Fellowship Sangría… The Fruit of the Vine!

Matthew 7:16 You will know them by their fruits. 

We don’t have a stellar history of fruit picking… like Eve we tend to use our taste buds (when the woman saw that the tree was good for food) our biased eyes (and that it was a delight to the eyes) and our self-centered goals (that the tree was desirable to make one wise).

If I’m HUNGRY for company…  and you LOOK sweet and pretty… and you can BE USED… “COME IN, let us make a little Sangria to fill my needs”!

Have you ever been used to make a sweet beverage for someone to drink? Peeled, squeezed, mashed and thrown into the mix only to be blamed when the wine causes faces to be frozen in the “sour” mode.

Perhaps you have discovered that you only have lemons in your refrigerator and want to sweeten your sangría more than a little. Do you go looking for those people whose sugar content is full on diabetic coma potential? But alas, no matter what fruit you choose, your Fellowship Sangría does not taste right nor satisfy.

What are we to do? Go back to theology class to become better fruit pickers? … You will know them by their fruits. 

I think we sometimes use this verse out of context and with wrong purpose.  I also think we shouldn’t take the picker and make him/her the perfect Sommelier (wine steward/professional specializing in all aspects of wine service as well as wine and food pairing).

Matthew 7:15-20 “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits. 

We judge with our LUST… lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and lust for the pride of life. We take one piece of fruit and without tasting decide it is the WHOLE tree! When it is found to be pretty on the outside but foul on the inside, we are devastated and immediately rip out the whole orchard…

I say… to make Fellowship Sangría that will both satisfy and encourage full wineskins for everyone, we need to go back to the orchard… more specifically the owner of the orchard and the Master Gardener!

Matthew 7:1-2 “Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. 

We judge by one or two tasks we see or hear about and assume the WHOLE tree is wonderful. Or we, or someone we know, fail in meeting the legalistic recipe of our sangria, and we assume the WHOLE tree is rotten to the core. Whatever our method of judging, it is dangerous… and usually WRONG.

For the perfect Fellowship Sangria we need the Master Sommelier… Jesus… at the wedding in Cana He not only made more wine, He made the BEST WINE! For the perfect fruit, we need the Master Fruit Producer…

Galatians 5:22-24 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 

The only “trees/people” worthy of our judgement are those that stand at the entrance of the WRONG ORCHARD, or send us looking for the WRONG fruit. But mostly we need to judge those who claim ownership of the orchard. Just as the enemy lied to Adam and Eve, we need to judge any enemy (false prophets) that would tell us lies about our God.

We DO NOT judge for purposes of verdict or punishment (“Vengeance is mine”, says the Lord), but we DO judge for the purpose of listening, hearing and following our ONE TRUE Owner’s directions and recipe for the His Fellowship Sangría.

If we trust the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to produce only the best in our lives and the lives of our siblings, we can raise our glasses and salute each other for the fruit harvested in our lives… we can shout with one voice…Psalm 34:8 O taste and see that the Lord (and His excellent Fellowship Sangría recipe) is good…

Cheers!

**All Scripture quoted comes from the “Bible Gateway” app and is the NASB version of the Bible