Luke 6:43-45 Sermon for June 14, 2026

Well, good evening my friends. So good to see you. A couple days ago, I was working on finalizing the preaching calendar. In it, I spent time parsing the Gospel and inserting when we would be taking a look at any given passage and, in doing so, I realized that we will be in this Gospel, this beautiful, glorious Gospel, through July of 2028.

So, I say this because it’s important for us to grasp an essential point here: we’re not rushing. We’re going to go deep. We’re going to spend time and feast on God’s Word. And we certainly will not be skipping any verses or going light on any passage. We believe, here at Kingdom Bound Church, the supremacy of God’s Word. We believe that God’s Word, the Bible, is the inspired, inerrant, sufficient, and final authority from God, by which He rules His church, reveals His gospel, and binds the conscience of every believer.

This Word stands over culture, feelings, human reason, church tradition, and spiritual impressions. We believe that absolutely EVERYTHING is tested by Scripture. We believe that His Word goes forth and never comes back void.

And now, we see that there are a lot of churches out there that do funny business with God’s Word and rest assured, they will be judged hard. They will be held accountable. The amount of social media clips I saw these past couple of weeks of “pastors” (and I put that in quotes) saying something similar to “I know that the Bible says such and such, but…”

It’s insane. Those are not pastors. They are wolves in sheep clothing. Let’s carry on.

I say all of this because it’s important to grasp the reverence we are to have when handling God’s Word. And I want to highly encourage and exhort you to bring a Bible every single week. I used to say that you can just pull it up on your phone, but I’m not going to encourage that anymore. Listen, the phone is cool. You can do cool things with it, but there’s nothing better than having a literal Bible in your hands. Smell the pages. Flip the pages. Write the notes. Avoid the temptation that phones can bring.

You look at your phone to ‘read’ the Bible and then those notifications come and distract you. I want to go out on a limb here and say this: put the phones away. Give your undivided attention to God’s Word. Sit under the authority of God’s Word and receive it. Truly receive it. Let God’s Word, without the distractions of phone notifications, capture your soul.

With that said, let’s turn to God’s Word, the Bible, to Luke 6:43-45. I’m using the CSB version but you are free to use a different one if you like, such as The Legacy Standard Bible, English Standard Bible, etc. It’s only 3 versus today so allow me to read them all in a single fashion and then we will parse it all.

Luke 6:43-45

“A good tree doesn’t produce bad fruit; on the other hand, a bad tree doesn’t produce good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs aren’t gathered from thornbushes, or grapes picked from a bramble bush. A good person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart. An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.”

So, upon reading this, it seems self-explanatory. But, what I want to start us off with tonight is by talking about the heart. Because we live in a culture that has a severe misunderstanding of the heart. We live in a society that is feeding you lies about your heart (such as “follow your heart”) and you need to grasp an understanding of your heart as it aligns with what the Bible says.

Let me give you a definition of the heart: it’s the inner control-center of a person- the seat of our mind, will, desires, affections, and moral direction- where sin originates and where God performs the miracle of regeneration.

The heart is the whole inner person. It’s the mind (how we think), the will (what we choose), the affections (what we love), the desires (what we crave), and the moral direction (what we pursue). It’s all of that as a complete package.

Now, it’s super important to understand that your heart, as a result of the fall of mankind, it corrupt. In fact, in the 1689, it says, “Our first parents, by this sin, fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and we in them. For from this, death came upon all: all becoming dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of the soul and body” (6.2).

Defiled. Wholly Defiled. In Jeremiah 17:9, it says, “The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable- who can understand it.”

You need to understand that you heart, apart from being born again and quickened, is wicked. In fact, your heart that’s not regenerated, is capable of doing the very things that Hitler did. At a minimum, your heart that’s not regenerated, will lead you to foolish ways. All in all, there is no one that’s good.

So, what about the heart that’s regenerated? What about if you are born again? Well, this means that you are submitting to the work of the Holy Spirit and following the ways of Christ. Until you are dead and glorified with Jesus, you will need to continuously reorient your heart to the complete submission to King Jesus and the sanctification of the Holy Spirit.

Your role as a believer is to be ruled by Christ and to submit to the rule of Christ in your life. And He rules over your heart. When you understand that, you understand that you can’t just follow your heart, your feelings, or operate based on emotions. You need to root your heart in the truths of Scripture and you can’t do that if you neglect being in the Word of God every moment you can.

You may feel like cursing someone out, but you can’t. You may feel like sinning, but you can’t. You may feel like cheating, but you can’t. You may feel like doing life your way, but you can’t. And when you are truly born again, you won’t want to follow the desires of your heart.

And I talk about the heart extensively here because it has everything to do with our passage this evening. The fruit you produce has roots and those roots are in your heart. If your heart is corrupt, foolish, and evil, then that’s the kind of fruit you’ll produce.

But what about my unbelieving neighbor who isn’t a Christian but has such a ‘kind’ heart? Listen, stop being deceived. God’s common grace allows such a being to be restrained, but under the right circumstances, conditions, and timing, their heart will be exposed because the roots of their fruit is in a heart that’s hostile to the Gospel. It’s only a matter of time.

You need to know that no one is good. Only God is good. And so when you are born again, you are given a new heart. Look at what Ezekiel 36:26-27 says: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place my Spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.”

See, this is all God doing. With this new heart, God will cause you to produce fruit that is godly; that is Christlike. You cannot produce godly fruit based on your will or human effort. It’s impossible. The only heart that can produce good fruit is a heart that submits to God.

The premise of our passage is that regeneration precedes transformation. Radical transformation wrought on by God Himself, produces good fruit. And so, the question I have for you is this: what kind of fruit are you producing consistently?

Because your fruit, the way you think, act, and talk, tattles on your heart.

My boys do this all the time. One will tattle on the other. It’s the same with what comes out of you. It’s tattles on your heart. It says, “OOhhh, so and so has a heart that’s dark and gloomy.” Another way to put this is like this: the mouth is the loudspeaker of your heart.

So, how is it going? And don’t just focus on what literally comes out of your heart. How ae your thoughts? Because here’s the deal: religion is used by many people to mask a wicked heart, but eventually, the heart will be exposed to everyone. Bad fruit will be exposed.

Eventually, you cannot hide who you truly are and you’ve only got to options when it comes to who you are: a wicked, wretched being or a being redeemed by Jesus and both options produce two, radically different fruit.

Here’s one thing to grasp: what you feed into your life has severe implications for the soil of your heart. If you watch porn, it’ll eventually leak. If you consume dark, depressing music, it’ll eventually leak. If you engage in gossip, it’ll eventually leak. Make no mistake that what you input you’ll output. Your life is the visible evidence of your heart.

What is good fruit? It’s right there in Galatians 5:22-23. It says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things.”

How are you doing? Are you loving towards your spouse, children, co-workers and neighbors? Are you a joyful person to be around and do you find joy in the mundane of life? Are you a peace-make and do people feel at peace when they come into your presence?

Are you a patient human being or do you flip off the handles? Are you exuding kindness to those around you? Is there a Spirit-produced moral excellence that reflects God’s own goodness? Are you faithful to the task at hand, to your family, to your church, and to God Himself? Are you a gentle person or are you harsh in your spirit? Do you have self-control over your own vessels?

Jonathan Edwards once wrote, “True virtue never appears so lovely as when it is most oppressed; and the divine excellency of real Christianity is never exhibited with such advantage as when under the greatest trials.”

Meaning, the Spirit produces a goodness that shines especially under pressure- the real fruit is proven in hardship.

I say this because I get a lot of people say that they constantly fail at the fruit of the Spirit when life is hard. Well, that’s the point. The point is that only God can bring this about in you. Only God can bring a transformation in you. It might be evidence that you’ve simply been a religious being devoid of the Spirit when you say that the fruit of the Spirit only oozes when life is going your way.

No! Your heart must radiate the things of God in and out of season. It starts inside. Take an honest look and reflection at your heart this evening my friends.

Here’s another takeaway: you can’t consistently speak (I’ll add do and think as well) what you don’t truly believe. What are you consistent in? Or are you unstable? Are you a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways? Let what comes forth from you be the spiritual MRI of your heart.

How is your heart? Who is master over your heart? What fruit are people picking from your tree? And don’t just access here at church. That’s a little easier to do; a little easier to hide your true self. What fruit do your neighbors pick? Your in-laws? Your co-workers?

Colossians 3:5-10 says: Therefore, put to death what belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, God’s wrath is coming upon the disobedient, and you once walked in these things when you were living in them. But now, put away all the following: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator.”

You, who claim to be redeemed, must produce the fruit of the redeemed. Do not act, think, or talk like the world. It’s unbecoming of the bride of Christ.

As I invite Hunter to come up and close us off for the day, the question I ask is this: how do we do all this: first, only a child of God can do this. Only the regenerate can do this. And then you pray without ceasing. You pray for God to strengthen you, to remind you, and to equip you with every good measure and every good gift and every instrument to truly walk worthy in the manner of Christ. Read the Scriptures. If you are not reading the Scriptures, you cannot possibly walk in step with the Spirit. Bring along a brother or sister in the Lord to hold you accountable.

With all that said, let us stand and worship King, Savior, and Lord Jesus.