As we continue through the first of the Psalms, we have the seen the rooted life described in both negative and positive terms. Now we see it described pictorially, and it stands as the key verse to the Psalm.

Psalm 1:3 – That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers.

Much of the Holy Land is rather arid. The picture of vast regions of stone with green swaths through which streams travelled, dotted with isolated trees, would be a common one.

And though we live in an area where it (this year) seems to rain every day whether it really needs to or not, it is not always that way. And we know as well that trees growing alongside streams have an easier time, especially in drought conditions. Think about the beautiful views we see of stately trees growing along the Potomac, the Antietam or the Conococheague.

The picture is one of constant nourishment and steady health. This sort of tree is not dependent upon intermittent showers, and is therefore not susceptible to dry times. The roots do not need to stay close to the surface, but are able to go deeply into the soil, providing a better foundation for the tree in perilous times – when the winds of adversity come.

This second tree pictured is from west of Hancock on a mountain several hundred feet above the surface of the Potomac River.  Note how minimal is the roots system for the size of the tree. It could not withstand the storm, nor did quite a number of others nearby. They look like dominoes knocked over in a recent storm that spawned tornadoes.

Beyond simply standing and looking good, the tree by the water produces fruit at the right time, in season. It is regular and dependable.

The picture is a beautiful one and as obvious for application as any in Scripture. Is your life, your roots, deeply embedded in the Scriptures, or do you depend upon occasional “showers of blessing” for your spiritual sustenance? If you are depending only upon the occasional sermon for biblical enrichment, you are going to have your “leaves” wither and your “roots” be insufficient foundations for the inevitable sorrows of life.

Are you able to be described like the tree by the water in terms of your life and service to others?  If not, it may be that an examination of the roots is in order more than a reflection upon the nature of the storm systems.

And beyond standing alone, there is greater strength in standing together. What is better: a tree by itself (even well-rooted) or a tree growing near others around it? With others trees and roots systems intertwined, there is mutual support. And so it is in the body of Christ and your regular connection to it. If you do not connect deeply in the church family, you are essentially being an independent tree – be it in a field or along a stream.

So how are your roots?

We probably too much have a picture of meditating as sitting on the floor with legs cross and fingers curled (for some reason I cannot imagine) in a sort of “OK” sign. Weird. I think this is called the “lotus position.” At this stage of life, I also think I’m physiologically disqualified from that particular contortion.

But you don’t need to do something so “Eastern mystical” to be in a position of meditation. You simply need to have your spiritual roots sunk into the Word of God on a regular basis.

Today we look at the second of four descriptions of the truly rooted person, noting from Psalm 1:2 the positive description of a person who is well-resourced by the Scriptures …

¹ Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, ² but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.

Do you delight in meditating on God’s Word?  You find time for what you delight in and what you know you truly need. At some points of my life, I’ve delighted in the good benefit of an exercise program, but at other times I have not valued it highly enough. In both instances I have reaped the consequent gains and losses.

Speaking of both exercise and meditation, these have really come together for me over the past two years. As you hear me talk about cycling a lot, when I want to really think about things without the distraction of getting run over by a truck, I’ll go ride on a trail of some sort. And I have come off such rides with fully thought-out plans of action for various topics.

Your brain tends to meditate upon that which it has most recently been fed. The illustration I shared in the sermon Sunday about this relates to the classic book “Gone With the Wind.” I saw this past week that it was published 80 years ago. I read that in high school and have seen the movie a long time ago and remember parts of it. But if I re-read that book today, over the next week or two, when seeing certain sights, they would trigger something from my reading … like a large old mansion house, or an antique carriage, or a long formal dress, or any mention of the word “Scarlett” or “Rhett”.  Even the reason that this came to my mind illustratively is because it was already in my mind from the past week.

So also, if your mind is regularly being filled with Scripture – even reading a passage for the 50^th time – it will be there when you see something that triggers your memory of it.  AND, it will be there for you in the time of crisis.

Recalling the story I opened with in the sermon and in yesterday’s devotional, the father of the girl said to me in the first moments after the incident, “You know, it hits me right now, you don’t have time to get ready for something like this, you either are ready or not.”

A few horrible and unexpected events are going to happen in all of our lives. One of them is rather permanent. The time to be ready is now.

Beyond that, for daily life, in the same way that we physically are what we eat – what we choose to nourish ourselves with, good or bad – we are spiritually what we feed upon for our thinking / our minds. What we think determines what we are and what we do and how we evaluate and live all of life. God designed us this way, and He has given us a resource to guide us into a life of success as we live in covenant relationship with him.

Consider this great passage given to Joshua as he took over leading the nation of Israel after the death of Moses …

7 “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8 Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

So how is your life of meditation? It doesn’t need to always be in a planned and quiet place. But you need to have a full tank of Scriptural resources to draw upon at the exact time it is needed. Most of the time the airbag in your dashboard is not very practical, though the day may come when you really appreciate that it is there as a resource in a moment of crisis. You get the idea.

It is not our necessary intent each week to just give a review of the sermon as a sort of transcript of what was preached, though that would not be worthless, especially in the summer months when many are travelling. (And I gave you yesterday off because of the holiday). We regularly write here a mix of ideas verbally shared along with additional thoughts.

But today I will begin with the opening illustration from Sunday, since many people afterward asked about a detail that I failed to include in the end of the story (as it was not related to my main idea, but the omission left people hanging).

It was 34 years ago, the actual date being June 13, 1982. Having just graduated from Dallas Seminary, I was still working as the minister of music in a church in Dallas. Our morning services had ended and probably about 80-90% of the people had already gone home. My oldest son Nathan was a two-month old baby, and I had seen Diana hand him to one of the sweet teenage girls in our church – who wanted to hold him.

I went around the corner and down the hall toward my church office to gather my things, when there was a sudden, horrible crashing sound of broken glass … then people screaming and running toward the area around the corner of the hallway from which I had been only a moment ago.

Before I could also run to see what was happening, someone yelled to me as I was standing in the office doorway near the only phones in the building, to call 911 and get an ambulance – saying that a car had crashed into the church and hit Jane (the girl who I had just seen holding Nathan). Hesitating a second due to that thought, I collected myself and made the call … then going down the hall to the scene.

A car went out of control when pulling up to the door, hitting two of our teen girls exiting the church, shoving them both back through the double glass doors. One of them, however, had her leg pinned against the brick doorframe. Both were quite bloody from the sheets of glass that had fallen on them, and at the scene, things looked very bad for Jane in particular.

The ambulance took her to the hospital, and I spent some moments with her father – one of our best church servants and leaders – helping him gather things and get ready to go to the hospital as well. He was amazingly calm in the storm. As I was a young man then just beginning in ministry, this fellow who was about 12-15 years older had been very kind and encouraging to me personally. And he took several moments even then to reflect upon Scriptural truths that were sustaining him in the crisis, as he did throughout the day at the hospital.

The experience was a rude introduction to “official” ministry. That evening was the occasion of my ordination by the church into the gospel ministry. The theme of the day – both for the family and for the ordination – was that we do not know what a day may bring or what calamity may come into our lives or the lives of others close to us, or in our flock as shepherds. But in any event, we need to be rooted in the Lord and in his Word for the strength and resource to meet the challenge.

(As an additional note – the girl survived with only some minimal permanent damage to her ankle. And the driver of the car was the teenage son of the Senior Pastor of the church. Several years later, in the course of time and human affairs, he married the girl he almost killed!)

(And here is the additional note that I failed to include: the girl held Nathan briefly before handing him back to Diana and then immediately walking out the door. There was some flying glass around them, but the door frame stopped the car.)

In dozens and dozens of situations of church ministry over the intervening years – including even this past week, I have visited with people in the most dire and heart-breaking of situations – at the very scenes of tragedy and death and pain and loss – and seen an unnatural strength that undergirds people of faith and trust.

However, in more than a few other circumstances and situations, I have seen the pain overwhelm people – short-term and long-term – as others are unable to endure and move on from difficulties. Sometimes it results in a sort of depression, others with anger – perhaps even at God for not doing enough. Some others react with a sort of escapism and detachment, disappearing from connection with God and his people in the church family.

What makes the difference? Those with deep roots into God’s Word and interconnection with God’s people find their way through tragedy and pain over time through the strength and nourishment their roots provide. Those who do not make it cleanly to the other side demonstrate that the few roots they had were very shallow and insufficient.

In this series we are asking you to consider your own personal roots, and looking beyond that to how you can help others be rooted and nourished (watered) in the truth.

This week we look at one of the great passages that talk about roots – Psalm 1. We all want success in life, or stated in the words of this week’s title, a “Yield.”  But that can only come if we stay rooted, even through the winds and trials of life.

The Psalm begins by talking about the blessed life … “Blessed in the one…”  This term is one that speaks of a concept of happiness, related to contentment and peacefulness – a quiet pleasure that comes from deep perspective and satisfaction.

In the past I have preached on this sermon as describing the “truly happy person.”  But this week, let us in the theme of this series make the subject of this Psalm be called “the truly rooted person.”  We are describing the fruit, the yield, of a rooted life.

We will see these six verses describe the rooted person in four ways …

• In negative terms (1)
• In positive terms (2)
• In pictorial terms (3)
• In contrastive terms (4-6)

The rooted life described in negative terms … verse 1 …

¹ Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, ² but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night

Let’s break down the first verse with these three categories …

Verbs … There is an increasing involvement and commitment, from walking in a certain place to sitting down in a specific place.

Nouns … counsel = thinking / way = behaving / seat = belonging (note the progression).

People … wicked = no room for God / sinner = openly break God’s law / scoffer = mocker of God’s word and people.

So there is the progression from interest, to doing, to being fully at home in the fellowship of those who ridicule God.

A drift away from God and truth is not something that happens immediately, but is progressive over time. And a self-examination from time to time is a healthy discipline.

In any event, people who are away from God, be it from drifting or perhaps because they never really were connected, are simply not able to be truly blessed with a contented happiness even in the inevitable sorrows of life.

So, how are your roots? Where are your roots? Like the car commercial from that dealership in Frederick says about the “Fitz-Way” … there’s just no better way to go. That’s true of faith and life; there is no successful way other than being rooted in the Lord.

Justice is something we typically want for others; mercy is something we typically want for ourselves.  If you’re married, you probably see this played out on a daily basis.  When faced with your spouse’s shortcomings—sometimes as simple as an unfinished task—the “law” comes out.  “The dishes aren’t done,” you might insist, or, “the lawn needs mowed.”  But when the shoe’s on the other foot, you expect leniency.  A friend of mine told me that he’d come to realize that “law for you, grace for me” had become one of the defining features of his marriage.  And it hurt.

Earlier this week we’ve observed that God gives blessings to his people, and we’ve also seen that it’s only natural for us to desire justice for wrongdoing.  How these two traits fit together is a thing of beauty, so much so that it’s been sung even in the ancient worship songs of Israel:

Steadfast love and faithfulness meet;
righteousness and peace kiss each other.
11 Faithfulness springs up from the ground,
and righteousness looks down from the sky.
12 Yes, the Lord will give what is good,
and our land will yield its increase.
13 Righteousness will go before him
and make his footsteps a way. (Psalm 85:10-13)

The unnamed writer tells us that “righteousness and peace kiss each other.”  This same righteousness that demands justice for sin is unified with the peace of God’s salvation.

Nowhere do we find that more clearly demonstrated than in the cross itself, where God’s love and God’s fierce justice intersect on a hillside just outside the city.

John Stott writes:

“It is the Judge himself who in holy love assumed the role of innocent victim, for in and through the person of his Son he himself bore the penalty that he himself inflicted. As Dale put it, “The mysterious unity of the Father and the Son rendered it possible for God at once to endure and to inflict penal suffering.” There is neither harsh injustice nor unprincipled love nor Christological heresy in that; there is only unfathomable mercy. For in order to save us in such a way as to satisfy himself, God through Christ substituted himself for us. Divine love triumphed over divine wrath by divine self-sacrifice. The cross was an act simultaneously of punishment and amnesty, severity and grace, justice and mercy.”[1]

At the cross we find both mercy and justice.  Justice, because Jesus paid the debt of human wickedness, and mercy, because this payment wipes our slates clean.  We therefore are released from the weight of our own shame, but we are also released from the weight of our social outrage.  That is, when we are confronted with radical evil—whether in the headlines or our own households—we look to the cross and recognize that true justice is found there, that when we demand blood God offers his own.

No matter the headline, no matter the circumstance, justice is ultimately found in the righteousness of God.  And so is mercy.  I don’t mean to say that there are no earthly consequences—as if God does not use such events even to discipline his own children.  But as Christians we extend mercy and grace to our brothers and sisters knowing their debts have been paid the same as ours.

[1] John Stott, The Cross of Christ, 158-9.