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."
III. THE PALM TREE NOT ONLY SURVIVES BUT FLOURISHES IN THE DESERT
A. SECRET OF ITS FLOURISHING
1. Three times the Scripture uses the word "flourish.” Hebrew word means "to blossom," "to break forth." So we Christians aren’t simply to grow in the desert; we’re to flourish like the Palm Tree.
2. Its secret is that its roots go deep below the burning sands and find moisture down deep below the surface.
B. IF WE WANT TO FLOURISH, SPIRITUALLY…
1. The Christian must go deep with God if he is going to flourish. To go deep, we must have the Christ life (Galatians 2:20).
2. “For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh” 2 Cor. 4:11.
3. YOU CAN’T HAVE THE LIFE OF JESUS WITHOUT DYING TO YOUR SELF-LIFE. YOU MUST SURRENDER, REPENT, TAKE UP YOUR CROSS AND FOLLOW HIM.
4. To go deep, we must be prayer warriors. I Thess. 5:17 says; "Pray without ceasing." Not theology, not psychology, but kneeology.
5. Many Christians are not flourishing because they’re only “surface” with Christ. Shallow Christians look to the world for refreshment – its fashion, literature, and entertainment. But they’re left empty.
6. Child of God, send your taproot deep in the Word of God and prayer.
IV. A GROUP OF PALM TREES FORMS AN OASIS
A. UNITY GIVES US STRENGTH
1. One palm tree standing alone will not provide much shade from the burning sun. A group of Palm Trees forms an oasis.
2. We need to stand together as Christians. Get in and stay in a N.T. church.
B. INNER STRENGTH TAKES TIME “CAN YOU TAKE A SHOWER IN FOUR MINUTES?”
1. Rob Chaffart was asked if he could take a shower in 4 minutes. He said, "Impossible!" He loved the hot water, the refreshing soap, and the clean feeling too much.
2. But at a campground in Nova Scotia he found himself confronted with that question: "Can I take a shower in 4 minutes?"
3. The showers in that campground were expensive: 2$ for four minutes! “A 20 minute shower would’ve cost me my breakfast!”
4. So he lathered up with soap before he put in his money, and for 4 minutes was a blur of splashing water.
5. Did he succeed in rinsing all the soap off before the 4 minutes ran out? Yes, he did! Could you?
6. Yes, you might can do it; You might can do it with your time in God/ the Holy Spirit, but we should give Him more time in our lives!
V. THE OLDER THE PALM TREE THE SWEETER THE FRUIT
A. STILL GETTING SWEETER
1. As a palm tree grows older, its fruit grows sweeter. As Christians grow older, they should grow sweeter.
2. Some of us are pretty old. You wonder why the Lord is keeping us around? Because we’re not sweet enough yet! We need to get a little sweeter!
B. THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
1. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance…” Gal. 5:22-23. The longer we live, if we’re living for the Lord, the Holy Spirit keeps conforming us into the image of Jesus.
2. They say the older trees with scarred trunks produce the sweetest fruit. The scars of life produce the fruit of holiness. The trials of life conform us to the image of Christ (Romans 8:28-29).
VI. THE PALM TREE CANNOT BE GRAFTED
A. IMPOSSIBLE TO MINGLE
1. Horticulturists say that to graft a palm tree is to kill it.
The Palm Tree is not like other trees, it’s unique; that’s why grafting kills it.
2. It can’t be mingled with other trees.
B. SEPARATION & HOLINESS
1. Nor can we mingle with the world! It extinguishes the life-giving Spirit that burns within us.
2. God’s presence only abides on that which is dedicated to Him alone. He’s a jealous God and won’t
share us with the world.
3. God said: ‘I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.’ ‘Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters,’ says the Lord Almighty” 2 Cor. 6:16-18.
4. That’s why Paul commanded, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” Rom. 12:2.
VII. THE FUTURE OF THE PALM TREE
A. THE PALM TREE WILL NOT BURN
1. Folks do not use the palm tree for firewood because it refuses to burn as ordinary wood.
2. The child of God will never, not even for a moment, suffer the fires of hell. He will never burn; he is a palm tree.
3. The lost – Mt. 25:41,46; Rev. 20:14-15.
B. THE PALM TREE IS AN EVERGREEN
1. The evergreen is a symbol of immortality.
2. The child of God will never die; he has everlasting life (John 3:16, 18, 36).
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: “Base Camps”
1. When people are climbing Mount Everest, there are at least four camps that people stop at on the way up. They have to stop because of the physical limitations of their bodies.
2. They need time to:
a. rest;
b. to get acclimatized to the atmosphere;
c. to be prepared to move up another leg of the mountain.
3. People were not designed to go from an altitude of 0 to 29,000 feet overnight.
4. In the same way, God knows our limitations. He’s
not looking for us to reach the summit overnight. He wants us to journey with Him all the way to the summit.
5. We may want to stay at base camp forever, but we miss being able to enjoy the new heights that God wants to take us to.
B. THE CALL
1. God has “base camps,” resting places on your journey with Him.
2. Are you weary? Have you lost your zeal for God? Do you feel like giving up the climb?
3. God wants to refresh you this morning. We want to especially pray for those who are weary and tired today.
The PALM TREE PRODUCES IN OLD AGE
a. Date Palm -- it's best fruits is when it is 30-100 years old.
b. Will produce 100 pounds of dates each year.
The African oil palm gives a higher oil yield than any other oil plant. It produces two quite different types of oil; one from palm kernels, used for making margarine and soap; and the other from the fleshy part of the fruit, which is used widely for industrial processes. This is one of the most rapidly expanding plantation crops today.
[This message is a reworked issue of Rex Deckard’s sermon, “The Palm Tree,” SermonCentral.com]
