Bearing Fruit

 July 30 2023

Romans 7

         The best part of this time of year is not the excessive heat and the suffocating humidity but it is rather the fact that there is less than a month to go until football is back. For me, and a lot of guys like me, the longest period of time is the months between the beginning of February and the end of August. But we have made it once again and it is hard to say just why football is so enjoyable but it might be that scoring in football is pretty straight forward. You have four tries to move the ball ten yards and if you’re successful in moving the ball down the field you can score either with a touchdown, six points and an extra point if you have a decent kicker, or a field goal that will get you three points. And while scoring in football is pretty straight forward the ways a team can move the ball or keep the ball from moving is what makes the game interesting.

         So, yea, its easy for us to figure out how points are scored in any game out there, to know just what is the goal we are aiming for, but when it comes to the church it is sometimes difficult to honestly say just when do we score the points, to know just when is it that we have crossed the goal line. So, I was fascinated by Paul in this seventh chapter of his letter to the church at Rome that here in among his writing about the Law, he pauses to remind his audience just what is the point of it all, which is that they were to be people who are to bear fruit. Paul appears to be covering a little of what he has previously said because in the fourth verse of this seventh chapter, Paul writes, “Likewise, my brothers and sisters, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead…”. This is much of what Paul has already said about what happens in our baptism, that because we belong to Jesus Christ when we were plunged beneath the water we joined him in his death so that upon rising up from the water we too are raised with Christ from the dead. This is wonderful news for all of us yet even so, there was something further that is expected from us when we have died to our past to take hold of this new future that is ours when we belong to Jesus and that is that we are to bear fruit for God. This is the goal that we as the church, those of us who make up the team of God, this bearing fruit is what we are to be busy doing. As Paul tells us, when we were in the flesh, before we belonged to Christ, before we were buried beneath the waters, “…living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work to bear fruit for death.” So for Paul we are all going to bear some type of fruit with this life we have been given, either we will bear fruit for God or we will bear fruit for death. The question all of us have to answer is this:, just which team to you want to be a part of, the team that is all about bearing fruit for God or do you want to be part of the team which is bearing fruit for death?  

         Well, it probably goes without saying that we would rather be part of the body of Christ whose goal is to bear fruit for God than to just waste our lives bearing fruit for death. For most of us though, when told that we are to bear fruit for God we are hard pressed to say just what it means to bear fruit for God or what actually is involved in order for us to bear fruit for God. Paul speaks about bearing fruit for God in the first chapter of his letter to the church at Colossae where he instructs his readers that he is praying for them so that they,“…may be filled with the knowledge of the will of God in all spiritual wisdom and being of a like mind with God so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the hands-on experience of God.” This bearing fruit for God happens rather organically, beginning with being filled with knowing the will of God, becoming aware of the ways of God and how to be of one mind with him. Out of a heart and a mind that longs to know God comes a life that walks in a manner worthy of God, a life ready to join God in his good works. This is what Jesus is teaching us when he tells us in Matthew 5:16, that we are to, “…let our light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” As we bring forth good works a dark world suddenly is lit up as when the dawn breaks across the morning sky and our Heavenly Father is praised and glorified. There is only one other place in the gospels that speaks of the Father being glorified and this is found in the eighth verse of the fifteenth chapter of John where Jesus tells us , “ By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” Jesus goes on to explain that this bearing of fruit comes from abiding or resting in the love of Jesus. Jesus goes on to say that when we keep his commandments that this is when we will be resting in his love. And here is what Jesus calls us to do, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friend.” A greater love has come, a light has dawned, good works are being done which reflect the goodness of God and the Father is glorified; all of this is bearing fruit for God.

         This greater love, this is a love that compels one to take their life and give this life for the good of others, the very essence of good works.This is why we must hear Jesus again speak to us of bearing fruit, from the twenty-fourth verse of the twelfth chapter of John where Jesus tells us, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” You see, only as we know with utmost certainty that we have indeed been raised with Christ, only as our faith is resurrection faith can we be those who willingly offer up our life in an act of greatest love. Only as we have been united with Christ in a death like his and know that we have been united in a resurrection like his can we now fully offer ourselves in love to God, bearing fruit in the hope of resurrection expectation. 

This way of offering the total sum of our life as an act of greater love is so very different than life under the law. The law that God gave to his people, while being, as Paul tells us, “…holy, righteous, and good…”,could only bring forth the fruit of death because it focused all those who were under the Law on their own ability to keep the Law. To keep the Law was a never ending struggle as even Peter, in the fifteenth chapter of the book of Acts, said that the Law was a yoke that he nor his ancestors were able to bear. Life under the Law focused ones attention on how very frail and vulnerable they were. As Paul writes here in the seventh chapter of Romans, ‘For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate.” And a little further in his letter, Paul writes, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” This awareness of how weak our flesh really is leads to fear, fear of judgment and condemnation. Yet all is not lost for these, all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery, these are the very ones Christ came to deliver. And the way that Christ delivers us from a life time of fear is through his love. In the first letter that John wrote, in the fourth chapter, we are told that, “…there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” Here, at the depth of our despair, Jesus finds us, and he loves us with the greatest love of all, laying down his life, taking upon himself our failure and our shame there upon the cross. For those who know no good thing dwells in them, Jesus calls to them to come to him and abide. Come and abide, come and rest in his love until his love becomes our love. As Jesus loved us with the greatest love of all, laying down his life for us, so now he calls us to make his perfect love to be the life that pulsates within us. Filled with his love, Christ calls us to join him in his death, and rise with him in resurrection life. With resurrection faith, the faith that believes in the God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence things which do not exist, we are at last able to be like a grain of wheat that falls into the ground and bears much fruit for God. 

         You see, what Paul is addressing here is what one is to do once they have been baptized. Some who were formally Jewish in this church at Rome thought that once a person has been baptized the next step is to become Law abiding members, those who obeyed the entirety of the Law. Paul, though, wanted them to understand that to expect someone to become followers of the Law would be nothing more than having them become those who were at the beck and call of sin.  No, what is supposed to follow our baptism is that we might learn to live as those who have been raised from the dead. As those who no longer who are bound by fear we at last are able to be those who offer up our lives just as Christ offered up his life for us. Resting in Christ, allowing his greater love to become our love, we will bear much fruit for God, fruit that springs forth from the love within us. Those who wanted to return to the Law would become fearful people, judgmental and condemning of others who could not make the grade. But we are those who know that Jesus Christ has done all that he has done for us all so we might bear fruit for God. This means that we know that we can only reach this goal through the love of God that has searched for us and welcomed us home. It is this perfect love of Jesus which takes and perfects us to the glory of God. So, we can say, yes, this is who we are,  people who know that our goal as team Jesus is to bear fruit for God. This means that we stand ready to lay down our lives, ready to be planted as a seed, ready give ourselves as a love offering to God, for we know that this is the only worthy response to give to the one who gave himself as a love offering for each one of us.  Amen!