This morning we’re reflecting on the season in our lives of rooting, of
growing deeper in our relationship and knowledge of God, shaping our hearts according
to who God is calling us to be. The psalms are part of what we call Wisdom
Literature in the Bible. Wisdom in scripture is about living in healthy ways
with God, each other, ourselves, and creation. Wisdom is practical, about how
we live. Psalm 1 sets the foundation for the rest of the psalms, showing us
where we find wisdom, we find it in God’s word to us, “Blessed
is the one whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his
law day and night.” The word translated as “law”
is “torah” in Hebrew means “instruction,
teaching, guidance, law, or rule.” Torah, as used in the psalms, means all
of these things. In the psalms, it’s the first 5 books of the Bible, the books
of Moses. These are the foundational books of scripture, teaching us our
beginnings, emphasizing that our identity’s rooted in God, teaching who we’re
called to be as God’s people, how we’re to live for God and with each other,
pointing us to the coming of Jesus and the redemption from our sin and
restoration of our relationship with God. These themes are all carried forward
through the rest of scripture.
Psalm 1 is a psalm of blessing that comes from
setting our roots in a nourishing source of water. The seed has to die in order
to grow, it’s planted underground and then its shell breaks open so the
nourishment can bring life through its developing roots. We need to die to the
person we are in order to grow into who God is growing us into. Likewise, this
water comes from a stream that’s been intentionally guided into the fields or
vineyards so the trees have easy access to this source of life. The Hebrew word
for stream describes an irrigation canal deliberately built for a vineyard or
garden. It’s a psalm of contrast, the tree whose roots are planted by the
streams of water yields its fruit in season, its leaves never wither, even in
times of drought and stress. The farmer or vineyard keeper has ensured that the
tree’s roots can grow deep because its source of life is always near and
accessible.
The farmer can do everything they can to help the plants grow deep roots, yet
they cannot force the plant to seek the water; this is something God has
created into the seed. The same’s true for us. God’s created us in his own
image, given us life through the gift of his breath. We’re created to seek him,
yet not everyone does. The contrast in the psalm is those who walk with the
wicked, stand with sinners, or sits with mocker won’t grow strong, won’t find
nourishment, instead they’ll be worthless chaff that has no substance, that’s blown
away by the wind because it is nothing more than dry dust.
This is echoed in Jeremiah 17:5–8, “This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is
the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart
turns away from the Lord. That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;
they will not see prosperity when it comes. They will dwell in the parched
places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. “But
blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They
will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the
stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has
no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”
Roots grow slowly, feeding deeply from the nutrients in the soil and
water. Deep faith roots come from drinking deeply and consistently from the
living water that comes from Jesus who is the water of life. These roots grow
from the nutrients that are found in the regular meditation on the Word of God.
Growth doesn’t come quickly; going deeper in your relationship with God, Jesus,
comes through the working of the Holy Spirit in us. Rooting is about
establishing our identity in God, living into our identity as children of God,
created in his image to be his representatives in the world. As Mireya C, the
person who developed this devotional series observes, even Paul took 3 years
after his conversion to Jesus, getting away to learn, unlearn, pray, and being formed. It wasn’t wasted.
It was a rooting season. God was growing him downward before using him outward.
Before Paul preached or wrote letters, he had to grow in grace instead of law,
in truth instead of tradition.
What you drink and eat spiritually shapes the health and the strength of
your faith. This is about having a lifelong pattern of feeding
your heart, of drinking deeply and regularly from the stream of water that is
Jesus. Paul writes in Colossians 2:6–8,
“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord,
continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in
the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that
no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends
on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than
on Christ.”
Seeds are created to grow roots when they’re planted, but they need a
healthy environment and nutrients in order to grow deep roots: good soil,
sunlight, and warmth are important elements that aid growing deep strong
healthy roots.
Roots reach out to whatever is available to help them grow,
even if the water source is polluted, or the soil is dead or poisoned, making
it difficult or even impossible for the seed to grow healthy roots. Pollution
and poison look like the values that are foundational to our culture which are
rooted in individualism, greed, always focused on more, always looking to
divide rather than build. We live in a shallow dry culture. It comes from our
drinking from streams of social media and influencers; leading to over-busyness
and a lack of time for family devotional times and deep faith conversations. We
suffer from wanting to do everything that brings us temporary pleasure without emphasizing
growing deeper roots into what’s eternal.
Deep spiritual roots
don’t come just because you’re breathing, deep roots come from healthy diets and ways of living.
Many people may look healthy on the outside, but inside are rotting. Faith is
not passive, faith engages Jesus to grow, even, or especially in difficult
times. But to grow in difficult times, we’ll reflect on this in the next
spiritual season, we need to grow deep roots that tap into the nourishment, the
living water that is Jesus. The goal is, as Paul writes in Ephesians 3, “that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power… to grasp
how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.” Understanding Jesus’ love comes from
spiritual strength, not just human intellect.
The church has
recognized over the years
the importance of deliberately and systematically developing ways to grow
deeper in our faith, to grow our roots deep into Jesus. The church developed spiritual
practices aimed at nurturing spiritual growth and deepening our relationship
with God. Examples of spiritual practices include things like prayer, Bible
study, worship, solitude, acts of service, and various forms of self-reflection
and self-examination. Look at Jesus; he regularly spent time with God in
prayer, he learned scripture, he spent time in the synagogue to worship, he
served others, all part of how he grew in grace and truth. Here in Bethel, our
faith formation is being built on scripture reading, prayer, and worship.
Growing strong roots
happens by going deep down into
our relationships with Jesus, intertwining our roots together with others. Many
of the spiritual practices focus on community, think of worship, serving, and
even the study of scripture. Aspen trees share a single, massive underground
root system, giving them strength, while beech trees frequently grow in dense
groves and send up root sprouts, leading to tight networks where touching roots
and trunks naturally intertwine creating strength and the ability to survive
storms or floods, and can pass water, minerals, and sugars between trees,
allowing healthy mature trees to support weaker or younger saplings.
At the root of
spiritual practices is love;
the spiritual practices help us grow deeper in our love for God and that gets
lived out in love for others. They call us to spend time with God in prayer,
reflection, and Scripture, but they’re also meant to be practiced with others,
think worship and acts of service. Philip Yancy in his book Vanishing Grace
writes about a friend of his who realized that he had never been taught how to
love, even though the Bible calls us to love God and our neighbours. So he
began to ask people to think about one question, “When have I felt loved?”
For myself, I realised I felt love when someone shows respect, not for my
position, but simply because of who I am as a person and engages with what I’m
thinking or feeling at the time, when someone encourages me or challenges me
because they want to help me grow, when someone simply cares when I’m hurting. “When
have you felt loved?” Your answer can help you to show love to others. The
book on love languages by Gary Chapman is a good resource to understand
different ways in how we receive love and how we offer love. This grows deeper
roots into Jesus and your faith.
Showing love for God
seems easier than love for others
until we realise that we grow our love for God through loving others. Love
often looks like kindness in an unkind graceless world. Kindness sees the other
person as someone created in the image of God and is precious and valuable even
if we might see and understand life differently. There’s so much casual cruelty
in our world; we find it easy to talk others down, it’s easy to speak causal
cruelty meant to hurt others.
Our faith is also determined
by what we watch, read,
and listen to, the people we look up to and admire and imitate, and the types
of seeds we allow to be planted in our hearts and souls. Following Jesus is
very much a character formation journey, becoming more like him. Jesus challenges
us to be aware of what we feed on, on where we turn to for nourishment to grow
deep roots, on who we’re being called to become as his people. Paul focuses on
this in Galatians 5 when he calls us to grow the Fruit of the Spirit rather
than the fruit of our culture’s values and ways.
As the Psalmist reminds us, “delighting in the law of the
Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night,” is the path to
rootedness in Jesus. Rooting happens in the presence of God, leading to
flourishing and growth, to strength and resiliency, done individually and in
community. God’s responsible for the outcome, trust that he’s working. Stay
planted in prayer, the Word, service, and worship even when no one’s watching.
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