Trees and Fruit – 4/13/25

“Make the tree good, or make the tree bad.”

It’s an odd command, isn’t it? It’s two aorist active imperatives. It just sounds odd to command us to make trees good or bad because generally, we don’t think of changing the identities of trees. I don’t even know one trans tree, a tree that identifies as an orange tree that is now identifying as an apple tree. That’s why the language seems odd to us. The command is odd.

“Make a tree good, or make a tree bad.”

But Jesus is getting at something because we humans have the capacity to pretend to be something we’re not, to appear as one thing, but to actually be another.

Look at the context of chapter 12. The Pharisees are presenting themselves as the Supreme Court of the Mosaic law. They’re issuing verbal edicts at a remarkable pace. For example, in chapter 12, they use their words in at least four ways. We saw at the beginning of chapter 12,

The Pharisees used their words to denounce.

Verse 2, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.”

Second, they use their words to deceive.

When Jesus was about to heal the man with the withered hand, they asked,

“‘Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?'[verse 10] – so that they might accuse him.”

As Ryan mentioned several weeks ago, this is an intellectually dishonest question because they weren’t really interested in the truth, nor did they care about the man with the withered hand. They were setting Jesus up.

Third, they used their words, we saw last week, to demonize. Verse 24.

“It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.”

Next week, we will see they use their words to demand.

“Teacher, [verse 38] we wish to see a sign from you.”

Now, that seems to be a respectable demand, we want to see a sign. Unless you’ve been reading in Matthew. Jesus has done sign, after sign, after sign. It’s like getting up from a massive Thanksgiving meal and turning to the cook and say, how about some food? People are looking at you like you’ve been gorging yourself for an hour.

That’s the image here. Miracle after miracle, sign after sign. We want a sign. And Jesus says what? One sign – sign of Jonah –  will be given to you. What’s the sign of Jonah? The resurrection. But that’s next week on Easter. We’re not going there yet.

Jesus is confronting the Pharisees like one would confront a friend who has the stomach flu but won’t acknowledge it. You’re throwing up. Look at all the vomit. Do you see? Your words are verbal vomit, and yet you’re like, “What’s the problem? We’re good, I’m fine.” No, you’re not fine. You have a deeper problem.

Now, later in Matthew, Jesus will go after this quite directly. For example, a couple examples, Matthew 23:27,

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.”

Or earlier in verse 25,

“Woe do you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.”

I think this is another way of saying what he just said in verse 33 of Matthew 12.

“Either make the tree good and its fruit [will be] good, or make the tree bad and its fruit [will be] bad.”

Stop pretending to be one thing when you are actually another thing.

Now, no one embodied this more than Robert Hanssen, former FBI agent who died in his cell in 2023. Hanssen had spent over twenty years working for the FBI, while on and off selling secrets to the Russians.

He sold over 6,000 pages of classified documents, including counter-intelligence techniques, top-secret nuclear weapon capabilities, many, many technical operations. He exposed many Soviet defectors who were currently working as agents for the United States, and he gave so many names up. We know of at least three who were horribly tortured and executed because of Hanssen.

The problem became so serious that the FBI determined to set up a task force to try to identify the mole within the FBI so they could expose the problem. Guess who they picked to supervise the task force? Robert Hanssen. The mole was looking for the mole. And when the task force finished, he sold the documents to the Russians of the task force looking for the mole, of which he was the mole.

Robert Hanssen is described by Ann Blackman in the book “The Spy Next Door” as a “thicket of paradoxes.” Why was he a thicket paradoxes? Well, he was a family man. He had a wife and six kids, yet a sexual pervert. He was a devout Catholic. He often attended mass daily. He had his Bible on his desk, yet he lived a double life. He was an anti-communist, fervently loved America, hated communism, yet sold secrets to communists. He was an FBI agent, yet he worked for the KGB and later for the SVR.

David Wise in his book on Hanson called “Spy” wrote:

“Robert Philip Hanssen was a walking paradox… He led at least six lives: special agent of the FBI, devoted family man, Russian spy, devout Catholic, obsessed pornographer, and fantasy James Bond….”

Hanssen’s character was so complex, contradictory, that after he was caught, the FBI offered him a plea deal. If he would allow himself to be interviewed and cooperate, he would not be executed. And as a part of that agreement, Dr. David Charney, a psychiatrist, visited Hanson in prison more than 30 times to try to identify his motivations. Hanssen gave Charney permission to speak with David Wise, who lists at least nine possible reasons for his betrayals. Here they are.

Financial pressure.

Fear of failure – Hanssen was socially awkward, always felt like an outsider.

Third is father wounds. His father repeatedly predicted he would be a failure to him.

Anger – desire to get even.

Cry for help – to try to get people to listen.

Boredom – since he was a behind the desk kind of agent, he desired the thrill of being a real spy.

Curiosity – Could he commit the perfect crime?

Loneliness – His Soviet handlers knew how to stroke his need for recognition and appreciation.

Pride – Hanssen was intensely arrogant.

In these interviews, Hanssen would repeatedly refer to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. That’s Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous character who could be really good or really bad. After meeting with Hanssen, Charney warned against jumping to conclusions about his motivations. He wrote this,

“People are complicated beings, and motivations are multidetermined and evolve over time. Motives may get altered in memory, depending on rationalizations that people bring in explaining themselves to themselves.”

Let me translate. We’re crazy. We are really complicated beings, who, if the circumstances are right, can convince ourselves of anything. And our actions, though contradictory, can make sense to ourselves. Walt Whitman illustrates this in his famous poem, “Song of Myself,” #51.

“Do I contradict myself? Very well then. I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes).”

That may be true, but that’s really creepy. See, we tend to see other people’s inconsistencies as hypocrisies. We tend to our own inconsistencies as complexities. You’re just not sophisticated enough to understand me. Do you see why Jesus says, how about we make the tree good and it’s fruit good. Or if you’re not going to do that, let’s make the tree bad and it’s fruit bad.

This is where Jesus’s strategy of life change comes into direct conflict with the Pharisees. The Pharisees desperately wanted to keep the Law, and they were sincere in that. They wanted to bear good fruit. But the way they did it was often, if you want to bear fruit, let’s attach the fruit to the tree.

Now you thought this was just a metaphor for our old building, but it’s not. It’s when we want to appear as an apple tree, since we can’t make ourselves be an apple tree, we need to begin attaching clip-on fruit to the apple tree and thereby giving the impression that we are something we may not actually be. But here’s the catch. Most of you are far enough away to where you can’t tell that this apple is plastic. It’s fake. And so, if I’m going to continue giving the impression that I am actually an apple tree, and yet my fruit is fake, I have to keep people at a distance.

And that’s why religious people are often the first to keep the arm up. Come close, stay away, is the impression, because I don’t want you to see that my fruit is plastic. And it also is expensive because I have to keep painting and putting makeup on my fruit so that I will continue to appear… Let’s see about where some more fruit — oh sorry this isn’t balanced. This is going to make it hard for some of you to listen, and me to preach…

But see, this way of living leads to immense social pressure because I have to constantly manage what you think about me and deep insecurities, because as soon as you get close enough or ask the right question, then I might be exposed. You might think something of me that I don’t want you to think about me.

Jesus is communicating a very different way in verse 33. Either make the tree good or make the tree bad. Jesus is not interested in clip-on fruit. He transforms the nature of the tree. An apple tree does not need plastic apples to be clipped on.

Now it may need new life. That’s what becoming a Christian is, regeneration, where we are born from above, as Jesus says, born again, born anew. And then we may need fertilizer, water, time. We, we may need pruning, which some of us are in right now, and we think, we interpret that as God’s angry with me. He’s not angry with you. He is pruning you so that you might, what? Bear more fruits. Because that’s the way Jesus does what he commands here.

This little paragraph, I believe, is answering the question, why make it good or bad? Why is Jesus into tree transformation, not tree simulation? And he gives at least three reasons.

1. Fruit reveals root.

One, because fruit reveals root. Fruit reveals the very nature of the tree. End of verse 33,

“for the tree is known by its fruit.”

Mike Cosper is concerned that we inhabit today what he calls a “disenchanted world.” He explains it this way.

“This is an age where our sense of spiritual possibility, transcendence, and the presence of God has been drained out. What’s left is a spiritual desert, and Christians face the temptation to accept the dryness of that desert as the only possible world.”

When you’re in a spiritual desert, like the Pharisees, we are tempted to begin acting the part, playing a role, clipping on fruit, rather than truly seeking the face of God. And we begin to live our lives as if God is not present. Cosper goes on.

“How often have you encountered someone whose knowledge of the Bible is encyclopedic, but whose presence is harsh, dark, or miserable? How often do you hear cliched stories about Christians with all the right answers that stiff waiters on tips, are horrible to their spouses or neighbors, and who you wouldn’t trust with your dog?”

We know something’s wrong, but the price of honesty seems too high. So we anxiously press on. Cosper continues.

“We are anxious people, covering our flaws, shaping our image, straining to present an acceptable version of ourselves to the world around us. And of course, all of this is merely symptomatic of a deeper issue. We don’t just want to appear pretty or skinny or smart — we want to be good, acceptable, lovable. We want to know we are approved. But in a world drained of transcendence, there is only the approval of the mob to fill the void.”

Jesus is saying our fruit problem is revealing a root problem, and the solution, as we’ve been hearing in Matthew, is

“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden…”

Come to me all you who are exhausted in performing, and pretending, and trying to please God or man.

“Abide in me, and I in you. [Jesus says] As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

Abide. There is an objective sense and a subjective sense in which we abide. The objective sense is when we repent and believe in Jesus, we are abiding in him. It’s like when you live in a house. You can be asleep or awake, but when you’re in the house, you’re in the house, whether you’re aware of it or not.

When you are in Jesus, when you repent and believe, you are Jesus, whether you’re aware or at work or thinking about him or not, in an objective sense, you’re abiding in Jesus. That’s who we are.

But there’s also a subjective sense, and that is, as we grow more and more in Jesus we become more and aware of his presence. We’re not alone. More and more aware that I can’t produce any fruit that matters or lasts apart from you. Your Spirit fills me. I am continually filled with the Spirit who bears fruit of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. Things that I can’t manufacture on my own. He produces that. And that’s a lifelong journey of failing and repenting and being restored and growing and increasing as he bears fruit through us. Fruit reveals root.

2. The outside reveals the inside.

Second reason we are to make it good or make it bad is because the outside reveals the inside. Outside reveals inside. And Jesus says this a couple of ways. In verse 34,

“You brood of vipers. How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

Your mouth is vomiting up the vocabulary of your heart. When the Pharisees are denouncing, deceiving, demonizing, and demanding, these outside verbal explosions are merely revealing what’s happening on the inside.

If my heart is full of insecurity, and if I’m so concerned about what you think of me, then my words will generally be characterized. by either flattery or fault-finding, cajoling or criticizing, because I’m always having to manage, control people around me and what they think of me.

“For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

Jesus continues this same argument with a different analogy in verse 35. He moves to the treasure or storehouse analogy.

“The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out his evil treasure brings forth evil.”

He’s still talking about the same thing. Good is going to produce good. Bad is going produce bad. Here, what you store up comes up. The treasure or storehouse is the heart, the control center of our being. Jesus is saying, you can try to hide what’s in your heart. And maybe you’re like Robert Hansen, you’re really good at it and you can go for a while, but eventually you will be exposed. It will come out given the right circumstances.

Amy Carmichael in her little book “If” wrote this.

“For a cup brimful of sweet water cannot spill even one drop of bitter water however suddenly jolted.”

When we are suddenly jolted, we typically focus on the jolter — she pushes my button. Or the jolting — he pushed me too far. And Jesus is not minimizing those wrongs, but what he is saying is, how about we talk about the joltee? What’s going on in your heart that given the right circumstances, bitterness, anger, frustration emerges?

A couple of months ago I was loading the dishwasher and was getting ready to turn it on. So I went to push it in, and it was loaded. At first I thought maybe some utensils were catching, but nothing was catching. At that point I realized, like any good man, I need to teach this dishwasher a lesson. I shoved the rack in, and the wheel goes off down the… My wife’s looking at me like, “Have you lost your mind?”

Now in that moment of frustration, I am totally confident we have a dishwasher problem. You can’t have dishwashers running around the world thinking they can defy you. It’s a dishwasher problem. But the look in my wife’s eyes and the Spirit’s convicting my heart saying, “No, we have something deeper than a dishwasher problem.” Where is all this anger coming from? I’m assuming it’s out there. And Jesus is saying, slow down. What are you assuming about appliances? About living in a world where everything should operate exactly as you think? And if it doesn’t, then you’re perfectly justified … to break it! Jesus is saying, how about we get to what’s inside before we talk about calling the dishwasher repair man.

Jesus continues this argument. From outside to inside…

3. The insignificant reveals the significant.

The insignificant reveals the significant, verse 36.

“I tell you on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your word you be will condemned.”

Now, the word “careless” there means useless, insignificant. And Jesus is most immediately warning the Pharisees of their pragmatic use of words, a get-the-job-done-at-any-cost use of word. If I need to denounce or deceive, if I need demonize or demand. As long as I get the end for which I am aiming and can manage and control the situation, then that’s good. Words are merely tools, insignificant, throwaway, utilitarian.

But Jesus is describing a very different purpose for words. As Proverbs 15:4 says,

“A gentle [healing] tongue is a tree of life.”

Tree of life, I’ve heard of that. All the way back to Genesis 2. All the way forward to the end of Revelation. Words, healing words, are appetizers of a restored paradise in a fractured world. Isn’t that beautiful? When we speak grace-filled, healing, words, we’re offering our neighbors, our friends, our family, appetizers of a healing, restored world in the midst of all the fracture. Look at the whole verse.

“A gentle [healing] tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness [deceitful or twisted speech] in it breaks the spirit.”

My words are either healing or fracturing. Words are not merely insignificant tools or disposable products like a plate you use, paper plate you use and discard. They are more like MRIs or CT scans, X-rays that reveal our hearts and convey life or death.

When I was a youth pastor in Chicago a hundred years ago, one of my teens was sent to me. I can’t remember whether it was by their parent or their teacher. But they had been caught in a lie, and they said, go talk to Pastor Peter. And so, I was just asking him, tell me what happened. And he just said, “Well, I just said this. I lied.” He was kind of blowing it off. And I was emphasizing how important it is, and he said, “No, it’s nothing. I didn’t even think about it.” Didn’t even think about it. You lied without even thinking about it. So you’re a serial liar. You don’t even have to put it on your to-do list for the day, it just comes out.

Do you see what Jesus is getting at? It’s coming out of somewhere. It’s not just insignificant floating out there and given the right circumstance, like the little girl… I don’t know where this story came from. It’s probably not true. But a girl was asked by her Sunday school teacher, “What is a lie?” And she said something like, “It’s a horrible evil or a very present help in time of need.” It’s too good to be true.

But our hearts, when we feel like we’re caught in a corner, we’re trying to find a way of escape. And if there’s no humble, righteous way that we want to go, then we’ll find another way. Even if it includes deception. Verse 36 and 37 are not saying that you earn your salvation or condemnation by words. They are saying your words, even insignificant ones, over time are reliable indicators of your heart.

Now please understand, James 3:2, addressing words, says,

“We all stumble in many ways.”

We’re going to mess up. But what Jesus is saying is, can we get to the root of the problem? Can we look on the inside and not just on the outside? And can we see that even these careless throwaway words are telling us something about our active hearts, our control centers?

In the fall of 1980, Robert Hanssen was down in his basement writing a letter to the Russians. His wife Bonnie happened upon him, and he looked like he was covering up something. She assumed he must be having an affair. He assured her he wasn’t, and then he partially confessed. Isn’t that how we do it? When you are finally caught, you may reveal a part of the truth. He said, I sold some “insignificant information to the Russians for $30,000.” Bonnie was deeply concerned and demanded that he go to the priest and confess what he had done.

The next day, he met with Father Bob, told Father Bob at least part of what he had done, just what he had told Bonnie. And Father Bob said, “You need to turn yourself into the authorities.” But the next day, Father Bob called Hanssen and said, “I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t think you need turn yourself in to the authorities if you will give the money to a worthy charity and commit not to do it again.” And so Hanssen did. He assured his wife that he was giving the money to Mother Teresa’s ministry and that he was done spying. And he was done, spying for a little while. But then he continued for sixteen more years until he was caught and then spent the rest of his life in prison. Religion can become concerned about appearance. Say you’re sorry. Give some money, try harder.

Jesus is not describing that way of living. Clip-on fruit won’t last. The kingdom of Jesus is not about appearances. As we learned back in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:1, Jesus warned us,

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them.”

And interestingly, that word “practicing” is the same word that Jesus starts this paragraph out. “Make,” verse 33. Construct, create, the tree good. Create your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. That won’t last, it won’t work.

“Make the tree good, and it’s fruit good, or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad.”

I haven’t touched on that because I don’t feel comfortable with that. I’m assuming because Jesus could save a scoundrel like me, he can transform any of us. But if you’re determined not to be transformed by Jesus, then make it bad. What does that mean? I’ve only probably told this to two men that I can remember, pleading with them to deny Jesus. Pastors don’t generally do that. I told them — I remember one in particular. I said, “You could do more to save the souls of your kids if you will just say, I’m not a Christian. Because your life is so hypocritical that you are setting your kids up to deconstruct their faith. The whole next generation is going to, because you’re a hypocrite. and you won’t admit it. All that junk that you’re spewing forth to them. They’re not stupid. They know that doesn’t come from Jesus.

Jesus is saying, hey, make the tree good. That’s what I do, Jesus says. That’s why I came. But if you’re not going to make it good, then acknowledge I’m not a follower of Jesus. I don’t believe he can change lives. And that’s why am a jerk. Please don’t be a jerk for Jesus. Jesus has no interest in making the tree appear to be good. He is saying, I actually want to make you new. That’s what the prophets have been prophesying. Let me give you one example. Ezekiel 36:26,

“And I will give you a new heart, [That’s our control center] and a new spirit I will put within you. And I remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you heart of flesh, [meaning a tender heart] and I will put my Spirit within you, [the Spirit who bears fruit] and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”

This is why Jesus came. He didn’t come to just give us an example so that we can feel worse about ourselves. Yes, he does give us an example. But he came, and he died, and he rose so that he not only demands but delivers this new life. Look at Romans 6:1.

“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

Let’s say that together. “We too might walk in newness of life.” Again. “We too might walk in newness of life.” That’s the gospel. We can’t produce that. He can. But one of the things that hinders the miracle is the appearance of the miracle when we’re satisfied with simply giving the impression rather than experiencing the miracle.

Let’s pause now for a moment and cry out in the Spirit. If you don’t know Jesus, this would be a good time to repent and believe and be swept into his life. if you are a believer. but you’ve sensed in this message that you’ve become more and more satisfied with giving the impression than experiencing the reality. Let’s repent of that. Let’s run to him.

I’ll just give you a moment to pray silently, and then I’ll lead us.

Father, this is a wake-up call for many of us. It’s so easy to try to appear good. Or when we’re caught or mess up to say we’re sorry, do damage control, try harder, and do okay for a time. But then someone invariably disappoints us, or life won’t cooperate, and we begin to slip back into our old habits. But this is why you brought us here together this morning, to say together, we need you.

This is why you went to the cross. This is why on Palm Sunday, you walked into Jerusalem knowing exactly what was about to happen. We need much more than a new image, or more makeup, or a better marketing program so that people think better of us. We need you.

You make us new by grace through faith, nothing we can produce. But we become your workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. We reside, we remain, we abide in you, and you make us new. And then you patiently, with so much love and so much kindness, you train us to increasingly grow in an awareness of your transforming presence, watering, pruning, growing us, filling us with your Spirit who bears witness that we are yours and bearing fruit in us, through us. So Father, please do that work in us as we hear you speak and say, yes. We pray this in Jesus’s name, amen.