A Man had a fig tree…

Here’s a Summary of the past month’s teaching which sprang from Luke 13:6f:

• God does not love us based on our performance. If He did, He would hate us all.
• God’s love is based on His choice. In spite of our depravity, God chooses to love us. Ez. 16, John 3:16
• God’s standard is perfection without compromise. Therefore, He never let’s sin slide. The wages of sin are always death.
• Salvation is therefore necessarily a gift of grace through the gift of faith (Eph 2:8f). Works could never accomplish being good enough because the definition of good enough to God = perfect.
• Jesus came to be good enough (perfect) to pay our wages. His death was an acceptable (perfect) sacrifice for our sin. romans 5
• Having done all of this God has EXPECTATIONS of us. This is the major message in Luke 13:6 with the fig tree. He Expects Fruit.
• The natural question to ask is “What fruit?” Since our destiny is Christlikeness (Rom. 8:28f; 1 Jn. 3:2), then we conclude that God expects the same fruit on your tree as He has on His tree. This feeds our practical understanding of the megathemes of “InChrist” and “Christ in Me”.
• So “What fruit”? After all is said and done; if you took the law to the kitchen and put it in a pot and boiled it down, what would be left as God’s great expectation of us?
• The answer dominates Scripture: Love. Thus Mt. 22:18f; 1Jn 3-4; 1 Cor 13 and on and on.
• But we must remember:

1. Nothing is more unnatural to the spirit than hate.
2. Nothing is more unnatural to the flesh than love.
3. Nothing is more natural to the spirit than love.
4. Nothing is more natural to the flesh than hate.

• Here’s One Big Problem: We make too too many decisions based on how we FEEL. This is what I was going to do with Genesis 4 and Cain but never got to. God didn’t accept his offering and Cain “became angry”. Now feeling anger, he acted, and the result was murder. While we may not actually kill, Jesus said that hate was the same thing. Its always been heart stuff to Him.
• My own personal experience tells me that too too often when I act on how I feel – I sin. I don’t love, I hate. Notice the talk 1 John gives from vs. 4-10. Its all about “sin” and “righteousness” to big general concepts. But when John gets more specific in vs 11 he reveals that sin and righteousness all have to do with “love”.
• Most of our decisions can be made by asking the question: What would love (as defined as God kind of love) do?
• This is why we have these large meetings of believers on Sunday: Hebrews 10:28f to “stimulate one another to love and good deeds”.
• Go do what love would do next, and next, and next, and next…