Palm Tree Christians

PALM TREE CHRISTIANS

Psalm 92:1-8, 12-15

INTRODUCTION

A. HUMOR: “NEW & IMPROVED”

1. The little girl was sitting in her grandfather's lap as he read her a goodnight story. From time to time, she would touch his wrinkled cheek and alternately stroked her own cheek, then his.

2. Finally she spoke, "Granddaddy, did God make you?" "Yes, sweetheart," he answered, "God made me a long time ago."

3. "Oh," she said. "Granddaddy, did God make me too?" "Yes, indeed He did. God made you just a little while ago."

4. "Oh," she said. Feeling their respective faces again, she observed, "God's getting better at it now, isn't He?"

B. TEXT

“It is good to praise the Lord and make music to your name, O Most High, 2 to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night, 3 to the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp. 4 For you make me glad by your deeds, O Lord; I sing for joy at the works of your hands. 5 How great are your works, O Lord, how profound your thoughts! 6 The senseless man does not know, fools do not understand, 7 that though the wicked spring up like grass and all evildoers flourish, they will be forever destroyed. 8 But you, O Lord, are exalted forever. 12 The Righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; 13 planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. 14 They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green, 15 proclaiming, “The Lord is upright; He is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.”

C. THESIS

1. In this passage, beginning with verse 12, the Holy Spirit, who penned these Scriptures, chose to portray the “Righteous,” those justified by God through faith – in the figure of the Palm Tree.

2. The palm tree has been the representative tree of Palestine from the Middle Ages, when European pilgrims identified it with the Holy Land.

3. At Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the people broke off palm branches and waved them as sign of the coming King.

4. In Rev. 7:9, the victorious children of God are pictured as "clothed with white robes and [having] palms in their hands."

5. Since the Palm Tree is so connected to followers of Jesus, we’re going to look at what the Holy Spirit was pointing to when He identified the Righteous as being like the Palm Tree.

I. THE PALM TREE BREAKS THE BANDS

A. EFFECT OF OUTWARD STRENGTH

1. Have you ever seen old fence wire sunk deep into the trunk of a tree? Sometimes trees are “banded” to keep them from getting too big. Other trees can’t break the bands put around them. As the tree grows, the bands dig into the wood.

2. But the force of life inside the Palm Tree is stronger than the metal bands and breaks them as it grows.

B. A GREATER POWER WITHIN

1. This reminds us that “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world” 1 Jn. 4:4.

2. The Child of God can’t be confined, confounded,

contained, curbed, checked, crushed, or conquered. We can’t be subdued, surmounted ,submerged, suborned, or

subjugated.

3. It doesn’t matter how strong the sin that has us in its grasp; the power of Christ within us is greater! The Life of God within us slowly overwhelms the force of sin and it loses its hold on us

Rom. 6:1-2,6,11-14.

4. Paul said, "But thanks be to God which gives us the victory ..." I Cor. 15:57, and "...In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." Rom. 8:37.

II. THE PALM TREE WILL BEND BUT NOT BREAK

A. THE EFFECT OF STORMS

1. Hurricanes bend them over, but they spring back.

2. After storms, other trees lay on the ground with their roots twisted and broken. Palm Trees remain upright.

3. The storms of life cause many disasters for those who don’t know the Lord. But God helps the Righteous bend, but not break.

B. THE PALM TREE CAN WITHSTAND ABUSE

1. The heart of the ordinary tree is dead. It’s sap flows up the outside of the tree. Not so the Palm Tree.

2. The heart of the Palm Tree is alive. Its life is in its heart. Outward abuse does not affect its life or quality.

3. That’s why Proverbs warns us to “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” 4:23. Our hearts are the seat of our new life in Christ. "Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

4. 2 Cor. 4:16 says, “Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day."