If you turn in your Bibles to Matthew 12 .33
and Karen will be reading from that verse to
verse 37. Thank you Gary. So Matthew chapter
12, if you have one of these blue Bibles it will
be on page 793. The black one will be on page
1515. These are the words of our Lord Jesus Make
a tree good and its fruit will be good Or make
a tree bad and its fruit will be bad for a tree
is recognized by its fruit You brood of vipers
How can you who are evil say anything good? For
the mouth speaks what the heart is full of A
good man brings good things out of the good stored
up in him, and an evil man brings evil things
out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell
you that everyone will have to give account on
the day of judgment for every empty word they
have spoken, for by your words you will be acquitted,
and by your words you will be condemned. This
is God's word. Thanks Karen. Good morning again
church. Just to let you know in today's newsletter
we're experimenting with the outline of the sermon
so if you haven't received a physical copy of
this we have emailed it out online but just to
let you know if you want to follow along today
with the passage that we're looking at you'll
find the outline there. But before we get into
the word of the Lord this morning, why don't
we pray together and ask for our Lord's help
in understanding these words. Father, we ask
this morning that your word would be illuminated
to us, that you would enlighten the eyes of our
heart by the work of your Holy Spirit. that this
morning our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that
He would be centre in all we do. We ask this
in Jesus' name. Amen. Church, I wonder if you
would be able to finish this sentence for me.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but brilliant.
nursery rhyme indeed that reminds the little
ones among us that words might be hurtful, but
they shouldn't be the things that destroy us.
But in saying that, do words matter? Do the things
that we say with our mouths just disappear into
the air, never to be thought of again? Or is
there something more to say on the way that we
speak? Well, in the passage that we have before
us this morning, Jesus teaches us something profoundly
sobering about the connection between our hearts
and our words. He tells us that our words aren't
just little vibrations that tickle each other's
eardrums for better or worse, but are a reflection
of what's going on inside, deep inside, deep
inside of our hearts. And that when we speak,
we're actually revealing the condition of our
hearts for better or worse, healthy or unhealthy.
And more than that, Jesus warns us that we will
give an account of every word that we speak.
Church, this passage challenges us to take a
good look, a good hard look at our speech, our
actions and more importantly, our hearts. To
put that as simply as I can, what we're hopefully
going to see today is that our words actually
say something about us. And in the end, they
were either just justify or condemn us. Now all
of this has come off the back of the Pharisees
verbally challenging Jesus on his very presence
in Israel. And since these verbal challenges
starting in chapter 12, there's been a contrast
of characters that have kind of come bubbling
to the surface. A contrast between our righteous
and holy Lord and that of the hard -hearted religious
leaders of the day. In the first 14 verses we
saw an exchange about the Sabbath and it was
there that Jesus told the Pharisees that they
just pay lip service to the command, taking the
law to the extreme and making it a burden for
the people. Whereas Jesus brings true and eternal
rest for all those that come to him because he
is the Lord of the Sabbath. Again in verses 15
to 21, in contrast to the character of the Pharisees
who condemned and continually tore people down,
we thought about the beautiful song of the servant.
and how Israel was to expect a compassionate
and merciful savior who Jesus clearly is as revealed
in all that he did and all that he said. And
then last week in verses 22 to 32 we saw our
Lord address the sin that will never be forgiven.
And we saw this particularly in the context of
the Pharisees that said with their mouths They
had an absolute rejection of the Holy Spirit's
revelation of who Jesus is. Which brings us to
the text that we have before us this morning.
And it's here that I think our Lord shows us
four things in relation to our hearts and our
speech. Four things that we would do well to
reflect on this morning. First, Jesus is going
to give us a bit of a picture about a couple
of trees and what fruit they bear so we can kind
of get our heads around just how important all
of this really is. Second, he's going to again
reveal the traits of hard -heartedness. Third,
words matter but so do our actions. And then
finally, Jesus is going to tell us that we have
to pay careful attention to all of this because
at the end of the day, It's all going to really
matter. So if you have your Bibles with you this
morning, read with me just that first verse there,
verse 33. These are the words of our Lord, make
a tree good and its fruit will be good. Or make
a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree
is recognised by its fruit. Right, so straight
off the bat, it's worth mentioning that Jesus
is directly addressing the Pharisees here. But
as he speaks to them, as he challenges them with
this picture, we learn something of the character
of Jesus as well. You see, in context, the Pharisees
had been saying that Jesus was doing good things,
like healing people, and though they couldn't
deny those good deeds, they also added that he
was essentially an evil person. You might remember
that from last week. Jesus had healed a man,
a great thing to happen indeed. But then these
Pharisees said that Jesus was only able to do
any of this because he was in cahoots with the
devil himself and thus deceiving the nation of
Israel. And so it's here that our Lord brings
attention to their rhetoric and says either approve
of me and my deeds or condemn me and my deeds
but don't say that I do good but I'm evil at
the same time. It doesn't make sense. That's
the challenge of Jesus to the Pharisees here.
He essentially says don't say that I'm an evil
man going about doing good things, make up your
minds and you can do that by looking at my actions
because it will tell you something of my heart.
That's why this picture here is so helpful to
us. An apple tree doesn't produce pears. And
a pear tree doesn't produce dragon fruit. A tree
is known by its fruit. And that's what Jesus
is saying here. He's saying the way we evaluate
the heart is by what it produces. And so with
that in mind, if we think of our Lord Jesus here,
From the get -go, from the very beginning of
this gospel that Matthew has given to us, we've
seen Jesus draw all manner of people into the
kingdom of heaven by his deeds and his words.
From the get -go, everything that Jesus has done
has reflected something of the true nature of
Him being the Son of God, the Saviour of the
world, the servant of God. His words and deeds
have reflected that every step of the way, He
has been Emmanuel, God with us. That's been the
fruit of the tree, so to speak. Now, contrast
that with the Pharisees. I mean, they acted like
these great men of God, but they spoke wickedly
towards the Son of God continually. They've said
one thing about how to obey scripture, but haven't
followed it themselves. They've followed their
traditions. Again, not so with our Lord. No,
we can assess Jesus by what Matthew has given
us to know him and he's revealed him time and
time again to be the Son of God because his life
reveals his heart. His life reveals to us a man
who is humble, a man who's caring and compassionate,
a man who served the weakest and most broken
and a man who loved not just in word but in all
that he did as well. To put that simply, the
fruit reveals that the tree is good. Very, very
good. So in light of that, I might ask this morning,
what do your words reveal about the deepest part
of you? If you were to say that someone was to
film your life for a good few weeks and then
you were to watch it back in a Netflix special,
what kind of drama would it be? What kind of
show would you be flicking on? A humorous thought
maybe, maybe not. But this is the sort of thinking
behind what Jesus is giving to us here. He gives
us something in these verses by which we can
truly examine ourselves. Our actions and our
speech indicate what's really going on inside
of us. It's the fruit of the tree, so to speak.
So would you say that your life and actions reflect
a life that's been transformed, that's been graciously
born again by the work of our Heavenly Father?
Would you say that your words and actions towards
those around you, even your enemies, has been
seasoned with the love and the grace of God?
It's amazing what we can learn about ourselves
and others when we stand back and look at the
fruit. Well, here that we learn that Jesus' fruit
reveals a good and godly character. And the Pharisees'
character, well, it was revealed by their fruit
as well. And we see here in our text this morning
that Jesus, he calls them on it. saying in verse
34, essentially what Jesus is saying here is
that the Pharisees are talking snakes in that
they want to look good but reveal their slithering
slimy characters by their slanderous words. They
might try their hardest to put on a good, godly
persona out there in the world, but to the King
of Kings, there was no pulling the wool over
his eyes, because their words, their words reveal
their hearts. Brothers and sisters, this truth
still stands today. I think it's a warning to
those in the church that deceive themselves.
I mean, you might preach, you might write books,
you might do missionary work, you might evangelise,
play music, all the while having a heart that's
deceived. That's the verdict that our Jesus pronounces
on these men here. They were the religious elite
of the day. They were the visible shepherds that
Israel looked to, but Jesus, he calls them on
their hypocrisy. He calls them on their actions
as revealing their true characters. And that's
because at the end of the day, they didn't really
know God. They didn't really know his love or
his grace or his mercy. And we see that in the
way that they speak about Jesus, who is the revelation
of God in the flesh, Emmanuel, God with us. I
mean, we saw it last week. They saw God operating
in their very midst, casting out a vicious, tormenting
demon. And instead of standing back and praising
and glorifying God for this amazing work, they
opposed Jesus to his face. with slanderous speech,
which revealed their hearts towards God. In one
way, they worked so hard to keep up a public
persona of godliness and piety, but their speech
gave them away. Their speech exposed their hearts
as being utterly darkened and hardened. to the
things of God. Church, this is a pretty terrifying
passage if we think about what's going on here.
I mean, we can work really hard to make the outside
look so nice and shiny. But if we haven't been
transformed by God's grace on the inside, It
might not happen straight away but there will
be some area where the truth of the heart is
exposed. And the warning here is that you might
try really hard with the makeup and with the
masks but there will always be an area of our
lives where the truth will break through and
expose what's really going on. The Pharisees,
they looked so good and shiny but their darkened
hearts manifested itself in blasphemy and slander
and it gave them away as men that didn't really
know the God of Israel who had sent his only
begotten son into this world to serve and to
seek and to save the lost. Brilliant sermon done
on this very passage was done by Augustine in
the fifth century. And he says this, the words
of men betray the secrets of their hearts. John
Calvin, the great reformer, says the tongue is
the mirror of the heart. If a man's words are
evil, it's evidence that his heart is evil. All
this to say our words, our speech, it comes from
the abundance of our hearts. It's the fruit,
it's the language of the soul. we might say.
And Jesus here, he points out a way for us to
know what's going on in our hearts. And it's
here that we see that even people who might go
to church, their whole lives can be utterly deceived
about the very real state of their hearts. This
is the thing, brothers and sisters. We're not
going through this text this morning because
we're going through it because Jesus doesn't
want us going the same way. Jesus doesn't want
people to be self -deceived. No, this event,
these words that have been inspired in Holy Scripture
is because Jesus wants us to stand back and really
take a long hard look at what is coming out of
our mouths. So we might think of this like a
tool in which we can test ourselves somewhat.
Granted, our speech doesn't ultimately make us
righteous, we'll get to that in a moment, but
it does, as we see here, reflect something that's
going on deep down inside of us. Jesus would
have us reflect this morning on how we speak
because it tells us a lot about ourselves. As
many of you know I was a drummer before I became
a pastor and I got a chance to travel around
quite a bit and it always struck me that anywhere
you went in the world you could an Aussie accent
with just a couple of words of them speaking.
Be it in a crowd, at a sporting match, or at
a party, as soon as you hear, g'day Cobber, radio,
striker lights. I always felt that sense of familiarity
and homeness. And I want you to think about this
because I never heard the Aussie accent and ever
wondered where on earth that person was from.
Now when I heard the harsh Aussie lingo, which
by the way stands out like a sore thumb in Europe,
I knew exactly what part of the planet that person
was from. And I think Jesus would have us think
the same way about our speech. It informs us
of which kingdom we belong to. A language that
is continually and unapologetically slanderous,
blasphemous and hateful reveals that one doesn't
really have a claim of having an accent that
reflects a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.
As a church, who do you sound like? What is your
speech full of? What is it flavoured with? Our
words are a language into the soul by which we
get a gauge of what kingdom we belong to. Jesus
then sort of revisits that first illustration
here in our text of trees and fruit, but this
time with storerooms out of which people kind
of bring things that have been stacked up in
there. Saying in verse 35, A good man brings
good things out of the good stored up in him
and an evil man brings evil things out of the
evil stored up in him. See what Jesus is getting
at here is that each person's heart is like a
storehouse in which we bring out the things that
have been stored and kind of stacked up in there.
I remember when Haley and I moved to England
and in order for us to have all our things overseas
we had to put our entire lives which was mainly
my drum kits and awesome record collection in
a shipping container so that when we got to England
we wouldn't have to start from scratch. Now not
for a moment did we expect that when the shipping
container arrived that when we opened it, that
there would be a car in there, that there would
be a boat in there and a whole stack of cash
just waiting for us to take out. And our Lord's
point is this, you can't bring something out
that isn't there in the first place. So when
we bring forth good things that's pleasing to
God, that's righteous in His sight, that's a
great sign that God's grace is at work in one's
heart. But when we continually bring forth things
that are evil, it's either a sign that we're
contradicting the work of the Holy Spirit in
us, or that we're totally empty and void of spiritual
goodness altogether. Church, the desire, the
want to do good, to praise God, to worship God,
and to obey his commands, well, that's a wonderful
indication of a spiritual work that is really
going on in our hearts. But when our hearts are
continually set on evil things and our words
are consistently tearing down and destroying
and slandering and gossiping about others and
irreverent towards God, will you be the judge?
Our Lord is clear here. The storehouse, the shipping
container. We can only bring out what's stacked
up in there, which is to say our hearts can only
bring out what's going on inside of us. And that's
heard in the way that we speak and seen in the
way we act. And Jesus would have us reflect on
these things, not because our works ultimately
save us. But they are key indicators to what's
going on. deep within our hearts. You see, the
true children of God want to sound and act like
their father. That's what children want to do.
They want to be like their father. That's what
we ought to long for. We ought to long to speak
and act like the one we proclaim to follow with
all that we are. And this can only happen because
of God's grace towards us. It will come as no
surprise to you, but one of the hardest things
to tame is the tongue. It's like a sword that
slashes and dashes and dices people to pieces.
It's why we teach our children that nursery rhyme
that you all remembered this morning. Well done.
Because our words are powerful and they hurt.
They cause great harm to others. But our words,
they can also build up. They can rally the troops.
They can inspire whole nations. I don't know
if you've listened to Winston Churchill lately,
but his stuff is inspiring. And the children
of God ought to desire to lean in on the Holy
Spirit's work in our lives to see the real transformation
that He is doing in this area. And that's the
thing, no one will see real transformation unless
the Holy Spirit is truly present and at work
in their lives. As He is the One. He is the agent
that gives the new heart to deeply desire to
want to obey our God with all that we are and
to want to bring things out that are pleasing
to our Father and Friends that only happens when
one believes on the Lord Jesus Christ when one
accepts his claims and Receives him as the only
Savior of our souls 16th century reformer Thomas
Cramner, he once put it like this, our words
are a testimony of our repentance and faith in
Christ. And all of this leads to verses 36 and
37, where our Lord says, but I tell you that
everyone will have to give an account on the
day of judgment for every empty word they've
spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted
and by your words you will be condemned. Jesus
couldn't be any more clearer. Our words either
condemn or acquit. Now you might be here this
morning and thinking to yourself, but wait, I
thought all I had to do was believe that Jesus
was a real person at some point in history. Well,
that's a good start. We do have to believe, but
belief as the Bible defines it is to trust Christ
implicitly with all that he claims to be and
do for us. And what our Lord brings out here
is that our words make manifest if they're a
life defined by that grace and that truth or
a life That really hasn't surrendered at all.
Friends, there will come a day when each and
every single one of us, not just in this room,
but on the face of the planet, will give an account
for what we've said and done. And it's here that
Jesus reminds us that our hearts will manifest
a life that's either trusted and obeyed or like
the Pharisees. has been self -deceived and hypocritical.
We don't like to think about this much in our
day and age, but in light of the revelation of
God as manifested in His Son, as revealed by
the Holy Spirit of God, our words don't just
disappear into the air, never to be thought of
again. God takes note. And slanderous grievous
evil words are displeasing to our God. So in
thinking about all of what we've looked at this
morning, what is the general and consistent tone
of your speech? Is it gracious and loving and
godly and edifying or is your tongue like a cesspool
that has the accent of darkness to it. Well,
brothers and sisters, only you can sit back and
judge yourself in the spiritual mirror this morning,
but I do want to say a couple of things as we
end in our text here. First, if you claim Jesus
as savior, then these words that we have heard
this morning are the words of God. And they remind
us that it's impossible, absolutely impossible
for any of us to walk perfectly before our God.
Our tongue teaches us a few things, yes, but
it also is the instrument in which we can confess
our sin and ask Him that by His grace, He would
forgive us. and that he would strengthen us in
this area so that our speech would more and more
and more reflect a life that has been truly transformed
by the power of God in us. Second, if you're
here this morning and you haven't called upon
the name of the Lord, then you need to know that
there's no amount of effort or works on your
behalf to keep the reality of your heart condemning
you in the end. The Bible says without holiness,
no one will see the Lord, but this is the thing,
dear friend. There is one who has been perfect,
who has been holy, who has been pure, has been
righteous, has the perfect fruit, has bought
out the perfect things from the storehouse. And
the Bible says that if you declare with your
mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart
that he was raised from the dead, you will be
saved. For it's with your heart that you believe
and are justified. It's with your mouth that
you profess your faith and are saved. Brothers
and sisters, none of us are accepted because
of our own storerooms and shipping containers.
In other words, no one is accepted because of
our own lives. No, it is only by the life, death
and resurrection of Jesus Christ truly being
credited to us that we will ultimately be accepted.
Do you believe that in your heart today? Do you
confess that with your mouth today? If so, may
our God give you the strength over your tongues
and over your actions by continually changing
and renovating and refining your heart, conforming
you more and more into the image of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father God, these are
potent words. but words that are from you and
your word is a double -edged sword. And we thank
you for the words of eternal life that cause
us to raise our eyes to the Lord Jesus and to
confess him as our only way. Lord, this morning
as you have worked in and among us, by your word
we ask that by your spirit we would Confess with
our mouths where we have fallen short. Confess
where we trust the gospel. And believe in our
hearts that as we go out into the world that
you are the one who is continually conforming
us into the image of your son. Lord, we ask that
you would use us as a living sacrifice, this
church, this community, as a living sacrifice
to be a light on the hill here in Armidale. We
ask for these things in Jesus' name and for your
sake.