The Two Trees of Give and Get

Well, good afternoon everyone. Good to see all of you today. I want to welcome any visitors that we have, people on the webcast as well. Let me thank our special music performers here today. Very meaningful words. Sometimes we just have to be quiet and let God lead us, right, and let him get into our minds and quit the chatter, and let him direct us. So very nicely done. Thank you for that. You know, as we are here, I look around and many of us at the feast this year, I, you know, we were in a couple places and they did the thing where they asked how long people have been in the church. We have a number of people who have been in the church, 40, 50, 60, even 70 years in some cases. We've been around a long time. We know God's truth. We came into the church, you know, whether it was on our own that God called us, or whether we grew up in families. I know my parents started coming about 60 years ago. And what we knew back then and what we learned back then, you know, we still believe, we still believe, and sometimes we need a refresher of what we believe, and we have to go back to the beginning to learn and remember who we are and what God has called us for. That's what I want to begin with today. So if you'll turn over to the second epistle of John, we know at the time of his life, John was the last living apostle. And as he wrote this, and as God inspired the book of Revelation, it was 60 years past the time that Jesus Christ was on earth and died and was resurrected. And the church had aged a little bit at that time. And it had all sorts of trouble, just like we do today, the people coming in, bringing other doctrines, people there, and then they would be led astray, be distracted by whatever it was that was challenging them.

And John recognized that. And as he was speaking to the lady here in second John, he was just very thankful that she was still there and was holding on to what she had thought at the beginning. Let's look at second John and verse one. He writes, to the elect lady and her children, who my love and truth, and not only I, but also those who have known the truth, because of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever. If we drop down to verse four. I rejoiced greatly, he says, that I have found some of your children, some of your children walking in truth, as we received commandment from the father. And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that's the word agape, this is love that we walk according to his commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it. This is what you came in to. This is the truth that God has given you. Continue walking in that. Don't let it slip by. Don't compromise with it. Don't add to it. Don't take away from it. Don't let anything minimize it, but do it with your heart. If we go to the book of Revelation, it's John, same apostle John, who God gave this, the book of Revelation to. And so the first church there, the sees says Jesus Christ is speaking to the churches through the ages there. In Revelation two and verse one, he says that the angel of the church of Ephesus write, these things says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands. I know your works. I know your labor. I know your patience so that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who are apostles, who say they are apostles and are not. And you've found them liars. You persevered, you have patience, you've labored for my namesake, and you haven't become weary. Nevertheless, I have this against you. You lost your first love. Something's different. When you were called, you were different than you were now. You were holding on to something different. You have lost your zeal. You have lost your love for that truth. And it's time to be reminded of that. And he cautions them, remember, remember from where you have fallen, repent and do the first works. Else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. That is, turn to God. Reexamine what we're doing, why we're doing it, who we are, what the faith is that we have in God. Turn back to him.

So today, so today I wanna go back to the beginning, the very beginning in Genesis, and revisit some things there that maybe we haven't talked about for a while. You know, years ago, years ago, it was a minister, I don't remember exactly where, who made a comment that I've carried with me throughout my life.

He made the comment that if we know the book of Genesis, if we know the book of Genesis, we know the plan of God, we know the history of man, we understand what's going on in the world today because everything there in the beginning God gave us. And you know, over the years, I've looked at it and he is exactly right. If you know the book of Genesis, you know what is going on in the world today because God started it all there. From the very beginning, he put in the foundation of that world there, the things that have carried through.

You see them throughout the Bible, times change, technology changes, but the plan of God stays the same, and it's human. It's humans who remain the same. Human nature is the same as it was back then. And God built several things back into the life that he created back then, into the creation that he made for you and I and all of mankind to live on, and the things that he put in man, that what he says back there.

I'm not gonna go through all of Genesis one, you know the creation story very well. God with love created a perfect place for us to live. It had everything that we needed in order to thrive, to live physically and to learn spiritually.

There's spiritual elements of everything that God created. One of the notable verses there is verse 26, where God said, let us make man in our image. And in those words he said, what is the plan for mankind? Why did I even create mankind? To be in our image, God said.

The Eloim, God the Father and the one who became Jesus Christ. That might ring a bell with us if we look, if we were to fast forward to Hebrews one, where God talks about Jesus Christ, he said he is the express image of the Father, the express image. And that's what, when he calls us, the goal for us is to become the image of him. And that's what he created mankind to be so that we would become that. As you go on into chapter two, you see the Sabbath day that God created, separate from the physical creation because there has to be a spiritual element to what God has created here.

He didn't do it just for fun and a hobby. He had a spiritual purpose in mind for man and is on this planet with a physical mortal man that he was working out what he wants, what he wants for you and me and all of mankind. And if we go on through chapter two, we see that God planted a garden.

And here's this Garden of Eden. You know, no one of us have seen the Garden of Eden. It had to be a spectacularly beautiful place. And God had that Garden of Eden sitting there for, sitting there for, or created it so that Adam and Eve would be there. Verse eight of chapter two says, the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden and there he put the man whom he had formed. He had done that. In that garden, he was going to provide everything. And in that garden, he showed what is the plan for mankind a key component of physical life.

What is it that mankind would do in this garden? Verse nine, out of the ground, the Lord made every tree grow that is pleasant to the site and good for food. And so we see this physical plant, a tree, an unnamed tree because there's all sorts of varieties of trees. They have all sorts of benefits that they provide physically. They clean the air, they provide oxygen. They're a home for animals. They produce food. They do all sorts of things for us.

It is one of those unique creations that has such a benefit and throughout the Bible you see trees. One commentary I was reading said that of all the things on earth, created things on earth, man is mentioned the most, but trees. Trees are the second most mentioned thing in the Bible because they have a significance. There's something about trees that God wants us to learn. And here in this Garden of Eden, he's got trees that are there and he lists some of the elements of them. Pleasant to the site, good for food. The tree of life, the tree of life was also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Two trees that God specifically names. Doesn't say what kind of tree they are. We know they produce fruit because he says they're good for food.

And there is something about those trees that he will learn about man and that has a significance for all of mankind from that day, the first human beings for all the rest of eternity. Those trees, those trees have a significance and they set the course of what the Bible is all about when you and I read it and look at it and understand what God's plan for us is and for all of mankind. So we have these two trees, these two trees that are there. And if we drop down to verse 15, says there, God took the man and he put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it. This is what your life is, Adam. But there's something about that garden.

The Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden, you may freely eat.

That would include all of them. Tree of life, tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You can freely eat of that if you choose. However, he set the standard there and he put choice and built choice into the time back then. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.

So there at the beginning with the first men, God set choice. Every man in life will have to make that choice. Every woman in life will have to make that choice when God gives them the opportunity.

Adam and Eve made the wrong choice. They made the wrong choice. And they set the standard then for man that God, at the end of chapter three, closed off, closed off the tree of life to all humankind at that point. In Genesis three, beginning in verse 22, after they had sinned, after Eve was deceived, after she listened to Satan, the serpent, and somehow he convinced her, it's okay, take that tree. What is God gonna really do to you? Is he really going to kill you? Did he really mean what he said? You can imagine if you step back for a moment and think how God felt at that time that Adam and Eve rejected him. Here he had put all this time, who knows how many of millions or billions of years to make the earth a perfect place, the perfect home for man. He was there when Adam was created. Adam knew, at one second he was there, then the next second he was a grown man. He watched and God taught him about everything that was going on, brought all those animals before him to name, and then realized, I need a helper. I need a mate just like these animals have. And then God put that deep sleep on him and there was woman created from him. He knew who it was. And you know that God was creating and telling and teaching them the way of life that he wanted to live. He was crystal clear about it. And he was crystal clear about this is the way. The tree of life is there. That's gonna lead to the good things out there. But of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil, don't touch it. Stay away from it. Because in the day you eat of it, when you make that choice, you'll die.

Satan came and they rejected God.

They rejected God and chose Satan. Shows how powerful he is, but how disappointed God must have been. He likely knew exactly what was going on there. But you know sometimes we as parents, as we go through our lives with kids and they disappoint us, at times I thought, wow, what they've done, I've done the same thing to God in my life. How disappointed must he have been to me and me when this happened and that happened?

And so we see God and rightfully so. Mankind says, no, I don't want you God. I don't want your way. I wanna go this other way of this created being that has convinced me that I want to know what's right. You're God, you have the right. You're the one who established the standards. You're the one who said, if you live this way, life will be good because everything in that creation was good.

But you know, I wanna choose the own way. I wanna make the decisions. I want to do what I want to do. So the way of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a lot about I and not a whole lot at all about God.

Not at all about God. They rejected God and they chose self. I'll be the one in charge. It'll be my ideas. I kind of like what Satan is saying, that I'm equal to God and that I don't have to pay attention to his words and his laws and that'll be okay.

And he did it in a clever way because it's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God's way in the tree of life is only good. It is pure. It is complete purity. But Satan's way is not complete evil because if it was complete evil, we would all go running in the opposite direction. We would recognize that right away, but it's good and evil. There's some good, just like we see some good in the world.

And sometimes that can confuse us like, look, those people are really good. The things they do are good.

But then we realize they don't know the truth. They're not doing what God said. They've been cut off from the tree of life. They've been cut off from the knowledge of God. Here in, I'll go ahead and read Genesis three here and verse 22, because Adam and Eve rejected God, said, no, we don't want your way. We want to do things our own way. We don't want to take your words into account. The Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us. They're trying to make themselves equal to us. We said, this is right, this is wrong. This is the way, walk you in it. But they want to say, no, no, no, no, no. This is good enough. This is the way we want to do it. They become like one of us and tried to make themselves equal to us. The same thing that Satan wanted to do, the same attitude, he wanted to be God. The man has become like one of us to know good and evil. And now lest he put his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Because God says, if we eat the fruit of that tree of life, genuinely eat it, it would produce the life that he wants to give all of mankind if they make the right choice. Therefore, the Lord God sent Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So he drove out the man and he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

Cut off, no access to the tree of life. And so mankind has been in that state. They don't know God, they chose, Adam and Eve chose Satan's way. The way of, I'll do things my way.

They'll be good things, but there'll be bad things too. It'll be a mixture. I used to tell my kids when they were growing up, I would ask them, what is the opposite of good? And they would say evil. And I would correct them, no. The opposite of good is good and evil. Satan's very clever. There's a mixture. There's a mixture there that confuses people and just like Satan when he was talking to Adam and Eve, some of the things sounded really good and may have been right, but he mixed it with lies.

And so we can understand why God said the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It has to be perfectly good. That's the goal. Purity, just like John says in 1 John 3.3, anyone who has the hope of the calling, what does he do?

He purifies himself. He gets rid of all the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and works to eat and develop and let God develop the fruit of the tree of life in him. That's what we've been called for. And when God's Holy Spirit, when we have God's Holy Spirit, we desire, we desire that purity. We find ourselves disliking so many things about us and wanting to just be clean. Understanding David's words when he said, purge me with hyssop. Get the things out of my mind that have been there, that I've put in there as I've eaten of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil for so much of my life. Get it out of there. I don't even wanna think those things anymore. And we look forward to the time when Jesus Christ returns and we become immortal beings because of the way we've lived our lives and he sees that desirousness, that though our minds are wiped clean and all those thoughts and all those things that we put in there as we've eaten of that wrong tree for so many years are gone.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God put all that into that creation and Adam and Eve made the choice for mankind so the way of life of God has been cut off.

Except for a few through the ages that God has opened the way to that tree of life. But for mankind in general, there is no entry into that tree of life. There is no access to that tree of life.

You look at trees and the things that God has put into there and what they do, the benefits that they have as I mentioned physically.

Even mental health, when you look at, if you go online and you see what are the benefits of trees, they have all these scientific things, but even mental health. I was watching something completely unrelated to this sermon and there was a little thing about farmers and it says how come farmers always leave a tree in the middle of the field? And if you look around and you see that, you see all these fields and whatever, they may be barren in winter like we have here, but there's a tree. And the farmer was trying to explain there's just something about a tree there that is settling. And as I worked on this, I thought, there is something about trees adorn the landscape. Trees help settle us. They are a part of our life, a very important part of our life. Now as we look through the Bible, we see trees.

But let's go back to Galatians and let's look at fruit because God talks about those two trees and he talks about they're good for food.

And we know the trees produce food. In Galatians five, we have a list of some fruits.

Let's go to Galatians five, pick it up in verse six.

Well, verse seven.

Paul, speaking to the church of Galatia there, they've run into some problems. They knew the truth and somewhere along the line, someone came in and kind of lured them away from the truth and convinced them about this and that. And you can see one of the elements there in verse six. But in verse seven, as he's writing to them, he says, you ran well. What happened? You were moving along in a very fine way. You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?

Well, we know who hinders us. Who's always there to try to get us off track? Who's always there to kind of lead us astray and make things, well, that's okay. If I do that, God's okay with it. Maybe that's exactly the way he wants it, but my heart is in the right place or at least we fool ourselves into thinking our heart is in the right place. You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion doesn't come from him who calls you, God said. This isn't from God.

Someone else has led you to be able to compromise or question or look elsewhere for the truth or adopt things or even go back to the way things were before as you've allowed yourself to get involved in your life and say, well, I kind of want to do this and it's okay. It's okay. God understands. This persuasion doesn't come from him who calls you. And he says a little leaven leavens the whole lump. You know, we heard 1 Corinthians 1533 in the sermonette, evil company corrupts good habits. Sometimes we hang around people who are prone to, that's okay. Don't have to do it exactly that way. We can change that or I don't want to believe that. And you know, as long as we're good people, as long as we're here every Sabbath, holiday pay our tithes and whatever. No, no, that isn't what God said. We have to believe it with our own heart. A little leaven leavens the whole lump so the church of God preaches the truth and only the truth. And God wants everyone in the church to believe that truth, to believe that truth. And where there's division and where there's not speaking the same thing as we've been talking to the ministry for the last couple years now, we have a problem because if we're led by the Holy Spirit, we will be speaking the same thing. If we really are committed to God, we will hold to the Bible and we will do the things that God said and we will learn. And if we don't understand, we will ask God, give us the understanding. His spirit leads to truth. The truth unifies, the spirit unifies, puts us together. And where there's the vision, there's something else going on. But let me go on here in Galatians, Galatians 5, verse 10. I have confidence in you, in the Lord, that you will have no other mind. But he who troubles you shall bear his judgment whoever he is.

Who troubles you? Who are you listening to, God said? Is it a, it's about you Galatians. And of course these verses are written to every single one of us today. Every single thing in the Bible that God talks about, Galatians, Thessalonians, Corinthians, all about us. We could take that name out and say, you Americans, you Cincinnatians, you Floridians, you Hoosiers, you all over the world, wherever you are. It's us too that God is writing to, not just them, because human nature is exactly the same. And we are prone to the very same things that they were back in the ancient world. Maybe even more so with the internet and all the things that we can get ourselves involved in. And looking at things and creating doubt and the way we can spread this and that and whatever. And even lead other people away from what the truth is. So he goes on down through the verses there. And down in verse 13, he says, he reminds him, you brethren have been called to liberty. True liberty comes from obeying God's law. True liberty, true freedom, true everything, comes from being with God and doing the things his way. You brethren have been called to liberty. Only don't use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Flesh, and he begins to show a difference. Don't do it for you. You've been called to serve one another. Look at the example that Jesus Christ saved, he gave. He didn't come to be served. He came to serve, it tells us. He gave his life. He gave everything so that you and I would have an opportunity that we don't deserve based on the lives that we've led, the sins that we've committed. It is because of his mercy and what he's done. And so when we're called to be like him, it's a way of life that's not about us, it's about him.

Called out of the flesh, Paul says here, you've been called to liberty, but don't use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through agape serve one another. For all the laws fulfilled in one word, even in this, you shall agape your neighbor as yourself.

But if you bite and devour one another, beware, lest you be consumed by one another.

Is that fulfilling the law of agape? When we bite and consume each other, is that about agape? When we try to discredit each other, when we aren't unified in whatever we're looking to do, the example he's given here. Paul says in verse 16, I say then, walk in the spirit and in the Garden of Eden, you have the tree of life and you have the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, two ways, represent two ways of life, all about God or all about what I want. And then Paul has that same choice here, flesh and spirit. If you're walking in the flesh, it's about you. If you're walking in the spirit, it's about God. And then he goes on to talk about some of those fruits. We'll get to those in a minute. For the flesh, the flesh, verse 17, lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. There is this choice that we have to make throughout life, God or self, my way or his way, my ideas, his idea, yield to him or resist him. Whatever it is that wars against us, the flesh lusts against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one another so that you don't do the things that you wish. And then in verse 19, he talks about the fruits, the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat of that fruit, like the Adam and Eve did, and they were put out of the Garden of Eden, and we watched humanity down through the ages display all this fruit that we read about in Galatians 5.

Down through history, everything you can see these works in that, that is the result of eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And here they are. He could have just as easily said, the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil are evident, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like.

Sounds a little bit like 2 Timothy 3 that we heard about earlier today.

What times would be like in the latter days when people are eating the tree of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The tree of life has been cut off except for some.

And so we see this around us and we can see it in us. And if we look around, if we look around and see ourselves, wow, this is all about, all these things are about me. If I do these things, it's all about me. It's not about what God wants at all. Because all these things are about what I want. It is the flesh. It is the fruit of eating that tree because it becomes us. So we have life, knowledge of good and evil. We have flesh and we have spirit. And as we look at these, as you've heard coined, if you've been in the church for 50, 40, 50, 60 years or more, you have the way of get.

This is what this way of get is. I want this. I want it my way. I want to do things this way. It's about what I want. Not at all about what God wants. If you keep their finger there in Galatians, we'll be back there in a minute.

In James 4, he pretty much highlights, he highlights this, excuse me. He highlights this again. And James 4 talks about wars, right? The world is full of wars today, but not just the wars that are on an international level and whatever, but we have wars. We have little fights among us. We have all these little skirmishes that go on. James 4, verse 1 says, well, where do wars and fights come from among you? Don't they come from your desires for pleasure and the war in your members? I want what I want. It's different than what you want, but I want it. You have something I want. You're preventing me from having what I want. You lust, you don't have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you don't have because you don't ask and you ask and don't receive because you ask amiss. You ask not that God's will be done, but you've spent it on your pleasures. It's all about what I can get. What can I have? It's, those are about what we want. Now, if we go back to Galatians 5, in verse 22, we see the fruit of the spirit.

The fruit of the spirit that God inspired Paul to say there, the fruit of eating of the tree of life, eating that tree, which you can only have access to if you have God's Holy Spirit, the fruit of the spirit is agape, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, which is meekness, self-control. Against such, there is no law.

All good traits. We like people who are like that. If we're thinking correctly, the people in the world like the people of God who are honest, who are forthright, who are committed to a way of life that they may not understand, but they like the fruits of what they see. They like the fact that you're hard workers and you put a hard worker in, they don't have to worry about you thieving things from them. They don't have to worry about you taking the company secrets and spreading them out to other people for your own benefit.

They like that. They like that. They see it. They wish everyone was that way. Don't we wish everyone was that way? And those, verse 24, who are Christs, were Christs if he calls us, right? John 644.

If he calls us or when he calls us because everyone will be called eventually in the time, in some time in their life. And if we respond to that call, and if we truly repent and genuinely repent and follow God's way and be determined we will follow him, are baptized and then receive the Holy Spirit, then we can begin eating of that tree of life.

We could be eating those fruits. That's what God wants us to do, is to be able to develop those fruits from his spirit. Because there is, as all of mankind will eventually have, they will be able to eat of that tree. He will open that access to everyone.

That's what he wants, but not everyone will do it. Everyone he calls today, he wants everyone to have the fruits of the spirit and to develop those things as we crucify our flesh and live by the ways of life, but not everyone does it.

We battle, we war.

And we need to remember what it is we've called for, what God has been and what tree you and I should be eating from.

So we have those things. Mr. Werner mentioned James 1.27. I want to go to James 1.27 as well.

So we have one tree that produces the way of get.

What can I get for myself? My idea, my way.

I don't care about the rest of it. And then we have the way of give, because if you look at all those fruits of the spirit in Galatians 5.22, agape is about giving to others. Joy, yielding to God, the peace that surpasses all understanding comes from God. It's all those things like Christ had. It's about give, giving, not about self, but yielding to God. James 1.27, pure, there's that word pure. The tree of life is 100% good. It has no evil in it. That's what the goal is for every Christian, to become pure, allowing God to show us, and then acknowledging, yes, there is still that attitude I have, yes, there is still that little problem I have to have that I have, and I need to get rid of, because God will purify us if we let him. But we can resist along the way too, and deny, nah, not a problem, not a problem. And if we do that, then we're rejecting God, just like Adam and Eve did, and we're choosing, I choose myself over what you may show me, God. We have to listen in the quietness of times, as we've heard in the special music, listen to what God has to say, and not be ready with a response, but just be still. Listen, let God guide us, open our minds, and remember and remind us who we are, and what we're here for. We aren't perfect, not one of us is perfect.

But he will lead us to that. Not in this lifetime, because as long as we live, there are those imperfections that have to be weeded out of us. And we have to be yielded to God, we have to focus, this is the tree we eat of.

He has opened that door, and it's a tremendous blessing of the future that the rest of mankind has at a future time. But here it is, pure, pure and undefiled, it is perfect. There is no impurity in it. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this, visit orphans and widows in their trouble. It is true agape, the agape that Jesus Christ defines in the Bible. The agape that God has defined as the first fruit of the Spirit. The concern is for there, is for others. It's the bond that brings us together. It's that agape he wants to grow in us. Visit orphans and widows in the trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

Unspotted from the world. That means just as God said, as he told the Israelites, in Deuteronomy 12, 29 to 32, don't look at the way the Gentiles worship their gods and try to bring it into me. Don't do things the way they do. The way I've asked you to live is right here in the Bible, in my word, this is the book that you live by. And you don't add to it, you don't take away from it. Don't think, oh, that's kind of cute and clever, and that would be kind of fun to do, and then try to adapt that into your lifestyle. Don't do that. Don't look at them. Look at God. Look at the way he says to do things, and that way only, don't let it creep into your conscience. Don't let it creep into your home. Don't let it creep into my church, God would say. Keep it pure. Focus on God. Focus on what he wants. Focus on what the future is, and what he has called us to be. And keep that in front of us, and keep the world out.

You know Paul, Paul asks the Galatians, who hindered you? You know, I'm often reminded of 2 Corinthians 6, verse 12, when Paul says to the Corinthians there, he goes, you know, we haven't hindered you. Your own affections are hindering you. It's because you still want to do what you want to do. You won't let go of those and do what God wants you to do. You won't follow him, you won't let go of what I want, and do it his way. That's what hinders us. It's us. It's us. Because we won't let go of it, and let God lead, and focus on that, and not allow the selfish part that we all have to enter into who we are. So James 1, 27 is just one of those verses that say it all.

Fruits of the spirit, and unspotted from the world.

Again, in 2 Corinthians 6, you don't need to turn there. You know what it says there in verses 14 to 17, when it talks about come out of the world. Christ could have easily said, don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good of evil. Come out of the world, leave it behind, follow his way. Life and death, blessing and cursing. Same thing he told the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. I said before you this day, life and death. Blessing and cursing, so you could have said, there's a tree of life, there's a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Life and death, blessings and cursings, and he says, choose life. The same thing that he wanted in Adam and Eve to do. The same thing he wants you and me to do. Choose life, don't touch the world. In verse 17 of 2 Corinthians 6, somewhere around there, he says, don't even touch what's unclean. Forget about it, you are no longer part of that. You were called to come out of the world more and more as time goes on.

And as we are walking in the faith, decade after decade, that we are here, becoming more and more like him, not farther and farther away, but more and more like every word of God living by it.

And when we're all doing that, when we're all doing that, there will be the unity that God wants, there will be the harmony, there will be that bonding because the spirit binds us together, the truth binds us together, the fruits of the spirit bind us together. But where there isn't that harmony, something's amiss. Someone is not eating or someone is still eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

You notice we go through the Bible.

Just look at a couple things about trees here. It's interesting as you go through, let's go back to Genesis.

As God cut off mankind from the tree of life, there were some who walked in his way for a while, but after 1,500 years, only Noah, only Noah, the world had become completely corrupt. They had been completely defined by everything we just read about in Galatians 5.19 because that's the tree that they were eating of. And God said, it's so bad, it's so bad, I'm sorry I even created man. And so the flood came, but Noah was there through that flood. And as he built his ark faithfully during that time, following God's commands and instructions, exactly the way he said, his family, he and his family survived. And as they were there, as the waters were on the earth, you come and you see in verse chapter eight, the rains had stopped and Noah's looking for a sign that the waters have receded and the dry lands has appeared. And in verse eight, or chapter eight, verse 11, he sends these doves out to see what they would bring back.

And in verse 11 says the dove came to him in the evening and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth.

And no one knew that the waters had receded from the earth.

So here's a tree, Noah, and the olive leaf is what that bird brought back.

And the hill we know olive trees have the significance in the Bible. They represent peace, doves have that as well. There was a dove who lit on Christ's head. And so the fruit of the olive tree is used in the Old Testament and the anointing oil in the temple, along with other things. Today we use that when we anoint people who are sick. It's the oil that's in the lamp. So God through that tree kind of shows us these trees have some special meaning too. There's things we learn from them that aren't just the physical things, but the spiritual aspects of life. So when God says, talks about eating the leaves, the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations, as he says in Revelation. It's not just the physical eating. Yeah, they do have properties. Yes, they do have some physical advantages, but it's eating of that tree of life. That's where it is, all those trees that have the meaning that God wants us to do. If we go forward to Leviticus 23, God has brought Israel out of Egypt. And as he brings them out, he has to remind them, this is the way, walk you in it. Here's the commands that I want you to live by. If you live by them, you will be blessed, he says. But if you depart from them, these cursings are going to come to you. And as he teaches them about the holy days, and which teach us about the plan of God, and we come to the Feast of Tabernacles, which we observed just not too long ago, for the Old Testament times, he talks about the way the temporary dwellings that they should dwell in, as they came away from their homes, didn't stay in their homes, because there's a significance even back then, and certainly for today, to leaving our homes and going to where God said to do. And verse 40, he says, you shall take for yourselves on the first day, the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.

So as you build this temporary shelter, here's the trees I want you to be taking there. They're gonna be, they're going to adorn where you stay. There's something about those trees, and he names several trees there. Palm trees, willow trees. And as you look through the Bible, you see that those trees have some significance. When you look at the physical makeup of them and what they are, you can learn of the spiritual things that God was trying to remind Israel of at the time he did that. Now I'm not gonna take the time to go through all those trees, but there's one in particular that I wanna talk about, and he mentions here the branches of palm trees. And of course we have palm trees that show up in other parts of the Bible as well, notably when Christ is coming in into Jerusalem, and the people lay down palm branches, palm fronds, and they welcome him with that.

And since we lived a number of years in Florida, it always was interesting to me and fascinating that after the high winds came through, we were never in a major hurricane, but the pseudo hurricanes that come through, I'd be out picking up branches and the Cyprus trees would lose things and the other trees would lose things, but the palms never did. And as you watched the wind blow, those palms would almost been completely over, but they wouldn't break. It's like, what about those palm trees? And it became evident what God saw on those palm trees, because we are like palm trees, right? There are things that God compares us to that we'll see in a minute, but palm trees, the winds can come, storms can blow, but they may bend, but they don't break. It is very rare that you ever see a palm tree that has been broken, and if it has, it's had some disease infested in it.

As I studied more about it, a few years ago I gave a sermon on some of these trees here and there's significance of them, but the palm tree, when I was looking at it, has some properties in it that I think are interesting to note. Let me just read from a website that was talking about the palm. It says, palm trees possess a distinct structural design that contributes to their strength. The trunk of a palm tree is composed of long, fibrous bundles called vascular tissues, which provide strength and support. These bundles run parallel along the length of the trunk, making it incredibly sturdy and resistant to bending or breaking.

It's not like a regular tree. It's different than the other trees. There's something inside of that tree that gives it the property and the strength that it will bend, but not break. It's different. It's different than the typical tree. You know, as we think about God calling us, we're different. When we have God's Holy Spirit, there's a strength in us that the world can't understand. When we rely on God and we're eating of that tree of life and he's producing the fruit in us, we're letting that fruit be produced in us by the choices that we make, we become different. We're not the same people as the world around us.

There's a strength. There's an endurance. There is a thing that they don't understand about us. There's the agape love that's true agape. Why do you think that way? There's the peace that surpasses all understanding that Paul talks about. There's the joy that Christ had that even though this is a terrible thing I'm gonna have to go through and it's painful and agonizing. For the joy set before him, because he focused on that, he was able to endure it and he did it for us, not for himself.

All those things that we read about in the fruit, all those things that have meaning that make us different than the world around us, because we are different than the world around us. God has called us to be different.

Now we are because we have his Holy Spirit because by his mercy, we live in his grace with him watching over us that he's given us access to something the rest of the world doesn't have. Grateful, we should be extraordinarily grateful to God in every minute of our lives of what he's done. The rest of the world will have their opportunity, but he's called us now to make that choice and we become different. If we look like the world around us, boy, we have to stop and think about what we're doing. In the church, if we have things around us that look like the world, boy, we better stop and think what we're doing because we're not supposed to look like the world in any way, shape, or form. We're supposed to be, as we're growing, looking like Christ, looking like his people, set apart from the world, rejecting the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, choosing the tree of life. Different than other trees, like you and I are different because of what God has put in us. Let's talk about the root system because that's a part of the strength of the palm tree as well. In addition to their robust trunks, palm trees have an extensive root system that enhances their stability. The roots of palm trees are thick and deeply anchored in the ground, allowing them to withstand strong winds and storms without toppling over. This structural adaptation enables palm trees to thrive in coastal regions prone to hurricanes and high winds. It's the root system. You know, you can study about the Sequoia trees. They have an incredible root system as well. It gives them their strength. What about our root system? Where is it? Is it in the world or is it anchored in Jesus Christ? Is it anchored in the Bible? He's the chief cornerstone. He's the foundation. That's where our roots need to be, deep, deep in him, growing ever deeper with every moment of our lives, deeper anchored in the Bible, anchored in the truth, led by his spirit, anchored in him. And when our roots are there, those roots spread out, they extend to you and me and around the world and all that intertwining of the roots, of all the people around the world, provide the strength that the church of God needs, wants, the unity, the oneness, all bound together, just like you read in Acts 2, verses 42 to 46.

And so you look at the palm tree, I'll give you a couple of verses. You can look at the leafy trees. They may remind you of verses that are there in Psalm 91, verses three through six. Look at the willow tree, willow tree, and you can look at Psalm 137, verse two, and see what that willow, all those things that are built into the Feast of Tabernacles that God was teaching them and us. Let's go to Psalm, Psalm one.

Physical properties of tree, importantly, the spiritual properties of trees and what God compares us to.

Psalm one.

Very familiar, very familiar him.

Want verse one. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. That's not where he hangs out. He hangs out with the opposite of that. His delight, his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law, he meditates day and night.

Verse three. He shall be like a tree. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf will not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper.

We will be like trees.

We will be like trees planted by the rivers of water.

God's spirit is what feeds us. We will bring forth fruit, the fruit that God wants us to bring forth if we're being nourished by his word, eating the bread of life daily, being watered by his spirit. We'll bring forth fruit, and he will bless us.

You want blessings? Do it God's way. Do it exactly the way he said, and he will bless us. If we try to do it another way, man's way, our own ideas, we fail and we miss something.

Look at Psalm 104.

It's just an interesting thing that God says about trees here. On the surface it looks like God is talking about physical trees, but wherever God talks about things, there is a spiritual element as well. Psalm 104, in this chapter, he's talking about the creation and how he provides for everything. It's him who does it all. I mean, we live on this earth, and we may pat ourselves on the back and think because we did this, and we did this, and we did this, and really it all comes down to us, all God. It was all God who did everything. We were just here. We were just here, the benefactors, and to learn what he wanted us to learn, and to have the humility to acknowledge, yes, he gives us everything. Without him, literally we are absolutely nothing. Verse 16 of Psalm 104, the trees of the Lord are full of sap. The cedars of Lebanon, which he planted.

I want you to remember that the trees of the Lord, he will be like a tree that grows. The trees of the Lord are full of sap. The cedars of Lebanon, which he planted.

That's you and me. And indeed there are trees that are full of sap and produce those things, but what does God fill us with?

His spirit, right?

The trees of the Lord are full of his spirit.

If we let that spirit grow in us, if we let God dwell in us, if we make the choices daily, reject the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, choose the tree of life. Reject the way of get, reject the way of give, nope, reject the way of get, choose the way of give. We'll get it right, we'll get it right here.

In Isaiah 41 and 19, as God is talking about the time to come and everything, he says, I will plant in the wilderness the cedar and the acacia tree, the myrtle and the oil tree. I will set in the desert the cypress tree and the pine and the box trees together that they may see and know and consider and understand together that the hand of the Lord has done this and the Holy One of Israel has created it.

Oh, that is a physical promise, that things that will happen in the kingdom and the deserts are adorned with those trees, but today he's growing trees. He's growing trees of righteousness, as it says in Isaiah 61, that should adorn this wilderness that we're in, lights to the world, letting our lights shine. In Isaiah 61, verse three, as it talks about Christ returning what he will bring to the earth, the last part of verse three there says, well, let me just read all of verse three. To console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.

Trees of righteousness, that's what God is planting. That's what he wants to plant.

And when he plants in us, what he wants us to become, trees of righteousness, having those characteristics of him, having the characteristic and the traits of Jesus Christ and those things we read about in Galatians 5.22, the fruits of the tree of life.

Mark 8, it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen all at once. Christ in an interesting parable talks about men of trees and as someone is coming out of blindness, as he is healing someone from physical blindness, it's interesting what the man says. In Mark 8, in verse 24, I'll read verse 23, so we have the context here. So Christ took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when Christ had spit on his eyes and put his hands on him, he asked him if he saw anything. And he looked up and said, I see men like trees walking.

I see men like trees walking. Well, he wasn't seeing very clearly at that time. They looked like trees. His vision wasn't really clear.

What was he talking about? Because in the next verse, Christ anoints him again. He put his hands on again. He put hands on his eyes again and made him look up and he was restored and saw everyone clearly.

Christ, as he had done other times, he could have restored that man's sight instantaneously.

But to see clearly spiritually is a process. It's something that we grow into. We don't see everything when we first are baptized and receive God's Holy Spirit. But over time, we see the righteousness of God. Over the time, if we are consistently walking in his way, remembering the goal that he sets us from, if we are diligent in eating of that tree of life, we see things more clearly and that vision becomes clearer and it motivates us and it moves us along to what God wants us to be. It's a process. It's a lifelong process. All of us are still living. We all have a ways to go. We all have a ways to go the way that God wants us to be. And he wants those trees to grow.

I could give you some verses about Matthew. I'll give them to you. Matthew 3, eight to 10 and Matthew 7, verse 17. God says when he looks at trees that should have fruit and they have no true fruit after a while, what does he do?

They're physical, right? We would do that, I guess, if they were in our yards and year after year, they're producing no fruit, you'd think, well, cut it down. It's a useless tree. God says the same thing of us. He expects us to grow and we will if, if we are doing what he wants us to, if we are choosing the right tree and not rejecting God and looking at self and always putting self above what his will is.

It's a chore. We have to keep working of what God wants us to do. In Matthew 12, just a few more things here.

Matthew 12 and verse 33, spiritual principle here as he again talks about, you know, as people are accusing him of being someone other than who he was, right? And this one is like the Pharisees didn't like him. So they accused him of this and that and called him names and whatever.

And in verse down to verse 31 and 32, he talks about the unpardonable sin, but in verse 33, he says, either make the tree good. Isn't that interesting? He uses that analogy again about the reason to make the tree good and its fruit good or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad for a tree is known by its fruit.

Look at what the fruit is. Is the fruit the way of give or is the fruit the way of get? Is the fruit the way of the tree of life or is it the way of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Is it toward God or is it more about self?

Christ put it pretty easy there. We can kind of look at ourselves and say, what is my real motivation here? Is it me or is it God's way? That's what we need to be choosing. That's what we need to be doing. And that's what we need to do is get ourselves out of the way and remember what it is that God called us to and his Holy Spirit will lead us to that if we let it. If we will be quiet and let God speak to us and put that thought in our mind and get out of our ways and quit justifying and quit doing everything we do and start following him and yielding to him with all of our hearts.

We know as we look at these two trees and we look what God has done, he does open our minds to things that the world can't possibly understand.

You know, recently we've talked about agape and what the true meaning of agape is as Jesus Christ defined it. Not as the Greeks would define it, not as the world defines it, not as any dictionary or commentary, but only as the Bible defines it, that's what he has. You and I can understand that because of the Holy Spirit in us, the world can't. We've talked about unshakable faith, the type of faith that God wants to build us in. So when the time comes and the winds blow and the storms rage, we may be there among it all, but we won't fail. We won't fall apart. We won't sink in the water because we will have our eyes on God and we will have through our lives kept our eyes on him. We will have that peace that surpasses all understanding that Paul talked about that the world can't understand. Why are you so settled when everything else around you is falling apart? Because we know God, because we eat of the true of life and we have absolute faith and belief in him and we absolutely know his word is true. Now what he says will happen will happen. All those things that we look at, if we let God open our minds and do the things and develop the fruit in us that can only develop and if we're making that same choice, he gave Adam an Eve, choose life, choose give, choose God, choose righteousness, reject the world, reject lawlessness, reject self, reject get, choose what God wants us to do. So the choice is before us as it will be through all of mankind. Revelation 22 verse 14, I won't turn there. It says that in that day, the tree of life will be there and the leaves will be for the healing of the nations.

Always that tree of life, always choosing God. So as we look at ourselves and as we look at the situations we're all in and as we go forward into a world that I'm sure has things that we're only going to find out when they happen. As we watch things going on around us and whatever and the times we live in, I guess the question for us is what tree? What tree are we choosing and what tree will we choose?