Two Trees (Putting God out of a job) 10-19-08  

 The story is told about a national magazine who assigned a photographer to take pictures of a forest fire. They told him a small plane would be waiting at the airport to fly him over the fire. The photographer arrived at the airstrip just an hour before sundown. Sure enough, a small Cessna airplane stood waiting. He jumped in with his equipment and shouted, "Let's go!" The pilot, a tense-looking man, turned the plane into the wind, and soon they were in the air, though flying erratically. "Fly over the north side of the fire," said the photographer, "and make several low-level passes." "Why?" asked the nervous pilot. "Because I’m going to take pictures!" yelled the photographer. "I'm a photographer, and photographers take pictures."  The pilot replied, "You mean you’re not the flight instructor?"  A great example of misplaced trust. 

We place our trust in hundreds of things every day, some deserving of our trust and other not so. Like the fore mentioned pilot.  I would like to talk about what happens when we mistakenly place our trust in the wrong place, in our own strength, in our own intellect, in our own wits, instead of trusting in the Lord. Our text for today is found in Jeremiah chapter 17, page 548 in your pew bibles. The story of two trees.  We saw last week how trusting in the wrong things played out in the life of one bible character, the strongest man who ever lived. The mighty Samson trusted in his own great strength, he didn’t feel the need for God, didn’t feel the need to trust Him, didn’t feel the need let Him guide and direct him, didn’t feel the need to live a good moral life. He was the mighty Samson; he could do as he pleased. Trusting in his great strength instead of trusting God .Didn’t work out so great for Samson, it got his eyes gouged out and led to his premature death. If we trust in our strength it will work out no better for us.  

Jeremiah 17:5 this is what the Lord says: Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength. And whose heart turns away from the Lord.  He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. The word for bush, heath in the KJV, means striped, naked, and destitute.  Ever see a bush like that. You can’t tell for sure if it’s even alive. It has as much dead wood as live, and the needles it has are so dry and brittle you can’t be sure if it’s alive or dead. By all appearances it looks dead.  

            Jeremiah is using a picture of a scrubby tree here, or a bush, for person who trusts in his own strength.  Picture in your mind a little scrub of a tree growing in a desert, if you could even call it a tree. Short little withered thing growing in nasty dirt, no water, blistering heat, dry hot wind, relentless sun beating down on the scrubby little thing. Hardly any foliage and what little it has is so dry and brittle you might think it was just petrified on there and not really alive.  When we trust in our own strength this is a picture of us, this is what we resemble, this is what we have to look forward too. We have no seasons of growth and vigor, only just hanging on, clinging to life. This bush will never will make it to tree status because it has no source of nourishment, or strength. It is stuck in the desert place where there is not much chance of ever thriving. Fortunately for us we can chose where we are planted. We can trust in our own strength and chose to just hang on, like the desert bush or we can chose to live as the blessed man. 

 V. 7 but blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. He is like a tree planted by the water that sends out his roots by the stream. It does not fear when the heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought; and never fails to produce fruit.  

            I’ve cut down over a million trees in my lifetime I actually figured that out once, so for me to remember any particular tree or group of trees they had to really stand out. I’ve either had to have a near death experience or that had to be really outstanding trees. I remember one time falling this patch of cedar trees that were growing around a spring. Nice flat ground and never even had a close call; no near death experience what so ever. I remember these trees because they were great trees. They were great big things, super tall for cedars, with bark that must have been 8 inches thick. Cedar barks is fairly fire proof and bark that thick allowed them to survive a pretty hot fire that had went through the area. They were sucking water from that spring, and they smelled so good I just wanted to take a handful of chips and put it in my pocket. I hope they went into someone’s closet. The heart wood was as red as any redwood, lush foliage. They were in good soil and had a food source of water.  

Have you ever been around a Christian like that? Their roots have gone deep right to the source of living water. This is what God has planned for us all. We live in perilous times right now, economically we are in a drought, and how we respond to this and other trials is determined by where we live. Where we are planted.  Are we the trees in the desert, or are we the trees by the spring?  

It’s funny we all know where we live physically speaking. I can say with some level of assuredity  that each one of you know what street you live on, and in which town, and I’ll go out on a limb here and say that when you go home everyone will walk into the right house. No one will walk into the wrong house by mistake. We know where we live physically but how many of us know where we live spiritually? According to this passage there are only two places to live and they look and feel very different, they are not even close to one another.  So many times God’s people are living at the wrong address and don’t even know it. So what are some clues? When your key won’t fit in the lock, maybe you’re at the wrong house, when there are strange people sitting on the couch, when the kids won’t mind, oh no that doesn’t work.  But you get the idea. Living at the wrong address would be very upsetting. How do you know if you are living in the wrong place spiritually? There are clues for this too, but we must be willing to look for them. If you’re more concerned with what others think, than what God thinks?  Maybe you’re living in the desert. What do you do when no one is looking? Does your Monday match your Sunday? Do you spend time in prayer, and meditation? Do you read the word, listen to the word, think about the word?  Do you share what God has blessed you with, or do you grumble that you don’t have enough? Do you have a passion to see people saved?  Do you worry about your career and what the future holds; do you worry about the stock market, and your 401K’s? Do you worry about, (pause) you fill in the blank.  

These are ways to tell if you are trusting in your own strength.  The mighty Samson wasn’t even strong enough to weather the storms that came, and neither are we.  We cannot fix everything, or maybe anything. At best we can cover up the problem with a band aid. God should be our first place we go for healing and comfort, casting our concerns on Him. But too often that is that last resort. We fret and worry. We say we believe in God but we go through life acting as if we don’t. If we depending on the world to solve all our problems and only cry out to God as a last resort, you might be living in the desert. Like that little scrub brush which is closer to being dead than alive. Or do we trust in the Lord. 

We are lucky in that we can choose where we live. We are not like the poor little bush that just happened to get planted in a desert.  God wants us to prosper. I hate to even use that word because prosperity has been so terribly distorted. Some think that if you are prosperous you will live a great big house and drive a fancy expensive car, have 2.5 kids and a pretty wife. God has blessed us in the spiritual realm. We are called to be prosperous spiritually and it has nothing to do with what kind of car we drive or how fancy our house. 

 When we live in the wrong place, when we trust in self, we end up going to all the other wrong places. Places of worry, sleepless nights, places of fear and discouragement. When we live in the desert we’re trusting in our own strength.   Trusting self to provide our daily bread, instead of trusting God? We are all in danger of going there, trusting the government to take care of us, instead of trusting our heavenly father, who has the very hairs of our head numbered. He will provide what we need.  

We live in perilous time economically so the $64 question for today is what does a follower of Christ do in a recession?
             As a Christian we do the same things in the bad times as we do in the good times – we bear good fruit. Just like the plant by the stream we continue the ministry of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. We minister where we are need. We make a difference in our neighborhood, because we are rooted and grounded in Christ.

Find encouragement today from God’s Word. (Jeremiah 17:7-8 NIV) ""But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. {8} He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit."

 A Christian lives by faith. Our trust is in Jesus, the One we follow. We know that Jesus is the author of our faith and He is continually perfecting our faith as we follow Him from earth right on up to glory. (Hebrews 12:2 NIV) "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

The Christian is rooted and grounded in God’s Word. Just as a tree by a stream is rooted and grounded and draws strength and refreshment from the stream, the Christian is rooted and grounded in God’s Word. We read it. We study it. We listen to it preached. We listen to it taught. We memorize it. We hide it in our hearts. Christians draws strength and refreshment from the water of the Word. When the scorching heat comes, we don’t wilt and whither, because we are rooted and grounded in God’s Word.
As Christians we don’t need to live in worry or fear. We can release all of that to God in our place of prayer. We continue to trust in the One we follow. He is our Good Shepherd. (Psalms 23 NIV) "The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. {2} He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me besides still waters…The Christian bears good fruit. No matter what goes on around us, we bear good fruit. In the good times and in the bad times, in the hot and in the cold, on the mountain top and in the valley, the Christian never fails to bear good fruit, because our strength is in the Lord. We get our nourishment from him.
           In my own life I can say during the bleakest period in my life financially is when I experienced the greatest period of growth as a Christian. In fact it was during that period that I first felt a call to the ministry, it just took 20 plus years for it to take. Cheryll and I had built a house, paid for it as we went, so all our savings were gone. I was falling timber, which is a seasonal job and it was September and about time to put some money away for the winter lay off. Cheryll was pregnant with Emily and I got my leg broke. I spent 6 weeks on the couch. Every time my leg went below my heart I felt like I would pass out. So the chances of me getting any kind of job were pretty slim.  I got disability, some whopping huge amount like 246 dollars a month. I can’t really remember how much it was, but it wasn’t much.  But you know I wouldn’t trade that hard time if I could. It was the first time I got to read the bible cover to cover, I spent many hours in prayer that winter. And everything came out fine.  We’re going to be ok in this hard time too. We might need to turn off the dish T.V for a while, or unplug the cable, eat out less, and eat beans more. I still love beans. But we can still be Jesus’ hands and feet, without the new car. We can still be good prosperous Christians even if we have to walk.   

Randy’s dad wrote a neat book and he told of some hard times.  I don’t know if Randy was old enough to remember any of these, but one stories I remember they were living in a parsonage attached to the church, and the only income came from the offering on Sunday morning. 7 cents was in the plate one Sunday, we don’t even have a key on the computer for pennies any more. Can you imagine having 7 cents for your income for the week?  I can’t image being the deacons who took the offering. Here you go pastor good sermon, here is your pay. Don’t spend it all in one place.  The 7 cents week, if I remember correctly was the same week that missionaries were visiting. The pastor was expected to feed them dinner before the left, only trouble was the pastor didn’t have any groceries. In tears Louise went to fix dinner and there on the table was a full dinner already cooked someone has been prompted by the Holy Spirit to drop it off. The Lord is good and He will provide.
           What does a Christian do in a recession? The same thing we always do. We bear good fruit. We go about doing the Lord’s will.  We can do this because we live by faith in Jesus, not faith in our own strength. We stay in God’s Word and we refuse to live in worry and fear. And God blesses us with more of His amazing grace and we get to show the world around us that His grace is truly all sufficient. We are the trees planted by the stream of living water. If we live or die it doesn’t matter, because we’re his to do with as he pleases. If we’re rich or poor, doesn’t matter because we’re his.

You’ve all heard he verse from Phil. 4:13 I can do all thing through Christ who strengthens me.  This is our proclamation of faith. But after you have gone through some hard times it becomes a proclamation of our testimony.  We can say I have been through some good times and some hard times and I know from experience that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. He’ll always be by my side. I was talking to Hulda about going through hard times this week. What she had to say was worth listening to because in her lifetime she has seen some hard times. Her words of wisdom were, “Don’t worry it will be ok.” “But what about the great depression Hula?” I asked. “We made it,” was her reply. The economy will ebb and flow but we will ok. Trust in the Lord, not in our own strength; trust in the Lord, not the government to fix things. Trust in the Lord, that’s the bottom line, and we will be fine.  We don’t need to jump out of a 20 story window because the stock market crashed, because our future is in heaven. Sure we might have to work until we die and the lifestyle of the rich and famous may forever elude us but we can rest in the knowledge that we have a great future in a place that is even more beautiful than Hawaii.  

 I had a boss once that had lived through the dust bowl in Oklahoma, and he always said they were as poor as Job’s turkey, I never really knew what that meant, but they were happy all in it together and it built good strong character and a good strong community. 

            Hard times will come, or are already here, we need to prepare our minds for this. If you haven’t already take time to figure out what you will do when it comes. Start now living below your means.  Prepare your souls by getting serious about prayer, take a long hard look at your spiritual life, and prepare our hearts by serving each other in love.  According to our text for today the key to surviving hard times is trusting God, not trusting self. It’s an act of faith. Jeremiah who wrote our text also wrote in Lamentation 3:26 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him 

Let’s pray. Lord I pray that we can thank you for the sunshine and the rain. Thank you for the good times and the bad because we know that you are over all. Lord grants us the security to lean on you when times are hard and give us the courage to make the necessary adjustments to live within our means. Lord I pray that our faith may increase as we learn to trust you. Use us Lord in our little corner of the world, and may your will be done in each of our lives. Lord I pray that we can be so grounded and rooted in your word that we will be unshakable when trials come, that we can weather the droughts and storms of life, safe in your arms. In your precious name we pray, amen. Sleep well tonight, nothing of eternal consequences has changed, trust in God whose love for his children will never falter.