One More Year: The Fig Tree, the Digging and the Fertiliser

Sermon outline

God has invested everything in us and expects fruit, so receive the extra year of grace as an opportunity: change your mindset, let the Holy Spirit dig up the hard ground of your heart, and let the hard things of life become the fertiliser that makes you fruitful.

1. God also expects a report card

   Christians are held accountable too, and instead of marks God wants to know how many souls we have brought into the kingdom. No fruit tree eats its own fruit: lychees, mangoes and bananas bear fruit for some other part of creation. The fruit we bear is not ours to eat but is there to enrich and empower somebody else, so that God can harvest from our tree for a work elsewhere.

   Illustration: Even when the child brings home ninety five percent, some parents want to know what happened to the other five marks.

   “In the economy of God, the fruit that we bear is not our fruit and not ours to eat.”

2. Three years and not a single fig

   The owner came for three years and found no fruit, and said cut it down, why should it use up the ground. Many in the church enjoy the sound system, the lights and the experience because the accountability sits with the pastor, and then wonder why they are not growing. The shepherd does not produce the sheep; sheep reproduce sheep. The owner invested everything in his vineyard and had a right to expect fruit, and Christ paid a heavy price for us.

   Illustration: In sales, if you miss your target often enough, the company suggests you look for greener pastures.

   “The shepherd doesn't produce the sheep, it is the sheep that reproduce the sheep.”

   • Luke 13:6-9

3. Redeemed, renewed and restored to the original design

   He numbers the Lord's investment: He redeemed us with His blood, He renewed our lives through the Holy Spirit and the church, and He restored us to our original design, which is to be fruitful, to multiply, to conquer and to lead. We produce after our own kind, so hurt people produce hurt people and godly people produce disciples. Religion's deception is that sitting in church on Sunday is enough, when the Great Commission is to go and make disciples.

   Illustration: He did not say go to FCI, sit in the fourth row, sing five hallelujahs, give your tithe and live your best life until Sunday.

   “The devil doesn't need you to worship him. He just needs you not to worship God. He just needs you to be unproductive.”

   • Genesis 1:28
   • Matthew 25:32

4. One more year: grace has a deadline

   The gardener, a picture of the Holy Spirit, asked for one more year to dig around the tree and fertilise it. Those who have betrayed you think they got away with it, but they are in a season of grace, and God is the great accountant who balances the books, so you do not need to fight. Seek the Lord while He may be found, and be faithful in small things, because the principle a child learns young will carry through life.

   Illustration: However carefully you do your own tax return, the accountant finds what is wrong, because he knows the law. God made the law.

   “God is the great accountant. He'll balance the books.”

   • Isaiah 55:6
   • Proverbs 22:6

5. Change your mindset and allow the digging

   He gives the keys to fruitfulness. Number one, change your mindset and live every day as if it were your last: love properly, settle things before the sun goes down and share the gospel as if there were no tomorrow. Number two, allow the digging: hard ground lets in no water, light or nutrients, so let the Holy Spirit dig your heart through the word, prayer and fasting, and show you the offences you have held for thirteen years. Then be relational and intentional, walking the walk with others.

   Illustration: Cycling through a citrus orchard, he saw fruit so big and juicy he could not find it in Woolworths, and realised fruit like that shows the ground is healthy. A family he once helped through hard times without expecting anything now do the same for others; that is multiplication.

   “Allow the Holy Spirit to come in and create a vibrant spiritual atmosphere in your heart and in your mind.”

   • Ephesians 4:26

6. Do not waste the fertiliser

   In those days fertiliser was manure, and the manure in our lives is betrayal, criticism, backbiting, difficult people and things we are uncomfortable doing. It matures us, stretches us and moves us from selfish to selfless, as Jesus put the soldier's ear back on rather than retaliating. Pressure brings out the diamond, and the more the pressure, the greater the fruit; planted by the rivers of living water, we will be fruitful in every season.

   Illustration: A diamond is formed under great pressure and then has to be cut with special equipment before its beauty shows.

   “The more the pressure, the greater the calling. The more the pressure, the greater the reward.”

   • Luke 22:50-51
   • James 1:2
   • Psalm 1:3
   • 1 Samuel 30:1-25

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