Study Guide

What’s Wrong With Us?

An Orderly Account: Encountering Jesus in the Gospel of Luke

Luke 6:43-45

Introduction

“There are three kinds of people in the world. Those who can count and those who can’t.” When I was in college I took a logic class. In the class I learned there are many types of logical fallacies, and one of the most common is the “either-or fallacy,” also known as the “fallacy of the false dilemma.”

You commit the fallacy of the false dilemma by reducing the options to two and saying it must be either this or that, when in reality, there could be a third or fourth or many more options. And there are many occasions in life in which there are more than two options.

• You can either pursue a high-paying job or follow your passion.
• If you don’t support this policy, you don’t care about the poor.
• You’re either on a diet or you are unhealthy.

However, there are other matters in which it really does come down to only two options.

• You are either dead or alive.
• You are either pregnant or not pregnant.
• The light is either on or off.

Raise the Need, State the Destination, Give Signposts:

This morning we’re looking at Luke 6:43-45 and Jesus reduces things down to two options. There is no tertium quid. No third option. And this happens frequently in the Scriptures. There are the sheep and the goats. You’re either a sheep, who is part of the sheepfold and belongs to the Good Shepherd Jesus, or you are not. You’re either born of the Spirit or you are still in the flesh. There is no middle ground.

In our passage, Jesus says that you either live according to an old heart that loves evil and produces evil, or you live according to a new heart which loves good and produces good. You’re either a good tree or a bad tree. A thornbush or a grape vine. He says that what every single one of us needs is a radical, internal, heart transformation that only he and his gospel can bring about.

After the week we have all had in which video was released of the murder of a young girl in our own city, and the video of Charlie Kirk’s cold-blooded assassination, there are many questions to answer, issues to address, and actions to take.

But beneath them all is one fundamental issue, one either-or problem, that if we address all the other issues, but not this, it will not matter. What is the fundamental issue our nation faces? What is the fundamental issue that you yourself face?

You need a radical, internal heart transformation that only the gospel can bring about.

Luke 6:43-45 teaches us three simple truths:

1. The Heart is Central to Who We Are
2. True Change Begins with New Hearts, Not New Behaviors
3. Only the Gospel Can Give Us a New Heart

The Text

⁴³ “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, ⁴⁴ for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. ⁴⁵ The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.

1. The Heart is Central to Who We Are

One of the questions are often ask is, “What makes us who we are,” or “What makes us what we are?” What makes you, you? What makes me, me? How do we account for the differences between us?

Human beings are complicated creatures, and our modern world has tried to break down all the individual components that make us what we are. Some say, well, human beings are really the product of their mind and their thoughts. So, whatever you think, that’s what you are. Others have said, no it’s not the mind and the thoughts, it’s the will, and the actions. You are what you do. That’s what makes you what you are. Still others say, no, it’s not the mind or the will, it’s the emotions. You are what you feel.

But the Bible says it’s none of those individually, it’s all of those and more. If you want to know what the Scriptures says makes us who and what we are, it’s the heart. But I need to explain to you what the Bible means when it uses the word “heart.” Because, when you hear the word “heart,” you are thinking of the emotions. We say, “I love you with all my heart.” We’re speaking of our feelings. But the Bible says the heart does more than feel.

The Bible speaks of thinking with the heart. “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” (Prov. 23:7)

The Bible speaks of willing and acting with the heart: “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” (Prov. 16:9)

The biblical view is that the heart is all of those and more. The heart is the seat not just of the emotions, but the mind, and the will as well. According to the Scriptures, the heart is the center and source of the whole inner life. So, the heart produces emotions such as anger and joy, sorrow and anxiety. The heart thinks and wills. It produces thoughts and actions. And most fundamentally, the heart puts its trust in things. This is why we’re told to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.” (Prov. 3:5) That verse isn’t telling us to trust the Lord with only our emotions.” It’s saying that trust in the Lord is resting all your thoughts, all your emotions, all your actions and decisions in him. You see: mind, emotions, will.

In our passage today, Jesus says that at the very center of your life, your existence, your identity, your humanity is your heart. This is why, in the Old Testament, when Samuel went to anoint a new king, God told him, don’t anoint the tallest, or the strongest, of the handsomest. No. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. Why? Because the heart is what makes someone what they are.

Jesus employs an agricultural metaphor. Whatever the roots and inner genetics of the plant are, that’s what kind of fruit the plant will produce. A few years ago, my son and I really got into bird-watching in the back yard. We had this app to help us identify bird by examing at the visible characteristics. So, the app would ask things like is the bid big like a crow or tiny like a sparrow? What colors are visible? Is the bird primarily red with some black, or is it black with an orange spot on the wings, or is it speckled with a red spot on its head? Where did you see the bird: soaring in the air, on a limb, or on the ground? Now, what was the app doing? It was reasoning and deducing from the visible features of the birds back to the internal invisible DNA of the birds.

That’s what Jesus is saying. That’s what the Bible teaches. All of the things that come out of you: your words, your actions, your emotional responses, they all trace back to your heart. Commentator Don Carson says the heart, “subtly but infallibly controls the whole person’s direction and values.” Put another way, “Whatever captures the heart’s trust and love controls the feelings and behavior. What the heart most wants the mind finds reasonable, the emotions find valuable, and the will finds doable.”

Consider the events of the last two weeks. Consider how you felt about those events. How do you judge the morality of those events? What do you think needs to be done to address those events? The answers to those questions arise out of your heart.

Humans are more than thoughts. They are more than emotions. They are more than decisions. Inside of us is an active and ever changing heart from which springs all our moral judgements, all our rational thoughts, all our emotional reactions, and all of our decisions to act.

2. True Change Begins With New Hearts, Not New Behaviors

How does a person change? How does life change and transformation happen? Consider the metaphor that Jesus employs. You’re walking through a field, and you see a tree, you walk over to it and it has apples. What kind of tree is it? An Apple tree. You know that because Apple trees produce apple fruit. You never approach an apple tree expecting to find grapes. You never approach a blackberry bramble expecting squash. Trees are known by their fruit. A tree that’s diseased and rotten will produce fruit that’s diseased and rotten. A tree that’s healthy and wholesome produces healthy and wholesome fruit. That’s the metaphor, and it teaches us the nature of true-life change.

Imagine you tend an apple orchard and one of your trees has produced diseased and rotten apples for three years straight. Clearly something is wrong with the tree and it needs to be corrected. So, you take healthy apples from the other healthy trees and you begin stapling them onto the limbs and branches of the tree with the rotten fruit. You stand back, and from a distance the tree, which is rotten, appears healthy. It’s covered with bright red shiny apples. But has the tree changed? No. And next fall, you’ll have the same problem. You won’t find healthy apples on the tree. Why? Because there’s a root problem that hasn’t been addressed. The remedy hasn’t gone to the heart of the tree.

Now, we all laugh at the idea of stapling good apples to a bad tree, but this is exactly how most people think life change happens. This is what many people think Christianity is. They think of it only in terms of behaviors, morals, actions. Some of you have been to churches and heard sermons which gave the impression that Christianity is nothing more than behavioral modification. Too many sermons sound like this: “You’re doing bad things. Stop it. Here are some good things. Do them.” Now listen, I’m all for better morals, but Christianity isn’t bare moralism. That’s not the heart of the Bible. It’s not the heart of Christianity.  And when you do that… if you think that’s what Christianity and Christian preaching is… all you are doing is stapling fresh fruit onto a dead tree. If you try to change yourself, without going to the root, you aren’t really changing.

You all understand how this works because you’ve often tried to make changes that didn’t stick. A husband and wife come in for counselling. The marriage is falling apart. Both of them tells the other behaviors that are harming or neglectful of the other. They both leave with a list of things to do and they get to work. But 6 months later, they’re back in the counselor’s office and it’s worse than before. Why? They stapled apples to a rotten tree. They only addressed the externals; they didn’t address the heart.

Listen! When you staple apples onto a dead tree, what’s going to happen to those apples? They’re going to rot. The husband and the wife modified behavior, but they didn’t fundamentally change. Jesus says there is something more fundamental, more basic, more essential to who we are than our actions. Some of you came to church today because of the tragic events of the last week. Good. We’re so glad you’re here. Some of you know that you need to make changes in your life; that we need to make changes in our homes and our towns and our nation. And we do.

The message of God to you today is not that you merely need to reform this or that behavior, this or that belief. There is a more fundamental change you need. You need a radical, total, and internal transformation of the heart. Jesus goes beneath all the externals and says, “The tree of your life is rotten to the core.”

Philip Hughes, an Anglican minister says, “the reality of sin is something far deeper than the mere outward commission of sinful deeds… It tells us that there is an inner root of sinfulness which corrupts man’s true nature and from which his sinful deeds spring. Like a deadly poison, sin has penetrated to and infected the very center of man’s being.”

The Apostle Paul put it this way:

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Claiming to be wise, they became fools… and exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator(Romans 1:21, 22, & 25b)

What’s wrong with our world? We’ve rejected the truth of God for a lie. We’ve rejected his existence, his right to define reality, his authority to define our lives, our gender, marriage, our personal and relational ethics.

What’s wrong with me and you? We’ve rejected God and his truth for a lie. We’ve worshiped and served ourselves more than the Creator. My biggest problem and your biggest problem, and our nation’s biggest problem is that our hearts were made for God, and they are restless until they rest in him.

3. Only the Gospel Gives Us a New Heart

Across America, many have come to churches looking answers to many questions. What’s wrong with our nation? Where did we go wrong? What must we do to change? How should we engage politically? How should we school our children? How can we stop the violence? These are all great questions. I welcome you to come and have conversation with me after the service today. I’ll stay as long as you want and answer any question you ask. In the days ahead, I’ll be addressing more of those questions through my own writing and teaching ministry.

But right now there’s one message that I have to get across to you. This may be the only time you ever come to my church or any church. Here it is: the new heart you need cannot come from moralism. You can’t get a new heart by attending church or giving money to the church. You cannot get a new heart by getting married, having kids, and starting a business. (Though you should consider doing that too). It can only come by God’s grace. And he is offering you a new heart even now. Right this moment.

Friend hear me: believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, by whom all things were made; who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

That’s the gospel the Scriptures teach, that the Son of God was made man and when he went to the cross, though he was sinless, the deadly poison of our heart went into his. God made him who knew no sin, to be sin for us. We rejected God, but at the cross, instead of rejecting us, God rejected his own Son, and the condemnation that was due to us fell upon him. And the only thing for us to do in response to this truth is to believe in Christ and rest in what he has done. Turn from whatever it is that has captured your heart, and set your heart upon Jesus Christ, right now.

No matter who you are, or what you have done, God promises that if you will look upon his Son and rest in what his Son has done for you, you will be forgiven of all your sin, you will be adopted into his family, and you will be secured for eternity. You say, “Jonathan, you have no idea how awful I’ve been.” Friend, the worse a man is, the more reason he should go to the hospital. The poorer the woman is, she should accept the charity of another. And the greater a sinner is, the more they should run to the Savior of sinners. The worse you are, the more welcomed you are.

So, I plead with you. Do not delay. You will not always have a welcome and a warning such as this. A day comes when every pulpit will be silent, either for you or for the entire world. There will be no more offers of a new heart, no more promised of mercy. Christ has not called you to come to him next week. The invitation is today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart, but give it to Jesus Christ, the one who offered himself up to God for you, and the one who offers himself to you even now.