Rooted in God: Choosing Abundance Over Limitation

But then he kind of changes directions on us really fast. And we're going to pick up in verse five, where he kind of shifts from pointing out their sins to, to reciting this, this poem for four verses. And that's where we're going to pick up right here. Jeremiah 17, five says, thus says the Lord, cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness in an uninhabited salt land. [00:08:51]

Blessed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit. [00:09:28]

What it looks like for people who choose to trust in themselves, who choose to trust in the ways of this world, really trusting in anything other than God, and the picture that he paints is bleak, right? It's kind of this picture of something that is constantly yearning for more, that has never satisfied this drive. It's kind of this picture of something that is dry, barren life that is devoid of any and all significant fruit. It doesn't seem like anything that any of us would want to pursue, living alone in an uninhabited salt land. [00:09:59]

That's the first picture that he paints. But then, again, this starkly contrasting reality, he spends some time painting another picture of what it looks like if we strive to put our trust in the Lord. If the Lord becomes our trust, our hope, then it's this picture of being satisfied, having what we could always want, our thirst being quenched by God, the fact that even when hard times come, we will still trust in him. We will still continue to produce fruit. [00:10:31]

So the first thing that he kind of, an observation I guess that I want to make, he has these starkly contrasting realities and he really doesn't paint any sort of picture of a middle ground. There's really no middle ground. We can choose to put our trust in the Lord or we can choose to trust in the things of this world. We can trust in ourselves, our own power. And if we go this direction, man, it's a bleak outcome. It's always going to leave us wanting more. But if we put our trust in God, we will feel this sense of fulfillment in our lives. God will always be there for us. Maybe not in ways that we always want or the ways that we expect, but God will never cease to be present. And there really is no middle ground in that. [00:11:39]

The principle of the path is very easy to understand. If you were here the last time I taught last summer, you may recall that i said that one of my personal dreams is to go to california and go snowboarding in the morning and surfing in the evening that would be like a perfect day to me and so if i woke up one day this winter and i was like okay today's the day i put it off long enough i'm gonna hop in my truck and i'm gonna go to california i'm gonna make this dream come alive and i hop on i -25 north i'm driving north to denver but then when i get to i -70 if i take a right and go east on i -70 that will only ever take me away from california there is no possible way i will ever get to california driving east on i -70 unless i turn around and start going the opposite direction that path will only ever lead me to a different destination if i want to go to california i've got to go west on i -70 that's the principle of the path that the path that we choose is going to determine our destination and so it's the same thing here our spiritual lives are exactly the same way if we choose the path of following after god again that doesn't mean that we're always going to get it right we might kind of accidentally make some wrong turns here or there but generally if the direction we are moving is toward god that's the picture of verses seven and eight that jeremiah paints for us that that we're going to get to this place where god is our our hope that we put our trust in him and it's going to lead to this amazing reality it doesn't mean things are always going to be easy but it does mean that we will always have exactly what we need but if we consistently choose a life of sin and we refuse to turn away from the things [00:13:01]

And we shouldn't be surprised when one day we wake up and we find ourselves in this place where, man, we're in this dry, barren place in life and we feel unfulfilled. And it seems like we're just constantly experiencing this want for more that we can't seem to find. And certainly there are things in this world that bring momentary pleasure, but man, those things never bring lasting fulfillment the way that God can and will in our life. [00:14:53]

In this poem of Jeremiah, the painting that he gives for us, it's very obvious that when our roots are planted, an unhealthy soil in an unhealthy environment that is going to lead to an unhealthy spiritual life. But if we choose and are intentional about planting our roots in a place where it's a healthy environment, healthy soil with living water, then that is going to allow us to have a healthy spiritual life. That's why it is so incredibly important for us to create environments that are going to allow us and in fact challenge us to pursue God and to trust in him more and more every single day. The types of friends that we surround ourselves with, the influences that we allow into our lives, kind of our daily rhythms, our weekly practices, what our lives look like outside of this place, the habits that we have, all of these things will either work together to create this environment in which we can just flourish spiritually and they're helping us along that journey, or those things can work against us and kind of dissonantly create this wasteland in which we're just going to flounder spiritually. [00:16:09]

I think maybe too often we settle for this kind of bonsai life where spiritually we never really take any sort of ownership over our own spiritual development. We become spiritual consumers and we think, okay, I'm going to show up at the weekend services and then I just, I hope that I get fed exactly what I need for this exact moment and season in my life. And it's not exactly, if it's not exactly what I needed for that week, then it's someone else's fault that my spiritual growth is stunted and I can't be held accountable for that because they're clearly not getting it. And so I think that's a really important part of the of what I need. And we never have any sort of like midweek rhythm. We're never pursuing God outside of these walls. We make no intentionality, no intentional choices to try to follow him and create these healthy environments. And we put ourselves in these hostile environments where we are with friends that are constantly pulling us away from Jesus. We allow these influences into our life that are driving a wedge in our relationship with God. Again, we make no intentional choice, no intentional, effort to try to seek after God on our own. [00:19:18]

But antithetically, on the other side of things, in the wild, these that plant themselves in like healthy environments with healthy soil, think about the redwoods of California. I've never seen the redwoods. I want to really badly, maybe on my surfing, snowboarding trip someday. But if you've ever seen the redwoods, I'm sure it's like just even the pictures are mind -blowing to me because not only are they these massive trees that grow well over 300 feet tall, but as I started studying more about them as well, the reason a redwood is so strong is not because of how massive its trunk. Redwood is so strong because of its incredible root system. It goes incredibly deep, but it goes even wider than it does deep. One single redwood can have a root system that takes up about an acre of land. That is a lot. And obviously redwoods are not an acre apart from each other. And so their root systems are very much interrelated. [00:21:26]

That is exactly how God designed us to live. I don't want you to hear when I say we don't want to be like bonsais, that we as a church body don't want to pour into you, because we absolutely do. It's just that what happens outside of these doors needs to match up with the life that you are pursuing inside of these church walls. We would love nothing more than to help you get plugged into a community group, to help you get plugged in and make this your church home in a way that you feel like you've got other root system connected with yours to provide stability in your spiritual life. [00:22:30]

Jeremiah very clearly says that if we are following after God and we are putting our trust solely in him, it does not matter what is happening around us. We are going to produce fruit in our lives. Even when the heat comes, the leaves will stay green. Even when the drought comes, we will continue to produce fruit. When we have a healthy root system in our lives, we've been intentional about creating this amazing environment in which we can flourish, surrounding ourselves with people that are going to be in our lives, and we're going to continue to produce fruit. And we're going to challenge us in our faith, making choices about the types of places we will go, the types of things that we are going to do. [00:24:52]

Those external factors don't matter nearly as much because we can start to understand that God's goodness is not dependent on our circumstances. God's goodness, God is always good no matter what we are going through. And sometimes when we have that bonsai kind of life with really, really shallow root systems, it can be hard to cling to that. It can be really, really hard to think, man, I'm going through so many hard things right now. How can you say that God is good? [00:27:13]