The Tree by the River

Thanks for listening to the His Hands Church podcast.

If you're using the His Hands Church mobile app, please turn off the auto lock on your phone's general settings so that you can listen to the message uninterrupted.

And thank you for being part of what God is doing at His Hands.

Good morning.

It's um been a little while since I shared, but I'm excited about getting to uh this morning.

Uh it's a great day today.

I appreciate what uh what Nathan talked about uh during the Lord's Supper and with Veterans Day tomorrow.

It's a good time to thank all of you that have served and sacrificed for us and our country, and we'll always we'll always be grateful to um to each of you for that.

Um it's Baptism Sunday this morning.

And and the uh we have uh somewhere around 70 people being baptized.

7-0.

Um and it is uh it's such an exciting time and and uh and morning, one of my favorite days really of the whole year.

And so we'll finish up as usual about 1115 and then we'll take 20 minutes or so to to get changed, and we'll meet back over um over here.

And uh, even if you're not being baptized or with someone uh who is, if you can stay, it's quite an experience.

You know, it's it's it's a big experience to see one person go on with Jesus.

But to see 70, you know, consecutively, it is uh man, God's presence is strong and his Holy Spirit uh flows.

There's a great verse in Romans about baptism.

Uh that is what happened in baptism.

When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind.

When we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace, a new life in a new land.

That's what baptism into the life of Jesus means.

When we are lower into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus.

When we're raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus.

Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we're going in our new grace sovereign country.

And so when we're thinking about baptism, it's easy to stress, you know, obedience or maybe a step in God's plan, but the real power in baptism is the oneness.

It's the deeper connection, the oneness with Jesus, spiritually sharing what Jesus did.

You know, Jesus was baptized.

We get to do the exact same thing.

Spiritually, it's symbolic of death and burial and our resurrection to a whole new way of seeing and a whole new way of life.

And it's supernatural.

You know, it's a supernatural, mysterious thing.

Uh we're all created in God's image with a spirit that connects and hears from the Holy Spirit.

And you might remember the two prominent things that happened when Jesus was baptized.

First, the Holy Spirit descended uh beautifully and uh softly onto uh Jesus.

And the other was the Jesus Abba Father, that's what he called him, Abba, Daddy in Hebrew, said, This is my son.

I love him, and I'm really proud of him.

And both of those are true of us as we get baptized.

The Holy Spirit does something special and supernatural and different in each of us.

You know, because we're different, we're created in a different way, and our relationship with God all looks uh a little bit different.

And so, you know, as we're baptized, it might be that we immediately feel an overwhelming purity or a joy or a presence of God.

It might be that a few weeks from now we realize, wow, I'm hearing God even more clearly, or that God's really changing me, you know, from uh from the inside out.

And then the other truth is the same with uh Abba Father in Jesus, that that God loves you, that He's proud of you.

He's not mad at you.

You know, He doesn't even remember the times that you've messed up.

Uh in Psalms 103 it says, He has removed our sins as far from us as the East is from the West.

And in Isaiah 43 it says, I, yes, I alone, will blot out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again.

And so we're pure and clean and spotless and holy and completely lovable in God's sight.

He's erased anything that we've ever done wrong and never thought about them again.

Uh He loves each of you and feels about you exactly the same way that He feels about Jesus.

And so that's why baptism is such uh a beautiful and powerful thing.

You know, it's not a ritual, it's it's a uh statement.

I'm all in.

You know, it's an experience and it's a oneness with Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit who loves us.

And so each time we have Baptism Sunday, there are people who are here just kind of minding their own business, and uh the Holy Spirit nudges them and says, you know, today's the day.

Let's deepen our relationship today.

And so afterwards, we're gonna have a bunch of towels and t-shirts at the table over there where uh the Lord's Supper was.

And so even if you didn't plan to be baptized this morning and you would like to be, we'll have everything that you'll need.

Um and it could be the most memorable, special uh day of your life.

It's big morning in another way.

Uh, it is the first Sunday that we get to pick a child or children for Christmas angels.

Um and we have 235 kids.

It's it's another exciting thing.

If uh if baptism is the best day, you know, Christmas Eve and Easter are always big days, but uh delivery day with Christmas angels is one of the most exciting days of the year, too, and that'll be December 15th this year.

And so we've got 235 children in our uh community that will have uh Christmas because of you.

And we work with the counselors at Woodstock Elementary and uh Carmel Elementary and Woodstock Middle School, and we also have 35 wonderful kids from Turnaround Ministries that we get to help this year.

And even if you're getting baptized, you'll have time to pick pick out a star.

They're laid out on two different tables in the lobby, they're uh kind of grouped um by families.

Uh you don't need to choose a whole family unless you you want to.

And each child has a wish list.

And this is uh really important that once we've chosen a star which represents a child, um, we need to go to one of the volunteers and let them know who we've who we've chosen and get the child's uh wish list.

And it's just like our own children and their wish list.

You know, if a Lamborghini is on the list, you don't have to uh you don't have to get it.

It's just a uh it's just a guide.

And uh for the younger kids, and most of these are younger kids, think of about$100 as a budget.

For teenagers, maybe$125.

And it's pretty important that we stay within these amounts because we'll have end up having different children from different families.

And just like we do with our own kids, usually at Christmas we try to keep it all you know pretty much even.

Um it's important that we do that for these kids.

So we want to stay in those dollar ranges and not you know, not go over and spoil a child when then their sibling uh doesn't have a similar Christmas.

And um we'll bring the gifts back on December 1st and December 8th, and then deliver on December 15th, which is just a uh a fun and exciting day.

Um if I left out anything, all the details will be on on uh handouts as you uh as you choose the uh your child.

Um last weekend, Ken Kington, when he was speaking, he mentioned uh Danny Warfel.

So some of you may know him, if particularly if you're gators like Tim.

Um the um but he won a Heisman Trophy with uh University of Florida and a national championship and um and played six or seven years in the pros.

And um this year he's getting inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

But he leads a ministry called Desire Street Ministries.

And uh that kind of happened when he was playing for the Saints in uh in New Orleans.

Um a gator and a saint, that is a really bad combination.

But um but anyway, the Desire Street is one of the roughest uh streets in New Orleans.

Taxis won't go in there, fire trucks won't won't go in there.

It's it's uh it's super dangerous.

And when he was uh playing for the Saints, they had some sort of charitable event where they ended up driving through there, and he saw these crackhouses and these abandoned houses, and it's just kind of like a war zone.

And as they're drive driving by, a little girl comes out one of the houses with holding a teddy bear, and and he realized that girl lives in that house on that street, and it it impacted him uh tremendously.

And um and so shortly after he he uh started leading this ministry, um, which is transforming Desire Street, and right now they're building a community center and a health center, and you know, the the whole street along with his the whole street was wiped out in Katrina, and so was all of uh Danny's uh possessions, you know, except his most important possessions, his family.

Um and they uh and so now they have inner city ministries, they've got one in in Atlanta, in Southeast Atlanta, on a street that's very much like Desire Street in New Orleans, and in Mobile, and in Lakeland, Florida, and I think Dallas.

And so last weekend was their big fundraiser for the year, and it's it's around the Georgia, Florida game.

And uh and I was there, and there's a lot of uh football stars there.

Emmett Smith was there, and Lindsay Scott, and uh Mousa Smith, and just a bunch of uh Kevin Butler, a bunch of guys.

And so the fundraiser part is an auction.

And so they auctioned off all this memorabilia, and they got that stuff from those guys, but they've got Tim Tebow's stuff and Herschel Walker stuff, and uh um Coach Dooley was there and his stuff.

And at the end of the auction, the final item is a football.

And it's a football that's signed by the little kids on Desire Street.

And it's a statement for the ministry, and and it and this the statement is that a little six-year-old girl living in the worst part of an inner city signature is just as viable as Emmett Smith's or Herschel Walker.

Certainly she's just as viable as anyone who is famous and and um well known.

And so that ball got auctioned off for three times more than the highest um uh bid on any other article uh the whole night.

But it was a statement.

And and and for us, Christmas Angels is a statement that we've got these children uh in our community that need our help.

And we don't worry about what their religion is, we certainly don't care about race or even how they got in the situation.

Uh we just have a chance to love them and help them and take care of them, and it's a great honor for us to get to to do that together.

And it's one great reason for us to be together is that we can combine our our hearts and our resources and do um do big things.

And so be sure and grab a star if you can afterwards and uh we'll uh we'll take care of those kids.

And part of that story about Danny was a bit of a segue, because next Sunday is Telgate Sunday, which is also a really fun uh fun Sunday.

And it'll be church kind of like normal, if as normal as church is around here.

And and then afterwards uh we're gonna have a chili cook-off.

You know, if you haven't signed up, uh, I mean, there's a chance you could be the champion chili cooker for an entire year.

And uh and so we'll get to eat a bunch of chili.

The Salisbury's are gonna do uh barbecue.

We've kind of uh ramped it up this year.

We've got some inflatables and things for the kids.

We're gonna have the playground open um for a certain age children.

We'll make sure no one gets trampled.

And um we'll just have a great time together uh eating and listening to tunes, and then uh at one o'clock uh when the Falcons uh play there at the Bucks next week.

Um we'll have the biggest high def screen in the in the city and and we can watch um the game together.

And um and Danny Worfel's gonna be here with us next Sunday and is gonna be our uh our guest speaker for Tellgate Sunday.

And so he's a he's an inspiring and encouraging guy, so you'll definitely want to uh hear him.

It'd be a good a really good opportunity to invite any of your friends that are um football fans, um, particularly if you got friends that are gator fans.

Uh, you know, there's a trophy of Danny outside the swamp, and uh, and I'm sure that uh they'd be encouraged by being able to come and meet him and and see him talk.

And um normally he wouldn't do this because he's really a pretty humble guy, but I'm probably gonna talk him into bringing the Heisman and putting it somewhere if you want to see see what uh what that looks like.

Um so that'll be next Sunday, uh Telgate Sunday.

All right, that's a lot.

Let's pray.

So, Father, we praise you.

We thank you for being such a um uh a great father, for being our Abba Father, our daddy father, for adopting us as your children, and we just praise you for that.

Holy Spirit, we thank you for for being our teacher.

We ask you to teach us each this morning that that uh we'll each leave with something, something that we knew there was a reason we were here, something that we took away uh that we knew was just for us and and from you.

And Jesus, we just praise you for being uh our Savior, for being our King, and for being our friend.

And it's in your name we pray.

Amen.

And so together we're going through the entire Bible in uh eight weeks, in uh kind of eight big chunks or sections or chapters.

And uh it's nice because it's kind of giving us uh a big picture in a couple of ways.

First, we're seeing the stories of the Bible and as they flow.

Um we're also seeing different promises that are made throughout um the Bible, and we're also seeing eight different landmarks, um, and they're all trees.

And so we're calling this this series uh the story of the trees, but we see each week that the story really is about Jesus.

And so the first tree is my favorite.

It's the the tree of life.

And there's trees of life all over uh the building, it's an important part of us, you know, and and uh in our culture, and and and it's an important part of God's plan and understanding what God's up to and really wanting to do in our lives.

The choice was simple in the garden.

It was a relationship with uh with our Abba Father, a relationship of love and life, um, or it was choosing rules and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And so Adam and Eve made the same choice that most of the world uh has always made since creation.

Just give us the rules, you know, plug us into a religion.

Uh but what God has always wanted is a relationship, an individual relationship with each of us.

And that was the fall, if you will, but it came with a promise, and the promise was that death would be defeated.

The next tree was an oak at Momre, where Abraham was promised that through his descendants everyone in the world would be blessed.

The next chapter was last week.

It was the burning bush, or better stated, the tree that didn't burn up.

Um with that tree, Moses was called.

You know, Moses was a flawed person, just like uh each of us.

But like each of us, God had a plan for him.

And through Moses came the law.

But that wasn't the promise.

The promise was that someday the law would be written on our hearts.

In other words, that that being like Jesus someday could just come naturally to each of us.

And this morning we move on through the Bible, and it's perfect for Baptism Sunday because today we move to the kings and a tree by the river.

You know, God never intended for Israel to have a king.

But we have free will, and the people wanted a king like the other nations, and so God was saddened because he wanted to lead Israel supernaturally, but the people demanded a king.

And the promise we'll see is that someday there will be a perfect king.

Uh the next chapter will be wisdom and prophecy, and the promise will be that God will meet us in our everyday lives.

The next tree will be the Holy Spirit and the fruits of that tree.

You know, the fruits of the Spirit transform us and they sustain us.

And then finally, we return to God's original plan as we see the trees of life and the new creation that uh we call heaven.

But this morning we're on section four, chapter four, and it's a metaphorical tree based on a song that King David wrote.

But uh first we need to talk about physical kings.

You know, Israel was doing well, they had some natural enemies like the Philistines, but God was leading them and he was blessing Israel himself, and he would do that through a prophet.

He would speak to a prophet, then the prophet would speak to God's words directly to the people.

And so Israel had a similar choice.

We all end up kind of having this choice, but Israel as a nation had a similar choice as Adam and Eve had in the Garden of Eden.

You know, do we want a direct relationship with God or is there something better out there?

And they thought that there was something um better out there.

They wanted to be like the other nations.

You know, if they had a battle, the other nations would have a king and a pomp and all this stuff, and the king would lead them into battle, and they thought that was pretty cool, and uh and they wanted to be just like them.

And so in 1 Samuel 8 when Samuel heard their demand, give us a king to rule us, he was crushed.

How awful Samuel prayed to God.

God answered Samuel, Go ahead and do what they're asking.

They're not rejecting you, they've rejected me as their king.

From the day I brought them out of Egypt until this very day, they've been behaving like this, leaving me for other gods, and now they're doing it to you.

So let them have their own way, but warn them of what they're in for.

Tell them the way kings operate, just what they're likely to get from a king.

And so this is what God does.

He gives us free will.

Now, so much of the Old Testament uh can seem really jacked up, you know, and it's like, what in the world?

Why is God doing this?

Why is God allowing this?

And in most cases, the answer is free will.

That he is working within the constraints of the people doing what the people uh want to do.

You know, even the law, the old law given through Moses, wasn't God's perfect desire for the people of Israel.

There's a time Jesus is talking to the Pharisees, and and he's talking about a specific law, and he says, you know, that law is only there because of your hard hearts.

If it wasn't for that, God wouldn't have even needed a law like that one.

Um and so it so it's free will, and they choose a king, a physical king instead of God.

We have a king, we call him a president.

Um we we get to elect him, which is better than than most countries, and a uh and a good thing.

Um Samuel's about to warn the people about what having a king is gonna look like, and see if this sounds familiar at all.

So Samuel told them, delivered God's warning to the people who were asking him to give them a king.

He said, This is the way the kind of king you're talking about operates.

He'll take your sons and make soldiers of them, chariotry, cavalry, infantry, regimented in battalions and squadrons.

He'll put some to forced labor on his farms, ploughing and harvesting, and others to making either weapons of war or chariots in which he can ride in luxury.

He'll put your daughters to work as beauticians and waitresses and cooks.

He'll conscript your best fields, vineyards, and orchid uh orchids, and orchids.

They were big into flowers.

They're very best orchids.

They're orchards, and hand them over to his special friends.

He'll tax your harvests and vintage to support his extensive bureaucracy.

Your prized workers and best animals he'll take for his own use, he'll lay a tax on your flocks, and you'll end up no better than slaves.

The day will come when you cry in desperation because of this king you so much want for yourselves, but don't expect God to answer.

But the people wouldn't listen to Samuel.

No, they said, We will have a king to rule us.

Then we'll be just like all the other nations.

Our king will rule us and lead us.

And fight our battles.

Samuel took in what they said and rehearsed it with God.

God told Samuel, do what they say, make him a king.

And so the first king was exactly what they wanted.

You know, Saul, he was the one chosen.

He was about a foot taller than anybody else, you know, strikingly handsome, big, strong, the type of guy that they wanted to lead them into battle.

And at first, uh Saul had success, and Israel stayed successful.

But uh before long, Saul stopped listening to God, stopped listening to Samuel, started doing things uh his own way.

And so Samuel tells him that he's gonna be replaced.

And that makes Saul very paranoid, you know, wondering who is this next king?

Who is it that's gonna um replace me?

And eventually it becomes obvious.

It's the young shepherd boy uh who loves God, who is a man God says that really gets God, understands God's own heart.

And one of the greatest stories in the Bible is in this particular section of the Bible.

Um it's when David steps out with great faith and great c courage, and there's this huge Philistine warrior that uh is taunting uh the Israelites, and he's taunting the Israelites' God, and and David just happens to show up to take some stuff to his brothers, and he's like, What is going on?

And how could this be happening?

And he picks up some stones and he runs right at the big warrior and kills him and becomes an instant hero in Israel.

You know, here's a young teenage boy, now one of the biggest heroes, just like Justin Bieber, but um but even bigger.

And um and so that makes Saul really paranoid, and so he sets out trying to kill David in different ways.

Eventually Saul dies, David does take the throne, and he becomes, I guess, the most successful, certainly the most famous uh king of all of all, but he's still like us a deeply flawed um person.

You know, he struggles as a parent, he struggles as a husband, he eventually has an affair in order to cover it up.

Uh he has a really good friend of his killed.

And so David's lived both ways.

He's lived close to God, in close relationship with God, and he's lived doing his own things the way that he wanted to do them.

And he wrote a song about it.

It's the very first uh song in the book of songs that we call Psalms.

But he says, Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers, but they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night.

They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season.

Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.

And that was David's experience.

You know, when he stayed connected to God, things went well.

He felt like a strong tree planted next to the river, God's spirit flowing through him.

When he got away from God, he withered and he felt anxious and empty.

You know, it's true for us too.

Um, sometimes we can even have our own kings.

I'm sure we've all experienced that at one time or another.

It might be work or money or it could be sex or it could be an addiction, it could be anything that we put on a higher plane than our relationship with God.

You know, and when we're in that mode, we're anxious and empty and dry.

But when God's our priority and we're connected with Him, we're strong and we feel His Spirit flowing through us and we prosper, and not necessarily like prosper like being rich, but we prosper in our souls where we feel alive and healthy and excited about life.

And so before David dies, God through Samuel makes David an interesting promise.

He says, Your house and your kingdom will continue before me for all time, and your throne will be secure forever.

And then this is bolstered by a lot of prophecies that say that a perfect king is coming to sit on David's throne.

And the next king was probably the most, uh the second most famous.

It was uh David's son from Bathsheba, it was Solomon.

Uh and he was a great king, but again, he was far from perfect.

As wise as he was, and probably the wisest person ever, he eventually did the exact same thing, uh, his own thing, you know, and turned away uh from God and what God instructed.

And so this in the st is in the this is where in the story uh this drawing that that God gave Ben takes a new turn.

You know, just as God warned, these physical kings start to ruin Israel.

And so much so that Israel eventually has a bit of a civil war and the kingdom's divided.

Now there's two kingdoms, there's Israel and uh and Judah.

And so in the drawing, you can see the split there, where things are kind of spinning out of control ever since the choice in the garden.

But here they kind of take a whole nother turn and actually the the kingdoms split.

And eventually they're overthrown.

Um both Israel and Judah are taken into captivity.

Israel by the Assyrians, and then Judah by uh the Babylonians and King Nebuchadnezzar.

And so, still in a section of the Bible that sets the stage for some real uh heroes like Daniel and like Esther and like Ezra and like Nehemiah.

Um but things still have really gotten out of control for God's people.

They're scattered, they're exiled, and they feel hopeless.

You know, maybe they remember God's promise that one day there will be a perfect king that'll sit on David's throne.

Perhaps they even still sing that song, you know, that uh that David wrote.

Each Sunday, Marlon has uh created a new painting for us.

And today's is the tree planted by the river that prospers in connection with God.

And that can be us.

That can be used and our God, our Abba Father, Daddy Father.

He's made it so easy to connect with him.

One person has the answer, one person was the answer to all of God's promises, and we just put our trust in him.

David's throne will be secure forever, we will have the perfect king.

You know, at that time, in this section of the Bible, it didn't seem like a promise that was gonna come true.

In fact, it didn't seem like any of the promises that God had made up at this time were gonna come true.

And so we talked about uh Christmas angels.

Uh Christmas will be here before you know it.

I uh I actually rode the pink pig uh at Lennox with Brighton last week.

And uh so that was uh that was fun.

Christmas music was already playing at the mall.

Um but do you remember what what the angel Gabriel uh said to Mary?

Don't be afraid, Mary, the angel told her, for you have found favor with God.

You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus.

He will be a very great, he will be very great, and will be called the Son of the Most High.

The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David, and he will reign over Israel forever.

His kingdom will never end.

Finally, the perfect king.

Finally, the answer to the promise given to David.

And if the worship team will come up now, we'll stop there.

You know, sixty-five times in the New Testament, we are called the kingdom of God.

And this time we see once again that Jesus is the answer to the promise, to every promise.

And we do have a perfect king now.

We do have a perfect friend.

I mentioned how easy it is to connect with God, to be that tree that's planted by the water.

We're all created in God's image.

It's one of the most wonderful things we could ever know.

That each of us, with all our differences, we're all created in God's image, which means we have a spirit inside of us.

And when we put our trust in that perfect King, that answer to all of God's promises, that spirit comes alive and it connects with God's spirit.

And from then on, he does the heavy lifting.

You know, he does the big work, he transforms us from the inside out.

And so we start changing inside, you know, and eventually everything around us starts to change too.

And so I love this, I love this tree, Marlon, that uh that you painted, like all of yours.

Um, they're all over the building.

They're to me, they're just so encouraging and inspiring, and they're a reminder that we don't want rules and we don't want religion.

We want the tree of life.

We want a relationship with uh the living God.

And won't it be cool?

Won't it be cool when we see the real tree of life?

In Revelations, it describes the new creation.

It says, Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

It flowed down the center of the main street.

On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit with a fresh crop each month.

Someday let's all hang out together under one of those trees, and we can talk about how good God is and how he kept all his promises, and we can talk about what a perfect king we have in Jesus.

Let's pray.

Father, we just praise you.

We praise you for your love for us, we praise you for your plan that showed our great need for you, and we praise you for sending your son.

And Jesus, thank you for for coming and dying and saving us, for giving us a perfect king forever, for giving us a perfect friend forever.

Uh, we love you and we trust you.

It's in your great name we pray.

Amen.