Fruitful Follow-Up

Conversation #1:  Me: “Is she a believer?” Response: “Oh yeah, I think so. She is so nice and she’s in church every week.”

Conversation #2: Me: “How did you come to know Christ?”  Response: “Oh, I went to a Billy Graham crusade when I was younger and went forward for the invitation.”

Neither of these conversations was recent. When these things were said I let them go; I just listened to the speaker and took them at their word.  My understanding has changed over the years and I would have a follow-up question, now.

Reading about the fruits of the Spirit in Tim Keller’s commentary on Galatians brought these portions of conversations to mind.  Keller makes a couple of keen observations.

Gifts, he says, are not fruit. God has given us all gifts, some are personality traits or the gift of good upbringing so that we present ourselves well to the public. Fruits of the Spirit come from the Holy Spirit. They grow like fruit on trees in that they grow gradually, they grow symmetrically, and they grow inevitably.  (Fruit trees will grow fruit, perhaps it won’t be great fruit but they will bear fruit.)

The same is true for the Christian. In addition to the gifts we have been born with, once God has provided the faith and given us the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit in us, we will produce fruit. What Keller explains about the “symmetrical” aspect of growing fruit  is that we will grow all of the fruits of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23) We may be stronger in some than others but the Christian will produce them all.

Being nice, attending church, even responding to an altar call at a Billy Graham crusade tells us very little about a person’s faith. Note that fruit is a harvest for the Lord; it increases His kingdom. In John 15:8 Jesus says that it is our fruit that proves we are His disciples.   “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” He reiterates the point again in John 15:2, “ Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”

Gradually and faithfully all nine fruits will  be produced in the follower of Jesus Christ. If there is no fruit, there is no salvation.

My point is not to encourage us to begin to look around the church and see who is and who is not producing fruit for the Lord. Instead, I’m encouraging each of us to examine our own hearts and lives. Are we nice or are we loving? Are we happy or are we joyful? Do we put up a good front for other people or do we know the peace of God in our lives? Would our family members call us patient? Do we skip from friend to friend and church to church, or are we faithful to other people? Are we good, gentle, and self-controlled?

These are important questions. We live in a time when the Gospel has been watered down to, “Pray this prayer and you’ll go to heaven.” The Bible says that faith is a gift from God to those who believe that Christ died for their sin. We tend to play down the sin part and promote the loving act of Christ in being  our substitute in His death for our salvation. Why did He have to die if we do not deserve that punishment for our sin? His death paid the debt we owe God because of our sin.

Before we believe that we are going to heaven we have to believe that we are sinners who deserve to be punished. It was a painful shock to me when I understood the truth of this in my own life. It is the belief that brings gratitude for the suffering and dying in our place.

SO, in hindsight to my conversations, I wish I had followed up with a simple question: “Have you seen the fruits of the Spirit in their lives?”

But really, it is more important to ask that question of ourselves first.