My pastor asked this question at church this weekend, and the revelation I received just about rocked my world. I’m hoping it can do the same for you!
So, in Mark 4, Jesus gives the parable of the sower. In this story, a farmer sowed his seeds and some fell on each of 4 different types of soils: hard soil, rocky soil, thorny soil, and good soil. I know it may seem weird for Jesus to be talking about soils…what do seeds and soil have to do with faith or living as follower of Christ? Well, both nothing and everything.
It has nothing to do with us because we aren’t talking about actual gardening with physical soil and plant seeds and such. It has everything to do with our lives because the 4 soils are pictures of our hearts, and the entire story is all about our heart posture.
The hard soil represents the unreceptive heart; the rocky soil represents the shallow heart; the thorny soil represents the distracted heart; and the good soil represents the fruitful heart.
And as followers of Christ we are called and empowered to bear good fruit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22). So it makes sense that we all want the fruitful soil, and in fact, that’s a good desire to have in our hearts because it perfectly aligns with God’s desire for us.
The first commandment God gave Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden was to “be fruitful and multiply, full the earth and subdue it (Genesis 1:28). And in John 15:16, Jesus says, “you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit–fruit that will last.”
But the problem becomes when we lose sight of where our fruit comes from and try to become the gardener ourselves.
Because the truth is you aren’t the gardener, God is.
We are the gardener’s assistants; we tend to the soil and help maintain healthy soil. It’s our job to open ourselves and our hearts up to God’s careful hand. But it’s God, not us, who makes things grow, produces the fruit, and prunes things back to grow even stronger.
Let’s look at it like an actual tree.
A tree can neither do anything or not do anything to bear or not bear its fruit. An apple tree can’t do anything to start growing oranges nor can it stop itself from growing apples. Because the fruit is inside of the tree; it’s in its DNA from the start.
However, a bad gardener can, and will, kill the tree, destroy the roots or forget to tend to the branches which causes the tree to not bear fruit. But it wasn’t anything the tree could’ve done, it’s all on gardener.
Similarly, if the gardener is good and takes great care of the tree, providing it nutrients and sunlight, and prunes what’s unhealthy, the tree will bear much fruit. Yet this is nothing extra the tree did, it was all the gardener’s doing in caring for the tree.
That is a picture of us with the fruits of the Spirit. We were created in the image and likeness of God so the fruits–love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control–are in our DNA from the start. The problem is we try to be our own gardeners. And we’re bad gardeners. (Like really bad). So the fruit cannot grow.
But God is a good gardener. The best gardener. When we bow to His will and allow Him to work in our hearts (the tree), we can bear much fruit.
In fact, Jesus tells us in John 15:1-2 that “‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch in me that does bear fruit, He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.‘”
So God, as the gardener, cuts off every dead branch and prunes the fruitful ones so they’ll produce even more fruit. And we can trust God because even in the pain of pruning, God is making a way for NEW fruit, in greater abundance, to grow .
It really comes down to asking yourself this question: Do I believe the gardener is good?
Because if the answer is yes, we can be still, know that He is God, and He is our good gardener whom we can trust. But when we become our own gardener, we cut ourselves off from the true vine, Jesus.
Jesus tells us that if we remain in Him and He in us, we will bear much fruit, but apart from Him we can do nothing and are like a branch that is thrown away and withers. That’s why it is so important to trust God to be our good gardener so that we remain in Jesus and allow the Holy Spirit to produce good fruit in us.
And that’s why it’s called the fruits of the SPIRIT, not the fruits of Kristyn. Or the fruits of ____ (fill in your own name).
We cannot do anything to “earn” those fruits. They were in us all along, just like the apple tree, and were unlocked and came alive in us upon accepting Jesus Christ as Savior. Now we must bend to the will of the good gardener, and trust His pruning, so that we may bear much fruit with the Holy Spirit. We must stop trying to be what we simply were not created to be: the gardener.
After all, why would you want to be the gardener of your life when you have such a Good Gardener working on your behalf? Romans 8:28 tells us that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and have been called according to His purpose.
What more could you possibly do as the gardener than God? Ephesians 3:20 tells us God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.
I want to end with Isaiah 43:18-29:“Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
God is making a way for NEW things to grow….will you trust Him?
