Ripening Fruit
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Charles Simeon preached 54 years at Holy Trinity Church in Cambridge, England. Although little known today, he was greatly used by God to spread the good news about Jesus in Britain and around the world. His faithfulness to God’s word brought him much opposition and ridicule (his own congregation once locked him out of the church). Like each of us, Simeon was not a perfect man. Simeon was born an aristocrat. Early in his ministry he continued to act like one. He could be proud, hot-tempered, and impulsive. As a young minister, Simeon visited the home of a seasoned pastor named Henry Venn. Venn’s eldest daughter was not impressed. She describes her reaction, “It is impossible to conceive anything more ridiculous than his look and manner were. His grimaces were beyond anything you can imagine. So as soon as he was gone, we all got together into the study, and set up an amazing laugh.”
When Venn heard his children mocking young Simeon, he called them into the garden. In spite of the fact that it was still early summer, he asked them to pick a peach for him. The peach was green and inedible. Venn then instructed his children, “Well, my dears, it is green now, and we must wait; but a little more sun, and a few more showers, and the peach will be ripe and sweet. So it is with Mr. Simeon.”
Henry Venn understood what his children did not. It takes time—but the saving grace of God transforms lives. In the life of every genuine believer we will normally see movement from pride to humility, from obsessive materialism to simplicity, from immorality to purity, from gossip to self-control, from uselessness to usefulness to God! Even if we are “green” today, God promises to ultimately make each of us ripe and sweet. The apostle Paul expresses his confidence in that promise when he writes, “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6). Likewise, in 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 Paul prays, “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.”
Do you believe these promises are yours in Christ? What besetting sins mark your life? What depravity seems to consistently sabotage your relationship with God and others? Does the continuing presence of sin in your life deflate you? Should we not rather rejoice in Scripture’s promise that the same God who “began a good work in us” will bring it to completion and that we will be found blameless at the coming of Christ? God is faithful! He will do it!
But don’t stop with yourself! What about your brothers and sisters in Christ? Are we right to fixate only on our spiritual siblings’ shortcomings? Should we not rather remember what we, and they, are progressively becoming by God’s grace in Christ? How can we become the Church God calls us to be if we choose to see nothing but each other’s present quirks, sinful tendencies, and shortcomings? Should we not believe God’s promise together that, even now, he is shaping each of us into the image of Christ?
Lord, help us to be like Henry Venn. Rather than focus on what young Charles Simeon was on the day of his first visit, Venn saw what Simeon would become—and was becoming—in Christ! Well my dears, it is green now, and we must wait; but a little more sun, and a few more showers, and the peach will be ripe and sweet. So it is with Mr. Simeon.
Yes! And so it is with you and me. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.