Growing in the Heat

The title of today's sermon is Growing in the Heat. Summer, as you well know in Texas, can be quite intense. And that intense heat reveals things, doesn't it? And we're used to it. I mean, it's just a part of life in Texas. We have the beautiful contrast of, in the northwest part of the United States, green grass, dark green evergreen trees, and blue skies. And in Texas, it's tan grass, dark green live oaks and blue skies. Because we get hot, and we're usually pretty dry. It's pretty wet summer this year, and I love the rain. Very thankful for the rain today. And appreciate everybody driving in the rain. We're all still here. That's great. But summer in Texas reveals things. So in the springtime, almost everything looks alive. Grass is green, the flowers bloom, the trees leaf out very thick. Gardens grow if you plant gardens. This year we've had a lot of rain, and everything still looks lush and full of life. But then the summer heat settles in. And even though there may be plenty of moisture, the heat is going to test the plants. The sun will be down. Humidity might rise a little bit, but the rain starts to slow down in the summertime. The days grow long and intense, and all of that combines to add up to something very interesting. That is talked about frequently in the Bible. And I found it really interesting how many times this particular analogy is used in Scripture throughout the Bible. This intense heat and what it does to plants, and how it relates to you and me. Okay? So, what happens when the summer heat hits is that it proves what's going on in the plant under the surface. No matter what the plant looks like on top of the surface, heat proves what's happening under the surface. Some plants have plenty of leaves, plenty of color. They have this outward growth that's just amazing. But when the heat intensifies, what happens? The plant droops. But other plants keep standing, especially those Texas weeds. Not because of the heat! Like, it's not because the heat doesn't touch some plants, and it touches... heat touches everything. It's because they had a structure. They had a depth that helped them to endure. This is also true spiritually. There are seasons in our life, right? Sometimes when life is green and full, we have blessings. Opportunities open up. We have activities with friends and family. Oh, it's springtime! You feel overall sense of encouragement. And then sometimes the heat comes, the pressure comes, tiredness and weariness. Trials seem to come. And when all of those things happen, it shows what is under the surface inside us. So what does the heat or intensity of life reveal in plants and also in us? It shows whether or not we have roots. That's what we're going to talk about today. Do you have roots? What does that mean? We're going to focus on our spiritual roots today. Do you know Christ used the analogy of roots? Of us having roots? There are spring seasons where we feel renewed. We grow a little bit. Maybe we feel inspired to grow or change in some way. We make a plan. We do some journaling or whatever. Oh, things are good.

Then there are summer-like seasons when we feel that daily grind. And very importantly, trials seem to come so that we think the universe itself is against us. Nothing goes right. You can understand that with the analogy of Texas heat. You walk outside in the Texas heat and it touches you everywhere. You can't escape it.

Summer season in life is when life brings this heat and it's these long stretches where we are supposed to keep growing no matter what. Can you handle that? Do we dry up and shrivel away? Or do we keep growing in the heat? So outside right now, Texas has just turned to summer, and we're in that long part of the year in between Pentecost and the Fall Holy Days. We're in this stretch of summer heat, and so it's a good time to give this sermon because we don't just have to think about this sermon. We can go outside and we can feel this sermon.

Holy days are behind us. Fall Holy Days are ahead. So it's a good time to ask, what kind of roots are we growing? If we respond rightly, the heat will actually drive our roots deeper and our growth will become stronger. So as we're going to see in the sermon today, God actually allows the heat to reveal what our roots are. Are they shallow? Are they deep? Are they shallow? Are they deep? God is teaching us to endure. Here's the point by rooting ourselves deeply in him.

What does a root do? A root goes down and connects the plant to something. In the case of a plant, it's the ground, and hopefully nutrition and water. For us, it's the Almighty God, and it's not self-reliance. So I just want to be clear as to what the root is. Roots represent the depth of God's Word inside us. How much we truly believe, how much we truly trust God's opinion over our own.

The root is what happens below the surface when we read God's Word or we hear God's Word. Do we take it in? Do we agree, trust, and act on it? Does it become part of who we are?

Or is it something that we love to hear? We get excited about it, but we are easily distracted from it. That's what our roots are. The heat doesn't destroy deep roots. It just shows that this person trusts God. So the first thing that life heat does is it shows how deep our roots go. Let's go to Matthew. We're going to use Jesus' own words for this first point. How deep do the roots go? Matthew 13. We're going to read verses 3 through 9.

Then we're going to jump down to the explanation in verses 20 through 23. First, Acts 13 verses 3 through 9, and then verses 20 through 23. Verse 3, And he told them many things in parables, saying, A sower went out to sow, and he sowed. Some of the seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Now that's not you and me. We're not the ones sown on the path. Verse 4, And he sowed. Some seeds fell along the path. Okay, verse 5. And other seeds fell on the rocky ground, where they did not have much soil.

And immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched. Since they had no root, they withered away. Okay, shallow roots cannot handle life's heat. Jesus will describe this challenge a little later. He goes on to describe other kinds of challenges that we face in this parable, but I want to focus on the shallow roots challenge today. So let's talk about the second person described here, the seed sown on stony ground, the person with shallow roots. Jesus describes this person in verses 20 and 21. I said verse 23, for time's sake, let's just stop in verse 21.

Verse 20, Matthew 13, verse 20. As for what was sown on the rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word, and immediately receives it with joy. Wow! You wouldn't believe what I just read. Wow! That was a great sermon that we heard today, and it was, by the way. Wow! Did you see that beyond today? It was fantastic! Verse 21, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on the account of the word, immediately he falls away.

Christ describes someone who receives the word with joy. That's important. This person is not hostile to the truth. This could be any one of us, you and me. We love to hear the word of God. He or she is not bored by it. He or she is not offended, at least not at first. He or she receives the word quickly and happily.

There is an emotional response, and it's positive. Real enthusiasm. But Christ says the problem is he has no root in himself. That plant springs up quickly, but has no depth. Then the sun rises. In the parable, the sun's not the problem. The sun, the heat, is not the problem. The same sun that withers the shallow plant helps the healthy plant grow. The problem is the lack of root. Identify the problem. Trials do not create spiritual weakness. In other words, trials do not break you. That is a very important analogy that Jesus is teaching us here. It's not the trial that breaks you. The trial simply shows you and me a weakness inside us that was already there. Why would Jesus say that? Is he just trying to place blame? No. In fact, quite the opposite. He's protecting us from a very real danger by helping us to identify what the danger really is. The danger isn't the medical diagnosis. The danger isn't that bill that comes in the mail. The danger is not relying on God and his word. Jesus is helping us solve a problem. He's not playing the blame game. When the pressure is on, we see what we're really attached to. When we feel disappointed, then we really see what expectations we had. When we become offended, we reveal whether or not humility has taken deep root in us, or—and here's the major challenge of the shallow roots—is it humility or is it self-reliance? Is that still too close to the surface? Ask yourself some revealing questions. These are very appropriate questions for the summer months, because we can walk out in the heat every day and go, oh yeah, I need to ask myself some questions. What happens to my attitude when life gets hot? What happens to my attitude when things don't go my way?

For example, what happens to my prayer life?

Am I—now, this isn't something we have to share with other people. These are personal questions. Do I quit praying as much? Do I find it difficult to pray? Do I find it too distracting to go take care of life's problems to stop and pray? What happens to my faith when God doesn't answer as quickly as I hope for or when he says no to what I ask for? What happens to my willingness to serve when everything I do goes unnoticed?

What happens when the heat comes? What happens to my Sabbath habits?

My Sabbath practices when life gets really busy and overwhelming. Hmm.

Very importantly—and this is the point, and this is what I'm driving to—what happens to my love and my patience when someone disappoints me? Am I the same person under fire as I am when life goes well? These are root questions. These are what am I attached to questions. Shallow-rooted plants do not fail because they don't have leaves and they don't appear to be super-duper great Christians. They look really good on the surface, but they fail because they have no depth inside, reliance on the Word of God. My point is not what's on the surface that counts. It's not our appearance that counts. It's not other people's approval that we'll get to that.

We fail when we have no depth.

What really matters is what's going on inside. What are my convictions? What do I really believe? Here's the key. Do I rely on my own opinion, or do I trust God? Have I placed my trust in God? If it feels like I'm making this personal, I'm not. Please know that's not my intent. This is something that is universal. Every single one of us has to face this. It's why it's a parable that Jesus gave. This is a parable of Jesus Christ, which means all of us need this. It's something we have to face, myself included. It's part of our Christian walk, and it's why Jesus put it in the parable. So that we all look at ourselves honestly in the same way. A Christian can have visible activity, look like a great Christian, but have really shallow roots. We can have great attendance. We can have good Bible knowledge. Always have that answer at the tip of our tongue. We can have a long history in the church. Oh yeah, I've been here forever. Always have the right vocabulary.

None of that indicates how deep our roots go. None of that. That is all surface. None of it shows whether or not we are self-reliant or reliant on God. Self-reliant or reliant on God. Shallow roots, deep roots. Shallow roots, rely on ourself. Deep roots. God's Word lives in us. We believe it, and we act on it, and it's who we are. It's not what we do, it's who we are. Christ warns that the heat reveals our depth. Now we're going to transition to a prophet, the prophet Jeremiah, because he shows where the roots have to go. And this is where we actually learn self-reliance versus relying on God. I'm not actually making that up. That comes from the prophet Jeremiah. Let's go take a look at it. Deep roots come from trusting God, not circumstances. Don't rely on yourself. Jeremiah 17 verses 5 through 8. You know, I'm actually fascinated. How many times roots are used as an analogy for our Christian walk? It's amazing. It runs through the whole Bible like a thread. You pull on that thread, and you see it goes all the way back. Jeremiah 17 verse 5. Thus says the Lord. Jeremiah 17 verse 5. Cursed is the man who trusts in man. Self-reliance. Cursed is the man who has those shallow roots. It's not going to go well with you. Cursed means it's not going to go well with you. And makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. And notice what that man is like. He is like a shrub in the desert. Imagine that, a plant with no roots. Imagine that. Just like what Jesus said. Who is the plant in the desert? The one who relies on flesh as his strength. He is like a shrub in the desert. And he shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in parched places in the wilderness, in unhabited salt land. Blessed, which means happy, which means inner peace. Blessed or happy is the man who trusts in the Lord. Whose trust is the Lord. Get the switch there. Get the poetry there. Who trusts in the Lord, yes. But it's more than just trusting in the Lord. It's that your trust is the Lord. In other words, you are all in. And your roots go deep. Notice what this man is like. This person. He is like a tree planted by the water. That sends out its roots by the stream. And it does not fear when the heat comes.

Oh, the heat's going to come. Who survives the plant with the deep roots that finds the water? For its leaves remain green. And listen, listen, why he said you're blessed. And is not anxious in the year of drought. For he does not cease to bear fruit. Your life works whether you're in trial or not. How? How? Not trusting in the flesh, you're not self-reliant, you're trusting in God. That's how your roots go deep. There's a contrast here in Jeremiah between two very different lives, very different Christian experiences. First is this cursed man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength and he departs from the Lord. You eventually leave God. You wither away. That's what withering away is, leaving God. Then the other person is this happy man who trusts in God, whose hope is God. Notice that the difference is not the plant who has heat or doesn't have heat. They both get the heat. So this is not a wealth and health doctrine. This is not, oh join the church and you will not have any trials. Everybody has trials. In the church, out of the church, Christian, Muslim, atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, it doesn't matter. It's who can handle the trial. That's the difference. All of us go through trials. Verse 8 says, the blessed person will not fear when the heat comes. It doesn't say if the heat comes, it says when the heat comes. And then, but its leaf will be green, will be not anxious in the year of drought, nor cease from yielding fruit. I mean, that's a promise. It's a comforting statement. A tree still experiences heat in life. It still experiences drought, but it's planted by the waters. Its roots reach the supply that aren't on the surface. The point here is don't live your life. Don't live your Christian walk on the surface. Go deep. Trust God. Believe God. A tree planted by the water has no need to panic during the hard times. And that's the kind of stability that God wants to develop in us. So it's obviously not a life without pressure, but it's a life that we don't wither. We don't get offended. We don't get impatient. We don't stop serving. We don't fall away. What does it mean to trust the Lord? You know what? It's not optimism. It's so different than optimism. Optimism is like, oh, it'll work out. It'll work out. Yeah, how, who, why, by what mechanism? Biblical trust means stop leaning on yourself and start building your life on God. It means you can look in the mirror. You can think to yourself quietly when you're alone, I trust God more than my own opinion. And what I mean by that is when things get difficult, and God's word says to do one thing, and it doesn't make sense to do it. Who doesn't it make sense to? You. That's your opinion. And you trust God's word anyway, and you do it anyway.

You know, it's especially true when it comes to timing of things.

Trust God more than your timing. Especially when you think something needs to happen immediately.

Sometimes things don't happen immediately. Sometimes they don't happen completely, only partially. And sometimes we have to wait for the resurrection. Okay. God's got our best interest in heart. We're good. Sometimes he sends gifts immediately, and that's so awesome. It's like you pray for rain, and rain comes the next day. Sometimes you see those crops wither and wither and wither. Pray for rain. It doesn't come, it doesn't come. And right at the last minute, rain comes, those crops stand right back up. Sometimes it's time for that field to go dry.

Sometimes, also, we need to trust God's commandments more than trying to reason a path around it. Reason a path around what God says to do. We say things like, well, yeah, we say things like, well, yeah, okay, that was written in an ancient agricultural time. It doesn't really apply to modern times. So we do it a little differently today. Be very careful with that reasoning. Instead of seeing how God's Word fits into our modern world, we can very often disregard it and jump into the shallow root category of relying on our own opinion. Be careful. Biblical trust means trusting God's promises, trusting God's Word, trusting the outcome, even when things aren't going well, because God promised.

Simply put, deep roots is saying, I trust God. So we're not saying, oh, things will work out. That's not what we're... that's optimism. We're saying, I trust God because I know he will work things out in his time and in his way. Not blind optimism. Absolute trust. And there's a big difference. So sometimes we build surface roots for ourselves, and they are hard to give up. They're habits. Sometimes we discover that our roots have gone into things that cannot sustain us, and I want to give us some examples. Sometimes... let's just get practical now. Not personal. This is universal to all of us, but let's look at some practical examples. Sometimes we can get rooted in routine. A Christian life routine. More than in God. What I mean by that is, doing the right things outwardly, but over time, the routine becomes our source of confidence. And if we're not careful, we accidentally replace routine for drawing closer to God and relying on him. Relying on your routine will keep your roots shallow, because it's your routine. And it's one way we've become self-reliant and not reliant on God. And I'm not saying don't have a routine. I'm saying make sure you rely on God.

Sometimes, another way practical that we rely on ourselves is we look for others, to others, for approval. We look to others for approval. We know we have this condition, because when that approval is withdrawn, or when we feel overlooked, our anxiety starts to go up. And we draw too much strength from other people's approval. To make it through the day, we feel like we need to be affirmed by somebody else. And that can keep our roots shallow. And when the heat comes, you're going to have a problem. Have you ever noticed that when trials start to come, people's approval starts to disappear? You ever notice that? If a trial goes a long time, people stop not wanting to talk to you. At first, they're like, oh, God will work it out. Oh, God will work it out. And then it goes on for months and months and months, and all of a sudden you're alone. You ever felt that way? It's because they don't have the answer either. The answer is, trust God.

You can't rely on human approval for strength. Your roots need to be elsewhere. Okay, there's another way we can be self-reliant. And that is to become rooted in the comforts of life. Now, this is similar to routine, because a routine can also be comforting, right? The comforts of life. There's certain comforts in life, and when we have them, that's great. But when life becomes inconvenient or demanding, oh, we struggle, because our faith hasn't been trained to remain steady under pressure. You know what? I'm not saying any one of those three things is bad. I'm not saying routine is bad. It's good. You list makers and you schedulers live a much, you know, less accident-prone life than those who live by serendipity. Routine is good. Other people's approval is not good. It is great. And the comforts of life is wonderful. I love making a Starbucks run in the morning. I love it. It's great. Do I have to have it? No. Do I even have to have coffee? I will swallow hard, but no.

Steady under pressure. Routines are good. Human approval is good. Comforts in life are good. They're actually blessings from God. Let's try to balance this. Balance it. Having a routine is a good thing. Human approval is a good thing. Having a comforts in life are a very good thing. The question is about priority, not whether or not we have those things. But are those things more of a priority than the Word of God? Question yourself. That's the real key. Is the Word of God our first priority in life? Another way to say that is, do we rely on God or ourselves? Routine, approval, and comforts in life are not our priority. There are some other practical ways that we can be self-reliant instead of relying on God. When we root ourselves in thinking, we have to control everything. Now, this becomes a problem. We think we have to control everything, or the sky will fall right on top of us. And then, when circumstances don't go our way as we planned, our anxiety rises because we are depending on our own ability to manage life, then God's ability to guide us. Again, be balanced. Planning? Oh, planning is a good thing. I think my wife, she's the planner in the family. If we're going to take a vacation, it's an awesome vacation because it's planned. If we go to the store, she has a list. So, Rod doesn't buy too much. Planning is a very good thing, but it is not what we trust. Solomon even talks about planning in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. So, definitely live your life in an organized way, as organized as possible. If you live by serendipity, you're also relying on yourself. Serendipity. What do I mean by serendipity? No plan at all. Just walking out your front door and seeing what comes your way. Yeah, no, don't do that. But when your plans do not go your way, when they go awry, do you fall apart? You get anxious? Do you become overwhelmed? Do you become a difficult person to be around? Similar to being controlling, is being rooted in having to always be right. Oh, it's not control, but it's similar. The problem shows up when you are challenged or you are corrected. And this is one of the challenging people for the ministry to deal with. The person that's always right, you know. You're walking through a potluck on the Sabbath, and you're loving, you're putting all the food on your plate, you're thanking everybody for making the potluck, and then the potluck police come along. Oh, that shouldn't be on the table. Oh, you shouldn't need that. Always having to be right. And when you answer, how dare you challenge the great wisdom of Oz.

We find out how hard it is to respond humbly because we're holding on the ground that actually belongs to God. God is always right, but yeah, we're His children, and we're loved by Him, we're cherished by Him, but we are not always right. And we all have to look in the mirror. I have to look in the mirror and go, Rod, you're not always right. Do you know sometimes my children are right, and they give me an opinion that corrects me, and that's okay, because I'll get them back later. No. God is always right. So having to always be right keeps our roots shallow.

We're talking about getting into the habit of letting our Christianity be more than surface-only. Christians on the outside, but don't change on the inside. And Jesus warned about this, and God through Jeremiah warned about this, that when the heat comes and we get tested, we have to see how deep our root goes. In other words, how connected and reliant on God's word we are.

So Jeremiah, that was our second scripture, showed how the tree planted by waters shows that when we're self-reliant, that's a shallow root. And when we're reliant on God, that's deep roots. Okay? So we're going to connect what Jeremiah said to what Christ said in Matthew 13. But now let's go to a third passage that talks about roots. All right? And it shows how to have deep roots. It shows how the mechanism of how we actually do it. And it's Psalm 1. Psalm chapter 1 verses 1 through 3. Deep roots are nourished by delighting in God's way. Another way to say that is by making God's way a priority and happily changing to match what God says. Psalm 1 verse 1. Blessed or happy is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. You delight in it. And what happens to the man who delights in the law of God? And that word is the Torah of God, the teachings of God. It's so much more than the do's and the don'ts, but it's all the stories and all the lessons throughout the entire Old Testament. He is like a tree planted by the streams of water that yields its fruit in the season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. He's like that tree that Jeremiah talked about, that the roots go down to the water. How do you do that? By loving the Word of God, by delighting in the Word of God. I said Old Testament, but it's New Testament too. When David wrote it, it was the Old Testament. That's what I meant. But with us, it's both.

So Psalm 1 begins with this contrast. The blessed person does not walk, stand, or sit in the way of the ungodly, but instead our delight is in God's Torah, his teachings. And we think about those things all day long. Then it comes to that tree image where we're planted by the river, and we're invested in the Word. And you know the interesting thing here? The word planted. The word planted is the Hebrew word shital, and it means to plant or transplant.

So in other words, it means you didn't start there, you were moved there. So you can go from where you start, natural human nature, not wanting to be told what to do, and you can be planted by the water. You can move. That's what that word planted means. They scooped up the tree from out of the dry arid ground, the rocky soil that Jesus was talking about, and moved the tree to the water, to the source of life. That's where real happiness comes from. Blessed is the man or happy person. It doesn't come from your routine. It doesn't come from other people's approval. It doesn't come from comforts in life. It doesn't come from whether or not you can control everything, and it definitely doesn't come by having to be right all the time. It comes from delighting in God, leaning on His teachings, His way, and that makes us happy. The happy person has learned to love God's instruction. And you know, we don't look at it like a burden, like, oh, well, I woke up and I've had my coffee. I guess I'll read the Bible before I go to work today, because I have to. It's nourishment. It's like, I need the Bible more than I need my coffee, and that's a lot. Like, if you get really hungry in the morning, and then you eat a good breakfast, and you're ready to take on the day. I don't get hungry when I first wake up. I have coffee and I read the Bible, and I'm not hungry at all, but then I exercise. And after I've exercised, I am starving. And then I eat something. And I am so ready to accomplish something that day. And that's what God's way is like. It shows us the way of life. So Psalm 1 gives us the picture of a tree, just like in our first two passages that we went through in Matthew and Jeremiah, a tree planted by the streams of water.

One more thing worth noticing is the fruit that it produces in its season. What an interesting phrase that David wrote there. It's encouraging. Not all growth shows up immediately. So don't be discouraged when you read the Bible, when you're doing everything, when you're putting trust in God, and you just don't see change in your life. That's because change comes in seasons. Fruit is produced in seasons. The change will come, brethren. Sometimes God builds the roots before you see the fruit. You're like, nothing is happening in my life. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. You're getting roots. You're going deep. It's not time to build fruit. You won't see the fruit yet. Just build the roots. Don't be discouraged. Don't say, I don't see any growth. Maybe God's just building the roots. That's just as important. The fruit will come, and what God is producing in you, He will bring to completion. So do this. Here's a suggestion. Choose one practical root deepening habit for the summer. The goal of this sermon is not to merely tell us to survive the heat. I mean, it's kind of a duh. We know that. The goal is to grow in the heat. We know there's going to be heat. We know there's going to be trials. But you also know that we can be planted by the waters, trusting in God's Word instead of ourselves. We can move. And when we're planted by the waters, that produces reach that reach deep enough to survive the heat. Not only survive, but actually become stronger because of the heat when we grow. And then in season, we bear fruit. So in the springtime, where we start, many plants look alike. But when the summer comes, Jesus said, the heat shows that the roots are deep or shallow, what they're made of. Christ warned that some people receive the Word with joy, but because they have no root, they endure only for a while. And then we read Jeremiah. And Jeremiah showed us that the blessed or happy person trusts in the Lord like a tree planted by waters. And we're not worried in doubt. And there's a difference between trusting yourself and trusting in God. And then in Psalm 1 showed us the way to do that is to delight in the law of God. And we will bear fruit. We will. We will bear fruit in season. So as we move through this long stretch of the year, after Pentecost and before the Holy Days, let's not drift through the months. Let's not survive the months, endure the months of summer. Let's use this season to deepen our roots, because the heat will come. And when our roots are in God and we trust Him and not ourselves and not our routine and not human affirmation and not comfort and not control and not always being right, but above all our priority is trust in God and trust in His Word. We follow His ways. Our leaf will remain green. We will not wither and fall. We will not fail to serve when we don't get noticed. We will not fail to love when other people do the same around us. And with God's help, we will bear fruit. So my suggestion this summer is do some self-examination and ask yourself, do I rely on God enough or is there a way I could rely on Him more? That's a good question to ask this time of year. Is my first priority to judge my decisions by all of my opinions, by my feelings, or according to His Word?

So do some self-reflection and pray about it and ask God to deepen your roots. The person planted in rocky soil didn't have deep roots. They loved God's Word and they were excited about it, but they didn't make it their priority. So ask God to make His Word your first priority. Your life, my life, the Christian life is not proven by how green we look when things are going well, but by how deeply rooted we are when the heat comes. Don't trust your own opinion. Attach yourself to God.