate more with the Sadducees.  The Sadducees believed that only the first five books of the Bible were actually God's word.  They all came from priestly nobility and heritage and put great focus and energy in maintaining their status and influential positions -- often at the expense of compromising their values.  Because of their wealthy backgrounds, there were often highly educated and relied primarily on their "logic" rather than the importance of faith.  They also often used the Temple as a place to conduct business rather than maintaining that it was God's house and sacred.

What about you?  Do you pick and choose the parts of the Bible that you want to be true?  Perhaps you have come from some money, or maybe you haven't, but do you focus on your social status more than you focus on your character and value system?  Maybe you have been given the gift of receiving a lot of education, but now you seem to have lost your sense of "faith" because you'll only agree with things that cane be proven or make complete sense in your mind?  Or maybe you've started to view church as a place to network with people rather than a place to connect with God.  Again, I can see myself in some of these attitudes.  Judgement, self-righteousness, and self-centeredness are not the fruits that our relationship with Christ and our knowledge of the Bible should produce in us.  If we are producing these things as the Pharisees and Sadducees did, then our hearts on not on Christ but on ourselves!

But what John the Baptist said to the Pharisees and Sadducees didn't stop there.  The next line was "Prove by the way you live that you have really turned from your sins and turned to God.  Don't just say, 'We're safe--we're the descendants of Abraham.' That proves nothing....Yes, every tree that does not produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown into the fire."  It's never too late to turn to God, and the NIV says "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance," meaning that every day we need to be turning our hearts back toward Him.  If our parents, children, or friends are in good standing with Christ, that means nothing about where we stand.  The proof is in the fruit -- not a meticulous following of a long set of rules but of a new attitude of service to Jesus Christ!

Repent this morning of poor and selfish attitudes you've had recently, and then allow yourself to be baptized by His grace and mercy.  His mercies are new every morning when we repent and decide to go in a different direction.  And may we not be so quick to judge when we hear the words Pharisees and Sadducees, but may we take that opportunity to be reminded to check our own hearts and attitudes.  The proof is in the fruit.

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