Righteous Evidence

The fruits of righteousness are the results of God working in your motives and actions.


Scripture: Colossians 1:9, Philippians 1:11, Philippians 2:13-15

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again radio friends. How in the world are you? Doing Alright today? Well, if you struck a rough day, as sometimes we do, look up and say, “Lord Jesus see me through this one”, and He will because He hath said the Bible tells us, He had said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee”. You’re in good hands today, His nail-pierced hands.

Well, we’re talking about the Divine spillover, “Filled with all of fullness of God, that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will”. And, I was looking at some of the related verses, that’s my method you know, find out what the Bible is saying and then look up other verses that help you to understand. We’re talking now about filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ. That would be over in Philippians, I think, let me look, Philippians 1 and verse 11, “Being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God”.

Now, Paul is praying for the people in Philippi- he wants them to abound in love and knowledge and judgment, that they may approve things that are excellent. The concept of excellence was not born in academia, beloved, it was born in the heart of God, remember that. Concept of excellence, be sincere and without offense. Being sincere has to do with your inner motivation toward people, and without offense has to do with your public relations with people. Knowing how to live with people until the day of Christ. Then he says, “Being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ”. See, everything depends on your relationship with a Person in the Christian life. Have you learned that?

I was talking with a gentleman on an airplane a few weeks ago and he said, “Well, I’ve never been able to adopt that point of view”, and you know, well, that isn’t the point. It’s not. Christianity is not a point of view. You don’t say, “Well, I am a Christian”, like you say, “I am a Democrat or Republican or Conservative”, or whatever. It’s not a religious point of view. It’s a relationship with a Person. “The fruits of righteousness being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ”, see?

Now, you have the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, and then you have the fruit of a Christian. Jesus said, “You not chosen Me, but I’ve chosen you and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain in us” ‘the fruit of a Christian’, which is other Christians.

Jesus intends for you to be a soul winner, beloved. If you’re not, you still have a little mileage to go there in catching up to what He wants you to do. “That your fruit should remain and that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it to you”. Fruitfulness is inevitably tied to answered prayer. You pray and seek God and He makes you fruitful. That’s the logic of that, and then you bring forth the fruit of God. “You’re dead to the law that ye should be married to another even to him who was raised from the dead that we should bring forth fruit unto God”, and then of course in Colossians we talk of being fruitful in every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God. “Filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ”.

He is the one who, who reckons you righteous. He declares you to be righteous because of your faith in Him, “To him that worketh not but believeth on Him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted”, Paul says, “for righteousness”, and so the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ is reckoned to us- it’s placed on our account, so to speak. So that’s the beginning of righteousness.

Then, righteousness is not only something reckoned, but it’s also something that is to be lived. The Bible speaks of a righteous person and righteous judgments, righteous deeds, a righteous man. This has to do with lifestyle, and so, the righteousness of God is then transmuted into your and my conduct day after day. That then, brings forth results in your life and in others and that’s what we call the fruits of righteousness. The fruits of righteousness. Paul says in Colossians 1:10, we’ll get to that momentarily, “Filled with the fruits of righteousness, being fruitful in every good work”.

The fruit of the Spirit is all goodness and righteousness and truth. Well, what do you make of this? Philosophically, if you use the idea of being fruitful, you’re talking about results. I’m oversimplifying now, you philosophers, be patient with me, I know about Nietzsche and Spinoza, and Kant and Hegel too. I was a Philosophy major, but you have to bring it down to where I can understand on Main Street, okay?

So, philosophically, when you talk about the fruitfulness of a concept, you talk about results. So, filled with the fruits of righteousness means that your life might be full of the results of God’s righteousness in your life. Well now, what does that mean to me? Means first of all, that I have begun a right relationship with the righteous Savior, the Lord Jesus. You have to take care of that first otherwise the whole business is meaningless. It’s merely academic. You can talk about it, but if it is to make a difference, having established a right relationship with the Lord Jesus, trusting Him as your Savior and acknowledging Him as your Lord, and committing your life to Him completely, having established that, then what? Then His righteousness is reckoned to, to you and He begins working in you, so that He can work that out. Philippians 2:13, “It is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure”. Righteousness, God’s good pleasure.

So now, you have a right relationship with the Lord Jesus and the indwelling Holy Spirit has now come in to your life and He begins to work on two levels, number one, motivation, number two, conduct. It is God that worketh in you, both to will, that takes care the motivation, and to do, that takes care of the production, the conduct. “Of His good pleasure”.

Now, what are the fruits of righteousness? The results of God working in your motives, and the results of God working in your actions. You understand that? Your motives, “Let nothing be done”, Paul says in Philippians 2, “through strife or vain glory”.

Now, there’s two sets of motives in every person’s life that surface periodically. One has to do with wanting to get the better of someone. That this word strife, I want to win, I want to be, I want to come out on top. Strife. The other he says vain glory, I want to look good.

I remember 25 years ago hearing a man say to his coworkers, “Now, we’re going out and we’re going to play this basketball game. Fellas whenever you get the ball, pass it to make cause I got to look good”. I near fell over! “Whenever you get the ball, pass it to me cause I got to look good”. Vain glory.

You don’t have to look good. Did you ever figure that out? You don’t have to try to look good. You have to try to be good, and if you are good, you’ll look good. That makes the difference, doesn’t it? Oh yes. “Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory”. Trying to win for yourself, trying to look good for yourself, motives.

What else? “Do all things”, said he, “without murmurings and disputing’s”. Murmuring is complaining. Jesus takes away the complainer out of you. Immediately somebody’s saying under his breath, “Well, I wish he would work in so-and-so’s life”. Well pray for the person, maybe the answer will come sooner than you think. Jesus works on the complainer and you and makes the complainer start praising God instead of murmuring.

Then disputings of course, that’s our idea of argument. Did you know you don’t have to argue with people? Make a list of all the things about which you’ve argued in the last year and you’ll find that most of them are quite trivial. Isn’t it true? I found out that all you have to do is to look at the person and say, “Well, you may be quite right”, and then shut up, don’t say anymore. You don’t have to argue about things, and you’ve saved your own face by using the subjunctive, “You may be right”. Well that, that of course unspokenly says you may also be wrong. You don’t have to argue with people. There are very few things worth being shot at sunrise for. “Do all things”, He says, “all things without murmurings and disputing, that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God indeed, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation among whom you shine as lights in the world”. It is God that worketh in you, to will and to do His good pleasure. He takes care the motivation, He takes care of the production.

There are two things in, in producing a Christian life that are mentioned in Philippians 2:15. one is blameless, the others harmless. Blameless and harmless. Blameless means people can’t blame you. They can’t point the finger at you and say, “He is the one that caused all this”. Harmless has to do with the reality of things, that no one can trace a fall or something harmful to what you may have said or done.

Blameless has to do with what people say, harmless has to do with the results of what you do. In either case, God the Holy Spirit, working in you to will and to do of His good pleasure. He takes care of the motives and He takes care of the production. He takes care of what people say about you, and He takes care of the impact you have on other people’s lives.

The whole purpose of it all is that you might shine is a light in the world. God wants you to shine, not just to make noise. A light doesn’t make any noise. It makes a difference though, doesn’t it? Ah yes, filled with the fruits of righteous. The results of God’s righteousness is a life that shines. That’s the point that we’ve been putting out here, today.

Dear Father today, fill us with the Spirit of God and work through us, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!



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