A Real Christian or Just Looks Like One?

A Real Christian or Just Looks Like One?

Luke 6:43–49

A Tree and Its Fruit

43 “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, 44 for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. 45 The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

Build Your House on the Rock

46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? 47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.[a] 49 But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”

Just recently, we had to fix the gutter at our home. We didn’t even know there was a problem. It looked fine. But then the big rain hit Sydney a few weeks ago, and suddenly there was water leaking through the ceiling. How did we know something was wrong? Not on a sunny day. We only found out when the rain came. A house can look perfectly fine on a sunny day. Everything seems solid, but you don’t really know how strong it is until the storm comes.

Life is the same. When things are going well—when we’re healthy, when work is stable, when stress is low—our faith can look strong. We pray. We come to church. We say the right things. Everything seems fine. But then pressure comes. That’s when our foundation is tested. The storm doesn’t create the problem—it reveals the problem. Sickness. Loss. Stress. Disappointment. A storm we didn’t plan for. And that’s when we find out what’s really holding us up—just like the rain revealed the weak spot in our gutter.

Jesus knows this. That’s why He doesn’t end His series of teaching, the Sermon on the Plain starting in verse 17, with encouragement or applause. He ends it with warning. Not to scare us—but to help us. I will divide my sermon into three points.

1. The Treasure

Jesus says it like this: “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is known by its own fruit.” In other words, fruit doesn’t lie. You don’t go to an apple tree hoping to find oranges, and you don’t walk past a thornbush expecting grapes. The fruit always tells you what kind of tree it is. You can tidy up a tree. You can prune it. You can shape it. You can even tie fruit onto its branches. From a distance, it might look healthy, but when harvest time comes, the truth shows up.

Years ago, we planted a coffee tree. We waited years for it to grow. Finally, it produced beans. We were excited. We harvested them, roasted them, and tasted the coffee. It was terrible. A few weeks later, the tree died. The bad fruit wasn’t the real problem—it was the warning sign. The tree had been sick long before the fruit showed up. The fruit just made visible what was already wrong on the inside.

That’s what Jesus is saying about our lives. What comes out of us—our words, reactions, habits, attitudes—reveals what’s going on inside us. What we treasure in our hearts eventually shows up in how we live. What you treasure drives what you do. What you do reveals what you treasure.

So often when we say something bad or react badly to other people, the first thing we do is blame other people or blame situations. But the real problem is deep inside our heart. The heart is the engine of our lives. Why do I keep reacting this way? Why do I lose patience so quickly at home but not at work? Why do I care so much about what people think? Jesus gives one answer: the heart.

Here’s the trap many of us fall into: we try to fix the fruit without dealing with the root, because most of us have been approaching the Christian life the wrong way around. We think if I just do enough good things, eventually I will become a good person. If I serve enough, I will become a good person. If I control my tongue enough, I will become patient. If I force myself to forgive enough times, eventually it will feel natural.

So we focus on the fruit. We stare at the fruit. We manage the fruit. We are exhausted by the fruit, and nothing really changes at the root. A tree doesn’t “try” to produce fruit; it produces what it is. You don't become a good person by doing good things; you do good things because you have been made “good” at the root.

Jesus is flipping the whole thing around. He is saying you do not become good by doing good things. You do good things because you have been made good at the root. The behaviour is not the starting point; the behaviour is the result. Which means if you want different fruit, you have to stop staring at the fruit and start attending to the root. Your life works exactly the same way. You want to be more patient? Stop trying to perform patience. Ask yourself what is in my heart that makes me so reactive. What am I afraid of? What am I protecting? You want to be more generous? Stop forcing yourself to give. Ask yourself what does my heart actually trust. Am I holding on because deep down I do not believe God will provide?

Stop looking at the behaviour. Start looking at what you treasure inside your heart.

2. The Question

Jesus continues with His warning. The question is, do you treasure Jesus? Here’s the question Jesus asks, and it’s uncomfortable because it’s personal: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” Lord is not a casual word. That is not just a polite title like “sir” or “teacher.” Lord means master, owner, the one who has authority over your life. And notice Jesus does not just say “Lord” once. He says “Lord, Lord.” Twice. In that culture, when you repeated someone’s name or title like that, you were being intense. You were saying, I am serious. I really mean this.

Jesus looks at them and says, but those people do not do what I say. “Why do you call me that and then not do what I say?” Because here is the uncomfortable truth: there were people following Jesus—walking with Him, listening to His sermons, calling Him Lord, loving being part of the church group—who were not actually doing what He said. Not occasionally slipping up. They had simply never made a habit of obedience.

When it came to actually doing the hard thing He asked— forgiving that person, letting go of that money, loving that difficult neighbour, telling the truth in that situation—something else won every time. Jesus knew there are two kinds of people in the same room. In the crowd following Him, from the outside they looked almost identical. Both groups showed up. Both groups listened. Both groups used the same language. Both groups probably felt genuine emotion when they worshipped.

The first group is true disciples and the second group is wannabe disciples. What is the difference between those groups? “Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them.” It comes down to three things. The true disciple comes to Jesus, hears His words, and does them. The wannabe disciple comes, hears, and stops there. Same first two steps. It is the third one that separates them.

Now let’s be honest about something. Most of us are pretty good at the first two. Coming—we are here, right? We showed up. We come to church. We come to community group. We come to the events. We are present. Hearing—we listen. We follow along. We take notes sometimes. We nod when something lands. We might even feel genuinely moved. We go home thinking, that was a good sermon. Two out of three. Not bad.

But then Monday comes, and Tuesday, and Wednesday. And the words that moved us on Sunday quietly fade, and nothing actually changed. That is where the wannabe disciple lives. Now look at the true disciple. Same first two steps. They come. They hear. But then something different happens. They go home and they do something about it. That’s obedience.

I want to stay here for a moment, because when we hear the word obedience our minds immediately go big. We think sell your house, quit your job, move to another country, do something radical and visible. But that is not what Jesus is describing here. Most of the time the obedience is quiet. It is small. It is the kind of thing that nobody else will ever know about except you and God.

If someone asks, do you obey God, most of us would say yes. And honestly, we’re usually thinking about easy obedience. Those things are good. They are obedience. But they are also safer. Easy obedience says, I’ll follow God as long as it doesn’t cost me too much. Obedience is not always big, but most times it is small, quiet, sacrificial, and costly.

Maybe for you today obedience means a reconciliation conversation you have been avoiding for months or years, with your spouse, your parent, your friend, your colleague. Maybe it is saying, I am sorry. I was wrong. Nobody is going to give you an award for that conversation, but God knows. Jesus said go and be reconciled, and you heard it, and you kept not doing it. Today is the day you do it.

Maybe for you today it is a habit. Something small you keep telling yourself you will deal with later. You have heard sermons on it. You nodded. You felt it. But nothing changed. Now just do it. Maybe for you today it is forgiveness. And this is hard. Someone hurt you deeply, and the feeling of forgiveness is nowhere near. But Jesus does not say forgive when you feel like it. He says forgive. Forgiveness is a decision you make before the feeling comes.

Calling Jesus “Lord” means nothing if you still act as the owner of your own decisions.

3. The Foundation

Jesus gives us a very simple picture. Two people. Two houses. One storm. The storm is the same for both. Following Jesus does not mean you avoid storms. From the outside the houses look exactly the same. Same street. Same size. Same style. Same sermon heard. The difference is underneath, where no one can see. One builder dug deep and built on rock. The other built straight on the ground. You don’t notice the difference on a sunny day. You notice it when the rain comes. The flood doesn’t create the problem—it reveals it.

About 10 years ago, we bought an off‑the‑plan apartment in Carlingford. The project had delays. Construction kept getting pushed back. Honestly, we were worried. We wondered, Are we actually going to get this place? Then one day, we drove past the site and saw something different. They had started digging the foundation. We were excited. Finally! Something was happening.

But here’s what’s interesting. When we saw the builders digging, we didn’t stop and ask, “Hey, how deep is that foundation?” “Are you sure it’s strong enough?” “Have you tested the soil properly?” No one does that. Instead, we did what everyone does. We went home and opened the apartment plans again. We checked the room sizes. We started thinking about what sofa would fit best, what we’d put on the walls, and how we’d decorate the living room.

We cared deeply about what people would see. We love decorating walls. We don’t think much about foundations. And here’s the irony Jesus is pointing out. The most important part of the house is the part no one sees. The thing that determines whether the building survives isn’t the paint, the furniture, or the layout—it’s the foundation underground.

Jesus says the Christian life works the same way. We spend a lot of effort decorating the “walls”—our reputation, our image, how we appear to others. But Jesus says the only thing that determines whether we stand in the storm is the “foundation”—our private obedience, our quiet faithfulness, what we do when no one is watching.

Here’s the thing—we often judge someone’s spirituality the same way we measure success everywhere else. Who’s the most talented? Who’s up front? Who’s doing big things and getting results? Without realizing it, we start thinking that fruit always means faithfulness. But Jesus says, not always. Being gifted doesn’t automatically mean being godly.

One of the most important—and most misunderstood—truths Jesus highlights is this: being impressive doesn’t mean being obedient. Just because someone is effective, talented, or visibly “successful” in Christian spaces doesn’t automatically mean they’re living under Jesus’ rule. A person can speak well, lead well, sing well, preach powerfully, or even see visible results in ministry—and still not be personally submitted to Christ. Skills can be learned. Charisma can be natural. Influence can grow fast. But none of those things guarantee a surrendered heart.

This is why Jesus gives such a strong warning. He points out that some people will confidently say, “Lord, Lord,” and list everything they’ve done in his name—preaching, miracles, spiritual impact—and God still says, “I never knew you.”

This is the danger. Giftedness can hide disobedience for a long time. A strong gift can distract both the person and everyone watching from what’s actually happening underneath. Someone might struggle with pride, greed, bitterness, sexual sin, dishonesty, or lack of forgiveness—but their talent keeps them celebrated and platformed.

This doesn’t mean gifts are bad. God gives gifts freely. But gifts were never meant to replace Godliness. The warning here isn’t just for leaders or public figures—it’s for everyone. We shouldn’t assess ourselves by how impressive our Christian résumé looks or how active we are in church. “Obedience is the only sound evidence of saving faith, and the talk of the lips is useless if not accompanied by a changed life.” — J. C. Ryle

We often decorate the walls but ignore the foundation. The most important part is the part no one sees. Jesus says the Christian life works the same way. What determines whether we stand is our foundation—private obedience and quiet faithfulness. Giftedness does not equal godliness. Being impressive does not mean being obedient. Gifts are not bad, but they were never meant to replace godliness.

Church can actually be a risky place if we’re not careful. Everything can look the same from the outside. Only God sees the heart. Obedience does not earn salvation. Christ alone is the foundation. Obedience reveals whether we are standing on Him.

“If obedience does not flow from a heart changed by grace, then it is not Christian obedience at all.” — Tim Keller

We are saved by grace, not by works. Gospel obedience is about desire, not pressure. At the cross we see the seriousness of our sin and the depth of God’s love. When Christ becomes more beautiful than the sin we cling to, obedience stops being forced and starts flowing from love.

Discussion questions:

1. What struck you the most from the sermon?
2. What is the difference between staring at the fruit and attending to the root?
3. What separates true disciples from wannabe disciples? Can you see the same evidence in your life?
4. Why do you think you tend to focus on the decoration instead of the foundation?
5. What does it mean to have Jesus as the foundation?