Dear friends, isn't it great to be living in Colorado?  I mean, who but we could know what's happened in the past 72 hours, and it's happened so often that we've already forgotten about it.  Friday we were sweating in the 80's and awoke Saturday to the 30's and 6" of snow.  Now today it's warmer and tomorrow it's supposed to be back in the 80's.  It's like dying and being reborn!  Sweltering heat followed by bone-chilling cold, then heat again - it's like high opera or a teenager in love!  It almost makes you feel sorry for those living in warm climates who can't experience this.

          If you think of it, it takes a lot of intelligence to live up north in a snow country.  You have to know the right clothes to wear each day, how to drive, how to heat your house, and when to leave for work.  Living in Hawaii requires little intelligence for that.  If the temperature is always between 70 and 80, all you need to know there is which short-sleeved shirt to wear.  Someone has observed that when people from snow country move to Florida, it raises the IQ in both places.  And blessed are those who realize this is all spoken with tongue in cheek!

          The year is 1715.  The pilgrims have been in America nearly 100 years, George I was just crowned King of England, and it will be 60 years until the start of the Revolutionary War.  Sometime that year an acorn was dropped by a bird or a Native American on the treeless plains of what would later become the boundary between North and South Dakota.  The acorn fell into good soil and sprouted because its roots found water from a small natural spring.  As the oak tree grew tall and powerful, the Indians came to regard it as sacred and honored it by laying their dead to rest on its strong branches.  Animals and birds regarded it as curious shelter, so huge and powerful a plant growing on a plains among native grasses and flowers, giving shade from the relentless summer sun.

          About 200 years later in 1910, a family of immigrants built a homestead in its shadows about five miles from a tiny clapboard prairie town.  By that time the great oak was over a hundred feet tall, its trunk was 8' in diameter, its girth 25' around, and it was so large it required 4 large men just to reach around it.  It was a mighty imposing creation of God and was plainly visible from the tiny settlement 5 miles away.  In the spring of 1915 the family sold their homestead and moved on.

          Later that autumn one of the townsmen looked to the west on a beautiful clear day, hoping to see the mighty tree, but he saw none.  Where had it gone?  The terrible truth was made known - It was cut down!  Anticipating a hard winter the new owner had cut down this magnificent tree - for firewood.  The townspeople were outraged!  Cutting down such a natural wonder?  The foolish man was nearly lynched and driven from his land.  Years later the townspeople removed the stump of the great tree and brought it to town.  Today a huge oak stump rests in the city park of Forbes, ND, population 50, a monument to greatness now gone, and to the foolishness of one thoughtless man.

          Why tell this story?  To show a bit of curious history?  No, but to show what happens when something has roots is good, watered soil.  That tree could never have made it any place else than by that stream.  Roots can also mean our heritage, such as where we grew up.  Where are your roots?  Mine are in the rich soil of southern Minnesota, and my spiritual roots are in the strong Word of God.  Roots are a person's basis for life, what holds him or her up when the winds blow.  With roots in the right things, we grow strong, we know our purpose and we produce good things.  But if our roots are in bad soil, we can fall for anything.

          Where are your roots?  What's important in your life?  What keeps you standing?  In Matthew 13 Jesus told a great parable of the Sower and the Seed.  He said some seed fell on rocky, shallow soil.  It grew quickly but it also died quickly, for it had no roots.  He said, "But some fell on rocky places where it did not have much soil.  It sprang up quickly, but when the sun came up, it was scorched and withered."  Then He explained it this way:  "The seed on rocky soil is the man who receives the word with joy, but since he has no roots, he lasts only a short time."

          Jesus was talking about people with a shallow response to the Gospel.  They find it interesting for awhile and come to church to learn a little.  But when disappointment comes along, or they're asked to get involved, they pull back and seek something else, something less demanding.  The cost of discipleship for them is too high.  They want to be spectator Christians instead of players on the field.

          Psalm 1 has a great word picture for us.  Each of us is a tree with our roots searching somewhere for nourishment and water.  But unlike a tree, you and I can choose the kind of soil we're planted in.  We can decide where our roots will go.  In Jesus' story, He said some seed fell on good soil.  He meant that you and I can respond to His Word and believe it.  Through the Good News of Jesus the Holy Spirit urges us believe.  He wants us to get out of His way so He can do His work of convincing people Jesus Christ is Lord.

          If we choose to be rooted in good ground, avoiding shallowness of fleeting fancy and the rocks of regret, then the Seed of God's Word will grow in us.  When we sink our roots in God's Word and trust not ourselves but the Son of God, we will grow strong and good, becoming beautiful people despite our faults and failures.  Because of Jesus, God makes us great.  When we're rooted in the Lord, we're "...like trees planted by water, bearing fruit, not withering, but prospering."  That's the Christian life!  We bear fruit, that is do good deeds, because we are planted in good soil.  We grow strong because we are watered with the Gospel.  We prosper and don't shrivel up because we're nourished and strengthened by the Word of God.

          This is not true of the unbeliever.  Rooted in the wrong soil, he or she struggles and ultimately dies.  A relative of mine once planted 100 evergreen trees on his farm.  He dug all the holes right and put water in them the right way.  He thought he did everything right, and even to the point of filling each hole with rich manure.  If it helped the corn grow, he thought, then it should help trees.  But every single one of those 100 cute little pine trees died because their roots were in acidic soil that killed them.

          You and I can so easily sink our roots in the wrong soils of pleasure, possessions or power or pride.  And there our roots get burned and die.  And when the root dies, so does the tree.  Be careful where you sink your roots as well as what you fertilize your life with.  There is some good looking stuff out there that's deadly!  To live, we must be rooted in God's Word.  Psalm 1:2 calls it the "Law of the Lord," another term for the Word.  We know the Bible is God's Word.  That's why I urge everyone to study their Bible, in groups and alone.  It's the absolute best soil you can choose to be rooted in.  In it we grow, but I must warn you that without Bible study you may live, but you won't really grow.  Study your Bible, for it's the Good News for life.

          Friends, this message isn't just a pep talk to increase Bible class attendance, though I wish that would happen, too.  But I'm talking here about the substance of the Christian life.  We must be rooted in Christ.  St. Paul wrote, "So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith you were taught." (Colossians 2:6-7)   And again he wrote, "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ." (Ephesians 3:17-18)   Being rooted and grounded in Christ - that's real life!

          We all sink our roots in something, sooner or later.  Satan wants us rooted in him where our roots will rot.  Sink your roots in the Jesus and be the strong tree "planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither, and whatever he does prospers."  This tree feels the wind blow or the lightening strike or the woodcutter's axe, but rooted in the good soil, it prospers and stands strong.

          Bumper stickers are interesting.  One I saw said, "I'm not perfect - just forgiven", and another, "God's not through with me yet".  It's amazing how philosophical we are through our clever sayings.  On the wall of my childhood bedroom was a plaque Mom gave me:  "Only one life - 'twill soon be past.  Only what's done for Christ will last."  May we all be like that tree planted by the River of Living Water, Jesus!  Amen!

Copyright © 2001 by Pastor Bob Tasler.  All rights reserved.