Title: Examining Our Roots
Text: Psalm 1
The Big Idea: Being rooted in God results in a blessed life.
Introduction
Roots… in 1977 we were introduced to the Roots made for TV Mini-Series
based on the book written by Alex Haley. It is the story of an American family that began in the year 1750 when slavers captured Kunta Kinte in Africa, transported him to America, and sold him into slavery. The story continued for six nights and twelve hours, through the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, spanning over one-hundred years of national history and six generations of family history.
Genealogists typically use a family tree as a genealogical diagram to trace the development of a family lineage. It seems there is always a bit of curiosity about from whom and where we came… we like to know something of our family roots. Fortunately, in nearly every family there is someone who is very much into genealogy and they do the hard work of examining our roots for us.
Going back to one’s roots can uncover all kinds of things. The Eastman online people reported that Sarah Palin and Princess Diana share a 9th great grandfather by the name of John Strong who was born in England in 1605, making the Governor and the Princess 10th cousins. She reportedly shares lineage with Franklin Delano Roosevelt as well. (eogin.com/Eastman_online_ genealogy/2008/10/sarah-palin-is.html)
A year ago the Washington Post reported Senator Barack Obama and Vice President Dick Cheney are 9th cousins. (Anne E. Kornblut, Obama and Cheney Making Connections, WashingtonPost.com, October 17,2007)
But those aren’t the kind of roots I want us to examine this morning. I am thinking more along the lines of tree roots… roots that tap down into the soil of our lives and from which we draw the things that sustain our lives.
Simply put, trees root in one of three primary ways:
• Tap Roots – Hickory and Oak Trees have Tap Roots or a primary root from which other roots grow.
• Heart Roots – Locust and Pine Trees have Heart Roots or a clump of roots, so to speak.
• Flatroots – Cottonwoods, Firs, Birches, and Maples have Flat Root Systems which spread and radiate from the tree beneath the surface of the soil.
And every tree has a three pronged root system: All roots have primary, secondary, and transport root systems. Root systems typically grow within three feet of the soil surface and extend laterally as much as three times the canopy of the tree. The root system serves to anchor and nourish the tree.
In our text godly people are likened to a tree that is planted along a river bank… a tree whose roots tap into an endless supply of nourishment.
Throughout the reading of our text, we notice that the Psalmist uses a series of contrasts to illustrate the difference between a gody person and an ungodly person. He begins by saying:
1. Godly people do not pattern their lives after the ways and will of ungodly people.
• Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with scoffers. Psalm 1:1
Note the downward spiral of one’s life when a person get all intertwined with ungodly people… when ungodly people become the primary influence in their lives:
• They begin by walking in the counsel of the wicked.
• They then stand in the way of sinners.
• And finally, they sit down with the scoffers.
I don’t know if you have ever seen a tree whose roots are exposed? They were not always exposed. They were once beneath the surface but over time two things happened: One, the roots grew larger and pushed up through the soil. And two, the soil eroded away leaving the roots exposed.
Walking with the wicked, standing in the way of sinners, and sitting in the seat of scoffers describes a gradual spiritual erosion.
• What does it mean to walk in the counsel of the wicked, i.e., follow the advice of the wicked? It means to begin to think like the ungodly.
• What does it mean to stand around with or in the way of sinners? It means to begin to behave like the ungodly.
• What does it mean to join in or sit in the seat of scoffers? It means to belong to the ungodly.
It means that what begins as a casual relationship evolves into becoming under the influence of and identified with, and eventually ultimately in agreement with, ungodly people.
It begins innocently and casually and ends with a casualty.
In August of 2004 a 24-year old woman in Malasia set out to break the world record of 32 days in a glass box with 6,000 scorpions. Showing no signs of fear she entered the box and was promptly covered with scorpions… she was allowed to leave the box for 15 minutes each day but she made the box her home for 36 days.
She emerged on September 25, 2004 with the new world record and only 17 scorpion stings. It makes sense that when you lay down with scorpions you will be stung.
Native American people have a variation to that story in their folk lore. They tell of a little boy who came upon an old rattle snake who told the little boy he was too old to make it to the top of the mountain and he wanted to see the sun set before he died. The little boy was reluctant but the snake assured him that he would not bite him if he helped him to the top. After seeing the sunset, the old rattle snake asked the little boy to carry him back down the mountain, once again assuring the little boy that he would not bite him if he helped him.
So the little boy carried the old rattle snake down the mountain and as he was gently laying the snake on the ground, the rattler bit him. Shocked, the little boy leapt back and said, “You promised you would not bite me…” And the rattler replied, “Ah yes, but you knew what I was when you picked me up.”
So to whom are you listening? Who do you hang around with most of the time. Are they encouraging you to become a more godly person or a less godly person? Is their advice good and godly advice? Or is their advice jaded with self ambition and unethical attitudes and practices?
Godly people are not tapped into the culture for their guidance.
2. Godly people tap into or are rooted in the Word and Will of God.
• But they delight in doing everything the Lord wants, day and night they think about his law. Psalm 1:2
What does it mean to delight in doing God’s will?
What does it mean to think about God’s Word day and night?
Once while rotor-tilling to put in a new lawn the tiller kicked out a vintage, cast iron motorcycle with a man riding it… it was very old. I looked like a 1940’s era toy. I knew whose toy it must have been so I gave it to him and it now sits proudly on a shelf in their living room. He had lost it when he was a little boy.
I have always wanted a metal detector… sweeping old farmsteads, home sites, and other deserted places for what might have been left behind.
I’m told that when you find something buried in the ground, before filling in the hole, you should always scan the hole once again. Often times, where there is one coin, there will be another.
I’ve also read that you should never believe a place has been “hunted out.” For the patient hunter there is often another treasure waiting. One treasure seeker told of scanning a “hunted out” site for six hours before picking up a signal that netted a cache of old coins, one of which was worth $70.
The point being… no matter how many times you have scanned or swept over the Word of God, there is always another treasure waiting to be uncovered, understood, and applied to your life.
Godly people keep tapping into the Word of God in search of what God has to say to them this day. The Psalmist likens the godly person to a tree rooted down near a flowing river.
3. Godly people thrive in and out of season even in times of drought.
• They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season without fail. Their leaves never wither, and in all they do, they prosper. Psalm 1:3
One of the images I cherish is that of the barren plains of western Kansas and Nebraska and eastern Colorado. The semi-arid landscape is stark in its treeless expanse. And then you see them… trees, old cottonwoods growing a long what was once a winding stream or wash. I think they are called arroyos. It may be nothing but a sandy wash now, but once water coursed through the place and even now… beneath the sandy surface flows an underground stream. And while all else withers and dies, the old cottonwood continues to thrive because it is rooted down into its life source.
The godly person who, over the years, continues to remain tapped into the Word and Will of God will be sustained through times good and bad… that person knows what it means to be sustained by the grace of God. Paul wrote in II Corinthians 12, “I am quite content in my weaknesses and with insults and with hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong… because God’s power is made perfect or works best in our times of weakness.”
While the godly may be compared to a deeply rooted tree, the ungodly are likened to chaff.
4. Ungodly people are lifeless, rootless, and hopelessly lost.
• But this is not true of the wicked. They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind. They will be condemned at the time of judgment. Sinners will have no place among the godly. Psalm 1:4-5
On Halloween night, our gymnasium will be decorated in preparation for our Pumpkin Patch Halloween outreach event for the children and families in our community. Part of those decorations will be shocks of corn and bales of straw… the shocks of corn are what remains after the ear has been removed. The bales of straw are what remains after the wheat has been harvested. It is dry and lifeless. But, I want to further illustrate what it means to be compared to chaff.
Keep in mind, I have not been around a wheat harvest for some time, but what I am about to share with you is essentially what happens when wheat is harvested.
A combine is driven through the wheat field. Mounted on the front of the combine is what is called the “head.” The head has two major parts: One is the reel which is a lot like the paddle on the back of an old steam ship. As the combine moves through the field, the reel catches and pulls the wheat back onto the platform. And as the wheat is being bent back onto the platform the cutter bar cuts the wheat off. The cut wheat is then channeled into the mouth and into the inside of the combine where it is either shaken on a series of shakers or spun in a rotary cylinder. In the case of the skakers the wheat is shook out of the head and falls through the shakers and sieves into a pan where it is augered up into the hopper. What remains is carried out or blown out of the back of the combine where spreaders catch what is left and scatter it around on the ground behind the combine. What comes out the back is called chaff. The wind catches it and it is blown away and lost.
That however, is not the end of the godly…
5. Godly people are under the intimate care and eternal protection of God.
• For the Lord watches over the path of the godly, but the path of the wicked leads to destruction. Psalm 1:6
If don’t know if the saying originated with Yogi Berra or not, but he said it and wrote a book titled, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
Forks in the road may infer opportunity, as Yogi Berra suggests.
Robert Frost suggests the same in his poem, The Road Not Taken.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
However, forks in the road are not just about opportunity… forks in the road are about a parting of the ways. The Lord watches over the path of the godly, but the path of the wicked leads to destruction…
The parting of the way may be compared to two people… the only difference between the two people is that one is not a follower of Jesus Christ and the other is. One has not rooted his life in the Word and Will of God… the other has. One thought like the ungodly, acted like the ungodly, and believed like the ungodly. Not so with the other.
They are both on their death beds and they both speak dying words. One says, “I’m am leaving home… I am leaving home.” The other says, “I am going home.” That is the fork in the road… one is taking the path to life everlasting and the other the path to destruction.
Conclusion:
This morning, we may do well to end in reflection… am I a godly person or an ungodly person? Am I a devoted follower of Jesus Christ, rooted in the Word of God, in the company of, under the influence of, and identified with the godly? Or am I companion with the culture, influenced and identified with the ungodly? Or am I somehow a bit of both… an admixture of godly living and ungodly living. I think the person who would be like the tree planted by the river thinks like the tree in Karen Shragg’s poem, Think Like a Tree.
Soak up the sun
Affirm life’s magic
Be graceful in the wind
Stand tall after a storm
Feel refreshed after it rains
Grow strong without notice
Be prepared for each season
Provide shelter to strangers
Hang tough through a cold spell
Emerge renewed at the first signs of spring
Stay deeply rooted while reaching for the sky…
The challenge is to: “Stay deeply rooted while reaching for the sky!”
