Rooted

I wanna confess out of the gate, I'm a little tender today. Number of reasons, but one of which is this is the first Sunday that I've stood to preach without my buddy Dion. Just did his funeral on Friday and I miss him. So I'm a little tender in that regard. I also want to make sure that we get these kids taken care of in Sierra Leone. And we had a great outpouring of folks here at the first worship gathering, and because I think you guys are better than them, I've got a lot of expectations for you. I really hope that you will at least pray if God would have you join Edie and I and so many others in sponsoring one of those kids so that they can hear and see the good news of Jesus in the place where they are. We'll tell you more about that in just a moment. So as well, just would pray for me as I'm preaching through this text. I can't tell you how encouraged and excited I am for how God used this in the hearts and lives of people in our first worship gathering. But I wanna remind you that I need Jesus a lot and I need Him now. So I appreciate your prayer on my behalf because, you know, some days are easier than others to do what we do. Some days are harder than others to do what we do. And I need Jesus just like you do. I don't get up here just to tell you about how much you need Jesus. I'm telling us all how much we need Him in every aspect of our lives, in our strength and in our weakness, we need Jesus. So, so I'm a little tender today and I'm just confessing that out of the gate. So if I pause or gather myself at any point, then just get over it. So I was reading a summary of a documentary that I haven't seen, and I read the summary pretty quickly, so I don't even know really where it occurred. That's how perceptive I was. But I was reading about this documentary about a fort that had been a lost fort and had been an inactive for about 150 years. And it was being excavated because apparently underneath that fort was a mass grave of a bunch of people. And so the excavators in charge wanted to make sure that people were given the dignity of a proper burial, and so they were going to dig this up. And they brought in, which I didn't know this was a thing, but they brought in these specialized dogs that are called cadaver dogs. I didn't know that there were dogs that were trained to be able to sniff and to find bodies. But indeed they brought these cadaver dogs in, and what these dogs were trained to do is whenever they picked up the scent and were going to find bodies, so that they knew where to dig and to bring these bodies out, they would bark and alert the owners and the people that were there. They would just be in a place and they would be barking loudly, okay. You understand kind of what that is, and I didn't know that was a thing. But for a while, the folks that were in charge of the excavation were questioning how well-trained these dogs were, because these dogs were barking at trees, and they were like, "I thought they were supposed to be telling us where the bodies were." And the dogs kept barking at trees, but as they started to investigate a little further, here's what they realized, that the trees had grown there and the root system was so deep that the trees had absorbed the elements of the bodies because the roots were there. And as I read that summary of a documentary that I still haven't seen, I kind of paused for a minute and I thought to myself, that's a really, really good lesson for us, this lesson that roots absorb what they're rooted in. Roots absorb whatever they're rooted in. And the reason I bring that up is because in some ways I think that's what the Apostle Paul was concerned about with the church at Colossae. As I've mentioned in previous message in this series, and as others of our pastors have mentioned as well, there were some syncretistic thoughts and philosophies. Did you enjoy that word syncretistic, by the way? I thought it was quite special. I can't think of another word to use that describes it quite as well. There was a syncretism of thoughts and philosophies and bad religious ideas that were invading the soil of the church at Colossae. There were a number of different things, like gnosticism. That's not spelled with an N, it's spelled with a G-N-O-S. So G-N-O-S-I-S in the Greek language, the word gnosis or gnosis is it means knowledge. So gnosticism, which didn't fully grow until the second century. In the first century, it was just starting to now percolate. And gnosticism had this idea that the spiritual was good, but the material, the physical was bad. And it even devalued Christ in terms of that physical and spiritual, right? Jesus was the physical and Christ was the spiritual, and it kind of started to devalue and start to separate out Christ. So that was going on in Colossae and poisoning the soil, and then there was asceticism. Asceticism is just kind of a philosophy of life that says I'm really spiritual based on what I avoid. That's kind of the idea of asceticism, all right? So gnosticism and asceticism were being put into this toxic stew that was going on in Colossae. There were other things, by the way, like angel, kind of an infatuation with angels and by extension and infatuation with demons. They actually thought that angels were the intermediaries between God and humanity, and that anything that came from God that arrived to humanity came because of the intermediate work of angels. That they were kind of the mediatorial presence of God, so to speak. And then there might have even been tossed in with that, there might have been some Judaizing that was happening, which meant people from a Jewish background were saying to folks that were there, hey Jesus, yeah, Jesus, plus you have to keep all of the works of the law. So there was all of this poured into the stew in Colossae that was causing issues in that place, and I think that's why Paul wanted to make sure that the Colossian church rooted themselves in Christ and in the teaching about Christ. In fact, if you've got your copy of the Bible and you open to the Book of Colossians, and, again, I can't encourage you strongly enough to come prepared with the text of scripture when you come. You're like, I know you're gonna show it to us. Yes, I'm gonna show it to you. You need to get familiar with it. You need to know where things are. You need to be, this needs to be second nature to you, and whether that's a hard copy of the Bible or whether that is a digital copy, I don't care. I want you to have the word of God in front of you to the extent that you can. Here's what Paul writes in Colossians 2, beginning in verse number six. "So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness." Now, here's what Paul does. Paul uses some different imagery. I'll show it to you in verse number six. He uses some interesting imagery when he says rooted. Rooted, he's using imagery that's agricultural, right? Then he also uses built up. Now he's using architectural imagery, right? So he is using agricultural and architectural imagery. And what he's trying to make sure that they understand is that they need to be rooted in Christ, rooted on Christ, right? This is what he's trying to help them understand and exhorting them toward. But what he does is that he says, "just as you received Christ as Lord, continue to live your lives in Him." Well, how did we receive Christ as Lord? Well, we did it in what? Faith, yeah, you should be able to answer that. I literally wrote it on the board. All right, it wasn't a trick question. I literally wrote the answer on the board. That's what a good teacher does, writes your answers on the board for you, right? How did we receive Christ Jesus as Lord? We did that in faith, right? But what's interesting about what Paul is writing here is when he uses this word received. When the word that he uses received is used by Paul, it's typically to convey a reception of content, a body of truth. That's why when Paul later on says, "Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord," and then he says, "be rooted and built up in Him, strengthened," watch this, "in the faith." Did you catch that part? That's the body of content. So Paul is saying, how did you receive Christ? You received Him in faith. And what else did you receive? You received the faith, the body of content that is passed down from generation to generation, that came from the Apostles that we need to embrace. He's functionally saying, not only do I want you to root yourself in who Christ is, but I want you to root yourself in the truth about what Christ has done. That's what he's saying here. And this admonition that Paul is giving to the church at Colossae is incredibly relevant for us today. We're not just reading about, oh, these are things he told them. This is incredibly relevant for us today. You see, too often in the modern church, what we've allowed is we've allowed the roots of our lives to be planted so deeply in the world that we live in, that we don't actually know how to live out our lives in Christ in every season, because we have put our roots deep down into the world and the culture that we live in. And in some cases, we've got spiritual leaders who don't really move their church to deepen their roots in Christ. It's just a couple of, you know, good ideas for your Monday. You know, it's that kind of stuff. I mean, in the modern church, we've got conferences, and retreats, and seminars, and curriculums, and engaging communicators. And by the way, all of those are perfectly good. There's nothing wrong with any of those things. Yet, even with all of those, we still in the Western Church seem to be raising Christians who don't know how to handle hardship, who don't know how to discern the truth from lies, who don't know how to endure when life gets hard, who don't know how to die to self and live in Christ. You see, too often in our homes and even in the church, we've allowed the roots of our lives to be planted in the soil of the world instead of in Christ, and listen to me, roots absorb whatever they are rooted in. And if you're rooted in the world, you become worldly. If a church is rooted in the world, it becomes a worldly church. And when we're rooted in the world, the world wants to feed us what we are going to absorb. And you know what it wants to feed us? Self. That's what the world wants to feed us. That's why when we talk, we talk this way, our dreams, our ambitions, our goals, our best life. But if we're rooted in Christ, we want His dreams, his ambitions, His goals, His life. That's what we want. When our roots are in the world, what we're absorbing is we're absorbing selfishness instead of the generosity of life that God offers to us. So what we do is we accumulate and accumulate, but we don't generate treasure in heaven as Jesus taught us by releasing assets and releasing time for the glory of God and the purposes of His kingdom. When our roots are in the world, we still might go to church, but it's just another element in our self-driven toolbox, because we're going to church to either feel a little bit better, or gain some social standing, or enhance our self-image. But when we're rooted in Christ, we are motivated by the sacrificial love of Jesus and how that affects the people that are all around us. So yeah, we need this admonition as much as anybody does. Why? Here's why. Because life is meant to be lived rooted in Christ. That's how life is supposed to be lived, rooted in Jesus. And so over the next set of verses in this passage in chapter two, Paul uses the phrase "in Christ" nine different times. Now, he's already used it in verse six, but he uses that phrase or some variation of that phrase, in Christ, on Christ, with Christ, in Him. Any of those are used, right? And he does that nine different times over these verses because he's trying to press home the point that where we are rooted means we're going to absorb whatever we're rooted in, and that he says needs to be Jesus. What he's trying to help them understand is that Jesus is not just some outside inspiration. Let's look at the life of Jesus and be a little bit inspired. No, no, no, he says there's no life outside of Jesus. You don't find life outside of Jesus. He's the vine, you're the branch. This is how you exist. So our souls are only sustained and nourished when we are rooted in Christ, so our souls have to reach deep in Christ, so that we'll sustain and nourish our lives. Friends, it's why we need to read and ponder and obey the word of God, not just on Sundays. Do you just eat dinner on Sundays? You might eat a really big dinner or a good dinner, or you know, a special dinner on Sundays, that's great. But you don't just eat on Sundays, and you don't need to just eat on Sundays spiritually. You've gotta nourish yourself. Our willingness to live and obey the word of God over time, here's what it does, it grows deep roots in Christ. It's when we embrace the faith as we were taught it, so that we're rooted and built up in Christ. This is part of how we grow deep roots. We embrace the word, we listen and pray according to His word. We allow the leadership of the spirit in our lives to express obedience to the word. We cooperate with the leadership of the spirit. We gather together with the body of Christ to be nourished together and to nourish one another. We press into Christ in every season and every situation of our lives, the good ones, the easy ones, the hard ones, the tragic ones, the disappointing ones, the successful ones. See, when we're rooted in Christ, here's what we can do, and here's what Paul teaches us. When we're rooted in Christ, we can avoid what we need to avoid, and we can experience what we need to experience when we're rooted in Him. In fact, I'm gonna show that to you in the next set of verses. Let's start with the first of those. If we're rooted in Christ, will we avoid deception? If we're rooted in Christ, we can avoid deception. Look at what verse number eight says as we continue on in chapter two. Paul writes, "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ." You see, Paul knew that the Colossians, if their roots were planted in the soil of the world and the soil of their culture, here's what would happen. Watch this. Their minds and their souls would be kidnapped. That's literally what he says. See to it that no one takes you captive. The idea is being taken prisoner is being kidnapped. I don't know if you realize this, but the culture that we live in in Western culture, it is designed in order to take over mind and soul. It is looking to captivate you with things that appeal to yourself, and it wants you to grow deep roots into the soil of it instead of in Christ. But Paul says that these philosophies that are being foisted upon them, and truthfully the ones that are being foisted upon us as well, he says they're hollow, which means they're empty, and they're deceptive. Why would he say they're deceptive? Well, it's not deceptive when we just see pure evil right in front of us. We just recognize that and go, yeah, that's evil, right? If somebody says, "I worship Satan," you're like, I'm staying away from you. Pretty simple, right? Why is it deceptive? Because the philosophies of the day that Paul was dealing with and that we're dealing with, they have little specks of truth in them to be able to pull you in, but the vast majority of what underlies it is actually a lie. And Paul noted that these hollow and deceptive philosophies, he said they're dependent. In fact, the way he said it was, "Don't be taken captive by these, which depend on," and then he named two things. The first was that it depends on human tradition. Now, this is the negative use of the term that Paul's using here. There actually is a good and proper use of the term human tradition. And in fact, Paul alludes to it in verse number six when he talks about what you received. You see, the reception of the content of the faith is a good human tradition, that it is being passed down from generation to generation to generation. That's a good one. But Paul is talking about the negative side of that. And by the way, he's not condemning philosophy proper. Some of you read that and went, "Wait a minute, I'm a college student. I am in a philosophy class right now. Do I need to drop that class?" No, you don't have, it's not about philosophy as a discipline. It's about these philosophies that were, that Paul is condemning. Now, here's what's unclear to us. When I say us, I mean me and all the scholars that are smarter than I am. What's unclear to us is exactly what types of human traditions Paul is referring to. We don't know exactly, even though I'm probably gonna touch on a little bit of this next week as we continue on in Colossians. They could be Jewish where, you know, they would try to add to the law of God. That happened a lot. Oh, you gotta do these things, and they're made up. They're human traditions, right? Here's the law, but we've added some laws, which happened, and maybe that's what that is. Or maybe it's pagan in nature, because by the way, that had to be addressed as well. Peter actually addressed this. You may not have realized it when you read it, but watch it in this light. Watch what Peter said in 1 Peter 1. "For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver and gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors." You see, what Peter is actually saying is those of you who come from pagan background, you got some things from your family, and you've embraced those things, and he's saying mm-mm. That empty way of life, you thought somehow you could be redeemed by perishable things, that's an empty way of life. That's a hollow and deceptive philosophy. Don't depend on it, but instead, root yourself in Christ. So whatever it is that Paul's dealing with, what he's trying to say is this, recalibrate your life in Christ. Some of you got handed down some things in your family of origin and the culture that you grew up in that are broken, that are messed up. Those are to be put aside and you build on Jesus. That's what Paul's saying, build on Jesus. Now, you know why also this human tradition, it kind of holds onto these empty philosophies. Here's why, because it's human in origin. It's not divine revelation. That's why it's called human tradition. Human tradition against divine revelation. If something is human tradition, here's what that means, it means that it comes from the logic and rationale of a human. By the way, logic and rationale or being rational are good gifts of God. Those aren't bad, but they have to be sanctified in Christ because if our logic and our rationale is separated from Christ, it leads us into empty and deceptive places. Here's why, because Paul's already said earlier on, and Pastor Dan was talking about this in the last couple of weeks, Paul said, "Here's what you need to understand about Jesus. In Him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." So let me just say it as straight as I can say it. You're not smarter than Jesus. So when you build these empty human traditions, it's in effect saying that we can bypass Jesus who is all wisdom, who in Him is all the wisdom and knowledge and the treasures therein, and we can just lean into our own understanding. So we've gotta be conformed to Christ. If you encounter anything that suggests that Christ is necessary but not sufficient, run from it. Run from it, 'cause it's human tradition and it's to be avoided. But there was a second aspect to what he said that these empty philosophies were dependent on, not only human tradition, but then he says "The elemental spiritual forces." Listen to what he says again. "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ." Now, the Greek phrase that's used here to describe elemental spiritual forces as stoicheia, and the reason I tell you that is because it actually has a unique rendering. In some ways it's used, it can be used to communicate the rudiments of something, like the ABCs of something we could say. But in other usages, like in this one, it's actually used to describe early created non-human beings. In other words, the angelic demonic world. You see in Colossae, there were many who believed the handed down philosophies that they had gotten that involved angel infatuation, and the idea that angels were the intermediaries between God and man instead of Christ. But to embrace that thinking is in essence demonic. It's allowing us to be convinced of things that are not. And listen, I mean, anything that the demonic world can use to tamp down the beauty, and nature, and worth, and value of Jesus Christ is a win for the demonic world. Anything that they can use to be able to do that, that's why we have to be rooted in Christ because all sorts of empty philosophy can be introduced that is actually demonic in origin. Now, the new age philosophies of our day, great illustration of this. They would say they're good with Jesus. Some would even say in the new age world, "Nah, we love Jesus." But for them, Jesus is not everything He says He is. In other words, as I mentioned earlier, Jesus is good and necessary maybe for you, but not sufficient to really fulfill all that you are supposed to be. That's what the new age wants to teach us. Let me just tell you what that is, human tradition mixed with demonic origin, because it's not rooted in Christ. Now, we've got all sorts of distortions in the world that we live in when it comes to the gospel of Jesus Christ and His good news. We experience it even now. Even in the church of Jesus Christ, some of us have allowed for the gospel of Jesus to become what I would call a therapeutic moralistic gospel. In other words, it's just basically using Jesus to help us have better self-esteem and maybe some better life outcomes. Some of us have allowed for the gospel of Jesus to become what I would call a therapeutic moralistic gospel. In other words, it's just basically using Jesus to help us have better self-esteem and maybe some better life outcomes. And you hear it sometimes, even famous preachers that are on TV, not all of them, some of them are great, but some that you might know that I could name that rhyme with. Not doing it. Just kidding. It's a joke. That you could see them and it's basically just like, here's how to live, you know, your best life. Here's how Jesus can help you be the best version of you. It's like, wait, what? As Trevin Wax noted, this is kind of a fake gospel that turns the good news into just good advice. Jesus as psychologist. But it leads people to believe that if you're nice, and fair, and moral, and well adjusted socially, that you'll go to heaven when you die, but that's not the gospel. The gospel is not just about what we get from God. The gospel is that we get God. That's the great news. There's so many other benefits that are associated with that, but we get Him. So if we're rooted in Christ, friends, we can avoid deception. But there's a second benefit, and it's this, if we're rooted in Christ, we also receive Christ's fullness. You see, Paul's not just speaking to the ascetics and saying, "Hey, in Jesus, you actually learn how to know what to avoid." But he's also saying, "Hey, and guess what? You can live in the fullness of Christ." Look at what Paul says in verse number nine. "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority." See, Paul was using a term here that's translated fullness for us. It's pleroma in the Greek language. But the empty philosophers would actually use that term fullness in what they talked about, particularly the gnostics, and generally they would use that about the angelic realm. They would call it the fullness. And so Paul is saying, hang on, I'm not letting you take that word and make it mean that, because I'm gonna tell you full well that you are gonna know that Jesus is the fullness of God in bodily form, and that He alone is the mediator between God and humanity. And because Christ is the fullness of God, then when we're rooted in Him, we receive from that fullness. Do you remember as John introduced his gospel? "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God." You remember that, right? "And the word became flesh and made His dwelling among us." We remember that. Then he goes on to say this about Jesus in verse number 16: "Out of His fullness, we have all received grace in place of grace already given." In verse 17, he tells us that the grace already given was the law, and that the law is now replaced or fulfilled by Jesus. So what does this fullness in Christ actually look like? Well, Paul actually tells us. The first aspect of it is that we're made new by faith. This is what it means to live in the fullness of Jesus. Listen to what he says in verse 11. "In Him," here's that phrase again, right? He just keeps coming to it over and over. "In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through your faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead." See, what it means to experience the fullness of God is that we're made new by faith. When we put our faith in Jesus and our roots begin to grow in Him, it means that what God does in and through Christ is cuts away that which is old, so that we by faith can be made new. That's why Paul, when he wrote to the Corinthians, he said, "If anyone is in Christ, the old is gone and all things have become new." We're made new by faith. But you know what else is true about this fullness? We're made alive. Here's what Paul goes on to say in verse number, beginning of verse 13: "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh," look what God did, "God made you alive with Christ." You see, because of the power of the fullness of Christ, Christ who died and was raised to life never to die again, we too go from death to life. You see, before this, before this, when we were in our sins and the uncircumcised aspect of our old heart, we just existed. We weren't really alive. We only come to life when the true life who is Christ lives in us. When we are rooted in Him, we're made new by faith, we're made alive, and it keeps getting better. You know what else happens? We're made debt free. Some of you are going, "Talk to me more." We are made debt free, but make sure you understand what kind of debt we're talking about. Look what it says in the second half of verse 13: "He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross." You see, if you read this and you understand some of the nature of what Paul was doing historically, Paul was actually using beautiful imagery that was fixed in the customs of his day to describe this. You probably know this, but there were certificates of debt that were issued to those who were debtors, and that was a pretty public thing because you may have been in debt to someone who owned a business there, right? And so you're in debt to them, so a certificate was made up that you were in debt. But when your debt was paid for, when you were now finished with your debt, what the original lender would do is would mark a big X over that paper, which was saying the debt is canceled. And because the debt was public in nature, so too did the cancellation need to be public as well. So they took that, put it in a public place and nailed it into the wood, so people could see no longer are you in debt. Are you picking this up? Because Paul says that what Jesus did is because we received the fullness of Christ and being no longer in debt to our sins because of the death of Christ, so do you know what He's done? He's canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness. And while they would have an X moved over the paper, Jesus turns the X sideways. It's the cross. And on that cross, Jesus takes the nails, because our debt is tied up in Him who owed nothing. And just like His legal notice of accusation was nailed above Him, our accusations are nailed to Him, and the sinless, beautiful Son of God takes our sin upon Himself, dies the death that we deserve, takes the hell that we should get. Dies a real death but rises in power to overcome sin, and hell, and death, and the grave on our behalf, canceling our sin and helping us to walk in the freedom of new life. What a beautiful picture, isn't it? But He also, He also reminds us that we're made victorious. You see, this is what it means to live in the fullness of Christ, and why Paul is saying, "I want your roots to run deep in Jesus." Because in verse 15 he says, "And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross." You see, Paul returns right here in verse 15 to the elemental spiritual forces that he talked about earlier, and he shows Christ as the one who conquers and makes a public spectacle of them. Now, I read a lot of critical commentaries. Critical commentaries doesn't mean they're critical as in, oh, I don't like this or I don't like that. It means academic in its nature. And so they're really super boring to read, like just tremendously boring if you don't like that stuff, and I like that stuff because I'm a nerd with a capital N when it comes to this stuff. So oftentimes when I'm reading these critical commentaries, they're not really great with prose. They're just writing facts about stuff, right? About the nature of the text and the exegetical notes that they're making in reference to the text, and the way the Greek grammar works in this particular case, right? But every now and then I run into a paragraph and I'm like, dude, that's pretty good. So there's a man named F. F. Bruce, he's with the Lord now, but he wrote the "New International Commentary on the New Testament." And when he was commenting on what Jesus did in His victorious death, I was sitting there just going, what? Come on, man! Normally I'm just reading boar city like facts, right, and then I have to translate that into communicable words. Listen to what F. F. Bruce wrote, "The very instrument of disgrace and death by which the hostile forces thought they had Jesus in their grasp and had conquered Him forever was turned by Him into the instrument of their defeat and disablement. As Jesus was suspended there, bound hand and foot the wood in apparent weakness, they imagined they had Him at their mercy and flung themselves on Him with hostile intent. But far from suffering their attack without resistance, He grappled with them and mastered them, stripping them of the armor in which they trusted and held them a loft in His outstretched hands, displaying to the universe their helplessness and His own unvanquished strength." Get some of that in a nerd commentary. I was like, talk to me more about the victory of Jesus, Mr. Bruce. You see, friends, when we're rooted in Christ, we don't only avoid deception, we're partakers of Christ's fullness that leads to victory. So let me ask you this, what is your plan to deepen your roots in Christ? What's your plan to do that? Do you have a plan to be engaged in feeding and nourishing yourself on the word of God, or right now, do you just exist on a once a week diet? Do you have a plan to be engaged in the community of people? And those of you that are here, like you're here, and that's a good thing, to be together among the people of God, worshiping, being nourished together and nourishing one another. How many of you, when you show up, are thinking about other people instead of just yourself? 'Cause you can be a nourisher while you're being nourished. Or how about service, where you can deepen your roots in Christ by stepping out in obedience to what he's asked you to do. Or maybe generosity where you pull up some roots from the terrible shallow soil that wants to feed ourself, but instead, we learn to be people of generosity who are storing up for ourselves treasures in heaven and making a difference in the kingdom of God. What's your plan? Because I lived in hurricane country in South Florida for eight years. I've also been on the ground after hurricanes, in fact, Hurricane Katrina, some of us from The Chapel, I was with that group, went down to Mississippi to help with kind of the post cleanup and all of that stuff after Katrina. Here's what amazed me. Not the trees that had fallen, but the trees that remained standing. That's what was amazing after massive hurricanes that there were actually trees that were still standing. Now, some of those trees were leaning over, but do you know what arborists helped us to understand? Those trees that are leaning over are probably not gonna fall. And do you know why? Because the storm made them press their roots deeper, even deeper, and they expanded their root system to other trees around them so that the trees that were all there were intertwined in their root system and able to withstand everything. The trees that fell were usually either alone or they were in the wrong soil. Friends, those of us that are in Christ, our roots need to go down deep. Even in the hard times that life brings, we press into Jesus, and we need to have others around us who are also doing the same thing, because under the surface, our roots are intertwined in Christ, and we are standing in the midst of any storm that the world wants to give us. We are rooted in Him. So gather for worship, live in biblical community. Spend time with the Lord in His word. Be rooted, but be warned as well, storms will come in your life. Storms do come in this world, and trees cannot wait until the storm comes to put their roots in the right soil. So what are you rooted in? 'Cause I promise you, roots absorb whatever they're rooted in. Ask some questions, ask hard questions. Inventory and test the soil of your own life, and find out where your roots really are planted, and ask God's help to root you deeply in Christ, and decide today to take a step of faith toward that end. Let's bow together for prayer. Father, thank you for the word. Thank you for all that it means. Thank you that we can't even come close to exhausting the beautiful truth of it. But today, by your spirit, would you speak deeply into each and every single one of our hearts? As our heads are bowed, maybe your need is to put your trust in Christ. Maybe your roots have been put into soil and you know that this hasn't worked, and you've come up time after time after time saying life is empty, not fruitful. That's because you need to be where the source of life actually is, in Jesus. And if you've never put your trust in Jesus, here's what He will do, He will pull you up, root system and all from out of the soil of darkness and death, and put you into the soil of light and life in Christ. When we dismiss in a moment, there'll be some folks that'll be down front that would be glad to talk to you about what it means to put your trust in Jesus. Father, for those of us who have put our trust in you, maybe we can also ask questions about our own life if there are rebel roots that are running out of our lives and desiring to place themselves into toxic soil, the soil of the world. God, I pray that we'd be reminded that we're going to absorb whatever we put our roots in, and that we would have a sensitivity to your spirit, to build our roots deep in Christ. We trust you in that, in Jesus' name, amen.