Teachings and sermons about producing Christian fruit have been overdone and even used for abuse. As I here write about fruit I’m not describing any particular group or behavior.
This post is about the preaching of different gospels. Gospels produce converts and ultimately churches. I’ve observed different gospels producing different types of converts and churches and ministries. The gospel of the kingdom of Jesus Christ also produces a fruit that God describes as good and which Jesus gave us a standard to measure against.
The gospel of the kingdom does not produce churches where evangelistic sermons by one or two are the only and supreme focus for every meeting. And where everyone else are expected to sit and observe for a lifetime.
Where meetings are filled with believers who barely know one another… if at all, and stare at the back of one another’s head.
It does not see lifetime friends disappear, cut off fellowship, for petty reasons, without so much as a goodbye. Like church is some sort of impersonal business relationship
It does not produce sermon series…. endless ….sermon…. series.
It produces family, it produces face to face sharing of Jesus Christ back and forth shared life in even the shyest and poorest of people. People without skill and without ambition for other things.
It produces a people completely outside a satan controlled world. Who challenge the world together and with effective force, who together get into trouble with that world. It does not produce a people who fit right into it and who ignore reality.
It produces a people united by only the person of Jesus himself and that is all they need, not money. They do not have a common adoration for a certain pastor or priest or line of theology
The gospel of the kingdom, after a time of discipleship, produces bodies of believers obsessed with Jesus Christ who understand their together-calling. Who all speak and share equally, extrovert and introvert, who share their material wealth one with another. It produces love, deep genuine Jesus love,
It grows organically without strategy and without marketing, people just are drawn, sometimes a few people other times MANY people, it’s money flows to one another to produce equality with all, it’s members are led by the spirit and are not ashamed to speak and so sermons often are not necessary at all. It is not controllable or visible to human governments. It actually gets attacked by governments.
The fruit of the gospel of the kingdom looks like a gorgeous counterpart to Jesus Christ in the earth.
