The Associated Press carried a story from New York sometime back that I thought was interesting. Let me read part of it.

"The author of the best-selling book How to Make Love to a Woman pleaded guilty to punching his former girlfriend in the face. `We had a heated argument and for one second I lost control,' Michael Morgenstern said of the incident in which he hit his former girlfriend, 22-year-old fashion model Ethel Marie Parks. The guilty plea was entered after Morgenstern agreed to settle a civil lawsuit Miss Parks had filed against him.

"Morgenstern's book, which was on the New York Times best-seller list for several months, urges men to take the lead in the relationships and show sensitivity toward women.

"The incident occurred August 5, 1981, the day after Miss Parks moved out of the apartment she had shared with Morgenstern on Manhattan's East Side. Morgenstern said he had intended to discuss their relationship when he went to the apartment where Miss Parks was staying. The author was accused in a court complaint of punching the model `once in the mouth, fracturing one of the bones in her upper jaw, and breaking a tooth.'"

Somehow I get the feeling that Mr. Morgenstern is not a very good ambassador for his book on how to show sensitivity toward women.

His witness is similar to that of a notice in a church newsletter that Sam Levenson tells about: "Due to the fact that Mr. S., our local banker, has embezzled $100,000 and been sentenced to 20 years, he will not be teaching his usual Sunday School class this week."

Now that can either make you laugh or it can make you cry. "By this my father is glorified," says Jesus in our scripture lesson for today, "that you bear much fruit."

Bearing fruit is what Christian discipleship is all about. We may be saints in terms of ethical and moral purity. We may have the Ten Commandments memorized backwards and forwards, and we may be able to recite the Sermon on the Mount and scarcely miss a syllable. We may pray prayers that make the angels weep and the archangels shout "hallelujah;" but if we are not bearing fruit we have missed the meaning of discipleship.

The priest and the Levite who passed by on the other side in the story of the Good Samaritan were men devoted to the word, devoted to the law, and devoted to moral and spiritual purity. But they were not bearing fruit.

Lazarus sat outside the gate of a rich man who was a successful businessman and probably a pillar of his community, but his wealth had blinded him to the beggar lying at his gates. He ended up in hell because he wasn't bearing fruit.

In Luke 13, Jesus told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. He said to the vinedresser, `Lo, these three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down; why should it use up the ground?'"

Jesus not only told that parable but He himself had an encounter with such a fig tree. What did He do with the fig tree that was not bearing fruit? He cursed it. Budding blossoms are nice, but bearing fruit is what's important in God's kingdom.

Have you ever noticed how thrilling it is to behold someone who is in the business of making a living testimony of his or her life? I was captivated a few years ago by the story of Jackie Joyner, the U.S. Women's heptathlon favorite in the 1984 Olympics. Jackie had set her eyes not only on winning the medal, but also on showing the world the better side of her community. She comes from East St. Louis, which she says "is a city known for killing and a bunch of other things that aren't too good." But she wanted people to know that things better than crime can come out of East St. Louis. Jackie took the silver medal in the heptathlon, while her brother Al took the gold in the triple jump. Now the world knows that there is something better to be said about East St. Louis. Jackie and Al's lives are a testimony; they are bearing fruit.

Jesus' early disciples answered their Master's call to bear fruit. They gave their lives to tell the good news about Jesus and His love. The early church's great harvest of souls was grown on soil fertilized with martyrs' blood. Tradition tells us that James, Jesus' brother, and James (Zebedee's son) were killed by the mobs in Jerusalem; Matthew was slain by a sword in Ethiopia; and Philip was hanged in Phrygia. Bartholomew was flayed alive in Armenia; Andrew was crucified in Archia; Thomas was run through with a lance in East India; and Thaddeus was shot to death with arrows. A cross went up in Persia for Simon the zealot; and in Rome the old Apostle Peter was, at his own request, crucified head downward"” because he did not think himself worthy to die as his Lord had. Matthias was beheaded. Only John escaped a torturous death, and he died a lonely man in exile.

Such heroics, however, are not limited to first-century Christianity. There have been Christians in our own time that stood tall in the time of testing. One example is Martin Niemoller, a German pastor who would not give in to Adolph Hitler, and therefore spent much of World War II in a Nazi concentration camp.

It is reported that the commander of that camp was determined to break Christ's hold on Niemoller. He placed an outspoken atheist in the cell beside Niemoller and gave permission for the two prisoners to talk. He also arranged for these two men to take their daily half-hour walk at the same time and in the same yard. The atheist was a very intellectual person, and a skilled debater. He had been promised all sorts of favors if he could just make Niemoller lose his faith. Each of the two men enjoyed presenting his own point of view, and they talked together for four days. On the fifth day, the atheist begged Niemoller to lend him his Bible, a book that had assumed a new meaning to him. The very same day the atheist was moved to another cell.

Bearing fruit is essential to Christian discipleship.

This is to say that a life well lived is always a more effective witness than words well said.

Benjamin Franklin learned that plaster sown in the fields would make things grow better. He told his neighbors, but they did not believe him. They argued with him, trying to prove that plaster could be of no use at all to grass or grain.

After a little while he dropped the matter and said nothing more about it. But he went into the field early the following spring and sowed more grain. Close by the path, where people would walk, he traced some letters with his finger, put plaster in them, and then sowed his seed in the field.

After a week or two the seed sprang up. His neighbors, as they passed that way, were very much surprised to see, in brighter green than all the rest of the field, the writing in large letters, "This has been plastered." Benjamin Franklin did not need to argue further with his neighbors regarding the benefit of plaster for the fields. For as the season passed and the grain continued to grow, these bright green letters rose above all the rest of the field to announce to everyone who looked that "This has been plastered."

"By your fruits shall all men know that you are my disciples." But how do we obtain such fruits? How can we live such winning lives?

You grow good fruit by having good roots. As Jesus said on another occasion: "For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good man out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil; for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks." (Luke 6:43-45).

Our roots determine the fruit we bear. Where is your life rooted?

In one of his best-selling books Zig Ziglar points to a 1981 Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company study that revealed that people with deep religious convictions make the most productive employees. According to Ziglar, "Ninety-seven percent of those who had made strong spiritual commitments had strong feelings of conviction, commitment, and loyalty that carried over to their employers, with highly productive results. It is not surprising that this parallels a study involving over 22,000 students who qualified for Who's Who in American Schools and Colleges. Over 85% of these honor students said that their faith in God was extremely important to them."

C.S. Lewis wrote, "God has designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy without bothering about religion. God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing."

Our roots determine our fruits, and some of us need to do a better job of nourishing those roots.

Back in the days when the Green Bay Packers were the best team in football, Vince Lombardi, their legendary coach, was a fanatic about fundamentals. Once, when the Packers lost to a team they were supposed to beat, Lombardi was furious. He called them together the next morning and roared, "O.K., we're going back to the basics. . ." And, holding a football high enough for everyone to see, he went on to say, "Gentlemen, this is a football."

That is getting back to the basics. Maybe we need to return to the fundamentals of our faith. Maybe I need to hold my Bible up and say, "This is a Bible and this is an altar. This is a regular weekly worship service."

Roots and fruits. We need one to develop the other. Jesus had no regard for a fig tree that didn't bear fruit. Bearing fruit is what a fig tree is supposed to do. So is following Jesus. In order to bear the fruit of faith, we must be rooted in worship, in the study of God's Word and in the fellowship of saints. Both roots and fruits are essential to authentic and successful Christian living.