Rooted in the Word

I would like to ask you if you would turn in your Bibles to an Old Testament book, the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah, you'll find it a little past halfway in the Bible, so if you can find Psalms, keep going forward.

Jeremiah will be in chapter 17. As you're finding that, I just want to thank our other pastor here, Matt, for last week's good teaching, topical teaching on the gospel.

We don't do a lot of that here, topical preaching, but we think once in a while it is good, it is helpful to sort of zero in and focus on something like the gospel last Sunday.

And I'm going to do that again today. My subject is the second phrase in this tagline you keep seeing on mugs and shirts and signs and things around here, rooted in the Word.

And so I'm going to begin reading in verse 1, Jeremiah chapter 17, verse 1. I'm just going to read through the first eight verses, and then we're going to move around to a few other places in the Bible.

Jeremiah 17:1

So you can keep a finger there or maybe tear off a piece of paper and stick it here, but we'll start here anyway. So chapter 17, beginning our reading of God's Word in verse 1.

The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, with a point of a diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart and on the horns of their altars,

while their children remember their altars and their ashram beside every green tree and on the high hills on the mountains in the open country.

Your wealth and all your treasures I will give for spoil as the price of your high places for sin throughout all your territory.

You shall loosen your hand from your heritage that I gave you, and I will make you serve your enemies in a land you do not know. For in my anger a fire has kindled that shall burn forever.

Thus says the Lord, Cursed is the man who trusts in man, who makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert and shall not see any good come.

He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord. Whose trust is the Lord.

He is like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream and does not fear when heat comes. For its leaves remain green and is not anxious in the year of the drought.

For it does not cease to bear fruit. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray for you to take control of this moment, this hour, and simply speak to us, Lord.

From your word, let your spirit, Lord, help us understand what you want us to understand. And do the good work that needs to be done. And it's in the name of our Savior, Jesus, we pray.

Amen. Roots. I don't know if you are old enough to remember the 1970s. There was a novel written in a TV miniseries that came after, very shortly after.

It was called Roots. And it's an interesting story. It's a fictional story, but based on true events. It's about an 18th century African man named Kunta Kinte.

Kunta Kinte was captured, enslaved, transported across the Atlantic Ocean, and sold at auction to a Virginia plantation owner.

But even as his new owner is bound and determined to erase anything in his African heritage from Kunta Kinte, Kunta Kinte adamantly resists.

And there's a powerful moment in both the book and the film where Kunta Kinte is being beaten at the whim of his master, being told that he has a new name, and Kunta Kinte resists and says that his name is Kunta Kinte.

A last way for him to try to hold on to his roots. There's something about a person's roots, or that we would say staying rooted, just seems really good and right.

People need to be rooted in something. Whether you're a young person and you're still in the process of putting down and establishing your roots, or you're older and you're at a point in life where you need to sometimes remember your roots.

Life wasn't always as it is now. Maybe you didn't have what you have now. Maybe you didn't have at one point. And you need to remember your humble roots.

It's very interesting, but here as we go back in history to Jeremiah's day, and we're going back long before the 18th century, we go back about 2,600 years, and we find this prophet, a very unpopular prophet, and his name is Jeremiah.

Jeremiah has the lucky misfortune, if that makes any sense, the misfortune to serve the Lord at a time when nobody's going to listen to him, and God tells him that.

But he still has a ministry to do. It's at a time when Israel's monarchy, the kingdom, is failing and failing fast, but the people seem oblivious to it.

And Jeremiah is very deeply concerned about his people staying rooted. You see, the Israelites have been given a heritage. They had roots, you might say.

And yet they had adulterated themselves by choosing to worship idols. They disobeyed God. They broke the covenant. And to make matters worse, they had a bunch of lying prophets, false prophets, running around the land, undermining Jeremiah, saying everything's fine.

It's fine. And so through Jeremiah, God here speaks prophetic words of judgment. And by the time we come to chapter 17, basically what the Lord says is that this current generation, they're beyond recall.

It's too late for them. Their hearts are covered in guilt. More than just covered in guilt, look what it says in verse 1. Their heart is actually engraved with guilt, like with a diamond point.

And so God essentially says in verse 4, you're going to forfeit your heritage. You shall literally loosen your hand from your heritage. That's another way of saying, I'm going to sever you from your roots.

And you're going to serve your enemies for a while. But even with that, we can't help but notice that in verse 5 here, the tone seems to change suddenly.

It's as if God wants His people to take a step back and consider the state of things and think about their responsibility before Him. Because really, He wants them to understand there are and have always been two ways to live.

Two ways to live. You can either live in a way that, verse 5, leads to cursing, or you can live in a way, verse 7, that leads to blessing. You want God's curse?

Trust in man. Trust in flesh. Make flesh your strength. And let your heart turn away from the Lord. But if you want blessing, trust in the Lord.

Let your trust be the Lord. And you will stay rooted. It's interesting, the image that the Lord actually uses here of a tree in verse 8. Verse 8 speaks of a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream.

I'm sure some of you have seen these images coming out of Florida this week reminding us of the ferocious power of a hurricane. And we see these trees, these huge trees, blown over.

And you and I both know that deep roots for a tree, they are critical to that tree staying upright. Because when the ground gets saturated with rain, and there are hurricane-force winds pounding at it, deep roots are absolutely indispensable.

If you want to stay alive, and stay upright, you must be deeply rooted. And this is what the Lord is really saying here through Jeremiah. My people must stay rooted, deeply rooted.

They must be properly rooted in me. And it's interesting, as we turn the page, and we're going to turn more than one, because I'm going to ask you to turn all the way to the New Testament now, to the Gospel of John, chapter 15.

John 15 · chapter mention

But as we turn ahead, about 600 years, turn the page on the Testaments to the New Testament, we find the Lord Jesus basically saying the same thing.

So let me ask you to look in John 15. I'm going to read again for us. John 15, I'll begin reading in verse 1. I want you to notice how the imagery, the metaphor, slightly changes, but not very much.

This is what the Word of God says in John 15, verse 1. Jesus speaking, I am the vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away.

John 15:1

And every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, so that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.

If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered and thrown into the fire and burned.

Verse 7. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love.

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

This morning, the main idea, our main point is this. Jesus' followers, Christians, must be rooted in the Word. Jesus calls us to root Himself in Him, the living Word, and the way we do this

is by rooting ourselves in His words, the written Word. Living Word, written Word. You cannot claim to abide in one and not abide in the other also.

Now in our passage here, Jesus starts things off by identifying the characters. He often needs to do this. The disciples are kind of clueless, if you haven't picked up on that from the Gospels yet.

So He says, okay, I'm the true vine, my Father's the vine dresser, He's the one that runs around cutting off the bad ones and pruning the good ones, and you guys, my followers, you're the branches.

Anybody remember that song from Sunday school, growing up? He is the vine and we are the branches? No? Okay, everybody. So Jesus goes with this extended vine branches metaphor.

Maybe He wrote the song, I don't know. But with this metaphor, He says, as branches, you grow up from Me and you guys have to bear fruit. If you don't, you get removed.

And here's the thing, even if you do bear fruit, you're going to need help. And so, you're going to have to expect to be pruned so you can bear fruit better.

And then we come to verse 4. And in verse 4, we finally get the call for action. The first thing that Jesus tells us to do, verse 4, abide in Me and I in you.

Abide in Me and I in you. Abide sounds pretty simple, but it's not really a word that we use a lot today, is it? Abide means simply to remain, to stay with, stay connected to, continue with, stay linked to Jesus.

Or if we were to take the analogy underground, we would say, stay rooted in Jesus. Branches don't bear fruit in themselves apart from the vine.

You have to abide in Me. Apart from Me, verse 5, you can do nothing. And He goes on and says, those branches wither, they get gathered up, they get ultimately thrown in the fire.

But then, verse 7, look at Jesus, because here is where He zeroes in very clearly on what He means by abide. in Me. Take a look again. Verse 7, if you abide in Me and My words abide in you, you can basically pray with great power.

Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. My words. What are those? Jesus' words include certainly everything that He said to His disciples, everything in these four Gospels in your Bible, all His teachings, all His commands.

But the thing is, it's a lot larger than that too, because we have this moment Matt reminded me before I came out to preach this morning, Luke chapter 24, where Jesus, the risen Jesus, is on the Emmaus road with the two disciples and He explains the whole Old Testament in light of Him and says He fulfills all of it.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

And we know those words written in the Old Testament come from the Father. And Jesus says, I and the Father are one. Not only that, we've got the later New Testament after the Gospels.

Now, Jesus doesn't directly say, hey, there'll be 23 epistles coming. But He doesn't have to say that. They don't exist yet. But we know that they do come and they will come and some from the very men that He is training right now, these disciples.

These epistles, the later New Testament, will come from the Spirit of Jesus who also speaks words through inspired writers. So the words, let's be clear, the words, when He says, My words abide in you, it's not just the Gospels.

It's the whole Testament and it's all of the later New Testament epistles too. Altogether, 66 books of the canon of Scripture we call it. Canon means measure or rule.

That is the whole counsel of God in God-breathed Scripture. And here's what we're to do with these words. Here is what abiding in them looks like.

It looks like us putting them not just in our minds and hearts, although that's certainly necessary and good, but it also includes putting them in our behavior.

Acting on His words. Living in obedience to His words. Look at verse 10. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love. It's interesting.

Jesus goes on and He makes a comparison. He says, this is how I've stayed in the Father's love. I've done whatever He's told me. I've shown the Father My love by keeping His commandments and I want you guys, My disciples, to do the same.

You also abide in Jesus, Me. You abide in Me, Jesus, and in My love by keeping My commandments, My words.

And you know, that's why it's sad when you find today, and we found throughout history, so many well-meaning people in churches who love to talk about how they're all about Jesus.

And they love Jesus and that's great. But they don't want to talk about God's words so much. But you can't separate being all about Jesus from being all about Jesus' words.

To Jesus Himself, Him and His words are inseparable. And saying things like, I believe the Bible, I believe it's true as much as it points to Jesus, or saying things like, Jesus is, you know, the primary lens for how I interpret the Bible.

You know what these things are? They're really just clever ways of saying that you believe parts of the Bible, but not all of them. Or maybe saying that you prefer some parts of the Bible over others.

Or that you are willing to give greater authority to certain parts of the Bible than others. We're not talking about hermeneutics and interpreting things according to the covenant.

We're talking about preferring parts of Scripture over other parts. We're talking about lifting out the so-called red letters, red words of Jesus and saying they are somehow more important than the rest.

But here's the thing and I've said this before and I'll say it again. God is a triune God. There's God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit and these three gods, the three members of the Godhead, I have to be careful because I get into heresy right away, these three members of the Godhead,

they are one God. They don't disagree. They don't ever contradict themselves. They speak to us through all of Scripture as the triune Godhead and as Christians we need to be rooted in all of their words,

all of God's word. And I'm telling you this is how we abide in Jesus and His words. John 15, 7 again. If you remain in me and my words remain in you.

Rooted in the living word, rooted in the written word. Now assuming you're still with me on this, that we're called to be rooted in both, I do think that this poses a question for us to think about and that question is simply what does this

actually look like to be rooted in the word? What does it look like for me to be rooted in the word of God? And I think it's a great question and if you would just bear with me for a few moments, I would like us to walk through together some of the things that I think Scripture itself has to say

about this. So today I've got four points for you and they are structured around answering this question, what does it mean to be rooted in the word?

And I think first and foremost, number one, it means this. Number one, being rooted in the word means that it's first implanted within us. It's first implanted in us.

Now I know I'm going to switch the analogy just a bit again but Jesus does it too so I guess that's alright. Let me ask you to think about things in terms of a seed.

We're talking about roots, let's back it up even further to a seed. The seed is the word of God. As a matter of fact, that's not just my analogy, Jesus used that.

You might be familiar with the parable, one of his most famous parables called the parable of the sower, which should actually be called the parable of the soils.

Mark chapter 4, if you want to look at it just real quickly, Jesus tells this parable which is a simple story based on regular everyday phenomenon, real world phenomenon, and he tells a story about this farmer who goes out sowing his seed.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

Some falls on the path, paths are packed down, it's too hard for the seed to penetrate, birds come and get it. Some falls on rocky places, seed penetrates but the soil is too shallow and so there's no root, it withers and dies.

Other seed falls among thorns and so the plants sprout up quickly but then they get choked out. And then last of all of course there's the good soil where the seed takes root and grows to produce a crop.

So Jesus what he does, he tells the parable and then he ties it to the way that the seed of the word of God falls on the soils of the human heart.

Basically these four types of soils are four types of people's hearts. Some hearts are hard, some hearts are rocky or shallow soil, some people get choked out by the worries of life.

Mark chapter 4 verse 20 But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit. Don't miss the underlying point.

Mark 4:20

The underlying point is that the seed must get in and that there must be seed to get in. Nobody puts down roots unless they've received the seed in the good soil of their heart and it sprouts.

Without seed, no matter how good the soil, nothing is going to happen. We need the seed and Jesus equates the seed to the word of God. This is why later on in the New Testament you have someone like the Apostle James explaining things to his fellow believers like this.

This is James chapter 1. He says this, James 1 21, Therefore I want you to put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls.

James 1 · chapter mention

What James is telling us is that new birth, the spiritual new birth, only comes through the implanted word. without the word proclaimed to a person in the message of the gospel, there will be nothing in there to germinate or sprout or grow.

And that's why James is pulling his listeners, fellow believers, back to the implanted word in them which he reminds them is able to save your souls.

So what's the application? The application is we need the word implanted in us. You say, well, of course we do, but I'm not sure that we sometimes get this in the church.

We have a lot of people that think they really like Jesus. A lot of people still in our country might even say they, I love Jesus, things. But if they've never had his word implanted within them by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, then they're just thinking things and feeling things.

Because although God's word is often sown widely and broadly, we all know that some hearts are like the other three types of soil and they're not ready for it.

And that's why we as a church will always recognize that a ministry must be absolutely rooted in the word and that means specifically proclaiming the word of Jesus' gospel, sowing this seed.

If we don't do this, we aren't giving people anything that can be germinated, that can sprout or grow. We must have the seed implanted within us.

So maybe you know some of these people. I like to think of them as Doobie Brothers people. Jesus is just alright with me people. Again, too old, right?

The song, Jesus is just alright with me. Do you know people with whom Jesus is just alright? That's fine. That's good. He's a good teacher. Do you go to school with people like this maybe?

Enlightened people. You know, some of you fundamentalist Christians have made a whole lot more out of Jesus than he ever intended. He's alright.

Or, do you work with people like this? You know, they don't hate Jesus. He's alright. Jesus is fine. Are you related to people like this? They need to know that being truly alright with Jesus means God's got to be made alright

with your sin. And that only happens at the cross. So we're talking about the word, aren't we? The gospel. Matt highlighted it last week. The gospel message cannot be understood without the word.

We're talking about Jesus coming, living, dying on a cross, paying for your sins, and the reality that you are called, everyone is called, to respond and trust in that finished work.

we've got to have this word deeply implanted within us. And that's why as a church we will always be more than just alright with Jesus. Or we'll be more than just even in love with Jesus.

We will be a gospel proclaiming, word-rooted church that explains and proclaims to people how, how to be saved. That's the first thing that being rooted in the word means.

Here's the second one, number two. Being rooted in the word, number two, means it gets sunk deep as our foundation. Deep as a foundation. I love construction.

I'm not really good at it, but I like watching it. I like time lapse where it happens fast. One of the most exciting parts of construction, especially for like a house, is the foundation.

watching the dirt be pushed back in our area. We can have basements. And you know what they do? They dig this big hole, right? And then they come in with a cement truck and they pour these footers.

And then on top of those footers, once they've hardened, they pour the cement walls, the basement walls. In this area of the country, once you backfill that structure and put something over top of it, there really isn't much, I mean, maybe not even an explosion that can destroy a foundation like that.

No storm, no tornado. Tornado may take the rest of the house, but not the foundation. It's solid, strong. A basement foundation to a house is what prevents the house from getting washed away.

You know, Jesus understood the importance of a foundation. He talked a little construction once. Matthew 7, verse 24, He said, everyone then who hears these words of mine, oh, Jesus is so into his words, isn't he?

Matthew 7:24

Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. I don't think they had perfected the art of the concrete spinning truck, you know, cement truck, in Jesus' day.

So you know what they used? They used rock. Rock, a firm foundation. And Jesus says, it's these words of mine. It's me, the living word, giving you my spoken words, which will soon become the written word, Holy Scripture.

It's you receiving them, hearing them, and doing them, putting them into practice. Jesus equates the putting into practice of his words as building a type of foundation that's going to last.

House on the rock, unshakable, immovable. people. And Jesus wants the word to be a foundation for every Christian. Every one of you, he wants your life to have a deep sunk foundation in his word.

Paul agrees. This is why the apostle Paul talks about the same thing. He puts it slightly differently, but the sense overall is the same by the time we come to Colossians chapter 2.

Colossians 2 · chapter mention

This is Paul in Colossians 2 verses 6 and 7. He says to the church, Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted, and build up in him, and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

Colossians 2:6

This word rooted, Paul uses here in this verse, is in what's called the aorist tense of the Greek, and basically that means once for all action, planting, rooting, of a Christian in Christ.

It's a foundational event. Again, to be rooted in Christ, as Jesus tells us, Matthew 7, John 15, to be rooted in Jesus is to be rooted in his words.

Built up in him, Paul also says this, that's present tense, that's ongoing growth, and being established in the faith as you were taught, that points back to the apostles' teaching.

Which is Jesus' teaching. The apostles didn't make stuff up out of their own minds. They said, and wrote, and put into what you now have as a Bible, only what the Spirit of Jesus gave them.

And again, how does this work out in our church? This is why we have specific programs, ministries, some people don't like the word programs, whatever, ministries in our church, that train up our people, and try to root our people, root our children in the foundation of Scripture.

We think that's important. Now, can a four-year-old downstairs give you all the theological ramifications of the flood? Maybe some of them can.

None of mine, sorry kids, none of mine could. Probably not, you know, let's say you're one-year-old or whatever, you know. No, they can't appreciate the nuances, the deep theology, the tensions, they're going to ask you about that later, 50 million times, but that doesn't mean that because they can't understand it

that we aren't still rooting them in the stories, in the events that are recorded in the Bible, because they serve as a foundation, a foundation for coming to gradually understand that there is a God who creates, and a God who loves them, and a God who judges sin, and a God who

saves the family, and replenishes the earth, and who promises.

So, again, deep foundation. You must have a bedrock of God's truth, because the thing is, sometimes I think in the church we get too busy with the superstructure, we don't let the concrete dry enough, we want to build the house and frame things up fast,

and we haven't done the work of rooting them in the Word. So, you can give people lots of practical advice, there are preachers like me that do a lot of that, lots of tips that are biblical, but if the people in the churches that we serve, and in which we worship, don't really have a

foundation in God's Word, you know what happens? Life gets stormy, wind and waves come at us, through physical challenges, through career challenges, through marital family challenges, interpersonal challenges, and we find people

get bowled over, and sometimes they get blown down, and sometimes the superstructure of the faith collapses, and I'm suggesting to you, it may have something to do with a foundation that had not yet quite cured, or had maybe not ever been properly poured.

Listen, emotional excitement, being excited about Jesus and cool people at church is great, sometimes I think it's maybe a mixture of both, people are excited as much about the coolness of church as they are about Jesus.

Rejoicing is good and biblical, but so is lament.

The simple stuff of Jesus is good, but there's also a time to leave what the writer to the Hebrews says are the elementary teachings, and go on to maturity.

It's going to have to be rooted in the Word. And that's the second thing that being rooted in the Word means. It means that we let the Word of God get sunk deep into us and into our families as a foundation.

Number three. Number three. Third thing that being rooted in the Word means is that we are richly indwelt by it. Richly indwelt. That word indwelling, again, like abide, not one that we use a lot today.

You could go back to the Old Testament and you would see amazing images, read amazing pictures of the glory of God, indwelling structures, pouring into people, the tabernacle, later the temple.

And that's why it would be so easy for Paul the Apostle later in the New Testament to speak like he does about our own bodies. Remember what he says our bodies are?

Tabernacles, temples of the Holy Spirit who indwells them. Check this out from Colossians again, chapter 3 this time, 316. Paul says this, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one

another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. dwell in you richly. That means inhabit you richly means inhabit you abundantly, generously.

Another way we might say it today is let the word of God live large in you. Paul had seen this. He wasn't talking about something that he didn't personally know or had not personally seen.

And we know this because when he writes another letter to one of his young protégés, a guy named Timothy, he reminds this young guy of some key mentors in his life.

And listen to what he says in 2 Timothy 1.5. Listen to what he says about these mentors. He says to Timothy, I'm reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt, indwelled, first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now I'm sure indwells, dwells in you

as well. And that faith that literally indwelt these godly women that you could say lived large in them had had an impact on Timothy.

A redeemer. Yes, we want to work to see God's word implanted in people. Yes, we want to plant a poor, a rock solid foundation. But we also want our people to richly and abundantly have the word indwelling in them as well.

So you take a ministry, like yesterday we had this Bible quiz event which was so fun, so great to see. You talk about implanting the word of God in our children, in our teens and building a solid foundation.

I don't know that there are many better ways. It's a great ministry. But if our quizzers don't ever grow up to let all the memorized word begin to shape them and affect them and change them, if they don't ever come to a point in their life

where this memorized word in their heart starts to show its power of correcting them and rebuking parts of their life and encouraging them as they make decisions and dividing their thoughts and attitudes, if it never happens, then the word of God is not having all the effect that it should.

same is true with a ministry like Awanas or with Bible studies or with really any class that you would take, even listening to sermons. The word is meant to indwell us richly.

Like the glory of the Lord literally fills the tabernacle with light. And notice what Paul also says in this verse, dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.

And then he gets to this stuff about worship. And you're looking at the end of the verse and you're thinking, oh, singing, yeah, that's good, we're supposed to do that in church too.

Good job, Paul, you got that in there.

What Paul is saying is that it should shape our worship. It should shape not just the teaching, it should, but also the way that we sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, that the word of God would root and inform how we do that.

That it would give us the reason for why we worship and the content of what we worship. And it would also manifest in thankfulness. Look at that at the end.

Again, not randomly tagged on. With thankfulness in your hearts to God, Colossians 3.16. It should manifest in gratitude. If we are truly indwelt by God's word, then people should be able to look at your life and see gratitude pouring out of it.

And why is that important? I'll tell you why. Because there are some Christians that have the implanted word. They're saved. And even have a pretty good foundation.

They might know the Bible better than me or you. They've got right doctrine. They're not flimsy. They're not gullible. They're not going to be blown and tossed.

They're rock solid. But there's no joy. There's no real worship. There's no gratitude or not much. We have names for them. Sometimes we call them the frozen chosen.

Spiritual grumps. people. They tend to be legalistic people or ritualistic people. Impossible to please. Never happy. They're the ones making Christianity unattractive to a lost world.

They're the ones making life miserable and burdensome for pastors and leaders because nothing's ever to their liking. And nothing's ever to their liking because they're not happy.

There's a correlation between the two. If you're never happy you won't be satisfied or like much of what's going on.

They're rigid they're formal and they're about their routines and having things their way.

But God's word is telling us that when we are deeply rooted in it as church as a people when the word of God is in us the way it should be it will richly indwell us and it will come out in things like joyful worship joy and gratitude.

And I'll take joy and gratitude over temporary happiness and getting things my way any day. At least that's what I hope for. One last point and we're done.

Number four. Fourth thing that being rooted in the word means is we stay with it and we remain anchored to it. Anchored to it. before we finish I got a couple of quick passages from John's epistles.

John we know he church tradition tells us he lived the longest of all the disciples all the apostles and he lived long enough to see false teachers begin to infiltrate the church.

I wonder if in heaven John got together with Jeremiah and was like oh man there's people running around telling things that weren't true. so John writes to his churches and he says to them you've got to watch out for these false teachers because sometimes they arise from your own ranks within the church and

they threaten to lead God's people away from the truth of the gospel and this had happened. And you know what John's response was? This is really kind of funny.

See 1st John 219. They went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would have continued with us but they went out that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

See? That word continued with us is literally the same Greek word Jesus uses abide. They did not abide with us John says. They didn't abide with Jesus or with the words Jesus handed down to us apostles.

And I want you to know church that their leaving us proves they never were really with us. In fact there was a divine purpose in their leaving.

God was using it to make manifest who they really were. And so John would continue this way a few verses down. 1st John chapter 2 verse 24. He says to the people if it sounds like Jesus talking maybe there's a reason.

John 2:24

let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father.

What you heard from the beginning he's talking about the apostolic teaching. He's talking about the words given to these apostles. This authoritative word Christ gave through them as his chosen instruments.

He says abide with that. Watch out for the new stuff. The different stuff. The changed stuff. Abide in the Son and the Father. And the way you do that is by abiding in the word.

Listen I don't know if it's any harder today than it was in the first century. If it's any worse today than it was back then. But I believe it is challenging for the church to stay rooted in the word.

and we must remain anchored to what we heard in the beginning. People will come along and maybe in your life they already have and they will be intelligent people and they will be seemingly very spiritual people and they will tell you things like you need to move a little

beyond. You know the word of God doesn't really sufficient to speak to us about that based on where we're at today and what we know. Or even the word of God isn't really clear.

But John says abide. Stay rooted.

I like what John Stott the English pastor says. This is a quote from him. He says the Christian can never weigh anchor. That means pull up anchor and launch out into the deep of speculative thought.

God.

So again some Christians love Jesus. Some of them even get a strong foundation laid. And some of them who have the real word implanted and a strong foundation and are even richly indwelt by the word of God for some portion maybe a large portion of their lives.

the Bible tells us it is possible to weigh anchor. To pull up from that. I wish it wasn't. It is possible to let go of the authority of the word.

Or lose the laser focus on the gospel message that is contained in the word. And to trade what's central in for what's peripheral. In for other things.

And sometimes they are good things. Sometimes they are important things. But I am telling you without the life transforming power of Jesus Christ crucified they can never be the main thing.

We must be aware of the tendency to drift. We must remember that our world has a dark prince temporarily over it. And that he together with the forces of the world create a current that pulls against the Christian.

And this is why we must have a foundation and stay anchored to it. This is why we must be rooted and must abide. All of this is what being rooted in the word means.

It means implanting. Having the word implanted in us. It means a deep foundation in us. It means being richly indwelt by God's word. And it means most of all staying with that.

And remaining anchored to it. I don't have to tell you that the people of our world, I'm talking about those outside the church, they root themselves in all manner of things.

In their wealth, in their education, in their power or achievement or career success or silly enough their favorite sports team or whatever it might be.

Some people root themselves in a sense of personal identity, in a racial or ethnic identity, in a sexual identity, in a family identity. And that is what gives them a sense of belonging and tells them who and what they are.

The trouble comes when we as believers succumb to that. And we find ourselves tempted to root ourselves and our identity in anything other than what God says.

Who does God say you are in Christ? A new creature created in His image, fallen but redeemed by the blood.

May you, if you're a Christian, be somebody who abides in Jesus and who understands that abiding in Jesus means abiding in His word. And may we as a church be a place that is always rooted in the word.

Amen? Let's pray. Thank you, Father. Thank you for your word. Lord, we're imperfect. We're flawed. There are many things, Lord, to take time to figure out.

There are many intricacies and complications in life that we just can't Google a Bible verse to solve.

But, Father, that doesn't change the anchor that the word of God is in our hearts. To bring us back to fundamentals about life and purpose and need and where things are going.

So, Lord, let this be a congregation of saints who understand what it means to be rooted deeply in your word. I pray that Redeemer Church will always be a place, Lord, that keeps anchor where anchor should be kept.

Lord, I pray that together with the focus on what Jesus has done, Calvary in our sights, the cross of Jesus, recreating and renaming everything about who we are, that we would remain strongly connected by roots to what you have said.

Lord, we thank you for Jesus, the living word. We thank you for the written word. And we pray that you'd be with us. You promised that you would, and so we pray with great confidence.

And it's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here.

You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here. Thank you. Him. You're here. You're here.