What Fruit is Growing in Your Life?

Last week we introduced to you Jesus’s parable of the sower. Jesus said that the seed is the word of God, and in the parable, He talks about the sower sowing seed in four different types of soil.

Luke 8:11

“Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.”

God gives each of us the seed, and it is planted in our hearts and lives as we hear the preached word or study and read it for ourselves. Each of us will accept the seed differently, hence the four types of soils representing four types of hearts.

The wayside soil is the soil that trampled down, and the seed can’t grow in or develop.
The rocky soil, full of stones, represents the heart that is unable to allow the word of God to take root and develop into maturity.
The thorny soil represents the word of God thrown into a heart with thorns (the cares of life), which eventually chokes out the word.
The good soil is a heart that is willing and open to the word of God in their heart.

Today I want to focus on the good soil that Jesus spoke about. The good earth or soil is where the seed is received, and the person with good soil in their heart can hold onto the seed through good and bad times. The good ground represents a listening heart free from encumbrance and distraction. A heart that gives the seed room to grow. The plant grows when you plant a seed, but the critical part of that growth is the fruit we receive from that plant. If you were to plant a mango tree after a while, you want mangos from that tree. We have an orange tree in our backyard, and if the tree didn’t produce oranges, I wouldn’t like the tree. Without oranges, the tree has no use. An orange tree with no oranges is unfruitful. So God calls each one of us that has a heart open to the word of God to receive His seed and grow but also to produce fruit. The fruit of God is beautiful! We need to live a life full of the fruit of God so others can enjoy the fruit that we produce.

Galatians 5:22

“22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”

Young people, God gives us the seed (the word of God) to produce something beautiful. The seed encourages, helps, and most importantly, draws others to Christ. God wants us to make good fruit for Him. What type of fruit are you producing today?

There is plenty of bad fruit people are producing. For example, hate, anger, malice, thievery, stealing, lying, and cheating are all rotten fruit. Rotten or bad fruit is not fruit God produces in a life filled with the seed of God’s word growing in the heart. The Bible says that the fruit of the Spirit is love. The Bible teaches us that Bible love is love for one another in many different places. The opposite of love is hate, and hate is not fruit God wants us to produce. God wants us to grow a love for one another, and if we take the word of God into our hearts, we will produce the fruit of God’s Spirit. Remember the scripture the young sister read this morning?

Johannes 3:16

“16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

God loved the world. So the love God gives us that grows from the seed of His word is all from God.

Another fruit we can grow in our lives because the seed of His word is joy. There are so many things in life that we can experience, and those things will not give us lasting joy. But when we give our lives to God, He gives us everlasting joy. With true joy, we can be happy regardless of our circumstances in life because we have something more profound. The joy of the Lord resides deep within our soul, and it continues bubbling up or welling up and affects all aspects of our lives.

Peace is another fruit we can grow in our lives from the seed of God’s word. Young people, peace is what our world needs today. There is too much anxiety, turmoil, hatred, and anger toward one another in our world. We need to give peace to each other and project it from our lives. The peace we have comes directly from God.

Longsuffering is another fruit we can grow. The word “patience” is another way to describe the fruit of longsuffering.

1Thessalonians 5:14

“14 Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all.”

Notice how the scripture ends, “be patient with all? As young people, we can find it hard to exercise patience with our brothers and sisters. We need to be patient or longsuffering with everyone, including those who live with us. What type of fruit are you displaying in your home. Are you showing those in your own home and your neighbors’ joy, peace, and longsuffering?

God calls us to be gentle and kind to others. Young people can be challenged in this area, especially if someone wrongs them. But God wants us to keep our soil good so that the fruits of His Spirit can grow in our lives, and others can walk up to our tree and taste our fruits. Gentleness and kindness are other fruits we should grow in our lives, and it is possible through the seed of God’s word to grow such fruit.

Other fruits we should be growing are goodness, faith, meekness, humility, and temperance (self-control). Now let’s read the last part of Galatians 23 again.

“…Against such there is no law.”

So all of the fruits God wants us to grow are so that others can see God displayed in our lives. Let me ask again, what type of fruit are you producing? Are you cultivating love, peace, joy, longsuffering all the way to temperance (self-control)? When others interact with you, do they see the fruit of God in your life? Because this morning, the world around us needs the fruit God gives to us to see the benefit of God’s love in their own lives. I challenge you to keep your good soil nourished this morning and keep growing the fruit of God’s Spirit so others can be nourished and strengthened by you. Continue to enrich you’re the soil of your heart with prayer, church attendance, and Bible memorization.

Next week I’d like each of you to take one of the fruits we learned about and work on it so it can grow in your life. If your fruit is rotten and displaying hate, anger, lying, and other fruit that doesn’t show God, I encourage you to choose God. Let Him change the soil of your heart and start producing fruit that displays Him in your life.

RHT