The Kingdom of Heaven Is Like a Tree (Ben Roy, 08/12/23)

Well, this morning I'd like us to take a closer, close look at trees and what we can learn

from them.

You know, there's about 60,000 species of trees.

How many of you have a tree at home?

Oh, good.

All right.

Are trees important?

Yes, they're extremely important.

Do you know the age of the tree that you have at home?

Can you talk to your tree?

No, you can talk to your tree.

You can.

You can talk to a tree.

Trees talk to us.

They communicate with us.

They communicate with us in several ways that we may not even be aware of.

Now, here's one way you can figure out the age of a tree.

You can use a core, a tree core.

And I forgot to bring mine.

I have one.

Sometimes we use it for outdoor ed.

But we can actually core it.

We could core a hole into the tree and we could pick out the core and then we can actually

count the rings on the tree.

Another non-evasive way of trying to figure out what the age of a tree is, you can take

the circumference of the tree, okay, and then you divide it by pi, which is 3.14, and then

you times it by a factor determined by that specific species of tree.

So it gives you a pretty good indication of how old a tree is.

And a tree will probably appreciate it if you do that.

Interesting.

Some trees are very, very old.

We have trees that are hundreds and even thousands of years old.

How many have been to Camp Colocqua?

Okay.

Now, Camp Colocqua, they had a tree called, what was the tree's name?

The old tree.

Do you remember, Darren?

No.

It was old Dan, or Dan.

Dan was in the name.

And it was 2,800 years old.

Can you imagine that?

So if you want to be of old age, you have better luck being a tree than you do for us.

Now, trees do a number of different things.

First of all, they can break down rock.

They can break down rock.

They can create soil.

Did you realize that?

Trees are very, very powerful.

And they also take CO2 from the air.

Do we want to take carbon dioxide from the air?

Say yes.

Yes.

Yes, we do.

Okay.

From the air.

And they replace it with oxygen.

And we obviously need oxygen.

Now, plants and fungus work together.

And in fact, I've got something here I wanted to show you.

This is very interesting.

I have a microorganism that actually produces a flow of electrons.

And this is interesting.

And it's called a mudwad.

So we can actually, every now and then, you might be able to see this little LED light

flash.

Do you see it?

It just flashed.

It's a very, very small amount of electrical energy.

But that microorganism in the process of feeding, what microorganisms speak on, it creates an

electron charge.

And that little LED light will blink.

We'll see it.

Isn't that interesting?

Can you imagine?

Can we see microorganisms with our eyes?

No, we can't see microorganisms with our eyes.

Now, trees and microorganisms are, I don't have to use this now, right?

I can put this down.

This is going to be OK.

All right.

Thank you.

All right.

Good.

All right.

Now, trees and microorganisms have something in common.

In fact, we're talking about fungus.

Ordinarily, we don't want, necessarily, we don't want fungus in our bodies.

But the fungus, the fungus is in the soil.

Fungus is in the soil.

We have a lot of fungi in the soil.

The fungi picks up water.

And it also picks up nutrients from the soil, including phosphorus and nitrogen.

In return, the tree actually transfers to the fungi about 4% to 20% of their sugars

through photosynthesizing.

Isn't that amazing?

I mean, it really is.

You know, and what do we call that sometimes when we have something that benefits something

else?

What do we call that?

Yeah.

And that's interesting.

So the tree does have an association, OK, with the fungi.

And I've got a couple of slides here.

Oh, there we go.

All right.

Here we go.

So let's look at the text again.

I have to come over here in order to do that.

Here we go.

So in verse 13, 31 and 32, the scripture that was read, the kingdom of heaven is like

a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in its field.

It's the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown, it is the greatest of shrubs and

becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.

So what is this about?

It's about the kingdom of God.

It's about the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God started slowly, OK, but yet you know what it's going to do?

It's going to fill the entire earth.

And that's what it's all about, which is interesting.

Have you ever seen a mustard seed?

You never have.

How many of you have seen a mustard seed?

How many of you have eaten mustard?

OK.

All right.

Good.

We're going to talk about, are you going to talk about mustard in your programs?

But you have it on your counter, OK.

Well, what I would like to do, and I'd like to have a couple, let's see, can we have a

couple of our junior deacons that could help me pass something out?

OK.

What I have is I have a mustard seed for you.

Each one of you have a mustard seed, OK.

And so they have, if you'll give each person one of those for me.

No, you can just hold that.

There you go.

So he's going to give each one of you one of the, oh, here we go.

Yeah, come on up.

You can help him.

Just reach in and grab a handful, OK, and you can take one side and you can take the

other side, OK.

But I have a little, a micro centrifugal cassette here and I have one mustard seed in it.

Now, you can open it.

That's fine.

But don't lose it.

It's very, very small.

It's very, very small.

And it's a mustard seed.

And here's a mustard plant.

Now, a mustard plant can be a shrub, OK, can be a shrub and it can be something that you

would grow in your garden and you could eat as it sprouts and it grows.

And it can turn into a tree.

Can turn into a tree that's 20 feet high.

Some of them get 20 feet high and they're very, very broad, very, very big around.

And another thing that you can do is you can actually, hang on.

And I have some that I have started to sprout.

So you can sprout them.

You can eat the sprouts.

You can eat the leaves, OK, and the sprouts.

And for the children that are here today, young people, I have one of these for you.

And it's two mustard seeds in there and they have started to sprout.

And so after the surface, you can come up and you can see some green leaves.

I know it's hard for you to see, but there's some little green leaves that are coming out

of that little shootage.

In fact, Carrie, she can have that one already.

She's already ready to go.

Mustard seed.

What do we know about the mustard seed?

God says something, but if we have a what?

Faith like a mustard seed.

So look at the dimensions.

Look at the physical properties of that mustard seed.

It's really, really small.

So if we have faith, that much faith like a mustard seed, then we have a lot of power,

don't we?

That's it.

Sometimes I think we forget about that.

And in Jeremiah 17, 8, it says, they will be like a tree planted by the waters that

sends out its shoots 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.

This is talking.

Oh, thank you very much.

Did you get one?

OK, good.

Very good.

Everybody got one?

OK, good.

All right.

Very good.

Now, this is talking about a person, OK, that is a Christian.

They rely on Jesus Christ.

They've given their hearts to him.

And this is what it is.

There will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the streams.

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.

Is that you?

Is that me?

That should be you.

That should be me.

That's a very interesting thing that Jeremiah talks about.

There's nothing like watching a tree around water.

Trees need water, don't they?

You and I need water.

You know how much your body weight is water?

Do you want to know?

Say yes.

Let's say you weigh 100 pounds.

70%, approximately 70% of your body weight is water.

So you're mainly made of water.

And your brain is mostly made out of water, which is kind of interesting to me.

Interesting.

Now, does anybody recognize that tree?

I'm sorry that it's so small.

This tree has been cut down.

It's been cut down a few years ago.

I always like to go where this tree was on the property because it was so huge.

Anybody recognize that?

Y'all don't get out much.

You don't recognize that much?

Have you ever gone to the UPS place down in Chattanooga?

It was on the front part of the UPS place.

And look how big that tree was.

I don't know why they had to cut it down.

I have no idea why they had to cut it down.

But I felt really, really ill, and it was gone.

It was gone.

Now, that's what we would call a mother tree.

A mother tree is exactly what mothers do.

What does a mother do?

A mother takes care of its children.

And mother trees take care of the saplings, and they take care of them in very special

ways.

Let's go on.

Now, who recognizes that tree?

We should have some hands up.

Can you see it?

You probably can't see it very clearly.

Oh, you recognize it?

Where is it?

Where is it?

I think it's down there.

I think it's up the mountain at the trail over there.

That's right.

It's down here in Ringo.

It's at the trail, the nature trail, isn't it?

That's interesting.

And it has a growth on the side of it.

I think it looks like maybe a monkey, a monkey's head.

Interesting.

That's a growth.

We call that a burl, a burl.

A burl can be caused by injury, where the cells of the tree just grow over it, and they

grow over it.

It could be from other problems.

What people do with that is they can actually cut the burl off or cut it when its tree is

taken down.

They can make beautiful furniture out of it, because it has some very, very intricate,

very, very interesting designs in the grain of that wood.

Even something that's not natural the way it should be can be something of beauty.

That's interesting.

Very interesting.

Here's another huge burl at the bottom of that tree right here.

Some of these trees are in our area.

I took those pictures.

What about the root structure?

The root structure in plants are very interesting.

As far as trees go, they're all intertwined.

The roots can grow further than the canopy leaves, and they can be intertwined.

This is where the fungi comes into place, which is interesting.

I wish I could see the screen as well as my notes, but I can't.

Come on down here.

Look at the root structure of that tree right there.

These are some of the trees that blew over in the wind.

Why would they blow over in the wind?

Well, they may have been weak to begin with.

The roots may have been decaying.

Because roots grab a hold of the soil and they grab a hold of the rock, and that's how

they hang on.

That's how they hang on.

Now, this is a butterfly.

We mentioned something about fungus in trees.

They have a semi... What's the word that I'm trying to say, Darren?

There you go.

That's the word.

Because they can also feed off of that, and then they can give back something as well.

Interesting.

How many of you have any of these at home?

They're mushrooms.

You know, in mushrooms, they just come up overnight.

Isn't that amazing?

Talk about growth.

Talk about growth.

Well, that's another part of the fungus, and that fungus is related to those... It's in

the tree roots.

It's in the tree roots.

Interesting.

These are some of the ones that I found on the little trail.

Now, some of them are edible.

How many of you have eaten some of the fungus that you found out?

Do we have to be careful?

We have to be really careful.

You've got to really know something about mushrooms and fungus.

You just can't eat a particular one, and it can make you sick.

It can actually make you dead.

We have to be careful.

I remember we were on a winter camping trip out at the old camp, Combe Gay camp, and we

found a shelf mushroom on the side of a tree.

I didn't know exactly which one it was, but the person that was in charge of that trip

said, oh, that's a sulfur polyporous.

It's a wonderful mushroom.

We cut it off of the side of the tree, which didn't hurt the tree.

We took it back to the camp.

We sauteed it, and then we just cooked it, and boy, it tasted just like chicken.

I mean, amazing, amazing, amazing.

Interesting.

Interesting designs.

Some of them are extremely colorful as well.

Now, in order for trees to exist, we have to have what?

We've got to have water.

Have to have water.

You and I have to have water in order to exist, and we need water.

What has God done?

He has provided us with what we call the water cycle, the water cycle.

Without the water cycle, we can't live.

Without the water cycle, we can't have life on planet Earth, by the way.

What drives the water cycle?

It's the sun.

The sun drives the water cycle.

Got to have the sun.

The sun heats up the Earth.

The sun heats up the water.

The water evaporates.

The water vapors go up into the atmosphere, go up into the air.

They collect and they make clouds.

Pretty soon, the cloud gets so heavy that it can't stay a flying anymore, and so we

have precipitation.

We have precipitation in the form of rain, of snow, of sleet, all of that.

All of that falls back to the Earth again.

The trees are important for rain.

Did you know that?

They give off a tremendous amount of water every day.

Tremendous amount of water every day.

Where does that water vapor go?

Goes up into the air, and it forms our clouds.

If we have a breeze and wind, that cloud can be transported over an area where there isn't

a lot of trees or greenery.

And it can rain there.

So that's an amazing thing.

Now if we look at the cross section of a piece of wood, and here is one here.

Now the water goes up from the ground and it goes up all the way up into the canopy

or the leaves of the tree.

How does it do that?

Well, there's a couple of ways that God has provided for that to happen.

And water is a, what shall we say?

Water has a lot of properties.

We used to think that there was only about three properties of water, but now scientists

are telling us there are dozens of properties of water that we hadn't considered before.

What's amazing to me is when we start studying about God's creation, as we get into it deeper

and deeper, we understand that it is more complex than we could ever imagine.

You found that out probably too, right Darren?

It's just absolutely amazing.

One of those properties of water is that it likes to stick to stuff.

Have you ever put your hand in water, you took it out and your hand's wet, or your clothes

in water, you come out and your clothes are wet.

Well that's called adhesion.

Water likes to stick to itself.

Then we have something that's cohesion.

Cohesion is the water molecules like to stick to each other.

Isn't that interesting?

You know, and as we think about that, there are some spiritual applications here I think.

What about you and I as Christians or members of this church?

Should we stick to each other?

Yeah, we need to stick to each other.

That's why we're here today.

We're worshiping together.

There's strength and there's power in that community.

What about sticking not only to each other, but also sticking to others, other things

by the way.

There's water in the ground, it sticks to these little tubes that come all the way up

the tree.

Some of these trees are hundreds of feet tall.

Let's see what we got.

I have something that relates to that.

Let's check this out.

Here we go.

I've got some little transfer pipettes.

Now in the laboratory we use transfer pipettes to transfer water from one place to another.

So I have three different sizes of transfer water, transfer pipettes.

Here's a large one, large in diameter.

And so we can actually put water in here and we can transfer that water from one place

to another.

So this is a large one, but trees don't have them this large.

Here's another one.

This one's a little smaller in diameter.

So it gets water from one place to another as well.

But trees have them a lot smaller than that, obviously.

Here's another one.

This is the smallest one that I have right here.

And where did our helpers go?

I got something to pass out to the kids here to remind you of this.

What about the diameter of the tubes that go ahead and feed the leaves from the ground

in a tree?

Well, they're very, very small.

And so what I've got right here, guys, is I have, you can give one of these, you may

have to, you can give one of these to each one of the kids, okay?

So they can get one of these transfer pipettes.

They're not made out of glass, by the way.

So some of you are going to say, you know, that's probably not too safe.

But I don't think these are made out of glass.

Oh, hang on.

I think these are made out of glass.

Okay, then parents, be aware.

They have something that's glass.

So you may want to take it away from them, okay, and save it for them.

But this is Pyrex.

I don't think Pyrex makes plastic.

Okay.

But what about these plants, these trees?

You know what the diameter of those tubes are that go up into the leaves?

It's 0.02 inches.

That's very, very small.

And some are even 0.008, okay?

And all of that goes up into the leaves.

Now with just the principles of water that I told you about, water could only go up about

three feet, okay?

Just about all the further water could go up.

So what happens is that God has provided with, she's getting a drink with it.

Yeah, these are sterile, by the way, because they were in a pack that said sterile.

But that's interesting.

Thank you for passing those out.

If you just put them back in that thing over here.

Okay.

And I forgot my train of thought here.

Oh, that's right.

Yeah, it can only go up three feet by looking at the properties of water that I just gave

you.

But God has also given something to the plants that's called transpiration.

And in transpiration, the water that's in our plants and the leaves, it doesn't stay

there.

It's actually wicked away.

It's pulled away by the sun, by evaporation.

And that gives the rest of the power, okay, for the water to go from the roots all the

way up to the canopy, to the leaves, which is a tremendous amount of force.

And God had planned all of that, which is, I think, is so amazing.

It's absolutely amazing.

But we've got to have water.

Without water, the trees can't exist.

Now the water is, you remember when Jesus met the woman at the well, the Samaria, in

Samaria?

And what did he ask the woman for?

He asked her for a drink, didn't he?

And he told her, he said, if you knew who I was speaking to you, you would ask for the

water of life.

He was giving her the idea of eternal life.

And Jesus can give us eternal life.

That is the water.

That's the water that you and I need.

We need that for ourselves.

Here's a little cross section of a tree slice.

And we see those little rings.

Every ring represents a year, right?

Every ring represents a year.

Sometimes the rings are further apart than others, because we may have a drought.

We may have times of the year or years where we don't have a lot of rain.

If you happen to be in a tropical area, if you take the tree slice and look at it, you

don't see necessarily individual rings, because it doesn't have a fall and a summer and a

spring and a winter.

And so it's pretty much all, it looks like it's mostly all the same.

These are some trees and the tree roots that were near us.

I'm sorry that we don't have, it should be a little bit darker to see.

Here's a picture of a leaf.

Why are leaves colored green?

It's because of what?

Chlorophyll.

Chlorophyll.

It's chlorophyll.

And that's part of the photosynthesis.

So what does the tree do?

The tree gets sunlight, right?

The tree gets sunlight.

What does it do with that sunlight?

It converts it, doesn't it?

It converts it to what?

Some sugars, okay?

And the sugar goes down, it goes down into the roots, okay?

That's what the fungi like.

The fungi likes the sugar, okay?

The starch, the sugars, okay?

And so that's good for it.

And the leaf also gives off carbon dioxide.

I'm sorry, gives off oxygen.

It's taking in carbon dioxide, which is amazing, amazing.

Now when it gets cooler and the tree loses the photosynthesis, okay, is very, very weak

and they're not getting what they need from the sun, then they turn colors, don't they?

Don't you love the colors, okay?

Those colors have been there all the time.

Those colors of the leaf have always been there, but sometimes we don't see them because

the green, the chlorophyll overpowers those other colors, but they're there.

Another interesting experiment that you can do is you can take a leaf and you can put

it in a baggie, a plastic bag, and then zip it up as tight as you can and just let it

sit for an hour or two and then go in and check on it.

And look at all the water vapor that's in there.

All that water is coming off of the leaf.

Oh, it's coming off of the leaf.

And that's proof that the leaves are, that's part of the transpiration and all of that

water is going back into our atmosphere.

And that was designed, that was a design, that was designed by God to make our atmosphere.

There's another root, a boletus, a tree that fell over not too far from here.

Sorry, you can't see that.

You recognize that tree as well?

Yeah, where is it?

It's down here at the park, isn't it?

Yeah.

I wonder what makes trees go like that.

Well, some people think that some of them were marker trees, okay, that maybe that the

early settlers, okay, of this country and they actually trained them and bent them as

markers.

But that's interesting.

Think about the forces that are on that tree.

Every time I walk underneath there, I'm thinking, you know, one of these days this may come

down, okay?

But it's kind of an interesting way that they actually grow.

And some of these trees are extremely tall, up to 300 feet tall.

Can you imagine having the water coming down from the earth and going all the way up into

the canopy?

Wow, what a design, what a design God has made about these trees.

This is, yeah, it's Big Dan.

Big Dan is the tree at Camp Colaco.

Actually it's down.

I don't think it's up anymore, but they have a cross-section view.

At least they used to have a cross-section view of that.

Then they had points in history.

What happened at this point of this tree's life and what happened here and what happened

there.

Interesting.

Now, what happens when we take and we cut down trees in the forest?

And usually what they do is they cut down, you know, the largest trees because they're

the most valuable for lumber and resources.

The problem is that the mother trees are networked to many, many, many other trees through that

fungi and through the root system.

And they help each other.

They really do.

They help each other.

They help each other to provide nourishment.

If one tree is not getting, if maybe it's a sapling, it's a young tree, and it's not

getting enough sunshine, that means it can't go through the process of photosynthesis like

it should.

And a mother tree is going to share.

It's going to share her resources with that tree.

Now, isn't that amazing?

You and I share our resources with others.

We should.

God has placed all of that in nature, and the trees do a wonderful job with it.

And in fact, the foresters, they used to think that, you know, there should be a lot of space

in between trees.

You know, let's leave some space.

Let's leave some space so that they can have more sunlight.

Okay?

And, but that isn't true.

What they're finding today is that they need to, they need to actually plant trees that

are closer together.

And they're getting more biomass because of that.

And the trees help each other.

If there's too much of a gap in between trees, then the sunlight, a lot of the sunlight gets

through, yes.

But what does it do to the forest floor?

It warms it up.

And the temperature of the forest floor needs to be stayed somewhat cool.

And so that needs that shade.

It needs that shade.

I think that's interesting.

Well, what do we do?

Should we, should we particularly care for our older members?

We're talking about mother trees, but now I'm talking about older members, okay, of

our church or older members of our society.

We ought to respect them.

Okay?

We can learn from them.

And what do they do?

Their responsibility is to nurture us.

And they can nurture us if we have what?

We have an association with them.

I think that's very interesting, very interesting.

And that's the end of those particular pictures.

Now what are you going to do with your mustard seed?

Are you going to try to plant it?

Actually you could eat it right now, although we're having potluck, you may not want to

do that.

You could, and I've got about maybe four or five of those that are in a little Petri dish

that the kids can have.

And if you want one, if there's enough, you can have it.

But all of those little shoots, all of those little shoots.

But I hope that maybe that you would think about faith, if we have the faith of a mustard

seed.

Don't only think about the mustard seed, but trees.

Because trees remind us of a creator God, a creator God that's so much more, every time

we study more about our creator God, every time we study more about trees or plants,

we are just amazed.

Amazed at a creator, someone that could create such a plant that scientists still don't know

much about.

That's going to be fun to study in heaven, isn't it?

I mean I think it's amazing.

It all points us to a creator God that is so awesome.

And we can never imagine how awesome he really is.

Lord, thank you for your creation.

Thank you for your creative power, as we learn from school to school, as we learn from different

professors the fact that we just don't really understand everything that there is to know.

And we thank that you've created the world.

You've created the trees in such a way that we can learn from them.

And that you want us to be like a tree, that we will not be removed, that we will stand

when the winds and the weather gets rough and when there's a drought and our leaves

will always bear fruit.

We thank you.

Be with us as we start a new week.

Be with us this week.

Shine your grace upon us.

We ask this thing in Jesus' name.

Amen.