When Pastor Ben was a boy, he didn’t like tomatoes. However, during COVID, he started a garden, because there wasn’t much else to do. The easiest thing to grow in a garden is tomatoes. It was through that research and trial and error that he found some favorite tasting tomatoes.
There are thousands of varieties of tomatoes. There are cherry tomatoes, red tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, etc. With heirloom tomatoes, you can take the seeds out, plant them, and get heirloom tomatoes next year. With a genetically altered tomato, you might not get the same type of tomato next time. Genetically altered tomatoes aren’t bred for taste, but rather for shelf life, pretty color, shape, etc.
Heirloom tomatoes taste better.
It is not as easy as it seems to garden. The sun gold cherry is one of the best tasting. Pastor Ben’s favorite is a cherokee purple tomato.
John 15:1-7 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. 2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. 3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. 5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. 6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”
A plant, a tomato plant, is designed to have tomatoes. Ultimately, the point of tomatoes is to grow fruit with seeds to have more tomatoes.
You are part of a vine. A branch by itself will not produce anything. It’s just a stick. If it’s connected to the vine, it will produce fruit.
We are supposed to be connected to the ‘Source’ so that we can produce fruit just like a tomato. John the baptist talked about it. Jesus talked about it.
In Mark 11, Jesus sees a fig tree with beautiful leaves, but no figs, no fruit. It was lovely to look at, but it wasn’t doing what it was created for. So, Jesus cursed it.
In the Bible, if something is repeated, that means it’s important. Over and over in Scripture, we are told to produce fruit.
So, how do we produce fruit? What are some issues that you can have that will keep you from growing?
Something that will keep a tomato from growing is growing too many leaves and getting too tall. A tall, leafy tomato plant doesn’t produce tomatoes.
In order to keep a tomato plant from getting too tall, you’ve got to prune it, cutting some leaves off and making it shorter. Cut all of the ‘sucker’ plants off. Those suck energy away from making tomatoes. Prune away anything that distracts or takes away just because the plant wants to get bigger.
What are the things in your life that suck away from you growing fruit?
Gal 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
If you have patience, are people won over to Jesus? Yes. Without patience, people don’t want to be around you, much less trust what you have to say about Jesus. This fruit of the Spirit wins people over to you and then to Jesus.
So, you’ve got to get rid of those ‘selfish’ leaves from out of your life that keep you from developing fruit.
Some tomato plants are really hard to grow. Some are particularly prone to blossom and rot. It’s really gross. As the tomato grows, at the tip where the flower used to be, it starts to rot. Tomatoes get blossom and rot because they are lacking in calcium. This isn’t from the soil. The problem is the calcium is not getting from the roots to the tomato.
The key to the fruit is in the root.
Certain tomatoes don’t have a very deep root system. The help for that is a root stock. A few of those help the main tomato plant produce fruit. You cut off a part of the plant, take the stem, and tape it to the root stock plant. The tomato plant will merge into the root stock plant. It can pull from the root stock. It’s connected to a better source that enables and empowers. This is called grafting.
Rom 11:17 “And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;”
Unfortunately, just because you get grafted into the right place, doesn’t mean you will automatically have great fruit. Challenges are not suddenly over.
Even with grafting, you’ve still got to get those nutrients where they need to go. You’ve got to have consistent watering.
You can apply this to people in consistency in the watering of your own roots in Jesus. This is through consistent connecting with God.
So, grafting is like your initial salvation. Watering is keeping a consistent connection to God. Even that is not quite enough.
You can take a tomato plant and bury part of the stem with dirt because the fuzzy parts will grow roots when buried. Being grafted in and buried too much can cause the little tomato plant to pull from the weaker root source.
You can apply this to you by making sure you don’t draw off of the wrong thing. Our own fuzzy furs can still grow the wrong roots. Your root system needs to draw from the right sources. Those things that don’t help you grow good fruit need to get cut off.
You are a little tomato plant. You have some gardening to do, some tending that needs to happen in your life. If you become so focused on building up yourself, your own kingdom, then pruning must take place. You’ve got to focus on growing fruit for the Kingdom.
Take time to self examine. What is your source? Are you grafted into the Spirit of God? If it’s just you, trying to do your own thing, you’ll get blossom and rot. You won’t have good fruit.
Without good roots, you won’t have good fruit.
Consistent watering is necessary to avoid stunting your own growth.
Cut off those bad habits that will keep the good roots from growing.
Examine yourself. Where are your roots? Are you consistently getting enough water? Are you avoiding the wrong things in your life? Are you producing good fruit?
As you think about your own life, the things that you produce, are you producing love, joy, peace? Are you producing patience? Is there so much fruit that people can’t help but notice and want to be with you, to be like you? Are you producing self-control so much that people want what they see in you?
It is easy to focus on the wrong things. It’s easy to lose connection with Jesus. We need that constant, consistent connection with Him. Let there be a lot of good fruit, so that God’s Kingdom grows.
More Questions for Personal or Group Study:
- What really spoke to you in this message?
- How is your ‘fruit’? Are you getting enough ‘water’? Are your ‘roots’ healthy? Are you growing good ‘roots’? Are there any changes you need to make in your thinking/habits?
- Read Romans 12. What are the instructions in these verses? What are we to think about? How are we to live?
- How can you encourage someone else with this message?
Excerpted from a sermon preached by Pastor Ben Nolan.
If you are looking for an Apostolic Pentecostal church and are in the Chicagoland area, come check out The Life Church of Northbrook located at 1925 Cherry Ln, Northbrook, IL 60062.
We have services on Sundays at 11 am (in person and online): The Life Church of Northbrook and Bible studies on Wednesdays at 7 pm (in person).
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